Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697632147692.pdf (Australia)
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA P A R L I A M E N T A R Y D E B A T E S SENATE Official Hansard No.
6, 2003 TUESDAY, 17 JUNE 2003 FORTIETH PARLIAMENT FIRST SESSION—FIFTH PERIOD BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE INTERNET The Journals for the Senate are available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/work/journals/index.htm Proof and Official Hansards for the House of Representatives, the Senate and committee hearings are available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard SITTING DAYS—2003 Date Month February March May June August September October November December RADIO BROADCASTS Broadcasts of proceedings of the Parliament can be heard on the following Parliamentary and News Network radio stations, in the areas identified.
CANBERRA 1440 AM SYDNEY 630 AM NEWCASTLE 1458 AM BRISBANE 936 AM MELBOURNE 1026 AM ADELAIDE 972 AM PERTH 585 AM HOBART 729 AM DARWIN 102.5 FM CONTENTS TUESDAY, 17 JUNE Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No.
2) 2003— Consideration of House of Representatives Message................................................... 11617 Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003— Second Reading............................................................................................................ 11622 Questions Without Notice— Manildra Group of Companies ..................................................................................... 11637 Distinguished Visitors........................................................................................................ 11638 Questions Without Notice— Taxation: Income Tax ................................................................................................... 11638 Distinguished Visitors........................................................................................................ 11639 Questions Without Notice— Taxation: Family Payments .......................................................................................... 11640 Medicare: Bulk-Billing................................................................................................. 11641 Social Welfare: Pensions and Benefits ......................................................................... 11642 Women: Domestic Violence ......................................................................................... 11643 Environment: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority ............................................ 11645 Science: Stem Cell Research
 ........................................................................................ 11646 Budget: Superannuation ............................................................................................... 11646 Environment: Murray-Darling River System ............................................................... 11648 Medicare: Bulk-Billing................................................................................................. 11649 Social Welfare: Gambling ............................................................................................ 11650 Health: General Practitioners ....................................................................................... 11651 Questions Without Notice: Additional Answers— Immigration: Ministerial Discretion............................................................................. 11652 Agriculture: Sugar Industry.......................................................................................... 11652 Questions Without Notice: Take Note of Answers— Medicare: Bulk-Billing................................................................................................. 11653 Social Welfare: Gambling ............................................................................................ 11659 Notices— Presentation .................................................................................................................. 11660 Postponement
11660 Postponement ............................................................................................................... 11661 Committees— Legal and Constitutional References Committee—Meeting........................................ 11661 Legal and Constitutional References Committee—Reference ..................................... 11662 Notices— Postponement ............................................................................................................... 11662 National Radioactive Waste Repository— Return to Order............................................................................................................. 11662 Committees— Community Affairs References Committee—Meeting ................................................ 11665 Select Committee on Superannuation—Reference ...................................................... 11665 Notices— Postponement ............................................................................................................... 11666 Documents— Auditor-General’s Reports—Report No.
49 of 2002-03 .............................................. 11666 Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee—Report: Responses to Senate Resolutions ................................................................................................ 11666 Migration Legislation Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2003 and Health Legislation Amendment (Medicare and Private Health Insurance) Bill 2003— First Reading ................................................................................................................ 11666 CONTENTS—continued Second Reading............................................................................................................ 11666 Business— Rearrangement.............................................................................................................. 11668 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.
2]— Second Reading............................................................................................................ 11669 Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003— Second Reading............................................................................................................ 11694 Adjournment— Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation........................................... 11705 General Douglas MacArthur Brisbane Memorial Trust ............................................... 11705 Aviation: Bakers Creek Air Crash ................................................................................ 11705 Aviation: Karratha and Port Hedland Airports ............................................................. 11708 International Justice for Cleaners Day.......................................................................... 11710 Environment: Greening Australia................................................................................. 11712 Depleted Uranium ........................................................................................................ 11714 Wentworth, Hon.
William Charles, AO ........................................................................ 11716 Documents— Tabling.......................................................................................................................... 11718 Tabling.......................................................................................................................... 11719 Questions on Notice— Agriculture: United States Farm Bill—(Question No.
916) ......................................... 11720 Transport and Regional Services: Farm Management Deposit Scheme— (Question No.

955) ..................................................................................................... 11721 Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry: Australian National Residue Survey— (Question No.

994) ..................................................................................................... 11722 Trade: Beef Sales to Japan—(Question No.
1005)....................................................... 11725 Trade: Livestock Export Accreditation Program—(Question No.

1175) ..................... 11727 Trade: Live Export Mortality Incidents—(Question No.

1177) ................................... 11727 Trade: Livestock Export Accreditation Program—(Question No.

1178) ..................... 11737 Defence: Russell Offices—(Question No.

1191).......................................................... 11737 Environment: Water Management—(Question No.
1198) ........................................... 11738 Agriculture: Dairy Structural Adjustment Program—(Question No.

1200) ................. 11739 Agriculture: Supplementary Dairy Assistance Scheme—(Question No.

1214) ........... 11739 Agriculture: South Johnstone Sugar Mill—(Question No.

1219) ................................ 11740 Manildra Group of Companies—(Question No.

1287) ................................................ 11741 Medicare: Bulk-Billing—(Question No.
1345)............................................................ 11741 Trade: Diseased Wheat—(Question No.

1347) ............................................................ 11745 Health: North Queensland General Practitioners—(Question No.

1368)..................... 11747 National Security: Information Kits—(Question No.

1375) ........................................ 11750 Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site—(Question No.
1405)................................................................................................................... 11750 Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site—(Question No.

1406)................................................................................................................... 11751 Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Vignette Software— (Question No.
1407) ................................................................................................... 11752 Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site—(Question No.

1408)................................................................................................................... 11753 Medicare: Bulk-Billing—(Question No.

1410)............................................................ 11753 Attorney-General’s: United Nations Convention Breach—(Question No.
1411) ........ 11765 Depleted Uranium—(Question No.

1415).................................................................... 11766 CONTENTS—continued Defence: Portsea Site—(Question No.

1416)............................................................... 11767 Health: Bulk-Billing—(Question No.

1421) ................................................................ 11770 Health: More Allied Health Services Program—(Question No.
1424) ........................ 11771 Defence: East Sale Air Force Base—(Question No.

1430) .......................................... 11779 Defence: Asset Sales—(Question No.

1433)................................................................ 11779 Defence: National Storage and Distribution Centre—(Question No.

1435) ................ 11780 Defence: Campbell Park Offices—(Question No.

1436) ............................................. 11780 Defence: Brighton Army Barracks—(Question No.
1437) .......................................... 11781 Defence Materiel Organisation: Professional Service Providers—(Question No.

1443)................................................................................................................... 11781 Defence Materiel Organisation: Professional Service Providers—(Question No.

1444)................................................................................................................... 11782 Defence: Aircraft Operations—(Question No.
1445)................................................... 11783 Intelligent Island Program—(Question No.

1448) ....................................................... 11787 Intelligent Island Program—(Question No.

1449) ....................................................... 11787 Defence: Brighton Army Barracks—(Question No.

1451) .......................................... 11788 Philippines: Australian Mining Companies—(Question No.
1458) ............................. 11789 Employment and Workplace Relations: Office of the Employment Advocate— (Question No.

1462) ................................................................................................... 11789 Environment: Seismic Surveys—(Question No.

1470)................................................ 11791 Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11617 Tuesday, 17 June 2003 ————— The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon.

Paul Calvert) took the chair at 12.30 p.m., and read prayers.
TAXATION LAWS AMENDMENT BILL (No.

2) 2003 Consideration of House of Representatives Message Consideration resumed from 13 May.

Senator COONAN (New South Wales— Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treas- urer) (12.31 p.m.)—I move: That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representa- tives has disagreed.
Senator SHERRY (Tasmania) (12.31 p.m.)—On behalf of the Australian Labor Party, I will be speaking briefly to the mes- sage relating to the Taxation Laws Amend- ment Bill (No.

2) 2003.

The Labor Party will not be supporting the message that has been communicated to us by the House of Repre- sentatives.

The issue in question is the treat- ment for income tax purposes of foreign ex- patriates.

This is the second time this meas- ure has been debated: last year in the Taxa- tion Laws Amendment Bill (No.
4) 2002 and this year in the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No.

2) 2003, although that latter bill began life as the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No.

7) 2002.

It is very obvious that the Howard Liberal government is very keen to get it passed.

It is an indication of the Liberal government’s priorities that it incorporates this measure in a tax bill that includes reduc- ing the tax offset available to people with high medical expenses.
This bill provides a tax exemption for temporary residents—persons who have not been a resident of Australia within the last 10 years—for all foreign source income and capital gains not associated with Australian employment or service for a maximum pe- riod of four years.

It also provides an exemp- tion from interest withholding tax obligations for a maximum period of four years.
The bill also removes the current time limit of four years on exemptions from the foreign in- vestment fund, known as FIF, rules for all holders of temporary visas.

This measure applies not only to temporary residents but also to holders of a number of other visa classes.

The Ralph Review of Business Taxation recommended that tax exemptions for expa- triates apply in relation to pre-residence as- sets and liabilities.

But this bill goes further than that.


It would extend that exemption to apply to foreign source income and with- holding tax obligations regardless of whether they related to assets acquired before or after their residency began in Australia.

The cost of these measures is significant—between $40 million and $50 million per year.

That means these measures would have a four- year cost of up to $200 million, and this is a significant amount of money.
When these measures were put into this bill, the government pre-empted its review of international taxation arrangements.

The Australian Democrats and Labor voted against these measures then because we wanted to see them dealt with in the context of the review of international tax.

What came out of that review was a minimal set of measures to reform the controlled foreign corporation and foreign investment fund rules.
The big issues—streaming and tax relief for Australian taxpayers for foreign dividend earnings—were ignored.

The rea- son the government could not do more is that it does not have the financial capacity to do more.

It could not give back to ordinary tax- payers the full proceeds of bracket creep; we discussed that last night.
If it did, the budget would be in deficit in 2004-05 and 2005-06, and that is against a background of record CHAMBER 11618 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 high tax collection by this Liberal govern- ment.

This is the highest taxing government in Australian history.

Record high taxes, low services.

Senator McGauran—Increased em- ployment, high taxes.

Senator SHERRY—That is the approach of this Liberal government.
Senator McGau- ran, you had better check with your adviser what your contribution to this debate should be—in an orderly manner, hopefully.

There- fore, it could not afford to do anything much to enhance the international competitiveness of the Australian tax system.

In this coming financial year, it is falling $900 million short of giving back the proceeds of bracket creep to Australian taxpayers.
This is the $4 tax cut we discussed last night, which disappears for most Australians within the next year—the so-called sandwich and milkshake tax cut.

That is not a Labor description; it is a Sena- tor Vanstone, Liberal minister description.

She is the one who dubbed it and gave it its true value and worth.

This government could not even give back the proceeds of bracket creep to Australian taxpayers.
It is not in a financial position to be giving $50 million a year worth of tax concessions to foreign expatriates.

Where are the priorities of this government?

The Labor Party will not support giving an extra $50 million in tax concessions to foreigners.

That is not a Labor priority.

Labor will continue to press for its amendments for this reason.

We hope that other non-government members in the Senate will take the same view and that these measures will not pass.
Accordingly, as I indicated at the commencement of my re- marks, we will be voting to reject the mes- sage from the House of Representatives.

Senator MURRAY (Western Australia) (12.37 p.m.)—The Taxation Laws Amend- ment Bill (No.

2) 2003 is now before us for the third time.

It has five chapters.

The first, which is the issue of dispute, concerns for- eign income exemption for temporary resi- dents.

The second concerns exempting com- pensation for loss of defence remuneration.
The third chapter is titled ‘Amounts repaid are not assessable income’.

The fourth con- cerns amendments relating to tax offset for medical expenses, about which you could have a number of opinions, but that has been let through.

And the fifth concerns income the Commonwealth tax exemption Games Federation.
The government has said that, rather than accept the Senate’s view that chapters 2 to 5 should pass and chapter 1 should be set aside for later consideration in conjunction with a broad review of interna- tional tax, it disagrees.

In fact, the message from the House is very specific.

It says it is not appropriate that these measures should be referred to the review of international tax arrangements.
The fact is that RITA, as it is called, has reported but we have not seen the legislation which is attached to it.

for The Prime Minister has recently raised the issue of the Senate not reviewing bills or issues fully enough.

Frankly, I think that is an encouragement of us to be less helpful to the government than we have been in the past.

I think the Senate has been guilty of being oversupportive of government and of allowing far too many bills to be considered without being referred to committee.
For instance, statistically, we are at present refer- ring only one-third of bills to committee.

So I am sure the minister would agree that, in light of the Prime Minister’s discussion, an important issue like this should definitely go off to committee and be properly and thor- oughly reviewed in conjunction with the re- port on the international tax arrangements.
Of course it is our view, as it is the view of the Labor Party, that you cannot consider this issue of the foreign income exemption for temporary residents in isolation from a holistic review of our relationships on the CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11619 international tax front.

So I think the gov- ernment are caught in a bind.

Firstly, they have not brought forward the necessary leg- islation that follows from that, and perhaps quite properly so—perhaps they are still con- sulting.
Secondly, they have asked the Senate to review these matters far more seriously.

I do not think the Senate should be of a mind to rush at a measure like this, which is a cost of $50 million and may have negatives that we have not thought through.
The third area overhanging relative to the ways in which workers and executives who are foreigners are taxed is, of course, the bigger issue of the remuneration of execu- tives in this country, which includes that of foreigners who are working for Australian companies.

This is an issue of great concern.

It has been strongly and passionately debated in this place, yet we still await the CLERP 9 legislation with which we could address these issues—and they are connected.
There is a view in the Australian community that some of these foreign expatriates who come to Australia are nothing but carpetbaggers, people who come here and rip off our com- panies and drive them into a loss making or a poorer situation than they were in before.

Of course, that is not true of the majority of for- eigners who come to Australia and work here, who make a great contribution to our life.
But we should recognise that that car- petbagging taint does attach itself to some very high profile circumstances.

The other point which exercises the minds of those who have to consider these issues is whether there is a real sign of difficulty in attracting foreign workers or foreign execu- tives to Australia because of our international tax arrangements.
Frankly, the evidence we have seen on this is circumstantial, it is an- ecdotal and it is not borne out by the extraor- dinary range of cultures and identities that we are exposed to by foreign residents, both temporary and permanent, who are so pro- ductively and usefully involved in our com- panies and organisations.

I must say that the Australian Democrats have not seen anything which inclines them to change their minds.
In the broad we agree with the views of the Labor Party, as expressed by Senator Sherry, except, as I say yet again, his view that this is a high-tax country.

We do not think it is a high-tax country.

We will accept the point that some Australians are taxed far too much and some Australians are taxed far too little, including the high-paid executives that are the point of some of this discussion.
So, Minister, the answer of the Senate to you is that unless you include this in your proposed international tax legislation, which will then go to committee, we are not of a mind to accept the government’s proposition at this time.

Senator COONAN (New South Wales— Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treas- urer) (12.44 p.m.)—I rise to speak once more on the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No.
2) 2003 and specifically on the government’s attempts to reform the tax treatment of expa- triates, which the Labor Party and the De- mocrats, sadly, see fit to oppose.

The Labor Party does not seem to care that this initia- tive will address barriers to international competitiveness in the tax system, and it does not care that it is blocking measures that will create employment and investment in Australia and that it will impede the de- velopment of Australia as a strong financial centre.
This is a proposal that will boost in- vestment in Australia and boost jobs.

One of the prime obligations of the government is to do what needs to be done to create condi- tions that are most likely to provide work for everyone who wants it.

I would have thought that the Labor Party would embrace that pro- posal.

Labor’s prime objective, however, appears to be to do everything possible to prevent this from happening.
CHAMBER 11620 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 The temporary residents measure demon- strates the government’s commitment to ad- dress barriers to international competitive- ness in the tax system.

The proposal will create employment and investment in Austra- lia by removing competitive disadvantages to the development of Australia as a strong fi- nancial centre.
This objective has been sup- ported by successive federal governments, by state governments and by a wide range of business groups but, sadly, it is not supported by the federal Labor Party or the Democrats.

The changes will remove counterproduc- tive taxes imposed on foreigners who work in Australia.
It is disappointing that the op- position—and I refer to the opposition col- lectively—appears not to see that these un- fair taxes apply to many middle-ranking management and specialist staff who come to Australia to grow business, provide better products and enrich financial sector skills in this country.

The way the Labor Party seeks to continually misinterpret and deliberately misrepresent this measure to the Australian public is appalling.
‘Big business,’ they say, ‘Tax cuts for the wealthy,’ they cry.

These irrational views are based on a narrow ideol- ogy, which means that they refuse to recog- nise that those who stand to benefit from these measures will play a crucial role in the framework of our economy.

It was said in debate that we do not want to be giving $50 million to foreigners.

That mere proposition shows that, even now after years of debate, there is still some miscon- ception about the bill.
The benefits of this measure flow ultimately to the Australian employers of temporary residents.

It is the employers who usually bear the additional and, indeed, unfair costs of these people coming to Australia.
These measures create a fairer tax system, removing what must on any view be regarded as arcane disincentives for those in the very professions that we need more of in Australia—professions where there are identified shortages, such as with registered nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists, radiation therapists and other pro- fessionals.
Shortages of these kinds are often temporary for a company and the short-term contribution of foreign sourced employees assists the Australian community greatly dur- ing these periods.

It is regrettable that the opposition cannot support a sensible and rea- sonable policy change to make Australia more attractive to these foreign workers.

The opposition’s mantra is that this meas- ure is a special concession for rich foreign executives.
It may be that some parts of the opposition have simply misunderstood the benefits that these measures will bring to the very people whom you would think they would normally support.

The measure will apply to people who are Australian residents for tax purposes but who are only here on temporary entry visas.
Labour market intelli- gence undertaken by the Department of Em- ployment and Workplace Relations in the latter half of 2001 identified that there was a national shortage of accountants, registered nurses, pharmacists, occupational therapists, radiation therapists and information and communication technology professionals.

People granted a temporary resident visa to come to Australia to alleviate the abovemen- tioned skills shortages could benefit from the temporary resident tax exemption.
In 2000- 01, the top five occupations sponsored by employers under the business long stay visa were computing professionals, applications and analyst programmers, general managers, accountants and—what we really need— registered nurses.

These are the kinds of people who will benefit most from the meas- ure; not the rich foreign executives that La- bor talks about.

Australia has surely grown up: we are no longer a closed and isolated country.
We have major trading partners and major in- vestments, and we do recognise the benefits CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11621 of skilled labour and of the introduction and free flow of new ideas from overseas.

Costs relating to temporary resident employees are an important consideration in establishing regional offices and headquarters and in making Australia a financial centre.

How many times have we heard a debate about Australia becoming a branch economy?
Here is a measure to address it, and yet it is ig- nored.

Other countries in our region that compete with us for this kind of investment have also provided special concessionary tax arrangements for temporary employees.

This government is not proposing substantial con- cessions and benefits for foreigners; it is simply proposing that some of Australia’s historic and outdated impediments to labour sourced from overseas be removed so we can stay in the game.
Singapore is currently extending its al- ready concessional tax treatment.

China is emerging as a further competitor in the inter- national skilled labour market.

The New Zealand government is currently considering methods of removing these labour market impediments.

Yet the Labor opposition is prepared to let Australia fall behind.

Without reforms such as these, skilled professionals will continue to be lured outside Australia.
The opposition does not seem to understand that, for Australia to even stay in the game against its competitors and go on enjoying the sort of growth we have seen in this coun- try and the economic prosperity that in one way or another we have all enjoyed, Austra- lia must find ways of continuing to be effi- cient, effective and competitive.

It is not as if there is any alternative policy being discussed here today; the only action is to block all of these crucial reforms.
Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands are all streaking ahead of us now in attracting these kinds of workers, and yet the opposition to this measure will continue to penalise busi- nesses that rely on specialist skills that can come from abroad.

Under the government’s proposal, Australia will benefit from the dy- namic effects of having more and better businesses located here, as well as from the expenditure and local employment they will generate.
Australia also benefits through the transfer of new management and other skills that key personnel can bring to Australian business.

We have been talking about undue haste.

When this legislation last appeared in this place, it was suggested that the government had acted with undue haste in presenting these reforms.

I should add that the reforms were recommended to the government by the Ralph review of business tax in 1999 and introduced by the government last year and again this year.
During this lengthy period, the measure has been subjected to extensive consultation and has been consistently sup- ported by business.

This support has more recently been endorsed by the Board of Taxation.

How that can be said to be undue haste is a matter of conjecture.

During debate in this place earlier this year, it was suggested—I think Senator Ludwig said it—that the government should consider any changes to Australia’s interna- tional tax regime as part of a package.
In- deed, Senator Murray said that also.

The government has now announced its response to the review of international tax arrange- ments, which are also a very carefully and comprehensively balanced package.

What is the Labor and Democrat position on the package?

Certainly, from the Labor Party’s announced statements, it opposes it.

It offers no policies of its own.

In fact, Mr McMullan has said that Labor supports the direction of all these reforms; it just has different priori- ties for the money.
That is the nub of it: it has different priorities.

It merely opposes any attempt by the government to make the last- ing changes so sorely needed to assume and CHAMBER 11622 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 assure Australia’s competitiveness as a global financial centre.

will certainly take that on notice and give you a comprehensive answer.
Rather than investing the intellectual re- sources and effort and the political ticker to develop a sustainable international tax re- gime that will benefit Australia, the priorities of the opposition are simply to oppose.

We see mindless opportunism and obstruction- ism, and it is indeed a very sad day for the competitiveness of Australia and for the workers of Australia that we cannot achieve these reasonable reforms.
Opposition for the sake of opposition, with their adding no con- structive ideas of their own for improvement, is hardly the way this Senate works well.

The government does not support these amend- ments.

Senator MURRAY (Western Australia) (12.54 p.m.)—Minister, I was interested in your remarks about the Ralph review and that the bill that is before us is part of the review’s recommendations.

I have a question to you—would you prefer to answer it now or answer it on notice?
I would like the gov- ernment to indicate every single recommen- dation that Ralph put up, the number of those recommendations that have been carried for- ward in legislation and the number of those recommendations the government has failed to bring forward in legislation.
Senator COONAN (New South Wales— Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treas- urer) (12.55 p.m.)—Obviously, the Ralph review was a most comprehensive and far- reaching report with a great number of rec- ommendations, the majority of which have been brought forward in some way, shape or form by way of legislation, by way of dis- cussion or by way of reference to the Board of Taxation so that the matters can be prop- erly consulted about and an appropriate re- sponse developed by the government.
In terms of what to tick and what not to tick, I Senator MURRAY (Western Australia) (12.55 p.m.)—The second question, Madam Chair—and rule me out of order if it is im- proper—is really via you to Senator Sherry.
If the government does not accept the insis- tence, once the international tax regime leg- islation is before us my intention would be to refer this section of the bill as well to the committee, which I hope would have a look at that international tax legislation, because I think that would have to be done.

I would like to know if you would be prepared to consider that favourably in principle.
Senator SHERRY (Tasmania) (12.56 p.m.)—I can indicate we will consider it fa- vourably in principle, but we will obviously have to discuss it with Mr McMullan.

It will go through our appropriate internal proc- esses.

Senator MURRAY (Western Australia) (12.56 p.m.)—Just for the record, my point is that that of course would constitute a thor- ough review in the manner that I think the Prime Minister was remarking upon the other day as necessary.

Question negatived.

Resolution reported; report adopted.


HEALTH CARE (APPROPRIATION) AMENDMENT BILL 2003 Second Reading Debate resumed from 16 June, on motion by Senator Kemp: That this bill be now read a second time.

Senator FORSHAW (New South Wales) (12.57 p.m.)—I rise to speak on the Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003.
In doing so, I move the second reading amendment to this bill which has been circu- lated in the name of my colleague Senator Evans: At the end of the motion, add: CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11623 “but the Senate condemns the Government for its health policy failures, including: (a) the Howard Government’s withdrawal of $918 million from public hospitals over the next 4 years; in (b) the Howard Government’s unfair Medicare package which will result in bulk billing, time, only being available to pensioners and concession card holders and families being left to pay more and more for their health care; (c) the Howard Government’s decision to increase the cost of essential medicines by up to 30 per cent, hitting the sickest and the poorest hardest; and (d) the Howard Government’s refusal to review the $2.3 billion private health insurance it provides value for money for consumers and taxpayers”.
to ensure rebate that The amendment encapsulates Labor’s view on the government’s health policy failures, which I will describe in a little more detail later on in my speech.

This bill sets the scene for the Commonwealth to make its ongoing contribution to the funding of state public hospitals through the Australian health care agreements.

The opposition supports the leg- islative framework that enables the Com- monwealth to continue to fund the health care agreements over the next five years.
Our great complaint with the Howard govern- ment is the level of funding.

People interested in this area may recall that, at the health ministers conference in 2002, all the states, both the territories and the Commonwealth—through the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Patterson— agreed on a reform program.

A task force of clinicians was charged by the health minis- ters conference to look at a range of reform proposals and reform mechanisms.
This set up expectations that there would be, firstly, adequate funding of the states through the health care agreements and, secondly, im- plementation of some reform measures.

But people will remember that in November last year, as well as last week in Sydney, all Aus- tralian health ministers turned up with the exception of the federal minister, Senator Patterson.

The Commonwealth was repre- sented by an empty chair.
A decision had already been made by the government, effec- tively by the Treasurer and the Prime Minis- ter, on the amount of funding for health care.

It was clear that, as far as the federal minister for health and the Commonwealth govern- ment were concerned, no discussion would be entered into between her and the states and territories, despite the states’ and territo- ries’ greater appreciation of the sector’s needs.
In January this year, the Treasurer said that we should proceed on the basis that there would be no new money for health in the budget.

He was right.

For once the Treasurer kept his promise, because that is precisely what we have seen.

The forward estimates revealed that $918 million would be dragged out from funding of the health care agreements over the next four years.
A virtually identical amount, $917 million over four years, will be spent instead on the gov- ernment’s unfair Medicare package, with zero net gain to health spending by the Commonwealth.

This is a great lost opportu- nity.

Nothing has been done and nothing will be done to improve one of the great prob- lems that we have in health care funding in Australia at the moment—cost shifting.
We know that for years the system has been be- devilled by cost shifting between the states and the Commonwealth, and here was a per- fect opportunity for the Commonwealth to move beyond the old style approach and ini- tiate solutions to the problem.
This bill and the negotiations leading up to it provided an opportunity for the Com- monwealth to consider open, transparent, up- front pooling of funds between the states and the Commonwealth, not just for hospitals but CHAMBER 11624 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 potentially for aged care, pharmaceutical benefits and a range of other health areas.

For the next five years every jurisdiction would know where each other jurisdiction stood on matters of health expenditure.
This bill therefore represents, on one level, a great lost opportunity.

But the greatest damage that the government is doing in this legislation is to rip between $1 billion and $1.5 billion out of Commonwealth funding for state public hospitals.

It is also appropriate in this context to ex- amine briefly what impact the new unfair Medicare package has on our public hospi- tals.
We know that when the Howard gov- ernment came to office in 1996 bulk-billing rates were at 80 per cent and that shortly af- ter Labor left office in May 1996 bulk-billing rates peaked at 80.5 per cent.

In every year since then, under the Howard government bulk-billing rates have fallen.

With the re- lease of the statistics for the March 2003 quarter we see that the national figure for bulk-billing has plummeted to 68.5 per cent.
In round figures, that is a 12 per cent drop in bulk-billing in the seven years that the How- ard government has been in office.

Over half of that drop occurred in the last year or so, effectively a six per cent drop within the last 12 months.

In December 2001, the health department advised that unless the government took dramatic action there would continue to be a serious and dangerous decline in bulk- billing.

In response to this salient reminder, the government did absolutely nothing.
As late as December last year, the Prime Minis- ter stood in the other place and claimed it was factually incorrect to say that there was a problem with bulk-billing.

Every quarter, when we saw the release of official statistics, the minister for health would say, ‘These are disappointing rather than disastrous.’ They may not have been disastrous for the minister but for an individual who cannot find a bulk- billing doctor it is bordering on the disas- trous.

Where does such an individual go?


What happens is that the states and territories ultimately have to pick up the tab when a person who cannot find a bulk-billing doctor subsequently seeks assistance from a hospi- tal.

It might take two days, two weeks, two months or two years but we know that sooner or later low-income Australians who cannot find bulk-billing doctors end up in the emergency departments of public hospitals, thus putting even greater pressure on the state system.
State and territory health minis- ters have been saying for some time that the collapse of bulk-billing is putting additional pressure on our emergency departments.

They are now being inundated with people who could and should have been dealt with by a GP.

It is also the case that those people who are least able to afford to see a doctor or pay for a script are also those people most at risk of serious illness or chronic disease.

So how has this government responded to the col- lapse in bulk-billing?
As I mentioned a mo- ment ago and as this bill shows, the govern- ment has responded simply by taking $918 million over four years out of the funding for the health care agreements and by introduc- ing its unfair Medicare package.

Its Medicare package pays incentives to doctors to bulk- bill pensioners and concession card holders only.

That effectively destroys the universal- ity of Medicare and the integral role of bulk- billing within it.
Whilst it is disappointing to Labor and it is indeed disastrous for the health care system in Australia, the package comes as no surprise to the opposition.
It reflects the long-held views of the Prime Minister, views expressed by the Prime Min- ister when he was the Leader of the Opposi- tion in 1987, when his formal election com- mitment to the Australian people at that time was that bulk-billing should be restricted to pensioners, concession card holders and poor CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11625 people and that doctors should be free to charge everyone else what they chose.
It has taken him a few years but the Prime Minister is now endeavouring to implement this ob- jective.

That is what this government’s unfair Medicare package now seeks to implement: to reduce Medicare essentially to bulk-billing for pensioners, concession card holders and the poor.

The second thing that the government’s unfair Medicare package seeks to do is en- able, for the first time, the patient rebate to be split from the doctor’s charge or copay- ment.
That gives the green light to doctors to charge whatever they want.

On the release of the package, the AMA said that doctors’ fees would inevitably rise.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Family and Community Ser- vices, the member for Parramatta, Mr Ross Cameron, has also acknowledged this.

Any family with an income of $32,300 or more is not eligible for a health care card or a con- cession card.
As a consequence—bit by bit, visit by visit—members of each of these Australian families will end up paying more and more every time they visit the doctor.

So the government’s unfair Medicare package does not provide a solution to the dramatic collapse of bulk-billing or to the funding of our state public hospitals.

As I said, the government is ripping $918 million out of the health care agreements and effec- tively funding its unfair Medicare package, costing $917 million, by that transfer of funds.
When you look at the great areas of public health policy—Medicare and bulk- billing, health care agreements, state public hospitals, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, private health insurance—the gov- ernment has dramatic failures for which it should be and is being condemned on every score.

With respect to the Pharmaceutical Bene- fits Scheme, we find in last year’s budget and again in this year’s budget, the govern- ment committing itself to increasing the cost of essential medicines by 30 per cent.
We know from the health department’s own analysis that five million pensioner scripts will not be taken out as a result of the in- crease in the charge.

What is the conse- quence of the Australian population, particu- larly pensioners, not taking out their scripts?

It is the same as the consequence of not see- ing a bulk-billing doctor.

They end up in the emergency departments of public hospitals.
Combined with the crisis in bulk-billing, more and more people will be attending the emergency departments of our public hospi- tals at precisely the same time that the gov- ernment is ripping over a billion dollars out of the funding for our health care agree- ments.

Australians know that Medicare is the world’s best health system and that only La- bor has a plan to save it.

We created it and we will now save it.


Last month, Labor an- nounced a $1.9 billion package to reverse the collapse in bulk-billing by lifting the patient rebate for bulk-billing.

That will apply to all Australians, no matter where they live or how much they earn.

A Crean Labor gov- ernment will immediately lift the Medicare patient rebate for all bulk-billed consulta- tions to 95 per cent and subsequently to 100 per cent of the schedule fee.

That is an aver- age increase of $5 per consultation.
In addi- tion, Labor will offer powerful financial in- centives to doctors to support and extend bulk-billing, especially in outer metropolitan and regional areas where the collapse in bulk-billing is hurting families most.

Doctors in metropolitan areas will receive an addi- tional $7,500 each year for bulk-billing 80 per cent or more of their patients.
Doctors in outer metropolitan areas and major regional centres will receive an additional $15,000 each year for bulk-billing 75 per cent or more of their patients.

Doctors in rural and CHAMBER 11626 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 regional areas will receive an additional $22,500 each year for bulk-billing 70 per cent or more of their patients.

These meas- ures are the first step towards Labor’s objec- tive of lifting the average national rate of bulk-billing back up to 80 per cent or more.
Everywhere you look the effect of the government’s policies on health increases the burden on individuals and that is at the heart of the unfair Medicare package—to shift the cost to a user-pays system.
That runs through every area of health policy: authorising in- creases in private health insurance premi- ums; hitting the sickest and poorest with a 30 per cent increase in the cost of essential medicines; reducing funding to the states for public hospitals; and giving the green light to doctors to charge Australian families with incomes of over $32,300 more every time they visit a doctor.

These are the great issues of health care and health care policy before the Australian community.
As far as the gov- ernment’s unfair Medicare legislation is con- cerned, we will fight those changes tooth and nail when they come before the Senate be- cause the only consequence of those meas- ures will be to hit Australian families.

(Victoria) (1.12 p.m.)—The Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003 provides the Com- monwealth contribution to funding our pub- lic hospital system.

The government argues that $42 billion over five years is an increase.
The states argue that it is almost $1 billion less than the previous budget for the same period.

It also happens that the amount of $918.4 million that the states argue is a shortfall is roughly equivalent to the gov- ernment’s Medicare package—I will come to that a bit later.

The federal government says that for the first time the states are being challenged to be more transparent in their funding to hospitals and to contribute the same growth amount as the federal govern- ment.
But, of course, this is simplistic.

What Senator ALLISON we do know is that the growth factored into this bill is around five per cent in nominal terms, whilst in the previous five years it was over seven per cent.

This in itself is concern- ing given that the government’s Intergenera- tional Report drew attention to the effect of an ageing population on the health budget.
We ask why the federal government would effectively be reducing its contribu- tion when we are aware of the challenges that the public hospitals face in our country.

Emergency departments have seen huge in- creases in patients—these are of course peo- ple who cannot afford fees the doctors charge in their area.

Funding formulas con- tinually squeeze hospital budgets, waiting lists are still too long and so on.
The gov- ernment’s argument is also simplistic be- cause the traditional boundaries between federal and state health authorities are con- tinually shifting.

What was once the clear province of the states to provide an acute hospital setting is no longer the case.

Inten- sive home based treatments for the chroni- cally ill and for those with serious diseases are increasingly becoming technologically possible and, certainly, it is what the ill would prefer.
In the long run, home based or out of hospital treatments are less expensive than hospital based care; however, they are only an option when someone takes respon- sibility for them and they are properly funded.

The 2003-04 budget papers are lower by $918.4 million than previous estimates of funding for health care agreements.
The flimsy premise on which this is based—I quote the portfolio budget statement—is: ... a result of a greater proportion of public hospi- tal services provided to non-admitted patients and a reduction in public hospital usage growth be- yond growth from demographic changes.

We say that that is an extraordinary justifica- tion.
We have here an analysis based only on resulting CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11627 the volume of admitted patients, with no re- gard for whether or not each acute care epi- sode is more expensive.

Of the most unwell are those treated in hospital.

With less acute cases treated outside the hospital walls it is also the case that the intensive care necessary in hospital is on average more expensive per episode.
As well, there is a strong push for reducing the length of stay in hospital, en- dorsed by this government and its health de- partment.

Worldwide, hospitals are now viewed as expensive and often inappropriate places to recuperate.

As long as the reduction in the rate of growth is appropriate and does not compromise quality, any government with long-term vision would be rewarding the states.
Of course, the figures the govern- ment uses to justify the reduction in state funding may be due to the inadequacy of performance data held by the federal gov- ernment.

The ANAO audit report No.


21 entitled Performance information in the Aus- tralian health care agreements for the 1998- 2003 appropriation period concluded: ... while individual indicators have the potential to contribute to monitoring, the set of indicators is not adequate for: • monitoring State and Territory conformance with the conditions and principles of fund- ing; providing an informed assessment of pro- gress against AHCA objectives; • and monitoring the efficiency of the AHCAs.
The ANAO found no evidence of further planning by Health for the continued development and review of performance indicators on efficiency, quality, appropriateness, accessibility and equity of health services, consistent with the commit- ment of the AHCAs.

This is a serious lapse of accountability, the Democrats say, and it appears to suggest that this government accords very little priority to the principles underpinning its grants to the states on Medicare.
That is, the lack of per- formance information allows greater political • ambiguity and a lack of accountability of a substantial amount of taxpayer funds for one of the fundamental services of government: the provision of good quality health services.

One needs to question why this might be so and why so few resources within the health department are directed towards ensuring the principles of efficiency, quality, appropriate- ness, accessibility and equity of health ser- vices as agreed under Medicare.
Is the answer that the government is not committed to ensuring that these principles are upheld?

One might look to where the reduction in outlays has been allocated to examine this government’s priorities.

As I said before, the reduction of $918.4 million is the outlay required for the Medicare pack- age.

The government paid $140,000 just to produce the title—A Fairer Medicare, and we all know that it is not fairer.
The marketing has not fooled us and it has not fooled any- body else, as far as I can see.

It is galling that such misleading and wasteful marketing has cost taxpayers so much and that the minister for health shows no sign of taking responsi- bility for this particular poor performance.

In fact, $140,000 would go a long way to assist funding some self-funded, resource-stretched organisations, such as those for cystic fibro- sis or motor neurone disease, which exist on the goodwill of volunteers.
The Democrats say that the outlays for the Medicare package which shift costs to the sickest and the poorest individuals are budg- eted at $917 million.

I do not think it is un- reasonable to suggest that the government is not only dismantling Medicare with this package but also using funds from public hospitals to do so.
This government has eroded confidence in the public health sys- tem by marketing itself as financially re- sponsible and claiming that no more money can be found while at the same time happily funding those policies it sees as a priority, CHAMBER 11628 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 such as the $2.4 billion for private health insurance rebates.
Let there be no mistake: the Democrats want to see financial responsibility in gov- ernment, but diminishing investment in hos- pitals and in quality health care is irresponsi- ble.

We think that government priorities need to be more transparent.

This requires good quality information, which is currently not available, and some mechanism for inspiring public confidence in the process.
Given the abject failure of governments to date to un- dertake this process in a collaborative fash- ion, I believe there needs to be a change in that mechanism.

At the time the National Blood Authority was debated in the Senate, I congratulated the minister on achieving a collaborative model with the states to establish a state- Commonwealth body for the collection, dis- semination and coordination of blood sup- plies.
That demonstrated that where there is political will, a positive outcome can be achieved across Commonwealth-state di- vides.

The Democrats have been calling for an independent arbiter in health funding since February this year.
Just this week, this approach was endorsed by the Australian Health Reform Alliance, which consists of eminent groups such as the Australian Con- sumers Association, the Australian Council of Social Service, the New South Wales Nurses Federation, Catholic Health Austra- lia, the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation and the Royal Australian College of Physicians.

However, the minister rejected this idea, on the basis that it adds another layer of bureaucracy.

I find that an astound- ing comment.


The states and the Common- wealth have been embroiled in working par- ties negotiating meetings for over a year, possibly two years, with eight subgroups looking at ways to improve health care de- livery.

These working parties have essen- tially come to nothing.

I challenge the minis- ter to provide us with a costing of the wasted effort that went into a process that in the end was totally ignored by the minister.
As I envisage it, this independent arbiter could have the authority to build on the col- lection of data already held by the health department, the Health Insurance Commis- sion and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, as well as hospital data from the states.
The arbiter would have the authority to request and monitor data pertaining to services and service costs, and Australians could be confident that what they get is not just another product of political argy-bargy and spin wars between Liberal and Labor governments.
The Commonwealth and states could agree to a global budget at the begin- ning of an appropriation period, with an agreement about how those funds would be spent—that is, both acute care services in hospital and after- and pre-care in the com- munity.

An acknowledgment would be made about the proportion of spending that the Commonwealth excludes for the provision of primary care, including pharmaceuticals, but grants would also be included for the states to provide primary care in rural and remote areas.
I hope that in time more funding for pri- mary care will be allocated to the states, with the arbiter overseeing this to ensure national coverage and consistency of quality.

How- ever, we recognise that all changes need to be incremental.

Where there are significant changes in the mix of primary and acute re- lated services, this needs to be addressed by changes to annual funding, and this would be within the scope of the arbiter’s authority.
This represents a significant reform from the present situation, but it is time to come up with some solutions.

We need to keep this in perspective, of course—we as a nation do have very good quality health services and very good health outcomes, but there is a tremendous potential to improve on where CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11629 we are and to make the most of the excellent skill base we have in our medical and health work force.

We will support the bill.


However, we are not happy that funding for hospital services has been reduced, as I have already said.

The budget surplus of $2.4 billion has been wasted on propping up private health insur- ance, an estimated $1 billion leakage from the PBS system and a costly war against a country that did not, as most us knew, have weapons of mass destruction—to name just a few areas in which savings could have been made to better fund our hospital sector.
We are not happy with the federal and the state governments still being at loggerheads over everything from hospital funding, to disabil- ity funding, to housing funding.

People are sick of those two levels of government not being able to get their act together on hospi- tal funding and on other issues.

We suggest that an arbiter might be a very good solution to sort this out.

I foreshadow that the Democ- rats will be moving a second reading amendment.
It has not yet been circulated, but I understand that it will be shortly.

Senator NETTLE (New South Wales) (1.24 p.m.)—The Health Care (Appropria- tion) Amendment Bill 2003 appropriates funds for the Commonwealth government’s contribution under the next round of Austra- lian health care agreements with the states and territories, due to take effect from 1 July.

The Commonwealth government proposes to contribute $42 billion for the term of the five-year agreement.
The Commonwealth argues that its offer represents a substantial increase, up by around $10 billion, on the previous Australian health care agreements.

It also plans to penalise those states that do not match its growth rate by reducing its contribution to them by four per cent.

The states have reduced their share of funding in recent years relative to the Commonwealth and they should rectify this.
But this should be done in the context of a major review of how the different spheres of government fund and deliver health care and how we de- termine the funds required to provide quality care for all Australians.

The trend in state spending does not justify a federal fine.

More alarming is the government’s inten- tion to reduce the foreshadowed expenditure in the next round of health care agreements and the justification advanced for that.
The Howard government is trying to strip almost $1 billion from its contribution, as foreshad- owed in the forward estimates, on the spuri- ous grounds that an increase in private health insurance membership and private hospital admissions means there is less demand on public hospitals.

This argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

The latest available hos- pital figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare are for 2000-01.
They show that separations for public hospitals fell by 0.1 per cent or 5,208 compared with the previous year.

This contrasts with an increase in private hospital separations of 12.2 per cent or 244,802.

The rise in the private hos- pital rate is substantial but, more importantly, the fall in the public hospital rate is negligi- ble.

When spread across a full year, it amounts to around 100 fewer separations a week across the entire country.
How then can the government argue that this is less pres- sure on public hospitals?

Not only do the figures undermine the government’s conten- tion, but its own policy objectives are at odds with its claim.

One of the main aims of the private health insurance rebate, the Medicare levy sur- charge and the lifetime cover age based pre- mium penalties was to increase insurance membership among younger people who are less likely to need hospital treatment, par- ticularly elective surgery.
So an increase in younger people taking up private health in- surance is unlikely to have any impact on reducing pressure on public hospital admis- CHAMBER 11630 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 sions.

As well as this, a large majority of new memberships for private health insurance include high up-front fees or excess in ex- change for a lower premium.

This can dis- courage people from using their private in- surance, and they can opt instead to be treated as a public patient in a public hospi- tal.
Then, of course, there is cost shifting, and the federal and the state and territory spheres are guilty of cost shifting on health.

This is one more reason that we need to re- view the respective roles of the different spheres of government in this critical public policy area.

The shortage of aged care accommoda- tion—a federal responsibility—has led to older people occupying public hospital beds, further increasing the pressure.
The decline in bulk-billing rates for GP services, over which the Howard government has presided, has put additional pressure on the accident emergency services at public hospitals.

An- ecdotal evidence also overwhelmingly sup- ports the view that our public hospitals are still under pressure in spite of the govern- ment wasting almost $2.3 billion a year on subsidising private health insurance.
Ambu- lances are regularly sent on a search for a hospital able to take critical patients as they are turned away from one accident emer- gency unit to another, while other people with less serious conditions wait for hours for treatment.

All the evidence points to growing, not falling, pressure on the coun- try’s public hospitals.

In the face of such evidence, we have to wonder about the government’s real motives.
Does the government intend to take Australia the way of the United States, which spends almost 14 per cent of its gross national prod- uct on health care compared to the OECD average of eight per cent?

Yet as many as 42 million of its people are without insurance coverage for medical and hospital services and as many again have inadequate insur- ance arrangements.
We could be forgiven for believing that this is the government’s inten- tion—forcing everyone to pay more in direct costs for health care, offering underfunded charity services for the very poor and using public funds to subsidise the private insur- ance of high-income earners.
At the Liberal Party national conference earlier this month, the Prime Minister stated: ... what this Government has done is to take some of the load off the public component of healthcare provision in Australia by strengthening and ex- panding the private component.

We believe in a partnership between the public and private sector to deliver superior health out- comes for all Australians.

The fact is that most Australians want to be able to rely on a well-funded public system.
The idea of taking the load off the public sector is code for expanding the profit- making sector and forcing more Australians to pay a larger direct share of the cost of health care and essential medicines.

We have had the government’s proposal to increase the patient copayment for essential PBS medicines by 28 per cent, a proposal that the Greens will continue to oppose because it will hurt vulnerable and disadvantaged mem- bers of our community.
We have had the introduction of penalties and financial incen- tives.

We have had the private health insur- ance rebate that costs the public almost $2.3 billion a year and which the government wants to increase by extending private insur- ance to out-of-hospital expenses as a part of to dismantle Medicare by its measures stealth.

The overwhelming majority of health economists have concluded that the private health insurance rebate is an inefficient use of public money.
It does not buy one health service.

We have seen that the private sector, which discriminates on the basis of in- come—that is, if you can pay, you get the care that you need—is performing a growing CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11631 proportion of procedures that once would have been performed largely in public hospi- tals.

Private health care is more expensive than public health care; there are fewer price controls and more money is spent on admini- stration and marketing.
Why would the gov- ernment, which is continually lecturing us about economic efficiency, want to waste public funds on an inefficient allocation of moneys to the private health care sector in preference to the public sphere?

It will cost us all more.

At the same time, it diminishes our ability as a community to provide care to everyone who needs it when they need it, irrespective of their private capacity to pay.
As far as we can tell, the government has no intention of withdrawing the private health insurance rebate on the basis that the rising membership should be delivering the sort of financial stability that the industry claims it requires to be viable or on the basis that it has enabled the funds to boost their reserves, which increased by 51.6 per cent between 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
The latest annual report of the Private Health Insurance Administration Council sounds a warning about the financial viability of the funds, yet the government is content to pour billions of scarce health dollars into this sector, even with these warnings being sounded.
This is industry assistance for the long haul not to improve health outcomes, not to provide greater social equity and not to strengthen the public health care system that treats all people; this is industry assistance to under- write an ideological agenda, undermining community services to enrich the private market and entrench privilege.

We are seeing in health funding what we have seen this government do in schools funding in recent years.
We should be alert to the consequences of this agenda in health.

Australian National University political sci- ence lecturer Dr Gwen Gray, writing for the ABC Online in March this year, noted that it is well established by international research that private health insurance cannot survive without taxpayer subsidy, ‘unless the public system is so poor that people feel forced to insure privately’.
The Greens are deeply concerned that the government is setting the framework for do- ing just that, slowly starving the public sec- tor of funding, forcing people to pay more when they need to buy health services— rather than through progressive taxation— and undermining support among high- and middle-income earners for a system that spreads the risk and the cost across the community.
There is enough evidence on the public record so that no-one should be in any doubt as to the Prime Minister’s view of the national public health insurance scheme.

The Prime Minister has never supported bulk- billing, having once described it as a rort.

He was the Treasurer in the Fraser government that, the little by little, dismembered Medi- bank.
It took a series of electoral defeats for him to understand that Australians would never vote into office a party intent on dismantling Medicare, so he chose instead to smooth his path to election and then an- nounced his plans to destroy Medicare.

The government’s package spells the end of the principle of universal public health care.
It focuses on providing additional funds to support bulk-billing for people with con- cession cards, and this includes—let us re- mind ourselves—self-funded retirees earning $50,000 a year, but it excludes low-income earners who do not qualify for a health care card.

There is nothing fair about that.

Under the guise of simplifying the claim- ing system, the government will open the way for doctors to directly claim the patient rebate at the same time as charging a copay- ment.

This is a major shift.


Previously, direct claim of the patient rebate was permitted only for bulk-billing services.

This new pro- CHAMBER 11632 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 posal will enable doctors to increase fees because the quantum, initially, will be lower than what people are paying now, being re- duced by an amount equivalent to the rebate.

The package is misdirected because around 80 per cent of services provided to conces- sion card holders are already bulk-billed.
The challenge is to lift bulk-billing rates for all Australians.

The Australian Greens have already out- lined a series of measures to work towards that goal.

The private health insurance rebate should be abolished and the funding redi- rected towards public health.

It should be used to lift the rebate for GP services by $5 for all patients, and the value of the rebate should be maintained not eroded through neglect, as this government has done.
There should also be incentives for GPs who bulk- bill a substantial proportion of their patients.

The fall in the value of the rebate is not the only reason for the decline in bulk- billing, but it is an important factor.

Other measures are needed to address work force issues.

The Australian Greens support the work force measures in the government’s package, but they fail to show any vision for alternative ways of delivering health care.
For example, the Australian Greens believe we should be examining salaried GPs who work in community health centres or who are stationed alongside public hospitals.

These models may be particularly useful in regional centres and rural communities, where it is difficult to attract doctors working on a fee- for-service basis.

We note that some states are experimenting with these options.
The Australian Greens want Medicare ex- panded to cover more procedures, starting with dental services and the provision of more funding for mental health.

Our propos- als and our vision for providing quality, af- fordable public health care for all Australians stand in stark contrast to the government’s plan, which undermines the principle of uni- versality enshrined in Medicare and takes Australia down the road of privatised health care, with all of its dire consequences.
We are alarmed at reports that the Austra- lian Democrats are considering abandoning their opposition to any measures that under- mine bulk-billing for all Australians.

Initially the Democrats joined the Greens in opposing the government’s package, but late last week Senator Allison was reported as indicating that the Democrats could be persuaded to support the package if the government found a way to cap the copayment for non- concessionary patients.
This is no way to defend the principle of universality, nor will it improve access to bulk-billing for all Aus- tralians.

We call on the Democrats to join the Greens in protecting Medicare from the gov- ernment’s privatisation agenda for health care.

The Howard government is bent on de- stroying Medicare little by little, in the way the Fraser government dismantled Medibank two decades ago.
Reducing the Common- wealth’s contribution to the states and territo- ries for public hospital services on the grounds that private hospitals are treating more private patients is just one more tactic in this offensive agenda.

Most Australians want government to spend more, not less, on health care, and the most efficient and equi- table avenue for this to occur is through the public sector.
In the committee stage of this bill, the Australian Greens will give the gov- ernment the opportunity to respond accord- ingly by reinstating its earlier spending commitment.
Senator WEBBER (Western Australia) (1.39 p.m.)—We have barely begun to de- bate the budget and its associated bills in this place when the government introduces the Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003 in what can only be described, to CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11633 my way of thinking, as one of the most ri- diculous three-card tricks that we have ever seen.
Thanks to this government, the univer- sality of Medicare will be reduced to the waste bin of Australian history if these and other measures are fully implemented.

The government would have us believe other- wise.

In fact, the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing said in the other place: This bill delivers on the government’s strong commitment to the principle of universality under Medicare.

I doubt very much that the Australian people believe that.
From that comment and from others, you would think that the government has always been committed to Medicare.

Nothing is further from the truth.

Ask anyone and they will probably tell you that there is very little that is universal about Medicare under the stewardship of the Howard gov- ernment.

Firstly, you have to find a doctor or a medical practice that will bulk-bill.

As we all know, over the last seven years this has become more difficult.
In the electorate of Hasluck, in my home state of Western Aus- tralia, of the 62 local GP and other medical practices, only 25 bulk-bill.

Of those 25, only two or three universally bulk-bill; the rest are just for health care card holders.

If you do manage to find a doctor who bulk- bills, you will find that it is probably only for the young, the old or other health care card holders.
This government runs around the country sprouting this nonsense about its package delivering universality, but what it really delivers is ‘user pays’.

This bill is part of that user pays nonsense.

This bill delivers a $1 billion cut from the forward estimates for health care in our public hospital system.

At a time when the public hospital system in this country is in crisis, the government is actually cutting money from it.
We all know why it is in crisis, and it is a crisis of the government’s own making.

The government has presided over Medicare for seven long years and, during that time, has ensured that we have seen the beginning of its destruc- tion.

Bulk-billing rates have declined, from a high of 80 per cent down to 68 per cent.

What is the direct consequence of this?


More and more of our fellow Australians are presenting at the accident and emergency departments of Australian public hospitals, seeking the provision of basic health care services.

These are services that could be provided by a doctor or a medical practice but, as our fellow Australians can no longer afford to pay the fees charged by doctors, they go to the one place where they know they will not be turned away because of their lack of ability to pay.
This government is building a health sys- tem that is all about money: if you have the money, take out private health insurance; if you have the money, go and see a local doc- tor and pay the fees.

But what happens to those without the money?

They are con- demned to lining up in the accident and emergency departments of our public hospi- tals for hours and hours, waiting to have their basic health care needs met.
At a time when we know that the number of presentations at public hospitals is going up, this bill cuts their funding.

The government is cutting the funding to public hospitals to fund its ap- proach to Medicare.

In Victoria in 2002 an extra 50,000 pa- tients presented to the public hospital system because of the failings of this government.

Emergency admissions are increasing by eight per cent a year.

In New South Wales in the same period, emergency department presentations exceeded two million.
That means that each week in New South Wales some 40,000 of our fellow Australians are turning up in public hospital emergency de- partments.

In my home state of Western Aus- tralia, on any given day 1,146 people are CHAMBER 11634 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 admitted to our public hospitals, a further 824 people are treated in our emergency de- partments and discharged, 11,283 people attend an outpatient session, and over 250 operations are performed.
When you take into account all those statistics, what does this bill do?

It cuts a billion dollars from the funding for those procedures.

The government’s defence is that with the increase in private health insurance the load is being lifted from public hospitals.

Let us examine that defence.

For the small sum of some $4 billion—the private health insur- ance rebate, which is increasing all the time—private hospital admissions have gone up by less than one per cent.

So let us be quite clear about this.


Four billion dollars or so increases private hospital admissions by one per cent.

Yet at the same time, in the case of Victoria, they get their share of the $1 bil- lion cut and they get to treat an extra 50,000 people.

There is something fundamentally un- sound about how this government ap- proaches health care.

It put in place a system that forces a whole lot of people into private health insurance, which costs a significant amount.
Let us not fool ourselves by pre- tending that it does not represent a lot of money.

Even with the benefit of the rebate offered by the government, I am aware of a family in the northern suburbs of Perth, a family of six with basic hospital coverage, that are paying nearly $180 per month.

I am told by this family that their health insurance premiums have gone up at least once a year for the last three years.
This family can now only find a medical practice that will bulk- bill for children under the age of 12.

Recently I travelled in the north-west of Western Australia.

The north-west has the great distinction of having a fair number of high-income earners who work in the mining and resource sector and also a great number of people that are either in low-income groups or who receive Centrelink payments.
If you go any further north in Western Aus- tralia than Geraldton there is no provision for private health services at all.

There are no private hospitals and GP services are, in the main, delivered through the public hospital system, through organisations like the Abo- riginal medical services, or there are salaried GPs provided by local government authori- ties.
Yet that population still has to pay either the private health insurance premium or the extra tax this government has imposed on those who do not take it out.

So they pay for a service that they cannot physically access, thanks to this government.

This is the rebate scheme that costs the budget more and more each year because of the increases that health funds seek to meet their costs, yet they do not deliver services to a significant proportion of those in my home state.
It is an increase that the Prime Minister said would have to go before parliament, but which never really has.

This approach was meant to relieve pressure on our public health system.

This approach was said to be all about reducing the load on public hospi- tals, and yet we have ended up with the op- posite result.

At the same time the government does nothing to relieve the pressure on Medicare.
Bulk-billing rates have fallen by 12 per cent in seven years and the effect of the decline in Medicare bulk-billing is the increase in peo- ple going to our public hospitals.

So for a whole lot more money the government has not fixed the problems in public hospitals nor addressed the problems in Medicare.

In fact it has actually made them worse, with private health funds being subsidised to the tune of up to $4 billion supposedly to address the problems in the health care system.
At the same time as this is meant to prop up the private health insurance scheme we have seen an enormous pressure on Medicare and CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11635 a rampant increase in the workload in our public hospitals.

So what is the government’s new response to that?

This government cuts a further bil- lion dollars from public hospitals.

The logic is inescapable really.

In fact the logic has escaped entirely from the government’s ap- proach to the delivery of health care services.
If you want to reduce the load on the public hospital system you should invest money in those areas that will see fewer people pre- senting at our public hospitals.

If you want more people to use private as opposed to public hospitals then you would perhaps look at the health insurance rebate.

However, you would only do this in a situation where you could make sure that no other factors im- pacted on it.

You would have achieved your goal if you did not then fill up the public hospitals with new patients.
Where are these new patients coming from?

They have come from all those medical practices and doctors’ surgeries across Australia that have stopped bulk-billing or only bulk-bill a limited pa- tient group.

So the health budget is being eaten away by the need to prop up the private health in- surance rebate scheme.

If this is not the worst case of taking public money and pass- ing it directly to industry, I do not know what it is.
All this money is going directly to the private health insurance industry and yet we are not solving any of the underlying prob- lems in our health system.

This would have to be industry welfare of the worst kind, and it is now paraded as reasonable health policy.
The Australian Labor Party have outlined a way of increasing the rate of bulk-billing within the budget’s ability to pay, and by doing so we will relieve the pressures on our public hospital system and allow accident and emergency departments to deal with ac- cident and emergency cases, not people that cannot access GP facilities.
We believe that the best way to decrease the pressure on our public hospitals is not to fill up accident and emergency departments with patients who should be seeing their local GP—patients who have voted with their feet as a conse- quence of not being able to afford to pay for their visits to their local GP.

Health should not be about how deep your pockets are but about need, and your ability to pay should not determine your level of need.
Nor should we accept the Commonwealth stripping the funding from public hospitals to fund the user-pays private health system.

Government spending should be about re- ducing the load on public hospitals through increasing the rates of bulk-billing—and La- bor has outlined a very clear way of achiev- ing that.

It should not be about the redistribu- tion of taxpayers’ moneys to prop up an in- dustry that was failing to attract new mem- bers.
It should not be about allowing those same funds to increase their premiums and therefore also increase the cost of the gov- ernment’s contribution as a consequence of their own actions.

And then we get the com- plaints from the private health insurance companies because their members actually make claims.

What did the health funds expect was go- ing to happen when they got a compliant government to force people into something they did not really want to join?

Of course they were going to put in claims.


Of course they would look at their private health insur- ance as a cost—but one the funds themselves marketed on the basis of being able to claim for health related items.

So what did the members do?

They put in lots of claims.

Then the health funds, with this captive con- sumer base, had to put up their premiums because they were losing money.

Should we actually be surprised?

Of course not.


When people are conscripted, when they are denied a choice, do not be surprised when they CHAMBER 11636 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 make sure they get everything they can out of it.

After all this, this government needs to strip $1 billion from our public hospitals.

This government’s health system is a cruel joke perpetrated on the Australian taxpayer.

It has reduced universality to a concept of user pays.
Unfortunately, the effect of this is that all Australians are paying, even if they are not in a private health scheme.

They pay through the increasing cost of the rebate.

They pay through the increasing strain on the public hospital system.

They pay through their inability to find a doctor who bulk-bills.

They pay and pay and pay and end up with poorer health outcomes.
Senator LEES (South Australia) (1.53 p.m.)—It will be no news to anyone listening to this debate that the states and the Com- monwealth are at loggerheads yet again over funding for our public hospitals and have gone back into their respective trenches.

It happens time after time after time.

The battle has as usual seen accusations fly as to who is putting in how much money and who should be putting in how much more.
The Com- monwealth argues this time that it has put in a real increase of 17 per cent in funding.

It argues that the states are the ones that are being difficult and that their intransigence is all down to their having Labor governments.

The states, on the other hand, accuse the Commonwealth of not offering a real in- crease but a decrease in what was expected of about $1 billion over the life of the agreement.

The federal minister has refused to attend meetings with state health minis- ters.
Accusations have been flying from the state health ministers back to the Common- wealth about the offer.

Indeed, the Com- monwealth has made it clear that it is not going to increase the offer.

The minister argues that savings should be made because more public hospital services are being provided to non-admitted public patients than has been previously the case.
I presume that that means—and perhaps the minister can fill us in on this when we get to the committee stage—more pressure is put on accident and emergency services and that there is more day surgery.

I guess we will get to the committee stage of the Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003 later.

Also, the Commonwealth argues that be- cause there has been a reduction in the rate of growth in the use of our public hospitals they deserve to face these cuts.
I presume that it revolves around the increased use of private hospitals for elective surgery.

Other issues that are facing our public hospitals include beds being closed because the hospi- tals have run out of funds or because they simply cannot find the nurses to staff them.

Most public hospitals do not seem to have reduced their waiting lists; nor to any great extent have they reduced any of the other waiting lists.
Besides the ones for elective surgery there are many waiting lists for visits to specialists and in some cases, unfortu- nately, urgent treatment such as for cancer.

Minister, we see that the usage of private hospitals has gone up.

The number of people accessing private hospitals has certainly jumped, but the pressure on the public sys- tem has not come down.
It has not come down in any really measurable amount and certainly not to the point where people can expect timely access and that that access can be assured on the basis of merit.

I believe it is simply not fair or reasonable for the Commonwealth to ignore what is actually happening on the ground in our public hospi- tals.

Some ideological, wished for scenario of people all rushing off to private hospitals if they have any sort of problem with waiting in the public system is not going to happen.
For some it is a financial issue: they simply cannot afford private health insurance.

They do not want to risk the gap they may be CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11637 faced with if they go private.

For some it is a case of up-front fees for the specialist to be- gin with.

For others it involves the nature of their illness or when or where it occurs.

Most private hospitals do not operate a 24-hour emergency service.
It will be interesting to see the state by state figures on how many private hospitals are offering a 24-hour acci- dent and emergency service.

So where does the truth lie?

As usual, it is between the two extremes.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says that the states are falling behind in the amount that they contribute to our hospitals.
It points out that the share of funding that the states put in has fallen from 45.4 per cent in 1998-99, when the last health care agreement was signed, to around 43 per cent in 2000-01.

Of the total moneys put in during that period, the Commonwealth’s contribution has stayed stable at around 48 per cent.

The missing nine or 10 per cent, for those who are doing their maths, is down to non-government con- tributions.
We must look at what the Senate can do as far as this ongoing battle between the Com- monwealth and the states is concerned.

As it is an appropriation bill we will be supporting the legislation.

Yes, we can attempt to in- crease the amount—and I note that there is at least one amendment being circulated that is directed towards doing that—but I cannot imagine that that will be acceptable to the minister and to the government.
As the min- ister has previously said, the Commonwealth has made an offer and it is not going to move.

As we look at the legislation specifi- cally, there are certainly some positives.

I congratulate the minister on her direction to the states that they must declare publicly the level of funding that they are going to pro- vide.

I also congratulate her for the improved performance reporting framework that is being put in place under this legislation.
I also agree that the states should match the Commonwealth funding, and I believe they should give a public commitment to doing so as soon as possible.

Debate interrupted.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Manildra Group of Companies Senator O’BRIEN (2.00 p.m.)—My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Tour- ism and Resources.
Can the minister confirm that an ethanol production subsidy of $17.13 million was paid to the near monopoly com- pany in Australia’s domestic ethanol indus- try, the Manildra Group, between October last year and May this year?

Can the minister also confirm that during this period Manildra marketed fuel containing ethanol concentra- tions of 20 per cent—a level the government has now finally acknowledged is not safe for Australian cars?
Why is the Manildra Group receiving more than $2 million per month from the Commonwealth to undertake ex- actly the same monopoly activity it did be- fore the subsidy was introduced?

Senator MINCHIN—I will have to take on notice the details of exactly what pay- ments were made to which producers under which programs for what purposes.

I am happy to get that information as soon as I possibly can.

The government has been quite open and up-front about its attitude to etha- nol.
We think ethanol has a role to play in the fuel mix in Australia.

We note that, for a va- riety of reasons, there was buyer resistance to ethanol.

The government has done abso- lutely the right thing to indicate that a 10 per cent cap and proper labelling should be in- troduced.

We were hoping that the states would do the right thing in terms of con- sumer information.

We think consumer in- formation is the critical issue in relation to this particular fuel.
After a pretty exhaustive series of studies, the government came to the view that a CHAMBER 11638 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 10 per cent limit was appropriate.

It was not appropriate to indicate that limit until we had been through a pretty exhaustive process of determining what was an appropriate posi- tion for the Commonwealth to take.

Mandat- ing or capping is quite a serious step but we think, in the light of the tests that have been done, that is appropriate.
We want this to be part of Australia’s fuel mix.

It is appropriate to introduce this particular fuel into the fuel mix—but at the end of the day it is a matter for consumers to decide whether they want to buy fuel which has a safe component of up to 10 per cent of the fuel that they buy—and to ensure that retailers of fuel make sure that consumers know exactly what it is that they are buying.

As to the other matters, I will get some information as soon as I can.
Senator O’BRIEN—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.

The minister has the information in answer to a question on notice No.

1287 that he gave to me.

Can the minister confirm that in 2001-02 the Manil- dra Group gave more than $200,000 in po- litical donations to the Liberal and National parties?
Can the minister also confirm that last weekend representatives of Manildra attended a National Party fundraiser on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales and generously bid $1,000 for a bottle of Rose- mount signed by the Deputy Prime Minister and $5,000 for a bottle of Grange signed by the Prime Minister, among other items?
Is there any connection between Manildra’s financial largesse to the coalition and the coalition’s largesse to Manildra through pro- duction subsidies for a near monopoly activ- ity, which, Minister, you tell me was worth $17,132,670.09 between 17 October last year and 30 May this year?
Senator MINCHIN—Being a member of the Liberal Party and not the National Party I am not in any position to confirm which business observers attended the New South Wales National Party conference last week- end, or whenever it was.
But for the Labor Party to have the hide to reflect adversely and dishonourably upon the Manildra Group and, indeed, the government in relation to any donations that it may make—and, as I have read, the head of Manildra supports both political parties—is quite outrageous in light of the rort that goes on in sustaining the Labor Party through Centenary House and the outrageous lease arrangements which they have.

How dare they come in here and make any suggestions of impropriety on our part.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS The PRESIDENT—Order!

I wish to draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the chamber of a delegation from the Republic of Croatia led by the Speaker, His Excellency Mr Zlatko Tomcic.

On behalf of honourable senators, I have pleasure in welcoming you to the Senate and trust that your visit will be both informative and enjoyable.

With the concurrence of hon- ourable senators I propose to invite the Speaker to take a seat on the floor of the Senate.
Honourable senators—Hear, hear!

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Taxation: Income Tax Senator TCHEN (2.05 p.m.)—In his budget speech delivered on 13 May, the Treasurer announced further tax cuts to Aus- tralian workers and families.

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Coonan.

Can the minister advise the Senate of the progress of delivering these tax cuts to Aus- tralian workers and families?

Further, is the minister aware of any alternative policies?
Senator COONAN—Senator Tchen, thank you for the question.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to inform the Senate that last night the government’s $2.4 billion tax cut was passed and will come into effect CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11639 on 1 July.

The fact is that these tax cuts really are l-a-w—they actually exist and they will be delivered.
They are evidence of the Howard government’s philosophy that once vital expenditure needs are met—defence, national security, health and higher education reform—money should be returned to tax- payers.

The tax cut is also progressive.

The big- gest percentage benefit goes to low-income earners, particularly those who benefit from the increase in the low-income tax offset.
The tax cut adds to the $12 billion in the per- sonal income tax cuts that were a central part of the government’s tax reform package in 2000-01.

They were the largest tax cuts in Australian history.

There can be no room for doubt about this government’s commitment to tax reform.
The Howard government has also abolished the wholesale sales tax, abol- ished financial institutions duty, abolished stamp duty on share transfers, halved capital gains tax, introduced family tax benefits parts A and B, reduced company tax from 36 per cent to 30 per cent, introduced the baby bonus, abolished Labor’s automatic indexa- tion of fuel excise, cut effective diesel excise rates for heavy vehicles and introduced the private health insurance rebate.
Meanwhile, Labor is missing in action on the issue of tax.

On the one hand, they claim that the tax cut is too small and that they will further reduce the overall tax burden.

How- ever, so far they have promised to fund their promises by opposing or reversing the gov- ernment’s tax cuts.

Labor are committed to opposing our international tax reforms which will make Australia more competitive as a regional centre.
Just earlier today the opposi- tion refused to pass reforms to the tax treat- ment of workers who are temporarily resi- dent in Australia.

Who does this hurt?

It hurts Australian employers who usually bear the cost of bringing nurses, engineers, occu- pational therapists and other professionals to Australia to fill jobs where there are identi- fied shortages.

The Labor Party oppose our reduction in the superannuation surcharge.

They want to abolish the baby bonus.


They still have not come clean on what they are going to do about the private health insur- ance rebate—and whatever commitments they give only last about as long as the ap- pointment and tenure of each successive shadow health minister.

And of course we all know that Labor have form when it comes to abolishing tax cuts.

Who can ever forget the disappearing l-a-w tax cuts after the 1993 election?
If ever we needed more evidence that La- bor cannot be trusted on tax we need look no further than the Labor state governments.

In Victoria the Bracks government has in- creased car registration and indexed hun- dreds of fees and fines to the CPI.

In South Australia the Rann government has slugged every household $30 a year.

In Western Aus- tralia the Gallop government has increased stamp duty on property transfers.
In Queen- sland the Beattie government has introduced a new $88 tax on all electricity account hold- ers.

We have Labor’s promises to oppose or reverse at least three key tax cuts of the gov- ernment.

Whoever leads the Labor Party, they are and always will be a party of higher taxes on hardworking Australian families.

When it comes to Labor promises, don’t lis- ten to what Labor says, watch what Labor does.

Labor stands for higher taxes.


The only party with any commitment to removing the tax burden from ordinary Australians is the government.

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS The PRESIDENT—Order!

I draw the at- tention of honourable senators to the pres- ence in the President’s gallery of distin- guished former senator the Rev.

John Wood- ley.

Welcome back, John.

Nothing has CHAMBER 11640 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 changed much since you left.

It is good to see you here.

Honourable senators—Hear, hear!


QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Taxation: Family Payments Senator MARK BISHOP (2.09 p.m.)— My question is to the Minister for Family and Community Services, Senator Vanstone.
Can the minister confirm that, on current estimates, 651,000 families will receive fam- ily debts averaging $851 as a result of incor- rect family payments made last financial year—no fewer debts than the previous fi- nancial year despite her claims that, as fami- lies became accustomed to the system, debts would drop?
Why has the minister’s depart- ment now advised the Prime Minister that overpayments will fall this year by approxi- mately 200,000 as a result of the so-called more choices package when just 77,000 families have in fact taken up the package?

When is the minister going to admit that her family payments system is fundamentally flawed?
Senator VANSTONE—I thank the sena- tor for the opportunity given to me by his question to yet again point out the tremen- dous increase in payments to families by this government.

The amount we spend now is something like $11 billion a year in support for families, something the previous gov- ernment never did.

I pointed out in my an- swer to a question yesterday what a substan- tial increase in support to families there has been under this government.
There has been a change and, three years later, we still have the Labor Party asking about it because they still have not cottoned on.

The change is to an annual payment to families, where families in one set of cir- cumstances, with the same income and the same number of children of the same age, will get the same amount of money.

If Labor wants to market itself as a party of equity treatment, it will support a system where families in the same position with the same income get the same assistance.
This system will allow for an advance payment of that annual payment, to be paid out fortnightly, based on a customer’s estimate of income.

Just as with the tax system, where some peo- ple get a refund cheque and some people get a letter saying, ‘You owe us more,’ so it is with the family tax benefit system.
Some people will have underestimated their in- come and because they have actually earned more than that they will obviously get less support, because under this system the richer people get less and the poorer people get more.

They would therefore need to pay some money back.


I did not hear the good senator refer in his question to the hundreds of thousands of families who overestimate their income, find out they have earned less at the end of the year and, under this system, get a top-up in a way that they never did in the past.

Hundreds of thousands of families are getting a top-up.
We regard a system, Senator—through you, Mr President—where families in the same circumstances with the same income get the same amount of money as a fair and equita- ble system.

We do not regard it as flawed; we regard it as a fair and equitable system.

It is a massive change from the way things used to be, Senator, with a complicated range of payments now down to two or three much simpler payments.
It is a change whereby entitlement is not based on your position on a fortnightly basis but on an annual basis.

It is aligned with the tax system.

As long as this system stays in place, just as with the tax system, there will be people at the end of the year who get a top-up and there will be peo- ple at the end of the year who have an over- payment and who will probably either pay that back directly, if they can afford to, or will treat it as a down-payment on next year’s very generous payments.
I remind CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11641 you, Senator, that the average payment to a family is over $5,000 tax free.

I recall that members opposite raised in this chamber the case of a man on an income of around $30,000 who has seven children.

He gets something like $25,000 tax free under this system.

It is a very fair system and a very generous system, clouded for the public, I might say, by misconceptions carried into the community by Labor.
Senator MARK BISHOP—Mr Presi- dent, I ask a supplementary question.

Can the minister explain why the average level of family payment debts has risen by around $20 since the first year in which the system operated?

Why is the minister’s department refusing to consider any changes to family payment rules when the number of families in debt has not dropped and the amount of debt each family owes is rising each year?
Senator VANSTONE—I note that the senator still refers to these as debts—in one sense they are; it is money that has to be paid back—but that terminology of course con- ceals that a family in the same set of circum- stances as the family next door has more money than the family next door.

I do not think that is equitable.

If you are in the same set of circumstances as the family next door—with the same income and with the same number of kids of the same ages—you should get the same amount of money.
And if you have received more money, you should pay it back.

Medicare: Bulk-Billing Senator EGGLESTON (2.15 p.m.)—My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Kay Patterson.

Will the minister outline to the Senate how the How- ard government’s A Fairer Medicare package addresses the need to assist GPs to bulk-bill while remaining fiscally responsible?

Is the minister aware of any alternative unfunded proposals for Medicare that will increase the financial burden on Australian families?
Senator PATTERSON—I thank Senator Eggleston and acknowledge his interest in health and his significant background as a medical practitioner.

The $917 million fully funded package of measures is to strengthen Medicare to make it more accessible and more affordable.

The Labor Party never cared a skerrick about accessibility.

They refused to address the issue.

There were too few doctors in rural areas and too few doc- tors in outer metropolitan areas; the doctors were clustered in the metropolitan areas.
This is a package about access and afforda- bility.

We identified that there was an equity problem in the way Medicare currently oper- ates.

Patients’ costs for visiting a GP de- pended more on where they lived than on their ability to pay.

That is why we devel- oped significant scaling incentives to GPs, depending on their location, to bulk-bill some or all of their patients.

The level of incentives rises substantially the more re- mote the practice is.
They range from an av- erage of $3,500 to an average of $22,050 each year.

Those GPs who participate in the General Practice Access Scheme and whose practices are located in an urban area of work force shortage will also be eligible for assistance to employ a practice nurse.

The government will provide $8,000 payment per full-time GP up to a maximum of $40,000 to hire a nurse for the practice.
It has been es- timated by some people that a full-time prac- tice nurse relieves a doctor’s practice of about the equivalent of 0.5 of a medical prac- titioner.

This package has been fully costed and, unlike Labor’s alternative, it is not coming out of a deficit budget, which they are very good running.

It is not coming out of an in- crease in existing taxes.

It is not coming out of the abolition of the private health insur- ance rebate.
Senator Coonan referred to that CHAMBER 11642 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 a moment ago in answer to a question.

Mr Crean has to come clean and tell the Austra- lian public—those people who have private health insurance—whether they will be do- ing anything with the rebate.

They ought to come out and commit.

He keeps saying that they have a health policy.

He has a portion of a policy.


He has not admitted or told the Aus- tralian public what he is going to do about private health insurance or what they are going to do about the private health insur- ance rebate.

The Howard government has addressed the need to assist GPs to bulk-bill by provid- ing a raft of measures and incentives to make the majority of GPs better off while, more importantly, remaining fiscally responsible.
On the other hand we have the Labor Party, who have recently announced their untar- geted $1.9 billion-dollar package that is un- funded.

Whilst only retaining a number of our measures, they have provided no real incentives to get doctors into areas of work force shortage.

They have provided a very expensive package which, as I said, is un- funded.

There are a number of taxes and rebates we know they have indicated that they will target to raise the funds.
Will they increase the Medicare levy to fund their proposal?

They have indicated on more than several occasions that this is a proposal worth con- sidering—it depends on who is at the helm at the time, and they get corrected from time to time by Mr Crean.

Let me state that, for each half of a percentage point rise in the 1.5 per cent levy, a family with a household income of $50,000 faces an extra tax burden of $250 a year.
If they wind back the 30 per cent pri- vate health insurance rebate, it will result in a tax rise for nine million Australians covered by private health insurance.

The Labor Party has stated that it has the 30 per cent rebate under review.

Abolishing the rebate will cost between $750 and $850 per year for a family covered by private health insurance.

Will they take it off ancillaries?

Doing that would mean Australian families would be $230 a year worse off.
How will Mr Crean justify this to the 1.14 million Australians over the age of 60 who rely on access to ancillary benefits to enhance their quality of life with optometry, dentistry, physiotherapy et cetera?

It is an important preventative measure against hospital admission.

They would lose that benefit if Labor tampered with the pri- vate health insurance rebate.
(Time expired) Social Welfare: Pensions and Benefits Senator HOGG (2.20 p.m.)—My ques- tion is to the Minister for Family and Com- munity services, Senator Vanstone.

Is the government currently conducting a review of family tax benefit rules?

Who is conducting this review?

Can the minister confirm the Prime Minister’s public statement that it is the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet that has taken this policy area out of the hands of her department?
Can the minis- ter explain why this review has not been en- trusted to her own department, given her re- sponsibility for the payment?

How should the Prime Minister’s confirmation that his department is undertaking a review be con- sidered with evidence from her department’s officers at budget estimates hearings that ‘change is not being contemplated’?

Senator VANSTONE—I thank the sena- tor for his question.
I will not repeat what I have said about the benefits of this system, which pays $2 billion extra to families.

Senator Carr—What about the review?

You’ve got to get to the question!

Senator VANSTONE—Just loosen your jocks, Senator.

I am answering a question from someone behind you, not you.

Just give him a chance to listen to his answer.

He asked the question.

I believe him to be genu- ine.

I believe he is interested in the answer.


If you will just pipe down, I will be able to give CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11643 him the answer.

Senator Hogg, you asked about a review and referred to some state- ments made in estimates about no change being contemplated.

Let me have a look at those because I will be able to see the con- text in which someone gave you that answer.

It has been clearly understood for a very long time that the government is looking at work and family pressures.
Of course, in looking at work and family pressures we will be looking at all family payments.

It is in the context of work and family that any aspects touching families—which would include family tax benefit A and B—are being looked at by a task force which is being chaired by PM&C and which includes my department, DEWR and some others.

There is no big news here.

There is a task force looking at work and family.

It is an interde- partmental task force.


It is chaired by Prime Minister and Cabinet— Senator Jacinta Collins—But your own officers told us!

Senator VANSTONE—Senator, I do not know what you sold before you came in here, but the voice matches one particular occupation.

Senator Hogg, that is the answer to your question.

Senator HOGG—Mr President, in view of that answer, I have a supplementary ques- tion.
Is the minister aware of comments by Alan Jones on 4 June 2003 about the minis- ter’s responsiveness on portfolio issues?

He said: Well there’s no point—I can tell you—talking to Amanda Vanstone.

Every time I write to her you get eventually an arrogant and dismissive reply, which I have to say I return with an equally arro- gant and dismissive reply.

She is a complete waste of time, Amanda Vanstone, and a person with her lack of sensitivity towards these issues shouldn’t be in this important Portfolio.
Is this the real reason further review of the family payments debacle has been taken over by the Prime Minister when his favourite broadcaster describes the minister as arro- gant and dismissive?

Senator VANSTONE—Senator, your question provides me with an opportunity that I will decline, other than to say that I was not aware that the Labor Party took character references from Alan Jones.

I can assure you that I will never be applying for a job where I seek one from him.
Women: Domestic Violence Senator STOTT DESPOJA (2.24 p.m.)—My question is also addressed to the Minister for Family and Community Ser- vices and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women, Senator Vanstone.

Is the minister aware of the 10 June edition of the Bulletin which profiles the high level of domestic violence in Aus- tralia?
Are she and the government also aware of the follow-up edition in which the Bulletin printed an open letter to the minister, entitled ‘Shame on you, Senator’, where they discussed the government’s decision to take $10.1 million out of the domestic violence prevention budget and put it into fridge mag- net production?
Is the government aware that this has been described as an ‘absurdity’ by the Bulletin, which says: How a government that claims to care about this issue could even contemplate underspending on domestic violence is beyond explanation.

Can the minister give us an explanation for that decision in the budget and also give the Senate an assurance that that $10 million will be put back into the budget?
Senator VANSTONE—I thank the sena- tor for the question because it gives me the opportunity to address some misconceptions repeated by the Bulletin—whether they cre- ated them or not, I cannot say; others in this place may have had a hand in that.

Let me make one thing clear: there are no services for women suffering from the effects of do- CHAMBER 11644 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 mestic violence that are in any way affected by the PADV funding.
PADV is a Common- wealth initiative of $50 million to find better ways of preventing and responding to do- mestic violence.

We committed $50 million and we will spend $50 million.

The senator asked me: can I confirm that this money will be put back?

If the senator was a genius at looking at budget statements, I think she would be able to see that that is the case and that that is there.

She nods.
She nods.

I do not know whether she is acknowledging that she sort of implied she could not read the budget pa- pers but now understands that it is there.

In any event, the bottom line is this: the $50 million was committed, and the $50 million will be spent.

With respect to the Bulletin, I would have thought a magazine of that standing would have known the facts in the first place and certainly would have bothered to check them so they did not create a fundamental misun- derstanding.
The misunderstanding is this: services to women who have suffered from domestic violence are paid for by the states.

It is a state criminal offence to beat someone up behind closed doors, and the states deal with it.

The Commonwealth some time ago said, ‘We will help you find new and innova- tive ways of dealing with this.
That money is not for recurrent funding of services but rather to find these new and innovative ways of dealing with and preventing domestic vio- lence.’ As to the spending on those recurrent services, I might point out—and I would have pointed this out to the Bulletin if they had bothered to ring and make some inquir- ies to get their facts right—that the Com- monwealth does of course assist the states in some of the funding for domestic violence, namely through funding for SAAP, the Sup- ported Accommodation Assistance Program.
That provides shelters, which of course as you know, Senator, are a much-needed re- sponse to domestic violence once it has sadly happened and we have not been able to pre- vent it.

The Commonwealth has had a very significant increase in its last SAAP agree- ment with the states, an increase which I note has not been matched by one single state.

Senator STOTT DESPOJA—Mr Presi- dent, I ask a supplementary question.

I thank the minister for her answer, and I seek clari- fication.
The minister’s answer implied that the $10 million that was claimed to have been underspent is in fact being spent as part of that $50 million program.

Could the min- ister advise the Senate: is it the case that that $10 million will be used as part of the do- mestic violence prevention program and that the overall budget will not be diminished by the $10 million as a consequence of the budget changes?
Will the senator give an assurance to the Senate that any further pro- grams will be implemented fully and that all funds that are allocated towards those pro- grams will be spent accordingly?

Senator VANSTONE—I thank you, Senator.

My advice is that this is clear in the budget papers.

If you have missed it, I am sorry.


I will get some advice as to how clear it is, but in any event, to save you the bother of going to the budget papers or just in case it is not clear in the budget papers, let me repeat what I have said to you and the an- swer I gave you a minute ago—and that was: $50 million has been committed and $50 million will be spent.
But let me also make clear to you that I have a commitment to this issue that goes well beyond simply saying, ‘We have spent this money.’ I will not sign off on projects if I do not think they are go- ing to deliver appropriate outcomes.

I would rather defer the spending of the money and get a better project and get a better outcome for the money than say, ‘Quickly, let’s spend the money this year.’ We made a $50 million commitment and we will spend it, as I said in my answer.
But you can be sure of this: we CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11645 will be spending it on projects that I believe are worth spending it on.

(Time expired) Environment: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Senator McLUCAS (2.30 p.m.)—My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer.
Does the minister recall her media release of 6 June 2003, or 11 days ago, in relation to the Howard government’s broken promise made in June 2000 to marine tourism operators that it would not collect the GST on the environ- mental management charge, or reef tax?
Didn’t this media release state: The Government has recently been advised that audit activity by the Australian Tax Office has revealed that there appears to be confusion or misunderstanding about whether the cost of the EMC should form part of the GST supply in tour- ism operators’ ticket prices.
Can the minister now confirm that she had representations made to her on behalf of Adrenalin Dive from Townsville on 27 Au- gust and 10 September 2002, or some 10 months ago, in relation to the application of the GST on the reef tax?

How then can the minister say that she was only recently ad- vised of the problem, and what is the Minis- ter for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer do- ing to assure marine park tourism operators that they will not have to pay this tax on a tax?
Senator COONAN—The EMC is not subject to GST when paid by the tourism operators.

The government agreed that it would make a determination under division 81 of the GST act which exempts various Australian taxes, fees and charges from GST.

The EMC is listed on the division 81 deter- mination.

This means that GST does not ap- ply to the EMC when it is paid by the opera- tors to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
However, as I indicated in my press release of 6 June 2003: The Government has recently been advised that audit activity by the Australian Tax Office has revealed that there appears to be confusion or misunderstanding about whether the cost of the EMC should form part of the GST supply in tour- ism operators’ ticket prices … It would appear that different approaches may have been used by various operators in the industry and, considering that significant unpaid GST liabilities may have accrued, the government is seeking urgent meetings, as I said in my press release, with representatives of the industry and the ATO to determine the extent and indeed the impact of any confu- sion.
As I said in my press release, the gov- ernment will work quickly with the industry to gain an appreciation of the extent of any problem and will look at what options may be available to determine an appropriate way forward.

It is an example of the government listening to the concerns that are brought to it, not ignoring them but trying to gain an appreciation of where some confusion may have existed in the application of the law.
There has been a significant transition time from the GST but the government does un- derstand that occasionally these matters may not be fully understood and may not be ap- preciated and that it is appropriate that the government consults with the industry so that these confusions can be cleared up and a determination made about an appropriate way forward.

Senator McLUCAS—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.
Doesn’t the minis- ter’s media release also say: Senator Coonan said that the Government will work quickly with the industry to gain an appre- ciation of the extent of any problem … Why has it taken so long for this minister to gain an appreciation of the problem when the industry has been telling her of this for over 10 months?

Why hasn’t the minister deliv- ered on the Howard government’s promise to CHAMBER 11646 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 stop the tax office collecting the GST on the reef tax?
Senator COONAN—The government has listened to these concerns that have very recently—I think about a week ago—been brought to my attention; it was when I issued a press release.

I think I have known about this matter for about a week, and there is a meeting later this week to determine the strategy to take the matter forward.
It is en- tirely appropriate that we should do this and indeed it is very rare that you get a turn- around of that kind of speed: within one week that industry identifies an issue, there is a press release and a strategy devised to deal with the problem.

I cannot imagine that Senator McLucas, when she thinks about it for more than a moment, could have any criticism of that.
Science: Stem Cell Research Senator MURPHY (2.35 p.m.)—My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Tour- ism and Resources, and it relates to the risk management regimes of and for the National Stem Cell Centre which was established last year.
Given that taxpayers have invested some $43½ million in this centre, can the minister inform the Senate whether or not the Commonwealth has any legal obligations in respect of any dispute that may arise between the NSCC and participating organisations or third parties over intellectual property or the commercialisation of intellectual property or research outcomes?
Senator MINCHIN—The Common- wealth and the National Stem Cell Centre, the NSCC, did sign a deed of agreement es- tablishing the Biotechnology Centre of Ex- cellence on 30 May this year.

Under that executed deed of agreement, the centre is defined as the Biotechnology Centre of Ex- cellence.
The centre will be operated by the centre institution, which is defined as Na- tional Stem Cell Centre Ltd, the NSCC, and includes the directors, officers, employees, agents and subcontractors of this centre insti- tution where that is relevant.

So the NSCC is a not-for-profit company limited by guaran- tee which is governed by the Corporations Act.
The NSCC will enter into agreements with participating organisations and an affili- ated commercial entity of the NSCC in order to carry out the NSCC’s obligations under the deed executed with the Commonwealth.
That recently signed deed of agreement re- quired the company to have appropriate pri- vate insurance to protect itself, and I am ad- vised that National Stem Cell Centre Ltd, which operates and has responsibility for the Biotechnology Centre of Excellence, is a company in its own right and that the Com- monwealth has absolutely no liability for its activities.

Senator MURPHY—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.
Given the Com- monwealth has the right, as I understand it, to approve or disapprove commercialisation arrangements, why wouldn’t the Common- wealth have some legal responsibility if the NSCC were sued?

Senator MINCHIN—I do not know that I can add much more to what I have said.
The Commonwealth has executed this deed of agreement with the National Stem Cell Centre to operate the Biotechnology Centre of Excellence and the liability, as I am ad- vised, under the deed of agreement does rest with National Stem Cell Centre Ltd.

If there is any alteration to that in relation to your question, I will advise you as soon as I can.

But I am confident that there is no liability on the Commonwealth; it rests with the NSCC under the deed.
Budget: Superannuation Senator SHERRY (2.37 p.m.)—My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Revenue, Senator Coonan.

Can CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11647 the Taxation Office the Assistant Treasurer confirm that the budget papers contain a new revenue meas- ure of $325 million over four years from de- parting nonresidents voluntarily transferring their superannuation back to their home country?
Can the Assistant Treasurer confirm is desperately that searching the world to attempt to find over one million former visitors to Australia, such as students, backpackers and various profes- sionals to encourage them to transfer their superannuation so that the tax office can col- lect up to 40 per cent tax?

Just five weeks after the budget was handed down, can the minister confirm that this tax revenue will be collected?
Senator COONAN—The announcement in the government’s superannuation election statement, A Better Superannuation System, allows persons from 1 July 2002 who have entered Australia on an eligible temporary visa to access superannuation benefits upon permanent departure.

The particular eligible temporary visas are listed in the Superannua- tion Industry (Supervision) Regulations and the Retirement Savings Account Regulations.
The measure does not extend to departing Australian citizens or permanent residents because, although these individuals may leave the country, they retain the option of retiring in Australia and accessing the age pension.

Similarly, the measure is not in- tended to apply to New Zealand citizens working in Australia as they also have the option of retiring here and accessing the age pension.
The situation is that there certainly is pro- vision in the budget to deal with this measure and to allow those departing Australia per- manently, in the categories that I have men- tioned, to access their superannuation.
In fact, as Senator Sherry identified in esti- mates, there have been various efforts and initiatives undertaken, particularly by the Department of Immigration and Multicul- tural and Indigenous Affairs, to identify those who otherwise may be eligible to con- tact them so that they may be made aware of this measure.

At the moment, it is not en- tirely clear just how easy it will be to identify those who have already departed.
The measures that are in place will cer- tainly enable those who can be identified to make the claim in respect of their super once they have departed permanently.

It is an ini- tiative which is to be commended because there is really little point in having those who do not need to save for their retirement in this country having their funds tied up here, because when they have departed Australia permanently they incur fees, charges and administrative costs to retain those moneys here.
So it is a sensible measure to enable those who are departing permanently to be able to access their superannuation and the framework will be carefully monitored so that the best possible efforts will be made to identify those who can claim.

Senator SHERRY—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.

I note the minister said that it is not entirely clear and she could not confirm that the tax revenue will be col- lected.
Given that Treasury has admitted in Senate estimates that its estimated take-up rate of 80 per cent will need to be down- graded—it might be somewhat difficult to contact one million visitors when you do not have their addresses—possibly to 20 per cent.

How does the government propose to make up the resulting shortfall of some $245 million in funding its superannuation poli- cies?

Senator Kemp—We have policies, Nick, and you haven’t.

How about your shortfall in funding?

You have got no policy.


Senator COONAN—As usual, Senator Sherry pre-empts an outcome without know- ing the facts and without having the vaguest idea of the basis on which he puts his ques- CHAMBER 11648 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 tion.

As Senator Kemp reminds us, at least we have some superannuation policies.

Sena- tor Sherry’s blank piece of paper remains obstinately blank, just like most of those on the other side when it comes to superannua- tion.

Senator Sherry is worried about reve- nue.


What he could do is pass the reduction in the surcharge so that those who are bur- dened unfairly in respect of superannuation can in fact access a measure that will give them some tax benefits.

Senator Sherry—Mr President, I raise a point of order on relevance.

My question went to the issue of whether or not the minis- ter believes that the budget paper revenue estimates to collect this tax from overseas departing residents will in fact be collected.
She is not answering the question.

Rele- vance!

The PRESIDENT—You know the an- swer to that as well as I do, Senator Sherry.

There is no point of order.

Environment: Murray-Darling River System Senator FERRIS (2.43 p.m.)—My ques- tion is to the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Ian Macdonald.
Would the minister outline to the Senate re- cent steps that the Howard government has taken to address water and environmental issues in the Murray-Darling Basin, and is the minister aware of any alternative policy approaches?

Senator IAN MACDONALD—Senator Ferris is a South Australian and I know she has a very keen interest in the Murray- Darling River system.

She will know that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission was formed 100 years ago to address concerns about the river system.
It is currently led by a ministerial council consisting of three federal ministers—Mr Truss is chairman; Dr Kemp, as the Minister for the Environment and Heritage; and me, as Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation.

There are also nine state and territory ministers on the council—all Labor of course—and they are there because the states are the ones with responsibility and jurisdiction to allocate water resources.
There are well documented concerns with the Murray-Darling Basin which have been scientifically assessed over many years, and they are highlighted as well by a very sig- nificant community consultation process that has been initiated by the ministerial council.
At our last meeting in May, the council en- dorsed the Living Murray initiative and we agreed that at our November meeting we would consider a first-step decision which would mean no loss to existing water users but would get some environmental flows into the river and would consider the socioeco- nomic impacts of some possible solutions.

But questions of water allocation are not those that the Commonwealth can address; they are questions that really have to be ad- dressed by the states.
I am asked whether I am aware of any al- ternatives.

I did hear the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr Crean, make a bit of a statement after the budget.

He came up with a policy for the Murray-Darling.

It appears that this issue eventually came to his atten- tion after he visited the Murray mouth, ap- parently for the very first time ever.

With this new-found interest in the Murray-Darling he announced a new deal.
He is going to restore enough environmental flow to keep the mouth open—not enough flow, obviously, to address the other critical issues of the Murray-Darling Basin, but he will find enough to keep the mouth open.
There is not a word about where he is going to get it from, not a word on how he is going to get the state Labor governments to restrict allo- cations to find the water that he is going to use to keep the mouth open, and not a men- tion, I might add, of the huge socioeconomic CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11649 implications which can destroy farms and communities.

How is Mr Crean going to do this?

Have a look at his speech in reply to the budget.

He does have a simple solution.


He is going to do it by preventing drought.

That is how he is going to do it.

He is going to prevent droughts in the future.

I know he can pluck roosters, as Senator Conroy can well attest, but how is he going to prevent droughts?

He is going to do that by ratifying a treaty—by signing a bit of paper.

By signing that paper he is going to stop all droughts in the future.

Never mind the disadvantage to Australian industry or workers’ jobs.
I might add that it will not have any environmental impact, be- cause the big greenhouse emitters—the USA, Russia, China and India—are not re- stricted by this treaty.

But he is going to do it by stopping drought and by throwing in $150 million.

He does not say what that is for or where it comes from.

As the respected radio commentator and former Labor environment minister, Graham Richardson, said about this proposal: You are not going to save the Murray with $150 million, that’s for sure.
It needs a hell of a lot more than that but mostly it needs state govern- ments to change water policy and federal gov- ernments just can’t do that.

If that is what passes for Labor policy, bring back Kim Beazley.

(Time expired) Medicare: Bulk-Billing Senator HUTCHINS (2.48 p.m.)—Is the minister aware of comments recently made by the member for Parramatta that Austra- lians forced to pay for their own health care were ‘whingers’ who made him want to throw up?
Isn’t it the case that the Parliamen- tary Secretary for Family and Community Services has publicly confirmed, firstly, that under the government’s unfair Medicare package Australian families will pay more for seeing a doctor, and, secondly, that the government believes that they should just stop whingeing about the collapse of bulk- billing?

Senator PATTERSON—The issue of Medicare, particularly primary health care delivery, has concerned me since I became health minister.
As I said earlier in answer to a question from Senator Eggleston, when I looked very closely at the data I was very concerned about the inequity of access and affordability for people on very low incomes, particularly people who had health care cards.

Labor had never cared about that— they had done nothing about it.
We inherited, as I have said over and again in this chamber, a maldistribution of general practitioners— far too many in the city, where we had very high bulk-billing rates, and too few in the country and outer metropolitan areas.

Bulk- billing rates were very much reflected by the number of doctors in those areas.

Labor never cared about it.


I will not be so unkind as to say that that they did not care about it in rural areas because they have fewer constitu- ents there, but senators have a responsibility to constituents in rural areas.

I found that there were people who had very low incomes who had never seen the likes of a bulk-billing doctor.
It did not seem fair to me that someone on our salaries or on my salary could be bulk-billed in downtown Camberwell and that people in rural centres had never ever seen a bulk-billing doctor.

We introduced legislation to increase the likeli- hood of people on health care cards being bulk-billed by introducing targeted incen- tives to increase the likelihood of people on health care cards being bulk-billed.
We have done an assessment which shows that the vast majority of doctors, if they were to sign up to the package, would be better off.

I am not going to make a comment about people’s views about paying for health.

We have one of the best health systems in the CHAMBER 11650 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 world.

For example, under the Pharmaceuti- cal Benefits Scheme people with a health care card pay $3.70 for the most commonly prescribed medications which cost $80 per person per month.
We have just introduced onto the PBS a medication that costs about $26,000 per person per year.

That is the level of assistance that people are getting under our health scheme—paying $3.70 on a health care card and paying $23.10 if they are not until they reach the safety net.

It is a very generous scheme.


But it will be very vulnerable if we do not care for it and look after it and if we do not make sure that people understand the huge benefits that they receive from the taxpayer through the MBS rebate for general practitioners’ services, through the MBS rebate for specialist ser- vices, through the PBS and through the $42 billion we are offering the states for their public hospitals.

It is an enormous contribu- tion to health from the public purse.
Austra- lians understand and appreciate it, but we all have to understand that it is going up at a significant rate, particularly the PBS.

I call on the Senate to reconsider the legislation before the chamber and to look at the modest increase the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to ensure that all our health sys- tem—across Medicare, the PBS, general practice, specialists and public hospitals—is affordable.

in Senator HUTCHINS—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.
Is the Minister for Health and Ageing aware that the busi- ness manager of a Melbourne general prac- tice has endorsed the government’s Medicare package for the reason that ‘the key advan- tage of the coalition plan was that participat- ing practices could offset the cost of bulk- billing concessional patients by charging other patients extra’?

Is not this expert con- firmation of what the member for Parramatta was saying: that most families will pay more for medical services under the Howard gov- ernment?
Why won’t the government admit what health experts, doctors and many health patients already know: that its proposed ‘swipe card’ arrangement will make it possi- ble for doctors to charge copayments for pa- tients whom they currently bulk-bill and eas- ier for doctors to increase their existing fees for everyone else?
Senator PATTERSON—Senator Hut- chins has been very busy looking after issues relating to leadership in his party, but he has not been out in the community to find out what the community actually thinks.
If he were to go out into the community and talk to people whose doctors choose not to bulk- bill them—and there have always been, since the inception of Medicare, doctors who choose not to bulk-bill all of their patients, some of their patients, a majority of their patients or only those patients who have re- cently come to their practice—and if he were to go to a Medicare office and talk to the people standing waiting to get their Medicare rebate, they would say to him: ‘Why do I have to do this?
Why do I have to wait for my Medicare rebate in the mail if I choose to send it in by post?

Why do I have to go down to the Medicare office for my rebate?’ Sena- tor Hutchins and those on the other side have been so busy and so preoccupied with their leadership that they have failed to go out and listen to what people are saying.

That is what they are saying, and they will remind them that they do not want to have to go to a Medicare office to get their rebate.
Social Welfare: Gambling Senator ALLISON (2.54 p.m.)—My question is to the Assistant Treasurer.

Can the Assistant Treasurer explain why the Commonwealth Grants Commission effec- tively encourages the WA and the ACT gov- ernments to increase the revenue they raise from gambling?

Does this not make a mock- ery of the Prime Minister’s promise in 1999 CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11651 that the Commonwealth would lead the way in solving problem gambling?
Why won’t the government offer the state grants com- missions incentives to reduce their reliance on gambling revenue?

Senator COONAN—Thank you, Senator Allison, for the question.

It is not my portfo- lio.

Senator ALLISON—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.

Can the Assistant Treasurer advise which department then takes care of the Commonwealth Grants Commission matters?

It is my understanding it is Treasury.

Senator COONAN—It is Senator Minchin’s portfolio.

Senator Allison—Senator Minchin?


The PRESIDENT—Senator Allison, I do not think you can redirect your question.

Health: General Practitioners Senator MARSHALL (2.55 p.m.)—My question is to Senator Patterson, the Minister for Health and Ageing.

Can the minister con- firm that in the last week of May the gov- ernment made an extraordinary payment to- talling $30 million to 4,600 general practi- tioners throughout Australia with no strings attached—an average payment of $6,800 for each general practice?
Is it not the case that, while the government claims that this money is to assist doctors to upgrade their patient records, there will be no requirement for doctors to use the money to improve patient records, no accountability or acquittal for this $30 million and no mechanism by which the money will have to be repaid to the gov- ernment if the upgrading of patient records is not done?
Isn’t the complete lack of account- ability for this end-of-financial-year gift to doctors the reason that some doctors have described the payment as ‘money for jam’?

Senator went through this issue quite extensively in esti- PATTERSON—We mates.

I do not know whether the honourable senator has sat down—and he should have— and read all those estimates questions: Sena- tor McLucas’s long questions and Senator Nettle’s long questions.
They will be very entertaining for him to read when he has nothing to do on a long plane journey.

I pre- sume he has not read them.

I do not think he was there and I did not expect him to be there because he is not a member of that committee.

We did give doctors funding for IT.


Hon- ourable senators might have read this morn- ing in the IT section of the Australian—it might have been the Age—that general prac- titioners are further ahead than most other sections of the health care industry in work- ing towards being computerised.
It is impor- tant to have computerised information in a general practice, and we are ensuring that with our practice incentive payments which go only to doctors who have been accredited as practice incentive payment general practi- tioners.

That means they have to go through an accreditation process and be involved in delivering better health outcomes in terms of asthma programs and mental health pro- grams, which the Labor Party never cared about.
They never funded doctors to deliver outcomes for people to manage chronic dis- like diabetes, asthma and mental eases health.

The practitioners who have taken up the Practice Incentive Program do things like recalling patients for pap smears or for extra visits for their asthma programs.

This money came out of the PIP program and it was to assist doctors in upgrading, entering or im- proving their data.
There will be further funding for which they will be required to give evidence that they have used that fund- ing and how they are going to use the future funding.

The funding was to ensure that we have doctors as up to date as possible to reduce red tape.

That is an issue that they have been CHAMBER 11652 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 concerned about.

We now have a task force in my department, with various PM&C rep- resentatives, to reduce red tape.
The doctors argue that, as these programs have devel- oped, they have increased their administra- tive load.

This will be reduced the more that they are computerised.

In fact, I went to a practice recently on the North Coast of New South Wales.

The young doctor there has computerised her whole practice and also the Practice Incentive Program.

She said that she does not see that she has a red tape problem.
So we need to simplify the Practice Incentive Program and make sure general practitioners are as up to date as possible with their IT, because we will then be able to deliver better primary health care and better outcomes.

That is what we are interested in.

The sort of thing the Labor Party are focusing on is the level of bulk-billing and that seems to be the only issue that they have in their health pol- icy.

Senator MARSHALL—Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.
Minister, isn’t it the case that the $30 million payment to doctors was made indiscriminately to all reg- istered practices, whether or not the practice already had fully computerised records or, in fact, had no other electronic records at all?

Isn’t it also the case that, if the government had not rushed to splurge this $30 million of taxpayers’ money before the end of this fi- nancial year, the money could have been spent on other health priorities?
Would this money not have been better spent paying for the equivalent of 1.2 million bulk-billed GP consultations?

Senator PATTERSON—As I indicated, this money was to assist practices that needed to get further up to date, to reward practices that got up to date and also to en- sure that we have general practice as highly ITed and as highly up to date in terms of their computerisation as possible because it assists them in spending more time with their patients.
As health minister, I want to assist them to do that—rather than filling out forms—to be able to be with their patients and have practices whereby they can recall their patients who are due for checks on dia- betes or for cervical screening and all the other things that general practices ought to be doing in terms of improving health out- comes for Australians.

Senator Hill—Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: ADDITIONAL ANSWERS Immigration: Ministerial Discretion Senator ELLISON (Western Australia— Minister for Justice and Customs) (3.01 p.m.)—Yesterday I took a question on notice from Senator Wong in relation to questions relating to the minister for immigration.

I now have that information and I seek leave to table it as well as to incorporate the an- swer in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The answer read as follows— Mr Hand—81 cases.

Senator Bolkus—311 cases.


Mr Ruddock—1751 cases as at 30 April 2003, according to current departmental records.

There are no data available for the period that Senator Ray was responsible minister.

the Agriculture: Sugar Industry Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queen- sland—Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) (3.01 p.m.)—Yesterday Sena- tor Bishop asked me a question about the sugar industry reform program and excep- tional circumstances.
I referred that to Mr Truss and I can advise that, when assessing applications for the sugar industry reform program and exceptional circumstances re- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11653 lief, Centrelink takes all forms of income, including DVA pensions, into account when determining rates of payment.

I should add that veterans can access business support elements of the exceptional circumstances package and also interest rate subsidies of- fered under the sugar industry reform pack- age.
For exceptional circumstances, veterans can access the interim interest rate relief and also, when an area is declared in full EC, they can access interest rate subsidies of up to $100,000 per year over two years.

Under the sugar industry reform package, veterans are entitled to access interest rate subsidies on loans of up to $50,000 to meet expenses incurred in the planting of sugar cane.

Fur- ther advice is available from Centrelink on 1800 050 585.
In relation to the supplemen- tary question, Centrelink does not maintain statistics for pensions that may contribute to rejection of an application or reduction of assistance.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS Medicare: Bulk-Billing Senator HUTCHINS (New South Wales) (3.03 p.m.)—I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Health and Ageing (Senator Patterson) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hutchins today relating to Medicare and the decline in the rate of bulk billing.

This afternoon I asked the Minister for Health and Ageing a question in relation to Medicare and bulk-billing.
I asked, in par- ticular, a question in reference to a statement made by the member for Parramatta, Mr Ross Cameron, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services.

In May of this year, for some unknown reason, Mr Cameron de- cided he needed his profile raised a little bit and he went and, no doubt, sought out Mr Matt Price from the Australian to add to the situation that the coalition was trying to fos- ter in its changes to both health and educa- tion.
Mr Cameron said that baby boomers made him sick; they made him want to throw up.

He said he was prepared to risk unpopularity in his electorate because of these baby boomers who think they can get a free ride in both education and health.

He said—I do not know for what reason; maybe he is compet- ing for some sort of vacancy that may occur in the government’s front bench—this made him absolutely throw up.
I will tell you what made people in his electorate throw up: the fact that he decided to go and broadcast this in the Australian.

For all I know, he was try- ing to impress some sort of intelligentsia, but I am sure he did not think people in Par- ramatta read the Australian.

Unfortunately for him, the people who go and visit Dr Greg Lahood at the Oaklands general practice in Parramatta do.

The people who queue up to see Dr Lahood on occasion to be treated for their medical problems do.
One thing about Dr Lahood that you do not know about, Mr Deputy President, is this: Dr Lahood is a bulk-biller and is Mr Cameron’s family doctor.

There is our Rosco queuing up, like everybody else who needs to be attended by a doctor, with his Medicare card, getting it flashed over the counter.

That is our parliamentary secretary for family and community services.

That is our parliamen- tary secretary who said baby boomers make him want to throw up.
That is the man we have identified today as one of the hypocrites that we see all too often— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT—I think you need to withdraw that, Senator Hutchins.

Senator HUTCHINS—I will withdraw ‘hypocrite’, Mr Deputy President.

Scroung- ers like Mr Cameron, the member for Par- ramatta, think they can say these comments CHAMBER 11654 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 in the Australian and not have constituents in Parramatta let me know about it.
You would be surprised, Mr Deputy President, at the number of men and women—who, like Mr Cameron, use Dr Lahood as their general practitioner and who go to him because he is a bulk-biller—and how incensed and out- raged they were when they saw Mr Cam- eron’s comments.

Because Mr Cameron said people like them make him throw up—and there he is, queuing up like everybody else to get free medical care.

But it does not end there.


If you look at Mr Cameron’s contribu- tion to the parliamentary diaries and biogra- phies, you will see Mr Cameron, who said people who go after free health and educa- tion make him throw up, is a graduate of the University of Sydney in both economics and law.

Let me tell you about Mr Cameron, who is to the manor born.

He does not come from any poor or struggling background; he is well and truly to the manor born, like a num- ber of our colleagues on the other side.
Mr Cameron paid one year’s HECS for his dual degrees, which we estimate would have cost about $100,000.

He paid for one year—the largesse of this man, who is dripping in money and who was born to it!

Let me tell you why he did that.

He felt a bit of shame about the hundred grand that he had ripped out of the system so he donated $2,000 to the education department to support his convic- tion that students should pay for their educa- tion.
So here we have this scrounger who not only goes to the bulk-billers in his own elec- torate but also has bludged on the system to have his education paid for—free.
(Time ex- pired) Senator BARNETT (Tasmania) (3.08 p.m.)—I stand to respond to this motion to take note of answers, and I refute categori- cally and in total the words and allegations thrown at a member of the House of Repre- sentatives, the federal member for Par- ramatta, Mr Ross Cameron, who is a decent, honest, hardworking and very effective member of this government.
Not only that, I believe that some of Senator Hutchins’s words were unparliamentary, Mr Deputy President, particularly the word ‘scrounger’.

I did not take a point of order at the time be- cause I knew I would have the opportunity to respond.

I think the words were totally inap- propriate and I think an apology should be offered to the member for Parramatta, Ross Cameron.

Senator Hutchins, you highlighted the fact that, of his own free will, Mr Cameron paid that one-year HECS fee.
He did that because of his own views that it would be in the best interests of this nation and in the public in- terest, so I commend him for that.

He is a man who stands up for an incentive approach and smaller government and lower taxes, unlike those on the other side.

In fact, Sena- tor Hutchins is acting like a wounded bull this afternoon because he clearly backed the wrong horse yesterday, and that has shown up in his salacious allegations against the Hon.
Ross Cameron, the federal member for Parramatta.

If you truly believe the wild allegations made by the Labor Party and some in the media with respect to this government’s po- sition on bulk-billing, you will think that we have actually cut funding to Medicare.

What nonsense.

Those opposite know it is non- sense because it is on the record that the pro- posal is for a $917 million injection into bulk-billing and Medicare and to ensure there are more GPs in rural and regional Australia.
That is the condemnation that will be on their own heads.

It is totally inappro- priate to say these things when they know the facts.

I say ‘res ipsa loquitur’—the facts speak for themselves: a proposal to increase funding by nearly a billion dollars.

But ac- cording to the Labor Party and those others opposite who oppose this proposal we are CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11655 cutting or slashing funding to Medicare and bulk-billing.
With respect to the Medicare rebate, let us have a look at the record since 1996 and then at the record under Labor.

Under the coali- tion government, the Medicare rebate for a standard consultation has increased by $4.20, or 20 per cent.

But what about under Labor?

In the last six years of the Labor government the Medicare rebate for a standard consulta- tion rose by only $1.70, or less than nine per cent.

Those on the other side were talking about hypocrisy; they should take some of that medicine.
We stand on our record of a 20 per cent increase compared with Labor’s nine per cent.

Remember that in Australia today seven out of 10 services to the GP are still bulk- billed.

All Australians visit their GPs, to the tune of almost $2.8 billion last calendar year.

I want to highlight the fact that we are trying to get GP and medical services into rural and regional areas.
Under this package, in places like Ross, Oatlands, Queenstown and St Hel- ens, in Tasmania, we are giving $22,000 ex- tra every year to those GPs who sign up.

That is vital for those rural and regional ar- eas to ensure that those health services are provided.

Why won’t Labor support it?

In towns like Launceston, Burnie and Devon- port $18,500 is being provided to those GPs who sign up.

Come on, let’s get real; let’s get support for this package.
With respect to in- creasing the number of doctors, 234 new medical places have just been announced.

I congratulate Senator Kay Patterson, the Min- ister for Health and Ageing, on that an- nouncement.

It is good news for Tasmania.

We have an extra 21 places, bringing the to- tal up to 83 new medical places at the Uni- versity of Tasmania.

I spoke to Professor Allan Carmichael only last week about it.

How pleased are they?


They are very pleased with this initia- tive and the new medical places at the Uni- versity of Tasmania.

Of course, Western Aus- tralian and Queensland universities are fal- ling over themselves with delight because of the new services being offered in those states.

(Time expired).

Senator WEBBER (Western Australia) (3.13 p.m.)—I rise to contribute to this mo- tion to take note of answers.
It is often the case in this place that we have quite a pro- tracted debate about the delivery of health care services because it is one of the funda- mental differences between our side of poli- tics and those opposite.

When we engage in this debate, we often have the minister prat- tle on about how the federal government are paying their way and how they are doing this fantastic job and the problem is that the states do not commit enough money, that they underspend and that they are cutting spending.
Have I got news for the minister: over the past three years in my home state of Western Australia, the Western Australian state gov- ernment has increased funding to the health budget by an average of seven per cent per annum.

That is an enormous real increase as well as a numerical increase.

In fact, in the next financial year Western Australia will increase its health budget by over 9.5 per cent.
These are all figures that are on the public record; yet the minister comes in here and bleats about how she cannot get a com- mitment up-front from the states and about how they are going to fund the delivery of health care services.

This is at a time when she is reducing her commitment to the deliv- ery of health care services and is placing added pressure on our Medicare system.
In the year 1999-2000, which is the latest year for which data is available, the Com- monwealth spent $1,227 per person on health services in Western Australia compared to $1,370 per person nationally.

It would seem CHAMBER 11656 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 there is a bit of an underspend from the fed- eral government in my home state.
If the Commonwealth had spent the national aver- age in Western Australia, then it would have provided approximately $30 million more for the delivery of health care services in that year alone.

Similarly, in 2001-02 Common- wealth expenditure in Western Australia un- der the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, another scheme that everyone should be fa- miliar with, averaged $189 per Western Aus- tralian compared to the national average of $214 per person.
So how is it that the minis- ter can keep coming in here saying that the problem is always with the states, that they are not committed to the delivery of health care services and that she is doing such a fantastic job?

Add to that the decline in bulk-billing rates throughout Western Australia.

Bulk- billing rates nationally have declined by about 12 per cent.
In Western Australia the electorate that has been hardest hit with the decline is the electorate of O’Connor where you are lucky to have access to GP services anyway, never mind being able to find a doc- tor that bulk-bills.

Add to that the difficulties that people have in the electorate of Kalgoor- lie.
If you go further north than the town of Geraldton, which is only a five-hour drive from Perth—so you can imagine there is a huge distance to go after that—you will not find the delivery of GP or private health care services anywhere.

Every bit of the provision of health care services is done by salaried doctors or through the public hospital sys- tem.
Another area of disadvantage that Western Australians face at the hands of the Com- monwealth government is in the allocation of HECS based domestic medicine places—and I am glad that Senator Barnett brought that up.

In the year 2000, for example, the Com- monwealth government allocated only 125 commencing undergraduate medicine places to Western Australian universities compared to 148 places allocated to South Australia.
South Australia, I do not need to remind you, is a much smaller size and has a much smaller population than Western Australia.

The minister with great fanfare announced recently that Western Australia would be allocated an additional 40 places in the new round—20 to the University of Western Aus- tralia and 20 to the full fee private University of Notre Dame.

An extra 40 places does not go anywhere near the number of doctors we need to deliver health care services through- out Western Australia.
One of the other areas having a significant impact on the delivery of health care services is the funding crisis in the area of aged care.

In Western Australia the state government expects to pay for 29,030 bed days in the hospital system for care-awaiting-placement patients this year.
(Time expired) Senator HUMPHRIES (Australian Capi- tal Territory) (3.18 p.m.)—This debate is supposed to be about the answers of the Min- ister for Health and Ageing to questions about the health care system, but so far it seems to have been an opportunity, firstly, for Senator Hutchins to make a fairly vis- ceral attack on the member for Parramatta and, secondly, for Senator Webber to engage in some special pleading for Western Austra- lia.
I would prefer that the Senate focused on the real issues inherent in the minister’s an- swers to questions today, which are the fu- ture funding of public hospitals in Australia and the future of the Medicare system as a way of Australians being able to access es- sential health services both from GPs and in hospitals.
What the government has announced in recent weeks constitutes, I think, the most significant platform of improvements and reforms that this parliament—certainly this country—has seen in a very long time.

It has CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11657 been met characteristically on the part of the Labor Party by a complete wall of deception those and misinformation about what changes represent.
We have seen Labor claiming—and I have only this week in the ACT seen literature from Labor members— that under the government’s reforms bulk- billing will be available only for concession card holders.

We all know that is not true.

The government is especially placing re- sources at the disposal of doctors to encour- age them to ensure that their concession card holders are universally bulk-billed.
There is nothing in this package that affects the ca- pacity of doctors to bulk-bill other patients who come through their doors.

Indeed, measures like the simplification of claims arrangements and the simplification of red tape associated with doctors’ practices will mean that doctors have the capacity to bulk- bill more of their patients because it will be administratively easier to do so.
We heard the claim from Senator Webber that Senator Patterson is reducing our com- mitment to the health system in the payments to Western Australia.

What absolute non- sense!

The minister has announced $917 mil- lion extra for Medicare in this country.

How is that a reduction in commitment to the health system?
She has announced $10 bil- lion extra for public hospitals in this country with the quite reasonable caveat attached to that spending that the states make some ef- fort to match that funding in light of the fact that we have seen in recent years a number of states take the opportunity of increased Commonwealth funding to withdraw or re- duce their own funding to their own services.
Then they have the temerity to turn around and blame the Commonwealth for the declin- ing availability of services in the public hos- pitals and in surgeries.

Anybody who cares about the quality of health care in this coun- try would have to see measures of the kind announced by the government as a very im- portant step in the right direction.
I think that what the member for Par- ramatta was saying is that those who can afford to pay should and the government should target its assistance to those who can- not.

The package the government has an- nounced is doing precisely that.

It is target- ing those people who are concession card holders and providing them with the access to GP services which they are not getting at the moment.
Let me remind members oppo- site that the decline in access to bulk-billing doctors is not a feature of this government; it has been a continuing feature since the earli- est days of the Medicare system.

It has been going on for a number of years.

Access to bulk-billing doctors was declining during the Hawke and Keating governments as well.

What has this government done, not just in this most recent announcement but before that, to improve health outcomes for Austra- lians?
We have increased spending on Medi- care by $2 billion, from $6 billion to $8 bil- lion.

We are investing $560 million in the Rural Health Strategy to target the health of rural and regional Australians.

We have committed $80 million to an outer metropoli- tan program to encourage more GPs into those areas.

Around seven out of 10 of all GP services are delivered at no cost to patients.

Close to eight out of every 10 GP services to patients aged 65 years and over are provided at no cost to the patient.
(Time expired).

Senator MARSHALL (Victoria) (3.23 p.m.)—I also rise to speak on the motion to take note of answers given by the Minister for Health and Ageing.

This is a government up to its neck in bad judgments and bad poli- cies when it comes to the health portfolio.
As we have heard today, the government has blown over $30 million by depositing an average payment of $6,800 into the bank accounts of general practices registered for CHAMBER 11658 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 the Practice Incentive Program, with nothing required or expected of them in return.

The government argues that this money is to be used to upgrade patient record systems so that they are computerised.
However, there is no mechanism at all by which the money will have to be repaid if practices do not up- grade their systems.

Effectively, over $30 million has been handed out for nothing in return.

This ‘no strings attached’ payment, as doctors have called it, is just money for jam.

It is an absolute disgrace.

While the government hands out untied grants to doctors, the nationwide rate of bulk-billing continues to decline.
In the March quarter, the rate of bulk-billing by GPs fell a further 1.1 percentage points to reach a new low of 68.5 per cent.

Since com- ing to office, the Howard government has presided over a system in which the rate of bulk-billing by GPs has fallen by more than 12 per cent and the average cost of seeing a doctor who does not bulk-bill has risen by more than 55 per cent.

Given these facts, $30 million in untied grants to doctors is an atro- cious policy decision.
$30 million would have been much better spent in funding over 1.2 million bulk-billing visits to the doctor.

This government has an awful track re- cord on funding priorities, particularly when it comes to the health portfolio.

It was re- cently revealed that $140,000 was spent by the government on consultancy fees to invent the Orwellian tag A Fairer Medicare and to sell the package to a sceptical Australian public.

Those funds alone could have been used to support more than 5,500 GP visits.
For a government that prides itself on sup- posed sound economic management, one can take little heart from the facts I have just pre- sented.

Moreover, the government has shown scant regard for the financial impact of its Medicare package, and is proceeding with it on the basis that it makes good ideological sense, not on the basis that it is sound eco- nomic and social policy.

The government has failed to take into account when formulating its package the likely inflationary effects of the policy.
It is blindly proceeding in the mere belief that fees will not rise, yet it has failed to produce any evidence or facts to support that belief.

As has been revealed, no regulatory im- pact statement has been prepared with re- spect to the so-called A Fairer Medicare package.

This is another disgrace, given that the package is the most fundamental change to Medicare in decades.
According to the Treasury, the RIS process is intended to en- sure that a comprehensive assessment of all policy options and associated costs and bene- fits is undertaken.

The information is then used to inform the decision making process.

In that regard, it provides a comprehensive check list that outlines public policy decision making best practice.

Why would the gov- ernment fail to produce such a statement if it were satisfied the policy were financially and socially sound?
I would suggest simply be- cause it is not satisfied that that is the case.

This government’s Medicare package is simply due to the Prime Minister’s funda- mental opposition to a universal health care system.

During the 1980s, Mr Howard la- belled Medicare ‘a miserable, cruel fraud’, ‘a scandal’, ‘a total and complete failure’, ‘a quagmire’, ‘a total disaster’, ‘a financial monster’ and ‘a human nightmare’.

He threatened to ‘pull Medicare right apart’ and to ‘get rid of the bulk-billing system’.
Bulk- billing, Mr Howard said, was an ‘absolute rort’.

The Howard government of 2003 is in the process of delivering on Mr Howard’s 1980s threats.

In contrast, Labor’s $1.5 billion Medicare plan will stem the catastrophic decline in bulk-billing and make it available for more Australians by immediately lifting the Medi- care patient rebate to 95 per cent of the CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11659 scheduled fee for all bulk-billed consulta- tions.
Labor would subsequently lift the Medicare patient rebate for all bulk-billed consultations to 100 per cent of the sched- uled fee.

Labor would offer doctors powerful financial incentives of up to $22,500 to meet bulk-billing targets which are realistic and achievable and would provide for more GPs in the areas that need them and more nurses to assist GPs in their work.

(Time expired) Question agreed to.


Social Welfare: Gambling (Victoria) Senator ALLISON (3.28 p.m.)—I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treas- urer (Senator Coonan) to a question without no- tice asked by Senator Allison today relating to revenue from gambling taxes.

I wish to challenge Senator Coonan on the issue of whose portfolio has responsibility for this matter.

I did a quick check of the web site for the Commonwealth Grants Commis- sion.
It says: Although references are provided by the Minister for Finance and Administration, their content is usually decided in negotiations between the Commonwealth and the States, conducted largely through their Treasuries.

Clearly, the Treasury is involved in the Commonwealth Grants Commission ar- rangements and the minister should have been able to answer my questions.

If we go to the Treasury web site, we will find similar information.

Commonwealth-state financial relations are within Treasury.
The web site says: Commonwealth-State Financial Relations Divi- sion provides advice on Commonwealth-State financial relations— as you would expect— fiscal developments in the States and Territories as well as the total public sector ... One of the reasons that the Assistant Treas- urer was reluctant to answer my question is that this government has done very little about problem gambling.
It is outrageous, particularly given the Prime Minister’s promise in 1999 that the federal government would take the lead on problem gambling.

We have a perfect vehicle through which to do that—that is, the Commonwealth Grants Commission—but there are no incentives whatsoever for states to relieve themselves of revenue raised from gambling.
There are no incentives to encourage states like New South Wales and Victoria, which have some of the highest per capita expenditures on gambling—there is nothing in the Grants Commission arrangements which would top up any efforts on the states’ part—to reduce gambling revenue.
We know that they are heavily dependent on that revenue to the point where the state government in Victoria has, according to reports, signed on for I think another 12 years with the two main poker machine providers in Victoria—a se- cret deal done without any sort of review of the existing arrangements with poker ma- chines and certainly made with no regard for whether or not the states were beginning to deal with problem gambling.

We know it is a problem.


The Productivity Commission said in 1999 that $3 billion a year was being spent by problem gamblers on gambling.

That was the figure that so out- raged the Prime Minister and encouraged him to do something about this scourge.

He said then that the Commonwealth would lead the way.

They have not; they have done nothing, in effect.


In fact, from when the Productivity Commission report and the data on which that report was based came out, up to 2001 we have had a 39 per cent increase in profits taken from poker machines in pubs alone.

We have had 10,000 extra machines put in two years after the Prime Minister made that commitment.

It is an outrage that CHAMBER 11660 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 the government is not seriously looking at this question.
There was a lot of hoo-ha and a lot of press when the Productivity Commis- sion report came out, so we saw a knee-jerk reaction.

We cannot even manage to spend the money which was set aside for research on this subject.

For two years the Common- wealth has been trying to organise a memo- randum of understanding between it and the Victorian state government just to conduct research.

No research has been done because we are still arguing about the arrangements for it.
So that money sits in a trust some- the Commonwealth where.

Meanwhile, promised that it would conduct a Ministerial Council on Gambling and they would meet every six months.

They have not met for al- most two years.

That is because the Minister for Family and Community Services decided to shove this off to an advisory body that she set up and stacked with industry people.
She then said to them, ‘You go off and work it out, and come back and tell us when you have reached an agreement on how we solve problem gambling.’ Of course, they could not because, as I said, it was stacked with industry people.

Their interests were diamet- rically opposed to one another.

It was never going to work.

Finally, the minister ac- knowledged this in an estimates hearing a couple of weeks ago.

No action has been taken on ATMs.


I con- gratulate, here and now, the National Austra- lia Bank for withdrawing its licences pro- gressively as they come due from poker ma- chine venues.

This is a terrific move but the Commonwealth and the Prime Minister promised that the federal government would start talks with financial institutions to get this under way across the board.

We have seen one bank do it and they did it voluntar- ily.

(Time expired) Question agreed to.
NOTICES Presentation Senator Stott Despoja and Senator Bolkus to move on Monday, 23 June 2003: (1) That the following matters be referred to the Legal and Constitutional References Committee for inquiry and report: (a) the most appropriate process for moving towards the establishment of an Australian republic with an Australian Head of State; and (b) alternative models for an Australian republic, with specific reference to: (i) the functions and powers of the Head of State, (ii) the method of selection and removal of the Head of State, and (2) That (iii) the relationship of the Head of the the executive, State with parliament and the judiciary.
the committee facilitate wide community participation in this inquiry hearings by throughout Australia, including in rural and regional areas.
conducting public Senator Ferguson to move on the next day of sitting: That the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade be authorised to hold a public meeting during the sitting of the Senate on Mon- day, 23 June 2003, from 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm, to take evidence for the committee’s inquiry into Australia’s relationship with Indonesia.
Senator Bolkus to move on the next day of sitting: That the Legal and Constitutional References Committee be authorised to hold a private meet- ing otherwise than in accordance with standing order 33(1) during the sitting of the Senate on Wednesday, 18 June 2003, from 5.50 pm.
Senator Ridgeway to move on the next day of sitting: That the Senate— CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11661 (a) notes that: (i) over 20 000 hectares of native forest is logged in Tasmania each year, (ii) Tasmania has the second highest rate of land clearing in Australia, (iii) the level of logging of native forests in Tasmania is threatening the natural and cultural heritage values of Tasmania and to increases in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, and is contributing (iv) earlier this year, El Grande, one of Australia’s trees, was largest damaged, and possibly killed, when a regeneration burn conducted by breached Tasmania Forestry containment lines in the Florentine Valley; (b) condemns Forestry Tasmania and the Tasmanian Forest Practices Board for their regulation of forestry operations and management of Tasmania’s native forests, in particular Forestry Tasmania’s conduct of management activities and the Tasmanian Forest Practices Board’s failure to ensure that a robust Forestry Practices effectively Code implemented; and is (c) calls on the Tasmanian Government to: (i) ensure logging of high conservation value old-growth ceases immediately, in accordance with the the Tasmania Together goals of process, forests (iii) review (ii) amend the Forestry Practices Code to ensure greater protection for the natural and cultural heritage values of Tasmania’s forests, and the and management the Tasmanian forestry sector to ensure that forestry operations are carried out in a more sustainable manner and with greater regard to the natural and cultural heritage values of Tasmania’s forests.
Senator Stott Despoja to move on the regulation of That the following bill be introduced: A bill for an Act to subsidise students’ purchases of educa- tional textbooks when studying at education insti- tutions, and for related purposes.

Textbook Sub- sidy Bill 2003.

Postponement Items of business were postponed as fol- lows: to for time the committee General business notice of motion no.
465 standing in the name of Senator Lees for 18 June 2003, relating to the introduction of the Social Security Amendment (Supporting Young Carers) Bill 2003, postponed till 26 June 2003.

General business notice of motion no.

471 standing in the name of the Chair of the Select Committee on Medicare (Senator McLucas) for today, relating to an extension of report, postponed till 19 June 2003.

General business notice of motion no.


473 standing in the name of Senator Ray for today, relating to the reference of a public the Parliamentary Standing work Committee on Public Works, postponed till 24 June 2003.

General business notice of motion no.
475 standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Faulkner) for today, proposing the establishment of a select committee on ministerial discretion in migration matters, postponed till 19 June 2003. to COMMITTEES Legal and Constitutional References Committee Meeting Senator BOLKUS (South Australia) (3.35 p.m.)—I move: That the Legal and Constitutional References Committee be authorised to hold a public meeting during the sitting of the Senate on Wednesday, 18 June 2003, from 6 pm, to take evidence for the committee’s inquiry into progress towards na- tional reconciliation.
next day of sitting: CHAMBER 11662 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Question agreed to.
Legal and Constitutional References Committee Reference Senator BOLKUS (South Australia) (3.35 p.m.)—I, and also on behalf of Senator Greig, move: That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional References Committee for inquiry and report by 3 March 2004: The capacity of current legal aid and access to justice arrangements to meet the community need for legal assistance, including: (a) the performance of current arrangements in achieving national equity and uniform justice across Australia, access including outer-metropolitan, in regional, rural and remote areas; to (b) the implications of current arrangements in particular types of matters, including criminal law matters, family law matters and civil law matters; and (c) the impact of current arrangements on the wider including community legal services, pro bono legal services, court and tribunal services and levels of self-representation.
community, Question agreed to.

NOTICES Postponement Senator FAULKNER (New South Wales—Leader of the Opposition in the Sen- ate) (3.36 p.m.)—by leave—At the request of Senator Bartlett, I move: That general business notice of motion no.

474 standing in his name for today, relating to the reference of a matter to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, be post- poned till the next day of sitting.

Question agreed to.
Question agreed to.

NATIONAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE REPOSITORY Return to Order Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Western Australia—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (3.37 p.m.)—by leave—I wish to make a statement on behalf of the Hon.

Peter McGauran, the Minister for Science.


The return to order arises from a motion moved by Senator Brown, as agreed by the Senate on 14 May 2003, and it relates to documents dated 1 January 2001 or later relating to the hiring out and work undertaken by the public relations company Hill and Knowlton on nuclear issues, including the nuclear waste repository.

I wish to inform the Senate that Minister McGauran is tabling the following documents from his portfolio: 1.
A letter from Lorraine White of the De- partment of Education, Science and Training to Hill and Knowlton dated 16 October 2002, inviting a tender submis- sion from Hill and Knowlton to provide public relations services surrounding the announcement of the decision of where to establish the national repository for the disposal of Australia’s low-level ra- dioactive waste.

2.

The Department of Education, Science and Training’s Public Relations Brief and Communication Strategy.

3.
3.

Hill and Knowlton’s overhead slides for presentation to the Department of Edu- cation, Science and Training dated Octo- ber 2002.

4.

Hill and Knowlton’s proposal to prepare a communication strategy dated October 2002.

5.

The Department of Education, Science and Training’s assessment of Hill and Knowlton’s submission.

CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11663 6.

A contract between the Commonwealth and Hill and Knowlton dated 13 Decem- ber 2003.

7.
7.

A letter from Grahame Cook, a Deputy Secretary of the Department of Educa- tion, Science and Training, to Hill and Knowlton dated 26 February 2003, re- cording the termination of the contract by mutual agreement.

8.

A letter from Hill and Knowlton to Mr Cook dated 27 February 2003 confirm- ing that the contract had been terminated by mutual agreement.

9.

A bundle of documents concerning the work undertaken by Hill and Knowlton during the term of the contract.
Minister McGauran, after giving regard to guidance on confidentiality claims issued by the Australian National Audit Office and the Department of Finance and Administration, and the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988, has deleted a small amount of the informa- tion contained in the following tabled docu- ments: • In Hill and Knowlton’s overhead presen- tation slides: the names of clients; per- sonal information and some commer- cially sensitive information of Hill and Knowlton and its consultants.
• • In the Department of Education, Science and Training’s summary and assessment of submitted proposals: information that would reveal tenderers’ clients and also some personal information of other indi- viduals.
In Hill and Knowlton’s proposal, and at the request of Hill and Knowlton: infor- mation that would be likely to result in the release of commercially sensitive and proprietary information to its com- petitors, constitute the commercially sensitive information of its consultants, • or else involve an inappropriate release of personal information.
In the bundle of documents detailing the work undertaken by Hill and Knowlton: policy advice to Minister McGauran, personal information, commercially sen- sitive information of consultants and an exchange of emails relating to the ob- taining of legal advice in relation to the Department of Education, Science and Training’s contract with Hill and Knowlton.

The minister has noted on the tabled copies of these documents the general nature of the deleted information and the reasons for the deletions.
The minister has not tabled: • briefs provided to him by his depart- ment, which are in the nature of policy advice to him in his capacity as minister; and • documents relating to financial viability checks undertaken by his department on Hill and Knowlton, which are commer- cial-in-confidence in nature.

I table the documents in response to the or- der.

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland) (3.42 p.m.)—I move: That the Senate take note of the documents.
With respect to the orders for production of documents, I note that in this instance the government has seen fit to provide docu- ments to Senator Brown, and the opposition makes no comment about that.

But the oppo- sition does have a number of orders for the production of documents that have been out- standing for some time.
This is the third time that I have raised this, but I will be bit more specific on this occasion now that Senator Ian Campbell is in the chamber and may be able to assist in ensuring that ministers un- derstand their responsibility in providing timely responses to orders for the production CHAMBER 11664 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 of documents or at least advice to the rele- vant opposition shadows about what the problem might be in complying with a par- ticular order.
We have a fortnight of sitting—we have gone halfway through this week and there is next week.

So I will give some assistance to Senator Campbell by taking a snapshot of a couple of orders.

In a gesture of goodwill, Senator Campbell might then be able to round up some of his ministers to meet the orders for production of documents rather than take up time in the chamber while we debate why the relevant ministers have not been able to provide them.

Senator Ferguson—You obviously were not here in 1995.
Senator LUDWIG—Some of them go back quite some time, but we will take a modern one then, as there is an interjection that some of them might be a little bit old.

One modern one is the ‘Environment: oceans policy’ order for production of documents.

It is a simple request, by the look of it at least, where the relevant senator is seeking the Re- view of the implementation of oceans policy: final report by TFG International, dated 25 October 2002.
In reality it seems to be quite a short re- quest in that all that is being sought is the review that must be part of the minister’s responsibility.

It is about an implementation of an oceans policy—quite an important mat- ter for the environment and quite an impor- tant matter that should be laid before this parliament.

It should be able to be produced.

It is No.

25, which may assist Senator Ian Campbell to follow it up.
To take a random selection of those orders and move away from the environment, another one might be No.

22, which is regarding the ethanol order for production in the transport portfolio.

That was also required to be laid on the table by Monday, 21 October 2002.

Although it is a little bit longer than a review of the imple- mentation of oceans policy, it does set out in some detail what is being sought.
I am sure Senator Ian Campbell will be able to at least convey to the relevant minister the require- ments that are being sought there by the rele- vant shadow minister.

To give one last example to make three that might be able to be attended to within this sitting fortnight, No.

27 relates to the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer dealing with a ministerial responsibility or- der for production of documents.
It is one that is now also somewhat old but still within the current period—it is dated 12 December 2002.

It relates to a matter that is under the responsibility of the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer, Senator Coonan.
I am sure that Senator Ian Campbell can en- courage the minister to provide at least an answer to that order for production of docu- ments rather than have me stand here and ask about all of them—which I will have to do unless at least some effort is made by the government to ensure that there is transpar- ency and accountability in the production of these documents or there is at least some communication with the relevant shadows about how they can comply and what the problems might be if there is a hold-up.
That sort of communication would be helpful, but if it is not forthcoming, I have chosen three at random that Senator Ian Campbell might be able to take on board and see within this relevant period if he can encourage his min- isters to produce them.

Senator BROWN (3.47 p.m.)—I thank the government for that quite voluminous return to order on Hill and Knowlton.

I note the minor exceptions that the minister has outlined.

I will have a look at those.


It may be in order for the minister to brief me off the public record if there are matters of secrecy that are important.

I would still like some further information on (Tasmania) CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11665 it, but I thank the government for the infor- mation.
Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Western Australia—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (3.48 p.m.)—In response to Sena- tor Ludwig, clearly there are a number of outstanding returns to order, but I think it would be inappropriate to leave the record uncorrected in terms of the government’s responses.

In my own experience—and I have delivered most of them—we have de- livered interim responses where we know we cannot comply.
If we know we cannot com- ply, our regular practice is to come in here, make an interim response and try to advise the Senate when we think we will be able to comply.

If you read through the outstanding list, there are a number in there that have basically become irrelevant by the passage of time.

Perhaps one of the things we need to look at is a procedure for clearing these off the Notice Paper.

I am informed that you could use a resolution to clear this material.

In particular, No.
In particular, No.

27, which is in relation to Senator Coonan, related to events that in my mind seem to have been resolved many months ago.

I also note that on page 37 of today’s Notice Paper there is a list of out- standing orders from previous parliaments.

One that comes to my attention is from 23 May 2001 and relates to HIH insurance.

This is a notice that relates to events that were obviously very topical at that time and that have since been investigated by a royal commission.
They were the subject of exten- sive investigation by the royal commission, an extensive and excellent expert report and announcements by the government to not only change the Corporations Law but to see the corporate regulator prosecute many of those offences.

It is clearly a matter that should no longer be on the Notice Paper.

It is just a matter of tidying it up.

In the general run of things, the government does seek to comply with Senate orders to the best of its capability and in a timely manner.
There are obvious ones where we have not been able to comply in a way that the Senate would pre- fer.

They are matters of contention that we have to deal with.

No.

22, in relation to etha- nol, is a continuing bone of contention for Senator Kerry O’Brien.

I have had the wrath of his displeasure in relation to that one.

I can say on behalf of the government that we assiduously ensure that the ministers are aware of their responsibilities and encourage them to comply as much as possible.
Question agreed to.

COMMITTEES Community Affairs References Committee Meeting Senator MACKAY (Tasmania) (3.51 p.m.)—At the request of the Chair of the Community Affairs References Committee, Senator Hutchins, I move: That the Community Affairs References Committee be authorised to hold a public meeting during the sitting of the Senate on Thursday, 19 June 2003, from 3.30 pm, to take evidence for the committee’s inquiry into poverty and financial hardship.

Question agreed to.
Select Committee on Superannuation Reference Senator MACKAY (Tasmania) (3.51 p.m.)—At the request of Senator Sherry, I move: That the draft Superannuation Industry (Su- pervision) Amendment Regulations 2003 and the draft Retirement Savings Accounts Amendment Regulations 2003 be referred to the Select Com- mittee on Superannuation for inquiry and report by 21 August 2003, with particular reference to: (a) the extent to which portability of superannuation benefits already exists; (b) the role of current, and likely future, barriers to portability, including exit fees; CHAMBER 11666 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (c) the desirability and practicality of the portability regime contained in the draft regulations, particularly in the context of the the superannuation and financial planning industries; and structures existing of (d) additional measures.
Question agreed to.

consumer protection NOTICES Postponement Senator BROWN p.m.)—by leave—I move: (Tasmania) (3.52 That business of the Senate notice of motion No.

2 standing in the name of Senator Brown for today, relating to the reference of matters to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, be postponed till the next day of sit- ting.

Question agreed to.

DOCUMENTS Auditor-General’s Reports Report No.


49 of 2002-03 The DEPUTY PRESIDENT—In accor- dance with the provisions of the Auditor- General Act 1997, I present the following report of the Auditor-General: Report No.

49 of 2002-03—Performance Audit—Australian Maritime Safety Authority: Management of the Navigation Aids Network.
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee Report: Responses to Senate Resolutions The DEPUTY PRESIDENT—I present a letter from the Auditor-General, Mr Barrett, relating to a resolution of the Senate request- ing the Auditor-General to respond to rec- ommendations in the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on materiel acquisition and management in Defence.
MIGRATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (PROTECTED INFORMATION) BILL 2003 HEALTH LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MEDICARE AND PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE) BILL 2003 First Reading Bills received from the House of Repre- sentatives.

Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Western Australia—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (3.54 p.m.)—I indicate to the Senate that those bills which have just been announced are being introduced together.
But, after debate on the motion for the sec- ond reading has been adjourned, I will be moving a motion to have the bills listed separately on the Notice Paper.

I move: That these bills may proceed without formali- ties, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.


Second Reading Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Western Australia—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (3.55 p.m.)—I table a revised ex- planatory memorandum relating to the Mi- gration Legislation Amendment (Protected Information) Bill 2003 and move: That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.
Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows— MIGRATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (PROTECTED INFORMATION) BILL 2002 This bill amends the Migration Act 1958 to give more effective protection to confidential informa- tion and ensure that section 503A operates as originally intended.
CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11667 Currently, section 503A of the act protects infor- mation that is communicated to an “authorised migration officer” by a “gazetted agency” where that information is: Communicated on the condition that it be treated as confidential; and Is relevant to the making of a decision to refuse or to cancel a visa on character grounds.
This existing statutory scheme of protection does not extend to protect the information where a non-citizen commences proceedings in the Fed- eral Court, or the Federal Magistrates Court, to review a character decision.

In such circumstances, my department must rely on a claim of public interest immunity to protect the information from disclosure.

If the court does not uphold the claim to immunity, then the infor- mation must be disclosed.
Any such disclosure would certainly put at risk the continued provision of this information in the future.

In some instances, it may even endanger the lives of sources.

The amendments in this bill ensure the protection of information where character decisions are chal- lenged in court proceedings.
If a person commences court proceedings chal- lenging an adverse character decision, then the amendments will: Limit the circumstances in which section 503A protected information can be disclosed to the Federal Court, or the Federal Magistrates Court; Enable the Federal Court and the Federal Magis- trates Court to use interim and permanent non- disclosure orders to protect information that is disclosed to them; Set out specific criteria to which the Federal Court and Federal Magistrates Court must have regard when considering the making of a perma- nent non-disclosure order; Allow these courts to revoke or vary its non- disclosure orders but only with the consent of both parties to the substantive proceedings; Make it an offence, punishable by two years’ im- prisonment, for anyone to engage in conduct that contravenes a non-disclosure order; Make it clear that the minister’s power to make a declaration authorising the disclosure of confi- dential information under subsection 503A(3) of the act is a non-compellable power, and provide that the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court have no power to review a decision by the minister not to exercise, or not to consider the exercise, of the power.
This will provide more effective protection for confidential information and will complement broader national and international strategies to counter major and transnational crime, including terrorism.

To add to these measures, the bill also contains amendments to ensure that section 503A operates as originally intended.
These amendments: Protect the source of confidential information (that is, the name of the gazetted agency) and any conditions on which the gazetted agency provides this information; Define gazetted agency in a way that ensures that the providers of confidential information are ap- propriately specified in the gazette notice; and Make it clear that information protected from disclosure under section 503A of the act is also exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
In summary, I believe that these amendments protect the national interest, by ensuring that in- telligence and law enforcement agencies can con- tinue to have confidence in Australia’s ability and willingness to protect their information.

These amendments are particularly relevant given the current security environment where it is vital that information provided by national security agencies is protected.

I commend the bill to the chamber.


————— HEALTH LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (MEDICARE AND PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE) BILL 2003 The Howard Government has committed $917 million to strengthen Australia’s universal health care system by making general practitioner ser- vices, and other out-of-hospital services, more available and more affordable.
CHAMBER 11668 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 The Fairer Medicare package will deliver better access by increasing the size of the medical work- force, particularly in outer metropolitan and rural areas.

Central to the package is the new General Prac- tice Access Scheme.

This Scheme will provide financial and other incentives to general practices that guarantee to provide medical care at no cost to patients who are covered by Commonwealth concession cards.
As is the case now, general practitioners will be free to bulk bill whomever they choose—but for the first time, the Govern- ment will provide an incentive to participating general practices to strengthen the availability of bulk billing for pensioners and Commonwealth concession card holders.

The Health Legislation Amendment (Medicare and Private Health Insurance) Bill 2003 contains measures to make medical services more afford- able.

The bill does this in three ways.


First, general practices that sign up to the General Practice Access Scheme will benefit from the convenience of new electronic billing arrange- ments.

The new arrangements will be more con- venient for both patients and general practitio- ners.

If the participating general practitioner chooses to charge a fee above the Medicare rebate or “gap”, as they can now, patients will have re- duced up-front costs.
Instead of paying the gen- eral practitioner’s full fee, then claiming back the Medicare rebate, patients assign their Medicare rebate to the general practitioner and only pay the gap.

Patients leave with no more to do and no more to pay.

Secondly, the bill safeguards people covered by a Commonwealth concession card against high out- of-hospital Medicare costs that add up over time.
The bill provides a new safety net whereby the Government covers 80% of out-of-pocket ex- penses to pensioners and Commonwealth conces- sion card holders when their cumulative out-of- pocket expenses for Medicare services is in ex- cess of $500 in a calendar year.

Out-of-hospital services for which a Medicare rebate is payable covers, for example, services by general practi- tioners and specialists, ultrasound, diagnostic, pathology and radiation oncology.
This new safety net provides an extra protection for the seven million Australians covered by a pension or a Commonwealth concession card.

Thirdly, this bill enables registered private health funds to offer insurance plans to cover all out-of- pocket expenses for out-of-hospital Medicare services in excess of $1000 in a calendar year.

This new private health insurance product will cover the same wide range of Medicare funded services as the concessional safety-net.
The Government’s 30% Rebate on private health insurance will apply to these new health insur- ance products.

It will not be necessary to have existing private health insurance cover in order to take out this new product.

At present, some 30,000 Australians face out-of-pocket costs of more than $1000 in a year for Medicare services.

For the first time people will be able to insure against unexpected out-of-hospital costs.
The Howard Government’s $917 million Fairer Medicare package delivers a simple, fair, afford- able Medicare system that provides health cover for all Australians.

The Health Legislation Amendment (Medicare and Private Health Insurance) Bill 2003 as part of the Howard Government’s integrated A Fairer Medicare package strengthens the original tenets of Medicare by increasing access and afforda- bility for all Australians.

Debate (on motion by Senator Mackay) adjourned.


Ordered that the bills be listed on the No- tice Paper as separate orders of the day.

BUSINESS Rearrangement Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Western Australia—Manager of Government Busi- ness in the Senate) (3.56 p.m.)—I move: That intervening business be postponed till af- ter consideration of government business order of the day No.

3 (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2]).

Question agreed to.


CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11669 AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (TERRORISM) BILL 2002 [No.

2] Second Reading Debate resumed from 13 May, on motion by Senator Ian Campbell: That this bill be now read a second time.

Senator FAULKNER (New South Wales—Leader of the Opposition in the Sen- ate) (3.56 p.m.)—I rise to speak on the Aus- tralian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2].
2].

Labor supports strong security laws to protect the Australian people from international terrorist threats.

That has been Labor’s consistent position since March 2002, when the first antiterrorism bills were introduced into parliament.

It is just over 21 months since the tragic events of 11 Septem- ber 2001 in the USA.

It is just over eight months since the terrorist atrocity in Bali on 12 October 2002.
Labor strongly supports the activities of our police and intelligence agencies in targeting terrorists and protecting Australians from terrorism.

In particular, we support the work of Australia’s police and intelligence agencies along with support from other countries in targeting terrorism in our region.

International cooperation is the most effective weapon against international terrorism.

We support the extra resources provided to our intelligence agencies in the budget.
Their ongoing work is an essential part of our defence against terrorism, and the oppo- sition welcomes extra resources being pro- vided to them.

Now that the newest form of international terrorism has shown its ugly face, we support sensible enhancements to ASIO’s powers to question people and to gather intelligence in relation to potential terrorist acts.

The threat of terrorism has brought home the realisation that distance from the front line is no guarantee of safety.
In fact, there is no front line against terrorism.

Labor has consistently argued that ASIO needed new powers.

We made that clear from the outset.

Our starting point in considering the ASIO bill was to ensure the right balance was struck between taking effective measures against terrorists and preserving Australia’s hard-won democratic freedoms.

Unfortu- nately, the government’s starting point was very different.
If they had taken a more re- sponsible and less political approach, the ASIO bill would not have been as controver- sial as it has been and ASIO would have been on the job with its new powers 12 months ago.

To illustrate my point, I would like to re- mind the Senate of what the provisions of the ASIO bill were when the bill was introduced on 21 March 2002—that is, what the gov- ernment said it really wanted.

The original bill did not place any age restrictions on who may be detained by ASIO.
It would have allowed ASIO to indefinitely detain any Aus- tralian without charge or even suspicion.

While detained, they could be strip searched, questioned for unlimited periods and pre- vented from contacting—even to say that they had been detained—family members, their employer or even a lawyer.

I remind the Senate that, under the government’s original ASIO bill, a 10-year-old girl could have been held in detention by ASIO in secret and alone.
The only concession was that a child’s parent would have to be present for the strip search.

The parent would then have to leave, and they did not have the right to be present during questioning.

What a farcical proposal!

That was an unbelievable position for the government to propose.

One can only won- der why such an irresponsible position was even written down, let alone presented as government legislation.
The detention would CHAMBER 11670 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 have been in secret and ASIO’s handling of these new powers would also have been kept a secret.

There were no proper review mechanisms and no review by the courts.

It is fair to say the original ASIO bill was perhaps the worst drafted bill ever intro- duced into the Australian parliament.

It would have given ASIO extraordinary pow- ers with almost no safeguards.
It would have made ASIO more like a secret police force than a specialist intelligence agency.

The government’s original ASIO bill proposed that people could be detained indefinitely incommunicado without access to legal ad- vice.

No other comparable Western country permits citizens who are not suspected of any offence to be detained in secret without ac- cess to a lawyer.

Why would Australia permit such a thing?


Quite reasonably, Labor asked: should we stop innocent people who are not even suspected of an offence having a lawyer when murder suspects or terrorists can have a lawyer while being questioned?

Our an- swer was a resounding no.

The United States and Britain do not, and Australia certainly should not.
We rejected the government’s incommunicado detention regime and in- sisted that anyone being questioned by ASIO should have access to legal advice for the duration of questioning.

Two scathing bipartisan committee reports in 2002 brought the government closer to reality on the ASIO bill.
When the ASIO bill was debated in December 2002, gone from the bill was the power for ASIO to detain and strip search young children, gone was the complete denial of legal representation and gone was the capacity for ASIO to hold someone indefinitely in secret.
But there were still some serious problems in the bill debated by both houses in December 2002, namely the absence of a sunset clause, the supervision of questioning by a legal officer of little standing, the absence of written pro- tocols governing how questioning would be conducted and, importantly, the absence of guaranteed legal representation.
In December 2002 the Senate offered the government significantly enhanced powers for ASIO, with a tough new questioning re- gime and equally strong protections for Aus- tralians who might find themselves subject to those powers.

The Senate’s main concerns were in relation to access to legal advice, the structure of the questioning regime and the exposure of young children to ASIO ques- tioning.
Yet, as the ASIO bill stood in March 2003, only three months ago, the government still did not want people being questioned by ASIO to have access to legal advice for the first two days of their detention.

It still wanted to keep them in secret.

This approach would compromise one of the fundamental principles of our system of justice: the right to legal advice of choice when being ques- tioned.

We are glad the government has now come to its senses on this matter.
The opposition argued that the period and conditions of questioning should be compa- rable to those permitted under the Crimes Act and to those used by other agencies whose task is to investigate crime.

We pro- posed an alternative compulsory questioning regime which, in the most extreme circum- stances, would allow for a person to be ques- tioned for up to 20 hours.
We made it clear that it was 20 hours of actual questioning which could, once breaks for rest, meals and legal advice were taken into account, add up to more than two days in custody in an ex- ceptional case.

We welcome the govern- ment’s changed approach on this matter and support the government’s proposal for ques- tioning to be conducted, if absolutely neces- sary, over three separate eight-hour question- ing periods.
I note that, according to the pro- tocols, the maximum period of continuous questioning would be limited to four hours with breaks for meals, rest and other normal personal requirements.

However, we do not CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11671 believe the maximum period of detention should be seven days.

Given that the abso- lute maximum time for questioning sessions would be 24 hours, the opposition think it far more reasonable to set the maximum time for detention at 72 hours.
Such a period would allow for sufficient rest for the subject during questioning and would also allow ASIO to cross-check and analyse the information pro- vided.

The opposition will be moving an amendment to set the maximum time for detention at 72 hours.

Labor did not accept that the govern- ment’s incommunicado detention regime should apply to children.

The initial proposal by the government had no age limit for de- tention and provided for strip searching of children as young as 10.
Under pressure from the scathing bipartisan parliamentary committee report, the government revised the ASIO bill to put in place a lower age limit for detention of 14.

The government claimed, in a two-hour burst of histrionics on 12 December last year, that Labor’s approach in the Senate was wrecking the bill.
We all saw the mock fury coming from Mr Howard, Senator Ellison and even Attorney-General Williams, but it was just so much political bluster as the government’s bottom line on the ASIO bill has become clearer.

The government has tried to play politics with the ASIO bill and it has failed.

Sensible and balanced editorials in the Australian and the Courier-Mail on 16 December and the Canberra Times on the 17 December dis- missed the government’s assertions.
Numer- ous independent observers, including some of this country’s most eminent lawyers were similarly appalled by the government’s ap- proach and argued that the government should have accepted sensible modifications to its bill.

Let there be no misunderstanding: the Howard government deliberately passed up the opportunity on 13 December to give ASIO strong powers to combat terrorism with equally strong safeguards to protect our democratic rights.

It left the public in the lurch for six whole months.
The government has always claimed that the bill is both nec- essary and urgent.

When it was introduced on 21 March last year, the Attorney-General said: The Howard government has been vigorously pursuing important measures to ensure that Aus- tralia is in the strongest possible position to pro- tect the Australian people and Australian interests.

The government stubbornly rejected sensible bipartisan recommendations from two par- liamentary committees.
The government re- jected amendments by the Senate that would have given ASIO strong powers coupled with strong safeguards.

I stress that the safe- guards the Senate was insisting on were no more than those which apply in similar coun- tries around the world.

The government waited another six weeks after parliament started this year to reintroduce the bill.

If the bill was so urgent, why was it not reintro- duced in early February this year?
Why did the government wait until the second last day before a six-week break to bring this bill on for debate in the House of Representatives?

When the ASIO bill back into the House on 12 De- cember, he said: This is an important bill that has become a test of commitment to the security of the nation.

Mark Riley from the Sydney Morning Herald was spot-on when, on 7 March, he wrote: It is clear the Government has failed Williams’ test.
Its chief commitment with this bill has been the security of its future electoral options.

The Prime Minister said on 13 December: If this bill does not go through and we are not able to clothe our intelligence agencies with this additional authority over the summer months it will be on the head of the Australian Labor Party and on nobody else’s head.
the Attorney-General brought CHAMBER 11672 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 In fact, the government withdrew the bill and then cynically waited for the full three months required to establish a double disso- lution trigger before reintroducing it.

In the interim, ASIO has never been so much in the media.

Reports of ASIO activities over the period 12 December to 12 March—the three months the bill was set aside—were in the media on most days.

ASIO was certainly very busy.


During those same three months, what was the government saying about the extremely important ASIO bill—the bill that had to be rushed through by Christmas to protect Australians over the summer months?

Nothing.

The Prime Minister did not mention it once.

The Attorney-General broke his si- lence on only one occasion when addressing a private gathering of Young Liberals in Ade- laide—but that was it.
Suddenly this suppos- edly very important bill slid off the govern- ment’s public agenda entirely.

The silence of the government on this most urgent of bills speaks volumes.

Once the ASIO bill was negatived in December, the Prime Minister did not want to talk about it.

He did not want to talk about it because he did not want to reintroduce the bill until it met the requirements of a double dissolution trigger.
Had the government accepted La- bor’s amendments when they were offered, ASIO’s new investigation powers would have been in place before Christmas last year with strong and appropriate safeguards to protect democratic freedoms.

Over the last five months, ASIO would have had the power to compel people to answer questions about possible terrorist activity.

ASIO would have been able to exercise that power with strong bipartisan support.
They could be us- ing those powers today to gather intelligence that could help prevent a terrorist attack on Australians.

Thanks to the government’s bloody-minded and politically-driven ap- proach, ASIO did not have that power be- cause of the government.

ASIO could not compel people to answer questions about possible terrorist attack.

Let me now turn to Labor’s approach to the bill and the government’s amendments, which have been circulated.
The bill before the Senate, with the government’s amend- ments, is a radically different bill to the one presented in March 2002.

It is a radically different bill in many ways, but let me high- light just six of them.

Gone from the bill is the power for ASIO to detain and strip search young children.

Gone is the denial of legal representation.

Gone is the capacity for ASIO to hold someone indefinitely.

Gone is the capacity for ASIO to hold someone in secret.
Included is high-level judicial super- vision.

Included are three strong review mechanisms, namely: a three-year sunset clause; a review by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD of the operation, effectiveness and implications of the act after three years; and a requirement for ASIO to provide detailed statistics in its annual report on the number of warrants, questioning times and the prescribed authori- ties who were used.

That report has been tabled in parliament.


The regime now being proposed by the government is more of a questioning regime than a detention regime.

Importantly, there is no secret incommunicado detention.

Labor has successfully insisted persons being ques- tioned by ASIO should have access to legal advice for the duration of questioning.

Labor has successfully insisted that young children are not exposed to this regime and that the age limit should be 16.
I might add that 16 is the age at which young adults acquire certain legal freedoms.

It is, for example, the age of consent.

It must be remembered that only 16- to 18-year-olds who are suspects—not non- suspects—can be questioned by ASIO.
We have successfully insisted that detention be supervised by former or current judges—that is, by experienced judicial experts independ- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11673 ent of ASIO, independent of the government of the day and not vulnerable to political pressure or prime ministerial displeasure.

We have successfully insisted on a sunset clause of three years.

The government wanted their regime to continue indefinitely.
A sunset clause will allow parliament to monitor the effectiveness of the regime and scrutinise any allegations of abuse of the regime.

We have successfully argued that ASIO’s new powers should be granted only for a limited time and that the necessity of having such powers on the statute books should be reas- sessed at regular intervals.
With the amendments we are moving to- day, the government has the opportunity to consider some outstanding matters covering the detention period: an appropriate offence to deal with unauthorised disclosure of in- formation, the removal of the reversal of the onus of proof in relation to two of the of- fences, and technical amendments dealing with lawyers and the onus of proof.

But I want to be up-front about our approach to this bill now that the government has made such significant compromises.
Labor’s bot- tom line is that Australia’s national security should be above party politics.

Labor has not played politics with the ASIO bill at any time, and we are not about to start now.

We have argued for significant changes to the bill and significant changes have been made.

These changes will ensure even greater confidence in the community in the operation of ASIO’s new powers.

We would still prefer other changes to this bill and we will propose amendments to achieve an even better outcome.
But I make it clear that the its opposition will not be amendments if the government rejects them.

We are urging the government to go the extra yard and address the areas of concern which still remain.

Given that we will not be insist- ing on the amendments, I acknowledge that there is no political necessity for the gov- insisting on ernment to do so.
But we want the govern- ment to give those matters serious considera- tion—they are serious amendments moved in good faith in an attempt to wrap up over 15 months of heated debate with a more biparti- san bill.

The opposition supports strong, balanced security laws to protect the Australian people from international terrorist threats.

We sup- port strengthening the capacity of ASIO to investigate potential terrorist activity.
Al- though the government’s proposals do not include every safeguard we would want in- cluded, we recognise that the bill now before the Senate is a massive improvement on the bill that was originally proposed in March 2002.

(Extension of time granted) It is a radi- cally different bill.

I urge the government now to go the extra yard and address the ar- eas of concern which still remain.

I hope that the government will see the sense of Labor’s amendments, and I commend this approach to the Senate.
Senator GREIG (Western Australia) (4.17 p.m.)—In December last year, the gov- ernment urged the parliament to pass the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2], which is once again before us, albeit altered somewhat, claiming that it was desperately needed to protect the Australian community over the summer months.

As we know, the bill was not then passed and Aus- tralians remained safe from terrorism none- theless.
In saying this, I do not want to sug- gest that we should take our safety for granted or fail to recognise that terrorism is random, indiscriminate and brutal.

There is no doubt that terrorism presents a very real threat to the Australian community and that, as a parliament, we have a responsibility or a duty to think carefully about how our deci- sions impact upon the safety and security of the government’s pre- all citizens.
But Christmas warning illustrates the way in CHAMBER 11674 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 which it has sought to radically increase its powers since the tragic events of September 11 two years ago.

Of course, events like September 11 and the subsequent Bali bombings frighten the community.

They remind us of the unpre- dictability of terrorism and the fact that Aus- tralians are not exempt or immune from such tragedies.
But, instead of seeking to alleviate this sense of insecurity, the Howard govern- ment has exploited that fear to some degree in a quest for increased powers.

It has tried to frighten us into believing that we must sacrifice our fundamental rights and liberties in order to be safe.

The truth is that human rights and civil liberties were established precisely to protect us from threats to life and freedom.
A world in which rights and liberties are respected is a world better equipped to meet the threat of terrorism.

One of the important themes to emerge from a number of submissions to the com- mittee’s inquiry into this bill was that if the government intended to mount such an as- sault on the rights and liberties of Australians then it bore the burden of proof to demon- strate why this was absolutely necessary.
In other words, it was for the government to show exactly why it needed these powers and how they would help to protect Austra- lians from the threat of terrorism.

More than a year after this bill was first introduced, the government has still not discharged this bur- den.

Perhaps this is because it simply cannot demonstrate a genuine need for such un- precedented and draconian powers.

The fact is that this legislation is not necessary to pro- tect Australians from terrorism.
That is not to deny the need for Australia to seriously examine and assess its intelli- gence capabilities.

Of course our intelligence agencies must be able to operate effectively to protect the safety and welfare of the com- munity.

But increasing their powers in the manner set out in this legislation is not, I believe, the answer.

The bill before us is poorly targeted and disproportionate.
It goes much further than any comparable jurisdic- tion has been prepared to go, yet the gov- ernment has presented no compelling case as to why this is necessary.

In a presentation hosted by the Parliamen- tary Library last year, Professor George Wil- liams warned that we should be wary of placing too much confidence in the ability of legislation to prevent terrorist acts.
While there may well be a need for some kind of legislative response, we must remember al- ways that the law is only one means by which to combat terrorism and that it clearly has limitations.

We must adopt a broad and comprehensive approach when assessing the capability of our intelligence agencies to prevent acts of terrorism.

A recent article in the Bulletin suggested that there are serious deficiencies in ASIO’s ability to protect Australia against terrorist attacks.
However, the article did not high- light the need for more extensive powers as the source of the problem.

Rather, it sug- gested that ASIO is suffering from a severe lack of resources.

Surprisingly, the resourc- ing of ASIO is an issue that has received very little or almost no attention in the de- bate over this legislation.
Without making any direct observation about ASIO’s funding on this occasion, what I would say to the government is that it should be very careful that it does not seek to address what is essen- tially a funding and staffing issue by radi- cally increasing the powers of ASIO’s cur- rent staff, particularly when such powers will enable ASIO to infringe well-established rights and liberties, because that is exactly what the legislation does.
Let us look for a moment at some of the more disturbing aspects of the bill.

Firstly, the bill will enable ASIO to detain individual CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11675 Australians incommunicado for up to a week for the purpose of interrogation.

They will have no right to silence and no privilege against self-incrimination.
Moreover, they will bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that they do not have the information ASIO is seeking, effectively reversing the presump- tion of innocence until proven guilty, which is a departure from established legal princi- ples.

While detainees will now have access to a lawyer of their choice—subject to a number of conditions—there is no obligation to inform them of this right when they are first brought before a prescribed authority.
Foreign nationals who might be detained will not be permitted to advise their embassy of their detention.

Those who require an in- terpreter will not be granted one upon re- quest, but will have to rely upon the assess- ment of the prescribed authority.

Of course, the government still wants this regime to apply to young people under the age of 18— indeed, 16 is the minimum benchmark.
Al- though the Democrats do welcome the gov- ernment’s amendments to exclude children under the age of 16 from the regime, we still maintain that it is unacceptable for the bill to apply to anyone under the age of 18.

Perhaps the most disturbing feature of this bill, certainly from our perspective, is that it applies to every Australian whether or not they are suspected of involvement in terrorist activity.
What this means is that, if there is a chance that you have some information that would be useful to ASIO, you can be de- tained against your will for interrogation.

You will have no right to silence and only a limited right to legal representation.

If you do not have the information ASIO is after, you will have to prove it and, if they do not believe you, they can keep you locked up for a week to continue interrogating you on this point.
And all of this would take place under the threat of five years in prison if you do not cooperate.

This is not the kind of Australia most Aus- tralians want to live in.

Like most Austra- lians, I want to be safe from terrorist attacks.

I want my family and my friends to be safe as well.
But I want to live freely—with dig- nity and respect for the rights and the liber- ties that ought to be a fundamental tenet of a healthy democracy—not under threat nor under intimidation whether from terrorists on the one hand or from intelligence agencies on the other.

I know that many Australians share this view.


Hundreds of them expressed their very real concerns in submissions to the various committee inquiries into the bill and hundreds of them wrote to me or telephoned my office, as I am sure they did to other senators in this place.
The Australian Labor Party have ex- pressed concerns about the application of this regime to non-suspects, and we hope that this is an indication that they will sup- port our amendment to reduce the scope of the bill by narrowing it to suspects only.

I would like to look for a moment at what some Labor MPs have said on this point.
In the second reading debate on this legislation in the House of Representatives, Mr Melham said: Terrorist suspects must be identified, hunted down and arrested—but only terrorist suspects.

Labor is determined to protect law-abiding Aus- tralians from grievous infringements of their rights.

On the same legislation, Ms Tanya Plibersek observed: ... it still ignores the fundamental principle that in Australia we do not drag non-suspects in off the street for questioning.
Remember that these peo- ple are not people who are suspected of crimes; they are people who are suspected of knowing something that might help ASIO.

As we begin to debate this bill for a second time, I indicate that the Democrats will give the Senate an opportunity to consider, debate and address what we argue is a fundamental CHAMBER 11676 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 flaw in the legislation.
The Democrats will move an amendment to restrict the applica- tion of this legislation, if it is to become law, to those suspected of involvement in terrorist activity, and I will argue strongly for the Senate to support that amendment.

The La- bor opposition has made it very clear that it opposes the interrogation of people who are not suspected of offences.

So I take the op- portunity to challenge Labor to vote accord- ingly.
This time round, we have the opportu- nity to address the most significant flaw in the legislation.

So I ask both the government and Labor, but Labor essentially, not to just complain about the bad aspects of the bill but to help us to fix it up.
The Democrats will once again move amendments which seek to ensure that peo- ple who are detained will be advised of their right to legal advice when they are first brought before a prescribed authority; that they will have access to an interpreter upon request; that foreign nationals will have the right to inform their embassy of their deten- tion; and that there are appropriate limita- tions on the way in which information ob- tained by ASIO can be used against the per- son who has provided it.
We are committed to protecting the rights and liberties of all Australians, and this will be at the forefront of our consideration of this bill.

Once again, I take the opportunity to ex- press the Democrats’ disappointment that Australia remains one of the very few com- mon law countries that lack a bill or charter of rights.

The debate around the ASIO legis- lation is taking place in that vacuum.
The government appears to be taking no action whatsoever to address this stark omission from our body of law.

The bill before us il- lustrates clearly that the rights and the liber- ties of Australians are not inalienable under our present arrangements but can be overrid- den by clear legislative intent.

It is precisely because bills of rights operate in other juris- dictions that those jurisdictions could not have enacted similar legislation, even if they had wanted to.
There is no compelling reason whatsoever why Australians should be ex- posed to potential derogations of their fun- damental rights and freedoms when the citi- zens of other common law countries are not.

In response to the terrorist attacks of Sep- tember 11, the Prime Minister made the observation that it would be: ... a terrible, tragic, obscene irony if, in respond- ing ... to these terrible, terrorist attacks, we for- sook the very things that we believed had been assaulted ...
The Democrats agree and believe that this bill is a terrible and an ironic response to those events.

It is misdirected and dispropor- tionate.

For these reasons, the Democrats will hold firm in our opposition to this legis- lation and heed the call of the many Austra- lians who rightly have called on the parlia- ment not to pass this legislation into law.

In closing I say in all seriousness that I do commend the government for their signifi- cant concessions.
I acknowledge them and I acknowledge, in particular, the role of the Senate in bringing that about.

It strikes me as important that, while the Prime Minister has in recent weeks criticised the Senate for its role and function, the legislation we have before us today, changed and amended as it has been over recent months, has come about as a direct result of the scrutiny, observation and intervention of the Senate.
I do not think anything else in recent times—certainly dur- ing my term in this place over the last four years—better illustrates the incredibly im- portant role that the Senate can and does play in modifying harsh legislation and in better voicing the views of the Australian people.
Senator SANDY MACDONALD (New South Wales) (4.30 p.m.)—I would like to speak briefly on the Australian Security In- telligence Organisation Legislation Amend- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11677 ment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2].

It is very important and I thank Senator McGauran for giving me the opportunity to speak, because time is of the essence here.
I cannot let Sena- tor Greig’s comments go without making the point that, while the Democrats might be- lieve that we live in an ideal world where we do not need security services, we do not.

We do unfortunately need security services.

There is no legislation that we could possibly put up, Senator Greig—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—that you would find acceptable, because it would still be completely alien to the sort of society you might hope to achieve but which is not the case.
Governments are about making deci- sions that are important for the Australian community—and, substantially, our political opponents agree with that.

They have been helpful in putting forward a number of pro- posals and amendments, some of which we have been able to accept and some of which we have not been able to accept.

This legislation will strengthen Australia’s counter-terrorism capabilities by enhancing ASIO’s investigative powers.
The tragic events of September 11 marked a fundamen- tal shift in the international security envi- ronment, and the more recent tragedy in Bali brought the realities of terrorism to our door- step.

The point that is always worth making is that the terrorist threat we are facing now is not a conventional terrorist threat.
Where once we were dealing with people who had a political agenda, now we are basically deal- ing with people who for one reason or an- other do not like us, do not like Western val- ues and do not wish to negotiate—they just want to kill us.

Never forget that.

I cannot understand why.

One can perhaps justify it in some way.

But these are not the conventional or traditional terrorist threats of the past that we understood.
These inexcusable atrocities show us that no country is safe from the devastation of terrorism and the terrorist acts that are in- flicted upon people.

You only have to look at the Amrozi evidence in the Bali trial over the last couple of days.

It shows how completely out of line with our way of thinking terror- ism is that he could have given the evidence he did.

He said he planted the bombs in Bali because there were a lot of Westerners there and he disagreed with the way Westerners lived their lives.
He wanted to kill people— indiscriminately.

That is the sort of threat that we are dealing with, and that unfortu- nately is the world in which we find our- selves since September 11.

The government has consistently taken a strong, decisive and balanced approach to strengthening Australia’s counter-terrorist capabilities.
On the legislative front, the government enacted a package of counter- terrorism legislation—which all senators would know, as it passed through this place last year—to ensure that Australia, through our law enforcement and intelligence agen- cies, is in the best possible position to protect Australians against the evils of terrorism.
This was in line with a number of UN resolu- tions, which Australia was a party to—one example that comes up quite frequently these days is the government’s capacity to pro- scribe terrorist organisations.

This bill is part of that legislative package.

Its primary purpose is to protect our commu- nity.


In developing this legislation, the gov- ernment has been conscious of the need to protect our community from the threat of terrorism without unfairly or unnecessarily encroaching on the individual rights and lib- erties that are fundamental to our democratic process.

I want to make that perfectly clear.


This is a very fine act; it strikes the right bal- ance with the legislation as well as with the law enforcement agencies and the people who run the intelligence agencies—all of whom, in my experience, are first rate, well trained and committed and have a very keen CHAMBER 11678 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 understanding of the rights and liberties in the legislative program under which they operate.
In the process of developing this bill, the government has done everything it can to ensure that concerns raised about the bill were taken into consideration; the govern- ment has included significant safeguards in the bill to ensure that rights and liberties are appropriately protected; and the government has made significant amendments to the bill to address concerns that have been raised.
For example, in an effort to achieve opposi- tion support for the bill we have agreed to a three-year sunset clause, despite the fact that we definitely do not believe that a sunset clause is appropriate.

But in the interests of getting the legislation through we listened to the opposition’s concern about this and pro- vided a sunset clause.

It is messy, but it was provided because it is in the interests of the community that the bill be passed.
The opposition has continued to insist on amendments to the bill that would render it operationally unworkable.

In an attempt to break this deadlock for the sake of commu- nity safety, the government has developed a set of amendments that address the opposi- tion’s key sticking points without destroying, we believe, the workability of the bill.
These amendments are in addition to the substantial number of amendments that we have already agreed to in an effort to secure the bill’s pas- sage, including that the bill, as I mentioned, will sunset in three years time.

There are three main amendments pro- posed now to facilitate the passage of the bill.

Firstly, there was some concern about the application of the bill to young people— namely, the ability to detain and question anyone over 14 years of age.
The age mini- mum is no longer 14 years of age; it has been increased to 16 years of age.

Secondly, there is the questioning regime.

The amendment provides for a warrant that allows for a total of 24 hours of questioning in eight-hour blocks over a maximum period of seven days, subject to the protocol governing the questioning process.
The existing significant safeguards covering the questioning process, including the presence of current and former judicial officers overseeing the questioning, will continue to apply.

to Thirdly, there was understandably a lot of lawyers.

The concern about access amendment provides access to a lawyer of choice, with safeguards to protect security sensitive information and increase secrecy offences.
There was a problem of course, when you are dealing with somebody in such a difficult area, in that unfortunately not all lawyers might be as trustworthy as they should be in terms of the national interest.

We found a compromise on this and lawyers will be available, as is the right at common law, to give legal advice to people who are detained in one form or another under this legislation.
The government have shown yet again that we have a cooperative attitude and are more than willing to work with the opposi- tion to ensure that Australia has the best tools to fight the potential threat of terrorism.

It is certainly time that the opposition turned its focus away from political point scoring and worked with the government for the safety that this whole suite of security legislation, and particularly this piece of legislation, will provide.
What the opposition proposed last year and continues to insist upon would have ren- dered this bill unworkable.

We could not accept that.

Instead we have put together a workable compromise that will give ASIO important but workable tools to assist it to get on with its job.

The amendments pro- posed in this legislation are consistent with what we want but they endeavour, in a sensi- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11679 ble way without undermining the bill, to meet some of Labor’s concerns.
They are a further demonstration of our good faith and desire to give ASIO decent and workable legislation that is so plainly in the national interest.

The government are committed more than ever to the safety of the Australian commu- nity.

We are committed to giving ASIO—full of the capable and decent people that it is— the tools that it needs to find out about planned terrorist attacks when it is most im- portant; that is, before Australians are hurt or killed.
We are dealing with people who will kill and maim indiscriminately and who do not wish to negotiate or think about things in the same way as anybody in this chamber might.

Whilst the powers provided to ASIO and our security services may appear out of step with the way that most Australians look at things, they are necessary.

They have been tested and looked at and they are appropriate.

For that reason, we have put together this legislation with its changes and amendments.
We are very optimistic that the opposition will demonstrate that they are serious about national security and support the bill.

That is my wish and the wish of government.

(Tasmania) (4.41 p.m.)—The Australian Greens absolutely oppose this legislation.

The Security Intelli- gence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.
2] gives the secret agency unprecedented powers that cut right across time-honoured, centuries old, hard won rights which are fundamental to Austra- lian democracy, our sense of freedom and the belief Australians have that our country ex- presses democracy second to none in the world.

Senator BROWN Today the opposition has fallen in line with the amended ASIO bill.
It is remarkable that it did so unanimously—according to its own spokespeople—and that there was not one person in the Australian Labor Party caucus who stood up against this most seri- ous erosion of these basic civil liberties for Australians.

It is a derogation of the obliga- tion of opposition—and not least that of a Labor opposition, which has traditionally stood in defence of the rights of ordinary Australians.
Government members might be now com- ing to the defence of the opposition on this, but the opposition today became a pale shade of Howard.

The Howard government has moved to take up many of the precepts of One Nation—now defunct, because it had no breathing space—and the opposition has moved again to be shoulder to shoulder with the Howard government on this legislation.

It is not acceptable, and the Labor Party knows it is not acceptable.
That is why, extraordi- narily, it had only one speaker on this bill, who said, ‘It has been amended.

The gov- ernment played politics, but we have fixed it up.’ Let me tell every member of the Labor Party in this place: you have not fixed it up.

You have caved in to the Howard govern- ment in this most serious erosion of the rights of Australians.

In that way, you have caved in to what we all fear, which is that if we give way to terrorism we will lose our freedoms.
This is giving away at the back door what we are trying to defend at the front door.

Let me predicate what else is to be said by saying this: there are extraordinarily strong criminal laws and surveillance laws in this country for dealing with those who might plot terrorism.

The public has not seen the half of it.


The surveillance reach given by this parliament to our intelligence agencies is quite extraordinary, greater than ever before in history—to watch, track down, listen to and assess people who might be plotting in- jury to the wider community.
On top of that, through the Criminal Code, there are strong CHAMBER 11680 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 powers to arrest, arraign, detain and imprison people not only who may be acting in a ter- rorist fashion but who are plotting the same.

They are very strong powers indeed.

What we have here is something different.
We have now laws being brought against innocent Australians who, under this legisla- tion, known to be innocent by the authorities of any crime or potential crime, can be picked up off the street or in their homes, detained and interrogated day after day— three blocks of eight hours of intensive inter- rogation—without the right of their legal representative to intervene and without the reason for them being picked up given to that legal representative so that any argument can be put forward to seek the release of this in- nocent person.
Indeed, the right is vested in ASIO to veto that person’s legal representa- tive.

So any citizen who thinks that they are free from the reach of this law had better think again.

You can be detained—and Labor likes this—not just for two days before a new au- thority is given but for seven days while this process takes place.

And you can be a child under the law.

You can be 16 or 17.
I might say to the opposition: ‘You railed against that and said that children should not be subject to this law, innocents who can be picked up, but here you now have this law applying to 16- or 17-year-olds who are thought to be involved in some way or other.’ That is a breach of the International Covenant on the Rights of the Child, a la the Labor Party, at the behest of the Howard government, in this great Australian democracy of ours, and the Greens will not support it—not now, not ever!
The Labor Party might, but we will not.

Just today, for those who may have heard the World Today, there was a report of a meeting of lawyers and community groups in Melbourne which made an eleventh hour plea to the Labor Party because they said that the legislation as amended will make Austra- lia more like Stalinist Russia.

Those might be effusive words, but let me go to the specifics.
Nicole Bieske from Amnesty International, that wonderful organisation that works against dictatorships, police states, torture and terrorism wherever it might occur in the world, had this to say: Amnesty International is concerned that if this bill becomes law, innocent people could be de- tained simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For example, you go out for dinner at a restaurant.

Somebody next to you, at the next table, is being surveyed by ASIO.
You get picked up the next day because ASIO suspects you may have overheard something, and you can be de- tained for up to seven days because they suspect you might have overheard something at a restau- rant that you innocently went to for dinner.

She is right.

Senator McGauran—Give me a break!

Senator BROWN—Give these people a break.

You tell that to people who are picked up in these circumstances.
As I said, the legal representative of this person, if they have not been vetoed by ASIO, has no right to be given the reasoning for the person being picked up and so cannot argue against it.

Goolam Laher from the Islamic Council of Australia feels that the new laws will be used to discriminate against individuals in our Islamic community.
He said: The Islamic Council of Victoria, as a peak Islamic representative group, remains concerned that this piece of legislation is being introduced at a time when the Islamic community is being marginal- ised and being treated and labelled as terrorist.
It is quite clear from the reading of the bill that the word ‘terrorism’ is a non-neutral term and already there are those stereotypes that are in fact making the connection between terrorism and Islam, yet the government has not addressed those issues and have not approached the community or the Islamic community on the need to address those issues.

How would Islamic women be treated?

CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11681 Will they be undressed in the absence of another woman?

Will they be touched?


These are very important fundamental issues for Islamic people and for many others.

Are they addressed in this legislation?

No.

Are strip searches permitted?

Yes.

Under what circumstances?

They are laid out in the bill, but a great deal of latitude is given to those who are going read this bill.

Claire Mahon from the Law Institute of Victoria says that the legislation contravenes the United Na- tions Convention on the Rights of the Child.
She said not only can teenagers be detained for seven days and interrogated but also they can be strip searched.

She said: The Government has, for a long time now, shown with its policy of detaining children asylum seek- ers that it does not intend to protect the rights of young people and does not take seriously its obli- gations under the convention.
It is time for the Opposition— the Labor Party— to remain firm in its commitment to honour our international obligations, both under international law and to the non-voting citizens of our own country.

The only kind of detention that a 16- or 17-year-old child should be concerned about is school detention.
The President of the Law Institute of Victo- ria, Mr Bill O’Shea, said that coalitions of groups opposing the bill and the govern- ment’s amendments to it were calling on the federal opposition to reject it.
He said: I think one of the difficulties facing Federal Labor at the moment is that it is hard to distinguish it from the Government, and the ASIO bill in par- ticular presents a real opportunity for the Opposi- tion to actually distinguish itself from their con- servative opponents and perhaps the new rein- vigorated Crean Opposition might take this op- portunity to take a stand.
Can I say that the Institute would be very disap- pointed were they— that is, the Labor Party— to buckle under and simply to accept these amendments as in any way being satisfactory.

Unfortunately for the Law Institute of Victo- ria, even as they were holding that press con- ference, Labor was buckling in totally.

The new Crean leadership was falling at the first test, the first hurdle.

And it was not just fail- ing some sort of new out-of-the-blue test.
It was failing the fundamental charge of the Labor Party: that it should protect people’s legal and civil rights not to be taken by the government, against those rights, and be de- tained and interrogated while being known to be innocent.

The Labor Party has proposed some amendments to this legislation, but I heard a spokesperson today say, ‘If the government our amendments, we’ll support the bill anyway.’ is a sensible Senator Santoro—That accept does not thing to do.
Senator BROWN—‘A sensible thing,’ says Senator Santoro.

He agrees with the Labor Party on that because it is a direct message to Prime Minister John Howard that the Labor Party does not want anything else out of this legislation—the Labor Party has signed off on it.

The opposition will put for- ward amendments in the Senate and, of course, the Australian Greens will try to see that those amendments get through, as I am sure the Democrats will.
They will go to the Reps and be rejected, because the message will have gone through from the Labor Party that it has already collapsed.

When the bill comes back here the Labor Party will cave in; the government will have got its way.

What a terrible day this is for oppositional politics in this great house, let alone for the Labor Party, in this great country.

It is easy to say, ‘These are difficult times, different times.’ They sure are.
We have been through a number of wars in the last century as well, and they too were difficult times for this na- tion.

But this legislation is breaking new CHAMBER 11682 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 ground in terms of repression of time- honoured rights in Australia, which have been fought for in those very conflagrations.

We have defended this country to keep these rights intact, but they are now becoming part of a political process.
It is becoming a race to see who can auction off these rights to gain favour under the fear that is generated by the governments of the day in this country and in Washington.

Let there be no doubt that the Pentagon will be very pleased with this legislation.

The powers that be in the United States are going to use this to try and do the same in the United States.

Maybe the same will be done in the UK.


In Canada they have edged to- wards this position but have not quite got there—a process still has to be held in a court.

The Australian government is cutting into civil liberties by taking up a One Nation point of view, and it is now being aided and abetted by the Labor Party.

Senator McGauran—It is a real threat, Bob.

Senator BROWN—Yes.

The honourable member opposite says that there is a real threat out there.
There is, and it has not been helped by the course of this government.

It is important that we look at terrorism and it is important that we are strong.

It is important that we deal strongly with those who would plot or try to carry out terrorism in our coun- try.

We have to expect that that is what is happening, and will happen down the line.

That is why we have tough laws under the Criminal Code and under the laws which empower our surveillance community and organisations.
There is a tension here be- tween our freedoms and rights and the wish of terrorists and others to take them away.

What I am saying is that, at the backdoor, we have the big parties eroding those rights in a way which is not necessary, given the strong powers that this parliament has already en- acted, and which is not commensurate with what is happening in other democracies.

This is a very serious debate, but the opposition present one person to speak in it.

Why should they have more?


They are unanimous.

Where the emeritus Senator Barney Cooney?

is Senator McGauran—Yes, where is he?

Senator BROWN—Indeed.

Where is he?

Where is his spirit?

I am sure that he would be very worried by the process that has taken place here today.

Where is the spirit of those conservatives who in the past have crossed the floor to defend fundamental freedoms in this country?

It is not here.

It is en bloc; that bloc and this bloc creates one bloc.
That is why it is essential that we see alternative voices available here to make the defence and to put forward the plea that we are hear- ing from community groups and legal ex- perts that the opposition should think again, that it should search its conscience.

I am aware that this is one of the shortest—if not the shortest—speaking lists in history on a matter as important as this.
Seven people are speaking in the Senate on this extraordinarily important bill because the big parties, having now got together on it, want to get it through, want to get it off the plate, want to get it done with.

There is an attempt to do that to- day.

The best the Australian Greens can do is draw out this debate in the committee stages.

Senator Nettle has important amendments to put forward.

I note that Senator Greig, on behalf of the Democrats, also has important amendments to put forward.
They must be and will be taken seriously.

It is not going to be a case of simply having this ramrodded through this parliament because the big par- ties want to get it off the plate now.

Today is a very sad day and a very dangerous day for rights in our democratic country.

I am ap- palled by the opposition.

I am appalled by CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11683 Mr Crean’s new leadership.
I thought there was going to be a difference opening up be- tween the Crean Labor opposition and the Howard government.

But the first thing we see is a collapse into one—an indistin- guishability between the big parties.

today?

I recognise What is going to be the outcome from the Senate that Senator Faulkner said they had got big concessions.

No—I disagree.

The fundamental problems in this legislation remain.

The concessions are nowhere near enough.


The Labor Party should be here with the Greens solidly op- posing this bill.

But they are not.

Right across the board, including the journalists and the media of Australia, is a sense of enormous foreboding about the potential misuse of this legislation in the future simply because people have information.

Senator McGauran—The ABC.

Senator BROWN—No, not just the ABC.

That includes the commercial media as well.


(Time expired) Senator SANTORO (Queensland) (5.01 p.m.)—When the Attorney-General intro- duced the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Ter- rorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2] in the House of Representatives in March, he made this cen- tral point: The government has consistently taken a strong, decisive and balanced approach to strengthening Australia’s counter-terrorist capabilities.
I am sure there can be no-one, whether or not in agreement with the detail of the govern- ment’s position on protecting Australia and Australians from terrorism, who would doubt that that is the case.

So there will be univer- sal agreement on that, I hope.

Agreement is what we need to pass this legislation.

For far too long in these times of international dan- ger and national peril, the Labor Party, the Democrats and the Greens have combined to ensure that this bill has been kept in limbo.
That is a very direct answer to one of the questions that has been asked by Senator Brown in this debate, the question that he posed only a few minutes ago.

We have de- bated the contents of this bill for days.

I well recall last year at the very end of the session when we sat for more than 24 hours straight and considered the contents of this bill as it came backwards and forwards between this place and the lower house and the debate raged.
In fact, I remember you doing then what you promise to do today—to filibuster, to take up precious time—in terms of pre- venting this parliament from enacting a bill that is as important as this.

That is one of the answers.

It is your right to do what you have promised to do.

Nobody, including me, will ever deny you that right.

I am a true democ- rat to that extent.

What I say in response to you, Senator Brown, is that this bill has been debated ad nauseam.
What we are now doing is putting the final touches to it after exten- sive consultation that you claim has not oc- curred.

We are now proceeding with finalis- ing the bill.

It could be expected that the Democrats and the Greens would fail to see—no pun intended—the wood for the trees.

On their record, they certainly would not believe that the famous Clausewitz maxim—if you en- trench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy to seek a solution elsewhere—has any currency today.
But the Labor Party, being a party of government, certainly does, even if for political reasons today it might prefer to pretend by its action that deadly serious security issues do not exist or are less major than most people be- lieve and the evidence would indicate.

That makes the position the Labor Party took on this bill—together with the Greens and the Democrats, I should add—and in the com- munity contemptible.

It stands condemned for opting for inaction over action.
It stands condemned for having resigned from na- CHAMBER 11684 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 tional leadership yet again.

It was apparently too busy fighting its alphabet war—the ABCs, the BBBs et cetera—to spend much time deliberating on its obligations to the people in relation to the real one.

The amendments the government is mov- ing to the bill now being debated should re- solve that dilemma.
They address the con- cerns that some people had put up that, in attempting to counter terror, Australia was forgetting its human duty.

On this side of the chamber we never thought that this was a valid argument.

Nonetheless, it is essential that this legislation be passed and that it be- comes law at the earliest possible moment.

There is direct evidence in that court in Bali today that whether we like it or not—and, of course, no-one likes it—Australia and Aus- tralians are potential targets of terror.
In the nature of democratic politics—and it is, in the end, democracy that we are fighting to protect, as well as our lives—one compro- mises not on principle but on detail.

The government amendments substan- tially meet the demand from some quarters that young people who might be detained as possible terrorist suspects or persons with potential knowledge of terrorist plans be given special consideration.
It will obviously not settle everyone’s fears—that is obvious from the debate that has taken place here today.

I see that in Queensland, civil libertar- ian Terry O’Gorman says the measures— under which the authorities will not be able to detain anyone younger than 16, question- ing will be limited to three eight-hour ses- sions in a week and detainees would have immediate access to lawyers—are still unac- ceptable.

That is a real pity.


I hope that Mr O’Gorman’s touching faith in the principle that one should avoid detaining young peo- ple even if they are planning to blow you up is never put to the test.

According to Mr O’Gorman, it is appar- ently surprising that we should be attempting to protect ourselves through the imposition of a law that does not exist in either America or Britain and where ASIO’s equivalents in the US and Britain are not seeking such a law.
That is of interest to Mr O’Gorman and others like Senator Brown as a debating point.

But Britain and America have their own ways of dealing with deadly threats from the disaffected, whether or not these people are simply murderously or also sui- cidally inclined.

The fact is that the sort of terror threat this legislation seeks to combat is very likely to be posed by quite young people.

In the Middle East the average age of suicide bombers is less than 25.
In fact, as Senator Brown would know, some are con- siderably younger.

Some are of the age cap- tured by the legislation we are debating to- day—some of those who would have knowl- edge of an impending outrage in the planning stage certainly would be.

It is plainly apparent, given the horrible and shocking events of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington, and those of October 12, 2002, in Bali, that Australia re- quires additional protection against terrorism of the sort this bill would mandate.
Only re- cently a report regarded in intelligence cir- cles as credible was published in a Saudi Arabian newspaper that said that al-Qaeda had created a new operational structure and was preparing a new attack against the United States on the scale of the September 11 atrocities.

That is the security environ- ment which we live in.

This is the reality— the reality of threat that we must be equipped to investigate and eliminate—with which we have to deal.
Australians who believe that their country or its interests—and Australian interests are, indeed, global—are somehow immune or at significantly lower threat from international terrorism are fooling themselves.
It is an al- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11685 most certain bet that there are among us peo- ple who support the principle of committing acts of terrorism and who in some cases are active partisans for their cause and some who are quite possibly sleepers—in the sense of being operationally inactive but ready to roll—on behalf of some organisation or other that would like to kill Australians and other people here in Australia.

Australians today are certainly not a protected species.
We know from horrific experience that not only do Australians face the same level of threat as any other people but also, as was the case in Bali in October last year, they are very specific targets.

The bill we are debating today is part of the essential upgraded suite of legislation designed to protect Australia and Australians from the mass murderers of the terrorist un- derworld.

Much of this legislation has been passed through the parliament.
There is gen- eral community agreement that, however regrettable it might be, in times of threat one must accept some restrictions on the personal freedoms democratic societies afford their people, for the sake of security.

What has happened is that the government has faced up to the reality of the world security envi- ronment that was changed forever by the horrific events of September 2001.
Following the New York and Bali attacks, the government made it clear that it saw its first priority as being to provide for the safety and protection of the Australian peo- ple.

This approach has been multifaceted.

It involves not only a comprehensive legisla- tive package, including this bill we are again debating today, but also appropriate levels of increased funding.
The government is very conscious of the need to protect the Austra- lian community from the threat of terrorism, without unfairly or unnecessarily encroach- ing on the individual rights and liberties that are fundamental elements of our democratic system—indeed, they are not negotiable; things that we would never surrender.
The level of the government’s commitment to enhanced security against the threat of terror- ism cannot be doubted and should not be challenged, particularly by those opposite, who long ago abandoned the field of national debate to concentrate on their own party in- trigue.

After September 11, the government committed $1.3 billion over five years to strengthen Australia’s domestic security.

Af- ter the Bali bombings, this substantial outlay was reinforced by an allocation of a further $100 million.
Australia’s domestic security arrange- ments remain under constant review.

This particular bill was introduced on 21 March 2002.

It was referred to both the Senate Le- gal and Constitutional Legislation Commit- tee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Security Intelligence Or- ganisation, Australian Secret Intelligence Service and Defence Signals Directorate.

The parliamentary joint committee reported on 5 June 2002 and the Senate committee on 18 June 2002.
The Labor Party then referred it to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee—this, of course, was a delaying tactic—and in December last year the ALP chose politics over community safety and rejected the bill.

In doing so, it showed complete disregard for protecting the community in emergency terrorist situations.
Thanks to Labor, ASIO still does not have the powers it needs to question people who might have information about possible ter- rorist attacks or to gather the details we need to prevent such attacks.

Amendments origi- nally moved by Labor would have rendered the legislation completely unworkable.

The government amendments now before us rep- resent a compromise that Labor has finally accepted—and I state for the record that that is good.
The counter-terrorism package, including the ASIO bill, provides our security and law CHAMBER 11686 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 enforcement agencies with the tools they need to identify and prevent terrorist acts wherever possible and, if necessary, punish those who are responsible for them.

It is also a deterrent.

It sends a clear message to those who might commit or support acts of terror- ism that Australians will simply not tolerate their activities in this country.
It is essential to enhance the powers of ASIO to gather vital intelligence in this area of operations.

in introduced When he March, the Attorney-General said: legislation this In the process of developing this bill, the gov- ernment has done everything it can to ensure con- cerns raised about the bill have been taken into consideration.

The government has included sig- nificant safeguards in the bill to ensure rights and liberties are appropriately protected.
And the gov- ernment has made significant amendments to the bill to address concerns that have been raised.

For example, in an effort to achieve opposition sup- port for the bill we agreed to a three-year sunset clause, despite the fact that we do not believe that a sunset clause is appropriate.
Opponents of the bill have sought to create a picture of it as legislation that will mandate the midnight knock on the doors of innocent and law-abiding citizens by security opera- tives engaged on wild goose chases or acting on unfounded suspicions.

Much of this criti- cism from outside the parliamentary envi- ronment undoubtedly is well meaning.
I have received—and I know that all other senators in received— communications from members of Amnesty International making very reasonable points; we acknowledge that.

They are points that one would readily concede were it not for the fact that terrorism is not a normal war.

Ter- rorists are not normal combatants.

The only rule in the war against terror is that there are no rules.
this place will have That does not mean we must abandon our law, ignore our commitment to human values or break the covenant we keep to treat people in custody appropriately and humanely.

Aus- tralia certainly has a moral and legal obliga- tion to uphold international law.

It has an obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to protect the best inter- ests of all children.
These are things that come naturally to any Australian and cer- tainly to any Australian administration—and so they should.

But we have an equal obliga- tion to ourselves to ensure that Australians are as protected as they possibly can be from those who would do them harm.
I do not believe anyone really thinks that as a result of this legislation, or any other that democratic people could ever counte- nance, there will be goon squads running around our cities and towns arbitrarily ab- ducting people who might conceivably be harbouring terrorist thoughts.

That is not the purpose of the legislation, it is not the intent of the legislation, it will not be the effect of the legislation, and all those opposite— including members of the Greens in this place—know that very well.
But at the same time, in the painful circumstances in which we must now contemplate matters of na- tional security and personal safety, it is plain commonsense to require people in our coun- try to provide any assistance requested of them by the security services.

There are no grounds in law for concealing knowledge of a proposed criminal offence.
The member for Banks, the shadow minis- ter for justice and customs, said in the other place on 26 March during debate on the bill: Terrorist suspects must be identified, hunted down and arrested—but only terrorist suspects.

He continued: We must be diligent in protecting the community from terrorist threats, but we must be equally vigilant in protecting civil liberties and democ- ratic freedoms from assault.
I do not believe that anyone on this side of the chamber—or indeed anywhere—would argue with the words the shadow minister CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11687 chose to use on that occasion of 26 March.

But as well as life and limb it is civil liberties and democratic freedoms that terrorists seek to destroy.
It goes without saying that inter- national terrorism constitutes a far greater threat to the liberty of Australia than does the judicial application of necessary additional security measures such as those contained in this bill.

The shadow Attorney-General, the mem- ber for Barton, relied on the Magna Carta and Sir Robert Menzies for his defence of Labor’s position.

He even dragged Prime Minister William Pitt, the famous Pitt the Younger, into his argument.
Chapter 29 of the Magna Carta—which is an assurance that action will not be taken to the detriment of an individual without due process of law—is of course a fine principle, but it is in no way infringed by the bill before this chamber.

The Menzies quote he chose is from the speech the then Prime Minister made when he intro- duced the National Security Act 1939 after the commencement of hostilities in World War II.
It is to this effect: ... the greatest tragedy that could overcome a country would be for it to fight a successful war in defence of liberty and to lose its own liberty in the process.

Yet in 2003—as in 2002, when the Labor Party first had an opportunity to reconnect with commonsense in this area, as had the Greens, the Democrats and the other minor interests represented within this place—the liberty of Australians is not threatened by legislation.
It is threatened, in part, by people who may have information about a planned or proposed terrorist act and do not intend to disclose this to the authorities at the earliest possible moment and of their own volition.

Some 200 years ago, Pitt famously said, as the member for Barton recalled: The poorest man may in his cottage bid defi- ance to all the force of the Crown.
It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rains may enter—but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tene- ment.

Today we are not talking about seditious thoughts.

The very concept of sedition is one planted in an earlier and alien age and long withered on the vine.

People can think and say whatever they want in our democracy.

What we are talking about here today is risk.


It is a small one—we hope—but nonetheless it is a risk against which the prudent will wish the government to ensure that, within some modern, Antipodean version of Pitt’s ruined tenement, evil people are not plotting mass murder by stealthy and cowardly ter- rorism.

With the amendments now before us, the Labor Party can finally reconsider its position and vote for this bill.

I believe, from indications, that it is going to do so.
Such an act would be a civil virtue on the part of the Labor Party.

It will be a service to the nation and it will be good commonsense.

Senator STOTT DESPOJA (South Aus- tralia) (5.19 p.m.)—In recent years—and I think this is acknowledged by all in this chamber—life has changed in the Australian community, and we have certainly been warned constantly that our way of life is un- der threat.

Just in case we forget that for a moment, we have many reminders, including fridge magnets, to be alert and alarmed.
I asked a question of the Minister for Family and Community Services and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women today about the funding that came from domestic violence prevention programs to assist with the production of those mag- nets.

Certainly it is a very different definition of ‘alert and alarmed’ that some women in our community have to deal with every day of their lives as they fear male violence.
I do not want to trivialise or underestimate here today the threat of terrorism.

Many Aus- tralians have been directly and, indeed, tragi- CHAMBER 11688 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 cally affected by it.

But I do believe that there are some aspects of our response to terrorism that have been of grave concern, including this legislation.

Terrorists threaten lives, but our response to terrorism can also threaten our way of life.
On the line are long- established rights and freedoms and the im- portant role that they play in promoting ac- countability and decentralising power in our democratic system.

Since September 11, global leaders have relied upon the mantra that the world has changed—and indeed it has; no-one disputes that—but what has also changed is the way that we talk about the world.

The threat of terrorism, although very real, is also vague.
This has resulted in a widespread debate over how exactly we should define terrorism.

Following the passage of the govern- ment’s package of antiterrorism legislation last year, our Criminal Code now includes a very broad definition of terrorism.

It is a definition that implies the threat of terror- ism—that it is insidious, pervasive and that we can be neither certain that any particular place is safe nor confident that even the per- son we are standing next to is not a terrorist.
This is a message that has been perpetuated by the government’s antiterrorism campaign.

We are told to be alert but not alarmed, but no-one really knows exactly what we should be looking for.

If the so-called information handbook is any guide to Australians, we should look out for people whose lifestyles do not add up or who may have suspicious accommodation needs.

In that case, just about anyone can be under suspicion.

the Of course, terrorism does emerge in many different contexts.
Previous terrorists in- cluded members of IRA, Anglo- Americans such as Timothy McVeigh, and of course Islamic extremists such as Moham- med Atta.

Terrorism has been used in the name of many and various causes and terror- ist acts, as we know, have ranged from car into flying aeroplanes bombs to anthrax in the mail, right through to skyscrapers.
Clearly, terrorism is not limited to any par- ticular cause, any type of perpetrator or form of violence, although, as we know, stereo- types have been rife in this context.

Because the threat of terrorism is so nebulous, it can be drawn into and used in almost any par- ticular debate.

It can elicit fear among the community, and governments can capitalise on that fear.

Since September 11 we have seen this oc- cur at domestic and international levels.
For example, during the last election campaign we were confronted by the veiled implication that asylum seekers could be terrorists seek- ing to enter Australia through the back door.

It is all about fear.

Anyone who has been looking at Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, a popular culture reference, would recognise how our governments manipulate that fear.
At an international level we have seen the desperate attempts of President George Bush to establish a connec- tion between Saddam Hussein and terrorism in order to justify the illegal attack against Iraq.

This culture of fear perpetuated by some governments and some elements of the me- dia has wide-ranging implications for civil liberties.

In the past the civil liberties move- ment has benefited from a degree of cyni- cism that the citizenry has had regarding the state.
For example, the greater push for pri- vacy protection was, in part, fuelled by those conceptions of the Orwellian Nineteen Eighty-Four Big Brother and most conspir- acy theories have involved the state in some capacity.

The threat of terrorism enables govern- ments to deflect this fear to other objects and to cast itself as the protector of the commu- nity.

In this capacity it could get away with a lot more than it could when the community CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11689 was more wary of it.
Here we are debating legislation which will enable the government to detain innocent Australians incommuni- cado for up to a week, taking away their right to silence and forcing them to prove that they do not have the information that ASIO is looking for.
It is interesting to note that one of the reasons—and this has cer- tainly been alluded to in the previous contri- butions—legislation similar to this could not be passed in other jurisdictions such as the United States or the United Kingdom is the bill of rights that operates in other countries.

I recently had the opportunity to hear Ms Cherie Booth QC, who gave a speech on the British Human Rights Act and the ways in which it has been applied to address human rights violations since its enactment.
She made a compelling argument for a bill of rights in Australia.

Unfortunately, the gov- ernment’s record on human rights does not suggest it is likely to move on this issue for some time, if at all.

This is despite the fact that Australia stands virtually alone among common law countries in its lack of a bill of rights.

The ASIO bill is the latest example of this government’s increasing disregard for human rights, civil liberties and, indeed, democratic processes.
As we know, this government locks up those who are fleeing from persecu- tion.

Our Prime Minister has told us that these are not the kinds of people he wants in Australia.

He cast doubt on the veracity on their claim for asylum and he argued that we had to go to war to liberate them from the torturous regime of Saddam Hussein.
Yet this is the same government that has refused to support the Optional Protocol to the Conven- tion against Torture and, indeed, has voted against a motion to hold a special sitting of the United Nations Human Rights Commis- sion to consider the human rights and hu- manitarian situation in Iraq.
When it comes to protecting the rights of women, the gov- ernment has refused consistently to support the Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimina- tion Against Women—not a proud record for a country that, at the moment, holds the posi- tion of the vice-chair for the Human Rights Commission.
Our government is permitting the United States to hold Australian nationals indefinitely and without charge at Guan- tanamo Bay, having concocted a new cate- gory of detainee simply in order to avoid its human rights obligations under international law and the United States Constitution.
The government is also considering entering into an agreement with the United States to grant US nationals immunity from being tried in the International Criminal Court for poten- tially the very worst crimes against human- ity.

In Australia, on the domestic front, our government is busy winding back hard-won human rights and those institutions that ad- vocate and protect them.
The government’s proposed changes to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission will severely undermine the commission’s independence and capacity to protect the human rights of all Australians.

The government has also cut off funding to the United Nations Associa- tion of Australia, which, as all senators would know, plays an invaluable role in edu- cating the community about the UN, interna- tional law and human rights.
The government’s appalling record on human rights was documented recently in an extensive report by the Australia Institute.

The report demonstrated the pattern of Aus- tralia’s retreat from a position of leadership on human rights to the position now where it routinely ignores criticisms of the UN, choosing instead to blithely follow the path set down by the United States in its support for unilateral approaches.
As Professor Zif- cak, the author of that report, states: CHAMBER 11690 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Australia’s commitment to the observance of the universal human rights standards and its coopera- tion with the international institutions established to monitor them has been one regrettable casualty of this emerging populist foreign policy position.

Professor Zifcak refers to the political advan- tages of pursuing such a strategy when a pervasive sense of insecurity grips the com- munity.
This is exactly why it suits some, why it suits government, to let this sense of insecurity and fear continue.

While it does, the government as a consequence is in a bet- ter position to increase its power at the ex- pense of the rights and freedoms and the lib- erties of ordinary Australians.

We hear a lot of rhetoric about the need to find an appropriate balance between safety on the one hand and security, rights and lib- erties on the other.
We have heard a lot about that in this debate, particularly from the gov- ernment members.

The truth is that human rights and civil liberties are not a liability in this so-called fight against terrorism.

On the contrary, why doesn’t the government view them as what they really are, and that is as a powerful weapon?

A strong culture of re- spect for human rights will help to address the root causes of terrorism, not just their devastating effects as this legislation seeks to do.
The bill seeks to stop terrorists from committing terrorist acts.

But we need to address and focus on how to stop terrorists from becoming terrorists in the first place.

Evidence tells us that terrorism is more likely to breed where poverty and injustice abound and where there is little respect for human rights.

So this suggests that one of the best ways of preventing terrorism is to seek to eliminate poverty and to invest in good governance and human rights.
name of security but its lack of commitment to reduce the level of global poverty is ap- palling.

Australia, once a leader in the provi- sion of overseas aid, is rapidly falling to the bottom of the ladder.

The United Nations recommends that 0.7 per cent of GDP or gross national income be allocated to over- seas aid.

The Australian government opposed a committee recommendation recently that the government lift its level to even just half of that amount.
The Howard government is failing in its commitment to honour the mil- lennium development goals, which aim to halve poverty by 2015.

Our current commit- ment of 0.25 per cent of GNI is shameful and it does not reflect the generosity that has long characterised the Australian community, evidenced by of course the extraordinary personal contributions that we see commu- nity members make to humanitarian and other organisations.
So this government, coupled with its complete lack of commitment to the poorest people in the world, has now spent millions of dollars in waging a war, along with the United States, against Iraq.

Experts say that the Prime Minister’s decision to participate in the war against Iraq has now put Australia as the No.

4 terrorist target in the world.

Yet this government wants us to believe that it is committed to protecting the safety of the community, surely the primary obligation of any government.
It wants us to trust it when it says that these new powers are necessary.

It wants us to trust it when it says that it will not abuse these powers.

The decisions of this government have increased the likelihood of Australians becoming a terrorist target.

Hav- ing put us in this position, the government’s solution is now to infringe the rights and the liberties of all Australians.

Unfortunately, our government seems to be taking the exact opposite approach.
Not only does the government continue to argue that human rights need to be sacrificed in the Earlier this year I was fortunate to have a parliamentary intern.

I am sure many hon- ourable senators have benefited from the research work that has been done by interns CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11691 in the parliament.

Ms Philippa Watson pre- pared a comprehensive research paper on this bill and its effects particularly on human rights and civil liberties in Australia.
I seek leave, Mr Acting Deputy President, to table a copy of that report.

I have received permis- sion, I believe, from the government, the opposition and the Greens.

Leave granted.

Senator STOTT DESPOJA—Thank you.

Ms Watson’s conclusion at the end of her paper was that the dangers of the ASIO bill are manifold and manifest.

The powers provided by this bill could abrogate civil liberties, violate international law and would not necessarily increase Australia’s security.
That is why this legislation is bad.

That is why even the most extensive amendments to this legislation are not acceptable, and they will not make the legislation acceptable.

That is what people who are grappling with their consciences today have to recognise, because the legislation is based on a fundamentally flawed approach, a flawed approach to the whole concept of the threat of terrorism.
This is not a filibuster; this is an opportu- nity to put on record my views, as other par- ties, particularly minor parties, have done in the Senate today.

I hope to hear the rationale of the opposition to this legislation.

I am proud of my civil libertarian roots.

But by the same token I think any Australian, whether a civil libertarian in this chamber or a person who does not have a strong com- mitment to civil libertarian views, could rec- ognise the warning and danger signs today.
Any senator who has a commitment to those hard-won rights and liberties today has an obligation, a responsibility, to their fellow citizens to vote against this legislation.

Shame on those who will not vote against this legislation.

This legislation is an abso- lute line in the sand for Australians today and will impact on the rule of law, civil liberties and human rights.
The legislation is funda- mentally flawed, it should be opposed and, for that reason, I will vote against it in good conscience, as will my colleagues.

liberties Senator ELLISON (Western Australia— Minister for Justice and Customs) (5.34 p.m.)—It is vital that, in order to protect those civil that Senator Stott- Despoja has referred to, we have the interests of Australia at heart.

In fact, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legisla- tion Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.
2] is vital in order to arm our security agen- cies with strong tools to prevent and deter terrorism.

We are not overstating the threat.

Indeed, one just has to look at recent history to see what has occurred—September 11, which was referred to by Senator Faulkner; and, closer to home, the Bali bombing, which occurred only eight months ago.

As well as that, there have been recent attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco which have killed people, some of them Australians.
We are not overstating the situation when we say that we live in a climate where there are security threats to this country, and of course we have seen domestically where those threats have been present.

So it is all the more important that we arm ASIO with the tools it needs to gather important intelli- gence in relation to terrorism and to prevent potential perpetrators from carrying out their terrorist crimes.
This is not only about detec- tion of those who have carried out terrorist acts but also about prevention.

I note that Senator Greig said that there was not really a need for this legislation.

One can be only incredulous at that remark be- cause we have seen in other countries, in- cluding those in our region, and domestically threats to our nation’s interests.

Of course, it follows that we have to give ASIO the pow- ers it needs to do its job properly.
The pur- pose of this bill, as I say, is to arm ASIO with CHAMBER 11692 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 the tools it needs to gather important intelli- gence in relation to terrorism and potential acts of terrorism.

That intelligence gain can be used to intercept terrorists as they go about their evil plans or to capture the perpe- trators of previous atrocities or simply to warn Australians against visiting the site of a likely terrorist attack.
All Australians would expect that their government would ensure against this and advise the community ap- propriately.

It is pleasing that the opposition has fi- nally come to its senses and agreed to sup- port passage of this vital piece of legislation.

for optimum counter- Australia’s need terrorism capabilities has never been greater.

Our profile as a terrorist target remains, and we have this country on a heightened secu- rity alert.
We need to be well placed to re- spond to this new security environment in terms of our operational capabilities, infra- structure and legislative framework.

One thing which is interesting to note in all of this is an absence of a reference to the safeguards that we are putting into this legis- lation.

At the outset, the Senate needs to be reminded of the fact that during any ques- tioning which is envisaged pursuant to this proposed legislation a prescribed authority would have to be present.
A prescribed au- thority is not just anyone off the street; a pre- scribed authority can be a Supreme Court judge, a County Court or District Court judge, a former judge or, as I recall, the President or Deputy President of the Admin- istrative Appeals Tribunal.
So you are deal- ing with people of stature and integrity, and their presence during any questioning period ensures that there is the balance that we have referred to—the balance between the need to carry out the questioning concerned and the protection of the individual.

Although ASIO can seek other types of search warrants, it is not presently empow- ered to obtain a warrant to question a person.
In order to prevent terrorist attacks, it is cru- cial to be able to question would-be perpetra- tors of terrorist offences or those who may have knowledge of planned terrorist attacks.

One could be forgiven for being amazed that ASIO does not have this power for a warrant to question a person.
After all, if you are in the business of gathering intelligence, one would think that one of the most rudimentary ways of gaining intelligence would be to question someone and to have the means at your disposal to do so.

This is different to arresting a suspect as you would see in the criminal jurisdiction.

This is about gathering intelligence in order to protect your citizenry and to detect and prevent terrorist attacks.
This bill establishes a warrant process to allow ASIO to question a person who may have important informa- tion relating to a terrorist attack.

The gov- ernment has bent over backwards to include workable safeguards in the bill and to con- sider workable compromises.

In the commit- tee stage, I will be moving government amendments which do just that.

In develop- ing our proposals, we worked with ASIO and the Attorney-General’s Department to de- velop a workable compromise.
We are pleased that the opposition is no longer in- the unworkable amendments sisting on which it insisted on previously and that it has now indicated that it will support the passage of this bill.

The amendments I have mentioned fall into three categories.
Firstly, the government will be moving amendments to the current regime under which a warrant may be sought, allowing for a total of 24 hours of questioning in eight-hour blocks over a maximum period of seven days, subject to the protocol governing the questioning proc- ess.
Secondly, the government will also be moving amendments allowing persons de- tained under a warrant to have access to a CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11693 lawyer of choice, subject to a range of safe- guards to protect the disclosure of sensitive information.
Finally, we will also be moving amendments so that warrants cannot be is- sued in relation to a person who is under the age of 16 and may only be issued in relation to a person between the ages of 16 and 18 if the Attorney-General is satisfied on reason- able grounds that the person will commit, is committing or has committed a terrorist of- fence.

Clearly these are situations where the Aus- tralian community is exposed to grave risk.
A young person who is the subject of a warrant has the right to contact a lawyer and to have a parent, guardian or other representative present at all times.

Warrants issued under the bill will be tools of last resort.

It is an- ticipated that they will be used rarely and only in extreme circumstances.

I repeat the fact that, in the process of all questioning, you will have present a prescribed authority.
The government has gone to great lengths to ensure that the bill contains significant safeguards, as I have mentioned.

In particu- lar, it provides for significant penalties for officers who do not follow the stringent processes and safeguards set out in the bill.

This is something that the public would ex- pect.

It would expect a government to take responsible measures such as this to protect the national interest.
It would expect those safeguards to achieve a balance between the protection of the individual and the need for security, and of course it would expect that there would be significant penalties for offi- cers who abused the powers which had been bestowed upon them.

I will not go any fur- ther in relation to those amendments.

Suffice to say that we have here a balance between what is necessary for the protection of this country and the protection of civil liberties in our community.
I commend this bill to the Senate.

Question put: That this bill be now read a second time.

The Senate divided.

(The Acting Deputy President—Senator [5.47 p.m.] Cook) Ayes………… Noes………… Majority……… AYES 48 11 37 Barnett, G. Boswell, R.L.D.

Buckland, G. Carr, K.J.

Colbeck, R. Conroy, S.M.

Coonan, H.L.

Denman, K.J.

Ellison, C.M.

Faulkner, J.P. Forshaw, M.G.

Hogg, J.J. Hutchins, S.P.

Kemp, C.R.

Knowles, S.C. Ludwig, J.W.

Mackay, S.M.

Mason, B.J.

Moore, C. Ray, R.F.

Scullion, N.G.


Tchen, T. Troeth, J.M.

Webber, R. Allison, L.F. * Cherry, J.C. Harris, L. Murphy, S.M.

Nettle, K. Stott Despoja, N. Bishop, T.M.

Brandis, G.H.

Campbell, G. Chapman, H.G.P.

Collins, J.M.A.

Cook, P.F.S.

Crossin, P.M. Eggleston, A.

* Evans, C.V. Ferguson, A.B.

Harradine, B. Humphries, G. Johnston, D. Kirk, L. Lightfoot, P.R.

Macdonald, J.A.L.

Marshall, G. McLucas, J.E.

Patterson, K.C.

Santoro, S. Sherry, N.J. Tierney, J.W.

Watson, J.O.W.
Watson, J.O.W.

Wong, P. NOES Brown, B.J.

Greig, B. Lees, M.H.

Murray, A.J.M.

Ridgeway, A.D. * denotes teller Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that consideration of this bill in Committee of the Whole be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.

CHAMBER 11694 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 HEALTH CARE (APPROPRIATION) AMENDMENT BILL 2003 Second Reading Debate resumed.
Senator LEES (South Australia) (5.55 p.m.)—As I was discussing when this debate was interrupted before question time, it is most unfortunate that we have such a level of conflict, mistrust and indeed alienation be- tween the state health ministers and the fed- eral Minister for Health and Ageing.
As I was also saying, the truth as to who is right and who is wrong, where the money is and how much whoever should be putting in is putting in—the truth as to where all the ar- guments finish—is somewhere between what the states and the federal government are claiming.

I certainly feel that the states should match the Commonwealth funding.
Perhaps if this works—if we have the states and the Commonwealth putting in the same amount of funding and have that locked in—we might in the future see a reduction in long- term conflict and all those allegations.

There is also then the problem of buck-passing and cost-shifting between the states and the Commonwealth, which wastes an enormous amount of money and resources.
This can only be reduced, if not avoided altogether, if we involve ourselves in some serious debate and discussion about reforming our health system.

For a number of years now I have been advocating the need to restructure the system to a regional model.

I note with interest that there is now forming a cooperative group of a number of health organisations who are also calling on the minister to look at restruc- turing our health system.
It is still a very good system, but it is a system in which cracks are appearing.

The system that I ad- vocate is a regional system of funding for our health services.

We would pool Com- monwealth and state funds, and the decisions about delivery of services would then be made at a local level.
I argue that this is a far better way of delivering appropriate and timely services and ensuring that the health dollars—often what few dollars there are when compared to what is needed—are spent wisely and in the most effective way.

A regional model of health funding would build on the strengths of the existing Medi- care system by combining all government moneys now directed at health, aged care and community care into a single pool of funding.
That source would bring with it in- creased purchasing power and at the same time eliminate the incentives for cost shifting from one level of government to another.

I believe it would also assist in the reduction of administrative duplication.

Under this system, funding would be allo- cated on a per capita basis and also on a spe- cific special needs basis.
This would go di- rectly to regional areas and they would then use the funds to provide medical, hospital, allied health, aged care and community care services for their populations.

Individual communities could then respond to the spe- cific health care priorities within their popu- lations and focus on preventing future health problems.

One of the problems within our existing system is that it does not reward prevention; it rewards or pays on the basis of treatment of illness.
Some services would still be offered centrally—in particular, high- level care, crisis care for premature babies, intensive care facilities et cetera—but base facilities would operate at a regional level.

I think there would be a far greater incentive and far greater opportunities for work force numbers to be matched with need far better than they are now.

This regional model fo- cuses on matching people with health ser- vices, not the other way around.
CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11695 Going back to the Health Care (Appro- priation) Amendment Bill 2003, I believe that the states should immediately commit to matching what the Commonwealth has put on the table and that the Commonwealth should increase the amount that it is offering to put on the table by the roughly $1 billion that has been deducted over five years.

It is clear that this money has gone.


If you look through the forward estimates, in 2003-04 it is down $108.9 million; in 2004-05 it is mi- nus $172 million; in 2005-06 it loses $264.6 million; and in 2006-07, $372.9 million less is being offered.

This is a total of $918.5 mil- lion for the Commonwealth which the gov- ernment calls ‘savings’.
I must say here, as others have pointed out, that this is a very similar amount to the $917 million over five years that was announced for the Fairer Medicare package.

In this bill there is also a second line of appropriations for projects or programs, in- cluding the Pathways Home program an- nounced in the budget.
I flag again that when we get to the committee stage of the bill—if we get there—I have some questions that the minister will hopefully be able to answer about the Pathways Home program, as the department was not able to answer them dur- ing estimates.

There is also funding for men- tal health and palliative care.

I restate my commitment to an adequately funded, high-quality public hospital system.

The level of funding in this bill for our pub- lic hospitals is putting them at risk.
There is clear evidence that it is the responsibility of public hospitals to provide the broad, 24- hour, highly intensive accident and emer- gency services and the critical care services.

That they have long waiting lists for elective procedures and often for a range of other treatments, including urgent cancer treat- ment, is not in dispute.

There can also be a long waiting list for specialist appointments, and then you get on the next waiting list if you actually need an operation.
The Minister for Health and Ageing has had to go looking for excuses to make cuts.

They are not based on facts—on the needs of our hospitals.

She has been told by Treasury that the bottom line is the priority and that she has a certain amount of money to allo- cate where she can within her portfolio.

Hospitals have been put under more pressure by the reduction in bulk-billing rates.

As people face higher and higher costs, they are moving over to access the public hospital system.
I am only in the process of tabulating the results of my Medicare survey—results are still coming in—but in answer to the question, ‘Have you visited a public hospital accident and emergency service because of the cost of visiting a doctor?’ quite a few people in Adelaide have ticked the ‘yes’ box.
Now we see through the reduction in funding for public hospitals that the hospitals are being put under further pressure by the government trying to repair the damage they have already done through keeping GPs’ salaries low.

In order to get GPs back in their surgeries with a reasonable level of income, we are seeing public hospitals starved.
I will not go further into whether what the minister is doing in that area will attract GPs back into general practice or attract young gradu- ates to study medicine and go on to train as general practitioners; that is for the Medicare inquiry.

We will revisit that entire debate when that legislation comes before the Sen- ate.

It will give us some insights into whether what the government is planning to do is actually going to work.
I close by saying that I support this bill, but I express my disap- pointment in, firstly, the continuing battle between the states and the Commonwealth; secondly, the reduction in funding the Com- monwealth is offering; and, thirdly, the lack of interest generally in remodelling our health system to improve the delivery of ap- CHAMBER 11696 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 propriate services in a timely and cost- effective manner.
Senator DENMAN (Tasmania) (6.03 p.m.)—I rise to make some comments about the Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2003.

I think it is crystal clear to anyone who has paid attention to the budget this year that the Commonwealth government has no new money for health.

In fact, there is even less money for public hospitals.

We knew that somehow we had to pay for that war—a war that so many Australians did not want.
One way to do this seems to be for the gov- ernment to provide less money for hospitals and health, forcing Australians to pay more for their health care.

But what about the Aus- tralians who cannot afford to pay?

As a par- ticipant in the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry into poverty and financial hardship, I know these Australians exist.

They exist in numbers much larger than we would like to think.
The Senate pov- erty inquiry has revealed devastating ac- counts of what it means to be one of the many Australians who struggle on a day-to- day basis—and that is without the cost of seeing a doctor or the cost of seeking health care.

In contrast to the government, Labor con- sider the health care of Australians to be paramount.
We promise to put up a huge fight—and we are putting up a fight— against any measures that unravel a system that delivers quality health care to all Austra- lians regardless of income.

Forecasts for our current health system are rather gloomy.

You have probably heard it before: bulk-billing rates are dropping at significant rates, we are headed for a doctor and specialist work force shortage and so on.
Patients are paying more to see doctors, and soon it may very well be the case that they will be lucky to find a doc- tor, unless we do something now.

On the north-west coast, where I live, people are having difficulties finding doctors because a lot of the doctors have retired and we have not been able to get replacements.

The local hospital is getting bogged down with people who would normally go to see a doctor but cannot afford to see one or cannot find one.
Those people are going to the out- patients at the local hospital.

There is another forecast that I want to pay more attention to, given today’s bill.

The newly formed Austra- lian Health Reform Alliance last Thursday, 12 June described our country’s public hos- pitals as ‘struggling in a spartan environ- ment’.

I will come back to this later.

Let us turn to the bill in front of us.


This bill will set the framework for the Common- wealth government’s ongoing contribution to the funding of state public hospitals under the Australian health care agreements.

The current five-year agreement period expires on 30 June this year, and the new agreements commence on 1 July this year for a five-year period.

This is all very straightforward, and the Labor Party support legislative framework.
However, we do not support the level of funding or the way in which the Howard government has found this funding.

In its analysis of the government’s budget, the Access Economics said: … the $917 million new spending on Medicare almost exactly matches the $918 million cut to public hospitals in the new Medicare agreement … the Government plans to cut public hospital spending and divert the savings to initiatives to increase bulk billing under Medicare and train doctors.
The government is finding the money to fund its unfair Medicare package by taking money away from other health priorities—this time, our public hospitals.

This is not good enough at a time when public hospital waiting lists around Australia have not decreased and we have not seen a reduction in the number of admissions to public hospitals since the in- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11697 troduction of the private health insurance incentives.
Patients are still relying on our public hospitals, even though, as noted in the Bills Digest on this bill, since the introduc- tion of the private health insurance incen- tives, private hospital admissions have in- creased substantially.
Commentary from doctors suggests that, as patients are finding it harder to see a bulk- billing doctor, more patients are going to our public hospitals for immediate medical atten- tion or are delaying seeing a doctor at all and then ending up in the emergency wards of our hospitals.

At this time it is not a respon- sible or fair measure for the government to take money away from our public hospitals when they are so heavily under pressure.
And it could be argued that it is the govern- ment’s lack of commitment to the universal- ity of bulk-billing that directly contributes to this pressure.

This pressure is being felt all around the country.

Earlier this month, St John Ambu- lance services director, Bob Barker, com- mented that about four times over the past few months in Perth they have had to bypass one of the city’s hospitals.

On about six oc- casions all tertiary hospitals have asked to be avoided.
This was because the emergency departments of those hospitals were too busy.

Also, during one of the nights in May of this year, four big public hospitals in Sydney were forced to turn away all ambulances apart from those bearing patients with life- threatening conditions.

I use these examples—and other examples can easily be found—to show that our public hospitals simply cannot cope with the num- ber of patients that are relying on them for medical attention.
Our public hospitals need more money, not less money.

Therefore, it seems very strange timing for the govern- ment to take away money from our public hospital system.

Our public hospitals are surviving in a spartan environment and the effect of this unfortunately will be that Aus- tralians who cannot afford private hospitals and have to rely on public hospitals will re- ceive a quality of care that is compromised due to this pressure.

And why are we taking money away from our public hospitals?
To fund the govern- ment’s unfair Medicare package—a package that will offer incentives to doctors to bulk- bill pensioners and concession card holders only.

In the eyes of the government, other struggling Australians without a health care or concession card can fend for them- selves—and fending for themselves is going to be more difficult as the AMA has con- firmed that, as a result of the government’s scheme, doctors are likely to increase their charges.
This package is going to make a visit to the doctor difficult unless you have the money to pay.

The Labor Party looks forward to strongly opposing this package when we come to debate it.

Returning to today’s bill, the approach of the government in its negotiations with the states and territories on our new health care agreements has not been inspiring.

On two occasions Minister Patterson has refused to attend ministerial meetings to discuss the agreements.
What could have been an oppor- tunity for the Commonwealth, state and terri- tory ministers to work on much-needed structural reform in our health system has instead been a lost opportunity.

The Com- monwealth government has offered an ulti- matum to the states that will, in effect, mean less money for public hospitals.

We are all eagerly awaiting the next meeting between the ministers on 31 July to see how this agreement can be resolved.
this bill Labor oppose today as we strongly believe in delivering better health outcomes for all Australians.

We have a re- sponsibility to ensure that our public hospi- CHAMBER 11698 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 tals are able to provide quality health care to all Australians.

We do not believe that a bill that takes away $918 million from public hospitals is the way to achieve this.
Senator HARRIS (Queensland) (6.12 p.m.)—I rise to contribute to the second reading debate on the Health Care (Appro- priation) Amendment Bill 2003 and indicate to the chamber that it is One Nation’s posi- tion that a government, once elected, ought to have a surety of supply.

It is on that basis that One Nation will support the bill, but we will also point out some of the areas of con- cern that have been raised.
The government is removing money from health in one sector and transferring it into a different area.

It is claimed that this appro- priation will provide a 17 per cent increase in funding, but the states and territories have pointed out that it has been a decrease of $918.5 million.

You do not have to be Ein- stein to work out where the money has gone when you see that the Fairer Medicare pack- age is worth approximately $916.7 million.
So why is the government cutting the health care budget and whittling away Medicare?

These are two of the most common questions that are asked by constituents throughout Queensland.

The subversion of public health insurance and the deepening cuts into health care budgets are part of a global phenomenon, a worldwide trend towards privatisation of the health care sector.
Canada, New Zealand, the US, the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Austria, Germany and Britain, to name a few, have slashed health funds in recent times and this government is slavish in fol- lowing the trend.

Multinationals are actively lobbying for the deregulation of public health care under GATS.

They want to con- trol health care, a very profitable and lucra- tive business.

The institutions of the welfare state are to be scrapped.
This is why health services are being starved of funds and this is why the coalition appears to be subverting Medicare.

The big stick is the World Trade Organisa- tion’s General Agreement on Trade in Ser- vices.

This agreement is transforming ser- vices such as health care into tradable com- modities.
Service sector jobs including per- sonal services like health care could be sent overseas and provided electronically, while service sector workers can be imported to provide care for less money with fewer la- bour protections.

Once a country commits a sector to GATS, it cannot reverse or intro- duce new measures that would violate the agreement’s far-reaching restrictions on gov- ernment oversight and intervention.
The government declares that it has made no commitment to GATS in relation to health care, but the running down of our national health care system is merely setting it up to be privatised via GATS.

That is typical of what a government does when it wants to sell an asset.

It lets it wind down to the ex- tent that it is not worth saving and it is handed to the private sector on a silver plat- ter—and then come the increases to custom- ers.
Transforming health care into a tradable good requires transforming the way govern- ments structure and regulate it.

When Austra- lia signed on to GATS, negotiated under La- bor, we agreed to make it easier for foreign service corporations to compete in the do- mestic market.

Also, subject to a wide array of laws and consumer and worker safe- guards, we agreed to scrutiny by interna- tional tribunals whose proceedings are closed to the public.
WTO members agree that gov- ernment regulations in these areas must not interfere with the abilities of foreign corpora- tions to compete, even if such regulations treat foreign and domestic hospitals, schools and utilities as the same.

It will not be long before GATS negotiators consider a strict test for regulations that could put the burden CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11699 on governments to prove that health care and other regulations are necessary.
or public health activities—all chronic losers from a business point of view.

The WTO has already identified key health regulations as inherent barriers to in- ternational trade.

For health care profession- als, these regulations ensure quality and pro- fessionalism and more equitable access to services.

To corporations and their champi- ons in the WTO they are obstacles to trade and they must be weakened.
Under GATS, rules on domestic regulation and licensing requirements can interfere with foreign workers and provide for competition in the service sector.

To health care professionals and customers, the quality control and over- sight provided by professional licensing of doctors, nurses, paraprofessionals and health care facilities is a key consumer protection.
In order to achieve the trade goals of import- ing foreign workers and providers—we have seen an example of that recently with Telstra importing foreign workers under GATS natu- ral persons provisions—the WTO has called for recognition of foreign licensing require- ments as equivalent to one’s own, even if the foreign substantively weaker.

requirements are Consider this in the context of the nursing shortage here in Australia.
Provider associa- tions will be agitated to import workers from overseas so that they can pay less.

To the extent that licensing requirements interfere with the flow of labour, industries will be pushing hard for Australia to recognise for- eign standards that may be lower.

If GATS is revised so as to require domestic regulations to be less burdensome to trade and even pro- competitive, principles which underlie health care being accessible to all could be re- stricted.
Cross-subsidising—through which one service effectively subsidises another— is such a principle.

There would be no place for uncompensating health care, unprofitable admissions to hospitals, research, education What we are seeing here in Australia is the development of a two-tier system which is aligned with GATS.
The for-profit sector will cream off healthy and wealthy patients, pub- lic subsidies and staff, leaving the reduced public sector to deal with emergencies, to train staff and to cope with the elderly and the chronically sick and poor—the ones who need health care more.

It is not just at the hospital level but also at the general practice level.

There will be one tier for people who hold Commonwealth concession cards and one for those who do not.
This creates the likelihood of a two-level general practitioner system: one for those GPs who, through their practice demographics, either are forced to or can afford to opt into bulk-billing for card- holders and another for a group of general practitioners whose practice, population or business practices limit their ability to main- tain a viable business by opting in.
The poli- cies of the current federal government are driving us towards a more privatised health system, leaving the public system as a very poor cousin.

The government is shifting costs and re- sponsibilities to the private sector.

The issue of cost shifting between federal and state governments remains unresolved.

In Queen- sland, the outpatient and paediatrics clinics at the Maryborough Hospital have been shut down.
Closing down these clinics means that new and follow-up patients have to be seen in specialists’ private rooms or by staff spe- cialists in private practice clinics.

This is privatisation by stealth.

Regarding pharma- ceuticals, the Queensland government has encouraged hospitals to move patients out as day patients.

When the patient returns to ac- cess the hospital, the cost of pharmaceuticals is shifted to the federal government.

This is one reason why there are now such short stays in hospitals.
Patients should not be- CHAMBER 11700 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 come yoyos as a result of the fiscal policies of federal and state governments.

The government may be funnelling money out of this appropriation and into A Fairer Medicare, but the doctors, surprisingly—and it is surprising to me—do not like it.
I have contacted more than 2,000 doctors in Queen- sland alone, and the responses that I have received so far indicate that they are totally against the Fairer Medicare package, with the exception of doctors in remote rural ar- eas, for whom it would be an advantage.

The government’s package would see the need to seek doctors from overseas who would be willing to practise for a pittance.

Again, this is GATS in action.


As I commented earlier, as we privatise our hospitals we create a situation where corporations are forced to move or they choose to move into only the areas of higher profitability.

We then end up with a situation where private hospitals provide extensively in those areas where there are considerable margins and the public sector are left to pro- vide for those that are less profitable.
As I said earlier, on a profit and loss basis, hospi- tal admissions, research that does not result in a positive outcome and the education of our doctors and nurses are all areas of chronic loss from a business point of view.

The government’s attempt to shift costs to the private sector is not being done in an eq- uitable manner.

Only the highly profitable areas are being shifted across and our public hospitals are being left disproportionately worse off.
For ordinary people, this budget continues the relentless process of gutting public health in order to transfer vast resources to private health companies.

One Nation believes that we must retain publicly funded health and publicly provided health care services.

We must modernise and improve them on the principles of democratic accountability, ef- fective delivery, adequate funding, fairness at work and equality of access.
There can be no other alternative but to reject the WTO’s pre- scription for privatisation—reject it outright.

The message has been carried very clearly in the responses of my constituents that to save the public health system we must pressure our representatives to withdraw Australia from the WTO without delay and cancel our membership.

It can be done.

All it takes is an act of parliament.


As I said earlier, One Na- tion will support the bill, but only because One Nation and the people of Queensland believe that, once a government is elected, that government should be assured of supply.

Senator CROSSIN (Northern Territory) (6.27 p.m.)—I rise this evening to comment on the impact of the Health Care (Appropria- tion) Amendment Bill 2003 on the Northern Territory.

This bill seeks to amend the Health Care (Appropriation) Act.
It is, of course, the means by which the government is able to have moneys appropriated in this parliament and a means by which the provision of health care is provided, under a legislative basis, for grants of financial assistance under the Aus- tralian health care agreements.

The amend- ments to the original bill extend the opera- tion of the act for a second five-year period commencing in a few weeks time, on 1 July 2003.
This bill enables the Commonwealth to enter into a new Australian health care agreement and, one would argue, to maintain funding to the states, pending settlement of any existing agreements.

As I said, this bill provides the legislative basis for grants of financial assistance for the provision of hos- pital services or projects or programs that will be conducted during the coming five years starting 1 July 2003.

This extends these agreements for a second five-year period.
There are other minor legislative changes in terms of the administrative arrangements of this act, but the fundamental issue about this act and the issue that has been the source CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11701 of much attention around the nation for the last few months is the appropriation from the consolidated revenue fund of an amount, according to this bill, not exceeding $42 bil- lion for hospital services provided.
On the face of that one might say that that is a fair amount of money and a fair commitment from the federal government.

But if you have a look at the history of this health care agreement you will know that this is in fact $1 billion short of what the federal govern- ment had promised state and territory minis- ters.

I will give a bit of background to what this is going to mean for states and territories, not least of all for the Northern Territory.
The states and territories have had many discus- sions and meetings with the federal minister, Kay Patterson—when, of course, she bothers to attend—in relation to the details of this funding.

On 2 May this year, a joint commu- nique was distributed by the state and terri- tory health ministers.

It says: Federal Health Minister Kay Patterson today con- firmed the Commonwealth’s health care funding offer represented a $1 billion real cut to the States and Territories.
Of course health ministers unanimously re- jected this offer at a meeting in Canberra on 2 May 2003, a meeting that was held to dis- cuss the next Australian health care agree- ments.

Ministers from the states and territo- ries went on to say that in the federal budget this year there is an attempt by this govern- ment to kill Medicare and that the health minister has ‘tried to bury public hospitals’.
The state and territory ministers have contin- ued their fight for the right of ordinary Aus- tralians to affordable and accessible health care following the federal government’s move to dismantle Medicare, as we saw in the announcements of the budget some weeks ago, and the real cut in funding to the states of the money that is to be appropriated through this bill to the state and territory health care agreements.

Let us have a look at what some of the state and territory ministers have had to say.
They say that the key prin- ciples that should underpin the Australian health care agreements include: * Maintaining and developing Australia’s health care system based on the Medicare principles of universality, equity and access; * Maintaining and developing the key compo- nents of Australia’s health care system, including Medicare, sustainable public hospital-related ser- vices, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, aged care services and the public health system in gen- eral; and * Recognition that the policy decisions of the Commonwealth do not exist in a vacuum and can have serious consequences for State and Terri- tory-based health services.
In respect of the Northern Territory, the con- sequences are severe.

A $1 billion cut from this health care agreement or $1 billion not realised as promised by the federal govern- ment—a federal government that has refused to ensure an additional $1 billion in its health reform package—so an agreement that con- sists of $42 billion rather than $43 billion, translates to a shortfall in the Northern Terri- tory of $16 million.
The impact of this gov- ernment not realising its promises under the state and territory health care agreement is a shortfall of $16 million in relation to the Northern Territory.

This government would say: ‘All right.

States and territories now have to make up that funding shortfall them- selves.

They now have to put on the table a commitment for money to make up the dif- ference.

We have taken our hands off the wheel here.


We are not going to take full responsibility for funding your public hospi- tal system.

You’ve got to find some of the money yourself.’ Let us have a look, though, at a profile of the Northern Territory.

Eighty per cent of the funding by which the Northern Territory government has to operate comes from the CHAMBER 11702 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 federal government by virtue of the fact that we are a territory and not a state.
In the other states, Commonwealth moneys coming to the state are around the 40 per cent mark.

We in the Northern Territory rely very signifi- cantly on the money that is appropriated the Commonwealth government.

through When you have a shortfall of $16 million in the Northern Territory, you have to ask your- self where or how do you find that shortfall when you already rely on 80 per cent of your funding coming from the Commonwealth for all services across the board.
The other thing in the Northern Territory is that there is one private hospital based in Darwin offering a very, very limited range of services.

It does not offer an intensive care service or a neonatal intensive care service.

It offers very limited services in terms of emergency procedures or extensive and complicated procedures.
By and large, the fact that you have private health care cover in the Northern Territory can mean very little if you live in a remote community, if you live on one of the islands or if you live in a place like Tennant Creek, Alice Springs or Gove.

There is very little benefit in having private health insurance.

Therefore we can- not have an answer that simply says: ‘We will take the strain off public hospitals and encourage people to go to a private hospi- tal—that is the answer.
Reduce the money from the public hospitals and put the onus and the responsibility onto a private hospital.

People will then go to a private hospital.

It will take the strain off the public hospital.’ It does not work like that in the Northern Terri- tory—never has, never will—because of the lack of private hospitals, the lack of access to the provision of private services and the ex- treme overreliance that all of the public in the Northern Territory have on the public health system.
They have a reliance on the federal government supporting them and committing to ensuring that the public health system is fully resourced, funded and sup- ported.

Let us put on top of that the complicated layer of statistics we have for Indigenous health.

I do not have those statistics with me here tonight—that will incur another 20- minute speech at another time.

Everybody knows that Indigenous people rely very heavily on the public health system and the public hospital system.
That is the only sys- tem they rely on.

We know the figures when it comes to Indigenous health across a whole range of issues—renal health, diabetes, heart disease, rheumatic fever and even access to the provision of specialists to assist with a whole range of other areas.

They are a total group of our population that rely 100 per cent on the public hospital system.
We have a government here that want to get state and territory ministers to sign up to a state and territory health care agreement that has $1 billion less than they had prom- ised originally, which has a dramatic impact on the Northern Territory to the tune of $16 million.

The states, as I understand it, are pushing ahead.


An article in the Canberra Times last Saturday said that state and terri- tory health ministers voted only last Friday to continue their campaign to ensure that this agreement is not signed and that they will press ahead with further discussions to try to get this government to understand that there is a need to ensure that the public hospital system and the public health system are ade- quately funded.
I understand that, in relation to the $1 billion less than promised for health, the federal government are claiming that the extra money is not needed because the private health insurance rebate is easing the burden on the public hospital system.

That is not an excuse, when you look at the profile of the health system in the Northern Territory and the reliance on the public health system in the Northern Territory.
CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11703 Let us just take an example of what has been happening in the Northern Territory in the last six months in relation to health.

We know that this year’s budget—the 2003 budget—shows a withdrawal of funding from the public hospitals.

It is already in the forward estimates, and it is to fund the so- called A Fairer Medicare package.
Instead of recognising the pressure that emergency de- partments in public hospitals face, this gov- ernment is diminishing the funding to public hospitals by $918 million over four years.

We know that emergency departments in private hospitals are overloaded simply due to the fact that Australians, and in particular Territorians, are finding it harder to see a doctor who bulk-bills.

Of course, we do not have an emergency department at a private hospital in the Northern Territory.
Our people up there, everybody up there—Indigenous and non-Indigenous people—are solely reli- ant on the public hospital system.
We know in the Northern Territory that 90 per cent of patients who are presenting to the Royal Darwin Hospital’s accident and emergency section each night after the hours of six o’clock are presenting with non-emergency assistance—that is, the accident and emer- gency departments at the Royal Darwin Hospital and, more than likely, the Alice Springs Hospital are full of patients that pre- sent with GP related and minor problems.
The changes that the Howard government are proposing will simply place a further burden on our already overworked public hospitals.

Parents with sick children are wait- ing at the hospital for hours at night simply because they cannot afford to see a doctor during the day or the few doctors who bulk- bill in the Northern Territory are booked for several days in advance.

The situation in the Northern Territory is literally at crisis point.
We have, of course, the outrageous situation where the shadow minister for health in the Northern Territory, Sue Carter, is laying the blame for all of this at the feet of my col- league Minister Jane Aagaard in the North- ern Territory government and is suggesting that the new and refurbished accident and emergency department that was planned un- der the Country Liberal Party has not gone ahead and at fault is the Labor Party since it came into government in 2001.
As Minister Aagaard was able to reveal on 30 April during a debate in the Legislative Assembly in the Northern Territory, the acci- dent and emergency section has been rebuilt and has been refurbished and, yes, there is a delay in opening it.

It is not going to be opened in the coming weeks as planned, and why is that?
It is because the Country Liberal Party were so inept and so negligent in their forward planning that in their forward esti- mates and budgets they simply budgeted for a building to be built and not for any ongoing recurrent costs.

They put no money aside in the following years for staffing, aircondition- ing or equipment.

The Country Liberal Party were only able to find money for a building.

There was no money for forward on-costs, for forward operating costs.
And they now seek to lay the blame at Minister Aagaard’s feet for the fact that this A and E department is not going to be opened on schedule; they want to lay the blame for all of that at the feet of the Labor government in the Northern Territory.

Not only is this is a Country Lib- eral Party that could not manage their own health system up there; they cannot even seem to manage their own leadership prob- lems at this point in time.
We have a chronic situation in the North- ern Territory when it comes to access to doc- tors and to services.

People are going to the public hospital after hours because they can- not afford to go to a doctor.

There are no doctors who bulk-bill in the Northern Terri- tory who are taking on new patients.

The situation is at crisis point.


Therefore, in order to get attention for your children after hours CHAMBER 11704 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 for minor problems, you have to present yourself at the hospital.

As I said, 90 per cent of the people who present themselves to the accident and emergency departments in Darwin and Alice Springs are not presenting because they have been in an accident or they have an emergency; they have GP re- lated problems.
In the Territory our public hospital is bottlenecked; it is crammed.

It is at crisis point.

On top of that, we have a fed- eral government that wants to sign up to a state and territory health care agreement that has $16 million less in its bucket of funding for the Northern Territory.

As well, it pur- ports to have released A Fairer Medicare package that is going to relieve the burden on people in the Northern Territory.

It simply will not.
It simply will not.

I recently conducted a survey in Palm- erston, which is a large city outside of Dar- win, and although not surprised at the re- sponses regarding the decline in the bulk- billing rate I was alarmed at the fact that 67 per cent of the people said that there had been occasions when they had deliberately not been to see a doctor because of the pro- hibitive cost.

So 67 per cent of people were telling me that they do not go to a doctor because of the cost of visiting that doctor.
So what do they do?

They wait till after hours.

They wait till after 4.21 p.m. and present at the accident and emergency department of Royal Darwin Hospital.

They are prepared to sit there, along with 90 per cent of the other patients who turn up, for hours at a time to see someone.
They present if they feel sick in the stomach, if they have the flu, if they have a headache or if they have other minor symptoms that should be treated on a day-to- day basis by GPs—if this government took hold of the health care system in this country, shaped it and formed it and produced some- thing that was actually meeting the needs of the Australian public.
We have a bill before us that wants to ap- propriate money to the state and territory governments—$1 billion less than was ini- tially promised—and the impact of that is $16 million less for the Northern Territory.

As I said before, in the Northern Territory we have a situation where the Country Liberal Party is happy to point the finger at the La- bor Party locally for the problems at the ac- cident and emergency department, but those problems stem from Canberra.
The problems are initiated here by this federal govern- ment—a federal government which is refus- ing to accept the fact that this agreement does not give the state and territory ministers the money they need to have a decently funded public health system, a decently pub- licly funded public hospital system.

That $16 million less for the Northern Territory is a huge amount when it comes to looking after the needs of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people there.
We already rely on the Com- monwealth for 80 per cent of our funding.

We do not have a private system on which we can rely; we are solely reliant on the pub- lic hospital system.
This is a government which refuses to acknowledge that, refuses to fund the public hospital system properly and refuses to ensure that the Northern Territory government has got the resources it needs to provide a fair, equitable and accessible health care system to everybody in the Northern Territory, no matter the size of their wallet and no matter where they live in the North- ern Territory.
Senator (Victoria— PATTERSON Minister for Health and Ageing) (6.47 p.m.)—I believe I only have about 2½ min- utes to speak, so I might just reply to what Senator Crossin has said.
It is always inter- esting to hear people make comments—you can always twist things to make them fit the story you want to present—but Senator Crossin failed to acknowledge that, since coming to government, the Howard govern- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11705 ment has almost doubled funding to Indige- nous health services.
As Senator Crossin knows, a significant number of people in the Northern Territory—especially in very re- mote areas like Katherine and a number of other areas which I will not go through but which I have visited—have had their health services significantly improved as a result of the coalition increasing the funding and al- most doubling it.

It is very easy to come into the chamber and make quick, cheap points about what the Commonwealth is not doing without actually indicating what it is doing.
Some of the other speakers here today—and maybe I should go into this debate in more detail tomorrow morning so that my speech looks a bit more coherent in one piece—have said that money has been taken out of the health care agree- ments.

I absolutely refute that.

The Com- monwealth has in fact offered $10 billion more.

That is a 17 per cent increase over and above inflation from the current health care agreements.
How that can be taking money out of the health system beggars belief—a 17 per cent increase.

It does not matter; the peo- ple on the other side still make the comment that it is taking money out of the health sys- tem.

We actually gave the state health system a $2.5 billion windfall in the life of the last agreement.

I have not heard one member on the other side get up and say that.

They say we are taking money out when it is a 17 per cent increase over and above inflation in the next five years.
How that is a decrease beg- gars belief.

They do not mention that there was a $2.5 billion windfall to the states when we did not claw back funding, as agreed in the life of the last health care agreement.

ADJOURNMENT The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Knowles)—Order!

There being no consideration of government documents, I propose the question: That the Senate do now adjourn.
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Aus- tralia) (6.51 p.m.)—I just want to make some brief remarks on how pleased I am that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No.

2] has been carried by the Senate because I think it is an important piece of legislation.
It does reflect, I think, certainly from the Labor Party’s point of view, the need for that original legislation—which was totally unacceptable—to be rejected and for amendments to have been made to make it a much more balanced piece of legislation.

It balances the need for the security of Austra- lians and the need for ASIO to be able to exercise its role in combating terrorism with protecting the rights of our citizens.
It is a difficult balance at the best of times, but I think that, in the legislation now before the parliament, the Senate will have played a very useful role in trying to make sure that we have got that balance right.

I have re- ceived a lot of representations from constitu- ents about these issues.

I know there is a lot of concern that we do get the balance right.
I congratulate Senator John Faulkner, our par- liamentary leader, on the work he and his staff have put in to try to make sure that we get a much better piece of legislation than was originally proposed.
General Douglas MacArthur Brisbane Memorial Trust Aviation: Bakers Creek Air Crash Senator SANTORO (Queensland) (6.52 p.m.)—The great project to establish a Mac- Arthur Museum in Brisbane, in the very place where the general had his office during World War II, has marked two very signifi- cant milestones recently.

There was a signifi- cant victory on budget night—a further vic- tory indeed for General Douglas MacArthur.
CHAMBER 11706 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 The Howard Government agreed to provide $350,000 towards the development of the MacArthur Museum in the Heritage listed MacArthur Chambers site in central Bris- bane.

The other milestone was the handing over by the Brisbane City Council to the General Douglas MacArthur Brisbane Me- morial Trust of the MacArthur Museum floor site.

This handover took place at City Hall in Brisbane just last week.
It was of course from the premises in Ed- ward Street that General MacArthur directed the Allied war effort in the South-West Pa- cific during the dark days of 1942 to 1944 when Australia was under direct enemy threat and actual attack—and in my part of Australia, Queensland, particularly so.

We must always remember our history, for his- tory is not just a collection of dry facts but indeed the story of our nation’s life.
It is a proud story and none more proud than the part in which the Americans played such a significant and, indeed, a lifesaving part dur- ing the Pacific war, from 1941 to 1945. about friends comments Tonight I want to give honourable sena- tors an overview of this magnificent project and also place on the record the thanks that are due to a great many people whose dedi- cation, energy and fortitude have brought the project to its present point—and I will come back to that in a minute.
I thought too that this would be an appropriate time to make some and neighbours, about steadfast allies and brave defenders of democracy.

It is an appropriate time too to say a little about the heritage that the great English, Scots, Welsh and Irish di- aspora of the past four centuries has brought us.
It is time to say something about how we 21st century Australians have benefited so greatly from the global dispersion of Eng- lish-speaking and Gaelic-speaking people and the precepts that brought democracy and true people’s rule to the wide swathes of our planet.

We in Australia, from whatever back- ground we may come, are protected by that heritage and, by our actions and our way of governing ourselves, we protect it in its turn.

We are a proud and very effective part of that global enlightenment.
Sixty years ago, at a time of great peril, Australia and America stood shoulder to shoulder in the Pacific to beat back tyranny.

The bonds we forged then between our na- tions still endure and will, I believe, endure forever, just as will our bonds with Britain.

You might indeed say that we are part—a proud and independent part—of an enduring empire.
The empire of decency, democracy and common law, the rule of law, the su- premacy of the ballot box and the determina- tion to stand up for those in peril from others are all things that we share.

They are an in- delible part of our shared history and com- mon culture.

Let no-one ever get away with saying that time and events have reduced these gifts we hold in common and in trust for future generations to the status of a his- torical footnote or the irrelevance of a mar- ginal comment.
At this time 60 years on we are again shoulder to shoulder with the Americans and the British in defence of liberty and the global assault on murderous terror.

The events that have so shockingly opened the 21st century add a particular poignancy and a pointed relevance to our celebration of the great cause in which we, the Americans and ourselves, made a stand together six decades ago.

Projects such as the MacArthur Mu- seum give a much needed and very valuable public dimension to these links.
On completion of the building works at MacArthur Chambers, the MacArthur Mu- seum will be open to the public as a managed wartime display.

It will be an integral part of Brisbane’s Living Heritage Network.

Public interest in and educational exposure to Aus- tralia’s heritage, Brisbane’s military history CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11707 and Queensland’s tourist sites are increas- ingly evident in both our own and the inter- national community.

This is indeed an idea whose time has come.


The idea of course is not just to create a memorial to one fixed time in history.

The MacArthur Museum, and indeed the whole MacArthur Chambers project, will go be- yond a public display of Brisbane’s involve- ment in the critical phase of the war in the South-West Pacific.

It will add immeasura- bly, in my view, to the rich portfolio of sites in Brisbane’s Living Heritage Network and social history.
It will raise awareness of the heritage sector and its valuable contribution to the city of Brisbane.

It will provide a fo- cus on the historical awareness of visitors and the community, particularly our youth.

It will provide a central point for military re- search and study.

It will link sites such as the Australian War Memorial, Queensland’s John Oxley Library, the Queensland Univer- sity of Technology, the MacArthur Founda- tion in the USA and other military history related sites.
That the project has got to this point and will now move on to fruition is to the great credit of a large number of people.

In par- ticular, it is appropriate to mention the steer- ing committee which is chaired by Major General M. Blake AO, MC.
In the context of the steering committee, I want particularly to give credit to my friend Mr Geoff Thomas, Chairman of CapitalCorp Financial Services and, as well, Queensland’s Special Commis- sioner to the United States, where his politi- cal and business connections are impeccable.

Mr Thomas is truly a quiet achiever.

He is also a very hard man to say no to, as will have become obvious very quickly to those he tirelessly lobbied on behalf of this great project.
He approached me about the MacAr- thur Museum 2½ years ago and provided me with additional awareness of the project.

Throughout this period he has pushed and encouraged me to never give up on pursuing financial and other support for the project.

Those who value the MacArthur Museum project, I am sure, value Mr Thomas’s inter- est in and support for it.

Also on the steering committee is Mr Geoff Rodgers, Managing Director of the Rowland Communications Group, who is deputy chairman.
I have previously in this place recognised by name the other members of the steering committee and I again pay tribute to them tonight.

In particular, I men- tion two other individuals: Lieutenant Colo- nel J.P. Dwyer AM, who is the executive officer, and the Patron of the General Doug- las MacArthur Brisbane Memorial Trust, Major General Peter Arnison, the Governor of Queensland.
I again recognise that the Queensland government and the Brisbane City Council have been behind the project from the start and, of course, so has the fed- eral government, as has been newly demon- strated by the $350,000 grant made available in the recent federal budget.

The chairman of trustees is Sir Leo Hiel- scher, Chairman of the Queensland Treasury Corporation.

The other trustees are the Pre- mier of Queensland, the Hon.
Peter Beattie, retired US Major William A. Bentson, Major General Digger James, Dr Leo Keliher as Director-General of the Premier’s depart- ment, and Mr Ken Talbot of MacArthur Coal.

It should also be placed on the record that the MacArthur family in America has given permission for the family name to be used in the Brisbane project.
Under the development program, establishment of the full museum is contingent on recurrent funding, although the refurbishment of the MacArthur Chambers site commenced in late 2001 under commercial developers.

Phase 1 includes the restoration of Gen- eral MacArthur’s World War II office and refurbishment of the eighth-floor museum.

CHAMBER 11708 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 The MacArthur Museum project has a target of $1.7 million to establish the displays.
For many years there has been public interest in providing recognition of the presence in Brisbane of General Douglas MacArthur and the headquarters of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific area during 1942 to 1944, a crucial period in Australia’s history.

The MacArthur Museum project is a fine example of the kind of historically based, built-environment concept that deserves full support and whose proponents and backers deserve full credit.
Also tonight I want to say a few words about another aspect of Queensland’s indeli- ble connection with the events of the Pacific War—the Bakers Creek air crash in 1943, which killed 40 people and is still, 60 years later, Australia’s worst air disaster.

Because of wartime censorship the story of the crash—it was an accident, not resulting from enemy action—was to all intents and pur- poses suppressed.
It was suppressed to the extent that the relatives of the dead— Americans—never actually knew what had happened to their loved ones and even where they met their deaths.

In recent years the story of the tragic crash has been brought into public view, and strong links have been established between the RSL in Mackay and an American group formed in 2000, the Bakers Creek Memorial Association.
The purpose of the association is to publicise the Bakers Creek air crash story in the United States; to assist the work of the Mackay RSL historian, Col Benson, to locate family relatives of the B-17C crash victims; and to raise funds to donate a scale model replica B-17C to the Bakers Creek Memorial near Mackay for the 60th anniver- sary commemoration.
The 60th anniversary went ahead as scheduled last weekend and I had the honour of meeting the American party here in Aus- tralia for that occasion in Brisbane last week.

The ‘Bakers Creek Pilgrims’ were led by Alvin ‘Mo’ and Vera Berg, from Texas.

I hope that the true Australian, true Queen- sland, hospitality we showed the participants will be a fond memory for them.

There was a solemn purpose to the visit.


On Saturday, 14 June a memorial was dedicated at the crash site and the scale model of the B17-C was placed on a plinth there.

A report of the occa- sion and photographs can be viewed at www.ozatwar.com, a website operated by Peter Dunn.

Among Americans also present were John B.


‘Skip’ Hall Jr, a retired United States Air Force lieutenant general, who lives near Washington; Robert S. Cutler, professor, management of technology, at George Wash- ington University; and Eileen A. Malloy, United States Consul General in Sydney.
In the party, too, were Professor David Myers, publisher and founder of Central Queensland University Press; Mrs Jan Cardwell, man- ager, customer service at CQU Press; and Air Commodore Stewart Cameron of the RAAF, Commander Combat Support Group at Am- berley near Ipswich.

Once again we are re- minded of the deep and abiding links be- tween our country and America.

These links are tremendously important and span the generations.

They will endure.

We shall all be grateful for that in the years to come.
Aviation: Karratha and Port Hedland Airports Senator COOK (Western Australia) (7.03 p.m.)—I rise tonight to talk about a quite serious problem that is faced by two of our great north-west cities in Western Australia, the cities of Karratha and Port Hedland.

Last week I visited both centres.

Both centres are thriving and there is a strong outlook for their local economies.
The important element of both cities is that they are located in an area where Australia’s great resource devel- opment projects are located.

Karratha is the main residential dormitory centre for the CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11709 North West Shelf, and all the offshore devel- opment associated with that, and for the Hamersley iron port of Dampier, which serves the inland mining towns of Parabur- doo and Tom Price.
Port Hedland is the main centre for BHP’s mining operation and serves the inland mining centre of Newman.

Karratha and Port Hedland are the major export earners for resource earnings from foreign trade in Australia and they are quite sensitive from a national security point of view.

Their link to the rest of Australia and the outside world is mostly through their airports, although they are served by road and by sea as well.

But their airports are the key link.


I discovered on my trip that, by virtue of a cynical cost-cutting decision by the federal government, the fire brigade ser- vices provided to the airports are to be ter- minated on 30 June.

Airservices Australia charged airlines a levy on a landed tonne basis to provide for the fire brigade services at the airports.
As a result of a CASA regulation, inspired by the cost-cutting approach of this government, the threshold passenger load for each airport has been raised to 350,000 passengers, well be- yond what the airports at Karratha and Port Hedland currently bear.

Karratha has a pas- senger load factor of about 170,000 passen- ger movements a year and Port Hedland has a passenger load factor of 80,000 passenger movements per year at the present time, al- though I will say something about those fig- ures in a moment.
So putting the bar at 350,000 passengers means that the airlines will not collect the levy and, as a conse- quence, the dedicated firefighting facilities at both airports are to be terminated.

The only alternative now for any fire- fighting necessary at the airports is to call upon the town based volunteer fire services.

People work for these fire services on a vol- unteer basis.

I have great admiration for their dedication and for their skill.
Their skill and training is about suburban and country fire- fighting.

The extra level of skill necessary to deal with airport fires based around aviation movements is another matter.

They would require extra training in order to bring them- selves up to the necessary skill level to deal with airport fires.

Those resources will have to be found from the local community.
At the Karratha airport the response time is about 90 seconds, according to an out- standing figure in the north-west of Western Australia, the President of the Roebourne Shire, Kevin Richards.

The firefighting unit at the airport can respond to any fire on the premises within that time.

If the airport has to obtain the fire service from the town of Karratha, which is located some distance from the airport, then it could take up to 45 minutes, since it is a volunteer service.
The same is true if one applies those figures to the major centre of Port Hedland.

If there is a fire disaster at either of the airports, there will be a much longer wait—a considerable wait—before there will be the ability to deal with and remedy that situation, and during that time any amount of devastation could be wreaked.

I said that at Karratha the annual passen- ger load factor was about 170,000 passen- gers.
This is a centre where most of the fly- in, fly-out passengers come to serve on the offshore oil rigs.

So now a key work force dealing with an international exporting ven- ture like the North West Shelf is to land at an airport without a proper airport fire service.

That is a concern in itself.

Of course, I would prefer that the work force lived in Karratha, but the fly-in, fly-out situation is an option that the company has exercised.
The other thing is that, in determining what the passenger load factor might be for the airport—and the figure has been raised to 350,000—CASA does not consider helicop- CHAMBER 11710 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 ter movements.

Rotary-wing movements are not counted for the sake of this figure; only fixed-wing movements are counted.
There- fore, all of the passenger traffic—which is quite considerable—to the offshore oil rigs and to nearby Barrow Island by helicopter is not included for the sake of this calculation.

Only a Canberra bureaucrat, not someone that lives in the north-west, could come up with that sort of grotesque calculation.

Only someone not associated with the difficulties that north-west people find in moving around Australia could come up with that sort of calculation.
Nonetheless, they have—and, as a consequence, the funds are not going to be available.

I said that Port Hedland’s passenger load factor at the present time was 80,000 passen- gers per year.

That is quite a sizeable traffic.

The Port Hedland council want to develop their own region and they see Port Hedland as a gateway to Australia from Bali and from nearby Indonesia.

They are negotiating char- ter flights with Sempati Air and Merpati— Indonesian airlines—to bring passengers into Port Hedland.
The fact that, from 30 June, because of cynical cost-cutting by this gov- ernment, there will not be a full-time, fully trained emergency firefighting service on the ground at the airport—rather than 45 minutes away in Port Hedland—means that the cost of providing that service for international passengers as well as domestic passengers has to be met.

For international passengers there has to be a fire service at the airport, which means making a special arrangement just for international flights.
Regional Australia deserves a break, and regional Australia ought to be given a break by this government.

This government talks tough about what it is going to do to help regional Australia, but when you actually look at its performance there is very little there.

By removing the fire service, it is in- hibiting the ability of the town of Port Hed- land to successfully conclude an interna- tional charter agreement with Indonesian airlines to bolster the regional economy.
To not face up to the need to provide an airline service in the case of both Karratha and Port Hedland ignores the very sensitive national security issues for both of those centres, but it is also a brake on their development and means a higher cost and a levy for people living in the north-west of Western Australia.
With this government I always say, ‘Don’t listen to what they say; watch what they do.’ In watching what they do here, we see a clear case of a particular penalty being ap- plied to those Australians who perform the role of developing this wonderful country of ours, living in remote areas of Australia and working to develop Australia.
Robyn Crane, who is the acting chief executive officer of the Pilbara Development Commission, said to me just last week, ‘I can’t understand how the federal government can sanction not hav- ing firefighters at Karratha Airport.’ Barry Haase, the member for Kalgoorlie, spent $416,000 on postage prior to the last elec- tion.
If that money had been spent on provid- ing airport fire services, those two airports would have a fire service now able to meet the needs of the local community and give the reassurance necessary for passengers.
(Time expired) International Justice for Cleaners Day Senator WONG (South Australia) (7.13 p.m.)—I rise this evening to congratulate members of the Australian Liquor, Hospital- ity and Miscellaneous Workers Union and its sister union in the United States, the Service Employees International Union, on their campaign demanding decent wages and con- ditions for cleaners employed in the more than 120 Westfield shopping centres around the world.
Yesterday, on 16 June, cleaners around the world celebrated International Justice for CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11711 Cleaners Day, or Justice for Janitors Day, as it is known in the US.

This day commemo- rates the struggle of cleaners in Los Angeles who were attacked by police in 1990 during a peaceful demonstration against a cleaning contractor.
Community outrage after this incident led to the formation of union locals that, over the many years of the Justice for Janitors campaign, have been highly success- ful in achieving improvements in wages, conditions, health care and job security.

The leadership and rank and file of the SEIU are to be commended for their tenacious efforts in achieving these improvements.
The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellane- ous Workers Union is marking International Justice for Cleaners Day by launching a campaign calling on Westfield chairman Frank Lowy to agree to minimum standards in the awarding of cleaning contracts, which include abiding by award conditions, ensur- ing basic occupational health and safety standards are met and guaranteeing that companies who are awarded cleaning con- tracts are meeting their commitments, such as workers compensation premiums, super- annuation payments and appropriate taxes.
I hope this campaign is successful, and I find it hard to imagine that, when it is put to him, Frank Lowy, the CEO of Westfield, will dis- agree with it.

Cleaners in our shopping centres are an invisible force.

Multinational giants like Westfield rely on these workers being effi- cient and reliable and maintaining an envi- ronment that allows the company to charge topnotch rents.

In return, shopping centre cleaners are amongst the most exploited workers in the Australian community.
Ac- cording to the ABS, over 95,000 workers are employed in the cleaning industry in Austra- lia, including over 8,600 in my home state of South Australia.

This industry is dominated by women and includes many workers from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

Only 22 per cent of workers in this industry enjoy full-time employment, with the other 78 per cent employed on part-time or casual bases.
Even taking into account the most recent living wage increase, which we note the government opposed, cleaners earn the princely sum of $12.38 an hour.

Many of them do not work many hours a week.

Make no mistake, on these wages and with the hours worked, many cleaners in Australia are working and living in poverty.

Those sena- tors involved in the Senate poverty inquiry would have heard horrific stories of the day- to-day struggle to live in dignity that workers like these have to endure.
This is also the section of the community that the Howard government has in its crosshairs in its plan to destroy Medicare and make higher education the preserve of the wealthy.

Prior to entering the parliament I had the privilege of representing some of these workers in legal disputes, often surrounding unfair dismissal or a failure to pay correct entitlements.
From this experience I have seen companies like Westfield adopting an aggressive policy of increasing profits by awarding contracts solely on price, creating a downward spiral where cleaning contractors inevitably make their own profits off the backs of low-paid workers.

Like many of the workers who clean his shopping towns, Mr Lowy came to Australia as a migrant with little other than a determi- nation to work for a better future for himself and his family.
That spirit, displayed by many migrants into Australia, has helped build the country we know and love, yet in- creasingly that spirit is not being rewarded with the opportunities it deserves.

Cleaners are often caught in poverty cycles, not being able to afford basic health and education.
No doubt, Westfield will argue that the wages and conditions of cleaners have nothing to do with the owners of the shopping mall be- cause it is the contractors who are the em- CHAMBER 11712 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 ployers, but it is Westfield who selects the contractor and in these shopping centres the contractor acts in the name of Westfield.

It is Westfield who selects the contractors on the basis of price, pushing wages and conditions downwards.
Westfield has a responsibility to ensure workers are treated decently and that contractors are meeting their minimum legal obligations.

It seems inconceivable that Mr Lowy, when presented with these facts through this campaign, would do anything other than immediately take steps to rectify the prob- lems occurring on his property.
It would seem inconceivable that Mr Lowy, whose story epitomises the migrant’s dream and who is now amongst the richest people in Australia, would want to treat others worse than he was treated.

Mr Lowy is one of the success stories of our post-war immigration policy, arriving from Europe in 1952 with no capital and poor English skills—an identical situation to that of many of Australia’s clean- ers.
However, in those days Australia en- joyed a centralised wage system that acted as a genuine safety net, a springboard where new migrants like Mr Lowy were able to earn a decent wage and participate not only in the economy but also in the society more broadly.

In 1950 the pay differential between aver- age wages and the salaries of CEOs was about one to five.

Over the past six years the Howard government has torn the industrial safety net to shreds.
Rising wealth inequality and ballooning executive salaries have seen this differential grow to a point where CEOs earn on average 400 times more than a cleaner in a Westfield shopping centre.

This divide has been further compounded by an attack on essential public services, health and education.

I congratulate LHMU members on their efforts in this campaign.

I join with them in calling for Westfield to sit down with the relevant unions to negotiate a global pro- tocol on service sector tendering.
The fact that a service is contracted out is not an ex- cuse for minimum wages and conditions to be avoided.

Environment: Greening Australia Senator HUMPHRIES (Australian Capi- tal Territory) (7.19 p.m.)—I begin my re- marks by making a short reference to the comments of Senator Cook, who is no longer in the chamber.

In his speech he made refer- ence to a Canberra bureaucrat having been responsible for some decision of which he disapproved.
First of all, I do not know whether the bureaucrat of whom he com- plains was a Canberra bureaucrat or perhaps a Perth bureaucrat, but I would hope that a former minister of the Crown in this country would acknowledge that he has had many Canberra bureaucrats provide him with dedi- cated and loyal service and would be a little less likely as a result to refer in that disparag- ing way to bureaucrats who happen to live in Canberra.

I hope that he is listening to these remarks and is taking note.
My comments this evening are not, how- ever, about Senator Cook but about the work of Greening Australia.

In 1982, the Interna- tional Year of the Tree, a small community based group called Greening Australia was formed to raise concerns about tree loss and to organise the mass planting of trees.

I am not sure whether Bob Hawke’s prediction of planting one billion trees before 2000 came to fruition, but if it did Greening Australia can take a large part of the credit.
Just last month I attended the 21st anni- versary celebrations of that organisation, and I think it is fair to say that Greening Australia has been one of Australia’s great environ- mental successes.

Today it is an organisation with some 300 staff and a national role fo- cusing on issues such as water quality and salinity, biodiversity and community capac- ity building.
It has formed constructive part- CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11713 nerships with government, fellow environ- mental groups and industry.

in I have to say that I see some environ- mental organisations the community which appear to be more interested in envi- ronmental politics than the environment.

Those organisations attract little respect from people like me.

I have great respect for Greening Australia because it gets on with the job of protecting and enhancing the Aus- tralian environment.
Greening Australia is an organisation that is particularly well respected in the bush capital, and it has been an important part of the ACT’s environmental recovery following the 18 January firestorms.

Greening Austra- lia is rare among environmental organisa- tions.

It enjoys universal support, is non- political and, most importantly, achieves tan- gible benefits for the environment.
In 2001- 02 Greening Australia planted over two mil- lion seedlings, collected 2,400 kilos of native seed, conserved almost 180,000 hectares of native vegetation, erected over 3,500 kilome- tres of fencing to conserve native vegetation and trained and educated 19,418 people—an impressive achievement.

Of course, statistics have a limited impact on the public imagination.

It is only when you see the results of Greening Australia’s work that you begin to understand the mag- nitude of its contribution.
For example, Greening Australia has been part of the Salt- shaker project in the Boorowa catchment, north-west of Canberra.

It has tackled salin- ity in more than 200 sites in the catchment.

One farmer commented on this by saying, ‘Saltshaker has been fantastic.

In this pad- dock I had three trees.

Now I have got 3,500.’ This project was funded through the How- ard government’s $2.7 billion Natural Heri- tage Trust, the largest environmental rescue effort ever delivered by an Australian gov- ernment.
In the 2001 budget the government announced an extra $1 billion for the trust, which extends funding through till 2006.

Another Greening Australia initiative that has been funded by the Natural Heritage Trust has been the Bidgee Banks project, which has tackled erosion in key areas in the mid and upper Murrumbidgee catchments.

This project has particular significance for the people of the ACT.
Like countless other Greening Australia projects, this project was successful because it encouraged participa- tion from all stakeholders, not just Landcare groups.

It won a Banksia award last year, which is a significant achievement in envi- ronmental circles.

the project continues I would like to take this opportunity to ac- knowledge some recent Natural Heritage Trust backed projects in the ACT region, some of which Greening Australia has been involved with.
The Gudgenby Bush Regen- eration re- establishment of native vegetation close to the Namadgi National Park.

The Creel and Recall Survey for Lake Ginninderra under- took an independent survey of recreational fishing in Lake Ginninderra.
The Waterwatch Resource Centre in the Tuggeranong Valley is a project where staff and students from Lake Tuggeranong College monitored water quality and initiated awareness raising pro- jects due to rapid expansion of Tuggeranong and its accompanying young school-aged population.

The Vegetation Investment Pro- ject will enlarge key vegetation patches and establish 240 hectares of links between rem- nant vegetation in the southern ACT region.
The Waterwatch program in the Ginninderra catchment aims to improve water quality in the catchment.

The upstream urban stormwa- ter in Ginninderra Creek flows into the Mur- rumbidgee River and the severely degraded Murray-Darling system, which gives the pro- ject extra significance.

Ten schools and five CHAMBER 11714 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Landcare groups have been involved in this project.

practical expression of their commitment to the environment over many years.
In 2002, a three-year, $69 million contract was awarded jointly to Greening Australia and Job Futures to run the Green Corps pro- gram.

It shows that Greening Australia is not only a body with environmental expertise but also one which has some financial nous.

About 85 per cent of Green Corps projects are located in rural and regional Australia.
This is justified not only because of the envi- ronmental problems facing non-urban Aus- tralia but also because of the comparative lack of work experience opportunities for young people in these areas.

Nevertheless, the ACT will soon benefit from a Green Corps project that will assist in recovery from the bushfires in the upper Murrum- bidgee catchment.
In conjunction with the ACT Rural Lessees Association, this project will assist farmers with refencing, vegetation surveys to determine more fire resistant spe- cies, seed collection, combating erosion, and carrying out water quality testing.

The young ACT residents who participate in this project will also learn occupational health and safety procedures and basic first aid and will gain career guidance.

This speech has predominantly sung the praises of Greening Australia.
I hope it has also given the Senate further evidence of the national importance and professionalism of this organisation.

Apart from immediate challenges, such as its involvement in the Green Corps and the Natural Heritage Trust, Greening Australia sees its greatest medium- term challenge as developing more effective partnerships between governments, business and the community.

I wish them well in this.


It is this type of partnership that can provide Australia with a secure economic and envi- ronmental future.

I want to thank the many staff and volunteers of Greening Australia who, through their actions, have made a Depleted Uranium (Victoria) Senator ALLISON (7.27 p.m.)—On 6 August this year it will be Hi- roshima Day, 58 years after the first drop- ping of an atomic bomb in 1945.
To mark that anniversary, the Democrats are calling on the government to use its influence on the world stage to do two things: firstly, to push for a global ban on weapons containing de- pleted uranium; and, secondly, to urge the United States to not go on with its nuclear Star Wars program.

I will come to that issue later this week but first I want to talk about depleted uranium—DU.
Thirteen years after Australia stopped us- ing depleted uranium in ammunitions, Aus- tralian troops sent to Iraq—as well as Iraq’s civilian population—were exposed to DU used there by allied forces.

We think it is time that our defence forces put DU weapons in the same category as cluster bombs.

We do not use them and we do not support their use by the United States, the United Kingdom or anyone else, for that matter, and for very good reasons.
Australia has a worthy history of opposing the use of landmines—indeed, our technical forces have been very active in de-mining many countries around the world.

That has not been enough, of course, as there are still more landmines being planted than we can de-mine, but their efforts have, no doubt, saved lives on many occasions.

We could add to that history by urging that depleted uranium weapons are explicitly in- cluded in non-proliferation treaties.
The Aus- tralian government used depleted uranium in weapons from 1981, and the Democrats first questioned the government about this in par- liament more than 20 years ago.

Thankfully, Australia stopped using DU ammunition in 1990, acknowledging that this was for health and safety reasons.

We know it is highly CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11715 likely that DU is at least a contributing factor in Gulf War syndrome.
The use of DU muni- tions raises major concerns not just about the effects on all combatants but also about the long-term health of civilian populations which live in the affected areas well after the conflict is over.

DU is used in weapons because it is heavy, it is hard and it is very cheap.

What is more, it is an intractable waste product, which makes getting rid of it in other coun- tries a highly attractive proposition for those who have it.
But there are alternatives to DU, such as tungsten, which is more effective and safer but, of course, much more expensive.

DU is pyrophoric—in other words, it ignites and burns upon hitting a hard target.

When DU weapons hit a target, a fine aerosol of uranium oxides is emitted.

Most are small enough to be readily inhaled by humans, and the very smallest can lodge deep in the lungs.

Once released, these fine particles can be spread by the wind or by vehicle and person- nel movements.
Two months ago I wrote to the Minister for Defence asking for Australian troops to be blood tested for chromosomal aberration as a result of DU exposure.

The United Kingdom has announced that British troops are to be offered DU testing.

This comes af- ter the UK’s Royal Society were asked to look at the impact of depleted uranium—a source of radiation—on health.

The Royal Society basically said that more research was required.
They said that we need to be cogni- sant of depleted uranium and we need to administer the survey tool to our people to identify those who might have been exposed.

So the UK government has gone ahead with this, and I think it is reasonable for us to ask the Australian government to do likewise.
At the budget estimates hearings for the Department of Defence of 4 June this year, Senator Bartlett questioned officers and offi- cials, General Cosgrove and Defence Minis- ter Hill about a number of issues, including exposure to DU.

General Cosgrove provided the sorts of answers that we are accustomed to from government ministers—in other words: ‘Trust us.
We trust the United States government.’ He said: I am quite confident that the way we employed our people would not have led them into exposure of any significance to DU effects.

We were told in estimates that Australia was waiting on US data about where environ- mental threats such as DU existed, and De- fence will assess that data against Australian troop deployments.

If they may have been exposed, there will be urinary DU screening.
The people of Iraq of course do not have access to these maps showing where there was risk of DU exposure, and few of them will be able to access urinary DU screening.

A Defence officer told us that Australia had piggybacked on the US led coalition’s ‘robust’ efforts to put environmental people on the ground to conduct routine soil, water and air sampling.
They are linking that with geospatial data so they are able to identify what environmental threats were at play in that location, even down to things like over- laying satellite imagery to show the presence or absence of oil fire smoke plumes.

We will have access to that data for our deployed personnel, where the Americans did the monitoring.

Apparently, we are in the proc- ess of acquiring that data from the United States.
It will certainly make for a very inter- esting map of the environmental hazards in Iraq not just for our troops but for the Iraqi population.

Dr Doug Rokke, an expert on the use of depleted uranium in US armaments, is pres- ently touring Australia.
Dr Rokke was also a major in the United States armed services, was a military physicist in charge of the clean-up in Kuwait, has since become an CHAMBER 11716 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 outspoken opponent of the use of DU weap- ons and is a strong advocate of clean-ups in the name of human and health rights.

He knows only too well that these weapons can do great harm.

He and his team of 100 men brought out some of the tanks and other ve- hicles that had been hit by DU weapons in the first Gulf War.
Thirty of his team have since died, and Dr Rokke himself is ill.

In the first Gulf War, soldiers were told there were no adverse health effects from DU.

Subsequently Dr Rokke did studies of Gulf War veterans, who now in their many thousands have cancer related illnesses.

He has also done work on the effects of the first Gulf War on the health of people from south- ern Iraq and Kuwait, and more recently he has done similar work in Afghanistan.
There was a lot more depleted uranium used in the recent Gulf War, much of it in civilian areas.

Dr Rokke’s tour has been organised by Australian peace groups.
If members of the public would like to hear him speak, he will be addressing a public meeting at the Mel- bourne Town Hall on the evening of Tues- day, 24 June; at the University of Tasmania on the evening of Friday, 27 June; at Sydney University on Tuesday, 1 July; at Fremantle Town Hall on the afternoon of Saturday, 5 July; and in Adelaide on Thursday, 10 July.

He will be speaking tomorrow night at the Brisbane Town Hall.
I will be meeting Dr Rokke in Melbourne and I would encourage government MPs and others in this chamber to do likewise.

I am sure what he has to say will be of great interest to people in this place.

(Tasmania) Wentworth, Hon.

William Charles, AO Senator WATSON (7.35 p.m.)—I was saddened to learn of the pass- ing of a wonderful person, the Hon.

William Charles Wentworth.


So much of Bill’s life was devoted to the service of the people of Australia that his passing marks a notable point in our history of the period during which he was such a remarkable contributor.
While I started my parliamentary career just as Bill was finishing his, we nevertheless became good friends through regular corre- spondence and meetings on a range of eco- nomic issues we had in common, such as the need for budget surpluses, the concerns of current account deficits, the plight of manu- facturing in Australia and tariffs, to name but a few.

I believe we both enjoyed the oppor- tunity to debate these issues, even if some- times it was only with each other.
My prob- lem was always how to singly deliver what Bill wanted, a frustration for Bill and an em- barrassment for me.

Bill’s brilliance could be seen in his views, which were certainly well ahead of his time and the conventional thinking of the period.

Born in Sydney to a historical family that included colonial explorers and newspa- per proprietors, he was educated at the Ar- midale School and later obtained his Master of Arts at New College in Oxford.
Upon re- turning home, he was an economic adviser to the New South Wales Treasury from 1933 to 1936.

In fact a lot of people remember Bill from his exploits with the Army Reserve— exploits that at the time were unconventional but certainly very effective.

How he man- aged to avoid being court-marshalled is tes- timony to the message of his campaigns about the hopeless state of the adequacy of Australia’s defences at the time, particularly around the large cities.
In 1941 he enlisted with the Army Reserve and rose to the rank of captain, 1st Division Headquarters.

It was here that he displayed the rebellious streak that I am referring to.

On one occasion he led a party that captured the Waterfall police station to demonstrate the inadequacies of home defence.

There is mythology surround- ing some of the other exploits.

CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11717 Bill was elected on 12 occasions to the federal parliament.
As one of the forty- niners, in 1949 he was elected to represent the people of Mackellar and held the seat for 28 years.

He has been described variously as an occupational rebel, even within his own party.

Perhaps this rebellious streak was something that endeared him to so many Australians.

As a critic of the Menzies gov- ernment, he was not appointed to a ministry until the election of John Gorton as Prime Minister in 1968.
Bill served as the first per- son to be specifically responsible for Abo- riginal affairs, and this is certainly a historic achievement.

He deserves special credit for his important achievements during his ten- ure—very brief; only three years as minister.
In promoting the recognition of Aboriginal people, he persuaded Menzies to agree to the important referendum that included Aborigi- nes in the census, which was finally held under Prime Minister Holt in 1967. towards granting Bill was absolutely passionate about equal rights for Indigenous Australians—a view not strongly held at the time.

He strongly supported moves land rights and steering policy from outright as- similation in favour of integration.
On this note, an example of the unwillingness of the people of his era to treat him seriously was when Bill was completely left out when the Labor government celebrated the referen- dum’s 25th anniversary in 1992.

Another story—as his nephew Mungo McCallum, a journalist in this place, re- calls—occurred when the ceremony to cele- brate the standardisation of railway was held.
Bill was not invited to attend, despite his strong advocacy for decades about the need for standardisation of the Melbourne-Sydney gauge.

As the determined driving force be- hind this issue he was obviously very hurt, but his wife came to the rescue.

She ap- peared on the platform bearing a placard which demanded, ‘Where’s Wentworth?’ Its publication in many newspapers no doubt got the point across, such was the unconven- tional nature of the Wentworth family.
Regardless of the topic of discussion, Bill was passionate, independent and vigorous in debate.

Many members of parliament have recalled Bill as a very colourful person dur- ing their tributes this week.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop recalled Bill’s passion for economics and mathematics, with him mentioning to her once that he was engaged in correspondence with a particular professor concerning the method of calculating infinity.

Perhaps that is an indication of his life at Oxford, looking at philosophical issues.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, in the other place yesterday, Ian Sinclair was in cabinet when Bill was a minister from 1968 to 1972 and Ian remem- bers: ... Bill Wentworth had a thousand solutions to every problem—forty or fifty of which would be quite brilliant.

Ian also recalls that ‘Bill Wentworth insisted on personally writing his own cabinet sub- missions’, which were ‘discursive, wide- ranging and idiosyncratic—something of a reflection of their author’.
Many people say that Bill inherited many of his qualities— including a strong will, passion and inde- pendence—from his great-grandfather, Wil- liam Wentworth, who was amongst the first colonial explorers to cross the Blue Moun- tains.

In hindsight, perhaps Bill’s major error was in breaking away from the Liberal Party for a time.

No doubt it was a reflection of the fact that many Liberal Party leaders in his era really had difficulty in coping with his exceptional brilliance.
They found it hard to accommodate so many of his views or even to harness some of his extraordinary ener- gies—with the exception perhaps of the late John Gorton when he was Prime Minister.

CHAMBER 11718 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Bill’s propensity to debate issues was a high- light of his career.

He rarely stepped back from issues he thought needed airing and his contribution to the nation, especially through his Aboriginal affairs work, was remarkable for its vision.
He carried on with this work with Aborigines well after he left parliament and into his later life.

The late William Charles Wentworth was a fantastic Australian, a great parliamentarian and a brilliant man.

I consider it my great fortune to have counted him as a friend.

It is with great sympathy that I offer my condo- lences to his wife, Barbara, who was a great help to him, and to his children, grandchil- dren and great-grandchildren in their loss.

Bill, we salute you.

Senate adjourned at 7.43 p.m.


DOCUMENTS Tabling The following government documents were tabled: Australasian Police Ministers’ Council— Administration and activities of the National Common Police Services— Report for 2001-02.

Australian Land Transport Development Programme—Progress report for 2001-02.

Australian Law Reform Commission and National Health and Medical Research Ethics Council Australian Health Committee—Report—ALRC No.
96— Essentially yours: The protection of human genetic information in Australia, March 2003—Volumes 1 and 2.

Australian Maritime College—Report for 2002.

Australian National Maritime Museum— Strategic plan 2003-2006.

Australian Research Council—Strategic action plan 2003-05.

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and 2001-02— Forestry—Report Corrigendum.

for report Benefits Interactive Gambling Act 2001—Report for 2002 on the operation of the prohibition on interactive gambling advertisements.
National Health Act 1953—Private health insurance premium increases—Report for the quarter ending 31 March 2003.

Pricing Pharmaceutical Authority—Supplementary for 2001-02 on the operations of the Authority in relation to the Pharmaceutical Industry Investment Program.

Sydney Airport Demand Management Act 1997—Quarterly reports on the maximum movement limit for Sydney Airport— 1 October to 31 December 2001.

1 January to 31 March 2002.

1 April to 30 June 2002.

1 July to 30 September 2002.


1 October to 31 December 2002.

1 January to 31 March 2003.

(Interception) for 2001-02 pursuant Telecommunications 1979—Report Division 2 of Part IX of the Act.

Treaties— Act to Bilateral— Text, together with national interest analysis and annexures— Agreement on Medical Treatment for Temporary Visitors between the Government of Australia and the the Kingdom of Government of Norway, done at Canberra on 28 March 2003.
Exchange of Notes, done at Canberra on 7 April–27 May 2003, Amending the Agreement the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the United States of America for the Financing of Certain Educational and Cultural Exchange Programmes of 28 August 1964. between Text, together with national interest analysis, regulation impact statement and annexures—Agreement between Australia and the Republic of Croatia on CHAMBER Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11719 Social Security, done at Zagreb on 13 May 2003 Multilateral—Text, together with national interest analysis and annexures— Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, done at Honolulu on 5 September 2000.
Protocol on Preparedness, Response and Co-operation to Pollution Incidents by Hazardous and Noxious Substances 2000, done at London, 15 March 2000.

Tabling The following documents were tabled by the Clerk: of Title Act—Withdrawal Migration Act—Certificate under section 502, dated 27 May 2003. of Native Recognition Representative Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander Body 2003 (No.

1).

Quarantine Act—Quarantine Amendment Proclamation 2003 (No.

2).

Therapeutic Goods Act—Regulations— Statutory Rules 2003 No.
111.

CHAMBER 11720 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 The following answers to questions were circulated: QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Agriculture: United States Farm Bill (Question No.
916) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 13 November 2002: With reference to page 95 of the Department Annual Report for 2001-2002: (1) What contribution did the department make to the development and implementation of the joint government/industry strategy to influence the development of the United States Farm Bill.

(2) What are the details of the strategy (3) What assessment has been made of the success of the strategy.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) The Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (AFFA) made a major con- tribution to developing and implementing a strategy to attempt to influence the US Farm Bill.
This was done in close cooperation with the Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Australian Embassy in Washington, and a wide cross section of Australian agricultural industry.
Core elements of the strategy were developed through the Agricultural Trade Consultative Group (ATCG), which is co-chaired by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, The Hon Warren Truss MP and the Minister for Trade, The Hon Mark Vaile MP, and through its Steer- ing Group, which met frequently and is chaired at Deputy Secretary level.
(2) Details of the strategy included Research and Analysis • Closely monitoring the debate and policy process in the United States (US) in conjunction with DFAT and the Australian Embassy in Washington; • Developing common messages associated with the Farm Bill which were used to put Austra- lia’s case in Washington by both Government and industry.
This included Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) research and publications which showed, amongst other things, the deleterious implications of the proposed Farm Bill on the domestic US economy and on international agricultural markets, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiating environment; and • Identifying key players in Congress and the Administration with potential to influence the US legislative processes as the focus of our lobbying efforts; Communication of Messages • Meeting regularly with key industry representatives to assess the situation and respond to de- velopments in Washington; • Delivering Australia’s messages in a coordinated and timely manner in conjunction with in- dustry; • Reinforcing to the Administration and key Congressional figures the links between a protec- tionist Farm Bill and US leadership credibility in the WTO Doha round of agriculture negotia- tions; and • Producing, in consultation with DFAT, “Farm Bill Newsletters” to ensure that the key stake- holders were kept informed of the latest US Farm Bill developments.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11721 Mechanisms • Regular consultations in Washington with local agents of Australian agricultural industry; • Encouraging other Cairns Group countries to make similar representations about the Farm Bill; and • Assistance to Ministers, including letter to counterparts and planning and implementation of a government/industry delegation led by the Hon Warren Truss MP to Washington to lobby Congress and the Administration.
(3) Two important objectives were achieved in that the duration of the Bill was limited to 6 rather than 10 years and built-in constraints were included in the Bill to ensure that certain program spending does not breach US WTO commitments.

Feedback has been received that the strategy successfully placed Australia’s concerns about the Farm Bill in the minds of US policy-makers.
During Minister Truss’ visit to the US in December 2001 to lobby US Administration, key Austra- lian industry representatives provided positive comments supporting his efforts.

Industry’s support for the initiative was also reflected in a letter to the Office of the Prime Minister dated 24 Septem- ber 2001 in which the National Farmers’ Federation indicated it fully supported high level govern- ment representation in Washington to lobby key members of the US House of Representatives.
Transport and Regional Services: Farm Management Deposit Scheme (Question No.

955) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, upon notice, on 21 November 2002: (1) On what date did the department first become aware that some Farm Management Deposit (FMD) products may not comply with legislation applicable to the Governments FMD scheme.
(2) (a) What was the source of this information; and (b) in what form was this information conveyed, for example, correspondence, e-mail, telephone conversation or direct conversation.

(3) What was the nature of the problem specifically identified in this information.

(4) On what date did the department inform the Minister, or his office, of this problem.
(5) Did the Minister, or his office, receive advice about this problem from a source other than the Min- ister’s department; if so: (a) on what date was this information first received; (b) what was the source of this information; (c) in what form was this information conveyed; and (d) what was the nature of the problem specifically identified in this information.
(6) (a) On what date, or dates, did the department take action in response to this identified problem; and (b) what action did the department take.

(7) (a) What departments, agencies, banks or non-bank financial institutions did the department com- municate with in relation to this matter; (b) on what date, or dates, did that communication occur; and (c) what form did that communication take.
(8) (a) What responses, if any, has the department received in respect to those communications; (b) in what form have those responses been received; and (c) what was the content of those responses.

(9) What action has the department taken in response to communications from departments, agencies, banks or non-bank financial institutions.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Acting Minister for Transport and Regional Services has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) The issue lies outside the Department of Transport and Regional Services area of responsibility.

Department has no formal advice or knowledge regarding the assertions.

(2) to (4) Not applicable - see (1).

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11722 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (5) My office has no record of the matter being raised with my staff or me.
(6) to (9) Not applicable - see (1).

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry: Australian National Residue Survey (Question No.
994) Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 5 December 2002: For each of the 110 cases referred to on page 1 of the report for 2001-02 on the results of the Australian National Residue Survey Results, where residues were above Australian Standards, can details be pro- vided of: (a) the level of residue; (b) the State and place where the measurement occurred; and (c) the penalty which resulted Senator Troeth—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: There were 61 residue contraventions reported by the National Residue Survey (NRS) on page one, in the NRS Results Report 2001-2002.
Of the 61 residues in excess of Australian Standards, 47 residues were of agricultural and veterinary (agvet) chemicals and 14 were of metals.

A contravention (i.e.

a level above the Australian Standard) is recorded in the following instances: 1.

The residue recorded is above the Australian Standard that is set.

2.

There is a residue recorded but there is no Australian standard for an agvet chemical, as it is not set.
In this case residues have been detected for inedible materials such as urine, faeces.

This testing is based on some residues not being readily detected in edible tissues but can be detected in inedible tis- sues.

3.

There is no Australian Standard set, and a residue level is detected in an edible tissue.

Details of (a) the level of the residue recorded and (b) the State where the measurement occurred and (c) the penalty, which resulted, are tabulated in the attached table.
State/Territory agricultural departments conduct the traceback investigations of residues above the Aus- tralian Standard and are responsible for any corrective actions including imposition of penalties (if ap- plicable).

The National Residue Survey receives notification from the States/Territories on the outcomes of these investigations.
Contraventions of Australian Standards Report on the Australian National Residue Survey Results 2001-2002 Commodity beef (a) Residue level 0.002 (b) State QLD beef 0.001 NSW beef 0.340 VIC (c) Explanation/Penalty α-zearalanol (zeranol).

Investigation by State depart- ment indicated residues occur from natural ingestion of Fusarium (fungus) infected pasture.

Non-treatable, non- threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Boldenone.

Investigation by State department indicated metabolite of normal sex hormones.
Non-treatable, non- threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Dihydrostreptomycin.

Warning letter sent to the pro- ducer by State department.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11723 Commodity beef sheep (6 residues) sheep sheep (5 residues) sheep (2 residues) pig (3 residues) (a) Residue level 1.700 0.001 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.003 0.005 0.017 1.331 1.490 1.901 2.100 3.047 0.611 0.844 0.390 1.600 1.600 (b) State VIC WA NSW SA NSW NSW NSW VIC VIC SA WA SA VIC SA NSW NSW NSW NSW deer 0.005 WA ostrich 1.907 SA horse 0.014 NT goat (2 residues) 0.007 0.008 NSW NSW tuna aqua- culture 2.200 SA (c) Explanation/Penalty Neomycin.
Withholding-period was observed.

Austra- lian Pesticides & Veterinary Medicines Authority is reviewing the Australian Standard.

19-nortestosterone (α and β).

Investigations by State departments indicated metabolite of normal sex hor- mones Non-treatable, non-threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Boldenone.

Investigation by State department indicated metabolite of natural sex hormones.

Non-treatable, non- threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Cadmium.


A common environmental contaminant of soils of southern Australia (SA, WA and VIC).

Four residue levels lower than agreed residue action level for a traceback investigation.

For the other residue trace- back undertaken by State department, but source of sample not identifiable by abattoir that collected the sample.

No further action.

Lead.

Traceback by State departments could not identify point source.

No further action.

Sulphadimidine (methazine).


Traceback by State de- partment determined accidental exposure of finisher pigs to medicated feed.

Warning letter has been sent to the owner by State department and work practices im- plemented to prevent the incident from reoccurring.

19-nortestosterone (α and β).

Traceback by State de- partment identified metabolite of normal sex hormones.

Non-treatable, non-threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Lead.
No penalty.

Lead.

Traceback by State department could not identify point source.

Additional bulked liver samples to be taken from birds at the next slaughter.

19-nortestosterone (α and β).

Investigation by Territory department indicated metabolite of normal sex hor- mones.

Non-treatable, non-threatening occurrence.

No penalty.

Moxidectin.

State department investigation identified off-label use of a product registered for sheep.

Produc- ers realised ‘off-label’ use but unaware of implications.
Producers made aware of implications.

State did not advise specific penalty.

Industry to lobby for registra- tion of suitable worming treatment for goats.

Lead.

State department traceback investigation did not determine the source.

No further action.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11724 Commodity shark wild- caught (5 residues) (a) Residue level 1.100 1.300 1.400 1.400 1.500 wheat (2 residues) 0.550 2.000 wheat (2 residues) 5.200 8.200 barley (3 residues) oat (4 residues) 5.600 6.700 8.000 11.400 11.600 14.900 17.500 (b) State NT QLD NT NT NT WA SA QLD NSW QLD QLD QLD VIC VIC VIC VIC sorghum 11.200 VIC sorghum 6.400 NSW lupin (3 residues) 1.000 2.000 2.000 WA WA WA field pea 0.320 VIC chick pea 0.200 NSW SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (c) Explanation/Penalty Mercury.
Investigations have not resulted in any penal- ties being applied by State/Territory departments.

Resi- due management strategies, of which this is part, pre- vent catch being taken from areas known to have high levels of environmental contaminants or limit fish size caught.

Chlorpyrifos.

One traceback by State department indi- cated an off-label use of the chemical to treat the base of a storage silo.

Warning letter and advice sent to grower by State department.

The other traceback was inconclu- sive.


No further action taken.

Dichlorvos.1 Traceback by State departments indicated that incomplete label directions and subsequent failure to observe withholding period contributed to the contra- ventions.

States have not reported a penalty.

Dichlorvos.1 Traceback by State department indicated that label directions were not followed correctly.

Each grower received an advisory letter from State depart- ment.
Dichlorvos.1 Traceback by State department identified three residues as a result of communication and record keeping problems.

Grain stores involved are implement- ing training, recording and stock management practices.

The other residue detection received from the State de- partment a warning letter, and a copy of State record keeping requirements.

Chlorpyrifos-methyl.


Traceback by State department indicated mechanical breakdown when auguring the grain into a storage silo resulted in over-treatment of the grain.

Management advice sent to the grower.

Dichlorvos.1 Traceback by State department indicated incomplete label directions and subsequent failure to observe the withholding period caused residue detection above Australian Standards.

State department has not advised any penalty.

Malathion.
Malathion.

Traceback by State department identified that chemical could have been used as a hygiene treat- ment around the base of the silos and cross contamina- tion of the lupins may have occurred.

As chemical treatment unconfirmed no further action required.

Fenitrothion.

Traceback by State department could not conclusively identify the cause of the residue.

No fur- ther action.

Chlorpyrifos-methyl.

Traceback by State department could not conclusively identify the cause of the residue.
No further action.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11725 Commodity canola (3 residues) (a) Residue level 0.200 0.270 0.400 and apple pear (7 residues) 6.000 6.200 6.700 7.100 8.400 9.700 7.700 (b) State NSW NSW NSW WA NSW VIC VIC VIC VIC VIC pear 3.300 VIC (c) Explanation/Penalty Fenitrothion.Traceback by State department could not conclusively identify the cause of the residue in one case.
In other two cases letter written by State depart- ment to all contributing growers to silo regarding the residues found.

No further action.

Diphenylamine.

Traceback by State department indi- cated five residues above the Australian Standard be- cause the fruit packer followed directions based on a consultant’s advice rather than the label directions.

Packer will use chemical at label rates in future.

No penalty applied.
No penalty applied.

One residue above the Australian Standard due to over application of chemical as equipment was not correctly calibrated.

Grower received warning letter from State Department.

One residue above the Australian Standard was due to the product label not specifying a lower rate for the particular variety of apple when held in an ultra-low oxygen storage.

Grower will use a lower rate in future.

No further action.

Iprodione.


Traceback by State department unable to identify cause, as label directions were followed care- fully.

No further action.

1 Australian Pesticides & Veterinary Medicines Authority is currently conducting a review of dichlor- vos, in liaison with the NRS and other stakeholders.

Trade: Beef Sales to Japan (Question No.
1005) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 19 December 2002: With reference to Australian beef exports to Japan: (1) (a) What discussions has the Minister undertaken with Japanese officials during 2002 in relation to Australian beef imports to Japan known as ‘Aussie Beef’; (b) who attended each meeting; (c) when did each meeting occur; (d) what was discussed at each meeting; and (e) what records were kept of each meeting.
(2) (a) What discussions has the Minister had with Japanese officials specifically in relation to the im- port restrictions known as the ‘snap-back’; (b) who attended each meeting; (c) when did each meet- ing occur; (d) what was discussed at each meeting; and (e) what records were kept of each meeting.

(3) Is the ‘snap-back’ calculated on total beef imports into Japan, or on a country-by-country basis.
(4) Will the ‘snap-back’ be invoked on Australian beef imports to Japan during the 2002-03 and 2003- 04 financial years.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11726 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (1) (a) The Minister had the following meetings in 2002 with Japanese officials where Australian beef exports to Japan were discussed (b) Mr Tsutomu Takebe, Japanese Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; (i) Mr Takehiko Endoh, Senior Vice Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Mr Yoshiharu Takenaka, Vice Minister for International Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Mr Hidenori Murakami, Director General, International Affairs Department, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Mr Masayuki Araki, Director, International Policy Planning Division, General Food Pol- icy Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
(i) (i) (c) Tuesday 29 January 2002 (d) Issues discussed at this meeting included the postponed Quint meeting, Bovine Spongi- form Encephalopathy (BSE) and its effect on Australian beef sales to Japan, fisheries, Japanese agricultural policy, rice and Australian exports to Japan.

(e) There is a cable reporting on this meeting.


(i) (ii) (b) Mr Chikara Sakaguchi, Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare; Dr Shinpei Ozaki, Director General, Department of Food Sanitation, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; and Dr Satoshi Takaya, Director, Inspection and Safety Division, Department of Food Sanita- tion, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

(ii) (c) Wednesday 30 January 2002 (ii) (d) Issues discussed at this meeting included BSE, and the safety of Australian beef.
(ii) (e) There is a cable reporting on this meeting.

(iii) (b) Mr Koyo Nishikawa, Deputy Chairman Liberal Democratic Party Diet Affairs Commit- tee, Member of the House of Representatives; and Mr Masahiro Imamura, Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
(iii) (c) Wednesday 30 January 2002 (iii) (d) Issues discussed at this meeting included the Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotia- tions, Japan’s agricultural policy, BSE and Australian beef exports to Japan (iii) (e) There is no written record of this meeting as it was a luncheon meeting (iv) (b) Mr Takehiko Endoh, Senior Vice Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mr Eiji Ishigaki, Secretary to the Senior Vice Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fish- eries Mr Masayuki Araki, Director, International Policy Planning Division, General Food Pol- icy Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mr Hiroyuki Nishiura, Deputy Director, International Economic Affairs Division, General Policy Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mr Akihiro Mae, Deputy Director, Far Seas Fisheries Division, Resources Management Department, Japanese Fisheries Agency Mr Yuichi Nakamura, Chief, International Policy Planning Division, General Food Policy Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Mr Tetsuya Tamai, Counsellor Agriculture, Japanese Embassy (iv) (c) Saturday 28 April 2002 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11727 (iv) (d) Issues discussed at this meeting include the Japanese beef market following BSE, the safety of Australian beef, the proposed new Japanese Food Safety Agency, the Japanese Prime Minister’s forthcoming visit to Australia, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations.
(iv) (e) There is a record of this meeting.

(2) (a) The Minister had the following meeting in 2002 with Japanese officials where the issue of ‘snap-back’ was discussed (b) Mr Tsutomu Takebe, Japanese Minister of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry; Mr Yoshiharu Takenaka, Vice Minister for International Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, For- estry and Fisheries; and Mr Hidenori Murakami, Director General, International Affairs Department, Ministry of Agri- culture, Forestry and Fisheries.
(c) Thursday 25 July 2002 (d) Issues discussed at this meeting included the possible triggering of the WTO safeguards (‘snap-back’) provisions for Japanese beef imports, Japanese agricultural policies and the pro- posed new Japanese Food Safety Agency.

(e) There is a cable reporting on this meeting.

(3) The ‘snap-back’ is calculated on total beef imports into Japan.

Separate and identical ‘snap-back’ mechanisms apply for chilled and frozen beef.
(4) Minister Truss and the Trade Minister will be negotiating with the Japanese Government with a view to removing the ‘snap-back’ provision.

Trade: Livestock Export Accreditation Program (Question No.

1175) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 24 February 2003: (1) Can a copy of the Livestock Export Accreditation Program Rules of Accreditation be provided; if not, why not.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) A copy of the Livestock Export Accreditation Program Handbook can be obtained from the Austra- lian Livestock Export Corporation Ltd. Trade: Live Export Mortality Incidents (Question No.
1177) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 24 February 2003: (1) Can a table be provided of all live export reportable mortality incidents since March 2000, includ- ing the following details: (a) export licence holder; (b) month; (c) year; (d) origin; (e) destination; (f) animal type; (g) number exported; (h) mortality number; and (i) mortality rate.
(2) Can details be provided of the total number of live export shipments for each of the following fi- nancial years: (a) 1999-2000; (b) 2000-01; (c) 2001-02; and (d) 2002-03.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) Live Export Reportable Mortality Incidents March 2000 - December 2002 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11728 Departure Date (b & c) Mar-00 Apr-00 Apr-00 May-00 May-00 May-00 Jun-00 Jun-00 Jun-00 Jul-00 Jul-00 Jul-00 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Australian Rural Ex- ports Pty Ltd Wellard Rural Exports Pty Ltd Carabao Exports Pty Ltd Carabao Exports Pty Ltd Livestock Shipping Services Fares International Trading Ltd Wellard Rural Exports Pty Ltd Al Mukairish Australia Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading Pty Ltd Fares Rural Co. Pty Ltd Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Livestock Shipping Services Geraldton Cilacap Portland Adabiya Darwin Muara Darwin Muara Portland/ Fremantle Portland/ Fremantle Fremantle Adelaide Fremantle Fremantle/ Port Hedland Fremantle Fremantle Aqaba Aqaba Oman, Fu- jairah, Doha Fujairah/ Kuwait Muscat/ Bah- rain/ Kuwait Adabiya/ Aqaba Muscat/ Fu- jairah/ Doha Aqaba Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length 4 20 6 6 23 22 17 26 14 23 18 18 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 243 5 2.06 Load (g) Loss (h) 1,123 7 % (i) QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11729
 Departure Date (b & c) Jul-00 Aug-00 Aug-00 Aug-00 Sep-00 Sep-00 Sep-00 Oct-00 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Rural Export & Trad- ing (WA) Pty Ltd Fremantle Muscat/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Bahrain Jakarta Broome Elders International Australia Limited Renny Gardiner (Ex- ports) Pty Ltd SEAF Pty Ltd Fares International Trading Ltd Rural Export & Trad- ing (WA) Pty Ltd Australian Rural Ex- ports Pty Ltd Renny Gardiner Ex- ports Pty Ltd Broome Jakarta Broome Pasir Gudang Wyndham/
 Fremantle Portland Weipa Adabiya/ Aqaba Muscat/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Bahrain Pasir Gudang Broome Jakarta Oct-00 SEAF Pty Ltd Broome Pasir Gudang Oct-00 Rural Export and Trading Pty Ltd Portland Oct-00 Haddleton Holding Darwin Muscat/ Jebel Ali/ Bahrain/ Kuwait Port Klang Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 107,743 4256 3.95 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 552 15 50,475 1,248 2.72 2.47 108,955 3095 2.84 1,551 44 2.84 118 8 6.78 1,220 103 8.44 109,959 2377 2.16 Length Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 1,107 6 0.54 950 6 0.63 891 8 0.90 20 4 4 6 25 25 7 6 6 22 6 1,097 7 0.64 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11730 Departure Date (b & c) Oct-00 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Fares International Trading Ltd Fremantle/ Port Hedland Manzanillo/ Guaymas Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length 30 Load (g) 4,026 Loss (h) 41 % (i) 1.02 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Nov-00 Austrex Export Pty Ltd Weipa Pasir Gudang 8 1,156 9 0.78 Nov-00 Rural Export & Trad- ing Pty Ltd Fremantle Muscat/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait Dec-00 Carabao Exports Darwin Muara Dec-00 Dec-00 Dec-00 Dec-00 Jan-01 Rural Export & Trad- ing Pty Ltd Fremantle Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Fremantle International Livestock Export (WA) Pty Ltd Darwin Muscat/ Bah- rain/ Kuwait/ Jebel Ali Muscat/ Fu- jairah/ Doha Panjang/ Port Klang South East Asian Livestock Service Geraldton Jakarta Rural Export and
 Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland Muscat/ Ku- wait/ Jebel Ali Jan-01 Seaf Pty Ltd Geraldton Pasir Gudang 13 1,409 31 2.20 Jan-01 Renny Gardiner (Ex- ports) Pty Ltd Fremantle Jakarta 7 810 27 3.33 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11731 Departure Date (b & c) Feb-01 Feb-01 Feb-01 Feb-01 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Fares International Trading
 Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland/ Fremantle Fremantle Al Mukairish Australia Pty Ltd Adelaide/ Fremantle Aqaba Muscat/ Ku- wait/ Jebel Ali Jeddah Cenpac Livestock Trading Co Pty Ltd Fremantle Jakarta Feb-01 Mike Moses Sydney Noumea Feb-01 Feb-01 South East Asian Livestock Services Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Darwin Jakarta Fremantle Jeddah Feb-01 Carabao Export Pty Ltd Darwin Muara Mar-01 Apr-01 Apr-01 May-01 Carabao Export Pty Ltd Darwin Brunei Australian Rural Ex- port Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland Portland/ Fremantle Jebel Ali/ Kuwait Muscat/ Ku- wait/ Jebel Ali James Commodity Exports Pty Ltd Fremantle Port Louis Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length 20 14 23 6 4 5 14 6 7 20 22 13 Load (g) 1,606 Loss (h) 16 % (i) 1.00 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11732 Departure Date (b & c) Jun-01 Jun-01 Jun-01 Jun-01 Jun-01 Jul-01 Jul-01 Jul-01 Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd International Livestock Export (WA) Pty Ltd Renny Gardiner (Ex- ports) Pty Ltd Fares International Trading Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Livestock Shipping Services Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) May-01 Seaf Pty Ltd Broome Pasir Gudang May-01 Rural
 Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland/ Fremantle Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland Bahrain/ Kuwait/ Jebel Ali Muscat/ Bah- rain/ Kuwait/ Jebel Ali Muscat/ Fu- jairah/ Doha Dammam Fremantle Fremantle Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 6 20 183 3 1.64 Load (g) 107 Loss (h) 5 % (i) 4.67 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 1,141 79 6.92 23 100 1 1.00 76,776 3,139 4.09 18 13 47,903 1,421 2.97 987 46 4.66 Darwin Tanjung Priok 5 619 31 5.01 Portland/
 Fremantle Portland/ Fremantle Adelaide/ Fremantle/ Port Hedland Fremantle Aqaba/ Ad- abiya Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Bah- rain/ Muscat Aqaba Bahrain/ Kuwait/ Mus- cat 26 24 26 18 62,230 2,600 4.18 146 5 3.42 1,920 146 7.60 76,846 1,663 2.16 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11733 Departure Date (b & c) Aug-01 Aug-01 Aug-01 Sep-01 Sep-01 Sep-01 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland/ Fremantle Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Fremantle Fares International Trading Ltd Elders International Australia Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Adelaide/ Fremantle Port Hedland Manzanillo Portland Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Mus- cat Bahrain/ Kuwait/ Jebel Ali Aqaba Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Bah- rain/ Muscat Aqaba Livestock Shipping Services Fremantle/ Port Hedland Sep-01 Haddleton Holdings Broome Port Kelang Sep-01 Haddleton Holdings Broome Port Kelang Sep-01 Sep-01 Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Fremantle Fares International Trading Ltd Fremantle/ Darwin Jebel Ali/ Bahrain/ Kuwait Adabiya/ Aqaba Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) 378 Loss (h) 12 % (i) 3.17 578 14 2.42 1,700 98 5.76 985 35 3.55 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11734 Departure Date (b & c) Oct-01
 Nov-01 Dec-01 Dec-01 Dec-01 Dec-01 Dec-01 Jan-02 Jan-02 Feb-02 Feb-02 Feb-02 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland Muscat/ Ku- wait/ Bahrain/ Jebel Ali Jakarta Fremantle Halleen Australasia Livestock Traders Pty Ltd Fares International Trading Ltd Basin Exports Portland/ Adelaide Portland Adabiya/ Aqaba Manzanillo Labroy Marine Darwin Jakarta Renny Gardiner (Ex- ports) Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA)
 Pty Ltd Halleen Australasia Livestock Traders Pty Ltd Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Fremantle Tanjung Priok Portland Geraldton Jebel Ali/ Kuwait Jakarta Portland Jeddah Haddleton Holdings Geraldton Port Kelang International Livestock Export (WA) Pty Ltd Austock Export Pty Ltd Darwin Fremantle Port Kelang Jakarta Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length 22 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 80,852 2,620 3.24 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 48,494 2,286 4.71 75,158 1,593 2.12 699 3.45 20,24 0 758 27 3.56 Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11735 Departure Date (b & c) Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination Port/s (e) Feb-02 UNKNOWN Mar-02 Mar-02 Apr-02 Apr-02 Brunei Meat Export Company Pty Ltd Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Brunei Meat Export Company Pty Ltd Fares International Trading Ltd Jun-02 Corral Line Devonport/ Portland Darwin Bahrain/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Muscat Muara Fremantle Adabiya Muara Adabiya Darwin/ Townsville Fremantle/ Portland/ Townsville Broome Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length 25 8 19 15 30 Load (g) 716 Loss (h) 14 % (i) 1.96 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 68,824 1,399 2.03 Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) 467 3 0.64 2,254 33 1.46 460 29 6.30 499 12 2.40 Port Kelang 9 839 83 9.89 Jun-02 Jun-02 Jul-02 Jul-02 Wellard Rural Export Pty Ltd Fremantle/ Portland
 Dammam/ Doha/ Fujairah 27 1,995 614 30.78 63,434 1,418 2.24 Halleen Australasia Livestock Traders Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Fares International Trading Ltd Broome Tanjung Priok 5 781 4 0.51 Fremantle/ Portland Fremantle/ Adelaide Bahrain/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait Jeddah 27 26 85,974 5,800 6.75 52,485 1,064 2.03 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11736 Departure Date (b & c) Jul-02 Aug-02 Sep-02 Sep-02 Oct-02 Oct-02 Dec-02 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Export Licence Holder (a) Loading Port (d) Destination
 Port/s (e) Voyage Cattle Numbers*(f) Sheep Numbers*(f) Goat Numbers*(f) Length Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) Load (g) Loss (h) % (i) International Livestock Export (WA) Pty Ltd Fremantle/ Portland Jebel Ali/ Kuwait Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Portland/ Fremantle Portland Fremantle Rural Export and Trading (WA) Pty Ltd Fremantle/ Adelaide Australian Exports Pty Ltd Broome Kuwait/ Bah- rain/ Muscat Bahrain/ Dubai/ Kuwait Bahrain/ Dubai/ Ku- wait/ Muscat Bahrain/ Jebel Ali/ Kuwait/ Muscat Pasir Gudang Brunei Meat Export Company Pty Ltd Darwin Muara 24 26 23 18 22 8 7 1,560 8 0.51 900 6 0.67 55,594 6,119 11.01 77,158 2,173 2.82 74,740 2,304 3.08 71,304 2,464 3.46 44 1 2.27 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11737 (2) Total Number of Live Export Shipments Year (a) 1999-2000 (b) 2000-2001 (c) 2001-2002 (d) 2002-2003 (31 Dec 02) Number of Shipments 507 491 440 283 Trade: Livestock Export Accreditation Program (Question No.
1178) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 24 February 2003: (1) Was Rural Export & Trading (WA) Pty Ltd accredited under the Livestock Export Accreditation Program when its export licence was suspended in January 2003?

(2) Is Rural Export & Trading (WA) Pty Ltd currently accredited under the Livestock Export Accredi- tation Program?
(3) Was Sampak Pty Ltd accredited under the Livestock Export Accreditation Program when its export licence was cancelled in November 2002?

(4) Is Sampak Pty Ltd currently accredited under the Livestock Export Accreditation Program?

Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) Yes (2) Yes (3) Yes (4) No Defence: Russell Offices (Question No.
1191) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Finance and Administration, upon notice, on 24 February 2003: In relation to the sale and leaseback of Russell Offices, Canberra: (1) Has a property sales consultant been engaged to manage the sale process.

(2) (a) Who is the property sales manager; and (b) what are the terms of the contract with that consultant, including details of remuneration.
(3) Has the sale itself been advertised; if so, how many organisations have expressed an interest in buying the property.

(4) When is it expected that the sale will occur.

(5) Has any thought been given to the future lease or rent arrangements.

(6) What is the status of the consideration of security issues associated with the sale of Russell Offices.

Senator Minchin—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) N/A.
The Government has decided not to proceed with the sale of Russell Offices.

(2) N/A QUESTIONS ON NOTICE SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 11738 (3) N/A (4) N/A (5) N/A (6) N/A Environment: Water Management (Question No.
1198) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 25 February 2003: With reference to the Commonwealth commitment of $2.65 million to the Murrumbidgee Valley Water Efficiency Feasibility Project: (1) When will this funding be expended.

(2) Will the Commonwealth provide other resources to the project; if so, can details be provided.
(3) Is it the case that the New South Wales Government will make a contribution of $2.65 million to the project.

(4) What contribution of funding and resources will Pratt Water make to the project.

(5) Is it the case that the New South Wales Minister for Land and Water Conservation, Mr Aquilina, announced the project funding arrangements, including the Commonwealth contribution, on 19 December 2002.

(6) Why did the Minister re-announce the project on 11 February 2003.
(7) How will the project complement the Commonwealth’s ‘broader discussions and on water property rights.

Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) Funding will be expended once contractual arrangements are finalised and upon approval by the Commonwealth/New South Wales (NSW) Natural Resource Management (NRM) Steering Committee of individual project plans for each phase of the study.
(2) No additional resources have been allocated to the project.

However, the Commonwealth may provide information to the project from existing sources.

(3) The Commonwealth and NSW governments are each providing matching funding of up to $2.65 million to the project.
(4) Pratt Water, which fully funded the Pratt Water report, “Water in the Murrumbidgee Valley”, is to provide and bear the cost of 8 dedicated full time officers plus associated support for office accommodation, IT network and general corporate services.

(5) On the 19 and 20 December, NSW and the Commonwealth ministers put out media releases announcing the two government’s joint commitment to fund the feasibility study.
(6) On 11 February the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Hon Warren Truss MP, and the Federal Minister for Environment and Heritage, the Hon David Kemp MP, the Federal Member of Riverina, Mrs Kay Hull MP and Mr Richard Pratt provided a joint media release on progress of the project.
(7) The project will complement the Commonwealth’s broader discussions on water by: • preparing a full feasibility or ‘business case’ for future investment by public and private investors in water savings within the case study area - the Murrumbidgee River System in southern NSW; and QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11739 • as a pilot study, providing lessons and analysis that may be applied more broadly in considering water savings investments in other areas of NSW and in developing a national approach to water savings.
Agriculture: Dairy Structural Adjustment Program (Question No.

1200) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 25 February 2003: Does the Department hold an original copy of the Dairy Structural Adjustment Program Application pack, including an application book and guide incorporating an application form; if so, can a copy be provided; if not, why not.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: The Dairy Structural Adjustment Program booklet including application forms, is available from the Senate Table Office Agriculture: Supplementary Dairy Assistance Scheme (Question No.
1214) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 25 February 2003: In relation to discretionary payment right determinations under the Supplementary Dairy Assistance (SDA) scheme: (1) Can details be provided of matters taken into account when determining whether an eligible dairy leasing arrangement exists.
(2) Which specific matters, including but not limited to the assessment of dairy leasing arrangements, were taken into account in relation to assessment of SDA applications from Fiona Wilson, Leanne Berboon and Phillip Stoll.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) Under the Supplementary Dairy Assistance Scheme (SDA) the matters taken into account to de- termine whether an eligible dairy leasing arrangement exists are those defined in the Diary Struc- tural Adjustment Program (DSAP) scheme.

Factors taken into account in making this assessment are: a.
Whether quota was required for the delivery of market milk by the enterprise in 1998/99.

b.

If quota was required, whether the owner of quota used by the enterprise leased some or all of the quota.

c. Whether the lease of the quota was for the purpose of delivering milk produced by the enter- d. prise.

If quota was not required, whether the legal owner of land on which a milking shed was situ- ated leased the land.
e. Whether the land was leased for the purpose of delivering milk produced by the enterprise.

f. Whether the lease was still in existence at 6.30 pm on 28 September 1999.

If it is unclear whether a lease exists, but there is an arrangement in place whereby land on which a milking shed is situated is being used by someone other than the owner for the purposes of produc- ing milk, an assessment is made of whether the arrangement has the attributes of a lease.
In making QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11740 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 this assessment, the Dairy Adjustment Authority (DAA) has regard to the terms of the arrangement as disclosed by the written agreement between the parties or other available evidence if no written agreement exists.

(2) The DAA has advised that it is unable under clause 43 of Schedule 2 to the Dairy Produce Act to disclose details in relation to particular cases.

Agriculture: South Johnstone Sugar Mill (Question No.
1219) Senator McLucas asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 27 February 2003: (1) (a) Can a list be provided of meetings in which the Government and/or the department discussed the financial situation facing the South Johnstone sugar mill in far north Queensland including dates and who was present; and (b) can a copy of the department’s minutes of the meetings be pro- vided.
(2) (a) What due diligence or any other analysis of the financial situation facing South Johnstone Mill Limited did the Government undertake prior to agreeing to provide $3 375 000 in finance to the mill; and (b) can a copy of this analysis be provided.

(3) (a) What safeguards did the Government put in place prior to lending this money to ensure that taxpayers’ money would be repaid; and (b) can an outline of the terms of the financial agreement be provided.
(4) How much money was finally provided to finance South Johnstone Mill Limited; (b) when were these monies paid; (c) how much has been repaid and when did this occur; and (d) what is the Government doing to recoup outstanding monies.
(5) What action did the Government take when notified by CJ Cooper and Associates, solicitors for the Canegrowers Organisation, by facsimile on 5 July 2000 that advertising under the Cane Supply and Processing Agreement, dated 26 May 2000, had not been undertaken correctly as required under the Queensland Sugar Act 1999; and (b) what involvement did the Government have in this adver- tisement.
(6) As a creditor to South Johnstone Mill Limited, what involvement did the Government have in the sale of the mill to Bundaberg Sugar Limited; and (b) can a list be provided of meetings at which the sale of the South Johnstone mill was discussed, including dates and attendees.

(7) What proposals and options were considered prior to the sale of the South Johnstone sugar mill to Bundaberg Sugar.
(8) What involvement did the Government have in the March 2001 novation and amendment deed between South Johnstone Mill Limited, Canegrowers South Johnstone Mills Suppliers’ Committee, South Johnstone Mill Negotiating Team and Bundaberg Sugar Limited.

(9) Is the repayment of the Government finance to South Johnstone Mill dependent on the validity of this deed.

(10) Can copies of any advice, legal or other, received in relation to this deed be provided.
Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) to (10) The Australian Government Solicitor’s office has advised that those matters are the subject of current legal proceedings and as such cannot be answered.

The sub-judice convention should be observed, particularly as many of the questions relate to documents which are central to issues that are before the Supreme Court in this case.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11741 Manildra Group of Companies (Question No.

1287) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, upon notice, on 18 March 2003: What payments, subsidies, grants, gratuities or awards have been made to the Manildra group of com- panies, including but not necessarily limited to Manildra Energy Australia Pty Ltd, since March 1996.
Senator Minchin—The Acting Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: Manildra Energy Australia Pty Ltd has been paid ethanol subsidy payments amounting to $12,950,833.30 between 17 October 2002 and 26 March 2003.

There is no record of any payment to Manildra Energy Australia Pty Ltd before 17 October 2002.

No record of payment for any other company from the Manildra group was found since March 1996.
Medicare: Bulk-Billing (Question No.

1345) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 25 March 2003: What was the percentage of bulk billed general practitioner unreferred attendances, by vocationally registered and non-vocationally registered, by electorate, for the March 2003 quarter (due for release April 2003).
Senator Patterson—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: In the March quarter 2003, the percentage of unreferred attendances that were bulk billed, involving recognised general practitioners and other general practitioners was as follows: Electorate Adelaide Aston Ballarat Banks Barker Barton Bass Batman Bendigo Bennelong Berowra Blair Blaxland Bonython Boothby Bowman Braddon Bradfield Brand Brisbane Bruce Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs 56.4 62.5 38.3 98.4 28.2 98.4 73.8 94.0 68.0 93.8 54.7 87.3 98.9 94.6 52.5 71.4 68.6 60.2 63.2 57.7 84.7 Recognised GPs Total QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11742 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Electorate Burke Calare Calwell Canberra Canning Capricornia Casey Charlton Chifley Chisholm Cook Corangamite Corio Cowan Cowper Cunningham Curtin Dawson Deakin Denison Dickson Dobell Dunkley Eden-Monaro Fadden Fairfax Farrer Fisher Flinders Forde Forrest Fowler Franklin Fraser Fremantle Gellibrand Gilmore Gippsland Goldstein Grayndler Greenway Grey Griffith Groom Gwydir Hasluck Herbert Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs Recognised GPs Total
71.2 76.8 89.8 82.8 86.3 Recognised GPs Total QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003
55.7 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11743 Electorate Higgins Hindmarsh Hinkler Holt Hotham Hughes Hume Hunter Indi Isaacs Jagajaga Kalgoorlie Kennedy Kingsford-Smith Kingston Kooyong La Trobe Lalor Leichhardt Lilley Lindsay Lingiari Longman Lowe Lyne Lyons Macarthur Mackellar Macquarie Makin Mallee Maranoa Maribyrnong Mayo McEwen McMillan McPherson Melbourne Melbourne Ports Menzies Mitchell Moncrieff Moore Moreton Murray New England Newcastle Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs Recognised GPs Total QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11744 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Electorate North Sydney O’Connor Oxley Page Parkes Parramatta Paterson Pearce Perth Petrie Port Adelaide Prospect Rankin Reid Richmond Riverina Robertson Ryan Scullin Shortland Solomon Stirling Sturt Swan Sydney Tangney Throsby Wakefield Wannon Warringah
 Watson Wentworth Werriwa Wide Bay Wills Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs Recognised GPs Total 82.9
TOTAL 74.7 68.0 68.6 These statistics relate to unreferred attendances involving general practitioners that were rendered on a ‘fee-for-service’ basis and for which benefits were processed by the Health Insurance Commission in the March quarter 2003.
Excluded are details of services to public patients in hospital, to Department of Veterans’ Affairs patients and some compensation cases.

In general terms, practitioners with more than 50% of Schedule fee income from unreferred attendances in the March quarter 2003, were considered to be general practitioners.

‘Recognised General Practitio- ners’ comprise fellows of the College of General Practitioners, Vocationally Registered general practi- tioners and general practitioner trainees.
The statistics were compiled from Medicare data by servicing provider postcode.

Where a postcode overlapped federal electorate division boundaries, the statistics were allocated to electorate using statis- QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11745 tics from the Census of Population and Housing showing the proportion of the population of the post- code in each electoral division.
Medicare statistics for some postcodes, which are not on the Census file, have not been included in the above table.

The statistics in the above table will not agree with other published statistics on bulk billing for unre- ferred attendances by federal electoral division, since these statistics have been further restricted to un- referred attendances rendered by general practitioners.

The statistics exclude unreferred attendances rendered by specialists, who have seen patients on a non-referred basis.
Trade: Diseased Wheat (Question No.

1347) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, upon notice, on 25 March 2003: In relation to the shipment of diseased wheat that arrived in Australia from England in March 2003 aboard the MV Baytur: (1) Where was the wheat grown.

(2) When was the import permit issued.

(3) When was the wheat loaded.

(4) How much wheat was loaded.


(5) (a) What tests were undertaken prior to departure for quarantine purposes; (b) on what date or dates were these tests done; (c) which agency or agencies conducted these tests; (d) what were the results of these tests; (e) on what date or dates were these results known; and (f) on what date was the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) informed of these results.

(6) When and where did the ship depart England.


(7) (a) What tests were undertaken en route for quarantine purposes; (b) on what date or dates were these tests done; (c) which agency or agencies conducted these tests; (d) what were the results of these tests; (e) on what date or dates were these results known; (f) on what date was AQIS in- formed of the results.

(8) (a) Who decided to permit the importation of the wheat; and (b) when was this decision made.
(9) (a) Which individuals or organisations were consulted prior to making this decision; (b) on what date or dates did that consultation occur; (c) what was the nature of the consultation; (d) what in- formation was given to the individuals or organisations consulted; (e) was advice on approval or rejection of the shipment sought; if so, what advice was received; and (f) was advice on post-entry quarantine measures sought; if so, what advice was received.
(10) Was the Minister informed of the test results; if so: (a) when was the Minister informed; and (b) what action did the Minister take.

(11) When and where was the wheat unloaded.

(12) (a) What post-entry quarantine measures were applied; (b) when and where were these measures applied; (c) did these measures include additional sampling; (d) did these measures differ from the standard treatment of wheat imports; and (e) was the Minister consulted on these measures.
Is the disease in the wheat otherwise present in Australia; if not, what would be the conse- (13) quences of an outbreak of the disease in Australia.

(14) What was the destination of the wheat.

Senator Ian Macdonald—The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has pro- vided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) The wheat was grown in England.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11746 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (2) The import permit was issued on 2 January 2003.
(3) The wheat was loaded on 22 January 2003.

(4) 49,795 metric tonnes of wheat was loaded.

(5) (a) Samples for testing for Hymenula cerealis were taken prior to departure; (b) The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) was advised that the test for Hy- menula cerealis was initiated on 22 January 2003 and concluded on 13 February 2003.

(c) The Plant Health Division of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the United Kingdom (UK) conducted the test.
(d) Test results revealed the presence of Hymenula cerealis in the tested sample.

(e) AQIS was advised that the tests were completed on 13 February 2003.

(f) AQIS was informed of the results by importer Hunter Grain Pty Ltd on 14 February 2003.

(6) The ship departed England from the port of Portbury on 22 January 2003.

(7) (a) The test for the presence of Hymenula cerealis was undertaken while the vessel was en route to Australia.
(b) The test was initiated on 22 January 2003 and concluded on 13 February 2003.

(c) DEFRA conducted the test.

(d) Test results revealed the presence of Hymenula cerealis in the tested sample.

(e) AQIS was advised that the tests were completed on 13 February 2003.

(f) AQIS was informed of the results on 14 February 2003.

(8) (a) The Manager, Grain, Seeds and Nursery Stock, AQIS made the decision to permit the importa- tion of the wheat; (b) 4 March 2003.
(9) (a) NSW Agriculture, the Grains Research & Development Corporation, Grains Council of Aus- tralia and Plant Health Australia.

(b) Consultation occurred between the 14 and 25 February 2003.

(c) Officers of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry convened a meeting on 25 February 2003 with relevant stakeholders and technical experts.

(d) Biosecurity Australia outlined the biology of the fungus Hymenula cerealis.
(e) Technical experts present at the meeting held on 25 February 2003 agreed that the presence of the fungus at the levels tested did not alter the low risk status of the wheat from the UK and that the procedures laid down in AQIS’s import protocol would address any quarantine risk as- sociated with the fungus.
(f) Technical experts present at the meeting held 25 February 2003 agreed that permitting the shipment to discharge in Newcastle and Melbourne for immediate processing at the closest approved processing facilities and being managed in accordance with AQIS’s import protocol, would address any quarantine risk associated with the fungus.

(10) (a) 18 February 2003.

(b) The Minister noted the advice.


(11) The wheat was discharged on 11 March 2003 at Bulk Terminals Australia Pty Ltd, Denison St, Carrington, NSW 2294; and 19 March 2003 at Australian Bulk Alliance Pty Ltd, 18-20 Enterprise Road, West Melbourne, VIC 3003.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11747 (12) (a) The shipment was permitted entry subject to it being discharged in the ports of Newcastle and Melbourne for immediate processing at the closest approved processing facilities and being managed in accordance with AQIS’s import protocol.

(b) The measures were applied at discharge at the ports of Newcastle and Melbourne.
(c) The frequency of sampling and testing of processed pellets to verify treatment efficacy was increased as an additional precaution.

(d) Yes.

(e) The Minister was advised.

(13) No.

The consequences of an outbreak in Australia are unknown, however the disease is managed in other countries by crop rotation and fungicide treatment of seed.

There are no known quarantine impediments required by Australia’s trading partners.
(14) The wheat was destined for processing in the metropolitan areas of the ports of entry by hammer milling followed by steam sterilisation and pelletisation for poultry feed purposes.

Health: North Queensland General Practitioners (Question No.
1368) Senator McLucas asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 27 March 2003: (1) What were the quarterly general practitioner to patient ratios for the districts of Mackay, Whitsunday, Townsville, Thuringowa, Cairns and Mt Isa for the past five years.

(2) Can a list be provided of districts in Queensland that are currently listed as areas of workforce shortage where overseas-trained doctors can work.
(3) Can the following information be provided, by scheme or program: (a) how many overseas-trained doctors are working in each of these districts; and (b) what conditions are placed on their employment.

(4) Under which scheme or program were the three overseas-trained doctors recently given Medicare provider numbers for ‘The Doctors Clinic’ in Townsville.

(5) What criteria were used to assess this application and grant these overseas-trained doctors with provider numbers.
(6) Is whether a medical practice bulk bills or not considered as a criterion in determining a practice’s access to overseas-trained doctors.

(7) Is whether a practice provides after-hours care considered as a criterion in determining a practice’s access to overseas-trained doctors.

(8) (a) How many requests for provider numbers for overseas-trained doctors for Townsville have been received in the past 3 years; and (b) how many have been granted.
(9) How does the Department monitor compliance by overseas-trained doctors who have been allocated provider numbers with the condition that they work after hours only.

(10) Did the Department consider the impact on the Townsville Division of General Practice After Hours Service prior to approving additional overseas-trained doctors provider numbers for ‘The Doctors Clinic’ in Townsville.
(11) What action is being taken by the Department to ensure that the Townsville Division of General Practice After Hours Service does not close due to the additional competition from these overseas- trained doctors.
Senator Patterson—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11748 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (1) The quarterly full-time equivalent general practitioner to population ratios for the districts of Mackay, Whitsunday, Townsville, Thurngowa, Cairns and Mount Isa from September 1998 to December 2002 are as follows: Year/Quarter Mackay (a) Whitsunday (b) Townsville (c) Thuringowa (d) Cairns (e) Mt Isa (f) 1998/3 1998/4 1999/1 1999/2 1999/3 1999/4 2000/1 2000/2 2000/3 2000/4 2001/1 2001/2 2001/3 2001/4 2002/1 2002/2 2002/3 2002/ (a) Statistical Local Area: Mackay (C) - Pt A (b) Statistical Local Area: Whitsunday (S) (c) Townsville City Part A (Statistical Subdivision)(Magnetic Island SLA not included) and Thuringowa City Part A (Statistical Subdivision)(Thuringowa (C) - Pt A Bal (Statistical Local Area) not included) (d) Thuringowa (C) - Pt
 A Bal SLA (part of Thuringowa City Part A (Statistical Subdivision)) and Thuringowa (C) - Pt B (part of Northern SD Bal (Statistical Subdivision)) (e) Cairns City Part A Statistical Subdivision (f) Statistical Local Area: Mount Isa (C) (2) The designation as a district of workforce shortage applies to communities that are considered to have less access to medical professional services than that experienced by the population in general.
This may be either because of the remote nature of the community or because of lack of supply of services or a combination of both factors.
Those non-metropolitan Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) in Queensland that currently have doctor to population ratios worse than the national average are: Arundel Ashmore Biggera Waters Coombabah Coomera-Cedar Creek Currumbin Currumbin Waters Elanora Guanaba-Currumbin Valley Helensvale Burnett (S) - Pt B Cairns (C) - Northern Suburbs Cairns (C) - Trinity Toowoomba (C) - South-East Calliope (S) - Pt A Calliope (S) - Pt B Caloundra (C) - Caloundra S. Beaudesert (S) - Pt B Boonah (S) Burdekin (S) Hinchinbrook (S) excl.
Palm I. Ipswich (C) - West Isis (S) Laidley (S) Livingstone (S) Mackay (C) - Pt B Millmerran (S) Rosalie (S) - Pt B Sarina (S) Tiaro (S) QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11749 Hollywell Hope Island Kelso Kirwan Mt Louisa-Mt St John-Bohle Mudgeeraba Murray North Ward-Castle Hill Oonoonba-Idalia-Cluden Oxenford Pallarenda-Shelley Beach Palm Beach Paradise Point Parkwood Runaway Bay South Townsville Stuart-Roseneath Thuringowa (C) - Pt A Bal Thuringowa (C) - Pt B West End Worongary-Tallai Wulguru Caboolture (S) - Pt B Cairns (C) - Pt B Cambooya (S) - Pt A Cambooya (S) - Pt B Cardwell (S) Charters Towers (C) Clifton (S) Cook (S) (excl.
Weipa) Cooloola (S) - Gympie only Cooloola (S) (excl.
Gympie) Crow’s Nest (S) - Pt A Crow’s Nest (S) - Pt B Croydon (S) Dalrymple (S) Douglas (S) Eacham (S) Esk (S) Etheridge (S) Fitzroy (S) - Pt A Fitzroy (S) - Pt B Gatton (S) Hinchinbrook (S) - Palm Island Townsville (C) - Pt B Waggamba (S) Wambo (S) Wondai (S) Belyando (S) Duaringa (S) Flinders (S) Isisford (S) Jericho (S) Longreach (S) McKinlay (S) Murweh (S) Nebo (S) Peak Downs (S) Tambo (S) Tara (S) Taroom (S) Torres (S) Warroo (S) (3) (a) Overseas-trained doctors are directed to districts of workforce shortage through the restrictions placed on their access to Medicare benefits contained in Section 19AB of the Health Insurance Act 1973.
As at 11 April 2003, 386 overseas-trained doctors with Section 19AB exemptions in Queensland, the great majority of which are located in rural and remote areas.
In Townsville and Thuringowa SLAs there are 19 overseas trained doctors with Section 19AB exemptions servicing the following areas: Thuringowa (C) - Pt B Kelso Kirwan Thuringowa (C) - Pt A Bal Aitkenvale City Cranbrook Currajong Douglas Garbutt Gulliver Heatley Hermit Park Hyde Park-Mysterton Mt Louisa-Mt St John-Bohle Mundingburra Murray North Ward-Castle Hill Oonoonba-Idalia-Cluden Pallarenda-Shelley Beach Pimlico Railway Estate Rosslea Rowes Bay-Belgian Gardens South Townsville Stuart-Roseneath Vincent West End Wulguru (b) Section 19AB exemptions are location and time specific.
The exemptions are specific to a practice or practices.

Temporary resident doctors may receive exemptions for up to two years QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11750 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 at a time and permanent resident doctors for up to five years at a time.

Other conditions may be added, for example to work after hours only.
(4) The three overseas-trained doctors at ‘The Doctors Clinic’ Townsville were given in-principle agreement to operate with Medicare access under the provisions of Section 19AB of the Health Insurance Act 1973.

(5) The Department was advised that the overseas-trained doctors would work after hours only.

The medical workforce for after hours work is in shortage and therefore the application for in principle support was approved.

(6) No.
(6) No.

(7) The nature of the services to be provided by the overseas-trained doctor, rather than the fact that the service provides after hours services, is what is taken into account.

(8) (a) and (b) Since 1 July 2001, applications have been received and granted for an exemption for 23 overseas-trained doctors to operate as general practitioners in Townsville and Thuringowa SLAs.
Due to database limitations, the Department is only able to provide statistics on the number of formal applications for exemptions received from overseas trained doctors since 1 July 2001.

(9) If evidence of non-compliance is brought to the attention of the Health Insurance Commission, it will investigate these cases.

If an allegation is proven, the access to Medicare may be revoked.
(10) Section 19AB of the Health Insurance Act 1973 requires the Department to make an assessment on whether to place an overseas-trained doctor on the basis of overall community need for medical services in a local area.

(11) The Department has entered into a Funding Agreement with the Townsville Division of General Practice to provide funding of $1,493,864 over the period 1 January 2002 until 31 December 2004 in order to support the establishment of a regional After Hours Primary Medical Care service.
The Department provides ongoing support and advice to the Townsville Division of General Practice after hours service.

National Security: Information Kits (Question No.

1375) Senator Brown asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 4 April 2002: (1) What is happening to anti-terrorism kits returned to sender with stamps.
(2) If such kits are not being returned to the sender, on what basis are these postal articles, properly addressed and paid for, not being delivered.

Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question, based on advice re- ceived from Australia Post, is as follows: (1) and (2) In response to a request from the sender, the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, such articles were held for the Department at the office of delivery (Canberra South Delivery Centre).
Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site (Question No.

1405) Senator Lundy asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 22 April 2003: (1) On what date did the department first approach the private sector with the intention of upgrading its website.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11751 (2) (a) Which companies were approached for this opportunity; and (b) on what basis were these com- panies chosen.
(3) At that time, what was the timetable for the implementation of the upgrade.

(4) At that time, what was the budget allowance for the project in relation to the following areas: (a) website development; (b) the running environment for the site once it was live; (c) hardware; (d) software; (e) services to implement the software; and (f) any other areas.

(5) Can details be provided of the process by which Fujitsu Australia was awarded the final contract.
Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) An open tender for the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts web redevelopment was advertised in the Melbourne Age and Canberra Times on 17 June 2000 and Sydney Morning Herald on 19 June 2000.

(2) The project was undertaken on an open tender basis.

(3) At the time the tender was released the timetable for the project was 3 months.
(4) At the time the tender was issued the budget for the redevelopment (including development, soft- ware, hardware and implementation services) was $600,000.

There was no budget allocated at that time for the ongoing running of the website.

(5) Fujitsu Australia were awarded the contract in late December 2000 following a tender evaluation process conducted in-accordance with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines.

Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site (Question No.
1406) Senator Lundy asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 22 April 2003: With reference to the answer to a previous question on notice: (a) in the category of “Tender develop- ment/assessment, advertising” what specific costs made up the figure of $71,771.18; (b) in the category of “Website development” what specific costs made up the figure of $1,212,809.58; (c) in the category of “Hardware” what specific costs made up the figure of $661,426.00; (d) in the category of “Software” what specific costs made up the figure of $927,705.90; (e) in the category of “Hosting and support ser- vices” what specific costs made up the figure of $956,046.51; (f) in the category of “Enhancements” what specific costs made up the figure of $181,677.64 (in each instance can the costs be itemised).
Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (a) Tender development/assessment, advertising Consultants Evaluation software Tender advertising (b) Website Development $41,785.38 $6,675.00 $23,310.80 $71,771.18 Milestone payments as per contract for Contract Signing, Deliv- ery of Technical Design Specification, Delivery of Pilot site, Delivery of Principal Site and Acceptance of Principal Site Software & Infrastructure Development for commercialisation Contractors Consultants $500,000.00 $102,877.00 $188,902.13 $245,751.90 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11752 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Accessibility review Metadata Generation Interface Development -Trim/ Vignette (c) Hardware Initial hardware Additional hardware for commercialisation Website backup tapes Implementation of Development and Test environment (d) Software Initial software (which included Windows, SQL Microsoft server, Exchange, Webtrends, MetaBrowser, Vignette software) One year Edrawer Software Licence Additional Vignette V.5 licence for commercialisation Upgrade to Vignette V6 (e) Hosting & Support Services Maintenance and software/application support Consultants ICON Secure Connection & Security check Hosting & Secure environment fees Global Server Certificates Software Assurance for MS Windows Internet Connector, MS SQL Server Enterprise Edition, MS Exchange CAL, and MS Exchange Conferencing Server (f) Enhancements Enhancements, change requests, system changes prior to launch Enhancements, change requests, system changes
 post launch $7,000.00 $51,100.00 $117,178.55 $1,212,809.58 $438,383.00 $182,002.00 $10,000.00 $31,041.00 $661,426.00 $544,049.00 $29,656.90 $250,000.00 $104,000.00 $927,705.90 $194,776.00 $4,333.16 $56,814.00 $662,810.47 $3,100.00 $34,212.88 $956,046.51 $144,107.64 $37,570.00 $181,677.64 Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Vignette Software (Question No.
1407) Senator Lundy asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 22 April 2003: (1) What is the current version of Vignette software used by the department.

(2) Is there any intention to upgrade to the latest version of that software; if so, what are the additional costs associated with such an upgrade, including software, services and maintenance costs.
Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11753 (1) The current version of Vignette used by the Department is Version 5.6.

(2) Not at this stage, the Department is currently assessing its options in relation to software.

Communications, Information Technology and the Arts: Web Site (Question No.
1408) Senator Lundy asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 22 April 2003: (1) What attention has been given to ensuring that the department’s website complies with web content accessibility guidelines such as those suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium.

(2) How many separate failure incidents are generated when the World Wide Web Consortium ‘valida- tor’ is run over the department’s website.
Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) The Department engaged Visions Australia in October 2001 and July 2002 to examine the website and assess its conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

(2) Eleven non-fatal coding errors are generated on the home page by the World Wide Web Consor- tium ‘validator’.

The errors do not affect the general operation of the site, and similar errors occur on many websites.
These errors, which include specific code required to accommodate Internet Explorer and older browsers and code used to generate the current screen layout, will be progres- sively addressed during regular maintenance of the site, where cost effective Medicare: Bulk-Billing (Question No.
1410) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 23 April 2003: (1) What is the percentage of bulk billed general practitioner (GP) unreferred attendances (vocationally registered and non-vocationally registered): (a) by federal electorates for the March 2003 quarter (due for release May 2003); and (b) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ statistical local areas for the March 2003 quarter.
(2) For the most recent period collected, what is the average and median Medicare Benefit Schedule rebate received by GPs with vocationally registered provider numbers for unreferred attendances in: (a) each statistical local area; (b) federal electorates; and (c) across outer-urban, regional and metropolitan areas, by State.
(3) What is the average and median total payment received by GPs with vocationally registered provider numbers for unreferred attendances in: (a) each statistical local area; (b) federal electorates; and (c) across outer-urban, regional and metropolitan areas, by State.

Senator Patterson—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) (b), (2)(a) and (3)(a) Medicare statistics are captured at postcode level.
It has not been possible to compile the requested statistics by the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ statistical local areas (SLA), since many postcodes overlap SLA boundaries.

Furthermore, in some regions the small number of providers means that the statistics are confidential.

(2) (c) and (3)(c) It has also not been possible to compile the requested statistics by outer urban, regional and metropolitan areas.
However, the Rural and Remote Area (RRMA) Classification System has been used in the tables following, with the statistics being compiled by capital city, other metropolitan centre, and rural and remote areas.

It should be noted that in calculating average and median Medicare Benefit rebate and total payments received per GP, that these figures include all GPs (for definition, see notes to the tables) and many of these work part-time.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11754 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (1) (a) In the March quarter 2003, the percentage of unreferred attendances that were bulk billed, by electorate, and involving recognised general practitioners and other general practitioners, was as follows: March Qtr 2003 Electorate Adelaide Aston Ballarat Banks Barker Barton Bass Batman Bendigo Bennelong Berowra Blair Blaxland Bonython Boothby Bowman Braddon Bradfield Brand Brisbane Bruce Burke Calare Calwell Canberra Canning Capricornia Casey Charlton Chifley Chisholm Cook Corangamite Corio Cowan Cowper Cunningham Curtin Dawson Deakin Denison Dickson Dobell Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs Recognised GPs Total QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11755 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Dunkley Eden-Monaro Fadden Fairfax Farrer Fisher Flinders Forde Forrest Fowler Franklin Fraser Fremantle Gellibrand Gilmore
 Gippsland Goldstein Grayndler Greenway Grey Griffith Groom Gwydir Hasluck Herbert Higgins Hindmarsh Hinkler Holt Hotham Hughes Hume Hunter Indi Isaacs Jagajaga Kalgoorlie Kennedy Kingsford-Smith Kingston Kooyong La Trobe Lalor Leichhardt Lilley Lindsay Lingiari Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs 66.4
89.8 67.5 81.3 92.9 80.5 46.3 69.9 84.5 96.1 66.4 82.4 71.8 Recognised GPs Total QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11756 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Longman Lowe Lyne Lyons Macarthur Mackellar Macquarie Makin Mallee Maranoa Maribyrnong Mayo McEwen McMillan McPherson Melbourne Melbourne Ports Menzies Mitchell Moncrieff Moore Moreton Murray New England Newcastle North Sydney O’Connor Oxley Page Parkes Parramatta Paterson Pearce Perth Petrie Port Adelaide Prospect Rankin Reid Richmond Riverina Robertson Ryan Scullin Shortland Solomon Stirling Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs Recognised GPs Total 67.5
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11757 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Sturt Swan Sydney Tangney Throsby Wakefield Wannon Warringah Watson Wentworth Werriwa Wide Bay Wills TOTAL Percentage Bulk Billed Other GPs 54.0 56.3 78.0 66.0 84.1 49.8 62.3
 61.0 97.6 61.9 98.6 72.1 88.5 74.7 Recognised GPs Total 56.2 56.3 75.7 76.9 82.9 83.3 58.0 57.6 96.1 96.3 38.3 36.7 46.9 44.5 72.8 73.0 96.8 96.8 69.9 70.7 96.1 96.0 60.4 55.0 81.5 81.0 68.6 68.0 (2) (b) In the March quarter 2003, the average and median Medicare benefit income for recognised general practitioners, by federal electoral division, was as follows: March Qtr 2003 Electorate Adelaide Aston Ballarat Banks Barker Barton Bass Batman Bendigo Bennelong Berowra Blair Blaxland Bonython Boothby Bowman Braddon Bradfield Brand Brisbane Bruce Burke Calare Calwell Canberra Canning Capricornia Casey Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average 25,240 36,660 30,705 35,127 25,842 38,867 26,619 38,822 30,862 32,558 30,522 37,569 44,252 46,820 28,315 32,867 25,516 26,600 29,463 21,798 39,999 30,358 26,238 39,744 22,076 31,011 31,478 33,743 Median 22,305 34,704 32,898 33,367 25,408 35,361 26,012 35,313 33,501 29,096 27,844 35,054 42,025 47,859 24,710 32,858 25,357 21,574 27,792 18,516 40,479 28,290 23,415 42,467 21,920 31,421 32,688 33,093 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11758 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Charlton Chifley Chisholm Cook Corangamite Corio Cowan Cowper Cunningham Curtin Dawson Deakin Denison Dickson Dobell Dunkley Eden-Monaro Fadden Fairfax Farrer Fisher Flinders Forde Forrest Fowler Franklin Fraser Fremantle Gellibrand Gilmore Gippsland Goldstein Grayndler Greenway Grey Griffith Groom Gwydir Hasluck Herbert Higgins Hindmarsh Hinkler Holt Hotham Hughes
 Hume Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average Median 34,329 53,370 29,543 31,868 28,976 27,797 35,147 26,201 35,002 17,499 27,341 29,529 22,230 33,466 34,959 30,428 18,758 33,253 32,098
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11759 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Hunter Indi Isaacs Jagajaga Kalgoorlie Kennedy Kingsford-Smith Kingston Kooyong La Trobe Lalor Leichhardt Lilley Lindsay Lingiari Longman Lowe Lyne Lyons Macarthur Mackellar Macquarie Makin Mallee Maranoa Maribyrnong Mayo McEwen McMillan McPherson Melbourne Melbourne Ports Menzies Mitchell Moncrieff Moore Moreton Murray New England Newcastle North Sydney O’Connor Oxley Page Parkes Parramatta Paterson Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average Median QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11760 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Pearce Perth Petrie Port
 Adelaide Prospect Rankin Reid Richmond Riverina Robertson Ryan Scullin Shortland Solomon Stirling Sturt Swan Sydney Tangney Throsby Wakefield Wannon Warringah Watson Wentworth Werriwa Wide Bay Wills Australia Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average 29,469 29,324 32,365 38,574 47,132 41,340 52,414 27,010 23,330 32,939 23,036 44,441 34,099 16,913 34,680 31,613 34,048 27,671 28,062 52,176 25,163 25,704 32,574 46,578 25,587 56,635 33,044 38,642 31,498 Median 30,512 28,570 32,685 34,771 46,563 39,318 52,671 22,674
 22,004 33,091 22,067 45,692 31,316 13,756 33,505 30,308 32,358 22,808 26,390 50,769 24,791 27,287 28,990 45,051 20,788 57,570 35,227 36,689 29,058 (2) (c) In the March quarter 2003, the average and median Medicare benefit income for recognised general practitioners, by RRMA, was as follows: March Qtr 2003 State/Territory NSW VIC QLD SA WA Region Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average 36,442 36,155 25,588 33,159 31,784 26,874 31,326 32,296 31,197 32,122 25,651 30,057 23,726 Median 33,495 33,990 23,782 30,653 29,820 26,161 30,098 29,897 30,775 30,308 25,244 28,830 22,828 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11761 March Qtr 2003 State/Territory TAS NT ACT AUST Region Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Medicare Benefit Income ($) Average 23,205 27,124 16,913 11,397 21,954 20,831 32,931 34,279 26,854 Median 22,167 26,637 13,756 7,870 20,484 24,310 30,537 31,682 25,390 (3) (b) In the March quarter 2003, the average and median Medicare fee charged income for recognised general practitioners, by federal electoral division, was as follows: March Qtr 2003 Electorate Adelaide Aston Ballarat Banks Barker Barton Bass Batman Bendigo Bennelong Berowra Blair Blaxland Bonython
 Boothby Bowman Braddon Bradfield Brand Brisbane Bruce Burke Calare Calwell Canberra Canning Capricornia Casey Charlton Chifley Chisholm Cook Corangamite Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average Median 29,078 39,868 40,249 35,970 31,693 37,515 32,578 38,356 37,450 33,297 30,647 35,221
 45,161 48,986 30,547 38,655 29,519 28,948 32,358 24,714 45,161 34,968 29,068 49,122 27,378 37,578 40,829 39,056 42,860 53,719 34,911 35,089 36,471 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11762 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Corio Cowan Cowper Cunningham Curtin Dawson Deakin Denison Dickson Dobell Dunkley Eden-Monaro Fadden Fairfax Farrer Fisher Flinders Forde Forrest Fowler Franklin Fraser Fremantle Gellibrand Gilmore Gippsland Goldstein Grayndler Greenway Grey Griffith Groom Gwydir Hasluck Herbert Higgins Hindmarsh Hinkler Holt Hotham Hughes Hume Hunter Indi Isaacs Jagajaga Kalgoorlie Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average Median QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11763 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Kennedy Kingsford-Smith Kingston Kooyong La Trobe Lalor Leichhardt Lilley Lindsay Lingiari Longman Lowe
 Lyne Lyons Macarthur Mackellar Macquarie Makin Mallee Maranoa Maribyrnong Mayo McEwen McMillan McPherson Melbourne Melbourne Ports Menzies Mitchell Moncrieff Moore Moreton Murray New England Newcastle North Sydney O’Connor Oxley Page Parkes Parramatta Paterson Pearce Perth Petrie Port Adelaide Prospect Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average 34,654 39,060 36,656 27,011 41,176 41,094 33,646 32,853 43,991 13,963 44,462 36,904 34,913 29,750 51,166 30,537 31,509 40,190 38,994 35,813 46,244 29,982 33,529 37,669
Median QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11764 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 March Qtr 2003 Electorate Rankin Reid Richmond Riverina Robertson Ryan Scullin Shortland Solomon Stirling Sturt Swan Sydney Tangney Throsby Wakefield Wannon Warringah Watson Wentworth Werriwa Wide Bay Wills Australia Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average 43,730 52,886 30,368 29,444 37,332 28,577 46,855 41,370 22,213 37,819 35,933 37,437 30,586 34,982 53,007 30,878 30,748 38,209 47,358 30,371 57,671 38,177 41,485 35,873 Median 42,991 52,758 26,625 27,682 38,108 27,034 51,489 39,812 18,792 37,220 35,136 37,537 26,842 34,905 50,984 30,372 32,103 36,687 46,600 27,880 61,952 39,816 40,978 34,758 (3) (c) In the March quarter 2003, the average and median Medicare fee charged income for recognised general practitioners, by RRMA, was as follows: March Quarter 2003 State/Territory NSW VIC QLD SA WA TAS NT Region Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro
 Centre Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Rural & Remote Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average 39,284 40,859 30,914 37,421 37,674 32,740 35,905 38,077 36,862 36,208 30,435 34,397 28,705 26,974 31,628 22,213 13,436 Median 37,595 39,832 29,760 37,014 37,528 32,263 35,748 37,479 36,734 35,496 30,477 34,172 28,432 26,781 31,718 18,792 8,341 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11765 March Quarter 2003 State/Territory ACT
 AUST Region Capital City Rural & Remote Capital City Other Metro Centre Rural & Remote Medicare Fee Charged Income ($) Average 29,939 35,131 36,848 39,503 32,200 Median 27,759 41,921 35,803 38,633 31,501 Notes to the Tables These statistics relate to unreferred attendances involving general practitioners that were rendered on a ‘fee-for-service’ basis and for which benefits were processed by the Health Insurance Commission in the March quarter 2003.
Excluded are details of services to public patients in hospital, to Department of Veterans’ Affairs patients and some compensation cases.

In general terms, practitioners with more than 50% of Schedule fee income from unreferred attendances in the March quarter 2003, were considered to be general practitioners.

‘Recognised General Practitio- ners’ comprise fellows of the College of General Practitioners, Vocationally Registered general practi- tioners and general practitioner trainees.
The statistics in (1) above, were compiled from Medicare data by servicing provider postcode.

Where a postcode overlapped federal electorate division boundaries, the statistics were allocated to electorate using statistics from the Census of Population and Housing showing the proportion of the population of the postcode in each electoral division.
The statistics in (1) will not agree with other published statistics on bulk billing for unreferred atten- dances by federal electoral division, since these statistics have been further restricted to unreferred at- tendances rendered by general practitioners.

The statistics exclude unreferred attendances rendered by specialists, who have seen patients on a non-referred basis.
The statistics in (2) and (3) above, were compiled by assigning all activity for a provider to his/her ma- jor practice postcode in the quarter.

Where a postcode overlapped federal electorate division boundaries, the practitioner’s activity was assigned to an electorate having regard to statistics from the Census of Population and Housing showing the proportion of the population of the postcode in each electoral divi- sion.
Medicare statistics for some postcodes, which have been allocated to electorates, may not appear in the above tables where the postcodes are not on the Census File.

Attorney-General’s: United Nations Convention Breach (Question No.
1411) Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 23 April 2003: (1) In view of the fact that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has recommended the word ‘nigger’ be removed from the controversial E.S.

‘Nigger’ Brown stand at the Toowoomba sports ground because the term ‘nigger’ is offensive and insulting, is Australia now in breach of the relevant United Nations convention.
(2) What action is the government now taking on the matter.

(3) Will the government take steps to ensure the word ‘nigger’ is removed from the stadium.
Senator Ellison—The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honour- able senator’s question: (1) The Government is aware of the views of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimina- tion (the CERD Committee) regarding the use and maintenance of the term ‘nigger’ on the QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11766 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Toowoomba sports ground grandstand, the ‘E S ‘Nigger’ Brown Stand’.

The Committee is not a court and its views are not binding.
The matter before the Committee had been considered exten- sively by the Federal Court of Australia, which concluded that, given the context in which the word ‘nigger’ was used on the grandstand, it was not racially discriminatory.

Leave to appeal that deci- sion was denied by the High Court of Australia.
The Government notes that, in announcing its de- cision, the CERD Committee noted with satisfaction the resolution passed by a public meeting at- tended by members of the local Aboriginal community and the chair of the Toowoomba sports ground trust that, in the spirit of reconciliation, racially derogatory or offensive terms will not be used or displayed in the future.

The Government supports the community based resolution of this matter as appropriate in the circumstances.
(2) and (3) The Government is considering the views of the Committee.

However, the Government notes that the matters raised in the communication have been thoroughly considered by the Austra- lian Courts.

As noted in the answer to question (1), the Federal Court of Australia has found that, given the context in which the word ‘nigger’ was used on the grandstand, it was not racially dis- criminatory.

Depleted Uranium (Question No.


1415) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 28 April 2003: (1) Given that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, reportedly would not allow the World Health Organisation (WHO) to carry out an independent assessment of the effects of depleted uranium used in the Gulf War, has the Government urged the United States of America Administration and the WHO to do so now that the attack on Iraq is over; if not, why not.
(2) Will the Government press for studies to determine if depleted uranium may be moving through the ground and could contaminate local water supplies as suggested by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); if not, why not.

(3) Is the Government aware of the British Royal Society’s report, The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions, 2002, which indicates that localised areas of depleted uranium contamination pose a risk, particularly to young children, and should be cleared up as a priority.
(4) Will the Government press for environment sampling of affected areas in Iraq and any necessary clean-up; if not, why not.

(5) Is the Government aware that UNEP has indicated that an immediate study in Iraq would give a much better understanding of how depleted uranium behaves in the environment than studies done some years after depleted uranium was used in Yugoslavia and the Gulf.

(6) Is the Government aware of research published in Military Medicine, vol.
167, p. 120, which indicates that: (a) the radiological effects of depleted uranium are not clear; (b) the risk from low- dose radiation cannot necessarily be extrapolated from tests using higher doses; (c) the relationship between dose and effect is not linear, meaning that low radiation may be having subtle effects that go unnoticed because cells are not dying; (d) radiation from depleted uranium damages chromosomes within cultured cells; (e) depleted uranium radiation increases gene activity in cultured cells at doses of depleted uranium not known to cause chemical toxicity; and (f) the possible consequences are made all the more uncertain because no-one knows if genes switched on by depleted uranium radiation enhance the damage caused genes switched on by depleted uranium’s toxic effects, or vice versa.
(7) Is the Government aware of research at the Bremen Institute for Prevention Research, Social Medicine and Epidemiology in Germany, which published results from tests in which blood samples from 16 soldiers who inhaled depleted uranium particles in battle showed that broken strands of DNA chromosomes in veterans occurred at five times the rate of the control group QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11767 (Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol.
103, p. 211) and that increased chromosomal aberrations are associated with an increased incidence of cancers.

(8) Have Australian troops exposed to depleted uranium been, or will they be, tested for chromosomal aberration on their return from Iraq; if not, why not.

Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) No.
The decision to conduct assessments of the effects of depleted uranium (DU) used in the Gulf War is a matter for the United States Government and the World Health Organisation, in consultation with the Iraqi Interim Authority and a future Iraqi Government.

(2) No.

If UNEP wants such an enquiry I would expect it would take this up with the Iraqi Interim Authority and a future Iraqi Government.

(3) Yes.

The Government is aware of the British Royal Society’s report.
Defence is giving consideration to a re-assessment of the medical literature concerning DU exposure in light of this report and will make adjustments to Australian Defence Force (ADF) health advice and screening procedures as necessary.

(4) Refer to part (2).

(5) Refer to part (2).

(6) The Government is aware of research published in Military Medicine Vol 167 p120.

(7) The Government is aware of the research referred to in this part of the question.
(8) In August 2001, a report was prepared by the Expert Committee to Examine Balkan Veteran Exposure to Depleted Uranium on behalf of the then Minister of Veterans’ Affairs titled Review of Scientific Literature on the Health Effects of Exposure to Depleted Uranium.

The report concluded that on the basis of sound medical-scientific evidence and under realistic assumptions of exposure and dose, DU could not produce any health effects in Australian troops serving with NATO forces in the Balkan conflict.
The Defence Health Service (DHS) subsequently revised its health bulletin regarding DU health screening policy in December 2001.

On the basis of the expert committee’s independent review of relevant evidence on this subject, the Defence Health Service agreed that DU posed no adverse risk of health effects for ADF personnel performing duties that would potentially lead to DU exposure, and determined that the ADF policy no longer required ADF personnel to be health screened for DU exposure.
However, the DHS is aware of new scientific research such as that referred to in this question.

DHS is conducting a re-assessment of the medical literature concerning DU exposure and will make any adjustments to ADF health advice and screening procedures as might be necessary.

Defence: Portsea Site (Question No.
1416) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 29 April 2003: (1) Given that the media release, dated 9 April 2003, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence refers to 'giving the Victorian Government one month to take up the offer of a priority sale of the remaining 90 hectares' and yet an advertisement in the Financial Review of 22 April 2003 inviting expressions of interest in the land refers to 85 hectares: (a) What is the correct size of the land for sale; and (b) What is the reason for the discrepancy.
(2) Is it still the case, as the Government has publicly indicated, that residential development will not be permitted on this 85 hectares; if so: (a) Why was this not indicated in the advertisement; (b) would a residential prohibition also rule out a hotel or other tourist accommodation being QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11768 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 construction on the site; and (c) what environmental and/or heritage restrictions would apply to tourist accommodation.
(3) Does the Government intend selling the land freehold absolutely.

(4) Is the Government prepared to alienate the land so that is comes under the jurisdiction of the Victorian State Government’s planning provisions or the Mornington Peninsula Planning Scheme.

(5) Would proposed developments be subject to: (a) the Victorian State Government’s planning scheme zoning controls; (b) the controls relating to native vegetation; (c) the requirements of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (Vic.
); (d) the requirements of the Heritage Act 1995 (Vic.

); (e) the requirements of the Archaeological and Aboriginal Preservation Act 1972 (Vic.

); and (f) the requirements of the Environment Protection Act 1970 (Vic.).

(6) Would proposed developments be subject to the Victorian State Government’s height limits, visual amenity rules and controls to protect the adjacent national park.
(7) Will the Government consider long-term lease arrangements for the site; if so: (a) under what conditions; (b) is it the case that the Government would do so to allow developers to evade Victorian State Government planning controls; and (c) under lease arrangements, from which ’relevant authorities’ would development approvals need to be sought.
(8) With regard to the 20 hectare site proposed to be handed over to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council: (a) will the Minister adopt the Victorian State Government’s suggestion that it be reserved as Crown land for public purposes under the Crown Land Reserves Act 1978 (Vic.)
and for the council to be appointed as the Committee of Management; (b) can details be provided of discussions and correspondence between the Commonwealth and the Mornington Peninsula Shire with regard to this land; (c) was this land granted to the Mornington Peninsula Shire at its request; (d) has the Mornington Peninsula Shire developed a management plan for the site; if not, when will it do so and by what process; (e) will the Commonwealth provide the Mornington Peninsula Shire with funds to manage the land; if so, on what conditions; and (f) is the Minister satisfied that the Mornington Peninsula Shire will be able to manage this nationally-significant site; if so, on what basis.
(9) Given that the Victorian State Government claims that the proposed boundary for this site is inconsistent with the master plan findings and ’fails to protect the natural and historic values of the site’, will the Government agree to the following recommendations by the Victorian Government: (a) the inclusion of the Northern Conservation Precinct (#2) and the Jarman precinct (#3) with the Southern Conservation Precinct as part of this transfer; (b) [If the Commonwealth is determined to sell the Norris Barracks,] the boundaries of the Barracks being definded as they are shown for Precinct #4 in the Master Plan in Figure 7.1 of the Parsons Brinkerhoff report; (c) access to the Norris Barracks via Franklands Road with Defence Road being wholly incorporated in the National Park with the existing park Visitor Centre remaining the principal entry point to the park; and (d) excision of the beach and foreshore from the site to provide sufficient area for pedestrian access along the foreshore into the National park from Portsea.
(10) Would a commercial heliport be considered an ’appropriate development’ for the site.

(11) Has the Government had any discussions or correspondence with Mornington Peninsula Shire or other parties concerning the development of a heliport on the site; if so, can details be provided.

(12) What were the conditions under which Mr Lindsay Fox was granted permission to use the former Norris Barracks site as a heliport over the 2002-03 summer period.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) (a) The area of land for sale is 91.8 hectares.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11769 (b) The total area of the Defence land at Portsea is approximately 311 hectares.

205 hectares will be transferred to the Victorian State Government.

As at 9 April 2003, a further 10 to 20 hectares was identified for transfer to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council.
Therefore, the remaining area was between 86 and 96 hectares.

The figure of 85 hectares (subject to survey) was used in the Expression of Interest, as the actual area of land to be transferred to the Council had not been determined.

The area of land identified for transfer to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council has now been finalised and is 17.6 hectares.

Also, the area of land for sale has now been surveyed.
(2) The Government will stand by its commitment to restrict subdivision for new residential development.

(a) The restrictions on residential subdivision are fully addressed in the Expression of Interest documentation.

(b) No.

(c) The following heritage conditions apply: the sale arrangements will require future development to be in accordance with the (i) Conservation Management Plan or any revised plan endorsed by Heritage Victoria; and (ii) heritage listings over the Portsea site by Heritage Victoria.
a condition will be placed over the purchaser to not object to future proposed (3) Yes.

(4), (5) and (6) On divestment out of Commonwealth ownership the land will be subject to Victorian State Government legislation and the Mornington Peninsula Council Planning Scheme.

(7) (a) (b) and (c) No.

(8) (a) No.

(b) The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence has sent a number of letters to the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council primarily relating to the boundary of the land to be transferred.
(c) No.

(d) This is a matter for the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council.

(e) No.

(f) Yes, as one of the main responsibilities of the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council is to manage public use area in the Mornington Peninsula area.

(9) (a) (b) (c) and (d) No.

(10) Development options for the site will be dealt with by the Victorian Government as part of a Planning Scheme Amendment process following divestment of the property out of Commonwealth ownership.

(11) No.
(11) No.

(12) Following a request from Mr Fox to land his helicopter on the Norris Barracks site, the department agreed to allow one further entity, that is, Mr Fox, to use the Commonwealth land.

The issue was carefully assessed and it was agreed to allow use of a landing site for restricted use and for a short time period only.

The license of three months duration terminated 15 March 2003.
The License was between the Commonwealth and Mr Fox and related to the terms and conditions under which he could use the land for helicopter landings and take-offs.

It was expressly for non-commercial purposes and for one specific helicopter only.

The license fee was $2,000 per annum (exclusive of GST).

The security deposit was $10,000.

LINFOX Global Insurance of $20,000,000 provided insurance.

LINFOX paid the legal costs to create the license.


QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11770 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Health: Bulk-Billing (Question No.
1421) Senator O’Brien asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 1 May 2003: For the financial quarters ending: (a) 31 March 2001; (b) 31 March 2002; and (c) 31 March 2003, what is: (i) the percentage of total unreferred attendances bulk billed, and (ii) the average patient contribution per service (patient billed services only), for total unreferred attendances in the following Statistical Local Areas: Latrobe City Council, Bass Coast Shire Council, South Gippsland Shire Council, Baw Baw Shire Council, and Cardinia Shire Council.
Senator Patterson—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (i) Details of the percentage of unreferred attendances bulk billed in the nominated Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) and in the March quarters 2001, 2002 and 2003, are as follows: Percentage of Un-referred Attendances Bulk Billed Statistical Local Area Latrobe City Council Bass Coast Shire Council South Gippsland Shire Council Baw Baw Shire Council Cardinia Shire Council March Quarter 2001 75.7 22.7 36.5 41.6 80.6 2002 77.4 21.9 41.3 41.8 74.9 2003 77.9 41.8 43.1 45.3 66.9 (ii) Details of the average patient contribution per service (patient billed services only), in the nominated Statistical Local Areas and in the March quarters 2001, 2002 and 2003, are as follows: Average Patient Contribution Per Service Statistical Local Area Latrobe City Council Bass Coast Shire Council South Gippsland Shire Council Baw Baw Shire Council Cardinia Shire Council March Quarter 2001 $8.98 $7.36 $7.82 $7.54 $11.55 2002 $10.18 $8.17 $7.34 $7.88 $11.89 2003 $11.44 $8.89 $9.28 $9.43 $13.15 The above statistics only relate to unreferred attendances rendered on a ‘fee-for-service’ basis for which Medicare benefits were processed by the Health Insurance Commission in the respective quarters.
Ex- cluded are details of services to public patients in hospital, to Department of Veterans’ Affairs patients and some compensation cases.

The statistics were compiled from Medicare data by servicing provider postcode.

Where a postcode overlapped statistical local areas (SLA) boundaries, the statistics were allocated to electorate using sta- tistics from the Census of Population and Housing showing the proportion of the population of each postcode in each SLA.
Medicare statistics for some postcodes are not on the Census file and have not been included in the table.

The statistics on the average patient contribution per service only had regard to non-hospital services.

It is not possible to compute accurate patient contribution per service statistics for in-patient services.
The Commonwealth does not know which patients were privately insured, nor does the Commonwealth QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11771 have statistics on health fund rebates by broad type of service group on a consistent basis with other Medicare statistics.

Health: More Allied Health Services Program (Question No.

1424) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Health and Ageing, upon notice, on 5 May 2003: (1) With reference to part (7), question on notice no.
1240 from Senator Allison, which asked, ‘(7) For each of the following financial years: 2000-01 and 2001-02, and for the 2002-03 financial year to date, what sums of Commonwealth money have been allocated under the More Allied Health Services (MAHS) program and to which divisions’: Can a table be provided that identifies the amount paid to each division by the year in which is was paid.
(2) (a) For each of the divisions identified as receiving funding for MAHS, for each year, can a breakdown be provided of the funding, in terms of the number of full-time equivalent positions funded; and (b) can a breakdown of these full-time equivalent numbers for each division into practice nurses and allied health practitioners be provided, indicating the professions of these allied health workers.
(3) (a) What is the evidence of the community consultation, contained in each successful funding proposal for MAHS; and (b) what criteria were used by the Department in assessing these consultative mechanisms.

(4) (a) What evidence was required for a needs assessment for successful MAHS divisions; and (b) what criteria did the Department use to assess the accuracy and validity of the needs assessment.
Senator Patterson—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) The following table provides a breakdown of the amount of funding paid to each MAHS-eligible Division in the financial years 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-03 (to date): Name of MAHS –eligible Division Funding allocated Hunter Rural Division of General Practice Ltd The Shoalhaven Division of General Practice Inc The South East NSW Division of General Practice Ltd Port Macquarie Division of General Practice Ltd Mid North Coast (NSW) Division of General Practice Ltd Northern Rivers Division of General Practice (NSW) Ltd Tweed Valley Division of General Practice The New England Division of General Practice Ltd Wagga Wagga Division of General Practice Inc NSW Central West Division of General Practice Ltd Dubbo/Plains Division of General Practice Ltd Barwon Division of General Practice Inc Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice Ltd NSW Outback Division of General Practice Ltd Southern Highlands Division of General Practice Inc North West Slopes (NSW) Division of General Practice Ltd Barrier Division of General Practice Ltd General Practitioners Association of Geelong Ltd 2000-01 2001-02 $181,121 $129,283 $233,689 $112,742 $185,587 $176,726 $104,137 $146,147 $149,832 $212,067 $157,568 $146,690 $143,514 $138,251 $117,012 $102,690 $207,822 $144,239 $272,827 $123,330 $214,617 $203,427 $112,957 $164,192 $168,639 $246,342 $177,698 $164,234 $160,869 $151,940 $129,098 $110,109 2002-03 (as at 30 April ) $212,602 $147,556 $279,102 $126,166
 $219,553 $208,106 $115,555 $167,969 $172,518 $252,008 $181,785 $168,012 $164,569 $155,435 $132,068 $112,641 $101,134 $116,602 $108,272 $128,364 $110,762 $131,316 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11772 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Name of MAHS –eligible Division Funding allocated 2000-01 2001-02 Central Highlands Division of General Practice North-East Victorian Division of General Practice Pty Ltd South Gippsland Division of General Practice Central-West Gippsland Division of General Practice Inc Otway Division of General
 Practice Ballarat & District Division of General Practice Inc The Bendigo and District Division of General Practice Goulburn Valley GPs - A Division of General Practice Ltd East Gippsland Division of General Practice The Border GP Division Pty Ltd West Vic Division of General Practice Inc Murray-Plains Division of General Practice Mallee Division of General Practice Ipswich and West Moreton Division of General Practice Toowoomba and District Division of General Practice Ltd Central Qld Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Mackay Division of General Practice Ltd The Cairns Division of General Practice Ltd Southern Qld Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Central West Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Northern Qld Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Far North Qld Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Sunshine Coast Division of General Practice Assn Ltd Capricornia Division of General Practice Ltd Bundaberg and District Division of General Practice Southern Division of General Practice Inc The Barossa Division of General Practice Inc Yorke Peninsula Division of General Practice Inc Mid North Rural SA Division of General Practice Inc Riverland Division of General Practice Inc South East of South Australia Division of General Prac- tice Inc Eyre Peninsula Division of General Practice Flinders and Far North Division of General Practice Inc Murray Mallee Division of General Practice Inc Adelaide Hills Division of General Practice
 Inc Peel/South West Division of General Practice Ltd Great Southern Division of General Practice Ltd Kimberley Division of General Practice Eastern Goldfields Medical Division of General Practice Ltd Mid West Division of General Practice Inc Greater Bunbury Division of General Practice Inc Pilbara Division of General Practice $162,037 $188,381 $137,049 $152,448 $182,873 $104,327 $94,721 $142,069 $147,337 $105,645 $174,138 $143,760 $161,029 $115,988 $124,707 $182,396 $132,426 $91,435 $339,219 $150,822
 $271,201 $240,120 $202,835 $108,042 $100,493 $114,333 $112,616 $112,231 $131,340 $118,477 $139,763 $137,100 $144,964 $108,636 $112,631 $192,914 $164,094 $183,344 $181,994 $186,578 $111,936 $163,943 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 2002-03 (as at 30 April ) $189,358 $222.412 $157,203 $177,373 $215,234 $115,230 $102,846 $163,510 $170,054 $116,541 $203,643 $165,157 $186,808 $130,324 $141,477 $213,011 $150,190 $98,811 $342,178 $168,874 $320,415 $285,121 $250,249 $119,088 $172,547 $127,989 $126,128 $124,876 $149,086 $133,505 $159,889 $154,384 $162,647 $120,504 $126,404 $227,625 $189,624 $208,588 $212,334 $185,101 $217,411 $153,669 $173,385 $210,395 $112,640 $100,534 $159,834 $166,231 $113,921 $199,064 $161,443 $182,608 $127,394 $138,297 $208,222 $146,813 $96,590 $334,485 $165,077 $313,211 $278,710 $244,623 $116,410 $168,668 $125,111 $123,293 $122,068 $145,734 $130,504 $156,294 $150,913 $158,990 $117,795 $123,562 $222,508 $185,361 $203,898 $207,561 $210,059 $122,770 $183,935 $214,891 $125,594 $188,166 Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11773 Name of MAHS –eligible Division Funding allocated 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 (as at 30 April ) $166,370 $126,335 $154,454 $162,630 $123,495 $150,982 $200,268 $236,318 $208,484 $204,874 $241,753 $213,279 Central Wheatbelt Division of General Practice Division of General Practice Northern Tasmania Inc Tasmania-Southern Region Division of General Practice Inc North West Tasmania Division of General Practice Inc Top End Division of General Practice Central
 Australian Division of General Practice Inc $145,500 $113,273 $135,299 $174,200 $207,761 $184,092 (2) (a) and (b) Information on the breakdown of the funding for 2000-01, for each of the Divisions identified as receiving MAHS funding, in terms of the number of full-time equivalent positions funded, and the type of allied health professional, was not collected.
In 2000-01, MAHS data was collected through a biannual survey of Divisions conducted by the Department, which provided an estimate of the number of allied health professionals employed by Divisions at a particular point in time, and of planned services that were yet to be implemented In 2001-02, the Department collected MAHS data from Divisions via an Annual Survey of Divisions undertaken by the Primary Health Care Research and Information Service (PHCRIS).
Data in the Annual Survey of Divisions for 2001-02 provides information on the total number of full time equivalent (FTE) allied health professionals employed by each Division, in terms of the type of allied health professional, as per the following table: Name of MAHS-eligible Division Hunter Rural Division of General Practice Ltd The Shoalhaven Division of General Practice Inc The South East NSW Division of General Prac- tice Ltd Port Macquarie Division of General Practice Ltd Mid North Coast (NSW) Division of General Practice Ltd Northern Rivers Division of General Practice (NSW) Ltd Tweed Valley Division of General Practice The New England Division of General Practice Ltd FTE Allied health funded in 2001-02 0.4 Registered Nurse – diabetes educator 0.1 Physiotherapist 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.0 Occupational Therapist 1.3 Dietitian ** Podiatrist 4.6 Registered Nurses 0.4 Physiotherapists 0.25 Podiatrists 2.0 Psychologists/Counsellors 0.4 Occupational therapists Registered Nurse Psychologist/Counsellor 3.7 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.2 Social Worker 0.1 Speech Pathologist 2.2 Registered Nurse 0.5 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 0.4 Dietitian 0.2 Physiotherapist Social Worker 0.04 Occupational Therapist 0.5 Other 1.8 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.2 Registered Nurse 0.6 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11774 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Name of MAHS-eligible Division Wagga Wagga Division of General Practice Inc NSW Central West Division of General Prac- tice Ltd Dubbo/Plains Division of
 General Practice Ltd Barwon Division of General Practice Inc Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice Ltd FTE Allied health funded in 2001-02 0.7 Dietitian Physiotherapist Podiatrist 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.3 Dietitian 0.25 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.65 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 0.05 Podiatrist 1.5 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.15 Occupational Therapist 0.7 Dietitian 0.7 Physiotherapist 0.45 Podiatrist 0.86 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.8 Registered Nurse 1.5 Dietitian
 Psychologist/Counsellor 2.5 Speech Pathologist 2.0 Occupational Therapist Registered Nurse 0.05 Dietitian ** Physiotherapist Podiatrist 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor Registered Nurse 0.2 Dietitian Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.05 Podiatrist 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor NSW Outback Division of General Practice Ltd **Registered Nurse Southern Highlands Division of General Prac- tice Inc North West Slopes (NSW) Division of General Practice Ltd Barrier Division of General Practice Ltd General Practitioners Association of Geelong Ltd Central Highlands Division of General Practice North-East Victorian Division of General Prac- tice Pty Ltd ** Podiatrist Registered Nurse 1.0 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.44 Registered Nurse 0.07 Dietitian Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.34 Physiotherapist 0.33 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Podiatrist 2.3 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 1.7 Podiatrist 0.1 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.1 Physiotherapist 0.56 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.4 Social Worker 0.36 Registered Nurse 0.15 Dietitian 1.05 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.12 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11775 Name of MAHS-eligible Division South Gippsland Division of General Practice Central-West Gippsland Division of General Practice Inc Otway Division of General Practice Ballarat & District Division of General Practice Inc The Bendigo and District Division of General Practice Goulburn Valley GPs - A Division of General
 Practice Ltd East Gippsland Division of General Practice The Border GP Division Pty Ltd West Vic Division of General Practice Inc Murray-Plains Division of General Practice Mallee Division of General Practice Ipswich and West Moreton Division of General Practice Toowoomba and District Division of General Practice Ltd FTE Allied health funded in 2001-02 2.5 Psychologist/Counsellor Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator Podiatrist 2.7 Psychologist/Counsellor Dietitian 0.45 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator
 0.35 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 0.15 Physiotherapist 0.12 podiatrist 0.5 Psychologist/Counsellor Aboriginal Health Worker 0.1 Other 0.85 Psychologist/Counsellor Dietitian 0.16 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator Physiotherapist Psychologist/Counsellor 0.2 Occupational Therapist Registered Nurse 0.35 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.2 Social Worker 2.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Dietitian Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator Podiatrist 0.4 Psychologist/Counsellor Psychologist/Counsellor 1.0 Social Worker 0.6 Dietitian Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 0.6 Physiotherapist Podiatrist Psychologist/Counsellor Aboriginal Health Worker 0.2 Speech Pathologist 0.2 Dietitian 0.6 Physiotherapist 0.6 Podiatrist 1.8 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.3 Audiologist 0.7 Speech Pathologist Registered Nurse Dietitian 1.0 Social Worker Dietitian Podiatrist 0.2 Psychologist/Counsellor QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11776 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Name of MAHS-eligible Division Central Qld Rural Division of General Practice Assn Inc Mackay Division of General Practice Ltd The Cairns Division of General Practice Ltd Southern Qld Rural Division of General Prac- tice Assn Inc Central West Rural Division of General Prac- tice Assn Inc Northern Qld Rural Division of General Prac- tice Assn Inc Far North Qld Rural Division of General Prac- tice Assn Inc Sunshine Coast Division of General Practice Assn Ltd Capricornia Division of General Practice Ltd Bundaberg and District Division of General Practice FTE
 Allied health funded in 2001-02 0.8 Dietitian 0.8 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator Psychologist/Counsellor ** Social Worker Dietitian 1.4 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.6 Occupational Therapist 0.5 Registered Nurse 0.2 Dietitian 0.2 Physiotherapist 0.1 Podiatrist 0.4 Registered Nurse 1.54 Dietitian 0.35 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.56 Physiotherapist 0.84 Podiatrist 0.07 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.23 Speech Pathology 0.49 Occupational Therapy Registered Nurse 0.2 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator
 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor ** Occupational Therapist 2.2 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator Psychologist/Counsellor 1.0 Aboriginal Health Worker 0.2 Registered Nurse 0.95 Dietitian 0.5 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.17 Physiotherapist Podiatrist Psychologist/Counsellor Occupational Therapist 0.03 Speech Pathologist Registered Nurse Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 1.6 Psychologist Counsellor 1.4 Social Worker Dietitian Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.8 Physiotherapist 0.3 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.15 Occupational Therapist Dietitian 0.4 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.25 Podiatrist 0.1 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Social Worker QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11777 Name of MAHS-eligible Division Southern Division of General Practice Inc The Barossa Division of General Practice Inc Yorke Peninsula Division of General Practice Inc Mid North Rural SA Division of General Prac- tice Inc Riverland Division of General Practice Inc South East of South Australia Division of Gen- eral Practice Inc Eyre Peninsula Division of General Practice Flinders and Far North Division of General Practice Inc Murray Mallee Division of General Practice Inc Adelaide Hills Division of General Practice Inc Peel/South West Division of General Practice Ltd Great Southern Division of General Practice Ltd Kimberley Division of General Practice Eastern Goldfields Medical Division of Gen- eral Practice Ltd Mid West Division of General Practice Inc
 Greater Bunbury Division of General Practice Inc Pilbara Division of General Practice Central Wheatbelt Division of General Practice Tasmania-Southern Region Division of General Practice Inc Division of General Practice Northern Tasma- nia Inc FTE Allied health funded in 2001-02 0.5 Registered Nurse 0.1 Dietitian 0.7 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.0 Social Worker 1.3 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.4 Social Worker 3.5 Registered Nurses 0.4 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 1.2 Registered Nurse 2.0 Psychologist/Counsellor
 2.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.1 Podiatrist 2.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.7 Registered Nurse 1.8 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 0.8 Registered Nurse 0.5 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Registered Nurse – Asthma Educator 3.4 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.8 Aboriginal Health Worker 1.08 Dietitian 2.0 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 1.0 Dietitian 0.4 Podiatrist 1.0 Dietitian 1.0 Physiotherapist 0.8 Podiatrist 0.6 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.9 Registered Nurse 0.6 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.4 Social Worker 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 1.0 Social Worker 0.2 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 0.36 Podiatrist 0.27 Audiologist 2.5 Psychologist/Counsellor 4.0 Dietitian 0.8 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Registered Nurse – Diabetes Educator 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor 0.5 Occupational Therapist QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11778 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Name of MAHS-eligible Division North West Tasmania Division of General Prac- tice Inc Top End Division of General Practice Central Australian Division of General Practice Inc FTE Allied health funded in 2001-02 1.0 Registered Nurse –Diabetes Educator 0.5 Podiatrist 1.0 Psychologist/Counsellor ** Physiotherapist 7.0 Aboriginal Health Workers ** Physiotherapist ** Podiatrist ** Psychologist/Counsellor ** Audiologist ** Occupational Therapist ** Divisions did not supply PHCRIS with an FTE Information on the breakdown of the funding for 2001-02, for each of the Divisions identified as receiv- ing
 MAHS funding, in terms of the number of full-time equivalent positions funded, was not collected.
Information on the breakdown of the funding for 2002-03, for each of the Divisions identified as receiv- ing MAHS funding, in terms of the number of full-time equivalent positions funded, and the type of allied health professional, will be provided to the Department as part of Divisions’ Twelve-Monthly Reports, due 31 August 2003.

(3) (a) All MAHS-eligible Divisions were required to document evidence of community consultation.
Evidence provided by Divisions varied but included items such as records of meetings, community submissions and survey responses.

(b) In approving the provision of MAHS funding to a Division, the State and Territory offices of the Department were required to assess the consultative mechanisms of the original proposals for funding against the following requirement: • proposals are to contain documented evidence of consultation with stakeholders and their support for the proposal.
If not all stakeholders support the proposal there should be justification for why the proposed approach will be taken.

(4) (a) As evidence for a needs assessment, Divisions were required to demonstrate they had undertaken appropriate planning processes in identifying the demonstrated needs for the allied health services proposed for each Division.

Allied health service needs were to be identified through consultation with local stakeholders, and Divisions were required to document these consultations.
Divisions were required to include in their needs assessments a discussion of the reasons for the selection of particular allied health services to be provided, based on consideration of issues such as: • • prioritisation of one identified need over the another, which may have been based on practical considerations, such as the ease of recruitment of one service over another.
the range of stakeholder support for the proposed activities; and (b) The criteria used by the Department to assess the accuracy and validity of the needs assessments included: inclusion of key demographic and epidemiological data; documented evidence that stakeholder groups had been consulted; documented evidence that Divisions had taken into account existing State/ Commonwealth health initiatives; documented evidence that the target groups were located within eligible towns; • • • • QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11779 • • documented evidence of the Divisions’ processes for prioritising allied health service needs; and documented support from stakeholders for the proposed activity.
Defence: East Sale Air Force Base (Question No.

1430) Senator Allison asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 6 May 2003: Can an assurance be given that the Royal Australian Airforce base at East Sale, Victoria will not be closed down in the foreseeable future; if not, what is the Government’s proposal with regard to the base; if so, what analysis has been made of the economic impact on the region of closure of the base.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: It is appropriate that the Department of Defence ensure that it is using the resources allocated to it as efficiently as possible to support Australian Defence Force capability.

In this context, Defence is re- viewing the capability impact of the current estate and its associated force disposition (location).

East Sale and other bases are part of that review.


Any decision to close a base or bases will take into account the economic impact on the region of closure of the base.

Defence: Asset Sales (Question No.

1433) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 7 May 2003: (1) In relation to the answer to part 6 of question on notice no.
1185, which indicated the rent paid in the initial year of the leases for four Defence properties, that were sold and leased back in the 2000-01 and 2001-02 financial years: Is the rent paid in the first year indexed in the second and subsequent years of the lease (as per the arrangement that applies in the lease for the Defence National Stores and Distribution Centre, Moorebank site that was sold and leased back in March 2003); if so, what level of annual indexation applies under each of the leases referred to in the answer to part 6.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) The rent indexation arrangements for the four properties are as follows: Address 270 Pitt St, Sydney New South Wales Indexation arrangement Rent increases by 3% on 1 July 2002 and every sec- ond anniversary of that date thereafter during the term.

Rent is reviewed in relation to market value on 1 July 2003 and every second anniversary of that date there- after during the term.
Campbell Park, Australian Capital Terri- tory Rent increases by 3% annually during the term of the lease.

Ground-Level 9, 661 Bourke St Mel- bourne, Victoria Rent increased 3% on 1 July 2002 and every second anniversary of that date thereafter during the term of the lease.

Rent is reviewed in relation to market value on 1 July 2003 and every second anniversary of that date thereafter during the term.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11780 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Address 8 Station St Wollongong, New South Wales Indexation arrangement Rent is reviewed every fifth anniversary of the com- mencement date, and increases by 3% annually when there is no market value review in that year.

Defence: National Storage and Distribution Centre (Question No.
1435) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 7 May 2003: (1) Why is it that Defence was able to provide comprehensive information on sales and sale prices in the answer to question no.
W10, taken on notice during the estimates hearings of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee in February 2002, yet refused to provide the sale price for the Defence National Storage and Distribution Centre (NSDC) at Moorebank on the basis that it was ‘commercial-in-confidence’ (answer to part 4 of question on notice no.

1190).

(2) On what basis is the sale price of the NSDC at Moorebank considered ‘commercial-in-confidence’ even after the sale had occurred.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) Defence practice is that information on the sale of individual properties remains commercial-in- confidence unless disclosed by the purchaser, until such time as the new owner has registered the sale with the appropriate Titles office.

Once this has occurred, the purchaser becomes the legal owner and the purchase price is a matter of public record.
(2) The sale of the Defence National Storage and Distribution Centre was settled on 26 March 2003.

The new title was registered on 22 April 2003 and, therefore, the information was considered commercial-in-confidence at the time of replying to Senate Question on Notice No 1190.

Defence: Campbell Park Offices (Question No.


1436) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 7 May 2003: In relation to the sale and leaseback of the Campbell Park Offices: (1) When was the decision taken to sell and lease back Campbell Park Offices, Australian Capital Territory.

(2) When was the property sold.

(3) Which organisation purchased the property.

(4) What was the sale price for the property.


(5) (a) What rent did Defence pay for Campbell Park Offices in the first year of the lease; and (b) what rent will be paid in the second and subsequent years of the lease.

Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) Government decided to sell Campbell Park Offices in the context of the 2001-02 Budget.

(2) Title to the property was transferred to the new owner in June 2002.
(3) GE Capital (Beldon) Pty Ltd purchased the property.

(4) $98,700,000 inclusive of GST.

(5) (a) and (b) Rent in the first year was $7,917,490 with a three percent escalator per annum.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11781 Defence: Brighton Army Barracks (Question No.
1437) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 7 May 2003: In relation to the sale of the former Brighton Army Barracks in Tasmania: (1) When was the decision taken to sell the Brighton Army Barracks.

(2) When was the property sold.

(3) Which organisation purchased the property.

(4) What was the sale price for the property.


(5) (a) What is the total value of all building works that have been carried out at the Brighton Army Barracks site over the past 5 financial years; and (b) can a full breakdown of these works be pro- vided.
(6) Has the Tasmanian State Valuer-General made any valuation on the property at any time in the past 5 financial years; if so: (a) when was the valuation undertaken; and (b) what was the estimated value (for each valuation if more than one valuation occured).

(7) What is the estimated value of rehabilitation works that will have to be undertaken at the property.

Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) Mid 1999.

(2) The property settled on 28 February 2003.


(3) Touma International Pty Ltd. (4) $150,000 inclusive of GST.

(5) (a) $603,924.

(b) During 1997/98, Buildings 1, 434, 437, 440, 511, 512, 513, 514 and 442 were refurbished at a cost of $152,043.

A concrete apron was added to Building 501 at a cost of $6,518.

General repairs and maintenance and urgent maintenance costs were $73,830.

During 1998/99 no building work was undertaken.


During 1999/2000 various accommodation works were undertaken to provide accommodation for Kosovar displaced persons.

These works totaled $371,533.

During 2000/2001 no building work was undertaken.

During 2001/2002 no building work was under- taken.

(6) Yes.

(a) 1 August 1999.

(b) Capital value of $2.4m and land value at $370,000.

The capital value represents the value of the buildings based on their Defence use.
The valuation is not a market valuation of the property.

(7) The contamination report prepared by IT Environmental (Defence’s Consultant) estimates that the total re-mediation of soil contamination and removal of asbestos is between $250,000 to $300,000.

Defence Materiel Organisation: Professional Service Providers (Question No.

1443) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 9 May 2003: With reference to the answer to question on notice no.
1186, which indicated that $50.3 million was spent on ‘legal/health expenses’ under the ‘consultants and professional service’ line item in the 2001- 02 financial year: (1) Can a full breakdown be provided of the $50.3 million spent on ‘legal/health expenses’ in the 2001-02 financial year.

(2) How much was spent on ‘legal/health expenses’ in each financial year since 1996-97.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11782 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (3) Can a full breakdown be provided of expenditure on ‘legal/health expenses’ for each financial year since 1996-97.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) (2) and (3) A full breakdown of ‘legal/health expenses’ for 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02 is as follows: ‘LEGAL/HEALTH EXPENSES’ (UNDER CONSULTANTS AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LINE ITEM) General service and medical examinations provided by out- side contractors DFDA Legal Expenses / Disbursements Reserve legal officers’ fees Commonwealth disbursements (legal) Professional fees tied to the Australian Government Solici- tor (legal) Professional fees Defence legal panel Compensation – statutory - non-workers (legal) Common law asbestos related Common law VOYAGER/MELBOURNE Common law property damage Common law other Legal expenses other 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 $m 2.032 5.230 2.998 2.810 1.100 0.019 17.249 8.777 40.215 $m 2.160 0.215 4.467 2.311 3.313 8.082 0.220 2.817 1.615 0.404 13.787 5.231 44.622 $m 2.353 0.409 1.625 4.084 1.786 11.798 0.002 9.607 5.634 0.261 6.795 5.967 50.321 Information from previous years is not readily available from Defence’s corporate financial manage- ment information systems.
Defence Materiel Organisation: Professional Service Providers (Question No.

1444) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 9 May 2003 - With reference to the answer to question on notice no.

1186: (1) With reference to the breakdown provided of the ‘consultants and professional services’ line item for the 2001-02 financial year: Can the same breakdown be provided for all previous financial years for which the information is available.
(2) With reference to the breakdown provided of all professional service provider contracts let by Defence groups in 2001-02: Can the same breakdown be provided for all previous financial years for which the information is available.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) and (2) A breakdown of the ‘consultants and professional services’ line item for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 as follows: Consultants $m PSPs $m 1999-2000 Financial Statements 2000-01 Financial Statements 22.6 5.9 Note: Table does not add due to rounding.
126.8 131.5 Legal/Health Expenses $m 40.2 44.6 Total $m 189.6 182.1 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11783 Defence is unable to provide any further information for the reasons stated in question on notice no.

1186.

Defence: Aircraft Operations (Question No.
1445) Senator Chris Evans asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 9 May 2003: (1) (a) Have any Hawk lead-in fighters been used in training exercises in South Australia during the past 12 months, with the full or partial purpose being to assess the safety of using the Hawks for training at the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base Williamtown or the Salt Ash Weapons Range (SAWR); and (b) in particular, did the safety assessment include the safety of exercises where the cases for 30 millimetre cannon shells are ejected; if so, what did each of the tests find.
(2) Have the cannon cases been used in training with Hawks at RAAF Williamtown or the SAWR in the past 12 months.

(3) (a) Have any attempts been made by the department to acquire land near the SAWR in the past 12 months; (b) in particular, has there been any discussion with respect to land acquisition or any other issues with the Hunter Water Corporation; and (c) in broad terms what attempts have been made and their outcomes.
(4) Can a table be provided showing, for each year since 1998, how many decibels are associated with Australian Noise Exposure Forecast (ANEF) 20, 25, 30 and 35 (for example, in 1998 20ANEF translated to 45 decibels, etc.

); if the decibel level associated with a particular ANEF has changed at any stage between 1998 and 2003, can the change be noted in the table.
(5) Has the Port Stephens Council been provided with the flight profile maps for the F/A18 Non- Afterburner Assisted Take Off within ANEC-2011; if not, why not.

(6) Has the Port Stephens Council been provided with the flight profile maps for the instrument landing system approach used by the F/A18s at Williamtown or the SAWR; if not, why not.
(7) Can the simplified flight profile maps, as used by the pilots, be provided for all activities undertaken by the Hawks at Williamtown and the SAWR in the past 12 months.

(8) (a) Has the aquifer surrounding the SAWR been tested for aluminium levels; if so: (i) when; and (ii) what were the results of this test; and (b) what are the aluminium levels on average in Australian aquifers.
(9) Has the department or the RAAF ever offered to pay for costs of a family living in Williamtown or near the SAWR to be tested for toluene exposure; if so: (a) when were any such offers made; and (b) has any testing been paid for by the department to date?

(10) Has the department received any letters from doctors expressing concern about the toluene readings of their patients; if so: (a) when; and (b) what was the department’s response.
(11) Is the Minister concerned about toluene exposure to people living near the SAWR as a result of the training of the Hawks; if so, what is the Minister proposing to do about these concerns.

(12) Have there been any changes to the relevant Defence Instruction relating to defence practice areas (DI 59/1) in the past 12 months; and (b) can a copy be provided of the relevant unamended and/or amended instruction.
(13) In relation to the referred Defence Instruction: (a) what changes, in general terms, were made to the instruction and why; and (b) what was the process for changing this instruction, in particular, was ministerial approval given for any of the changes.
(14) If no changes have been made to the referred Defence Instruction, are there any proposed changes to the relevant Defence Instruction relating to defence practice areas; if so: (a) what do the proposed changes relate to; and (b) when is a decision on them expected to be made.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11784 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (15) Have laser guided weapons been fitted to aircraft training at or near the SAWR, or are there any proposals to fit such weapons; if so, what are the proposals; and (b) when is a decision expected.
(16) What is the most recent noise exposure forecast information the department has provided to the Port Stephens Council, which is: (a) endorsed as the most accurate available; and (b) appropriate for the purpose of council consideration of development applications.

(17) What is the Government’s position on provision of noise exposure forecasts to local councils or state governments regarding noise related to military use of defence land.
(18) Does the Government supply local councils with final noise exposure forecasts (as opposed to draft ANEFs) when they are completed: (a) automatically; or (b) upon request.

(19) Is the only endorsed ANEF for Williamtown and the SAWR the 2002 ANEF.

(20) Does the 2002 ANEF accurately represent current and proposed future operations at the SAWR.
(21) (a) When did the Minister or the department first notify the Port Stephens Council that the draft 2005 ANEF was inaccurate; and (b) what prompted this notification.

(22) When the department supplied the Port Stephens Council with the draft 2005 ANEF, did it indicate whether: (a) it was accurate or not; and (b) it was endorsed or not.
(23) If the answer to either of the above parts in (22) is no: did the department provide the Port Stephens Council with alternative documents to the draft 2005 ANEF that it considers are more appropriate for planning purposes; if not, why not; if so, when were these alternative documents provided.
(24) Does the Minister consider information sources other than draft noise exposure forecasts to be more appropriate for use by local councils in considering development applications near Defence property; if so, what are these sources (in generic or particular terms).
(25) Does the Minister intend to order that any further studies be made, or information be collected (particularly health information), given that the Supplementary Report to the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the introduction of the Hawks at Williamtown and the SAWR states that: ‘During the preparation of the Supplementary Report, Environment Australia identified a number of discrepancies in the draft EIS, and advised that these needed to be clarified to ensure that the concerns raised in public submissions were adequately addressed.
The body of the Supplementary Report indicates, however, that these discrepancies were not addressed’; if not, what does the Minister intend to do about the above statements and others in the draft EIS and final Supplementary Report that indicate some inaccuracies and incomplete evidence about the environmental impacts of the Hawk’s introduction.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) (a) and (b) During October - November 2002, the instrumented Hawk was at ARDU Edinburgh conducting flight acceptance testing for the Instrumented Aircraft and the associated ground equipment (telemetry, data reply etc).

The aircraft was not fitted with the Aden cannon and as such no rounds were fired or shells ejected.

The results of the test were (generally) that the aircraft should be accepted into service.
(2) Yes, very occasionally at Singleton Army Range and out to sea.

There were 3 periods of a couple of days duration where the cannon was fired in 2002.

The cannon has not been fired in 2003.

(3) (a) Within the Salt Ash Weapons Range, three roads and one creek bed are being acquired from the NSW Government.

These portions are all Crown land; the acquisition process is in the preliminary stage.

(b) In 1996 an easement was granted to Hunter Water Corporation over a portion of the Salt Ash Weapons Range.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11785 Defence is currently negotiating with the Corporation for an easement over Defence land at Williamtown for the maintenance of the pumping station.

Linked with this, Defence will grant an easement to Energy Australia for the construction of a ‘kiosk’ substation to power the pumping station.

(c) No other attempts have been or are being made at present by Defence to acquire any additional land at Salt Ash.

(4) No.
(4) No.

Decibels (dB) are units expressing a perceived loudness of sound.

The Australian Noise Exposure Forecast unit (ANEF) is a single number index for predicting the cumulative exposure to aircraft noise in communities near aerodromes during a specified time.

ANEF are not expressed in decibels.

(5) The flight track and profile details for the F/A-18 Hornet non-afterburner assisted take-off is included as input data for the computer model which produces the ANEF contours.
The Aircraft Indicative Noise Level Tables report No DOD 01-001 was provided to Port Stephens Council on 20 December 2002.

This report includes Table 18 - Indicative Noise Levels for Boeing F/A-18 Hornet (Jet) – Non-Afterburner Assisted Take-off which describes noise levels in dB(A) at specific distances along a take-off centreline and at sideline distances from the centreline.

On 23 January 2001, Defence provided to Council the Report on the Draft 2010 ANEF for RAAF Base Williamtown.
This document includes Figure 2 – RAAF Base Williamtown, Flight Tracks.

(6) No.

At SAWR there is not a runway or need for an instrument landing system.

The RAAF Base Williamtown Instrument Approach Procedures are publicly available in the Australian Defence Force Flight Information Publication – Terminal Australia and can be obtained from RAAF Aeronautical Information Services in Melbourne.
(7) In the past 12 months Hawks have flown the following profiles at SAWR: (a) 30deg Application bombing (b) 45deg Application Bombing (c) 10deg Application Bombing (d) 10deg Application Strafe (no actual firing) All of these profiles are illustrated in the Hawk EIS.

Aircraft transit over the entire Williamtown restricted area and therefore it is impossible to draw all tracks flown by Hawks around Williamtown (in the last 12 months).

(8) (a) Yes.
(8) (a) Yes.

The aquifer at the Salt Ash Air Weapons Range (SAWR) is tested for aluminium (i) levels on a quarterly basis.

The Department of Defence also tests the Hunter Water Corporation monitoring wells both upgradient and downgradient of SAWR.

(ii) SAWR is consistent with the background levels on the Tomago sandbeds.
The results indicate that the concentration of aluminium in the groundwater at (b) Defence does not hold national figures for aquifers, and as such, is not able to provide detail of average Aluminium levels in aquifers across Australia.

(9) (a) and (b) No.

(10) Yes.

(a) The Base Commander at RAAF Williamtown received an e-mail message on 22 July 2002 from a civilian (Mr Mark Valentine) living near the SAWR claiming that he had been tested positive for elevated toluene.
Mr Valentine requested that the Department of Defence arrange for himself and his family to be tested for exposure to fuel additives.

This was followed up with a letter from Dr Soraya Felix (Mr Valentine’s family doctor) on 5 August 2002 to the QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11786 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Base Commander at RAAF Williamtown requesting the department consider payment of costs associated with the testing for toluene.
(b) The Base Commander forwarded the request to the Defence Claims Management office who subsequently passed the claim to the Directorate of Litigation for a response.
The Directorate of Litigation advised that, owing to the minimal (if any) levels of toluene in the fuels used by military aircraft, and the use of toluene as a common solvent in both domestic and occupational circumstances, the prospect of Mr Valentine’s positive result being solely due to aircraft activities at RAAF Williamtown is negligible, and declined the request.

(11) No.
(11) No.

Toluene is a common solvent and is found in many consumer products such as vehicle fuel, nail polish, cosmetics, rubber cement, paints and thinners, stain removers, inks and adhesives.

Toluene in combusted jet aviation fuel is present (if at all) in trace amounts only (that is, <0.025%) as it is steamed off during the distillation process.
There is no scientific evidence to suggest that the general population, including people living near the SAWR, would be exposed to toluene as a result of the activities of any aircraft, including activities involving the Hawk or other ADF aircraft.

(12) No.

A copy of the Defence Instruction has been forwarded separately to your office.

(13) (a) and (b) No changes have been made to the referred Defence Instruction.

(14) No.

(15) SAWR is not cleared for laser operations.


Only practice bombs (BDUs) which are not fitted with laser guidance systems are used at SAWR.

(16) The latest endorsed 2002 Australian Noise Exposure Forecast map.

This will be replaced with the updated ANEF map which will be promulgated on completion of the EIS for Hawk operations at RAAF Base Williamtown and the Salt Ash Air Weapons Range in near future.

The new ANEF map will be provided to the local council for their use as a land management tool.
Port Stephens Council has been provided with Australian Noise Exposure Concept maps for RAAF Base Williamtown and SAWR, which will form the basis of the revised ANEF map.

(17) To effectively manage noise issues in cooperation with the State and local Governments, while maintaining the Defence capabilities.

ANEF maps are provided to local Government.

(18) Yes, automatically.

(19) Yes.

(20) No.

(21) (a) In December 1998.


(b) Additional information become available which required amendments to the unendorsed 2005 ANEF.

(22) (a) On 18 December 1997 Defence provided Port Stephens Council with the 2005 ANEF and stated that “ANEF Report undertaken by the Department’s consultants... has now been completed.” (b) Defence had not endorsed the 2005 ANEF at the time of distribution.
(23) On 24 December 1998 Defence wrote, “...the draft 2005 ANEF for RAAF Base Williamtown was prepared in 1997 and has not been finally endorsed by the Department.” This was followed up with a letter on 14 July 1999.
In March 2000 Defence wrote to Council again, stating “Because the exact locations of the Hawk flight paths will not be able to be confirmed until Hawk has been in operation for some time, it is not possible to produce the Australian Noise Exposure Forecast (ANEF) at this time.” QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11787 On 23 January 2001, the draft 2010 ANEC for RAAF Base Williamtown was provided to Port Stephens Council.
The ANEC, which is included in the Hawk EIS, was provided to Port Stephens Council in 2002.

(24) No.

(25) No.

All matters Environment Australia identified as requiring clarification were addressed in the Supplementary Report and Defence’s response factored into the assessment report prepared by Environment Australia for the Minister for Environment and Heritage.

Intelligent Island Program (Question No.


1448) Senator Brown asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 9 May 2003: With reference to the $8 million grant to Intellinc under the Intelligent Island Program: (1) How much of the $8 million Commonwealth funding grant to Intellinc was allocated to the construction of the call centre at Triabunna, Tasmania.
(2) (a) Who brought the proposal to establish a call centre to the board; and (b) what was the basis of the decision made by the board to locate a call centre at Triabunna.

(3) Was a client for the call centre at Triabunna identified before the decision to locate such a facility at Triabunna was made.

(4) What has the record of occupancy at the call centre been since its opening.

(5) What is the ongoing cost of security and maintenance for the call centre, given that it has no clients.
Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) Nil (2) (a) A proposal to establish a call centre in Triabunna has never been taken to the Intellinc board.

(b) Intellinc does not have and never has had any interest or relationship with the Triabunna call centre.

(3) As the Triabunna is not a beneficiary of the Intelligent Island program, I am unable to provide this information.

(4) See answer to part (3).

(5) See answer to part (3).


Intelligent Island Program (Question No.

1449) Senator Brown asked the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, upon notice, on 9 May 2003: With reference to the Intelligent Island Program: (1) What performance evaluation has the Commonwealth conducted in relation to the $40 million Commonwealth grant made to Tasmania under the program.
(2) Who has represented the Commonwealth on the board of the program since the resignation of former senator Brian Gibson.

(3) How has the $8 million grant from the program to Intellinc been divested.

(4) Has Intellinc applied for, or received, any further funding under this program or any other Commonwealth funding program; if so, how much.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11788 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 (5) Has Intellinc generated a profit since its inception.
(6) What is the remuneration to directors of Intellinc.

Senator Alston—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) The Commonwealth has received regular six-monthly reports on progress from the Intelligent Island Board.

An evaluation of the program will be conducted after the conclusion of the program.
(2) The Commonwealth is represented on the Board of the Intelligent Island Program by Ms Helen Williams, the Secretary of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, who is an ex-officio member.

At the commencement of the program Senators Brian Harradine and Brian Gibson were appointed to the Board.

Although Brian Gibson has since retired as a Senator, he continues as a member of the Intelligent Island Board.
(3) All grant funds have been expended in accordance with the deed of grant between the Tasmanian Government and Intellinc.

Funds have been expended on day-to-day operating costs of Intellinc and invested in the start-up and growth, to date, of twelve Tasmanian ICT companies.

(4) Intellinc has not received any further funding from Intelligent Island and has not received any other Commonwealth funding.

(5) Intellinc is an ICT incubator that supports start up and early stage businesses in Tasmania.
Consistent with industry standards, investment into early stage companies is a medium to long term proposition.

Intellinc has not generated a profit to date.

(6) Directors who represent an Intellinc shareholder on the board do not receive any compensation for the activities that they undertake as a director.
Independent directors receive a flat monthly fee of $2000 which covers their core Board duties, as well as general representational, advocacy and strategic advisory services that they also provide to the incubator.

Defence: Brighton Army Barracks (Question No.

1451) Senator Brown asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice, on 12 May 2003: In relation to the sale of the Brighton Army Barracks in Hobart: (1) What was the reserve price for the sale.

(2) Why was a lower price accepted.


(3) What was the exact nature of the contamination that caused such a low price to be accepted for the property.

(4) When was the contamination assessment done.

(5) Who did the contamination assessment.

(6) Can a copy of the contamination assessment be provided.

(7) Who purchased the property.

(8) What plans did the purchasers indicate to the Government they had for the site.
Senator Hill—The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows: (1) The sale did not have a reserve price (it did not involve an auction).

(2) As there was no reserve price, it is not the case that a "lower price" was accepted.

(3) The site was contaminated with minor oil contamination, a number of general waste sites and asbestos.

(4) 16 January 2001.

(5) IT Environmental.

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11789 (6) Yes.
(7) Touma International Pty Ltd. (8) The purchaser’s plans were not disclosed to the Government.

However, a number of heritage and environmental conditions were included in the Contract of Sale to protect the environmental and heritage values of the site.

Philippines: Australian Mining Companies (Question No.
1458) Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon no- tice, on 15 May 2003: Have embassy officials in the Philippines met on a regular basis with representatives of Australian min- ing companies operating in the Philippines; if so: (a) when were the meetings held; (b) for each of the meetings, which companies were represented and who represented them; and (c) for each of the meet- ings: (i) what issues were raised, (ii) what requests for assistance were made of embassy officials, and (iii) what assistance did embassy officials provide.
Senator Hill—The following answer has been provided by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the honourable senator’s question: Embassy officials are frequently involved in meetings with a range of Australian business representa- tives, including from mining companies, in the pursuit of Australia’s national interests overseas.

To dis- cover and provide the details being sought would require the diversion of significant resources within the department, which I am not prepared to authorise.
In addition, many meetings with Australian busi- ness representatives are held on a “Commercial-in-Confidence” basis and it would not be appropriate to disclose the details of participants or issues raised.

Employment and Workplace Relations: Office of the Employment Advocate (Question No.
1462) Senator Sherry asked the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Work- place Relations, upon notice, on 14 May 2003: (1) What has been the annual budget for the Victorian office of the Office of the Employment Advocate (OEA) for each financial year since its establishment.

(2) How many full-time equivalent positions have there been in the Victorian office of the OEA in each financial year since its establishment.
(3) What proportion of the OEA’s budget and staff in Victoria has been allocated to providing assistance and advice to employers relating to Australian workplace agreements (AWAs).

(4) In each financial year since the OEA was established, how many AWAs in Victoria have been: (a) filed; and (b) approved.

(5) In each financial year since the OEA was established, what proportion of approved AWAs have been in Victoria.
(6) As at 1 January 2003, which organisations in Victoria were: (a) industry partners; and (b) specified partners, under the Specified Partner Program.

Senator Alston—The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) The actual annual costs incurred by the Victorian office of the OEA are as follows.
Please note that the OEA’s total costs are provided for the financial years 1996-97 and 1997-98, as the OEA did not disaggregate costs by region during this period.
QUESTIONS ON NOTICE 11790 SENATE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 Financial Year 96-97 (Jan-Jun) 97-98 98-99 99-00 00-01 01-02 02-03 (at 30 April 2003) Costs Incurred $5,378,978 $10,454,900 $1,132,695 $1,547,120 $1,400,331 $1,426,823 $835,241 (2) The following table lists the number of full-time equivalent staff in the Victorian office of the OEA for each financial year since the OEA’s inception.
Financial Year 1996-97 (Jan-Jun) 1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 (as at 30 April 2003) Number of staff 6 13 15 17.8 20 17 11.2 (3) All staff in the OEA’s Victorian office provide advice and assistance to employers and employees, in regard to their rights and obligations under the Workplace Relations Act 1996, as and when matters arise.

There is no allocation of work in the manner assumed by the Honourable Senator’s question.
From March 1997 onwards, all staff have provided assistance and advice to employers relating to Australian workplace agreements (AWAs), at some time.

(4) (a) AWA filing statistics by State are not available prior to July 2001, as the data were not disaggregated.

The total number of AWAs filed in Victoria since July 2001 is as follows.

Financial Year 2001-02 2002-03 (as at 30 April 2003) AWAs filed (Victoria) 12,538 10,748 (b) AWA approval data were not disaggregated until January 1998.
The total number of AWAs approved in Victoria by financial year from that date is as follows.

Financial Year 1997-98 (Jan-Jun) 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 (as at 30 April 2003) AWAs approved (Victoria) 9,545 17,988 16,391 15,482 13,288 10,044 (5) AWA approval data were not disaggregated until January 1998.

The proportion of AWAs approved in Victoria by financial year from that date is as follows.
Financial Year 1997-98 (Jan-Jun) 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 Proportion approved in Victoria (%) 55 45 32 25 QUESTIONS ON NOTICE Tuesday, 17 June 2003 SENATE 11791 Financial Year 2001-02 2002-03 (as at 30 April 2003) Proportion approved in Victoria (%) 18 12 (6) (a) As at 1 January 2003 a total of 12 Industry Partners were from Victoria.
They were: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) (vii) (viii) (ix) (x) (xi) (xii) Australian Mines & Metals Association (Inc.) Australian Retailers Association Victoria Civil Contractors Federation EMA Consulting Pty Ltd Hall and Wilcox Lawyers Kliger Partners Lawyers Mason Sier Turnbull Solicitors Radford & Associates Restaurant & Catering Victoria Robert Cannell & Associates Pty Ltd Stonier & Associates The Chessman Group (b) There were no Specified Partners in Victoria as at 1 January 2003.
Environment: Seismic Surveys (Question No.

1470) Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Re- sources, upon notice, on 19 May 2003: With reference to the answer to question on notice no.1305 (Senate Hansard, 13 May 2003, p.10856): (1) When did the Minister view the relevant state environment plan.

(2) Did these plans specifically deal with the problem of cetaceans; if so, in what way; if not, why was this acceptable.
(3) Are all plans involving the use of explosions or noise dissemination required to address the prob- lem with cetaceans; if not, why not.

Senator Minchin—The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: (1) The Minister does not view environment plans.

These are assessed on behalf of the Commonwealth by the relevant State/NT Minister for Petroleum.

(2) See above (1).
(2) See above (1).

The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources does not assess the Plans and therefore, cannot comment on what is dealt with in the plans.

Under Division 2.3 of the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) (Management of the Environment) Regulations 1999 each environment plan must include: • An environmental assessment; • A description of the activity; • A description of the environment; • A description of environmental effects and risks; and • Environmental performance objectives and standards.
(3) Yes.

See above (2).

QUESTIONS ON NOTICE