House of Representatives
1 October 1958

22nd Parliament · 3rd Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 22nd Parliament
  3. 1958

Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. John McLeay) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 1817

QUESTION

BELL BAY ALUMINIUM PLANT

Dr EVATT:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I desire to ask the right honorable the Prime Minister this question: Is the Government, the Prime Minister or any other Minister either considering or negotiating the sale or disposal to outside private interests of the Australian Aluminium Production Commission’s enterprise at Bell Bay, or any part of it?

Mr MENZIES:
Prime Minister · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

- Sir, over the last eight or nine years I have heard suggestions made, sometimes from here and sometimes from the Government of Tasmania, about introducing outside capital into Bell Bay. So far, Sir, there has been no specific proposal made from any source.

page 1817

QUESTION

ROYAL FLYING DOCTOR SERVICE

Mr McCOLM:
BOWMAN, QUEENSLAND

– Can the Minister for Health tell the House whether the Government has received from the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia a request for increased financial assistance? If so, has the request been considered, and has a decision been made on the matter?

Dr DONALD CAMERON:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

– The Royal Flying Doctor Service has made recent approaches to the Government for increased financial assistance, and representatives of the service met representatives of the Government and discussed the matter. As a result, the Government has agreed to increase the capital grant to the service from £15,000 to £27,500 a year and the grant for operating expenses from £25,000 to £40,000 a year. This arrangement will have a currency of four years. I should like to say that the Government recognizes the unique and splendid service that is being given by this organization in the development of the country, and has a very high regard for the competence and the disinterestedness of the directors of the service and, in fact, of all the people working in it.

page 1817

QUESTION

WALTONS-SEARS LIMITED

Mr MAKIN:
BONYTHON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I desire to ask a question of the acting Treasurer. Is the right honorable gentleman aware that the Common wealth Trading Bank is acting as one of the agents for Waltons-Sears Limited respecting an appeal for subscriptions to a £1,000,000 loan offering a rate of interest as high as 7i per cent.? Is not the fact that the Commonwealth Trading Bank publicly exhibits a prospectus for this loan and accepts subscriptions for it, thus giving the impression of a bank guarantee of the loan, likely to prejudice greatly the possibility of the Commonwealth Bank successfully securing public support for Commonwealth loans at 4$ per cent, to 5 per cent, interest? Does not the situation become all the more serious when it is realized that the Government faces in this financial year a commitment of £337,000,000 in respect of either the repayment, or the conversion, of maturing loans?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I appreciate my honorable friend’s interest in this matter, because it is quite important. I am not aware of the matters to which he refers, but I will make inquiries at once.

page 1817

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY FORCES

Mr STOKES:
MARIBYRNONG, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Defence whether he will give urgent consideration to sending to Australian New Guinea and Papua either some components, or the whole of the remaining elements, of the brigade group now in Australia for an extensive training period under active service conditions in territory where, at some stage in the future, they might be called upon to operate.

Sir PHILIP McBRIDE:
Minister for Defence · WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– 1 remind the honorable member that only recently a statement was made by my colleague, the Minister for the Army, that the brigade group would engage in an operational training expedition in northern Queensland. That is to take place in May or June of next year. As to any future training site, that will’ be considered at a later stage, and the suggestions made by the honorable member will then be taken into consideration.

page 1817

QUESTION

GOVERNMENT LOANS AND FINANCE

Mr THOMPSON:
PORT ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question, directed to the Prime Minister in his capacity as acting Treasurer, relates to loans which are being issued under the special provision that small holders of bonds, up to a value of £5,000, may obtain the face value of their bonds after twelve months. I should like to state that I highly approve of that very wise move on the part of the Government. I ask the Prime Minister whether it is possible for the Government to make arrangements to enable small holders of 3i per cent, bonds, who have been very hard hit by their low selling value, and are suffering hardship, to surrender their bonds at their face value. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has considered this matter, or whether it could be considered.

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– The honorable member, who takes a keen and lively interest in these matters will, of course, realize that he has raised a rather difficult question. It may affect a very great number of bond holdings. But since he has raised the matter I will have it looked into. I will discuss it with the Treasury and will communicate with him whatever ideas I may evolve as a result of that discussion.

page 1818

QUESTION

BUTTER

Mr BOWDEN:
GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA

– In view of the extremely low prices being recovered from the sale of butter overseas, I ask the Minister for Primary Industry whether the Government has given any consideration to underwriting the final equalization payment in order to ensure that the interim payment will be more closely related to the final returns.

Mr McMAHON:
Minister for Primary Industry · LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I think the honorable member, in common with most other honorable members, will be aware that the Government keeps under constant review all the problems of the butter industry. I am very glad to be able to tell the honorable member that the Government will underwrite the return on total production of butter and cheese for the 1958-59 season, which will enable the average factory to pay to producers 40d. per lb. commercial butter basis when the equalization pool for the year is finalized. I am glad the honorable member has given me the opportunity to present this information to the House, as it will be very useful when the debate on the research and sales promotion scheme is continued.

page 1818

QUESTION

TELEPHONE SERVICES

Mr COSTA:
BANKS, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Postmaster-General aware that under the policy of the Postal

Department of converting exclusive telephone services to duplex services, as many services are being converted to duplex as there are new exclusive services being installed? Is this to be a permanent feature of telephone services in the future?

Mr DAVIDSON:
Postmaster-General · DAWSON, QUEENSLAND · CP

– At first sight, I should say that the statement of the honorable member for Banks that as many services are being installed on a duplex basis now as on the exclusive basis is not correct. However, I will check it and let him know definitely. The honorable member knows that all exclusive services are now installed in homes on the basis that the department may transfer them to the duplex system if it is necessary to do so in order to provide a service to an additional residence. Anyone taking a service does so with the knowledge that it could be duplexed, if necessary. However, in implementing this provision, the department takes care to ensure that no service with a calling rate of more than about two calls a day is duplexed. Only those services with a very low calling rate are transferred to the duplex system. As the honorable member knows, the duplex system gives complete privacy -in the use of the telephone; a different call signal is provided for each phone and the accounting system keeps separate the accounts of both services. It is a system which enables the department to provide many more services than could be provided if all telephones were exclusive.

page 1818

QUESTION

BUTTER

Mr JEFF BATE:
MACARTHUR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question to the Minister for Primary Industry is supplementary to that asked by the honorable member for Gippsland. In order to give heart and confidence to the dairying industry, will the Government continue to underwrite the declarations of the equalization committee referred to by the Minister when he answered the question of the honorable member for Gippsland? By way of further explanation, I should like to say that the honorable member for Wannon and all other members of the Government Members Food and Agriculture Committee have undertaken to continue discussions with the dairying industry to ensure that the industry will be assisted on to a sound basis. That basis has been endangered by a world crisis in butter marketing.

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I should like to make it clear to the House that, as far as the workings of the equalization scheme are concerned, it is not the intention of the Government in any way to make suggestions to or to interfere with the work of the committee. It is an independent authority and will continue to work independently. But I should like to make this additional statement to the House, because I omitted to mention it to the honorable member for Gippsland: For the remaining period of the present five-year stabilization scheme, the Government will be prepared to consider applying the same principles of underwriting a final equalization figure by guaranteeing a final return on total production of butter and cheese at a level determined by it after examination of all the relevant facts. For the benefit of the honorable member for Macarthur, I add that the long-term prospects have been considered by the Government, quite frankly, not once or twice but on several occasions. Some aspects will also be considered by the Australian Agricultural Council at its next meeting in Melbourne next week.

page 1819

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH SCHOLARSHIPS

Mr CLARK:
DARLING, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Prime Minister whether, in view of the need to train technicians, he will consider providing scholarships at technical colleges on the same basis as scholarships are provided at universities.

Mr Ward:

– He will not be there long enough to do anything.

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– Somewhat discouraged as I am by the observation of the honorable member for East Sydney, if I am here after the election, I will have a look at the suggestion of the honorable member for Darling.

page 1819

QUESTION

COMMUNIST CHINA

Mr WIGHT:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND

– Has the Minister for Defence had an opportunity to investigate a report, which was published in Australia recently, that the United Kingdom was supplying a fleet of approximately 100 ships of about 5,000 tons each to the Communist Government of China and that the ships would be used as troop transports? If the Minister has had an opportunity to investigate this report, will he inform the House of the results” of his investigation?

Sir PHILIP MCBRIDE:
LP

– I saw the report mentioned by the honorable member, and I considered it of such importance that I had inquiries made. I am now able to say that the report was incorrect. The position is that over the past two years Communist China has been chartering ships from a number of countries. Our information is that it has chartered, in all, about 100 ships in Europe, of which between ten and twenty were from the United Kingdom. The primary purpose of the chartering has been to keep the transport of cargoes in Chinese hands. Our information is that the rate of chartering has not been accelerated recently.

page 1819

QUESTION

SUPPLEMENTARY RENT PENSIONS

Mr DALY:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Social Services: Does a pensioner cease to be regarded as being entirely dependent on his or her pension if other income exceeds 10s. a week? Is a pensioner paying rent or board and lodging to the extent of less than 10s. a week deemed to be ineligible for the 10s. supplementary payment? What amount of assets is a pensioner entitled to have before he or she is deemed not to be entirely dependent on the pension?

Mr ROBERTON:
Minister for Social Services · RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I shall ask later for leave of the House to make a brief explanatory statement on the question of supplementary assistance. That statement will cover the points raised by the honorable member.

page 1819

QUESTION

WHEAT

Mr FAILES:
LAWSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Has the Minister for Primary Industry yet received a recommendation from the Australian Wheat Board regarding the amount of the first payment on the 1958-59 wheat crop? If he has not, will he be able to give such a recommendation quick consideration when it is received?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I have not, as yet, received any recommendation with regard to the first payment for the current season’s wheat crop. As to the honorable member’s second question, after a recommendation is received it will require only a matter of hours for discussion between the Prime Minister, as acting Treasurer, and myself to reach a final decision.

page 1819

QUESTION

SUPPLEMENTARY RENT PENSIONS

Mr STEWART:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Can the Minister for Social Services say whether it is a fact that instructions have been issued to officers of the Department of Social Services and the Repatriation Department that the means test provision relating to the 10s. supplementary payment to age, service, invalid and widow pensioners is not to be made public? What information will be contained in the letters forwarded to applicants whose claims have been rejected? Will pensioners be given detailed reasons for the rejection of their applications for supplementary assistance?

Mr ROBERTON:
CP

– All these questions will be answered in the course of the statement which I hope the House will give me leave to make.

page 1820

POSTAL DEPARTMENT

Mr OPPERMAN:
CORIO, VICTORIA

– Some time ago, the Postmaster-General informed me, to the great satisfaction of Corio constituents, that a school for technicians-in-training would be commenced in Geelong. I have received many inquiries since that announcement, and it would be very much appreciated by all if the Minister would indicate when this important undertaking will begin operations.

Mr DAVIDSON:
CP

– I remember that some time ago, in the early part of the year, the honorable member for Corio directed several personal inquiries, and, 1 think, a question in the House, to me on this subject. I then informed him that the department intended to establish several schools for technicians-in-training in centres outside the main metropolitan areas, and that Geelong was one of the places contemplated. I regret to have to inform the honorable member that it has not been possible so far because of a lack of suitable accommodation, to commence the school at Geelong. However, as soon as suitable accommodation is available - and a search is now in progress - the department will give effect to its announced intention.

page 1820

QUESTION

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE PROCEDURES

Mr KEARNEY:
CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Customs and Excise. Is it a fact that the Government proposes to abolish normal customs control and supervision of the storage and use of dutiable and excisable oil products on which import duty and excise duty have not been paid? If this is so, does it mean that, in future, the oil companies or their agents will determine the total amount of duty and excise that they will pay? Finally, is it a fact that under this proposed system, the administration costs of the Department of Customs and Excise will increase in New South Wales by about £8,000?

Mr OSBORNE:
Minister for Air · EVANS, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I understand that, as part of a general review of customs procedures which has been going on for several years and has been pursued vigorously by my colleague in the Senate, some long-standing practices of the Department of Customs and Excise have been reexamined with a view to avoiding inconvenience to the commercial community and reducing the cost of administration. I understand that, as part of that general review, alterations are being put into effect in the method of supervising the collection and payment of duty on petroleum products, but to say, as the honorable member did in his question, that normal customs procedures will be abolished is quite wrong. The procedures are likely to be altered. As the object of the exercise is to save administrative costs both to the department and to the commercial community, it seems to me very unlikely that the alterations could result in higher administrative costs, as the honorable member has suggested.

page 1820

QUESTION

GYPSUM

Mr CHANEY:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question to the Minister for Supply concerns the interest of a United States gypsum company in the establishment of large-scale works at Carnarvon. Has the Minister any reply concerning submissions from America in connexion with this matter?

Mr TOWNLEY:
Minister for Supply · DENISON, TASMANIA · LP

– The honorable member for Perth came to me with this problem about a week ago. I was quite interested in it, because the industry means a big investment in Western Australia, in which the honorable member is particularly interested. I sent a cable to the Australian Embassy in Washington asking our ambassador there to get into touch with the Minister for Trade, who was then in the United States of America, and ask him to call on representatives of the company and discuss the matter with them further. I had a reply stating that, for obvious reasons in view of what had happened in Montreal and other places, the Minister for Trade would not be able to undertake that interview, but that the ambassador himself would call on this company. Since then, I have had no further information.

page 1821

QUESTION

CANBERRA HOSTELS

Mr CALWELL:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

– My question to the Minister for Labour and National Service relates to the decision of the Government that has already been announced that Commonwealth Hostels Limited will take over the control of hostels in Canberra which are at present conducted by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Works, including the Hotel Kurrajong, where most members of Parliament reside while the Parliament is in session. Does the Minister know that the decision can have serious effects on the conditions of work for employees at present on the staffs of the hostels? As Commonwealth Hostels Limited is not an authority of the Commonwealth, would it be correct to say that present employees, including more than 300 members of the Liquor and Allied Trades Union, will lose the benefits of long service leave provisions under the Commonwealth Employees’ Furlough Act? Will those employees have any opportunity to transfer to other Commonwealth employment so that they may retain their continuity for furlough benefits?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– I am not aware of any formal or official announcement having been made in relation to the matter mentioned by the honorable member.

Mr Calwell:

-I read it in my favourite newspaper.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– It seems that the honorable member’s secret service is better informed than usual on this particular matter. As an outcome of the operations of the Cabinet committee which has been examining a wide range of functions of government in the interests of efficiency, it has been decided, following the conspicuous success which Commonwealth Hostels Limited, an instrumentality set up by the Government, has achieved in dealing with hostels throughout the Commonwealth, that the company should include in its operations certain other hostels located in Canberra. T am very conscious of and, indeed. sensitive to, the situation of honorable members who normally live in the Hotel Kurrajong, and I hope that they will have no cause for complaint as a consequence of the change that is being made. As to the rights of certain employees mentioned by the honorable member, I have not had occasion to examine that aspect of the matter. I will certainly arrange for it to be looked into promptly. It would not be the object of the Government to prejudice people who, by their normal service, have been in the process of acquiring rights in accordance with normal government policy.

page 1821

QUESTION

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE

Mr GRAHAM:
ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Has the Minister for Air any knowledge of reports that a Lockheed Electra-type aircraft will replace the Neptune as the anti-submarine aircraft for the United States Navy? Will the Minister investigate this report with a view to the future replacement of aircraft of the Royal Australian Air Force?

Mr OSBORNE:
LP

– I have no formal or official information on the report to which the honorable member has referred. I have read in aviation publications, however, that there is some proposal to try the Lockheed Electra, or an aircraft using the airframe of a Lockheed Electra, as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft in the United States Navy. Whether this proposal has gone beyond the stage of speculation I do not know. In any event, if the proposal were proceeded with, such an aircraft would1 not come into operation for a number of years. In the meantime, the Lockheed Neptunes with which one of our maritime squadrons is equipped remain first-class, front-line maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

page 1821

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING COMMISSION

Mr GALVIN:
KINGSTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Will the PostmasterGeneral inform the House whether it is true that the Australian Broadcasting Commission has purchased from Consolidated Press Limited in Sydney a weekly television magazine which was losing a lot of money for its proprietors? Is it a fact that the publication has been merged with a similar publication produced by the Australian Broadcasting Commission and that the merged publication is losing money? What power has the A.B.C. to carry out this kind of operation? ls it a responsibility of the A. B.C. to help private publishers to cut their losses in this way? Is it a fact that the A.B.C. is using public funds to give thousands of pounds worth of radio publicity to its television magazine, but that, despite this, it is losing money on the publication?

Mr DAVIDSON:
CP

– The Australian Broadcasting Commission, under the relevant act, has the authority to conduct such operations as those to which the honorable member has referred. In some cases, it is necessary to refer the matter to the responsible Minister, the Postmaster-General, particularly with regard to the financing of any such project. The A.B.C. has followed that practice properly in this instance. It is true that the A.B.C. has established a journal known as “ T.V. News “ for the purpose of advertising its television programmes/ This publication is in an experimental stage, and after it has been going for three or four months it is my intention to look at its operations, particularly from the financial point of view, to see whether it should be continued.

page 1822

QUESTION

BUTTER

Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

– I ask the Minister for Primary Industry a question without notice. By way of explanation, I point out that the price paid for butter on the United Kingdom market is directly influenced by seasonal conditions in the United Kingdom and Europe. For example, the low price recently paid was largely due to bountiful seasons last spring and summer. Has the Minister received any definite reports of unfavorable conditions at present existing in Europe and in the United Kingdom, which would necessarily hamper the production of all dairy produce, especially butter?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– Yes, reports of unfavorable climatic conditions in the United Kingdom and western Europe have been received. It is, therefore, probable that the production of butter in those areas will be reduced. I should also like to state for the benefit of the House that the United Kingdom has already agreed to reduce by 40,000 tons per annum the quantity of butter imported. I think that this, together with the probable reduction of output in the United Kingdom and western Europe, should mean that prices will be somewhat better, or perhaps substantially better, than they would be if climatic conditions were normal.

page 1822

QUESTION

EGGS

Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I ask the

Minister for Primary Industry: Is it a fact that the various egg boards have become egg-bound and are now unable to find a suitable outlet for their surplus eggs? Is it a fact that this is due to the action of many egg producers in insisting upon selling their eggs interstate?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I cannot explain the cause. I think it is probably due to the fact that the hens will keep on laying.

page 1822

QUESTION

PAYMENTS TO MARITIME UNIONS

Mr HAWORTH:
ISAACS, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Labour and National Service a question. In view of the serious nature of the report and recommendations made by the Senate Select Committee on indemnity payments received by maritime unions - the payments that were received for allowing ships sold to foreign buyers to be manned by nonAustralian crews - does the Government propose to take any early action in the matter?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– It is obvious that the committee of the Senate has done a conscientious and painstaking job of work in relation to this matter. But having regard to other matters before the Government during the last 24 hours or so, I have not yet had an opportunity to do more than skim through the concluding pages of the report. However, I have already arranged for my own department to begin a close examination of it. I shall take the first opportunity to do so myself, and I have no doubt that it is being examined also by my colleague, the Attorney-General, and by such Government departments as may be concerned.

When this matter was before the Government earlier, I arranged for such facts as were in the possession of my department to be submitted to the Attorney-General for advice as to whether there was ground for legal action by way of prosecution under Commonwealth law. My department was advised by the Attorney-General at that time that no ground of action on which a successful prosecution could be based had been disclosed. If the inquiries of the Senate committee have elicited facts additional to those that the Government had before it earlier, or if they reveal that offences against Commonwealth law have been committed, then I have no doubt that the Attorney-General will recommend to the Government that appropriate action be taken.

page 1823

QUESTION

ALUMINIUM

Mr DUTHIE:
WILMOT, TASMANIA

– I ask a question of the Minister for Supply. With regard to the Commonwealth aluminium project at Bell Bay, Tasmania, is there an application for tariff protection in respect of its production at present pending before the Tariff Board? If so, what is the nature of the protection sought? I might add that the honorable member for Bass is also vitally interested in this matter.

Mr TOWNLEY:
LP

– I am not able to say what is in a Tariff Board report, because such reports are confidential until they are tabled.

page 1823

QUESTION

MEAT INSPECTORS

Mr FREETH:
FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware that there is a serious shortage of meat inspectors in Western Australia, particularly at Albany, where the export section of the plant of Thomas Borthwick and Sons (Australasia) Limited is working only at half its capacity? Is the Minister taking any action to remedy the shortage?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I have become aware that there has been a shortage of meat inspectors throughout Australia. About ten days ago, approval was given for six inspectors to be added to the staff. Three of them will be appointed in Western Australia, and one of those will go to Albany in order to supplement the staff already there. I expect that, next week, the additional inspector will go to Albany and that the problems at that centre will then be overcome.

page 1823

QUESTION

CIVIL DEFENCE

Mr WARD:

– I desire to ask the Minister for Defence a question. Is it a fact that Major-General Dougherty, the Director of Civil Defence in New South Wales, has recommended to the New South Wales Government that its representatives be withdrawn from the Commonwealth-State Civil

Defence Committee, and that New South Wales refrain from sending delegates to any conferences on civil defence convened by the Commonwealth, until such time as the Federal Government makes a clear statement of its policy on this subject? Is it a fact, also, that the Honorable R. J. Heffron, Deputy Premier of New South Wales, has declared that records show that New South Wales has tried for more than seven years to get an answer from the Commonwealth Government to questions about its civil defence policy? If these are facts, what reply has the Minister made, or what reply does he intend to make, to the serious criticism made by these two gentlemen?

Sir PHILIP McBRIDE:
LP

– I think that, in the first place, the honorable member should direct his questions to the New South Wales Premier and Minister who are alleged to have received deputations on this matter. In repect to the latter part of the question, as soon as the matter of civil defence has been finally decided, the New South Wales Government will be informed, and I have no doubt that it will send representatives to any conference called to consider the subject.

page 1823

QUESTION

POTATOES

Mr SNEDDEN:
BRUCE, VICTORIA

– Can the Minister for Primary Industry indicate whether the Department of Primary Industry has investigated the desirability and practicability of co-ordinating the marketing of potatoes in order to assure the producers of stable returns? Has the Minister any information about the desire of growers’ organizations for such co-ordination?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– On several occasions, the problem of a stabilization scheme for the potato industry has been examined by the Australian Agricultural Council, and on each occasion it has been decided that a stabilization scheme would be impracticable. This week, I think, the Federal Potato Advisory Committee met in Melbourne. It is again considering stabilization, and, if it comes to the conclusion that such a scheme is still impracticable, it will investigate methods of co-ordination and of disseminating information so that the producers themselves may know what is going on and be able to plan their production accordingly.

page 1824

QUESTION

GOVERNMENT LOANS AND FINANCE

Mr CAIRNS:
YARRA, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister, in his capacity as acting Treasurer: Is it a fact that, in 1949, £75,000,000, or 3.8 per cent, of the total, of Commonwealth and State debts was held by Australian governments, whereas, in 1957, £654,000,000, or 21 per cent, of the total, was held by them? Is it further a fact that 17 per cent, of the amount of this debt held by governments was held by the Commonwealth Government in 1949, and that this had increased to 85 per cent, in 1957? Does the right honorable gentleman approve of the financial principles under which governments, and particularly the one that he leads, owe to themselves an increasing amount of the money that they imagined they were borrowing from elsewhere?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– Naturally, as the honorable member will suppose, I do not carry these figures in my mind, but I shall find out whether the question he has put is well founded. Now, perhaps, I might take the opportunity of saying to all honorable members that although the Parliament will adjourn and be prorogued quite soon, if any honorable member who wants to have any facts on any of these matters - affecting the Treasury or otherwise - lets us know in good time, I shall see that all the resources of the department are made available, and for a very good reason. I want honorable members to know what the facts are. We can then argue about them, because the odd thing about facts is that, though they are supposed to be intractable, they always give rise to incredible arguments.

page 1824

QUESTION

DRIED FRUITS

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware that growers of dried fruits, through the Australian Dried Fruits Association, are contributing large sums of money for sales promotion of Australian dried vine fruits at home and abroad? Is the Government active in assisting in this sales promotion and if so, to what extent? Will the Minister accept a gift of a dried fruits nibble bag, so that he may enjoy the exquisite flavour of this stimulating product?

Mr Menzies:

– They are the best in the world.

Mr Turnbull:

– Of course they are.

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– There is an ancient saying, “ I fear the Greeks when they come bearing gifts “. I wonder what it implies in the case of members of Parliament. My colleague from Wide Bay has let me have at least two bags of what he called prawns, although they are the size of lobsters, and I have been informed by those who eat prawns and lobsters that they are delicious. My colleague from the north-west of Tasmania sent me yesterday a large bag of oysters. My staff tell me that they are delightful. I shall be only too happy to take the package of dried vine fruits from the honorable member for Mallee and get some of my friends to test them for me and tell me of their flavour. As to the actual question, the Commonwealth is contributing, along with the industry, to a publicity or sales promotion drive for dried vine fruits in the United Kingdom.

page 1824

QUESTION

EDUCATION IN PAPUA AND NEW GUINEA

Mr L R JOHNSON:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Is the Minister aware that last week a member of the New Guinea Legislative Council contended that 200,000 native children in controlled areas of the Territory had no contact with any form of schooling? Is it a fact that an additional 10,000 teachers will be necessary to meet fully the Territory’s teacher requirements? Is the Minister satisfied with the present rate of progress in the provision of educational facilities, which will not succeed in fully accommodating the Territory’s 400,000 children for at least 50 years?

Mr HASLUCK:
Minister for Territories · CURTIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– I do not know whether the figures stated by the honorable member are correct. The Government is not satisfied that the needs of education in the Territory are being met, but it is rather proud of the fact that it has done far more to meet them than has any previous government.

page 1824

QUESTION

PASSPORTS

Sir WILFRID KENT HUGHES:
CHISHOLM, VICTORIA

– I direct to the Minister for Immigration a question which arises from an unfortunate experience of one of my constituents quite recently. Is there a New Zealand law authorizing discrimination in respect of passports as between Australian-born and naturalized Australian citizens when passing through New Zealand? If so, will the Government take up the matter with the

New Zealand Government with a view to obtaining for naturalized Australian citizens in New Zealand the same legal status as is enjoyed by Australian-born citizens? If there is no such law, will the Government make representations to the New Zealand Government to ensure that in future the Auckland authorities will refrain from treating naturalized Australian citizens differently from natural-born citizens?

Mr DOWNER:
Minister for Immigration · ANGAS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– The position, briefly, is this: Australian citizens, whether they are natural-born or naturalized, who travel to New Zealand do not require passports. There is no requirement to that effect. On the other hand, the New Zealand immigration authorities do require naturalized Australian citizens who travel to New Zealand, intending to stay for a period of over three months, to produce an entry permit. This has to be obtained1 before they leave Australia. Representations were repeatedly made by my predecessors to the New Zealand Government in this respect, and the New Zealand authorities did go some way towards meeting our objections in October, 1957. I think the honorable gentleman will realize from his wide experience, however, that these matters are thoroughly within the purview of the New Zealand Government itself, although we, on our part, are most anxious that there should be no discrimination whatsoever between naturalized Australians and those born here. Nonetheless, whatever our own wishes, we have to abide by the final decree of the New Zealand Government.

page 1825

QUESTION

SUPPLEMENTARY RENT PENSIONS

Mr ROBERTON:
Minister for Social Services · Riverina · CP

– by leave - The act providing for supplementary assistance to pensioners will be proclaimed to commence on Wednesday, 15th October, and supplementary assistance will be paid on the first pension pay days following this proclamation.

This means that qualifying age and invalid pensioners will be able to receive their first payment of supplementary assistance on Thursday, 23rd October, and qualifying widow pensioners on Tuesday, 28th October.

Service pensioners qualifying for supplementary assistance under the Repatriation Act will be able to receive their first payment of supplementary assistance on Thursday, 16th October.

The Government, in fixing the date of proclamation, necessarily took into account the administrative task involved in making payments, and I am pleased to say, Mr. Speaker, has been able to bring that date forward to 15th October, which is earlier than that originally expected.

Last week and to-day, a number of questions were put to me regarding the qualifications for supplementary assistance. These questions showed that considerable confusion exists in the minds of honorable members regarding the qualifications for, and the disqualifications from, the receipt of supplementary assistance, which, of course, is an entirely new form of social service benefit.

In order to make the position quite clear I would like to refer to the provisions of the act, and to the principles under which the Director-General will exercise the discretionary powers vested in him by this Parliament under the act.

In the first place an age, invalid or widow pensioner may qualify for supplementary assistance only if the Director-General “ is satisfied that he requires supplementary assistance by reason of the fact that he pays rent and is entirely dependent on his pension “.

Before the question of eligibility can arise, there must be two elements present - First, the pensioner must pay rent; secondly, he must be entirely dependent on his pension.

When these two elements are present it is for the Director-General to satisfy himself that the pensioner requires supplementary assistance because of them.

Quite clearly, there will be cases of pensioners paying nominal rents. In such cases, though the two elements were present, it would be open to the Director-General to decide that the pensioner did not require supplementary assistance.

Some discussion has occurred on the meaning of the element “ entirely dependent on his pension “. This is exclusively covered in the act - and I quote from the act - “. . . . the Director-General may treat a pensioner as being entirely dependent on his pension if that pensioner is dependent on his pension to such an extent that the Director-General considers it just to do so “

Mr Ward:

– What does that mean?

Mr ROBERTON:

– I shall tell the honorable member if he does not understand.

Where the pensioner has little means other than his pension, it would obviously be just to treat that pensioner as being entirely dependent upon his pension, and the Director-General will do so. The working rule he will apply is that a single pensioner with up to 10s. a week will be considered entirely dependent on his pension. In the case of a married couple, one a pensioner, they may have up to £1 a week between them, and the pensioner will still be regarded as entirely dependent upon his pension.

To clarify the position further, I might add that where a pensioner has sufficient property to cause, on the application of the means test, a reduction in the maximum rate of pension, he will not then be regarded as entirely dependent upon his pension.

There may be other circumstances. It is not possible to foresee and decide, as hypothetical cases, all the combinations of a pensioner’s financial and domestic arrangements.

As already pointed out to the House by the Treasurer (Sir Arthur Fadden) in the Budget speech and by me in my secondreading speech, supplementary assistance will be payable to qualified single pensioners and to qualified married persons where only one of the couple is in receipt of a pension and the other is not in receipt of an allowance.

The purpose of supplementary assistance is to relieve hardship and improve the circumstances of those who qualify. This, I am sure - and the Parliament has agreed - it will do.

page 1826

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCES

Reports of Australian Delegates - Australian Government’s Proposals

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Minister for Labour and National Service · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– On behalf of the Minister acting for the Minister for External Affairs, and on my own behalf. I lay on the table of the House the following papers: -

International Labour Conference -

Forty-first (Maritime) Session, Geneva, AprilMay, 1958 - Reports of the Australian Government, Employers’ and Workers’ Delegates.

Forty-second Session, Geneva, June, 1958 - Reports of the Australian Government, Employers’ and Workers’ Delegates.

In the interests of economy I do not propose to move that the reports be printed, but copies will be available to honorable members from the parliamentary officers.

Following the practice I initiated some years ago, the House will be informed at a later date of the action taken or proposed to be taken, in respect of the conventions and recommendations adopted by these conferences.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– The action proposed will be announced later in accordance with the practice which, I repeat, I initiated myself some years ago.

I lay on the table the following paper: -

International Labour Conference -

Thirty-eighth (1955) and Thirty-ninth (1956) Sessions - Statement of action taken, or proposed to be taken, by the Government in relation to the Conventions and Recommendations adopted.

I take this action in pursuance of the undertakings which I gave to honorable members when I tabled the reports of the Australian delegates to the sessions in question.

In the interests of economy I do not propose to move that the statement be printed, but copies will be available to honorable members from the parliamentary officers.

page 1826

COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANIZATION

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Minister for Labour and National Service · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– I lay on the table the following paper: -

Science and Industry Research Act - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization - Tenth Annual Report, for year 1957-58. and move -

That the paper be printed.

Mr CALWELL:
Melbourne

.- The Opposition offers no objection to the motion. We need to see this document ourselves in printed form, and so does the very large clientele of this very efficient organization. May I suggest to the Minister that again he might give consideration to the question of the late presentation of reports to the Parliament just as the session is concluding. There seems to us to be no reason why this document could not have been presented earlier so that there could have been a debate on it if honorable members so desired.

To-day, we are faced with the position that if we adjourn the debate on the matter it may be some time before the document is printed. We want to facilitate the printing of the document but, at the same time, we hope that some action will be taken to safeguard the rights of members of this Parliament to debate any document which is presented for printing and distribution.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Minister for Labour and National Service · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– in reply - While I appreciate the consideration shown by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) on behalf of his party in giving a speedy passage to this motion I think that whatever validity there might be in the criticism generally of the late presentation of reports, it certainly cannot be applied to this particular document, because it relates to the year ended 30th June, 1958. I should think that it is almost remarkable that a document of this size and importance should be tabled and a motion for its printing moved by this stage of the year.

While I am on my feet on this matter, I feel that I should mention to the House, with very great regret, that Sir Ian CluniesRoss recently suffered a rather serious illness. He is making good progress in hospital and I am sure that all honorable members will join me in wishing him a speedy recovery.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1827

TARIFF BOARD ANNUAL REPORT

Mr TOWNLEY:
Minister for Supply · Denison · LP

– I lay on the table the following paper: -

Tariff Board Act- Tariff Board- Report for year 1957-58, together with summary of recommendations.

The report is accompanied by an annexure which summarizes the recommendations made by the board and shows action taken in respect of each of them. It is not proposed to print the annexure.

Ordered to be printed.

page 1827

NATIONAL CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

Mr FAIRHALL:
Minister for the Interior and Minister for Works · Paterson · LP

– I lay on the table the following paper: -

National Capital Development Commission Act - National Capital Development Commission - Report and financial statement, together with the Auditor-General’s Report, for period 1st March to 30th June, 1958.

Mr CALWELL:
Melbourne

.- I address similar remarks on this matter as I used concerning the motion for the printing of the annual report of the C.S.I.R.O. Every honorable member is most interested in the report of this newly established commission on the future development of Canberra. I am sure that if an election were not approaching and Parliament continued until its normal time of adjourning towards the end of November or middle of December, and the commission was able to present its report about this time, there would have been a very interesting and informative discussion by honorable members on the future development of the National Capital. We do not want to delay the printing of this document because many people in the Territory and outside it, as well as members of the Parliament, want to learn all that is to be learned from the views expressed by the members of the commission.

Ordered to be printed.

page 1827

REPATRIATION GENERAL HOSPITAL, HOBART

Report of Public Works Committee

Mr LAWRENCE:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA

– In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1913-1953, 1 bring up the report relating to the following work: -

Construction of extensions to the Repatriation General Hospital, at Hobart, Tasmania.

Ordered to be printed.

page 1827

INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION

Mr MACKINNON:
Corangamite

– by leave - I lay on the table the following paper: -

Inter-Parliamentary Union - 47th Conference held at Rio de Janeiro, July, August, 1958 - Report of Australian Delegation.

page 1828

ASSENT TO BILLS

Assent to the following bills reported: -

Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court Bill 1958.

Social. Services Bill 1958.

Superannuation Bill 1958.

Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Bill 1958.

Repatriation Bill 1958.

Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Bill

Excise Bill 1958.

page 1828

MARRIAGE (OVERSEAS) BILL 1958

Second Reading

Mr OSBORNE:
Minister for Air · Evans · LP

– I move -

That the bill be now read a second time.

The object of this short bill is to clarify the authority of chaplains to solemnize marriages under the Marriage (Overseas) Act 1955. Honorable members will recall that this act authorizes certain marriages to be performed in overseas countries that do not form part of the Queen’s dominions. So far as marriages of servicemen are concerned, the act enables a marriage between parties of whom one at least is a member of the Defence Force to be solemnized in an overseas country by a chaplain. The act also validates certain marriages purported to be solemnized by chaplains in overseas countries between 3rd September, 1939, that is, the date of commencement of World War II., and 1st July, 1957, the date of commencement of Part III. of the act. “ Chaplain “ is at present defined by section 4 as - “ a minister of religion who, at the time material for the purposes of this Act -

  1. is or was authorized by or under the law of a State or Territory of the Commonwealth to celebrate marriages in that State or Territory; and
  2. is or was a member of the Defence

Force “. [Quorum formed.]

It has been brought to notice that this definition may be defective, as in some States and Territories a minister of religion registered as an authorized celebrant, upon ceasing to reside in the particular State or Territory, is deregistered, and is therefore no longer a person “ authorized to celebrate marriages “. It is possible that some ministers of religion who enlisted as chaplains and who left their State or Territory in the course of service duties were deregistered in this way. A doubt therefore arises whether the marriages purported to be validated by section 16 have in fact all been validated, as some of the chaplains may not have been authorized to celebrate marriages at the relevant time. The same doubt may arise in the future with regard to marriages solemnized by chaplains pursuant to section 1.4 of the Marriage (Overseas) Act.

This bill inserts a new and more appropriate definition of “ chaplain “, which will avoid the difficulties referred to. The authority of a chaplain to perform functions under the act will, under this definition, be dependent solely upon his appointment as a chaplain in the defence forces. Provisions have been included in the bill to validate marriages already performed by chaplains both in the 1939-57 period and in the period between the date of commencement of Part III. of the principal act and the date of commencement of this bill. There is nothing contentious in this measure; it is designed purely to remove the doubts referred to. I commend the bill to honorable members.

Dr EVATT:
Leader of the Opposition · Barton

– This bill has already been passed by the Senate. It has been considered, and is approved, by the Opposition. It provides for the validation of marriages which may possibly have been contested, and inserts a new provision defining “ chaplain “ in a way which will avoid difficulties. It is a necessary piece of legislation and has our full support.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted.

Bill - by leave - read a third time.

page 1828

DAIRY PRODUCE RESEARCH AND SALES PROMOTION BILL 1958

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 30th September (vide page 1751), on motion by Mr. McMahon -

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr POLLARD:
Lalor

.- Mr. Speaker-

Mr Adermann:

– On a point of procedure, I suggest that as this bill and the Dairy Produce Export Control Bill and Dairy Produce Levy Bill are related, they be discussed together and that if necessary they be voted on separately.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There being no objection, that procedure will be followed.

Mr POLLARD:

– The measure before the House is a comparatively small one. However, the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr. McMahon) delivered a very long explanatory second-reading speech. I concede that the industry to which this bill applies is an important one and justifies a lengthy explanation of what is intended by legislation that is presented to the House. However, shortly, the purpose of the bill is to give effect to a desire of the dairyfarmers to pay a levy into a fund, which will be under the administration of an authority and which will be expended on research work relating to the dairying industry and on promoting the sale of butter and cheese in Australia. No one can quarrel with those objectives. Indeed, the situation to-day is such that research work in any industry is always justified. One could say that possibly all governments, if they could manage it, would like to see more money spent on research work.

In this instance, the Government is not committed to very much. It will make no contribution to the money that will be spent on research, but, in regard to that portion of the total levy receipts, estimated at £250,000, which on a recommendation of the Australian Dairy Produce Board is to be devoted to sales promotion, the Government has made a verbal commitment that it will contribute on a £l-for-£l basis. No one can take exception to those proposals. However, in a situation in which the dairymen in every part of the Commonwealth are working under serious economic disabilities and are clamouring for additional assistance, this mere contribution from the Government of an amount not to exceed £1 for every £1 spent on sales promotion is exceedingly meagre and inadequate. In fact, it is paltry. If we are to take the Government at its word from time to time over the years, its objective has been to ensure that dairymen would not receive a total income less than that related to the general standard of living and approved by the people generally in Australia. But no steps are taken to ensure that happy state of affairs.

I have a particular interest in this industry. For years, I worked in it. For years, I was the victim of the lack of such consideration by governments as would enable dairymen to obtain an income related to the contribution that they made to the food requirements of the community and to the earning of export income in order to assist Australia to pay for essential imports. I well recollect the depressed state of the industry in the years preceding World War II. Conditions were deplorable, especially for a seven-days-a-week industry. They were deplorable for a variety of reasons. Not the least was the fact that at that period of our history there were still in Australia about 240,000 persons officially recorded as unemployed. Their purchasing power was quite inadequate to provide everything needed for themselves and their families.

Mr Duthie:

– And that was in 1939!

Mr POLLARD:

– That was 1938-39. If any one doubts the figures that I cite, let me say that I- took them from a report of a statement made by the Prime Minister in the Melbourne Town Hall shortly after war broke out. In war-time, of course, governments were compelled to realize that the dairying industry was essential to Australia’s war effort. As the war progressed, the industry became more important than ever, and it was able to make a magnificent contribution to the United Kingdom food supplies. It was because of this fact, and a realization that those who make a contribution to the economic welfare of the country should be adequately rewarded, that during the period when the Labour government held the reins of office steps were taken to ensure that the producing elements in the community were more adequately rewarded

But with peace in sight, it was determined that in the post-war period this industry should be established on a stabilized basis, and that an adequate return for their labours should be guaranteed to workers in it. With that end in view, 1 announced in this Parliament on about 22nd November, 1946, that the Labour government had appointed a committee empowered to inquire into and ascertain the cost of production of butter in Australia. It was a most representative committee. Its chairman, was no less distinguished an individual than the chairman of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Mr. Crawford, who is now, of course, the Secretary of the Department of Trade. The committee included representatives of the dairying industry. In addition, there were representatives of the Treasury, the then Prices Branch and the Department of Commerce and Agriculture. By July of 1947 the committee was able to supply to the Bureau of Agricultural Economics figures collected from dairy farms all over Australia, and on those figures the bureau was able to work out a cost of production on the average, reasonably efficient dairy farm.

Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

– How much did you allow for management?

Mr POLLARD:

– The honorable member for Richmond asks how much we allowed for management. That is quite a fair question. Let me say, first, that before this investigation took place nothing at. all was allowed for management. Awards in the industry were completely unknown, either for management, for the workers or for anybody else concerned. The committee’s report with respect to the allowance for management was unanimous, and, as I said, the personnel of the committee included representatives of the industry itself. The basis that the committee recommended for the computation of management allowance was the dairying industry award, an. award fixed by a competent authority. Let it not be forgotten that costs of production and award rates of pay in any industry were then substantially lower than they are now. The recommendation was that the management allowance should be equivalent to the rate fixed in the award for a leading hand. Whatever criticism may be offered as to the inadequacy of that allowance - and I think it would be widely agreed that it was not as generous as it should have been - at least it was a marked improvement on anything hitherto known in this industry..

If honorable members would like to know the circumstances of this industry prior to World War II., let me quote, first, from an article which appeared in the Melbourne “Argus” on 12th July, 1944 -

The dairying industry began the war with a. bad reputation, for low and unstable prices, which made it the agricultural “Cinderella” and were the cause of bad wages, and long hours.

The late Mr. Anthony made a statement in this Parliament in 1938 which was one of the most damning indictments of pre-war governments, or any governments, with regard to neglect and lack of consideration for this most essential industry. He said -

Out of 12,275 dairy-farmers in Queensland, only 99 had taxable incomes last year in excess of £250.

The late Mr. Anthony said that he had received his information from the Queensland taxation commissioner.

So, in answering the question by the honorable member for Richmond as to how much the farmers were allowed for management, let me say that this was the first time in history that any step of this kind was taken - to make some allowance for the management of a dairy farm. It is quite true that when this measure was re-enacted in 1952, or, in fact, before that, the government which succeeded the Labour government made some increases in the managerial allowance used in computing the cost of production of butter - and rightly so. Those changes had the ardent support of honorable members on this side of the House.

When honorable members are inclined to criticize the fixing of an award wage as a basis for managerial allowance, let it never be forgotten that the dairying industry had accepted that award. Probably those engaged in the industry had given evidence before the authority which fixed the award, and no doubt they considered it adequate and said that it was good enough. Probably, therefore, what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, so I do not think there is much to be. gained by arguing about the amount allowed for management, expenses. Costs in the industry have skyrocketed in the last ten years,, and the £1,035 allowed at present for management allowance when computing the cost of production of butter is not so very much more generous than the allowance in those early years. I agree that it is no more than enough.

Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

– How much was it in those days?

Mr POLLARD:

– It was based on the leading hand’s rate under the dairying industry award. I think it was about £300- odd. It is now about three times what it was when the recommendation was made by the dairying industry costing authority. I do not think even the honorable member for. Richmond will deny that costs to-day are at least three times as much as they were in the industry in 1947. At least it was a basis on which to commence. I know that honorable gentlemen sitting in the corner, after exercising power for more than a quarter of a century and, in many cases, participating in coalition governments, are green with envy because a Labour government was the first to introduce a plan guaranteeing the dairying industry of Australia a price for its products. It did so not only on the product produced, sold and consumed in Australia but on the whole of our dairy products that were exported.

Mr Turnbull:

– We feel quite normal.

Mr POLLARD:

– Well, you do not sound it. But I do not know that that is a very sound argument. I am simply stating a fact. Time went on. Pledges had been made by representatives of the Australian Country party and the coalition government that when the Labour government’s plan expired, they would renew it. They did so. A bill was introduced into this House in 1952. The Government drafted a measure guaranteeing to the farmers a return based on cost of production, but there was one vital difference. Those who had been critical, as they still are-, about the allowance made in computing’ the cost of producing a pound of butter, and those who had something to say about other factors in the computation were confronted with the fact that the Government had made a vital alteration in the 1952 legislation which was supposed to be based on most of the principles introduced by the Labour government. The Menzies- Government proposed to guarantee to the industry the found cost of production price on all butter and cheese consumed in Australia, and on one-fifth of that quantity that might be exported.

The end result of that is to be found in the situation which confronted Australia last year and will confront it again: The availability for export to London of a very great tonnage of butter and cheese which is absolutely unguaranteed as to price. I have made a rough calculation, and T’ believe that, in the last butter year, about 3.i;,00.0 tons of butter was exported overseas without, guarantee, and we: had to take whatever the overseas price happened to be. In the forthcoming year - if the season turns out as we anticipate and Australia produces 220,000 tons of butter - it is likely that 76,000 tons of butter could be landed on the London market absolutely without guarantee. That is after allowing for the 20 per cent, as a guaranteed export portion of our production. Those 76,000 tons might be sold at a price around 2s. per lb. when the cost of production in Australia, according to accepted figures, is about 4s. 3d. per lb. ls it any wonder that, for the first time, the comer party which has supported this present Government - a government that has been, so niggardly in renewing the plan and quibbled over the computation for managerial allowance and similar calculations: - is embarrassed. Members of the Australian Country party now know that, because of the inability of the Government to guarantee the found cost of production price for all butter and cheese produced in Australia, the dairymen are now landed with a. fall in the London butter price and are in an. uneconomic position.

Mr Brand:

– Is the Labour party prepared to subsidize butter exports?

Mr POLLARD:

– You will hear all about that in the proper time. You members of the Australian Country party are supporters of this Government. You are the people who twice - in 1952 and 1957 - tolerated a situation in which the people you allegedly represent, including great numbers of dairy-farmers, were faced with the sale of tons of butter on the London market at any price they could get and at a return far below the cost of production in Australia.

Mr Bowden:

– It would be the same under a Labour government.

Mr POLLARD:

– No! The Labour government guaranteed whatever the returns were in London, India or China, for the whole of the butter and cheese produced in Australia. It guaranteed that the found cost of production would be paid. 1 am not here to be cross-examined by the honorable member for Gippsland (Mr. Bowden)-. I am giving information.

Mr Bowden:

– Will you admit that, al that time, exports did not represent 20 per cent, of local consumption?

Mr POLLARD:

– In some cases they did. The honorable member for Gippsland is not going to bulldoze me into acceptance of a statement of that sort. They have exceeded 20 per cent, of the portion consumed locally at various periods. Anyhow, there is no justification for this Government not providing against that eventuality. It arose before the introduction of the 1957 re-enactment of the plan. Now, the Government is confronted with people who are very angry indeed and realize that they have been deceived.

What do we find now? The members of the Australian Country party have been embarrassed and have recently brought pressure on their colleagues in the Menzies Government. The Minister for Primary Industry (Mr. McMahon) has been upset. Honorable gentlemen in the Australian Country party corner have been upset. It was announced in the press to-day that they had obtained what is allegedly a concession. If it can be so described, it is a miserable concession, but those who do not understand the situation could very well be deceived.

The plain fact is that the final returns to the dairy-farmers under the guaranteed price stabilization plan are computed in this manner: First, in making the computation, those responsible take into consideration that all butter and cheese consumed in Australia will be sold at guaranteed prices. Secondly, the Government of Australia will make a contribution this year of £13,500,000 subsidy. Third, a lower price will go into the computation in connexion with sale returns of the unguaranteed portion of production which goes abroad.

A calculation of the average of the three could be made finally only at the end of the season because you do not know what the total sales realization will be until the season is ended. In order to give the dairymen an interim payment on delivery to the factory, the likely final returns in London have been computed. As the equalization committee, which makes these computations and manages this business, has a financial responsibility, it calculates its contribution on a reasonably conservative basis. I do not know what figures they took, but they may have made it on a basis believing that the price in London would not rise above the present level.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– But it rose after they made it.

Mr POLLARD:

– Yes, a little bit; from 205s. to 234s. per cwt. I know about that. But that committee must be conservative in its computations. After considering the situation, it decided that it would be safe to pay the farmers 3s. Id. per lb. on delivery to the factory. All right! One can be sure that when they made that computation they said to themselves, “ It can hardly get worse than it is now in London. Nevertheless, we must play safe “. And they took into consideration, possibly, the fact that in the final wash-up, at the end of the season, instead of 37d., the dairyfarmers of Australia might get a return of 40d. per lb.

Mr Brimblecombe:

– They might.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– They will.

Mr POLLARD:

– I am glad to see that there is a difference of opinion between the honorable member for Macarthur (Mr. Jeff Bate) and the honorable member for Maranoa (Mr. Brimblecombe), both of whom belong to the Australian Country party. One says that the dairy-farmers might get 40d. in the final wash-up and the other says that they will. I shall deal first with the gentleman who says that they will, because that statement suits my picture. But I will also reply later to the gentleman who will admit that they will get 37d.

In order to deceive the dairy-farmers, the Government announced that they would get 3d. per lb. more for butter. That .was announced in headlines in the newspapers. But all that has happened is that the Government has underwritten a figure of 3s. 4d. per lb. so that the equalization committee can arrange for the butter factory to pay an interim payment of 3s. 4d. instead of 3s. Id. per lb.

The Minister for Primary Industry exhibited a sense of responsibility by going to the Cabinet and arguing. He said, “ You take no risk, Bob, because it is quite certain that, in the final wash-up, the price will be 40d. per lb.” The honorable member for Macarthur will admit that. So, in reality, the dairy-farmers are getting 3d. per lb. more now, as an advance payment, some months ahead. They are getting a figure. which, ultimately, they would have got in any case. There is nothing wrong with the plan, but if the dairy-farmers imagine that they will get any more for their butter than they would have got without the Government’s action they have another think coming.

Very few people know how this price is assessed. I know that Australian Country party members who are interjecting are uncomfortable about this matter because the dairy-farmers are not going to get any more. The Australian Dairy Produce Board has said that they will get 40d. per lb. anyhow. All that will happen is that they will get 3d. per lb. a few months before they would have got it in any case. The only risk that the Government takes is of a catastrophe happening and the London market deteriorating further from what is probably an alltime low. It is a mighty poor government that would not be prepared to take that risk.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– I agree with that.

Mr POLLARD:

– I am not against the payment of that 3d. per lb. in advance of the time at which the farmers would get it, anyhow. But I want to dispel the idea that is prevalent in the minds of some people that it will be an extra payment in the final wash-up.

The position of the industry remains as critical and as chronic as it was prior to this action being taken. The industry has been disgracefully treated. It has not been treated in line with the promises that have been made to it. The present Minister for Trade (Mr. McEwen)- then Minister for Trade and Commerce - when introducing a measure to put the 1952 plan into operation, said -

There have been talks of dear food policy and cheap food policy. This Government embraces neither objective. Its policy is to ensure, for an industry which comes within its jurisdiction, a return for the producers designed to give them the same standards of living as are enjoyed by the rest of the community, believing that in this way only will expanded production be assured.

I am sure that those workers who expect to have their wages automatically adjusted in accordance with movements of cost of living and the genera] national trends and those merchants who expect to be able to adjust the selling price of their products in accordance with their costs of production, will in neither case wish to deny to dairy farmers an adjustment of their return related to a realistic calculation of the cost of efficient production. That is what this measure is designed to assure.

In the same speech, the Minister announced that the guarantee would only cover a proportion of the production of butter and cheese in Australia and that the situation would be left as it remains to-day. Last year about 30,000 tons of butter were left to the hazards of the world market. This year it could be 60,000 tons. It is no use Country party members talking to me about it. They supported the Government which, in 1952, was responsible for the departure from Labour’s policy. That policy, if still in operation, would have ensured that the dairy-farmers had the living standards to which the then Minister for Trade and Commerce said, in 1952, that they were entitled.

Mr Brimblecombe:

– What was the found cost in 1947?

Mr POLLARD:

– I can provide that information for the honorable member, although he knows it as well as I do. He will quibble about halfpennies when today’s problem is one of millions. Let us have the facts, clean and straight. The chairman of the Joint Dairy Industry Advisory Committee in 1947 was Mr. J. G. Crawford, and nobody could ever accuse Mr. Crawford of being other than impartial. He represented the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The committee also included Mr. C. Sheehy, Controller of Dairy Products; Mr. W. S. Kelly, Commonwealth Prices Branch; Mr. P. W. Nette Department of the Treasury; Mr. A. Spencer, Department of Commerce and Agriculture; Mr. G. C. Howey, Victoria, a familiar figure in the dairy industry and a fighter for its rights; Mr. T. Flood Plunkett, Queensland; Mr. R. D. Gibson, New South Wales; and Mr. J. P. Norton, representing Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

In the final wash-up, the committee divided. The majority of the committee comprising Mr. Crawford and the representatives of the Treasury, the Department of Commerce and Agriculture, and the Prices Branch, supported a cost recommendation of 2s. lid. per lb.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lawrence:
WIMMERA, VICTORIA

– Order! There are too many interjections. .

Mr POLLARD:

– We are all in agreement, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are going along very well. The minority report recommended a price of 2s. per lb. Let us analyse the facts. First of all, the four people who were associated with government departments had no personal vested interest in the industry whatsoever. Mr. Howey, Mr. Plunkett, Mr. Sheehy and Mr. Norton had a personal interest, if not a vested interest, in the industry, and, no doubt, felt that they could go for the higher figure. The government accepted the recommendation of 2s. per lb. and the industry was mighty happy about it. Mr. Howey, who was president of the Victorian Dairymen’s Association and chairman of the Australian Dairy Produce Board, notwithstanding the fact that he had recommended a price of 2s. Hd., said this when the new price was put into operation -

I have never seen the dairying industry with a brighter future.

That statement was reported in the “Victorian Dairy Farmer” of November, 1947. Mr. R. C. Gibson, president of the New South Wales Primary Producers Union, in 1948. when the plan was operating, said -

Dairy farmers can now look ahead and plan for the future, secure in the knowledge that their returns will be related to their production costs.

In. other words, everybody was happy. I could quote numerous statements and refer to numerous letters in glowing terms which I received at that period expressing great satisfaction with that great scheme which has set the standard ever since. But the scheme has been shamefully departed from since 1952. At this critical stage in the industry’s history the Government is proposing to increase the interim payment by 3d. The honorable member for Macarthur (Mr. Jeff Bate) is interjecting that the dairy-farmers will get this increase in any event. Apparently this bill has been introduced as a sop to provide for research and sales propaganda. The Opposition favours this move, but the Government is only playing with the problems confronting the industry. Under existing circumstances the more the farmers produce, the greater will be their losses. The more they export, the lower will be their returns. Sales promotion should bring some assistance to the industry. If a vigorous campaign, handled by the right people, increased the consumption of butter in Australia by 2 lb., 3 lb., or 4 lb. per head, the problem would be largely solved1. I concede that. That is something in which I believe. If it pays to advertise all sorts of quack medicines on the radio and on television, it should pay the dairying industry to advertise butter. The Government is amply justified in supporting such sales propaganda.

The situation confronting the dairying industry to-day would not have been as bad as it is if the cost of living had not been spiralling over the last ten years, as has been emphasized in the last few years by the unemployment position. To some degree the problem can be alleviated by increasing the purchasing power of the people and by encouraging the sale of butter instead of margarine and other products.

The Opposition supports the bill. I express the ardent hope that, to the extent that it is possible to help the industry at present, the proposals that have been outlined by the Minister will be successful.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Jeff Bate) adjourned.

page 1834

TARIFF PROPOSALS 1958

Customs Tariff Amendment (No. 7); Customs Tariff Amendment (No. 8); Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Amendment (No. 4); Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Amendment (No. 2)

In Committee of Ways and Means:

Mr OSBORNE:
Minister for Air · Evans · LP

).- I move- [Customs Tariff Amendment (No. 7).]

  1. That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff 1933-1958, as proposed to be amended by Customs Tariff Proposals, be further amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that on and after the second day of October, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, at nine o’clock in the forenoon, reckoned according to standard time in the Australian Capital Territory, Duties of Customs be collected in pursuance of the Customs Tariff 1933-1958 as so amended.
  2. That in these Proposals, “ Customs Tariff Proposals “ mean the Customs Tariff Proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on the following dates, namely: - 14th August, 1958; and 11th September, 1958.

[Customs Tariff Amendment (No. 8).]

  1. That, in these Proposals, “ the Customs Tariff” mean the Customs Tariff 1933-1958, as proposed to be amended by Customs Tariff Proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on the fourteenth day of August, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, and on the eleventh day of September, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight.

  2. That, on and after the second day of October, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, the rates of duty set out in the Schedule to the Customs Tariff in the column headed “ British Preferential Tariff “, apply to such goods -

    1. which are the produce or manufacture of Australia;
    2. which, having been exported from Australia, are imported into Australia;
    3. .the character of which has not been altered during the interval between exportation and importation ; and
    4. to which sub-item (a) of item 401 in the Schedule does not apply, as are approved in writing by the Minister of State for the time being administering the Customs Tariff, or that Act as amended from time to time, or the Minister of State for the time being acting for or on behalf of that Minister.
  3. That section eight of the Customs Tariff be amended by inserting in sub-section (2.), after the word “ goods “ (first occurring), the words “ the produce or manufacture of the United Kingdom “.
  4. That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff be amended by inserting in sub-item (a) of item 401, after the word “ produce “, the words “ or manufacture “.
  5. That the amendments to the Customs Tariff referred to in paragraphs 3 and 4 of these Proposals have effect on and after the second day of October, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight. [Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Amendment (No. 4).]
That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1958, as proposed to be amended by Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on the eleventh day of September, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, be further amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that on and after the second day of October, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, at nine o'clock in the forenoon, reckoned according to standard time in the Australian Capital Territory, Duties of Customs be collected in pursuance of the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1958 as so amended. [Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Amendment (No. 2).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) 1936-1958 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that on and after the second day of October, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight, at nine o'clock in the forenoon, reckoned according to standard time in the Australian Capital Territory, Duties of Customs be collected in pursuance of the Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) 1936-1958 as so amended. **Mr. Chairman,** the Customs Tariff Proposals which I have just introduced propose to amend the schedules to the Customs Tariff 1933-1958, to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1958 and to the Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) 1936-1958. The new provisions will come into operation at 9 o'clock to-morrow morning. In the main, the alterations are based on recommendations made by the Tariff Board in its reports on fresh vegetables, on cotton sheeting and on thioglycollic acid and its salts. I shall at a later hour table the relevant reports of the board. A sliding-scale duty is proposed on fresh frozen peas and beans. Duty will be imposed only when the free on board price is below ls. 10 1/2d. per lb. and the amount of duty payable will increase as the price of the vegetables decreases below that figure. Another amendment proposed relates to cotton sheeting of the type ordinarily used in the manufacture of bed sheets and pillow cases. The Tariff Board has recommended increased rates of duty on plain or matt woven sheeting and on twill sheeting. However in the case of bleached twill sheeting, the board has further recommended that by-law admission be approved provided the quantities imported do not reach 4,000,000 square yards in a year. Before the board's findings on cotton sheeting can be implemented in full, it will be necessary for Australia to negotiate with certain overseas countries. However, it has been possible to give effect in the main to the Tariff Board's findings. On thioglycollic acid and its salts, the Tariff Board has recommended protective duties of 10 per cent. British Preferential Tariff and 22) per cent, otherwise. The board has pointed out that the local industry is worthy of assistance and that the new duties, if adopted, should have little effect on prices to the consumer. Honorable members may recall that on 17th October, last, I tabled in this chamber Tariff Proposals relating to duties on natural and synthetic rubber and rubber latex. I stated at the time that the Tariff Board had recommended a greater reduction in the rates of duty on these goods than was actually adopted by the Government. The Government feels that the full reduction can now be made and the duties on rubber and rubber latex, whether natural or synthetic, are being reduced from 4d. to 2d. per lb. regardless of the origin of the goods. A by-law item is also proposed so as to permit duty free entry of rubber and rubber latex subject to satisfactory arrangements being made for the disposal of the PapuaNew Guinea rubber crop. In effect, so long as the Papua-New Guinea rubber crop continues to be absorbed by the Australian market, rubber from any source will be admitted duty free. The amendment proposed in respect of compounded rubber and compounded rubber latex fixes the rates on these products at id. per lb. higher than those applicable to raw rubber and rubber latex. The new duties are2½d. per lb. under the substantive tariff item and id. per lb. when the goods are admissible at by-law rates. The action now being taken in respect of rubber is in accordance with the terms of the recent trade agreement between Australia and the Federation of Malaya. The remaining amendments proposed by Customs Tariff Proposals No. 7 are made primarily for administrative reasons. It is proposed to reduce the Intermediate Tariff and General Tariff rates, on smaller capacity cream separators from12½ per cent. to 7½ per cent. ad valorem, which is the rate now applicable to centrifugal separators as used in the clarifying of oils, varnish and other liquids. This action will simplify the tariff structure. Another administrative amendment provides by-law items enabling the Minister to approve admission at by-law rates of duty of certain drugs and chemicals which are imported packed for retail sale. These items would be applied to certain medical preparations which are of a type not commercially packed or manufactured in this country. Customs -Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals No. 4 is complementary to Customs Tariff Proposals No. 7 and provides for the admission of fresh frozen peas and fresh frozen beans which are the produce of New Zealand at the same rates as are proposed under the British Preferential Tariff. Customs Tariff Proposals No. 8 applies the British Preferential Tariff rates to goods of Australian origin which are exported and returned to this country. Generally, returned Australian goods which comply with certain prescribed conditions are admissible free of duty under Item 401 (a). In the few instances when the goods do not qualify for admission under Item 401 (a), they are at present dutiable under the appropriate items of the Customs Tariff at General Tariff rates of duty. It is considered anomalous that returned Australianmade goods should be subject to duty at rates higher than those determined for goods qualifying for admission under the British Preferential Tariff, and this proposed amendment corrects the anomaly. T wo amendments are proposed in Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference). Proposals No. 2. First, the rate of duty on rubber and rubber latex is reduced from 2d. per lb. to free. This action is complementary to the tariff change being made in Customs Tariff Proposals No. 7. The second alteration will permit entry free of duty of veneers manufactured in the Territory of Papua and' New Guinea and is in accordance with the recommendation of the Tariff Board in its report on timber, which was tabled in this chamber on 14th May last. I commend the proposals to honorable members. Progress reported. {: .page-start } page 1839 {:#debate-41} ### TARIFF BOARD Reports on Items. {: #debate-41-s0 .speaker-KMD} ##### Mr OSBORNE:
LP -- I lay on the table reports of the Tariff Board on the following subjects: - >Cotton piece goods (sheeting, &c). > >Electric filament lamps. > >Thioglycollic acid and its salts. > >Vegetables of the type classifiable under Tariff Item 102. Ordered to be printed. {: .page-start } page 1839 {:#debate-42} ### CUSTOMSTARIFF VALIDATION BILL 1958 Motion (by **Mr. Osborne)** - by leave - agreed to - >That leave be given to bring in a bill for an act to provide for the Validation of Collections of Duties of Customs under Customs Tariff Proposals. Bill presented, and read a first time. {:#subdebate-42-0} #### Second Reading {: #subdebate-42-0-s0 .speaker-KMD} ##### Mr OSBORNE:
Minister for Air · Evans · LP -- by leave - I move - >That the bill be now read a second time: **Mr. Deputy Speaker,** the purpose of this bill is to validate until 30th June, 1959, the collection of customs duties made in pursuance of Customs Tariff Proposals, some of which were tabled in this House on 14th August last, some on 11th September, and the remainder earlier to-day. The proposed tariff variations as set out in the various tariff proposals covered by this bill are in the main based on recommendations emerging from Tariff Board inquiries. Thisbill, as honorable members will appreciate, is purely a machinery measure. Unless tariff alterations are enacted or validated within six months of their introduction into the Parliament, or before the end of the parliamentary session, whichever happens first, such alterations would be open to legal challenge. The bill merely safeguards the position until 30th June, 1959. I commend it to the House. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1840 {:#debate-43} ### QUESTION {:#subdebate-43-0} #### PRINTING COMMITTEE {: #subdebate-43-0-s0 .speaker-LLW} ##### Mr DEAN:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES -- As chairman, I present the third report of the Printing Committee. Report read by the Clerk. **Mr. DEAN** (Robertson). - by leave - I move - That the report be adopted. The Printing Committee of this House sat in conference with the Printing Committee of the Senate, and the Joint Printing Committee decided early in the year to make an investigation of the various sizes used for the printing of parliamentary papers and official reports. The committee sought the views of **Mr. A.** J. Arthur, Commonwealth Government Printer, **Mr. W.** G. Murray, Assistant Government Printer (Letterpress), **Mr. C.** L. S. Hewitt, First Assistant Secretary, Budget and Accounting Branch, Department of the Treasury, the honorable member for Warringah **(Mr. Bland),** who is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and **Mr. R.** C. Davey, secretary of the Public Accounts* Committee. The relative merits of the five standard sizes from foolscap folio to royal octavo, have been discussed at length by the committee, and the further the investigation progressed the more evident became the need for a thorough investigation of the problems involved. That is a very short summary, **Sir, of** the work done by the committee during the year. It included, among other things, a visit to the Government Printing Office, and the formation of several sub-committees, which interviewed the Government Printer on occasions other than those that I have justmentioned. The committee has reached general agreement on the need for standardization of parliamentary papers and official reports, and recommends that in the new Parliament an investigation should be made as to what size or sizes should be adopted. Question resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 1840 {:#debate-44} ### DAIRY PRODUCE RESEARCH AND SALES PROMOTION BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-44-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed (vide page 1834). {: #subdebate-44-0-s0 .speaker-JOE} ##### Mr JEFF BATE:
Macarthur **.- Mr. Deputy Speaker,** those honorable members who represent dairying constituencies are a little more pleased than was the honorable member for Lalor **(Mr. Pollard)** at the Government's announcement that the prices paid to dairy-farmers for butter and cheese will be increased. The circumstances leading to this increase were that last year, although the cost of production, as worked out by a body called the Dairy Industry Investigation Committee, taking into account all other rising costs, was found to be 51d. per lb., or something of that order, the averaging of the low export returns and that figure resulted in the farmer receiving a return of 44d., or 86 per cent. of the found cost of production. In July, at the beginning of the current financial year, the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Equalization Committee Limited, as the honorable member for Lalor has pointed out, adopted the rate of 37d. - a rate much lower than the one that it had adopted in the previous financial year. It is well known, **Sir, to** all of us who have anything to do with dairying, and to the honorable member for Lalor, that the unit of time taken - one year - creates a most embarrassing situation at the beginning of a new financial year, because the equalization committee has to be most conservative. I think the honorable member for Lalor will agree that it is becoming apparent that some mechanism ought to be found to avoid such a serious drop. Just as the labourer is worthy of his hire, so the farmer is worthy of the money he receives, and it ought to be fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. At the beginning of last year, the farmers received a price of about 41d. At the end of three months, it was found possible to increase that price. This year, because of the competition which was referred to quite accurately by the honorable member for Lalor, the interim price was 37d. Immediately after that was fixed, the price in London rose, due to action which was taken by the United Kingdom Government, particularly in the interests of New Zealand, and which will have a pretty permanent effect. The price in England rose by 3d. per lb. On 30th September it was discovered that production in Australia will not be as high as 220,000 tons, or 16,000 tons above the record production, as was forecast by the equalization committee. There are not as many cows, the season started indifferently, and even where there has been good rain and there is good feed, production is not as high as was expected. After the first three months of the financial year, it is now thought that production will be only 200.000 tons, so that not so much will have to be exported at the low price. We have therefore decided that the farmer should benefit from the confidence we feel by receiving immediately a price of 40d., which is still 4d. below last year's price. It was thought that he ought to be protected against the rise and fall. Eventually he will probably receive a little more. The yield ought to be about 4 Id. I think the honorable member for Lalor, in his calmer moments, would agree with that contention, although he began to express a little irritation because we had thought of it first and had taken action. In a critical vein, he said, " They have increased the price by 3d.". He was trying to engender a little heat into the debate, but he could not, and I am glad of that. I am sorry that he later used these words, " The industry is in a critical and chronic state and has been treated disgracefully ". I do not think that that comment is deserved. As a matter of fact, everybody in Parliament and everywhere else has been saying that we have been fortunate in that we have been having a good time in Australia. It could not last. It had to finish; and it has finished now. The price in London fell at the beginning of this financial year from over 400s. per cwt. to 205s. per cwt. Now it has recovered slightly to 234s. We are face to face with a butter crisis, not only in Australia but throughout the world. Everybody has stressed the importance of this industry; there is no need to labour that aspect. We know that it has an enormous purchasing power. The people who depend on it number 600,000. An amount of £700,000,000 is invested in it, plus £50,000,000 in the factories. It is one of the most important industries in Australia, and therefore it becomes most important politically. One cannot ignore a part of the social fabric in which such a great number of families are involved. It is an industry in which there is a great number of modest land holders - a condition which I have always understood to be most desirable in any community. They are men who do their own work in healthy and magnificent places in which to raise young Australians. Statistics show that two-thirds of the natural increase in our population come from the country area, and one-third from the cities. The country area accepts double its responsibility for peopling the country, and the cities accept half of their responsibility. Half of the people of Australia are in the cities, but two-thirds of the future reservoir of people come from the country. They are magnificent, well-nourished, healthy young people raised on small or modest pieces of land. All the philosophers who have contemplated a society have said that the small or modest land holder is one of the best members of the community. As the honorable member for Robertson **(Mr. Dean)** so aptly says, the yeomanry of England has given England and British democracy that rugged independence which is so important. They are men who are devoted to their country, who are sane and capable of keeping the same government that we enjoy in a British democracy. I think that the modest land holder makes a greater contribution to the political stability of a country than does any other group of people. A second important point is that the labour component of the price that is being given for butter is high. It is nearly 50 per cent., and sometimes it is just over 50 per cent. If the trade unionists quite rightly go to the arbitration court and demand a wage of £13 or £14 a week, with an average wage of £20 a week, it is not too much to ask that the dairy-farmer also should get a reasonable price. What we have done is to ensure to the dairy-farmer that the price, now set at 37d., will reach 40d., which will at least give him confidence and heart to go on. He has to continue in a crucial atmosphere, but not a " chronic " atmosphere. That word, which was used by the honorable member for Lalor, is not accurate, because the industry has been prosperous for the last few months. This is a period in which some quick steps have had to be taken, and they have been taken. The Government has taken them at the correct moment in bringing forward this bill for sales promotion and research in the dairying industry. Some people criticize very vigorous research by saying that there will be overproduction. I put it to the House that production will be not greater, but more efficient. If we can grow more grass on the same area with the aid of irrigation and the research of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and particularly of the phytotron, the carrying capacity of many farms will be doubled. When that is achieved, the farmers will have the ability to diversify. They can go over to beef production. The honorable member for Eden-Monaro **(Mr. Allan Fraser)** will probably recollect from driving along the Bega valley that in that area are quite a number of beef herds. The larger properties are able to swing over to beef very quickly. Those men who do some dealing can buy beef stock instead of dairy stock. So, almost immediately there can be a swing-over if we are forced to export butter at the price which we are now realizing in London. Nobody on this side of the House, I hope - certainly not I - will say that we are over-producing, but it would be wrong at this stage for any enthusiastic State to push on with closer settlement which involved a large number of dairy farms. I can quite understand the dilemma of the Premier of Victoria, who believes that his State is a great dairying State and finds that settlement on dairy farms at £20,000 a unit is cheaper than settlement on other types of farms which are capitalized at about *£.30,000.* The dairy-farmers, and all other intelligent people in Victoria, are impressing on the Premier that if he increases the number of dairy-farmers, he will endanger the future not only of the men he settles, but also of all other dairy-farmers in Australia, While we are speaking of Victoria, let me say it is quite wrong to think that, because a State is favoured, as Victoria is favoured, in climate and soil, it should be the only dairying State. The industry throughout Australia has a tremendous task. First, there is the duty of providing whole milk for citizens, and particularly for young people, including that which is supplied under the free milk scheme which operates through the bounty of this Government. One could not contemplate conveying milk from Victoria to Western Australia or northern Queensland. There has to be a dairying industry in position at all the great consuming points to provide whole milk. I think that 20 per cent, of the total production goes into whole milk. Anxiety is felt because of a new departure called filled milk, which, I understand, is made from dried milk or skim milk powder, with the addition of some vegetable oils. This has become quite a competitor with whole milk, but only in such countries as the Philippines and India, where people are short of food and where there is no dairying industry. Athletes from those countries who came to the Olympic village in Victoria drank huge quantities of whole milk whenever they could get it. We have had word from London that people who have taken one mouthful of filled milk will not touch it again if they can get whole milk, because whole milk is so much superior. {: .speaker-K6X} ##### Mr Coutts: -- What is whole milk? {: .speaker-JOE} ##### Mr JEFF BATE: -- It is fresh or pasteurized milk, as delivered in the ordinary way to people in suburban areas. I refer to the whole milk trade as opposed to manufactured products like cheese, butter and ice cream. Whole milk and the rest of the products of the dairying industry have contributed in no small way to the vigour and stamina of this community, and all of us are proud that our athletes have done so well because they are well nourished and have had the advantage of the nutritious products of the dairying industry. I happen to be secretary of a body known as the Government Members Food and Agricultural Committee. It consists of about 40 members of this Parliament of whom nineteen meet regularly to examine conditions in the rural industries. We have given close attention to the crisis in which the dairying industry finds itself through no fault of its own. At the request of the honorable member for Barker **(Mr. Forbes)** who is an enthusiastic member of the committee, I shall read some of the proposals put to us which are concurrent with, and parallel to, those laid down by the Minister in his speech, and which are quite exciting for people interested in the research side of the industry. These things are important now, although they have not been important up to the last few months, because up till then we were selling our products freely. The time of crisis had not arrived. We had not had to face the barrier as we have *to* now. At a conference between members of the committee and representatives of the dairying industry, **Mr. Eric** Roberts, president of the Australian Dairy Farmers Federation, put four points which the committee adopted. They were - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Action by the States to review land development policies which would enable new settlers to go in for fat lambs, wool or beef rather than dairying. 1. Action through the Australian Agricultural Council to effectively control the sale of margarine in competition with butter. 2. No reduction, at least, in the dairy industry subsidy until the financial position of dairy farmers improves. That subsidy amounts to £13,500,000 this year, no small contribution by the Government, and very much greater than came from the government in which the honorable member for Lalor was Minister for Commerce and Agriculture. The cash costs of butter, which are about ls. 3d. per lb., are paid in half by the Government, which contributes *Hd.* per lb. computed on last year's figures. The fourth point put by **Mr. Roberts** was - {: type="1" start="4"} 0. Industry action to develop new and better dairy products, and a national dairy products sales promotion campaign. There is, of course, the intention to conduct research into the industry. It is quite obvious that the people who market margarine have been intensely advertising their product, and have been able to increase consumption very substantially. Against that, there has been little advertising of butter and dairy products except in Victoria. In other words, the substitute for butter is being advertised, and I think the margarine people have gone pretty close to the point of infringing the ethics of advertising, because usually the substitute is pictured as coming from Jersey cows feeding on very good pastures as if to say to people, " Here you are getting something that is a product of the dairying industry ". As a general rule, however, only a very small part of the product derives from the dairying industry, Most of it conies from vegetable oil and animal fats. So I think that that kind of advertising is very unfair. However, that fact does not take away from the dairying industry its responsibility to advertise its product. I am glad to see that this bill authorizes the imposition on all butter and cheese manufactured in Australia of a statutory levy of a maximum of Ad. per lb. on butter and &d. per lb. on cheese to finance the promotion of sales of these great natural foods and of any other dairy products coming within the purview of the proposal. This may not have been important earlier because we had not run up against the problems we have met in the last few months due to the great fall in the demand for our products on the London market. We now realize, as we have been told so many times before, that the home market is the valuable market - the market where people are sure to buy at least 1 10,000 tons of butter a year, and a market that ought to be increased. The New Zealand Government has always tried to encourage butter consumption by paying a very heavy subsidy. The price of butter there has been 2s. 6d. per lb. and consumption has been 42 lb. a head. During the war, butter rationing brought Australian consumption of butter down to 24 lb. per head. When the present beneficent Government lifted rationing as soon as it took office in 1950, consumption rose to 32 lb. per head. It is now down, however, to 26 lb. per head. Probably our community is ageing, and older people do not require butter so much as young people do. The consumption of margarine is, I think, about 8.4 lb. per head. The money raised under the legislation, and the committee to administer the promotion and research scheme proposed in the measure, will be used to make certain that people are aware of the value of that great natural food, butter, and its importance in the diet. It will also help to do away with some of the silly notions going around that butter is harmful. After all, the countries which are the greatest consumers of butter are the countries with the healthiest populations. Germany and Denmark both found during the last war that national morale was most terribly damaged as a result of an insufficiency of fats in the diet of the population. As a matter of fact, that insufficiency of fats may have been an important cause of the collapse of Germany. A deficiency of butter in the diet, the Germans found, caused night blindness and bad eyesight generally, but the most important effect was the drop in the morale of the people. Now those countries are trying to reap the benefit of the lesson they learned during the war. Consumption of butter in West Germany is 18 lb. per head and of margarine 28 lb. per head. Consumption of fats in Denmark is 60 lb. per head. Those two countries, which learned of the dangers inherent in a reduced consumption of fats, increased their fat consumption immediately they were able to do so. For our people to be vigorous and healthy there must be a high consumption of fats. We are very pleased, indeed, with the proposals in the bill for a promotion and research scheme for the dairying industry. There is no need for me to deal at length with the Minister's speech. The plan covers work in four main directions. As stated by the Minister, these are - >A research programme, providing a continuing study of the efforts to get better markets and of consumer buying habits and product improvement. We notice that in Canberra butter is called a " loss leader " in the shops. Some Canberra shops are charging 3s. Hid. per lb. for butter in order to entice the housewife to come into the shop in the hope that she will buy other articles while she is there buying her butter. So butter is a most important part of even the sales programme of retail stores. The second feature mentioned by the Minister was - >A public relations programme using magazines, articles, and television and providing material to sections of the community able to influence others on the wisdom, economy and pleasure afforded by dairy foods in the diet. **Mr. Coombs,** the Queensland manager of Butter Board Proprietary Limited, has a school which teaches women how to use butter in cooking. That school is tremendously popular, and is, I believe, playing a big part in sales promotion. The fourth point in the plan mentioned by the Minister is - >An advertising programme to give inducement to the public to take action to buy the products of the industry as supplied to the retailer, and finally a merchandising programme to get greater buying and selling action where the product is sold. The honorable member for Lalor says that even if we consumed only five more pounds of butter per head per year that would take up the slack. That would be a magnificent result. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- It would not take up all the slack. {: .speaker-JOE} ##### Mr JEFF BATE: -- It would take up enough of the slack to get us out of trouble. Once a surplus was built up through the industry, should a dry season hit us, we would be able to provide sufficient butter for the whole community without having to import any. The whole industry is happy with what the Government has done, as announced by the Minister to-day. It has a feeling that this proposal will provide something solid and substantial. Once again on behalf of the Government members' food and agriculture committee, I give an assurance that we will do everything possible to assist the industry to get on a sound basis. Undoubtedly, a call for greater production will come with the expansion of population. It was the Government's intention to provide £7,000,000 for this purpose through the proposed Development Bank. but. unfortunately, the legislation to establish that bank was blocked by the Opposition in the Senate. However, after 30th June next year, when the Government regains control of the Senate, that plan will be put into operation. But before then there will be a tremendous amount of discussion with the industry so that we can bring in these new diversifications which will be in keeping with the dairy production that we want so much and which is so important to this community. {: #subdebate-44-0-s1 .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
Monaro · EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- The Australian dairy-farmers have served this country very well both in peace and in war. They have added to the health of the community and greatly added to its economic strength. But except for the period in which the honorable member for Lalor **(Mr. Pollard)** was Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, the dairy-farmers have never received justice from the Australian community. That is due, very *largely,* to the fact that, traditionally, they have given their political loyalty to the nonLabour parties. In Victoria they have supported the Country party, and in New South Wales, chiefly the Liberal party. Although those parties have accepted the support of the dairy-farmers, never, at any time, have any of them taken any practical step to improve the position of the dairying industry. The result has been that whilst all other sections of the Australian community had their standards advanced, the dairy-farmers remained completely unprotected and unassisted. In their industry they had to work seven days a week; wife and child labour was essential in order to make ends meet and, unfortunately, according to the oftquoted statement of the former member for Richmond, practically none of them had a taxable income equal to the basic wage of those days. I think the figures quoted by the former honorable member for Richmond showed that in the year 1938, of 12.000 dairy-farmers in Queensland, fewer than 100 had a taxable income of £250 a year. It was not until the advent of the Federal Labour government in which the honorable member for Lalor was Minister for Commerce and Agricultrue, that the dairying industry, for the first time, began to get justice and a fair deal from the Australian community. {: .speaker-JRJ} ##### Mr Bowden: -- **Mr. Scully** was the first Labour Minister for Commerce and Agriculture. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- I thank the honorable member for that correction. The honorable member for Lalor was preceded in that office by the former honorable member for Gwydir. The Labour government applied to the dairying industry the same concepts of justice for which, as a political organization, it had striven over the years for those who were its own particular supporters. So, the dairying industry obtained its own arbitration system and an improvement in conditions so remarkable that for the first time dairy-farmers, in common with all other sections of the Australian community, were guaranteed that they would receive at least the cost of their work and effort in the production of the butter and cheese so urgently required both by this nation and by our allies in the war at that time. It is quite true that there were minor and, as it now seems in retrospect, quite quibbling objections raised concerning the amount of the guarantee price for the farmer, whether it should have been 2s. or 2s. 0 1/2d. and as to the amount of the managerial allowance in the calculation of the cost of production on a farm. There might have been some merit in the contentions of that kind advanced, but the fact is that, compared with a period of complete injustice extending over many years in which the industry was so depressed that those dependent upon it had only a bare existence, well below the Australian standard of living, it received for the first time at least a substantial measure of justice and, in general terms, the costs of production were guaranteed. That happy state of affairs continued until the ill-starred return in 1949 of the MenziesFadden Government, which destroyed the basis of the scheme of protection established for the industry by the Curtin and Chifley Labour governments. That came about in 1952 with the restriction of the export price guarantees to a quantity of dairy produce equal to only 20 per cent, of the sales upon the home market. From that day onwards, although the dairying industry may have enjoyed a period of prosperity and reasonably good prices, it has never had a secure basis of justice. The Government of that day took away from it the great prop which had formerly been given to it by the Labour government. From that time onwards the dairying industry was once again separated from the organized Australian working community in that it, and it alone in the organized working community of Australia, was denied the assurance of an Australian standard of living and of a return equal to the work and effort involved in its production. {: .speaker-JXI} ##### Mr Freeth: -- That government had a price guaranteed to it in its overseas trade department. The export of butter was on a government-to-government basis. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- The honorable member is quite entitled to make that observation, but I do not think it takes away from the validity of the point that I made. The Labour government gave the dairyfarmer a guaranteed cost of production as fixed by an impartial tribunal, and that was maintained as the basis of protection of the industry until 1952. I thought the honorable member for Macarthur **(Mr. Jeff Bate)** was quite fair and reasonable in his explanation of the factors governing the increase of 3d. per lb. in the interim payment for butter, which was announced today. But the position as stated by the honorable member for Macarthur is quite different from the impression given in .the publicity accorded to the governmental decision. It indicated quite clearly that this represented an additional 3d. per lb. for the producers of butter, whereas, of course, as the honorable member for Lalor pointed out, and as the honorable member for Macarthur clearly recognizes, it means nothing of the sort. It does not mean an extra farthing a pound for the producer of butter; all that it means is that he will get an extra 3d. per lb. a little earlier than he otherwise would have got it. But no difference whatever is likely to be made to the final price that he receives. {: .speaker-BU4} ##### Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975 -- As the world price goes down or consumption drops, the price could be affected. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- In that, I would say, remote contingency- {: .speaker-BU4} ##### Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975 -- It is not remote. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- It is a matter of opinion. I think this price is fixed conservatively and with a general recognition that it will be no less than the final price able to be paid for the season. {: .speaker-BU4} ##### Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975 -- Three shillings and one penny is the .conservative price. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Is this a reckless one or an unfair one? {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- No, they will get more than that. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Exactly, as the right honorable member for Cowper says, it will be more, and you will have to accept that position. {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- It does it every year; it has been doing it for 30 or 40 years. {: #subdebate-44-0-s2 .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Timson:
HIGINBOTHAM, VICTORIA -- Order! The honorable member should direct his remarks to the Chair. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- As the right honorable member for Cowper said, this is -nothing new. All that is happening is that it is being paid a little earlier than previously. To make political capital out of it, or to deceive the farmer into believing that he is now by this means receiving a real increase in the price he would otherwise receive for his product, is' entirely wrong. One of the most important ways in which the Government could help the dairying industry, and in which I am sure the government elected after 22nd November will assist it, is by providing higher purchasing power for the families of Australia. The decline in the per capita consumption of butter must surely be due in some way to the fact that child endowment has in effect been halved in Australia during the last nine years. As there has been no increase whatever in the rate of child endowment of 10s. for the second and subsequent children fixed in 1948 and the rate of 5s. for the first child fixed in 1950-51, the value of child endowment payments received by mothers has been effectively halved. When the mother who wishes to buy butter and dairy products for her young family finds that the amount she specially receives to assist her in that task is halved, obviously she is required to cut correspondingly the amount of money that she spends on dairy products. So, by the betrayal of the promise to maintain the value of child endowment, a great injury has been done not only to the families of Australia, but also to the dairying industry. Considerable help will be given to the industry when the child endowment payments are restored to their former purchasing power. The honorable member for Lalor has pointed out that an increase of 1 lb. a year in the consumption of butter would absorb an additional 5,000 tons. We can be perfectly sure that if the mothers of this country had the means in their hands to buy more butter for their families, they would not let their children go short of butter and would not buy cheap and inferior substitutes as they are frequently required to do to-day. It is a great reproach to the members of the Australian Country party particularly that, even in the interests of the dairying industry, they have not fought to maintain the purchasing power of their most important customers within the nation. I do not think I have heard the voice of one of them raised in that behalf in all the years that I have been a member of the Parliament. {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- We gave a subsidy of fi 8,000,000 to the industry. That helped to keep the price down. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- A subsidy of £18,000,000 to what? {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- To butter. That kept the price down about ls. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- The right honorable member for Cowper points out that the present Government gave a subsidy of £18,000,000 a year. {: .speaker-JRJ} ##### Mr Bowden: -- In one year. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- In one particular year. This system of subsidies, of course, was not established by the present Government. {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- It was established after a tremendous fight by me. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- I am sure that the right honorable member for Cowper would agree that it was established by the preceding Labour government. {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir Earle Page: -- After **Mr. Anthony** and I raised the whole matter in the House. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Nothing of the kind has ever been done by the right honorable gentleman in all the years from 1923 to 1929 when he was a partner in the BrucePage Government, in all the years of the depression when he was a most powerful figure in the Commonwealth Government, or in his term of office right up to the election of the Curtin Government. So, although he may claim that he was influential in forcing the Labour government to do it, his comrades will find it difficult to believe him when in all the years he was in office he did nothing to bring it about. The fact is that the subsidy system, for which the right honorable member for Cowper claims credit for the present Government, was established by the Labour government. The fact is, also that the subsidy provided by the Labour government for the dairying industry was far greater than the subsidy now being provided by this Government. I think the rate of subsidy to-day is about £13,000,000 or £14,000,000- it is about 7id. per lb. anyhow - whereas the subsidy provided by the Labour government was up to ls. per lb. {: .speaker-JRJ} ##### Mr Bowden: -- Sixpence, thank you! {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- Up to ls. per lb. {: .speaker-JRJ} ##### Mr Bowden: -- Sixpence! {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- A shilling in those days was worth at least 2s. now. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- It was up to £16,000,000 one year. {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- As the honorable member for Lalor said quite rightly, the subsidy provided by our government reached a total of £16,000,000 in one year, which would he more than £30,000,000 to-day. So, even if we count it in terms of subsidy, the present Government, far from helping the dairying industry, ha3 reduced very considerably the amount of assistance formerly available to it. {: .speaker-JRJ} ##### Mr Bowden: -- Would you admit, too, that in those days there was a war and there was no possibility of the industry exporting all the butter it had available? {: .speaker-JWU} ##### Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- I think the point made by the honorable member for Gippsland is a very reasonable one, but the assistance given by the Labour government continued long after the war. It continued until the Labour government was defeated at the end of 1949 and, if the Labour government had not then been defeated, the assistance would have continued throughout the subsequent years. Indeed, the undertaking to provide that assistance was a feature of Labour policy speeches in recent elections. The other way, of course, in which the dairying industry will eventually receive considerable assistance is by the pursuance of an active immigration policy. The figures supplied to me indicate that, even on the present restricted basis of butter purchase, every increase of 1,000,000 in the Australian population means an increase of 13,500 tons of butter consumed on the home market - and, obviously, the home market is by far the best market for the dairy-farmer, for the simple reason that the application of Labour policies over the years **Ms given** a guaranteed standard of living and a guaranteed income to the body of workers who constitute the overwhelming proportion of Australian purchasers of butter. Justice requires that the dairying industry should again be placed on an equal footing with all other industries in this country. To me it is a most extraordinary thing that workers and those in executive positions alike - it is not confined to any one section of the community - while prepared to fight and work most positively for a guaranteed living standard for all other sections of the community, accept no such responsibility in respect of the dairying industry. Instead, they appear to feel that butter is a commodity that ought to be supplied cheaply, even under sweated labour conditions, so as to -enable the cost of living of city workers to be kept down. This, of course, is completely unfair and unreasonable. The position of the dairying industry will not be safeguarded until the Australian people as a whole realize that it is essential to Australia's well-being, and that it must enjoy conditions comparable with those available to all other industries. While the dairying industry faces its present severe crisis, much greater assistance than that which is being given by the present Government is justified. There is an obligation upon the Government to give increased assistance to the industry, and it is failing in its task and iri its duty in not giving the required measure of assistance. The present bill, while a useful measure, does not involve the Government in any heavy financial commitment. The need for a sales promotion campaign for butter and cheese is recognized by everybody. The need for research into the problems of the dairying industry is also a ground for common agreement. The attractive and misleading advertising engaged in by the margarine industry must have been substantially responsible for inducing people to switch who found the price of butter difficult to meet. This is the time when it is important that the dairying industry should recognize the need to make a determined fight to regain a higher proportion of the home market and to institute a concerted publicity and advertising campaign. {: #subdebate-44-0-s3 .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN:
Fisher .- Having listened to the two speeches made on behalf of the Opposition, it is evident that there is nothing for me to answer. I do, however, wish to refer to one statement made by the honorable member for Lalor **(Mr. Pollard),** who said that in one year Labour paid subsidies to the extent of £16,000,000. In order to refresh the honorable member's memory, I shall cite the amounts of subsidy paid by Labour in the various years. The figures are as follows: - {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- I stand corrected, but the amount of subsidy reached lid. per lb. {: .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN: -- In that regard, let me quote some remarks of the honorable member for Lalor made on 27th October, 1949, and reported at page 2188 of volume 205 of " Hansard ". These remarks refer to the year 1948-49. The honorable member said - >Without the subsidy, those prices would necessarily have been higher by 6d. per lb. for butter and 3d. per lb. for cheese. Labour is making a new approach if it suggests that the Labour government paid ls. per lb. subsidy when the average price for butter was 2s. 4id. per lb., and the export price was, in most cases, higher than the guaranteed price. I believe that Opposition supporters should reconsider their position in regard to this matter. Let me also remind the House that the quantity guaranteed by Labour, in almost every year, did not exceed the 20 per cent, that we now guarantee in excess of home consumption. I want to emphasize that point particularly. Let me also tell the House that at that time, because of food shortages, Great Britain was prepared to contract on a governmenttogovernment basis. I repeat also that export prices were at times higher than the guaranteed prices, and the growers did not receive the excess, except in the sense that it went into a stabilization trust fund. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- That is right - with their consent and at their request. {: #subdebate-44-0-s4 .speaker-KZW} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lawrence: -- Order! The honorable member for Lalor will cease interjecting. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- We are merely helping one another, **Mr. Deputy Speaker.** {: #subdebate-44-0-s5 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: -- I do not think the honorable member for Fisher needs any help. {: .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN: -- The procedure under the present Government is entirely different. Three years ago the Government, on the basis of calculated risk, decided that there was an excess of £2,000,000, and we let the growers have it. The honorable member for Lalor, when he was Minister for Commerce, did not do this. The guaranteed price under the Labour government was computed according to a much lower standard. For instance, in arriving at the cost of production of butter the managerial allowance was set at only 25s. a week above the basic wage. Very low interest rates were allowed on capital investment. Other concessions that have since been given by this Government were not included when the calculation was being made in the time of the Labour government. The approach made to the problem by the honorable member for Lalor, when he was Minister, is one that I cannot accept. The honorable member said, " It is undeniable that if the remuneration of the dairy farmer becomes too great, it may have a tendency to depress rather than increase production ". He said also, " If a dairy farmer can obtain a sufficient income by milking 40 cows, why should he milk 50?" He went on in that strain. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- Are you quoting the whole of that " Hansard " extract? Did I not say that somebody else had made those remarks? Come on - come clean! {: .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN: -- No, that is the honorable member's own comment. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- I said that somebody else had said it. {: .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN: -- I repeat that the Minister said, " It is undeniable ", and he then went on with the statements I have already quoted. In those statements he admitted in effect, that there was no incentive to production on the part of the dairyfarmers because of the high rates of taxation imposed by his Government. That was one of the features of his remarks at that time. I cannot accept the honorable member's logic. I submit that if a diary-farmer gets a good remuneration he spends it and so improves his property and helps the industry to better itself. The honorable member for Eden Monaro **(Mr. Allan Fraser)** stated that the standards enjoyed by dairy-farmers to-day would not enable them to purchase butter for themselves. The answer I give to the honorable member is that the standard to-day is far better than it was under a Labour government with all its excessive taxes and the shortages that existed at that time. Generally, they are happier with the present scheme. 1 am a believer in stabilization. I have proved that by working under co-operative stabilization schemes throughout my life. Irrespective of whence a scheme comes, if it is a co-operative approach and not a socialist or nationalistic one, I am prepared to support it. But the approach of the Labour government gave us a start. We have sought to build on that and to help the dairying industry. The prices we guaranteed gave the producers an incentive to expand. Dairymen have been able to increase production and have had better net returns, but to-day they have reached the stage where, on present world standards, prices are even lower than those paid by the British Government under contract with the Australian Government when Labour was in office. So, if the honorable member for Lalor or the honorable member for Eden-Monaro suggests that - this is a creation of the present Government, they are not making a fair approach to the matter. It is interesting to make a comparison with the attitude that was adopted by the Labour government at that time. A Labour government was in office for half of the first five years of the stabilization legislation that they introduced. The first year, the Labour government did not accept the finding of the Cost Investigation Committee. It accepted a minority report and deprived the dairymen of Hd. per lb. which was their due according to that committee. In the second year, the Labour government, did accept it, and paid that amount accordingly. In the third year, although the Labour government had that finding by May, there was still no satisfaction concerning it on 22nd October, when the honorable member for Lalor, who was then the Minister, stated that he had been unable to get satisfaction from the State governments concerned; the attitude of one of the States was that the dairyman was getting too much money at 2s. 5d. per lb. 1 know that the Minister of that day had difficulty in coming to an arrangement with the State governments in Queensland and New South Wales. They had never had a sympathetic approach to the dairying industry, and they do not have that approach to it now. In fact, in Queensland, we had an act put on the statute-book which provided that unless dairymen were prepared to deliver butter at the prices set by the Labour government, it would confiscate that butter. That is the stand and deliver act that the Government now in office in Queensland has had to delete from the statute-book. I know that the honorable member for Lalor, when he was Minister for Commerce, did have difficulty in finalizing the arrangement, although just how serious he was, I do not know. He had the recommendations in May and did not have the matter finalized by October. That shows that, after all, the Labour government did have doubts about the whole thing, because when it gave a guarantee, the guarantee was for six months instead of twelve months. The honorable member for Lalor at that time made a statement that unless he could .get a satisfactory understanding with the State governments it would be futile to keep the Cost Investigation Committee going. There might have been some merit in it, but there was quite a lot of doubt in the approach of the Labour government to its own scheme half way through the five years for which the stabilization scheme was to operate. {: .speaker-DTN} ##### Dr Evatt: -- Be fair. {: .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN: -- What is wrong with that? My statement is correct, and the Leader of the Opposition knows it. We gave a guarantee during the election campaign that if we became the government, the obligation to the dairymen according to the cost finding of the 1949-50 year would be honoured; and it was honoured within a few days of our election to office. Moreover, we have honoured all the recommendations since. As to the dairying industry and its welfare, it is undeniable that it is facing a critical period because of unpayable overseas prices. So, there are two approaches that we need to make; and we have made them. The first is the short-term, approach in which we need to do something immediately; and it must be disappointing to the Opposition to know that the Government has acted to underwrite payments to the dairymen at present. When speakers on the Opposition side suggest that 3d. per lb. is of no consequence, my reply is that it will be of consequence at a time when it is most needed, and that is in the case of excess production. If there is an excess quantity for export, it might mean that the dairymen will not receive 3s. 4d. That is where the guarantee comes in. It will not be required if production is low. If a lesser quantity is going overseas, obviously dairymen will not only receive the 3s. 4d., but an amount in addition according to realization. I ask for leave to continue my remarks at a later stage. Leave granted; debate adjourned. {: .page-start } page 1850 {:#debate-45} ### CONSTITUTION REVIEW COMMITTEE {:#subdebate-45-0} #### Report {: #subdebate-45-0-s0 .speaker-N76} ##### Mr MENZIES:
Prime Minister · Kooyong · LP -- I lay on the table the following paper: - >Report from the Joint Committee on Constitution Review. and move - > >That the paper be printed. I should like, in the first place, to pay a very warm tribute to the staff who assisted the committee in its work. They were all excellent, as I have heard on all hands, and I think the members of the committee would wish that I should mention particularly the work of the legal secretary, **Mr. Richardson.** I feel, **Sir, that** he was to this committee of no less value and assistance than was the late **Sir Robert** Garran at an earlier stage in the history of this country. This report - which I think is a first report and not necessarily a final report - will endure as a very fine record of the work that has been done. Secondly, I would like to thank my colleagues for the cordial and co-operative attitude at all times displayed by them, drawn as they were from all sides of the Parliament, in respect of a number of very contentious matters. The document that is now presented to the Parliament is not claimed to reach anything like perfection. I have myself not arrived at any individual conclusion about it, but I have been agreeably surprised to realize the extent of agreement that has been reached. That is, of course, very important in all ritters of constitutional change. No doubt there have been compromises, but there has also been a very high degree of unanimity. Perhaps that is a rather dubious expression. I look at the honorable member for Werriwa **(Mr. Whitlam)** and I see that he is saying to himself, " What is a high degree of unanimity? " {: .speaker-DTN} ##### Dr Evatt: -- lt is a contradiction in terms. {: .speaker-N76} ##### Mr MENZIES: -- It is a contradiction in terms, as the Leader of the Opposition **(Dr. Evatt)** says and, therefore, I withdraw and apologize. It is hoped by the committee that its report will receive full consideration. I am sure it will. We of the Government will consider it very closely. I am sure that all honorable members will, and I hope that what the committee has said will receive the widest publicity in Australia. It is not entirely to our credit that, over so many years, we should have devoted so little attention to the chief instrument of government in the country and have voted upon it, when we have been called to do so, in a rather rash fashion. This report represents a very long period of work by a committee drawn from all sides of politics. For myself, I would like to say that I believe the report is of outstanding value. I shall read it with great care and, I hope, with great advantage. I hope, too, that as a result of the investigation that has been made, much good will come to this country and that progressive and positive proposals will emerge in this Parliament. {: #subdebate-45-0-s1 .speaker-DTN} ##### Dr EVATT:
Leader of the Opposition · Barton -- I, also, would like to say a few words. I congratulate the members of the Constitution Review Committee, representing all parties and both Houses, for the constructive job that they have done in their study of the existing Constitution and on their proposals for the improvement of the Constitution. It is really a unique event in parliamentary history that so important a work should be continued over a long period - I think nearly two years. The time taken was certainly not too long. The problems that the committee had to face were extremely difficult. They were problems affecting the people of Australia that had baffled the legal profession and the High Court judiciary. I have had great interest, pleasure and excitement in reading the report. I was not able to take a day-to-day interest in the proceedings of the committee, but my colleagues on the Opposition benches in both Houses have treated this mission that they have carried out as a very important one. The committee has discussed section 92 of the Constitution and the need for further powers, or the qualification of powers, for the protection of the States and the development of new States- All these great questions have become the subject of table discussion and gossip in the precincts of the House. I know what a great job the members of the committee have done. I pay that tribute, not only to Opposition representatives on the committee, but to the representatives of both parties supporting the Government. I want to emphasize that the job to which they have devoted themselves is, in itself, a job of extreme difficulty. The elements of these great constitutional problems are really philosophical questions involving the basis of political philosophy, the structure of the States, and of the federal system. They are subjects to which great minds have devoted themselves for many years. I think this report is a very important contribution to the solution of those problems, and I would like to congratulate all concerned. I agree with the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** that those who advised the committee have been most helpful. I support the motion that the report be printed. It will be the basis for action in the future, I have not the slightest doubt, in quite a few respects. The powers that have been delimited and recommended, and the careful qualifications which have been put upon them in cases requiring democratic procedures of a special character are all very important. It is a great job which has been well done, and I congratulate my colleagues and all others who have been associated with them. I refer, last of all, to **Mr. Richardson,** whose work the Prime Minister commended on the legal side. It was a first-class job. Question resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 1852 {:#debate-46} ### DAIRY PRODUCE RESEARCH AND SALES PROMOTION BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-46-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed (vide page 1850). {: #subdebate-46-0-s0 .speaker-JLR} ##### Mr ADERMANN:
Fisher **.- Mr.** **Deputy Speaker,** there are two approaches to be made to the dairying industry in this debate. One concerns the immediate need for assistance with which 1 was dealing when the debate was adjourned. I pointed out the value of that, should there be a prolific season and excess production which would bring forth an excessive quantity for export at low prices. It would be in these circumstances that the dairy-farmers would derive the chief benefit from having the Government underwrite a price which is in keeping with the first interim payment made last year. Of course, the commencing price of 3s. 4d. a lb., which was paid early last year, was subsequently increased to 3s. 5d., and then to 3s. 6d., and I understand that an additional penny or a penny-halfpenny will be paid when the calculations for last year have been finalized. The overall realization for this year will depend on the total production and the overseas price for the export quantity. The important action that the Commonwealth Government took in order to help the dairymen, rather than make them antagonistic to our proposal, was to increase the price to the consumer. If consumption is not reduced this will bring in approximately £4,000,000 extra. Even if consumption declines by 5 per cent. the dairymen will, overall, benefit by approximately £1,500,000. The other aspect of the proposal in this bill is that it will assist the industry to help itself. We expect dairy-farmers, of course, to measure up to their own responsibilities. The dairymen, in connexion with the bill before the House, have already indicated their willingness to accept their responsibilities. They have agreed to levy themselves. Hence, the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** has been able to introduce this bill for the joint purpose of research and the promotion of sales. The Commonwealth Government will subsidize the amount to be used for research. I think that this is the first practical step that the dairy industry has taken to measure up to its responsibilities. In the world of competition, the industry must do something for itself in seeking to sell its products on the competitive market, and they are certainly competitive to-day. Especially must theindustry give consideration to the action of other countries the standards of which are not as high as those of Australia and which seek to buy butter at a lower price than that at which it is sold in Australia. We must ascertain if there is any way in which we can meet their needs and at the same time help ourselves. The Minister for Trade **(Mr. McEwen),** acting on behalf of the Government, has done a good job in several ways. The results of his efforts may not have been spectacular, but they have been a contribution towards increasing the sale of butter. Because of the desperate position in Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom agreed to reduce her imports of butter. That caused the return to the Australian producer to rise. I notice that the first trade agreement entered into by the new Federation of Malaya was with Australia, and deals with meat, butter, milk, and other things. That is a channel that we may be able to use in the future for the sale of our dairy products. The same applies to Ceylon. The Montreal conference has brought some measure of stability. A stabilized price is better than falling world prices.. If the nations can agree not to dump surplus products, they will avoid unsettling the markets, consequentially affecting themselves as well as others. While the Government is playing its part. the industry must accept its own responsibilities. Butter is one of the products that can be sold to Japan, but owing to Japan's lack of international currency and the priorities she places on purchases, butter is given a very low priority. At present, Japan is not able to buy our butter, but she may be able to do so later. The Government is accepting its marketing responsibilities, and the industry is also accepting some of its responsibilities. I feel that this bill will do a measure of good. The equalization committee, which is really the committee of administration and management, is a capable body of men who are prepared and able to do a good job on behalf of the industry. With finance available to it, the committee will be able to assist the industry and make it better than it has been in the past. I have much pleasure in supporting the bill. {: #subdebate-46-0-s1 .speaker-KKU} ##### Mr MACKINNON:
Corangamite -- I do not propose to take up much time in discussing this bill, which I wholeheartedly support. The bill meets the requirements of the industry generally, and provides facilities for research. It also provides facilities for increased sales promotion. In the second-reading speech of the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** the importance of the dairying industry to Australia was fully explained, and I propose to deal with only two points. We in Victoria are much concerned with the capacity of the industry to put more people on the land, something that is accepted as probably the greatest form of decentralization, particularly in the farming areas. At the moment in Victoria, there is a tendency, with sub-divisions under soldier settlement or closer settlement schemes, to make land available specifically for dairying rather than to make it available in slightly larger areas for some other form of rural occupation that would promise better rewards. That point is one that should be considered in any discussion of the dairying industry. I do not think it has been clearly pointed out that, whilst at the moment we are finding it difficult to sell dairy products overseas, the dairying industry has in the past been a very valuable contributor to Australia's export income from the sales of butter, cheese, and other milk products. The difficulties that we are experiencing in the world's markets to-day are too obvious to need emphasis in this debate. Having regard to those difficulties, the value of this legislation will be obvious. Its value is magnified by the evident need for research and sales promotion. Sales promotion is a feature of modern business and marketing methods which is really beyond the ordinary sphere of discussion. It is extraordinary what can be done with an active sales promotion campaign. When I was in the United States a few weeks ago, I was informed that the firm of Lever Brothers was putting a new soap on the American market, and that it was spending between 10,000,000 dollars and 20,000,000 dollars on publicity. If it is necessary to do that with a normal commodity like soap, how much more money is required to increase the public demand for the products of the dairying industry? The example that I have cited emphasizes the need to spend money freely if we are to impress on the public the advantages of buying the products of the dairying industry. While dealing with this matter of sales promotion, may 1 refer to the success of firms like du Pont and others, which have persuaded the public to buy their fibre products in competition with our own wool. Irrespective of the merits of two particular articles, the inferior article which is wellpromoted will out-sell the better article which is not so well promoted. Lately, we have seen the advances made by clever sales promotion in the sale of margarine. This Government, implementing legislation introduced by a previous government, has taken action to spread information of value throughout the dairying industry. There has been continual research into farm efficiency, the improvement of live-stock, and what is even more important at the moment, the development of new products that can be put on the market to take the weight off the main product of the industry - butter. I turn now to deal with butter, because in the past we have been obliged to regard butter as the be-all and end-all of the dairying industry. In fact, butter still accounts for more than 60 per cent, of the total production of the industry. But the point I wish to make is that while we are tied to a butter economy, and until we find other outlets for our production, we shall have real trouble in the world's markets. I suggest, **Sir, that** one of the most valuable aspects of research that can be undertaken under the terms of this measure will be the investigation of the possibilities of much greater diversification of dairy products in order that the industry as a whole may be relieved of some of the pressure to sell butter. The honorable member for Lalor **(Mr. Pollard),** who referred to the proposed Commonwealth contribution towards the cost of research, may have left the impression in the minds of some honorable members that the Commonwealth was not making any definite commitment in that regard. In order to clarify the matter, I should like to quote the following remarks which were made by the Minister for Primary Industry in his second-reading speech: - >In the circumstances, the Commonwealth has agreed to contribute one-half of the costs incurred on projects included in the' programme of research that are endorsed by the board and approved by the Minister, with a maximum contribution of £1 for £1 against funds raised by way of levy that are allocated to and used for research. The sales promotion proposals will be financed by the industry itself without any assistance from the Government. As I have said, the honorable member for Lalor may have left the impression in the minds of some honorable members that the Government was entering into no real commitment. I suggest that the honorable member should read the bill again. Clause 7 (1.) provides - >There shall be paid into the Research Account - > >subject . to the next succeeding sub-section, amounts equal to one-half of the amounts from time to time payable out of the Research Account in accordance with this Part; Paragraph (3.) refers to drawings from Consolidated Revenue for payment to the Dairy Produce Research Trust Account for the purpose of financing research. I think that that should set the minds of Opposition members at rest on this matter. The Minister referred also to- the many activities in which this Government was helping the dairying industry as a whole. I should like to mention particularly one passage in the Minister's second-reading speech, in which he mentioned the need to co-ordinate the activities of the various bodies that are conducting this kind of research, which is undertaken by State bodies and universities, for example. In addition, for some time, extension services have been bringing that research to the notice of the farmers. I think that the Australian Dairy Produce Board, which will be the controlling authority under the terms of this bill, should make certain that all these activities are linked together in order that a sense of direction shall not be lost and in order that money shall not be wasted by the duplication of activities. In conclusion, **Sir, I** should like to say that this measure will be as it were, a refreshing breeze to stimulate the industry as a whole. The Government's decision to underwrite to the extent of 3s. 4d. per lb. the interim price for butter will be a great encouragement to the industry, because the farmers will no longer have to wait until the end of the dairying year for a large deferred pay. Although it is obvious that, unless something unforeseen happens and the calculations turn out to be wrong, the dairy-farmer himself will not get any more money out of that underwriting, he will at least get his money earlier. That is particularly important at this stage, when the industry is passing through a period of transition in which prices are declining. This presents big problems. I commend the bill to the House. I am sure that it will have the support of all honorable members. Sitting suspended from 5.59 to 8 p.m. {: #subdebate-46-0-s2 .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir EARLE PAGE:
Cowper **.- Mr. Speaker,** I welcome this bill, which provides for a levy for research in the dairying industry, and I should like to congratulate the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** on the manner in which he has handled this matter. I thank him especially for having seen fit to make a statement in regard to the speeding up of the payments of the equalization committee and for assuring us that in future the Government will underwrite those payments so that they may be given to farmers much earlier than they were given in the past. I should like also, while I am on my feet - I do not often speak in this House now - to congratulate the Minister on the enthusiasm which he always brings to measures of this kind and to all of his actions in connexion with primary industry. The demand for this bill came, in the first place, not from the Government but from the dairying industry as a whole. The industry asked for permission to place a levy upon the proceeds of its products in order to ensure better publicity and more research to assist the industry in its fight against substitutes. This action is characteristic of the attitude of the dairying industry since its very beginning. It will be remembered by the older members, especially by the honorable member for Bonython **(Mr. Makin),** who was here in the early days, that it was the dairying industry that brought into being the Paterson scheme which lifted the average price of butter by applying a home-consumption price and enabling us to get also a decent price overseas. The industry also asked for the introduction of the Dairy Produce Export Bill, which was brought down in 1924 and which enabled the whole of our export butter to be handled, for the first time, by one organization, although, of course, many agents were used. The industry has been able to build up all sorts of very valuable connexions on the other side of the world. One of the organization's first actions was to establish the use of a single symbol for Australian butter, which was sold under the Kangaroo brand. Tremendous savings in insurance and freight, which of course benefited the farmers, were also made possible. When we established a homeconsumption price, the New Zealanders, our very friendly cousins just across the Tasman Sea, thought that they would take advantage of the market, and we found it necessary to apply a tariff of 6d. per lb. against New Zealand and 8d. per lb. against other foreign countries, to make certain that they did not take possession of our market. Since then, we have introduced the equalization machinery, which has been of incalculable value to the whole of the dairying industry by abolishing rivalry between the various States which produce butter at different periods of the year, and avoiding the cutthroat competition which would, undoubtedly, have destroyed the industry's price and markets. Having done all this work over many years, the industry has now come to the Government, saying that it is prepared to levy itself a substantial amount per lb. of butter and per lb. of cheese produced for the purpose of research, publicity, and the establishment of new methods of obtaining additional products that will be able to stand in competition with many of the newfangled products being made from substitute material at the present time. {: .speaker-KGX} ##### Mr Haylen: -- What about margarine? {: .speaker-C7E} ##### Sir EARLE PAGE: -- The industry is doing something about that. There is only one way to fight margarine, and that is by using the widest publicity. The dairying industry produces a better article. If it publicizes its article to anything like the same extent that margarine is publicized, the industry will be able to sell a very great deal more. The industry has decided to strike this levy, acting in characteristic fashion as an independent industry which has been working for the greatness and health of Australia by maintaining the real value of its product over many years. I say, therefore, that this industry deserves the encouragement that the Government is giving by contributing £100,000 to the proceeds of the levy. I do not think that that amount is nearly enough for the job, and I hope that it will be increased. Our experience with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, which we established in 1925, has been that the more we spend on research the more we save and the greater are the benefits that are given. I am sure that there will be a similar result from this research in the dairying industry. Very much more than is set out in the bill needs to be done. If we are to compete with margarine and other substitutes, and if we are to have 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 people here, we must have a very much bigger dairying industry than we have now. If we had 20,000,000 people now, we could not feed them with milk and butter. If we had 30,000,000 people, we would need four times as much dairy production as we have now. If we are to continue to produce our own food, we must have a long-term plan, as well as the short-term plan which was envisaged in the Minister's statement on the equalization scheme. We must have a longterm plan which will put the whole of dairy production on a continuous basis. In Victoria, where there are about 700,000 acres of irrigated land, it is possible to carry on the industry in a more continuous way and at a much lower cost than is possible in northern New South Wales and Queensland, where our seasons are different and where we do not have any winter rain. However, in those areas we have great rivers which could be harnessed to enable us to have water for irrigation and so to ensure constant production. Apart altogether from butter, Peters's ice cream, for instance, which is made from pure milk, is consumed every day of the week and almost every hour of the day. It is necessary, therefore, that the production of milk for making the purest ice cream should be continuous over the whole year. That will never be achieved until we have some other method of dealing with our problems. I believe that the report brought down by the Constitution Review Committee, which has done such excellent work, opens the way. We should adopt the suggestion that control of navigation be made an absolute power of the Commonwealth instead of being, as at present, only partially a matter for the Commonwealth. We must insist that the people of Australia are fed with Australian products of high quality at a reasonable price. If we can produce continuously, making two blades of grass grow where one grew before, producing two gallons of milk where we produce one now, we shall be able to meet the threat offered by the cheapness of margarine, and so to protect the health of the Australian people. It is interesting to note that the federation of dairying organizations of the world has recently stated that we must safeguard health by bridging the gap in production, and that we must engage in more publicity activities. The important thing is to make certain that we get the continuous supplies that are necessary. If we obtain continuous supplies, we shall help not only the dairying industry but also all other industries in country towns, .where goods for farming communities are bought and sold, and city industries, which produce machines that farmers use. We shall enlarge the opportunities for work for every one throughout the length and breadth of Australia. The policy that the dairying industry is pursuing is, therefore, not in any way a selfish one. There is something else that we have to do. We have to enable the farmer to make full use of the water that may be made available. There must be long-term loans at low rates of interest to allow farmers to buy the irrigation machinery and other equipment which will enable them to increase production. If that is done, it should be possible to develop many local industries. By increasing local population through the establishment of industries we shall increase the consumption of milk in the area in which it is produced. Instead of great quantities of milk having to be carted long distances to a big city, as is the case now, the milk will be sent to small cities handy to the sources of supply. This will lead to increased production of milk and lower retail prices. In order to implement the suggestions I have made we should take the kind of action that we took in the 1930's. Honorable members who were in the Parliament at that time, and possibly all people who were living as adults in Australia then, will recall the great difficulties the wheat industry was in then. A royal commission was appointed to inquire into the industry. Its membership did not consist entirely of men connected with the wheat industry, but included also men with first-class brains who came from various sections of the community. That commission produced a very complete report, and the recommendations contained in it are still the basis of operations in the Australian wheat industry. I am convinced that we must take the same kind of action now. We must have an organization that will enable us to deal with the dairying industry on the widest possible terms. I have seen the report of the Constitution Review Committee, and there is no doubt that the Interstate Commission, the reconstitution of which the committee recommends, would be able to keep under continual review the basic principles that affect our primary industries. It would keep the same kind of watchful eye on our primary exporting and interstate industries as the Tariff Board keeps on our secondary industries. I am glad that this legislation has been introduced at this particular time, because in the near future it may be of great assistance to us. I hope that we shall have an opportunity, as a result of a referendum, to secure the position by an amendment of the Constitution which might easily help us to make this a great nation, able' to defend itself by reason of its population and its essential strength - a nation of which the whole world will be envious. {: #subdebate-46-0-s3 .speaker-JXI} ##### Mr FREETH:
Forrest .- I rise to support the bill because it is a small part of a long-range effort to assist the dairying industry which, at the present time, is in urgent need of some short-term assistance. It is also in urgent need of a long-range plan designed to reconstruct the whole of the industry. 1 cannot let pass this opportunity without mentioning the somewhat strange flights of fancy in which the honorable member for Eden-Monaro **(Mr. Allan Fraser)** indulged. He suggested that this Government had taken no practical steps, since it has been in office, to assist the dairying industry. Of course, that suggestion is entirely fantastic. In 1948-49. the whole of the dairying industry was so incensed at the persistent refusal of the Labour government to improve the conditions of the people engaged in it that, almost to a man, dairy-farmers turned to the support of the parties now in office. In those days, the economic return to the dairy-farmer - the guaranteed price - was calculated at a low rate of interest, which the dairy-farmer himself could not accept as being fair. The land of the farmers was pegged at its pre-war value. The return to an owner-manager was only a small fraction of the return under the stabilization plan introduced by this Government. Whilst it is true that the then Labour government did give a guarantee in relation to the whole of the dairy-farmer's production of butter, the plain fact is that it paid the subsidy only in order to keep the homeconsumption price down. During the whole of the period of its guarantee the homeconsumption price was lower than the export price. The ability of the Labour government to give the price guarantee to the farmers was due entirely to the fact that the government knew in advance how much butter would be consumed locally, because butter was then rationed, and also knew in advance what the minimum export price would be, because Australia could have exported at that time all the butter it produced. The export price, as I have said, was higher than the home-consumption price and the guaranteed price. The home-consumption price was deliberately kept low, not for the purpose of increasing the consumption of butter in Australia, but for the purpose of keeping wages down. In those days, there were automatic wage adjustments, and the subsidy paid was not a subsidy to assist the dairy-farmer but a subsidy to help the consumer. To-day we face a very different state of affairs. The Government has no control over the quantity of butter that is available for export, lt has no control over the price that can be obtained for our butter overseas. In those circumstances we find that, when export prices are low, the more butter that is produced in Australia the greater is the loss to the dairy-farmer. So we must not only give some immediate aid to the dairy-farmer, but also take some long-term steps to place the dairying industry on a sound basis. Dairy farms in Western Australia, the State from which I come, are high-cost dairy farms. If the dairy-farmers in Victoria and New South Wales have cause to complain about their difficulties, I can assure the House that the dairy-farmers in Western Australia have even more cause to complain, because they are in a far more desperate position. In fact, the position in the dairying areas in Western Australia is reminiscent of the position in the days of the depression. Storekeepers in those areas are in difficulties because their customers cannot pay their accounts. Garage proprietors are in difficulties because they have large book debts which cannot be collected, and they have had to refuse further credit. We have not seen such conditions in any primary industry in Western Australia since the 1930's. I can assure the House that the position is indeed desperate in some areas in Western Australia. That is not to suggest, however, that things are hopeless, because the dairying industry in Western Australia is still a developing industry. Compared with its counterparts in other States, the Western Australian dairying industry has been in existence for only a short time. When it is realized that about half of the Western Australian dairy farms which produce butter fat are carrying only nineteen cows or less, it is easy to understand that the dairy-farmers there are really up against it. During the last few years, although the efficiency of the industry has increased, the total production of butter in Western Australia has remained static because the number of dairy farms has decreased. That fact does not bode well for a State which has literally millions of acres of fertile land with high rainfall on which a high carrying capacity for stock can be achieved if the land is developed. One of the long-range problems we have to face is to get the industry in Western Australia up to a higher state of efficiency by developmental processes. {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr Duthie: -- Why have the farmers left the farms? {: .speaker-JXI} ##### Mr FREETH: -- As I said before, because they are short of capital for development. The best land in Western Australia for dairying is quite equal to Victorian land provided that it is developed and put under pasture and modern methods are applied. But, as I have pointed out, 50 per cent, of the dairy farms there are carrying nineteen cows or fewer, the dairy-farmers cannot get further capital, and consequently they cannot obtain sufficient returns from the industry. The average dairy-farmer is too fully occupied looking after his small herd of cattle to do much developmental work for himself. Although I agree with the right honorable member who preceded me that something must be done and that a royal commission might be one way of inquiring into the industry, it is not necessary to have that sort of investigation in Western Australia. The position there is known. A most exhaustive cost-of-production survey was carried out by this Government in 1953 which established, quite conclusively, that the only hindrance to the dairying industry in Western Australia was the lack of development. It found that all the highcost farms were the under-developed farms and that the efficient farms were those which carried larger numbers of cattle and had been in existence for some years. The Western Australian Government has proved that proposition, because it has carried out a programme of farm reconstruction and development by making available, from its own financial resources, low-interest loans to the farmers. This has been done purely to enable the owners of existing dairy farms to extend their pastures, to clean up their old pastures and to clear new land. The results have been entirely satisfactory. But it is a long-term process in view of the small amount of money that the State Government has seen fit to make available to the industry. I believe that the Commonwealth Government could very well make available to Western Australia, as has been requested, a sum of money to complete that developmental programme. There is a very excellent precedent for that, as we were reminded by the right honorable member for Cowper, in the Wheat Industry Assistance Act 1938 under which marginal wheat farms in Western Australia Were made productive. They were brought back to a state of efficiency largely through the help provided under that legislation. One of the difficulties in the dairying industry is that if cash payments to dairyfarmers are increased, production is increased. Victoria is, admittedly, the lowest production cost State in Australia. I do not want to decry the efficiency of the Victorian dairying industry, nor do I envy the Victorians their good fortune; but quite frankly, the low prices being received by the farmers to-day are due to the high degree of production in Victoria. This is proving an embarrassment to such States as Western Australia and Queensland. We have the problem of opening up new areas of land which can best be brought into production through dairying. But the prospects of success are not very bright owing to the fact that there seems to be an excessive surplus of butter for export. I am somewhat doubtful whether the proposals to open up further dairy farms in the Heytesbury or Yanakie areas in Victoria will be of great value to Australia as a whole, because, as I have said, the more butter produced there, the greater will be the loss to all the dairy-farmers all over Australia. Although the Victorians may say, " We have to develop our land ", the plain truth is that Western Australia cannot yet produce enough butter to supply its own consumption needs. I am quite satisfied that it could do so at an economical price if the industry were given a chance to develop there. In the long term, I believe that most dairy farms in Western Australia and, possibly, all over Australia, as settlement becomes closer, will develop a new technique in handling their products. They will go on to a whole milk basis, and any necessary fats to be extracted from the milk will be extracted at the factory. That seems to me to be the kind of mechanization which will eventually come to the industry. Plants may be used to produce powdered milk or powdered butter so that these commodities may be reconstituted separately at a later stage. If we are to have in Western Australia that degree of closer settlement which will allow that kind of development to be achieved in the industry then we must be allowed to produce more butter and place our dairy farms on a paying basis in the near future. The Government is faced with an immediate proposition of giving some assistance to the dairying industry, and I am particularly pleased that to-day the Minister was able to announce that the Government is underwriting the risk which the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Equalization Committee Limited was apparently not willing to underwrite and to restore the recent cut which it made. The farmers, as a result, are assured, at least for this year and future years in which the present scheme operates, that they will be given, right from the beginning of the season, a practical and realistic assessment of what their product is worth for that year, instead of waiting with some trepidation until the end of the year and relying on some further distribution, when the equalization committee discovers that it has been too conservative in its estimate. This scheme will give some heart to the industry, but I do plead with the Government to give some special consideration to the particular problems which exist in Western Australia. I have made this plea for a good many years, and I suppose that if we go on long enough we may eventually get some special consideration for what is, after all, a very important national development problem. {: #subdebate-46-0-s4 .speaker-BU4} ##### Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975 .- I' rise to support this bill because I think it is very important to the dairying industry. Some six months ago I asked the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** a question in the House about establishing a national promotion scheme for dairy products. He answered my question by saying that he was giving consideration to the matter, and that plans were being drawn up for a national promotion scheme. At this juncture, I should like to congratulate the Minister for managing to get this bill before the House, because that has not been as easy as it might seem. Before this national promotion scheme came into being the States had the right to promote their own sales of dairy products. Queensland had the Queensland Butter Marketing Board, New South Wales had the New South Wales Sales and Promotion Organization, Victoria had a Dairy Industry Bureau, but in the other States there was no organization whatever to foster an increase in the sales of butter. Under this bill, the Commonwealth Government will stimulate the sales of butter and cheese in this country. These products will also be given the maximum amount of publicity. The dairying industry faces many problems, and not one single factor will solve all the present difficulties of the farmers. However, this bill will help to solve quite a few of the problems. It will help to prevent margarine from gaining increased sales at the expense of butter consumption. It will enable farmers outside milk zones to get products into the milk zones in competition with milk, and the competition between milk and other products will eventually enable the price of milk to the public to be reduced. The bill will help to overcome the problems of declining or low fertility in certain parts of the country. This decline of fertility is causing concern to many dairy-farmers. The bill will enable the butter industry to carry out research into new types of products for sale to the public, and will permit the Australian housewife to be encouraged to buy these new products. I shall deal now with margarine. Under our stabilization scheme at present, as the cost of production rises, the producer must pass the increase on to the consumer if he is to receive a higher return for his product. If he passes the price on to the consumer, he is met with fiercer competition from the margarine firms. That trend was noticed particularly this year. As soon as we increased the price of butter, the margarine people started on a gigantic sales promotion scheme. The butter industry was not organized on a national basis and could not counter the advertising compaign of the margarine firms. As soon as the price of butter was increased, the margarine firms inserted big advertisements in all the newspapers and advertised over the radio and television. What was the butter industry doing? Nothing whatever, because it could not do anything. There was no legislation to permit the butter industry to do anything; only isolated States had the necessary legislation. In this new and more modern world, we find a tendency towards self-service. If the butter industry is to hold its place with self-service, we must keep up to date. 1 shall read a comment from a journal called " Self Service Merchandising ", published in July of this year. The article reads - >This leads me to the butter-margarine set-up. I believe the current drop in butter consumption is largely due to the fact that no-one makes any effort to sell butter. That is because we have no national organization to promote the sale of butter. The article continues - >Certainly there is a big ticket in the window, but inside the store there is no promotion at all. Retailers couldn't care less about selling it. And this is one reason why margarine is giving butter a hiding. > >The first thing the butter industry has got to do is to get some profit back into the product for the retailer. The promotion organization envisaged in this legislation could perhaps look into that aspect. 1 do not know how more profit could be given to the retailer, but we will have to look into that if we want increased sales of butter in this country. The article goes on - >While the butter people have been idle, the margarine firms have been active. They have made margarine a much more profitable line to the trade. They have given it much more promotion at every level - right down to the point of sale. > >Retailers have made the promotion doubly effective by giving margarine increased display and by using the point-of-sale material at the expense of butter. > >After all, the size of the cabinet is still the same. That is a reference to the cabinet in the retail store. A customer entering the store looks in the cabinet and can see what is there. There is only a set amount of space for these perishable products, and we find that the self-service stores are concentrating on the most profitable lines. Butter is just a minor item. The stores are concentrating on the various types of margarine. The article continues - >After all, the size of the cabinet is still the same. That means every brand of margarine that goes into the standard size cabinet is at. the expense of butter. We cannot afford to allow that state of affairs to continue. The butter industry must determine the grades of butter much more strictly than it has in the past. Many butter factories have sold to the Australian public lower grades of butter than they should sell, and this is detrimental to the industry. The new promotion organization should ensure that all butter is of choicest grade quality if it is branded first grade quality. This, too, must start at the farm. The farmer must be encouraged to produce first-grade butter. For the last 20 or 30 years there has been a price differential between choicest grade and first grade butter, but it has been only a matter of Id. or 2d. per lb., and that is not enough. As a consequence, a large part of the butter produced is second grade. That is not good for the industry; we must try to produce first-grade butter all the time. I want to return now to the question of milk zones. I have not much time tonight, so I shall try to cover all these points quickly. We all know that the price of milk is too high. In Queensland, it is 9d. a pint; in New South Wales. 11 1/2 d. a pint, and in Victoria, 9)d. a pint. I cannot see any reason why it should be so high in New South Wales. An increase of 1 pint a week per head in local consumption of milk would mean taking 12.000 tons of butter off the export market, and would bring us into line with consumption of milk in European countries. Our consumption of milk per head is lower than that of European countries. Increased local consumption of milk would mean that the butter producer would receive 3d. per lb. extra. That alone would be of considerable help to him. Honorable members may ask how we can increase the consumption of milk. I do not think that we can do anything about lowering the price under our present system. We have milk zones in the various States, and they are very well controlled. Naturally, producers inside the milk zones do not want them broken down. However, as this bill will provide finance for research into various types of products, I suggest that research should be done into substitutes for milk in manufactured forms. The first product I have in mind is sterilized milk. This could be produced outside the milk zone. It is a product that keeps indefinitely once it is sealed in a bottle. For instance, it would be kept for a year. It is becoming very popular in European countries and 80 per cent, of the milk sold in Wales is sterilized milk. The housewife does not need to worry about a daily supply of milk; she can get a month's supply at the one time. Research into that product would be helpful. Another substitute is instant milk. We now have a powdered milk that dissolves instantly when mixed with water, without forming any lumps. It is almost as good as milk and it can be sold more cheaply than milk. We also have powdered cream, which could be sold at half the price of fresh cream. They are just a few ideas. I turn now to the question of declining fertility. The electorate that I represent was once probably the most fertile area not only in Australia but indeed in the world. It was a jungle, but when the scrub was cleared, the soil was rich in humus. It would grow anything. In fact, the early settlers had to climb the trees to find the cows amongst the grass. Over the years the fertility has decreased, and we do not now get the production that we used to get. We must carry out more research into the problem of declining fertility. We recognize the problem in the Richmond electorate. In fact, local organizations have collected £26,000 during the last six years, and they are endeavouring to undertake research into the problem. I also think that the dairying industry should carry out more research in connexion with new kinds of products, particularly those suitable for our export markets. When I mention export markets I think mainly of the Far East. We should pay more attention to reconstituted milk. If we could arrange sales of milk in far eastern countries, we could send to them concentrated milk powders, from which milk could be manufactured and sold. We could also try to sell concentrated butter in those markets. This is a butter that contains no moisture and very little salt. The beauty of it is that when you pack it in tins there is no breakdown of the moisture and fat. It remains as a pretty solid product. Hot weather does not affect it to nearly the same extent as ordinary butter is affected, and refrigeration is not required. It is the moisture content that causes ordinary butter to become rancid. Let me say most emphatically to those in control of the milk industry in the zone areas: You had better watch out for yourselves, because after further research is carried out we are going to move into the milk zones with our products. One of the things that this legislation makes sure of is that there will be no milkmen in the organization that directs the way in which the research is to be carried out, because the men already appointed to the Australian Dairy Produce Board are men who manufacture butter and cheese. I hope that when a decision is made on how the research will be carried out, it will be that the research shall be done in such a way as to develop products that we can sell in competition with milk, in the hope of bringing down the price of milk in the various capital cities, and, by so doing, increase the consumption of milk. As I have said, if we can increase the consumption of milk by one pint a head per week, we shall sell 12,000 tons less of butter on low-price export markets, which, of course, will mean an extra 3d. a lb. immediately for the butter producer. I commend this bill to the House, and have very much pleasure in supporting it. {: #subdebate-46-0-s5 .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE:
Wilmot .- I feel that Government supporters have failed during this debate to sustain some of the criticism that they have offered during the last few years. The honorable member for Richmond **(Mr. Anthony)** indicated that he has been fighting for some measure like this for several years, but it is not until the Government is faced with a federal election that it is prepared to bring down a measure to assist an industry that has been crying out for assistance for the last five years. {: .speaker-KID} ##### Mr Luchetti: -- A death-bed repentance! {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- As my friend, the honorable member for Macquarie, says, it is a death-bed repentance - and there may be more truth in that statement than is immediately apparent. Interestingly enough, farmers throughout the world - and there is no exception to this statement - like to socialize their losses and individualize their gains. Though I am a farmer's son and spent years on a wheat farm in Victoria, and though I represent a huge rural electorate in Tasmania, I still feel that this statement is correct. I am not saying that there .is anything wrong with that attitude. All I say is that those farmers who scream protests against socialism should consider their own behaviour occasionally, and realize how many times they come to a government for assistance when they get into trouble. They like a spot of socialism when they are . in difficulties, and they scream to high heaven against it when everything is going well. They socialize their losses by approaching governments for aid when in trouble, and they individualize their gains in good times, saying to the government, " Go jump in the lake as far as we are concerned. We are all right." I would like farmers to be more consistent in this regard, particularly those who sit on the Government side of the House. This bill seeks to inject a spot of socialism into the dairying industry. The call for government aid is widespread in the dairying industry in every State. It is a legitimate call. Government members, however, refuse to recognize this measure as a spot of socialism, and they approach this discussion, therefore, in a hypocritical fashion. The main purposes of the bill before us are fourfold, and I shall again remind the House what it proposes to do. First, it seeks to plan a research programme, providing a continuing study of the effort to obtainbetter markets, of consumer buying habits and product improvement. Secondly, it envisages a public relations programme, using magazines, articles and television - which is an excellent field of advertising, especially with regard to consumers in the cities - and providing material to sections of the community able to influence others as to the wisdom, economy and pleasure afforded by the inclusion of dairy products in the diet. Thirdly, it seeks to make possible an advertising programme, to induce the public to buy the products of the industry as supplied to the retailers. Fourthly, it provides for a merchandizing programme to achieve greater buying and selling action where the product is sold. It proposes to give merchandizing aids to the retailer. This, of course, is an excellent place to start, because many retailers are still in the last century when it comes to selling butter and dairy products. Those are the four main purposes of the bill. A levy is to be struck at the rate of so much a pound of butter and of cheese. Thislevy will bring in £250,000 a year, which will be spent by a special committee to be set up by the Australian Dairy Produce Board. This committee will consist of nine members, who will administer the research and promotion programme. We on this side of the House agree entirely with this scheme, although it should have been instituted four years ago rather than at this time. We should have four years' experience of it behind us, instead of just starting this scheme. **Mr. Speaker,** the dairying industry is, to my mind, a basic industry in Australia. It is a small man's industry, and it is the small farmer that we on this side of the House want to encourage. As a primary producer, the small farmer is the salt of the earth. Despite all the big men with their large sheep stations and other big farms, the small potato-growers or the producers of maize, fruit, hops, sugar, dairy products, oats, barley and the like are the salt of the earth of primary production, and anything that can be done to help them increase their production or improve the quality of their products should be done by this Government or any government. In fact, the dairying industry is the fortress of the small farmer, who is the greatest decentralizing influence in country areas. Where you find thriving dairying industries you will find many small towns. You will find great congregations of people, a very strong business community and a lot of goodwill. The capital invested in the dairying industry amounts to £700,000,000. More than 600,000 persons are directly engaged in the dairying industry in farms and factories. {: .speaker-KZP} ##### Mr Wheeler: -- Is that why you want to nationalize it? {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- Did you say nationalize? {: .speaker-KZP} ##### Mr Wheeler: -- Is that why the honorable member for East Sydney wants to nationalize it? {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- Whatever he thinks, it is not Labour party policy. I explained that to the Parliament the other night, and I deliberately and calculatedly described what the honorable member for East Sydney meant to say. At no time has it been in our policy, or is it likely to be in our policy, that we will nationalize all small farms. We are opposed to big estates not being put in full production. The scope of this industry shows its growth. In 1956-57, milk production was 1,356,000,000 gallons, of which 66 per cent. went to butter and 7 per cent. to cheese. The number of dairy cows in the industry in Australia in 1935-39 averaged 3,232,981. Last year that number had increased to only 3,451,469. In other words, in a period of eighteen years the number of dairy cows increased by only 218,488. The story of dairy production is interesting. The average for the 1935-39 period was 1,149,697,000 gallons. In 1956-57, it was 1,362,583,000 gallons, or a very small increase of roughly 200,000,000 gallons in nineteen years. In the average milk production per cow we find the secret to the present rate of production of dairy products. This is primarily where research comes into the picture. Everything that we spend in the industry to increase production goes right back to the dairy cow. If the production of each cow can be increased, there will be increased production throughout the country. Unless attention is given to the individual cow on the farm to enable it to produce more, all our plans will come to nothing. They even have music now in the dairies. I visit many dairy farms in my electorate, and I have never been to one where the farmer did not have music played from wireless sets in the dairy while milking was proceeding. They find that the cows respond remarkably to certain types of music. They do not like the classics or Elvis Presley, but anything in between gives remarkable results! The average production per cow in Australia in 1935-39 was 357 gallons a year. Last year, it was 398 gallons a year. Tasmania has shown the biggest increase in the past eighteen years in production per dairy cow. Production in that State has increased from 350 gallons in 1935-39, to 557 gallons per cow each year. The next highest was Victoria with 541 gallons, and then South Australia with 529. Those are official figures from the Year-Book for 1958. That is the secret of improvement in the industry. We must improve pastures. We must improve the quality of farming and conduct research into control of various diseases and the vaccines that are required by the industry. All that goes right back to the individual cow on the individual farm. Finally, I wish to make some comments about the industry as a whole. The honorable member for Forrest **(Mr. Freeth)** complained that many dairy-farmers had gone off the farms in Western Australia recently. That is a tragedy. During the depression years, 20,000 farmers walked off their farms in Australia. They were principally dairy-farmers and wheat-farmers. That was excusable in the terrible financial conditions of those days, but there is no excuse to-day for a farmer to have to walk off any kind of land or any sort of farm. The blame probably lies with financial institutions, including government financial institutions. The men to whom the honorable member for Forrest referred could not get sufficient finance to enable them to carry on. I have found the same problem in Tasmania. There is no sure method of finance for farmers to-day. Some banks will help sometimes. {: .speaker-JOE} ##### Mr Jeff Bate: -- Why did the Opposition block the banking bills in the Senate? {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- That has nothing to do with it. The Commonwealth Bank could handle everything that was proposed in those bills. What about the private banks that Government supporters have been boosting as though they were the be-all and end-all of life? What have they done to assist the farmers? It is all very well for them. They will always lend where there is plenty of security, but when the small farmers apply for a loan, they are turned away. You have to be a big man with a hyphenated name, like SmithSmythe, or be related to some big shot, before you can get money from the banks. Such people can get anything they want. That is the private banking system for you. There are men walking off the farms in Western Australia because the banks will not give them sufficient credit. Under-capitalization is one of the weaknesses of the dairy industry to-day, particularly in .the case of the man with nineten, twenty or 25 cows. When the Australian Labour party gets into office we will make sure that sufficient money will be made available for primary production. Many out-of-date methods are still being employed on some dairy farms. The farmers throw superphosphate on the ground and trust to the Lord to do the rest; the Lord wants to meet us half way but we are not prepared to go half way. Those farmers do not use scientific aids. They refuse to read the latest bulletins, or take the advice of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization or even of their own agricultural extension officers. Those dairy-farmers cannot produce a good quality product by outofdate methods. The third point I want to mention is poor management. In the dairy industry we have not sufficient dairy-farmers who study the management of farms, especially among those who have only a few cows. I do not believe that sufficient emphasis has been placed on the importance of management in successful dairy-farming. My fourth point is the lack of business methods on the farm. The modern farmer cannot afford to be out of touch with modern business methods. He must be a businessman as well as a farmer. {: .speaker-JS7} ##### Mr Brand: -- So he is. {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- I am glad to say that most of them are. I am talking of a section of primary producers who are not businessmen and do not intend to become businessmen. They go along hoping for the best. They do not organize on a business basis. Their sons may think differently. 1 hope they will. But some of the older men have not learnt that yet. There is a refusal to learn new ideas. The farmer is the hardest man to convince about anything new. The point is that the people amongst whom Australian Country party members move are all well-established, rich farmers. They refuse to believe me when I say that the farmer is the last man to accept new ideas. I will give an illustration. My grandfather was a wheat-farmer in the 1890's in the western district of Victoria. He was the first man to put a seat on a plough, and the people of the district said that he was the laziest man they had ever heard of. I could give illustration after illustration to show how hard it is to get farmers to accept new ideas. But when the farmer does accept a new idea he will use it to the best of his ability, day in and day out. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: -- He will have one new idea at the next election. {: .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE: -- I hope that he will for his own good. I do not want Government supporters to give the impression to the country that they are the only ones who have thought about the dairy industry. The honorable member for Lalor **(Mr. Pollard)** did a great job when he was Minister for Agriculture in the Labour Government between 1947 and 1949. We have many things to be proud of. The amount of £280,000 which the Minister for Primary Industry mentioned at the end of his speech has been given each year. It represents the extension grant which was introduced by the Labour government. That has been repeated every year since then. {: #subdebate-46-0-s6 .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE:
Moore .- The honorable member for Grey **(Mr. Russell)** has asked me whether I know anything about cows. All I can say is that those who have had the misfortune to listen to the remarks of the honorable member for Wilmot **(Mr. Duthie)** must agree, to use a pure Australian colloquialism, that it was a fair cow to have to listen to such rubbish. We are dealing with a bill for the purpose of providing for research into the dairying industry. If T understood the honorable member for Wilmot correctly, one of the things that the research council should inquire into is the pop tune that will get most milk from cows in Tasmania. He said that milk production had been increased by having music in the dairy. So there is the answer to the problem in Tasmania. I do not know whether it is the answer to the problem throughout Australia; but apparently it is part of the answer. The honorable member for Wilmot confirms my remarks. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister for the Army **(Mr. Cramer),** who is at the table, that it might be appropriate to spend a few pounds in inquiring into which tune will produce the extra drop of milk from the cow. The honorable member for Wilmot has revealed, so I understand, his lack of knowledge of the dairying industry. He mentioned "A.I.S. " I am sure that he believes that " A.I.S. " means Australian Illawarra shorthorn. I think he has that impression, although I would not be sure. The honorable member said that he did not want the primary producers to believe that they were the salt of the earth. Yet he said that one section of them, the small men. were the salt of the earth. I had the privilege of serving in a State House of Parliament and there I heard the leader of a Labour government warn the primary producers in these words: " Let the primary producer not think that he is the salt of the earth". At that time, the Country party was putting forward a proposal to which it believed the primary producer was entitled. That statement by the leader of the Labour government was symptomatic of the attitude of the Labour party to the reasonable requests of the primary producer. Let him not think he is the salt of the earth! Is he not the salt of the earth? Of course he is, because all wealth comes from the land. I do not want to prolong this debate. I hear honorable members interjecting, " Hear, hear! " I knew that I would get an encore for that statement. I drew it out to make sure that I did get one. I am now encouraged to continue my remarks. I did not rise in this debate to engage in argument as to whether this bill is good; bad or indifferent. It is a good bill; but it is concerned with research into the dairying industry and sales promotion. This morning, the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** advised the House that the Government had decided to adopt certain measures in order to afford assistance and relief to the dairy industry, which is in trouble. There is no doubt about that. We have had experience in the past of relief being given to a primary industry which was temporarily in trouble. The honorable member for Wilmot said that when the primary producer was in trouble he approached the Government with a view to obtaining assistance to socialize his industry; but when the primary producer was not in trouble - when he was well off and gaining from his industry - he made no approach to the Government. I remind the honorable member that when the primary producer has been in good financial circumstances he has been called upon to make substantial sacrifices in the interests of this nation. When the primary producer has been able to dispose of his products overseas at substantial prices which have been well beyond the prices obtainable in Australia he has agreed, of his own accord, to a limited home-consumption price. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- Do not point at me. {: #subdebate-46-0-s7 .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE:
MOORE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · CP -- The honorable member for Lalor knows that what I am saying is true. The primary producer has made sacrifices to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds in the interests of the economy of the country and for the benefit of the consumers. Is it not only reasonable that when he strikes temporary bad times he should come to the people whom he has helped and to the Government that he has helped and ask that they tide him over those bad times? {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- What about the poor beggar who has to eat his produce? {: .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE:
MOORE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · CP -- He is privileged to be able to eat it because he gets a good product - the best in the world. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- He will not get it much longer at the price. {: .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE: -- He will get it for quite a long time, and the price is all right. But I am concerned with the Minister's announcement that the Government is providing relief for the dairy industry by way of a guaranteed price. That is a very acceptable and happy announcement, and I am sure that the dairying industry will welcome it. But, like all similar schemes, this one is merely a palliative. It is necessary to get down to the basic problems of the industry. The honorable member for Forrest **(Mr. Freeth)** referred to the state of the dairying industry in Western Australia. It is true that in 1953 a very comprehensive survey of the industry was conducted and that its weaknesses were revealed. I disagree with the honorable member who said that the dairying industry in Western Australia was, comparatively speaking, in its infancy compared with other States. It is in its infancy in this regard - that the industry has suffered from the costly mistakes that were made in the past, but it has learnt by those mistakes. The Government of Western Australia has spent millions of pounds over the years to establish the dairying industry in that State under reasonable conditions, and to-day that Government is seeing the fruits of its labours. However, there are certain limitations connected with the development of some properties. I understand that next week the Australian Agricultural Council will meet. I should like the Minister for Primary Industry to submit to the council all the particulars that have been supplied to him from Western Australia in connexion with a dairy farm improvement scheme which is operating today in that State. Admittedly, because of financial limitations, the scheme is operating on a small scale at present, but it is operating most successfully, and it is establishing the small dairy-farmer as a very successful economic unit. It is a pilot scheme, one that has been endorsed by the dairy-farmers' organization as offering a solution to the long-term problems associated with the dairying industry. Individual dairy-farmers who have approached me and other members of the Australian Country party have agreed that this scheme will solve the industry's problems. The scheme is being operated by the Rural and Industries Bank of Western Australia. 1 understand that reports on the operation of the scheme over the past few years have been submitted to the Minister. He is fully informed on the matter. I have seen some documents concerning the scheme, and they give a clear picture of what it involves. I suggest that the Minister might present to the Australian Agricultural Council all the information that has been made available to him from Western Australia - probably from the Rural and Industries Bank. The council might consider that information, together with reports from officers of the Department of Primary Industry who have investigated the scheme. The scheme could be the basis of similar schemes throughout the Commonwealth, where many dairy farms are under-developed and assistance is needed to improve them. This pilot scheme, which is working successfully in Western Australia, could give a lead to the rest of Australia. It could help the industry and place it on a firm financial footing, so that in the future it would not be necessary for those engaged in the industry to come along, as they must do to-day, cap in hand to the Government for a measure of assistance when they are up against temporary difficulties. If the scheme were examined by the Australian Agricultural Council I am satisfied that it would be endorsed by the council, and that the Government would feel confident in extending the necessary assistance to Western Australia and the other States. My main purpose in speaking in this debate was to ask the Minister to consider the scheme I have mentioned. Assistance to the dairying industry should not be administered merely as an Aspro to get rid of a headache; we must ascertain the cause of the trouble. I believe that the cause of the trouble has been discovered in Western Australia, and the remedy is being applied. If the Minister will accede to my request, 1 believe that within two years the difficulties which now confront the industry, and which this legislation is designed to combat, will no longer exist. I support the bill, and commend the Government on its introduction. I commend the Government on rising to the occasion and assisting the dairy-farmer in a time of temporary difficulty. Knowing of the Government's wisdom, I hope that it will apply the long-term remedy that I have indicated. {: #subdebate-46-0-s8 .speaker-KIH} ##### Mr LUCOCK:
Lyne .- As the representative in this Parliament of one of the largest and most important dairying areas' in the Commonwealth, I have much pleasure in supporting this bill. I congratulate the Minister for Primary Industry **(Mr. McMahon)** on the amount of work that he put into the bill before it was presented to the House. A perusal of the bill shows how much research was necessary into the problems confronting the industry before the presentation of legislation such as this. I should also like to congratulate the officers of the department. Like the honorable member for Wilmot **(Mr. Duthie),** I realize that before the Minister presents a bill, officers of the department must do a great amount of research and work. I also commend the industry for the part it has played and for the consultations that it has had with the Government in regard to this measure. I should like to deal with some of the matters that were mentioned by the honorable member for Wilmot. He said that farmers were wedded to socialization when it concerned themselves. One of the things that the honorable member for Wilmot overlooks is the fact that socialization means state control. If the Labour party socialized an industry that industry would be completely under state control. There is a world of difference between the assistance given by this Government to certain industries which are vitally important to our economy, both domestic and overseas, and the Labour party's policy of socialization. There was also a suggestion in the honorable member's remarks that the Government had been slow to present this legislation. The industry asked for this legislation, and it took a certain amount of time to decide what levy would be placed on the industry and what assistance would be given by the Government. Consultations with various people were necessary so that the legislation, when presented, would have the approval of the interests concerned. The honorable member for Grayndler **(Mr. Daly)** said that he did not think any member of the Australian Country party had ever seen a cow. In my opinion, members of the Australian Country party have heard an awful lot of bull from members of the Labour party over a considerable period of time. I am surprised that honorable members opposite on a number of occasions have accused the Australan Country party of running the Government. They have said that the Australian Country party forces the Government to do this and to do that. On other occasions, Labour supporters say that honorable members of the Australian Country party are not doing enough. It must be apparent to any thinking person that the accusations made by honorable members opposite are made purely and simply to suit the occasion. It is rather amusing to find the Labour party suddenly becoming the friend of the farmer. The right honorable member for Barton - the prospective honorable member for Hunter - has been going around setting himself up as the farmers' friend, and the Government - and the Australian Country party - have been accused of bringing this and other legislation forward because an election is pending. A suggestion of that kind does not carry a great deal of weight when one considers the record of the Opposition. One has only to consider the record of State Labour governments to see this. The previous Labour government in Queensland and the present Labour Government in New South Wales, by their attitude towards margarine, dealt a blow at the dairying industry. Yet, when an election is in prospect, we suddenly find that Opposition members in this House set themselves up as the friends of the farmers. I remind Opposition members, the public, and especially persons in the dairying industry, of what happened in New Zealand, where the Labour party repudiated, when it took office, a pro:r.i:c that it had made before the election. There, we see the tragic results of the people believing in a promise made to them by the New Zealand Labour party in its attempts to gain office as a government. The results of its election to office have been tragic for people engaged in the dairying industry and for many other sections of the community in New Zealand. The honorable member for Lalor suggested that the Australian Labour party, as part of its election policy, will certainly promise an increase in subsidy. {: .speaker-K5L} ##### Mr Cope: -- The dairy-farmers deserve it. {: .speaker-KIH} ##### Mr LUCOCK: -- I am interested to hear the honorable member say that the dairyfarmers deserve an increased subsidy, but *I* would warn the industry and the people of Australia of the danger of an unlimited subsidy on an unkown volume of production. No government would be wise to commit itself to an unknown amount by way of an unrestricted subsidy. I remind the dairying industry particularly that if the United States of America, where there is a tremendous surplus of dairy products, were, metaphorically, to open the door and allow those products to go onto the world's markets, the Australian market could be swamped. I congratulate the Government on the introduction of this measure, which provides for the financing of research by means of a levy on dairy products. It will encourage the dairying industry. In consultation with leaders of the industry, we have made suggestions for a long-term plan. There is no need for me to labour this matter, **Mr. Speaker.** It has been pointed out by my colleagues on the Government benches this evening that this long-term plan will give the industry hope for the future. This measure will give immediate encouragement to the industry and will enable it to look forward to that long-term planning with confidence and hope. I deplore the statements made in a number of quarters about a recession facing the dairying industry. If we are realistic, we must appreciate the fact that, in certain areas, particularly, the industry needs assistance, but if, in considering the future of this industry, we take into account the possible increase in the population of Australia, which was mentioned by my colleague, the right honorable member for Cowper **(Sir** Earle Page), we must realize that we shall need all the dairy products that we at present produce - and more - if we are to be able to meet the future needs of our population. We need to give the industry a stimulus in order that it may have a stable future. The introduction of this measure, and the announcement by the Minister for Primary Industry that the Government will underwrite the returns to the farmers, will give the dairying industry much-needed encouragement, and the longrange planning that will follow will assure the industry of a promising future. In conclusion, I congratulate the Government, and commend the bill to honorable members. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and committed pro forma; progress reported. Message recommending appropriation reported. In committee (Consideration of GovernorGeneral's message): Motion (by **Mr. Harold** Holt) agreed to - >That it is expedient that an appropriation of revenue be made for the purposes of a bill for an act to establish a Dairy Produce Research Trust Account and a Dairy Produce Sales Promotion Fund, and for purposes connected therewith. Resolution reported and adopted. In committee: Consideration resumed. Clauses 1 to 10 - by leave - taken together, and agreed to. Clause 11 (Dairy Produce Research Committee). {: #subdebate-46-0-s9 .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr POLLARD:
Lalor **.- Mr. Chairman,** this clause provides for the constitution of a Dairy Produce Research Committee. I notice that a person appointed to represent the Australian Agricultural Council on the proposed committee may be a State officer. However, I really rose to refute false statements made during the second-reading debate about the outlook of State Labour governments and their attitude towards the dairying industry. Unquestionably, the dairy products marketing organization that at present exists, and the price agreed upon as the guaranteed price, could not operate without the co-operation and assent of every State government. As there are Labour governments in New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania, it is perfectly obvious that the whole organization hangs together and operates successfully by virtue of the fact that every one of those Labour governments has accepted its role and agreed that a certain price for butter, known as the cost-of-production figure, may be charged to the people whom they govern. Does anybody refute that? If that is so, how can it be true, as has been alleged by the honorable member for Lyne **(Mr. Lucock)** - who ought to be the last man to make false accusations- that there is no sympathy and no support for the dairying industry among State Labour governments? It requires only one of those governments to say that the people in the State governed by it shall not be charged the costofproduction figure, for the whole scheme as it at present works to collapse. I leave it at that, **Mr. Chairman.** Clause agreed to. Remainder of bill - by leave - taken as a whole, and agreed to. Bill reported without amendment; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1868 {:#debate-47} ### DAIRY PRODUCE EXPORT CONTROL BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-47-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 30th September (vide page 1751), on motion by **Mr. McMahon** - >That the bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill- by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1868 {:#debate-48} ### DAIRY PRODUCE LEVY BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-48-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 30th September (vide page 1753), on motion by **Mr. McMahon** - >That the bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate. {: .page-start } page 1869 {:#debate-49} ### CHRISTMAS ISLAND AGREEMENT BILL 1958 Second' Reading. Debate resumed from 30th September (vide page 1754), on motion by **Mr. Hasluck** - >That the bill be now read a second time. {: #debate-49-s0 .speaker-BV8} ##### Mr CALWELL:
Melbourne .- This bill sets out to approve the agreement made between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Dominion of New Zealand in relation to the rights which they hold jointly in regard to the exploitation of the phosphate deposits on Christmas Island. The agreement, as the Minister for Territories **(Mr. Hasluck)** said when introducing the measure, is attached to the bill. The agreement which this legislation proposes to ratify will replace one made in 1949. The alteration is necessary, I understand, because sovereignty over Christmas Island has been transferred from the United Kingdom to the Commonwealth of Australia. I remember the legislation which was enacted by this Parliament approving the transfer from the United Kingdom of sovereign rights over this territory some little time ago. I believe that the new agreement comes into operation from to-day. The authority which this bill will confer upon the Commonwealth will enable us to have a guarantee that for the next 40 years phosphate from this island will be available to help agriculture and other industries in Australia. Because there is all benefit in the bill and nothing detrimental will occur to the Commonwealth because of its passage, we approve of the bill and wish it a speedy passage. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1869 {:#debate-50} ### ADVANCE TO THE TREASURER 1957-58 {:#subdebate-50-0} #### Statement of Expenditure In committee: Statement - by leave - taken as a whole. {: #subdebate-50-0-s0 .speaker-JAG} ##### Mr CREAN:
Melbourne Ports -- I think it ought to be indicated at this stage that this is the first occasion on which this matter has been considered by the Parliament in this form. The new presentation is due to a submission made by that very important body, the Public Accounts Committee. Honorable members will remember that on previous occasions when the Budget was presented it was usual for an omnibus figure, usually in the region of £15,000,000, to be added at the end, with an indication that it was to cover contingencies or expenditures which it was envisaged would be incurred during the year because of unusual circumstances which could not be anticipated at the beginning of the year. These days, the Australian Budget covers an expenditure of about £1,200,000,000 or £1,300,000,000. Therefore, it is impossible to budget exactly for contingencies that will occur, under any system, during the year. We may have a drought in the course of the year, or a flood, which would necessitate the expenditure of perhaps £500,000 or £1,000,000. It was usual for a block amount to be included in the Budget statement with a note that if an expenditure were subsequently incurred it would be covered by supplementary estimates or some other kind of financial enactment. Some years ago the Public Accounts Committee, in considering the various financial measures which come before the Parliament, pointed to the need for a new approach to the handling of these matters. A submission was made that amounts which came under the specific appropriation, Advance to the Treasurer, should be brought before the Parliament in a particular appropriation measure and considered in that form. I notice that the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the honorable member for Warringah **(Mr. Bland),** is in his seat at the moment. He has been the chairman for the six year?, since the committee was resuscitated, and I think it is a tribute to him that the committee has come to be a valuable part of the financial mechanism of the Australian economy. He and the other members of the committee have given a great deal of study to the method by which these various financial statements ought to be presented to the Parliament. Sometimes it is difficult to obtain an intelligible appreciation of the various financial mechanisms by which appropriations are made for the purpose of government. Although technically no £1 of expenditure in Australia can be incurred without parliamentary sanction of some kind or another, there are various expenditures which become necessary during the course of the year which are not anticipated at the beginning of the year, and generally provision to approve of them is rushed through in the dying hour of the session. It was urged that a new approach should be made so far as expenditure under the Advance to the Treasurer was concerned. I think I am right in saying that this is the first occasion on which the items coming under that particular head have been presented to the House in this form. On the occasion of the report of the Public Accounts Committee recommending that this change be made, the chairman of the committee made some reference to the reason for the change. I have no doubt that he is gratified to see that, in this connexion at any rate, the recommendations of the committee have been followed. I think it would be interesting some time to tabulate the various rather unspectacular alterations of procedure that have been made as a result of the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee. They are unspectacular matters, because they are matters of mechanics, matters of administrative detail. They may not amount to a great deal in terms of the system of government as a whole, but they are nevertheless matters whose adjustment from time to time makes for greater efficiency in financial control and also for better control by the Parliament as a whole of the financial appropriations. These are sometimes matters which to the layman do not seem important but, in terms of parliamentary procedure, they are important. I think that to those of us who sometimes give a little consideration to the machinery of the Parliament, it is difficult to know why something done in 1858 in a certain way should continue to be done in 1958 in the identical way. Sometimes there is a very good reason for following tradition, and occasionally there are reasons for not following tradition. I think that we have before us an item in relation to which there is a good reason for changing the practice which has been followed since 1901. I pay tribute to the Public Accounts Committee, to the chairman and its members, for being vigilant, and I am glad that the chairman is in the chamber to hear that tribute. I do not wish to debate the statement before us, but I commend it to the House for speedy acceptance, and repeat my tribute to the Public Accounts Committee for the zealous work it does in what is sometimes a very unspectacular field. {: #subdebate-50-0-s1 .speaker-JQ7} ##### Mr BLAND:
Warringah .- I do not wish to detain the committee very long. I merely want to say that the honorable member for Melbourne Ports **(Mr. Crean)** has quite adequately explained the position. This is a new method of presenting the Supplementary Estimates - that is to say, the Estimates dealing with money that has been spent on different items out of the £16,000,000 Advance to the Treasurer. Previously the Public Accounts Committee thought it would be necessary to provide a new measure to cover the appropriation of these supplementaries, but it was decided after inquiry that that would not achieve any legal advantage and was quite unnecessary. However, the Public Accounts Committee felt that the Parliament ought to know on what specific items the money had been spent. This committee is. therefore, now considering a statement showing the various items of expenditure which have been met from the Advance to the Treasurer of £16,000,000, and so has adequate information before it as to what was done with the money. This is a way of facilitating parliamentary control of the finances. It is a machinery measure which, as the honorable member for Melbourne Ports says, although not very spectacular, is very important. If you look at this matter from the point of view of mere mechanics, it is not important, but if you look at it from the point of view of the principle that no money ought to be spent without parliamentary approval, then it is of primary importance. I commend the statement to the committee, assuring honorable members that this is one way to help the Parliament to control the expenditure of the money which was voted in a lump sum of £16,000,000 as the Advance to the Treasurer. {: #subdebate-50-0-s2 .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE:
Moore .- Honorable gentlemen opposite may say "Aw", when I rise to speak, but I remind them that they have a responsibility to the electors as members of this chamber. I put it to the committee that there is no greater responsibility than that of guarding the finances of the country. I want to tell the committee that there is a report by the Public Accounts Committee on the contents of this statement. Members of this Parliament may sometimes ask themselves why the Public Accounts Committee has devoted so much of its attention to inquiring into underspending of votes. The reason is that very often under-spending is related to overestimating in other departments. If honorable members care to study the 41st report of the Public Accounts Committee, they will see that that fact is dealt with there. I am concerned about this one question of reliable estimating in connexion with the presentation of the annual Budget. Irrespective of what government is in office, the amount of taxation which it will be called upon to impose is dependent upon the volume of expenditure which heads of departments and the Treasury submit to the Government as being the minimum required to carry on the affairs of the country. The Government must be guided by its advisers and calculate the amount of revenue which it must raise by way of taxation to meet the expenditure represented by those estimates. All the money must come from the pockets of the taxpayers. That is an important fact to remember. If there is over-estimating, obviously the taxpayers will be called upon to pay far more than is reasonable. On the other hand, if there is under-estimating, although for the moment it might relieve the necessity for raising a large amount of taxation, some departments will hope that other departments will underspend their estimate so that they can make up their deficiency, under the appropriate section of the Audit Act, or else meet it from the Treasurer's Advance. Accurate estimating is the basis of good government. Recently, during a debate on the Public Accounts Committee, the honorable member for the Australian Capital Territory **(Mr. J. R. Fraser)** suggested that the Public Accounts Committee could only attempt to do something with the horse after it had escaped from the stable. I replied to the honorable member that that committee did manage to close the stable doors to prevent other horses from escaping. It is the responsibility of Parliament to make sure that the horses do not escape from the stables in the first place. This can be done by ensuring that the rate of taxation is' reasonable because the rate of spending is reasonable and that estimates are reliable. On previous occasions the honorable member for Warringah **(Mr. Bland)** has pointed out that some honorable members want to turn a discussion on the Estimates into a sort of second-reading debate. If it is not possible for us to depart from that practice then Parliament should seek to make some arrangement by which the financial operations of this country are satisfactorily safeguarded. Australia is a young country and our parliamentary operations are in their infancy compared with those of the Mother Country. We can easily apply remedial measures. The problem which is facing us to-day is not peculiar to this country; it is found in the United Kingdom also. I should like honorable members to read a magazine published in the United Kingdom entitled "The Statist". In its issue dated 22nd August last, an article appeared under the heading "Tiptoe Through the Estimates ". Several members of the Opposition, including the honorable member for Watson **(Mr. Cope),** seem to be displaying an attitude of irresponsibility. The honorable member for Watson has been a most valuable member of the Public Accounts Committee, and I should have thought that he and his colleagues would have had a sense of deep responsibility in this important matter. {: .speaker-JAG} ##### Mr Crean: -- The honorable member has no sense of humour. {: .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE: -- My reply to the honorable member for Melbourne Ports is that the subject of government finance is one in which honorable members can hardly find the opportunity to exercise a sense of humour. This article in "The Statist" refers to the sixth report from the Select Committee on Estimates of the United Kingdom Parliament. This is a joint, allparty committee of 36 members which examines the Estimates, apart from the Public Accounts Committee, before they are passed by the Parliament. In its report it made some very caustic comments. According to this article in the " Statist ", the sixth report of that select committee - should raise public misgivings and ensure some action towards a rational system of national bookkeeping. That was a comment on the procedure of a parliament which is centuries old. It might be difficult for the United Kingdom Parliament to effect remedies in its system of dealing with Estimates, but it should not be difficult for a young country like Australia to do so. This article goes on to say - >In the " Statist " we have often criticized the system of estimating which renders the Budget no more than an essay in guess work. That has been characteristic of the Estimates in this country over the last 40 or 50 years. Instead of estimating, it has been guess work. I think that the honorable member for Melbourne Ports **(Mr. Crean),** who also has been a valuable member of the Public Accounts Committee, can take his mind back to inquiries into estimating when it was found that the so-called Estimates could more aptly be described as " guesstimates ". Statement agreed to. Motion (by **Mr. Harold** Holt) agreed to - >That the following resolution be reported to the House: - > >That the committee agrees with the statement for the year 1957-58 of Heads of Expenditure and the Amounts charged thereto pursuant to section 36a of the Audit Act 1901-1957. Resolution reported; report adopted. {: .page-start } page 1872 {:#debate-51} ### COPPER BOUNTY BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-51-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 25th September (vide page 1673), on motion by **Mr. Osborne** - >That the bill be now read a second time. {: #subdebate-51-0-s0 .speaker-KZ9} ##### Mr RIORDAN:
Kennedy .- The Opposition agrees to the passage of this bill. It provides for the payment of a bounty of £45 a ton on copper produced and sold in Australia for a period of two years from 19th May, 1958. In other words, the effect of the bill will be retrospective. The introduction of this measure follows a Tariff Board inquiry held last year. Representatives of the producers made submissions to the board and the board furnished the Government with a report in which it recom mended that something should be done for the industry. The Government has decided to adopt this course. I do not object to the payment of a bounty to the small producers. In Queensland, in 1956, Mount Isa Mines Limited produced 28,199 tons, Mount Morgan Limited produced 7,388 tons, small producers in the Cloncurry district produced 1,392 tons and production in the rest of the State was 46 tons. The bill precludes payment of the bounty where the profit of the company is more than 10 per cent. That means that Mount Isa Mines Limited is excluded from participation in the bounty payments. In his second-reading speech, the Minister for Air **(Mr. Osborne),** who introduced the bill, said that small producers would be regarded as mines producing up to 50 tons of refined copper a year. On the Cloncurry field, where the small mines operate, the ores run somewhere from 8 per cent, to 9.5 per cent, copper content. On that basis, to produce 50 tons of copper, a man need only produce 600 tons of copper ore. These men do not work alone; they work in parties of two or three, or a one-man show may employ two men. If they produce more than 50 tons of refined copper in a year, they can be excluded from participation in the bounty. If a small producer is denied the bounty because he produces, say, 60 or 70 tons of copper, he is placed in the same category as Mount Isa Mines Limited and Mount Morgan Limited, which produce thousands of tons a year! It is true that a line must be drawn somewhere, but the line should not be drawn so far down the list. If the small man is to be encouraged, the limit of 50 tons should be lifted. It is all very well for the Government to say, " But compare this bounty with the bounty paid on gold production ", and so on. That has nothing to do with it. We are dealing with the production of copper alone. I come now to the cost of producing a ton of refined copper. The small man naturally has to meet certain charges. They include the cost of explosives and the freight on them, steel that he will use, dieselene for his various machines, insurance, pay-roll tax, and depreciation on compressors, hoists and other mining equipment. He also has other overhead expenses. In addition, he must meet cartage costs which are pretty savage in that area because the carriers have to pay heavily for the petrol or diesel oil that they use in the lorries to cart the ore to the refinery or to the treatment plant. So, cartage represents a considerable cost. Superimposed on these costs are the smelting, the converting, refining and realization charges. It is all very well to say that 50 tons at £320 a ton amounts to £16,000 a year. It sounds very good; but it means the production of about two tons of ore a day. One man cannot do that alone, because, in addition to the production of copper ore to be sent to the refinery, he must engage in development work, and that is dead work. The men forming the party may do this work themselves or they may employ a man to do it. However, they would be fortunate if they could could get a man to do that class of work for £4 a day. All these costs must be taken into consideration. The point I make is that the limit of 50 tons is too low. I would not say definitely what it should be, but I suggest that it should be about 150 tons. I know that the Government will advance various reasons for not raising the limit, so I shall carry my argument a step further. In the course of his second-reading speech the Minister said - the copper bounty is designed not so much to encourage expansion . . . 1 have heard the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** say in this House that the only way we can fight inflation is by expansion. He has said, " We want production; we must have production and more production." Yet in this industry, if a man produces more than 50 tons, he will not receive the copper bounty! I do not suggest that Mount Isa Mines Limited wants to participate in the bounty or that it wants to sell on the Australian market. I understand that the whole of its copper production is sold overseas and that its production of lead and zinc is sold on the United Kingdom and European markets. Mount Isa Mines Limited must now meet the drop in its income which will inevitably follow the restriction of imports of lead and zinc by the United States of America, because this will lead to a fall in prices on the United Kingdom and European markets, and a further drop in world prices generally. Mount Isa Mines Limited employs about 3,500 men, and half its income in the past has come from copper production. 1 make these comments on the question of expansion. In discussions on our overseas balances, honorable members have said that we must increase production of everything that we can export for the purpose of building up overseas reserves, if we are going to maintain the living standards of people in this country. I have here an extract from the " Sydney Morning Herald " of 27th September last, which reads - >AUSTRALIA LOSING CHINA ORDERS. > >Australia is losing valuable orders in Communist China to Britain because Australia bans more exports to Communist countries than Britain does. > >Because of this, Britain recently concluded with Communist China a £750,000 sterling copper deal which exporters claim Australia could have had. If we are to continue our development at a time like the present, when there is a world recession, we should be encouraging expansion. We should not have restrictions placed here and there. It may be as well, with regard to this matter of copper, to follow the accepted practice. It is true that the copper producers' association has stipulated how the domestic market shall be distributed between the copper producers. I do suggest, however, that restrictions should not be so severe as to prevent us from achieving the production that has been thought desirable. If there is a small party of two or three men operating a mine, or if a mine is owned by one man who employs two or three others, the production in such mines will have to be kept below 50 tons, in which case some of the men will have to be dismissed, or else the mine operator will be penalized by not receiving the bounty of £45 a ton on production because his production is over 50 tons. That is my objection to the measure. Honorable members may be interested in the following extract from yesterday's Brisbane " Courier Mail ": - >MOUNT ISA ORE FIGURES UP. > > **Mr Isa** Mines copper and lead production soared in the four weeks' period ended September 21. The mine pushed total ore treated to a new peak of 158,030 tons- more than 5,643 tons a day. **Mr Isa** treated 84,900 tons of copper ore for 3,480 tons of blister copper - 715 tons more than in the previous period. Lead ore treated was 73,130 tons which yielded 5,560 tons of lead bullion - 1,260 tons more than in the period ended August 24. Zinc concentrates production fell slightly to 2,288 tons from 2,458 tons. In other words, Mount Isa is pushing on and achieving the production that we have talked about. But let us have a little more production, anyhow, and let us assist those men who go out into these isolated places, over rough bush tracks, to search for minerals. It is true that the State government renders great assistance by hiring equipment to the small operators. It is true that the 50 tons limit may suit a gouger, and, after all, the very foundations of the copper industry were laid by the gougers, as they are called, or the prospectors. It is not the large companies that find great mineral deposits; it is the prospectors, or the gougers. Incidentally, I might tell honorable members that officers of Mount Isa Mines, in association with Consolidated Zinc and the Bureau of Mineral Resources, have been prospecting in and around the Cloncurry area. As to these gougers, it is true that the 50 tons limit may suit them. I am concerned, however, with the man who employs two or three others, or the party of two or three who work together. They may produce up to the limit of 50 tons, but their costs are so high that if they are to carry on the limit must be increased considerably, and I suggest that it be made 150 tons. {: #subdebate-51-0-s1 .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr TIMSON:
Higinbotham .- I think the House will be delighted at the measure of assistance that will be given to the copper mining industry by means of this bill. The position of the industry has been deteriorating for quite a long time. One or two of our mines, certainly, do not stand in need of assistance, but others do, and, indeed, with them it is a matter of life and death. It is not my intention to take up too much of the time of the House, but I should like to recount the history of the copper-mining industry over the last year or two, so that I may tell honorable members the background to the action proposed in this bill. The Tariff Board was invited to examine the position with relation to copper back in 1954. However, world prices of copper quickly recovered at that time, and no Tariff Board recommendation was proceeded with. But the Government agreed at that time to refer the matter back to the Tariff Board if the price declined seriously in the future. Since then vast changes have occurred in the industry. Tre mendous new ore bodies have been proved and developed. Mount Isa mines have been expanding their workings considerably. I and other honorable members on this side of the House were in Mount Isa recently. I was interested to hear what the honorable member for Kennedy **(Mr. Riordan)** had to say about this great mine. One of the most staggering facts about the mine is that the underground railway lines carry a greater tonnage than the whole of the Queensland railways. {: .speaker-KZ9} ##### Mr Riordan: -- It is a very efficient mine. {: .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr TIMSON: -- Indeed it is very efficiently managed and mined. The Peko Mine at Tennant Creek has pushed ahead with a sound expansion programme, and very considerable ore bodies have been discovered. Mount Isa mines has proceeded with the establishment of a magnificent refinery, which is presently under construction at Townsville. During the period since 1954, great fluctuations have occurred in the world price of copper. In 1954, when the Tariff Board first examined the situation at the request of the Government, the price was, I think. £300 a ton, which was dangerously low for our copper-mining industry. However, by August of 1956 it had increased to £500 a ton. Thereafter the price fell constantly until it reached £330 a ton late last year. This was the danger level for some of our biggest and marginal mines. Producers and users then got together and agreed to hold the Australian price at £330 a ton, in order to keep our marginal mines in production. The world price continued to fall, until, in February-March of this year, it had reached the very low figure of £200 a ton. The falling off in price to the drastically low level of £200 a ton was due mainly to the cessation of stock-piling by the United States of America. There was a considerable drop in domestic consumption in the United States of America because of the recession which that country has been experiencing, and from which it is only now emerging. The great difference between the world price and the Australian price presented great problems for copper users and fabricators in Australia. Our manufacturers, making their goods from expensive Australian copper, had to compete with similar goods from overseas made from copper bought at the much lower world price. Therefore, the Tariff Board was faced with a most difficult problem, made difficult by many complex problems quite dissociated from the main issue of protection. The industry is characterized by wide diversity of conditions and costs of production as between the various mines, which are spread throughout the continent. The Mount Lyell mine and the Mount Morgan mine are what we would call extremely marginal mines, and any great fluctuation of price, such as I have mentioned, can be extremely dangerous to their future. Mount Isa, on the other hand, is in a different category. It has rich ore and plenty of it, and, as the honorable member for Kennedy said, it is most efficiently mined. Perhaps it is not worried about the application. In the light of all the information available to it, the Tariff Board concluded that assistance was warranted, and that the most appropriate method of providing that assistance would be a tariff which would enable the Australian price to be stabilized at its present level of £330 a ton. The Government decided to assist the industry to the extent found necessary by the Tariff Board, but to provide that assistance, not wholly by a tariff as recommended by the board, but partly by tariff and partly by bounty. The Government considered that there were aspects which could greatly alter the position in the fairly near future such as the coming into operation of the Townsville refinery to which I have referred. As the Minister for Air **(Mr. Osborne)** stated in his second-reading speech - >The Government did not, however, accept the view that the tariff was the most appropriate or the only effective method of assisting the major producers. Indeed, the Government was concerned about the implications for the Australian economy of a difference of £110 a ton between the Australian and world prices of such a basic raw material as copper. Accordingly, it decided to assist the industry partly through the tariff and partly by bounty. One statement by the Minister in introducing the bill appealed to me. He stated - >By this means the gap between the Australian price and the overseas price has been narrowed, leading to a considerable saving to the economy generally. At the same time, the mines on which several isolated communities depend will be assured of reasonable returns. The lowering of the Australian price should also increase the local demand for copper. **Mr. Deputy Speaker,** the present world price of copper is rising and is now approaching the level which will be maintained by the tariff. Australian manufacturers, therefore, are not put to any great disadvantage with overseas fabricators. The Government's proposals provide for a tariff when the overseas price is less than £275 per ton, which raises the Australian price to the equivalent of £275 which, with a freight component and a maximum bounty of £45 per ton, would return £330 per ton to the marginal producers. The bounty is designed to return to our marginal mines a profit of not more than 10 per cent. This profit limitation conforms to the normal application of most of our bounty legislation. It is hoped that the world price of copper will continue to rise to the point where no bounty will be payable, and the mines for whose assistance this legislation is designed will be able to stand on their own feet again in world competition. The price at the moment stands at roughly £212 English currency, which is the equivalent of £265 Australian. I should like to pay a tribute to Mount Isa in respect of this proposal. It has been very helpful to the copper industry for years. It has co-operated generously in rationalizing the Australian market. The honorable member for Kennedy **(Mr. Riordan)** pleaded the case for those we call the gougers - the small producers of copper. I should like the honorable member to know that this matter of providing for the gougers, excluding them over a certain tonnage, has been most carefully examined. The Government members' mining committee has given it a great deal of attention. As the honorable member said, we have to draw the line somewhere. I know that he wants to draw it at 150 tons, which will provide for all those in the Cloncurry area. Indeed, only a few months ago, our mining committee had a conference with those gougers at Mount Isa. We are fully aware of the problems which confront them over this bounty, but the bounty must, in some way, be related to the gold bounty. Under that bounty, small producers or gougers of gold, are able to produce up to 500 ounces of gold and still attract the bounty of £2 a ton. If they are over that quantity, they are classified as major producers. The small producer or the gouger normally keeps meagre records, if he keeps any at all. With gold-mining, that does not matter because he does not have to keep records or to pay income tax; but the small gouger of copper must keep some records because he is subject to income tax. So, the line was drawn at 50 tons. On a value basis, 37) tons of copper is the equivalent of 500 ounces of gold. I know, as the honorable member for Kennedy knows, that there would be only four or five gougers in the area around Cloncurry and Mount Isa producing in excess of 50 tons. {: .speaker-KZ9} ##### Mr Riordan: -- Then why not provide for all of them? {: .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr TIMSON: -- That would create all sorts of problems. I think the limitation of 50 tons is a very good one. I hope the House understands that small producers of copper up to 50 tons attract the full bounty without presenting any records at all relating to profit. I consider the bill is highly desirable and I know that it will be welcomed by the mining community of Australia. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate. {: .page-start } page 1876 {:#debate-52} ### RIVER MURRAY WATERS BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-52-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 25th September (vide page 1647), on motion by **Mr. Townley** - >That the bill be now read a second time. {: #subdebate-52-0-s0 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The Opposition is pleased that the Government has at last been able to persuade South Australia to accept this compromise agreement because it will do one good thing. Though South Australia will lose in the process its fair share of water which is to be diverted, it will at least guarantee the legality of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority. But just so that it can go on the record that the Premier of South Australia, **Sir Thomas** Playford, is not the wizard of negotiation that he pretends he is in South Australia, and that at long last he has met his match in the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies),** I think it should be repeated here that South Australia has been deprived of a share of the water that it should have got had it been given its just share of the water that is to be diverted. I do not know whether **Sir Thomas** Playford does not realize this, or whether he realizes it and pretends that he does not in order to save face. I have a feeling that he does know he has been cheated, but rather than admit that he has been beaten, he is pretending that this is a wonderful agreement. Let me explain why the South Australian people are being deprived of their fair share of the diverted water. In order to understand this scheme one has to keep in mind three rivers, the Tooma, the Eucumbene and the Snowy. Those three rivers play a part in the diversions that will occur when the scheme is completed. Altogether, 300,000 acre feet of water per year will be diverted through the Tooma into the Murrumbidgee. Some 248;000 acre feet of water per year will be distributed from the Snowy via the Eucumbene into the Murrumbidgee. Some 400,000 acre feet of water will be diverted from the Snowy itself via the Murray, making a total of 948,000 acre feet of water per year. It is important to remember that the cost of those diversions has been met by all the people of Australia on a population basis. If it were physically possible for all the people of Australia who have contributed towards the cost of the diversions to share equally in the benefits of the diversions 1 would advocate that they should share accordingly. But it is not physically possible for more than two of the States to share in the benefits of the additional hydro-electric power, and those two States are Victoria and New South Wales: It is not possible, geographically, for more than three States to share in the additional water available for irrigation purposes. Even though we might say to the States of New South Wales and Victoria, " It is your good luck that you are getting all the additional very cheap hydro-electric power between you, South Australia, at least, ought to be given her share of the additional water that is made available and which she so badly needs ". If this fair share were to be divided correctly, South Australia should have the amount which, under the agreement, she is entitled to have in drought times, which is three-thirteenths of the water that flows through the Hume dam at Albury. Victoria is entitled to fivethirteenths of that water and New South Wales is entitled to five-thirteenths of it. As 648.000 acre feet of water which previously flowed into the Pacific Ocean at Orbost is now being diverted into the interior through the Murrumbidgee and the Murray, we can see that South Australia's fair share of that additional water is threethirteenths. But what is South Australia to get? The Tooma water, amounting to 300,000 acre feet per year, is being diverted from the Murray into the Murrumbidgee and is to be divided equally between Victoria and New South Wales. South Australia will lose its three-thirteenths share of that diversion. However, the Government has said, " We will apply justice in this case by setting aside from the Snowy diversion an amount of water equal to the diversion from the Tooma and the surplus will be divided between the States on the basis of fivethirteenths to Victoria, five-thirteenths to New South Wales, and three-thirteenths to South Australia ". The Government claims that, in this way, South Australia will get its just share. It suits the Government to overlook the fact that the diversion of 248,000 acre feet via the Eucumbene, Toona and, ultimately, the Murrumbidgee, al' in New South Wales, has not been taken *-to* account, and that none of it is shared by Victoria or South Australia. The Government still refuses to face up to the fact that the diversion from the Snowy itself has, first of all, clipped from it the 300.000 acre feet which is taken from the Murray and diverted into the Murrumbidgee via the Tooma River. This is a very important diversion to South Australia. We are not very much concerned about our share of the water from the Murray in ordinary normal times; our chief concern is in time of drought because it is in time of drought that all the States need the water most of all. So, to all intents and purposes, we can say that this agreement hinges upon South Australia's share of water in time of drought. In time of drought, the snow-fed river is ever so much more valuable than the water of the river which is fed by ordinary rainfall, and the Tooma River happens to be one of the best snow-fed rivers of the continent. It is strange but true that very often in years of drought, there are heavy falls of snow. {: .speaker-KOL} ##### Sir Philip McBride: -- Who told you that? {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am pleased that the Minister for Defence **(Sir Philip McBride)** is now awake. I have read the reports that have been published by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. I am influenced, also, by a statement made by **Sir Thomas** Playford himself who told me that that information had been given to him by reputable authorities. {: .speaker-KOL} ##### Sir Philip McBride: -- He had incorrect information. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I do not think he had. He told me that it is generally accepted that in time of drought the strange phenomenon of additional snowfalls does, in fact, occur. I am prepared to accept the statement by the Premier in that respect. I will admit that the Premier, when he found himself confronted with a more skilful negotiator, seemed to lose all interest in the great advantage of snow-fed tributaries and was prepared to accept in their place rain-fed tributaries which will be of no benefit when there is no rain. I find in this bill a deal with which I agree. It is true that this agreement has cleared up the question which was never previously quite clear of what constitutes the waters of the Murray - do they include the water actually in the stream itself, the water that is dammed up in the locks, and iso forth? This agreement clarifies that point. South Australia's rights are now clear, and to that extent we must commend the proposals. Now we know that the whole of the water left in the river Murray itself is to be shared in the manner that I have just mentioned. Originally South Australia objected to the proposed diversion of the Tooma River on the grounds that it was being made by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority and not by the States of New South Wales and Victoria. But the Minister for Supply has stated that South Australia did not press this point once agreement was reached on what the Minister is pleased to call the major question of the manner in which the Murray waters are to be shared in time of drought. That is the first sell-out by the Premier of South Australia who had so much to say in the press about how he was going to fight for the rights of South Australia. Almost every day, at one time, one would read in the newspapers how the wicked Federal Government had deprived South Australia of its share of the river Murray waters. The Premier of South Australia did not wake up to what was going on until it was too late. He did nothing about this matter until some time in 1957. For nearly eight years, he was asleep and took no steps whatever to protect the water rights of South Australia as a consequence of the diversion. In 1948 or 1949, **Sir Thomas** Playford knew that there was to be a diversion from the Snowy into the Murray and through the tributaries of the Murrumbidgee. That was when the Premier should have moved in, at a time when the Commonwealth Government had not been committed, as it now is, to a tremendous expenditure of public revenue. That was when the Commonwealth Government could have brought some pressure to bear on Victoria and New South Wales. The Commonwealth could have said to those States: " If you do not agree to let South Australia have a fair share, as far as we are concerned the scheme can stop ". Victoria and New South Wales, realizing how much they stood to lose by way of additional hydro-electric power and water, would have been compelled to talk common sense and accept a just settlement of the scheme. What happened? **Sir Thomas** Playford, after sleeping soundly for eight years, suddenly woke up that there was a Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority diverting water, which every schoolchild in Australia knew about from the third grade upwards. Only after the Commonwealth had spent more than £100,000,000 did he come to light and ask for his share. At that stage, New South Wales and Victoria decided that they would stand pat because the Commonwealth had spent £100,000,000 and if the agreement was not finalized, the Commonwealth probably would be pushed out by the High Court on the ground that it had no constitutional right to be there, thus relinquishing ownership of works that had already cost £100,000,000 of public money. The Minister in his second-reading speech went on to say something with which I cannot agree. He said - >The claim of South Australia to share in drought time in the diverted waters of the Snowy was clearly a matter of concern only to the States of New South Wales and Victoria. It was not a matter upon which the Commonwealth could be expected or indeed had any right to adjudicate. I disagree with the Minister. I say that the Commonwealth did have a right to adjudicate. It had a right at the very beginning. Perhaps the Government that commenced the scheme was at fault in not calling together the three States and saying, "Before we embark on this £200,000,000 scheme we want you to reach agreement as to our constitutional rights to carry on the scheme and control the distribution of electricity and so on ". South Australian being vitally interested in the project, it would have been brought into the scheme at that point before New South Wales and Victoria could blackmail the Commonwealth, and to a lesser extent South Australia, by saying, " If you do not agree to what we want, you will be ousted because the Commonwealth has no constitutional right to be there ". At that time, the Commonwealth probably would have been able to obtain an agreement. It is true that the Government which started the scheme perhaps did not have time to complete those negotiations, but at any rate the succeeding government early in 1950 could have done so before too much money had been spent. But it was not done. That was the great mistake of the whole project. Another concession which the South Australian Government makes is that, in a period of restrictions, New South Wales and Victoria will be permitted to use the water from the river Murray in excess of the quantity to which they are otherwise entitled and to replace that excess from any tributary of the Murray below Albury in such a way that the rights of the other States are not prejudiced. The Minister said - >The significance of this requirement is that New South Wales and Victoria may take water out of the main stream of the Murray, where they need it, and replace it from tributaries. That represents another sell-out by South Australia, because the way the agreement previously operated, South Australia had 3/ 13ths of the water that was released from Albury, plus any water not used by New South Wales and Victoria which flowed into the Murray below Albury. But under this proposal New South Wales and Victoria can use more than their 5/13ths shares of the Hume dam and compensate South Australia by counting the water that they cannot use from the Darling, the Lachlan and the Murrumbidgee as being water to compensate for the water that is released from the Hume dam. But this part of the agreement has not been altered - that is, the original agreement to which the Opposition took exception when it came before Parliament in May this year. At that time the Opposition complained that South Australia was being forced to allow the water that is diverted from the Tooma to be carved up in equal parts between Victoria and New South Wales. South Australia would thus lose her 3/ 13ths of the water, representing some 70,000 acre feet per annum. That part of the agreement is still unaltered. I compliment the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** on his skill at being able to put it over this smart Premier of South Australia. I do not know how he did it, but the fact is that he did it. **Sir Thomas** Playford has gone back to South Australia and has not said one word about the way he has been chiselled out of his share of the Tooma waters. He thinks he has had a victory. He thinks he has beaten Menzies, Cahill, and that clown Bolte - that is the word he used, and I think he is probably right there. He tells the people of South Australia that he has three scalps on his belt. But when we have a good look at this matter, we find that **Sir Thomas** Playfords scalp is on their belts, because what he regards as a victory simply amounts to this: The Government says, " We will pinch from you 70,000 acre feet of water and then we will give back to you 70,000 acre feet of water that you are entitled to anyhow, and what is left over we will let you share in on the basis of 3/ 13ths of the total ". That, to **Sir Thomas,** is the wonderful proposition. I do not think it is wonderful. I think it is just an example of the Premier being soundly asleep for eight years while South Australia's rights were being stolen - not only the rights of the present generation but the rights of future generations. The agreement ;that we are ratifying to-night will be used for generations, or indeed centuries, to come, to deprive the people of South Australia of their just share of the waters of the river Murray. If ever a man was soundly defeated it was **Sir Thomas** Playford with respect to this matter. The more one examines this agreement, the more loopholes one discovers. It will be seen from the Minister's speech that New South Wales and Victoria required as a condition to their meeting the South Australian claim that the River Murray Waters Agreement should be amended to make it mandatory upon the River Murray Commission to declare a period of restriction when the water stored in the Hume reservoir and Lake Victoria falls to 1,000,000 acre feet. That means that if there is 2,000,000 acre feet at Albury and none at Lake Victoria, the commission could theoretically fail to declare a period of restriction. The result would be that South Australia would be in a position where New South Wales and Victoria, if it suited them, could take the initiative and have a period of restriction declared, but South Australia, if the tables were turned, could not do so. {: .speaker-KEE} ##### Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes: -- If there were 2,000,000 acre feet of water at Albury it would be running over the spillway. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am reminded that the Hume dam is to be enlarged so that it will hold more than 2,000,000 acre feet- 2,500,000 acre feet I think the honorable member for Chisholm suggests. I remind honorable members that South Australia pays its share of the cost of raising the wall of the Hume dam. South Australia pays its share of the cost of all the other locks and arrangements on the river to control the flow of the water. Anybody would think that South Australia paid absolutely nothing towards the cost of control of the river waters. Anybody would think that South Australia paid nothing towards the cost of the diversion of the Snowy waters into the river Murray and Murrumbidgee River. Now we come to another of the Minister's statements about the agreement. He said - >It does this for periods -of restriction by the addition , of sub-clause .(3.) (b) of clause 45 which provides that no State shall .receive less water .b>y reason of the Tooma diversion than it would have -received 'had 'that -diversion not been made. What <a wonderful concession! That is marvellous! We are not to receive any less! But we expected to get more, as we are justly entitled to do, since 648,000 acre feet of additional water is to be diverted into the Murray. One of the great points in the Minister's speech is that the agreement guarantees that we shall not get less! As I have said, what a wonderful concession that is! The agreement should provide, not that we shall not get less, but that we shall get more. When one takes into account the diversion of extra water into the Murray, South Australia should be guaranteed more. Summed up, one can say that, out of all the diversions that are to be made. New South Wales will get 433,000 acre feet more than before; Victoria will get about 1 80,000 acre feet more than before; and South Australia will get a miserable pittance of about 35,000 acre feet more. As a South Australian, I do not regard that as a good proposition. I think that, having regard to the fact that New South Wales and Victoria are to share between them the whole of the hydroelectric power, which will be provided at a much cheaper cost than that at which South Australia will ever be able to generate thermal power, South Australia should receive a greater share of the additional water even than its three-thirteenths of the total volume of water provided by diversions, including the diversions of the Tooma, Eucumbene and Snowy Rivers. But it is not to get that. We heard the Minister say also - >Thirdly, clause 5 of the new agreement which amends clause 51 of the River Murray. Agreement ensures that South Australia receives its appropriate share . . . What does he mean by the words "appropriate share", other than the share that I have just explained? It is of no use for the Minister for Territories **(Mr. Hasluck)** to frown at me, for I know that this matter is too complex for him to understand. He should not try to divert me from doing my duty by frowning at me when I am discussing a subject that is too profound for him to understand. We find that " Murray water " is defined as including any water coming into the river Murray and its tributaries by reason of the permanent works of the Snowy Mountains Authority. I should like the Prime Minister, if he intends to honour the House by participating in this debate, to tell us whether that means that the water diverted into the river Murray by way of the Murrumbidgee and other tributaries is to be included in the whole of the amount to be divided between South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. If it is, and the right honorable gentleman says so, he will defeat the whole of my opposition in one fell swoop. But I have a very strong suspicion that it is not so, although the Minister for Supply - probably in ignorance of the facts - has stated that it is so. I have a nasty feeling that the water diverted into the Murrumbidgee by way of the Eucumbene will not be included when South Australia's entitlement to river Murray water is ultimately determined in times of drought. The House has been very patient, **Mr. Speaker,** and I thank honorable members for their courtesy in listening to me on this highly important, though rather involved, matter without interjection or interruption. The Opposition supports the bill, reluctantly, and for two reasons only. First, it gives South Australia a little more than would have been the case under the agreement that we ratified last May. Secondly, from the national point of view, it finally paves the way for settling beyond doubt once and for all the Commonwealth's right to construct works of the kind being undertaken by the great Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority, and to control and generally superintend that authority. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1880 {:#debate-53} ### CIVIL AVIATION (DAMAGE BY AIRCRAFT) BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-53-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 25th September (vide page 1686), on motion by **Mr. Townley** - >That the bill be now read a second time. {: #subdebate-53-0-s0 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- **Mr. Speaker,** the Opposition has considered this bill, and agrees to support it. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1881 {:#debate-54} ### RAILWAY STANDARDIZATION (NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA) AGREEMENT BILL 1958 {:#subdebate-54-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 25th September (vide page 1683), on motion by **Mr. Townley** - >That the bill be now read a second time. {: #subdebate-54-0-s0 .speaker-KXI} ##### Mr WEBB:
Stirling .- The Opposition does not oppose this bill, which is to approve an agreement between the Commonwealth and the States of New South Wales and Victoria in relation to the standardization of the railway between Sydney and Melbourne. There is no doubt that this is a project of major importance. It is to cost £10,726,000. An amount of £470,000 was expended on it last year, and this year, in accordance with this legislation, £1,700,000 will be expended. Actually, the Commonwealth is meeting all the initial costs, and the States will each pay back three-twentieths of the cost over a period of 50 years. This means that the Commonwealth will meet 70 per cent, of the total cost. The Opposition strongly supports this legislation, because it relates to one of three projects which were recommended by the Labour party's transport committee. The report of that committee was adopted by the Opposition and by the Brisbane conference of the party. The other proposals recommended by the committee related to the standardization of the line between Broken Hill and Adelaide, via Port Pirie, and of the line between Kalgoorlie and Perth. The Opposition is concerned lest the completion of the Albury-Melbourne link be as far as this Government will go in standardization. An examination of the map will show that of the three projects, the Albury-Melbourne link is not as important from the national viewpoint as is the Broken Hill-Port Pirie link. The Victorian and South Australian governments looked at this rail standardization proposal with a narrow, parochial, State outlook instead of with a national outlook. Victoria thought that if it did not get in first and if the link from Broken Hill to Port Pirie were standardized, interstate traffic from Queensland and New South Wales to South Australia and Western Australia would bypass Victoria. The South Australian Government did not jump in and try to have the Broken HillPort Pirie link standardized, because it did not want interstate traffic to bypass Adelaide. Shortly after it was decided to proceed with standardization of the AlburyMelbourne link, the Premier of South Australia, **Sir Thompas** Playford, said that he wanted a standard-gauge line completed from Melbourne to Adelaide. That might be quite all right, too, but it is not an important project from the national viewpoint. The distance from Wodonga to Melbourne is approximately 189 miles, and from Melbourne to Adelaide 483 miles, making a total of 672 miles, whereas the Broken Hill-Port Pirie link, excluding the line from Port Pirie to Adelaide, is 253 miles. There was every justification for going on with the Port Pirie-Broken Hill link as an urgent measure, because the Stirling North-Marree standard-gauge link had just been completed, and men and firstclass equipment were available for immediate use in the South Australian project. Another important point was that South Australia had, in 1949, signed an agreement, with the Commonwealth on standardization of railways. Consequently, if South Australia had pushed its claim for priority, that claim would have been very difficult toresist. No legislation such as this would' have been needed, because the agreement had already been signed. The position now is that instead of there being a break of gauge at Albury for traffic from Queensland and New South Wales to> South Australia and Western Australia, thebreak will be at Melbourne. In the case of West Australian traffic, there will still be a. break at Port Pirie. If the Broken HillPort Pirie link were completed, there would' be an unbroken standard-gauge line fromQueensland and New South Wales to South Australia and Kalgoorlie in WesternAustralia. The Minister for Supply **(Mr. Townley),,** who introduced the bill, said in his secondreading speech that the WodongaMelbourne link will reduce operating costs- between Sydney and Melbourne. It will eliminate trans-shipment costs, and a more effective use of locomotives and rollingstock will be possible. It will enable higher speeds to be maintained and there will be fewer delays. The Minister said that on a conservative estimate the saving each year would be £1,700,000. That simply means that this project will have paid for itself within less than six years, which I think is a very important matter to consider. This also provides a very sound argument why the other two projects should be proceeded with as urgent matters. The Port PirieBroken Hill and the Kalgoorlie-Fremantle links could be commenced at once, and they likewise would pay for themselves in a very short time. When the two parliamentary committees, one from each side of the House, recommended these two projects, the Western Australian Premier asked that the KalgoorlieFremantle link be given a high priority. He raised the matter again only last week in the Legislative Assembly, saying that he had asked the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** to agree to commence work on that section before the end of March, 1959. The committee of Government supporters, when presenting its report to the Parliament, emphasized the importance of this link, not only in itself but also as a means of relieving unemployment in Western Australia. The unemployment position there is worse than it was when these reports were made two years ago. That is an added reason why that project should be proceeded with as an urgent measure. We know, of course, that the link that is being undertaken will save the States quite a lot of money now expended in transferring goods at the break of gauge. The abolition of the transfer point at Kalgoorlie would also save the Commonwealth and the States quite a considerable amount of money. Transfer costs at that point average about £75,000 annually. If we could obtain that link, fast, efficient freight trains would reduce costs within Western Australia and gain more traffic for the railways, just as the completion of the Wodonga-Melbourne link will bring more traffic. The journey from Perth to Sydney, which now takes 89 hours and involves five changes of train would take 48 hours without a change. The trip from Perth to Adelaide, which now takes 48 hours, would be reduced to 36 hours without changing trains. The journey from Perth to Brisbane, which now takes 117 hours, and involves six changes, could be reduced to 63 hours without change. An important point about the Western Australian link is that it would absorb quite a number of unskilled workers who comprise the major part of the work force on such projects. As a consequence, other workers would also get employment. The timber mills would be working again to a greater capacity and other industries would be stimulated. Men and materials are available for this work. Finance and initiative are all that is lacking. The State wants to proceed; we are just waiting for the Commonwealth to do something about it. The completion of both of those projects would mean that we would have a standardgauge link right across Australia joining the State capitals. One of the most important points which I think needs emphasizing, and which is mentioned in the bill, is the relationship to Australia's defence and development of those projects. During the last war troop movements were delayed at break-of-gauge points. In addition, rollingstock could not be moved from the 4-ft. 8i-in. gauge in New South Wales to the Trans-Australian and Centralian lines. That defect will be removed by the completion of the two projects. 1 do not want to keep the House any longer in regard to this very important matter, except to emphasize that the Opposition supports the measure. However, we ask the Government to consider immediately going on with the other projects, particularly the Kalgoorlie-Fremantle link, work on which the Premier of Western Australia, in a letter to the Prime Minister, has asked to be considered immediately by the Commonwealth. Of course, so far, the Prime Minister has not replied to that letter. {: #subdebate-54-0-s1 .speaker-DB6} ##### Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar -- I am very glad to support this bill, and I am sure that the House will give it not only unanimous, but enthusiastic support, because I believe that the project covered by the bill is a really great thing, not only in itself, but as- the precursor of fuller standardization throughout Australia. The Government members rail standardization committee and the Labour members rail standardization committee put forward this new concept of trying to standardize trunk lines first and thereby producing, I believe, a workable scheme for getting some immediate benefit from standardization. There are just three points that I want to make. First, I believe that this bill gives expression to the correct priority, and that the Government has made the correct decision. Secondly, I believe that the thing should not stop here. In fact, I have no doubt that the Government in due course, and in accordance with a proper programme, will proceed with further works of standardization. Thirdly, I should like to say something about the operation of the new line to be put down under this measure. Of all the lines to be done, this is the one which will give us the highest immediate return. I think it is the line which has the greatest practical and immediate importance; but I do not feel it is the only line. The Government members rail standardization committee said that, in its opinion, two lines were of equal priority. They were the Melbourne to Albury line and the Broken Hill-Port Pirie-Adelaide line. The committee recommended that the line to be started first should be the line in respect of which the State concerned first expressed its willingness to make the requisite arrangements with the Commonwealth. As it happened, that State was Victoria. If we had done the other line, there would have been further delays. The work would have taken longer to start. For that reason alone I believe we have made the correct decision. The next thing to do, surely, is to get on with the link from Broken Hill to Port Pirie and through to Adelaide. I am very glad to remind the House that the Premier of South Australia, **Sir Thomas** Playford, is now fully in accord with the immediate construction of this line, and it is the next on the programme. One of the principles that we suggested in our report was that we should endeavour to concentrate our resources on one line at a time, not necessarily delaying the start of the next line until the first had been completed, but doing it in some kind of reasonable priority so that we could be getting returns from our investment and not have too much idle money lying around in uncompleted work. 1 believe that the time has now come for us to be thinking about our second step. That second step is the link from Broken Hill down to Port Pirie with a standard-gauge connexion into Adelaide. This involves the reballasting of the line from Parkes, in New South Wales, to Broken Hill - a work which, I believe, can be undertaken at reasonably short notice. There is still some surveying to be done south-westwards from Broken Hill before work could be started on an adequate scale. Here I think we should1 not be delaying the survey. The House will remember that the Premier of South Australia is already making fuller proposals in this regard, and has submitted a proposition for a preliminary survey to cost, I think, about £50,000. This is a principle which the Government had already adopted, and which it has in fact observed in relation to the line from Albury into Melbourne. It seems to me that the time is now ripe for the survey on the Broken Hill to Port Pirie section to be pushed forward. There is already a 5 ft. 3 in. line from Port Pirie into Adelaide, as honorable members know. It is important that, in putting in a standard line, we do not in any way disrupt the internal pattern of traffic on the South Australian railways. Some years ago, a proposal was put forward, and recognized as technically practicable, by the then Commissioner for Railways in South Australia. That proposal was for the laying of a third rail at least along part of the 135-mile stretch from Port Pirie to Adelaide. This, if it is practicable, would be the cheapest way to do it, but it would be necessary to segregate the traffic at the junctions and the main marshalling yards, and certainly over the last bit of the line into Adelaide itself. There will be great advantages from the construction of this line, which will start the flow of traffic right through from the Trans-Continental 4-ft. 8)-in. gauge, which runs from Kalgoorlie to Port Pirie and from Port Augusta to Marree, on to the main 4-ft. 8i-in. system in the rest of Australia, and will remove the isolation of the TransContinental line. There are really great advantages in pushing this forward, and I am sure that the members of the committee, individually and collectively, will agree that action on it will be fully justified. I believe that the Government has shown itself to be the first government, since the Bruce-Page Government which put in the standard line from the north coast of New South Wales to Brisbane, that has made any real practical move towards standardization. I am sure that the Government will follow up the excellent work that it has started in connexion with the project that we are now ratifying in this bill. f feel a very great confidence that the Government will go forward in the future as it has done in the past, and will do the thing in a practical way instead of just talking about it. Here we have something concrete. Already the work is in progress. Only a few weeks ago I took an opportunity to inspect the work which is being done on the section of line between Wodonga and Melbourne, and to look at the plans which are being made for the completion of that excellent job. It is heartening to know, even before this bill is ratified, that, in line with the arrangements that the Government made, actual work is appearing on the ground. The next step, as I have said, must be the Broken Hill to Port Pirie and Adelaide line. But that is not the end. We must get to work on the KalgoorliePerthFremantle link. Here again some sort of survey appears to be justified, and I hope that the necessary surveying work will be put in hand without delay. I am hoping that the Western Australian Premier will show in this matter the same vigour that is already being shown by the South Australian Premier. I know, because I was over there with the committee, that there were at one time divided opinions in the Western Australian Government as to the desirability of this line. I hope that those doubts have now been resolved. I believe that they will be, if they have not already been resolved. But the first thing is for the Premier of Western Australia to do what the Premier of South Australia has done and start in on a survey of the work. It may be that if there is any unused labour or resources in Western Australia this project can be started out of its turn, and so employ labour and resources which would otherwise be unemployed to do some of the work. That is a matter of priority which I think should most properly be decided by the Western Australian authorities themselves. But the first thing required is a more vigorous and practical approach. I have already referred to the line taken by the Premier of Victoria in the first place,, followed by the Premier of South Australia, and I hope that the Premier of Western Australia will follow in the same excellent tradition. Finally, I hope that this line from Wodonga to Melbourne will not be just one more railway line. I hope that it will provide an example of new ways of running the railways and that it will import into Australia a new efficiency in railway practice. One of the most heartening features of it is that the operators of the railway systems concerned are talking in terms of proper terminals where interstate traffic can be properly and economically handled to the advantage of all concerned. By the adoption of dieselization and proper rollingstock, by the elimination of the four-wheeler stock from the through runs and the putting of bogie stock in its place, by the installation of proper containers and piggy back systems we have the opportunity of importing into the Australian railway system an example of how efficiently a railway can be run. If this is done I have no fears for the competitive position of the railways in their proper sphere. It is true that the future of the railways in the long-distance field lies in goods rather than passenger traffic, but I hope that passenger traffic will not be neglected on this run. I hope that proper, comfortable sleeping cars will be provided to attract the travelling public. This will help to make this line the paying bonanza which I am sure that it will be. **Mr. Speaker,** I should like to traverse these matters in more detail and at greater length, but at this hour of the night there is no need to emphasize the obvious or repeat what has been said in the reports which have been presented to this House. This project is now being proceeded with. We, on the Government side, know that this is not the end; we know that the plan will be carried through, and that we will get our trunk lines standardized and then we can think of the next stage. {: #subdebate-54-0-s2 .speaker-KNM} ##### Mr E JAMES HARRISON:
BLAXLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- It is refreshing to find real unanimity between members on the Government side and members of the Opposition concerning something which is happening in the last stages of the Government's life. If the Government or the Prime Minister <Mr. Menzies) had given effect to proposals which the Opposition put forward quite early in the life of this Government and appointed an all-party committee on transport, probably a standard-gauge railway would have been in operation much earlier. My purpose in rising is to point to one or two features which should be uppermost in the minds of those most concerned with the change in the transport system which is taking place in Australia. It is a fact that when this Government came into office in 1949 the question of standardization of railway gauges had been very capably dealt with and reported upon by the Government then going out of office. During the life of this Government transportation costs in Australia have risen to a level which is nigh to breaking the back of our economy. When we think of the standardization of railway gauges in this year, 1958, we do not think in terms of new railways being constructed as they were constructed ten years ago; we think in terms of new lines such as that constructed between Marree and Stirling North. As a result of the new form of diesel-electric traction, 5,500 tons can be hauled at high, speed over that line at a cost reduced to a figure never before contemplated in this or any other country. When I was in Brisbane to-day, I heard some comment about the proposal to spend £25,000,000 to restore the 3-ft. 6-in. gauge line between Mount Isa and the coast. I could not help but think that would be a waste of public money when diesel-electric transport was available. That £25,000,000 would go a long way towards providing a transport system between Mount Isa and the coast similar to that operating between Marree and Stirling North. One important advantage would be that all the iron ore at Mount Isa, right down to the last ounce, could be carried and utilized. At the present time, ore with 4 per cent, or less iron content is left in the ground because the cost of transporting it would be too high. Our whole economy rests upon the capacity of this Government, or whatever government follows it on 22nd November, to reorganize successfully the whole transport system of Australia. The honorable member for Mackellar **(Mr. Wentworth)** said that he hoped there would be a re-orientation of our thinking on railway transport systems. Because the New South Wales Labour Government has adopted, over the last five years, the system of railway transport which the honorable member mentioned to-night, that system is now able to compete with any form of transport between the city and the country. This month the Victorian Railways will begin to operate a diesel-electric system from the fruit-growing areas to Melbourne which will leave highway transport for dead. In the border press this week there have been accusations of cut-throat methods in transport competition. The very things that have been spoken about to-night are already in operation. The Commonwealth Railways to-day provide a classic example of what can be done in modern rail transport such as is possible with diesel-electric locomotives. According to the report on Commonwealth Railways operations for the year 1957-58, earnings increased during the year by £384,243, whereas working expenses during that period increased by only £14,067. That is the story running through the Commonwealth Railways ever since diesel-electric traction became available to the service. One great advantage is that there is no need now for watering places, and the crossing stations that were necessary in the old days have been eliminated. This would be an enormous advantage if a diesel-electric service were put into operation between Mount Isa and the coast. The Minister, in his second-reading speech, played on the fact that there would he great speed on the service between Sydney and Melbourne. On that we agree, because it is essential. It is the case with the service operating now between Sydney and Brisbane. But because of diesel electrification, the economy of towns between Sydney and Brisbane, such as Taree and Grafton, has received a setback. We find that as many as 50 or 60 families are no longer required in those places because of this new form of transport. Despite the great increase in the haulage of freight in all parts of the country, the membership of the union to which I have the honour to belong is falling at the rate of 250 a year, and that has been going on throughout Australia for three years. If we give effect to the suggestion of the honorable member for Mackellar **(Mr. Wentworth),** over the next five years the New South Wales railway system will require 6,000 or 7,000 fewer employees. This Government and other governments of the day must keep in mind that we are obliged to ensure that our economy is stretched so that men who are displaced as a consequence of more modern transport will not be left on the scrapheap. We must find some way to train them for other work. I make the plea now for this to be done to help those who have been displaced and who will be displaced. This modern form of transport will give a tremendous fillip to the Australian economy. It will reduce considerably the cost of transport, which now represents 32 per cent, or 33 per cent, of the total cost of goods. We must understand that what is happening now between Albury and Melbourne is only the start of a great forward move in the re-organization of Australia's rail transport system. Rail transport over long hauls will always defeat any other form of transport, provided it is given a proper basis on which to operate. One point that disturbs me is that the States again will be required to pay interest on their share of the money needed to build these new railways. The States are already overloaded with interest rates. New South Wales is now paying interest to the tune of £14,000,000 or £15,000,000 a year on money used for railways that were constructed before I was born and in subsequent years. This state of affairs cannot continue. In re-organizing the railway system throughout Australia we must remember that half our population is to be found in the capital cities, some of which are 3,000 miles apart. Let me again make the point that those now engaged in rail transport will be severely affected by the new methods.1 However, railway men will not be the only ones affected. A great change can be expected in the road transport system. Only recently, I discussed this matter with some of those who are concerned with road transport. As I say, the press to-day is crying out that the railways are entering into cutthroat competition. However, the railways in their approach to the problem to-day will outstrip road transport in the future on long-distance hauls, and that will be a good thing. In extending diesel electrification, we should be careful to ensure that at all times we have a sufficient quantity of oil to meet our needs. We should provide for the possibility of a reduction in the quantity of oil available to us. However, let me say that on long hauls such as we have between Marree and Stirling North, between Mount Isa and the coast, and between our capital cities, diesel electrification will completely transform rail transportation. The honorable member for Mackellar suggested that the next step should be the standardization of the line from Adelaide to Broken Hill. Despite the reports of the Government committee and the Opposition committee, my inclination at this stage is to standardize the line from Kalgoorlie to Perth. The report of the Commonwealth Railways Commissioner for this year shows the tremendous increase that is taking place in haulage on Commonwealth lines from east to west. With the tremendous increase that can be expected in the volume of freight, I think that the next most economic stage would be from Kalgoorlie to Perth. At the moment, it costs more to haul a loaded truck from Kalgoorlie to Port Pirie than it would to haul the same amount of freight from Sydney to Perth, if we had a through run. Once we get rid of the break at Albury, the break at Kalgoorlie will be the most costly spot in the rail transport system in Australia. A close analysis of what is happening will show that the delay there is costing a vast sum of money. I should like to put the case of the men who will operate, as a national service, this new form of rail transport mentioned by the honorable member for Mackellar. They will run a fast service in a way that will bring great benefits to the community and to the country generally. They are entitled to some return for the effort they will put into this service. Throughout the world to-day, a different system of payment to that generally accepted in Australia is adopted for those who operate rail services. I am pleased that the Minister for Labour and National Service **(Mr. Harold Holt)** is in the chamber, because I put it to him that the time has arrived when the system accepted in Germany, Great Britain and America for the payment of those who operate fast services in the national interest should be adopted by the arbitral system of this country. At present we have standing in our way the fact that there is a belief on the part of the arbitration system that anything other than an eight-hour day or a 40-hour week is an interference with, the standard working week. That principle is not accepted in any other part of the free world for those who work these fast services. I am sure that if the honorable member for Mackellar examined this point he would agree with me that the men who run the services should receive some recognition for their efforts in the national interests. I ask the Government not to delay any longer in exploiting our capacity to expand. Valuable assets are available to us and we should lay the rails that are necessary to give to this country a railway system that will substantially reduce the impact of transport costs on our economy of transport. {: #subdebate-54-0-s3 .speaker-JWI} ##### Mr FOX:
Henty .- It is not my intention to take up the time of the House at this hour, but I want to take the opportunity of complimenting the Minister for Supply **(Mr. Townley)** on achieving what so many other Ministers have failed to achieve. In saying that I do not wish to reflect on the capabilities of previous Ministers. The whole history of attempts to standardize the rail gauges throughout Australia is one of frustrations. Numerous conferences have been held over a period of more than 70 years, but parochial interests and the failure to face up to the task involved have resulted in a series of pigeon-holed reports. This bill is the first step towards linking Australia's capital cities with standard gauge railway lines. I hope that it will be the beginning of a plan to convert, ultimately, the whole of the railway system to standard gauge. This problem, which has faced Australia since the first line was laid between Melbourne and Sandridge in 1854, is not one which has been peculiar to this country. As late as 1871 railways were operating in the United States of America on 23 different gauges, from three feet to six feet. At that time, I believe, the United States had more miles of railway track than we have to-day. Even though the railways in that country were owned privately, it was realized that, in the interests both of the companies and of the country, it was essential that standardization be achieved. At a conference of the presidents of the different railway companies, which was held in 1885, it was decided to pursue a policy of standardization. Within two years all the railways in the United States were operating on standard gauge. Experience in the United Kingdom was not very much different. There were so many gauges in operation in 1846 that a royal commission on railway gauges reported that it was imperative that a wider spread of the evil should be prevented. At that time rail gauges in the United Kingdom varied between two feet and seven feet. By 1892 the whole of the railway system had been converted to standard gauge. There is no need for me to repeat the story of how Australia came to be burdened with so many different gauges. The first move for standardization was made in 1857, when the total mileage of tracks in this country was less than 200, and before any of the 3-ft. 6-in. gauge lines had been laid. Since that date, many committees have been appointed to inquire into the break-of -gauge problem. They have all delivered their reports and made recommendations but very little action has been taken. Since 1883, 75 years ago, passengers have had to change trains at Albury and goods have had to be trans-shipped there. It is estimated that the cost of trans-shipping goods at Albury is now in the vicinity of £800,000 a year. In 1889, the Chief Commissioner for Railways in New South Wales, a **Mr. Eddy,** directed the attention of the then Premier, **Sir Henry** Parkes, to the urgent need for standardization. In 1897 the Railway Commissioners of Australia passed a resolution concerning the necessity for a uniform gauge. At that time the total length of track in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia was less than 8,000 miles, and the total cost of providing a uniform system was little more than £2,000,000. In 1911 standardization was recommended as a defence aid by the war railway council. In 1913 a committee of the leading railway engineers of the Commonwealth and the States recommended the adoption of a standard gauge. At that time the cost of conversion had increased to more than £37,000,000. In 1921 a royal commission reported to a conference of State Premiers and the Prime Minister, and it was resolved " That the adoption of a uniform gauge is, in the opinion of this conference, essential to the development and safety of the Commonwealth ". The estimated cost of the complete conversion was then more than £93,000,000. Again no action was taken. In 1945 the Clapp report was tabled. Although this report also recommended standardization, negotiations between the States and Commonwealth broke down. At that time the estimated cost of conversion to standard gauge was nearly £120,000,000. The bill now before us is the first move of any consequence towards bringing about a standardized Australian railway system. Although it provides for the conversion only of the section of line between Albury and Melbourne, at a cost of a little more than £10,000,000, when the work has been completed there will be a standard-gauge line from Brisbane to Melbourne. Not only will this add to the comfort and convenience of passengers; it should also result in lower freight rates on this section of line, with a consequent increase in business for both the New South Wales and Victorian railways, and it should be a positive step towards enabling the railway systems of both States to operate eventually at a profit, instead of being continual drains on the pockets of the taxpayers. At the same time, it should divert to the railways quite a lot of the heavy traffic which is at present causing a great deal of damage to our interstate highways. I wish to take the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on the work he has done in order to bring this bill before the House, and I confidently look forward to the future presentation of other bills for the linking of Broken Hill with Port Pirie, and Kalgoorlie with Fremantle, using standard-gauge lines. {: #subdebate-54-0-s4 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM:
Werriwa **.- Mr. Deputy Speaker,** this bill proves two things: First, that there would be no standardization of gauges, and, equally important, of railway equipment in Australia, if it were not for the initiative of the Commonwealth Government. Secondly, it proves that the Commonwealth would not have taken this initiative if it were not for the vigilance and pressure of private members on both sides of this chamber. The bill is a result of separate, but entirely contemporaneous and similar reports presented two years ago by Government members and Opposition members. I believe that it is necessary to maintain this continuing vigilance with regard to rail standardization for two reasons. The first is our experience with the 1949 standardization agreement between the Commonwealth and South Australia. The second reason is the continuing unawareness at the top levels of government of the continuing need for standardization, as revealed yesterday by the answers of the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** to questions asked by the honorable member for Stirling **(Mr. Webb)** and by me. First, I shall refer to what has happened under the 1949 standardization agreement. The proposal was that two sections of the South Australian railways should be converted to standard gauge - first, that between Port Pirie and Cockburn - and thence, of course, from Cockburn to Broken Hill - and, secondly, the south-eastern section between Adelaide and the Victorian border, through Mount Gambier. It was quite obvious that, in any responsible sense of economic priority or strategic priority - because strategic factors are most important in considering standardization of gauges and equipment - the former section was overwhelmingly more important. Nevertheless, this Government has allowed the South Australian Government to spend Commonwealth money in converting the latter section. This year we see the completion of the conversion to 5 feet 3 inches gauge of the whole of the railways between Adelaide and the Victorian border, via Mount Gambier, South Australia undertaking at its own expense, at some subsequent time, to bring the gauge back to 4 feet 8) inches. We paid the full amount required for that work- about £5,000,000 - and it was of very little economic and no stategic consequence in this country. The other section, between Broken Hill and Port Pirie, carries probably heavier freight traffic than any other line in Australia. It is a line that was crying out for standardization for years. One has only to refer to the reports of the South Australian Railways Commissioner to see the disparity between the volume of traffic on the two sections of line. I refer to the latest report of the Commissioner for the year ended 30th June, 1957. The freight passing from South Australia to Victoria through the Mount Gambier section amounted to 32,813 tons and from Victoria to South Australia 17,775 tons. But the tonnage going from Port Pirie to Broken Hill was 146,369 tons and from Broken Hill to Port Pirie 850,059 tons. That was 20 times as great a tonnage on the northern section as on the southern section. It is plain that the Broken Hill-Port Pirie line should have been done first and a government which had a proper sense of responsibility in economic and strategic matters would have done it and would not have delayed all this time before even coming to a decision on the standardization of this very important section. The Commonwealth Railways Commissioner, in every one of the annual reports he has presented since he was appointed ten years ago, has pointed out that that section is of prime importance not only to his railway but also to most other railways in Australia. Secondly, I come to the unawareness in high places of what is going on in rail standardization. My colleague, the honorable member for Stirling **(Mr. Webb)** asked the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** yesterday whether he had received a request from the Premier of Western Australia asking that the Commonwealth Government consider the standardization of the railway between Kalgoorlie and Fremantle. The honorable member asked - >If such a request has been received, will the right honorable gentleman please explain the attitude of the Government to it? The right honorable gentleman replied to the question - >I shall find out whether there is such a request and I shall advise the honorable member. I was not a little astonished to hear the reply, because I had received a month ago, on 28th August, from the Minister for Supply **(Mr. Townley),** representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport **(Senator Paltridge),** an answer to a question as to what stage had been reached in any negotiations which the Commonwealth had had with South Australia and Western Australia for the standardization of the section of the line I have mentioned. I asked when negotiations had last taken place or when communications had last passed between the parties. It emerged from the Minister's reply that discussions had taken place between the Commonwealth Railways Commissioner and the Silverton Tramway Company which runs the section between Cockburn and Broken Hill in 1952 and had not been pursued. But the Premier of South Australia wrote to the Prime Minister on 12th June indicating that his Government was now willing to undertake standardization of the northern narrow gauge system in his State, and requested the provision of Commonwealth funds for preliminary work. The Prime Minister informed the Premier of South Australia on 11th July, 1958, that the Commonwealth was willing to give his proposals " careful and prompt attention as soon as details are worked out ". The reply given to me by the Minister for Supply continued - >The Premier of Western Australia wrote to the Prime Minister on 23rd June, 19S8, asking that work on standardizing the Perth-Kalgoorlie line be put in hand during 1958-59. This submission will be considered having regard to rail standardization policy and current commitments in respect thereto. After hearing the Prime Minister's reply to the honorable member for Stirling, I asked him whether he remembered this correspondence and whether he had yet replied to the Premier of Western Australia in the fourteen weeks which had since elapsed. The right honorable gentleman replied - >As the honorable member appears to be well informed on the date I shall accept his statement, of course, that there was a letter on 23rd June. I myself do not remember the date or the circumstances. As to whether there has been an answer, I should think that there has been no answer, in point of substance at any rate, as yet. I am surprised that the Prime Minister should have forgotten correspondence he had from the Premiers of South Australia and Western Australia; that he should have forgotten the reply that he sent to the Premier of South Australia; that he should have forgotten to reply to the Premier of Western Australia; and that his oversight should have persisted over a period of three months. Since the right honorable gentleman has the courtesy to be sitting at the table at this moment, I hope that his oversight might be admitted and deplored by him because, as he knows, the transport costs of Australia are at least three times as high as those in any other country. We are spending a third of our national income on transport, and no other country is spending more than one-tenth of its national income in that way. That is the greatest challenge to the reduction of the cost of living or the improvement of the standing of living in Australia. 1 would hope that even before this Parliament rises in a few hours early in the morning, we would not be left without some decision as to what the Premiers of South Australia and Western Australia might plan for the current financial year in accordance with the correspondence they have initiated with the Prime Minister and which he so far has overlooked. {: #subdebate-54-0-s5 .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE:
Moore .- I rise to put the record straight in connexion with the standardization of railways and the request which has been submitted by the Premier of Western Australia to the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies).** I do this in view of the remarks that have been made by the honorable member for Werriwa **(Mr. Whitlam)** who apparently is unaware of current events. He has accused the Prime Minister of having forgotten a reply that he made to the Premier of Western Australia or the correspondence which has passed between them. I wish to quote from the record of proceedings in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia of Thursday, 25th September - only a week ago - when **Mr. Watts,** Leader of the Country party, asked the Premier of Western Australia, **Mr. Hawke,** this question - >What were the terms of the proposal forwarded by the Premier to the Prime Minister on 23rd June, 19S8, relating to standardization of the Kalgoorlie-Perth railway which were referred to by the Minister for Transport in the House of Representatives on 28th August last? I ask the honorable member for Werriwa to listen carefully as I repeat that the questioner asked " what were the terms of the proposal ". The Premier replied - >My letter of 23rd June asked the right honorable the Prime Minister that the Commonwealth Government consider putting the KalgoorlieFremantle railway gauge proposals in hand by 31st March, 1959, for the purpose of creating employment. In reply, the Prime Minister, whilst not holding out any promise of any action, requested whatever detailed information may be available. The position, therefore, must rest there at present. This relates to last week and the Prime Minister is obviously now awaiting information from Western Australia. This has become a general practice in all States. {: .speaker-KXI} ##### Mr Webb: -- The information was supplied. {: .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE: -- This is from the record of the proceedings of the Parliament of Western Australia. The information was not supplied up to 25 th September, which was last Thursday. This is in accordance with what happens concerning Labour governments in the States and has been happening over a number of years. They put up proposals in nebulous terms and suggest that the Commonwealth Government should accept those proposals and do something about them, lt is not reasonable to expect a responsible government automatically to say that it will accede to a request without getting down to fundamental terms and conditions. This is characteristic of what has been going on all the time. I am anxious to see something done to assist Western Australia. Let us achieve the standardization of railways if it will assist unemployment. But I am not prepared, as a responsible member of this Parliament, to start something without having a basis on which it will rest. Every Western Australian member in this House is anxious to see assistance given to Western Australia, but, at least, the State Government should state what is necessary. It should put forward concrete proposals which should include terms and conditions which will be acceptable to it so that this Government and, ultimately, this Parliament, can decide whether they are reasonable or not. I am waiting to see Western Australia put forward a definite proposal for the standardization of rail gauges. {: .speaker-KXI} ##### Mr Webb: -- The Minister for Shipping and Transport said that he had the full information a fortnight ago. {: .speaker-L19} ##### Mr LESLIE: -- Of course he had1 the full information, but how current is it? I was a member of the State Parliament in Western Australia when the first proposals for the standardization of the Kalgoorlie to Perth railway were put forward by the present honorable member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward),** who was then the responsible Minister. Those proposals were totally unacceptable to us and the Western Australian Parliament turned them down because they would have imposed an unfair burden on the State. If those are the conditions that the Minister for Shipping and Transport **(Senator Paltridge)** has in mind I would be surprised if the honorable member for Stirling **(Mr. Webb)** was prepared to accept them, because they would be unjust to the State. If there are current proposals, why in the world should the State Government be afraid of announcing what they are? The Leader of the Country Party in Western Australia asked the Premier what were the terms of the proposal. Surely there is nothing secret about them unless the Premier is afraid that the people will not agree to the terms because he is giving something to the Commonwealth that he should not be giving. There is no State which is more jealous of its rights than Western Australia. What is the secret which the Premier will not reveal? That was the only information that was asked for and the Premier did not give it. The only reasonable assumption, therefore, is that the Premier has put forward a suggestion without saying exactly what Western Australia wants, and has left it entirely in the hands of this Government to do something. We are about 2,000 miles away from Perth and the honorable member for Stirling knows well how difficult it is to know the particular requirements of Western Australia, viewed from this tremendous distance, unless they are put forward in specific terms. It is no good condemning this Government. If any blame were to attach to it I would be prepared to stand up with any other member in this House in the interests of Western Australia and castigate this Government for the delay. I asked the Leader of the Country party in Western Australia, **Mr. Watt,** to ask a question in order to provide information with which to approach the Commonwealth Government in the interests of Western Australia. What help did I get from the Premier of Western Australia? None whatsoever. He has left us completely in the dark and given us no opportunity of pressing a case on behalf of Western Australia. T want to see something done with regard to the standardization of railways. I want to see the line from Kalgoorlie to Perth standardized. I believe that it would be some advantage to us, provided that the financial conditions are acceptable and capable of being carried out by Western Australia. I do not want to see the line standardized without something being done in connexion with the branch lines. I do not want to see that line standardized merely to facilitate the transport of goods from Victoria to Western Australia or the pour- ing of wealth from Western Australia into the eastern States. It is all very well to talk about transport facilities. Honorable members know very well the position in regard to trade between Western Australia and the eastern States. More than £90,000,000 worth of goods is imported from the eastern States annually in return for the £17,000,000 worth which Western Australia exports to those States. The traffic is all one way. It will not help Western Australia directly if the line is standardized, but it will be a great facility to the traders in the eastern States. Because of that, those States or this Government should bear a bigger proportion of the cost of standardizing the line than was suggested by the honorable member for East Sydney when he was a Minister. Thursday, 2nd October 1958. {: #subdebate-54-0-s6 .speaker-K6X} ##### Mr COUTTS:
Griffith .- I feel that honorable members do not expect me to apologize to them, for speaking at this late hour on this most important piece of legislation. I am sure that all honorable members are prepared to sacrifice their comfort and convenience to debate this most important piece of legislation for the development of the nation. I am very happy, as a member of the Australian Labour party's rail standardization committee, to take part in this debate, even at this most unusual hour. The proposal is to convert to a standard gauge the line from Albury to Melbourne. When this line is completed, we shall have a standard-gauge line linking three capitals, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. In view of the fact that transport costs absorb about one-third of our total income, the proposal to effect a reduction in the cost of rail transport internally in Australia is very reasonable. The Commonwealth is to supply the whole of the money, and each of the States concerned will incur an indebtedness of three-twentieths of the amount involved. The States' portion of the debt will be amortized over the period of 50 years. I think that is very reasonable. The State of Victoria will be a beneficiary under the proposal which we are discussing and which the Opposition is supporting. From time to time, the problem of the displacement of skilled labour has been raised in this House. In the mine-fields of New South Wales we have seen the introduction of mechanization and the displacement of miners from industry. A result of the proposal before this House will be a great displacement of workers from their normal callings. When the proposal is carried into effect Albury will cease to be one of the principal railway towns of Australia and will become just another station through which the Melbourne express will pass. The- greatest single factor contributing to the- prosperity of the City of Albury is the transhipment business. A Government supporter has just reminded the House that it costs £800,000 per year to tranship goods at Albury. That means that £800,000 is spent each year in Albury to pay the wages of the men who are engaged in this most important transhipping industry. Under this new proposal, that money will be lost to the city of Albury. Several hundred men who are now engaged in that transhipment of goods will lose their jobs. Like the honorable member for Blaxland **(Mr. E. James Harrison),** I, too, am interested in what will happen to those men. We know that it is proposed that this undertaking shall be completed within four years. That means that in four years' time hundreds of employees at Albury will lose their jobs. We all know how the Government deals with matters piecemeal. It does not deal with them in an overall manner, and I am now reminding the Government that these men will lose their jobs. What will be done? I make a plea for something to be done to ensure that these men will be suitably placed in employment and not left completely abandoned, as the miners on the northern coal-fields of New South Wales have been left. I am informed by the Premier of Victoria, who is my authority in this regard, that a considerable amount of work has already been undertaken on the Albury to Melbourne line and that it was undertaken to relieve unemployment caused by the dismissal of employees from the Victorian railways. Before this bill was presented to Parliament some £400,000 had already been spent on the construction of the earthworks, culverts, and bridges necessary for the building of this railway. Because of the increased speed and efficiency which dieselization will bring to the industry, there will be a considerable reduction in the number of running staff engaged in the railways. The honorable member for Blaxland has told us that within a few years, owing to dieselization and modernization, the number of employees in the New South Wales Government Railways will be reduced by about 6,000 men. A similar reduction will occur proportionately throughout all the States because of the programme of modernization in the various railway systems. This is something that we should worry about. Unemployment is growing in Australia and this modernization proposal, which we all support, will tend to increase the number of unemployed in Australia because not so many men will be required to do the jobs. That is no argument for not proceeding with the proposal, but the onus is on this Government to make provision for those who will be displaced from their employment. They must be absorbed into other suitable employment. I do not think we should become overenthusiastic or completely irresponsible in our outlook in relation to the ability of the railways to handle all. the. freight that will be available to be carried between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane merely because the Melbourne-Albury section is being converted to standard gauge. For some years there has been a standard gauge from Sydney to Brisbane; but the railways have been unable to attract all the goods traffic that moves between these cities. Already the roads from Sydney to Brisbane are almost over-taxed by the semi-trailers, and heavily laden trucks that are moving goods. If the: railways are to compete successfully with road transport, charges to consumers will need to be reduced drastically, and that can only be done by increased efficiency and faster running. Some years ago a progressive- Labour Government in this place offered to the mainland States a proposal which in effect would have provided for the standardization of the railways of Australia. Unfortunately, Queensland was not prepared- to accept the proposal. To-day in Queensland the line from Mount Isa to Townsville, which has been referred to by previous speakers,, is absolutely worn out and in order to- meet the increased production of the northern mining fields it is necessary to rehabilitate or rebuild that line. The Commonwealth is financing rail standardization in Victoria, but if there is to be a railway constructed in Queensland, the Commonwealth will not finance it, owing, I believe, to the refusal of the Queensland Government to agree to the proposals submitted by the Labour Government in 1949. **Mr. Speaker,** that state of affairs could not happen again with the Labour party in control in Queensland, because the policy of the Labour party, is that there must be standardization of railways. If the government of the day had accepted the proposition of the Commonwealth, we would not be begging the position regarding the construction of a railway from Mount Isa to Townsville. I know that honorable members are enthusiastically applauding my remarks and I feel that they wish me to continue and use up the whole of my time in this important debate, but, out of consideration for them, J do not propose to do so. In fairness to the Parliament, I would say that during my short period of service to the nation this is the second attempt to convert to standard gauge two important railways in Australia - the line from Stirling North to Marree, and the line from Albury to Melbourne. I hope that I shall be spared to continue to play my part in this Parliament towards bringing about complete standardization of railway gauges in this country. {: #subdebate-54-0-s7 .speaker-KFH} ##### Mr FORBES:
Barker .- I certainly would not have risen at this late hour if the honorable member for Werriwa **(Mr. Whitlam)** had not had the temerity to suggest in his speech earlier in this debate that the broadening from intermediate to standard gauge of the line that runs through my electorate in the south-east of South Australia should not have been undertaken, or that a line that ran through somebody else's electorate should have been undertaken first. The honorable member even suggested that the money expended in broadening this railway line was spent to no useful purpose. It seems to me, **Mr. Speaker,** that that statement ignored two factors. The first is that South Australia had already commenced the broadening of this railway line in the south-east of the State on its own account before the Commonwealth ever came into the picture. Secondly, in all the standardization agreements that were negotiated when the honor- able member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** was Minister for Transport the southeastern division of South Australia was specifically accepted by the Commonwealth as having priority insofar as those agreements concerned that State. An agreement between the six States was replaced by an agreement between the three States of South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, and, finally, by a bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and South Australia. The earlier agreements, if I may say so. lapsed because of the tardiness of every State except South Australia. In each ot these successive agreements, the southeastern railway in South Australia was specifically mentioned as an integral part of the standardization programme. So the suggestion made by the honorable member for Werriwa that this Government has departed from the spirit and intention of the agreement negotiated by the government that preceded it is, I believe, absolute nonsense, **Mr. Speaker.** Likewise, it is nonsense to suggest that the south-eastern railway in South Australia serves no useful purpose except to channel to Adelaide trade that might otherwise have gone to Victoria. Perhaps the critics do not know that the south-east of South Australia contains a large proportion of the State's assuredrainfall country, and that its production potential is as great as, if not greater than, that of any similar area in Australia. Perhaps the honorable member for Werriwa does not know that, apart from the high natural rainfall, it has a vast underground basin of water capable of irrigating 1,500,000 acres, and that water may be obtained only 40 or 50 feet below the surface. Perhaps the honorable member does not know that, in the last ten years, the number of sheep carried in this area of South Australia has doubled; the size of the wool clip has increased two and a half times; the number of cattle has increased by 200 per cent.; the area of sown grasses has increased five times; the production of barley has risen three and a half times; and the output of logs from the softwood mills has increased from 54,000,000 super, feet- **Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. John McLeay).Order!** The honorable member is getting away from the bill. {: .speaker-KFH} ##### Mr FORBES: -- In this progress that I have been describing, **Mr. Speaker,** efficient railway development has played no small part. When the broad-gauge railway- {: #subdebate-54-0-s8 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! The honorable member must realize that this bill relates to an agreement between the Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victoria, and does not concern a railway in the south-east of South Australia. {: .speaker-KFH} ##### Mr FORBES: -- The honorable member for Werriwa spoke at length on this subject! {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! I ask the honorable member not to canvass thatline of discussion. {: .speaker-KFH} ##### Mr FORBES: -- In debating this measure, all I can say is that the honorable member for Werriwa, in discussing the standardization agreement between the Commonwealth and Victoria, made certain criticisms of this Government. The honorable member would have done better to devote his energies to discussing the run-down and derelict railways of New South Wales, his own State, instead of poking his nose into the affairs of South Australia, where railway development has been highly successful, particularly in the south-east. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and reported from committee without amendment or debate; report adopted. Bill - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 1894 {:#debate-55} ### BILLS RETURNED FROM THE SENATE The following bills were returned from the Senate: - Without amendment - >Airlines Equipment Bill1958. > >Loan (Qantas Empire Airways Limited) Bill 1958. > >Loan (Australian National Airlines Commission) Bill 1958. > >Statistics (Arrangements with States) Bill 1958. > >Loan Bill 1958. > >Christmas Island Agreement Bill 1958. > >Dairy Produce Export Control Bill 1958. > >Dairy Produce Research and Sales Promotion Bill 1958. > >Copper Bounty Bill 1958. Without requests - >Customs Tariff Validation Bill 1958. > >Dairy Produce Levy Bill 1958. {: .page-start } page 1894 {:#debate-56} ### SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT Motion (by **Mr. Harold** Holt) agreed to - >That the House, at its rising, adjourn until a date and hour to be fixed by **Mr. Speaker,** which time of meeting shall be notified by **Mr. Speaker** to each member by telegram or letter. {: .page-start } page 1894 {:#debate-57} ### LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO ALL MEMBERS Motion (by **Mr. Harold** Holt) agreed to - >That leave of absence be given to every member of the House of Representatives from the determination of this sitting of the House to the date of its next sitting. {: .page-start } page 1894 {:#debate-58} ### CLERK OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES {:#subdebate-58-0} #### Retirement of Mr. A. A. Tregear {: #subdebate-58-0-s0 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- I have to announce to the House that it is the intention of **Mr. Tregear,** the Clerk of the House of Representatives, to retire at the end of the year. **Mr. Tregear** joined the Public Service in 1911, and in 1920 be transferred to the staff of the Senate. In 1925, he transferred to the staff of the House of Representatives, and from that time onwards, with the exception of the period during which he was seconded to the Department of Munitions in World War II., he has continuously served on the staff of this House. **Mr. Tregear** was appointed to the office of Clerk in 1955, at which time he was appointed also as honorary secretary of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I think we can say that **Mr. Tregear,** as Clerk of the House, or in any other office, always has discharged his responsibilities with very great credit to himself, and with very great distinction. I am sure that honorable members on all sides of the chamber will miss his friendly advice, his guidance, his tolerance and his co-operation. We all hope that the health of **Mr. Tregear's** good wife will be restored in such a way that she will again be able to call him to order. I am sure that he will leave this place carrying with him the goodwill, and the best wishes for the future, of every honorable member associated with him in this place. {: .page-start } page 1894 {:#debate-59} ### ADJOURNMENT Valedictory - Retirement of Clerk of the House, **Mr. A.** A. Tregear - Sydney Waterside Workers' Premises. {: #debate-59-s0 .speaker-N76} ##### Mr MENZIES:
Prime Minister · Kooyong · LP -- I move - >That the House do now adjourn. **Mr. Speaker,** we have reached the end of a session and, what is more, we have reached the end of a Parliament. It is customary here, **Sir, to** offer a few sentiments when we come near to Christmas time, but, this time, we have come to the end of the life of the Parliament. Therefore, I would like to say something to all honorable members about the Parliament. We are about to meet our masters. We all feel exhilarated by that prospect, of course. It may be that some of us will be removed by the electors, and that some of us will be retained, but there are some members of the House who, of their own choice, will not be here. I do not propose to go through the names, but some of them have been referred to. I would just like to say, for myself and for the Government, that we have enjoyed the friendships that we have in this House, and that we shall miss these colleagues of ours who, of their own choice, will not be here. Perhaps I should refer to one in particular. I think that I would be expressing the sentiment of the House if I said of our friend and colleague, the honorable member for Leichhardt **(Mr. Bruce),** who has been very ill in the last day or two that we all hope he will be completely restored to health. I say to all of those who will not be here again that to serve our country in this Parliament is a great privilege and a great honour. Whatever our party and on whatever side we have been in the battle in this House, we shall miss them. One of the very good things about this Parliament, and one of the very great things about democracy, is that we fight valiantly against our opponents and that they fight valiantly against us, but that we meet them, when we are not on duty, as friends and as colleagues. I am sure that everybody would want me to say that you cannot live, work and have your being in this House without developing a certain strange affection even for the men who do their best to defeat you. That, I think, is one of the great things about democracy that the authoritarian countries have never understood. You, **Sir, referred** to the fact that the **Clerk, Mr Tregear,** is leaving us. I do not want to embarrass him by saying too much, because, being the Clerk of the House, he cannot, beyond reading out those dull lists of papers that are to be filed, speak for himself. He can neither praise himself nor defend himself. But I hope I shall be allowed to say that **Mr. Tregear** has brought to his office all the great qualities that one expects - complete integrity, complete capacity in his job, and complete impartiality. There cannot be a member of this chamber who is not indebted to him. Through you, **Sir, we** say to **Mr. Tregear,** who can neither acknowledge this nor do anything else about it: Thank you very much indeed for your work. You have contributed great service to the Parliament, and added much to the history of this country. We hope that you will live long enough to see most of the prophecies falsified, most of the attacks defeated and most of the forecasts proved wrong. As an onlooker you have seen most of the game. We all want to say " Thank you ". To all honorable members I. as Prime Minister, would like to say, " Thank you ". This has been a notable Parliament. We shall, before we are much older, I fear, be out denouncing each other on the public platforms. We shall be having an election campaign - the kind of thing which everybody enjoys except the man who is in it. When the people have cast their votes we shall be in or out and the Opposition will be in or out. But I believe that when some seriously minded student of history gets to work on these things and looks back over the great crises of various kinds that have arisen in the last three years, the last six years, or the last nine years, he will, at any rate, be proud of the fact that the Parliament of Australia has performed its duty with honesty, with intelligence, and with courage. So to all honorable members, whether they are so good as to support me and my colleagues - as so many of them do - or whether they are so good as to afford a powerful opposition to my colleagues and myself, I should like to offer my personal goodwill and my gratitude for the work that has been done in this Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. **Mr. Speaker,** I thank you. I thank the Chairman of Committees and I thank the temporary chairmen of committees, who have really produced the most versatile talents, some being violent, and some being peaceful, but all doing their work in order that the business of this House might go on properly. I have referred to **Mr. Tregear.** I should like to refer to the other officers of the House, all the staffs of Parliament who look after our needs. I should like to say - and I shall say it quite slowly so that it may be taken down with comfort - a word of thanks to " Hansard ". I should even go so far as to offer a word of thanks to the broadcasters, though the broadcasters, mind you, repeat through the miracle of their science all the things that we say, while the " Hansard " writers take them down, improve them, and present us to posterity in a very respectable form; so we are delighted with them. I should like to say " Thank you " to our hereditary enemies in the press gallery, who sometimes think little of us and who sometimes have that sentiment warmly reciprocated. But after all, it must be acknowledged that what goes on here in the Federal Capital, what is said here and what is done here, would be unknown to most people if it were not for the great organs of publicity which translate them and convey them to the people. Public opinion is the whole essence of democracy, and public opinion depends upon the honest and zealous performance of duties by the people who interpret Parliament to the res of the country. I should like to say on your behalf, **Sir, and** on behalf of honorable members, "Thank you" to all the members of the staffs, including the diningroom staff and the other people who look after our various affairs. I say to all of them, " Thank you very much ". We are now at the end of a Parliament. When we meet again - if I am here and if you are here - we will begin a new Parliament in the history of the very great country which we have the honour to serve, and which the members of the new Parliament will, I hope, serve with the same zeal and the same integrity as we have endeavoured to bring to its service. {: #debate-59-s1 .speaker-DTN} ##### Dr EVATT:
Leader of the Opposition · Barton -- I join with the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** in his remarks', and I should like to advert to a few of them. First of all, I should like to thank you, **Mr. Speaker,** for your felicitous references to Alan Tregear, the Clerk of the House, who occupies a very important position, perhaps the key position, in the Parliament. He has been a friend to all of us and a comfort and aid in all our difficulties. **Mr. Tregear's** career has been a magnificent one, and most of us feel great regret that he has seen fit to leave his position at this time. Equally we know the extent to which we are indebted to **Mr. Tregear's** colleagues and to the staff of the Parliament generally. I should like to refer next to you, **Mr. Speaker.** I think it has been an outstanding feature of your occupancy of your high office during this Parliament that, whatever differences of opinion may have arisen from time to time in connexion with the Standing Orders, all of us have felt completely comfortable under your chairmanship. We feel certain that every ruling you have given has been given with complete impartiality - and impartiality is the first and greatest quality that can be shown by the Speaker of this great House. You have exemplified it to a very great degree. When I say that, I am sure that I am speaking for all of us. It is wonderful for us to be able to feel that the work that we do in this Parliament is so well understood by the Speaker, and I make special reference to that. I have often discussed this with honorable members. It is a great spirit to have in the House of Representatives. I say that with complete sincerity. Then, with the Prime Minister, I wish to pay my tribute to the members who are not seeking re-election, among them being many very dear friends of all of us - friends irrespective of party politics, because one gets a special form of comradeship in the struggles that take place in the Parliament. The hard battles and the good humour with which a few of them are from time to time waged are always most interesting. I thank " Hansard ". Coming back to the general remarks made by the Prime Minister, we could not carry on in the Parliament were it not for those who assist us by providing the various services that are required. I thank the library staff, the refreshment room staff and others, to whom happy reference has been made by the Prime Minister. I agree with the Prime Minister in his summing up of the aims of the Parliament. The system is a system of discipline in the House, a system of good comradeship and friendship as well as of open opposition. As long as the opposition is open and known, as long .as the blows that are given in parliamentary contests are hard, clean and not foul, then parliamentary democracy will remain. I think that that is the essence of it. 1 feel that in a sense the breaking-up of a Parliament is like the breaking-up of a school at the end of the school year, the only difference being that instead of going off on holiday we are now going to an even grimmer school - the school of discipline exercised by the people of this country. I am sure, **Mr. Speaker,** that I have not referred to everything that is in the hearts of honorable members. This is an important occasion, and I think that we do well always to retain this valedictory as a feature of the end of a Parliament. In this Parliament many things have happened of great importance to the people of Australia, but I thing that our opinions on that must not be given more fully at the present time. {: #debate-59-s2 .speaker-KCA} ##### Mr DAVIDSON:
PostmasterGeneral · Dawson · CP -- May I crave that indulgence for which you are noted, **Mr. Speaker,** to make a few remarks associating the members of the Australian Country party with the expressions of the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** and the Leader of the Opposition **(Dr. Evatt)** in the concluding hours of this Parliament. I do so, **Mr. Speaker,** in the absence of our Leader, **Mr. John** McEwen, who, as every one knows, is absent overseas on important national business. **Sir, it** is a privilege to be associated with the expressions of thanks and goodwill that have been voiced by the two right honorable gentlemen. I feel that it will be agreed on all sides that during the life of this Parliament we have passed through, under your guidance and that of those who serve the House with you, a period of constructive debate from which has flowed sound legislation. I am glad to associate the members of the Australian Country party with the thanks expressed to you for that impartiality and that sound knowledge of procedure and of the Standing Orders which have enabled you to conduct the debates in this House in a way which has helped towards the establishment of the high standing of this Parliament in Australia. You have had the assistance, in performing your task, of Deputy Speakers. The chairman of committees and the temporary chairmen of committees have acted in their particular sphere. All of us owe thanks to them for the service they have given, not only to the House but to honorable members in the conduct of the debates. Tributes have already been paid to the Clerk of the House, **Mr. Tregear.** I assure you, **Mr. Speaker,** and, through you, I assure the Clerk, that we of the Australian Country party re-echo those tributes with great sincerity, and express the desire that **Mr. Tregear** will continue in good health and that from time to time we shall see him again and be able to continue that pleasant association which has developed in the years during which he has served in this House. We thank also the ClerksAssistant and all those officers of the House who do so much in a quiet, unobtrusive way to help us carry out our particular duties. For example, the service which the Librarian and his staff offer to honorable members cannot properly be assessed in a few short words. I feel that a special tribute should be paid to them because of the value of the information which they place at our disposal when we are preparing to debate a particular bill or subject. The Parliamentary Draftsman plays an important part in the life of this Parliament, and he deserves special mention. The refreshment room staff also deserve our best thanks. And last, but by no means least, as the Prime Minister said, we come to the " Hansard " staff. How often when we read " Hansard " after we have delivered a speech do we say to ourselves, " What a splendid speech I made. I did not know it was so good ". All of us have said that and, consequently, on an occasion like this we say to the " Hansard " staff, " Thank you very very much indeed ". This is a time when we do admit our debt to the members of that staff and express our thanks. Shortly this Parliament will cease to exist and we shall go out on to the hustings. We all expect to be back again, so I shall simply say that I, personally, have enjoyed exceedingly the associations which it has been my privilege to have with all members on both sides of the House. I sincerely hope that we shall all be in a position to enjoy a continuance of that association early in the new year. So, **Sir, I** say to you again, "Thank you very much indeed "; and I associate members of the Australian Country party With these expressions of good-will and friendship at the conclusion of this Parliament. {: #debate-59-s3 .speaker-KXB} ##### Mr WATKINS:
Newcastle -- I know that it is time that all good men should be home in bed, but I hope that honorable members will bear with me for a1 few moments. I have a few " Thank you's " to say on the eve of my retirement. I would like you to know that it is not my wish to retire from public life but that medical advice has obliged me to do so. I am going to miss political life. I am going to miss the many friends I have made here over the years, and I am going to miss giving the service which I hope I have been able to give to the people. In parting, **Sir, it** may be remembered that the name of Watkins has been associated with the Commonwealth Parliament since federation. My late respected father and I, between us, have served Newcastle in this Parliament for approximately 58 . years. Our total service in State and Federal parliaments has extended over approximately 64 years, my late father having entered the State Parliament ot New South 'Wales in 1894. It is probably a .unique record that we have both represented the one party and, in effect,, the one. constituency, in the State and Federal Parliaments, for so long a period. When I look around this chamber I see now: only a few of the faces that were here when I entered this Parliament in L935. To-night is a sad night for me. When 1 look around the chamber I have memories. - hallowed memories - of great men who served their country through this Parliament for many years. Those, men are now not with us. Fleeting visions of their faces come before me; and remembering their characteristics, I can almost see them sitting in their old places in this chamber. I recall the respect and friendship that existed between us. **Mr. Speaker,** I should like to thank you for the many courtesies extended to me not only since you have been Speaker but also prior to your appointment. To you, **Mr. Prime** Minister also, and to members of your Ministry may I say, " Thank you very much for your friendship and kindness over the years ". Particularly, may I say to my own leader, deputy leader and mem bers of my own party, " Thank you very much- for your friendship and help over the years and particularly for your tolerance during my extended illness". To the parliamentary staffs, from the highest official to those on the lowest rung of the ladder, I should also like to say, " Thank you for your many acts of kindness over the years". I should like to thank the gentlemen of the press also for their many acts of kindness. I wish to convey to the Public Service generally my personal appreciation of that fine body of men and women, sometimes so much maligned, for the help and advice they have given me on many occasions when I have had to deal with the heads of different departments and others on behalf of my constituents. I think I have mentioned all the people with whom I have been associated in Canberra. If I have forgotten anybody to whom I am indebted, I am sorry. I should like to say to the Australian Labour party organization in Newcastle and to the electors of Newcastle that I am particularly sorry I have to leave them as their representative. I hope that in some way over the years I have warranted the confidence they have reposed in me. Finally, **Mr. Speaker,** I would like to say this: You honorable members will shortly be going out to meet the people. You will be working with all your heart and soul for your own return and the return of the parties which you represent. To those of you who return to this Parliament after the election may I suggest that you bring your hearts and souls back into this Parliament, because a parliament without a soul cannot successfully function. Apropos of remarks made by the Prime Minister earlier, I am one of those who believe that not only Australia but also democracies generally and democratic institutions are continually threatened. I do not think we can be beaten in the continual struggle for freedom. We can lose only by default. We can lose only through apathy and sectional and selfish interests. So, let us have in this country at all times - government of the people, by the people, for the people. May I just convey to you all my very best wishes - and now, good-bye. {: .speaker-KZP} ##### Mr Wheeler: -- I desire to speak on an entirely different subject, which only the adjournment permits a private member to raise. Naturally enough, I do not wish to spoil the atmosphere which has already been created. If other honorable members wish to speak on the subject that we have been discussing, may I suggest that I resume my seat and reserve my right to speak again after others have completed their remarks. {: #debate-59-s4 .speaker-LLW} ##### Mr DEAN:
Robertson .- I should like to direct my remarks to the honorable member for Newcastle **(Mr. Watkins),** but at the same time I should like to remember a number of our colleagues who, as the Prime Minister has said, will not be with us in the next Parliament, if we are here ourselves. **Sir, I** direct these remarks to the honorable member for Newcastle because I come from an adjoining electorate and from a different side of the House. Throughout my years as a member of the Parliament and for a long time before J became a member of the Parliament, I had the privilege of knowing the former member for Newcastle and the present member for Newcastle, who is still known as " young Dave ". I should like the House to know of the high respect accorded to the name "Watkins" in the Newcastle district. I should like the honorable member to know that he has the good wishes of us all in the Parliament, now that he is going into retirement, and I ask him to convey our good wishes to his wife, also. I hope that with the ease of not being the member for Newcastle his health will improve and we will have the happy experience of his coming back here and seeing us on a number of occasions. {: #debate-59-s5 .speaker-JWX} ##### Mr J R FRASER:
ALP -- I will be very brief indeed, **Mr. Speaker,** if you will permit me to say that I reiterate the good wishes expressed by every one on both sides of the House. I shall miss all the faces and the personalities of all honorable members assembled here, but I shall endeavour to keep an eye on the building from day to day and keep it safe for them when they all come back. {: #debate-59-s6 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- On my own behalf, I express my gratitude for all the kind remarks that have been made. On behalf of the staff, who cannot speak for themselves, I say how grateful they are for the support that you have offered to them and the kind comments you have made about them. As far as the staff is concerned, I want to say that, from my own point of view, " Tulloch " has been carrying a great deal of weight, and he has done a grand job. I am very grateful for the loyalty and cooperation I have received and, from my own observations and from yours I think we can all say that those who have been trained by **Mr. Tregear** will see that the dignity and prestige of the Parliament will be maintained. {: #debate-59-s7 .speaker-KZP} ##### Mr WHEELER:
Mitchell .I have offered my explanation to the House for speaking on an entirely different subject, but' I have not had the opportunity to raise this matter before. I take this opportunity as the only avenue open to a private member to express his views on a matter which has exercised his mind. I am encouraged by the remarks of the honorable member for Newcastle' **(Mr. Watkins),** who said that one strives and must strive to do his best in the interests of what he believes. I realize that this may be somewhat of an anticlimax after the expressions of good will marking the end of the session and farewells to- a departing Clerk. As I have already said, I have had no previous opportunity to raise this matter. I have to bring before the notice of the House the strange story of one of Australia's principal centres for tha dissemination of hatred - I hesitate to use the word in this atmosphere - hatred of democracy, of Australia and of our allies, Britain and America. This is the Waterside Workers Federation building at 60-66 Sussex-street, Sydney. This building is a principal centre for propaganda in praise of the Soviet and of communism. This is done from a site worth many thousands of pounds, provided almost rent free to the wealthy Waterside Workers Federation by the New South Wales Labour Government. I produce here a copy of the lease - a remarkable document signed by one John Joseph Cahill, now Premier of New South Wales granting the area for the trustees of the Communist-controlled Sydney branch of the Waterside Workers Federation for ten years from September, 1947, at a rental of £1 a year. The lease covers land with a frontage of approximately 60 feet to Sussexstreet in: the heart of Sydney's shipping quarter, with frontages also at the side and rear- of Sussex-lane. On it is a very substantial three-story brick building. I note that the lease actually expired in September of last year, but a little matter like that is nothing between friends. The Communists are still in occupation and no doubt amicable discussions are now going on with **Mr. Cahill** about renewal. In effect, this New South Wales Labour Government, which is continually complaining about having no money and which has starved its schools and hospitals, still has money for what in effect is a subsidy on a Communist propaganda centre. Very possibly, the lease granted in 1947 was a renewal. I think the federation has been in possession for quite a long time. However, it is only in recent years that it has engaged so extensively in these vicious anti-democratic and pro-Communist propaganda campaigns. The Waterside Workers Federation is, of course, a very wealthy body. The Sydney branch has an income of over £40,000 a year and should be able to pay whatever is the fair rental for premises it uses. Whatever may have been the reasons for granting it rent-free possession originally of this very valuable site, the conduct of its officials in the last two decades has stamped them as enemies of Australia, and no government which claims to be democratic or antiCommunist can possibly excuse this privileged treatment. Some of the conditions of the lease are very interesting. Clause 7 says that the premises shall be used for the purposes of recreation and as a reading room by members of the Waterside Workers Institute as at present constituted and for no other purpose whatever. Apparently, the showing of Communist films and plays is the Waterside Workers Federation's idea of recreation and **Mr. Cahill** must agree with this view, because if he did not, he has the power to terminate the lease immediately. Clause 12 gives him this power if the said premises are used otherwise than in accordance with clause 7. On the premises are also established the head-quarters of the Sydney branch of the federation with extensive offices. How **Mr. Cahill** can consider this to be within the definition of recreation is puzzling. Last week-end, to my knowledge, the building was the venue for an all-ports conference of delegates. It is very nice indeed for this wealthy union to have rent-free premises for such meetings, at which some of our most damaging strike plots are hatched. It is probable that since the new multistory building in Phillip-street has been completed . by the Waterside Workers Federation parent body with its up-to-date equipment for the display of propaganda films, there has been less activity in this department in Sussex-street. However, the policy of producing class-warfare plays is still being pursued vigorously. Every Saturday and Sunday night, until fairly recently, the hall was used for public presentations of a propagandist effort by left-wing writer, Frank Hardy, who has recently returned from Moscow. Another opus which had its world premiere at the Sussexstreet hall was " November Victory ", a lurid caricature of the waterfront strike of 1954, which was so violently antidemocratic in character that it won high praise and, I believe, an award at a film festival held behind the iron curtain. Even if the premises were not being used as a centre for the distribution of Communist propaganda, this extremely valuable property should not be placed rent free at the disposal of the Waterside Workers Federation. In effect, the Labour government has made this Communist-controlled organization a privileged beneficiary of the taxpayer while unions which support the Australian Labour party are required to provide their own premises at the expense of their members. Possession of these premises without the obligation to pay rent has released large sums of money from the funds of the federation that have been misused to the detriment of the Australian community. The Waterside Workers Federation is able to publish and distribute scurrilous broadsheets which, by misrepresentation, rouse its members to such a pitch of ill feeling that the officials are in a position to call on constant illegal strikes. They have thus been able to disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens and, at the same time, raise considerably the Australian cost of living. No person or body in the Commonwealth is less worthy of this privilege of free accommodation than the Waterside Workers Federation. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 1.11 a.m. (Thursday), to a date and hour to be fixed by **Mr. Speaker.** {: .page-start } page 1901 {:#debate-60} ### ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS The following answers to questions were circulated: - Department of Trade. Air. Townley. - On 30th September, the honorable member for Hughes **(Mr. L. R. Johnson)** asked the following question, without notice: - ls the acting Minister for Trade able to confirm reports that large-scale retrenchments are contemplated with respect to the Sydney office of the Department of Trade? Since over twenty Commonwealth temporary clerks are already said to be involved in such retrenchments including men with over twenty years' service, I ask the Minister whether he can indicate the reason for and the extent of the proposed staff reduction. Are these retrenchments associated with plans further to curtail import quotas or, alternatively, does the Minister consider that a stimulated trade policy with China will require less staff engaged in the business of rejecting import licence applications? {:#subdebate-60-0} #### The pressure of work in the Import Licensing Branch, Sydney, over the past eighteen months has shown that, to cope with the large number of applications being received, the staff must be stabilized by increasing the number of permanent officers. The Public Service Board agreed in order to promote greater efficiency, to provide a number of permanent positions in place of temporary ones. These positions have now been filled by the promotion of permanent officers, many of whom, are from other departments. As a result the services of seventeen temporary employees will no longer be required. Every endeavour is being made to find positions for these - employees, if possible in other departments. To give the employees to be retrenched a longer period in which to find suitable positions elsewhere, arrangements have been made for the intake of officers from other departments to be delayed for several months, and for the temporary employees to be retained for a similar period. I can assure the honorable member that the retrenchments involved are not associated with plans to curtail import quotas further and also that the number of staff required to deal with import licence applications does not vary according to the country from which the goods are imported {: #subdebate-60-0-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. When was the Department of Trade established? 1. How many employees has the department had in each year since its inception? 2. What are the precise functions of this department? 3. Has the Department of Primary Industry any responsibility in the marketing of rural production? 4. If so, in what way do these functions differ from those performed in this field by the Department of Trade? {: #subdebate-60-0-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. 1 1th January, 1956. 1. When the Departments of Trade and Primary Industry were created the whole of the staff of the old Department of Commerce and Agriculture was transferred to the Department of Trade. Subsequently a number of positions were transferred from Trade to Primary Industry. The total staff employed on 30th June, 1956, was 690. By 31st December, 1956. as a result of transfers to the Department of Primary Industry, the staff had been reduced to 612, but by 30th June, 1957, it had risen to 661, and by 30th June, 1958, to 706. The increases were due mainly to the filling of vacancies in the new organization and to reorganizations in the Import Licensing Branch and Tariff Board. 2. The functions of the Department of Trade are - Overseas trade relations. Export trade promotion including overseas trade missions, trade publicity and trade exhibitions. Trade Commissioner Service. Protection of primary and secondary industries including tariff protection. Secondary industry development. External trade policy, including the negotiation of trade treaties and international commodity agreements. Import licensing policy. Shipping matters affecting overseas trade. The Minister for Trade is also responsible for the administration of the Tariff Board and the Export Payments Insurance Corporation. {: type="1" start="4"} 0. Yes. 1. The Department of Trade is responsible for promoting export trade and the conduct and management of Australia's external trade relations, and trade policy, including the negotiation of trade treaties and international commodity arrangements. The functions of the Department of Primary Industry in respect of marketing of rural production include such items as - {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Marketing and stabilization policy. 1. Co-operation with industry and statutory organizations in the marketing of export surpluses. 2. Policy and administration of export standards designed to enable Australian products to compete successfully in overseas markets. 3. The provision of technical and economic advice designed to improve the quality and reduce the cost of production of primary products for export. {:#subdebate-60-1} #### Import Licensing {: #subdebate-60-1-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What classes of persons are eligible to receive import licences? 1. How are import quotas determined? 2. How many employees are engaged in this branch of the Department of Trade? 3. What is the annual cost of maintaining the Import Licensing Branch? {: #subdebate-60-1-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Import licences are granted only to residents of Australia. Subject to this general condition, the eligibility of any person to receive an import licence depends upon the policy applied to the commodity concerned at the time the application is made. 1. As a general rule, individual import quotas for goods subject to quota licensing are established by reference to the value of imports of those goods by the particular person or firm in a previous " base " period. Where a rigid adherence to this principle has led to anomalies in the licensing system, individual applications for import quotas have been considered on their merits, in accordance with the policy applicable to the particular commodity at the time. 2. There are 296 employees engaged on import licensing in the Department of Trade. 3. During 1957-58 the administrative costs of import licensing incurred by the Department of Trade amounted to £367,000. {:#subdebate-60-2} #### Motor Vehicle Spare Parts {: #subdebate-60-2-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - >What action has been taken by the Government to deal with excessive prices charged by the motor trade for spare parts, representing, in some instances, over 500 per cent. of the landed cost, to which the Tariff Board directed attention in a report submitted some months ago? {: #subdebate-60-2-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- I take it that the honorable member is aware that early this year, when the tariff amendments associated with the motor vehicle tariff items were under consideration in this chamber, and in another place, considerable discussion took place on the particular issue he has revived. Although it invited attention to the matter, the Tariff Board made no recommendation thereon. However, I suggest that the absence of a recommendation by the Tariff Board could be accounted for on the grounds that the matter was obviously not one which lent itself to tariff action. The honorable member might consider that the question could be dealt with by price control but, as he is aware, price control is a matter for the State governments. Travelling Expenses as Tax Deductions. {: #subdebate-60-2-s2 .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant:
WILLS, VICTORIA t asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many copies of " Income Tax for the Manufacturer " have been printed and distributed, and at what cost? 1. Why, on page 10 of this publication, in the paragraph headed " Allowable Deductions ", was the term " travelling and entertainment expenses actually incurred in gaining or producing assessable income " not explained so that the public might know on what principles and to what extent such deductions are allowed? 2. Is it possible for a taxpayer to go overseas accompanied by his wife and have their fares and accommodation charges deducted partly or fully for taxation purposes; if so, what limits in money terms are applied in such cases? 3. Approximately how much revenue is lost annually because of the advantage taken by businessmen and others travelling abroad, with or without their wives, of this allowable deduction? {: #subdebate-60-2-s3 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Twenty-five thousand copies at a cost of £1,312. 1. The words referred to by the honorable member follow closely the terms of the income tax law under which deductions are allowable for outgoings " incurred in gaining or producing assessable income. It is a question of fact whether an expense is incurred in gaining or producing assessable income. Each case requires consideration in the light of its own facts and it was not practicable in the publication to refer to the many factors associated with travelling and entertainment expenses incurred in a variety of circumstances. 2. A deduction is allowable for fares and accommodation incurred in gaining or producing assessable income but expenses of a private, domestic or capital nature are not deductible. The amount, if any, deductible is not limited to any particular amount of money but is determined by a consideration of the facts of each case in conjunction with the tests imposed by the law. 3. The information is not available. {:#subdebate-60-3} #### Tariff Board {: #subdebate-60-3-s0 .speaker-1V4} ##### Mr Cairns: s asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Is it a fact that **Mr. A.** Date will not be reappointed to the Tariff Board although he desires to continue and is not near normal retiring age? 1. Is there any precedent in the Tariff Board of non-renewal of appointment of a member who desired to continue and was not near retiring age? 2. What is the reason for the non-renewal of **Mr. Date's** appointment? 3. Has **Mr. Date** made written and widely published allegations of falsification of documents, faking of minutes, intimidation, suppression of opinion and violation of the rule of law against the former Chairman of the Tariff Board and other members? 4. If so, has the Minister made any inquiry into, or answer to, these allegations? 5. If no inquiry has been made, is it *proper to* silence the allegations by non-renewal of appointment without investigation of their truth or falsity? 6. Was **Mr. Date's** appointment to the Tariff Board made on the 15th February, 1954; if not, what was the date? 7. When does his appointment expire? {: #subdebate-60-3-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - 1, 2 and 3. The Government has decided not to re-appoint **Mr. A.** Date as a member of the Tariff Board after the expiration of his present term of office. The act provides that members are eligible for re-appointment, but the question of a re-appointment, like that of an original appointment, must be, and is determined by the Government in the public interest. It is neither usual nor desirable for reasons to be given in relation to individual appointments. {: type="1" start="4"} 0. Yes. 1. Yes. 2. See the answer to question 5. 3. Yes. 4. 31st December, 1958. {: #subdebate-60-3-s2 .speaker-1V4} ##### Mr Cairns: s asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What payments into the Commonwealth Superannuation and Provident Funds have been made in the past four and one-half years by, respectively, Messrs. Date and Ely, members of the Tariff Board? 1. What amounts will be paid by the Commonwealth to each of these two members on completion of their services? 2. If there is to be differential treatment of these two members, what is the reason? 3. In view of the non-re-appointment of **Mr. Date** to the Tariff Board, will any compensation be paid to him by the Commonwealth in respect of his establishment of a home in Melbourne? {: #subdebate-60-3-s3 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- Application of the Superannuation Act to persons occupying offices for fixed periods gives rise to very difficult questions of law and those questions are at present being closely considered by the Superannuation Board and the Solicitor- General. As soon as I am in receipt of the necessary advice I shall inform the honorable member. {:#subdebate-60-4} #### Lead and Zinc {: #subdebate-60-4-s0 .speaker-K6X} ##### Mr Coutts: s asked the acting Minister for Trade, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Has his attention been directed to the contents of the Minerals Subsidy Bill which was rejected last week by the House of Representatives of the United States of America? 1. Does the rejection of this proposal compel the United States President to accept a report of the United States Tariff Commission which will raise the duties on lead and zinc imported from Australia? 2. Is it substantially correct, as stated by the Minister for Trade in Bundaberg, Queensland, on the 22nd June last, that the acceptance of the Tariff Commission's proposal would seriously damage Australia's export of lead and zinc to the United States? 3. If so, what action is being taken to ensure the satisfactory marketing of the products of the Australian silver and lead mines? {: #subdebate-60-4-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Yes. 1. The United States President said on 1st June, 1958, that he was suspending a decision on the recommendation of the United States Tariff Commission. He pointed out that a final decision would be appropriate after the Congress had completed its consideration of the proposed minerals stabilization plan. The Congress did not enact this plan. The President then indicated on 22nd. September, 1958, that he had decided to accept the unanimous findings of the Tariff Commission respecting injury to the domestic producers of lead and zinc and announced his decision to establish import quotas for these metals. 2. Yes. 3. Everything possible has been done to put the Australian case to the American Government in the clearest and strongest terms. During all stages there has been continuous consultation in Washington at the official level, personal interviews with the American authorities by the Australian Ambassador in Washington and a personal visit by the right honorable the Minister for Trade. With the endorsement of the Minister for Trade, leading representatives of the Australian industry visited Washington. Separate notes were lodged with the United States .Government about the Tariff Commission's recommendations and about the recent decision to impose import quotas from 1st October. Proposals are now under consideration which have been forwarded by an international meeting in London to establish a more stable basis for world trade in lead and zinc. The President of the United States has indicated to the right honorable the Prime Minister that if it should not be possible promptly to reach a multilateral agreement, the - United States stands .ready to review .with Australia and other interested governments, on a bilateral basis the most equitable way of dealing with the problem. {:#subdebate-60-5} #### Defence Services Expenditure {: #subdebate-60-5-s0 .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: t asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What amounts voted in respect of each of the defence services have remained unspent in each financial year since 1949-50? 1. How has this money been employed? {: #subdebate-60-5-s1 .speaker-KOL} ##### Sir Philip McBride:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - 1. (a) The following statement shows the underexpenditure of Defence Votes in each financial year since 1949-50 in respect of the three services and other departments concerned (excluding unexpended amounts of appropriations for payment to the Strategic Stores and Equipment Reserve Trust Account referred to in (b) below): - {: type="a" start="b"} 0. The net under-expenditures of £10,275,000 in 1953-54 and £14,466,000 in 1954-55 are the unexpended amounts after payments to the Defence Equipment and Supplies Trust Account of £12,000,000 in 1953-54 and £8,000,000 in 1954-55. In 1950-51 and 1951-52 there were also appropriations totalling £87,500,000 for payment to the Strategic Stores and Equipment Reserve Trust Account and the amount actually credited to the Account was £67,096,000. The unused balances of these two trust accounts were - Defence Equipment and Supplies Trust Account . . 19,479,000 Strategic Stores and Equipment Reserve Trust Account . . 46,568,000 {: type="1" start="2"} 0. In accordance with statutory requirements, the unexpended portions of the amounts voted in the Estimates lapsed at 30th June each year, and the unused balances of the trust accounts were paid to the Consolidated Revenue Fund in 1956-57. {:#subdebate-60-6} #### Department of Primary Industry {: #subdebate-60-6-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the Minister for Primary Industry, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. When was the Department of Primary Industry established? 1. How many employees has the department had in each year since its inception? 2. What are the precise functions of this department? {: #subdebate-60-6-s1 .speaker-009MA} ##### Mr McMahon:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. 11th January, 1956. 1. The staff of this department comprises approximately one-third clerical and two-thirds export inspection services. The number on the inspection staff varies depending on seasonal requirements. The highest level of employment since the creation of the department has been - 2. The Department of Primary Industry has the Commonwealth responsibility in relation to the production and marketing arrangements for Australian primary products. The department is also responsible for - Primary industry stabilization plans; Assistance to primary industries; Administration of the legislation under which Commonwealth marketing boards operate; Continuous contact with the marketing boards on marketing policy matters; Inspection, grading and labelling of primary produce submitted for export; Administration of the Australian Agricultural Council and the Standing Committee on Agriculture; Co-operation with State Departments of Agriculture on all agriculture and food matters; Joint financing with primary industries of scientific research and promotion activities; Financial support to rural extension and mechanization activities; Investigation of marketing, economic and other problems of primary industries; Fisheries, whaling and pearling industries, including the administration of relevant legislation and of the Fisheries Development Trust Account; Commonwealth war service land settlement activities; Flax industry; Co-operation with the Department of Trade in the negotiation of international trade and commodity arrangements and Australian participation in international conferences; Administration of the provisions of existing trade or commodity agreements relating to primary products. Hire-car Service at Kingsford-Smith Airport. {: #subdebate-60-6-s2 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: y asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What are the terms of the concession granted to Hughes Motor Services Limited for the operation of a hire-car service at Kingsford-Smith airport? 1. What consideration is paid or payable for the granting of the concession? 2. Does this concession purport to confer an exclusive right to carry on a hire-car service at the airport? 3. Has another hire-car operator, **Mr. W.** J. Aitkenhead, carrying on business as KingsfordSmith Airport Hire Car Service, carried on a hire-car service at the airport for many years? 4. Has the Civil Aviation Department placed any restrictions upon that operator in the conduct of his business at the airport? 5. Is it a fact that this operator is not permitted to stand his cars at the airport terminals while waiting for bookings, but is required to enter parking lots away from the terminals for which parking fees are charged? 6. Does this operator hold a number of licences from the State Transport Authority for the operation of a hire-car service at the airport? 7. Has any compensation been paid, or is it intended to pay compensation, to this operator for anyinterference with the conduct of his business resulting from the granting of the concession to Hughes Motor Services Limited? 8. Are the streets in the airport public roads? 9. Has the Minister expressed the intention of his department to bring pressure to bear upon the airline companies to discontinue their agreements or arrangements with Kingsford-Smith Airport Hire Car Service for the transport of airline passengers and staff, and to channel this work to Hughes Motor Service Limited? 10. If so, is this interference with the operations of a private company an unjustified and unprecedented policy on the part of a government department? {: #subdebate-60-6-s3 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for Civil Aviation has replied as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The terms of the concession grant to the Hughes *Motor* Service the use of part of a building which the company uses as an office, a booking bureau in the overseas terminal building and a system of parking ranks on the airport. The term is for two years. 1. The concession fee offered by the Hughes company and accepted by the Department of Civil Aviation is £2,400 per annum. 2. No. In my correspondence with parties who have raised this question in the past I have made this point abundantly clear. No mention of exclusive rights was made in the public tender relating to the concession and I have done everything possible to dispel any misunderstandings in this regard. 3. The honorable member for Grayndler should be well aware that the Kingsford-Smith Hire Car Service has operated at the airport for a number of years. His colleague, the honorable member for Kingsford-Smith has on many occasions harangued this House with allegations of overcharging and racketeering by the Kingsford-Smith Hire Car Service and pressed for termination of the so-called monopoly under which it operated at the airport. 4. The only restrictions imposed on the KingsfordSmith Hire Car Service are those imposed by the regulations of the New South Wales Department of Road Transport and are equally applicable to all hire-car operators in the Sydney area. Under the terms of these regulations, disengaged hire cars are not permitted to stand in ranks, or solicit business on the streets, except immediately adjacent to their registered premises. Hence, the only disengaged hire cars which are permitted to remain on the airport are those of the authorized concessionaire whose registered premises are located on the airport. However, there is no restriction on hire cars which have previously been engaged by telephone entering the airport and waiting in the appropriate parking area for the arrival of their passengers. 5. As I have just said, the cars of the KingsfordSmith Hire Car Service are not permitted under the regulations of the New South Wales Department of Road Transport to stand anywhere on the airport awaiting bookings. All bookings must be made through their registered office. The space available for hire cars on the roadways outside the terminal building is very limited. The available space forms part of the facilities for which the hire car concessionaire pays his fee. The Kingsford-Smith Hire Car Service, which I understand is presently enjoying the larger portion of business offering on the airport, pays no concession fee. It pays only for the parking spaces in the public area as it uses them. As you may know the difference in distance between the hire car ranks and the public parking areas is only a matter of several yards. {: type="1" start="7"} 0. I understand that **Mr. Aitkenhead** does hold a number of licences from the New South Wales Department of Motor Transport for operation of a hire-car service which permit him to pick up passengers on the airport. 1. No. 2. As far as I am aware the streets on the airport are not public roads in the true sense. According to advice which I have received, a road on Commonwealth property may be declared a public road only after 60 years' usage with open access. 3. I did make it clear that the Department of Civil Aviation should endeavour to channel business to its authorized concessionaire and furthermore I stated that influence would be used to this end. I did, however, make clear also that this influence would amount only to an invitation to the airline companies to come to some arrangement with the authorized concessionaire to ensure that the latter secured at least a fair share of business offering on the airport. You will recall that I recognize the rights of any one to choose whichever hire car service they please. 4. The action taken by the Department in calling public tenders for this concession and awarding it to the highest bidder is entirely sound and businesslike. It should dispel for all time the misgivings expressed in this House by honorable members of the Opposition during the Budget debate last year that one particular operation - the Kingsford-Smith Hire Car Service - was being given an unfair advantage in the allocation of airport business. As I have said before, the department does not offer any one a monopoly. It can, however, offer certain privileges and business advantages which, as the tender shows, are considered by one experienced hire-car operator to be worth £2,400 per year. The KingsfordSmith Hire Car Service is still free to operate its business in accordance with the New South Wales Transport Regulations and to pick up and set down passengers on the airport. {:#subdebate-60-7} #### Imports of Aircraft {: #subdebate-60-7-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: m asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. On what principle does the Director-General of Civil Aviation grant or refuse his permission to import aircraft under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations? 1. Are these principles incorporated in any statute, regulations or departmental instructions? {: #subdebate-60-7-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for Civil Aviation has replied as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations provide that the importation of aircraft, airframes or aircraft engines is prohibited unless the importer produces to the collector the permission in writing of the Director-General. The Customs (Import Licensing) Regulations prohibit the import of any goods without a licence. In order to import an aircraft the importer must therefore have a permit from the Director-General of Civil Aviation and an import licence from the Department of Trade. The principles which the DirectorGeneral is entitled to take into account are the airworthiness of the aircraft, its suitability for operation under Australian conditions and the immediate and long-range effects the importation of the aircraft would have on domestic civil aviation. 1. No, except as prescribed in the above regulations. {:#subdebate-60-8} #### Shipping {: #subdebate-60-8-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: m asked the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport, upon notice - >On what principles does the Minister grant or refuse his permission to import ships under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations? {: #subdebate-60-8-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for Shipping and Transport has furnished the following reply: - >The main factor considered in determining whether or not a ship may be imported from overseas is the availability of capacity in the Australian industry to build a ship of the same specifications within a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. > >Other factors which receive consideration are the proposed future employment of the vessel, its probable effect on the continued employment of the existing fleet of vessels of the same type, and any particular degree of urgency which would warrant special consideration. > >Applicants desiring to import a vessel are required to obtain quotations from more than one Australian shipyard for comparison with the overseas quotation as to price and delivery dates. The comparison takes into account where applicable subsidy payments on Australian-built ships and import duty and cost of delivery to Australia of an overseas ship. > >In the case of secondhand vessels the applicants must establish that there is no suitable vessel readily available in Australia for purchase and if there is not, must then obtain Australian quotations for a new vessel for comparison with the price asked for the overseas vessel. {: #subdebate-60-8-s2 .speaker-KXI} ##### Mr Webb: b asked the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Has the Australian Council of Trade Unions made representations to the Minister for Shipping and Transport in support of certain measures which should be taken by the Government to assist the Australian shipbuilding industry? 1. Are " Triadic ", " Fernplant " and " Booloongeena ", vessels carrying phosphate from Christmas Island to Western Australian ports, foreign-owned and manned by Asian crews? {: type="1" start="3"} 0. Are Australian National Line ships of suitable tonnage that could be employed in this trade laid up out of commission through lack of cargo? 1. As Christmas Island has now become Australian territory, will the Minister authorize an investigation of the sea carriage of phosphate and take all available action to ensure the employment of Australian ships in this trade? {: #subdebate-60-8-s3 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for Shipping and Transport has furnished the following reply: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Yes. 1. "Triadic", "Fernplant" and "Booloongeena" " which are engaged in carrying phosphate from Christmas Island to Western Australia are foreign owned and are not required to be manned in accordance with the Navigation Act. The nationality of their crews is therefore not required to be notified to the Australian authorities. It is understood that " Triadic " and " Fernplant " have Asiatic crews and that " Booloongeena " has a Swedish crew. 2. The Australian National Line ships now laid up are of a suitable tonnage to be used in this trade, but the higher cost of operation under Australian conditions would substantially increase the landed cost of phosphate in Fremantle. 3. As Christmas Island was only placed under the authority of the Commonwealth on 1st October, 19S8, matters associated with shipping services between the island and the mainland of Australia have not yet been examined, but the earliest opportunity will be taken to do so. {:#subdebate-60-9} #### Commonwealth Offices, Adelaide {: #subdebate-60-9-s0 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr CLYDE CAMERON:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP n asked the Minister for the Interior, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What is the rental per square foot of office *space occupied or* to be occupied by Commonwealth Departments in the following buildings in Adelaide: - (a) Bank of New South Wales, (b) Colonial Mutual Life, (c) City Mutual Life, (d) National Mutual Life, (e) Da Costa House, (f) Savings Bank of South Australia, and (g) The Advertiser? 1. On what dates do the leases in respect of office space in these properties expire? {: #subdebate-60-9-s1 .speaker-KEN} ##### Mr Fairhall:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Rental per square foot per annum, including rates, taxes and cleaning paid by landlord: - {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Bank of New South Wales- 19s. 3d. 1. Colonial Mutual Life- 18s. 7d. 2. City Mutual Life- 26s. 8d. 3. National Mutual Life - Not occupied. 4. Da Costa- 25s. 6d. 5. Savings Bank- 18s. 6. Advertiser - 29s. 4d. 2.- {:#subdebate-60-10} #### Migrants and General Election {: #subdebate-60-10-s0 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: y asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many migrants will be eligible to vote in the forthcoming federal elections? 1. How many of these migrants are located in each State? {: #subdebate-60-10-s1 .speaker-KCK} ##### Mr Downer:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The numbers of post-war arrivals in Australia eligible to vote as at 31st October, 1958, is estimated to be 358,200. 1. Using the 1954 census figures and naturalization records as a guide, the estimated distribution between the States is as follows: - As British subjects are not eligible to vote until they have completed six months' residence in Australia, the honorable member will appreciate that these estimates do not include British migrants who arrived during the six months prior to 31s! October, 1958. Due allowance has been made for deaths and departures and for British migrants who turned 21 years of age subsequent to thenarrival in Australia. {:#subdebate-60-11} #### Bauxite {: #subdebate-60-11-s0 .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr Duthie: e asked the Minister representing the Minister for National Development, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Has the Government decided what shall be done with the mission station at Weipa, York Peninsula, following the discovery of bauxite in the area? 1. Will the aborigines be forced out of their present home along with the entire mission? 2. If so, are they to be assisted by the Government or the operators of this bauxite field to re-establish themselves in a new area nearby? {: #subdebate-60-11-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for National Development has replied as follows: - 1, 2 and 3. The granting of rights to mine at Cape York Peninsula is the responsibility of the Queensland State Government, and it is suggested that you direct your inquiries concerning the effect that the development of bauxite there will have on the native population to that Government. Radio-activity. {: #subdebate-60-11-s2 .speaker-JWX} ##### Mr J R FRASER:
ALP ser asked the Minister for Health, upon notice: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Are statistics available on an Australia-wide basis in relation to physical and mental abnormalities of children at birth? 1. If so, what are the rates per 1,000 births of (a) physical and (b) mental abnormalities in each of the past five years? 2. Has any research been undertaken to ascertain whether radio-activity in the atmosphere could be a possible contributing cause to mental deficiency or mental retardation in children at birth; if so, what results have been achieved? 3. Is there any evidence to link a high proportion of mental deficiency at birth with a high degree of radio-activity in any particular areas in Australia? 4. Is there any link at all between increasing mental or physical abnormality in children at birth with an increasing degree of radio-activity in the atmosphere? 5. Is there any evidence that increasing radioactivity could not be responsible for increasing mental deficiency in children at birth? 6. Can medical evidence rule out the possibility that increasing radio-activity could be responsible for increasing mental deficiency in children at birth in Australia? 7. If this possibility exists, what protection can be given to the community by a thorough and continuous check on the level of radio-activity in water, in foods, and in the air? 8. Is there disagreement between highly qualified experts as to whether man-made radio-activity at its present level is a positive danger to life and health? 9. Is there any danger that in experiments designed to protect the present generation, we might be mortgaging the health and mental wellbeing of future generations? 10. Will he have prepared for public dissemination a complete statement on the actualities and possibilities of nuclear research in relation to genetic damage? {: #subdebate-60-11-s3 .speaker-JU8} ##### Dr DONALD CAMERON:
Minister for Health · OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP -- The answers to the honorable member's Questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. No. 1. Not available. 2. Not sufficient evidence at present. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No satisfactory evidence available. 6. No satisfactory evidence available. 7. There is no evidence that this possibility exists. 8. Insufficient evidence of any disagreement al present. 9. Insufficient evidence at present. 10. A number of documents have been published on the hazards and effects of radiation and I will be happy to give the references to the honorable member. {:#subdebate-60-12} #### Imports of Ships {: #subdebate-60-12-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: m asked the Minister representing the Minister for Customs and Excise, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. On what dates in 1957-58 did importers produce to the Collector of Customs the permission of the Minister for Shipping and Transport to import ships? 1. Of what type and tonnage were these ships? {: #subdebate-60-12-s1 .speaker-KMD} ##### Mr Osborne:
LP -- The Minister for Customs and Excise has furnished the following answer to the honorable member's question: - 1 and 2. {:#subdebate-60-13} #### Political Telecasts {: #subdebate-60-13-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the Postmaster-General, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What parliamentarians, showing the party to which they belong, have made ministerial statements, delivered talks or participated in discussions on television programmes since their inauguration in this country? 1. What television channels were concerned in each case; on how many occasions has each person appeared and what was the duration of each session? 2. Which of these telecasts formed part of a programme for which the participant did not pay? {: #subdebate-60-13-s1 .speaker-KCA} ##### Mr Davidson:
CP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - >The attached statement has been compiled from information supplied by the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the licencees of commercial television stations. I should add that the details, being confined to appearances of parliamentarians, do not give a complete impression of the extent to which persons affiliated with the several political parties have appeared on television. There have, of course, also been many appearances of other persons who, though not parliamentarians, have expressed views on political subjects. {:#subdebate-60-14} #### Dollar Allocations for Television {: #subdebate-60-14-s0 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: y asked the Postmaster-General, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What dollar allocation has been made to each television station in Australia since the introduction of television? 1. How much of this amount has been allocated for (a) films and (b) other items? 2. What dollar allocation has been made in each case for the next twelve months? {: #subdebate-60-14-s1 .speaker-KCA} ##### Mr Davidson:
CP -- It is assumed that the honorable member's question refers only to dollar expenditure on television programme material and not to expenditure on capital equipment. On this basis the Treasurer has furnished the following information in reply to the question asked: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Approved dollar expenditure by television stations from the inception of television to the middle of August, 1958, amounted to approximately £1.25 million. It is not the practice to disclose detailed figures in respect of individual stations. 1. Information is not available to show how much of this amount was in respect of feature films and how much was in respect of programme material. 2. A quota system is not in operation. Under the present policy television stations are provided with whatever overseas currencies are required for the purchase of their reasonable needs for imported programme material. The " reasonable needs " do not include the acquisition of unnecessarily large stocks of imported material.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 1 October 1958, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1958/19581001_reps_22_hor21/>.

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