House of Representatives
26 March 1963

24th Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 24th Parliament
  3. 1963

Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. Sir John McLeay) took the chair at 3 p.m., and read prayers.

page 3

PETITIONS

Social Services

Mr. CLAY presented a petition from certain electors of New South Wales praying that the Government take urgent and immediate action to -

  1. Grant an increase in the pension of age, invalid and widow pensioners and their dependent children, and
  2. allocate additional finance for the building of low rental houses and units for pensioners and elderly people.

Petition received and read.

Mr. LUCHETTI presented a petition in similar terms.

Petition received.

Aborigines

Mr. HAYLEN presented a petition from certain citizens of the Commonwealth praying that the Commonwealth Government remove section 127 and the words discriminating against aborigines in section 51 of the Commonwealth Constitution, by the holding of a referendum at an early date.

Petition received and read.

page 3

QUESTION

SHIPBUILDING

Mr Don Cameron:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– I ask the Minister for Shipping and Transport whether he is aware that large-scale dismissals are taking place in the shipyards in Brisbane. Does he know that it is reported from reliable sources that unless a further contract is obtained immediately for the shipyards in Brisbane these yards will close down towards the latter part of this year, and that many men will be thrown out of work with very little chance of finding alternative, suitable, gainful employment, and will be obliged to register for the dole, as many of those already retrenched have had to do? Will the Minister explain to this Parliament why some of the contracts recently let overseas for the purchase of submarines and other naval vessels could not have been placed with the Australian shipbuilding industry? Does the Minister consider that the Australian shipbuilding industry lacks the ability and know-how to build any of these vessels?

Mr OPPERMAN:
Minister for Shipping and Transport · CORIO, VICTORIA · LP

– I have no intention of debating or of answering the last of the honorable member’s questions, which concerns a matter of Government policy. It is a matter for my colleagues in the Department of Defence and the Department of the Navy, and I know it has been well considered. Because I keep in close contact with the shipbuilding industry I am aware that there have been some dismissals from the Evans Deakin shipyards. I should like to point out that over past years the shipbuilding industry has been in a depressed state all over the world. The amount of shipbuilding done in Australia has been large compared to the amount done anywhere else. The Australian Shipbuilding Board is using it’s best endeavours to maintain the shipbuilding industry at a high level of construction. It has not been encouraged recently by the fact that the Ampol tanker which was built in Australia received such criticism from the Communist inspired Seamen’s Union. Probably, it would be as well if other sections of the community had a look at their side of the matter in order to maintain the shipbuilding industry.

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QUESTION

MALAYA

Mr CHANEY:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– Can the Minister for External Affairs inform the House of the nature of Australia’s obligations for the defence of Malaya? Have any commitments yet been entered into in respect of the new Federation of Malaysia?

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK__ The honorable member raises an important question which, if I may say so, ought to be the subject of a considered reply. I should be very glad if he would put his question on the notice-paper. I can say, broadly, that we have no military alliance with Malaya, although its security is of direct significance and importance to us. The United Kingdom has a defence commitment in Malaya and, as honorable members know, Australian troops are serving with the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve. The use of those Australian troops in assisting the performance of the British obligation would, of course, be subject to a decision of the Australian Government. I shall make a full reply to the honorable member if he will put the question on the notice-paper. ,

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QUESTION

UNITED STATES NAVAL COMMUNICATIONS STATION IN AUSTRALIA

Mr WARD:
EAST SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I desire to ask the Prime Minister a question. When were negotiations commenced for the establishment of a United States naval communications base at North West Cape, Western Australia? Why did the Prime Minister fail to keep the Parliament fully advised and afford it an opportunity to debate the major issues of national policy involved before committing this country to the terms of an agreement? Have there been discussions involving proposals to establish United States military bases anywhere else in Australia? If so, what are the details?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
Prime Minister · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

– The honorable member appears not to have kept himself abreast of statements made both inside this Parliament and out of it over a long period. It was as long ago as September, 1960, that the Minister for Defence told the House that discussions had begun in an informal way with the United States of America in relation to a naval radio communications station in Australia - not a military base. There has been at no time any proposal for a military base, and there is none now. My colleague told the House about the proposal at the very beginning and, strangely enough, no comment at all emerged from the Opposition. Later, in January, 1961, my colleague made a further statement in which he announced that the results of the earlier studies pursued in relation to this subject had proved satisfactory from the technical viewpoint of the United States Navy and that further discussions would take place.

Mr J R Fraser:
ALP

– Is this a Dorothy Dix-er?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– Obviously. I know the honorable member for East Sydney so well that I was sure it was bound to come. On 17th May, 1962, I made a lengthy statement in this House about the same matter. I pointed out a number of things which apparently have conveniently been forgotten by many people. I shall not read all the statement because it is in “ Hansard “, but I said then, amongst other things, that the purpose of the station was to provide radio communications for United

States and allied ships over a wide area of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific.

Mr Cairns:

– Does that include submarines?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– Of course it does. Naval forces happen to include submarines. Then I pointed out the area of land to be affected by the project. I said that it would be about 28 square miles. I also pointed out that this was to be leased to the American authorities, the Commonwealth Government acquiring the land and being the landlord, if I may put it in that way, and therefore retaining its own sovereignty.

I said, al the same time, that the maximum practicable use would be made of Australian contractors, labour and materials. It is a pity that one should have to repeat the statement now, but I went on to say that arrangements would be made for consultation between the two governments on matters relating to the station and its use. I said that the facilities of the station would be available to the Australian forces. Finally, I pointed out - and this again is sometimes forgotten - that the establishment of the station was within the spirit of co-operation envisaged in (he Anzus Treaty, under which the parties agreed to co-ordinate their efforts for collective defence for the preservation of peace and security.

On 6th March of this year my colleague, the Minister for Defence, made a further quite elaborate statement. I shall not read it all, but after pointing out a number of the features of this communications station he said -

Following consultation with the Western Australian Government, the land required for the project will be acquired by the Commonwealth Government.

He set out the area and said once more that sovereignty would remain with Australia. He then said - the technical facilities of the station will be available to the Australian Armed Forces. This will contribute significantly to Australia’s defence capability, particularly in the light of the Government’s recent decision to establish a Royal Australian Navy submarine service.

He added - . the establishment of this station will provide improved communications for allied surface ships and submarines over a wide area of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, and will make a highly significant contribution to general allied military capability in the area.

Then, for good measure, two days later he made a further statement to a similar effect.

I have mentioned these matters because there has been a disposition in some quarters to say that the House has not been told about them. The House has been told. It has been told all that was available to be told. A number of the details of the agreement are as yet unconcluded. They are not matters of massive importance. There are certain details of the transaction which are still under discussion. In fact, only this morning my colleague, the Attorney-General, has been debating two or three outstanding points. When these details have been worked out and this matter, which is most important from the point of view of the United States of America, the Allied point of view and our own point of view, can be put in hand we propose, so that there may be no doubt outside about the validity of what we are doing, to annexe the agreement in its full and final terms to a bill and to invite the Parliament to ratify it. That bill will be introduced as soon as possible. I do not mean within the next day or two.

Mr Calwell:

– Within a couple of months?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– I should hope it would be before then. I shall be very disappointed if the bill cannot be introduced within the next two or three weeks. That will give every member of the House an opportunity to re-read the statements already made and to arm himself with various arguments about the matter.

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QUESTION

TRAINING OF SKILLED TRADESMEN

Mr WHITTORN:
BALACLAVA, VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Labour and National Service. As the Commonwealth has been advertising for skilled tradesmen, who are required by the Woomera rocket range projects, has the Minister considered the training of additional skilled personnel in country centres, particularly in the various munitions factories in country districts? If such training could be organized, would it not alleviate some of the unemployment of youths in country areas and at the same time provide a continuous stream of young tradesmen for Woomera?

Mr MCMAHON:
Minister for Labour and National Service · LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I think I have already informed the House that one of the problems that faced the Government was the necessity to increase the number of skilled personnel in the Australian industrial structure and that one of the things which was preventing us from getting those skilled personnel was the system of apprenticeship and skilled training. Despite the fact that skilled training is largely, or primarily, a matter for the State governments, the Commonwealth has actively intervened to get a greater number of skilled persons. As an example, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission recently amended the metal trades award and vehicle industry award to permit people with the requisite technical education to complete their apprenticeships in three or three and a half years instead of five years. As a supplement to that, since the House last met, the Government has decided, in respect of those in the seventeen to twenty age group, to pay an allowance to employers in the more remote States to cover any excess cost which they might have to bear if they took on more than the normal number of apprentices. In addition, we have decided also to pay a living-away-from-home allowance to those country students who undertake an initial course of twenty weeks training at a technical college. As well, we shaH pay an incentive allowance to country employers who employ more than the number of young people that they normally take on for apprenticeship.

These are but some of the things that the Commonwealth Government has done. Admittedly, they are novel. The Commonwealth had led the way. Admittedly, they enter a new world of Commonwealth participation in industrial relations. However, I think that most honorable gentlemen will welcome these measures as a historic breakthrough in both the metal trade and the electrical trade, and that, when we get to other industries such as the printing and building industries, much will have been accomplished to overcome the shortage of skilled tradesmen in this country.

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QUESTION

UNITED STATES NAVAL COMMUNICATIONS STATION IN AUSTRALIA

Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I wish to ask the Prime Minister a question to clarify two references which he made in his statement on 17th May last to the radio communications station to be built at North West Cape - references which the Minister for Defence repeated on 6th March and which the Prime Minister has just renewed in his answer to the question asked by the honorable member for East Sydney. First, the right honorable gentleman and the Minister have stated that the station is within the spirit of the Anzus Treaty. I therefore ask him whether the operation of the station will in fact be covered by the provisions of the Anzus Treaty or whether the agreement to be annexed to the bill to be introduced in the next two or three weeks will displace or supplement that treaty. Secondly, the Prime Minister stated that the station would communicate with allied ships, and the Minister for Defence more specifically said that it would communicate with allied surface ships and submarines. I therefore ask the right honorable gentleman: Which are the allies referred to - presumably Britain and New Zealand, but which others?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES__ Certainly

Australia. This is not something that will displace the Anzus Pact. It is, on the contrary, something that rather tends to grow out of it, and when the agreement is presented to the Parliament-

Mr Haylen:

– Oh!

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– I know that honorable members opposite have never quite oared for the Anzus Pact. We on this side, and the Australian people, care for it. When the agreement is presented to the Parliament, honorable members will find that it refers back specifically to the Anzus Agreement and derives from that a very fine reason for stepping forward into this act which will give to the United States of America - our ally for all these purposes - the right to establish a communications centre. Honorable members opposite have been so beguiling themselves with ideas of a radio station surrounded by nuclear weapons, and a naval base in the vicinity, that they have simply forgotten to read what has been said about the proposed station or to understand what is the real nature of the proposal.

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QUESTION

EGGS

Mr LESLIE:
MOORE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I address a question to the Minister for Primary Industry. On a couple of occasions during the last sessional period, I asked him questions about a proposal to stabilize the egg industry in Australia in order to overcome the farcical and tragically unfortunate competition among the States in the marketing of eggs. On 6th December, replying to a question, the Minister stated -

The Commonwealth has recommended that certain action be taken by the State governments concerned.

That was after proposals had been submitted by the Australian Agricultural Council. He continued -

To date we-

That means the Commonwealth - have not-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I think that the honorable member has now explained his question and that he should ask it.

Mr LESLIE:

– I ask whether the Minister has now received advice from the States and, if so, what further action has been taken.

Mr ADERMANN:
Minister for Primary Industry · FISHER, QUEENSLAND · CP

– It is true that Commonwealth egg marketing authorities submitted to the Commonwealth Government for consideration a proposal for stabilization and that the Commonwealth Government gave the proposal full consideration. The Commonwealth has submitted to the States certain aspects of that proposal in order to ascertain the practicability of the States implementing a scheme similar to that which was submitted to us and, by co-operating with one another, carrying out the proposal. In December, we had not received all of the replies. Indeed, when the Australian Agricultural Council last met all replies had not been received. There was a discussion at that meeting which, I am afraid I must say, showed that the States were not all of one mind as to whether such a proposal should be implemented at all. Of course, the support of the industry and of the State governments would be needed before any further action could be taken. That is where the matter rests at present.

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QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY

Mr SEXTON:
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I preface my question, which I direct to the Treasurer, by stating that during the parliamentary recess many public statements were made regarding Australia’s future economic stability. Whilst a few of those statements came from monopolies and combines the great majority came from medium-sized and smaller commercial organizations. They all expressed doubts about our economic stability and referred to lack of confidence and a fear that the Government may again impose credit squeezes and allied measures to dampen down inflationary trends in the economy. Can the Treasurer reassure these important units in our society that the Government will not repeat its hurtful policies of credit squeezes, which had such disastrous effects on our commerce and trade in 1961?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Treasurer · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– I do not find it necessary to adopt the adjectives employed by the honorable gentleman towards the end of his question. I can assure my fellow Australians, in whatever walk of life they may be occupied, that this country has a future and a promise brighter than those of any other country to which I can point in any part of the world at the present time. The honorable gentleman would be hard put to it to point to a country which has a sounder or healthier base to its economy than that which exists in Australia at this time. If he wants confirmation of a very practical character, I refer him to the quite remarkable increase in the number of people from overseas who are showing an interest in Australia by visiting this country, by investing funds here, and by going back and recommending to their fellows that this example be followed. We are being supported at the present time by a strong rate of capital inflow. Our overseas reserves are sound. We have stable costs and prices inside the country. Last month my colleague, the Minister for Labour and National Service, was able to tell us that there was a record rate of notification and placement of labour through his department. There ar”. just a few pointers. Later, in presenting legislation to the House, I hope to go into these matters in somewhat more detail. If ever there was a period when Australian entrepreneurs could look forward confidently to the future of enterprise in Australia, I believe that time is now.

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QUESTION

TELEPHONE SERVICES

Mr STOKES:
MARIBYRNONG, VICTORIA

– I should like to preface a question, which I direct to the Minister for Social Services, by recalling a question I asked the Postmaster-General twelve months ago with respect to the hardship suffered by many blind persons, particularly pensioners, in meeting current telephone rentals, and his reply that the granting of any concession would now devolve on the Department of Social Services, which was then considering the matter. I now ask the Minister whether a decision has yet been reached. If some assistance is to be granted, I ask that consideration be given to providing it now without waiting for the Budget to be brought down.

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

– I say in reply to the honorable member for Maribyrnong that it is true that the question of providing a telephone service for blind people at concessional rates has been considered from time to time by both the PostmasterGeneral, when it was his responsibility, and myself since it has become the responsibility of the Department of Social Services. Up to this time, the Government has not been able to grant the concession, but I can assure the honorable member that it will again be considered in the normal way at the appropriate time.

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QUESTION

VISITS BY UNION REPRESENTATIVES TO GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHMENTS

Mr McIVOR:
GELLIBRAND, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Supply whether it is true that he has placed a ban upon union officials entering a government department in my electorate, namely, the Department of Supply, Gordonstreet, Footscray, in the pursuit of their duties as union representatives. If it is true, will the Minister inform the House why the long-standing practice of permitting such visits has been stopped? If a ban has been imposed, will the Minister give consideration to lifting it in the interests of good public relations between the management and the employee members of the unions?

Mr FAIRHALL:
Minister for Supply · PATERSON, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I can give the honorable member for Gellibrand an assurance that I have issued no such instruction to ban the entry of any union representative to the factory of the Department of Supply at Footscray. Indeed, union officials always have the right to approach the management of the factory on legitimate union business at reasonable times by appointment. Other than that, trade union officials have the right, or they can readily get permission, to interview and converse with members of their union in the factory on legitimate business during lunch hour breaks. This permission, however, does not run to the holding of stop work meetings or protest meetings within the factory on matters that are contentious. I recall that two or three weeks ago there was a request by one union to hold a protest meeting within the factory, and the request was refused. Apart from that, I think the honorable gentleman will also know that there are certain sections of the factory that are security classified. I am sure he would not expect free access to be given to those sections.

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QUESTION

MIRAGE FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

Mr FALKINDER:
FRANKLIN, TASMANIA

– Can the Minister for Air tell me whether an improved type of ejector seat will be installed in the Mirage fighters soon to be supplied to the Royal Australian Air Force? Further, will the Minister consider recommending the installation of a more modern type of ejector seat in the existing aircraft of the R.A.A.F. if such installation is practicable?

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
Minister for Air · FARRER, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I am glad to be able to inform the honorable member that the Mirage aircraft which we hope will be coming into service in the Royal Australian Air Force towards the end of the year will be equipped with what I think is undoubtedly the best ejector seat in operation in the world to-day. I refer to the Martin Baker Mark IV seat. This ejector seat has particularly good capabilities in that pilots can eject at zero level and at zero speed. In addition, it is fitted with a compressed air bottle. Should a pilot have to ditch at sea, the compressed air bottle operates automatically at a depth of 10 feet and, by its action, the pilot is blown to the surface.

The seat which is at present fitted to the Sabre aircraft does not give nearly as good a performance, in that the pilot must be flying at an altitude of at least 300 feet and travelling at a speed of approximately 150 knots before he can eject safely. There have been some accidents due to pilots flying aircraft equipped with these seats being ejected at too low an altitude. We have looked at the question of replacing or improving these seats. The R.A.A.F. has fitted to the seat mechanism a captive bolt which automatically breaks the canopy. This modification has been so successful that it has been adopted by other air forces throughout the world, but further improvement of this type of seat would involve such extensive modification that we feel that the expense would not be justified.

page 9

QUESTION

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr LUCHETTI:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Prime Minister as head of the Australian Government. In view of the continuing grave problem of large-scale unemployment, I ask the Prime Minister whether he will state what new measures he intends to take to provide full employment and gainfully to use the work force of this nation. Will the right honorable gentleman give special attention to providing employment in country districts where hardship is evident because of lack of jobs? Finally, will the Prime Minister grant assistance to private enterprise to establish undertakings in areas most sorely affected by persisting unemployment?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– 1 think the honorable member forgets that only a few weeks ago, in consultation with the State Premiers, we made in relation to the remaining four months of this financial year a very considerable supplementary provision. That was done very largely in the light of our desire that the restoration of employment should proceed more rapidly. A lot of these things have yet, no doubt, to bear their fruit, but what has been said about the figures by my colleagues the Minister for Labour and National Service and the Treasurer has indicated quite plainly that there is a very considerable improvement and very great activity in the department in the placement of people registered for employment. 1 see no reason why that should not proceed very satisfactorily.

page 9

QUESTION

JAPANESE TRADE AGREEMENT

Mr IAN ALLAN:
GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Trade whether he can inform the House when the negotiations for the renewal of the Japanese Trade Treaty are likely to be completed.

Mr McEWEN:
Minister for Trade · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

– I cannot put a precise date on it, but satisfactory discussions are proceeding at the present time. I expect that it will not be at a distant date.

page 9

QUESTION

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Mr DUTHIE:
WILMOT, TASMANIA

– I direct my question to the Minister for Externa] Affairs. What is the reason for withdrawing our ambassador and minister from the United Nations and appointing only a part-time ambassador in their stead? For how long is the present unsatisfactory situation likely to continue?

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
Attorney-General · PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– Mr.

Speaker, in the course of reviewing the appointments of ambassadors I moved Sir James Plimsol] from the United Nations to New Delhi because I thought he would be an eminently suitable appointment for that post. I do not accept the honorable gentleman’s suggestion that the present arrangement at the United Nations is unsatisfactory. Various staff arrangements have to be made and a permanent appointment to the United Nations will be considered by me in the near future. I took great care, before I made the present arrangement, to ensure that Australia’s business at the United Nations could be adequately handled in the meantime. I am quite certain that it will be.

page 9

QUESTION

DEFENCE

Mr JESS:
LA TROBE, VICTORIA

– Can the Minister for Defence advise whether he intends to make a further statement to the House in the near future on the equipment, capabilities and needs of the Australian defence forces?

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

– I had not had it in mind to make such a statement directly, but I think there is a lot of virtue in the proposal the honorable member makes that I should make a statement fairly soon on defence and allied matters. I shall discuss this with the Leader of the House, and I am sure that he will co-operate with me.

page 10

QUESTION

SYDNEY GENERAL POST OFFICE

Mr MINOGUE:
WEST SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Will the PostmasterGeneral consider having a lift installed at the same time as the restoration of the Sydney General Post Office clock is taking place? There was previously a stone stairway leading to the clock tower. If a lift were installed it would enable the people to have a look over west Sydney.

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

– Mr. Speaker, certainly one must applaud the actions of the honorable member for West Sydney in his continual representations about this matter. I have not given any consideration previously - I do not know whether the department has - to the installation of a lift. As you are aware, it is a pretty expensive matter to put the clock back. I will have a further look at the practicability of the honorable member’s proposal and will then write to him.

page 10

QUESTION

DECIMAL CURRENCY

Mr SNEDDEN:
BRUCE, VICTORIA

– I direct a question to the Treasurer. Has any programme been formulated as yet, and, if so, can he give some indication of the form of the programme, for a changeover from the present currency system in Australia to a decimal currency?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– As I have previously pointed out to the House, a final decision on this matter has yet to be announced by the Government. However, a great deal of preparatory and preliminary work has been going ahead so that we shall have a clear picture of all the implications of the changeover if a decision to make it is finally taken. In the period of the recess a committee of the Cabinet has been looking into particular aspects of this matter, including the rather complicated question of compensation, in the event of a changeover, for the various business machines which would have to be replaced or converted, the types of coins which would be employed, the nomenclature and a great variety of other matters. We have had reports on how the change to a decimal currency has worked in practice in South Africa and we have, of course, been keeping in touch with the United Kingdom and New Zealand, both of which countries are examining the question of whether they should move into a decimal currency system. Sir, the committee has reached a stage where it has formed certain views on these matters. Those views will, I hope, bo considered by the Cabinet at an early stage, after which it should be possible to make a definite announcement as to the course which our future policy will take.

page 10

QUESTION

TAXATION

Mr McGUREN:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Treasurer. Would he consider treating expenses incurred by persons in country areas in travelling to the cities for specialist medical treatment as allowable income tax deductions, along with the normal deductions for doctors’ and dentists’ fees allowed by the present income tax laws?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– The matter raised by the honorable member has been before the Government on a number of occasions. I can only tell him at this stage that, in company with a great mass of requests for taxation relief put forward for reasons which those making them regard, frequently validly, as having great merit, this request will receive consideration at the appropriate time. What decision will come out of that consideration will be, of course, subject to the budgetary problems as we see them at that time.

page 10

QUESTION

ROADS

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Shipping and Transport. I ask: At his meeting with Australia’s Lord Mayors yesterday was ha asked to include in the Commonwealth Aid Roads Act, when it is renewed in 1964, a provision for the payment of approximately 40 per cent, of the funds for roads in metropolitan areas? Does the Minister know how damaging such action would be to oft-advocated decentralization? Can he assure the House that he favours a continuation of the provisions of the present act, which have proved so beneficial to Australia?

Mr OPPERMAN:
LP

– I did receive a deputation from various Lord Mayors yesterday.

Mr Calwell:

– From all of them?

Mr OPPERMAN:

– No, from five of them. One was away in Western Australia because of the Queen’s visit. The Lord Mayors put up various propositions concerning extra monetary allowances for the capital cities. So far no definite assurance has been given them. They had some very interesting facts and figures to put before me. There was no indication that the information would alter the outlook towards the country areas but it will be used in consultations and discussions which inevitably will take place when the Commonwealth Aid Roads Act, which will expire in 1964, is being reviewed. I can assure the honorable member that the situation which existed previously remains unchanged.

page 11

THE PARLIAMENT

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Leader of the House · Higgins · LP

– by leave - Mr. Speaker, I have to announce that, with, I understand, the approval of honorable members, it is intended to lift the House at 9 o’clock this evening so that they may have the opportunity to hear the farewell speech by Her Majesty the Queen. The necessary action will be taken to produce that result.

page 11

PRESENTATION OF SANDGLASS TO PARLIAMENT OF UGANDA

Mr SPEAKER:

– As some honorable members will know, the Parliament and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association joined in presenting a sandglass to the Parliament of Uganda on the occasion of the Independence of Uganda in October last year. The Speaker of the Uganda National Assembly, Sir John Griffin, has since written conveying to the Commonwealth Parliament the thanks and appreciation of the Assembly for the gift.

page 11

BILLS RETURNED FROM THE SENATE

The following bills were returned from the Senate: -

Without amendment -

Wool Industry Bill 1962.

Wool Tax Bill (No. 1a) 1962.

Wool Tax Bill (No. 2a) 1962.

Gold Mines Development Assistance Bill 1962.

Brigalow Lands Agreement Bill 1962.

Queensland Beef Cattle Roads Agreement Bill 1962.

Honey Industry Bill 1962.

Honey Levy Collection Bill 1962.

Without requests -

Honey Levy Bill (No. 1) 1962.

Honey Levy Bill (No. 2) 1962.

page 11

ASSENT TO BILLS

Assent to the following bills reported: -

Audit Bin 1962.

Repatriation Bill 1962.

Australian Capital Territory Electricity Supply Bill 1962.

Northern Territory (Administration) Bill 1962.

Air Navigation (Charges) Bill 1962.

Loan Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Wheat Industry Stabilization Fund (Disposal) Bill 1962.

Copper and Brass Strip Bounty Bill 1962.

National Health Bill 1962.

Western Australia Grant (Beef Cattle Roads) Bill 1962.

Patents Bill 1962.

Australian War Memorial Bill 1962.

Tariff Board Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Australian Coastal Shipping Commission Bill 1962.

Derby Jetty Agreement Bill 1962.

Repatriation (Special Overseas Service) Bill 1962.

Repatriation (Far East Strategic Reserve) Bill 1962.

Repatriation Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Re-establishment and Employment Bill 1962.

War Service Homes Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Bill 1962.

Social Services Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Broadcasting and Television Bill 1962.

Estate Duty Assessment Bill 1962.

Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Wool Industry Bill 1962.

Wool Tax Bill (No. 1a) 1962.

Wool Tax Bill (No. 2a) 1962.

Gold Mines Development Assistance Bill 1962.

Brigalow Lands Agreement Bill 1962.

Queensland Beef Cattle Roads Agreement Bill 1962.

Honey Industry Bill 1962.

Honey Levy Bill (No. 1) 1962.

Honey Levy Bill (No. 2) 1962.

Honey Levy Collection Bill 1962.

page 11

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE REPORTS

Engineering Services to Rapid Creek Subdivision, Stage Three, Darwin, Northern Territory

Mr DEAN:
Robertson

.- In a ccordance with the provisions of the p ublic Works Committee Act, 1913-1960,I present the report relating to the following proposed work -

Provision of engineering services to Rapid Creek sub-division, stage three, Darwin, Northern Territory. and move -

That the paper be printed.

This sub-division will yield 341 service blocks. Construction of engineering services to these building blocks in the sub-division at an estimated cost of £395,000 is recommended.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Traeger ParkSchool, Northern Territory.

Mr DEAN:
Robertson

.- In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act, 1913-1960, I present the report relating to the following proposed work -

Construction of Traeger Park School, Northern Territory. and move -

That the paper be printed.

To overcome over-crowding, to provide a better standard of accommodation and to cope with future enrolments the committee finds that there is an urgent need for a new school at Alice Springs. The estimated cost of the work proposed in two stages is £325,000.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Stokes Hill Wharf, Darwin, Northern Territory

Mr DEAN:
Robertson

.- In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1913-1960, I present the report relating to the following proposed work: -

Extension of Stokes Hill Wharf and Provision of Additional Cargo Shed, Darwin, Northern Territory. and move -

That the paper be printed.

The committee found that there is a need for additional berthage and additional shed space to handle the increasing shipping traffic to Darwin. The committee desires to emphasize that the adoption of this report means that the long-range plan for the development of Darwin Harbour involves the joining of the Fort Hill and

Stokes Hill wharfs and the development of bulk handling facilities elsewhere. A lot of evidence was given to the committee about the need to provide cold storage on the wharf, but the committee believes that reaching a conclusion about the provision of that would have involved inquiries beyond the terms of the reference. We therefore suggest that this important matter be the subject of a separate reference to the committee.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 12

STATES GRANTS (ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE) BILL 1963

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 amend the States Grants (Additional Assistance) Act (No. 2) 1962.

Resolution reported.

Standing Orders suspended; resolution adopted.

Ordered -

That Mr. Harold Holt and Mr. Cramer do prepare and bring in a bill to carry out the foregoing resolution.

Bill presented by Mr. Harold Holt, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr. HAROLD HOLT (Higgins -

Treasurer) [3.53]. - I move -

That the bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to authorize the payment to the States of an additional non-repayable grant of £5,000,000 for expenditure on employment-giving activities, bringing the non-repayable grant for this financial year for this purpose to a total of £17,500,000.

At the meetings with the Premiers in February, the Commonwealth agreed that, in addition to supporting a further increase of £5,000,000 in the State works and housing programmes and an increase of £6,000,000 in the borrowing programmes of semi-governmental and local authorities which borrow more than £100,000 during the financial year, it would be prepared to make available during the remaining months of the current financial year an additional £5,000,000 non-repayable interestfree grant for expenditure by the States on employment-giving activities. As legislation was passed during the budget session to authorize the payment of a grant of £12,500,000 to the States for this purpose in 1962-63, the effect of this offer is to increase the total amounts being paid to the States in this way to £17,500,000 in the current financial year.

The increase in the non-repayable grant to the States will be allocated in proportion to the 1962-63 borrowing programme for works and housing. It will be recalled that the distribution of the original grant of £12,500,000 was drawn up having in mind the employment situation at that time and in particular the situation in Queensland and Tasmania. Taking into account the additional amounts to be paid to each State, the total amounts which each State will receive by way of additional assistance grants in 1962-63 are as follows: -

In offering the additional £5,000,000 to the States by way of a non-repayable grant it was stipulated that this money should be expended on employment-giving activities and that this expenditure should be over and above that made on account of State works and housing programmes. The purpose here was to deal specifically with certain classes of unemployment, especially where employment opportunities were not so likely to arise from more general measures or normal economic expansion. The State Premiers accepted this stipulation. They also agreed that in planning the expenditure for this purpose their States would keep closely in touch with the Commonwealth Department of Labour and National Service as to the nature and incidence of local unemployment problems.

Along with this additional grant to the States went an increase of £5,000,000 in their borrowing programmes and an addition of £6,000,000 to the borrowing programmes of the semi-governmental authorities. So far as local bodies are concerned - that is, those borrowing no more than £100,000 this year - there is no ceiling on the aggregate amount they may raise. I think it is fair to say that in the judgment of most, if not all, of the Premiers, the increases in the non-repayable grant and the programmes agreed upon at the recent Loan Council meeting represented about as much as was necessary in these particular fields to support employment.

Employment is, of course, continuing to increase and, after the seasonal rise around the turn of the year, unemployment is now diminishing. The Commonwealth Statistician’s figures for civilian employment show an increase of 3,500 in January, which is not ordinarily a strong month for employment. The increase in January, 1962, was 2,000. In February there was a further increase of 1 per cent, in employment in larger private factories and the number registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service was reduced by 15,765. Notifications of new vacancies and weekly average placements in February were alltime records. There is no doubt whatever that the demand for labour is rising at an encouraging rate and we can look forward to the sustained growth of employment opportunities in the months ahead.

Last year, 1962, was a period of high and sustained economic growth. Between the December quarters of 1961 and 1962, the gross national product increased by 8 per cent, and gross domestic expenditure by 12 per cent These increases were remarkable enough in terms of value, but more notable still since they owed nothing to price rises. They were, in fact, increases in real terms. In these increases, private consumption expenditure and private expenditure on fixed capital equipment had a considerable part, increasing as between the December quarters of 1961 and 1962 by £56,000,000, or 5 per cent., and £49,000,000, or 16 per cent., respectively.

So far in 1963, the upward trend seems to be well sustained; the increases in employment to which I have already referred are evidence of that. Retail sales in January and February were estimated to be 5 per cent, greater than they were a year earlier. Motor vehicle registrations in January and February were no less than 25 per cent, greater than in the same period of 1962. Production generally appears to be continuing its upward course. The effects of the recent Loan Council decisions would not, of course, yet be reflected in any of the evidences of strength that I have quoted. These effects are, very largely, still to come.

Gratifyingly, the economic expansion of the past eighteen months has been accompanied by uninterrupted stability of costs and prices. In this we have truly sound foundations for strong and healthy growth. These are conditions most heartening to our industries, especially those producing for export.

Our strong internal position is, fortunately, matched by external strength as well. Although in the September quarter - a seasonally slack period for exports - we had a trade deficit of £32,000,000, the December quarter yielded a trade surplus1 of £27,000,000 and further surpluses are expected in the present half-year.

Strong capital inflow has continued and our reserves have gone on rising. They rose from £561,000,000 at the end of June, 1962, to £597,000,000 at the end of last month.

Viewed in all of its broader aspects, the economy gives every appearance of being in very good shape. There are, it is true, patches of difficulty here and there, particularly in relation to employment in some areas and among some categories of labour. The funds being provided under this bill are intended to assist in the solution of these special problems and I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Crean) adjourned.

page 14

LOAN (HOUSING) BILL 1963

Message recommending appropriation reported.

In committee (Consideration of Governor-General’s message):

Motion (by Mr. Harold Holt) agreed to -

That it is expedient that an appropriation of moneys be made for the purposes of a bill for an act to authorize the raising and expending of a sum not exceeding two million seven hundred and eleven thousand pounds for the purposes of housing.

Resolution reported.

Standing Orders suspended; resolution adopted.

Ordered -

That Mr. Harold Holt and Mr. Opperman do prepare and bring in a bill to carry out the foregoing resolution.

Bill presented by Mr. Harold Holt, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
HigginsTreasurer · LP

– I move -

That the bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this bill is to authorize the borrowing of £2,711,000 for advances to the States in accordance with the provisions of the Housing Agreement between the Commonwealth and the States. As honorable members are no doubt already aware, at its meeting in February the Australian Loan Council reviewed in detail the works and housing programmes of the States. After full consideration it decided that the 1962-63 borrowing programme for State works and housing should be increased by £5,000,000 to £255,000,000 and that, of the increase of £5,000,000, £2,711,000 should be allocated to housing under the Housing Agreement. The Loan Council adopted the following apportionment among the States of this supplementary amount for Housing Agreement purposes: -

The amount of £2,711,000 is additional to the £45,900,000 authorized by the Parliament earlier this financial year under the Loan (Housing) Act (No. 2) 1962 and will bring total advances to the States under the housing agreement in 1962-63 to £48,611,000. The total amount, I remind the House, is the aggregate of the individual amounts nominated by each State Premier as that part of the total loan moneys allocated to his State that he considers should be spent on housing under the housing agreement. So if honorable members are struck by the variations in the amounts in the details I have just given, they will bear in mind that it is the prerogative of each State to decide what proportion of the total loan moneys made available to it that it applies to housing under the housing agreement. This procedure, I need hardly mention, arises from the State governments’ constitutional responsibility for housing. The States’ nominations, aggregating £48,611,000, are as follows: -

I might mention here that that total is somewhat smaller than the total so provided in the previous year, although the aggregate amount of loan moneys available to the States was greater this year than last year. However, acting entirely within their own rights the States have set aside this somewhat smaller amount for housing purposes. That may signify rather less pressure on them for housing; it may, on the other hand, of course, reflect the importance that they attach to the works programmes generally, quite apart from housing, which they have to carry out. I give that to honorable members as a statement of fact.

This would, I think, be a suitable occasion - and no doubt honorable members would wish to make it one - for some references to the housing question generally. This is a subject on which there will be differences of opinion, but let us first look at the key facts and figures. According to the figures published by the Commonwealth Statistician, 86,300 dwellings were commenced in the calendar year 1962. This was 6,300 more than in 1961 but 10,800 less than in 1960. Apart, however, from 1960, the boom year, 1962 gave us the highest level of dwelling commencements we have ever had. In 1962, moreover, commencements followed a rising trend and in the second half of the year were running at an annual rate of about 90,000.

The latest figures available show that the trend is still upwards. Approvals of new houses and flats by local authorities in January and February exceeded the number in the corresponding months of 1962 by 13 per cent. These figures, considered with the substantial increases in housing finance being provided by major lending institutions - to which I shall refer presently - point clearly to a rate of home construction in 1963 well in excess of 90,000.

A remarkable feature of this rate of progress in dwelling construction not generally appreciated is that it is going along with great activity in non-residential construction. Indeed, activity in the non-residential sector of the building industry has reached unprecedented heights. The value of buildings other than houses and flats commenced in 1961-62 is estimated as £263,700,000, compared with £252,800,000 in 1960-61 and £231,000,000 in 1959-60. The figure for the September quarter of 1962-63, £64,000,000, marked an appreciable advance on that for the September quarter of the previous year, £62,300,000. The value of approvals of such buildings in the three months to the end of February was £56,000,000. Comparisons with the corresponding months of the past few years indicate in a striking fashion the progress made in this branch of the industry. In the three months to February, 1959, the value of approvals for non-residential construction was £31,000,000, in 1960 £37,000,000, in 1961 £43,000,000, in 1962 £49,000,000, and in the three months to February, 1963, as I have already said, £56,000,000. I need hardly say that the Commonwealth is playing an important part directly in stimulating building activity in general and home construction in particular. This bill is itself evidence of that, but it is only part of the full story.

May I note here a fact of great importance, especially to the home-builder or home-buyer, but also to every one in industry and commerce who is undertaking new construction? From various reports I have had, it appears that costs in the building industry are now generally stable, tendering is keen, materials are mostly in good supply and construction is relatively expeditious. All this flows from the present healthy state of the economy at large. The very great volume of activity now being encompassed by the building and construction industry is going forward without straining resources or creating any of that upward pressure on costs which was so continuously the bugbear of the industry in earlier post-war years.

The Government recently announced that a further £2,500,000 would be provided for war service homes this financial year, leaking a total appropriation for the year for this purpose o’ £37,500,000. Shortly, Parliament will be asked to appropriate, in addition, a further £300,000 for homes for the aged, the provision for which already stands at £3,000,000. Altogether these various measures will lift by £5,500,000 to £97,500,000 the total expenditure by the Commonwealth on housing in the current financial year. I repeat that that figure of £97,500,000 is being provided from the Commonwealth Budget this year for various housing purposes. This represents an increase of £600,000 beyond actual expenditure in 1961-62, and is £15,400,000 or nearly 19 per cent, more than actual expenditure in 1960-61. With respect to the 1962-63 total of £97,500,000, I have already given the figures of £48,600,000 for advances under the housing agreement, and of £37,500,000 for war service homes. There is also £6,000,000 for housing in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, £3,300,000 for homes for the aged and £2,100,000 for housing for the defence forces.

This Commonwealth provision for housing is, of course, from government funds, and does not include the amounts loaned for housing by the Commonwealth Banking Corporation. Housing loans by the Commonwealth Trading Bank have recently been at a rate of £1,600,000 a month, and the Commonwealth Savings Bank has increased its lending for housing by more than £1,000,000 a month, to £4,000,000 a month. Altogether, the Commonwealth Banking Corporation expects to lend about £55,000,000 for housing purposes in 1962-63, compared with £41,000,000 in 1961-62. Of course, what is being done through these Commonwealth institutions is being repeated, perhaps in a lesser degree, by other savings organizations and other trading banks. The Bank of New South Wales, for example, which is the second largest institutional lender in the Commonwealth, has been lending, I understand, at the rate of £33,000,000 per annum. So it will be seen from this and other illustrations which I shall give that the institutional lenders are making a very considerable contribution to the solution of the housing problem.

There has been a substantial increase in the funds made available by the major lending institutions generally for private home-building. The number of loans for new dwellings approved by banks and life offices in the December quarter of 1962 was 7,209, compared with 5,801 in the December quarter of 1961 and 6,251 in the December quarter of 1960. The total value of loans approved has increased in greater proportion, because the size of the average loan has increased. The Commonwealth Savings Bank and the Bank of New South Wales Savings Bank, the two biggest institutional lenders of home finance, have increased their maximum credit foncier housing loans to £3,500, and I understand that other private savings banks also have raised their maximum housing loans to this level. With their deposits continuing to rise strongly, we can expect the savings banks to put out substantially increased funds for housing.

Indeed, I should like especially to pay tribute to the contribution the private savings banks are making in the field of housing finance. Of course, their actual lending performance to date varies from bank to bank, partly because some have been established longer than others and partly because the areas in which the business of particular banks is concentrated differ in point of housing need. But they are all keen on housing finance as a form of business, and all have been stepping up their ratios of housing loans to other classes of investment.

I take the opportunity of informing the House that we have recently had talks with representatives of the private savings banks.

Our chief purpose was to ascertain their views on the working of the present arrangements under the regulations for controlling the investment of their funds - the so-called 70-30 rule - and to identify any difficulties they might be experiencing, especially in relation to loans for housing. So far, it seems, the regulations relating to investment have not hampered or inhibited the savings banks in lending for housing. We are at present examining the matter in relation to the possible effects of the 70-30 arrangement at some stage in the future.

I may point out also that the general and very substantial increases that have been made in the lending limits of savings banks, as well as in those of our own War Service Homes Division, have really done a great deal to reduce the so-called gap between the amount home-builders or home-buyers have to pay for homes and the amounts of finance available to them. In other words, the amounts they have to provide by way of deposits - sometimes borrowed in who’: or part at very high rates of interest - have been substantially reduced to this, as I am sure every one will agree, is again of great importance to young people especially. Even before the latest increase in the maximum amount loaned by the Commonwealth Savings Bank the number of borrowers requiring second mortgage was a very small fraction of the total number of borrowers, and most of that group secured their finance at reasonable rates - generally from the Commonwealth Trading Bank. I know from our experience in the war service homes field that the lifting of the maximum available loan reduced very considerably, as might reasonably be expected, the number of people who had to get second mortgage finance in order to cover the full amount required.

The action we have taken, not only under the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement but also in the numerous other ways I have mentioned, will promote a rate of dwelling construction well in excess of the estimated increase in the number of households. I think I stated earlier that construction should be well in excess of 90,000 for the year. The estimated increase in the number of households is about 60,000 a year. The present rate should therefore assist to provide for the replacement of homes demolished as well as contribute towards the making available of separate dwellings to the many families who have been sharing accommodation. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Whitlam) adjourned.

page 17

STATES GRANTS (UNIVERSITIES) BILL (No. 2) 1962

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 5th December, 1962 (vide page 2932), on motion by Sir Robert Menzies -

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle

.- Obviously, the Opposition will support this bill which proposes certain additional grants to the Monash University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Adelaide. The Monash University and the University of New South Wales are new establishments. It has certainly been the experience of anybody associated in any way with the establishment of a new university that there were necessary unforeseen expenses and expenditures of the kind to justify these supplementary grants. In respect of the University of Adelaide, there is a supplementary grant for recurrent expenditure and for the Bedford Park College project.

There is not a great deal in the bill to discuss, but there are one or two points arising from the second-reading speech of the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) which I think are worth making. As in the White Paper entitled “The Commonwealth and Education “, which the right honorable gentleman presented to the House and which dealt with all the educational activities of the Commonwealth, there is expressed in the speech a very clear view of the role of the Commonwealth. The Government’s view of the correct action for the Commonwealth to take in relation to education is that it should act in a supporting role to the States, not in an initiating role. Two thoughts emerge from both the White Paper and the brief speech made by the Prime Minister when he introduced the bill we are now discussing. The first is a reiteration that education is primarily the responsibility of the States. The second is that the Commonwealth follows need; it does not anticipate need.

On the question of the primary responsibility of the States, the Prime Minister had this to say in his second-reading speech -

Grants for a period three years ahead have advantages both for the universities receiving them and for the governments responsible for providing them. The former . . . have an assured income for the period, and so can plan with a large measure of certainty, while the latter . . . know, broadly, the level of finance required of them by the universities . . .

The Government’s policy is to offer, for a period of three years in advance, specified sums of money for the university purposes which have been recommended to us by the commission. In general, our view is that if a State university requires additional money during that period it must obtain it from other than Commonwealth sources. In fact, this usually means State government grants and private benefactions. The State governments recognize that they have a special responsibility for their own universities.

Equally, in his White Paper, the Prime

Minister said -

Under the Australian Constitution, some matters are the responsibilities of the Federal Government and some are the responsibilities of the State governments. Education is a matter that falls in the States’ sphere of responsibility, not because of any lack of importance but because it is believed that State governments are in a better position to assess local needs and provide for them. The proper role of the Commonwealth in this matter is to co-operate with the States, but not to take over their functions.

So, there is clearly assigned by the Commonwealth to the States the primary and initiating role in education, including university education.

The tendency on the part of the Commonwealth to follow need and not to anticipate it is, we think, a mistake. I am sure that I am not at liberty to canvass the debate on the White Paper, but in the Prime Minister’s opening words in the White Paper there is reference to the fact that a tremendous demand for education has developed in the Australian community, in common with all other communities, and that this demand has confronted governments with many problems which have necessitated a great increase in expenditure on education. The universities state their needs, in the first instance, not to the Com monwealth or the State governments but to the Australian Universities Commission which was set up as a result of the report of the Murray committee. This commission, I think, is tending to become a buffer between the insistent demands of tertiary education and governments.

It appears to me that the Universities Commission does not make recommendations which one could regard as the optimum, or as clear statements of the things that need to be done. If we look at the Murray committee report in the light of the time when it was made, we shall see that it set out, not so much to put the view that certain things were feasible as to state a tremendous need for Commonwealth intervention in education, far beyond anything that we had considered to be the Commonwealth’s role to that time. It was a survey of needs in tertiary education. I think it might have been anticipated that the Universities Commission would be constantly uttering the needs of education. The question of whether governments are prepared to meet those needs and whether they think it is feasible to allocate finance to that end is a separate one, but at some point there ought to be clearly presented to all the governments which have responsibility in the matter a statement of the full needs.

The statements which, I believe, the Universities Commission passes on to the several governments are not always based on feasibility tests made in terms of the building materials and other resources that could be allocated to the universities. I believe the commission is influenced by an assessment of what governments’ are likely to accept. Many of the requests of the universities are cut, and the final recommendation that goes up to a government is clearly less than the universities have asked for. I hope that there will not develop in the universities of Australia a tendency to ask for more than is strictly justified on the ground that their requests will be cut down, anyway, and that therefore they should make submissions which are not fully responsible.

Whatever is the truth or otherwise of my conviction that the Australian Universities Commission is tending to act as a buffer between the Government and the universities, some questions in relation to university education are not being answered.

There has been no inkling in recent speeches or the White Paper about whether the Government is really satisfied with the university situation that has emerged in the Australian community. What does the Government think about the failure rate? There have been charges to the effect that the failure rate is due to a certain academic bias. Anybody who has had experience in teaching will know that sometimes a class passes through one’s hands which has an exceptionally high intelligence average. That has happened in various years in various subjects in universities. Notwithstanding that, there has tended to be the same failure rate from year to year and the question is asked whether the examiners have not a conscious or sub-conscious mechanism whereby each year they give very much the same percentages of distinctions, failures and middling marks and whether in given years some able pupils a- 2 not excluded. Whether a professional bias is operating to limit the number of entries into a profession at a given time is something that needs to be looked at.

Secondly, has the failure rate anything to do with crowding, which is a feature of the older universities? One of the attractive features of the School of General Studies at the Australian National University is that there are only 1,600 students and it is possible for the lecturers and tutors in many cases to know their students. Such conditions, perhaps, provide a more pleasant atmosphere for study on the part of the student. But in Sydney anc* Melbourne there are very great problems in relation to crowding. When I went to the University of Western Australia it had only 600 students, but now it has 4,000, and the day when the tutors and lecturers knew their students intimately has disappeared.

We do not know whether, under the system which the Prime Minister has described, the Government is satisfied with the total abandonment in Australia of the concept of a free university. The University of Western Australia used to be free, but the stage has been reached when it charges exactly the same fees as the other universities. Does the disappearance of the idea that university education should be free, which was once strenuously held, give the Government satisfaction? Does the Govern ment believe that there is some value in students having to pay fees? Are we to abandon the idea of free university education or are we not? It would be interesting to know the Government’s philosophy on that matter. It seems to me that there is a case for maintaining Sir Winthrop Hackett’s idea about free universities, which we saw in operation in Western Australia. I do not believe that the need for easy access to a university by students regardless of the income of their parents is wholly met by a scholarship system which selects some of them, because we are always faced with the problem that a child who wins a scholarship at the age of eleven years plus is not necessarily the best at secondary education and that the youth who wins an exhibition at seventeen years of age is not necessarily the most successful at the university. One of Hackett’s ideas in relation to free university education was that it would be more likely to draw out of the community all the ability that ought to be at the university to be sifted at the university level. I do not know whether the Government wants to restore the idea of free university education somewhere in Austro1’ or everywhere in the country.

Another question which arises is this: How successful is Australia in the intense competition that is being waged for university staff? Mr. Wilson, the Leader of the British Labour Party, recently had something to say about Australia’s looting of brains in the United Kingdom. Some of that, of course, is the result of the attraction of Australians back to Australia, that being perhaps one of the successful steps that the Australian National University has taken at various phases in its history. Whatever one thinks of Mr. Wilson’s statement, he is not the only one who has complained. Complaints have been made in the Conservative ranks, too, particularly by Lord Hailsham who has complained, not about Australia, but about the United States of America outbidding everybody else for brilliant university staff. He, of course, was dealing with the very top level of research scientists. But the whole world is engaged in a competition for university staff. I understand that Ghana and Nigeria are endeavouring to follow, not very successfully, a policy of Africanizing their staffs and in general replacing

Europeans with Africans. Wherever such countries are successful in pursuing that policy, I should like to see an alert Austraiian university structure trying to get some of the people who are removed. Honorable members may remember that before the war the removal of various persons from the German universities on racial grounds had a very valuable effect in the Western world, one of the people removed being Einstein.

This question arises, too: Are facilities being provided in the Australian universities which ought to be provided? Western Australia had no medical school until a group of public-spirited persons launched an appeal which raised £580,000 from the general public. I do not know whether the accidental circumstances which led to that move in Western Australia can be reproduced elsewhere and in particular in Tasmania; but it does seem that we need to look at the need for medical facilities at the University of Tasmania. I understand that qualified Tasmanian students are experiencing difficulty in finding room at universities on the mainland.

The recommendations of the Australian Universities Commission about what ought to be granted to a university in a triennium have had the disadvantage during the recent period of inflation of usually being falsified and considerable supplementary grants have been necessary. An expensive building such as a university building which is built in a period when costs have not been stable - this applies to the Australian National University - sometimes costs twoandahalf times as much as was originally estimated. The Prime Minister mentioned this point, not so much in relation to buildings as in relation to general university costs, when he said -

Accurate forecasting of needs and costs for such a long period ahead is difficult, and we recognize that in certain circumstances exceptions to the principle of fixed offers by the Commonwealth for a triennium are justified. For this reason, in 1960 we agreed to increase our grant to Victoria for the early stages of the planning and development of Monash University.

Those difficulties in estimating costs apply to not only universities in the process of establishment, but also well-established universities, especially where it is quite clear that a certain line of study has opened up. I have in mind research study which requires extremely expensive equipment. When you gather a university staff, it is not always easy to anticipate - in the research sections, anyhow - the lines of specialization that will be taken.

The Commonwealth adheres to a £1 for £1 grant matching State expenditure of a capital nature and £1.85 from the State and £1 from the Commonwealth for running expenses. But is this producing a satisfactory university position? Even if we concede every point and accept that the Commonwealth’s incursion into the field of tertiary education is very much beyond what was conceived as the Commonwealth’s role in the past, we are facing a new Australian community with new demands, and the question that we have to ask ourselves is whether this system is producing satisfactory results in the universities. The almost universal answer that one gets, at least in university circles, is that the current position is not satisfactory. This seems to me to indicate a need for a survey of the whole field of education and to suggest that a committee of the Murray type should investigate the field, including even tertiary education, a number of times over the years. The report of the Murray committee, which led to the adoption of the system under which the Commonwealth intervenes, and is guided in its intervention, was very fine at the time, but these things tend to be outgrown. We on the Opposition side of the chamber believe that there is need for a constant survey of the whole field of education and even for new surveys of the university field.

With those remarks, I reiterate that the Opposition supports this measure.

Mr FORBES:
Barker

.- Mr. Deputy Speaker, I support this bill. The honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley) seized the opportunity to range fairly widely over the whole field of university education, but my intention is not to do likewise. However, I want to make one or two points in relation to the case made by him. The honorable member suggested that the Commonwealth played a supporting role rather than an initiating one in tertiary education and, indeed, in education as a whole in Australia. He did not draw any conclusions from this, but one assumes that he was critical of the situation. No member of the Opposition has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me how the Commonwealth can ever play anything but a supporting or supplementary role in education so long as the field remains the constitutional responsibility of the States. One can talk in contrary terms until one is blue in the face, but this is a hurdle that one just has to get over before one can make the point.

The honorable member for Fremantle was somewhat critical of the Australian Universities Commission, because he considered that it was acting as a sort of buffer between the Government and the universities. He implied, I think, that in some way the independence of the commission had been limited because the commission, instead of reporting to the Government in absolute terms on the needs of the universities, tailored its reports on those needs to fit some conception of what the Government was likely to agree to. I do not know precisely how the commission operates in relation to this. Neither, 1 believe, does the honorable member for Fremantle. But it seems to me to be reasonable and, in fact, highly desirable that the commission should act as a buffer in this role of a recommending body. Let us not forget the tremendously important role that it plays in co-ordinating the requirements of the universities themselves, the State governments and the Commonwealth Government.

The job is not easy, but I deem it eminently reasonable for the Universities Commission, in playing that role, also to have some regard for what is feasible. Nothing is to be gained by making impossible demands and impossible recommendations, and nothing will destroy an administrative or financial procedure more quickly. I think it would be quite natural, Sir, for the commission to come to the conclusion that part of its role is to confine its recommendations within the limitations of feasibility. I do not think that any pressure by the Government in this respect would be required. Indeed, I think it would be a bit of an insult to the members of the commission to suggest that they have acted according to pressure of this kind. I know that such an allegation is made in the universities, but it is not supported when one considers the persons who are members of the commission. I know two or three of them personally, and every one is a person who would leave the commission immediately rather than play this subservient role which it is being suggested that the commission has.

The honorable member for Fremantle also threw some doubts on whether the Government has what I think he called a philosophy of education in Australia. In effect, he asked: Is the Government thinking about things which are important to the future of the universities, such as the failure rate and overcrowding? What is the Government’s policy on the idea of free universities? I am sure that the honorable member for Fremantle is aware of the need - nevertheless he did not mention it - to take account of the fact that this Government, on the recommendation of the Australian Universities Commission itself, some time ago appointed a committee to inquire into the future of tertiary education. I suggest that we take account of that fact. I think that I am right in saying that that committee was appointed on the recommendation of the commission. The committee was appointed precisely because of the existence of problems such as those mentioned by the honorable member, as well as other problems. We hope that when the committee reports, we shall find the kind of answers to a lot of these complicated problems that we have been seeking. How can we deal with the failure rate, for instance? I do not suggest that that problem is specifically within the terms of reference of the Committee on the Future of Tertiary Education. But, obviously, in considering the future of tertiary education, the committee must take this problem into account, because it has to recommend a better pattern of tertiary education.

This is an extremely complex problem. It is not a matter concerning which this Government can pluck out of the hat a policy based on ready-made ideas. The honorable member for Fremantle, if he looks at the report of the Universities Commission for the period 1958-63 - the latest report - will find that this is discussed in that report. The matter was discussed also in the report of the Murray committee. One of the most striking features of both the report of the Murray committee and this report of the commission is the sheer complexity of the problem and the fact that nobody anywhere really knows the solution. These reports nevertheless pointed to the importance of solving the problem. I suggest, too, that the existence of this committee on the future of tertiary education is the answer to the point of the honorable member for Fremantle that we need to have another investigation into tertiary education, including university education. This is precisely what is happening at the present time, with a large number of extremely distinguished people giving a lot of time to finding the answers.

The honorable member mentioned the failure rate and crowding. Surely everything that the Government has done since the Prime Minister established the Murray committee and accepted with alacrity its recommendations, including the enormous increase in Commonwealth spending or the Commonwealth supplement to university education, has been designed to meet these problems. Surely this bill itself is designed, in part, to overcome these problems. Why are we contemplating the establishment of new universities, such as Monash, and pushing forward with the growth of relatively new universities, such as the University of New South Wales, and the establishment of an offshoot of the University of Adelaide at Bedford Park? We are doing this precisely to meet this sort of problem. So I suggest that the Government is looking at the points raised by the honorable member for Fremantle, and giving them active consideration. The Australian Universities Commission is playing a large part in suggesting to the Government what should be done to meet these problems.

I should like to deal with one further point raised by the honorable member, because it appears to me to be of immense importance. He asked what was our policy on free universities, which he suggested were a very good idea. I, on the other hand, believe that there is very great merit in the system of paying fees for university education, not because I believe that a person who is qualified should not be able to get a university education if he has not the money, but because fees are one of the few sources of financial independence which our universities still have. Fees still provide a notable proportion of university income and give to universities a feeling of independence which is vital. Surely the answer is not so much the establishment of free universities as the extension of the Commonwealth scholarship scheme, which would have my full approval. I should not like to see this traditional source of independence in the universities taken away from them. Of course, if a university is fortunate enough to have received a magnificent bequest, such as the Hackett bequest which enabled the University of Western Australia to become a free university and still be independent, that is the best position of all. But very few of our universities are so fortunately situated.

Honorable members will notice that a small amount - by far the smallest amount of the three - is provided in this bill for the Bedford Park University College in South Australia. As they will probably know, mis is designed to be an extension of the University of Adelaide, which has probably the most cramped site of any Australian university. In many ways the site is magnificent, because it is right in the centre of Adelaide. Nevertheless the point has gradually been reached where there literally is not enough room to increase the number of buildings, and the decision has been taken to establish this university college on a limited scale at Bedford Park, which is south of Adelaide. It is intended that this extension of the University of Adelaide will at first teach only science and arts, but I have no doubt that, sooner rather than later, Bedford Park will grow into a fully established university in its own right. At present, however, it is not anticipated that the college will have any independence at all. It may interest honorable members to know that the Bedford Park site and the buildings on it used to contain the main tuberculosis hospital in South Australia. I cannot refrain from mentioning that owing to the magnificent success of this Government’s campaign against tuberculosis there is no more need for that hospital in South Australia, and tuberculosis cases can be accommodated in other places. This has made some 250 acres available in a rapidly developing housing area, well located in relation to the growing population in that part of Adelaide and to Che south of it.

It is intended that the college will be open in March, 1966. This particular grant is for site preparation and also for the payment of initial salaries. Although the college is not being opened until 1966, the authorities are already very wisely attempting to recruit staff members so that they may organize their departments and have an opportunity of obtaining the best possible people. There is a determination in Adelaide, particularly on the part of the University of Adelaide itself, that this new institution will not be an inferior one, and that it will not be a place to which students who are not accepted by the establishment at North-terrace may go. This, of course, is one of the great dangers in setting up either an offshoot of a university in a different place or a new university in the same city. In this respect an important aspect will be the finance that Bedford Park gets on the recommendations of the Australian Universities Commission in the next triennium, and where the available money will be spent. If it gets sufficient resources to build an establishment on a par with the one at North-terrace, as it should, it will start off on the right foot. If it does not, it will probably never be able to overcome the stigma of an inferior place, given to it at birth.

Finally, I should like to pay a compliment to the Australian Universities Commission. Its job has not been an easy one. As I said earlier, it has the frightfully difficult task of being a go-between and of co-ordinating the activities on university matters of the Commonwealth Government, State governments, and universities, all jealously guarding their independence in their own particular fields. From my observations, the commission seems to have done this remarkably well. The test is whether the commission has obtained the confidence of all of these various bodies. Despite the reservation expressed by the honorable member for Fremantle, I believe that the universities themselves welcome the activities of the commission. Nearly all of them will, if they are honest, admit that it has been immensely valuable to have an outside view of their activities. It is attempting to introduce or impose some standardization of building construction and so on which is making their task of building and planning very much easier. It is admitted that the task given to the commission of rationalizing university education in Australia is also extremely valuable, and I should like to conclude by taking this opportunity to pay tribute to the work that the commission is doing. I support the bill.

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

.- The points we never seem to be able to get through to the honorable members opposite are the urgency of the problems of the subject we are discussing, the fact that this subject is related to the needs of people who want their answer now, that the children who were born in 1945 cannot wait until 1975 for a solution of their difficulties, and the fact that no matter how much committees inquiring into tertiary education, such as the Murray committee, may investigate, deliberate and report, they should have found the answer for hundreds and hundreds of potential university students three weeks ago. It is of no use finding the solution even in three months’ time.

One point that we want to make and that we want to get clear to honorable members of this House, as well as to the Prime Minister and the various statutory bodies which carry out university policy, is that there is an atmosphere of urgency surrounding this problem and that urgency should not be ignored. The question is not one of federalism, constitutional difficulty or anything of that kind; it is a national question, one which the nation itself can face only through the auspices of this Parliament and the bodies which it sets up. I do not think anybody here, least of all the honorable member for Barker (Mr. Forbes), who has been closely in touch with university needs, will deny that hundreds of potential university students have been turned away from universities this year because of the application of the quota system, in respect of certain faculties, and that many have been turned away because of the lack of financial help to their families to maintain them due to the failure of the Commonwealth scholarship scheme to keep up with the demand for such assistance. This question is important to us all. There are probably many honorable members of this House who have sons and daughters reaching the stage when they will be attempting to enter a university at moments of peak pressure. In fact, this will happen in a couple of years’ time. It is all a question of simple arithmetic. The Australian birthrate received a tremendous boost at the end of World War II. and for a year or so after that. The children born at that time put pressure on the primary schools in 1951 and 1952. They put pressure on the secondary schools in 1958 and 1959, and they will put tremendous pressure on the university accommodation of Australia in 1965 and 1966. Therefore first we have the simple question of the birthrate. Then comes the question of social demand and, thirdly, the question of the need of the nation, the need to increase the pools of technical man-power.

In view of all these things, while we support the bill before us, we regard it as a very poor effort indeed, and we wonder what is involved in this statement in the Prime Minister’s second-reading speech -

In recent months, the commission has received many requests that it should recommend to the Goxernment increased grants for the present triennium. After close and painstaking examination of the various proposals, the commission recommended to me that the special problems involved in establishing two rapidly growing new universities - the University of New South Wales and Monash University - and in planning a new constituent part of the University of Adelaide on a new site at Bedford Park justified supplementary grants of the amounts indicated in sections 3 and 4 of the bill for the purposes mentioned there.

Those amounts are set out. First there is the sum of £242,500 for the University of New South Wales. Then there is £114,000 for the Monash University, and the University of Adelaide is to receive £37,500 for expenditure on Bedford Park which, with a recurrent expenditure of £26,000 for the University of Adelaide makes a total Commonwealth grant of £420,000 to fill university needs.

I submit that it is only right that when considering a measure such as this Parliament should have before it all the demands for action which the universities have made. It is not possible for us to go to all the universities to ascertain their needs. Parliament is now asked to place its sign of approval upon this selective proposal of the Prime Minister. Why have we not before us a report indicating what the total university demands were? The honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley) was quite right when he said that the Australian

Universities Commission has become the buffer between this Government and its direct responsibilities, that it is merely an outside body on which the blame can be laid. I think that this is a question which Parliament itself will have to face.

The other question raised by the honorable member for Barker was how, under the Constitution as at present framed, the Commonwealth could undertake the initiative in these matters. We on this side have been saying for a long time now just how that can be done. We have been arguing that the Commonwealth Government must take the initiative and I believe that it has the capacity or power to do so. In fact, it is the only authority in the Commonwealth that can take the initiative. It has been invited to take up this question of national education at all levels. The Commonwealth Government has stepped into the field of university education and the very decisions which it makes are fundamental to the continued expansion of universities. The initiative lies with the Commonwealth Government because it has the financial initiative. The establishment of a Commonwealth ministry of education has always been and still is part of the Labour Party’s policy. We do not urge its establishment merely as a matter of empire building or something of that sort. The simple fact is that there are six State Ministers who are concerned solely with the control and development of education. I understand that in the Commonwealth sphere some twelve or thirteen Ministers have some function related to education, such as research and so on. Even the Australian Universities Commission is becoming formative in the university sphere. Therefore, the Commonwealth Government should take greater responsibility for the development of planning and the development of a philosophy. The honorable member for Barker says that special committees have been appointed. But what are the charters of these committees? What is the philosophy of these committees? Like the honorable member for Fremantle, I should like an answer to those questions. Do we want to see a greater and increasing opportunity for the very highest level of education to be offered to Australians irrespective of their place or station? For a moment, I thought the honorable member for Barker proposed to embark upon the old theme that it was a good thing for people to have to pay for university education because the hardship of doing so would help to strengthen the moral fibre of the student, but fortunately the honorable member abandoned the rather ordinary feudal spirit that moves him at this point and suggested that universities be given some kind of freedom of action.

Surely there are other ways in which we can expand the opportunities for university education. I remind honorable members that Trans-Australia Airlines, a Commonwealth instrumentality, was given what one might call a government endowment of capital when it set up operations, and so also was the Commonwealth Bank. Is there any reason why we should not have government endowments for universities just as private endowments were granted to them in the olden days if endowments are the system which the Government wishes to introduce? In my view, this is a simple matter. We should simply insist that university education be given the same priorities in the community as are enjoyed by other activities. We should insist that the Commonwealth’s resources, which are great, indeed tremendous, should be applied to the solution of this problem if the Government is sincere in its intentions.

There can be no doubt that lack of opportunities for university education is causing not only a great deal of hardship and worry in the community but also great sacrifice of the nation’s almost limitless human resources. Perhaps this is not the time to debate the general question of university education, but I point out that it would seem that, by its National Defence Education Act, the Government of the United States of America has found a solution to this problem. It has found a way by which the federal authority, the national authority, can take the initiative in this matter. What concerns me greatly is a matter which both the bill and the Prime Minister’s second-reading speech ignore, that is, the urgency of the problems associated with attendance, enrolments and so on at universities. First there is the Commonwealth scholarship scheme which has failed to cater for the expanding numbers seeking to attend universities. A perusal of the available statistics will disclose that the enrolments in universities, the numbers going through to matriculation and the potential applicants for Commonwealth scholarships are expanding at such a rate that competition for a scholarship has become so great that such a scholarship is beyond the reach of most of those who desire one. I was discussing this question with a couple of very senior highly qualified academic university lecturers who rather wryly admitted that if the same standards as prevail now had been required at the time when they were endeavouring to enter universities, they certainly could not have obtained university scholarships.

One of the simple facts that we have been told by people with a lot of experience of university education is that a matriculation pass, in itself, is not necessarily a measure of ultimate success at a university. Some children who attend schools in metropolitan areas may have the advantage of highly qualified teachers and become well adjusted to their secondary school environment so that they obtain much better results than, perhaps, children in remoter areas.

This question was raised in respect of many country high schools throughout Australia which, for many reasons, are not able to give the same kind of laboratory work for science and the same kind of library work in arts that schools in metropolitan areas provide. When children reach the city high schools they go through with the best students and may reach the top. So the matriculation, when applied competitively as it is at the moment, is not necessarily a good measure of ultimate academic success.

Some method has to be found to resolve this problem. It is a national question which can be resolved only by a national government. I direct the attention of honorable members to the difference between the opportunities created by governments and those that existed for education in the past. Honorable members have only to look at the university statistics in respect of students in 1961 to see how this general failure to look upon university education, and education generally, as a national question affects, say, Victorians relative to New South Wales students. In 1961 there were 12,602 students at the Sydney University, 8,847 at the University of New South Wales and 2,540 at the New England University, a total of 23,989. In Victoria at the same time there were 11,666 at the Melbourne University and 363 at Monash, a total of 12,029. In other words, although the population of Victoria was about 75 per cent, of that of New South Wales, there were twice as many students in the universities in New South Wales as in Victoria. This has two implications for the people of New South Wales. The first is the important one. It is that with twenty years of Labour government there have been introduced greater opportunities for people to obtain a higher education. The second is that the applicants for Commonwealth scholarships are in a more highly competitive field in New South Wales than in Victoria. There have been nearly twice as many people sitting for the matriculation examination in New South Wales as in Victoria, but this is out of proportion to the population of the two States. Yet Commonwealth scholarships are allotted in relation to the population of States.

The pressure on the universities will become worse and worse. The Universities Commission, in its report issued in 1960, showed that enrolment in that year was 55,000. The estimated enrolment for 1964, which is only eight or nine months away, is 80,000. In 1961 the enrolment was 58,000. Where are the other 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 university places to come from, unless this Government shows in this matter extraordinary activity which so far it has not shown in any other field? Honorable members have only to read the relevant documents to realize the force of my argument. The report of the Australian Universities Commission produced in 1960 says at page 74 -

In the case of New South Wales the student population in urban Sydney is likely to exceed the proper capacity of both universities by 7,000 students.

That is the size of the University of New South Wales now. It is nearly as big as the University of Queensland; it is bigger than the University of Adelaide; and it is twice the size of the University of Western Australia. In Sydney alone in 1964 the number of disappointed and heartbroken young people who do not gain admission to a university will be more than the enrolment of one ordinary-sized Australian university.

Now is the time for urgent action. Of course, we on this side of the House cannot claim to be able to see exactly what action is to be applied. We know that it is not only a question of buildings or staff; it is a question of attitude and philosophy. This is something that we should have tackled years ago, and unless we start now similar heartaches and losses to the nation and individuals will occur again in a few years’ time.

From all the figures that come to us as proof from statisticians, university commissions and so on about potential university enrolments, there is something that seems to be generally neglected, that is, the great increase in what I suppose could be called the increased social demand of parents for higher education for their children. The electorate that I represent is not the kind of area which has produced multitudes of university students. This is an industrial area of Melbourne, and the people who live in it have had a hard struggle for existence. But one now has evidence of increasing pressure on the leaving certificate and matriculation forms in the schools in Coburg. This pressure is the result partly of the increased birthrate some sixteen or seventeen years ago and partly of the general social demands through the industrial areas of Australia. This would apply to half of Melbourne and Sydney, and probably to other cities.

In the past, there were people who did not see this kind of vision for their children, but they are seeing it now. In the city of Coburg alone, in 1959 there were only 38 matriculation students in the three secondary schools, but in 1960 that figure had grown to 78. In 1961 the figure had grown to 87, in 1962 it had gone to 136, and in 1963 had reached 161. So, in four years the number of students going to matriculation has quadrupled. This is in an area in which the population has not changed and in which the school population has remained almost steady. For instance, Coburg High School has had some 700 enrolments in tha last ten, fifteen or twenty years. The position will change dramatically in the next few years as the new wave of people comes on. In 1960, in the leaving certificate forms in schools in the city of Coburg there were only 100 pupils. In 1961 that figure had grown to 153, in 1962 it was 186, and this year it is 236. Where are all the extra places at universities to be found?

I was speaking to the headmaster of one of these schools to-day and he said: “ I have just been teaching third form girls. In the past four or five years in this commercial class half the students had left at the sub-intermediate standard “ - ‘that is the third form in Victoria - “ but this year 47 out of 48 have stayed to go on to the intermediate.” So here is a great social wave. There was a great increase in the birthrate some fifteen to seventeen years ago and there is now an increasing demand by the nation for higher training.

These questions can be resolved by committees only if they are given a sense of purpose and a sense of urgency. The Government should give them something more apparent in respect of sense of purpose and urgency than we have in the document before us. I believe that this problem calls for national action of the first order and the kind of priorities should be allotted to it that we give occasionally to defence questions. We must be prepared to put into the maintenance of students the same kind of money that we put into, say, the maintenance of people that we train for the services or for education departments.

Therefore, we take this opportunity to emphasize to the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies), who, as is customary, has been in the House during most of the time that this debate has been in progress, the urgency of this matter and ask him to act right now. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that honorable members on the other side of the House realize that this subject, with its tremendous complexities, should be examined on a national basis by a highly qualified body. The matter of the economic status of parents and students should be investigated and the inquiry should have a new look at the whole question. Unfortunately, such an inquiry does not seem to be forthcoming at the present moment.

Mr CHANEY:
Perth

.- Mr. Deputy Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to increase grants to three universities as a result of the recommendation of the Australian Universities Commission. However, if honorable members study the second-reading speech of the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies), they will see that requests came from most universities for a re-appraisal of the grants that had been made to them for the current triennium. It seems to me that although the commission recommended the increased grants, the net result of all that the Commonwealth has done for the universities - and this assistance has received the plaudits of members on both sides of the House - has been to create a stick to be used for beating the Government. I refer, of course, to the statement by the honorable member for Wills (Mr. Bryant) that it was vitally necessary to have a full inquiry into the needs of primary and secondary education. I do not know whether it is necessary to have a full inquiry into the needs of primary and secondary education. I thought ‘the Australian Education Council was fully aware of the needs in these fields of education because it comprises the Director of Education from each State and the Minister for Education from each State. Of course, the need always boils down to pounds, shillings and pence, but in this field I believe one should pay some tribute to this Government for having accepted responsibility in the realm of tertiary education.

I hope I will be permitted to speak of the need for some further grant to be made available for research in our universities. I refer to the “Current Affairs Bulletin”, Volume 30, No. 7, of 13th August, 1962, which, in turn, quotes the chairman of the Murray committee, Sir Keith Murray, who in 1957 said -

Not many things are more important to Australia than that the centre of gravity of university effort should move towards post-graduate work. There is plenty of room for more and more average quality graduates in all professional fields, but in the long run, even in egalitarian Australia, it is the outstanding man who will mould the destiny of the nation.

I think that is axiomatic. I believe that although we have seen a tremendous amount of finance and assistance given to universities over the last few years under the terms of the University Commission’s recommendations, there is still a gap in the field of research in the universities at the post-graduate level. I have discussed this matter with some of those who are trying to do something in this field in Western Australia and I realize that there are difficulties before them. I note that yesterday the Premier of Western Australia, at the welcome to Her Majesty the Queen, announced that a £10,000 research grant would be made to commemorate the Royal Visit and would be used, if I remember rightly, for research into trace elements. It seems a pity that we have to wait until such an occasion before we realize the necessity to make money available for research which is of vital importance to the whole of Australia. If honorable members would study this publication of the “ Current Affairs Bulletin “, entitled “ Science in Australia - Anzaas Anniversary “ - they would see that the great majority of our best graduates go abroad for further study and only a few return. Of the physics students who have gone abroad from Western Australia over the last eight years, fewer than one in ten have returned. Thus the loss to that State alone among this gifted section of university graduates can be estimated. Of the 48 honours graduates in physics who have left the university over this period we find that only eight are now in Western Australia. When we examine the position at the pass degree level we find that a somewhat higher proportion has remained here. We have had not only this high rate of loss but also the fact that only the less talented have remained in Australia.

In other words, our system tends to encourage mediocrity. It is unfortunately true that the less well qualified a graduate, the more easily he can obtain a post which satisfies his appetite. 1 think honorable members will realize that a man of outstanding skill and ability in the field of science or physics has not the opportunities in Australia to continue his research work because funds are not available in those fields of study. I am informed that of those men who have gone abroad several are anxious to return to Australia but are not able to do so because of lack of opportunity commensurate with their talents. It is not so much a question of salary as a lack of opportunity for research work in our universities. This exportation of Australian scientists is something for which we receive little, if any, recompense. In many cases the quality of non-Australians who come here to take up academic positions is notoriously poor. The number of top-level men among them is very small indeed. Many of those who do come here appear to do so because they can obtain here a higher status than they could expect to hold in their own countries. The fact that conditions here make it almost impossible to do good work does not appear to concern them; it provides an unanswerable justification for their own inactivity. With the tremendous and rapid growth of our universities and their need for staff we find people who could not hold similar positions in their own countries being attracted here from overseas.

Mr Beazley:

– When you gave the statistics relating to the departure of research students from the University of Western Australia, did you mean that they went abroad or migrated to the other States of Australia?

Mr CHANEY:

– The ones to whom 1 referred went abroad. The fact that conditions in our universities make it almost impossible to do good work does not appear to concern some of those who come here from abroad. As I said, it provides an unanswerable justification for their own inactivity. If you look at the amount of research work done by the senior staff in the physical science departments of Australian universities you will see how true this statement is. For persons who are supposed to be leaders in their fields the results, with few exceptions, are very poor indeed.

By way of contrast, many exported Australian graduates hold senior posts overseas and, indeed, many of them are really leaders in their respective fields. One can quote examples to illustrate this fact. Sir Howard Florey, who was largely responsible for the discovery of penicillin, is in the Department of Pathology at Oxford. He came from South Australia, being, I think, a product of the Adelaide University. Nyholm and Craig and their co-workers, who run one of the best co-ordinated chemistry schools in the world, are at University College, London, and are all graduates of Sydney University. Their staff includes a large number of Australians. It is not a matter of pinching them back or of offering them higher salaries than they are now receiving. These men are dedicated to research and it is the lack of opportunities to do that research here which prevents them from returning to Australia. Another example is Dr. C. Ramm, one of the leading nuclear research physicists at

C.E.R.N., the large establishment supported by the European powers for research into high energy nuclear physics. He is a product of the University of Western Australia. Many more examples could be quoted to prove that Australia is losing highly talented men because of the lack of opportunity to do research work here. I could quote several more instances of men who are at the very top level. As well as these there is a large number of scientists, all experts in their fields, who maintain only slightly less senior posts in the face of severe international competition in America and the United Kingdom. If we could persuade half of these men to return to Australia we could staff our universities and government research establishments at a far higher standard than is the case at present.

A significant proportion of those good men who do come here leave again because of their inability to get anything done. In general, the posts which are available in Australia do not allow enough scope for persons with ability. For a position to attract a good man it must present a challenge to his capabilities, but the posts we offer do not do that. The prime factor is lack of finance for good research workers. As I said before, I do not refer to lack of finance for salaries but to lack of funds to enable them to carry out the work they want to do. There is also the problem of inadequate technical assistance in many cases. I repeat that salaries here compared with those elsewhere are not a major issue, although they do prevent some good men from returning from America. However, the relatively high level of salaries here compared with those in England and New Zealand is responsible for attracting some of the lesser men who do come to Australia. It is interesting to note that in America the institutions with the highest reputations pay slightly lower salaries than do some of the other institutions. Good men are willing to accept this position for the privilege of working in those institutions whilst lesser men are attracted by the higher salaries offered by other establishments. This is not true, of course, in regard to the money available for equipment and facilities.

Universities must spend a higher proportion of their income in encouraging good work by their members. I am told that within our universities there is a move along these lines; and I hope it will be successful. However, the amount of money which can be re-directed in this fashion will not be sufficient, especially as it is very difficult, administratively, for a university to spend large sums on one project even though it is of outstanding merit and deserves such support. We should set up an organization to provide adequate financial support for research in Australia. Applications could come from any research worker in government research establishments, universities, technical colleges or any other organization, each application being judged on its merits.

These funds would be supplementary to normal running expenses and would allow rapid development of research projects of outstanding merit. The organization could be best conducted by the Australian Academy of Science - which has members capable of judging the applications - along the lines followed by the American National Academy of Sciences or the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, which supports medical research in Australia.

Avenues of research particularly closely related to Australian climatic and economic conditions should be encouraged both inside and outside the universities. If research programmes are lacking altogether the Government should take steps to initiate them. There are certain lines of work which should be pursued actively in Australia because in the long run they will pay handsome dividends. Let me mention a few examples. First, we have off the west coast of Australia an ocean which is potentially a source of great wealth but which probably is less well explored than any other in the world. There is virtually no oceanographic research in progress. Secondly, Western Australia and Australia generally stand to gain enormously by developing methods for the desalination of water but no significant research has been done on this problem in Australia. It appears that we are content to sit and wait for some one else to develop these methods for us. Thirdly, it is absurd that almost no research work is being carried out into the use of solar energy in those parts of Australia which are well suited to the application of this form of power. Our north-west has an ideal climate, and the cost of transporting fuel there is high. Yet this line of research is being pursued actively in Melbourne, and I think honorable members are well aware of the climate which Melbourne experiences. To the honorable member who is interjecting let me say that this is not a Cook’s travel talk; it is a discussion on the universities bill. If he will leave his commercials until he makes his own speech I shall appreciate it.

From a purely scientific viewpoint there is no major observatory in Western Australia, although that State has a favourable latitude and two of the best sites in the southern hemisphere. The only reasonably well equipped observatory in Australia is at Canberra, and I suppose what applies to the Melbourne climate could well apply to Canberra’s climate. The fact that we maintain a research establishment in nuclear physics - obviously for prestige purposes - is a clear indication that money can be made available for scientific research. Surely we can spend a reasonable amount of money in other fields which, in terms of results per £1 invested, would be far more profitable.

The “ Current Affairs Bulletin “ indicates that the Commonwealth and State governments are contributing something to scientific research. Excluding expenditure on research in universities, in 1958-59 the Department of Supply spent £11,700,000 on research, the C.S.I.R.O. spent £8,500,000, the Australian Atomic Energy Commission spent £2,700,000, the Department of Health spent £1,500,000 and the bureaus of mineral resources, timber and forestry, and meteorology and the Ionospheric Prediction Service together spent £3,000,000, giving a total expenditure by the Commonwealth of £27,400,000 and by the States of £2,500,000- a grand total of £29,900,000. I believe that there is need for some co-ordinating body to be set up and for the Government to look at this question, either through the Universities Commission or through some special body set up by the Government, if we are to obtain from Australia what we will need in the future for proper advancement.

Mr REYNOLDS:
Barton

.- I agree with most of what the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Chaney) has said, especially his remarks in relation to research. I only hope that he understands the financial implications of what he has advocated and, therefore, will be prepared to support the Labour Party when it urges the Commonwealth to make much more money available, not only to universities but also to other tertian’ institutions and primary and secondary schools. I agree heartily with his remarks about the need for additional research facilities at universities, particularly for post-graduate or higher research. It is true that many of our best brains are leaving this country to find their niche in some other university or instrumentality in other parts of the world.

Besides requiring those facilities I think research needs to be encouraged in other ways. There is need, first, at the university level to give greater encouragement to potential or actual honours students. I know that this matter is currently engaging the attention of the Commonwealth Scholarships Board. In recent times there has been some provision - a very minor provision - for people who are studying for honours degrees. One very simple aspect which may remind the Government that there are deficiencies in its own policy in this matter is that any expenses incurred by full-time or part-time students over the age of 21 years in their education, whether at the university or indeed at any educational institution, are not deductible for income tax purposes. I know that some honorable members on the Government side have referred to this aspect, and I hope that when the Treasurer (Mr. Harold Holt) is formulating this year’s Budget he will have a much closer look at it than apparently he has been prepared to do so far. Necessarily many students who are studying for honours degrees will not finish their course until they are over 21 years of age. One has only to think of students who are studying for a first degree in, say, medicine which takes six years to complete. In the vast majority of cases those students will be over 21 years of age when they complete their course yet neither they nor their parents may claim the educational expenses so incurred as a deduction for income tax purposes.

Besides helping students or their parents, much more substantial help must be given to the universities. I do not suggest that governments alone should provide financial assistance for national research. It is time that industry did more than it is doing and recognized that it has a part to play and a contribution to make. I am glad to admit that there seem to be encouraging signs that some industries and enterprises are giving practical recognition to this and, within limits, are helping universities and other institutions. But somehow or other our universities have not been able to attract the kind of support from their ex-students or from community organizations and enterprises which is given in, say, the United States. An interesting sideline to this aspect was mentioned to me by, I think, the Vice-Chancellor of either the University of Melbourne or the Monash University. He suggested that one of the critical differences between the Australian and the American university set-ups is that in America most of the students are residential students. They live in residences attached to the universities and so they absorb more of what is customarily called the university spirit. Over the years they develop a greater loyalty to their university. The Vice-Chancellor was making the point that even if it costs £2,000 per student to provide residences, in the long run this is a good investment because generally it is repaid by the generosity and loyalty of the ex-students when they go into industry or a profession. Once they make good in their profession they are prepared to have greater recognition for what the university did for them on account of the residential atmosphere which they absorbed.

I agree with the honorable member for Perth that there is need for closer coordination between universities and instrumentalities such as the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, organizations connected with aeronautical and nuclear research, and other similar bodies. There is still a good deal of overlapping and waste within the university organization itself and in its relation to other organizations in the community. The Murray Committee, in its report, stated that our universities generally are not well run and are rather inefficient There is a good deal of duplication and a good deal of inefficiency. The university people are not loath to admit that. Despite the existence of the Australian Universities Commission for a few years now, there does not appear to me to be a rational formulation of a national policy on university development in Australia.

The honorable member for Barker (Mr. Forbes), the first speaker from the Government side in this debate, tried to hammer, the point that education is still pretty much the prerogative and the responsibility of the States. While we maintain that attitude, all that we will do is ensure the continuance of the parochial idea that we have that New South Wales looks after the universities in that State, South Australia looks after the universities in that State, Victoria looks after the universities in thai State, and so on. As a result, inevitably we will have wasteful duplication when, in fact, at this stage we ought to be ironing out a national policy on university development. There ought to be co-ordination and, with that, a greater specialization within universities. There is no need to develop in every Australian university the same faculties, departments and schools. That lines up with my point about the use of residential quarters. If residential quarters were more readily available there would be a greater fluidity in our students. Students from New South Wales might more readily be able to go to a university in Victoria, South Australia or another State and to use the specialist provisions that are made in that university, without any regard for the State in which it happened to be incorporated.

Another thing that came to my mind as the honorable member for Perth was speaking on this matter of research was a remark made recently by a university authority. He said something about which I have sometimes thought but which I did not think was a very good thought. I did not have confidence in my own thought, but I have begun to have more confidence in it since this authority gave voice to it. I refer to the matter of accepting that a man doing research should also be a teacher and that the two things ought always to be inseparable; that the people who teach in the universities ought also to be carrying out research and vice versa. I readily admit that teaching needs to bo reinforced by continuing inquiry, but I am not so sure that all persons who are very good at doing research are necessarily good teachers. As a matter of fact, I will go on to say now, with my newly found confidence, that, in my view, a good deal of the failure rate at our universities is due to the insistence that everybody on the staffs of the universities must be a research man and a teacher at the same time. In my own experience I found that some of the people who are most proficient in research, who have reached the doctorate level and who have done marvellous research work, are anything but good teachers. I hope that consideration will be given to this point.

I come now, Mr. Speaker, to my own contribution to this debate. This bill arises out of the Government’s decision to make an exception to its policy of making only triennial grants to the universities. This is a recent policy and I think everybody applauds it. The universities ought to know in advance the amount of money that they will receive over a reasonable period in the future. Governments ought to know what their commitments will be for some reasonable period ahead. In that way we can have something of a systematic and an ordered plan. Our only regret in the Australian Labour Party is that this principle is not accepted as a much more general one. However, the exception made by this bill shows that it is recognized that governments and the authorities that advise them are not always able to make accurate predictions, even for the three years ahead that these triennial provisions require. That has caused the provision of £420,000 in this bill, to be split up between the University of New South Wales, the Monash University in Victoria and the University of Adelaide, to provide for some of the emergency exigencies. That is all very well, and naturally the Labour Party supports it, but what utterly astonishes me on all the available evidence is that the provision is limited to those three universities. From my reading and my personal inspections, the last provision for the triennial period from 1961 to 1963 was a gross misjudgment of what has been required by the universities, and this provision will not go anywhere near remedying the defect in that provision.

I wonder, for instance, why provision was not made for the acquisition of land at Ryde in Sydney for a third university In that city. That has been discussed in public affairs in my State and it has been said that the Commonwealth is not prepared to come to the party in the purchase of this land. The State Government has determined that it will go ahead and provide a third university when it can. One of the preliminary requirements, of course, is to obtain the land. It is variously estimated that the land will cost anything between £1,000,000 and £2,000,000. At this stage the New South Wales Government does not look like being in the hunt to provide that amount of money. Unfortunately, I have read in the press that the Commonwealth Government has given an indication - if not in this specific case, then in the past - that it is not prepared to assist State governments any more in the purchase of land for universities. I quote the following extract from the “ Sydney Morning Herald “ of the 21st of this month - less than a week ago -

Some years ago, on the recommendation of the Murray Committee, the Commonwealth shared in the purchase of additional land for the University of Sydney.

Since then, the Universities Commission has recommended that the Commonwealth should not support the purchase of sites.

That is a terrific inhibition on the future planning and development of a university that is urgently required on everybody’s say so. I do not know how the Commonwealth comes to take that attitude because section 4 of the States Grants (Universities) Act 1960 reads-

In this Part, unless the contrary intention appears - “ capital expenditure “ means -

expenditure on the purchase of land, with or without buildings, the planning, erection or alteration of a building, the development or preparation of land for building or other purposes or the installation of water, electricity and other services;

That is clear enough in anybody’s language. Before the New South Wales authorities can start confidently on any plan for the development of the university, they must acquire land, and it has to be a sizeable amount of land. On present values this land will cost at least £1,000,000 and some estimates are that it will cost as much as £2,000,000. All this is going to delay planning, let alone delay the actual development of the third university that everybody says is necessary. That is one of the deficiencies. There are others.

I recall, in my own parochial atmosphere, that when a bill was introduced only last year to provide for grants by the Commonwealth for capital expenditure on teaching hospitals, one of the provisions - it was not recommended by anybody but was just the policy of the Government - was that no provision would be made for teaching hospitals that did not already exist as such, despite the fact that, to quote only one case, the St. George Hospital had been authorized to become a teaching hospital, it was planned to be a teaching hospital, arrangements had been made with the University of Sydney for it to become a teaching hospital and in fact last week it became a teaching hospital in the full sense of the term. Buildings have been erected, but they are not anything like adequate. They have been erected solely by the State Government. Not a penny has come from the Commonwealth, because of the policy of not providing anything for teaching hospitals until they are actually teaching hospitals. I am reminded that we were also told that no provision would be made then for the recurrent expenditures of teaching hospitals and that that provision would be forthcoming in the near future. About twelve months have gone by but still there is no provision for the recurrent expenditure of teaching hospitals. AH the time the burden is being borne by the State governments. Despite some fairly generous provision in recent years universities are in a chaotic state at present.

It has been stated in the press that the universities in my own State of New South Wales have been able to take in all the persons who have applied for admission. That is absolutely untrue. A number of students have either withdrawn their applications or, because of their knowledge of the existence of quotas, have thought that their passes in the matriculation examination did not warrant them even making an application. At the present time the New South Wales Department of Education - and I know the same applies in other States - is being embarrassed by the number of well-qualified students applying for teachers’ college scholarships. Why is there this tremendous increase in the number of students with good leaving certificate passes applying for teachers’ scholarships? The answer is as obvious as a pike staff. The students have been denied Commonwealth scholarships. The Government will not increase the number of Commonwealth scholarships to anything like the number needed to cope with the tremendous increase in the number of matriculants. Not being able to gain Commonwealth scholarships, and because their parents cannot afford to send them to the university, the students do the next best thing and apply for teachers’ scholarships. As a result, between 1,500 and 2,000 young people in New South Wales alone have applied in vain for teachers’ college scholarships.

In my opinion it would have been a mark of statesmanship if at this stage the Commonwealth Government had been prepared to increase the number of Commonwealth scholarships tenable at universities. Goodness knows why it has not done so! It would have been a statesmanlike thing to do even without waiting for the report on tertiary education which will probably be received at the end of this year. If the Government waits for the report it will not be able to do anything about it until next year or the year after. In the meantime it could also make available special Commonwealth scholarships tenable at teachers’ colleges and thereby ease the burden on parents and students, and above all on the teaching requirements of our State education system.

We need teachers. It is estimated that 7,000 more teachers are needed in New South Wales alone, yet thousands of youngsters, many of them with very good leaving certificate passes, are being turned away from universties because there are not enough scholarships available. The position is pitiful. The Commonwealth has not played its part. As a result, some of these students have poured into the teachers* colleges and the Department of Education cannot cope with the problem.

The Commonwealth has not been prepared, although requested by all the Premiers and by all kinds of community organizations, to make the special additional grants to the States that have been sought in order to tackle the problem. Nor has the Government been prepared to extend the Commonwealth scholarship scheme by offering scholarships tenable at teachers’ colleges and higher technical institutions. As a result, many very disappointed students and parents exist in Australia this year. Some parents strove hard and made sacrifices to keep their children at school. Any one who is acquainted with workingclass people who, at the behest of educationists and governments, have not put their children into dead end jobs, but have aspired to give the community the benefit of their talents, will understand what I am saying. Although these parents have kept their children at school all this time they now face the bitter disappointment that the children cannot get Commonwealth scholarships to enable them to go to a university. They cannot get into a teachers’ college, either. The best course that confronts many of them is to repeat fifth year at school with the assistance of a small scholarship provided by the New South Wales Department of Education. This is a waste to the community, a waste to the student and a poor recompense to the parents who have denied themselves many things in order to keep their children at school.

Mr Cockle:

– That is an indictment of the Heffron Government.

Mr REYNOLDS:

– I should like to discuss that point. I think that in a debate in the New South Wales Parliament the Minister for Education showed adequately that the State had spent on education 60 per cent, of its tax reimbursement from the Commonwealth and of its loan moneys.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member should not be drawn away from the subject-matter of the bill.

Mr REYNOLDS:

– If I may say so I think, with respect, that this is relevant to the bill, but I will not labour the point. I simply say that I do not think one can blame any State government in this day and age for not making adequate provision for education out of such funds as are available to it. I remind the House that many honorable members on the other side have actually said so, too. The honorable member for Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth) said recently that he recognized that the Commonwealth ought to be making more funds available.

I come back to the Commonwealth scholarships scheme. Honorable members might think I am preoccupied with my own State of New South Wales. As a matter of fact the most trenchant criticism has been levelled at the woeful inadequacy of the Commonwealth scholarship scheme in Victoria.

Mr Nixon:

– What nonsense

Mr REYNOLDS:

– I refer the honorable member to the Melbourne “ Age “ of the Sth, 6th, 7th and 8th of this month and the reports that were given to that newspaper about the inadequacy of Commonwealth scholarships. The newspaper has pointed out that there are many matriculants in Victoria who want to go to a university but are not able to do so if they have to depend on their parents to support them. They have aspired to get Commonwealth scholarships but have not been able to get them simply because Victoria is allotted only about 1,000 scholarships out of the 4,000 that are allocated throughout the Commonwealth. As a result, very able students - many of them with near-honours passes in matriculation examinations - ‘have missed out on going to a university. They have had to withdraw their applications, or have not made application to go to a university, and their places, under the quota system operating in all the universities, have been taken by other students who have not the same ability and have not the same high passes in the matriculation examination. Such students are able to go to a university solely because their parents are able to send them and maintain them there. It is false economy on the part of the Commonwealth. We are not providing enough scholarships to take able students through a university. We are allowing less adequately equipped students to take their places.

I refer honorable members who disagree with what I say to the press in Victoria and to the statement of a past Vice-Chancellor, Sir Robert Lowe, who commented on this very thing. Let me quote one example, from the Melbourne “ Age “ of 5th March. In a report to the Melbourne University Council the Registrar stated that better qualified applicants had withdrawn because they just failed to win scholarships and their places had been taken by others with lower marks but in a better financial position. This state of affairs has come in for wide criticism in Victoria.

The Government has not done the right thing by the students, as I have shown, and it is making no provision in the triennial agreements and in this bill under consideration to increase the grants to universities. We are not ensuring - on economic grounds alone, not to talk about social grounds - that the best use is being made of the university facilities that we are providing at such great cost to the community. We should ensure that the best qualified students in the country, irrespective of whether their parents have sufficient money, can go on and do their university courses. I think this is something that has to be looked at.

The Prime Minister’s speech on the bill, short as it was, referred to the fact that many requests have been made to the commission for assistance. But the Prime Minister went on to say that after close and painstaking examination of the various proposals only these three provisions had been made. This is the case despite the chaotic conditions that exist. I agree with the honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley). Why is this Parliament not given information on what the universities require? I have a strong suspicion - I said this before and I think I was a little unpopular for saying it - that the Australian Universities Commission is shielding the Government.

Sitting suspended from 6 to 8 p.m.

Mr REYNOLDS:

– Whilst we support the meagre provisions of this legislation we do so, as I have said, with some reluctance, because we believe that its provisions should be much more generous than they are. We believe that the provisions fall down in two ways. The first of these is their failure to meet the material needs of the universities in terms of buildings and equipment, not to mention the lack of trained lecturers. Secondly the legislation still makes no provision for the urgently necessary increase in the number of Commonwealth scholarships. In 1953 we were providing 2,734 Commonwealth scholarships when the num ber of applications for such scholarships was 7,210. In other words, we were able to provide with scholarships about 38 per cent, of the youngsters seeking admission to universities, many of whose parents were not able to send them there from their own resources. The position has deteriorated substantially since then. In 1961, when there were not 7,210 applicants for Commonwealth scholarships, as in 1953, but 16,746 - 16,746 youngsters whose parents had kept them at school so that they could enter universities with scholarships - we provided only 3,872 scholarships. In other words, the proportion of scholarships provided in relation to the number of applications dropped from 38 per cent, to 23 per cent. It is no wonder that many of those disappointed young students are now crowding in on the State departments of education seeking teachers’ college scholarships; and, of course, the States are unable to meet that demand.

The Prime Minister indicated in his second-reading speech that many requests had been made to the Australian Universities Commission that it make a recommendation to the Government regarding the extra accommodation that was urgently needed by universities. Of the recommendations to the commission only three are dealt with in this bill. Prior to the suspension of the sitting I made a serious charge. I said that either consciously, or unconsciously - if that is the correct word - the Universities Commission was shielding the Government rather than attempting to meet the genuine needs of universities. I have always had some misgivings about the commission, which is made up of academics and representatives of big business. It has seven members and a permanent chairman. There is no representation of other articulate sections of the community - no representation of employers or employees, professional organizations or anything else.

The legislation affects not only the Commonwealth Parliament but also the State Parliaments. It involves the States even more than it does the Commonwealth, yet there is no representation on the commission, whose recommendations are the basis of the bill, of any State parliament. It is no wonder that the States are critical of the Commission. It is also no wonder that teachers’ federations, parents’ and citizens’ associations and a multitude of other organizations are calling a conference - this time it is to be held in Melbourne on 25th May - for the purpose of urging the Commonweath Government to recognize its responsibility not only in respect of university education, but also in respect of all aspects of education leading up to university level.

Mr BARNES:
McPherson

.- First, I should like to congratulate the honorable member for Barton (Mr. Reynolds) on being the first member for whom the amber light on the speech-timing device has shone. I quite agree with many of the remarks that the honorable member made in the early part of his speech, because I feel that in them he was being constructive - though that no doubt was due to the relative inexperience of a fairly new member. However, his remarks ceased to be constructive when he began to speak of the state of affairs in New South Wales. He then went off the beam completely. There is no doubt that he feels that the city of Sydney from which he comes is in very difficult circumstances regarding education. He mentioned in particular the inadequacy of the number of Commonwealth scholarships. He failed, however, to mention - and, really, one would not expect him to mention it - the fact that the New South Wales Government has reduced by 300 the number of teachers’ college scholarships it has been awarding, and has also reduced capital expenditure on schools by £800,000. That gives some indication of the record of a State government in regard to education, yet we are being criticized here in relation to Commonwealth scholarships. However, I can understand the honorable member’s feelings in that regard.

The honorable member mentioned also that there is room for a third university in Sydney, at Ryde. I think he said that something over £2,000,000 was necessary to start such a university. Yet the New South Wales Government is spending £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 on building a State opera house.

Mr Anthony:

– £15,000,000.

Mr BARNES:

– The estimated cost keeps rising. That is the state of affairs in New South Wales, the State from which most of the criticism of the Commonwealth’s attitude to education, particularly tertiary education, is coming. The honorable member for Barton sets himself up as superior in thinking power to the Murray committee and the Universities Commission, because there is no doubt that those bodies took note of the various matters that the honorable member has raised and made their assessments and recommendations accordingly. Nevertheless, the honorable member sets himself up as an authority superior to those two bodies.

There are probably shortages in respect of the funds made available to universities. But over the whole field of activities in Australia we have shortages. We are a fast-developing community and that fact alone puts a strain on us financially. Indeed, it is only as a result of the methods adopted by this Government that we are able to sustain the growth that is going on in Australia and to help to some degree to keep our universities advancing in consonance with the increasing needs of our population. In addition, many changes have occurred regarding education. I think it was the honorable member for Wills (Mr. Bryant) who pointed to the very high birth rate following the last war. But there are other aspects that have importance. One is that people are quite rightly becoming concerned for the future of their children in relation to job opportunities. They are realizing more and more that in order to find skilled work their children require higher education than was needed by children in the past. I think that is the greatest reason for the increased pressures on our universities.

In this age of scientific advances technical education is becoming more important, and this fact has produced a different attitude towards learning. I believe that there is scope for the Commonwealth to give further consideration to the needs of technical education. I do not know where technical education ends and where university education begins, but I know that in many countries, as in Australia, there are technological institutes, and I think that support for such establishments in Australia is desirable. I support the Government’s attitude in not entering the fields of primary and secondary education but I feel that in view of the new approach to apprenticeship training the idea of assisting in respect of technical education is an excellent one. I believe that assistance in the provision of technical education should be complementary to this effort that we are making to train young men in skilled trades, an effort that will do much to solve the problem of employment. This Government has an excellent record in the making of job opportunities - the finest in the world. There is no other nation that can equal Australia in the matter of employment.

Honorable members of the Opposition who are interjecting are on a losing track in this connexion. They are engaged in what is commonly known as “ knocking “ Australian prospects. Their aim is to create concern not only in commercial circles, but also among those who interest themselves in education.

Another factor in this situation is the number of married women employed to-day. This is considerably greater than it was years ago. Job opportunities are increasing in Australia. I believe that we have to keep on finding more and more opportunities, and these would be provided by improved technical education, because much work is held up by a lack of trained personnel.

The Commonwealth Government has acted wisely in following the advice, not only of the Murray committee but also of the Australian Universities Commission, and by agreeing to implement in toto the recommendations of those two bodies. I support this bill which provides for continued Commonwealth assistance to universities. I say without fear of contradiction that no previous government has ever given so much assistance to tertiary education.

Mr DUTHIE:
Wilmot

.- Amber lights, red lights or green lights notwithstanding, the Opposition agrees with the Government on this bill. The bill provides for the Monash University in Victoria, the University of Sydney, and the Bedford Park additions to the University of Adelaide to be assisted to the extent of £420,000. This is for capital and emergency expenditure. I should like to say that the Monash University project in Victoria, which is my home State although I am a Tasmanian member, is a credit to all concerned. I had the privilege of seeing it a few weeks ago. If we could build universities like that on the fringe of our cities throughout Australia it would be a tremendous encouragement to all our young students who are to-day in such need of university training. The biggest building at the Monash project goes by the name of the Sir Robert Menzies Humanities Building. It has amazed me how the name of Robert Gordon Menzies can be associated with the word “humanities “. However, it is a beautiful building whoever it is named after. It rises to about seven stories.

Mr J R Fraser:
ALP

– What is its girth?

Mr DUTHIE:

– It has statistics of 40-40-40. It is the same all the way down. The Monash University project is designed to relieve the pressure on Melbourne University, and it is doing just that.

Labour’s policy, broadly speaking, in respect of education, is to institute an overall inquiry into all levels of Australian education when we become the Government. Secondly, we propose the setting up of university colleges at such cities as Ballarat, Geelong, Launceston and possibly one in what is known as the Ruhr valley of Victoria, somewhere near Yallourn. We propose to establish like colleges in the cities which are outside the main cities of the Commonwealth. At these colleges students will do arts, education, science and engineering up to the second year. They will then go on to the university. We believe that this scheme will eventually wipe out the wretched quota system that has to be instituted in the universities at the present time, denying many young people the right, even though qualified, to go on to the university.

In the very short time - you will be grateful to hear - during which I am going to speak to-night I want to refer to university accommodation. Medical students in Tasmania are the particular subject of these next few thoughts in this connexion. We have no medical school attached to the University of Tasmania. Last year, nineteen students took the first year course in medicine. We can give them only the first year course in Tasmania. Our medical students have to go to the mainland to complete their course in the six or seven years that follow. Of the nineteen students who took the first-year course in Hobart last year sixteen passed. Of that number, Monash University took seven and the University of Adelaide took four. That makes eleven. The balance of our students missed out altogether even though they had passed their first-year course at the University of Tasmania. The sad situation for those five young students is that they have to go to the universities at Adelaide or Brisbane if they wish to continue and to complete their chosen careers.

I made representations to the chancellor of the Monash University, Sir Robert Blackwood, a fortnight ago, in an endeavour to have one or more Tasmanian students taken at Monash in addition to those who have already been accepted. The chancellor replied that it was impossible to take even one more Tasmanian student. He said that of the sixteen students who had passed their first-year course in Tasmania last year thirteen had applied to go to Monash, but Monash could take only seven. As I have said, the other four went to Adelaide. The Chancellor of Monash University said in a letter which he wrote to me last week -

You will understand that at the second year level the number of places is actually limited by laboratory accommodation and dissecting facilities.

Therefore, because of the limitations of equipment and space they cannot take any more students from my State.

I fully appreciate the reasons for the chancellor’s inability to absorb any more Tasmanian medical students this year. We in Tasmania appreciate the fact that Monash and Adelaide have been taking Tasmanian medical students even though they have not been taking as many as we should like them to take. It is tragic that young students who have completed the first year of their medical course are prevented by lack of accommodation and facilities from continuing that course. To know that five medical students from Tasmania have to go all the way to Adelaide or Brisbane, and live in one of those cities in order to continue their careers, is both frightening and frustrating. We need more doctors in Australia. The proof of that is that we are importing doctors from the United Kingdom, especially into my State. Yet we turn Austraiian medical students away from Australian universities. That, to me, is a crazy story indeed.

The story in Sydney is this: A statement by the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney appeared in the “ Sydney Morning Herald “ of 20th March. It concluded with the statement -

About 460 qualified students failed to gain admission to faculties of their choice.

A further article on the following Friday disclosed that the two other New South Wales universities absorbed most of those, leaving a total of about 70 students who have been turned away. The reason that the other universities were able to take approximately 390 of the 460 students was that many of the students changed their courses. They had to change horses in midstream, so to speak. They had to abandon the faculty of their choice and enter some other faculty. They did so in desperation. It is a pity that students in this country should have to change courses and go to other universities if they are to have a university education.

The Tasmanian problem can be solved only by the building of a medical school in Hobart, to be attached to our very fine university. We do not want anything huge in the way of expenditure. We want a medical school to take, say, up to 50 students a year. If we could not find 50 students in the first and second years, we could take students from Melbourne who could not find places in Victorian universities. We could do that until such time as Tasmania itself could fill the 50 places at the Tasmanian medical school. I appeal to tha Commonwealth Government to consider helping the Tasmanian Government, at least on the basis of a £1 for £1 grant, in the building of a medical school. Although I have suggested a £1 for £1 grant, it would be much better if the Commonwealth could give us a straight out grant to build the school.

If we were to build a medical school in Hobart it would do three things. First, it would encourage more young people in Tasmania to undertake the medical course. At the moment, the young person in Tasmania who is doing well in secondary education and wants to become a doctor, says to himself: “Well, I may get through my matriculation and then fail to be accepted at Monash, Adelaide or Brisbane. That is too much of a risk. I will take up science, engineering, or somo other course.” Tha fact that our young people cannot attend a medical school in Tasmania and are forced to go to the mainland is limiting the number entering the medical profession in my State. The building of a medical school would encourage more and more young Tasmanians to enter this very worth-while and important profession. Secondly, it would relieve the pressure on mainland universities such as Monash and the University of Adelaide. Thirdly, it would end the necessity for young people in Tasmania to have to leave home and go into exile in order to complete their studies hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of miles from their own State. I hope that the Government will consider the project that I have outlined. If this Government will not do so, I am sure that the next Labour Government will.

Mr SNEDDEN:
Bruce

.- The honorable member for Wilmot (Mr. Duthie) has put forward some remarkable propositions in relation to his suggestion that a medical school be established in Hobart. Let me say that I think it is desirable that every university should have a medical school, but the arguments put forward by the honorable member regarding Hobart were incredible. He said that to have a medical school in Hobart would end the exile of Tasmanian students who have to go thousands of miles away to study. Yet, a few sentences earlier he said, “ If we had a medical school we could take some Victorians “. That would be merely switching the exile and would not be achieving anything. Also, of course, the honorable member begged the question that the university in Tasmania has not received the encouragement of the State Labour Government in the formation of a medical school.

It is of no use for the honorable member to come to this House and criticize the Commonwealth Government on this score when he should be exerting such influence as he may have in Tasmania in encouraging the State Labour Government to establish a medical school at Hobart. As for the suggestion that the Commonwealth Government ought to provide a grant on a £1 for £1 basis, I ask whether he has any idea of the kind of grants that are already being made by this Government to the universities of Australia. An astonishing amount of money has been found for universities in recent years compared with the amount that was found only a few years ago, at a time when it was thought that the sum then being provided was adequate. As time progressed it was realized that that amount had to be multiplied to an extent which had never previously been foreseen. So, the matters put forward by the honorable member for Wilmot on this subject do him no credit.

The other matter to which the honorable member referred was the establishment of provincial colleges. He said that students could serve two years of their graduate courses in those provincial colleges and then go to the established universities. By this means, he said, the need for quotas would be eliminated.

Mr Duthie:

– Eventually.

Mr SNEDDEN:

– Yes, eventually. Whether that would be so, I am unable to say. I think there is merit in the suggestion that such colleges be established, but I have in mind previous attempts to establish colleges which were not successful. It is true that some colleges have flowered into full-blown universities, so there must be arguments for and against but I am inclined to the view that the university colleges could not be proliferated because that would of necessity distribute the available teaching staff more widely than is desirable. Also there might be competition in salaries between the colleges and the universities or between college and college, and that, of course, would be highly undesirable. On the other hand, a limited use of colleges could well serve tha purposes of graduate study. Whether or not this could be undertaken in the second year, I do not know, but it seems to me that if a student spends the first two years at a college he is likely to find the transition to the university proper extremely difficult. Further, the first two years are probably the most important years of university life or any subsequent educational life.

The need for orientation into university life is very definite and the problems of orientation are extreme. These problems are accentuated at the university colleges.

I can see no merit in the honorable member’s suggestion regarding the first two years of study. It seems to me that a college should provide for the student to carry right through to graduation standard.

I turn now to the bill as it is presented. I think that it ought not to pass the notice of the House that the Australian Universities Commission, which was established after the Murray committee presented its report, has been fulfilling very well its statutory function. The whole purpose of the Universities Commission is to receive from the universities arguments concerning the future development of the universities and then to make recommendations to the Government. The central theme of the whole scheme is that the universities themselves should be able to place their arguments before an independent body which then reports to the Government. The important corollary is the triennial system of providing finance for the universities. The value of the triennial system, of course, is very manifest to the universities. Knowing the amount of money they have at their disposal, they can look forward to implementing the programmes that have been accepted, and to planned development over that period. It is important that the triennial system be characterized by elasticity. The fact that the principal act of 1960 was amended in 1962 and is now being further amended demonstrates the elasticity of the system. The major advantage is that a university can look into the future and say, “ This is the minimum we can expect “. If circumstances arise which could not be forecast accurately at the time the Universities Commission conducted its hearing, there is sufficient elasticity to allow the sum of money which was given to that university to be increased. The few years that have elapsed since the establishment of the Australian Universities Commission have been of extreme importance to the tertiary education of the Australian people. The system is sufficiently well-established to allow the commission, in co-operation with the universities and with governmental policy if you like, to give a spirit of independence to the universities and to stimulate the development of learning within them.

In considering this measure I think predominantly of the Monash University, which is situated in my own electorate. It is a bold, new university in an ideal setting, with modern buildings. It is, I think, entering a great tradition-building period. It has an outstanding chancellor, who was referred to by the honorable member for Wilmot (Mr. Duthie). In my view, it has an equally outstanding vice-chancellor, in the person of Dr. Matheson. He has given tremendous encouragement to the growth of a great spirit within the university and, probably more importantly, has by his own standing been able to attract to the university outstanding occupants of chairs and outstanding lecturers in the various faculties. I believe that the teachers of this university have no superiors in any other university in Australia. One is therefore led to the conclusion that within a very few years the Monash University will be recognized as being one of the great universities.

Unfortunately, at the present time the University of Melbourne still occupies pride of place in the minds of students. That will not always be so. I hope it will not be long before students will recognize certain strengths at the Monash University which will encourage them to go there rather than to the University of Melbourne. But there is no doubt that at the present time the students’ preference leans towards the University of Melbourne. For example, one hears a young man say: “Well, I got my matriculation, but I do not know whether I did well enough to get into the University of Mebourne. I may have to go to Monash “. I suppose it does not matter to which university he goes, because the teaching at one will be just as good as at the other, and as an individual he will be the same whether he is at the Monash University or the University of Melbourne.

Mr Peters:

– What has this to do with the bill?

Mr SNEDDEN:

– It has a great deal to do with the bill. This is the sort of thing which you just could not understand.

Mr Peters:

– I thought you were just filling in time.

Mr SNEDDEN:

– It is quite beyond your comprehension. We have known about your limitations for a long time. One hopes that it will not be long before graduates begin to issue forth from the Monash University and attract to it such a great reputation that students will not feel that they have been cheated or denied a privilege by going there instead of to the University of Melbourne.

Mr Cope:

– Put a tiger in your tank!

Mr SNEDDEN:

– Your tiger is in a different place. I advise you to keep it hidden. Another matter to which I wish to refer in discussing universities, university colleges and technical schools is that of diplomates being considered as employment prospects, as opposed to graduates. A number of employers, particularly in the engineering field, believe that graduates are to be preferred because of the broad base and the added depth of their learning. Many other employers prefer the diplomates because they have far greater practical experience at the time of acquiring their qualifications. That is particularly true of employers in the civil construction group. I think that the breadth of a degree course is to be preferred to the narrow practical training of the diplomate. If there is to be such a distinction, it is unnecessary that the technical colleges be built up into universities. They should continue to be technical colleges and to give to students qualifications and practical experience which will enable them to enter industry upon the conclusion of their studies. The university graduate, because of his broader education, would be able to take part in research work, which the honorable member for Perth (Mr. Chaney) spoke about so well this afternoon.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the humanities are just as important as the sciences. In the current situation, in which dramatic publicity is given to scientific achievement and research, we should not lose sight of the tremendous contribution which the humanities make to the development of our society, to the keeping of the moral principles of society and to the shaping of politics, law, government and administration, all of which are as important as scientific advancement.

The honorable member for Wilmot spoke about quotas. I agree with his statement that it is most unfortunate that there should be quotas. The most regrettable feature of the quota system is the shutting out of young men at a stage in their lives when many of them are immature and have not reached the point where their intellectual capacity translates itself into a capacity to study and to pass examinations. The quotas are bad enough in themselves, but what is worse is that the competition which young people experience nowadays is so much greater than that which people in this chamber experienced when they were seventeen or eighteen years of age. Nowadays if a young man who is in his first year of study at a university fails in one subject he is likely to find himself ejected from his faculty and be faced with a very dismal choice between entering another faculty or going out into the world. Often a young man is precluded from the opportunity of repeating the year’s study and has to make the choice to which I have referred. I am quite sure that the major harm done by the present quota system is that young students of seventeen or eighteen years of age are being separated when many of them have not achieved their full intellectual endowment.

This situation is in contrast to that which existed just after the last war, when many students who had never dreamt they would ever go to a university, many not having matriculated and many having left school at fourteen years of age or whatever the leaving age was, were able to get training under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. That scheme produced a number of outstanding students who otherwise would never have gone to a university. Many of them did so well merely because they were mature at the time they were going through university. They had responsibilities to families, and this gave them an incentive to greater application to their studies.

For all these reasons, I regret that quotas apply, as they do, in various faculties. I hope that before long the problems of university education will be overcome. However, despite this apparent criticism, Mr. Speaker, I am satisfied that the present Government’s record in university education is extremely good and one of which this Government and all its supporters on this side of the House can be very proud.

Mr MAKIN:
Bonython

.- Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to provide for supplementary grants to three universities in addition to the grants that have already been made on a triennial basis.

No challenge or argument is offered concerning the provision of funds for this purpose. The only challenge concerns what Opposition members regard as the inadequacy of the grants provided for in this measure and of the funds generally applied to educational purposes.

The honorable member for Fremantle (Mr. Beazley), who led for the Opposition this afternoon in this debate, made a very pertinent and important point when he sought some clear outline of the Government’s policy on these matters. The Government seems to have adopted a piecemeal kind of policy which leaves the responsibility with somebody else while the Commonwealth absolves itself of any obligations except an obligation to help our universities financially from time to time. The Government is to be given credit for whatever financial provision it has made, but that provision has been by no means sufficient to meet the ever-growing demands that are being made on our universities and our educational facilities generally as a result of other aspects of this Government’s policies.

Let me mention just one or two illustrations. Under our external affairs policy, we have gladly accepted in this country many Asian students to whom we are seeking to give the advantage of learning in our institutions of higher study. We are indeed pleased that we are able to give this assistance and thereby promote enlightenment and understanding in the minds of people who are our near neighbours while education develops their abilities so that they may administer and develop their own countries in a way that will advance the welfare of their own people. Possibly thousands of such students are at present attending our universities. Then there is another factor relating to the immigration scheme which has brought many thousands of people to this country. Many of those newcomers have reached a stage at which they are now looking for opportunities to further their education and qualify in the arts, the sciences and other faculties by studying at our universities. Our own Australian students also are anxious to become fully qualified in these respects and to gain admittance to the universities by diligent application to their studies. Scores and scores of Australian students who are well qualified to enter our universities, like many migrants, are denied the opportunity to obtain university training because the universities and other schools of learning have not been expanded sufficiently to absorb all our own young Australians as well as the migrant students who have been added to our population.

Measures have not been taken to provide the institutional facilities, teaching staff and administrative organizations needed for the absorption of all these students in our universities. This failure to make adequate provision is due largely to the policies adopted by this Government over the thirteen years during which it has held office. The Government cannot absolve itself of the responsibility to do more than it is doing at present to help provide for the universities. Honorable members opposite, though they may feel some sense of self-satisfaction at what this Government has done and may point to a certain degree of success in the granting of financial help to the universities, should consider the sacrifice that has been made by many young people in this country and by their parents because of inability to proceed to the higher standard of education desired. Any country that wishes to be great has to provide the means of learning for its people. The frustrations suffered by many young people who wish to study at the universities have broken their morale and defeated them just at the stage at which they believed they were on the threshold of a university education. This problem must be solved, and somebody on the Government side of the House will have to give me an assurance on the matter before I shall feel satisfied with this Government’s policies on education.

The proposed grant of £37,500 for capital expenditure at the Bedford Park College in Adelaide and of £26,000 for recurrent expenditure at the University of Adelaide are of special significance to South Australia. The Bedford Park College site was formerly the site of the main tuberculosis sanatorium in South Australia, and has been selected by the State authorities for the establishment of a college which will ba an extension of the University of Adelaide. This site is 8 or 9 miles from the centre of Adelaide and some 7 or 8 miles from the principal buildings of the university. I feel that there has been a disposition to centralize educational facilities in the past, but I agree with the honorable member for Barker (Mr. Forbes), who stated this afternoon that the Bedford Park College is likely to develop into a university in its own right.

I have often asked myself why universities cannot be established in towns or cities beyond reasonable access to the present universities in the capital cities. Why cannot such provincial towns or cities be made centres of learning? In South Australia two places are admirably suited for that purpose, namely Gawler and Strathalbyn. If either place were developed as a university town and, later, as a university city, it could establish a tradition as a seat of learning and the centre of high cultural activities and make a notable contribution to the life of the Australian nation. Why should we go to the perimeter of a city to establish a university college as part of the University of Adelaide? I have not as yet received an adequate explanation of this. The authorities have overlooked the possibility of developing a centre along the lines I have suggested, which would be a better method of extending our university system, because the students would not be subjected to many of the city distractions but would be able to concentrate on the things that are essential to their studies.

I have sought to compress these suggestions into the shortest time possible. I leave them to the House in the hope that further thought might be given to the matter and that something of a more satisfactory nature might be done not only for universities but also for all other fields of education that are so essential to the life and character of our nation and the future of our people.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Malcolm Fraser) adjourned.

House adjourned at 8.52 p.m.

page 43

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated: -

Manufacturing Agreements

Mr Ward:

d asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Is he able to say how many agreements are in existence whereby Australian manufac turers are licensed by foreign companies to produce articles at present being manufactured overseas by these organizations?
  2. How many of these agreements contain a clause either completely prohibiting the sale of articles outside Australia or restricting export in some way?
  3. What percentage of the production of Australian secondary industries is affected by the provisions of these agreements?
  4. What is paid annually to foreign companies in licence fees by Australian manufacturers?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. At least 1,300 overseas companies are known to have entered into arrangements with Australian companies to manufacture their products under licence.
  2. The most recent survey of the situation conducted by the Department of Trade during 1961 and 1962, indicates that some 700 Australian firms are parties to about 1,100 financial and licensing agreements with overseas firms which in some degree provide for restriction of exports.
  3. Statistical information is not available on this question.
  4. This information is not separately recorded in the Commonwealth Statistician’s balanceofpayments statistics.

Woollen Piece Goods

Mr Hayden:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND

n asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Was the emergency tariff protecting the manufacture of woollen piece goods recently discontinued by the Government?
  2. Does the industry now consider that it is adequately protected?
  3. Has the Government any intention of introducing some form of protection for this industry which would be in accordance with the requests of the industry?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. An emergency duty was applied to certain woollen piece goods in May, 1961, pending this outcome of a Tariff Board inquiry into the protective needs of the industry. The emergency duty was terminated on 4th October, 1962, when the Tariff Board’s recommendations covering the woollen piece goods industry as a whole were implemented.
  2. While some comment at the time the new duties were introduced expressed doubt as to whether the industry would be adequately protected, no evidence has yet been produced to show that the protection is not satisfactory.
  3. If the industry is able to make a case showing that the protection is not satisfactory, it will bs given full consideration.
Mr Hayden:

n asked the Minister for Trade, upon node* -

  1. Has the Government any intention of introducing some form of protection for woollen piece goods manufacturers in view of the abolition of emergency tariffs covering this industry?

    1. If so, what measures are contemplated and when will they be introduced?
Mr McEwen:
CP

n. - The answer to the honorable member’s questions is as follows: - 1 and 2. The emergency duty on certain woollen piece goods was terminated on 4th October, 1962, when the Tariff Board’s recommendations on the protective needs of the woollen piece goods industry as a whole were implemented. No case has since been made to show that the existing protection is not satisfactory. If the industry is able to make such a case it will be given full consideration.

Employment

Mr Hayden:

n asked the Minister for Labour and National Service, upon notice -

Can the Government give an assurance that (a) the residue of last year’s school leavers still unemployed will be in employment by the commencement of the New Year, and (b) all of this year’s school leavers will be in employment by the end of the first quarter of the New Year7

Mr McMahon:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

It would plainly not be possible to give an assurance that all who left school during a certain period will without exception be in employment at a certain time.

Qantas Empire Airways Limited Employees

Mr Whitlam:

m asked the Minister for Air, upon notice -

  1. Is it a condition of employment of all technical air crew by Qantas that they agree to serve on the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve?
  2. Would the full-time specialist navigators employed by Qantas be essential in the manning of air transports in time of war?
  3. Do these navigators constitute one-third of the practising navigators available to the Royal Australian Air Force?
  4. What steps have been taken to retain the services of these navigators in the event of Qantas declaring full-time specialist navigators redundant to requirements?
Mr Fairbairn:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. I understand that it is a condition of employment for all navigators on appointment to Qantas that they agree to join the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve if required to do so.
  2. At this stage, it ls not envisaged that it win be essential to employ Qantas navigators to man Royal Australian Air Force transport aircraft in time of war. However, whether it would be essential for Qantas navigators to be so engaged by the Royal Australian Air Force, or for them to man Qantas aircraft in war operational areas, would depend on the nature and area of hostilities and the circumstances existing at the time.
  3. Qantas currently employ 68 full-time flight navigators. The Royal Australian Air Force itself has a present strength of 211 navigators, and this meets current Royal Australian Air Force requirement.
  4. I understand the position with Qantas is that the redundancy of any flight navigators is not anticipated to occur before April, 1965. The question of redundancy has not arisen to data and, whether the Royal Australian Air Force could utilize the services of redundant Qantas navigators, would be a matter for determination when it arises.

Control of Newspapers, Radio and Television Stations

Mr Ward:

d asked the Prime Minister^ upon notice -

  1. Is he able to say in what countries governmental action has been taken to prevent private proprietors of newspapers, radio and television stations from abusing their privileged position?
  2. What form has the action taken in each instance?
  3. Has the action taken met with any success in eliminating the abuses associated with tha private control of newspapers, radio and television stations?
  4. Is it a fact that abuses occur in Australia, where no governmental restraint exists?
Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– I am unable to answer a question in such general terms.

Transport of Overseas Students

Mr Ward:

d asked the Minister for External Affairs, upon notice -

  1. What departmental officer has the responsibility for authorizing the use of Commonwealth motor cars by members of voluntary organizations interested in the welfare of overseas students pursuing their studies in Australia?
  2. Are records kept showing (a) the date, (b) the mileage run, (c) the name of the person to whom the car has been made available and (d) the reason accompanying the request for motor transport?
  3. If so, are these records available for inspection by honorable members?
  4. What was (a) the total mileage run and (b) the time occupied by Commonwealth motor cars engaged on this work in each of the last three years?
Sir Garfield Barwick:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. The Technical Assistance Liaison Officer, Sydney.
  2. Records maintained in the Technical Assist ance Liaison Office show the date and the name of the person for whom transport is provided. The person requesting transport is required to satisfy the Technical Assistance Liaison Officer that transport is required for student welfare purposes. A record of the reasons stated is not customarily kept. Mileage is recorded by the drivers of Commonwealth vehicles for each journey.
  3. Official records are not available for inspection,
  4. The records of the Technical Assistance Liaison Officer, Sydney, since June, 1960, show that Commonwealth cars were ordered for the following hours for members of voluntary organizations for student welfare purposes: - (a) June, 1960- December, 1960, 70 hours; (b) January, 1961 - December, 1961, 286 hours; (c) January, 1962- 30th November, 1962, 106 hours. Further information on total mileages is being obtained from the Department of Supply.

Immigration: Children from Japan.

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

  1. Has he been asked to reconsider the acceptance into Australia of children from Japan?
  2. Has he made any decision on this matter, if so, what was the decision?
Mr Downer:
Minister for Immigration · ANGAS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s questions is as follows: - 1 and 2. This matter has been under consideration by the Government. On 1st December, I issued a statement setting out the Government’s decision to make a grant of £20,000 towards the administrative costs of International Social Service of Japan Inc. which, since 19S7, has been engaged in work amongst the mixed blood children in Japan, regardless of their paternity.

The Government’s decision followed the public interest which the situation of these children aroused. Although the Government does not accept responsibility in the matter, it was concerned to find means of assisting the children which would be in their best interests. International Social Service had reported that, in this work in Japan, the most urgent need was for funds to ensure that all the children receive a proper education to equip them for their future lives. This was the Government’s guiding consideration, in reaching its decision.

I do not consider, however that it would be in the best interests of the children to bring them to Australia for adoption. They have been brought up by their mothers and other suitable guardians. They have not been abandoned, nor are they neglected. International Social Service, with its long experience in inter-country adoptions, has stated that such movements would be fraught with difficulty, especially if they involve the separation of a child from its mother, at an age after close emotional ties have been formed. The ages of the children now average from 12 to 13 years. These are well above the optimum considered desirable for prospective adoption, irrespective of environmental, race, or other factors. There would be legal difficulties also, in any proposal to bring these children to Australia.

With regard to the children who are said to have Australian paternity, I would, however, be prepared to consider sympathetically all the circumstances of any request by an Australian ex-serviceman for the admission of his child, provided that he acknowledged his paternity.

Moreover, if inquiry, for example, by International Social Service, were to establish in any individual case that movement to Australia for the purpose of adoption would, in the final analysis, be in the best interests of the child concerned, I would then be prepared to examine such an application. It would be necessary in such a case for all the requirements involved in an inter-country adoption to be satisfied. By the nature of things, I should think that the circumstances, in which all the relevant conditions were met, would be rare.

Australian Security Intelligence ‘ Organization

Mr Ward:

d asked the Prime Minister, upon notice -

  1. Is the Prime Minister or the AttorneyGeneral responsible to the Parliament for the activities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization?
  2. Is it the present practice not to answer questions of any kind in respect of this organization?
  3. If not, will he state in precise terms exactly what information regarding the organization he is prepared to give to the Parliament when requested to do so?
  4. If the Government refuses to give any information regarding this organization or its activities, is this attitude in any way inconsistent with parliamentary responsibility?
Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization Act 19S6 is administered by the AttorneyGeneral.
  2. No.
  3. It is not the practice to give information concerning particular activities of the organization.
  4. No, not in my opinion.

Prawn Meat

Mr Collard:
KALGOORLIE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

d asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. From which countries does Australia import prawn meat and what quantity was imported from each of those countries during the years 1959-60, 1960-61 and 1961-62?
  2. What duty is payable on prawn meat Imported into Australia?
  3. If no duty is payable at present is the Government considering the levying of a duty; if so, when can a decision be expected?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. Imports of prawn meat were not separately recorded by the Commonwealth Statistician prior to 1960-61. Import clearances in 1960-61 and 1961-62 were as follows: -
  2. The duty payable on imported prawn meat is- British Preferential Tariff, Id. per lb.; New Zealand, free; Most-Favoured-Nation, Id. per lb.; General Rate, lid. per lb. plus primage at 10 per cent, ad valorem.
  3. The question of the protection to be accorded the Australian industry against competition from imported prawn meat was referred on 5th December, 1962, to the Tariff Board for inquiry and report to the Government.

Parliamentary Privilege

Mr Ward:

d asked the Prime Minister, upon notice -

When does he expect to fulfil his promise of some years ago to review the question of parliamentary privilege with a view to clarifying the position?

Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

I have not yet completed my consideration of this matter.

Development of Queensland

Mr Don Cameron:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

n asked the Minister representing the Minister for National Development, upon notice -

  1. Has the State Government of Queensland, at any time during the past five years, submitted to the Government for consideration any plans for the development of the valleys of the Fitzroy and Burdekin rivers in Queensland?
  2. Has the Government at any time during its period of office been approached to give consideration and financial aid to the development of the Burdekin and Fitzroy river regions; if so, by whom was the approach made?
Mr Fairbairn:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. There have been no plans submitted by the State Government of Queensland for comprehen sive development of the valleys of the Burdekin and Fitzroy rivers. There have been discussions from time to time between Commonwealth and State Ministers concerning particular projects proposed by the State in the areas referred to and the Commonwealth Government has agreed to provide financial assistance for the development of brigalow country in the Fitzroy valley

    1. Apart from the above there have been other requests, generally for technical assistance of a regional nature, during the Government’s term of office. For example, there have been requests for basic mapping and mineral surveys; surveys by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics; and for the production of a series of resources maps of the east-central and east-north regions. A submission concerning financial assistance for a multipurpose project on the Burdekin River was considered about ten years ago. There has also been a variety of approaches to Ministers by private individuals and organizations over the term of office of the Government, but a complete record of these is unavailable.

Housing

Mr Whitlam:

m asked the Minister representing the Minister for National Development, upon notice -

Is sufficient information available from the 1961 census to permit his department to bring up to date the publication entitled “The Housing Situation “ which the Minister published in February, 1957?

Mr Fairbairn:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

This publication was produced at a time when there was clearly a very large overall backlog of unsatisfied housing need. In those circumstances a broad measure of the backlog was justifiable despite the difficulties of conception and measurement of total “need”.

Since that time the housing position has greatly improved. Now, the very existence of an overall backlog, in the sense of a difference between total “need” and total stock of houses, would depend on the standards of adequate housing which were chosen and the means used to measure housing need. In these circumstances my department docs not consider that the repetition of the calculations in the publication would be useful.

However, the results of the 1961 census will include information on the housing position of the population by family groups. This is not yet available. When it is available, my department will be able to analyse and describe the improvement in the housing position that has occurred since the previous census.

Butter and Margarine

Mr Hayden:

n asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice -

What quantities of (a) butter, and (b) margarine were used by (i) the Army, (ii) the Navy and (iii) the Royal Australian Air Force during each of the past five years?

Mr Townley:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

The quantities of butter and margarine used by the three Services in the past five years are as follows: -

Australian Economy

Mr O’Brien:
PETRIE, QUEENSLAND

n asked the Prime Minister, upon notice -

  1. Is the financial structure of Australia the root cause of the country’s development problems?
  2. If so, has the Government any intention, when setting up the Economic Committee of Inquiry, of including in its terms of reference an investigation into the financial structure of the country?
Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. No.
  2. See answer to (1). The terms of reference for the inquiry were specified in a statement I made to the House on 17th October, 1962 (“Hansard”, page 1598).

Immigration

Mr Ward:

d asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

What has been the loss or gain of population to the Commonwealth resulting from the movement of people between Australia and New Zealand in each of the last five years?

Mr Downer:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

How many persons who have applied to come to Australia as migrants have been refused admission for security reasons?

Mr Downer:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

In the course of selection overseas, applicants may be rejected on grounds of health, character, security or general unsuitability for settlement in Australia. Separate statistics to show the number of rejections under each of these headings are not maintained. Each applicant is informed by the overseas post concerned that he has been either accepted or rejected.

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

What are the nationalities of the 213 persons whose naturalization has been rejected or postponed?

Mr Downer:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

The honorable member no doubt refers to those persons who have had their applications for naturalization refused or deferred for security reasons.

The nationalities are as follows: -

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

Of the 213 persons whose naturalization has been refused for security reasons, how many ato resident in each State of the Commonwealth?

Mr Downer:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

No statistics are maintained which would enable the State of residence of the persons referred to in the above question, to be readily identified.

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

  1. Have any proposals been made for the Commonwealth Government to subsidize the teaching of English to migrants?
  2. If so, what was the result?
  3. Will he recommend that a Commonwealth subsidy be paid towards the teaching of English in schools to (a) children during school hours and (b) adults during the evenings?
Mr Downer:
LP

– The answer to the honorable member’s questions is as follows: -

The Commonwealth Government has been meeting the full cost of English language instruction for migrants since the arrival of the first post-war non-British migrants in 1947.

This programme has been developed to a point where it now provides migrants above the normal school leaving age, with facilities to learn English free of charge on board the ships bringing them to Australia, at migrant accommodation centres and hostels, and in the community generally.

Usually, instruction in the community is given in schools at evening classes, but a correspondence course is available for those who are unable to attend such classes. In addition, English lessons are broadcast weekly by the Australian Broadcasting Commission over metropolitan and regional stations.

The Department of Immigration is responsible for the administration and cost of the programme and exercises overall supervision of its activities. As a result of agreements which the Commonwealth made with the States in 1951, the State education departments now arrange the teaching services, distribute the free text-books and radio lesson booklets and carry out the detailed administration of the programme in their individual areas. Expenditure by the State education departments is recouped by the Department of Immigration.

The teaching methods and the text books used have been developed specifically for the purpose by the Commonwealth Office nf Education. This office also acts in an advisory capacity at both Commonwealth and State levels.

At present, 16,500 migrants are enrolled for class instruction and 8,770 for correspondence classes. It is estimated that some 500,000 persons have received instruction under this arrangement since 1947.

The education of migrant children is, of course, a State responsibility. The taxation re-imbursements made to the State governments take into account the number of children of school age in their particular areas, including migrant children.

Mr Cairns:

s asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -

  1. Can he say whether Switzerland, France and Denmark have accepted, respectively, 67, 20 and 20 Tibetans, who resided in India, for training and agriculture?
  2. Have any requests been made for Australia to accept similar persons for training in agriculture?
  3. If so, what decision has been made?
  4. Have any requests been made for Australia to admit for permanent resident a small number of technically qualified Palestine Arab refugees?
  5. Would it be possible to admit such persons to Australia under paragraph (ii) (b) of the immigration rules set out in “ Hansard “ of 10th May, 1960, on page 1564?
Mr Downer:
LP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. I understand that there has been some movement of the Tibetans to selected European countries for resettlement and training, and that Switzerland, France and Denmark are amongst those who have admitted groups for this purpose. However, my department has not been informed officially of the details of these arrangements. 2 and 3. An inquiry on quite an informal basis, as to the possibility of Australia accepting an arrangement on similar lines, has been received. If a request is submitted officially, it will be carefully considered.

Honorable members will recall that the question of aid to assist in the resettlement of Tibetan refugees is a matter which has previously received the consideration of the Government. I refer particularly to a statement made by the Minister for External Affairs by leave in the House on the 23rd March, 1960, which dealt with a contribution of £100,000 by the Australian Government to assist in the resettlement of the Tibetans.

  1. I recall only one request specifically of this nature, that Australia accept for residents a small number of technically qualified Palestine Arab refugees. This was made to me recently by letter, which did not, however, go into any detail.
  2. Any proposal to admit a number of such persons would need to be considered carefully. However, it would be possible to consider applications for admission in individual cases, in terms of that part of the immigration rules to which the honorable member refers

Shipping

Mr Beaton:
BENDIGO, VICTORIA

n asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Are subsidies paid to shipping companies operating in coastal waters or on overseas shipping routes?
  2. If so, what subsidies are paid, te whom are they paid and on what routes do the recipient shipping companies operate?
  3. What was the total cost of shipping freights paid by Australian exporters and importers on both exports and imports in the years 1960-61 and 1961-62?

M:-. McEwen. - The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. Subsidies are paid to one shipping company operating in Australian coastal waters and to three shipping companies who operate overseas services from Australia.
  2. John Burke Limited, an Australian company, is subsidized by the Commonwealth Government to the extent of £4,250 per annum for providing a shipping service to Northern Territory Gulf ports. This service, which is an extension of the regular shipping service from Brisbane and other Queensland east coast ports to Queensland Gulf ports provided under contract to the Queensland Government, has been provided by John Burka Limited for many years. In the case of the companies operating overseas services from Australia, guarantees of payment in the event of losses on their services to South America have been given for a limited period to the Boomerang Cargo Line and the Australia South America Line. The Government took this step as it was convinced that very real prospects existed in South America for many Australian products and that these prospects could be exploited properly only by the establishment of direct shipping services.

It proved to be necessary for the Government to offer some financial guarantee to shipping companies to justify the heavy expenses involved ia commencing services to this untried area. The guarantees to both shipping companies are for periods of two years, and the maximum possible payment required to be made by the Government to both companies combined is £375,000 over the two year period. This amount will be reduced by various factors such as the extent to which either service makes a profit during the two years period. Already there are indications that this may be so.

Cargoes carried on the Boomerang Cargo Line’s sailings have shown a steady and encouraging increase (the vessel sailing from Australia in October, 1962, was fully booked) and the owners of the Australia South America Line have also reported that all cargo space on the second sailing of the vessel in this service has been fully booked. The areas served by these lines are:

Australia South America Line - Main Australian ports to Rio de Janeiro and Santos (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay) and Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Boomerang Cargo Line - Main Australian ports to Valparaiso (Chile), Callao (Peru), Guayaquil (Ecuador), Buenaventura (an optional call) and Cartagena (Colombia), La Guaira (Venezuela), Port of Spain (Trinidad), Bridgetown (Barbados), Georgetown (British Guiana), Paramaribo (Surinam) and Kingston (Jamaica).

The other line being subsidised is operated by Burns Philp and Company Limited. A subsidy of £150,000 per annum is paid in respect of the three vessels “Bulolo”, “Malaita” and “Malekula “ operating in Australia - Papua and New Guinea trade. These vessels are sometimes regarded as being engaged in the coastal trade since they run solely between the Australian ports and the New Guinea Territories administered by Australia.

  1. The Commonwealth Statistician advises that statistics are not available to show the amount paid overseas for freight on Australian exports. In the Australian balance of payments, as in most countries, figures for exports are expressed on an f.o.b. basis. The cost of transferring goods beyond the exporting country is conventionally regarded as a transaction between the foreign importer and the carrier. Accordingly, no estimate is prepared for this item. Freight paid overseas on Australian imports is estimated at about £150,000,000 for the year 1960-61 and about £125,000,000 for the year 1961-62. The figure includes, however, freights paid to Australian shipowners. These are mainly for imports from Australian territories and nearby Pacific Islands and the amounts concerned are not large. Some payments to overseas shipowners for the carriage of inter-state cargo (e.g., petroleum products) are also included.
Mr Benson:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Is a new shipping line known as the Meyer Heine Line providing six-weekly services between Australia and South-East Asian and Japanese ports?
  2. Is this line Australian owned?
  3. Is this line completely Australian controlled?
  4. Does this line aim to help Australian exporters win new markets in Asia?
  5. If any of these answers is in the negative, will he have a correction made to an article on the subject appearing in the journal “Overseas Trading” of 7th September, 1962, which is issued by the Department of Trade?
Mr McEwen:
CP

n. - The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. Meyer Heine Proprietary Limited, registered in Melbourne, is currently providing a shipping service each four to five weeks between Australia and South East Asia and Japanese ports. 2 and 3. The company has been formed and registered in Australia for the purpose of chartering ships from overseas owners. I am informed that its operation is completely controlled in Australia. Three of the four directors are Australians.
  2. The company publicly advertises that this is its object.
  3. Not applicable.

Japanese Trade

Mr Beaton:

n asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Is he able to say what import restrictions are currently imposed by the Japanese Government upon goods from other nations?
  2. Have changes in Japanese trade policies recently brought about a reduction of these restrictions?
  3. If so, how do these changes affect Australian exports to Japan?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable members questions are as follows: -

  1. Japan has about 260 import items under restrictive licensing control at the present time.
  2. Since embarking on her trade liberalisation programme in 1960, Japan has removed import restrictions from about 1900 items (in terms of the Brussels Tariff). Some 230 items were freed from import controls from 1st October last.
  3. Commodities of interest to Australia which have been liberalised since April 1960 include wool, dried vine fruits, asbestos, glycerine, and a wide range of canned fruits.

Textiles

Mr Ward:

d asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Did textile importing countries which are associated with the Gatt organization agree last February to take higher imports of textiles from the less-developed countries?
  2. From what date is this agreement operative?
  3. Are Britain and Canada the only two nations which so far have ratified the agreement?
  4. If so, in view of the failure of the six member nations in the European Economic Community to ratify this agreement, thus failing to accept their obligations as signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, can reliance be placed on the undertaking of these countries to initiate world commodity agreements to overcome the trading difficulties of producing countries, after Britain joins the European Common Market?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. At a meeting in Geneva from 29th January to 9th February, 1962, the Cotton Textiles Committee, established under the auspices of the contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, drew up an arrangement for international trade in cotton textiles. This arrangement is designed to promote orderly expansion of world trade in cotton yarns, piece goods and madeup articles. It provides for the progressive relaxation and eventual elimination of import restrictions, inconsistent with the Gatt, on these goods. The arrangement also provides safeguards, including export restraints, against market disruption situations arising in importing countries.
  2. The arrangement became operative on 1st October of last year and will run for five yeans from that date.
  3. No. Twenty-three countries have so far formally accepted the arrangement. These include the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Japan and the six countries of the European Economic Community.
  4. See answer to question 3.

European Common Market

Mr Ward:

d asked the Minister for Trade, upon notice -

  1. Did the European Common Market countries request Britain to list the minimum requirements needed to safeguard Commonwealth food exports?
  2. Was the Australian Government consulted in respect of the submission to be made to the Common Market negotiators?
  3. If so, does the submission now made by Britain coincide with the proposals already submitted on behalf of Australia?
Mr McEwen:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. With respect to the bulk agricultural items subject to the Common Agricultural Policy, Britain was asked by The Six to submit precise proposals about the type of arrangements she was looking for, but I am unaware of any specific request for a list of minimum requirements.
  2. There has been consultation between the British and Australian Governments about a series of British draft proposals on individual commodities.
  3. On some items of trade the British proposals are identical with those put forward by Australia. On many items of trade, however, there are important differences between the British proposals and the Australian proposals.

Export of Motor Vehicles

Mr Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA

s asked the Minister representing the Minister for Customs and Excise, upon notice -

  1. How many (a) motor cars, (b) station wagons, (c) panel vans and (d) trucks have been exported annually since 1950?
  2. To what countries were they exported?
  3. Which companies manufactured the vehicles?
  4. What export income was earned by these exports?
Mr Fairhall:
LP

– The Minister for Customs and Excise has furnished the following answers to the honorable member’s questions: - 1 and 2. Separate records of exports of each type of motor vehicle are not kept. However, the attached schedules show major countries of destination and “ free-on-board “ values since 1950 of the following groups: -

Schedule 1 - Motor cars.

Schedule 2 - Commercial road transport vehicles, i.e., trucks, utilities, vans end omnibuses, Ac.

Schedule 3 - Other motor vehicles (such as street-cleaners, &c).

This information is not included in statistical records.

For statistical purposes only the “freeonboard “ value is recorded.

Telephone Services.

Mr.J. R. Fraser asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

For howlong has the subscriber trunk dialling service been in operation between Canberra and Sydney?

Has the method of recording charges automatically on the calling subscriber’s meter proved satisfactory and effective?

Are charges for S.T.D. calls now included in local call charges?

Has his department received complaints from some Canberra subscribers of exceptionally high account charges for calls since the introduction of the S.T.D. service?

What check is available to subscribers who query their accounts for trunk call charges?

Have all complaints of excessive charges beeninvestigated? 7 Have the meters been checked in each case?

Have any of the meters been found to be faulty? 9 What recourse is available to subscribers who, even after the meter has been checked, still maintain they have been overcharged in respect of calls that have originated from their telephones, or havebeen charged for calls they did not make?

Is it still open for Canberra subscribers to book trunk line calls to Sydney and other places through the manual trunk service and be provided with a statement of calls made?

Mr Davidson:
CP

n. - The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. Since 17th March, 1962.
  2. Yes. The method of recording trunk call charges automatically on the calling subscriber’s meter has been in operation between other centres in Australia since 1956. Subscribers’ meters are manufactured to rigid specifications and tested carefully before installation. Once in service they are checked rigorously at frequent intervals to guard against faulty operation. Experience has proved that the meters rarely become faulty.
  3. Yes. A brochure explaining this feature was sent to each Canberra subscriber before S.T.D. was introduced. An explanation is also included on page 13 of the local telephone directory.
  4. Yes. Since the introduction of S.T.D. the number of accounts queried by Canberra subscribers has increased from about seven to fourteen per 1,000 accounts issued. It is usual for the number of queried accounts to increase for a period after the introduction of S.T.D., one reason being the inclusion of charges for S.T.D. calls in the amount shown for local calls.
  5. Following the introduction of S.T.D. it was arranged that subscribers’ meters at Canberra be read monthly instead of quarterly. These totals are available to subscribers who have queried their accounts.
  6. All complaints are investigated. Subscribers’ accountsare issued progressively each month and naturally a number of queries are still under investigation.
  7. Yes.
  8. No.
  9. If the meter is found to be operating correctly, the department has no alternative but to request payment of the account in question. Each subscriber is responsible for the payment of all charges for calls originated from his service although some calls may have been made without his knowledge. Subscribers may have control locks fitted to their telephones for a rental of 14s. a year. They may also have statements supplied showing the number of registrations against their services during specifiedperiods. A small charge is made for such statements, which must be requested in advance.
  10. Yes.

Mr.Hayden asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

How many applications for private telephone services were (a) received and (b) provided in each of the years from and including 1952?

Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

Mr Hayden:

n asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

  1. Would a greater number of private telephone subscribers bring about the more economical use of telephone services by creating more traffic at exchanges during off-peak hours?
  2. Is there a deficiency in stocks of equipment held and services provided by his department under the present Government; if so, is the £10 telephone installation-fee imposed to deter many potential subscribers so that the deficiencies of his Department will not berevealed?
  3. Would the abolition of the £10 telephone installation fee mean a very large increase in the number of private subscribers?
  4. Would this in turn mean an increase in revenue due to increased traffic?
  5. Would this increase in revenue offset the loss of revenue due to the abolition of the installation-fee?
Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. An increase in the number of residence telephone subscribers would not necessarily bring about the more economical use of the telephone service. Private subscribers make many of their calls during busy-hour peak traffic periods, and it would be necessary to provide additional exchange equipment to maintain the grade of service during the busy periods. The real problem involved is to increase the calling rates of subscribers during the off-peak hours without affecting the busy-hour load, and this matter is receiving the attention of many telephone administrations throughout the world to-day, including the Australian Post Office. 2. (a) Although resources available to the department do not permit the demand for service to be completely matched, some idea of the good progress being made can be gained from the fact that just on 1,600,000 telephone services have been connected in the past ten years. After allowing for cancellations, this has resulted in the number of services in operation increasing by 798,515 to a total of 1,763,640 at the end of November, 1962. In the same ten year period applications held up as a result of plant shortages were reduced from 96,552 to 31,778 and plans provide for a further substantial reduction to be made this year, (b) The £10 connexion-fee was not introduced to deter prospective telephone subscribers from applying for services. Overall, the Post Office incurs an average capital outlay of £500 to provide each service and, having regard to this substantial expenditure, it is considered to be not unreasonable to require telephone applicants to pay a fee for the connexion of the facilities. It might bo mentioned that most telephone administrations overseas make an installation charge for the provision of telephone services.
  2. It is very doubtful whether abolition of the connexion fee would increase, to any noticeable extent, applications for telephone services in private residences and I think that this view is confirmed by an examination of the application rate in recent years. For example, in the last four financial years, the annual application rate for new services has reached all-time peaks of 148,080 (1958-59), 153,441 (1959-60), 164,081 (1960-61) and 180,859 (1961-62). On the basis of applications received for the five months from 1st July, 1962, to 30th November, 1962, it seems that the record lodgment of 180,859 requests in 1961-62 will be exceeded this financial year. Of the total applications lodged each year, approximately 55% are for services in private homes. 4 and 5. An increase in the number of residence subscribers would lead to some overall increase in traffic. However, the large majority of residence subscribers have extremely low calling rates and, in the main, a telephone service in a home is an uneconomical proposition so far as the Post Office is concerned, since the annual revenue received from the average residence service does not nearly compensate the department for the yearly charges incurred on the installation. Consequently, any slight increase in call revenue resulting from the provision of a greater number residence services would not offset the loss in revenue from discontinuance of the connexion fee.

Postal Services

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

n asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

  1. Is he able to say whether certain business agents are securing large sums of money from advertisers by offering to put what are known as “ Advertising Inserts “ in letters sent out by firms that are not in any way connected with the goods or services advertised by the “Advertising Inserts “ or with the advertising agents or their principals?
  2. Is it a fact that in many cases the “Advertising Inserts” are not in fact posted?
  3. If fraudulent practices of this kind are found to exist, will he move to amend the law in such a way as to make it an offence to advertise in this form?
Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: - 1 and 2. I am not aware of these practices.

  1. If specific details of any particular instance could be furnished, the matter will be fully investigated.

Television Programmes

Mr O’Brien:

n asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

  1. Are there any national stations transmitting television programmes specially for the use of schools for educational purposes and to supplement the normal teaching methods?
  2. If so, from what centres and at what times are the transmissions made?
Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. Yes - the Australian Broadcasting Commission television service in each capital city normally transmits each school day programmes specially prepared for use in schools to supplement normal teaching methods.
  2. In Sydney there are two programmes daily, Monday to Wednesday (11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m.) with three on Thursday (11.30 a.m., 2.15 p.m. and 2.30 p.m.) and one on Friday (2.30 p.m.). In Melbourne, two programmes daily Mondays to Thursdays at 11.15 a.m. and 2.30 p.m., and on Fridays at 2.30 p.m. and 2.50 p.m. In Brisbane, one daily, Monday to Thursday at 2.35 p.m., with two on Fridays at 2.25 p.m. and 2.35 p.m. In Adelaide, one daily, Monday to Friday at 2.30 p.m., with an extra programme on Tuesday at 2.50. p.m. In Perth, one daily at 2.30 p.m., Monday to Friday, with additional sessions at 3 p.m. on Monday and Thursday. In Hobart, one daily at 3 p.m., Monday to Friday. Plans are in hand to increase this output during the 1963 school year.

Postal Department

Mr Jones:

s asked the Postmaster-General, upon notice -

  1. How many (a) permanent and (b) exempt linesmen are employed in each State by his department?
  2. Why is it necessary to have so many exempt linesmen?
  3. Why does not the department, after a period of employment of twelve months, permanently appoint all exempt linesmen who are medically fit and who pass the necessary examination?
Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answers to the honorable member’s questions are as follows: -

  1. In the pre-war period when the mobility of the staff was limited, it was the practice in country areas to engage exempt linemen for the duration of a project and to dispose with their services upon its completion. This led to a basic organization of permanent linemen and a varying staff of exempt linemen. Over more recent yeaTS the staff has become more mobile and its effectiveness has been greatly increased by the use of machines. As a result the proportion of permanent staff has steadily increased to the present level of approximately 60 per cent., including supervisory officers. Action to increase this figure will continue but provision must be made for competent exempt linemen who cannot pass the qualifying examination or who are unwilling to contest it, and also for casual workers employed in seasonal industries who are employed by the department in the off season periods.
  2. The Public Service Act provides for effective permanent appointment only where there is an existing vacant permanent position. Positions are created where there is evidence of a long-term need for such positions and to meet the local staffing requirements mentioned above. Examinations for appointment to vacant positions are held as required and as many vacancies as possible filled with successful candidates. Sometimes prospective appointees among these candidates are unwilling to take up duty at centres where vacancies exist. Unless they do, however, they cannot be appointed because if such a candidate were only nominally appointed to a centre but continued to work at another centre, the oppor tunity for appointment would be denied to exempt staff at the appointment centre.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

n asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice -

  1. Will he review the recent decision to increase bouse rentals payable by Postmaster-General’s Department employees in country centres of South Australia with a view to having these rentals fixed at 10 per cent, of salary received, as is the case with rental charges to postmasters?
Mr Davidson:
CP

– The answer to the honorable member’s question is as follows: -

  1. The occupants of dwellings owned by the Post Office are charged a rental assessed on either of two bases. In instances where the officer concerned has some incidental obligation of supervision or general control over personnel or property, as in the case of postmasters, 10 per cent, of the officer’s salary is charged. Where no such responsibility is required of the occupant, the rental is assessed on what is called an “ economic “ basis, which has regard to capital costs. The increased rentals referred to, flowed from a Treasury decision, to be applied on a Commonwealth basis, to increase the interest component in the economic rental assessment formula, in respect of houses built during certain periods. Authority for rental deductions is contained in section 89 of the Public Service Act. The 10 per cent, of salary basis is specifically provided in that act as being appropriate where the incidental obligation relating to supervision over personnel or property is present; the economic rental formula is the result of a Cabinet decision of many years’ standing. The occupants of the residences under reference in South Australia, do not have any incidental obligation of supervision over personnel or property and thus do not qualify for the application of the 10 per cent, salary rental basis.

Universities.

Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– On 3rd October, 1962, in reply to a question by the honorable member for Werriwa (Mr. Whitlam) relating to the total number of students and the number of new students enrolled at Australian universities in 1961 and’ 1962, I indicated that returns from some universities for 1962 had not yet been received. Returns from these universities, except Monash, have now come to hand. In addition it has been found that the figures given for the total number of students enrolled at New England University in 1962 and the number of new students enrolled at the Australian National University in 1962 were incorrect.

The following figures, which are subject to revision, represent the total number of students and the number of new students enrolled either full time or part time at each Australian University in 1962: -

Provision of Flags.

Sir Robert Menzies:
LP

– The honorable member for Swan (Mr. Cleaver) asked me, on 11th October, 1962, if I would have my department investigate the possibility of extending to Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and other youth organizations, the present practice of issuing Australian National Flags to schools in Australia. I agree with the honorable member’s sentiment with regard to developing respect for the National Flag, and I am pleased to inform him that I have approved the extension of the scheme to Boy Scout and Girl Guide groups, recognized youth organizations and orphanages. Action will be taken as soon as possible to give effect to this decision and requests for the free issue of the flag should, in the meantime, be addressed to my department.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 26 March 1963, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1963/19630326_reps_24_hor38/>.

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