House of Representatives
13 October 1971

27th Parliament · 2nd Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 27th Parliament
  3. 1971

Mr SPEAKER (Hon. Sir William Aston) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 2233

PETITIONS

Kangaroos

Mr WENTWORTH:
Minister for Social Services · MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia humbly pray that the Government of this country will:

Ban the shooting of kangaroos for commercial purposes. (No animal can withstand hunting on such a concentrated scale as exists under present legislation.)

Ban the export of all kangaroo products from Australia.

Prevent the extinction of the red kangaroo. (The red kangaroo has been reduced to a numerical level where its survival is in jeopardy.)

Institute a scientific survey of the kangaroo population.

Establish large national parks of good quality land as major tourist attractions.

Take control of and be completely responsible for the management of Australia’s wildlife.

Petition received.

Pakistan: Return of Refugees from India

Mr CHIPP:
Minister for Customs and Excise · HOTHAM, VICTORIA · LP

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of residents ofVictoria, respectfully sheweth:

That the Australian Government grant a further $10m immediate aid to the East Pakistani refugees in India. Your petitioners also humbly pray that the Australian Government take the initiative in urging the instatement of Sheik Mujibur Rahman as the elected leader of his people and the creating of a political climate which will enable the refugees now in India to make a speedy, safe return to their own country.

And we your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Monetary Aid for Pakistan’s Refugees

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– I present the following petition:

To The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully sheweth:

That death from mass starvation and disease is occurring among Pakistan’s refugees on a scale unprecedented in modern history.

That, as part of the world community, the Australian Government has an immediate responsibility for concerted action.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, should:

Increase monetary aid for the refugees to at least$5m immediately, even if this entails reduced spending in other areas.

Encourage and sponsor teams of volunteers with needed skills and medical supplies.

Maintain all this aid for as long as the crisis persists.

And your petitioners as in dutybound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Monetary Aid to Pakistan’s Refugees

Mr GARRICK:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully sheweth:

That death from mass starvation and disease is occurring among Pakistan’s refugees on a scale unprecedented in modern history.

That, as part of the world community, the Australian Government has an immediate responsibility for concerted action.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, should:

Increase monetary aid for the refugeesto at least$5m immediately, even if this entails reduced spending in other areas.

Encourage and sponsor teams of volunteers with needed skills and medical supplies.

Maintain all this aid for as long as the crisis persists.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education

Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

That the Australian Education Council’s report on the needs of State education services has established serious deficiencies in education.

That these can be summarised as lack of classroom accommodation, desperate teacher shortage, oversized classes and inadequate teaching aids.

That the additional sum of one thousand million dollars is required over the next five years by the States for these needs.

Thatwithout massive additional Federal finance the Slate school system will disintegrate.

That the provisions of the Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970 should be amended to include all the country’s physically and mentally handicapped children.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to ensure that emergency finance from the Commonwealth will be given to the States for their public education services which provide schooling for seventy-eight per cent of Australia’s children.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Education

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

  1. That the Australian Education Council’s report on the needs of State education services has established serious deficiencies in education.
  2. That these can be summarised as lack of classroom accommodation, desperate teacher shortage, oversized classes and inadequate teaching aids.
  3. That the additional sum of one thousand million dollars is required over the next 5 years by the States for these needs.
  4. That without massive additional Federal finance the State school system will disintegrate.
  5. That the provisions of the Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970 should be amended to include all the country’s physically and mentally handicapped children.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to:

Ensure that emergency finance from the Commonwealth will be given to the States for their public education services which provide schooling for seventy-eight per cent of Australia’s children.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education

Mr CONNOR:
CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition.

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

  1. That the Australian Education Council’s report on the needs of State education services has established serious deficiencies in education.
  2. That these can be summarised as lack of classroom accommodation, desperate teacher shortage, oversized classes and inadequate teaching aids.
  3. That the additional sum of one thousand million dollars is required over the next 5 years by the States for these needs.
  4. That without massive additional Federal finance the State school system will disintegrate.
  5. That the provisions of the Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970 should be amended’ to include all the country’s physically and mentally handicapped children.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to:

Ensure that emergency finance from the Commonwealth will be given to the States for their public education services which provide schooling for seventy-eightper cent of Australia’s children. And your petitioners, as in dutybound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education

Mr REYNOLDS:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

  1. That the Australian Education Council’s report on the needs of State education services has established serious deficiencies in education.
  2. That these can be summarised as lack of classroom accommodation, desperate teacher shortage, oversized classes and inadequate teaching aids.
  3. That the additional sum of one thousand million dollars is required over the next 5 years by the States for these needs.
  4. That without massive additional Federal finance the State school system will disintegrate.
  5. That the provisions of the Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970 should be amended to include all the country’s physically and mentally handicapped children.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the

House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to:

Ensure that emergency finance from the Commonwealth will be given to the States for their public education services which provide schooling for seventy-eight per cent of Australia’s children. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education

Mr GRASSBY:
RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES

-I present the following petition from citizens of the Riverina:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

  1. That the Australian Education Council’s report on the needs of State education services has established serious deficiencies in education.
  2. That these can be summarised as lack of classroom accommodation, desperate teacher shortage, oversized classes and inadequate teaching aids.
  3. That the additional sum of one thousand million dollars is required over the next five years by the States for these needs
  4. That without massive additional Federal finance the State school system will disintegrate.
  5. Thatthe provisions of the Handicapped Children’s Assistance Act 1970 should be amended to include all the country’s physically and mentally handicapped children.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to:

Ensure that emergency finance from the Commonwealth will be given to the States for their public education services which provide schooling for seventy-eight per cent of Australia’s children.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Aid to India and East Pakistan

Mr REID:
HOLT, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

It is obvious the people of Australia are vitally concerned about the welfare of some 9 million East Pakistan refugees that have crossed the border into India. Also they are equally concerned about the desperate plight of millions of displaced persons in East Pakistan, many of whom are worse off than the refugees, as they are not even receiving relief supplies. The involvement of the Australian is evidenced by their willingness to contribute substantial funds to voluntary agencies to assist their work in these countries.

As some twenty million refugees and displaced persons are today facing acute problems of hunger and privation - nutrition and child family problems - ultimate famine and death on an unprecedented scale - the Commonwealth Government must plan to come to their assistance in a more sacrificial way.

Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray that in tackling these great human problems in Bengal, by far the greatest this century, the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, will request that a special meeting of Cabinet be called to provide $10m for relief purposes in India and East Pakistan, and a further $50m over three years to help rehabilitate the refugees in East Pakistan.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Taxation: Donations for Overseas Relief

Mr KING:
Assistant Minister assisting the Minister for Primary Industry · WIMMERA, VICTORIA · CP

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully sheweth:

That death from mass starvation and disease is occurring among Pakistan’s refugees on a scale unprecedented in modern history.

That, as part of the world community, the Australian Government has an immediate responsibility for concerted action.

Your petitioners most humbly pray:

That the Government grant income tax deduction for donation over $2 made towards the relief of overseas disaster area.

That this be effected with haste to ensure the maximum possible aid to those at present in refugee camps and those in danger of famine in East Pakistan.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Aid to India and East Pakistan

Mr CONNOR:

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth respectfully sheweth:

That the immediate prospect in East Bengal is of mass starvation on a scale unprecedented in modern times.

That only quick settlement of the Bangla DeshPakistan conflict will make it possible to avert the death of many millions.

We therefore urge the Honourable Members to:

Raise to $10m Australian aid to refugees now in India from East Pakistan.

Support all efforts to guarantee the fully autonomous development of the people of Bangla Desh.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Additional Aid for Pakistani Refugees

Mr HAMER:
ISAACS, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition ofresidents of Mordialloc and Parkdale in Victoria, respectfully sheweth:

That the new Australian grant of $1.5m to Pakistan refugees in India is completely inadequate and does not recognise the true value of the situation. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will immediately grant a further $10m in aid to Pakistan refugees and use all diplomatic channels available to urge the creation of a political climate in East Pakistan which will enable the nine million refugees in India to return to their homeland.

And we your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Lock-Kimba Pipeline

Mr WALLIS:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the electors of Grey respectfully sheweth:

That strong resentment exists amongst members of the Kimba district and surrounding areas at the failure of the Federal Government to assist financially with the construction of the LockKimba pipe line in South Australia.

Failure to have the pipe line constructed in the shortest possible time could place many farmers in the area in a position that will make it impossible to diversify their activities into more viable areas of rural production.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that -

The Federal Government re-examine its decision in order that the completion of the Lock-Kimba pipe line can be expedited andby doing so alleviate the hardships experienced in the area by lack of an available and reticulated water supply.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Telecommunication Divisional Office at Parkes

Mr ENGLAND:
CALARE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. Whereasthe Postmaster-General in a statement to Parliament has decreed that the telecommunication divisions of Parkes, Bathurst and Dubbo (with minor alteration) are to be amalgamated in one area, we, the citizens of the community of Parkes, respectfully submit that:

  1. If the present staff employed in the telecommunication division in Parkes is transferred from this town, grievous harm will result to this community, inasmuch as the removal of any personnel from the Parkes area will further depress the already straitened circumstances in this town.
  2. The resultant loss of spending power due to the removal of families from Parkes will result in a progressive reduction in the work force in service industries and commerce enforcing a movement of more people to the already over-crowded cities.
  3. The removal of staff from Parkes is in direct conflict with the stated policies of the Commonwealth Department of National Development and the State Department of Decentralisation and Industrial Development
  4. The movement of these people will further increase the already, over-taxed demand for services in the cities, leaving redundant existing services established in Parkes.
  5. The destruction of balanced employment and job opportunities for Higher School Certificate holders will eventually result in the enforced loss of many of the community’s potential leadens.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

  1. That Parliament take note of the evil effects of the closing of a divisional office in Parkes, and
  2. That Parliament appoint Parkes to be the headquarters of the area above.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Contraceptives

Mr MORRISON:
ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the Sales Tax on all forms of Contraceptive Devices is 27½ per cent. (Sales Tax Exemptions and Classifications Act 1935-1967). Also that there is Customs Duty of up to 47½ per cent on some Contraceptive Devices.

And that this is an unfair imposition on the human rights of all people who wish to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And furthermore that this imposition discriminates particularly against people on low incomes.

Your petitioners therefore humbly, pray that the Sales Tax on all forms of Contraceptive Devices be removed, so as to bring these items into line with other necessities such as food, upon which there is no Sales Tax. Also that Customs Duties be removed, and that all Contraceptive Devices be placed on the National Health Scheme Pharmaceutical Benefits List.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Contraceptives

Mr WEBB:
STIRLING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Membersof the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of citizensof the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the Sales Tax on all forms of Contraceptive Devices is 27½ per cent (Sales Tax Exemption and Classifications Act 1935-1967). Also that there is Customs Duty of up to 47½ per cent on some Contraceptive Devices.

And that this is an unfair imposition on the human rights of all people who wish to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And furthermore that this imposition discriminates particularly against people on low incomes.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Sales Tax on all forms of Contraceptive Devices be removed, so as to bring these items into line with other necessities such as food, upon which there is no Sales Tax. Also that Customs Duties be removed, and that all Contraceptive Devices be placed on the National Health Scheme Pharmaceutical Benefits List.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education: Australian Capital Territory Authority

Mr ENDERBY:

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of residents of the Division of the Australian Capital Territory respectfully showeth -

That there is a likelihood that education in the Australian Capital Territory will in the foreseeable future be made independent of the New South Wales education system:

That the decentralisation of education systems throughout Australia is educationally and administratively desirable, and is now being studied by several Stale Government Departments:

That the Australian Capital Territory is a homogeneous and coherent unit especially favourable for such studies.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that a Committee of Enquiry, on which are represented the Department of Education and Science, institutions of tertiary education, practicing educators, and the Canberra community, be instituted to enquire into the form that an Australian Capital Territory Education Authority should take, the educational principles and philosophy that should underly it, and its mode of operation and administration.

And your petitioners, as in duty hound. will ever pray.

Petition received.

page 2237

QUESTION

INTERNATIONAL AID

Mr GARRICK:

– My question is addressed to the Prime Minister, although it should concern the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Education and Science. I ask the right honourable gentleman: What would be his response to a letter from a very gravely concerned young school pupil, which reads:

Dear Mr Garrick, Please tell the Government some people in Australia are starving themselves because it is not sending enough money–

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honourable gentleman’s question is out of order. He should ask a question, not read letters.

Mr GARRICK:

– I asked a question. 1 asked: What is the Prime Minister’s response to this letter?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Yes, but I think the honourable member then asked the Prime Minister for an expression of opinion. I suggest that he ask his question in broader terms. I will give him time to consider it and call him later during question time.

page 2237

QUESTION

OVERSEAS INVESTMENT IN AUSTRALIAN ASSETS

Mr HUGHES:
BEROWRA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister for the Interior. Have reports come to the Minister’s notice that a prospectus inviting the subscription of equity capital in certain Northern Territory properties in which Sir William Gunn is interested is on issue in New York but cannot be issued in Australia? Can the Minister confirm these reports? If the reports be correct will the Minister seek the advice of the Attorney-General as to whether legislative action can be taken to reinforce in any such case the Government’s policy that overseas investment in Australian assets should, where possible, be accompanied by Australian equity participation? Will the Minister do whatever he can to ensure that this principle is upheld and that persons in the position of Sir William Gunn are not allowed free rein to sell large parcels of the Northern Territory to overseas investors without giving equal access to such investment to Australian investors?

Mr HUNT:
Minister for the Interior · GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I have seen the Press reports referred to by the honourable member.I also saw a conflicting report in the ‘Australian’ of Monday, 11th October 1971. 1 think it stated that Australians can invest in this project. I willhowever seek the advice of the Attorney-General along the lines suggested by the honourable member.

page 2237

QUESTION

PROJECTED INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION: SELECT COMMITTEE OR ROYAL COMMISSION

Mr WHITLAM:

– I ask a question of the Prime Minister. Has the right honourable gentleman noted the editorial view in today’s Sydney ‘Daily Telegraph’ that the way lies open for the Government to get together with the Opposition to set up a working committee drawn from both sides of the House and get down to proposals for industrial legislation which is acceptable to both parties? If so, does he support the proposal of the ‘Daily Telegraph’? Instead or as well, does he support the suggestion last May by the Industrial Registrar, Dr Ian Sharp, that a joint CommonwealthState royal commission or commission of inquiry be instituted to examine the whole question of industrial relations in this country?

Mr MCMAHON:
Prime Minister · LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I have not read the editorial in today’s ‘Daily Telegraph’ and consequently I cannot comment on it. But I can give the honourable gentleman this assurance: We have for some time been preparing industrial legislation which we will take to the Cabinet and then to my party room. As soon as this is done we will present a Bill to the House when it will be available for comment and the Opposition will be able to take up, I hope, an attitude in complete support of what we are doing.

page 2238

QUESTION

TARIFF BOARD

Mr KELLY:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Trade and Industry. Is the Minister aware of a campaign to debase the reputation of the Tariff Board on the ground that the Board is employing consultants on a part-time basis? Does not the Minister’s own Department employ consultants on a part-time basis as the need arises? Is the Minister aware that the organisation leading this campaign is none other than the Australian Industries Development Association which itself energetically sponsored the idea of part-time membership of the Tariff Board a year or two ago? Can it be that AIDA believes that the employment of part-time people in the Tariff Board area is acceptable only if AIDA has a considerable say as to who is appointed in a part-time capacity.

Mr ANTHONY:
Deputy Prime Minister · RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– There has been quite a lot of conjecture in the Press about a dissenting report from the Tariff Board. I do not know whether there is any campaign but people are certainly allowed to have different points of view. I have also heard a lot of people defending the Tariff Board, as I did the other night in this House by saying that I believe that, generally speaking, it does a very good job. But I do not want to enter into this issue of the dissenting report. I have mentioned before in the House that some legal questions are involved because the dissenting report says the practice is contrary to the Tariff Board Act, but until I have a decision from the Attorney-General as to whether or not it is legal I refuse to make any comment. It is true that my Department, as do many other government departments, has outside consultants helping it in making recommendations and giving advice to the Government, but whether it is possible to do this within the terms of the Tariff Board Act will depend very much on the verdict of the AttorneyGeneral’s Department.

page 2238

QUESTION

NATIONAL TELEVISION AND FILM TRAINING SCHOOL

Mr SHERRY:
FRANKLIN, TASMANIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts. I ask: Is it a fact that the recommendation of the film committee of the Australian Council for the Arts indicated that the capital cost of the establishment of a national television and film training school would be $400,000? If so, how was this figure arrived at? Is it also a fact that the annual running costs .were estimated by the same body as being $200,000? On whose advice was it producing this set of figures? Finally, has the Government received any communication from the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations indicating its total opposition to the establishment of such a school?

Mr HOWSON:
Minister for Environment, Aborigines and the Arts · CASEY, VICTORIA · LP

– As I think I indicated some weeks ago in answer to a question by the Leader of the Opposition, the original report of the film committee of the Australian Council for the Arts indicated figures somewhat similar to those quoted by the honourable member. That was the report on which the original decision to set up an Interim Council for a film and television training school was based. The Interim Council then prepared a report, the details of which have also been given to the House by me. In doing so I indicated the difference between the original estimate and the actual estimate after the Interim Council had considered the matter in greater detail. It was on those figures that the Government considered the whole proposal and decided that, for the time being, the proposal be deferred because of the financial stringency at present Last week the Prime Minister asked me to get together as quickly as possible all the facts about the proposal so that they can be re-examined by the Government at a time when the financial stringency is not as great as it is at the present time. In regard to the last part of the honourable member’s question, I have not yet received a report, but if one does come to me I shall be interested to learn about it. 1 shall also consider it along the lines of all the other matters I am getting together at the present time.

page 2239

QUESTION

MEAT

Mr HALLETT:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– 1 address a question to the Minister for Trade and Industry. 1 believe that a contract was signed with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the supply of a substantial quantity of meat from Australia in 1971. Will the Minister inform the House of the latest position regarding the fulfilment of this contract?

Mr ANTHONY:
CP

– The Australian Meat Board did sign a contract on behalf of exporters with the Russian importing authority for 58,000 tons of meat this year. That contract was fulfilled in August. The contract consisted of about 33,000 tons of mutton carcasses and the balance in beef quarters. It was worth about $30m altogether. It was the second contract that the Meat Board was able to negotiate with the Soviet Union. Last year the contract was for the supply of a total of about 33,000 tons of meat. As a result of these contracts Russia has grown into a very important market for Australian meat. It is now our second largest market for mutton and our fourth largest market for total meat exports. It is hopeful that we can continue this trade and that there will be another contract for 1972.

page 2239

QUESTION

INTERNATIONAL AID

Mr GARRICK:

– I ask the Prime Minister: What action does the Government anticipate taking in response to hundreds of letters received by honourable members, including one I have received from a child which asks me to tell the Government that some people in Australia are starving themselves because the Government is not sending enough money to the refugees in Pakistan? Does the right honourable gentleman agree that the rapidly growing political maturity being shown by Australian students calls for an early reduction in the voting age?

Mr MCMAHON:
LP

– On the first point raised by the honourable gentleman, it should be known that we in Australia are extremely generous donors to official aid programmes and to aid programmes for the assistance of people in trouble in other parts of the world. Consequently, we decided some time ago that we would make a very substantial grant in order to assist the East Pakistani refugees. Similarly, too, as my colleague the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs announced yesterday, in accordance with conditions which he mentioned at the time, we have agreed to an increased appropriation of $1,500,000. Now, in anyone’s language this can be regarded as fairly generous appropriation of Commonwealth funds for this purpose. Naturally enough, I appreciate what has been said about the views of the young people of this country, but the views of all Australian people have been taken into consideration and we have done what we regard as appropriate under the circumstances.

page 2239

QUESTION

POLLUTION

Mr KILLEN:
MORETON, QUEENSLAND

– I address a question to the Prime Minister. Does his Government acknowledge the fact that difficulties arise insofar as the Commonwealth Parliament possesses no general head of power to legislate with respect to the environment, save that power which may derive from the use of external affairs power? Is this circumstance acknowledged by the Government? Does this mean that the Commonwealth Parliament’s power with respect to environmental issues remains persuasive only? Can the right honourable gentleman give an assurance that, if confronted with indifference to environmental issues by those authorities which have the power to deal with them, this Government will display resolution on the matter even to the point of being accused of centralism?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I think it is probably true that there is no constitutional head of power that permits us to legislate with regard to pollution. Nonetheless the honourable gentleman will know that, as a matter of practical experience, when the expenditure of funds or effort is required and it is in a good cause it would be highly improbable that anyone would challenge the appropriation of funds by the Commonwealth Government for antipollution purposes. I can mention, as an example, what was done in the case of the crown-of-thorns starfish. There we took action. No-one complained. I believe that we obtained an eminently sensible report and one that I think has been accepted without very much complaint from the House. Similarly, too, we have at the moment an inquiry taking place. A former Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales is inquiring into the problems of the Great Barrier Reef. I do not anticipate that we will strike any trouble, but if we do we will make those decisions that we regard as being in the best interests of this country even though we might have no constitutional head of power relating to pollution.

page 2240

QUESTION

PHANTOM AIRCRAFT

Mr BARNARD:
BASS, TASMANIA

– Has the Minister for Defence seen a report in the latest issue of Aviation News’ claiming that more Phantom aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force are definitely on the production line at the McDonnell-Douglas plant in the United States of America? Is the report correct? If so, are the additional Phantoms intended as a replacement for the F111 aircraft? Alternatively, are these Phantoms a reconnaissance version designed to supplement the F111, assuming that the Government takes delivery of that plane?

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

– I have not seen the report to which the honourable gentleman has referred but I can assure him that no decision along the lines he has mentioned has been made by this Government.

page 2240

QUESTION

SHIPPING

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I ask the

Acting Minister for Shipping and Transport whether he will spell out to the House details of the difficulties encountered by his departmental officers in their unsuccessful endeavours to prevent the ‘One and All’ from sailing in southern waters long before it went to Queensland and commenced its disastrous voyage? Can the Minister tell the House whether any national government lacks control over its territorial waters as much as this Government does?

Mr HUNT:
CP

– I do not think it is true to say that there were unsuccessful endeavours on the part of the Department of Shipping and Transport to prevent the ‘One and All’ from sailing. The facts as I understand them are that the ketch was sold in Adelaide in 1970 and it was then thought that the vessel was to be used commercially interstate. A surveyor from the Department of Shipping and Transport inspected the ‘One and All’ and the vessel was considered to be unseaworthy for commercial operations. The owner was informed accordingly. In April 1970 the then owner wrote to the Department stating categorically that the vessel was not to be used commercially but was to be used as a private vessel. Subsequently a voyage as a private craft was made to New South Wales and the Department has had no contact with the owner of the vessel in New South Wales. In October 1970 the owner asked the senior surveyor of the Maritime Services Board of New South Wales for details of the Board’s requirements for vessels carrying passengers for gain. I understand that the owner was given a list of these requirements and told that the vessel had to be slipped. The Department heard nothing further from the owner. With respect to the last part of the question I do not know the answer but I will supply an answer to the honourable member in due course.

page 2240

QUESTION

TRADE

Mr CONNOR:

– I direct a question to the Prime Minister and in so doing preface it by reminding him that in the absence of an Australian counterpart of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry to regulate savage internal Australian producer competition, Japan now imports Australian coal at $12.80 a ton but pays more than $20 a ton for a similar type coal from the United States of America. Is the Prime Minister aware of the squeeze play in the recently released Japanese MITI statement suggesting a curtailment of Japanese imports of coal, minerals and other raw materials from Australia? Will he intervene with appropriate guidelines through a MITI type instrumentality to ensure that Australian coal is sold at world parity prices and accepted in quantities already contracted, thereby calling the Japanese bluff? Will he also ensure that all future contracts with Japan are denominated in Australian instead of United States dollars?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I do not know of the statement mentioned by the honourable gentleman but 1 will discuss the matters he has raised with my colleague, the Minister for National Development, and I will let the honourable member have some comments about them later.

page 2241

QUESTION

ABORIGINAL CHILDREN

Mr CALDER:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

– My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. I refer to an announcement by the Minister for Health concerning the Government’s decision to purchase a motel to be used as a child care centre for Aboriginal children at Alice Springs. Can the Prime Minister inform the House how soon it can be expected that this centre will be ready to receive patients?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– Some months ago I received a letter from, I believe, Rev. Downing, the Chairman of the Ministers Fraternal at Alice Springs, in which he recommended to me that we should purchase a property in order to look after the young Aborigines in Alice Springs. Shortly afterwards 1 discussed the matter with my colleague the Minister for Health. He made a trip to Alice Springs and it was agreed that we would purchase a motel at a cost, I think, of about $275,000. Subsequently we exchanged letters of offer and acceptance and Crown Law officers are now completing the relevant documents so we can proceed rapidly to the completion of the building itself. We have agreed also to the expenditure of $25,000 on reconstruction work, although not a great deal has to be done as yet, to make the motel suitable for occupation by young people.

At the same time I have received a notification from the Public Service Board of a special request by the Department of Health for the provision of 45 extra positions for nurses and other supplementary people in order to man the hospital. Secondly, we have one other pretty important problem, that is, the provision of, I think, about 15 rural nurses to fill the complement of the hospital to provide hygiene, nutritional and other kinds of education for the mothers who might accompany the children and also to educate the children themselves. There will be 45- bed wards and 15 to 17 rooms that can be occupied by the mothers themselves. Regrettably I cannot tell the honourable member the actual date of completion but I think 1 can give him the assurance that I am exerting maximum pressure in order to ensure that these young people in Alice Springs get the best medical attention to which they are entitled.

page 2241

QUESTION

RURAL RECONSTRUCTION

Mr GRASSBY:

– Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware that the Rural Reconstruction Board in New South Wales has already exhausted its funds for this year and has heavily committed itself ahead for primary reconstruction purposes since the Commonwealth legislation was introduced just a few months ago? Have the Minister and his Department received repeated requests to clarify whether he and the Commonwealth Government desire a liberal interpretation of the requirement that applicants should have ‘reasonable prospects for success’? If so, will the Minister, firstly, tell the House whether or not he wants a tough policy administered in relation to applicants, and secondly, what steps he is prepared to take to stop rural reconstruction degenerating to a mere lottery because of a chronic lack of funds?

Mr SINCLAIR:
Minister for Primary Industry · NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I have had some communications with the New South Wales Government about the level of finance available for reconstruction in that State. As I understand it, the New South Wales Government has been given a very substantial percentage of the funds for this financial year that it requested for reconstruction - the total funds to be made available over 4 years. At this stage it has not spent all that money. There is, of course, a basic requirement that as far as possible the allocation should be divided between farm build-up and rural reconstruction. It is known that there have been difficulties in the determination of eligibility for reconstruction funds and I understand that in New South Wales, where the administration is somewhat more advanced than in other States, the difficulty of meeting the criterion is probably more apparent than elsewhere.

As to the basic reasons for reconstruction, I think that during the debate in this House when the whole of the reconstruction proposals were under examination it was accepted that the objective should be to try to enable farmers and rural producers to be given some additional assistance which could only be justified if it were to enable them ultimately to become profitable and to operate in the normal community. At the moment there are very real difficulties for rural industries in Australia and it is those difficulties which, of course, beset those charged with the responsibility of operating a rural reconstruction scheme. I believe that it could well be that within the terms and conditions of the agreement between the Commonwealth and the States, there will need to be some changes and these are to be discussed between Commonwealth and State Ministers in the review to which the Government is committed before the end of this financial year. At the same time, I do not believe that it is possible to come to too early a judgment on how radical these changes might be. This is a matter which must depend on the way in which the scheme is administered in every State. This year the Government has introduced, through the budgetary allocation, $40m of the originally intended amount of $100m, which, was to be allocated over 4 years and I think that in this way it can be shown that the Government is demonstrating its serious concern that this rural reconstruction scheme should be effective.

page 2242

QUESTION

SINKING OF KETCH ‘ONE AND ALL

Mr GORTON:
HIGGINS, VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport and follows upon a question asked by the honourable member for Griffiths concerning the ketch ‘One and AH’. Will the Minister ask his departmental advisers to consider the feasibility, on the assumption that the Commonwealth has sovereignty over the territorial sea, of creating a safety code at Commonwealth level for vessels not engaged in overseas or interstate trade but sailing in and beyond the confines of the territorial sea?

Mr HUNT:
CP

– In Perth in September there was a meeting between the Minister for Shipping and Transport and appropriate State Ministers and at this meeting it was resolved to look into areas where there should be greater co-operation between Commonwealth and the States with respect to a variety of matters, including laws surrounding the sailing of private yachts and pleasure craft in Australian waters.

page 2242

QUESTION

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr WHITLAM:

– Has the Prime Minister observed that, despite his telephone conversation 5 weeks ago with the chief economist of W. D. Scott and Co., that firm remains unrepentant in its views on the economy? Does its Economic Advisory Service predict in its latest bulletin that the actual figure for - unemployment in January will be 140,000, whereas last January the actual figure, including school leavers, was 89,000? Does he agree with the service that the direct reason for this situation is that demand is insufficient to fully employ our resources’? If so, will he take corrective action immediately as the service recommends or will he wait until March when it foresees that, otherwise, a mini-Budget will be necessary?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– It is obvious that the honourable gentleman has read with great care the advice tendered to him by Mr Fred Brenchley of the ‘Financial Review’ and has asked him to become a little more up to date with his economic knowledge than he has ever been before. Referring to the articles of W. D. Scott and Co., I have not read the last article. I have not had the time to do so and, in fact, I found the last few articles not very interesting or informative. What I have found is that they do change a little and that at least two that I have read in recent weeks have followed very closely the Government’s analysis of the position. What I have said in this House, and I have been stressing this point of view since March of this year, is that 1 have bad some feeling that demand is not increasing as rapidly perhaps as might be expected. But I have also pointed out that the potential for demand is extremely great because we find that personal savings have increased by over 64 per cent as compared with last year.

I draw attention to the distinction between deposits in the savings banks and personal savings. Deposits in the savings banks have fallen slightly, but the potential demand including disposable incomes is enormously high. This therefore creates great difficulties so far as potential inflationary pressures are concerned. I think it must be taken without any doubt that the greatest problem we face today is inflationary pressure. If the honourable gentleman in his new wish to find approval from the women of this country asks them what they regard as being the very critical issue he will find that they regard inflation as one of the greatest problems we have to face - one which the Government is facing but with very little or no help from the Opposition.

As to the last part of the honourable gentleman’s question, I would like to remind him that we will have entering the work force over the Christmas period this year about 180,000 people including school leavers and also those from tertiary education institutions. Therefore it will not be practicable to say what the number of registrants for employment for the JanuaryFebruary period might be. We certainly expect a larger number of school leavers than ever before to be registering with the Department of Labour and National Service. But again I emphasise this point to the House and to the Australian nation: We have a twofold objective of full and effective employment together with national development, but at the same time we want to do the maximum in the interests of the Australian people to try to control inflationary pressures. The first objective has priority with us, and we have taken up a flexible position. The Budget gives us ample opportunity for flexibility if we consider it to be necessary. I personally will be watching the figures, and when I feel that the moment has come for something to be done, as in the case of the nursing homes, I will be only too anxious to take action.

page 2243

QUESTION

EDUCATION

Mr GILES:
ANGAS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Is the Minister for Education and Science aware that his colleague, the Minister for Education in South Australia, has said that additional money for education can come from only one source, the Commonwealth? Does he regard this type of statement as being a wildly inaccurate statement of the facts? Is he aware that this remark was made in a letter that went out to all school committees in that State? Finally, does he regard this sort of statement as being an attempt to indoctrinate young people who do not know the facts as they should be known?

Mr Grassby:

– I raise a point of order. The honourable member for Angas would appear, in the terminology of his question, to be asking for a series of expressions of opinion by the Minister. I would suggest with respect that he might be asked to repeat his question to see whether that is exactly the case. If he is asking for a series of expressions of opinion, he is obviously out of order.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member also asked about the availability of Commonwealth funds. I call the Minister for Education and Science.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I have been aware of some of the efforts of the South Australian Minister for Education to persuade people that the Commonwealth is the only source of funds for overcoming the education problems that the States have. I think it is worth noting, as I have pointed out before, that there are 2 ways in which the Commonwealth can assist and is assisting the States in education. One is to have a direct programme of its own of specific grants for specific purposes such as science laboratories, libraries or technical training facilities. Secondly, there is a general method of seeking to build up the States’ own financial resources so that the States, within the allocations they have, can make their own decisions about their own particular priorities. The second method has often been the method most preferred by the State Premiers.

We need to look at what has happened over the last 2 years. The emphasis over those 2 years has clearly been on building up the States’ own financial resources. The additional recurrent funds which are coming from Commonwealth sources to the States to support State Budgets over this 5-year period will be about $3,700m greater than they would have been under the earlier arrangement. That is a considerable sum in anyone’s terms. But these sums are then in the hands of the States for the States to decide how they should in fact be spent. In addition, since that decision was made, payroll tax has been transferred to the States and I think that most, if not all, States, have indicated an intention to raise additional revenue by that tax.

When the Survey of Needs was formulated, the State Ministers and the State departments made an assumption that the State recurrent funds would increase by 10 per cent a year. In fact since then they have increased at a much greater rate than that. To the extent that they have increased by a greater rate than that, the alleged shortfall in their statement of needs will be reduced. This year State education budgets have increased by 17 per cent over the whole of Australia. That is a very substantial increase indeed. For the South Australian Budget, the increase in expenditure in the area covered by the Survey of Needs - I refer to the primary, secondary and teacher training areas - has been much nearer 30 per cent than 17 per cent, which is a very significant increase in expenditure in one year. I do not know at what rate the South Australian Minister thinks it is reasonable or proper to be able to increase funds. It is a question not only of making funds available but also of the proper employment of those funds.

I wish to- add one final brief point. It is a quotation from the South Australian Premier. Thi?, quotation comes from the public transcript of the Premiers Conference held in June 1970. When talking about the Survey of Needs, Mr Dunstan had this to say:

It is essential that the greatest possible flexibility be left to a State to determine the real priorities within education and to allocate funds accordingly in line with the needs to meet its own particular problems. I have outlined earlier today -

This is the Premier of South Australia speaking:

  1. . the necessity for far more flexibility in dealing with funds for education.

I emphasise the words ‘far more flexibilty The Commonwealth has gone to the maximum in giving the States maximum flexibility, and has concentrated in the last 2 years on building up recurrent funds. This gives Mr Dunstan the flexibility that he wants. Therefore Mr Hudson might direct some of his remarks to Mr Dunstan.

Mr Hayden:

– I ask that the Minister table the document from which he has just quoted.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– It is a public document.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The Minister is not claiming that the document is a confidential one in any way.

Mr Hayden:

– That is why he should table it.

Mr SPEAKER:

-If it is a public document, it would be available.

Mr Hayden:

– I am not aware that it is a public document.

Mr Whitlam:

– It has never been tabled here.

Mr SPEAKER:

-It may not have been tabled, but I understand that it is a transcript from an open meeting. That makes it a public document.

Mr Whitlam:

– Why not make it a document of this Parliament?

Mr Hayden:

– Yes.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Here it is. I table the document.

page 2244

QUESTION

OVERSEAS VISIT BY MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRY

Dr PATTERSON:
DAWSON, QUEENSLAND

– Is the Prime Minister aware that major sectors of primary industry are now experiencing the worst financial crisis since the great depression 40 years ago and that even more serious problems will be experienced in the immediate future as conditions worsen and unemployment grows in country areas? Is it true that the right honourable gentleman has agreed to the Minister for Primary Industry going overseas for at least 2 months to attend a meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, of which I believe he will be the Chairman? Of all the Ministers in the Government, it is the Minister for Primary Industry most of all who should be in Australia in the immediate future because of the rural crisis and in view of his ministerial responsibilities. Is this not an act of stupidity as well as a blatant contempt of the rural crisis?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– In a matter that is as serious as this - and it should be treated seriously - I regret that such offensive language should be used by the honourable gentleman. I think that we on this side of the House do understand the difficulties of the rural community, and we do not, like the honourable gentleman has done, go to other parts of the world in an attempt to prejudice our opportunities. My colleague did make an application to me for approval to go to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, of which he will be Chairman, and I have approved. I think that not only is it an honour to this country, but it is a very great honour to him. I personally believe that he is an excellent Minister and well worthy of his position in the Commonwealth Cabinet. But what has to be said is that we have his distinguished colleagues here, particularly the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Shipping and Transport and the Minister for the Interior, representing rural industries. I have no doubt whatsoever that they will be able to handle the difficulties associated with his portfolio, as will the other members of Cabinet.

As to our recognition of the difficulties of primary industries, I remind the honourable member that so far as the major one is concerned, that is wool, we have agreed to deficiency payments. We also have our arrangements regarding wheat, sugar and other primary commodities. I contrast this with what I believe to be the policy of other parties which agree that primary industries should stand on their own feet. Having said all that, I believe it is right and appropriate that my colleague should go overseas, and I strongly support him in the activities in which he will be engaged.

page 2245

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Dr PATTERSON:
Dawson

- Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Dr PATTERSON:

– Yes, grossly so. The Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) just stated that I went overseas and when doing so prejudiced the name of this country. The only time that I have been overseas since being a member of Parliament has been the recent trip to the People’s Republic of China. Far from prejudicing this country, I would like to point out to the Prime Minister that whilst in China I did everything possible to further trade and the good name of Australia in China. For this information, I have been thanked many, many times - as recently as yesterday - by leading businessmen and by leaders of primary industry in Australia for my efforts in China.

page 2245

AIR NAVIGATION ACT

Mr SWARTZ:
Minister for National Development · Darling Downs · LP

– Pursuant to section 29 of the Air Navigation Act 1920- 1966, I present the eleventh annual report of the administration and working of the Act and regulations and on other matters concerning civil air navigation.

page 2245

CITIZENSHIP ACT

Mr LYNCH:
Minister for Labour and National Service · Flinders · LP

– Pursuant to section 42 of the Citizenship Act 1948- 1969, I present the annual return of persons granted certificates of Australian citizenship for the year ended 30th June 1971.

page 2245

QUESTION

SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS

Mr SCHOLES:
Corio

– I move:

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member is in fact moving a motion to suspend the Standing Orders, is he?

Mr SCHOLES:

– Yes. The only way in which a matter of this nature can be dealt with by this House is for the Standing Orders to be suspended. There are no realistic provisions in the Standing Orders for matters of this nature to be brought forward and voted upon. 1 believe that the suspension of the Standing Orders will enable this House to express an opinion on a matter about which I think the majority of the members of this House feel very strongly. The Government believes its level of aid is sufficient. It is my opinion that the majority of honourable members do not and because of that, because of the very serious plight of the refugees and because of the extreme urgency of this matter I ask honourable members to give serious consideration to the motion and vote for the suspension of Standing Orders, which is the only method that will enable honourable members to express an opinion on a matter of this type and to indicate as members of the Federal Parliament exactly what our feelings are on this matter and what action we feel the Government should take.

  1. do not intend to delay the House any further. 1 think this is a matter of substance and I think it is a matter which the Parliament should express an opinion upon. I believe it is a matter on which honourable members should have sufficient courage to vote for the motion and so enable this Parliament to express an opinion. We cannot under the Standing Orders move for an allocation of money. This is the prerogative of the Governor-General. However, we do have a responsibility to express our opinion as members of the Federal Parliament. I have moved for the suspension of the Standing Orders so that it can be placed quite clearly on the record that this House believes that the level of aid which is at present being provided is not sufficient and should be increased by the amount stated in the motion.
Mr SPEAKER:

-Is the motion seconded?

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I second the motion. I feel it is high time that this House was given the opportunity to consider al) the humanitarian questions involved with this enormous problem which has beset the people of East Pakistan. One cannot, of course, canvass all the aspects of this problem today, nor would one want to, because the proper thing to do is to provide an opportunity so that honourable members from both sides of this House can give to a problem of this magnitude the attention that is its due. Having just come from refugee camps in Calcutta and having just returned from the international conference on Bangla Desh which was held in New Delhi, I would like to say that I personally regard this matter to be probably the greatest demeaning of humanity which the world has ever known. Some people who know the position very thoroughly have contended that it is of such proportions that it makes Vietnam look like a Sunday school picnic. The regrettable thing is that despite the magnitude of the crisis at this point of time there is every indication that it will deteriorate even further because, despite the aid which has been provided by this and other countries-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member knows that this is a motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders. The honourable member cannot debate the reasons for providing aid or otherwise in speaking to this motion. The debate is fairly limited.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Thank you, Mr Speaker. I certainly would not want to strain our relationship in this matter at all. It is not necessary for me to add that experts are predicting that in the near future there is bound to be a famine which will sweep through East Pakistan. So it is not just a question of proposing to discuss the plight of the refugees in camps but it is also a question of proposing to discuss the need for political solutions in East Pakistan. Unless this is achieved there will be no effective amelioration of this great tragedy. I compliment the honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) for bringing up this matter because it is very clear that this and other countries have up to this point of time failed to make adequate resources available. The proposal is that we should give consideration to the honourable member’s suggestion that an allocation of $1 per head of the Australian population should be expended. If this motion is carried and the Standing Orders are suspended we will doubtless have an opportunity to discuss a fair and equitable means by which this country at large can make its contribution so that everybody may participate through the proceeds of uniform taxation.

I certainly hope that this matter does receive consideration because there has probably been no other issue about which honourable members have been so inundated with correspondence from people who have heartfelt concern for humanity. Hundreds of letters are pouring into this Parliament every day and as we are about to enter this House we can see the great sacrifice being made by students who have been fasting for some days for the express purpose of causing something to happen of the kind which the honourable member for Corio is proposing should happen. I think that in consideration of that sacrifice the Government, despite the traditions of the Parliament, despite the fact that it is usually contended that the Government has to be in charge of proceedings and things of this kind, ought to concede the point. If necessary the honourable member for Corio would be prepared to withdraw his motion and allow some

Government supporter to move it if we were assured that this question would be ventilated. We do not want to get involved in any pedanticisms about a matter which affects humanity to the extent that this issue does. The demeaning of so many millions of people is in fact a demeaning of every one of us if we continue in the indifferent way that has characterised our behaviour up to date.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) who is sitting at the table, is not an ungenerous man. He is a man who can have regard for humanity. I hope that the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) will back him up if he decides to provide today an opportunity for the Parliament to apply itself to all the ramifications of this issue. If there is to be some resistance to this proposal - and I certainly hope there will not be - it may be that the Minister out of the goodness of his heart or the Prime Minister out of the qualities of his own leadership might be prepared to say. ‘We cannot do it today because we want to get a Bill through but we will give an assurance that it will be done tomorrow.’ The Opposition does not want to play party politics. It wants to make common cause on this and extract an assurance from the representatives of Australia that we will give to the people of Pakistan - this great mass of suffering humanity - the consideration which ought to be characteristic of the hearts of Australians.

Mr SWARTZ:
Minister for National Development · Darling Downs · LP

– The matter that has been raised today is one that does strike a responsive chord, I am sure, in everyone in this House. I would like to emphasise the point that this matter is one which has received very careful consideration by the Government, particularly over recent months. I can assure the House also that Government back benchers, particularly the honourable member for Holt (Mr Reid), have raised this matter consistently and as a result, particularly because of the activity of the honourable member for Holt, a statement was made in the House by the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Sinclair) indicating that some additional assistance is being provided. This assistance is in addition to other action that has been taken to assist in this field where so much help is needed and where so much sympathy is felt throughout the world. In addition to the statement which was made recently by the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) and responded to by the Opposition there have also been quite a number of questions in relation to this matter. Petitions have also been presented and individual submissions have been made on behalf of these refugees by, as I said, the honourable member for Holt and others. The Government is fully aware of the problem. In fact, it has consistently over recent times given consideration to it. As I have already pointed out, the Government only recently made a further gesture in this field by providing additional assistance.

The proposed suspension of the Standing Orders is not directly related to the matter of assistance to these refugees, which has been raised in this House on a number of occasions already- The honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) is aware that a private member has an opportunity to raise such a matter under general business. Indeed he has indicated his intention of doing so by giving notice of motion. That opportunity is available to any honourable member. The honourable member knows the procedure and proposes to take advantage of it.

Aid to Pakistan refugees was discussed recently in this House when a further gesture of assistance was made by the Government. I must point out that there are matters of great importance to be dealt with today. The Opposition has already indicated that it wishes to proceed with the debate on the National Health Bill 1971, which deals with matters which are of vital concern to so many people in this country. That Bill is of importance to honourable members on both sides of the House. As has already been indicated, it has to be dealt with today. Much as the Government appreciates the thoughts that have been expressed by the honourable member for Corio and bis desire to bring this matter before the House again, in view of the fact that it has already been discussed and that a number of opportunities have been made available to honourable members to raise it, the Government cannot accept this motion for the suspension of the Standing Orders. I move:

Question put. The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston)

AYES: 53

NOES: 48

Majority . . . . 5

AYES

NOES

In Division

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The question is out of order. The honourable member cannot ask at this stage whether something is true.

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Mr SPEAKER:

– The question now is that the motion moved by the honourable member for Corio be agreed to.

Mr Scholes:

– Could the motion be read, Mr Speaker?

Mr SPEAKER:

– It reads:

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the honourable member for Corio moving forthwith the motion relating to aid to Pakistan of which he gave notice yesterday.

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Scholes’s) be agreed to.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston)

AYES: 48

NOES: 53

Majority . .5

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 2249

NATIONAL HEALTH BILL 1971

(No. 2)

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 12 October (vide page 2172), on motion by Mr Swartz:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley

– 1 move:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to inserting the following words in place thereof: while not opposing the second reading of the Bill, the House is of opinion that:

the Commonwealth nursing home policy is unsatisfactory because of:

its costliness to patients and their families, and

an inadequate provision of alternative forms of accommodation and domiciliary services;

the system of voluntary insurance for medical services is on the point of collapse because of:

the failure of subsidised medical benefits for low income earners,

widespread non-observance of the most common fee, and

the spiralling cost of medical insurance through the wasteful use of funds, and

pharmaceutical benefits should be provided at no cost to the patient’.

The proposed changes to the National Health Bill put to this Parliament by the Government have the following effects: They will penalise the sick, especially the chronically sick, for their misfortune; in future essential drugs will be twice as dear to them when prescribed under the national health scheme. The changes aim at legitimising again the unconscionable plundering of taxpayers’ money and contributors’ funds in health insurance schemes in an effort to camouflage the fraudulent nature of the Government’s grotesque voluntary health insurance programme. The changes gloss over the 96 per cent failure of the Government’s subsidised health insurance programme and the need for a regular adjustment of the income groupings which draw on benefits under the scheme. They avoid mention of the 20 per cent and growing failure of the common fee concept. Nowhere do they consider preventive medicine and they ignore totally a national dental health programme.

The Government seemingly is unaware of the pressing needs for Commonwealth initiatives in the development of an adequate public hospital system backed by community public health services, including paramedical services. No effort is made to ensure universal coverage under the medical and hospital insurance scheme and the proposed changes vary certain key recommendations of the Nimmo report. The Government parasiticially draws on doctors alone to subsidise the pensioner medical service and maintains discrimination against mutual help in the form of friendly societies. The proposed changes challenge and undermine the authority of parliament, are gratuitously offensive to the chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits, the honourable member for McMillan (Mr Buchanan) and make a mockery of the setting up of that Committee. The Government usurps the parliamentary position by seeking to insinuate into the Bill control of dispensing fees under the pharmaceutical benefits list by regulation.

Let me deal with some of the points I have just raised. Obviously I will not have time to deal with all of them but succeeding speakers from this side of the House will clearly develop some of those points and, in total, all of them. The proposed changes to the Bill penalise the sick. In 1964 the then Minister for Health, who is acting for the Minister for Health in this House at the moment, said of the prescription charge imposed on patients:

The charge is necessary in order to discourage the unnecessary use of benefits provided under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.

That was what he said then. Of course, the philosophy behind this charge is quite clear. The charge is aimed at imposing a penalty - ‘discouraging’ was the word the Minister used - on those people who draw on the scheme. It is, therefore, up to the Government to establish that these people are responsible for the phenomenal and unjustifiable acceleration in the cost of this scheme, as asserted by the Government. Yet when we review the statement of the Minister in this House when introducing the Bill we find that 3 points are identified as being the major causes for the increased cost of this scheme. None of them relates to patients. The 3 causes are: Additions of new drugs; relaxation of prescribing prescriptions; increased doctor prescribing. On this basis it is worthwhile analysing the cost growth of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme to establish just what is the rate of growth and to determine whether it is an abnormally accelerating growth from year to year.

If we use the figures which are provided in the statistical section of the annual report of the Department of Health we find certain data for 1970-71. The figures show that additions to the list of drugs which can be provided under this scheme cost $5.9m. The relaxation on prescribing those drugs already provided cost an additional $13.6m. This is a total of $19.5m. There was an increase in restrictions which saved $2.9m so the effective increase in cost was $ 16.6m. From this we can take about $1.5m which covered the increased dispensing charges allowed to pharmaceutical chemists, and this brings the total additional cost down to $15m. The effective increase in demand after we have eliminated these unusual features - unusual in their nature because they are additional to previous rates for services under the scheme - was about 9.5 per cent and this does not include any allowance for population increase or for the abnormal upsurge in demand for compounding in the winter period, a point specifically referred to in the annual report of the Department of Health. Let me repeat that the effective increase is about 9.5 per cent. On the same basis as I have just outlined and using the 1969-70 figures we find that the effective increase in that year was more than 12 per cent. So in fact the increase last year was not the abnormally large increase one would gather if one took the statement of the Minister at face value.

Of course, it is quite obvious that if we are to increase the numbers of drugs and ease the dispensing arrangements under the scheme there must be a significant increase in costs. Eliminating restrictions on one type of drug, the anti-depressants, increased costs by nearly $3m alone. The argument, therefore, surely is not whether people are demanding more drugs in an abnormal way, because on the face of the figures I have quoted this is not substantiated, but whether the Government was justified in expanding the cover and the benefits available under this scheme. Frankly, I believe the health needs of the public are such that these benefits are justified and the Government obviously believes this too or it would not have extended benefits under the scheme in this particular way.

What has the Government set about doing? It has set about penalising the people who in many cases are least able to afford their contributions and least responsible for the increased costs. These people are the chronically ill. If they have a regular demand for an expensive drug or drugs they will be paying 43 per cent of the cost on average from the date the proposed changes in this Bill come into effect. To what extent, one would ask, are prescribing fees a deterrent as was asserted by the Minister for Health in this House in 1964? I am a member of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Committee, which seems to have been a training ground and promotion field for many eminent statesmen, excluding some like me. In the evidence produced before that Committee at page 1720 of the transcript of evidence the friendly societies through their representatives showed quite convincingly that their pre-1964 members - these are the people who do not have to pay any deterrent fee - have a usage rate 5 per cent lower than the average in South Australia. These people are not paying a deterrent fee and this seems to indicate quite conclusively the fallacy of the argument the Government is putting up. Of course, the Government’s real purpose in increasing the cost is to raise more revenue - $24m or $25m extra in the next 12 months. This increased revenue for the Government will be provided by the sick people in the community.

Again I refer to the statement made by the Minister about the large proportion of total health costs to the Commonwealth which expenditure in this area represents. This is another misleading argument because the total expenditure by the Commonwealth in the area of health is not really such a large amount in terms of the total community expenditure, public and private, in health. I have used the national accounts for 1969-70, the latest figures available, and one can establish from these that cash benefits and current expenditure by all public authorities amounted to S761m. To this we can add personal consumption expenditure in the field of health of $1,2 13m. The figures are a little overstated because they include funeral expenses but this would not be a significant amount. In any event, the total expenditure is more than $l,970m. Pharmaceutical benefit costs for the Commonwealth represent less than 7 per cent of the total health expenditure; so they are not an abnormal factor such as the Government is trying to establish.

Perhaps I ought to make a public confession at this stage. I recall that when the Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits was formed I was rather persuaded by the argument of the then Minister for Health when he was pointing out the cost movement factor and the need to contain it. I was persuaded to believe that this must be so, that it was an abnormally large amount of money, and that somehow we must contain it. But in terms of total expenditure it is not a large amount. As a proportion of Commonwealth expenditure it seems great, but only because the Commonwealth is so limited in its commitment in the field of health.

I am not going to discuss at any length the prescribing habits of doctors. These have come before the Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits, and the other members of the Committee as well as myself will be making some recommendations on the matter. I must repeat that I feel some embarrassment at this point in being asked to lead for the Opposition on these matters which are so pertinent to the issues which we are discussing in the Committee. It seems to me a highly improper situation and I feel that the Government has behaved in a very questionable way. One has doubts in one’s mind about the whole propriety of the motives of the Government in setting up this Committee.

Rumour has it strongly about Canberra that the Government set up the Committee for a rushed report to establish the case for an increase in the dispensing fee to $1. When it became obvious that the members of the Committee, under the chairmanship of the honourable member for McMillan (Mr Buchanan), were taking their duties seriously and were conducting a wide ranging and in depth investigation and that this sort of report would not be coming forward as rapidly as the Government wanted it to, the Government proceeded unilaterally to introduce these increases.

Of course, the Committee was set up to act as a buffer against any political criticism, which is quite rampant in the community, arising from any move on the part of the Government to increase fees. It is significant that the Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits is the only committee I can remember in 10 years in this Parliament which was set up on the initiative of the Government without any request, pressure or public demand for this sort of committee expressing itself through the House.

Mr Garland:

– It has very wide terms of reference.

Mr HAYDEN:

– Yes, but this in no way derogates from the point I just made, with which I suspect the Minister for Supply (Mr Garland) might agree on mature reflection. I referred to the problem of doctors’ dispensing habits and indicated that I did not want to discuss this at too great a length because of Committee obligations. But there is one thing which has come out in the course of the Committee’s work which concerns me greatly, and that is the seemingly large amount of money which drug manufacturers pour into the promotion of their lines. The Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association has submitted certain evidence and certain figures and one is able to make certain calculations from these figures with the aid of other statistics available within the community. One concludes that about $20m is being spent each year by pharmaceutical manufacturers in the promotion of their lines. These are 1970-71 figures. Of that sum about $10m or 50 per cent is used exclusively for the payment of sales representatives, people who harry and pressure doctors, who are working under a great deal of stress, into supporting particular lines of drugs.

The evidence which we have had shows quite convincingly to me that the methods of promoting these drugs are not wholly objective and do not go to the extent of explaining side effects, ill effects and so on which may arise from the use of them. They tend almost exclusively to stress benefits from using the drugs and neglect any problems which might arise from their use.

When we are talking about this area of health service, that is the provision of drugs, it is impossible to do so unless we do it in terms of a total health service. This is why it is anomalous to refer to the Bill before the House as a national health Bill, lt is not a national health Bill. It is a Bill which provides some services of fairly questionable quality and quantity in the community. It is more noticeable for what it does not provide. If we are going to improve the lot of the community through the Government, which handles the taxpayers’ money, and improve the lot of the doctor so that there might be some easing off in prescribing habits we will have to provide money for regular in-service training for doctors, particularly education in pharmacology. But we have to go beyond that and uplift the standards of the doctors who are working in the community, to give them more prestige and make their role much more significant than it is at present.

This in turn raises questions not only of the present but also of the future. Perhaps one could quote from a paper entitled ‘The Future of Australian Physicians’ by Dr Kerry Goulston, a Canberra consultant physician, delivered to the annual meeting of the Royal Australian College of Physicians earlier this year. He said of his professional colleagues:

They could ask why we are discussing present problems here today, and why we are not discussing a holding plan for the immediate future, and formulating conceptual plans for the 1990’s.

He then went on to expand some of his views. He said:

Regionalisation of medical care and continuing education can perhaps be accomplished by definition of primary, secondary and tertiary levels of medical care. Primary care given by health centres - general practitioners leading a team of allied health personnel; secondary care consisting of community hospitals with diagnostic facilities; tertiary care in academic medical centres with highly specialised facilities.

He wants to put this on a much more professional basis than it is at present, a basis where there will be much more intellectual in-puts in terms of manpower in the provision of medical services. The reason why I quoted Dr Goulston is that these are the points which have been made repeatedly by spokesmen on this side of the House. This is the way in which health services have to be developed. It is pointless talking in an ad hoc or piecemeal way about health in the Australian community. We have to see this total concept and we have to see ourselves as future oriented in the way in which we develop these sorts of services.

When we develop these services I suggest that as a step to upgrading considerably the standing of the doctor professionally and in terms of community respect we would want to develop such services as accrediting through in-service training so that there is a regular refresher experience for the doctor as a professional, so that his standards are geared upwards always, so that he is cognisant of what current practices are and so that he does not get out of touch with the latest trends in his profession. This, in association with facilities for in-service training at the appropriate local or district hospital, would allow him the right to treat his patients at a public hospital. It seems to me that this is a highly essential service which ought to be available to the general practitioner who, as far as we can see into the future, will be the most important man in the medical team - I stress the word ‘team’ - which provides public health services in the community.

Out of all this, of course, one accepts then that there must be a Commonwealth responsibility to develop CommonwealthState financial relations. Of course, these would be associated with certain qualitative requirements in the provision of these services. These services should be developed through a Commonwealth commitment. The proposal of the Australian Labor Party is to set up an Australian hospitals commission for this purpose. But it will not be restricted to the provision of hospitals. It will aim at the development of public health services which focus out, as I have said here several times before, from a central teaching hospital complex through a district hospital. This would be of considerably smaller size but would provide a range of the regularly used medical services including the frequently used surgical services. The more rarely used and expensive sorts of surgical services would, of course, be provided at the teaching hospital complex. This could radiate further into the smaller convalescent nursing centre and then into the community health centres which provide day facilities in terms of medical practitioner services, paramedical services and so on. I mention the case of in-service training. This would be no great problem in the Australian community in terms of cash. There are some restrictions in terms of the sorts of resources one can mobilise to operate such a service. From the information I have been able to obtain, an inservice training period of about one week a year costing about $400 a doctor could cater for about 600 to 700 doctors each year. This would involve a total cost of about $300,000. It would not mean that every doctor would attend once a year. Probably, doctors would attend about once every 4 or 5 years. Unfortunately the period could be even greater because of the lack of locums who can replace doctors while they are undergoing this training. However, in my mind, there is no argument at all that this sort of service is not needed.

Evidence which was presented to the Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits and which related to the sort of thing about which I have been talking, establishes convincingly that we must have this type of service available for the regular retraining of doctors so that they can maintain high standards of service for the community. In-service training is not enough. It must be backed up with frequent seminar-type discussions on applied therapeutics. This could be done through local medical associations and the post graduate medical committee could be mobilised to assist in conducting clinical discussions twice a year through the local medical associations. This could be done on a half-day basis and, again, I estimate that this would cost about another $500,000. So, in all, this sort of service could be provided for less than Sim a year. This is a very small amount compared to the tremendous advantages that would be derived by the community.

That is only one aspect of the approach of the Opposition to a national health scheme. Another aspect, and one which gives members of the Opposition considerable concern, is the lack of universality of coverage of the current scheme. About 74 per cent of the community is covered by the present voluntary health insurance scheme. To this can be added about another 9.5 per cent who benefit from the pensioner medical service and 3 per cent who are covered by the repatriation scheme. This still leaves something like 13 per cent to 15 per cent of the community - between 1.6 million and 2 million people - who have no cover at ali under the voluntary health insurance scheme. We need a scheme which provides universal cover.

I do not intend to go into the Australian Labor Party’s programme in detail except to point out that it is geared to a proportion of taxable income. It provides cover for the whole community, not only for free public ward treatment - standard ward treatment, as the current terminology has it - but also for treatment by a private practitioner of one’s own choice. One contrasts this with the current scheme, which not only has the deficiencies of inadequate cover but also involves tremendously costly arrangements to keep it in operation. According to the reply I received last week to a question I had asked, more than $3 3 m is lying idle in the voluntary medical insurance funds. This is an unreasonable amount of money to be tied up in this way, and contributors pay for it. Management expenses account for 15.7 per cent - nearly 16 per cent - of contributors’ payments. If this could be slashed to 6 per cent, which is about the level at which we reckon our scheme would operate, considerable amounts of money, measured in millions of dollars, would be available to redistribute as benefits.

Between 1954-55 and 1969-70 reserves in the medical insurance schemes currently operated increased by 1.000 per cent while benefits increased by 670 per cent. This is the sort of imbalance which is presented by the current system of health insurance. Again, one of the criticisms the Opposition makes of this scheme is its failure to uphold the common fee concept which was held out as a promise of providing a special benefit for the community. From calculations I have made from statistics provided in the annual report of the Department of Health, the introduction of the common fee has meant an extra $32m income for medical practitioners. This is the amount of money which has been paid straight into their pockets. This is an amount above that which they would have earned, given demand rates and average cost rates which existed previously. Of that money, 60 per cent to 70 per cent went into the pockets of specialists. This is no way to operate a health insurance scheme. 1 instance the high rate of non-observance of the common fee by doctors. For instance, 25 per cent of doctors in New South Wales do not observe the common fee for surgery visits and 50 per cent of doctors in Tasmania do not observe the common fee for home consultations. This has led to all manner of abuses. A surgeon has contacted me complaining that some people, usually wealthy women, join hospital and medical insurance schemes and, after 2 months - that is, once they have established their eligibility for medical benefits - go into hospital for expensive cosmetic surgery. In one case quoted to me, the operation cost $300 of which only $5 was paid by the patient because, on that occasion, the common fee was being observed. The operation involved straightening the woman’s nose, certain foundation work, if one can call it that, about the body, certain facial lifts and so on for this woman who was in her late 50s and who had lived with these problems for many years. This operation cost her $5, but it cost the health insurance funds and, therefore, the Commonwealth and the contributors to these funds the difference between the total cost of the operation and $5, which was $295. This woman came from a very high income family. Of course, given that the bulk of fund contributors are low and moderate income earners, this means that there is a redistribution effect away from those people to people in the high income groups.

That is one factor of the problem. Another unfortunate factor is that it imposes a high demand rate on fairly scarce acute hospital beds in Brisbane. We had been assured that the common fee would minimise the outlay imposed directly on patients. From the figures provided in the annual report of the Department of Health it can be seen that patients are paying 26 per cent of the cost of medical services. This is a fairly substantial proportion. Of course, it is a reduction on the figure of, I think, 35 per cent for the previous year. However, 26 per cent still leaves the patient with a considerable sum to find. In cases where doctors are not adhering to the common fee - as this clearly indicates that in many cases they cannot be- a substantial amount of money must be raised by the patient. This can cause all manner of great personal problems.

I will not deal with aspects of the low income health insurance subsidies scheme. The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Kennedy) will be dealing with this subject and, in any event, I discussed it in this House last week. There is, however, one other aspect I should like to raise on the inequity of this scheme. It is dearer for a low income earner to contribute to the scheme than it is for a high income earner. For instance, hospital and medical insurance costs 3.9 per cent of the taxable income of a person earning $2,600 a year but for a person earning $6,240 a year it costs only 1.14 per cent of his taxable income. Unfortunately, I am unable to discuss friendly societies or the neglect to fully implement the proposals of the Nimmo Committee but I do want quickly to refer to nursing homes. I wonder how the Government decided to strike on this particular level of $3.50 as the basic bed subsidy rate because it has no evidence upon which to establish what the true figure should be. In an answer to question No. 3363 which was provided last week the Minister for Immigration (Dr Forbes) said:

Tables 3.25 and 3.27, which relate to fees charged in private nursing homes, have not been updated as projects have not been undertaken to compile more recent information.

In other words, this was a stab in the dark, no doubt to take off political pressures. Of course this is no way in which to develop these services. As I mentioned on Tuesday night of last week, this should be seen as part of the total development of health and welfare services in the community - an integrated, balanced plan for the provision of adequate health and welfare protection for the community.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hallett:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. Is the amendment seconded?

Dr Klugman:

– I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Mr BUCHANAN:
McMillan

– The amendment moved by the Opposition is couched in the sort of language to which we have grown accustomed. While not opposing the Bill the Opposition is making some sort of criticism of it. This approach is quite unacceptable for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it is obscured. The amendment claims that the Commonwealth nursing home policy is unsatisfactory because of its cost to the patients. I presume the Opposition would like this to be something that is free. The amendment refers also to the inadequate provision of alternative forms of accommodation. The Opposition does not give any explanation of what that means. Then to say that the system of voluntary insurance for medical services is on the point of collapse is just plain ridiculous. So we reject the amendment. But let us not go into that.

I would like to say a few words about the Bill itself. The honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) did not say very much about it and T hope that other speakers will talk about the Bill and not about health services in general, which could cover a very wide field because to do so would waste a lot of everybody’s time. The Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) has introduced a proposal that we should increase to $1 the 50c patient contribution for prescriptions. I find that this is a rather large increase to be made in one shot. When I come to examine the position, having had the benefit of making a fair study of this whole subject through the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits, I can only come to the conculsion that the Treasury has asked (hat the amount of $160m which the Commonwealth is contributing to pharmaceutical benefits should be reduced. It has picked out an easy figure and just doubled the patient contribution. The saving works out at between $24m and $25m over a whole year. It will save perhaps $16m for the remainder of this year.

What basis is there for increasing the patient contribution from 50c to $1? I know that some doctors have been recommending that this should be done but I have not been able to find out why they have done so. Originally when this 50c contribution was introduced the Minister spoke about it being a deterrent. The word deterrent’ is not used in the second reading speech relating to this Bill. I presume from this that there has been a change in attitude. Anyhow, it is ridiculous to talk about a deterrent to the patient. The patient does not know what the doctor will prescribe. The deterrent should be applied to the doctor. As I have said several times over the years this national health scheme, which was introduced by Sir Earle Page a long time ago, was introduced purely and simply for the benefit of the doctors so that the doctor’s bill would be paid and he would be protected all along the line.

When we come to examine what has actually happened in the pharmaceutical area we find that this is what has happened. The doctor can prescribe as much as he likes. Very often a mother will bring along to the doctor a child with a bit of a cold, sore throat and bad chest, and the doctor will say: ‘We will have an antibiotic’. He knows it will not do any good. There is no bacteriological testing to see whether an antibiotic is required but on spec, because it does not cost the doctor anything, he orders an antibiotic. He then prescribes a linctus because the mother will expect little Willie to be given some sort of medicine. This will not do him any good either. It may soothe the throat a little, but no linctus has been invented yet which will cure a cough. Because there has been a growing use of anti-depressants and a tendency to give everybody tranquillisers or pep pills the doctor may say: ‘Let him have a little bit of some anti-depressant’. So the mother goes along to the chemist with 3 items on the script, and these will now cost her $3. 1 cannot for the life of me see how we can justify this unless we go back in our thinking to 1964 when the 50c patient contribution was proposed.

Dr Klugman:

– Your figure goes back further than 1964.

Mr BUCHANAN:

– I only want to go back to that time at this moment. I do not need any comment. I have been associated with the subject for a very long time. At the moment I only want to go back to 1964 when we introduced this 50c. At that time the friendly societies, as friendly societies had done for generations, made medicines available at very low cost. There was a great argument then, and I freely admit that at that time I was against the friendly societies being allowed to benefit from the scheme because it was obvious that, compared with the chemists, they were to be given a greater advantage for their members. I still think that they have an unfair advantage in a lot of ways. But now we have reached the stage where the friendly societies are to be allowed to refund to their members anything up to $1 on the cost of a prescription. At the present time members are making a contribution of 5c a week for a family and this enables them to get their prescriptions at a saving of 40c. I daresay there will have to be an alteration in rates, but that is unimportant. If they want to, they will be able to recoup the whole Si.

My thinking moves from 1964 to the present, and I find that the only way out of the impasse that has arisen would be if we allowed the friendly societies and anyone else who wants to - the pharmacy guilds or the medical benefits funds - to provide pharmaceutical rebates. I remind the House that the La Trobe Valley Health Services provide limited pharmaceutical benefits as do the friendly societies, and there is no reason why this practice cannot be extended so that the rest of the community can take advantage of it. The patient now has to find 40 per cent of the average cost of pharmaceutical prescriptions. In other words, it is becoming a little bit unbearable, and mothers who have to put down $3 on the counter for medicines should be allowed to take out some insurance against the cost as should the whole of the community. No mention of this idea appears in the Bill. If this is no longer a deterrent - and no mention is made in the second reading speech of a deterrent - I submit that we ought to take this action. Actually, it will not cost the Commonwealth Government anything. The insurance funds, presumably on an actuarial basis, will enable people to protect themselves against the cost, as they should be able to do. If people wish to be able to insure against these things, they should be allowed to do so.

I take one little exception to the description of this facet as the most expensive component of the Government’s overall health benefits plan. The honourable member for Oxley pointed this out. lt may be the most expensive of the Commonwealth’s contributions, but the Commonwealth has chosen to bear the burden of the cost of medicines over the years and, consequently, it is paying out too much. One of the reasons why it is paying out too much is that over-prescribing is taking place. To penalise patients for what is mostly the fault of doctors is not fair.

Another aspect of the Bill is the new prescription fee of $1 per item. I would have thought that a number of items in the list of pharmaceutical benefits would be eliminated because I note that certain items cost 80c or 90c each in respect of which the patient contributes 50c at the moment and the Commonwealth reimburses the chemist by 30c or 40c as the case may be. The cost of these items if removed from the benefits list will be approximately SI. 20 each. They will come under a different formula. Once they are taken out of the pharmaceutical benefits area they will go on to a higher scale of prescribing and will cost the patient more.

I wonder whether the Minister can explain to me what will be done, for example, about digoxin? This is one of the most popular lines. At the moment it is available as a pharmaceutical benefit. If someone orders digoxin that person will have to pay a higher price for it because, under the rules in relation to this scheme, any item costing under $1 will not be included. I am told on excellent authority - I have no confirmation of this - that the prices of various items are being raised to take the cost of them just over SI each so that those items will come within the scheme. The Government, instead of paying out 30c or 40c on each item, will have to pay out lc to 2c only. The contribution by the patient will be $1. If this is so, I regard it as completely unfair. The only extenuating circumstance could be that we would be allowed to have some method of insurance to cover those items.

I turn now to the other part of the Bill that is of importance. After all, the part of the Bill that deals with the medical side is only tidying up some of the things that we all know have been done. I refer now to nursing homes. I would like to have quite a long time in which to talk on this matter. The subject of nursing homes is one of the really bad spots in our whole health scheme. Everyone of us has examples of constituents who are in grave difficulty because they have a relative in a nursing home. These people must meet the gap that exists between the cost of staying at that nursing home and the benefits payable with respect to the patient. That money must be paid by that person before he or she can spend any money on his or her immediate family.

I take Victoria as an example. In that State 83 per cent of the patients in nursing homes run by charitable institutions are base rate pensioners. A further 10 per cent are part pensioners. The cost of operating each bed in a nursing home in that State is said to be $63 per week. A single pensioner in such a nursing home is supported by the Commonwealth to the extent of $17.25 per week and almost certainly a supplementary pensioner allowance of $2 per week is paid. The nursing home subsidy is currently $14 per week. It will now be increased to $24.50 per week. That still leaves approximately $20 per week that somebody has to find. I have a great many figures here but the example that I have given is a fair example of them. With respect to ambulatory patients - here we note the difference between this class and the intensive care class with respect to benefit - between $25 and $30 is the gap which must be made up each week by somebody.

In this Bill the Government has made some sort of move towards alleviating the present situation. An increase of $1.50 a day is provided in respect of each patient in a nursing home. This increase covers a wide area and will cost quite a lot of money. But it will not settle the problem. In any community the position of the frail aged or just the aged, if honourable members like, must be considered in relation to the excellent homes for the aged system which the Commonwealth has subsidised very heavily. This scheme works admirably. Some marvellous homes for the aged where people live in nice surroundings and can spend their latter years looking after themselves are available. But these people reach the stage where they need a little supervision. Hostel accommodation with meals may be available for them or they may need to go into an ambulatory nursing home or to an institution where a little more than supervision - that is, nursing care - is provided. At the end of this scale are the people who have reached the stage where they need intensive care. This is not intensive care in the sense that the term is used with respect to hospitals. These are people who really need nursing care every day of their lives. They may require injections. They may need to be fed or to be dressed. They may not be able to walk around.

One of the answers to this problem must be separate units provided at the government level in association with hospitals. Nursing care should be provided from the hospitals at the required level if necessary. I find that one of the big troubles in nursing homes where intensive care services are required is the very high cost of nursing. One matron, who is facing the prospect of going bankrupt because people cannot afford to pay the fees, is herself paying out at this time in excess of $5,000 a year to a nurse for night duty on 4 nights a week. This is the sort of expense which cannot be carried by an ordinary nursing home. I ask whether the Government could make available units attached to hospitals for the care of these people so that nursing aides would be available in the home and the home would be able to call for nurses if actual nursing care was required.

I know that the Commonwealth Government has made $5m available over 5 years to the States for this purpose. But this sum of money has not been taken up. Victoria has accepted it only quite recently. It will be some time before Victoria achieves anything with that money. The other solution to the problem is to bring the cost of this accommodation within the scope of health insurance in the same way as I have suggested pharmaceutical benefits should come within the scope of health insurance. At the present time, hospital benefit contributions have been streamlined quite rightly on the basis of the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into Health Insurance, commonly known as the Nimmo Committee. One of the very good things that that committee did was to propose the categories of standard, intermediate and private wards. There is an anomaly in the whole costing of hospitals in that the cost per bed is obtained by taking the total expenses of the hospital - the cost of stamps and everything else that is bought during the year - and dividing it by the number of beds. That is called the cost per bed.

The cost of a bed in city hospitals is about $28 to $30 a day. The patients contribute only $15 towards the cost of a bed in a public ward. Funnily enough, at the West Gippsland Hospital the cost is only $22 a day. One could rationalise this out and introduce another table, besides the standard, intermediate and private ward tables, for those people who require nursing home care. From the figures that I have been able to obtain - and they would require a lot of checking, but I put them forward for consideration by honourable members - the injection of an extra 10c a week per contributor into hospital contribution funds would provide $5 a day in health insurance benefits for nursing homes, and that would cover the present gap which exists between charges and the combined benefit. Unfortunately, we cannot do any of these things without getting money from somewhere. The people who run these nursing homes must make a profit, but they are not making any fortunes. I do not have time to go into all the details of my proposal, but its adoption would go a long way towards overcoming the present problem.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hallett:

– Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– As seconder of the Opposition’s amendment I wish not only to concentrate on the points that we make in our amendment but also to make some general criticism of the National Health Bill. One would have thought that when the Government had an opportunity, such as it has now, to amend the National Health Act- this Bill in fact is amending it - it would have gone much further than it has. I should like to commence by referring to the one positive contribution which the Government has made in this piece of legislation. This is the change which was made to the Bill which was introduced some 2 weeks ago. It relates to increased subsidies for nursing home patients. It was not mentioned in the previous Bill.

The proposed increase in the nursing home subsidy will add another $24m per annum to the Budget, and I am not com plaining about that. But I should like to re-emphasise the point which was made by the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) in the last minute of his speech. He did not have time to develop it. It is important to realise that this answer which was given last week by the former Minister for Health (Dr Forbes) was given after the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) had made his announcement regarding the increase in the nursing home subsidy. The question referred to tables which had been submitted by the Government in 1967 - 4 years ago - as evidence to the Senate Select Committee on Medical and Hospital Costs and asked the Minister to update those tables according to the latest available information. What answer did we receive from the former Minister for Health? He said that the tables 3.25 and 3.27, which relate to fees charged for private nursing homes, have not been updated as projects have not been undertaken to obtain more recent information. This is a ridiculous proposition. The Government decides to spend $24m on providing subsidies for nursing homes but it does not even know what fees are charged by nursing homes. It has not obtained any information on that matter since 1967. I am not blaming the present Minister for Health (Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson) who probably knows very little about health or health administration. After all, the portfolio of Minister for Health had to be moved into the Senate and I feel that at least the present Minister for Health is basically a more decent and reasonable person than the last 2 Ministers for Health, Dr Forbes and Senator Greenwood who were completely hopeless and, in addition, in my opinion did not have any sort of humanity or sensitivity about them, which I think the present Minister for Health possesses.

Why has the number of nursing home beds increased from 33,000 to 47, 000 in the last 5 years? Let us look at this matter. One of the reasons for the increase is that the Government has not gone on to deal with a much bigger problem than nursing homes, and that is the question of psychiatric hospitals. In 1956 the Government decided to amend legislation which had been in existence under the Chifley Government which treated psychiatric hospitals in the same way as ordinary hospitals. There can be no earthly reason why this should not be done. But no, the Government does not subsidise psychiatric hospitals. It does not even pay pensions to pensioners who are inmates of psychiatric hospitals. What a fantastic proposition to put forward in 1971. One could see the sort of attitude which the Department of Social Services adopts in the answer which was given last week to a question concerning the payment of pensions to psychiatric hospital patients. The reply referred not to psychiatric hospital patients but to inmates of mental hospitals. This is the sort of attitude which is adopted by the Department of Social Services and, I suppose, the Department of Health.

What happens is that as soon as a patient is admitted into a State psychiatric hospital - and I am talking about the position in Sydney, but this position applies in the other States - he does not receive a subsidy from the Government. He does not receive his pension, he does not receive the $2 a day subsidy and he is not eligible for hospital benefits. What does the State government do? First, it charges the patient at the rate of approximately $70 a week, and that rate also applies to pensioners. The States do not take any active steps to recover the fees if the patients have not any money - and the vast majority of them do not have any money. All of the patient’s assets go to the Master of Protective Custody, and when the patient and the patient’s spouse die the Master of Protective Custody sells all their property in order to recover the amount of fees due, which amount to approximately $3,600 per year.

As we know, more than 78 per cent of patients in psychiatric hospitals are in fact long term patients; they are in hospital for more than one year. Therefore, for practical purposes they lose all their property. This is the ridiculous proposition which applies to patients who are admitted to psychiatric hospitals. I have some in areas surrounding my electorate. As soon as patients are admitted to psychiatric hospitals, the State government - and 1 do not blame it - tries to get rid of the patients because they cost too much money. As soon as patients have been sedated with Largactil, or whatever tranquiliser is the cheapest at the particular time, the govern ment transfers the patients to private hospitals or nursing homes. Then the patients become eligible to receive a subsidy of $2 a day. It will now become $3.50 a day or even $5 a day or $6.50 a day if they are intensive care patients.

Obviously the Government pushes the patients out of psychiatric hospitals because they can receive that kind of subsidy in nursing homes. In addition, patients become eligible to receive their pensions. But they receive no treatment in these nursing homes. Occasionally a doctor may call, but he does is write out another prescription for more Largactil or whatever is being given to the patient. The more Largactil that is given to patients the more sedated they become and the more they need intensive care. In this way, patients in these nursing homes are more likely to receive $6.50 a day instead of $3.50, or $5 a day instead of $2, depending on whether we are considering the position before or after the Act is amended. The Government does not concern itself with this matter. This is a disgrace. This is due to the fact that patients in psychiatric hospitals and their relatives do not kick up sufficient stink. Friendly societies mounted a campaign to have the previous Bill altered between the time when it was introduced 2 weeks ago and now and alterations have been made. I am not complaining about the alterations, but I am pointing out what happens if some sort of organisation puts pressure on the Government and what happens if pressure is not put on the Government.

I turn now to deal with the subsidised health benefits plan and the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. The Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz), who in this place represents the Minister for Health, in his second reading speech referred to the proposition that under the subsidised health benefits plan people are also eligible to receive pharmaceutical benefit concessions. The Minister said:

While the Government will assist these special groups of people to obtain their pharmaceutical benefits for a charge of only SOc, the onus to establish initial eligibility must rest with the persons concerned. It is essential therefore that persons who believe they are entitled to subsidised pharmaceutical benefits, should make application to the Department of Social Services or. in the case of migrants, to the Department of Health as soon as the changes become effective.

That proposition is quite ridiculous when already we have seen that the subsidised health benefit plan is- not working for the very reason that there is too much bureaucracy involved. The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Kennedy) who conned the figures from the Minister for Health will no doubt deal with this point. The figures show that only a very small proportion- about 10 per cent- of people in what are called A, B and C categories apply and only about half of them go on to register after their applications have been granted. What happens is that the Government spends huge amounts of money on advertisements in foreign language newspapers, radio and television broadcasts telling new Australians about the necessity to register for national service but nothing is spent on advertising the subsidised medical services available to this group of people. Politically I do not mind because all that these advertisements do is confirm the fact - and it is a fact - that this Government is more concerned with conscripting young migrants than it is with helping the needy migrants. We think that the Government’s spending on advertisements certainly confirms that fact.

Mr Graham:

– You really do not believe that.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– You should find out how much is spent on advertising for conscription purposes and how much is spent on advertising our subsidised medical benefits scheme in foreign language newspapers and foreign language advertisements. I want to deal briefly with the increase from 50c to $1 for prescriptions under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. Before doing so I will deal quickly with the funds because the schedules refer to the increase in doctor’s fees. There has been an increase in the common fees and this has been incorporated in the amended Bill. We know that there is an increase; yet the Minister has stated that medical incomes in New South Wales increased by 30.5 per cent between the December quarter of 1969 and the December quarter of 1970. Following this - I emphasise the words ‘following this’ - huge increase of 30.5 per cent in one year there was a further increase of 15 per cent for general practitioners which came into force on 1st July 1971.

In answer to a question on notice, question No. 2790, on 8th September 1971 the Minister gave the figures, giving a completely wrong impression, on the question of democracy in the health funds - what we call medical and hospital benefits organisations. He referred to the fact that 83 per cent of medical benefit organisations and 77 per cent of hospital benefit organisations have provision in their constitutions for the election of contributor representatives to their governing bodies. What he has ignored is the fact that the main funds, for example in New South Wales, the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia and the Hospital Contributions Fund of Australia have no such provision. There is no provision for contributor representation on the boards of directors of those funds. Those funds would cover well over 80 per cent of all people with medical and hospital insurance in New South Wales.

Even in funds in other States where this provision does exist contributor representatives have very little say. For example the Hospital Benefits Association in Victoria, which is the main health insurance organisation in that State, has only 4 elected contributor representatives out of 52 members. I suppose it is a step in the right direction but on the basis of representation it is certainly very unsatisfactory, as I think most people will agree. The cost of health insurance has gone up at a terriffic rate compared with the Commonwealth basic wage and the minimum wage in New South Wales. I would like to make the point that the percentage of subscriptions at the lowest possible cost to medical benefit and public ward hospital funds in New South Wales, as a percentage of the ruling Commonwealth basic wage in 1955 and the minimum basic wage in New South Wales in 1971, has increased from 1.03 per cent of the basic wage to 3.52 per cent of the basic wage. This is a huge increase in proportion - from 1.03 per cent to 3.52 per cent of the basic wage. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table which sets out the minimum weekly family contributions to medical funds and family hospital contributions compared with the Commonwealth basic wage and the minimum wage. I checked earlier with the Minister who is in charge of this matter.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury)Is leave granted? There being no objection leave is granted. (The document read as follows) -

I turn now to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. There has been an increase in the cost per prescription from $2.18 in 1960-61 to $2.30 in 1970-71 but the number of prescriptions per person have gone up from 2.13 a year in 1960-61 to 4.46 per person in 1970-71. Let us look quickly at some of the reasons for these increases. The Minister gave some reasons and I accept some of them as being relevant but then he says: ‘What other reasons.’ We do not know what they are. Might I suggest a couple of reasons. The first is the poor doctor and patient education on the use of drugs. There is a proposition that patients expect to get some sort of prescription when they walk out of the surgery and there is an acceptance by doctors of the advertising by drug companies that their product will solve some particular problem, though this is true in only a very small percentage of cases. Secondly, there is a proposition - and this is something with which the Department of Health should certainly deal - that there is pressure on doctors to keep the costs of their prescriptions down.

I had been in practice until about 2 years ago. Some 6 or 8 years ago when I was in practice I had a visit from 2 gentlemen from the Department of Health who looked like detectives. Probably they were picked for their size. They were very pleasant. 1 have no particular complaint about them. They wanted to see me and it looked at though 1 was to be charged with something. Then they told me the terrible news that the average price of my prescriptions was - I am now being approximate - £2.6s compared with an average of £2.2s for the area. I had an argument with them because I hate bureaucracy interfering with me in that way. I think I adequately explained my position. When I asked other doctors what they did they told me that when they write a prescription for something very costly - it may cost £4 - and something which would bring up their average price they add a prescription for absorbic acid tablets which cost only about 4s, a prescription for asprins which cost only about 4s or for sleeping tablets which cost about 4s. The average of the 2 prescriptions, although the second was unnecessary, would be £2.2s instead of £4 for the first prescription only. The Government is only kidding itself if it believes that it is achieving anything by insisting on certain averages because it does not work out this way. People can get around such propositions. They can add a prescription for olive oil, cascara or other items. The Minister for Immigration (Dr Forbes), who usually represents the Minister for Health in this place, was, to my mind, obviously wrong in his estimates of the effect of the proposed increases in patient contributions on the total amount involved. He said that the increase from 50c to $1 will effect a reduction in the cost of the scheme to the Commonwealth in respect of general prescription benefits of $24.6m in a full year. I cannot accept that proposition because, as table 37 of the 1970-71 annual report of the Department of Health shows the patient contribution on general benefit prescriptions was $24.4m last year and the contribution rate has been doubled since then. Therefore that amount of $24.4m would be only the starting point. In the same speech he said that it is estimated that the rise in the cost of prescriptions will be 15 per cent and the rise in the number of prescriptions will be 6 per cent; yet the total increase will be only 1 per cent. Obviously those figures must be wrong. I would like to deal with some of the specific effects of the alterations in pharmaceutical benefits but, regrettably I do not have the time to do so at this stage. However, I shall try to do so in the Committee stage of the consideration of this legislation.

Mr IRWIN:
Mitchell

– I shall commence my remarks by commenting on the speech made by the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden). In his opening remarks the honourable member for Oxley was not very complimentary to the honourable member for McMillan (Mr Buchanan). 1 have served on 2 statutory committees with the honourable member for McMillan. On both committees he took up the position of chairman after they had been going quite a long time. I should say that there would be few honourable members in this House who could pick up the threads and get a full understanding of a situation as can the honourable member for McMillan, especially as he did in relation to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Aircraft Noise and the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits. There are few people in this House or anywhere else who could have picked up the threads and controlled those committees in the way in which he did.

Although the honourable member for Oxley moved an amendment to the motion for the second reading of the speech he did not speak to any of the proposals contained in his amendment. I notice that the amendment does not in actual fact oppose the second reading of the Bill. Because it has not the courage to bring in something definite itself the Opposition has moved an amendment which contains proposals that are so unimportant and impotent that I will not even bother to read them out. The honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) made some sneering remarks about the present Minister for Health, Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson. I want to inform the honourable member for Prospect that Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson is one of the most notable hospital administrators in the whole of Australia. He was for many years the Chairman of the Ryde District Hospital, which is renowned as one of the most efficient hospitals in Australia. So to say that the Minister for Health does not know anything about the health problems that exist in Australia is ludicrous in the extreme. Anyone who knows Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson knows of his humanity, his sympathy and his desire to assist his fellow man. He is renowned throughout New South Wales for these qualities. I am sorry that I was not able to follow the remarks of the honourable member for Prospect. 1 do not know whether the microphone in front of him was out of compass or just what it was, but it was very difficult to understand what he was saying. I have checked with other honourable members in this section of the chamber about this matter and found that they had the same difficulty. But I shall not dwell on that aspect as I have other things to say.

Following the announcement by the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) of the intention of the Government to increase the daily benefits paid on behalf of nursing home patients by $1.50 a day to $3.50 tor ordinary patients and $6.50 for intensive care patients there has been criticism of the standards of care in some nursing homes. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) has been particularly critical of the standards of nursing homes and has also claimed that the Government, in announcing its intention to provide higher patient benefits, has been concerned with the welfare not of patients but of nursing home proprietors. As usual in situations of this kind the criticism exaggerates areas of deficiencies and ignores the tremendous value of the nursing home benefits provided by the Commonwealth to the sick and aged people in the community. The statements by the Leader of the Opposition highlighted deficiencies acknowledged to exist in a minority of private nursing homes and implied that these conditions apply generally. In suggesting that the increased patient benefits will assist nursing home proprietors more than patients the Leader of the Opposition completely ignored the fact that it is in the interests of patients that both public and private nursing homes should be enabled to remain solvent.

The question of the establishment and maintenance of standards for nursing homes is, of course, most important. The Commonwealth is concerned to see that the patients it is assisting receive the highest possible standards of care, but it should be realised that the application of standards is primarily a responsibility of the State governments. It is the State governments which have the legislative responsibility for registering nursing homes and it is also mainly their responsibility to supervise the standards of these homes. To discharge these responsibilities each State has its own inspection teams which carry out inspections directed to the standards of nursing homes. It follows that any criticism of standards of a particular home should be directed, in the first instance, to the State authorities. The Commonwealth Department of Health, which administers the nursing home benefit scheme, also maintains a degree of supervision of nursing homes but this is concerned largely with the payment of patient benefits. Close co-ordination is, of course, maintained between the Commonwealth and State authorities and, where unsatisfactory features are disclosed by Commonwealth inspections, requests are made for remedial action and the State authorities are advised. There is, it is acknowledged, a need for even greater co-ordination in this area. The Minister plans to have consulta tions with the responsible State Ministers regarding an intensification of efforts by the State authorities to ensure that all nursing homes provide the same high level of care as is in fact provided by the majority.

The claim by the Leader of the Opposition that the increased patient benefits will assist proprietors rather than patients is a gross over-simplification of the position. To have a full appreciation of the nursing home situation in Australia it is important to realise that nursing homes fail into 3 main groups. There are nursing homes operated by religious and charitable organisations which provide very satisfactory standards of care and usually charge only what the patients can afford to pay. Lately these homes have had great diffculty in meeting their costs. The Government expects that these homes will generally absorb the increased nursing home benefits into increased patient fees but that these fees will still be no higher than the patients can afford to pay. The patients will benefit in that the increased payments will help to save homes from becoming insolvent and having to close. The second group of homes are those run by the various State governments. From the Commonwealth’s viewpoint the main deficiency of these homes is that they are too few in number and that patients cannot always gain quick admission. In order to bolster the growth of State operated nursing homes the Commonwealth has offered the States capital grants on a dollar for dollar basis. The third category of nursing homes is comprised of those run by private proprietors. It is unfortunate that so.ne of these homes do not always provide adequate care for their patients. It is these homes that require the greatest supervision by the State governments.

Nobody should belittle the part that private homes are playing in the nursing home scheme. Without such homes, great numbers of sick elderly people would be unable to receive the kind of care and accommodation they need. As regards the fees in private homes, it is a fact that the majority generally charge fees which are greater than the total of Commonwealth nursing home benefits and other social service payments available to the patients. In this situation I trust that the increased nursing home benefits will largely be directed to reducing the gap that the patients would otherwise have to meet from their personal resources. In this respect it is worth noting that the Secretary of the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association of Victoria, Mr P, Giles, has refuted reports inferring that nursing homes will raise their fees because of the increased Common’ wealth benefits and has stated:

Our members are fully aware the increases are a patient subsidy and not a hospital subsidy and have been introduced to alleviate hardship among those who most deserve and need it.

On the subject of nursing home charges in general, it is a fact that nursing homes in some States have already justifiably raised their charges to take account of recent rises in nursing salaries. When, inevitably, nursing salaries are increased in other States, some fee increases in nursing homes will be unavoidable in many cases. It is the increasing cost of providing nursing home services that is the basic cause of higher nursing home fees and it was in recognition of this fact that the Commonwealth has intervened and proposes, subject to the passage of the necessary legislation, to increase by $1.50 a day the benefits it provides. That is the Government’s outlook in regard to this matter. Paradoxically, we would have an over supply of beds for the aged and the infirm if we were to allocate the beds taking into account the position of the patients. A great percentage of the patients in aged people’s homes could be accommodated in a hostel type of home or, much more preferably, within the homes of their relatives.

We have been told that in one State hospital in New South Wales of the 266 patients 133 - exactly 50 per cent - were rehabilitated and allowed to go home. Other patients who are immobile and restricted, if they had their own homes or small flats built near shopping centres, would require attention and assistance from someone outside to come in only one half day a week. In some cases that assistance would be required on two half days a week. So there appears to be a loss and wastage by not being able to co-ordinate the aged and place them in homes, hostels or private homes depending on their category. Of course, there has been a great increase in the number of aged people requiring this attention.

I think that it should be known throughout Australia that we lead the world in regard to the care of the aged. America has spent millions of dollars on this assistance but it is still not comparable to what we are doing. Although we lead the world in this regard we should never become complacent. We should go flat out to meet further the situation for these people who have done so much for Australia.

One thing I wanted to speak about was cosmetic surgery but it does not take a big pari in this scheme. It was not thought of when the legislation was first framed but some provision should be made whereby a person who undergoes a cosmetic operation which is not necessary should pay a greater portion of the fee. One honourable member opposite spoke about medical fees, common fees and specialists’ fees. It is to the everlasting credit of a great number of specialists that when treating people in the middle to high income bracket, the specialists, knowing that these people have families to rear and are paying off their homes, have been satisfied to take the contribution from the medical benefits funds. I know of hundreds of such cases.

The estimated cost of pharmaceutical benefits for 1971-72 is $160m. After hearing what the honourable member for Prospect had to say, I think that the medical profession should be more careful and should realise the great cost to Australia of pharmaceutical benefits. Although the prescription they write out may come to only 40c, if that medicine was not necessary it should not have been prescribed. 1 appeal to the medical profession to realise the great cost of pharmaceutical benefits and to endeavour, without stinting or in any way endangering the lives of their patients, not to prescribe something just for prescription’s sake.

I want to refer now to the very serious matter of the admission to hospital of baby Rowcliff who was just a few days old. The baby was admitted to hospital with its mother on the direction of a medical practitioner. I do not know how else one can get into a hospital unless one is admitted on the recommendation of a medical practitioner. This baby, only 8 days old, was in hospital for 8 days. The hospital fee was $112. Mr Rowcliff is in very humble circumstances. The Medical Benefits Fund of Australia refused to pay the SI 12. The medical superintendent stated that the baby was not covered under the Act. Unfortunately, 2 Ministers of Health have ruled that the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia was right in its refusal. It grieves me to think that such a mean and contemptible attitude should be adopted in the case of this child who was only a few days old and who had to return to hospital with its mother. I understand that the child had gastric trouble and was admitted on the basis of the letter and on the advice of the family’s medical practitioner. I do hope that the Minister at the table will take note of what I have said. Even if the Act or the regulations have to be amended surely we can extend humanity to these people so that they will not have to pay this SI 12 from their very meagre income.

Mr KENNEDY:
Bendigo

– I wish to devote my speech to the health needs of the poor in Australia. I believe that the situation is so important that a committee of this House should be established to investigate the health needs of the poor and the under privileged groups in Australia and to make recommendations on how their needs should be met. I say this because of the evidence of the gross failure of the Commonwealth Government’s subsidised medical scheme for low income families. Figures recently released indicate that there is a great and fundamental failing in this Government’s provision for Australia’s poor. Yet I believe that the collapse of the subsidised medical scheme is only the tip of the iceberg. Although this has been disastrous in itself nevertheless it exposes to the public only the financial side of the health care of low income families and groups in Australia.

Let us briefly review the facts. The figures show that only 25 per cent of eligible migrant families and individuals arriving in Australia last year fully protected themselves in the Government’s scheme by registering with a private benefits organisation. Only 4 in every 10 of Commonwealth social service beneficiaries receiving unemployment, sickness and special benefits protected themselves by registering with a private benefits organisation. Some dispute has, of course, been manufactured by the

Government over the figures of those who are specifically low income families living under or slightly above the minimum wage. Suffice to say that even if we accept the dubious Government device of legislating 60,000 families out of the low income category so that today not 180,000 but 120,000 families are eligible for assistance, the simple fact is that this low income section of the community has been prevented by the over complexity and under publicity of the scheme from joining it. As at 30th June this year, just 18 months after the scheme came into operation, only 6,102 families in Australia earning less than $46.50 a week were registered with private benefits organisations and thereby protected against the costs of ill health. I repeat that as at 30th June this year, 18 months after the scheme came into operation, 6,102 families on incomes below $46.50 were registered with a private benefits organisation and properly covered by the Government’s scheme.

The failure of the Government to enlist people into its medical scheme is only the tip of the iceberg. The nine-tenths of the iceberg that 1 am afraid will not be seen, and has not been seen in the past, represents the overall health needs of the poor. This is what I believe should . be investigated by a special select committee of this House. The danger is that this Government, having been acutely embarrassed by the failure of its scheme, will fall victim to 2 temptations. Firstly, it will see only the insurance problem and not the overall problem of health care and, secondly, it will resort to a few gimmicks of public relations to resuscitate artificially a scheme which requires not sticking plaster but major surgery. Let us look at these 2 problems- The only solutions the Government has to the failure of its scheme are firstly, spending more money on advertising; secondly, simplifying a few procedures; thirdly, making better use of social workers and hospitals, mainly owned or employed by the State governments, to enlist those eligible into the scheme.

Let me reiterate that the only means of including every citizen within a single insurance scheme is to have a single compulsory, universal insurance scheme that levies charges on the pay packet according to the ability to pay and with generous exemptions according to family size. Let us not forget the size of the problem that the Government’s legislation should be dealing with but is not tackling. According to the Nimmo Committee’s recommendations made 2 years ago. the means test should take account of family sizes to cover 250,000 low income families or 1 million people. There is no doubt that the Government is hostile to such a scheme. It is satisfied with claiming eligibility for only 120,000 families. Yet only by including the largest number of low income families can the scheme succeed. Here is the Govern* ment’s paradox: If it does not include all these families, the whole scheme will not be effective; but if it does, there will be so much red tape and bureaucracy involved in coping with a multiplicity of means tests that, as Scotton and Deeble have pointed out. the costs could not be justified to the public. The Government would be in the position of having to justify not having a single compulsory health scheme. This is one of the reasons why the Canadian royal commission on health recommended that for a health scheme to be effective and economically to exempt low income families, it would have to be a single compulsory scheme, that is, a scheme along the lines proposed by the Labor Party.

How effective would attempts to revive the health scheme be? Firstly, in the case of migrants, only 1 in 4 of those arriving last year was registered in the Government scheme by fully, enrolling with a private benefits organisation. These are most likely to have been the migrants from English speaking countries who made up one half of migrants arriving in Australia in the June quarter. Regardless of the subsidised medical scheme, 1 estimate that probably 80 per cent of Greek, Italian and Turkish migrants arriving over the last 18 months have not been covered either in the subsidised scheme or in the benefits insurance scheme. The 1966 poverty survey in Melbourne showed that in Melbourne, 75 per cent of Greeks and Italians surveyed who arrived over the previous 5 years were not in a health benefits organisation. The surveyors also estimated that 98 per cent of the Greeks arriving in the last 18 months before the survey were not covered with insurance. Furthermore, Scotton and Deeble, reporting in a book entitled ‘The

Health of a Metropolis’, said that their survey of Prahran in the last few years showed that cultural factors were a massive influence alongside the family’s low income status in preventing these migrants from protecting themselves. While it took United Kingdom settlers in Australia 10 years to reach the Australian average of 77 per cent of the community being covered, in 10 years only 53 per cent of Greeks and Italians were enrolled in a health insurance organisation. In a period of less than 4 years only 51 per cent of United Kingdom settlers were insured, while the percentage of Greeks and Italians was less than 37 per cent.

Thus any improvement for the 2 months eligibility of migrants - during which period they are probably healthiest of all - will be virtually of no significance as a means of enrolling certain groups of migrants in the benefits scheme and of protecting them. Yet even if we were able to include every newcomer into the health benefits system, we would still be faced with the fundamental question which demands investigation by no less important a body than a select committee of this House: that is, what sort of problems do the migrants arriving have, and how well are we meeting them? Just how vital this question is has been highlighted by the article in the ‘National Times’ on Monday entitled ‘The Rising Migrant Health Scandal’. The article by Eric Walsh paints a grim picture of large scale neglect or ignorance of the health needs of migrants. It dramatically highlights the disastrous consequences for migrants in leaving the nation’s health facilities and provisions unchanged despite the special and great needs of migrants. It lends support for my belief that under this Government the Department of Health has had its functions narrowly circumscribed within the ideological dogmas of the Government; that is, the Department does very little to examine and improve the health care of the nation, because it is preoccupied with making the Government’s health insurance scheme stave off failure and because it is afraid of cutting across Liberal dogmas about State rights. The fundamental questions of the quality and availability of health care for the Australian people and, in particular, for such groups as migrants, have to be made subordinate to the question of the cost of care and the primary question here is the cost of insurance. Similarly, even supposing every low income family eligible for Government assistance was involved in the Government subsidised scheme, the fundamental questions would still remain: What sort of care do such families require, and are these needs being met?

The scheme of course will not succeed. For example, only a fraction of families led by male wage earners on the minimum wage is included in the scheme at present. Indeed, if we assumed that every family registered with a private benefits fund as at 30th June this year was led by a mother, we would see that only a fraction of all the uninsured deserted wives in Victoria are covered in the scheme.

According to the 1966 survey of poverty, while 17 per cent of intact families in Melbourne were not insured, the percentage of fatherless families not insured was 25 per cent. In 1966 there were about 15,000 such families in Victoria; so a quarter of these, or 3,750, would be uninsured. Yet no more than 2,373 families earning less than $46.50 or more were enrolled with the Government scheme in February this year, while 4 months later a total of only 658 families and individuals were registered with a private benefits organisation. As it happens, about 60 per cent of all the families registered under the category earning less than $4.50 were families led by women. Thus the scheme has massively discriminated against and excluded tens of thousands of low income families led by male wage earners and wives. The Government grasps at the straw of hope that tampering with the system will get all these people into it. It will not.

Of equal importance is this: How are the poor being catered for? What are their needs? We simply do not know well enough. What are we doing about the situation where the low income family is either prevented from attending a doctor because the father has fallen behind with his bills or because of a shortage of doctors in his district? Perhaps he is attracted to the outpatients clinic because of cheap pharmaceutical costs or out of habit, or, being uninsured for treatment by a general practitioner, finds the treatment at the outpatients clinic either free or cheap enough to go without medical insurance. Are we satisfied with this system? And what of the health needs and the health care of the aged and others who are either enrolled in the pensioner medical scheme or are excluded from it by the tapered means test? The scheme has numerous defects and the gap is growing between the services offered to one minority in the community and the superior and more extensive services offered for those enrolled in the voluntary health insurance scheme as a whole.

Those who are in the pensioner medical service are not covered for specialist treatment except at a public hospital, and basic services such as chiropody, physiotherapy, and optometrical services are not provided. The lack of fundamental requirements such as oxygen for aged people with, say, asthma is a vicious defect in the system. For example, only a few months ago one of my constituents complained to me that she was paying $31 a month, or almost a quarter of her and her husband’s pension income per month, for a cylinder of oxygen. What would the husband’s condition have been if he did not have the oxygen? Such is the system that even the doctors themselves have described it as being in many ways a second rate scheme. But perhaps the worst defect of the pensioner medical scheme is the uncertainty, doubt and worry about their future that members of the scheme have. Coupled with this is the feeling of charity and a handout being conceded rather than of a basic right being acknowledged. There is also the feeling among many pensioners, and among doctors who treat them and who sacrifice a portion of their income to do so, that the pensioners are a race apart. This causes suspicion and resentment among pensioners and gives rise to the fear of over-using the scheme.

The uncertainty among pensioners arises from the dissatisfaction of doctors with the scheme. Not all doctors will treat pensioners. In the city of Bendigo only 15 of the 25 general practitioners, according to figures given to me earlier this year, will treat pensioners. I believe this is not only a unique but also a disgraceful situation.

This represents a 40 per cent no-confidence vote in the Government’s scheme of pensioner medical care. Even of those 15 doctors treating pensioners, some are treating them in only small numbers, and in some cases the pensioners are old patients treated before they become pensioners. Those who are treating pensioners have warned that they cannot treat any more than they are already treating. Others will not treat pensioners at all. Considerable heartbreak and distress is caused when the patient, on reaching retirement and pension age, is pushed off to the outpatients clinic or, alternatively, is advised that his pensioner medical service is not adequate and that to ensure the full services of a doctor he should enrol in a benefits fund. There was recently a case where one general practitioner was called out to a patient at night. Upon arriving and discovering that the patient was a pensioner he said: ‘I would not have come if I had known you were a pensioner.’ There are also some doctors who treat patients for simple problems but pass them on to the outpatients clinic for more complex treatment.

There is no doubt that this is an unjust and discriminatory system which forces doctors to subsidise the Commonwealth Government and which offers pensioners frequently a second class service. The problem in Bendigo is made more difficult because the city has an unusually large percentage of pensioners in its population. It is also short of at least 8 general practitioners, like most country areas and also like some inner suburban areas. Similarly, it regularly faces the difficulty faced by most country areas of attracting sufficient doctors not only for private practice but also for the base hospital. As a consequence of all these factors, a very large number of low income families and pensioners attend not a general practitioner but the outpatient clinic of the base hospital.

One could talk at length about the health needs of the aged, the low income families, migrants and the Aborigines, yet of all these groups it is difficult to speak effectively. It is difficult, if not impossible, to discuss the problem of the health care of the poor in Australia. The research has simply not been done. Indeed, there is hardly any research being done in Aus tralia on the social aspects of medical care. There is an appalling ignorance, both among the community at large and in the Government itself, of the health needs of the poor. The collapse of the Government’s subsidised scheme shows clearly that its interest was not in the welfare of the poor but in the continuation of its health insurance scheme. Similarly, the Department of Health is allowed to show little interest in health care outside the programmes of public health and the battle to prop up the Government’s health insurance scheme. The Government sees its Department of Health largely as a disburser of moneys to the States. So we know that as an initiator of forward looking plans of comprehensive health care for the community the Government has failed dismally.

The poor are unseen and neglected. As a result, we know very little about the following: Firstly, the distribution and accessibility of general practitioners in poorer areas; secondly, the extent to which the poor are forced to use outpatients departments of public hospitals which are not designed to meet such needs; thirdly, the efficiency and economy of the use of outpatients departments by the poor; fourthly, the incidence of illness among the poor and the nature of this illness, especially chronic illness; fifthly, the connection between the ill health of the poor and the general pattern of their life style such as diet, hygiene, social and psychiatric problems and their promptness in seeking medical care; and, sixthly, the need to link health, education and social welfare services. By comparison with our appalling ignorance here, overseas - especially in the United States - the problem of the health care of the poor has received a tremendous amount of attention from governments and medical personnel. By comparison with the indolent apathy of the Australian Government, the United States Government has taken an active role in providing for the poor through substantial grants to States and to institutions for the care of the poor.

American observers and medical people claim that the traditional pattern of medical practice does not serve the poor well, and that the use of outpatient clinics is an unsatisfactory means of meeting their needs. In particular they have recommended the establishment of special community health centres in poor areas containing not only general practitioners but also social workers, psychiatric social workers, home nurses, health educationists, community liaison officers and so on to provide not only care but also prevention and education. The theory behind these centres is that they concern themselves with general social problems of the poor which have a direct bearing on their health. Such centres, hopefully, will attract the poor to them so that they will have a more positive attitude towards their health problems and will seek care as early as possible rather than leaving it till later when the situation is worse.

Thus not only do we need research on the subjects mentioned earlier. I am trying to track down some information on the subject. I was amazed at just how little research information there is in Australia on this subject. An extremely important part of such research would be to establish experimental community health centres, especially in poor areas, so that overseas theory and practice can be tested in Australia. In this regard, it is to be hoped that university departments of social and preventive medicine will sponsor such centres through the public hospitals with which they are associated. This has become common in the United States, and the Federal Government there makes special grants for foundations to set up community health centres.

I strongly urge the Government therefore to give all the financial support necessary to the venture by the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine of Monash University in co-operation with the University of Melbourne to establish a community health centre in Prahran. The centre will co-ordinate and integrate community health and social services. Doctors, social scientists, representatives of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and of the Mental Hygiene Authority will co-operate in this experiment. I strongly urge the Commonwealth not to allow financial obstacles to obstruct this project.

Finally, to reiterate, there is an appalling ignorance of the health needs of the poor in Australia and of other underprivileged

20369/71- R.-I81J

groups. We do not know how these needs are being met. Accordingly, because I regard this matter as being of such importance, I move:

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the honourable member for Bendigo from moving:

That this House is of the opinion that a select committee should be set up immediately to investigate and recommend on health care needs of underprivileged groups in Australia.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury:
RYAN, QUEENSLAND

Order! Has the honourable member concluded his speech?

Mr KENNEDY:

– I have moved for the suspension of Standing Orders.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-The honourable member still has time in which to conclude his remarks. .

Mr KENNEDY:

– I have specifically moved for the suspension of Standing Orders because I regard this as an important matter.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-The honourable member may speak to that motion.

Mr KENNEDY:

– I have raised this matter in this way because I believe it is the only way in which the Opposition can let this Government know how seriously it regards the position of the health of all underprivileged groups in Australia. Under the Standing Orders, there is no other way for the Opposition to bring this matter forward yet, clearly, it is one of the most urgent and important matters affecting a very substantial minority of Australian people. I am concerned that the Government will react to criticisms of its subsidised medical scheme merely with a little window dressing. Surely if there is one thing that the figures relating to the collapse of the subsidised medical scheme shows, it is that, somehow or other, the health facilities of this nation are not being used properly by underprivileged groups such as pensioners, the aged, Aboriginals, migrants and a variety of other people.

What is most distressing is that I believe that this Government does not know what are the health needs of the poor and it does not know how these needs should be met. It is most striking that while it is clear that it is necessary to have a changing pattern of health care for the people of Australia as a whole and for the poor in particular, and while it is clear that overseas there is much experimentation going on in this sphere, nevertheless in Australia the Commonwealth Government continues to regard health as being merely a question of pouring money into State systems and of propping up its own voluntary health insurance scheme. By comparison with the imagination that has been exercised by the United States Federal Government in paying States, institutions and universities to go into the field of community health services, in Australia we are still in the backwoods.

In the Melbourne ‘Herald’ of 4th October it is reported that a community health centre is being planned at Prahran by the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in conjunction with the Melbourne University. Of course, one can see that this sort of venture is a unique and exceptional situation in Australia and, I believe, everything should be done to encourage it. Regrettably, if one has any understanding of the way this Government operates in the current economic situation, there is a possibility that all such projects could be in for trouble so I strongly urge the Government to give consideration to this project. The point I am making is that this is an exercise which is being undertaken by a university; it is not the sort of initiative that the Commonwealth Government normally takes. We have a tremendous problem in this country. About 1million people are in or near poverty.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury)Order! I point out to the honourablemember that the debate on the motion he has moved for the suspension of Standing Orders should be confined to the suspension of Standing Orders and should not canvass the question of a substantive motion to follow.

Mr KENNEDY:

– I think I have made the point clearly enough. I move accordingly.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– Is the motion seconded?

Mr Hayden:

– I second the motion.

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Kennedy’s) be agreed to.

The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker - Mr Drury)

AYES: 43

NOES: 52

Majority . . . . 9

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Sitting suspended from 6.2 to 8 p.m.

Mr HAMER:
Isaacs

– The increase in aid for nursing home patients announced recently by the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) was very welcome. It will help to lift some of the financial burden from nursing home patients and their families. As the Prime Minister said, this is only an interim solution. The problem of the care of the aged is an immense social and economic problem. This interim solution alone will cost $24m a year. The care of the aged is a very complex problem, and I would have hoped that this House would approach this problem in a constructive way, avoiding the making of cheap, superficial party political points. Because it is a complex problem it is highly unlikely that there is a simple solution - a single panacea.

But before we discuss how the aged should be looked after we first need some broad statistics on the composition of this group of the community. Persons aged 65 years or more constitute 8i per cent of our total population. To put this in a different context, there is one aged person for every 5 people in the work force. In the aged group, the majority are females because the life expectancy of a woman is 74 years compared with 68 for a man. Three-quarters of aged persons are householders or wives of householders. About 80 per cent of these householders own their house. Less than half of the women aged between 65 and 70 are living with their husbands, and at the age of 80 and over only one in 12 is doing so.

A recent New South Wales study of chronic illness suggests that about 4 per cent of the population over 65 years of age are in need of help from others in many of the acts of daily living, 11 per cent are prevented from getting about alone for shopping or visiting the doctor, 15 per cent of women are handicapped in their ability to do housework, and 57 per cent of both sexes suffer from one or more chronic illnesses. About one-fifth of the aged women are childless. The aged man seems to be particularly prone to chronic illnesses and to be in need of assistance in the home. Twenty per cent of them will have no children. Of those who do have children, many of course will not live in close proximity to their children, who may be hundreds of miles away.

A typical aged person then is a frail elderly widow, living alone in a house too large for her present needs, on an income which is scarcely adequate for food and heating, let alone for property renovations.

She is also unlikely to be able to rely on her children to call regularly on her, or to help her with those acts of daily living with which she is coming to need assistance. How then can we best tackle this problem? We seem in our community to have lost the social pattern whereby it was considered right that elderly parents should live in the home of their children, as respected figures, for the term of their natural life. This still happens of course in some families, and perhaps would happen in more families if we could provide the right kind of assistance. If we could provide the right assistance we should certainly do so, for it is clearly economically sound for the community to have aged persons looked after in this way rather than to have them institutionalised, quite apart from the happier life the old people would live. . But the children of these aged people have their own problems. They have their own children, frequently they are both working, and they want to lead their own life. Nearly one married woman in 3 now works. There are, nevertheless, many services that could help them to accommodate their aged parents. Home help services, home nursing services, meals on wheels, paramedical services all help.

In February 1969 the Federal Government provided $1,250,000 a year to provide a comprehensive scheme for home care for the aged. The major components of the programme were $500,000 a year for housekeeper and home help services, $500,000 a year for welfare officers’ salaries and approved capital expenditure in senior citizens centre, and $250,000 for paramedical services to aged persons in their own homes. The paramedical services include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, chiropody and social work. This offer was in addition to the current Federal Government subsidy of $885,000 a year provided for home nursing services.

These were excellent steps, and I think we should build on them and extend them. I have a few suggested lines of attack. We should re-think our approach to home help and delivered meals. We should increase government subsidies to municipalities for home help, and we may have to professionalise the delivered meals service in some areas. We should set up centres for paramedical service, if possible close to senior citizens clubs. Full provision of paramedical services in the patients’ homes is probably beyond us at present, both on financial grounds and because of the availability of staff. In any case it is probably better for these elderly people to get out of their homes occasionally if they are capable of doing so. We should integrate these municipality based services with municipal social work services, so that a co-ordinated system can exist, with a central reference point to help families make appropriate plans for their frail aged members. We should develop new domiciliary services such as home renovation and improvement services, .conversion of steps to ramps, putting handrails in bathrooms and so on. We should provide some financial . incentives for families to care for their aged relatives in their homes. Perhaps we should give tax concessions for costs of home alterations to enable elderly people to be cared for at home, and give tax concessions for money spent by their children on medical and nursing costs.

All these undoubtedly would be expensive, but they would be a great deal less expensive to the community than having these old people in nursing homes or institutions, which is what we are doing now. For those who have no family or who do not wish or are no longer able to live alone, it is necessary to provide home or hostel accommodation. The Federal Government is subsidising the capital cost of accommodation under the Aged Persons Homes Act on a two-for-one basis - $2 from the Federal Government for every Si raised by the organisation. This is an excellent and most successful scheme, but there is also a need for supervised hostels, where the frailer aged can be watched oyer by a resident warden, and the home help services can be called in if necessary. I think the present capital subsidy given to charitable bodies to build nursing homes associated with their aged persons homes would be better devoted to the building of hostels for the aged. Municipal councils also should be made eligible for this grant. Hostels for the aged are the most critical lack in our community, and because of this lack elderly people have to go into nursing homes, at great social cost to themselves and financial cost to the community.

But however good our home help and accommodation is, at some point many of the aged are going to require some form of hospital care, or perhaps l had better say that they are going to have to take to their beds and be looked after by trained nurses for a great proportion of the remainder of their lives. At present Australia has 43 nursing homes beds per 1,000 aged popular tion compared with, for. instance, 17 in Britain and 14 in New Zealand. This extraordinary difference is a reflection on the inadequacies of our home care services and also, in the case of . the privately run nursing homes, the lack of incentive to any rehabilitation scheme to get geriatric patients back on their feet and back in their homes again. The State-run geriatric institutions do have such an incentive. Victoria, for instance, has .5 State establishments providing accommodation for elderly persons in the metropolitan area.

There are at present 5,315 people on the waiting lists for these institutions. The average waiting time is 12 months for males and 2 years for females, but unlike most private nursing homes they do have ah admissions policy’ based on need rather than on capacity to pay. These figures of waiting times may not be as significant as they seem, as something like half the aged in these nursing homes could probably return to their homes if suitable facilities were available there, and would be better off if they did. I am told that a high proportion of those who could be discharged would need as little as half a day a week home help; at the moment the normal maximum is half a day a fortnight. These figures show both the need and the opportunity for increased home care services.

Another advantage of the State-run institutions is that they provide the sort of ancillary services - physiotherapy, occupational therapy and so on - which are essential to any chance of rehabilitation and to the welfare of the aged if they are to live a reasonably happy life in the evening of their days. I think the future of care for the aged lies in more of this type of institution, probably one to each municipality, of about 100 bed size. This size would allow the economies of scale, including rehabilitation services, and at the same time be sufficiently numerous so that patients are not moved too far from their friends and relatives. I am opposed personally to any attempt to expand the hospital insurance scheme to cover geriatric nursing home care at the moment. I think it would be propping up a rickety system and would be encouraging the growth of large numbers of small, inefficient - but profitable - geriatric nursing homes, when the future of this type of care lies, I am sure, with the larger institutions, municipally based, which can provide efficient care and rehabilitation. This is not to denigrate the devoted work of many of the charitable nursing homes, but they are usually too small for efficient operation, and cannot afford adequate rehabilitation services. I think their activities would be better directed to the provision of hostel accommodation, of which there is a critical shortage.

Before we get any deeper into nursing home subsidies, we must negotiate, in cooperation with the States, agreements on charges and standards of care. We also need an agreed and supervised admissions, rehabilitation and discharges policy. And we need the ordinary general practitioner to have a greater knowledge of geriatrics and the possibilities of rehabilitation. This will be a long process, because the only place to introduce this training is at the universities during their qualifying course. But our main aim at the moment must be to improve our home care and hostel accommodation, so that elderly people who do not need or want to go to nursing homes are not forced to go there - at great cost to them and to the community. The proper care of the aged is a problem that we must solve because it is up to our generation to see that the generation before us can grow old in dignity and reasonable comfort. After all, we are all going to be old some day!

Dr GUN:
Kingston

– First, I wish to protest at the haste with which this legislation is being pushed through the House. This Bill with which we are dealing embodies 3 extremely important measures. W.e are dealing with an increase in the nursing home subsidy and the doubling of the prescription charge. We are enacting also in this legislation an increase in the fees of general practitioners. It would seem to me that any one of these measures could command a full day’s discussion of this House. It seems to me also an exercise in indecent haste to push the Bill through in one day. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that this is the one day in the sitting week on which the proceedings of the House are not being broadcast. The first matter with which I wish to deal has to do with nursing homes. The Bill proposes to increase the level of nursing home payments made by this Government. Because this provision is included in the Bill, we propose to support the Bill at its second and third reading stages although we have moved an amendment at the second reading stage.

The cost of nursing home care is perhaps the most serious problem in the whole structure of community welfare services. The problem is entirely of the Government’s own making and is due to the failure of the Government to formulate any programme of care for the chronically ill. All the Government’s attention has been focussed on the acute hospitals, and what happens to patients outside the acute hospitals has been regarded by this Government as someone else’s problem.

The matter of nursing home care must be integrated on the one hand with the acute hospital and on the other hand with hospital accommodation and domiciliary care services. Because no total programme has been formulated and because the Government has been preoccupied almost solely with acute hospitals, the community has more acute hospital beds than it really needs. But many of the occupants of those beds are there because they cannot afford nursing care in nursing homes. On the other hand, there are many occupants of nursing homes who are there not because they require nursing home care but because no adequate hostel accommodation or domiciliary care services are available for them. I am reliably informed that 30 per cent of nursing home patients in South Australia could be cared for in hostels, in day centres or by domiciliary care services. This would be cheaper for the patient and cheaper for the Government and, above all, it would provide the patient with better care in that the care given would be more appropriate to the patient’s needs.

However, the most urgent need is for the cost burden to be taken off the shoulders of nursing home patients. This burden has been a crushing one. For many people it has meant using up their savings or having their nursing home fees paid out of the wages of sons and daughters who have their own families to support as well. This Bill reduces the amount that must be found by the patient or the patient’s relatives to pay the nursing home fees and, for that reason, the Opposition will not oppose the passage of the Bill. However, it is quite inadequate in itself, because before very long nursing home fees must rise again and we will be back to the same situation as before.

What must happen is that the sick and the aged must no longer have to pay the cost of nursing home care. The cost should be no charge on the patient at all in the same way as acute hospital care already is no charge on insured patients. Having made nursing home care a charge on the public purse, the cost should be kept within reasonable bounds by upgrading the scope of hostel care and domiciliary care which will mean an improvement in the quality of health care and a lesser charge on Government revenue.

There must be also, 1 believe, much more direct Government activity in the field of nursing homes. I refer in this respect to the report of the Senate Select Committee on Medical and Hospital Costs which, at page 54, recommends:

That, as a means of overcoming shortages of nursing home bed availability, and to establish State Governments as being primarily responsible for providing nursing homes within the total hospital care concept, the Commonwealth Government should make unmatched grants to the Stales Ibr the construction, or enlargement, of State nursing homes.

I agree that the Commonwealth Government must either give more support to the State Governments or help local government authorities and that, if it does not do this, it should go into the field itself and construct its own Commonwealth nursing homes.

The second principal feature of this Bill is the doubling of charges on national health service prescriptions. The charge is increased from 50c to $1. This measure is completely unacceptable to the Opposition. We will oppose this measure in the Committee stage and we would have opposed the whole Bill if the Bill did not provide for nursing home benefits to be increased.

The policy of the Australian Labor Party is that pharmaceutical benefits shall be provided without charge to the patient. The concept of a deterrent charge is really illusory when we consider whom we are trying to deter. In the first place, the prescription is made out by the doctor who does not have a direct financial interest in the cost of the prescription. So, the effect that the deterrent charge will have will vary according to the degree to which the doctor is prepared to compromise his patient’s medical welfare in order to safeguard the patient’s financial welfare. We should not be putting doctors in this position.

However, if it is assumed, for argument’s sake, that there is some deterrent effect on the patient, it is more likely to be the poor man than the rich man who will be deterred. The poor man may be deterred from obtaining some medication that he really needs. Meanwhile the rich man will not be deterred even if his medical need is less. In other words, the deterrent charge does not deter the less sick; it deters the less rich. Whether there is a deterrent effect or not,, a charge of Si on national health scheme prescriptions can amount to a considerable sum if a number of different medications are prescribed and if repeats are prescribed also. Taking this and the doctor’s fees into account we see that quite a considerable sum is involved.

I could quite understand many people now regarding the Government’s claim to providing a pharmaceutical benefits scheme as fraudulent, because although the cost per prescription has risen only marginally, the patient’s contribution is now to be doubled in one stroke. According to the figures of the Minister for Health (Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson), 10 years ago the average price per item was $2.18. The patient’s share was 50c; in other words, 23 per cent. Now the average cost is to rise from $2.18 to $2.30, and the patient’s share will be $1. So the patient’s share per prescription will be increased from 23 per cent to 43 per cent. Many- more prescriptions are now being written so the Government has decided to make the patient pay a greater share. The . Government is increasing the number of benefits available, and thereby hopes,- presumably, that it will gain political mileage, but it is not prepared to pick up the check. As it was put to me by a correspondent, it is like inviting someone to a fine dinner, then complaining about the cost and asking the guest to put his hand in his pocket to help pay the account.

Of course, it is proper for the Government to investigate the causes of the rising cost of the scheme, and this is currently under consideration by the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits, of which I am a member. I am not in a position to determine what the findings of the Committee will be, but I am prepared to say that raising prescription charges is a most iniquitous way to try to cut costs, besides not being conducive to good medical practise. The level of expenditure on pharmaceutical benefits is almost as great as the expenditure on medical and hospital benefits combined. It is continuing to rise steeply. There is a much greater amount of drug consumption in Australia. Therefore, I think it is time that we started asking: Are we getting any healthier as a result of this? Again, ] shall not, as a member of the Select Committee, presume to answer this question, but I shall say that it is not sufficient just to look around for scapegoats. We must look at the whole social and physical environment in which people are seeking and taking more medication.

The third principal measure in this Bill is to approve by legislation the increases in doctors’ fees which were introduced earlier this year. I believe that we are now at the crossroads in medical insurance. Costs are spiralling. We are now legislating to raise fees. How many more times will we go through this process before we stop and ask where it is getting us? We are at the crossroads in health insurance as we are in the care of the chronically ill, about whom I was speaking earlier. Are we going to wait until nursing home fees rise again before we ask: Are we getting the best in nursing care for our money? So also for health insurance. Medical fees are rising rapidly. During the 12 months between December 1969 and December 1970, the period during which the revamped national health scheme was introduced, doctors’ incomes rose by 25 per cent - not this doc tor’s income. We are now accepting a rise of 15 per cent in general practitioners’ fees. Commonwealth expenditure on medical benefits has more than doubled in the last 5 years. I might mention in passing that hospital charges are also rising at a phenomenal rate.

The document which was circulated to honourable members today by the Minister for Health indicates that public ward charges in South Australia are $16 a day. I do not think it is very long ago - a couple of years ago - when the charge was $10 a day. This is a pretty heavy rise. At the same time an increasing proportion of funds used for current expenditure on public hospitals is coming from State government sources. So State governments are having to pay increased amounts. In summary, there is a rapidly increasing expenditure on hospital benefits, medical benefits and pharmaceutical benefits. The percentage of our gross national product which we are spending on health services is also rising. I have some figures here which I obtained from the Bureau of Census and Statistics today, which show that excluding chemists’ charges, 3.3 per cent of our gross national product was spent on health in 1959-60, 3.7 per cent in 1964-65 and 4.1 per cent in 1969-70. If one includes chemists’ charges, 4.9 per cent of the gross national product was spent on health in 1959-60, 5.4 per cent in 1964-65 and 5.8 per cent in 1969-70. So we must really ask the same question as we asked in relation to pharmaceutical benefits: We are spending more on health, but are we getting any healthier? It is quite possible that expenditure on health will continue to increase without it really doing anybody much good.

It is quite clear that a first reform must be to abolish the present system of voluntary health insurance, and this is the first thing that a Federal Labor government will do in this field. We will abolish the system of voluntary health insurance. We will introduce universal health insurance with contributions based on ability to pay. The setting up of a single Government scheme will save funds by reducing the cost of collection of revenue, which can be done through the Taxation Office, and by avoiding the other problems associated’ with having a multiplicity of funds, such as advertising costs and the need for each fund to carry a surplus. Payment through this fund will be by fee for service.

However, Labor will also establish a system of staffing public hospitals with salaried medical officers. A system of comprehensive community health services .will be set up with the family doctor as one of the team, with nurses, physiotherapists, medical specialists, social workers, dieticians and so on. In this context I believe that we can, we must and we will evolve in the direction of a fully salaried medical service. The tendency has already become evident for increasing numbers of graduate doctors to enter ii. to salaried positions, and I believe that this tendency will continue. Thus I believe that a salaried medical service involving the great majority of doctors will come, not at the behest of an authoritarian government, but by evolution because it is consistent with the best in medical care.

Not only will it be best for the patients; it will be far less extravagant than the present fee for service system. Indications from the pre-paid systems, such as the Kaiser Permanente Scheme in the United States of America, suggest that the number of acute hospital beds required can reach as low as 2 per 1,000, or even less. Another benefit is the decrease . in the number of operations the merit of which is sometimes disputed. I refer to tonsillectomy and hysterectomy operations. Furthermore, I believe that the potential exists for reductions in expenditure on prescription goods in a pre-paid medical system. One of the best examples of the merits of a salaried service can be seen by reference to my own specialty of anaesthesia. The specialist anaesthetist is highly trained in a number, of specialised tasks, such as the administration of anaesthetics, supervision of patients in the post-operative recovery ward, intensive care of patients with life threatening respiratory and circulatory conditions, the management of unconscious patients, and the relief of pain such as that associated with the early post-operative period, with certain chronic diseases or with child birth.

In the public hospital the specialist anaesthetist can devote his whole time to these activities. He himself can- handle the more difficult anaesthetic problems and can leave the simple cases to non-specialist staff. Thus he uses his specialist skills all the time - a productive use of manpower. Contrast this with the specialist anaesthetist in private practice. He gives only anaesthetics, and many of these could be handled by a competent general practitioner. The rest of the time is spent shuttling through city traffic from hospital to hospital. How utterly wasteful. Meanwhile, the post-operative care and so on in the private hospitals is carried out by the nursing staff. This is a responsibility which nurses do not have to bear in public hospitals. This is particularly topical in relation to the present measure because one of the items in the Schedule for amendment is item 44. The pre-operative or preanaesthetic visit by an anaesthetist involves a further waste of time, which is quite unnecessary, and would not take place in a fully salaried hospital system. So I say to the Government: Put the fees up now, put nursing home payments up now, put prescription charges up now, but sooner or later a decision will have to be made as to whether any better service is obtained for the extra money.

I think that there are plenty of examples to indicate that the present system positively encourages a waste of money and manpower. To take an example, a multiple electrolysis determination attracts a fee of approximately $15. I have a strong suspicion that this service is greatly overpriced. There is a great tendency to have this examination carried out on many patients, but there is scant evidence to indicate that screening the community in this way will result in a healthier community. Yet the over-priced benefit gives the opportunity for pathology specialists to make handsome incomes, although I do not claim that they necessarily do this. But certainly the system can encourage scarce medical manpower into this specialty without great return in the form of community help. Not nearly enough is being done to determine the medical manpower needs of the community. I believe that this should be the primary task of the medical faculties in our universities. Certainly some of our medical teachers are giving a splendid lead, and I have particularly in mind Professor Saint in Brisbane and Professor Hetzel of the Monash University. A Labor government will give every encouragement to medical skills to become fully involved in community medicine. I would like to quote from a recent article by Professor Saint in the ‘Medical Journal of Australia’ in which he suggested that medical schools must involve themselves more in community medicine. It reads:

And in few hospitals is much Interest paid to the long-term supportive care.

This was referred to by my friend the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Hamer). It goes on:

Pejorative adjectives are used to describe old ladies with strokes and old gentlemen with bronchitis; rehabilitation is something somebody else does; and what skills the social worker, the physiotherapist and the occupational therapist employ are known only to undergraduates who marry them.

He went on to say: . . if we believe it to be true that the range of experience of the doctor-in-training should be broadened, then we should be creating elective attachments and a teaching atmosphere in a spectrum of institutions which have not hitherto been regarded as being worthy of affiliation with medical schools - industrial health clinics, geriatric day-centres, rehabilitation centres, psychiatric clinics and day-centres, clinics for drug addicts, child guidance centres, and remedial centres for autistic and dyslexic children. And the answer to the problem of rejuvenating interest in general practice and the elevation of its prestige is not only to attach students to individual practices, desirable though this may be, but to create pioneering academic units in community health …

He went on to say:

  1. . and to experiment with the design and organisation of health centres, something which we have scarcely begun to do in Australia.

In the final analysis what really matters is deciding where best to spend our money to achieve a high standard of community health. This means not so much more and more on doctors’ fees, on hospitals or other institutions. It means preventive medicine. It means reducing the incidence and prevalence of disease. And preventive medicine is meant in the widest context. It may mean anti-pollution measures to reduce respiratory disease; it may mean measures to improve the urban environment to reduce the incidence of psychoneurosis; it may mean safer motor cars and better road rules to reduce injury from road accidents. Again, as Professor Saint said, there is so much more which ought to be done which is not being done at all.

Sir JOHN CRAMER:
Bennelong

– I think the honourable member for Kingston (Dr Gun) must have had an anaesthetic before he came into the chamber tonight because to me he seemed to be talking from memory. The honourable member’s speech was interesting and I think that we would all agree with a lot of what he said. He simply said the obvious. He did not, of course, tell us where we would get the money to do the things he suggested, but this is another matter. I do not think that this Bill now before us necessitates very extensive debate at this time, but 1 want to say a few more words about it. Nobody seems to have mentioned the Bill itself so far. I have listened to the arguments but nobody has talked about the Bill. The Bill is divided into 4 parts. This Bill provides for an increase in patient benefit for ordinary nursing homes from $2 a day to $3.50 a day. This means a rise from $14 per week to $24.50, and that is not an insignificant rise. That increase relates to the average patient. For the intensive care patient the increase will be from $5 a day to $6.50 a day. Previously this benefit was $35 per week but it has now been increased to $45.50. Again this is quite a substantial increase and therefore it must be of considerable advantage to those people who will receive this benefit.

Another matter dealt with in this Bill is an increase of 50c to a total of $1 for pharmaceutical benefit prescription. This increase is quite understandable because the amount charged for a prescription has not risen since it was introduced in 1960. Other matters contained in this Bill only confirm certain regulations varying the medical benefits schedules. The Opposition has seen fit to move an amendment to the motion before the House. I will not detail that amendment, but the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) in moving the amendment pressed his point of view. The honourable member has the idea that this Bill penalises the sick. I do not quite understand his view. The provisions of this Bill will make the position of the sick better than it is now. Perhaps these people should get more; but this Bill will improve their situation. I cannot see where a penalty comes into this. The honourable member for Oxley spoke about uplifting the standards of general practitioners. He announced that if the Australian Labor

Party came to power we would have an Australian Hospitals Commission. It is the same old story.

He spoke about universal participation in the health scheme and said that up to 15 per cent of the people do not take advantage of the voluntary health insurance scheme. This is because the people have decided for themselves whether to participate and surely they should be free to decide what they want to do. This is no criticism of the scheme. The honourable member for Oxley tried to advocate the Labor Party’s idea that everything should be compulsory. The honourable member spoke about the failure to uphold the common fee system. We all know that there has never been - and the honourable member for Kingston knows this full well - complete uniformity on the common fee. I do not think anyone would have reasonably expected this uniformity but generally speaking doctors in Australia are coming to the situation where they are observing the common fee and by far the great majority of the doctors do observe the common fee at this point of time. The honourable member for Oxley believes that nursing homes should be part of a whole health scheme. Of course it would be great if this were so but if it were so it would, of course, result in quite considerable increases in insurance charges.

The Opposition does not oppose the Bill and I do not see how it could oppose it. Opposition members have taken the opportunity in this debate to range over a host of matters concerning the health scheme. They have used this occasion for propaganda purposes to put forward their socialist ideas for a health scheme. They want to let the people know what their scheme is, and we all know what it is. If the Opposition were to come to power - and for the sake of Australia. I hope this never happens - it would introduce a centralist scheme of control over all health matters. This is the way they would work it. They want everything done in regard to health to be on a compulsory basis. There would be no voluntary scheme whatsoever. The Opposition wants, hospitals, nursing homes and all related health facilities to be Government-owned and Government-controlled, including the doctors themselves. As the honourable member for Kingston has just admitted- arid he is a doctor himself - Labor’s idea is to nationalise the doctors so that all the members of the medical profession would become employees of the Government. I do not think that the people of Australia want that. I do not think this is the way to get the best medical service. If the honourable member were honest about it he would agree that that is not the way in which to get the best medical services.

If I had sufficient time in this debate I would go over the whole history of health services in Australia but unfortunately time does not permit. Prior to this Government coming into power literally nothing was done in regard to health from the Commonwealth viewpoint. It is only in the last 22 years that this Government has been in power that all these major changes have been made. In the early days prior to this Government coming into power the major hospitals got together and created a voluntary fund in New South Wales called the Hospitals Contribution Fund. I was a member of the original board of that fund and I helped to form that organisation. I represented the Mater Misericordiae Hospital at North Sydney. These hospitals still run the funds. I was looking through some of my old papers only the other day and I saw that a special committee was set up by Labor Government which was in power in New South Wales at the time the voluntary fund was established. The then Minister for Health in New South Wales, Mr Sheahan, set up that committee to investigate the possibility of creating a compulsory hospital insurance fund. The report of that committee is very interesting. It recommended that it was impossible or impracticable to introduce a compulsory scheme. I point out that this was an investigation by the Labor Party itself. If anybody looks back into our history they will find that this was the position.

The health scheme at present operating was established by Sir Earle Page when this Government came to power. This scheme had been a magnificent one in the interests of the people of Australia. Labor’s health record is pitiful. It tried to establish a compulsory scheme but the doctors refused to co-operate. Honourable members will recall that Labor tried at that time to negotiate such a scheme but failed in its negotiations. So it passed an

Act for the introduction of a health scheme of a compulsory nature, but that Act was challenged in the courts and found to be illegal. Labor ended up its term in office doing precisely nothing for the health of the people of Australia.

But the present Government’s record is, as I said before, really magnificant. In this regard one should think of not only the hospital and medical funds but also the pensioner medical service which was a magnificent conception of assistance to people in need of help. It is, of course, free to all pensioners in Australia. This Government originated the idea of and introduced free hospitalisation and the supply of pharmaceutical drugs to elderly people. The subsidised pharmaceutical benefits scheme has, even though the prescription charges has been increased to $1, saved the people of Australia millions of dollars and has been of great assistance to them. It is necessary to have some sort of deterrent in relation to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, otherwise people will place no value on the medicine which is provided to them and some of the expenditure which is sustained by the Commonwealth in this regard will be to’ no good purpose at all. This Government established the homes for the aged scheme, which has subsidised the building of homes for tens of thousands of elderly people throughout Australia. I could speak for a long time about the research it has encouraged into cancer, heart disease and various other diseases. The subsidisation of nursing homes is quite a recent innovation.

Care of the aged is without doubt one of the most complex and most difficult problems which have to be faced. Age brings not only illness and infirmity but also loneliness and mental problems. People usually experience more family problems in the latter part of their life than in the earlier part of their life. There are certain economic adjustments which have to be made, too, as people get beyond the stage at which they can earn an income. But these problems are not confined to people in the low income group. Elderly people in the middle income group also have problems. Even elderly people who are reasonably wealthy have problems. These problems can in many ways be relieved by assistance from us. But elderly people need guidance, advice and, in many ways, rehabilitation in certain times of their life.

As the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) said, the Bill is only an interim measure; R is not intended to be the final say on our health scheme. However, it is necessary to do something at this stage to relieve the nursing homes at a time when they are experiencing increased costs. The private nursing homes, the nursing homes run by churches, charitable institutions and the public hospitals, State or municipal, need some assistance. I agree that there is a need to check the standard of the service and care given to elderly people. One wonders whether something should be done about the establishment of clinics in association with the senior citizens movement for the provision of certain assistance to elderly people. Perhaps consideration could be given also to the extension of the scheme to the building of hostels, which is a matter of importance. I am very firmly of the opinion that it is necessary to go ahead at a very fast rate with increasing the domiciliary care that is provided to older people. I think that that is an important matter that must be considered very shortly. I have no doubt that the Government will be considering and making a decision on matters of this nature in the future. As the Prime Minister said, this legislation is only an interim measure. There is also the question of the provision of an annexe to major hospitals where one can get particular forms of assistance. This matter should be looked into in the building of major hospitals.

Another matter is the provision of community aid. A magnificent community aid scheme has been established in Lane Cove, which is in my electorate.- Voluntary help is given under this scheme to assist the elderly people with their troubles. As I said earlier, it is not necessarily the elderly people in the poorer section of the community who need community aid. A great variety of problems afflict people in their old age. This is when they need assistance. I think this Government can be trusted - certainly Labor cannot, be trusted - to make a further extension to the assistance which is provided under the national health scheme. But in my opinion it should be a voluntary scheme and not a compulsory one. It should not be centralised in Canberra, as Labor wants it to be. Give the people a chance to decide what kind of health assistance they want.

Dr GUN (Kingston) - Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.’

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable member for Kingston claim to have been misrepresented?

Dr GUN:

– I claim to have been misrepresented on 2 occasions by the honourable member for Bennelong (Sir John Cramer). The honourable member for Bennelong quoted me as saying that the Australian Labor Party would nationalise the doctors. That is not so. What I did say was that a salaried service would evolve and that there is already a tendency for an increasing number of medical graduates to enter salaried positions. So Labor would not nationalise the doctors; a nationalised system or a salaried system would develop spontaneously. He said if I were competely honest I would admit that a nationalised system would not give better medicine. If the honourable member had listened to what I said he would have heard me expound on why I believe a salaried system would give better medicine. I could do it again, giving chapter and verse, if he wanted me to do so.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I suggest that the honourable member should keep to the terms of his personal explanation.

Dr GUN:

– Finally, on the question of my honesty, I can only reply with a quotatoin which goes like this:

This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Dr CASS:
Maribyrnong

– 1 wish to talk to that part of the Opposition’s amendment that relates to nursing homes. If one examines the number of nursing home beds per thousand of population one sees that there has been a dramatic increase from about 1.48 beds per thousand in 1963 to 2.42 beds per thousand in 1970 in the private nursing home sector in a period when the number of public nursing home beds rose from only 0-86 per thousand to 1 per thousand. In other words, there has been a very dramatic increase in the private sector. The fees for these private beds amounted to a total of about S3 8m in 1966-67. The Commonwealth paid $15m of that sum. So the Commonwealth Government is providing quite a large subsidy to the private nursing home business.

The honourable member for McMillan (Mr Buchanan) indicated that about 80 per cent or more of the beds in these nursing homes are occupied by pensioners. Of course, the funds to pay for the occupation of these beds come from the Commonwealth allowance in the main and the pension the Commonwealth pays to pensioners. So that one could in fact say that the Commonwealth provides all of the funds of these institutions - in other words, the pension and the Commonwealth payment. With the increase that the Government is now proposing, theoretically if the costs remained the same as they were for the financial year 1969-70 the pensioners would make a very slight profit. They would finish up with about $7 a week in their pocket. But since those days costs have already risen. We have heard a lot about this in discussions on inflation.

Accepting the figures of the honourable member for McMillan, we see that already the combined pension and the Commonwealth payment - in other words, total taxation revenue - will not be sufficient now to pay the fees. So, in addition, the pensioners’ families are going to have to find still more funds. Of course for the non-pensioners this will represent an enormous financial drain. I would hazard a confident guess that the cost of public nursing home beds is considerably less than this, but we cannot prove it because the figures for public nursing home beds are included in the total public hospital bed costs. We cannot tell what the figure really would be. But I think that one can get a fair indication of it from the very dramatic increase in the number of private nursing home beds.

We can get a pretty shrewd estimate of how profitable these types of institutions are to private investors. No-one is forced to go into the private nursing home business. Quite clearly, if people invest their money to change small houses and goodness knows what into small, to me inefficient, private nursing homes they must be doing it because they can make money from it. I am quite confident that this is in fact what is happening. In essence all we are doing is subsidising these very inadequate facilities for the treatment mainly of pensioners. In all these discussions we fail to ask what it is we are really trying to achieve. We fail to ask whether private nursing homes are worth while and what function they fulfil. Again accepting the figures provided by the honourable member for McMillan, I would suggest that the main function of private nursing homes is to keep old people out of sight and so out of mind. But this is not good medical care. The essence of medical care for people in that age bracket these days is active, intensive medical care and active rehabilitation services. None of these things is available in small private nursing homes.

It would be far better to extend domiciliary care in association with geriatric medical teams based on large public hospitals, lt would be far more humane, much more effective and, incidentally, would cost the community much less than the present system of maintaining these people in private nursing homes. In my opinion, old people confined to nursing homes are often condemned to a living death. The Australian Labor Party’s concept with the ultimate aim of a completely comprehensive medical service for ail age groups is far better. Convalescent and nursing home type beds should be incorporated in the active aspect of medical treatment. These beds should not be in tin pot little institutions that must be inefficient. They should be incorporated into satellite hospitals in a regionalised hospital system. With these smaller institutions the convalescent beds or the nursing home beds should be in smaller hospitals than the major centres but .still in groups of perhaps 50 to 100 or more beds - not smaller than that. They should be situated near where the patient lives - in other words, out in the community - and near where the patient’s general practitioner works. They should operate in conjunction with health centres, comprehensive units where one can go along and see one’s general practitioner and get the assistance of social workers, occupational therapy and X-ray facilities. I will enlarge on that later if there is time.

I turn now to the question of prescription charges. The honourable member for

McMillan revealed a snide suggestion based on having heard that the pharmaceutical industry is going to raise the cost of a lot of the cheaper items so that they will be above $1 and will be covered by the new scheme. If they are below SI, one just pays the fee. The industry, he said, is going to bump the fees up so that the patients will have to pay $1, the Government will pay a few cents and when the next lot of statistics comes out there will be shown a dramatic drop in the cost to the Commonwealth of prescriptions. There will be a very serious increase in the cost to the community which will not be measured. We will not notice it. The reason for making this charge is often claimed to be that it will help to deter people from wanting unnecessary prescriptions. The fact is that doctors prescribe medicines for patients. Patients do not prescribe them for themselves. Patients do not get the medicines unless they have prescriptions from their doctors.

The fault lies not with the patients but superficially with the doctors. I would like to suggest that it is not even the doctors’ fault. It is the fault of the system under which the doctors have to practise medicine. At the moment there is an economic incentive for doctors to write, prescriptions much more readily than they should. It is an easy way of coping immediately with the problem of the patient who has an indefinite illness which may require a lot of discussion for a much longer period than is economically worth while for the doctor. After all, if he sees a patient with a psychosomatic illness and talks to the patient for half an hour or three-quarters of an hour he gets the same fee as he would get if he spent 5 minutes with the same patient and prescribed a tranquilliser. lt costs the community much more. He earns less if he spends the extra time. But of course if he spends the extra time the patient will be better off and will receive better medical treatment. So the pressure to increase prescribing is due to the fact that the doctor is paid on a fee for service basis. Therefore he has an economic interest in churning the patients through.

An article which appeared in ‘Fortune’ magazine of January 1970 may help to illuminate the matter. It discusses some of the various schemes in America which have varied the concept of fee for service medical care. One is the Kaiser plan whereby physicians in all major specialties are housed in large clinics in each of the regions covered by the plan. When a patient comes along he can see the doctor and then he can go to the X-ray unit in the same building and have special investigations done. If he needs hospitalisation he can go into one of the hospital units which usually adjoin these clinics. In other words, they have adopted the very policy that the Labor Party is proposing of an integrated health scheme with satellite hospital beds associated with health centres. Let me come to the question of the rate at which patients receive medical care or the effect that fee for service has on the treatment that is offered. Under the Kaiser scheme, the doctors are paid salaries. Noone is forced to join the scheme. No doctor is pressganged into becoming a socialised doctor. They voluntarily become salaried medical officers.

The patients are free to choose any doctor within the group they go along to see, as they may in our country. If you go along to a group of private doctors you are free to take your pick. The article says:

Even though there is no limit to the number of times a member can see a doctor, members of the Kaiser plan make slightly fewer visits to doctors than the public in general.

Comparing the Kaiser members With the population of California at large, the Kaiser member spends 69 per cent as much time in hospital as other people seeing doctors who are paid a fee for service. The Kaiser health service costs from onequarter to one-third less than the same package of services would cost outside the system. I insist that I am not talking about Communist Russia. I am talking about capitalist America and, as my colleague the honourable member for Kingston (Dr Gun) indicated, the evolution of salaried medical services which are beginning to provide the sorts of services we have been talking about for a long time. Under such a scheme there are considerable savings on hospital and medical costs. There are even reductions in the frequency of- operations. For instance, it has been suggested that if your doctor is on a salary you are far less likely to suffer from appendicitis. Those people who are treated by doctors paid on a fee for service basis appear to have appendicectomies 86 per cent more frequently than comparable people treated by doctors who are paid a salary. Also, 50 per cent more women need to have hysterectomies when they are treated by doctors paid on a fee for service basis than when they are treated by doctors paid a salary. The differences are quite dramatic. 1 will conclude, since I see that the Leader of the House (Mr Swartz) looking at the clock, by saying that the same situation applies in Australia. I repeat that these were the conclusions reached in the United States of America, which is not a country forcing Socialism on anybody. Therefore, the only hope is to get more value for the money spent on medical care, to remove the glaring inefficiencies, to bring the proper incentives into play and to make the maximum effort to supplement doctors with the lower paid paraprofessionals. If this were done the country might save enough from the elimination of waste to do a creditable job with the same 6.8 per cent of gross national product which it now spends on its health services. The strongest evidence that this is possible comes from abroad. Honourable members should note this because this deals with quality which is something the Minister suggested should be considered. Sweden and Britain which enjoy lower infant mortality and morbidity rates from childhood diseases than the United States devote only 5 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of their gross national products to medical care and in each of these countries doctors in most cases are paid salaries rather than fees for services.

So when we suggest that the tendency which is automatically occurring in this country is for more and more doctors as they graduate to seek employment on a salary basis we are not talking about the need to nationalise anything. We are observing a natural development. We think it will be inevitable. The Government ought to recognise the trend and assist the development of these institutions by not continuing to subsidise inefficient private nursing homes but by encouraging the development of the public nursing home sector, the integration of the whole hospital organisation, and by increasing the salaried medical services in those institutions.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr

Hayden’s amendment) stand part of the question.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston)

AYES: 51

NOES: 45

Majority . . . . 6

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message received from the GovernorGeneral recommending appropriation announced.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 3 - by leave - taken together.

Mr JACOBI:
Hawker

-I want to deal with clauses 1 to 3 which relate specifically to nursing homes. Let me say at the outset that in my view the increased subsidy provided in the Bill is quite insufficient. As I understand the position, the appropriation for ordinary benefits for 1970-71 was some $29.75m. In my view the subsidy payments ought to have been doubled. According to the Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) the expenditure for the remainder of this year will be $24m. It is anticipated that this will rise to $51m in 1971-72. 1 ask: Is it too much to ask the Government to double the subsidy? My figures show that the cost of doubling the ordinary benefits would be $59m and to double the intensive care subsidy would cost $39m, a total of $98m. I am not talking about private nursing homes but about the non-profit sector and the public sector. I venture to say that the subsidy at this time is nothing more than a holding operation. It will certainly not take care of any future or immediate increases in costs, nor will it provide for an extension of services for straight out nursing or supervision. In the case of private nursing homes there will no doubt be exceptions to the rule, and in my view the majority of this increased subsidy will not help the pensioner but will add to the profit of the private nursing homes. Funds ought to be provided so that we can permit further action which will inevitably be required such as the daily provision of facilities for retraining and rehabilitation, the provision of day centres and day hospitals for senior citizens, a much more comprehensive coverage of the community with domiciliary services and an increased number of nursing home beds available to people, particularly those with limited incomes.

In the limited time that I have I want to refer to the intensive care subsidy On 3 occasions I have raised the matter direct with the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) and with the respective Ministers for Health requesting that a line of demarca- tion between the ordinary care subsidy and the intensive care subsidy still remain. It can only be assumed that those responsible for its retention are unfamiliar with modern geriatric nursing practice, and it is important that the whole policy regarding the day bed subsidy be reframed to guard against the easy abuse of the present system. The same point is made by the President of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Medical Association. In the Adelaide ‘Advertiser’ of 7th October he is reported as follows:

The AMA suspects that some homes kept patients in bed and purposefully did not rehabilitate them so that they would attract the intensive care benefit.

The article continues:

Doctor Hecker said the AMA favoured the abolition of the ordinary nursing home rate and the payment of a single benefit with perhaps a slightly increased benefit for pensioner patients. ( disagree with the latter but I certainly agree with the former.

The other point that 1 want to make briefly is that the intensive care subsidy is discriminatory in concept and in application. 1 can speak with some authority of the position of 2 non-profit homes in my own State. In both cases they provide physiotherapists and occupational therapists-, the net result being that because patients are ambulatory and not bedridden, which is the normal basis for assessment insofar as the Department of Health is concerned, the ratio between intensive care patients and ordinary bed patients drops to about 33 per cent. It is much higher in private nursing homes. The net result is that the proportionate subsidy attracted by both the institution and the patient is chiselled off. This is quite wrong, lt ought to be the reverse, if anything. I have known of a ridiculous situation where a constituent in a hospital in another electorate had been paid an intensive care subsidy for the preceding 12 months - she required it to reduce the cost - but on the day following’ her transfer to another hospital in my electorate the intensive care subsidy was cancelled by the same doctor who had approved it. If there is any logic in that I fail to understand it.

As I see it, presumably the concept and application of the intensive care subsidy is based on the notion that the greater the incapacity and decree of incontinence of an old person and the more bedridden he is, the greater are the demands on an institution. Anyone with any understanding of geriatric care will realise that this is not necessarily the pattern of what happens in geriatric hospitals. As I have pointed out, those who are confined to bed and who are grossly incapacitated may well be less demanding and require less care. More often than not, they are put to one side and completely forgotten. The patient who can sit out of bed and who is partly ambulant, may require far more attention. He or she should be encouraged by the nursing staff to undergo a period of rehabilitation necessitating physiotherapy and occupational care. I think that the criteria should be not whether a person is bedridden - this seems to be the common norm on judging whether intensive care should be applied to a. patient - but on the amount of intensive nursing care required by the patient, whether or not he is ambulatory or bedridden. The whole question of the intensive care subsidy should be thoroughly exa: mined by the Government. A new set of guidelines should be established and the subsidy should be granted with far more compassion and human understanding than is the case at present.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– You name the guidelines.

Mr JACOBI:

– The honourable member is a supporter of the Government and it should establish the guidelines. As I understand the Minister’s second reading speech, the Government intends this to be an interim measure. I should like an assurance from the Minister that this is so. Can he indicate when honourable members may expect to be tabled in this chamber a report of the Government’s comprehensive policy to alleviate the suffering of the aged, the frail aged and the sick aged? When can honourable members expect an increase in the subsidy, because such an increase will achieve ari improvement in the care of the aged and the sick in the non-private and State government areas. I point out to the honourable member for Griffith (Mr Donald Cameron) that the Commonwealth Government’s grant for the . care of the aged in South Australia will be $465,000 over a 5-year period. The State Government has committed itself to alleviating the burden of hardships on the sick and the frail in South Australia and is confronted with an expenditure of $14m. In my view, the Commonwealth Government’s grant is totally inadequate.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Hallett) - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I have listened with great interest today to a number of speeches from both sides of the chamber. Some speeches have been impressive and worth listening to and although I cannot help but disagree with some of the views expressed by the honourable member for Maribyrnong (Dr Cass) 1 commend him for some clear thinking on this subject. In recent days we have heard rather dramatic exaggerations of the way patients are treated in these hospitals. Whilst we are in the Committee stage of the Bill, I believe that if members of the Opposition are convinced that there is unfair and bad treatment in these hospitals and that the situation is as they have painted it, they have an obligation to name the particular hospitals. It is not fair to the entire hospital system for honourable members opposite to drag an 8-inch wide paint brush across every private hospital which is involved in this field. Unfortunately many honourable members have done this, and the effect is -

Mr Jacobi:

– You would not know.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– The hon ourable member has spoken and he can just settle down. The effect of these comments is to cause great concern in the minds and hearts of the close relatives of people in these hospitals. I would suggest, with respect, that if any member of the Opposition has any information to back up the sweeping statements that have been made, he has a duty and an obligation to go to the Minister for Health (Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson) and to name those particular hospitals. lt has been suggested by Opposition members that the moment the increased subsidy is approved, the hospitals will gobble it up without any benefit to the patients or to the people who are contributing to keep people in the hospitals. I do not know what has happened since yesterday’s meeting but when I was in Brisbane on Monday, knowing that this subject was. to be discussed and having had a couple of inquiries from some of my constituents, I spoke to people who are involved in this field. They informed me that great consideration was- being given to returning a percentage of the increase to the patients so that it would become an actual patient benefit and would lessen the contribution that these people must make for their hospitalisation. The honourable member for Hawker (Mr Jacobi) went to great lengths to say that some new system of guidelines should be drawn up to decide who would qualify for what is described as the intensive care allotment. I fully realise and appreciate that there are many people who probably do not require the extra attention for which the money is being paid. By way of interjection I asked the honourable member for Hawker - I noticed that he was rather stunned for a moment or two and was unable to answer my query - to specify the guidelines which should be drawn up to meet this situation. Any honourable member can say that this is wrong and that is wrong but it is more difficult to be able to present new views and to suggest methods which could be implemented. The same arguments can apply to the patient benefit for nursing home care which is to be increased from $2 to $3.50 a day. We all know that in this field a number of people who qualify for this nursing home benefit really should not be in these hospitals.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– But what is the Government doing about it?

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

- Mr Deputy Chairman, the honourable member is sitting on the wrong side of the House. Will you name him? As I was saying, a lot of people who are receiving this money benefit should not really be in these particular hospitals. I suggest that a greater effort should be made to police the qualifications of patients to ensure that the taxpayers of Australia pay only what is required and no extra. Earlier today there was criticism of our hospital system, care for the aged and ill and of the intensive care provisions. I submit that Australia has the best record in the world in the provision of beds per thousand of population for people over the age of 65. It is all very well for members of the Opposition, with their Socialist doctrines and philosophies, to knock the present system but that system has been developed to the stage where beds are being provided for such people. Perhaps we have not completely solved the problem of the cost but I am quite sure that the present Government, in the years to come and as it remains in office, will continue to work on this aspect. As I said earlier, the organisations in Queensland intend passing back to the patients part of the increased benefit so lowering their contributions. I hope the situation will continue to improve in Queensland.

Dr CASS:
Maribyrnong

– In the brief time available to me, I should like to deal with the whole concept of the national health scheme, since the Bill that we are discussing is the National Health Bill. Very briefly, the view of the Australian Labor Party is that it would be far more efficient to have a completely integrated scheme with the public hospitals, in essence, being the pivot of regional organisations of hospital services from which the specialised medical care would flow. Around these regional organisations would be satellite hospitals in areas where people live and where the general practitioners could be organised in health centres. By this integration of services, the cost of hospitalisation in the large public hospitals can be reduced.

Waste occurs because people are admitted to hospitals for admittedly specialised medical care requiring facilities which are available only in large public hospitals. The point is that the time they need to be in these institutions is much less than then now spend in them. They could spend probably half the time they now spend in these expensive beds.

Let us take an operation like a gastrectomy or a cholecystectomy or some other serious operation which should be performed in a large public hospital. With a normal recovery, after 3 or 4 days, or maybe a few days more for gastrectomy, the crucial stage is over and most of the intensive care supervision has ceased. But at the moment the patient sits and languishes in a bed that costs perhaps $30 a day while he convalesces before he is discharged to go home. What should happen is that be should at that stage, probably half way through the period of hospitalisation, be transferred to a convalescent bed in one of the satellite hospitals where he is nearer his own family and nearer his own general practitioner so he can get back to the care of his general practitioner where he ought to be. He would then vacate a highly specialised, expensive hospital bed. Even if it is only 3 days sooner he has saved for the community 3 days of highly expensive hospitalisation.

The next question that is thrown up at us of course is: Where will you find the money? The answer is: In the same place you get it from right now - out of your pockets and mine. The point is that we all pay for the health service. Partly the Government pays, partly benefit funds pay and partly patients pay. But let us not fool ourselves. The Government contribution comes from the taxpayers’ pockets. The benefit fund contribution comes from the benefit fund contributors’ pockets, that is from the same persons who have paid the taxation. The private fees come from the- individuals who happen to be sick. They are ordinary members of the community, the people who pay the taxes and pay the benefit fund contributions. So stop fooling ourselves. The money comes from your pocket and mine. It does not come from up above.

All we are suggesting is a reallocation or redirection of the money from your pocket and mine to the doctor and to the hospitals. At the moment it goes via the benefit fund organisations for a start. What does that cost us? For the privilege of belonging to over 100 different benefit fund organisations it cost us in the administration costs of those organisations for the year 1969-70 a sum of $12m - sheer waste, just to keep the wheels of the benefit funds going. In the same year these so-called non-profit organisations amassed a surplus - they call it a surplus because we must not call it profit; they are non-profit organisations - of $8. 8m. In addition, from the reserves they have invested because they have been amassing not profits but surpluses for all the years they have been going - I would guess they are well over $70m now - they received last year $4.8m. So in 1969-70 our funds, from the stage the money left your pockets and mine, passed through the benefit fund organisations and reached the hospitals and the doctors had dropped by the sum of $25.9m.

That is where you will get the money. You do not have to tax people more; just eliminate the inefficiency. You would collect the same amount of money through the Taxation Office through a national health insurance fund based on taxable income, which is what our policy is, just by changing the print on the back of the taxation form. You do not have to employ one extra person in the Taxation Office. You would collect the money in the same way as you collect the ordinary taxation revenue, without any additional expense *o the community. You would save enough money to pay directly the fees patients now pay to the public hospitals. So straight away you could eliminate the burden of fees which we inflict on the poor individuals who happen to be sick. In other words because of the way our present health scheme functions we punish the people for being sick by charging them fees. Instead we should all be insuring, by means of a national fund collected via taxation, by regular payments to the doctors and hospitals as they need them so that the service is there for the crisis occasion when we become ill. It is of no good being expected to pay when you are ill. It would be much more intelligent to pay smaller amounts while you are well and are earning. Surely that is social justice.

In essence the point about the Labor Party’s scheme is not, dear friends of the Government, that we are proposing an enormous additional expenditure - not at all. We have not said that doctors should be paid more, God bless them. We have not said, although there is a good case for it, that the nursing staff should be paid more. We have riot gone into that one. Accepting the present rate of pay for nurses and the present administration costs of hospitals, what additional funds are Government supporters talking about when they ask: ‘Where is the money coming from?’ Who for? Not for the doctors, not for the nurses, not for the administrators of the hospitals, not even for the drug firms and the medicines they provide. So who are we supposed to be finding the extra money for? It is all a figment, of the imagination. There are no extra funds involved at all.

The Labor Party scheme would save funds because it would save the gross inefficiency which now occurs simply in the transfer of the funds from your pockets and mine to the dispensing services, the doctors and the hospitals, and all the associated people. For these reasons I suggest that the present scheme is grossly wasteful of national resources. It costs us far more than other schemes which offer much more to people. Schemes in Britain, Sweden, many of the Western nations and in Europe involving far more salaried medical services and far more national organisation of hospital services provide better service and do not cost more. They cost less than our service costs. In fact our medical service is one of the most expensive in the world. It rates not far below that of the United States of America. On the other hand many of these national schemes which involve salaried medical service cost less and yet the results in terms of the quality of medical care are better as judged by such things as the infant mortality rate and illness of children, which are very sensitive barometers used to measure health services in underdeveloped countries and so on. Using these barometers, our services are inferior to many of the services which members of the Liberal Party scorn simply because they are in essence socialised medical services. I say to them: You are wrong. Face the facts. It would be less expensive and we would have better quality medical care if we adopted the Labor Party’s policy.

Clauses agreed to.

Clause 4 (Interpretation).

Mr Swartz:

– 1 suggest that the clause be considered by paragraphs.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Hallett) - Is it the wish of the Committee to consider the clause by paragraphs? There being no objection, that course will be followed.

Paragraph (a).

Mr BUCHANAN:
McMillan

– in this paragraph we have the definition of a dependant in relation to a subsidised beneficiary. This clause allows for the dependant to be a spouse or a child over 16 and under 21 who is receiving full time education and is substantially dependent. All I want to say on this paragraph is that if it is all right for this subsidised health plan to have that definition of a dependant that definition should also apply to the contributors to friendly societies. Section 91 refers to ‘Spouses and children under the age of 16’. I suggest it should be the same as for the subsidised beneficiaries.

Paragraph (a) agreed to.

Motion (by Mr Swartz) agreed to.

That paragraph - (b) be postponed.

Paragraph (c).

Mr BUCHANAN:
McMillan

– I am sorry to do this - I realise ‘that the programme has been worked out - but there are a couple of ideas that I did not have time to put forward in my contribution this afternoon. I draw to the attention of the Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) the great difficulty that chemists will have in complying with the provisions of paragraph (c) of clause 4. A beneficiary is required to register with the Department of Social Services which issues to him a certificate. The beneficiary must present the certificate to the doctor. Presumably the doctor will be making some inquiries about this certificate because he will want to protect himself with respect to his own fee which he is likely to get only if the person consulting him does come within the scheme.

The doctor will be required to put the allotted number on the prescription form just as he is supposed to do now with respect to a pensioner medical service card. Unfortunately, thousands of prescriptions are presented now without the PMS number in the doctors’ writing. What I cannot understand is why the Department will not allow the chemist dispensing the prescription to write the number on the form. As far as I can see there is no possibility of fraud. A great deal of time and temper would be saved if the chemist did not have to return the script in many cases to the doctor concerned. They must even send a stamped and addressed envelope to the doctor to have any hope of getting a reply. This should not happen. The indecipherable writing of doctors also is a bad problem.

Under the regulations, a doctor is not supposed to use the national health scheme form for anything but an NHS prescription. But most of them are too lazy to help the chemist by using a separate form for non-national health scheme prescriptions. I suggest that the next batch of forms, which are provided free for the convenience of doctors, should contain a series of squares with the designations NHS, PMS and SHP - the latter meaning subsidised health plan - and that the doctor be required to mark the box to indicate under which heading the prescription is to be dispensed. If the doctor does not indicate this, the chemist should be allowed to guess what was in the doctor’s mind, send in the form for payment and, if the Department wishes to query the designation, it should charge the doctor for the mistake and not. the unfortunate dispenser.

Paragraph (c) agreed to.

Clause 4, paragraph (b), and clauses 5 and 6- by leave - taken together.

Mr BERINSON:
Perth

– I oppose these clauses which give effect to the Government’s decision .to increase the patients’ contribution with respect to pharmaceutical benefit prescriptions to $1. Apart from the principle involved in this proposal, the Bill as a whole is open to 2 serious objections in relation to the timing of its discussion. In the first place, the revised Bill that we now have before us was introduced only yesterday, so that we have had far too little time to give considered study to the new clauses in it. The only excuse for the rush that I have heard advanced is that the need for increased nursing home benefits is now urgent. However, as the homes and their patients have now gone for 2i years without an increase in the intensive care benefit and Si years without an increase in the ordinary benefit, it is hard to take that sort of explanation seriously.

The second instance of bad timing relates directly to the increased prescription charge. This increase comes after the appointment of a select committee which is now in the process of considering all aspects of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme including the prescription charge itself. I know that there are differing views in this place on the subject of committees. Some honourable members are for them and some are against them. But I am quite sure that the worst possible compromise on the question of committees is that We should have committees but just ignore or by-pass them when they are in operation. That is exactly what we seem to be doing in this case.

Now why should we double the prescription charge and, indeed, why should we have a prescription charge at all? There are 2 possible justifications. Firstly and simply, we could have a charge to minimise Government expenditure in this area. Secondly, we could have a charge to act as a possible deterrent on excessive and unnecessary - that is, by definition, undesirable - drug taking. It is disappointing in this respect to see that the Government has looked at the increased charge solely in revenue raising terms. This financial year, so we are told, the charge of $1 will save the Commonwealth $16m. In a full year it will save the Commonwealth $24. 6m. If, as is to be clearly inferred by the Minister’s speech in introducing this Bill, the Government’s only interest is to find $24m, there is hardly a worse way of doing it than by this charge on illness.

Moreover, the extent of the increased charge is not justified even by the Minister’s own figures. As he points out, the relationship of patient contributions to the total cost of the scheme has fallen from 23.1 per cent in 1960-61 to 21.7 per cent this year. Even on his estimate of the average prescription cost for next year, however, the new $1 charge will not merely restore the position of the 1960-61 .figure of 23.1 per cent but will increase that figure to 38 per cent. Why? What justification can there be for an increase, for any increase, and certainly for an increase of this magnitude? The Government does not explain anything by constant reference to the increased cost of the scheme as a whole. Of course its costs have increased over the years. But so has its scope, . so has its usefulness and so has its contribution to economies in other sections of our national health scheme.

Where the costs have increased, the increases are both explicable and justifiable. For example, the Minister indicated that the cost of the scheme increased by $24m last year. The annual report of the DirectorGeneral for Health for 1970-71 clearly indicates how this situation arises. Referring to page 35 of the Director-General’s report, we find that $13. 6m of the increase was due to the relaxation in restrictions on drugs already listed and that $5.9m was attributable to items recently added to the list of benefits. In other words, of the whole increase of $24m, we find that $19. 5m was added as the result of new or relaxed benefits. That leaves less than S5m, and a large proportion of that amount can be attributed simply to increased population. The remaining amount, if the Government wished to meet it in this way, could be met amply by an increase of the prescription fee from 50c to 55c or 60c as a maximum. Certainly nothing of the order of $1 is warranted.

On the other hand, to discuss an aspect of this question which has been entirely neglected by the Government, I believe that it is conceivable that an argument could be raised for some sort of prescription fee and even an increased prescription fee on the basis of the need to deter unnecessary drug taking. It was quite clear that this was the view of the Department of Health as it was presented to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits. I do not say that their view was substantiated but the Department did produce some figures and propositions which at least deserve consideration. For example, the Department pointed out that the average consumption of national health scheme drugs by non-pensioners is 4.5 per year and by pensioners approximately 18 per year. The Department was able to refer the Committee to the British experience where on 3 occasions when drug charges have been either introduced or increased drug usage has fallen by approximately 9 per cent to 12 per cent, at least in the short term. I am well aware that those figures on their own prove nothing. I am very well aware of the fact that there are many other factors which one has to take into consideration before arriving at some conclusion as to what those figures mean. But at least they are worthy of consideration and one would have expected the Government to consider and to comment on them when making such a radical change in the prescription charge position, as it has now done. For the moment I am prepared to say that in the absence of concrete, let alone conclusive, evidence to the contrary, I prefer the attitude of the Labor Party suggesting that there should be no prescription charge to that of the Government which says that the prescription charge should be doubled without making an attempt to justify the increase. la the very short time at my disposal 1 will say only 2 other things very briefly. These relate firstly to the inflationary effect of the proposed prescription charge. I. also want to make a brief comment on the 50c concession which is being offered to ‘those eligible to receive assistance under the subsidised health benefits scheme. Firstly, I want to deal with the inflationary effect to which I have referred. An increase from 50c to $1 has the effect that all items at present on the list under a total cost of $1 - and it has been estimated in the absence of a concrete aswer from the Department that there will be up to 800 of those items - will come off the list for non-pensioners. They must then be obtained as private prescriptions at private rates of profit margin and dispensing fee. In round figures I have estimated that a prescription now costing $1, including the 50c patient payment, will then cost approximately $1.40, which is an increase of 40 per cent. A prescription now costing 70c will cost $1.05, which is also an increase of over 40 per cent. The difference does not arise because pharmacists suddenly become rapacious or altruistic as prescriptions come off and on the scheme. The fact is that the total cost of prescriptions under the scheme is lower for 2 reasons: Firstly, because it is . practical and inevitable to charge less to a bulk customer, which the Commonwealth is; secondly, because the Government presumably working on the basis that it should deal hardest with its weakest opponents, has kept pharmacists’ dispensing fees to a rise of only 2c, or 6 per cent, over a 10-year period when dispensers’ salaries alone have increased by more than 50 per cent. Whatever the reason, the overall effect on the community will be inflationary in the sort of area in which inflation should not be permitted, let alone created by Government action.

Finally, in the one minute left to me, let me say something about this 50c concession which applies to people eligible to receive assistance under the subsidised medical scheme. The submission regarding prescription fees which the Pharmacy Guild put to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits was to the effect that people under the subsidised scheme shoud get their pharmaceutical benefit prescriptions for nothing. One sees the strength of that proposition when one considers who is eligible to receive subsidised assistance. They include people on sickness and unemployment benefits of $10 a week and whole families whose income is $49 a week or less. How can people on that level of income be expected to spend lc, let alone $1 or even . 50c - this magnificent concessionon prescriptions? The should obviously be placed on the same basis as full rate pensioners and receive their . prescriptions free.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Hallett) - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr BUCHANAN:
McMillan

– Under these clauses the. intention is to increase the charge of 50c to what is said to be the appropriate maximum amount. This afternoon I pointed out that the fee in respect of the general public is to be doubled; there is to be an increase of 100 per cent. The patient’s contribution has not been increased since 1960, and the inference is that now the Government thinks that the general public can afford to pay more because of the change in the relative value of the cost of the service and in the average earning rate of the community. I suggest that it is sometwhat inconsistent not to be applying the same reasoning to an increase in the chemist dispensing fee which, strangely enough, has not been increased since about the same time - 1960 - when it was fixed at 30c. This year a grudging increase of 2c was granted, although the demonstrable costs involved in providing the service of dispensing had risen considerably, as the honourable member for Perth (Mr Berinson) has pointed out. In that same period the remuneration paid by the Commonwealth to doctors for pensioner services rendered - and this is a service fee, just the same as the dispensing fee ishas increased from $1.20 to its present level of $2.50, which is an increase of well over 100 per cent.

However, for the chemist the main problem with the charge of the $1 patient contribution is the difficulty of collecting it. I have already suggested the need for an insurance scheme to . cover this cost. But I want to add that chemists in country districts already lose quite an appreciable amount in uncollected charges of SOc. Often a country chemist does not see the actual customer. A messenger brings a prescription in and collects the medicine, or it may even be sent out to the customer by mail delivery or with the baker. Although the average number of prescriptions per person per year is given as 4.26 for last year - and it sounds as if everyone should be able to afford $4.26 a year - what I am concerned about is the position of the chronically ill. I refer to the asthmatics, the diabetics and people with heart conditions who need regular medication and who usually find that there are 2 or 3 items on each prescription form. I think that $1 is far too much.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– I should like to oppose clauses 5 and 6 which are under discussion on 2 bases. Firstly, the proposition about which we are now talking relates to the ‘appropriate maximum amount’ instead of a fixed charge. Secondly, what exactly does it mean? Neither the Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) who introduced the Bill in this chamber, nor the Minister for Health (Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson) who made the original announcement, nor the Minister for Immigration (Dr Forbes) who in this place represents the Minister for Health, ever explained exactly what will happen to all of the pharmaceutical benefits which are at present costing the Government between 50c and $1. Are we going to increase the cost to the patient to $1? Let us assume that the cost of a particular pharmaceutical benefit at the present time was between 50c and $1. There are a lot of these. I will give a quick, list. I did not go right through them but I picked out a significant number. I understand that if one takes into consideration all the different sizes and different brands one gets approximately 800 items. The drugs which would be affected are adrenaline solutions and injections, aluminium hydroxide, amphogel, aminophylline cardophylline, amylobarbitone, amytal, aspirin, many kinds of sodium barbitone, butobarbitone, calcium lactate, cascara, antihistamine syrup, codeine tablets, cyclobarbitone, r digitalis, arid so on.

As I have said, these drugs cost between 50c and $1. At present ‘they are on the pharmaceutical benefits list and the patient, instead of paying, say, 75c or whatever it is for them, pays 50c. He saves something on them. Now what will happen? Will the patient have to pay $1 instead of 75c, even though it costs the Government only 75c? Will the extra profit go to the chemist, or will that prescription be treated as a non-pharmaceutical prescription, in which case the chemist will increase his dispensing charge in the same way as he does for other sorts of prescriptions? Let us understand the position quite clearly. The chemist does not get as much from a pharmaceutical benefits scheme prescription as he does from an ordinary sort of prescription. What exactly will happen as far as those substances are concerned? The patient will lose either way. We will find that patients will have to pay $1 for something that is worth only 75c. A chemist will not put his prescription in to the Government for costing because he will have already collected more than he would get from the Government. Alternatively if the items are withdrawn from the pharmaceutical benefits list the patient will have to pay still more because the dispensing fees and so on charged for by the pharmacist will add another 50c or thereabouts.

I would appreciate it if the Minister at some stage would obtain this information and give it to the House. It is an important issue. It will be terribly important to many people. There are a large number of prescriptions that are just over $1. What will happen now is that the pharmacists will collect $1 from the patient. Let us have a look at some of the types of drugs involved. Some kinds of aspirin are now paid for by the Government at the rate of $1.03. Alkabarb Forte is $1.05; Bellatran Forte $1.03; some haemorrhoidal suppositories are at $1.08; Veracolate is at $1.01; Vallergan mixture is at $1.05; Sulphamezathine is at $1.05; Phenylbutazone between 99c and $1.19; and all sedatives are at around $1.15.

What exactly will happen? The cost of just organising this sort of benefit, as it is called by the Government, iri which the Government will pay the extra lc and up to 15c on all these many items, will be much more than the extra lc to 15c involved. Yet if we withdraw these items the very least that would happen obviously is that the items will become much more costly for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the patient will be charged the extra dispensing fee and so on. Secondly, at the present time the Government, because of its arrangement with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, and about which the honourable member for McMillan . (Mr Buchanan) continuously complains and which complaints may or may not be justified - I have some doubts on this - pays the chemist much less for these substances than would normally be the case.

Mr Armitage:

– How many are involved?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– There are about 800 between 50c and $1 and hundreds of others are just over the $1 limit. I would appreciate it and the House would appreciate it also if we could obtain some kind of explanation from the Minister for National Development who is representing the Minister for Health in this place.

Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley

– If I may I would just place on the record that if we had more time available to us we would call for a division. Perhaps we can have a de facto division on the record, indicating we are opposed to these clauses. Might I also indicate in order to save time later, because the honourable member for Capricornia (Dr Everingham) wants to make some points on clauses 7 to 9, that we would oppose clause 10 which relates to regulations. We are opposed to the principle of adjusting things such as payments by regulations and the usurpation of the role of Parliament. I will leave it at that.

Clauses agreed to.

Clauses 7 to 9 - by leave - taken together.

Dr EVERINGHAM:
Capricornia

– 1 would like to bring the attention of the Minister to a few items under clause 7 which refers to a schedule of the Act. There are some items which are not actually listed in this schedule but which are in the principal Act and which I think are well overdue for reform and should have been introduced into this schedule. I refer to items 971 and 976, the items relating to the pricing of anaesthetics and to the specialist consultations which are not referred. The points that I wish to make are firstly that it is over a year since I and the surgeons involved in Queensland referred to more than one of the previous Ministers for Health these items 971 and 976 which are not performed under that name in Queensland and are certainly not charged for in Queensland at the rate set out. This schedule purports to set down the most common fee for a State. It is not a most common fee because nobody charges anything like that fee for that item and nobody could possibly do it at that charge. This matter has been brought up again and again with the Minister for Health but all we are told is that it has been referred back to the committee. The committee has had 2 or 3 meetings since and 1 think it is fair to say that the committee should be able to decide in 2 minutes whether it is or is not a common fee as is alleged, lt is not a common fee because nobody charges anywhere near that fee.

The other point is that the fee for an anaesthetic is based on the common fee for other services performed at the same time - in other words, the services performed by the surgeon and his assistant. The wording is ambiguous and it should be altered. 1 have asked the Minister to alter it but he declined to do so because he felt it was unambiguous. If it was unambiguous doctors would not be charging according to a strict interpretation which is made under these items. In other words, where it says the fee for an anaesthetic should be based on the value of services performed at the same time, it means the services performed by the surgeon and his assistant. The Commonwealth does not accept this interpretation and therefore it should change the wording. It should read excluding the services of the assistant’. It is all very well to say that exactly the same service is performed by the surgeon whether he has an assistant or not. If the Government is going to use that argument, it should recognise that exactly the same service is performed whether it is done by a specialist or by a general practitioner, but the fee for the anaesthetist is varied according to whether a specialist does the operation or a general practitioner does the operation. If it is legitimate to charge a patient more when there is a second doctor present to assist the surgeon then surely there is an argument that this should attract an extra anaesthetic fee just as much as an extra anaesthetic fee is attracted when a specialist does the operation and not a general practitioner. If the Government does not want to interpret it in that way then 1 suggest that it should alter the wording so that it is no longer ambiguous and patients will not have to meet a charge when they will not get the benefit of the common fee based on the wording as it exists.

My final point is that where a patient goes to a specialist without being referred he gets only the benefit of a general practitioner consultation. 1 think that here again it ought to be spelt out and made clear that either the Government will give the benefit on the basis of the common fee or it will not. The plain fact of life is that it is not a common fee that surgeons charge. When a surgeon gets a patient unreferred he does not charge the general practitioner fee, so it is not the common fee. That is perhaps the one that is the least objectionable because most people realise the position. Nevertheless I think it should be spelt out and made clear in the pamphlets which are circulated claiming that the Government will rebate a percentage of the common fee.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– I just want to comment in general on the proposition which is being put where the schedule to the principal Act is amended by clause 8. Basically what -it does is to incorporate what the Government considers are the new common fees chargeable since 1st July of this year. What has been repeatedly said is that all doctors or the vast majority of them charge according to the most common fee. This is just not true. What we have had, as the Government claimed during its own negotiations with the Australian Medical Association, is that doctors’ incomes in New South Wales increased by 30.5 per cent between the December quarter of 1969 and the December quarter of 1970. Six months later there was another 15 per cent increase in the actual fees charged for surgery and home visits.

The Government claims that the new most common fees - the ones ‘ that we increased by 15 per cent - are being adhered to. This is just not true. Every local association of the Australian Medical Associa tion in the Sydney metropolitan area has recommended fees above the most common fees. The most common fee for a surgery visit is supposed to be $3.80. The minimum fee recommended by any of the 18, I think it is, local associations of the AMA is $4, but some of them are significantly higher than that. So it is completely untrue to say that the most common fee is being adhered to by general practitioners. In addition, I understand that only a small number of the country associations have in fact agreed to charge the most common fee as recommended by the Government. There is a dispute between the AMA and the Government over the socalled agreement that was reached between them earlier this year. 1 am not taking sides on that issue, but 1 think it is preposterous for the Government to claim that the most common fee is being charged when we know that in the Sydney metropolitan area the lowest overcharge is a 25 per cent increase over and above the specified excess. I suggest that the Government should, instead of quoting the figures of one year ago or 6 months ago, have a look at the fees that are being charged at the present time in New South Wales.

Clauses agreed to.

Clause 10 (Regulations may be made before the commencement of amendments.)

Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley

– The Opposition opposes this provision. I mentioned earlier the reasons why the Opposition opposes it. I would like that fact to be noted in the record. Normally the Opposition would call for a division, but it will not do so on this occasion. I would like to say that the Opposition appreciates the courtesy and consideration which has been shown to it by the Minister for National Development (Mr Swartz) in allowing nearly an extra 15 minutes beyond the time at which it was proposed to gag this debate. This has allowed some members of the Opposition who had not done so to speak in the debate.

Clause agreed to.

Remainder of Bill - by leave - taken as a whole, and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Mr Swartz) - by leave - read a third time.

page 2294

RAILWAY . AGREEMENT (TASMANIA) BILL 1971

Bill presented by Mr Hunt, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HUNT:
Minister for the Interior · Gwydir · CP

– I move:

This Bill seeks the approval of the Parliament to an agreement between the Commonwealth and the State of Tasmania, embodying arrangements for a Commonwealth contribution of up to $4.25m towards the cost of railway works in Tasmania between Launceston and Bell Bay. This Bill also seeks the necessary authorisation of expenditure for the purposes of the agreement.

In September 1970, the Premier of Tasmania wrote to the Prime Minister seeking financial assistance towards the construction of a new rail link between the existing State railway system, north of Launceston in the vicinity of Nelson’s Creek, and Bell Bay. Subsequently assistance was also sought for upgrading parts of the existing line between Nelson’s Creek and Launceston and for certain other associated railway works. The railway will link the deep water port of Bell Bay with the Stale railway system. In particular it will facilitate the transport of timber for the development of the northern Tasmanian woodchip industry to be centred at Long Reach, a few miles south of Bell Bay. To meet woodchip export commitments the rail facilities will need to be provided by July 1972. The Premier stated that the State could not finance the work from its own resources within the time available. The Commonwealth agreed to contribute up to $4.25m towards the cost of the proposed works, of which up to $2. 5m will be by way of a loan repayable over 30 years and carrying interest at the ruling long term bond rate while the remainder, up to $ 1.75m, will be by way of a non-repayable grant. The terms of assistance are similar to the Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Act 1961.

The works proposed comprise: Firstly, a new narrow gauge railway from a point approximately 8 miles from Launceston on the northern eastern line to the Bell Bay wharf. Overall, the line will be approxi mately 27 miles in length, with a spur line to connect the proposed woodchip works at William Creek; secondly, a new railway bridge across the North Esk River in the vicinity of Launceston; thirdly, marshalling lines adjacent to a proposed freight yard at Dowling Street south of the North Esk River near Launceston; and fourthly, upgrading, where necessary, of the existing line between Launceston and the junction of the proposed Bell Bay line with the north eastern line approximately 8 miles from Launceston. For the information of honourable members a map has been circulated showing the approximate route of the railway and the section of line to be upgraded.

The agreement follows the usual form for projects of this nature. It includes provisions to allow co-operation between the Commonwealth and the State in respect of the establishment of standards, designs, planning and supervision of the work, the disbursement of funds and the auditing of expenditure on the project. The agreement itself is set out as the Schedule to the Bill. Before the agreement can come into effect and payments of financial assistance begin, the approval of the Commonwealth Parliament is necessary. Complementary legislation is being prepared for approval by the Tasmanian Parliament. I commend the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Uren) adjourned.

page 2294

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1971-72

In Committee

Consideration resumed from 12 October (vide page 2222).

Second Schedule.

Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts

Proposed expenditure, $30,460,000.

Mr UREN:
Reid

– The Office of the Environment has at last filled its first 2 positions - 2 administrative positions within the second division. According to the Estimates, the Office plans to fill a total of 3 positions during 1971-72. With 2 filled, that leaves 1. However, the Commonwealth Gazette of 30th September 1 have said before that, along with the Scandinavian countries and Canada, Australia is one of the few countries in the world which could set an example to the world on policies for pollution control, rational utilisation of renewable and nonrenewable resources, population policy, urban planning, conservation of significant proportions of our flora and fauna and good management of national parks. Need I mention Lake Pedder which is destined for destruction with the assistance of Commonwealth moneys? However, this Office is set up in a typical ad hoc piecemeal attitude which typifies the Government. The whole conservation area seems to be the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science and not this Department. Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior also has a conservation office. Pollution from motor cars, ships at sea and ocean dumping appears to remain the responsibility of the Department of Shipping and Transport. The use of insecticides and other pesticides and their effect on ecosystems remains the responsibility of the Department of Primary Industry, as does the effect of pollution on fishing in Australia and Australia’s role in organisations such as the International Whaling Commission.

The Department of Health through such organisations as the National Health and Medical Research Council is responsible for a whole host of items from biodegradability of detergents to mercury concentrations in food. The Department of Works designs and builds many public works of obvious environmental impact,

Is it any wonder that the Government never develops any co-ordinated environmental policy? Environmental policy by this Government has grown piecemeal, with never a thought as to whether a total overview of the situation is required, and a restructure of administration. We can divide environmental administration into 2 areas - policy making and problem solving. The major policy which must be made is a continuous updated statement of an optimum human environment, in physical, psychological and social terms - urban and rural. The problem-solving agencies can then suggest the various alternative ways in which such an optimum environment can be planned. The problem solvers will need complete data bank facilities and specialists and will receive environmental impact statements for all activities which will have any environmental impact. The policy makers will then design policies aimed at achieving such goals.

Population policy, including immigration; natural resource policy, including exports of natural resources; science policy, including research policy; technology policy, including pollution control; educational policy and urban policy will all be influenced by the comprehensive environmental policy. The various piecemeal activities pf several Government departments must be. lumped together sp that the environment policy reflects the environment itself- a whole and integrated system. The United States of America, for example, has a problemsolving agency - the Council on Environ-, mental Quality - and a policy making agency - the Environmental Protection Authority. When the EPA. was formed a year ago it took over organisations’ from 6 federal departments, including the National Air Pollution Control Commission, the Bureau of Solid Waste Management, the Bureau of Water Hygiene, the Bureau of Radiological- Health, the Air Quality

Advisory Board, the Pesticides ‘ Sections of the FDA and the Fisheries and Wildlife Service, the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board, various research laboratories in several departments, the Federal Radiation Council, radiation standards of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, several noise control offices, the Pesticides Registration Programme of the United States Department of Agriculture, the Federal Water Quality Administration and many others. The EPA is administered in 6 integrated technical divisions and 4 administrative divisions of Public Affairs, Legislative Liaison, Equal Opportunity and International Affairs.

As well as the Environment Protection Agency, the United States Government also has organised the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which integrates activities of the United States weather service, fisheries, sections formerly in the Department of the Navy on oceanography and all other sections of Government concerned with the oceans and the atmosphere. This is the way it is being done in the United States of America. Similar moves are being made in other federal states such as Canada and West Germany. I say to the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson) that we have an opportunity here to do likewise. But that is not the idea of his Department and he knows it. We can only ask just what the Office of the Environment is supposed to be doing, especially as. at the first meeting of Commonwealth and State Ministers concerned with the environment on 17th September it was agreed that basically no national policy towards pollution control was necessary.

I do not want to embarrass the new officers of the Department, but surely they are concerned that no national policy control was considered to be necessary. Even the findings of the Senate Select Committee on Water Pollution under the chairmanship of Senator Davidson were that there should be a national control and that a national body should be set up to control water pollution in Australia. Finally, if this great problem of pollution of the environment is to be checked, controlled and, of course, rectified, the only way in which it can be done is by the Commonwealth making available some of its financial resources. Surely it is only the finan cial resources of the Commonwealth Government which can rectify the problem. Many of these matters have to be policed at State and local government level but those authorities cannot police them because they do not have the financial ability to do so. It is only through a Commonwealth body in co-operation with State and local authorities that these problems can be solved. We want action on these matters. We do not want just jargon. As the Prime Minister has said, we want to enjoy the quality of life and the only way we will be able to get quality of life is through action by this Government. We do not want platitudes; we do not want words. We want action and action is long overdue. Therefore, I have expressed these words of criticism. I hope they are objective words. I have done some research into these problems and I hope that we can follow the examples of other countries.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope) - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr GORTON:
Higgins

– I rise to speak on the present confusion which surrounds the Government’s attitude to the recommendations made by the interim council for the establishment of a national film and television school. We have been variously told by the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson) firstly, that in 12 months time consideration will be given to the recommendations made by the interim council. In my belief this statement was made by the Minister on the direct verbal instructions of the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon). Secondly, we were told by the Minister that in 12 months time consideration will be given not to the interim council’s recommendations but to some other, at present unformulated, recommendations which the Minister believes will be better. We have been told by the Prime Minister that the matter has not been deferred for 12 months because well before 12 months time some proposals - it is not clear what proposals - will receive Government consideration. Today we have been told by Mr Phillip Adams, through a newspaper, that the Prime Minister has assured him, on the telephone, I understand, that Mr Howson’s comments in the House were misinterpreted and that it has already been decided that work on the national school is definitely to proceed. At least this is an advance on considering the matter at some time in the future.

Further, this afternoon the Minister answered a question on which I am unable properly to comment because he took the unprecedented step of refusing to allow me to look at the Hansard greens of his answer or to allow me to get a copy of his answer from Hansard. However, he did say - I listened to the rebroadcast of his answer at 7.15 p.m. - that he had given details of the first report of the interim council to the House. I suggest that in fact he did not. I think the House and the country would be grateful if these conflicting statements could be reconciled so that we might have a clear idea of just what recommendations are to be considered by the Government, and when. I express the hope that when this matter does come to be considered by the Government those considering it will not accept the figures given to the House by the Minister as accurate because they are not. We were told that the estimated cost of establishing the school would be over $7m. Leaving aside the consideration that this figure included running costs for the first 5 years, which is surely a dubious method of computing the costs of establishing a school, still the costs given to us are misleading. We were told that the cost of the land for the school would be $2.4m, but this is not the cost of the land required for a film and television school, lt is- the cost of 60 acres of land, contiguous to Macquarie University, which it is estimated can be bought for $40,000 an acre. Those 60 acres of land are required so that in the future, hopefully, a complex or consortium of various post-graduate arts schools may be established on the one site and exert influence, the one upon the other, in a national centre for advanced training in the arts.

We might well have then not only the film and television training school but also a post-graduate school of industrial design, a post-graduate Australian conservatorium, an opera school and, perhaps in the future, a ballet school and a national institute nf dramatic art conferred to the one site, all self-governing, all independent, yet by their nature interrelated and the activities of any one perhaps influencing the activities of others. This would give an opportunity for cross fertilisation of ideas. I had thought that such a concept might well advantage the creative arts in Australia and that if sufficient land was bought to . make this possible there could be no real chance of monetary loss even if the project did not in the future go ahead, because such land could undoubtedly be sold at a profit. The interim council fully agreed with this and, therefore, proposed to buy an area of 60 acres, that being enough to provide room for all these creative schools on the one site. But the interim council believed that all that would be required for a film and television school would be not . 60 acres but approximately 8 acres and at $40,000 an acre the cost of land for such a film school would be $320,000 and not $2.4m which the Minister has worked on as the cost of land for the school.

It would be a very great pity if the recommendations of the interim council were dropped because of such misleading costing. Similarly it would be tragic if the recommendations were held up because of other misinformation. For instance, we were told that it would be too expensive to spend $7m in order to produce 12 graduates a year and we heard doubts raised by the Minister as to whether I had really considered the total number of graduates that would be required by the industry. As to the second point, let me assure the Minister and the Committee at once that I did not consider the total number of graduates that would be required by the industry. I did not feel competent to do so. That is why I set up an experienced and distinguished interim council to consider this and other matters relating to the establishment of the school. The council did examine this matter very fully and had consultations with those engaged in the industry. This is shown by the council’s remarks on page 12 of its first report, which honourable members have not had an opportunity to see. It is shown too by an 81 -page report commissioned by the interim council and compiled by P.A. Management Consultants Pty Ltd on the very matter of the number of graduates required by the industry.

So there is no substance in any suggestion that there has not been full, and exhaustive consideration given to how many graduates are required by the industry; neither is there any accuracy in the statement made to us that the school would produce 12 graduates a year. In fact, the second report of the interim council on page 4 anticipates that when staff and accommodation are available the annual intake may well be as high as SO students. Not all of the intake will complete the course but it is clear that the suggestion that the school plans to produce only 12 graduates a year is quite mistaken and quite misleading. The employment survey from P.A. Management Consultants Pty Ltd reports that, all things being equal, the industry believes that it can absorb 30 to 40 graduates a year, excluding any requirements from other quarters such as educational television or those required to train people to engage in educational television. lt is of no use talking of what we have done in the Film Development Corporation or the experimental film fund and using this as an excuse for not founding the school. All 3 initiatives need to be taken and regarded as an interrelated 3- pronged attack on the problem. Indeed, it the Film Development Corporation is to be fully effective the film school is essential in order to improve the standards of production which the Film Development Corporation could use. A cost of $6m or $7m over 5 years should not be too frightening. After all it is only roughly the cost of running the Australian Broadcasting Commission for 7 or 8 weeks and we should be able to meet this expense. There is now no film or television school in the South Pacific nor, indeed, in the whole Southern Hemisphere. We can be the leaders in this half of the world. Let us look not at film and television making in Australia as it is. Let us rather look at it as it could and should be. Let us adopt the recommendations of the expert committee instead of rushing round in circles seeking some way to evade them. Let us regard this as a real contribution to creative art and therefore to the quality of life, as a good long term economic investment and as a way of showing the world the Australian scene presented with the highest artistic, professional and technical skill such as befits the nation we are and the nation we can become.

Mr SHERRY:
Franklin

– May I congratulate the right honourable member for Higgins (Mr Gorton) on his concise exposition of this subject. As a matter of fact, he has almost made my speech totally unnecessary but I reassure the House that there was no collusion between us. Time will not allow me to develop the theme that I wished to develop, the right honourable member has done a very expert job in that respect. I applauded the concept of this film and television school in this place when it was first announced and 1 still hope that it will become a living thing. I agree entirely with what the right honourable gentleman has said, but I want to know precisely what the Government intends to do. Does it intend to continue in the procrastination in which it is now indulging?

In the question that 1 put to the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson) this afternoon, I asked specifically had he had any communication from the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations. 1 would like to quote from the report of that organisation in 1969, because it is relevant. That report states at page 24:

Commercial television licensees believe the school to be unnecessary, and would of course, strongly oppose any suggestion that the setting up of such a school, which they do not wantshould involve financial duties or levies imposed upon them.

On the same page it states:

Three members of the Australian Committee for the Australian Film and Television Training School have recently conducted an on the spot survey in several countries of the requirements for such a school. The ultimate recommendations to the Government will be studied with interest, but if those recommendations follow the lines already suggested by 5 of the 8 members pf the Committee, in their Australian Council for the Arts Committee capacity, this industry will continue its objections to the necessity for a school involving the training of television creative personnel.

I want to relate this statement to a statement that the same organisation made just a short time before when the groundswell was developing for an increase in the Australian content in television, which I have continually advocated and will go on advocating. This same organisation in a contradictory statement said that it was unable to provide an increased local content because it did not have the technical expertise due to lack of training. But when it is given the opportunity to engage in this training that provides” the skill and expertise - and believe me expertise and skill are needed in this business - it says it is totally opposed to any school which will give it that skill. What an extraordinary statement to make. I will not deal any further with it because I want to turn now to the Film Development Corporation.

When this proposal was announced by the right honourable member for Higgins in his capacity as Prime Minister - I will quote from his second reading speech because in this Budget there has been no allocation at all to the initial amount of $lm that was provided - he said:

This Bill will fulfil the Government’s undertaking to assist the Australian film industry, lt provides for the establishment of an Australian Film Development Corporation which will administer a fund with an initial capita] of $lm.

He continued:

It may also, subject to ministerial approval, participate in the formation of a company for the distribution of Australian films.

That is another very important point. He went on to say:

A flourishing film industry in Australia will employ talented Australian writers, artists, directors, actors, musicians and technicians.

That is a conclusion and an aspiration with which 1 entirely agree.

What do we see the New South Wales Government doing? In that State the film quota has been set at 2.S per cent but it has never been observed. The New South Wales Government has admitted this. In fact, the last time the quota was strictly observed in New South Wales - and this is the State which has a population greater than any other - was back in the 1930s in the halycon days of Cinesound Productions, Dad and Dave and Dave Rudd. It has not been observed since then but now the New South Wales Government is proposing to reduce even further the quota that is required. This will immediately have the effect of torpedoing this Film Development Corporation legislation. It does not matter how good the films are or how much money you have spent on them, you have to ensure that you have distribution for the product. If you cannot get distribution in our most populous State, where will the situation end?

Strangely enough this announcement of a reduction in the quota was made not in this country but in London by a Mr Hay- ward who formerly held an executive position in the Greater Union movie house chain which is half owned by the Rank Organisation of the United Kingdom, lt was reported that Mr Hayward had been carrying out investigations connected with the film industry on behalf of the Government of New South Wales and had been seen at Greater Unions’ London office. It was also reported that he had recommended 2 amendments to the New South Wales quota provisions, and I want to underline these. The first was that 3 documentaries of at least 20 minutes each should be counted as one feature film. The second recommendation was that co-production films - here he was very vague about what he meant by co-production - should be taken into the quota. He did not spell out how such films should be counted and one possible interpretation is that they will be counted as fully equal to an Australian production. Our local film makers and other people connected with the industry are quite rightly very concerned with this, including John Mccallum who is producing some of our most efficient television and feature films.

What disturbs me with regard to this Film Development Corporation is that in the main the grants awarded have been for television and not for feature films for the cinema which, I suggest, is contrary to the expectations of the right honourable member for Higgins when he introduced this Bill. The quota system in this country is really totally ineffective. It has hardly ever been observed. 1 suggest the time has come when it should be observed because if it is not, as I said earlier, the whole of this fine concept of using the very rich and diverse talents in this country will be entirely wasted. In conclusion, may I, say that I am very deeply concerned that the initiative and the enterprise and, indeed, the genuine concern which motivated the right honourable member for Higgins to launch this enterprise that I have all tpo. briefly mentioned seem to me to be in a state of total emasculation, if not total abandonment, and that, as far as I am concerned, is a grave blow to our creative and ‘ artistic capacity.

Mr HAMER:
Isaacs

– During the debate on the estimates, for the Parliament I pointed out that there .are many aspects of our national affairs that cannot usefully be dealt with by the confrontation procedure of a debate. They need to be inquired into, with witnesses and documents, rather than debated. In the past this chamber has ignored many such subjects, hoping that if it takes absolutely no notice of them, they will go away. But many of these problems will not go away so easily, and the environment is probably the most pressing of them. Australia is one of the few countries in the world with the opportunity to control pollution and retain its natural beauties, but that chance will not last much longer. In the control of pollution, our broad principle must be to impose on both industry and consumers the full cost of the pollution they create. But this will be complex and expensive, and we must realise that tackling the simple problems first is not necessarily the best long term solution and that hasty changes can have unacceptable long term effects. In short, we must keep cool and think first and, above all, we must have sound information on which to base decisions.

Effective pollution control will inevitably have substantial economic effects, because of the inevitable diversion of resources which will be entailed. We need a detailed analysis of the problems of pollution control in terms of. costs and benefits. There is, admittedly, no completely scientific and objective means of making such an analysis, but these difficulties must not prevent us from reaching decisions about the benefits of cleaner air and water, less noise and a pleasant countryside, compared with the benefits which might result in meeting claims on resources in such fields as housing, health and education.

Despite the special responsibilities of the States, the control of the environment is a national problem and should be concidered by the national Parliament. This is not only because the problem is in large measure an economic one, but also because environmental problems recognise no State boundaries. But although the responsibility for considering this problem rests with this Parliament, it would be futile to have a debate until a detailed inquiry into the whole problem has been held, and the results made available to members. I do not believe that this is an appropriate subject for a select committee of this House, for we lack the numbers and the expertise. 1 favour the solution adopted in Britain, of having a standing royal commission on the environment. We urgently need such a body here, for neither this House, nor the Department of the Environment, nor the State Parliaments, nor any voluntary bodies are capable of carrying out this important and urgent investigation. It is a most complex problem, part economic and part scientific, and the royal commission members will have to be skilled in one or preferably both of these fields.

I do not think it would be appropriate for the chairman of such a commission to be a judge, quite apart from the improbability of a judge being available to head a standing royal commission. As a nation we seem to have an extraordinary confidence in the ability of judges to make wise decisions on complex issues in which they have no expertise. Perhaps our respect stems from the fact that our early forebears had a particularly close acquaintance with the law. I hope that the Minister for the Environment (Mr Howson) will set up such a standing royal commission on the environment as a matter of urgency.

The other problem of our environment on which we are lamentably ill-informed, is in the need for outdoor recreation space. Our lack of investigation is so complete that some city planners are using British findings, although it would be difficult to find two countries more dissimilar than Britain and Australia in climate and population densities. Except in the Territories this is, of course, a State government problem. But this requirement is a national one, and this chamber could - and should - give a lead as it has with wild life conservation. An Australia-wide systematic survey of the available recreational open space has never been made, nor have reliable estimates ever been attempted of the nature and scope of future demands. There is not even a common nomenclature between the States - different States mean different things by the same words.

We need many types of recreation areas or parks. We need large national parks - large enough to preserve land and water and plant and animal life characteristic of the country, as well as unspoiled examples of its physical features and natural phenomena. We need smaller regional parks, and district parks, and local parks. But, I repeat, Mr Chairman, no systematic analysis of our requirements has ever been made. We need an Australian investigation of Australian conditions, and based on the recreation patterns of Australians. Although this is primarily a responsibility to the States, I do not think it is conceivable that the States will ever get together to carry out the necessary investigation on a national scale.

I therefore suggest that it would be an admirable subject for a select committee of this House. I am aware that there are severe limits on how many select committees this House can provide - in fact I think at present there is probably one too many. But two of these committees are coming to the end of their work and I should like to see them replaced by a select committee on national outdoor recreational requirements. I commend this proposal, together with the other one on the establishment of a standing royal commission on the environment. I commend them to the Minister. His portfolio, above all others, is one in which information on which to base policies is lacking, and I believe that the collection of this information, through public hearings by committees of investigation, and the introduction of firm and far sighted policies, in which the Federal Government must give the lead, are vital to the future of Australia and its people.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I would like to speak about these estimates in the context of Aboriginal affairs. Firstly, I would like to say that I am very impressed with the quick action that has been taken in regard to the high mortality rate of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. It might be helpful for the Committee to know that the particulars about this distressing situation in the Northern Territory came to light in the most effective way through the activities of the Commonwealth Public Works Committee which derived, from the Reverend Keith Downing and other witnesses who were upon oath, a factual account of the very unfortunate circumstances that prevail in that area. There is no need for me to reiterate the details of the situation. The facts are that the mortality rate of Aboriginal children in central Australia doubled m 12 months; that of every 50 Aboriginal children born, 11 died in early childhood; that the 201 -bed hospital at Alice Springs was accommodating 240 patients; that there were 2 and 3 children to a bed and sometimes 3 or 4 to an oxygen tent.

The fact of the matter is that the Government, through the inquiries conducted on behalf of this Parliament by the Public Works Committee, acted on the situation in Alice Springs. Without quibble I pay tribute and express thanks for the work done there. But I believe it is necessary to make the point that the kind of situation that was in evidence in Alice Springs is still in evidence in other parts of Australia. It is fortunate that the Commonwealth lias responsibility for and the prerogative over these matters relating to Alice Springs.

But I believe that we have been derelict in the obligations and responsibilities we have had entrusted to us as a result of the referendum when the people of Australia overwhelmingly gave the imprimatur to the Commonwealth to take initiatives. Still we are engaging in this process of buck passing - the Commonwealth to the States and vice versa. I believe it is necessary for the Commonwealth to accept responsibility for Aboriginal people wherever they are, whether it be Commonwealth territory or State territory. It is not good enough to allow States to put the needs of Aboriginal people, these deprived people, under the various headings of housing, health, education and so on, right at the end of the queue. It is just as competent for the Commonwealth to take initiatives about these deprived people as it was for the Commonwealth to take the initiatives about the deprived people who came back from the war. We all know what happened in regard to the provision of war service homes, rehabilitation schemes, education schemes and matters of that kind.

So I make this point in total. Because there has been some placation of the most dramatically revealed hardship suffered by the Aboriginal people that does not mean to say that there has been a total alleviation of the problem because the problems of malnutrition, bad housing, the lack of employment, indeed the product of all the paternalism that goes into situations where Aboriginal people are not self sufficient, are in evidence in many of the States. So I hope to see the Commonwealth show the kind of initiative elsewhere that it has shown in the Northern Territory.

In certain parts of Australia a person’s chances of going to prison are 340 times higher if he is a person of Aboriginal descent. This startling figure reveals the tragedy of human demeanment as represented by Australia’s treatment of or the indifference meted out to the Aboriginal people. This figure does not mean that Aborigines are 340 times more lawless than is the non-Aboriginal population. It can mean, as I think it does mean, that there is discrimination against Aborigines in the enforcement of Australia’s criminal law.

Recently I asked the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson) the following question:

What proportion of (a) the population, (b) all prisoners and (c) all persons with criminal convictions is represented by persons of Aboriginal descent in each State and the Northern Territory.

Through the lack of information figures could be given for only South Australia and Western Australia. The Minister said that in South Australia the Aboriginal population was 0.13 per cent of the total population. He said also that Aboriginal people represented 30.89 per cent of all prisoners in that State for 1969-70. On those figures a South Australian Aborigine has 340 more chances of going to prison than has a non-Aboriginal South Australian. These are not my figures; they have been worked out by mathematicians in the Parliamentary Library from the answer given by the Minister. Actually the position is much worse, as the Minister has understated the Aboriginal population. According to census figures, the total population of South Australia was 1,079,380 and there were 5,505 full blood Aborigines - full blood, mind you. I had asked about people of Aboriginal descent. Instead of there being an Aboriginal population of 0.13 per cent it would be more like 0.5 per cent, which would make the Aboriginal imprisonment rate an even higher proportion of the total.

The figures given indicate that in Western Australia the Aboriginal population is 2.4 per cent of the total and that Aboriginal prisoners constitute 41.3 per cent of total prisoners. This means that in Western Australia an Aboriginal person has 29 more chances than has a white person of going to prison. These figures provided by the Minister are generally in accord with the results of a study completed by the Monash University Faculty of Law. Here the study revealed that Aborigines comprised only 2.5 per cent of the general population yet accounted for 25 per cent of all prisoners and 11 per cent of all criminal convictions. The supposition that there is discrimination between Aborigines and whites in the administration of justice has been tested by several academics and by the Opposition’s Aboriginal Affairs Committee, of which I am a member.

Dr E. M. Eggleston dissected 4,000 cases heard by courts in 10 Western Australian towns. Included in her findings were these facts: There was excessive attention to Aboriginal reserves and camps by .police; there was a police emphasis on certain. offences such as drunkenness affecting Aborigines; attitudes of individual police were significant, affecting for example the decision whether to prosecute where Aboriginal people were involved; white people found under the influence were less likely to be arrested than were Aborigines; Aborigines were less likely to be granted bail than whites; poverty was often’ the reason an Aborigine was not released on bail; poverty and lack of education resulted in many Aborigines not obtaining legal representation. In every category of offence the percentage of those charged receiving prison sentences was higher among Aborigines. Lastly, our legal system generally ignores the existence of tribal laws.

I am very pleased to note that examinations into this matter are being conducted. Recently I drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that in many parts of Australia Aboriginal people are being discriminated against as far as justice is concerned. I am very pleased that the Minister has arranged for the Police Commissioner of New South. Wales to conduct inquiries into the type of matter to which I have referred. The committee of which I am a member has looked at the situation in the western part of New South Wales and has found it to be appalling. It is not good enough, I suggest to the Minister, that he should require the Police Commissioner ot New South Wales alone to look at this matter. This is a national problem and it should be looked at by the police commissioners of each of the States. Overwhelming evidence exists, even with the limited studies that have been done, that in every State, with the exception of Tasmania where we disposed of our Aboriginal community many, many years ago by most unbecoming techniques and methods, Aboriginal people are receiving the kind of justice which has prompted the Minister to call for an inquiry in New South Wales. I hope that he does likewise in every other State.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope) - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr O’KEEFE:
Paterson

– I rise to support the Budget estimates for the Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts. The establishment of the Ministry for the Environment really had its beginning during the last Senate election campaign when the then Prime Minister, the right honourable member for Higgins (Mr Gorton), made the Government’s intentions plainly known during that campaign. He said:

We therefore have taken the decision to set up a Commonwealth Office of the Environment under the control of the Prime Minister’s Department.

This office will be responsible for advising the Commonwealth and recommending to us action that should be taken to prevent or reduce pollution arising out of the activities of any Commonwealth Department or Authority.

We shall also approach the States to seek the formation of a National Advisory Council to advise the Commonwealth, and the States, on action to be taken in areas where co-ordination can properly be achieved.

We know that the ministry was established and commenced operations in June of this year. In my view, this ministry is a very important one. It will develop in importance as the years go by. My colleagues and I are very delighted that this ministry has been created.

Every inhabitant of Australia can perceive today the disturbing signs of pollution and defacement of our environment and the serious threats which endanger it. The environment is being impaired as a result of the uncontrolled and indiscriminate use of space and irrational exploita tion of resources. In many places the soil is being eroded. The water is unfit for many of its uses. The air is dangerously polluted. Landscapes are spoilt while fauna and flora are in decline. Waste products of all kinds are building up at an increasing rate and biological equilibria are destroyed.

It is essential firstly, that rational use and management of the environment must have high priority in national government policy and must be adequately financed. Clear ministerial responsibility must be established for the planning and use of land and other natural resources and the conservation of nature. Secondly, policies should be strengthened or introduced to control pollution of air, water and soil, and Australia-wide agreed standards for those purposes should be devised as soon as possible. Thirdly, legislation and regulations introduced to safeguard the environment and its quality should be harmonised to the extent necessary at the Australian level.

Australians are only just beginning to observe the effects of pollution, and the Federal Government and the State governments are just beginning to give prominence to the subject by creating active ministries to control the environment and to eliminate the problems associated with air, water and soil pollution. I am pleased to see that most States have set up ministries of the environment and that they are co-operating with the Federal Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson). This will be to the benefit of all concerned, particularly the nation. Watching television tonight, I was pleased to note that the New South Wales Government has set up at Lidcombe an environmental control office with a staff of 36. This is a step in the right direction. I have no doubt that other States will be taking steps along these lines.

For some years past overseas countries have been active with preventive measures against pollution. When I was overseas this year with a Commonwealth parliamentary delegation I had the pleasure, along with colleagues, of visiting the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. We were able to see at first hand the prominence that European countries give to this very important subject of the environment. At its previous meeting the Council had spent 4 days discussing ways and means of assisting to improve the environment and in overcoming the pollution problem. When we arrived in England our party was taken by the parliamentarians of that nation to the environment station a few miles out of London. We saw the great anti-pollution station that has been established there. We were able to witness at first hand the methods which were being adopted to overcome sewerage pollution, air pollution, water pollution and pollution caused by disposal of waste. We saw fish in tanks of polluted water and noted at what stage of pollution the fish were affected. The man in charge of the station told us that research had progressed to such an extent that fish were coming back into the Thames because the disposal of effluent into that famous river had been prevented. At this pollution station we also saw the latest methods being used in Great Britain for the breaking up of oil slicks. The Government has co-operated with the oil companies, as we in this country will have to do, and they have devised ways and means of breaking up oil slicks on the sea. This matter is of great interest to this country because from time to time various tankers discharge oil along our coastline.

I was interested to see that the first meeting of State Ministers for the enviroment and the Federal Minister, who is at the table, was held in Canberra on 17th September. I note that they rejected the concept of completely uniform Australiawide laws on pollution. They decided only that there is a continuing need to combat pollution and that some uniformity of approach was desirable. The Ministers agreed to meet again, probably in Perth in November, for further discussions. They exchanged information on existing legislation and gave their views on environmental problems. There was no discussion on the report of the Senate Select Committee on Air Pollution or on the report of the Senate Select Committee on Water Pollution, or consideration of the suggestion of the Water Pollution Committee that a national water committee be established as a matter of urgency. It is interesting to note that there is co-operation between the Federal Government and the State governments. This is the only way in which we will get anywhere with environmental control in Australia.

It has also been very pleasing to note that the National Industry Council on Environment Quality Control has met in Canberra. It is dealing with the protection and restoration of environmental quality and industry’s role in this immense task. It says that these are not issues which we can or shoud consider in any narrow, selfish or sectarian fashion. The Council will meet in Canberra regularly. It is also very interesting to note the great industries which are represented on the Council. They include the Australian Chemical Industry Council, the Chambers of Manufactures of Australia, the Australian Mining Industry Council, the Metal Trades Industry Association, the National Packaging Association of Australia, the Petroleum Industry Environment Conservation Committee, and the Printing and Allied Trades Employers Federation of Australia. These organisations are taking a very active interest in dealing with this problem which comes under the control of the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts. Along with my colleagues, I very strongly support this Ministry which has been established and also the amounts which have been appropriated for it in the Budget.

Dr CASS:
Maribyrnong

– I should like to read a contribution of a 14- year old child to a school magazine. It is headed ‘Population’ and it states:

The explosive growth of the human population is the most significant event of the past million millenia. Mankind itself may stand on the brink of extinction … Dr Paul Ehrlich.

Wait . . . hold it . . . before you throw this away, think about it! . . . Man its pretty important. It’s not just something you read on the back page of the Canberra Times. Its effecting and going to effect us, no, not our grandparents and probably not your parents but us! A population of 3.7 billion people is a lot of people, but numbers are pretty, hard to understand. What that really means is that we already have between 3 and 7 times more people on the face of our great spaceship earth than we can possibly support over the long term - which is only about 30 years, which leaves the oldest of us kids here only about 48 years old, or less.

The population at the present rate will double every 35 years which means around the turn of the century we should have well over 6 billion people on our spaceship, provided of course there haven’t been any increases in the death rate. Every 3 years we have the population equivalent to the United States added to the world population. Some 10-20 million people are starving to death each year now . . . even in affluent countries like the USA.

The limits of human capacity to produce food by conventional means have very nearly been reached . . . in other words at this rate we are eating or wasting food and at the rate of use of present food production there just isn’t going to be enough food.

So it continues. To me, the essential point in this matter is epitomised by a remark made by a young girl on a new television programme which, apparently, will appear on the Australian Broadcasting Commission channels, in which she says words to the effect: ‘When the present generation stops fiddling around, I hope it leaves something for us’. Unfortunately, this problem is not our problem in the sense that it will affect us. I am sure that we will all live our lives without it having very much concern for or direct pressure on us. But the point is that it will affect our children and our grandchildren. I would hazard a guess that if we do not do something about it our children will not have grandchildren. That is how serious it is. Ehrlich commented:

It is a brutal irony that children must bear the brunt of the suffering caused by the population explosion. As Davis says, the old philosophy that their coming is a just and divine punishment for their parents’ sexual indulgence, and therefore not to be mitigated by deliberate control is one of the cruelest doctrines ever devised by a species noted for its cruel and crazy, notions.

In trying to indicate the wastage of our resources and the fact that development is not necessarily all that it seems, he discusses the use of raw materials by the United States of America. He says:

Estimates of the total American utilisation of raw materials currently run as high as SO per cent of the world’s consumption, with a projection of current trends to about 80 per cent around 1980. Probably 30 per cent and 50 per cent would be more realistic figures, but in any event our consumption is far beyond our ‘share’ on a basis of population. We number ‘ess than 6 per cent of the world’s people!

Yet, America is using probably 30 per cent of the world’s resources. This is an impossible situation. He points out that to raise all of the 3.6 billion people of the world’s population in 1970 to the American standard of living would require astronomical figures in terms of iron, copper, zinc, lead, tin and so on. The materials just are not available. In other words, what I am trying to get at in relation to the question of the environment is that it is not a matter of rubbish or garbage disposal; it is a matter of pollution by over-population. As the young writer of that article suggests, it even comes down to a question of food production and our survival on this planet. We seem to think, in our mad, heady enthusiasm for the advances of technology, that somehow science will solve the problems; that we can artificially create food. Ehrlich says:

All flesh is grass. This simple phrase summarises a basic principle of biology that is essential to an understanding of the world food problem. The basic source of food for all animal populations is green plants - ‘grass’. Human beings and all other animals with which we share this planet obtain the energy and nutrients for growth, development, and sustenance by eating plants directly, by eating other animals that have eaten plants, or by eating animals that have eaten animals that have eaten plants, and so forth.

At one stage, someone suggested that this was all nonsense and the problem could be solved because we could create food from petrol. This person completely omitted to recognise, firstly, that the supply of petroleum products is limited; and, in any case, where do those products come from if not from vegetation grown many millenia ago? They have all come from plants.

Dr Mackay:

– Not petrol.

Dr CASS:

– Petrol comes from plants. I am sorry to disappoint the Minister.

Dr Mackay:

– It does not.

Dr CASS:

– Let us not argue about it. I suggest that the Minister look up his chemistry books. It comes from life, initial!!/ from plant life. That is the point. It did not grow on thin air. It grew from plankton, which grew from oxygen-consuming organisms in the sea, which in turn depended on the conversion of carbondioxide to oxygen and its own organic matter by photosynthesis from the sunlight. It does not change the fact, although the Minister might have a minor point about petroleum. Certainly, coal comes from plants. I will grant him that minor point. But the basic point remains that it all stems from plant life initially.

Mr Bury:

– So what?

Dr CASS:

– Thank you. That indicates the level of the honourable member’s understanding of the problem. He is a bit beyond it. But I assure him that if he has any grandchildren or great-grandchildren they will understand what I am talking about. Erhlich claims:

Nevertheless, the absolute size of the human race is now so large that it is perhaps the single most important factor we have to consider in discussing man’s future … It is unmistakably clear that the lime has come for humanity to take a careful look at its resources, its ideals, and its numbers, and try to make some serious judgments about optimum population size, both for individual countries and for the world as a whole.

Coming to the position of Australia he says:

This does not mean that in certain ways some areas of the Earth may not still be underpopulated. For instance, if more people lived in Australia now, that country might be able to afford a better surface transport system and extend paved roads across the continent. Australians would also be in a better position to develop and utilise their mineral and energy resources.

I quite agree that this is an argument for our development. He goes on to say:

But, unhappily, even though a larger population could well live there, the ‘frontier philosophy’ is even more rampant in Australia than in the United States in terms of environmental deterioration and agricultural overexploitation. Thus Australia may be considered overpopulated already in relation to its long term ability to feed its people, even though the continent is too thinly, populated in terms of highway construction and economic development.

In other words, the reality is that we must be careful even in a country like Australia. Of course this will be vital not just for us but for the long term survival of the whole world. It is of no use for us to sit by imagining that we are secure because these sorts of life cycles we depend on do not just sit over Australia; they depend on cycles which act upon the rest of the world. It is in fact a closed system. We will recognise the problem if we talk about 3 men in a space ship. We will recognise the need to conserve energy and resources. This earth is no different from a space ship, lt is simply larger, but it still depends on the sun for its energy as a man-made space ship does, and the basic resource that it takes with it. It cannot get any more from anywhere else.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN - Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr FOX:
Henty

– An expression which has become popular in recent months is ‘the quality of life’. People are becoming more conscious of the fact that civilisation is gradually destroying the environment, which it inherited, thereby impairing the quality of life. As population increases green fields and trees are destroyed to allow the building of roads and apartments. As people become more prosperous more and more motor vehicles use these roads and help to pollute the air. It has been estimated that motor vehicles cause 60 per cent of the air pollution. So, indirectly countries which manufacture and export motor vehicles contribute to air pollution in other countries. This is only one way in which actions which take place in one country cause or contribute to pollution in other countries. It is on record that Scandinavian countries have suffered from acid rain and black snow caused by industrial pollution from the factories of England and of the Ruhr. I have read of the pollution of the Sargasso Sea by oil brought by the currents from all corners of the Atlantic. Our own seas around Australia are contaminated by the discharge of oil and rubbish by ships owned in other countries.

The use of DDT as a pest control can have very detrimental effects on countries distant from that in which it is used. Hydrocarbons like DDT can have secondary effects of a cumulative nature. Birds can feed on insects killed by this type of product and be themselves poisoned. The use of DDT has affected migratory birds. It has been found in penguins in the Antarctic. It has caused one species of bird to lay soft-shelled eggs. This, of course, could lead to the elimination of the species as the eggs would be squashed before hatching. Currently there is a difference of opinion between scientists in New South Wales and Victoria about the wisdom of using Lindane to fight a threatened locust plague. I am not qualified to express an opinion on this subject one way or the other but I do believe that where the slightest degree of doubt exists proper investigation ought to be carried out before we use a product which may destroy bird life and which while destroying one pest may assist others to multiply because birds - their natural enemies - will be eliminated. 1 believe 1 have said enough to indicate that environmental hazards can and do transcend international boundaries. But fortunately the governments of a great many countries in the world are aware of the seriousness of the problem and many of them, including Australia, have already established departments and ministries concerned with the environment. I believe that there is legislation pending in the United

States of America which will require motor car manufacturers to reduce by 197S the pollution which is caused by motor vehicles by 90 per cent and at the same time to endeavour to find an alternative to the internal combustion engine with not less than equal efficiency. During the Budget debate I mentioned that one city in the United States had already introduced legislation which provides for a fine of Si 00 for any retailer selling a non-returnable container. Some housewives in the United States have formed themselves into an association to inform their members of the effects on the environment of different types of products on the market.

Earlier this year I was privileged to attend a conference on the environment which was held in Bonn in West Germany. The conference at which about 25 countries were represented made a number of recommendations which are to be sent to a much larger conference which is to take place in -Stockholm next year in the hope that, they will be endorsed and implemented. Some, if not all of these recommendations should be of interest to members of this Parliament. In the time left to me I would like to refer to what I believe to be some of the more important of these recommendations. It was recommended that governments should begin international negotiations to establish appropriate systems for strict pollution controls over products which enter into international commerce and which are sold on the markets of the world. It was recommended that international treaties should be examined to ascertain their impact on the environment and that parliaments of the world should be advised of the potential environmental effects of those treaties. It was recommended that there should be a total prohibition on the dumping of oil and toxic wastes at sea and that strict regulations ought to be promulgated relating to the dumping of other wastes at sea.

It was recommended that tests should be conducted to ascertain the effect on the environment of non-degradable and toxic components and that the results of these tests should be published. It was recommended that there should be established a world network of protected areas and that international agreements should be made with respect to endangered species. It was recommended that approval for the international transport of hazardous substances should be refused unless these substances were accompanied by instructions as to the measures to be taken in cases of danger or accident. It was further recommended that all nations be required to ratify conventions relating to civil liberty for oil pollution damage and that provision should be made for adequate compensation to be paid in such cases.

It was recommended also that the United Nations Organisation should sponsor international environmental programmes and that an international pollution data bank should be established and that the function of this bank should be to collect information and to make it available to all countries. These are just some of the resolutions which were passed by countries represented at the Bonn conference and I believe that all of these resolutions will meet with the approval of most honourable members of this Parliament and of other parliaments of the world. I believe that we in this Parliament should already be thinking along these lines and already doing much more than we are doing at present to combat both pollution and the destruction of the environment whilst we still have time on our side.

Mr COLLARD:
Kalgoorlie

– In speaking to the estimates now before the Committee, I intend to confine my remarks to a subject which in my opinion is receiving very little, if any, real attention from the Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts. I refer to the urgent requirement to improve substantially what in many areas at the moment can only be described as the deplorable and disgusting conditions in which many Aborigines are expected to exist - conditions which in turn are largely responsible for the high mortality rate among infant children, for the dreaded disease of leprosy and for several other ills and complaints from which so many Aborigines suffer. Naturally if the problem is to be solved the Commonwealth Departments of Health, Housing and Social Services will also need to be involved. But as I see it the initial responsibility lies with the Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts.

Information supplied by the then Minister for Health, Dr Forbes, in reply to questions asked of him last year regarding infant mortality makes it fairly clear that until such time as living standards are substantially raised the mortality rate and the incidence of leprosy is unlikely to diminish and other complaints will flourish. For instance, the then Minister for Health told me:

The causes of death vary according to the particular age group and geographical area, but in general prematurity, gastro-enteritis, chest infections, malnutrition, dehydration and infections such as those causing meningitis all play a significant part.

He said that the major role played in causing deaths in Aboriginal children between the age of one month and one year in Western Australia was highlighted by figures indicating that around 92 per cent of the deaths in those age groups were associated with infections of one sort or another. The Minister also informed me that in some areas malnutrition is almost certainly of much greater significance than it would appear at first, due to the underlying effect in enhancing the development of terminal infections. So it seems quite certain that the causes leading up to mortality, as spelt out by the then Minister for Health, are closely associated with as I said earlier, deplorable living conditions which could in turn largely be removed if the conditions were raised to a much higher standard.

It would not be a simple process to do this, but it would not be over difficult if the Commonwealth itself were prepared to set up the necessary body to carry out the work or otherwise ensure sufficient finance to the States and to those people who are prepared to carry out such work and in fact devote themselves to it. In the latter respect, I refer to the Australian Inland Mission and other organisations which are at present doing a sterling job in very difficult conditions, largely due to a lack of sufficient finance. For instance, in 1966 the AIM began to employ a sister to do field work in Aboriginal care. Judging from the reports she subsequently has submitted there can be no doubt that, provided reasonable finance and equipment is available together with sufficient staff, a large part of the existing problem could be removed in a fairly short time. The work would probably have to be continued over several years to educate properly the parents and children, but even in the short term it would certainly be well worth while.

Unfortunately, time does not permit me to read the reports of the sister of the AIM, which prove just what can be done in that respect. But I will refer to a few passages just to give the Committee some idea of what this lady set out to do and what she achieved in a fairly short time. She worked an area around Fitzroy Crossing where there was a population of some 700 Aborigines. During 3 years she drove a Land-Rover approximately 39,000 miles, which is no mean feat in that sort of country and climate. Her original aims were to cut down the infant mortality rate and admissions to hospital by raising the standard of child care. Reference is made in the reports to gastro-enteritis which was prevalent and dangerous in its results. It is important to point out that there were 15 infant deaths in the Fitzroy Hospital’ during the 3 years prior to this sister’s work but only 2 deaths during the 3 years she was working in the area. That result alone is indicative of what can be done. The report refers to trachoma, which was almost 100 per cent active when the first check was carried out. A further important point is raised in this regard. After almost 12 months treatment with eye drops the 100 per cent activity amongst the preschool children remained the same but at. the United Aborigines Mission school where the children were housed in dormitories and had regular balanced meals, fruit and vegetables, and their own towels and face washers, there was an approximately 80 per cent cure, which shows what proper living conditions can mean.

The sister states that in the final year she gave 271 immunisations of tetanus toxoid to adults. She also introduced Sabin oral polo vaccine which she said entailed a tremendous amount of work setting up a card system for almost 800 people. In order to undertake leprosy checks she attended the Derby leprosarium to learn what was required in that field and subsequently took leprosy smears. Then in her final summing up. after all that work and effort, she said that in Fitzroy just a toehold had been gained but little lasting value would result because of the lack of security and adequate equipment and the need for a team approach to the problem. In her second year report the sister had this to say:

I have come to realise more fully that unless all of us here, working for the benefit of the natives, start working together as a team we will achieve nothing. I realise also that the station people will have to be involved more tellingly with their natives and provide more facilities and accountrements for better hygiene. At present my maximum efforts only bring minimum results because all I am doing is to teach their natives to survive in filth.

I am quite sure that anyone who reads the reports to which I have referred will have not only a great respect and admiration for the sister concerned but also will quickly realise that a concentrated drive must bc made on the problems referred to by upgrading the living standards of the Aboriginal people, particularly in the northern parts of Australia. This can be done only if the Commonwealth accepts its proper responsibility, which it was given in 1967 as the result of a referendum. The Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts is surely the department which must take the initiative even though it will have to obtain the co-operation and assistance of those other departments to which I have referred.

In the early part of last year I directed a question to the then Minister-in-Charge of Aboriginal Affairs regarding these particular problems. As a result of the reply which I received some 12 months later - it took him 12 months to reply, so he must have given it some fairly deep consideration - 1 was hopeful that at long last something was to be done. The Minister told me:

The eradication of leprosy amongst Aboriginal people of Australia is seen by the Commonwealth as being within the framework of the general improvement of the health of Aborigines. My Office of Aboriginal Affairs and the Commonwealth Department of Health are planning an Australia wide study of these health problems that will produce a programme to improve the problem areas that we know exist.

That reply naturally led me to believe that a move was at last being worked out. So I asked another question to find out when the study would commence and also when positive results could be expected from the study. I am sorry that the Minister is not interested enough to listen.

On 27th August of this year I received a reply which was, as I see it, a complete contradiction of the reply I received earlier. The answer to the second question was in these terms:

At the present time no specific survey into the health problems of Aborigines, either on an Australiawide basis or in Aboriginal communities and fringe settlements, is under consideration by the Department of Health and Office of Aboriginal Affairs.

So we have a situation in which we were told in February that the 2 departments were actually planning an Australia-wide study of Aboriginal health problems, and then in August we were informed that such a study was not even being considered. Does this mean that the new Minister has banned a study earlier proposed, or does it mean that the previous Minister was a little reckless in his reply? I certainly hope that the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts, who is at the table, notwithstanding that his interest seems to be very little, will give us some satisfactory explanation of the contradiction that exists between those 2 replies.

Mr TURNER:
Bradfield

– At the outset I wish to refer to the inept title of the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts and MinisterinCharge of Tourist Activities. He is not, of course, responsible for Aborigines in the Northern Territory, where the Commonwealth has the greatest control and where most of them are located: where the emergence from tribalised society can best be studied and where the mistakes of the past can best be avoided. All logic requires that he should be responsible for Aborigines in the Northern Territory. His title of MinisterinCharge of Tourist Activities indicates that he is not in charge but responsible to the Minister for Trade and Industry. The umbilical cord should be severed. He should be responsible for both procurement and reception of tourists.

The Minister has been described as the Wandering Minstrel of the Department of Shreds and Patches, presiding over a rag bag of responsibilities of minor importance on which the Government does not wish to spend money and in which there are no votes. Yet these apparently heterogeneous components can be combined into a powerful instrument to serve a national purpose of immense value and importance. The potentialities of this Department should not be underestimated. The Minister’s title should be changed to Minister for Australian Cultural Development. We already have in New South Wales a Minister for Cultural Activities. I say that his title should include the word ‘Australian’. It would be doubly appropriate because this would be related to the Australian or national Parliament and because the promotion of an Australian identity should, in my opinion, be his primary task.

I say ‘cultural’. As defined in the Oxford dictionary, ‘cultural’ is a particular form or type of intellectual development. In this context it would refer to the traditions, ideas, attitudes, habits, manners, achievements and the way of life of the Australian people. In a word, it would relate to a distinctive Australian identity. I do not think of ‘culture’ in the snob sense. The word ‘development’ in the title that I suggest - rather than ‘activities’ as in New South Wales - would indicate dynamism. There would be an objective, a purpose to be served by the creation of this portfolio. So let us return to the responsibilities of the Minister. I shall not deal at length with the environment and Aborigines beyond saying in the context of my particular thesis - the development of an Australian identity - that nothing could redound more to the advantage of our national image than, firstly, that we should succeed in dealing humanely and intelligently with the problem of promoting the happiness of and establishing a satisfactory relationship with our Aboriginals - ‘the first Australians.

Secondly, again our image as a people would be greatly enhanced if we could exhibit imagination, intelligence and resolution to prevent the despoilation of our cities and countryside and to preserve our natural heritage for our descendants. It is not too late. It would be an act of criminal folly to neglect our unique opportunity among the industrialised nations of the world to do just this. But mainly I want to refer to the arts in the context to which I have referred. May I say at once that the estimates before us give no indication whatsoever as to how we are spending money on the arts. In Division 247 various amounts are set out for Assistance for the arts, under the headings of Support for the performing arts, National training programme, National and other major orga nisations, Regional organisations, Development programmes, Research programme, and International programme. Nobody knows how much goes to opera, how much to ballet, how much to drama or anything else. The thing tells you absolutely nothing and is the best evidence I know for the setting up of an estimates committee, as suggested by some honourable members including myself in this place some little while ago.

Basically, it is in the field of the arts, of which we are told nothing in this document, that most can be done to promote an Australian identity. But I want to make this proviso: We should not decry or neglect our heritage from Britain and Europe of such fine flowers of Western civilisation as opera, ballet, the pictorial arts and drama. Much is being done in these fields and should continue to be done. I am not questioning this. However. I must deeply question a policy which, out of an allocation of S3. 85m - I refer to last year as I can obtain no enlightenment whatever from the estimates for this year - provided for $1.26m to be spent on opera and ballet, and $2. 59m for 3 professional theatres and 7 regional theatre companies besides various other projects and institutions. The beginnings of a national theatre company were unhappily abandoned years ago by the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in favour of opera and ballet. This is not merely a squabble between proponents of the various arts. Rather it is a question of whether we are basically concerned with promoting an Australian identity. It is a question of priorities.

The following considerations must be taken into account: Firstly, television is the most vivid of all artistic media; secondly, it also makes an impact on incomparably more people than do all other media combined in the modern world; thirdly, in television drama is of key importance because no other vehicle is more apt to convey the attitudes, ideas, manners and customs of a people. How little would we have been able to comprehend English culture in the spacious days of great Elizabeth had it not been for the plays of Shakespeare? According to the Vincent report:

Drama is recognised as having the greatest psychological and emotional impact upon the audience of all types of television programmes.

My fourth consideration is that drama, through television, can hold the mirror up to a whole nation and help to mould it; fifthly, it can also convey the image of the country to the outside world - a matter of great importance among our neighbours and in our situation; sixthly, it is more important for us to do this because another culture is being foisted upon us. I shall take a simple example. In an episode of ‘Division 4’ - an Australian production - detectives may be seen interviewing a suspect in a criminal investigation with due skill and care but without aggressive brutality, or it may be that 2 American cops appear in a similar situation armed with pistols and scowls against a background of guerrilla warfare in a negro slum. My seventh consideration is this: How are our new settlers - new Australians - to know what manner of people we are, what is the ethos which guides and informs our attitudes and actions, and whether they wish to be naturalised as Australian citizens? 1 have spoken of television but, in fact, live theatre goes hand in hand with television. Obviously the cinema screen and the television screen are closely related. Full utilisation of the nation’s artistic talent cannot be achieved through television alone. Live theatre is the real home of the actors and the producers. It is also the training ground for these artists. ‘The efforts of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust appear open to question’, states the Vincent report. The Vincent report stressed that the standard of Australian productions must be raised in concert with an increased quota of indigenous drama, and went on: . . it is futile for demands to be made for more Australian drama unless it is able to compete in an artistic sense with the best British and American programmes.

Let there be no mistake about that. The Committee also stated that it was necessary, for technical and economic reasons, to raise the standard to a point where sales of programmes could be made overseas and recommended:

That assistance be made available for the establishment and maintenance of drama schools.

That assistance bc made available on a ‘production’ basis … to cover reasonable losses in the presentation of new indigenous drama.

The proposals of the Gorton government were for a very expensive school directed by a Pole, and loans were to be made available to assist in the production on a strictly economic basis. I say at once that I have nothing whatever to do with personal quarrels over this matter. I deeply deplore that a matter of enormous importance to Australia should have been bedevilled by trivialities of this kind. There is an enormously important matter to be got on with but it has been bedevilled by miserable petty personalities. What we must do is get on with the job with whatever means may be best. All I can say about this matter is to quote the poet - I think it was Pope - who said:

Whate’er is best administered is best.

I do not mind what it is as long as the Government gets on with it and ensures that this proposal which is so important to our national identity at this stage is done. I would like to say something about tourism but I have not time. 1 would like to mention the fact that in America, where I was recently, many of the historical monuments of the past are preserved. We do not do this. It has an effect on our national identity and also, of course, upon tourism.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Hallett)-

Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr CROSS:
Brisbane

– This evening we are devoting our attention to the estimates for the Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts and we all recognise that some very thoughtful speeches have been made on both sides of the House. Although it is a new Department which when it was set up came under some criticism as being a miscellaneous sort of department, there is no doubt that the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts (Mr Howson) has under his control some very important facets of the national life and some very important responsibilities that the Commonwealth has to meet. I propose to devote my short time tonight to discussing some of the Commonwealth’s responsibilities in the field of Aboriginal affairs. The Commonwealth’s responsibility for Aboriginals who live outside the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory was greatly extended by the referendum of 1967. We on this side of the House have felt for some considerable time that the Commonwealth has not taken the initiative which the people of Australia by an overwhelming majority indicated to this Parliament in 1967 that the Commonwealth should take. So we feel that the time has come, now that 4 years have elapsed since the Office of Aboriginal Affairs was set up, to review all the activities of the Office with a view to greatly expanding those activities so that the Commonwealth might properly take the initiative which it should take.

This is not to say that co-operation with the States and other instrumentalities is to be downgraded. I believe that the problem of bringing the Aboriginal people of this country - and in ‘Aboriginal people* I include Torres Strait Islanders - up to that standard of living which we would hope all Australians would enjoy is one which will demand the attention not only of the Commonwealth but also of the State governments, local authorities and voluntary organisations and, indeed, command the consideration of all Australians. Let us look at what the Commonwealth has done since it became involved in this area. First of all an Office of Aboriginal Affairs was set up and a decision was made that very largely the Commonwealth would work through the State governments. I suppose there was a lot of common sense in this because the States were well established in the field of Aboriginal affairs and a substantial number of Aboriginals and Islanders already lived on State government - maintained settlements and missions. But while the amount of assistance to the States has gone up from year to year - it was S3. 65m in 1968-69 and has increased to $9.2m this year - we have to recognise that the amount appropriated in this Budget is a very small amount in view of the needs that still exist.

Let us look at some of the matters to which reference has been made. I know that we have legislation before the House dealing with State grants and I do not intend to deal with it at any length now. My friend and colleague, the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Collard), said tonight that he waited for over a year for an answer to a question. I would like to point out that on 30th October last year after a debate on the States Grants (Aboriginal Advancement) Bill 1970 I placed a question on the notice paper seeking information about the money provided in the

Budgets of the Commonwealth, the States and the Territories for the housing of Aboriginals and Islanders. It is almost a year since that question was placed on the notice paper and it has not yet been answered. Does this mean that the Commonwealth has not yet received information which it has sought from the States or does it mean that the Commonwealth can make an appropriation in the present Budget for such housing without any idea of just what the needs in that field are?

I know that this Government has said that it gives a very high priority to Aboriginal housing. We do not discount that. However, when we consider the amount of about $5m provided for Aboriginal housing and compare it with the $60m that we are making available for war service homes we realise that the Government has dual standards. One point that needs to be made in relation to Aboriginal housing is that almost every house provided for an Aborigine is provided through a Government instrumentality. I agree that some Aborigines and islanders may be allocated Housing Commission homes, but by and large it is Government money which builds houses for Aborigines, whereas among what might be called the white Australian community people have a choice between being assisted by savings banks, home building societies of various kinds and, of course, housing commissions also.

Just as an indication of the fact that the Government has not expanded its role to meet the decision arrived at by the 1967 referendum, I remind honourable members of just what it is that we are doing at present. We have Aborigines living in a number of environments on government settlements and missions. These are major areas of State responsibility in which the Commonwealth is assisting. There is no doubt that many improvements have taken place in this field. Then we have Aborigines who work in the pastoral industry and who are fringe dwellers either around cattle stations or around the country towns. Very few programmes have yet been evolved to meet the needs of these people. When we consider the expenditure of Commonwealth money and where it is being spent we find that it is spent mainly on Aborigines who live in towns, and that the largest amounts of money spent have been on Aborigines other than those living in a fringe dwelling environment.

Then there are the Aborigines whom we might describe as urban Aborigines. They are the ones living in the cities and large country towns. Many of the organisations working for Aborigines in the large country towns and in the cities have received grants from the Commonwealth Government. This assistance is useful because a number of organisations are working in various social and sporting fields, undertaking welfare work and the like. But the impact which needs to be made in an area which has not yet been touched on is in relation to the housing of urban Aborigines. I noted in the documents distributed by the Minister recently that one house was built in the City of Brisbane, for example, for the housing of urban Aborigines. It is true to say that when we look about our cities and see Aborigines and their housing our attention tends to be drawn to those places where the Aborigines are perhaps living in overcrowded conditions or in substandard housing. This is because Aborigines living in these circumstances are obviously easier to see. I am not detracting in any way from the fact that many Aborigines in our cities and towns are living in very satisfactory circumstances, but the problem still remains and it is a problem that we have yet to face up to. 1 suggest to the Minister that what we should be doing is setting up a Commonwealth Aboriginal housing corporation of the magnitude of the War Service Homes Division of the Department of Housing. Such a corporation would make a real impact on the need for Aboriginal housing in the years immediately ahead. This is an area in which it should not be difficult to make an assessment of what the needs are, not only to provide new houses for the expanding population but also to ensure that those Aborigines who are shifting into our cities and towns are satisfactorily housed. If we are to solve this problem in any reasonable time it will involve a programme similar in size to that undertaken by the War Service Homes Division.

I suggest to the Minister that when soldiers come back from serving overseas in an army, any Government, no matter what its political complexion might be, would be anxious to ensure that sufficient money was appropriated in the Budget to ensure that every applicant for a war service home received one within a fairly short space of time. The idea of saying to returned servicemen and women ‘We will give you a house in 10, 15 or 20 years time’ would be quite unthinkable. I wish the same sense of urgency applied to Aboriginal housing in respect of which we should set target dates. We should set a target of providing every Aboriginal family in this nation with decent housing within a perid of 10 or 15 years. It is an area which is obviously outside the capacity of the States and is clearly a responsibility of the Commonwealth. We on this side of the House will not be satisfied until we see the Commonwealth take up this responsibility.

Progress reported.

Thursday, 14 October 1971

page 2313

ADJOURNMENT

Rural Reconstruction - Trading Stamps - Aborigines: Health - Servicemen Returning from Vietnam - Trade Unions

Motion (by Mr Swartz) proposed:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr GRASSBY:
Riverina

– I want to raise a matter on the debate for the adjournment of the House tonight that was broached at question time today. The Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair) gave a very correct reply in terms of the actual situation in regard to finance but not the actual situation as far as the real position is concerned in regard to rural reconstruction applications. It might be remembered that I had asked whether the Minister was aware of the present situation where the first year’s allocation had been spent and the Rural Reconstruction Board of New South Wales had gone on to take up most of the second year’s allocation. In his reply the Minister quite correctly said: Yes, but there are still funds available under the Commonwealth legislation for use in New South Wales.’ That was quite right, but of course the Minister was referring to the fact that the funds that are presently available are funds for build-up.

The actual situation is that applications are coming in to the Rural Reconstruction Board of New South Wales at the rate of about 300 a month for reconstruction but at the rate of only 8 a month for actual build-up. The 300 applications are related to debt adjustment and carry-on. This is a situation that was actually foreshadowed by most of the farmer organisations. They had recognised that the terms of the buildup section of the rural reconstruction scheme were quite unreal. In fact, they provide for an interest rate which is roughly 3 times the interest rate that applied over the previous 30 years in New South Wales. The interest rate was multiplied 3 times and the spread of time for repayment was reduced. In fact, it means that an applicant at present for a build-up area under the rural reconstruction scheme initiated in this chamber and now applying in New South Wales has to show a return of 9 or 10 per cent on capital to be eligible. This precludes almost all the applicants from taking part in any build-up scheme at all; and this is recognised, because as soon as they make an inquiry they are told what the conditions are and they know they just could not comply with them. They are in fact unreal and the basis of their lack of reality is the Commonwealth’s insistence on a very high interest charge to be paid by the States.

The Commonwealth has said to the States that they have to pay this rate under the Act that it has passed or they can not have the funds. So the States are captives of the Commonwealth in this matter and the farmer is suffering. I mentioned the situation in my question in general terms but Mr R. E. Gates, the Chairman of the New South Wales Rural Reconstruction Board, indicated that in August he had already had 2,400 applications and that by the end of July the Board had approved loans of nearly $4.5m to 178 farms. He said that the $4m allocated for 1970-71 had been spent and that the allocation of 34m for 1971-72 would be spent well before the end of that period. The money has gone. I am referring to the money for debt adjustment and to carry on. The money has already been used but the flood of applications is tremendous. The amount of servicing that can be done by the Board is limited. It is constrained by the limitation of finance.

What has happened in the other section? It is true that there is for farm build-up an unused sum of money which the Common wealth has said must be earmarked for that particular purpose. It shows that the inherent weaknesses in the scheme have become apparent in a very short space of time. These weaknesses were foreseen by farmers’ organisations and other rural bodies right across the nation. They were anticipated by the States, which expressed concern. The Victorian Minister went further than indicating concern. Victoria simply said that the scheme is a disaster.

Without using too many adjectives I will say that there is a tremendous queue of applicants for reconstruction finance who cannot be properly treated. There is no such thing as reconstruction consideration at present because the Board does not have the money. This situation applies in every State, not only in New South Wales. Perhaps it is even worse in the central west region of Queensland where half the population in some areas has just gone. They may still be on the roll.

Mr Katter:

– The honourable member for Riverina is exaggerating slightly.

Mr GRASSBY:

– The honourable member says that that is a slight exaggeration, but a few minutes before I came into the chamber I talked to one of his former constituents who is now running a kiosk in Sydney because he just could not carry on.

Mr Katter:

– But he is not half the population.

Mr GRASSBY:

– I did not hear that interjection but I would be quite happy for it to go on the record. The honourable member should show a little concern for the people in trouble at the moment.

Mr Katter:

– Many people think that I do.

Mr GRASSBY:

– I have not seen any evidence of it. If the honourable member has any real concern he should get up during the debates and express it.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Kennedy will cease interjecting.

Mr GRASSBY:

– I make the point that an unreal situation has developed. A straightjacket is restricting the operations of rural reconstruction because of inadequate finance. A further constraint is applied because of the increased interest rates which the Commonwealth Government has insisted upon. A third factor in the unreality is represented by the provisions themselves. I repeat what I said earlier: In order to qualify for build-up finance it is necessary to show a return on capital of 9 per cent or 10 per cent. I hope honourable members opposite will not defend that situation.

I turn to some of the associated problems. As the rural reconstruction scheme is rapidly coming to a halt through lack of money, applicants for assistance are finding that they are taking part in a lottery. Only one or two fortunate applicants are accepted because of the shortage of funds. The overall credit situation is worse now than it has been at any time since the crisis began. The banking system has virtually turned off the tap of rural advances. This applies in my own area and in many other areas. There has been a closing down on credit, irrespective of whether reasonable propositions are put up. Although a proposition may be judged to be sound by an outside analysis, bank managers have refused to give credit almost as a matter of policy. Rural activity and rural enterprises are not good things to engage in at present. I appreciate that the decisions are not really those of individual district bank managers. A considered policy has been adopted by all banks. They have said very bluntly to the Government: ‘We are not going to put any more money into the rural sector.’ This is creating just as much a crisis as any other single factor, because people who normally would have been able to obtain overdraft accommodation for their operations are now being told: ‘No more; we are sorry’. The tap of credit has been turned off. When we review this, we must ask ourselves one question. Members of the Opposition reviewed and debated this matter and pointed out in this House the difficulties and inadequacies of the present rural reconstruction scheme. All the things that we pointed out at that time are now being demonstrated.

The time has come not to look at the scheme at the end of this financial year, as the Minister indicated today, but to examine the scheme now and to review it urgently with all the Ministers of all States concerned. The Minister should say to the State Ministers: ‘How are you getting on? Have you really come to a stop? Is it really a lottery? What must we do to fix the present situation in a better way?’ This is the challenge of the moment and I hope that the Minister will recognise the reality of the situation and take that initiative.

Mr ENDERBY:
Australian Capital Territory

– I wish to direct the attention of the House and particularly the attention of the Minister for the Interior (Mr Hunt) to a development that is taking place in the Australian Capital Territory which concerns the attempts of certain trading stamp companies to introduce their style of business into the Australian Capital Territory. I think the best way that I can explain this situation is to describe it as it happened to me. Some months ago I was approached by a service station proprietor in Canberra. I shall not mention the name of the oil company that owns his service’ station. He expressed concern that considerable pressure was being put on him and other service station proprietors in Canberra, who also market the particular brand of petrol that he markets, to buy trading stamps from a particular company.

Two trading companies are doing this sort of business. One operates under the name of Gold Seal and the other as Tiki Green Stamps. However, pressure was being put on him by the oil company of whom he is a lessee, and so he obviously is vulnerable. It was said that other service station proprietors also would take these stamps. However, they do not take them free; they have to buy them. He expressed the opinion that if he bought them it would add to his overhead a sum of perhaps $9,000 a year and that, in some way, he would either have to detract from the service that he offered to the people of Canberra or, possibly, it would have to be reflected in the price of petrol. Of course, honourable members know that petrol prices are not flexible and cannot reflect changes of this sort. But he said that there was widespread opposition among the service station proprietors in Canberra to the move. They were against it and a meeting was to be held. Initially it was thought that it would be a public meeting and it was hoped that I would be able to attend. I was asked later not to attend because of the possible effects this might have on the oil company concerned. I did not attend, but I was told that there was unanimous opposition to the move by the oil companies to introduce trading stamp operations in Canberra through these companies. I was told that these trading stamp companies have some kind of arrangement with the oil companies.

I made some inquiries of my own and was told by other service station proprietors with whom I am on reasonable terms that they, too, were being put under pressure - persuasion might be a better word, although it has been described as standover tactics by at least one man to whom I spoke. Others have called it persuasion and have said: ‘You cannot talk back because they are the big guns and we, too, will have to take the stamps’. The last proprietor I spoke with said that he had taken the stamps, installed the system and put all the signs out because it was put to him: This is a form of advertising and if you do not go on with it, other people will and then you will be the one to suffer, so you must get in on the act’. So, the whole thing grows like a snowball running downhill and getting out of control.

I have been told that BP Australia Limited, which is associated in some way with Tiki Green Stamps, is actually subsidising its proprietors to the tune of SO per cent. In other words, the proprietors buy the stamps from the Tiki Green Stamp Company and BP says: ‘You will not have to pay the whole bill. The company will weigh in with 50 per cent of what it costs you. It is advertising from your point of view and of course it is advertising from our point of view but you really have no choice.’ Of course the upshot of it all is passed on to the consumer.

The Australian Capital Territory, as we all know, is an island surrounded by New South Wales. To my understanding New South Wales is the only State in Australia where this practice is not banned, is not illegal in one way or another. The question as to whether it should be banned did come up for consideration in New South Wales early this year but it was not banned, although a limited reform was introduced to insist that these trading stamp companies, which are essentially parasitical, at least do give a cash value for the stamps so that the person who takes the stamps can redeem them if he wants to. All the inquiries I have made have indicated, however, that no-one ever exercises this right. They just get caught up in the system.

In the other States, particularly Victoria, this practice has been banned, made illegal in essence, for the best part of 60 years. The last debate that I am familiar with was in the Victorian Parliament in about 1964 and dealt with closing a particular loophole that had been discovered in the law down there. I think the best 1 can do is to indicate the concern that was felt in Victoria, the concern I feel and the concern that I hope the Minister for the Interior (Mr Hunt) will feel when I urge him to do something about this practice by means of an ordinance, and do it quickly. The Victorian Minister who handled the legislation was the Hon. R. J. Hamer who was then Minister for Immigration. At page 3804 of the Victorian Hansard, Mr Hamer said:

More than 50 years ago, the Parliament of this State decided, in effect, that it would have nothing whatever to do wilh trading stamps . . .

Later on he described the practice of these companies, of how they approach retailers and say: ‘If you will buy these sheets of trading stamps from us, we will organise the whole thing for you; you will get extra customers; you will give a stamp with each purchase of goods, and we will take over the whole of the responsibility.’ He went on to say:

  1. . experience in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, where these trading stamp schemes are at present in full blast, is that it adds something between 2 per cent and 4 per cent to the price of goods in the long run . . .

That might not apply in the case of petrol - I appreciate that - because of the peculiar situation that exists in the petrol industry; but in other cases it certainly would apply.

The Honourable J. M. Walton replied and moved an amendment, which was subsequently adopted with expressions of general agreement by the Minister, and described the practice as obnoxious and parasitical. At page 3959 of Victorian Hansard he quoted from a United Kingdom report. He said that the report stated:

That the customer of a stamp trading shop is misled by the inducements held out into believing he is getting something for nothing, whereas in fact he may be paying very heavily for his purchase. . . . That the retailer is frequently unable to escape from the trading stamp system even though he may wish to do so.

Mr Walton also said:

Once a retailer participates in it, he cannot ‘get out from under’ because his customers require a continuity of stamps, and if they cannot get them from him they will go somewhere else where they can obtain them. The trader fears that, if he ceases to issue the stamps, he will lose customers.

Then Mr Hamer interjected and said:

It is a case of the trader having a tiger by the tail.

Mr Walton went on to say: . . trading stamp companies are essentially parasitic, providing no useful service to the community in return for the profit which they make.

  1. . That the system offers special temptations to fraud by ephemeral trading stamp companies.

In conclusion, I earnestly hope that the Minister will take this matter under consideration because it is in its infancy in Canberra at the moment. It seems to have been inspired by the practice of the Mobil company in making use of one of the stamp companies in the price war it engaged in in Melbourne recently and which inspired the other 2 principal companies here in Canberra to embark on a similar campaign. If something is done soon the matter may be settled quickly. If this scheme is allowed to be established it may be too late to do anything because of the continuous nature of the scheme.

Mr CALDER:
NORTHERN TERRITORY · CP; NCP from May 1975

– I would like to speak about the meningococcal meningitis case at Napperby station which was referred to on Tuesday, 5th October, by the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) who said that there had been 3 cases from Napperby, 100 miles north west of Alice Springs. He asked a question of the Minister for the Interior (Mr Hunt) about a fire fighting tanker being used to cart water for watering the lawns instead of carting fresh water for the Aborigines because the station supply is close to finished. He also implied that a drilling rig to sink an urgently needed bore was not in action because of a dispute between the station management and the Government. The Minister admitted at the time that he was aware of the serious health problem on this station but promised to investigate the details and to advise the honourable member.

On Thursday, 7th October, in a personal explanation the honourable member for Prospect said that the number of meningitis cases from Napperby station had risen to 7. He went on with what appeared to be a technical explanation. It concerned an assumed implication of the honourable member’s lack of knowledge as to whether meningococcal meningitis is water borne. He explained also the effect on child patients of a lack of really adequate water supplies, which could cause increased dehydration and depression. One would expect that a doctor would be able to give these sorts of explanations. But there are numerous other cases in the Alice Springs hospital which did not come from Napperby but from other stations which have adequate water supplies. But what put the lie to the honourable member’s sincerity in this whole affair-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honourable member is impugning by implication the reputation of an honourable member, and I ask him to withdraw the remark.

Mr CALDER:
NORTHERN TERRITORY · CP; NCP from May 1975

– I withdraw the remark. What indicates that his attitude towards this matter is completely incorrect and why I doubt his sincerity-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I again ask the honourable member to withdraw that remark.

Mr CALDER:

– I withdraw the remark.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I trust that the honourable member will not continue to make unparliamentary statements about other honourable members.

Mr CALDER:

– Absolutely not, Mr Speaker. I doubt the honourable member’s real interest in the welfare of these children, whether they were black or white. In thelast sentence of his personal explanation he said that the owner of Napperby station, Mr Shepherd, is the campaign manager for a Country Party candidate. His whole explanation was giving the lead to this sentence, and this is why I am on my feet defending a man who is thousands of miles from here and who cannot defend himself. What has this last sentence to do with the honourable member’s explanation about meningitis? I say the reason is that a general election is coming up in the Northern Territory on 23rd October for the Legislative Council. According to a Northern Territory newspaper, a Dr Dick Klugman, who I take it is the honourable member for Prospect, will go to Alice Springs on Friday, 15 th October, to assist an Australian Labor Party candidate at this election who is standing for a local country electorate. So the honourable member was actually playing Northern Territory Legislative Council politics right here.

Mr Cohen:

– What are you doing?

Mr CALDER:

– I am defending the man whom the honourable member attacked and who cannot answer the honourable member. The honourable member for Prospect was trying to bolster his Party’s candidate at the expense of the reputation, and the correct version of the story, of one of central Australia’s most respected men and, let me say, a returned soldier. Now let me tell the truth of the matter. Mr Shepherd is not the owner of Napperby station. This could easily have been found out with a telephone call to Alice Springs. Anyone in Alice Springs could have told him that, but I say that it did not suit the honourable member’s campaign argument to find this out. Mr Shepherd is not the campaign manager for the local Country Party candidate. The local Country Party candidate is A. G. W. Greatorex, M.B.E., M.C., M.L.C., President of the Northern Territory Legislative Council. The honourable member’s inference was that because of these assumed correct, but incorrect assumptions, the Aborigines on Napperby station are not receiving sympathy and consideration.

Let me deal with some more facts relevant to this insidious attack on a man who cannot answer it in this House. Originally, 2 patients were evacuated from Napperby Station and brought to the Alice Springs hospital. When this happened, the manager of the station contacted the Flying Doctor base and an aircraft arrived within 2 hours. That is a pretty quick trip. Four others were evacuated as well. They are all now on the road to recovery in the Alice Springs hospital. Another point is that in excess of 3,000 antibiotic tablets were sent to the station to be distributed to the Aborigines there. Mr Shepherd personally distributed those tablets S times a day to the Aborigines who were on the station. This is probably why they are on the road to recovery. He did this himself. He also organised the water carting programme. We have heard something about the water carting programme. The fire fighting unit and 2 other units were used to cart fresh water from a bore quite a long way from the station, and brackish water from a bore closer to the station for ablutions and washing purposes, not for watering the station lawns. This was done with the full knowledge of the bushfire council. That is the body which has the interest in the fire fighting unit. No dispute has existed between the manager and the Government authority concerning the bore being put down in that area.

The medical superintendent at the Alice Springs hospital was at a loss to understand such an attack on one of the most cooperative and conscientious station men in central Australia. Why was such an attack made? It was made because the honourable member for Prospect puts the support of some Australian Labor Party candidate ahead of a common and decent approach to Aboriginal welfare as practised by the manager of Napperby station. Another reason is that the 2 men - the manager of Napperby station and the Australian Country Party candidate - are both distinguished local citizens and ex-servicemen. The honourable member would prefer to see his Party candidate - I will riot describe him - representing this area. I am most disappointed at the way in which the honourable member behaved when he obviously bore false witness.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

- Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– Very much so. I wish to mention 2 of the points that the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder) made in his attack. The first point is that the honourable member for the Northern Territory accused me of knowingly making a wrong statement about Mr Shepherd who is the manager of Napperby station. I accept the proposition that he is not the owner of the station but its manager. My reason for referring to him as the owner is that on the top of the message which was handed to me at the time by the Minister for the Interior (Mr Hunt), who is now in the chamber, appear the words: ‘Originally directed to Minister, Answer to a question from Dr

Klugman re meningitis at Napperby station*. A little further on it states: ‘Mr Shepherd, Napperby owner, is local bush fire control officer’.

Mr Calder:

– You could have found out quite easily.

Dr KLUGMAN:

-I realise that perhaps ] should not take the word of the Minister for the Interior on this matter-

Mr Bryant:

– Not a Country Party Minister, anyhow.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– But he seems a reasonable bloke and certainly much more reasonable than the honourable member for the Northern Territory. At the time I had no reason to doubt his word. I think there must be doubt about who is the owner.

The second point to which I reply is the statement that everything was under control and that my raising the matter had no effect. Today I received a letter from the Minister for the Interior. I will not read it in full because it is rather lengthy. I think it makes the point quite clearly that certain investigations were carried out after I raised the question on 5th October. As a result of the investigations a tanker has been used to bring fresh water from a bore 20 miles away. The letter states:

I have now arranged for a third rig to be transferred immediately to Napperby from Santa Teresa Mission where it is presently working; providing no problems are encountered, investigational work, including water quantity and quality testing, should be completed within 4 weeks.

J have no complaint about the behaviour of the Minister. I think he treated the matter extremely well. He has taken the appropriate steps to correct a condition which is peculiar to the Northern Territory. I am not saying that it is peculiar only to stations managed by prominent Country Party personalities, but it certainly was peculiar to Napperby Station. I am pleased that my raising the matter on 5th October has helped these people to receive some water which they probably would not have received because they have no representation in this House.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member wanted to make a personal explanation. He is now proceeding to debate the matter.

Mr BENNETT:
Swan

Last week 1 raised the matter of service men who will be returning home from Vietnam being assured of being home with their families at Christmas. I raised the matter because of a letter written to the West Australian’ by a constituent of mine. She wrote:

Would the Prime Minister please explain why West Australian boys in Vietnam will not be home for Christmas?

We were promised they would all be home; now my son has written to say that they are being sent home from Townsville by train, and therefore can’t make it for Christmas.

I would like to know why.

The Minister for Defence (Mr Fairbairn) has assured the House that these men will be home by 25th December, for which assurance I thank him. However, due to a misunderstanding of reporting in newspapers, people still express anxiety. I am still receiving letters and telephone calls about this matter. I feel that it needs further clarification by the Minister. I feel that the Army’s reluctance to fly home other ranks is due to Treasury restrictions placed on it.

I turn to one other aspect of servicemen in Vietnam - that is, the small group who will be left behind in Vietnam for Christmas. Due to their small numbers and the restricted nature of their duties, it would not be impossible for the Government to arrange Christmas leave in Australia for these men. There was a call from the Government side to honour these servicemen from Vietnam with a parade. I feel that instead of having parades and eulogies spoken on their behalf a gesture more >n keeping with their service would be to allow all servicemen the opportunity of celebrating the cessation of hostilities in Vietnam by being in Australia. I feel that very few people in Australia would criticise the Government or the Treasury for making this humane gesture. The distress of the servicemen and of their families must be no less than the distress of people who would have been affected before the Minister’s assurance was given in the House. I quote from a further letter, which has been published, about the people remaining in Vietnam. It highlights the distress felt by the people concerned. It states:

I heartily endorse the remarks of-

It gives the name of the person to whom I referred initially - 1, too, am a mother of one of the few left to battle it out in Vietnam. I also was assured that my son would be home for Christmas.

As the army has no hesitation in flying our sons to a war we should not be involved in, I sec no reason why they cannot be transported home as promptly.

The remarks of the Army Minister, Mr Peacock, on the matter did not impress me - rather like handing a sweet to a crying child. 1 urge all mothers and wives of the men in 4 RAR to unite and force the Federal Government to rectify this blunder.

And I do hope Sir Robert Menzies sleeps peacefully at night, which is something 1 have not achieved for the past six months.

In the overall cost of the Vietnam conflict such a humane effort would not be noticed, even by the Treasury which caused other ranks to use slower and cheaper modes of transport when going on leave, whilst officers and politicians travel by the more expensive modes of transport, except, of course, those people who by choice travel by slower and cheaper modes of transport. But the point is that such people have a choice and a voice with which they are allowed to express a choice or to protest, which right is denied to a serviceman. He must do what he is told. It cannot be argued that the small group of men in Vietnam cannot be dispensed with because, in fact, there is fear for their safety. Let us ensure their safety and the happiness of them and their families by extending the Minister’s assurance to those servicemen who are left in Vietnam.

Dr MACKAY:
Minister for the Navy · Evans · LP

– The honourable member for Swan (Mr Bennett) quoted a number of letters and drew attention to a great deal of speculation with regard to Australian troops returning from Vietnam. The Minister for the Army (Mr Peacock) was unable to be present tonight, but the honourable member gave him prior intimation of his intention to raise this matter, and the Minister has provided mc with some information which I now convey to the House. The honourable member for Swan said, and the letters which he has quoted suggested that there was a difference in the treatment given to officers and to ordinary servicemen who were denied access to air transport. The suggestion was that the Government was being very pinch- penny in its attitude in not providing means of transport in order to honour the promise that these servicemen would be able to be with their families at Christmas. But this is hardly in keeping with the facts.

The Minister for the Army has assured me and, through me, assures the House that all our planning is directed towards ensuring that every member of the Australian forces in Vietnam who is due to come out with the main withdrawal will be able to be with his family by Christmas. That means only one thing, that men coming out of Vietnam with that withdrawal will not be travelling by train on Christmas Day; they will be with their families, if this can possibly be arranged. Honourable members will appreciate that our troops will not be coming home only in HMAS ‘Sydney’. It is true that aircraft are used in this defence manoeuvre for bringing these men out. There is a chartered Boeing 707 flight once a week, and twice a week CI 30 aircraft belonging to the Royal Australian Air Force are used for this ferrying service. So there is a good deal of flexibility.

Mr Kennedy:

– Will these men be flown back to Victoria from their arrival point in northern Australia?

Dr MACKAY:

– These men will be flown out to Australia from Vietnam by the means which I have just described, and the Army has undertaken that all these men who are coming out by these means will be able to be with their families by Christmas - unforeseen circumstances excepting. Of course, this means that naturally the Army will be looking at methods of transportation which will enable this aim to be achieved. The Minister for the Army says that at this stage he can only repeat that there is no reason for him to believe that that aim will not be achieved. So I think that the speculation is unnecessary. In addition to ships, planes are being used. There is every indication that the promise will be kept and that the men coming out in this main force withdrawal will be with their families by Christmas.

The other point, to which the Minister has not referred, relates to the small number of men who will be required to remain behind. If my memory is correct, this has been described as a necessary factor to safeguard the remaining equipment and other logistic support material that will be left behind in the area prior to its shipment to Australia. I do not think that purpose would be achieved if, as was suggested tonight, the men were flown home for Christmas and then, as I understand the suggestion, flown back again to carry on guarding this material until finally it is shipped to Australia. I think this is one of the things that naturally are unfortunate. We would have liked to have had all the men home. There is an indication, from what has been said in previous answers to questions in the House by the Minister for the Army, that there will be a small remaining force. But those men, of course, will be withdrawn as soon as it is physically possible to withdraw them.

Mr FOSTER:
Sturt

– During the course of question time yesterday afternoon I directed a question to the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch). In his answer - and I am not having a shot at Hansard tonight - he said: . . it is the proper function of a Minister for Labour and National Service to be critical of trade unions where he and his Government believe that criticism is justifiable. Equally, he should be critical of the employers where he believes that that criticism is justifiable.

He went on to say:

  1. . we as a Government recognise the need to establish a satisfactory legislative environment in which industrial relations can be effectively ordered. . . . and so forth. I want to say this to the Minister for Labour and National Service, who is now at the table. If this is the intention and policy of the Government, is it not time that the Government started thinking about putting that into effect? Is it not time that the Government started thinking that those in trade unions represent a very large percentage of the wage and salary earners within the community, both white collar and blue collar workers? Is is not time that the Department of Labour and National Service started to regard them as citizens of the Commonwealth? Is it not time that the Department started to regard them as, in fact, human beings?

If the Government’s record is so good, why is it that legislation which is known as the subsidised medical health scheme has been introduced into this House on behalf of another Government Department? The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Kennedy) has exploded the myths of that scheme in the last few days in this House. The fact is that the whole intent of that legislation is to afford some form of protection, health-wise, to low salary and wage earners. If the Government was so concerned about the legislative environment, there would be no need in this country to introduce such shocking legislation as the subsidised medical health scheme.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member is completely out of order in referring to the legislation that the House has voted upon tonight.

Mr FOSTER:

– I will say no more about that, Mr Speaker, other than to refer to it in making my point, which is this: Had this Government measured up to its responsibilities, there would be no need to place legislation on the statute book to afford such protection in so-called fringe areas, because one of the concerns of the Government ought to be that an adequate and proper wage is paid to these people

What good is this Government doing in coming into this chamber and relying on Dorothy Dix questions aimed at Ministers from back bench members? Notes are practically being passed around the chamber to give certain Ministers an opportunity to air their knowledge in regard to industrial relations when they do not know the first thing about it. If they do know anything about the subject, it is time they started to put their knowledge into real and proper practice. It is just not good enough for so-called responsible members of this Government, from the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) down, to speak in this chamber week after week in the manner in which they have in their criticism of the trade unions, when throughout the length and breadth of this country we have industrial organisations whose members have been going on strike in order to increase their weekly salaries from $46 to $47. Some of the lowest paid people within the community are employed in service industries at the governmental level. The Postmaster-General’s Department still employs some of the lowest paid salary earners. Forget for the moment the average wage or lor that matter the average weekly male wage and bear in mind that the Government is a direct employer of some of the lowest paid workers in Australia today. Honourable members opposite stand up in this chamber and say that they will create a legislative environment.

Let me say this to the Minister: The only industrial legislation of any note that this Government has introduced has been legislation against organisations within the industrial field. Just have a look at the Commonwealth’s role so far as the Public Service is concerned relative to the additional week’s leave. What has the Government or its predecessors done about this? Look at the shocking manner in which the Commonwealth has treated the professional engineer through the Commonwealth Public Service Board. This Government is not prepared to lift a finger to overcome industrial disputation in that calling.

In the last 3 years, industrial and professional organisations in this country which have taken up the strike weapon as their only means of defending their rights and putting forward their just demands have never previously gone on strike. They were never known to go on strike before but they have gone on strike under this Government in the last few years. This is indeed an indictment of the Government. It is not good enough for the Minister - as his predecessors have done - to make statements in this House week after week or to make announcements during recess periods on how well off the Australian worker is. Let me tell the Minister that measured in actual money values the take home pay of the Australian worker is much less than that of a comparable West German worker. Let me also say to the Miniser that some Australian workers are much worse off in money values and in the quality of life which they can obtain for the wage they take home each week than workers in some comparable industries in Japan. I refer to those industries in Japan which pay some regard to the quality of life of their employees. I do not refer to all industries in Japan.

Mark my words, Mr Speaker, neither the Minister nor the Government will fool the workers and the salary earners of this country by their continual clap-trap and subversive legislation against trade unions.

It is not good enough for this Government to come into this chamber from time to time, sneaking in through the back door as it were, after it has denied the right of some industrial organisations to approach employers in the correct manner in regard to some form of industrial agreement. Recently, a strike took place in South Australia and it was one of the most shocking strikes as far as government was concerned. But this Government did not lift a finger to ensure that there was any real requirement in any Act which would force the parties to even speak to one another. Many agreements have voluntary provisions in them to enable talks to take place but they collapse around one’s ears.

As one with some wide experience in the stevedoring industry which the Minister regards as having been extremely turbulent for many years, I can say to the Minister that he will never cure the problems of this industry by imposing pains and penalties. Honourable members should remember that this Government was responsible for one of the most vicious hostage systems. It was a real system of industrial hostages as far as the Stevedoring Industry Act was concerned. Did it lessen stoppages in any shape or form? It certainly did not. Peace has been brought about in the stevedoring industry - an industry which has had its rough passages even in the last few years - by the most vicious industrial legislation ever put on the statute books. This legislation was put on in 1965 when the present Prime Minister was the leader of the department concerned. The intent of that legislation was to deregister the union involved but it went one vicious step further than that. The union was a Commonwealth wide federation and the legislation made provision for one of the State branches of that union to opt out of the federation and shelter itself under the wing of the Department of Labour and National Service. But no-one fell for that. It was at a time when the industry was turbulent. In fact, the actions of the Government completely united a number of quarrelling factions at that time. From it, of course, arose a proper concept of a proper industrial agreement and it did away with many of the conciliation and arbitration measures that were designed - so-called - to bring about the end of industrial disputes.

The old provision for boards of reference caused more disputes and still continues to cause more disputes and more lost man hours than any other aspect of industry. I would never ever use them because their use would simply mean that no one would create further bother. I ask the Minister to have a look at this type of agreement that is coming up for more than review so far as this industry is concerned. I would prevail upon him, having regard to the particular state of that industry at the moment, measured in terms of the number of men required on the waterfront today and the number which may be required in the future, to ensure that his Government does not interfere with the rights of the trade union and the employer to negotiate in a right and proper manner for the interests of the people and the humans in the industry and the interests, of course, of the whole community. Would the Government put legislation on the books for compulsory retirement because of a redundant situation? Would it retire men at 60 years of age-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr LYNCH:
Minister for Labour and National Service · Flinders · LP

– The honourable member for Sturt (Mr Foster) emits a great deal of froth and fury and frankly I can find very little logic in what he has put before the House at this time of the evening.

Mr Foster:

– I will debate this matter with the Minister next Friday in Adelaide if he likes.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Sturt will contain himself.

Mr LYNCH:

– That, if I may say so of the honourable gentleman, is sometimes a very difficult matter. I gather from what he has said in a very rambling discourse that he is totally opposed to penalties. I can only assume that he has brought into this House the hatchet type tactics that were obviously adopted by both sides of debate in the Labor Party Caucus this morning. 1 should have thought, without unduly wanting to twist the knife - in fact I am here only out of a sense of courtesy to the honourable gentleman - that the last thing that any member of the Opposition would have wanted to raise today or yes terday was the question of industrial relations. If the honourable gentleman is opposed to sanctions in the Act or sanctions against voluntary agreements he is apparently carrying on the type of debate which occupied so much of the Labor Party executive meeting in Caucus this morning. The honourable gentleman knows as well as I do, as every member of the House knows and as presumably the Australian people will know tomorrow morning, that at the meeting held by the Labor Party this morning the penalty suggested by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) and the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) was in fact decisively rejected on, I believe, some form of landslide vote. That of course vindicates all that the Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) has said in relation to this matter during the past few days.

However, I do not want to inject this type of argument into the debate. I do so only in partial response to what the honourable gentleman has suggested because in fact the whole burden of the case that he was putting before this House was the suggestion that there ought to be no sanctions whatever in industrial legislation in Australia. That certainly is obviously not the view of the Leader of the Opposition, it has not been the view of the honourable member for Hindmarsh, it is not my view, it is not the view of this Government and I would feel confident in saying that it is not the view of the people of this country. We believe very much indeed in having sanctions in the Act. We recognise that if the system is designed to regulate with the force of law the relations between employers and employees, those regulations ought to be able to be backed effectively by some form of sanction. I do not really want to twist the knife even marginally any further because after all, if a party is hanging itself so effectively there would seem to be no reason why anyone from this side would want to seek to assist.

Mr KIRWAN (Forrest) 12.59 a.m.)Mr Speaker-

Motion (by Mr Giles) agreed to:

That the question be now put.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at 1 a.m. (Thursday)

page 2324

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated:

Commonwealth Secondary Scholarships (Question No. 3826)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. What percentage of the total value of Commonwealth secondary scholarships in 1970-71 was allotted to students in (a) Government, <b) Catholic and (c) other private schools.
  2. What percentage of all secondary school students in 1970-71 attended (a) Government, (b) Catholic and (c) other private schools.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. Commonwealth Secondary scholarships are awarded on merit and no separate quotas of awards or proportion of scholarship benefits are allocated to students attending particular schools or groups of schools. Of the total expenditure on scholarship benefits in 1970-71 the percentages paid in respect of scholars attending the categories of schools listed were:

    1. Government- 47.7 per cent.
    2. Catholic- 24.5 per cent.
    3. Other non-government- 27.8 per cent.

  2. The latest available statistics of secondary school enrolments relate to 1970, when the proportion of secondary enrolments in each type of school was:

    1. Government - 75.2 per cent.
    2. Catholic - 16.9 per cent.
    3. Other non-government - 7.9 per cent.

It should be noted that Commonwealth Secondary scholarships are tenable only in the final 2 years of secondary schooling. In 1970 the proportion of enrolments in these years in each type of school was:

  1. Government - 67.6 per cent.
  2. Catholic - 17.9 per cent.
  3. Other non-government - 14.5 per cent.

Education: Puckapunyal-Seymour Area (Question No. 3850)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Minister for the Army, upon notice:

  1. How many servicemen in the Puckapunyal/Seymour area have children of secondary school age.
  2. How many of these children attend (a) Government and (b) Catholic schools in the Seymour area, and (c) Government (d) Catholic (e) other private schools elsewhere.
Mr Peacock:
Minister for the Army · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. A survey conducted in September in the Puckapunyal area revealed that 81 servicemen in the Puckapunyal/Seymour area had children of secondary school age.

  2. These children attended schools in the following categories:

    1. 150 attended Government schools in the Seymour area.
    2. 28 attended Catholic schools in the Seymour area.
    3. 7 attended Government schools elsewhere.
    4. 9 attended Catholic schools elsewhere.
    5. There were no children at other private schools.

In addition, one child took correspondence lessons, but details of the education type and standard are not known.

Colleges of Advanced Education (Question No. 3975)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. What (a) types and (b) levels of fees and charges were levied in each college of advanced education and institute of technology in 1971.
  2. What sum was raised from fees and charges in (a) each institution and (b) all of these institutions in 1970.
  3. What was the total recurrent income of (a) each institution and (b) all of these institutions in 1970, and what percentage of this income was from fees and charges.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. (a) The types of fees and charges levied by colleges of advanced education vary from institution to institution; in the college sector the following types of fees are found - teaching; laboratory; excursion; library; materials; examination; residential; student union, associations, and council; general service; sports association; other miscellaneous charges.

    1. Information on the level of fees and charges levied by colleges of advanced education is available from college hand books. As the fee charging policies of the 43 colleges are diverse, even among similar types of institutions, I do not propose to set out this information in detail. - However, I have listed below details of teaching or tuition fees. The basis for this type of fee alone varies significantly - some colleges charge a fixed rate for years of a course while others have different rates for each year of a course; some colleges charge on the basis of subjects or units, other colleges charge according to the number of weekly hours of tuition; different rates sometimes apply for different types of courses (diploma, postdiploma, extension courses, etc.). The details below relate to the 1971 level of teaching fees normally payable for each year of a full-time diploma-type course; where the fee varies for each year of a course the average is given.
  1. and (3) The information sought is not available. The requirements of the States Grants (Advanced Education) Acts are met by, certified statements from the States giving the final actual recurrent expenditures for each college. These statements have not yet been received for the large majority of colleges for 1970. The certified statements show the amount of fees and State contributions applied to advanced education purposes at a college; it is from this figure that the final level of Commonwealth grant attracted is calculated, lt is not necessary for the State to separate for any college the income from fees from the income contributed by the State.

Teaching Hospital, Westmead (Question No. 3989)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

To what extent has the Universities Commission been consulted on the planning and financing of the projected teaching hospital at Westmead, New South Wales (Hansard, 21st October 1970, page 2616).

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

The Australian Universities Commission has received a request for funds towards the provision of teaching facilities in the projected teaching and community hospital at Westmead in the 1973-75 triennium. The Commission is presently considering the proposal but will be unable to reach a conclusion until it receives further information regarding the time table for the overall development.

Universities: Surcharges on Fees (Question No. 4096)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. At which universities are surcharges imposed on fees paid by overseas or interstate students.
  2. What are the reasons given for imposing these surcharges.
  3. Has he made any approach to the universities concerned with a view to removing the surcharges.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. The University of Queensland.

    1. It is the policy of the University of Queensland to impose higher fees on students who are not residents of Queensland.
    2. No.

Army: Food Tests (Question No. 4192)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Minister for the Army, upon notice:

  1. Has the Army Food Science Establishment at Scottsdale, Tasmania, published the results of tests undertaken to determine the nutritional values of various foodstuffs.

    1. If so, in what publications can these results be found.

  2. If not, will he make the necessary arrangements for publication.

Mr Peacock:
LP

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

  1. There is no specific project which has as its aim ‘to determine the nutritional values of various foodstuffs’. There are, however, nine final reports touching on the matter referred to and these are:
  1. The above reports are given a wide distribution, including the National Library and the State Library in Tasmania. They are, therefore, readily available to the public.
  2. Not applicable.

Immigration: Non-Europeans (Question No. 4308)

Mr Daly:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister representing the Acting Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. How many non-Europeans have been admitted to Australia in each year since the change of policy announced in March 1966?

  2. What:

    1. is the country of origin; and
    2. are the qualifications of those admitted?
  3. How many relatives were admitted?
Mr Lynch:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. The number of non-Europeans admitted to Australia each year under the provisions of the policy announced in 1966 is:
  1. The following tables show the nationality details of the total number of persons admitted and the broad occupational classification of the 1511 principal applicants:
  1. 2,608 dependants accompanied the 1,511 principals admitted under the provisions of the March 1966 policy review. In addition 5,026 dependants were admitted on the basis of family relationship to residents of Australia. During the same period 6,246 persons of nonEuropean descent were granted resident status following entry for temporary residence.

Navy Pollution Control Devices (Question No. 4322)

Mr Bennett:

asked the Minister for the Navy, upon notice -

  1. Are pollution control devices planned for the Navy’s new destroyers and other new craft?
  2. If so, will these devices completely eliminate pollution sources from these ships?
Dr Mackay:
LP

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

  1. The new destroyers and other new naval vessels will cause considerably less pollution both to the atmosphere and to the ocean than existing ships.

  2. lt is not possible to promise complete elimination but there will bc significant improvement as follows:

    1. Gas turbines have the inherent advantage that they can be started from cold and placed on load almost immediately, with very little smoke emission. Such ships therefore do not emit the heavy clouds of smoke for an extended period as do present steam ships when raising steam in harbour. Also the gas turbines fitted in ships arc not as highly loaded as those in aircraft, where boost power, accompanied by smoke emission, is necessary on take off.
    2. Silencers are fitted to gas turbines and internal combustion engine exhausts. This is a military requirement.
    3. Sewage. AH new ships are planned to be fitted with on board sewage collection and treatment plants. Such plants are incorporated in the new destroyer design.
    4. Garbage and waste. Garbage disposal units are fitted in all food handling areas in modern naval vessels.
    5. Other waste is handled according to its pollution potential. Naval ships are subject to the same regulations against discharge of oil at sea or in harbour as commercial shipping. The Naval Board ensures that these regulations are strictly observed by the issue of appropriate directives to Commanding Officers, by the incorporation of appropriate safeguards during design and the use of up to date equipment, and by the provision of reception facilities for oily residue in major naval ports.

Aboriginals: Patronage of Licensed Premises (Question No. 3257)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts, upon notice:

  1. ls there any evidence to show that Aborigines are the subject of discrimination by licensees of some hotels and clubs in country areas of New South Wales.
  2. Can he say whether any hotels or clubs in New South Wales are known to have policies or rules designed to preclude persons of Aboriginal descent from patronage of premises on the grounds of race; if so, what are the details.
  3. Has any hotel or club licensee in New South Wales been convicted for selling liquor to an intoxicated Aboriginal person; if so, what are the details.
  4. What was the (a) number of persons charged with drunkenness, (b) number of persons convicted for drunkenness, (c) number of persons of Aboriginal descent charged with drunkenness, (d) number of persons of Aboriginal descent convicted of drunkenness and (e) number of defended cases where persons of Aboriginal descent were charged with drunkenness in New South Wales for the latest year for which figures are available.
  5. Can he say whether persons of Aboriginal descent in some country areas of New South Wales experience difficulty in securing legal assistance for such minor court appearances as a drunkenness charge.
  6. Is any public form of legal assistance available to these people; if so, what are the details.
Mr Howson:
LP

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

This question has been referred to the New South Wales Commissioner of Police. Obviously investigation into the matters mentioned will take some lime. My Office of Aboriginal Affairs has been informed that information will be forthcoming, and I shall forward it to the honourable member as soon as possible.

Steelworks at Jervis Bay (Question No. 3773)

Dr Everingham:

asked the Minister for National Development, upon notice:

  1. Were studies made to support the choice of Jervis Bay as a site for new steelworks before Gladstone in Queensland, or a site in Western Australia where resources are cheaper and more plentiful and exporting facilities closer to significant markets.
  2. If so, where may the results of those studies be obtained.
Mr Swartz:
LP

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

  1. and (2) Commonwealth Departments have not been involved in studies relating to the proposed steelworks at Jervis Bay and I suggest the existence of any studies on the siting of the steelworks could only be ascertained by direct approach to the company concerned.

Ships, Aircraft and Ammunition: Payments (Question No. 3633)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice: What payments were made in 1970-71

  1. for each class of ship and aircraft which has been ordered for the services from overseas, and
  2. for ammunition which has been imported for each of the services from overseas.
Mr Fairbairn:
LP

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

  1. Payments made in 1970-71 for each class of ship and aircraft which has been ordered for the Services from overseas are set out hereunder. This information includes payments made both overseas and in Australia.
  1. Payments made in 1970-71 for ammunition which has been imported for each of the services from overseas.

Navy -

Submarine Signalling stores 4.5” and 5”/ 54 shells and fuses, MK8, 23 and 46 torpedoes

Aircraft power cartridges and flotation equipment 5” Browning ammunition

Ship Pyrotechnics

Anti submarine and demolition stores

Aircraft rockets 2” rocket plane motors

Bombs, HE and practice, and component fuses 20 mm aircraft ammunition

Mine disposals weapons

Sidewinder missiles.

Army -

Cartridges 20 pounder, . 30” . 303”, . 50” 76 mm and 105 mm

Rockets 2.75” and 66 mm

Mines.

Grenades.

Air- 30 mm Aden ammunition 20 mm for F111C.

Timber: Exports (Question No. 3920) mr Scholes asked the Minister for

National Development, upon notice:

Will he appoint an expert committee to study and report upon the immediate and long-term effects on Australian forests ofthe continued export of large quantities of timber products.

Mr Swartz:
LP

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

I assume the timber products to which the question refers are woodchips, as the quantity exported in other forms is relatively small and has not changed significantly for many years. As a result of sound management these exports have not resulted in any adverse effects on the forests.

The methods used to produce timber for woodchips do not differ from long established Australian forestry practices. Australian foresters have had considerable experience with the methods employed, and whilst the scale of operations associated with woodchips tends to be larger than other forms of forest utilisation,there is no reason to suggest that the forests will be impaired by controlled extension of these techniques.

It would appear unnecessary therefore to appoint a committee of investigation.

Australian Work Force (Question No. 3545)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Minister for Labour and National Service, upon notice:

  1. What was the size of the Australian work force in each of the last 20 years.
  2. What percentage of the Australian work force consisted of employees in each of the last 20 years.
Mr Lynch:
LP

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

  1. and (2) Statistics giving the actual size of the Australian work force and the employee component thereof are only available at Census dates and Table 1 below provides the information as at the end of June in 1947, 1954, 1961 and 1966.

Estimates made by the Commonwealth Statistician of the civilian work force and of civilian wage and salary earners for the month of May in each of the years 1964 to 1970 are presented in Table 2. The population coverage of these estimates is not the same as that of the figures in Table 1. Estimates of the civilian work force prior to 1964 arc not available.

Housing Agreements (Question No. 3690)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for

Housing, upon notice:

Will he give information on the Housing Agreements for 1970-71 corresponding to the information which his predecessor gave on 16th October 1970 (Hansard, page 2366).

Mr Kevin Cairns:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

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

  1. Applications lodged with State housing authorities for houses (and flats) built with advances received under the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement were:
  1. The Queensland Housing Commission advises that applications for purchase of houses are not accepted prior to construction commencing.
  2. The Housing Commission, Victoria, and the State Housing Commission, Western Australia, advise that applications are not divided into the separate categories of rental and purchase.

  3. Applicants in Victoria are interviewed several months after lodging an application to determine whether they are in a position, financially, to purchase a dwelling and if so, whether they wish to be considered for purchase.

    1. For the reasons explained in the answer to Question No. 128 on 21st April 1970 (Hansard page 1410), it is not possible to provide this information.
    2. The number of applications for dwellings lodged with the Service Departments by serving members of the Forces in 1970-71 and the number outstanding at 30th June 1971 were:

Some of these applications could be for dwelling provided by other than State housing authorities.

  1. Advances under the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement in 1970-71 are shown in the following table. Authority for the Commonwealth to make advances under the Agreement expired on 30th June 1971, and I am advised that all States have not yet finally determined their allocations for housing in 1971-72.
  1. The number of dwellings built in 1970-71 in each category were:
  1. Repayments of principal and payments of interest by the States in 1970-71 under the 1945 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement, were:
  1. The number of tenants receiving rental rebates under the 1945 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement formula at 30th June 1971, and the amount of the rebates in 1970-71 were:

In recent years Queensland has been the only State in which the cost of the rebates has been met in part by the Commonwealth. South Australia provides concessional rentals in necessitous cases, but not according to any given formula.

  1. In the year ended 30th June 1971, (375,000 was made available by the Maltese Government.

Civil Aviation: Seat Pool Agreement (Question No. 4196)

Mr Charles Jones:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

  1. Is there a seat pool Agreement between Qantas, B.O.A.C., Air India, Air New Zealand and Malaysia-Singapore Airways.
  2. Does this Agreement guarantee that if any of these airlines cease operations due to an industrial dispute, it shall, for the first 28 days of the shut-down, receive payment for normal scheduled seat capacity over the routes shared.
Mr Swartz:
LP

– The Minister for Civil Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. Yes.
  2. No. The subject Agreement does provide, however, that should the services of a party airline be interrupted for any reason such airline may receive some compensation from its partner airlines. This compensation would be calculated on the extent to which loadings on partner airline services have been increased by traffic that would have been carried on the services of the airline which had been interrupted. The practice of airlines entering into compensatory arrangements of this kind is not uncommon.

Sydney Airport: Locality of Passengers (Residences) (Question No. 4239)

Mr Uren:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

Has a survey been made of the locality of the residences of those persons travelling by aircraft from Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport.

Mr Swartz:
LP

– The Minister for Civil Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

Yes. A limited survey of departing passengers from Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport was carried out on 18th March 1970. The study was conducted to obtain information on the localities in the Sydney area from which airline passengers began their journeys through Sydney Airport on the survey day. These would not necessarily coincide with the places of residence.

Shipbuilding (Question No. 4240)

Mr Hansen:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Ship ping and Transport, upon notice:

  1. How many ships are under construction or on order (a) in Australia and (b) overseas for (i) the Australian National Line and (ii) other Australian owners.
  2. What is the tonnage of each ship.
  3. Who are the builders of each ship.
  4. When was Government approval given for each order.
  5. What is the estimated date of completion in each case.
Mr Hunt:
CP

– As Acting Minister for Shipping and Transport I supply the following answer to the honourable member’s question: 1 (a) and (b), 2, 3, 4 and 5. - The table sets out the ships under construction or on order, through the Australian Shipbuilding Board, in Australian yards for Australian owners.

In addition to the 26 vessels listed a number of smaller vessels are also under construction at various shipyards in Australia.

Only one vessel, to my knowledge, is at present on order or under construction overseas for an Australian owner. This is a ship of approximately 26,000 DWT which is to be built for the Australian National Line by Bremer Vulkan, Bremen Vegesack, West Germany. It is due to be completed in May 1972. Approval to purchase the vessel was given on 6th June 1969.

Intrastate Aviation: Reference of Power to Commonwealth (Question No. 3624)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

When was the last approach made to or by New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia for any of them to refer power to the Commonwealth to operate airline services within the State or to consent to the establish ment and operation of such services by the Commonwealth.

Mr Swartz:
LP

– The Minister for Civil Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

The States which have approached the Commonwealth in this connection are Western Australia and South Australia. The last approach by Western Australia was in 1955, and the last by South Australia was in 1963. New South Wales and Victoria have made no such approaches, and die Commonwealth has made no approaches to any of these States.

Surface Damage by Aircraft (Question No. 3983)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister repre senting the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

Have Queensland, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory yet passed laws relating to surface damage by, aircraft such as the other States passed many years ago.

Mr Swartz:
LP

– The Minister for Civil Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

It has not yet been possible to obtain uniform legislation on this subject in these States and Territories.

Causes of Death (Question No. 3506)

Dr Everingham:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Is it estimated that one Australian in 20 is destined to die as a result of a traffic accident.
  2. Are traffic accidents the chief cause of loss of life between infancy and retirement.
  3. Is one-tenth of Australia’s work force employed in supplying, producing, tending or driving motor vehicles.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The Commonwealth Statistician has supplied the following information in reply to the honourable member’s question:

The proportion of all deaths registered over the 5 years 1966 to 1970 attributable to motor vehicle accidents has been as follows (per cent):

If this pattern of causes were to continue, the proportion of Australians dying in an accident of this kind would be one in 23 for males and one in 53 for females.

  1. For Australia in 1970 the 4 main causes of death of all males and females who died at ages below 65 are shown in the table below. Over this age range as a whole, motor vehicle accidents ranked third as a cause for males and fourth for females.

In the age groups 5 to 14 and 15 to 24, for both sexes, motor vehicle accidents were the principal cause of death. At ages 25 to 34 they were still the first-ranking cause for males and second-ranking cause for females.

  1. Figures from the 1966 Census indicate that about 8 per cent of the total labour force were engaged in the activities listed. This includes all persons in the industries listed below, together with those persons in other industries who had one of the occupations listed below.

Industries -

Manufacture, assembly and repair of motor vehicles

Motor engineering

Manufacture of motor bodies and trailers

Vulcanising and tyre retreading

Motor vehicles and accessories distributors - wholesale

Motor vehicles and accessories dealing - retail (including service stations) Occupations - Service station attendants

Car, taxi, hire car drivers

Truck and van drivers, motor drivers, delivery men

Mail contractors

Other drivers of road transport

Vehicle body builders

Motor vehicle mechanics

Superannuation (Question No. 3865)

Mr Wallis:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

When is it anticipated that the results of the actuarial examination of the Commonwealth superannuation scheme will be available.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The Superannuation Board has been informed by the Commonwealth Actuary that his Ninth Quinquennial Investigation of the Superannuation Fund is nearing completion.

It is expected that he will report the result of his investigation to the Board, in accordance with Section 17 of the Superannuation Act 1922-1971, within the next few weeks.

Commonwealth Employees: Salaries and Superannuation (Question No. 3946)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. What amount was paid in salaries and wages to employees of the Commonwealth and its instrumentalities in each of the last 20 years.
  2. What proportion of the total Australian sal ary and wage payments did this figure represent.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The Public Service Board has supplied information with respect to salaries, wages and other payments paid to staff employed under the Public Service Act since 1950-51. This information is set out in (he table below.

Estimates of salaries and wages paid in each of the last 15 years by Commonwealth enterprises and authorities, including pay and allowances of members of the defence force, have been prepared by the Acting Commonwealth Statistician from records used in compiling national income estimates. Similar information is not available from this source for the preceding 5 years. The following table sets out, for the last 15 years, the information requested.

Developing Countries: Net Private Capital Flows (Question No. 4030)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

Will he prepare a table of net flows of official and private resources to developing countries in 1970 corresponding to the table given by his predecessor on 29th September 1970 (Hansard, page 1846).

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The information requested by the honourable member is set out in the following table:

These figures are based on data compiled by the Development Assistance Committee- of the OECD- they are not final and may be subject to minor modifications.

The figures quoted above for official flows differ from those contained in Statement No. 8 attached to the Budget Speech for 1971-72 because the latter relate to official development assistance only and do not include official loans or export credits extended on non-concessional terms or subscriptions to bonds issued by internatioal institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank which bear market rates of interest.

Films: Payments (Question No. 4037)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

What payments were made in 1970-71 to the (a) sterling area and (b) non-sterling area for films (i) for use on television and (ii) for other exhibition purposes.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

Overseas exchange was allocated as follows during 1970-71:

In addition, the equivalent of $A4.1m was remitted from Australia to the non-sterling area during 1970-71 in payment for imported films. However, details of the proportions of these remittances which relate to films for use on television and for other purposes are not available.

Income Tax (Question No. 4067)

Mr Collard:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. When were the (a) boundary, (b) amounts of deduction and (c) qualifying period sections of the zone allowance provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Aci last (i) amended and (ii) considered with a view to amendment.
  2. ls it the intention of the Government to amend these provisions.
  3. If so, will they be amended during the Budget sittings; if not, why not.
Mr McMahon:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows;

  1. (i) (a) The zone allowance boundaries were last amended in 1956, by Act No. 101 of 1956, when Zone A was extended to include certain parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The revised zone boundaries operated as from 1st July ‘1956;

    1. The amounts of deduction were increased in 1958, by Act No. 55 of 1958, to their present levels. The increased deductions operated for 1958-59 and subsequent income years;
    2. The qualifying period of residence within the zone areas, i.e., residence in the area for more than one-half of the year of income, has remained unaltered since the introduction of the zone allowance deductions by Act No. 4 of 1945.
    1. The question of amending these several aspects of the zone allowance provisions was last considered when the 1971-72 Budget was being prepared.

  2. and (3) Having regard to the overall budgetary position - including the need to raise substantial additional revenues - the Government decided that proposals for taxation concessions should be limited to those announced in the Budget Speech.

Marriage Age (Question No. 4157)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

What is the average age at which males in Australia marry.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The Acting Commonwealth Statistician has advised that in 1970 the average age of bachelor bridegrooms was 24.59 years and that for all bridegrooms was 26.55 years.

Residences in Australia (Question No. 4158)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

What is the (a) number and (b) percentage of residences in Australia with (i) less than three rooms, (ii) three rooms, (iii) four rooms, (iv) five rooms (v) more than five rooms.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

In the tables below, the total number of private residences in Australia is shown in specific classes to illustrate the spread of the number of rooms, as a large proportion of 1 and 2 room dwellings are sheds, huts, tents and other private dwellings. Additionally, the average, number- of rooms for each class of dwelling is shown in Table 1.

Australian Work Force: Matrimonial State (Question No. 4161)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

What is the (a) number and (b) percentage of employees in the Australian work force who are (i) unmarried, (ii) married without children and (iii) married with (A) one dependent child, (B) two dependent children, (C) three dependent children and (D) more than three dependent children.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The Acting Commonwealth Statistican has provided the following information in reply to the honourable member’s question.

The numbers of never married employees in the Australian labour force at the time of the 1966 Census were 863,268 males, 573,706 females, a total of 1,436,974 persons. These represented 30.9 per cent, 46.2 per cent and 35.6 per cent of the total number of employees in each category.

Information to enable a precise answer to the remainder of the question is not available. The table below gives a distribution of head of families in private dwellings at the 1966 Census by numbers of dependent children (defined as children under 21 years of age nol in the labour force) without distinguishing between married and unmarried heads.

Public Employment (Question No. 4163)

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

What percentage of all Australian employees is engaged in public employment?

Mr McMahon:
LP

– The Acting Commonwealth Statistician has supplied the following information in reply to the honourable member’s question:

It is estimated that in June 1971 civilian employees of government bodies represented approximately 23.8 percent of all civilian employees in Australia. Government employees include persons employed, within Australia, by government bodies on services such as railways, road transport, banks, post office, air transport, education (including universities), broadcasting, television, police, public works, factories and munitions establishments, departmental hospitals and institutions, migrant hostels, etc., as well as administrative employees.

If permanent defence forces in Australia and overseas and members of the Regular Army Supplement are included, the percentage of all employees becomes approximately 25.2.

Taxation Deductions: Works of Art (Question No. 4211)

Mr Foster:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Is it a fact that the value of gifts of works of art, such as paintings, made to Australian universities, can be claimed as a concessional deduction for income tax purposes.
  2. Is it also a fact that similar gifts made to other educational institutions and, in. particular, to independent girls’ schools and colleges, .are not entitled to a similar concession.
  3. If so, will be take positive steps without delay to remove this discrimination against these educational institutions.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. A taxpayer who makes a gift of property, such as a work of art, to an Australian university does not qualify for an income tax deduction in all circumstances. The deduction is allowable only if the property was purchased by the donor within 12 months immediately preceding the making of the gift. If this condition is satisfied, the deduction allowable is an amount equal to the value of the property at the time of the making of the gift or the amount paid by the donor for the property, whichever is the less.
  2. Deductions are not allowable for similar gifts made to independent girls’ schools and colleges.
  3. 1 shall arrange to have the matter looked into when the gift provisions of the law are next being examined.

Visas: United States Citizens (Question No. 4302)

Mr Daly:

asked the Minister representing the Acting Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. What is the procedure for citizens of the United States of America to obtain visitors’ visas to enter Australia.
  2. ls any inquiry made or evidence required that the applicants have made arrangements or propose to depart in accordance with the terms of the visa.
  3. If so, what assurances were received and what inquiries were made regarding the application lodged by Mr James Edward O’Leary and his family for a 2-day visitors’ visa.
  4. What action has been taken to prevent a repetition of this case.
Mr Lynch:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s questions:

  1. Applications for visitor visas must be submitted usually to an Australian visa issuing office, together with passports. Applicants must satisfy the office of their bona fides as visitors and that adequate funds are available for their maintenance in Australia and for return or onward fares. Applications are usually decided on the basis ot information supplied on the application forms or in conjunction with other supporting documents submitted. Personal interviews are not necessary as a rule but may be required if strong doubts about an applicant’s intentions exist.
  2. Such enquiries are not made as a nile prior to visa issue but visas would not be granted if serious doubts existed in this respect.

It is frequently necessary to issue visitor visas urgently without full opportunity to check the good faith of applicants.

Action is taken departmentally to follow up the departures of those visitors (the minority) who do not depart within the validity of their temporary entry permits.

  1. The 0’Lear family had arrived in Fiji from Hawaii by air with tickets for onward movement to Australia. The airline would not carry them on to Australia unless visas were issued.

Mr 0’Lear, through the American Vice Consul in Suva, applied to the Australian High Commission there for urgent issue of visas for a two day visit to Australia on the basis that they would bc leaving on a boat owned by them in Sydney. Neither the American Vice Consul nor the Australian High Commission had prior knowledge of the family. They were at Nadi Airport and the Australian High Commission in Suva did not have an opportunity to see them. As pointed out in the reply to (2) it is frequently necessary to issue visitor visas urgently without full opportunity to check the good faith of the applicants and the Australian High Commission granted two day visas as requested.

  1. More rigorous visa procedures would considerably inconvenience many genuine visitors. Most countries allow short-term visitors to enter without having to obtain visas at all. Australia allows entry for solely transit purposes without visas but otherwise maintains the visa requirement, mainly to avoid an influx of spurious visitors and numerous and expensive deportations. However, our visa procedures must continue also to avoid excessive formalities and delays if we are not to discourage tourism severely. Some risktaking is inevitable and cases such as that of the O’Lear family are too infrequent to warrant the difficulties for travellers generally which would result from drastic changes in procedures. Carriers and visa issuing officers have been warned that the O’Lear family will not be admitted to Australia again.

Deportation and Repatriation: Mr J. Q. O’Lear and Family (Question No. 4301)

Mr Daly:

asked the Minister representing the Acting Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. What was the full cost to the Commonwealth for the deportation of Mr James Edward O’Leary and his family.
  2. Has it yet been ascertained whether the State of Hawaii paid the family’s fares to Australia knowing they were not en route to Guam as stated.
  3. Will the State of Hawaii or the Government of the United States of America be requested to reimburse the cost of the deportation of this family; if not, why not.
Mr Lynch:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s questions:

  1. The cost to the Commonwealth for returning Mr James Edward 0’Lear (alias 0’Leary) and his family to Hawaii amounted to $5,176.93. Mr O’Lear was deported; his wife and children were repatriated at Australian Government expense. The break-down of the expenditure was as follows:
  1. The Slate of Hawaii did not pay the family’s fares to Australia. Mr O’Lear himself met the cost of the fares of the family to Australia from Honolulu.
  2. Mr O’Lear had to be deported after he refused to apply to the U.S. authorities for repatriation or to leave voluntarily otherwise. Deportation costs have to be borne either by the Commonwealth (or in certain circumstances, not applicable to Mr O’Lear’s return to Hawaii, by the carrier who brought the person to Australia). Mrs O’Lear and the remainder of the family were returned to Hawaii at Commonwealth expense only after the U.S. authorities bad decided not to repatriate them.

Migrants from Great Britain (Question No. 4307)

Mr Daly:

asked the Minister representing the Acting Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. What is the proposed intake of migrants from Great Britain for the year ending 30th June 1972.
  2. Is it anticipated that this figure will be reached and does the rate of application at this date indicate an increase or decrease as compared with the previous year.
Mr Lynch:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s questions:

  1. The 1971-72 migration programme provides for the arrival of 47,500 assisted migrants from Britain under the United Kingdom/Australia Assisted Migration Agreement.
  2. On present indications, sufficient suitable applicants will be available for the proposed assisted migrant intake from Britain.

Migrant applications for 108,191 . persons have been received during January-September 1971 as compared with 118,227 persons in the same period for 1970. The application rate during the first quarter of 1971 fell sharply during the postal strike in Britain but in the second and third quarters of 1971 it has been approximately 11 per cent above the rate for the corresponding quarters of 1970.

Qantas Airways: Representatives’ Visits to People’s Republic of China (Question No. 3623)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister repre senting the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

On what occasions and by what persons have visits been made or proposed to the People’s Republic of China on behalf of Qantas.

Mr Swartz:
LP

– The Minister for Civil Aviation has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

The following visits have been made to the People’s Republic of China on behalf of Qantas: December 1957, Mr G. Howling, Sales Manager, Orient.

November/ December 1964, Mr N. R. Moon,

Manager, Hong Kong.

In 1965, a visit by Messrs C. O. Turner, Chief Executive and General Manager, C. E. Oliver, Manager, Far East, and N. R. Moon, Manager, Hong Kong was proposed but did not eventuate.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 13 October 1971, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1971/19711013_reps_27_hor74/>.

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