House of Representatives
8 April 1975

29th Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 29th Parliament
  3. 1975

Mr SPEAKER (Hon. G. G. D. Scholes) took the chair at 2. 1 5 p.m., and read prayers.

page 1245

PETITIONS

The Clerk:

– Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers:

Family Law Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned Citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia by this our humble Petition respectfully showeth:

  1. That the present matrimonial laws are archaic, unrealistic and cruel and the cause of so much distress, bitterness and injustice as to make their continued operation intolerable to the vast majority of fair minded citizens of Australia and that the Family Law Bill at present before Parliament should be passed without delay.
  2. That the ground of Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage determined by a maximum of twelve months’ separation, embodied in the Family Law Bill already passed in the Senate, be the sole ground for divorce.
  3. That there is widespread dissatisfaction with the enormous discretionary powers given Judges in the present legislation and that the non fault maintenance concept (according to need) based on specific criteria, as enunciated in Clause 54 (2) of the Family Law Bill 1974 No. 2, should be tried and we humbly pray Members of the House will restore this concept fully by deleting Clause 75 (n) from the new Bill “as read a third time”.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Les Johnson, Mr Lamb and Mr Thorburn.

Petitions received.

Family Law Bill

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 showeth:

That marriage is an exclusive lifelong partnership between one woman and one man, which should not be dissolved at the will of one party after 12 months notice nor without a reasonable attempt at reconciliation and

That a husband should normally be responsible for maintaining his wife and children within marriage.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Family Law Bill 1974 be amended

  1. To require a reasonable attempt at reconciliation with the aid of counselling at least twelve months prior to the application for a divorce;

  2. To specify three objective tests for irretrievable breakdown, namely

    1. intolerable behaviour,
    2. b ) desertion for at least 2 years,
    3. separation for at least 3 years,

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Morrison, Mr Stewart, Mr McMahon, Mr Kevin Cairns, Mr England, Mr Giles, Mr Howard, Mr Hunt, Mr Lucock, Mr Lusher, Mr Riordan, Mr Thorburn, Mr Wentworth, Mr Whan and Mr Wilson.

Petitions received.

Family Law Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned, all being of or above the age of 18 years as follows:

  1. Your petitioners oppose and seek the deletion of those provisions of the Family Law Bill 1974 which supplant the existing grounds by the introduction of the sole ground of irretrievable breakdown, which remove any consideration of fault, and which will weaken the family unit while causing more widespread injustice because:

    1. it imposes on society a radical alteration of divorce law far beyond identifiable requirements or desires;
    2. it lowers the status of marriage by permitting people to ‘drift’ into divorce, reduces parental importance and leads to increasing institutionalisation of children with consequential delinquency;
    3. it will not reduce the ‘in-fighting’ in a divorce suit which mainly occurs over matters of property and custody;
    4. it will not encourage maturity in acceptance of marital and parental obligations and responsibilities.

  2. Your petitioners commend the divorce legislation introduced in Great Britain in 1973, which acknowledges the importance of the family unit, mirrors community requirements, secures justice for innocent people and establishes a realistic definition of irretrievable breakdown, and call for similar legislation to be provided in Australia.

Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will make provision accordingly. by Mr Killen

Petition received.

Metric System

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

That the plan to obliterate the traditional weights and measures of this country is causing and will cause widespread inconvenience, confusion, expense and distress.

That there is no certainty that any significant benefits or indeed any benefits at all will follow the use of the new weights and measures.

That the traditional weights and measures are eminently satisfactory.

Your petitioners therefore pray.

That the Metric Conversion Act be repealed, and the Government take urgent steps to cause the traditional and familiar units to be restored to those areas where the greatest inconvenience and distress are occurring, that is to say, in meteorology, in road distances, in sport, in the building and allied trades, in the printing trade, and in retail trade.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Anthony, Mr Bonnet, Dr Forbes, Mr Giles, Mr Howard, Mr King, Mr Lamb, Mr McKenzie, Mr O’Keefe, Mr Eric Robinson, Mr Wentworth, Mr Willis and Mr Wilson.

Petitions received.

Hansard: Subscription Rates

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

WHEREAS the debates of the Houses of Parliament are the fundamental basis of law-making;

WHEREAS all people of the Commonwealth should have the right of access to, and the right of a personal permanent record of the debates of the two Houses at no cost;

And WHEREAS the decision of the Government to increase subscription rates to Hansard will cause many people of lower and middle income groups to terminate their subscriptions;

Your petitioner therefore humbly prays that the Government alter its decision to raise subscription fees to Hansard from$1.20 per year to $63.10 per year and re-determine subscription rates based on the cost of postage of copies.

And your petitioner as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Barnard.

Petition received.

Hansard: Subscription Rates

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 showeth-

That the increased price of the Hansard subscription will place it beyond the financial reach of most people;

That it is basic in a Parliamentary democracy that electors have easy access to records of the debates in their Parliament;

That making Hansard available only to an elite who can afford it is at odds with the concept of open government.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will reduce the cost of the Hansard subscription so that it is still available at a moderate price to any interested citizen.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Drury.

Petition received.

Catholic High School: Engadine

To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: WE, the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia by this our humble petition respectfully showeth:

Whereas neither the existing Catholic Secondary Schools in Sutherland nor the State High Schools in Engadine and Heathcote within the Hughes Federal Electorate are adequate to properly accommodate the children now attending St. John Bosco Primary School or the children now of preschool age who will in future be attending the last mentioned Primary School.

And whereas the parents of such children and other interested people residing within the said Electorate being firmly committed and dedicated to the Catholic Education System are thereby gravely concerned, request is therefore made that an urgent capital grant be made from the Australian Schools Commission for the establishment of a Catholic High School at Engadine in the immediate future.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Les Johnston and Mr Thorburn.

Petitions received.

Family Law Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned Citizens of the Commonwealth, by this our humble Petition respectfully showeth:

  1. That the existing matrimonial laws in Australia are archaic, unrealistic, and cruel and so completely at variance with modern thought as to require their immediate repeal.
  2. That there is such urgent need for reform that there must be no delay in presenting the Family Law Bill 1974 to Parliament for debate.
  3. That the ground of Irretrievable Breakdown of Marriage bethe sole ground for divorce with proof of this determined by a maximum of twelve months separation.
  4. That dissolution of marriage must come out of the legal system with people resolving their family matters between themselves according to guidelines and with assistance of a mediator. Family Courts only to be used for enforcement as a last resort.

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

Petition received.

Practitioners of Natural Medicine: Qualifications

To the Honourable, the Speaker and Honourable Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament Assembled.

We, the undersigned citizens of Australia, humbly submit that your Honourable House will establish a principle and, if necessary, introduce legislation to provide for the recognition of all qualified and responsible persons who are engaged in the profession of Natural Therapeutics, including those known as Naturopaths, Acupuncturists, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Herbalists and Homeopaths.

And in duty bound we ever pray that this petition will be granted. by Mr Garland.

Petition received.

Pensioners: Inflation

To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: that inflation which now besets so many countries today and in Australia is now at the rate of 14.4 per cent per annum is most seriously affecting and making life intolerable for those least able to take corrective action to maintain their position, namely, pensioners and those now retired living on fixed incomes.

Whilst the Australian Government is giving effect to its election policy of making $1.50 per week pension increases each Autumn and Spring such actions have been completely nullified by the stated rate of inflation.

This fact of life impels your petitioners to call on the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to: -

Make a cash loading of$5 per week to those pensioners who have little means other than the present inadequate pension eroded by inflation.

That each Autumn and Spring the increase in social security pension payments be not less than $3 per week to ensure that within a reasonable period the Government’s policy pledge to affix all pensions at 25 per cent of the average weekly earnings be achieved.

In order that money may go to areas of greater need the Tapered Means Test ceilings of income and assets be frozen.

To allay the concern of social security recipients as to their future when in 1975 the means test has been abolished and replaced by a National Superannuation Act that there be an assurance by the Australian Government that the said Act will provide a guaranteed minimum income to social security recipients based on the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation and that of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, namely, the payment of 30 per cent of average weekly earnings adjusted from time to time in accordance with figures issued by the Commonwealth Statistician and published quarterly.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. byMr Luchetti.

Petition received.

Family Law Bill

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 showeth:

That there is great urgency to preserve the family as the basic unit in society and therefore the stability of family life requires the urgent attention of Parliament.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that:-

  1. 1 ) The present grounds for Divorce should not be changed.
  2. The present requirement of seven days waiting period after notification of intention to marry should be extended to thirty days to provide adequate counselling and education.
  3. Marriage counselling services to further the cause of reconciliation should be more readily available.
  4. Continued social research into the causes of martial instability should be fostered by the Parliament.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Lusher.

Petition received.

Uranium

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 showeth:

  1. That the use of Uranium as an alternative source of energy is currently unacceptable as it presents problems including radioactive waste, military implications and thermal pollution.
  2. That there can, at present, be no assurances that radioactive materials exported for peaceful purposes will not be used in the production of nuclear weapons.
  3. That there is not, as yet, any known safe method of disposal of radioactive wastes, nor ever likely to be.
  4. That the export of Uranium from Australia is internationally irresponsible and is not, in the long term, of benefit to Australia.
  5. That the export of Uranium from Australia only discourages importing countries from investing into research on viable alternatives.
  6. That only the overdeveloped industrial nations will benefit from Australian Uranium and the gap between these countries and the energy-starved Third World will increase yet further.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Australian Government will immediately cease the mining and exporting of Uranium until perfectly safe disposal methods for the radioactive wastes have been guaranteed; will greatly increase expenditure on research into safe clean and inexhaustible sources of energy, and will aid underdeveloped countries in their plea for a fair share of the world ‘s energy resources, while at the same time honouring its obligations to the future of humanity.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Martin.

Petition received.

page 1247

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS

Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP

I inform the House that on 27 March 1975 His Excellency the Governor-General determined the appointment of the Honourable Kep Enderby, Q.C., as Minister for Customs and Excise and has directed and appointed Mr Enderby to hold the office of Minister for Police and Customs.

page 1247

LEADERSHIP OF THE OPPOSITION

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
WannonLeader of the Opposition

– I desire to inform the House that the Parliamentary Liberal Party has elected me as its Leader. The honourable member for Flinders, Mr Lynch, remains as Deputy Leader. The honourable member for Bendigo, Mr Bourchier, has been appointed as Whip and the honourable member for Griffith, Mr Donald Cameron, remains as Deputy Whip.

Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP

byleave- May I say that the British system of parliamentary government which we in Australia inherit depends on a strong 2 -party system. As Leader of one of the great political parties in Australia I congratulate my honourable friend on being elected the Leader of the other.

Mr MALCOLM FRASER (WannonLeader of the Opposition)- byleave- Briefly I thank the Prime Minister for the generosity of his remarks. They will not deter us in our resolve to remove him from his office at the earliest opportunity.

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QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE

page 1248

QUESTION

SOUTH VIETNAM

Mr LYNCH:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister. I ask the honourable gentleman: Did he have the full support of the Prime Minister for his recent statement that the fall of the South Vietnamese Government is the best solution to the Vietnamese conflict?

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I think I should say first of all in relation to this matter that the statement that I made was variously reported in different parts of Australia and most of the newspapers purported to report the statement without inverted commas. I instance the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’, the ‘West Australian’ and the Melbourne ‘Herald’. In the case of the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’, the report appeared like this:

The best possible solution was for the Thieu Government to fall.

That report was out of context. The only correct report I saw happened to be in the Launceston ‘Examiner’. The reported statement was:

It now seems inevitable that the Saigon and Phnom Penh governments would fall. That is the best solution, a quick end with victory to one side or the other. It would have been to everybody’s advantage if that had happened a long time ago. It is the only way to stop the bloodshed, carnage and suffering.

The way in which the statement was reported out of that context, in most cases, has allowed any kind of interpretation to be put on it For example, I think the honourable gentleman whom I congratulate for being elected Leader of the Opposition said that I was exultant. I have no exultancy about anything that is happening in Vietnam. I have felt anguish about Vietnam and agony -

Mr Anthony:

– Oh.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– … far greater than any felt by the right honourable gentleman who sits at the end of the Opposition front bench. When I said that it might be the best result if what looked like the inevitable happened, I meant that it would reduce the suffering, the killing and the tragedy of Vietnam. I want to see that happen more than anything else. I am quite sure that the Prime Minister agrees with me.

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QUESTION

CHILDREN’S TOYS: LEAD CONTENT

Mr COPE:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I desire to ask the Minister for Health a question. I preface my question by stating that Australian health regulations permit a maximum lead content of one per cent in paint used on children’s bicycles, toys, etc., manufactured in Australia, yet imports in this field have been found to contain up to 8 per cent lead content. Does the Minister consider this ratio of 8 per cent lead content in imports a danger to children? If so, what steps can the Minister take to bring the imports into line with the Australian regulations?

Dr EVERINGHAM:
Minister for Health · CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– I am not familiar with the exact regulations to which the honourable member for Sydney refers, but he probably refers to a restriction on the content of lead in paint on toys generally made in Australia. Certainly I could not say offhand whether the bicycles referred to would be classified as toys, even though they are children’s bicycles. Certainly, I would imagine the hazard from bicycles would be less than the hazard from other toys that a child might put in its mouth. Presumably this would happen less with some kinds of bicycles. However, I shall find out and let the honourable member know what the position is. Certainly, imported toys ought to be subject to a customs control at least as strict as anything that the States impose on local manufacture, because both the customs standards of the Federal Government and the standards for manufacture imposed by the States are set on the recommendations of bodies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council. They ought to be consistent. By and large, the Federal Government imposes those standards more quickly, more promptly and more strictly than the States do.

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QUESTION

FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE POLICIES

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:

– I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of developments in South East Asia and the Middle East, does the Prime Minister still subscribe to the view that it is reasonable and prudent to base Australian foreign affairs and defence policies on the expectation of a stable world order and no threat for the next 10 to 15 years? Has the Prime Minister called for any review of these policies and will he guarantee an adequate debate following the statement that I understand he intends to make shortly this afternoon?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– I hope that there will be a debate immediately after I have made my statement. The Opposition has been given the necessary notice of the statement. I expect and hope that a debate will follow. The general question of our defence needs is under constant review. The report which was made, and from which the honourable gentleman quotes, of course is still valid because the people who composed that report had well in mind how precarious were the governments in Saigon and Phnom Phen

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QUESTION

NATURAL GAS

Mr MULDER:
EVANS, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Has the Minister for Minerals and Energy seen a report on alleged construction costs and natural gas prices in this morning’s issue of the ‘Australian’ newspaper? Will he give the House the facts relative to these issues?

Mr CONNOR:
Minister for Minerals and Energy · CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-The position is briefly this: The statement that appeared in this morning’s issue of the ‘Australian’ newspaper is both mischievous and misleading. The first annual report of the Pipeline Authority stated that the cost of construction of the pipeline from Gidgealpa to Wilton would be $186m. Unless there is industrial trouble or interruptions by bad weather, we will adhere to the figure of $ 186m. and not the $300m. that was stated in the article. Apparently there is a certain element which chooses to pick figures out of the air in trying to denigrate the Commonwealth construction and control of what is one of Australia’s major engineering enterprises. The article mentioned a natural gas price of $1 per 1000 cubic feet, but in fact the negotiated price of the gas being supplied to South Australia is 30c per thousand cubic feet. Negotiations are still proceeding with the Australian Gas Light Co. and to that cost will be added the cost of transmission in respect of which the Pipeline Authority is a common carrier. The article also had a swipe at the welders on the pipeline who are doing a magnificent job and one which is a credit to the Australian skilled worker. They are laying that pipeline and welding it at a record rate. They have already completed one half of it. They are working 7 days on end, 10 hours a day in heat of 40 degrees Celsius. They have to contend with flies and dirt and every other possible disability, and are paying anything from $8,000 to $10,000 a year by way of income tax.

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QUESTION

SOUTH-EAST ASIA

Mr ANTHONY:

– Is the Prime Minister aware of an interview on television last night between 2 experienced correspondents in South-East Asia and Indo-China, Mr Pat Burgess and Mr Richard Hughes? Is the Prime Minister further aware of the suggestion made in the interview that a communist victory in South Vietnam could be followed by the killing of up to one million people whom the communists judge to have been opposed to their cause? I also ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware of any evidence to support that view, based on past communist actions in Vietnam, and whether he has made or will make the strongest possible appeal to North Vietnam to refrain from embarking upon the mass executions which experienced people believe are likely to occur. Will he appeal to the United Nations to take whatever action is possible to ensure that reprisals of this kind do not occur?

Mr WHITLAM I am not aware of the interview. I did not see it and I have not heard any report from it. I have, of course, in the last week had close discussions with 2 leaders of SouthEast Asian countries- Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and President Suharto. Neither expressed any views such as those which the right honourable gentleman has quoted. I have been in touch with the Government of North Vietnam. The Australian Government will do all it can in an international context to alleviate any suffering in Vietnam and to rehabilitate the country. I have no reason whatever to believe that there would be the degree of slaughter that the right honourable gentleman has suggested. I would hope that the slaughter which has gone on for the last 10 years with the encouragement of honourable gentlemen opposite will soon end. As regards the UN, there were occasions during the time that Australia was militarily involved in South Vietnam when there were suggestions about the bringing of this matter before the United Nations and on each of those occasions the Australian Government did its best to frustrate the efforts to have the United Nations deal with the matter.

page 1249

QUESTION

PARLIAMENTARY SITTING DAYS

Mr KEOGH:
BOWMAN, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for Services and Property in his capacity as the Leader of the House. I ask the Minister to state whether any changes are proposed to the sitting days of the Parliament, details of which were circulated to all honourable members recently.

Mr DALY:
Minister for Services and Property · GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– No, it is not proposed to change the program that was distributed to honourable members recently. The Parliament will continue in the usual way, except that there may be an extra day’s sitting here or there because of the legislative program. I think the recent recess was one that would be accepted by honourable members as a desirable change. It gave private members the opportunity to look after their electorate matters, it gave Ministers a chance to attend to their administrative matters and it gave the Opposition a chance to change its Leader. Furthermore, the recess that we have just had allowed members of the Opposition to do so without the light of day being thrown on it in a forum such as this. I should say also that the recess and the parliamentary program have allowed people to know that the change in the leadership opposite was not a Labor plot but a Fraser purge. Furthermore, it allowed the people to know that that plot was organised and consummated over cheese and biscuits at the home of the ‘Godfather’ Sir Magnus Cormack- in a dark Toorak road one bleak night. I advise honourable members opposite that, good and desirable as the recent recess was, I cannot continue to allow a recess to be held every time they want to change the leadership of the Liberal Party of Australia.

page 1250

QUESTION

INDIAN OCEAN: NAVAL UNITS

Mr DRURY:
RYAN, QUEENSLAND

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Defence. Bearing in mind the desire to have the Indian Ocean as an area of peace and the Government’s reported disapproval of the move by the United States of America to strengthen defences at Diego Garcia, I ask the Minister whether any official protest has been made with regard to the growing strength of the Soviet navy in the Indian Ocean.

Mr BARNARD:
Minister for Defence · BASS, TASMANIA · ALP

– There has been some increase in the Soviet naval strength in the Indian Ocean, but it has been quite minimal. As the honourable member would be aware, the Prime Minister has already indicated the policy of the Australian Government in relation to the Indian Ocean area. We would not want to seeindeed we would discourage- any build-up by either the United States or the Soviet naval elements in that area.

page 1250

QUESTION

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Mr HURFORD:
ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Prime Minister a question. Can he give the House the present position concerning the Constitutional Convention?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

-It will be remembered that about 9 or 10 months ago this House reiterated its view that there should be a delegation from this Parliament to the Constitutional Convention. The resolution, however, was rejected; it failed to pass in the Senate. The Government takes the attitude that there would now be no good purpose in having a meeting of the Constitutional Convention until the High Court hands down its judgments in State challenges to legislation passed by this Parliament. The Convention would obviously be debating a Constitution whose interpretation is under wide-ranging review. Some of the challenges have been to legislation passed by this Government. Some of the challenges have implications for the validity of legislation passed by previous governments.

I might add that the Government has been discouraged by the inaction of or resistance by most of State governments towards the Constitution Alteration (Interchange of Powers) Bill which the parliamentary draftsmen of all seven parliaments drafted well over a year ago. Secondly, the Government believes that there would be little point in coming to understandings or devising constitutional conventions in any meeting of the Constitutional Convention in the light of the disrespect shown for the only significant constitutional convention in recent times.

page 1250

QUESTION

VIETNAM

Mr PEACOCK:
KOOYONG, VICTORIA

-My question is directed to the Prime Minister. I refer him to Government statements that the Government has urged both sides in the Vietnam conflict to end the current hostilities and abide by the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. What precise representations have been made? Were, in fact, the same representations made to each side? Will the Prime Minister table all communications relating to these representations and made since the beginning of this year?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

-The honourable gentleman knows quite well that it would be a complete departure from any practice in these matters for communications between governments to be tabled. Communications between governments are not tabled. There have been communications certainly in the last 3 or 4 weeks but there were also communications 2 years ago in the middle of 1973 and they have been to both sides though not in the same terms because while it is true that there have been gross breaches of the Paris Agreements by both North and South Vietnam and by the Provisional Revolutionary Government and perhaps by the United States of America, nevertheless the breaches have not been all of the same kind. It is surely idle to suggest that one should complain about military breaches and be mute about political breaches. The trouble in Vietnam now is the same as arose in the early 1960s because there was not an equal respect shown to the political as to the military engagements of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and the Paris Agreements of 1973. The Government, I repeat, has on several occasions communicatedsometimes in writing, sometimes orally with sides.

page 1250

QUESTION

HOUSING

Mr MATHEWS:
CASEY, VICTORIA

-Can the Minister for Housing and Construction give the House information about increasing levels of demand in the housing industry? Can he say what progress has been made in applying the principles set out in the

Government’s report on industrial housing to meet these rising levels of demand?

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-The task force on modern housing submitted its report last year following the investigation of about 200 housing systems. There was a very fine response from Australian entrepreneurs who felt they had design concepts that could contribute to the reduction in housing costs. My Department has now decided to take this matter a step further and has placed advertisements inviting companies to apply for the opportunity of being selected to provide prototype housing, which will be built probably in the Australian Capital Territory, which will be exposed to examination by persons, including developers and public housing authorities which are interested in seeing the quality of such houses and the advantages that would accrue in terms of the economies of scale that could follow large scale contracts entered into by governments and developers. Generally speaking, we see the situation in which Australian building resources can come under very heavy demand in the near future as a result of the improved liquidity scene, evidence of which has been made available in the improved lending figures of the savings banks. We believe that it will be important to contrive better ways of making houses in terms of maximising the labour force and deriving results from forces which hitherto have not been utilised for the purpose of housing production.

page 1251

QUESTION

SOUTH VIETNAM AND CAMBODIA

Mr HUNT:
GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Has the Prime Minister initiated any diplomatic action to bring about a cease-fire in South Vietnam and Cambodia during the past 2 months? If so, in what way and through what channels?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– No, I have not. I have seen some suggestions in the newspapers that I or one of the neighbouring leaders who have had discussions with me had some such thing in mind. There was no truth in those reports.

page 1251

QUESTION

MEDIBANK

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-Because of the concern expressed in Victoria over the proposed Medibank scheme, can the Minister for Social Security advise the House what stage has been reached in negotiations with the Minister for Health or the Premier in Victoria regarding Medibank?

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– We have not progressed very far at all. In fact, we have made no progress. I wrote a letter to the Minister for Health in Victoria in early September last year. He has never had the courtesy to reply to that letter. In fact, the

Prime Minister had to write to the Premier of Victoria in December last year pointing out to the Premier that we needed some sort of advice as to whether Victoria intended to enter into Medibank, the free health insurance program the Australian Government is bringing in from 1 July. We have had no reply to that letter either. The Prime Minister in his letter pointed out that if we did not have some clear indication of the intention of the Victorian Government by February it would not be possible for that State or any other State that delayed as long as that to enter into the Medibank hospital arrangements by 1 July.

In March I had to announce that it was too late for 3 States- New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia- to enter into the hospital agreements by 1 July. Within, I think, about 48 hours the Minister for Health in Victoria seemed to be wanting to stampede his way into the hospital agreements by 1 July. It is just not possible. The upshot of all this is that I will be meeting the Health Ministers of those 3 States in Sydney on Friday for initial discussions, but I can assure those 3 Health Minister here today- as I have assured them in other ways- and, unfortunately, advise the people of those States that it will not be possible for their States to be covered by the hospital agreements from 1 July, which means that the people in those States will be paying much more for their private hospital insurance than they would be under the Medibank program. But everyone in Australia will be covered by the medical plan of Medibank from 1 July, which means that they will have medical benefits free of any contributions from that day.

page 1251

QUESTION

VIETNAM

Mr McMAHON:
LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Prime Minister and relates to a question he has just answered- I say incorrectly answered. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the proper ways in which the problems of Vietnam as a whole and of Cambodia and Laos should have been handled were, firstly, under the Geneva Protocols and, secondly, in accordance with the Paris Accords which both relate to these problems. In the light of these facts does the Prime Minister think it would have been totally inappropriate to go to the United Nations, a view taken by most countries which were intimately involved in attempting a peaceful solution of the Vietnam problems? Does he realise that if these problems had gone to the United Nations there would have been obstruction not from the Australian Government of 1972 and preceding years but from the Soviet Union?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! Will the right honourable gentleman get to his question. He is making a speech.

Mr McMAHON:

– I am getting to the final part now. Will the Prime Minister also have a look at the records and please let me know the number of occasions, which he must remember, when I made communications between other governments available to him either across the table or by tabling them in the House?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– I agree completely with the right honourable gentleman that there should have been action within the context of the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and the Paris Agreements of 1973. The deterioration in the situation in Vietnam, the loss of life and the destruction which have taken place there for over 20 years, are due to the fact that the parties to those agreements have not acted as the agreements expected they should. I regret that the right honourable gentleman continues in the same attitude as he used to express in the 1960s about action in international forums on the question of Vietnam. He was then saying that these matters should not be debated in the United Nations.

Mr McMahon:

-That is not true. The Prime Minister is untruthful again. He is telling fibs again.

Mr WHITLAM:

– I shall cite chapter and verse. On those occasions the right honourable gentleman was a member of the Cabinet. His phenomenal memory might enable him to recall that in January and February 1966 the United States called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to discuss this matter. At that time the Australian Government informed its representatives in the United States that it opposed taking Vietnam to the the Security Council because it believed- . . . attempts might be made to restrain our freedom of action in regard to military operations.

The right honourable gentleman will remember that at the same time Australia told the United States of its concern- . . . lest any United Nations intervention impede the freedom of action of the United States and its allies to do what we considered necessary to resist aggression in Vietnam.

Mr McMahon:

– That is quite right. That is what we are trying to do.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! Will the right honourable gentleman remain silent. He has asked his question. He is not entitled to continue making little speeches.

Mr WHITLAM:

-That was a very useful interjection because it shows that the right honourable member still remains of the same mind- I should say attitude. In mid- 1967 there was again a good deal of public speculation in the United States that it might go back to the United Nations on Vietnam. In August the idea had gained the support of an influential number of American senators. In the first week of September the State Department took soundings. In response Australia urged caution, stressing the strong possibility of any resolution ending up in the form of a demand, in effect, for unilateral cessation of bombing by the United States. I will not weary the House by quoting the right honourable gentleman’s own statements about the participation of the National Liberation Front in any discussions in the United Nations or elsewhere because both the Geneva Agreement and the Paris Agreements give a place to the NLF- the Vietcong. The right honourable gentleman was always opposed to participation by the NLF. He said that those who advocated participation were traitors. I completely agree that the Geneva Agreements and the Paris Agreements should have been given a chance to work. One of the reasons why they were not given a chance to work was the attitude of honourable gentlemen like the right honourable gentleman from Lowe who did their very best to impede the operations of those agreements in the terms of those agreements set out.

page 1252

QUESTION

MEDIBANK

Dr KLUGMAN:
PROSPECT, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Social Security. Has he noticed the rather hysterical reaction from people such as the honourable member for Hotham, the honourable member for Chisholm and the honourable member for Cowper to the description of Medibank as being ‘ free ‘-that is, without contribution? Is Medibank in fact any less free than the previous Government’s free milk scheme, the Queensland Government’s free hospital scheme or the system of free education of which the State governments are very proud?

Mr HAYDEN:
ALP

-It is true that Medibank is a free health insurance scheme, although some economists of international repute may dispute that, but it is free in the rather loose way that we use that word in this country. It is free in that sense- I guess because of an ideological commitmentthrough the action of the Liberal and Country Parties. The Government proposed to impose a levy on taxable income but the Liberal and Country Parties in the Senate, no doubt because of some deep seated philosophical commitment, set about converting Medibank into a free scheme- free of contributions. It is true that it is free in the sense in which members of the Liberal and Country Parties use that word so often.

Let me go back a little in ancient history and cite Sir Paul Hasluck- Mr Hasluck, as he was- in December 1950 when the States Grants (Milk For School Children) Bill 1950 was introduced. He said:

This Bill is designed to provide free milk for school children.

Mr Drummond, a member of the Country Party- we all know that the Country Party always capitalises on its gains and socialises on its losses- said of the scheme that it was a ‘scheme for the distribution of free milk’. More recently the honourable member for Griffith, who is opposed to the use of the term ‘free’, said in this House in November 1973:

To the great credit of earlier State Labor Governments, they introduced a scheme whereby Queenslanders forever would be granted free hospitalisation in the event of their becoming sick.

In October 1972 the honourable member for Lilley, Mr Kevin Cairns, referred to Queensland’s free hospitals on at least 2 occasions. In November 1973 the honourable member for Darling Downs, Mr McVeigh, referred to the Queensland hospitals as being free. In fact he said of me:

Let the Minister deny that. One cannot have any method that is cheaper than absolutely free.

I suppose some people would say that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Committed as they are to their ideology, members of the Liberal and Country Parties like to bandy about this term ‘free’. The Government did not want to make Medibank free. The Government proposed a levy on taxable income because it felt that people ought to be encouraged to make some sort of contribution towards it. Because of their deep seated philosophical commitment, members of the Liberal and Country Parties have brought about a ‘free health insurance scheme which covers all Australians’- Medibank- and the community has no one else but them to thank for that.

page 1253

QUESTION

INFLATION

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:

-Does the Prime Minister subscribe to the view expounded by Professor Friedman, for whom I understand he has some affection, that excessive government expenditure is a principal cause of inflation? If not, does he still maintain the view that he- the Prime Minister- expressed in Adelaide on 25 January that excessive wage demands are the principal cause? If the latter, and having in mind the seriousness of inflation, will he approach the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, with a view to seeking the co-operation of the ACTU in a major national drive for wage moderation in which the ACTU would use its influence on its constituent parts?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

-The honourable gentleman has cited 2 distinguished economists. I agree with the latter one, who knows more about the Australian scene than the former. I have also conferred with the third person whom the honourable gentleman mentions.

page 1253

QUESTION

LAWN BOWLS

Mr McKenzie:
Diamond Valley · ALP

– My question is directed to the Minister for Tourism and Recreation. Is the Minister aware that the sport of lawn bowls has more active participants than any other sport in Australia and that it is one of the few active sports that cater for the older members of the community? Is he further aware of the community health aspects associated with lawn bowls? Will he give consideration to what forms of financial and organisational assistance would be appropriate for this recreation?

Mr STEWART:
Minister for Tourism and Recreation · LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– Unlike the honourable member who asked the question, I am not quite old enough yet to take up playing lawn bowls. I appreciate that lawn bowls clubs in Australia have a large male and female membership and that in some States the opportunities to participate in the playing of lawn bowls are far greater than those in other States. In New South Wales a number of licensed clubs participate in lawn bowls. They are assisted not only by membership fees but also by the takings from poker machines. In other States people cannot participate in the game of lawn bowls quite as readily. Under our Government’s policy State governments and local governments are encouraged to establish community facilities. I believe the honourable member will find that in some of the other States some local government authorities are prepared to provide such facilities not only for the elderly but also for the young.

Lawn bowls has some remarkable advantages. It can be played by the young and the old. It is generally a mixed sport with males and females playing together. It can, as the honourable member suggested, have the advantage of bringing elderly people back into the community, giving them an interest and even helping them to recover from some of their illnesses. The honourable member can be certain that whilst I am Minister for Tourism and Recreation- after what has happened to the Liberal Party of Australia in the last few weeks I expect that to be a long time- subjects such as the provision of bowling greens in local government areas will be considered very seriously by the Government and that there will be co-operation with the State governments and the local governments to provide these facilities.

page 1254

MASS EXECUTIONS IN VIETNAM

Mr SINCLAIR I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of his assertion that he does not believe it likely that the North Vietnamese will pursue mass executions if they should overrun South Vietnam, I ask whether he is aware of the replies given to questions on the “This Day Tonight’ television program of 1 April 1975 in which Warrant Officer Ossie Ostara alleged the discovery by him, in conjunction with others, of mass graves in the city of Hue and within those graves the bodies of hundreds of men and women executed by bullets through the back of their heads, those persons obviously having been in the kneeling position with their hands tied? In view of these circumstances will he take up the matter with the Government of North Vietnam and with the provisional government representing the Khmer Rouge to ensure that neither in Cambodia nor in South Vietnam will similar mass executions occur?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– I did not see the program referred to by the honourable member. I have not had my attention drawn to it. Of course, I do remember some other instances when people going peacefully about their affairs have been shot by a bullet through the head. I remember the incident when the police chief in Saigon was shown on television carrying out that particular operation. I remember more recently- within the last month- when South Vietnamese police did the same to the Agence France Presse representative in Saigon.

page 1254

QUESTION

DEFENCE

Mr KERIN:
MACARTHUR, NEW SOUTH WALES

-I direct to the Minister for Defence a question which refers to the constant use by the media and by the Opposition of the unqualified catch cry: ‘No threat for 10 or 15 years’. Has the Minister ever said bluntly that there is no threat to Australia for the next 10 or 15 years?

Mr BARNARD:
ALP

-The strategic basis document which the defence advisers provided for the Government in 1973 pointed out that on trends at that time they had not been able to detect the likelihood of any threat to Australia in that period. But they went on to say that this was not to say that there would not be any threat or could not be a threat to Australia in that period. Indeed, I have pointed out from time to time that it is always much more difficult- again I am referring to the strategic basis document- to be able to assess what the position is likely to be, for example, at the end of a 10-year period. There is nothing new about a strategic basis document. Some gentlemen on the opposite side may have forgotten that the first one was provided for the Government of the day in 1971. It was provided at a time when the right honourable member for Higgins, who was formerly the Prime Minister, was the Minister for Defence. The right honourable member for Higgins addressed the Imperial Services Club in Sydney in 1971 as the Minister for Defence. During his speech he said that he could not see any direct threat to Australia within the next decade, that is, within the next 10 years. He went on to say that he could not see any likelihood of an attack on Papua New Guinea in the same time span. He went on to say further that if there were a likelihood of an attack there would be sufficient and ample warning.

This was said by the right honourable member for Higgins in 1971 as the Minister for Defence. If he was not quoting from the strategic basis document of that time, he was correct in terms of the advice to the Government of that time contained in the strategic basis document, that is that there was no likelihood of a threat to this country in the next decade. I point out that when this statement was made by the then Minister for Defence in 1971 it must be remembered that we still had troops in Vietnam. Our forces were still committed to that country. But this was the assessment made by the advisers to the Government of that day and contained in the strategic basis document. I believe that it is correct and proper for a government to be advised by those who are in a position to assess the likelihood of a threat or of no threat to this country. The position is constantly kept under review. The strategic basis document itself is constantly reviewed; there will be a third review some time in 1975. Finally, I say to the honourable member for Macarthur that no one has suggested that there is no threat to Australia in the next 15 years. The possibility could always exist and it is always more difficult to be able to predict what kind of threat and when it is likely to occur after the end of the 10-year period.

page 1255

QUESTION

VIETNAM

Mr CHIPP:
HOTHAM, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister a question. Has the Government or the Prime Minister used the fact of their friendly relationships with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China and asked either of those nations to stop providing North Vietnamese regular troops in South Vietnam with arms or other forms of support?

Mr Whitlam:

– You mean North Vietnam?

Mr CHIPP:
Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– The honourable gentleman, I think, asked whether I had urged those countries or would urge them to stop supplying arms to South Vietnam.

Mr Lynch:

– He said North Vietnam.

Mr WHITLAM:

– I thought he used the words South Vietnam, not North Vietnam. Nevertheless, of course the war has kept on so long and so murderously because the United States has supplied so much equipment, such sophisticated equipment, to the South, and Russia and China have supplied it to the North.

They have both done it; they have both done it for over 20 years. I have put it in Peking twice, in Moscow once and in America half a dozen times that both ought to lay off. This war would have ended long ago but for the fact that the great powers fuelled it for so long so murderously. Of course we all condemn a military solution of the dispute, the civil war in Vietnam. There is to be a military solution now, apparently, because the great powers saw that the 2 forces became so well armed and were so numerously recruited. They are both to blame. I will not attempt to apportion the blame, but this war would have ended long ago had the United States, the USSR and the People’s Republic of China abstained.

page 1255

PIPELINE AUTHORITY

Mr CONNOR:
Minister for Minerals and Energy · Cunningham · ALP

– Pursuant to section 45 (2) of the Pipeline Authority Acts 1973 I present the financial statements of the Pipeline Authority for the year ended 30 June 1973 and the year ended 30 June 1974, together with the report of the Auditor-General on those statements. Due to the limited number available arrangements have been made to have reference copies of these statements placed in the Parliamentary Library.

page 1255

REMUNERATION TRIBUNAL

Mr BOWEN:
Smith-Special Minister of State · Kingsford · ALP

– Pursuant to section 7 (7) of the Remuneration Tribunals Act 1973-1974 I present the Remuneration Tribunal’s determination of 10 February 1975 dealing with the Interim Australian Science and Technology Council.

page 1255

AUSTRALIAN LIBRARY

Mr BOWEN:
Smith-Special Minister of State · Kingsford · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present the interdepartmental report on Australian Library based information service.

page 1255

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY LEGAL AID COMMITTEE

Mr ENDERBY (CanberraAttorneyGeneral) Pursuant to section 23 (3) of the Australian Capital Territory Legal Aid Ordinance 1972 I present the annual report of the Australian Capital Territory Legal Aid Committee for the year ended 30 June 1973, together with financial statements and the report of the Auditor-General on those statements.

page 1255

AUSTRALIAN IONISING RADIATION ADVISORY COUNCIL AND AUSTRALIAN RADIATION LABORATORY

Dr CASS:
Minister for the Environment and Conservation · Maribyrnong · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present reports by the Australian Ionising Radiation Advisory Council and the Australian Radiation Laboratory entitled ‘Fallout over Australia from Nuclear Weapons Tested by France in Polynesia during July and August, 1973’.

page 1255

AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL

Dr CASS:
Minister for the Environment and Conservation · Maribyrnong · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present the summary record of the fifth meeting of the Australian Environment Council.

page 1255

RIVER MURRAY COMMISSION

Dr CASS:
Minister for the Environment and Conservation · Maribyrnong · ALP

– Pursuant to section 21 of the River Murray Waters Act 1915-1970 1 present the report of the River Murray Commission for the year ended 30 June 1974, together with the Commission’s financial statements, the report of the Auditor-General on those statements, and statements of gaugings and diversions during the year, furnished on behalf of the governments of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Due to the limited number available at this time arrangements have been made to have a number of reference copies placed in the Parliamentary Library.

page 1256

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr PEACOCK:
Kooyong

-Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr PEACOCK:

– Yes. I refer to a report in yesterday ‘s ‘Australian ‘ dealing with the discussions held between President Thieu and the Deputy Leader of the Country Party (Mr Sinclair), the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Sullivan) and myself. The report is quite fair but the headline is misleading. As the report indicates, President Thieu himself wished to convey the impression that he was secure in his office. The headline puts this as my statement. It was not. The situation is so fluid that we were not prepared to comment on the length of time that President Thieu may remain in office. This is not a discussion about the fall of the Saigon government; it simply relates to President Thieu and how long he may remain as President. I corrected this report at a Press conference yesterday and so did the Deputy Leader of the Country Party, but I wish it to be recorded here.

page 1256

INDOCHINA

Ministerial Statement

Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP

- Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement on Indo-China.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Mr WHITLAM:

-Thirty years ago France attempted to re-establish her fallen empire in Indo-China. A war for independence became a war of massive foreign intervention. It engulfed the region. It challenged the might and will of the greatest power on earth. It made a wilderness of some of the fairest portions of the globe. The most tranquil city in Asia, Phnom Penh, has been made, in the words of the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock), a mire of human misery. Centres of old civilisations have been made cities of death. The war unleashed on a peasant people the heaviest bombing in history and the greatest fire power used in history. Not fewer than two million people have been killed. Countless more have been maimed. Yet the war continues.

It is 10 years this month since Sir Robert Menzies announced the commitment of the First Australian Battalion to Vietnam. Since then it has been the duty of successive Prime Ministers to report to Parliament and people on Australian activities, on Australian actions, including activity by the armed forces, in Indo-China. I am now the fifth Australian Prime Minister to have to fulfil that duty; but with this difference: For the first time an Australian Prime Minister need report only on our humanitarian involvement, including the use of the armed services and our endeavours to end the war rather than escalate the war.

After all these years, after all of the blunders and bloodshed of 30 years, what tolerable or feasible objective can any foreign government set for itself except the ending of the war, except the ending of the killing, as soon as possible? We outsiders never have the right to intervene. But even if there were such a right, or even if it was right to intervene, would anyone now suggest that any foreign government should resume that intervention? If we have learnt nothing else in the last 30 years, we have surely learnt this much, at a heavy loss to ourselves but at a terrible one to the people we claimed to be helping.

For a generation and more Australia shared with her Pacific partners a great delusion about our rights, our interests, our obligations. Those who acted for Australia as the government mistook entirely the nature of Australia’s interests and obligations and her rights. They shared, and encouraged the Australian people to accept, a delusion about the nature of the conflict in IndoChina. All of us are still paying the prices for those mistakes- in economics, in loss of confidence, in western civilisation itself. We can repair the losses other than the lives destroyed, but to do so it is necessary not to repeat the mistakes of the past- not just the mistakes in action but the mistakes of attitude. It was a mistaken attitude after the revolution in China that led, step by step, to the mistaken view of Australian interests and American interests and mistaken actions in Indo-China. Surely we have learnt our lesson at last.

For 20 years there has been a kind of tragic inevitability about the events now taking place. The great chance, the great opportunity, for a political settlement, for peace throughout IndoChina, was given in 1954 by the Geneva Agreements. The chance was lost; the opportunity was thrown away. The Geneva Agreements provided the 2 basic ingredients for a political settlementreunification after free elections. If such elections had been held they would almost certainly have resulted in the power over a unified Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. Rather than face this prospect the regime in Saigon, urged on by the then United States Administration, refused to hold elections. The result has been that an outcome which might have been achieved by political means 20 years ago- an outcome certainly foreseen by the parties to the Geneva Agreements, whether they welcomed it or not- now seems likely to be achieved only after these 20 more years of bloodshed. The next great effort to achieve a political solution resulted in the Paris Agreements of January 1973. Once again those Agreements envisaged a government of one Vietnam with participation of all parties, not just the governments of Saigon and Hanoi but the Provisional Revolutionary Government- the Vietcong so called. Neither the Geneva Agreements nor the Paris Agreements ever allowed the idea that North and South Vietnam were two separate countries. As Article 15 of the Paris Agreements states: ‘The military demarcation line between the two zones at the seventeenth parallel is only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary, as provided for in Paragraph 6 of the final declaration of the 1 954 Geneva Conference ‘.

In other words, from 1954 to the present day, from the fall of Dien Bien Phu 21 years ago to the fall of Hue 2 weeks ago, the war in Vietnam has retained its essential character. It is a civil war. The real character of the war has never changed. What has changed is the nature of the fighting and the level of violence. That change, with all the additional suffering and killing it has caused, is overwhelmingly due to one factorforeign intervention. The real result of foreign intervention, principally the United States on the side of Saigon and Russia on the side of Hanoi, has been to raise the level of violence, to raise the capacity for mutual destruction on both sides. That is, if the two sides insisted on a solution by military means, then foreign intervention made it certain that the end- whatever the outcomewould be as bloody as possible. What outsiders, including Australia, have done is to create two of the world ‘s largest armies. That is our real legacy to Vietnam. That is almost the sole military result of years of intervention. Let those who year after year encouraged a military solution, those who decried as weakness or even treason the calls for negotiations and the calls for political settlement, now, and at last, recognise the real consequences of their work. These strongmen, these realists, the men on horse-back, insisted upon a military solution. So a military solution it is now to be. ‘ Look on your works, ye mighty, and despair ‘.

It should also be emphasised that both the Geneva Agreements and the Paris Agreements envisaged that all contending parties would share political responsibility in a re-united Vietnam. The Geneva Agreements envisaged free elections. The Paris Agreements provided for a National Reconciliation Council, to arrange for general elections in South Vietnam. Article 12 stated:

Immediately after the cease-fire, the South Vietnamese parties shall hold consultations in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord, mutual respect, and mutual nonelimination to set up a national council of national reconciliation and concord of three equal segments. . . . After the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord has assumed its functions, the two South Vietnamese parties will consult about the formation of councils at lower levels. The two South Vietnamese parties shall sign an Agreement on the internal matters of South Vietnam as soon as possible and do their utmost to accomplish this within ninety days after the cease-fire comes into effect.

This was the crucial political article of the Paris Agreements. The Saigon Government has refused to act to implement this central provision. It has not been prepared to join with the Provisional Revolutionary Government. This breach is the key to the justification for military retaliation claimed by the opponents of the Saigon Government.

Because the political opportunities have been for a second time lost, a military solution became inevitable in the broader sense. This does not mean, however, that the actual and specific events of the past 3 weeks were themselves inevitable. The over-running of so much of South Vietnam is by no means a classic example of a blitzkreig In very large measure the North Vietnamese forces have been moving into a military vacuum. The United States’ Defence Secretary, Dr Schlesinger, said on 31 March that it was Saigon’s withdrawal rather than a communist general offensive which was the primary cause of the Government of Vietnam’s present difficulties. President Ford said on 3 April:

A unilateral decision to withdraw created the chaotic situation that exists now. It was a unilateral decision by President Thieu.

To state these facts is not to condone breaches of the Paris Agreements by North Vietnam. There have been gross breaches repeatedly by both sides. It is just a plain statement of fact that the immediate chaotic situation north of Saigon is due to the unilateral decision by President Thieu. In the words of the Australian journalist Denis Warner- close as he is to military councils in Saigon:

The shattering loss of central Vietnam, which has swung the balance of forces entirely in Hanoi’s favour, was not caused by enemy action but by hideous blunders in Saigon.

The decision to withdraw and, perhaps even more importantly, the way it was made, with no explanation, no consultation, no communication, had two immediate results. It destroyed the morale of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and it spread panic to the population.

It is in this situation of unparalled chaos and unexpected rapidity of events- unexpected in Hanoi itself- that the Australian Government has tried to apply its resources to save lives, to relieve suffering.

It must be emphasised that the suddenness of the collapse in South Vietnam limited the scope and effectiveness of any aid given by the Australian Government or by any other government.

Members of the Opposition have chosen to belittle our efforts. For example, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) particularised our participation in the attempted evacuation of Da Nang as a ‘futile and pathetic gesture- too little, too late’. The truth is that the Australian Government met, as soon as it was received through the American Embassy, a request from the Government of South Vietnam for assistance. The decision was taken to make available seven Hercules transport aircraft together with other aircraft currently based at Butterworth in Malaysia. On 2 April I received the following message:

Please accept my warm appreciation and deep admiration for your help to evacuate the many desperate refugees from Da Nang. Australia can take great pride in the rapid decision to meet an absolutely essential humanitarian requirement Warmest respect. (Signed) Admiral Noel Gayler, United States Commander in Chief Pacific.

Two days later, the American Ambassador called on the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs to congratulate the ‘good show’ that Australia had put up.

The Australian Government last year contributed $1.5m to international organisations to be spent in Indo-China- on both sides- during the current financial year. On 28 March the Australian Government announced a further contribution of $200,000 to the Indo-China Operations Group of the International Red Cross, which operates throughout Indo-China. On 2 April I announced a further contribution of $ lm to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ‘ relief work among refugees in all parts of Indo-China, on both sides of the lines of military control. On 3 April I opened a public appeal for a’$5m refugee aid fund, to be co-ordinated by the Disaster Emergency Committee of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid.

Yesterday the Foreign Minister (Senator Willesee) announced a further grant of Sim to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. This brings the total Australian Government aid to international humanitarian organisations operating in Indo-China to $3.4m this financial year.

The action which has attracted most attention is of course the bringing of children to Australia. In this matter, the sole role of the Australian Government was to bring eligible children to suitable adoptive families as promptly and as safely as possible. Nobody has been helped by unfounded claims that vast numbers of orphans were waiting for evacuation from Saigon.

At all times, the Australian Government has been bound to require two conditions: That orphans would be approved for exit from Saigon by the South Vietnamese Government for adoption in Australia; and that the States and Australia would guarantee that normal adoption procedures would be observed.

As soon as the Australian Government received advice that the first requirement had been met and that, on the second, the States had approved 246 adopting families, arrangements were made to bring the orphans by Hercules transport to Bangkok and by chartered Qantas jet to Sydney. Australian Government authorities found that many of the children evacuated from Saigon were the subject of uncompleted off-shore adoption procedures in South Vietnam by Australian nationals. Faced with this fact, my Government determined that it could do nothing in the matter of allocating children to families as this was clearly a State responsibility and therefore if there was to be any disagreement between adoptive families about the children then it was a matter for the States to determine.

The Government had arranged for an aircraft to depart Sydney yesterday afternoon for Bangkok to evacuate a second group of orphans. That aircraft did not take off, following advice from our Ambassador in Saigon that the South Vietnamese authorities decided not to release any more children as they wished to reconsider their policy on adoption by foreign nationals. Our Ambassador has been unable to confirm reports that this decision has since been reversed.

I should point out, however, that the decision itself amply demonstrates that there is no large pool of orphans awaiting urgent evacuation and, further, that the Saigon Government has properly insisted on the performance of its own policies and procedures.

The actions of the Government in the immediate emergency are part of the longstanding program and policy we have adopted since achieving office. Our immediate objective has been to do what we can to stop the fighting; to bring the war to an end. Our long-term objective has been to help rebuild a devastated Vietnam and help rehabilitate its people. We have consistently pursued both objectives since December 1972. The most important step open to Australia to reduce the level of violence was always to stop contributing militarily to that violence. Within a week of taking office we ordered the end of Australia’s military involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The second contribution open to Australia was to use diplomatic influence to end the fighting. In particular the Australian Government has tried to promote adherence to the Paris Agreements. We have lost no opportunity to encourage the Vietnamese parties to implement the Agreements to the full, and to deplore the breaches of the Agreements by both sides. And, of course, we have been able to do this only because we are diplomatically represented in both Saigon and Hanoi.

These attitudes have consistently been expressed over the past 15 months by me and by the Foreign Minister at the highest level, and by personal contact between Vietnamese ministers and officials and some of my colleagues, including the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen), the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns) and the Minister for Defence (Mr Barnard).

As recently as 13 March I wrote to both President Thieu and the North Vietnamese Foreign Minister stressing Australia’s support for the implementation of the Agreements, our concern at the continued lack of progress, the continued fighting and the continuing breaches of the Agreements by both sides.

The fact is that the Australian Government has been foremost among nations in seeking to end the war and relieve the suffering it has caused. In this immediate emergency, no government has been more active, more concerned and, reflecting the wishes of the Australian people, more generous. And it is worth noting the real reason why the Australian people expect their Government so to act. Why does Vietnam invoke a very special kind of emotion and concern and compassion in Australia? It is not just the scale and extent of the suffering, which is not, unhappily, unique, not even unusual in this troubled world. The refugee, the homeless, the starving, the innocent victims of war number millions upon millions across three continents. But Vietnam has a power over the Australian conscience for one particular reason. The Australian people have accepted the truth- the bitter truth- that the intervention into which they were led was disastrously wrong, that it only increased and lengthened the agony of Vietnam. The Australian people have acknowledged the truth in the same way as the American people and the American Congress have acknowledged it. But is the truth of the disaster acknowledged by its authors and their abettors?

One of the most depressing aspects of this whole tragic episode has been the lamentable performance of the Opposition in the past 2 weeks. I have listened with increasing dismay and contempt to the statements by spokesmen for the Opposition. I pass over the humbug and hypocrisy- par for the course- but the truly depressing thing has been the mounting evidence that with the Opposition nothing has changed. Ten years of destruction have changed nothing. The present Leader of the Opposition has even revived the domino theory, smartly dismissed by the Prime Minister of Singapore as ‘old hash’. The one great constant in the attitude of the parties opposite to the war in Vietnam, throughout the period of Australia’s involvement, was their determination to squeeze every drop of political advantage out of it. And even in the final throes, they are at it again. One could hear all the echoes from the past, right from that unforgettable night 10 years ago, 28 April 1965, when from this side of the House they bayed and brayed with a delight they did not bother to conceal as Sir Robert Menzies announced the first instalment of Australia’s military commitment. It was their finest hour. They laughed as they lied their way into that war. But throughout the subsequent years, in any debate which had to deal with any American initiatives to disengage or deescalate the war, they were notable for their sullen silence. The only occasion their spirits revived was when, 5 years ago this month, President Nixon unleashed his bombers on Cambodia, escalating the war to its most ferocious level and transforming a haven of fragile peace into a war-ravaged wilderness.

In the orchestrated outpourings of the past week there has been just one new note- muted as yet, but clearly designed to become a grand new theme- and that is that the United States is an untrustworthy ally. The irony of it! We are witnessing the beginning of a new effort to sow the seeds of fear and suspicion and division in Australia. What else is the purpose of this attempt to blame the United States Congress and the American people for the debacle in which the Government of South Vietnam now finds itself? There could be only one other motive- to shame the United States back into Indo-China. Is this the wish of the Opposition? Is this its proposal for either the United States or Australia: To get back into the war; to prolong it for yet another decade? If that is not the proposal, then what criticism of substance can it have against my Government ‘s attitudes or actions with regard to IndoChina, now or at any time in the past 2 years and 4 months?

In the heady days when Vietnam was a popular war, when it was a political goldmine, before the people of Australia came to see its implications and consequences for Indo-China, for Australia, for the United States, the constant challenge made in this House, not least from the present Leader of the Opposition, was, ‘stand up and be counted’. Indeed, the first time this challenge was raised in this House was against me, by the then Minister for External Affairs, now Lord Casey- 2 1 years ago. It was in 1954 that in this House I first warned against Australian or American military involvement in Indo-China. Let the members of the Opposition now stand up and be counted and say that they believe it was wrong that we should have got completely out of the war or believe that the United States or Australia should go back into the war.

As to the United States, she has fulfilled any obligations she assumed to the Government of Saigon. Neither the honour nor the interests of a great people can be confided to any particular foreign regime. But the United States’ honour and interests do lie in helping rebuild a unified Vietnam, the unification of which misguided policies, mistaken policies of the past so long delayed; the United States’ honour and interest lie in helping to rebuild an Indo-China to the devastation of which those policies so greatly contributed. That is the way for the United States to regain her real place of leadership in our region. To helping in such a task, the Australian Government is already committed, indeed, already contributing. And in that task Australia, as far as this Government is concerned, will be a good partner with the United States.

We will have no truck with those who put out the line that the United States should resume her intervention in the war. We will have no truck with any suggestion that America’s honour or reputation requires resumed intervention. We will have no truck with those who seek to build a new philosophy of fear upon the unwarranted assertion of American dishonour in refusing to intervene with force on behalf of the Saigon Government.

While the security of Australia has never rested solely upon the American alliance, that alliance remains a key element in it. And whatever the outcome of the events now unfolding in Vietnam, the basic elements of Australia’s security remain untouched.

Who rules in Saigon is not, and never has been, an ingredient in Australia’s security. Our strength, our security, rest on factors and relationships ultimately unchanged by these events. The really important factors and relations are those which have been developed by the Australian Government since December 1972- our relations with our closest and largest neighbour, Indonesia; our relations with our greatest trading partner, Japan; our relations with China; our active support for the development of cooperation between the members of the Association of South East Asian Nations; our efforts to ensure that the Indian Ocean does not become the next area of confrontation between the super-powers as Indo-China became, in a sense, the first. Above all, Australia’s security, as with the peace of the world, rests ultimately upon making the detente between the United States and the Soviet Union a success and upon associating China in a wider detente. These are the great relationships and the great factors which determine the security of Australia. This Government has been unremitting in its efforts to strengthen those relationships. Those efforts have been rewarded with remarkable success.

It is not possible that the nightmare of Vietnam will ever pass from the memory or the conscience of any man or woman of our time. Nor should it. But the work we are now doing to build good, constructive relations with peoples and nations throughout the world will outlive even that bitter memory, will outlast even the bad and destructive things inflicted on the people of Vietnam during the past 30 years. I present the following paper:

Indo-China- Ministerial Statement, 8 April 1975

Motion (by Mr Daly) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Suspension of Standing Orders

Motion (by Mr Daly )- by leave- agreed to:

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition speaking for a period not exceeding 27 minutes.

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
WannonLeader of the Opposition

– In many senses the speech of the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) was inaccurate, narrow, restricted and defensive. It was entirely negative in its approach to a problem in relation to which Australia ought to be looking to the future and not merely reexamining the history of the past. The past cannot be changed. It is worth noting some of the particular errors in the Prime Minister’s speech. He said that there are those who seek to build a new philosophy of fear upon the unwarranted assertion of American dishonour. There are only a few people in this Parliament who have ever asserted American dishonour and every one of them comes from the Prime Minister’s Party. I think that at times the Prime Minister has been included among them.

There were other areas of equal inaccuracy. He said that it is a civil war, that the real character of the war has never changed and that what has changed is the nature of the fighting and the level of the violence. That shows a lack of knowledge of history by the Prime Minister which I thought not really credible. This war originated when a group of so-called agrarian reformers fought in a nationalist cause against the French to reassert a nationalist independence. That was a cause that I think everyone in this House could have supported. But when those simple agrarian reformers divided themselves into the Communist Party and the true nationalists the divisions in Vietnam began, and what was merely a war against the French became also a war within Vietnam between those who wanted a true independence and those who wanted a Communist subjection. The Prime Minister failed utterly to take account of that historical aspect of the war.

At the same time the Prime Minister has made it plain that the Saigon Government had refused to act to implement the central provision of the Paris Agreements, not being prepared to join with the Provisional Revolutionary Government. Even the Prime Minister ought to know that the PRG is merely an arm of Hanoi, that it is the North Vietnamese flag that is being raised over the captured territories of South Vietnam, and that it was with North Vietnam that negotiations had to take place, if there were to be negotiations, and North Vietnam was never prepared to negotiate, just as Sihanouk is not prepared to negotiate over Cambodia. Then we had the statement that the chaos- in the Prime Minister’s terms- north of Saigon is due to the unilateral decision of President Thieu. Certainly the conducting of a military withdrawal is the most difficult of all military actions. It is an action which clearly went very much awry. But when the Prime Minister blames the South for that chaos he is ignoring the offensive of the North and the build-up of arms by the North in defiance of the Pans Accords.

The Prime Minister also said that, in particular, the Australian Government has tried to promote adherence to the Paris Agreements and has lost no opportunity to encourage the parties to support those agreements. In this Parliament on more than one occasion he has blamed the South rather than the North, the United States rather than the Soviet Union. Then the Prime Minister asked why Vietnam invokes a very special kind of emotion, concern and compassion in Australia. Why ought it not to do so when there are people who wanted to live in some kind of freedom and who quite plainly oppose the encroachment of Communist armies from the North resulting in the ending of freedom for ever. If the people of the South were welcoming the Northern armies as liberators they would have been moving to the North and not moving to the South trying to get away from the armies of the North.

One of the starting points in what all this is about is, of course, the breach of the Paris Agreements. We know what those Agreements are. We know that they were designed to try to bring about a reconciliation and to try to prevent the re-armament of the parties involved. We ought to look at the breach. The North Vietnamese army in the South has more than doubled in size since the Agreements were signed. Six hundred armoured vehicles, including tanks, have been introduced into the South. North Vietnam refused to allow teams meant to oversee the cease-fire to be deployed in various areas. An aeroplane was shot down while flying over North Vietnamese units, leading to the withdrawal of the Canadians from the International Control Commission. The North itself broke off negotiations with the South. In those circumstances, who is in breach of the Agreements and why does the Prime Minister seek to blame the United States rather than North Vietnam or the Soviet Union?

There have been reactions by other countries to the breach of the Agreements. The United States has drawn the attention of the Soviet Union, China and other countries to the actions of North Vietnam. There are documents that will demonstrate that. But the Prime Minister, as I understand it, has said very little to anyone other than Saigon and the United States and has ignored the actions of North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which are the 2 parties principally responsible for the situation that has developed. The Prime Minister has demonstrated his double standards by that. I challenge him to place on the table of the House the cables that will demonstrate that he has been even-handed in these matters. At the very least I challenge him to allow me to cite the cables concerned, with only one condition on the use of them. I will say whether they are of an equivalent nature- they are the same- or whether they are not of an equivalent nature but are different in character. If he allows me to cite those cables I will make no comment on them other than that. That will test the truth and veracity of the Prime Minister in these matters.

Mr Peacock:

– Will he do it?

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:

-He will have an opportunity to answer. There have been double standards. There is the relative inaction- in fact the complete inaction- of the Government until the Peacock-Sinclair mission. The Opposition Parties and Australia are greatly indebted to the members of that mission for the information that they will be making available during the course of this debate on the situation in Cambodia and in Vietnam itself. I think it is quite plain that it is that mission that prompted the Government to take some action in relation to the refugees. We had the earlier statements by the Prime Minister- if TDT is accurate, and I would not doubt it- that he was not prepared to allow Australia to be used as a staging point. We had the statement by Dr Nicholls of the Australian Society for Inter-Country Aid in which he accused the Federal Government of overlooking humanitarian needs in favour of the political expediency of not offending the Vietcong.

I think if we look at the different actions of the Government in relation to South Vietnam and Chile we will find that there are marked differences in the treatment of refugees from the 2 countries. There is an open-ended commitment in relation to Chile. I understand that the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns) has said there should be no limit and that he would welcome people from Chile. But quite plainly those who might be under threat in Vietnam will not be welcomed. This House is entitled to ask whether the difference in action in regard to the refugees from the 2 countries depends upon the ideological background and the nature of the refugees concerned. Unless the Government can demonstrate that this is not the reason for the different reaction this House and the people of Australia will be entitled to draw those conclusions.

Then again, there is the question of divisions within the Government. The Deputy Prime Minister in answer to a question today claimed that he was misreported in relation to his statement which -

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– It was out of context.

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:

-He is saying that it was out of context, but not necessarily misreported. But if the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement is to be taken at its barest face value at the very least it is saying that people have no right to fight to defend their freedom. What would have happened during the Second World War if that had been said to the people of France, Britain and other countries? What would have happened if that had been said before the Battle of the Coral Sea, if he had said to Australians that they had no right to defend their freedom? So the Deputy Prime Minister’s view in this matter is a false view. I believe that the Prime Minister of Singapore was quite rightand the Prime Minister of Australia quoted him approvingly a little earlier- when he indicated that the Deputy Prime Minister must be of psychological assistance to the Communists or even a source of inspiration. In the short and cogent way in which he can put these matters the Prime Minister of Singapore hit right to the point. If the Deputy Prime Minister claims that the Prime Minister supports him he must also therefore suffer from the criticism of the Prime Minister of Singapore.

The Government claims it has acted with generosity. But planes arrived too late in Da Nang. Aircraft were grounded because Canberra had to be referred to for orders before a particular flight could be undertaken. There is no real instance of generosity on the part of this Government in relation to the measure of the problem. One or two million refugees could be involved in Vietnam and a major international effort ought to be aroused and the conscience of the world ought to be stirred. Who could do that better than the Australian Prime Minister who travels not infrequently around the world and who, in fact, at one period had been out of Australia for almost as long as the Houses of Parliament had sat during the course of his administration. If the contacts that he has made in many countries- in Hanoi, Peking, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe- are of any account surely his voice is one that could be heard with power and influence. I do not think that he would deny that himself. I would be grateful if he did that with effect. This country would be grateful if he took this action. But has his voice been heard in Hanoi, the United Nations or the other capitals? The Prime Minister says that his influence is important. But what has he done? Have Hanoi, Peking and Moscow just ignored him, or is he afraid to speak, or is he afraid of the Deputy Prime Minister?

The Opposition has a positive program that it believes the Australian Government ought to adopt. I will mention the nature of that program.

The Australian Government ought to approach the North Vietnamese to try to get North Vietnam even at this late stage to involve itself in a cease fire, and even at this late stage to see that the Paris Agreements are kept by North Vietnam and to permit the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and the United Nations inspection teams to be present in areas held by North Vietnam in the South.

The Australian Government should approach the Soviet Union and China to seek observance of the Paris Accords. The Australian Government should approach other countries to help build pressure on North Vietnam to seek observance of the agreements and to persuade other governments of the urgency of providing incountry aid for South Vietnam whether that part of South Vietnam is actually governed by South Vietnam or the North, on condition that in areas held by the North, and for that matter the South, the aid is supervised by international agencies or by the United Nations to see that this aid gets into the appropriate hands. The Australian Government ought to approach the United Nations to see that United Nations inspection teams are placed on site in South Vietnam so that we can have an independent assessment of aid requirements and some protection also against possible retribution. This, of course, involves much greater support for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

The Australian Government should expand its own in-country support for South Vietnam in food, clothing and medical supplies. It should plan to take to Australia if necessary some thousands of refugees, adults or children, if consultations with South Vietnam indicate that that is a desirable course. It should also plan for continuing civil aid in South Vietnam even in areas overrun by the North but on the condition I mentionedinspection teams from the United Nations or appropriate voluntary agencies who would supervise the use of aid and the support of refugees. The Government should also provide additional support for voluntary agencies in their relief work. The Government has given $50,000 to a fund in Australia. Also it has given now, I think, $3m to United Nations funds. The Government believes that that is adequate in this particular tragedy.

Tragic as this total situation is in human terms, we need to look to the long term situation. One of the characteristics of this Government in both domestic and international affairs is that it has shown a marked incapacity to examine the long term and truly to map Australia’s course. The Government needs to indicate what will be the results of a policy in domestic and international terms so that Australians can understand that they have a predictable, certain and sensible future. It is all the more important that this should be the case in international affairs. We judge from what is happening that there will be much greater instability. The domino theory is old hash, as someone else of great note said, but it cannot be denied that if South Vietnam and Cambodia fall, as is quite a possibility, pressures in other areas can be increased. The domino theory never had validity in its logical necessity but if events occur in one country those events clearly have implications for other countries. The Prime Minister’s implication in answer to a question in the House today that the people of Australia would not believe that events in SouthEast Asia have any security significance for this country is one that the people of Australia will not accept. They will reject it because they know that what happens in one place does have an influence on what happens in another, and that is what foreign affairs is all about. What is happening in South Vietnam is bound to have an impact on United States opinion. The United States Congress is probably more unpredictable because of the nature of Congress than it had been in past years and that is, I suppose, because there are not some significant figures who support or who are noted for a cause and who carry Congress with them. There is no certain majority for a particular course of action.

But in terms of maintaining a strong United States policy around the world the unity of Congress and the United States executive is essential for the peace and wellbeing of the world. Whatever Australia can do she ought to do to help achieve that objective. I have confidence in continued United States involvement in sensible, proper and just causes. But it would be idle not to assume that there will be pressures for isolation and withdrawal and these pressures have been increased not infrequently by the actions that the present Government and spokesmen for the Government, whether named as Foreign Ministers or not, have taken over the last year or two. There is no question of returning to old policies relating to past years because we live in a changing world.

But one of the tragedies of the Prime Minister’s statement today is that he devoted so much time to relating history of 20 or 30 years ago - and some of that inaccurately - and his statement did not look forward to the implications of these events and the future development of Australian policy or to try to point to the courses that Australia ought to take as a result of these events.

How do these events affect Australia? The Government continues to say that we have 15 years of peace and stability. Of course, here there is a basic difference between the Government and the Opposition, because the Opposition believes that as a result of changing power relationships between the major powers the world is a more unstable place and there is greater likelihood of difficulties occurring in one part of the world or another. That in particular has implications for the middle and smaller powers. We have a very unstable situation, as even the Prime Minister would concede, in the Middle East and in South-East Asia. The Prime Minister suggests or pretends to suggest that this is of no real consequence to us. He continues with the view that for 1 5 years there is going to be stability and security and a matter of no concern for Australia.

There are other elements that will certainly affect Australia. The Sino-Soviet dispute continues. Sino-Soviet competition is likely to be more intense as a result of the end of the Vietnam war, if that does occur as the result of recent events. North Vietnam tends to look to the Soviet Union for help, aid and military supplies much more than it does to China. With some of the largest armies in the world, it is still likely to be closer to the Soviet Union than to China. With the reopening of the Suez Canal in June the Prime Minister’s dream of an Indian Ocean free to any type of naval commitment by the major powers will become an even more impossible dream. If it could be achieved, if it was a reality, maybe it is an objective worth pursuing, but he ought to know that the Soviet Union has no intention of allowing that to occur, and he also knows quite well that other measures are needed to be taken as a consequence of that. The reopening of the Suez Canal will make it much easier for the United States to maintain her commitments in those areas, and it will be more unsettling in South-East Asia. The Chinese see the Soviet Union as attempting an encirclement of China, and that will lead to countervailing action and competition on the mainland of South-East Asia and in other parts of South-East Asia.

In these circumstances what ought Australia do in the long term? We ought to encourage the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations to the maximum extent possible to maintain an independent stand where they will not be dominated be any one of the major world powers. I believe that is an objective that every ASEAN country would want to support, but the Prime Minister had the grand proposal that would have resulted in those countries being dominated by China. That is not an objective that the ASEAN countries would have wished to see. Australia should encourage the noninvolvement and the non-dominance of any of the major powers in that area. The Prime Minister has done the opposite. It is significant that the dominance he has encouraged has been the dominance of China.

We need to look again at the resources diplomacy of the present Government as practised by the Government, especially in relation to Japan which has come to doubt whether Australia is an honest and true supplier of resources. It needs to be noted, and noted with real concern, that a country like Australia that is rich in resources has an international obligation, especially to countries that are resourceless except for the capacity, energy and initiative of their own people. The Prime Minister in his meetings in Japan and in his meetings in Germany and other places seems to have looked upon the possession of resources by Australia as something that may be exploited for Australia’s own and purely selfish national advantage. I believe that the majority of Australians would accept the international obligation in relation to these matters in a way which I would have hoped the Prime Minister might emulate.

Australia also needs to emphasise the continued need for world involvement by the United States. The Guam doctrine stands. There is a necessity for the importance of the United States deterrent, which still is of critical importance in maintaining world peace. I would like to quote something from a speech that was made in February 1970:

Given her history and traditions, the United States can do no less. Clearly the question of involvement in any particular military conflict is one of enormous concern to any country and particularly to the great powers with their nuclear capability. They need to ask themselves whether military power is the appropriate answer. But if a day ever comes in which the United States ceases to be respected for her power and her willingness to apply the right power when it is needed then that day will bring us within the defeating moment of world catastrophes. It was the credibility of American power that prevented conflict over Berlin not once but 3 times and over Cuba. If United States power is once challenged and found wanting, no matter what the nature of the challenge, then the free world credibility everywhere is threatened. For the free world maintenance of credibility is a prime purpose and any United States administration, I believe, will understand and recognise that. The re-establishment of a credibility once lost, however, would involve greater risks for world peace than the maintenance of credibility in the first instance because you then have to change an attitude of mind with which your opponents have become imbued. To change an attitude of mind is more difficult than to maintain one.

That was written in February 1970, and I believe the United States would well understand the sense in which it was written. It was a defence speech delivered by the then Minister for Defence. What was said then stands true today. One of the tasks for Australian diplomacy is to help wherever it can to maintain United States credibility around the world. We need to do that in a way that is sensitive, responsible and sensible. The attitudes of the present Government to the United States would not really help to achieve that. As a result of what is happening we clearly need a greater effort in our own defence. The Government speaks a great deal about independence in defence but does not realise that there is a cost for independence in defence and that if you can have allies standing with you the total defence cost is less than if you stand alone. In any case there can be no real independence in defence, because in this interdependent world we are all much too much dependent upon each other. These are matters which also need to be examined but which the Government seems to ignore.

There is a need to review strategies and policies as a result of recent events not only in SouthEast Asia but also in other parts of the world. There is a need to examine the reality of detente. What does it mean? Has it really meant that the world is safer, that there are better relationships or, again, is it just a dream that people hope may come true? Or is it just something which the Soviet Union uses to help disarm the democracies, to help establish the circumstances in which soft spots will develop around the world where it can probe further and further, as I believe it has done in the Middle East and SouthEastAsia?

We need to examine the changed relationships between the great powers, especially to see how they affect the middle and smaller powers. I was disappointed in the Prime Minister’s speech because it was narrow, negative and looking only to the past when we should be looking to the future, examining the circumstances of the world in which Australia will be living in the future and nature of the relationships that we embrace with our near and further distant neighbours.

Dr J F Cairns:
Treasurer · LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– The new Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) began with a remarkable statement. He said: ‘The past cannot be changed’. What a remarkable statement from the leader of the conservative forces in this nation. He said: ‘The past cannot be changed but it can be restored. The past has today been restored’. I heard the echoes of all that bankrupt argument that has been put forward by former leaders of the Liberal Party in years gone by when they were in government to justify their atrocious policy towards Asia- one that has helped to kill and devastate millions of people in that area. The past cannot be changed. In Australia forces are at work again to distort facts, divide the community and create bitterness. The aim seems to be to suggest in some sort of way that the Australian Government is responsible for the defeats of the Saigon Government in Vietnam, for the refugees or for the orphans. But if anyone is responsible it is those who caused the war in Vietnam to go on for years. It is they who are responsible for the death and devastation in Vietnam, not those who wanted to end the war.

The remarkable thing is that no one on the Opposition side of this Parliament- with the exception of one honourable member- has ever admitted that the Opposition Parties made any mistakes or that they were wrong about Vietnam in any way at all. There was never any limit to the death and destruction they would have imposed on the people in Vietnam, Cambodia or anywhere else to justify the argument that it was better to fight there than here. No one has sought to revise any of those ideas. Today we were told that the past cannot be changed but can always be restored. The new Leader of the Opposition has set out to restore that attitude, that belief, to this nation. But it is not the same everywhere. In the United States there has been a complete assessment of this bankrupt policy. I refer to an article in the Melbourne ‘Age ‘ by Anthony Lewis of the New York ‘ Times ‘ which states:

Unlike Vietnam, it is relatively easy to trace the American involvement in Cambodia. The crucial decisions were made in 1970 by Richard Nixon, with the advice and support of Henry Kissinger. They led inexorably, predictably, to tragedy- death and destruction for Cambodia, moral and political disaster for the United States.

It is not any service to the United States or to any other nation to stand by and be uncritical of a policy that has that kind of result. Whatever the alternative an end to the war in Vietnam in 1 945, 1954, 1969 or 1973 would have provided-that end would have been bad enough- it would have been better than a continuation of the war that is taking place. In 1 97 1 1 wrote the following and it is, I think, even more true today:

Not only do I agree with this view of Asian communism-

That was the very critical view of the way communism exercised power put forward by the Buddhist monk Thic Nhat Hanh but I deplore each of its essential features which are features of communism almost everywhere else. But it still remains that China under Mao Tse Tung is no worse off than would China have been under Chiang Kai Shek; North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minn no worse off than North Vietnam under the French; and South Vietnam under the National Liberation Front is no worse off than South Vietnam under Diem or his successors or under American bombs and firepower.

No foreign power has a right to do to Vietnam what America has done, and what Australia has run along with, because of the difference between the Communist Vietnamese and those we have backed.

At the very least the venal dictatorship of the Nhus, the corruption of their officials and the corrupting influence of the American occupation are no better than what Hanoi or the NLF can offer. The difference does not justify the million or more Vietnamese -

It is now 2 million- deaths resulting from French and American intervention.

It remains true as well that if there is to be any prospect of ending the slaughter in Vietnam we must not allow again the old divisions and old bitterness to be revived in Australia. On Thursday last the Melbourne ‘Age’ faced this question in an editorial with which I completely agree. It stated:

As the death rattle sounds, the question must be asked: What happens after Vietnam? The war which has been with us for so long, either through the blood and tears of troop commitment or the niggling of uneasy conscience -

Apparently for everywhere else but in the Opposition Parties- rushes suddenly toward an end. The climax may breath some life into those dormant arguments -

We heard the dormant arguments today in an attempt to have life breathed into them- war of national liberation or gallant fight against totalitarianism; a battle in Australia’s interests or a convenient manoeuvre to help legitimise the American involvement. No one would want to reopen the divisions Vietnam caused, but there is a sound reason for examining the corpse even though it is still twitching. It seems certain that South Vietnam has failed, that America has failed, that Australia, for its part, failed.

But that sort of argument bears no weight with the Leader of the Opposition. He wants to reopen all those questions again. The editorial in the Melbourne ‘Age ‘ goes on:

Whether we were in Vietnam for the right or wrong political reasons, the commitment was a disaster. Of course, that is easy to say in retrospect as the North rolls on, just as it was all too easy to simplify the conflict, to see one side as good and the other as bad. War is horror.

War as in Vietnam is horror magnified by the wholesale suffering of innocents. There is blood on everybody’s hands and all the past rhetoric rings hollowly.

But we heard it again today.

The least- and perhaps the most- we can do about Vietnam is to learn the lessons of defeat.

What lessons can we learn? There is no chance that any lessons will be learned by those who simplify everything into terms of world communist domination or into the domino theory. Today the Leader of the Opposition has made some progress about that. Now he is not taking a simplistic domino theory view any more. I think the ‘Age’ in its editorial approaches the lessons of defeat in the correct way when it states:

Militarily that is easy enough. America wants no more of ground wars in Asia. Australia, even if it had the will, would not have the capacity to intervene unilaterally. The political lesson is simple in theory, but difficult to apply: We approach crisis as an independent nation, attempting to exercise our own judgment in the best interests. Surely slogans died in Vietnam. Now Cambodia teeters and Laos is shaky. What of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines? To see dangers ahead in the region is not necessarily to accept the domino theory. Rather it is to see the common causes which underly the different symptoms of unrest and unease.

What is the common cause? In any argument from the Opposition side there is never any examination of this question. It is always seen predominantly and often exclusively as a military question. I wrote about it in 1965- quite a number of years ago- and I said this:

Millions of people in South-East Asia are hungry. They have no shelter. They have nothing that gives meaning to human life any more than an animal has that is driven to the earth by hunters. Many of them are less afraid of death than they are of being permanently hungry and of being denied human dignity. They also want to run their own countrieseven if not always democratically- and so they are nationalists. These conditions have produced tension, conflict and war.

We are told that all this is peculiarly a result of Communist subversion. This is an impossible over-simplification. The real factor that produces tension, conflict and war in such situations is not action taken by Communists, but poverty and desperation and lack of a chance of self-determination. Poverty and desperation are not new in Asia, but they have become worse at a time when the possibility of removing them by the power of science has become greater. A former President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, reminded us: ‘Men do not start revolutions in a sudden passion . . . revolutions do not spring up overnight. Revolutions come from long suppression of the human spirit. Revolutions come because men know that they have rights and that they are disregarded. ‘

For many years in Vietnam there were those conditions. There was the suppression of the human spirit not only by the colonialists who lived there but also by those who were backed by the French and later by the United States in any endeavour. Again the ‘Age’ which has a similar view to my own states:

Countries which have tasted colonialism- or, rather, provided a feast for the imperial powers; countries where there has been inequality; countries in which the stirrings of nationalism have joined in complex relationships with ideologies; countries in which there are cultural or racial differences: There is no identikit to fit all of the nations, but the common thread is the need for reform- social reform, political reform, agrarian reform. The tragedy of Vietnam was that instead of a political solution there was military intervention with a blind reliance on technology and an obsessive belief in the power of bombs and the might of machines.

Mr Holten:

– What is happening now?

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– The result of that is what is happening now and the previous Government contributed to it. The editorial continued:

At least the terror of Vietnam has opened our eyes.

It may not have opened the eyes of the Opposition.

Australia must look to its defence preparedness, the Government has that duty to the nation. As for the region, we have a responsibility to encourage groupings such as ASEAN and to stress diplomatically, as well as assisting financially, reforms which will ease strains by reducing inequalities. We have to remember that war is a defeat for man, no matter which side wins.

What then do we need in South-East Asia and the rest of the world where there is poverty, inequality, the taste of colonialism and the stirrings of revolt and rejection? We need governments capable of social reform, political reform, agrarian reform and nationalist reform. But nowhere do we ever hear that said on the Opposition side. For the Opposition it is all a matter of the great powers. It is all a matter of a military reaction to the situation.

Vietnam has proved that where there is a government incapable of social reform or political reform, incapable of ending widespread corruption, incapable of disproving dependence upon a foreign power, not all the armies and bombs in the world can save such a government. That has been demonstrated in the last three or four weeks. Personally, I prefer something much more liberal than the doctrinaire revolutionary force. That is why I wrote the 2 books, ‘Living With Asia’ and ‘The Eagle and the Lotus’. I suppose very few members of the Opposition have ever done me the decency of even looking at them.

Mr Peacock:

– I re-read it a fortnight ago.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– The Opposition’s spokesman for foreign affairs says that he read it a fortnight ago.

Mr Peacock:

– ‘Re-read it’, I said.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I am sorry. I thank the honourable gentleman very much. When he makes his speech we will see whether he has learned anything from anything.

I think doctrinaire, uncompromising, unrelenting people are dangerous. I have met some of them and, wherever I could, I have made the choice not of them but of the more liberal and relenting. I have spoken to the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government. I have also spoken to Souvanna Phouma, Sihanouk and Adam Malik. I have spent hours talking to them and I am proud to know that they regard me as a friend. These are the kinds of men I support and these are the kinds of men I want to see leading countries in South-East Asia because I believe that they know that social, political, economic and national reforms are necessary in their countries, not only for the good of the people but also to prevent disorder, distress and war.

But what happened when one of them was leading Cambodia? He was overthrownperhaps with the sympathy of the United States of America. Testifying after his recent visit to Cambodia, Representative Paul McCloskey, a Republican from California, said this:

I can only tell you my emotional reaction, getting into that country. If I could have found the military or State Department leader who has been the architect of this policy, my instinct would be to string him up . . . What they have done to the country is greater evil than we have done to any country in the world.

That was to Cambodia. It is worth noting, as the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) said, that the real reason why the Australian people expect the Government to act, as it has done, is not just that it may reduce the scale of suffering but that we have a special responsibility to Vietnam. As he said, who rules in Saigon is not and never has been an ingredient in Australia’s security. Our strength- our security- rests on factors and relationships ultimately unrelated to these events. The important factors are our relations with countries like Indonesia and those that I have just mentioned. It is for those reasons that we have to look for a foreign policy to different ingredients from those outlined a few moments ago by the Leader of the Opposition who relies upon the old military reactions and methods. The past has returned.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Luchetti:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr PEACOCK:
Kooyong

-In no other area have this Government’s policies suffered such credibility lapses as in the area of its foreign policy. It has been shattered by the events in Indo-China. Until the last week or so the silence from the Government also was almost shattering. The Government’s spasmodic reaction to human suffering throughout Indo-China was matched only by the form of donation when it was advised that an Opposition team was visiting Indo-China. There is now a daily dodging of death throughout Indo-China, and the forms of government which are bringing this about are supported by honourable members opposite. Today the Opposition had proposed the discussion of a matter of public importance which, among other things, spoke of the role that Australia should play in marshalling international assistance to relieve human suffering in the region. That has been thrust aside and must now be withdrawn as we debate the elements of foreign policy itself. I hope that we will have the opportunity to face the stark reality in human terms and what can be proffered most persuasively by the initiatives which the Opposition had developed over the last week. I hope that the Government will accept them.

The Minister for Urban and Regional Development (Mr Uren), the lap dog of the Treasurer (Dr J. F. Cairns), who has left the House now with the Treasurer as that Minister has completed his speech, spoke out last week on the matter of refugees. He spoke against humanitarian assistance. After all, humanitarianism must not get in the way of ideological consequencesthe consequences we are seeing enacted in Indo-China at the present moment. Where is the much vaunted independence of the Labor Government? Where is the capacity to influence other governments around the world? What representations have been made to the Government of North Vietnam? What protests have been registered with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China which continue to supply the Government of North Vietnam with arms? Where is this much vaunted independence? What is its consequence? Its consequence is virtually silence.

The Opposition urges the Government to take the strongest action possible in calling on the North Vietnamese Government to cease the acts of terrorism in South Vietnam, to call on those other governments to which I have referred to stop aiding and abetting the North Vietnamese. This Government opposite maintained throughout its days in Opposition that this was a mere civil war and that we would see an army of liberators. One would assume that the people would be rushing to embrace the liberators. They are fleeing by their millions from them. What influence is being brought to bear on this tragic situation? Have we explored the prospects of a concerted regional action in Indo-China? No. Have we sought to solve the refugee problem? Have we taken initiatives in the United Nations? No. Have we made representations to other countries that Australia be a staging post for refugees before they go on to other countries? No. Have we sought to provide adequate medical supplies and supplies of food, clothing and building materials? No. What action have we taken with international agencies? Virtually none. Have we called on countries to cease aggression? No.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) spoke of some of the initiatives that the

Opposition would take. As he said, the Government has been looking to the past in the statement that the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) tabled and in the Treasurer’s speech that followed. Looking to the past, have we heard from the Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant) recalling what he said some years ago about outright aggression in Cambodia? What reference is being made to Cambodia? The Government seeks to run away from the argument that the north is invading the south, albeit that there are at least 400,000 North Vietnamese invading South Vietnam. The Government alleges that it is taking an even-handed approach. That would be bad enough- treat the executioner in the same way as you treat the victim. But I allege that this Government is not even taking an even-handed approach- which would be bad enough. I submit that this Government is giving tacit approval to the Government of North Vietnam.

Before anyone condemns a person who seeks on most occasions to advance what are colloquially put forward as progressive views and alleges that this is a change of stance, let me remind honourable members opposite what my attitude has always been on Indo-China. More particularly I direct honourable members firstly to the question I asked today and secondly to the request made by the Leader of the Opposition that he be supplied with cables that have been forwarded to Hanoi and Saigon. I submit that on the third of this month a cable went to Saigon stressing that the Paris Accords be implemented and that in particular article 4, chapter 12 be implemented. This deals with the establishment of the National Council for National Reconciliation and Concorde. I submit further that probably on that day or on 4 April a cable, initially couched in similar terms, went to Hanoi but that that cable which would have been received on either 3 April or 4 April in North Vietnam went on to refer to the activities in South Vietnam being inspired by the Provisional Revolutionary Government. Of course, we know their argument. They say that the North Vietnamese army does not exist and that there are not 400 000 troops in South Vietnam. They say: ‘Oh, no, the North Vietnamese are not raising their flag in the cities that they take as they carry out executions’. I submit that further on in this cable words to this effect are used: ‘We understand that for public relations purposes it has to be said that pressure is being applied to the Saigon Government to get it to implement the Paris Accords’. I challenge the Government to produce the documentation and to reveal the cables that were sent on the 3rd and the 4th of this month. I challenge it to take up the request made by the Leader of the Opposition that he should sight the cables and that the Leader of the Opposition will give the twofold answer that he said he would give. It does not have to be shown to me and it need not be shown to the Press. We are told that this is an open Government, but we see the runaway from that concept daily. It would be sufficient if the Government met only the request of the Leader of the Opposition.

I challenge the statements of the Prime Minister, particularly those on the 12th page of his speech. I nail the argument not only about evenhandedness but also about the tacit support that is being engendered elsewhere. I also want to refer to another factual allegation contained on the 9th page of the Prime Minister’s speech in which he said:

The truth is that the Australian Government met, as soon as it was received from the American Embassy, a request from the Government of South Vietnam for assistance. The decision was taken to make available 7 Hercules transport aircraft . . .

He then quoted the message he received congratulating his Government. I stand here with the knowledge shared by the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Sullivan) and the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party that on the one day on which those aircraft were used for the evacuation of human beings who had fled to Phan Ran that action was taken as a result of the initiative of the Royal Australian Air Force and not as a result of a direction from the Government. The aircraft were sent there but remained there. They were used as a result of that initiative. When the Government learned that that initiative had been taken it sent a direction indicating that it was not to happen again. The next morning the South Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Refugees sought to examine the refugee problem. He wished to fly in an Australian aircraft on the Thursday morning of last week. When he arrived at Tan Son Nhut airport he was told that he could not board the aircraft because the Australian Government had said that no South Vietnamese were to be carried on these aircraft. He was to examine what food and medical supplies were required. That assistance was again denied. I submit that the cables would also bear that out.

I further submit that the Australian Ambassador in South Vietnam is hamstrung by red tape. The New Zealand Ambassador has absolute discretion as to the form and the nature of the flights by his Government within South Vietnam. But not so with our Ambassador. He must cable back indicating every piece of material, every type of food supply that is to be provided and the RAAF must await direction from Canberra before it can move aircraft.

Mr Whan:

– And so he should.

Mr PEACOCK:

-The honourable member, by making that sort of remark, represents the personification of inhumanity. Last Thursday a Hercules aircraft was loaded with foodstuffs, water, supplies and the like. The RAAF cabled for the direction that it could take off. By Friday afternoon it still had not received a cable from Australia indicating that it could do so. That aircraft stood at Tan Son Nhut airport for approximately 2 days fully loaded with the mire of human misery throughout Indo-China not being alleviated until the following day when the shuttle flights commenced. That is the sort of red tape with which this Government is binding and strangling the South Vietnamese Government and our officials at the present moment.

The Treasurer stood here today and recounted so many of his past arguments. He argued, as he has always argued, that the success of the North Vietnamese proves that Australian and American support for the South was wrong and that the cause of the North Vietnamese was right. In this form of argument one equates military success with a just cause. Such a proposition is meaningless. The case for intervention rested not on the proposition that success was certain but that the consequences of making no effort and of failure would be serious. Events have not falsified that assumption. If the Labor Party wants to look back to the debate of the 1960s, let it be noted that the claim that this was essentially a civil war in the south is utterly falsified. There are upwards of 20 North Vietnamese divisions operating in the south. The claim that the cause of the Viet Cong was a popular one supported by the mass of the population is utterly falsified by the human flood of refugees seeking at great risk and hardship to escape from their control.

The ideological response we have had today is akin to what we have had for the last decade. Labor policy towards Vietnam in the last 2 years classically illustrates the weakness of the Whitlam foreign policy. It has consisted of a series of ideological responses interspersed with an occasional humanitarian and rhetorical gesture. We have had the ideological responses in the declaration by the Deputy Prime Minister and other Ministers that a North Vietnamese victory is a desired outcome. We have seen the violent and one-sided denunciations of the Americans combined with silence about the

North Vietnamese aggression and atrocities. We have seen the Prime Minister’s condemnation of South Vietnam’s alleged violation of the Paris agreements but no public condemnation of North Vietnamese breaches of the agreements or the open aggression in South Vietnam. One could get the impression that it was the South Vietnamese who had upwards of 20 divisions in the north and not the other way around.

In the short time available to me I want to say that it had been our intention not to discuss defence matters or defence policies but to talk about the need for refugee relief. But I am forced to allude to the question of security itself because this Government has in reality neglected Australia’s security. Of course, a foreign policy should be concerned with more than security. It should seek to embody and to express the highest values and aspirations within the communityrespect for the dignity of individuals and the rights of nations, a concern for the peaceful and just resolution of conflicts and the impulse to cooperate with and to assist less fortunately placed countries. But a foreign policy which neglects security is irresponsible. Indeed, it is no foreign policy at all. The world of international politics is too uncertain and the consequences of error too serious to proceed simply in terms of foreseeable threats. The effort and resources spent on maintaining adequate defence forces and keeping alliances in good repair are not wasted if these forces and alliances are not in the event called upon. On the contrary, the very object of having them is to render their use unnecessary.

We reject- we throw out of hand- the concept once again stated today, the wholly uncritical and optimistic view of the world scene and the wholly uncritical and optimistic view of detente. The only time it has been questioned by this Australian Government was in a speech the Prime Minister delivered to the United Nations organisation. One speech is not a policy.

Mr DEPUTY. SPEAKER (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

-The honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) regrettably has learnt very little from his visit to Indo-China. I am absolutely staggered that anybody who pretends to comprehend Indo-China would come back with the old Democratic Labor Party statement, the League of Rights statement, the point of view that has been held by reactionary forces in Australia and throughout the world, that old tired cliche about people voting with their feet.

Those people in Vietnam who have been caught up in the war that has been going on now for 38 years are not voting for or against communism; they are not voting for or against the Saigon Government; they are voting against war and hoping desperately for peace. What they have been doing is moving away from a war zone.

Let us remember one basic fact: The only combat aircraft that have ever been over South Vietnam have been South Vietnamese aircraft or American aircraft. I defy anyone here, and those who went on that visit, to show that there have ever been any North Vietnamese combat aircraft or any Chinese communist combat aircraft over South Vietnam during the war. I can tell honourable members that the reason that people moved out of the way is that every time the communists overtook a village the Americans used to- the South Vietnamese now do- come in and blast hell out of it. The people of Vietnam have learnt after 38 years of war what to expect. Let us just take the recent example of Nha Trang. The South Vietnamese armies scuttled out of Nha Trang. There was not even a North Vietnamese or Vietcong force coming into Nha Trang. The soldiers were so demoralised that they moved out ahead of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese armies and left the town. I am sure that the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese were as much surprised as anybody by the rapidity of their advance because they were not fighting; they were moving into a vacuum that was left by the demoralised forces of South Vietnam.

The South Vietnamese forces tried to go back and before they did- this is a report carried by all newspapers- -Nha Trang was bombed with what are called, euphemistically, daisy cutters. Perhaps the honourable member for Kooyong and the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party (Mr Sinclair) did not see the daisy cutters. They are anti-personnel bombs which when exploded give out thousands of pieces of shrapnel. The South Vietnamese in fact were bombing their own people. Now members of the Opposition ask me why people vote with their feet. They vote with their feet for one very simple reason- to get out of war zones. They know perfectly well that if they stay with the communist group they will be bombed. This has been going on for 38 years, but they still do it. There are reports from reliable correspondents that when Hue and Da Nang were no longer under attack but under communist control the people moved back. When writing about Nha Trang a French National Press correspondent wrote:

It was easy to see why people were scared. Government soldiers who quit the abandoned central highlands and the others recently arrived from Da Nang roamed the streets, armed and hard faced. They plundered and looted shamelessly.

This was the South Vietnamese army. The honourable member for Kooyong has made great play about compassion and sought to show himself as a humanitarian. But he was the very man who was the Minister for the Army when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) was the Minister for Defence. Most of us recall what happened then because we were members of the Parliament when it occurred. The right honourable member for Higgins (Mr Gorton) would remember only too well the dispute over the civic action group of the Australian Army in Vietnam. What happened? I do not think we need go through the history of the fight between Mr Gorton and Mr Fraser at that time, but the end result was that the honourable member for Kooyong as Minister for the Army and the Leader of the Opposition as Minister for Defence stopped the civic action in Vietnam- the group of Army people who were building schools, providing water supplies and teaching the kids. That is one of the humanitarian actions of the honourable member for Kooyong and the present Leader of the Opposition.

When we come to the concept of humanitarian aid let us look at the Opposition’s record when it was the Government. What did it do after the Tet offensive in 1968? I have here a list of what the previous Government sent in as humanitarian aid at a time when South Vietnam was recovering from the shock of the Tet offensive. It sent in $487,000 worth of relief supplies. This showed its great humanitarian instincts in this period. We are not concerned about the politics but about the people. The Australian Government has already contributed $3.4m in relief funds. This is not just something that has emerged recently, as would seem to be imputed by the honourable member for Kooyong. In November 1974 we supplied UNICEF-I doubt whether the Opposition would understand what UNICEF is, but it deals with children- with $1.5m. We have provided $200,000 to the Red Cross. We have provided $lm to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. Let me explain that this money is spent in IndoChina. Wherever there is a problem these international organisations move in and provide assistance without the politics, which is the only thing that the Opposition seems to concern itself about. This is our record of providing assistance to international organisations which are capable of doing a job for humanity- not for politics. We have provided $3.4m. Compare that with the humanitarian instincts of the Opposition when it was in government after the Tet offensive in 1968.

I do not wonder that the Leader of the Opposition wants to dismiss or evade the past. He said that the past cannot be changed. But I believe that we should all remember the lessons of the past because the very men who are leading the Opposition now were then leading the Government. I have said in this House before and I will repeat it in this House as long as I stay here that the Opposition when it was in government lied and lied and lied about Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. The first lie was that Australia was committed to Vietnam because of the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation. That was a deliberate lie because there was never a decision by the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation that involved the commitment of its members to Vietnam. The three founder members- France, the United Kingdom and Pakistan- never went into Vietnam in combat force. The only 2 members that did do so, apart from Australia and the United States, were Thailand and the Philippines. They went in for one very simple reasonthe same reason that Australia went in- because they were told by the then American Administration to go in. But not only did Thailand and the Philippines go in under the direction of the United States Government; also they were rewarded handsomely by the United States Government for their involvement.

Then we had the lie- I say it again, the liethat Australia was invited to go into Vietnam. When we were in Opposition, after many years of asking the then Government to table the documents that related to our involvement in Vietnam, in 1972 it tabled them. I can see why it was so obviously reluctant to do so. What emerged from that tabling of the documents was that Australia was never invited into Vietnam at all. What happened was that under pressure from the United States Government we were asked to go in. Saigon was offered our assistance. There was a proposal: ‘If you agree, we will get the Australians in’. There was an acceptance of an offer made by the Australian Government to Vietnam and our involvement there was not as a result of an invitation from the Vietnamese authorities.

Honourable members opposite have referred to the violation of the Paris agreements. I am not here to argue the case for one side or the other, but one thing that can be said is that both sides have violated the cease fire provisions of the Paris agreements. Bombing and strafingremember that only one side has an air force operating in the South Vietnam area- continued after the Paris agreements and in violation of the Paris agreements. There were occasions when both sides sought to extend their territorial boundaries, their territorial controls, and this was in direct contravention of the agreements. I think it is important to recall that the agreements had not only military provisions but also political provisions and these have been steadily undermined. In the discussions that took place between the Opposition’s delegation and President Thieu I doubt whether President Thieu would have spelled out his position. These provisions have been undermined by the refusal of President Thieu to allow any moves towards the establishment of the National Council for National Reconciliation and Concord, which is the cornerstone of the agreements. So, as in the old days with Diem and the Geneva Agreements, when the important thing was the elections throughout the whole of Indo-China which Diem, with the support of the United States and the Australian Governments, did not allow to come to pass, exactly the same thing has happened with Thieu, who has argued against the National Council. These are all matters of fact, not matters of a fleeting visit to Indo-China. What has happened is that both sides- I state this clearly- have not sought to implement the Paris agreements. We had hopes- they appeared to be vain hopes, but hopes nevertheless- that the Paris agreements would work and that there would be an end to the bloodshed, but this has not come to pass. I think it is a matter of regret for all of us that the people of Vietnam are still suffering.

Members of the Opposition have been talking in cliches. They keep rolling out the cliches of the past. But the whole basis of their foreign policy was fear and it was implemented by lies. We come back to the hardy annual of the domino theory. I am pleased to note that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has moved slightly. The great danger of the domino theory, and this affected the Opposition when it was in government, is that it blinds us to realities and leads to the formulation of completely wrong policies. The domino theory puts forward the proposition that if one country goes, all the other countries in Asia will go, and the next thing is that we will have invaders on our Australian shores. I gather that what is meant by ‘go’ is that these countries go communist. There is behind that sort of proposition the old thesis that communism is a monolith run from some room or outfit in the Kremlin. The folk who put forward that proposition completely ignore the fact that there is probably as much difference between the Soviet Union and the United States as there is between the Soviet Union and Communist China. This has been overlooked. Even President Nixon - I am not accustomed to quoting President Nixon - said that the solidarity of a once unified bloc had been broken by the powerful forces of nationalism.

When we look to the future, let us look at the position of the Communist Party forces in Laos and Cambodia. There has been a traditional enmity between the Cambodians and the Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge is a national communist group, and although during the period of fighting the North Vietnamese have had to make their accommodations with the Chinese communists and the Soviet Union, the differences are fundamental. I predict that there will be an upsurge of these differences. We have made the great mistake of assuming that all communists carry out the same policies. Nationalism is one thing that nobody in the Opposition ever accepted.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Luchetti)Order! The Minister’s time has expired.

Mr SINCLAIR:
New England

-The deplorable speech by the Minister for Science (Mr Morrison) is a very good illustration of why Australia is in far from the best of hands. There is no doubt that in every essence it is easy to deny the statements that he made, but I am not going to take time to do that. I will comment on only 3 points. The Minister referred to ‘voting with their feet’. He denigrated what he said was a worn out concept. I would commend to him 2 facts. Firstly, why are the people running south, not running north? Secondly, I refer the Minister to an article in the ‘National Times’ by Michael Richardson, who I might point out is a very highly respected journalist, who, like all other journalists, is enabled to go with representatives of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam but who equally, like all other journalists, is denied the same right by the Government of North Vietnam. In a highly commendable article in the ‘National Times’ on 7 April 1975 entitled ‘The Avalanche of Human Misery’, Michael Richardson referred in some detail to his discussions in the past fortnight with dozens of refugees from South Vietnam’s central highlands and its northern provinces. Having analysed the various fears which motivated them, he concludes that while it is true that there are many fears that generate their departure, the overhanging fear of them all is a communist regime. At its mildest, this ‘is an apprehension that life under the communists will be more austere than it is under the noncommunist regime. At its most acute, it is a dread of possible punishment or even execution for political, class or even family associations condemned by the new rulers.’ So much for the point that the voting with their feet has no validity in the present situation in Cambodia and in Vietnam.

The third point that I must make very briefly is that the Minister has been talking about both sides breaching the Paris Accords. Would that I had time to analyse the Paris Accords and what has been going on. I suggest that the Minister, if he has the time or the inclination, might refer to the contents of the Accords and to chapter 2, articles 5, 6 and 7- the withdrawal articles- the areas within which there has been a complete compliance in the military sense by the United States and South Vietnam with the directions that the Accords require. Article 7- the oneforone replacement provision- has been demontrably breached by North Vietnam, by the People’s Republic of China and by the Soviet Union. So much for military compliance with the Paris Accords. As to article 12 of chapter 4, which the telegram from the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) to the Ambassador in Saigon and his request to the Government of President Thieu suggests should have been implemented, it is, as he asserts, a political recommendation, not a military one, and it is in that respect only that the South Vietnamese Government has not complied while it has in the military section. It has been under threat. In the circumstances of threat, there has been no chance for its compliance politically. While we on this side of the House believe that the Paris Accords should be complied with, we recognise the extreme difficulties of the position of the Government of South Vietnam in circumstances where, it having complied with the military provisions, the Government of North Vietnam has totally failed to do so. Indeed, the inclinations of the Government of North Vietnam have been contributed to in an alarming degree by the Government of the Soviet Union and the Government of the People ‘s Republic of China.

Let me put aside the Minister as he is of no account. This statement is fortunately, but rather extraordinarily, one of the few manifestations of a Parliamentary interest in foreign affairs demonstrated by the Prime Minister. Indeed, this is only the second occasion, apart from the travelogues which he occasionally effects, on which the Prime Minister has reported to us on what is happening and then not Indo-China but South Vietnam. Specifically, the Prime Minister’s statement resuscitates, as he asserts, so many of the fears of the past. It is a pity he does not go back into some of his own attitudes of the past. He might not recall them; perhaps he does not wish to do so. But in the book by Arthur Caldwell, ‘Be Just and Fear Not’, at pages 23 1 and 232, some of those past attitudes of the present Prime Minister are referred to. Mr Whitlam, the man who today is Australia’s Prime Minister, the man who has come into this House and asserted that this war in South Vietnam is a civil war, the man who today denied the right of foreign intervention, was quoted in this book as having said on 21 November 1966 that an Australian Labor government might leave Australian troops in Vietnam. He said they would be regulars and not conscripts. So much for his consistency; so much for his hypocrisy. So this man who has made this statement today has no consistent attitude. Indeed, I think he has little knowledge of the circumstances of what is happening.

I refer briefly to the result of Question Time today: The deplorable suggestion made by the Prime Minister that there is no risk of execution of those people in the countries that are being overrun by communism at the moment, Cambodia and South Vietnam; no risk of these men being assassinated. He completely denies the record that is known to every member of this Parliament. This record was illustrated in today’s ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ by a letter contributed by Mr R. A. Dowell, Federal Secretary of the Flight Stewards Association of Australia, who comments that he has little regard or respect for the members of the present Government- nor do I blame him. I refer to part of the letter which states:

I know I can speak for the majority of trade unionists and ALP members when I express my disgust and fury at the attitude of the present government to the slaughter in Vietnam. The attitude is cynical and brutal . . . They know that tens of thousands of village leaders, religious leaders, politicians, teachers and others will be summarily executed.

So much for the hypocrisy, so much for the inhumanity, of these people. Indeed, the testimony given by Warrant Officer Ossie Ostara to which I referred in a question to the Prime Minister today, is another testimony to the degree to which these communists who are taking over South Vietnam and who are at the moment taking over Cambodia are likely to demonstrate little concern for the men, the women and the children whose lives and well-being are of no consequence to them. What we assert is not that these matters should be completely ignored, or denied, or even their possibility denied; we suggest that positive steps can and should be taken to prevent them.

There are many issues to talk about in the political circumstances of this debate. What I want to do is to try, first of all, to indicate my disappointment that this is not a statement on the whole of the circumstances of Indo-China. I believe it is not just South Vietnam about which we need to be concerned but that we need to be concerned equally about the position in Cambodia. I believe we need to be equally concerned about Thailand. If honourable members on the other side of the House think that Thailand just does not matter, let me recommend to them that they get a briefing on the military situation in the north-east and north-west provinces of Thailand. Let them deny that the North Vietnamese have already asserted that the fourth region of war in South-East Asia embraces the annexure of the north-eastern region of Thailand. Let them deny that the Thais themselves are concerned with that fact. Let them deny that there is a growing fear at the encroachment of communism in the whole region.

Let us set aside the many inadequacies of the Prime Minister’s statement. But let us not deny that already there is again emerging an indication of the extent to which the Prime Minister is moving to the left in his expression of ideology and his attitudes towards foreign policy. The Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer (Dr J. F. Cairns) and the Minister for Urban and Regional Development (Mr Uren) have asserted their attitude to the Vietnam situation. They have openly taken positions which demonstrate sympathy for the overthrow of the Thieu regime. At least they are consistent. Dr Cairns, according to the Melbourne ‘Age’ of 13 April, 1972, said:

I believe that the regular forces of North Vietnam have now derived the right of self-defence against an attack made on them by the armed forces of the United States and by the armed forces of the government in Saigon.

In other words, he justified military intervention on behalf of the North Vietnamese. But what now of military intervention on behalf of South Vietnam? What now of the condemnation he makes of the United States of America? Surely he recognises that unless there can be some protection against the military overthrow of South Vietnam by North Vietnam the present possibilities for peace and for the lives of the many millions of people now affected are likely to be minimal.

But do not let him for one moment assert that we are seeking a return to military intervention by Australia. On the contrary, what we seek is a cease fire. What we seek is the intervention by the Government of Australia, with the Government of North Vietnam, the Government of the U.S.S.R. and with the Government of the People’s Republic of China in order to ensure that it might be a realistic cease fire. Consistently over the years the western democracies have been prepared to accept the publicly documented assurances of the communist countries that they would comply with a cease fire. The Paris Accords are the last positive demonstration. The Paris Accords, which set down a prescription by which the lives and livelihoods of the people of the region could be protected, are now being breached entirely in their military aspects by North Vietnam, the U.S.S.R. and the People ‘s Republic of China.

The Prime Minister asserts that he has minimally protested to the Governments of these countries. Yet, in the countries which we have just recently visited we have learned of the degree to which the directions that are coming from this Government are telling the Government of North Vietnam that the Australian Government can understand the reason for their seeking military intervention in the south. These cabled directions suggest an understanding of the reasons for military intervention so that the Government of South Vietnam might comply with the Paris Acccords in their political sense. So the Australian Government is taking a cabled direction stance which suggests not only a sympathy for, but a positive intervention in favour of, North Vietnam. If these assertions are not true and the cables and the advice that has been given to us is inaccurate, the Prime Minister has open to him the course of action intimated by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in this House this afternoon, a course of action which will allow the Leader of the Opposition to see all the cables that have gone to North Vietnam, all the cables that have gone to South Vietnam, and comment publicly only on the degree to which there is this even-handed approach which the Prime Minister asserts.

I revert again to Dr Cairns, the Deputy Prime Minister. He has asserted consistently that a communist takeover of the south would be better than the alternative. In the ‘West Australian’ on 5 April 1 972 he is reported to have said:

I think what you call a communist takeover would be better than the alternative in areas like South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Then again in the House today he said something about the degree to which he was prepared to accept that the overthrow of the Government of President Thieu would be the best thing to happen to South Vietnam. These constant assertions by members from the left of the Labor Party have 2 implications. The first is that they are directly sympathetic to the communist cause.

The Deputy Prime Minister seems to be a disciple of the cause of communism in the degree to which he accepts non-military alliances around the region to the north of Australia. Members of the left of the Labor Party seem to be taking publicly a position which is dictated by governments of communist persuasion at present and, regrettably, does not assert either Australia ‘s interest, or the rights of the individuals of the countries concerned to the degree that we believe necessary.

Mr Peacock, Mr Sullivan and myself have presented to the members of the Opposition parties a 12 point positive program. It is a program which we hope the Opposition parties will be able to present to this Parliament and to the people of Australia. It is not a political document but a document designed to protect the lives and livelihoods of people in the region. It is a document designed to ensure that Australia’s interests are paramount and not those of the communist countries which the Deputy Prime Minister and his minions seem so anxious to serve. It is a document which sets out a basis by which humanitarian aid can be given, not for sordid political purposes but continuing humanitarian assistance given in the broad. In his speech this afternoon, my colleague the honourable member for Kooyong referred to the anomalies in the use of the Royal Australian Air Force aircraft. He did not have time to refer to a question put to us by Australian representatives of World Vision in Phnom Penh. He has not had time to put to honourable members the requests that were made by Mr Michael Bosworth, who is still in Phnom Penh- an Australian working in an Australian Dairy Produce Board joint enterprise, Sokilait. He is an Australian who has 185 tons of base milk products on the docks in Melbourne waiting to be transhipped to Phnom Penh. They have been there for months and this Government could not care less about getting them to their destination.

In circumstances of conflict, a head in the sand rigid attitude of ideology, the advancement of ideology insensitive to the sufferings of men, women and children and the exploitation by the Government of the concern of” the Australian people for human causes provide no excuse for a foreign policy. Neither the political motivation in the gestures of the Government of the past week nor the statement by the Prime Minister to the House today is any reason for any Australian to believe that Australia’s foreign policy is in good hands today.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr BEAZLEY:
Minister for Education · Fremantle · ALP

– I have sat in this House for 30 years. Therefore, I have heard all the versions of the Vietnam debate from the time when it was a question of maintaining French authority in Indo-China to the debate that is current in Australia today. If one wishes to quote me in inconsistent statements, one can quote me in inconsistent statements a dozen times. Let me say that I believed Sir Robert Menzies when I was a young man and I thought Australia had an interest in maintaining French rule in IndoChina. Let me say that I believed Sir Robert Menzies, when I was not so young a man, that the United States Fleet had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by the North Vietnamese.

The first attitude about the maintenance of French rule in Indo-China was a standard Australian attitude. The honourable gentleman from New England (Mr Sinclair), who has just spoken, has asked us to consider Australian interests. The people of this area have primarily the right to consider their own fife and not what successive Australian governments consider to be Australian interests. I am old enough in this Parliament to remember that everybody in IndoChina who opposed the continuance of French rule in Indo-China was classified as a ‘red’- and that included Diem, who was later for a time supported by the U.S. Government. I remember when the Australian Ambassador, Noel Deschamps, was the leading influence over Norodom Sihanouk. He was Norodom Sihanouk’s alter ego. Harold Holt went to IndoChina as the guest of Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia and spoke back here with the utmost warmth of the government of Sihanouk. I remember his successors as Prime Ministers and Ministers in this House, but in the same LiberalCountry Party coalition, supporting the overthrow of Norodom Sihanouk by Lon Nol. Norodom Sihanouk walked a tightrope which, I do not have the slightest doubt, was in the interests of the people of Cambodia, now called the Khmer Republic, to keep them out of involvement in war.

The honourable gentleman opposite has asked us to consider all of Indo-China. Well, the succession states of Indo-China consist of Laos, Cambodia or the Khmer Republic, and the 2 Vietnams. Laos has a coalition government with the communists, the Pathet Lao. In the Cabinet, in one portfolio the Minister is non-Pathet Lao and his assistant is Pathet Lao. In another portfolio, the Minister is Pathet Lao and his assistant is non-Pathet Lao. If such a compromise keeps them from killing one another and spares Laos the agony of civil war, long may the compromise continue. It is immaterial to me whether in the government sparing the country that agony there are communists.

I remember also the pamphlets distributed by Paul Hasluck. My house was then in his constituency; it has now been put back into my electorate. I received all of Paul Hasluck ‘s propaganda during election campaigns. When he was Minister for External Affairs, responsible for foreign policy, out came pamphlets showing the red arrows coming down from China. The assertion was that Chinese forces were involved in Vietnam. There came the day when I heard Harold Holt deny as he stood in this Parliament that there had ever been any Chinese troops in Vietnam. I heard in this House Diem commended as the saviour of South Vietnam, as well he may have been. He was then overthrown. Whatever one thinks of the government of Diem, one cannot have 2 opinions about the consequences. While Diem was president of South Vietnam, the United States of America needed 300 military advisers in South Vietnam. After his overthrow, the United States needed 600 000 troops in South Vietnam. The plain truth is that the United States opened Pandora’s box.

If it be true that somebody intends to kill a million people in South Vietnam, there is one way and one way only of stopping him. That is by massive military intervention. We have the extraordinary spectacle of the Deputy Leader of the Country Party, the honourable member for New England, asking the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) to get assurances from communist governments that nobody would be slaughtered and then saying: ‘You cannot believe communist governments anyway; look at the result of their agreements in Paris and elsewhere over the whole of Indo-China’. If it is useless to get assurances from communist governments, what are we talking about? The only way to stop a slaughter is by a massive military intervention in which honourable members opposite say we should not engage.

There is a thesis advanced all the time that if enough moral effort had been put in we could win. Field Marshal Montgomery, appearing on television, repeatedly said one thing. He said: ‘They made the second biggest strategic mistake in intervening in Vietnam. They made the second biggest military strategic mistake in intervening in South Vietnam’. Finally, the television interviewer asked the Field Marshal: ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, what is the biggest mistake?’ He said: ‘It is to invade Russia in winter’. If one likes, one can say that if Napoleon had only put in a bit more effort or if Hitler had only put in a bit more effort or if Winston Churchill, in the war of intervention against Russia in 1 9 1 9- 1 920, had put in a bit more effort, each would have won. But they were beaten by distances and temperatures of minus 60 degrees centigrade.

Both Sir Douglas Kendrew, a former Governor of Western Australia, who was the commander of the British Forces in Korea in the course of the Korean war, and Field Marshal Montgomery made the same point, that is, that if an outside nation wants to intervene successfully in Asia it must intervene on a peninsula. On a peninsula there is an end to your line, that is, the water on both sides. If you have naval supremacy, as the Western powers always have had, you can land diversionary forces behind your opponent’s lines and you cannot be outflanked because your line is finite. That is the story of Malaysia. There is an additional story in Malaysia, of course, and that is that the Malays never supported Chen Peng’s Chinese communists. But it is also the story of the ability to force a compromise in Korea; you are on a peninsula and there is a finite end to your line. When you go into the open country of Asia, especially in the jungles of Asia, you can always be outflanked. If there are European troops standing out like a sore thumb, they can always be identified as the enemy. But if you are in a divided nation, you cannot tell half the time who are your enemies or who are your friends.

France fought for 10 years. It lost 93,000 dead. It spent the equivalent of f Stg20,000m and after 10 years it withdrew. The United States of America fought for 7 years. It had more than 128,000 casualties. It spent heaven knows how much in treasure- apart from the greatest treasure of all, the blood- and in the end it withdrew. Are we to try to intervene again? The thesis behind intervention is that this is vital to the survival of Australia. If it really is vital to the survival of Australia, the form of conscription that we ought to have had would have been every man, not those whose birth date happened to be drawn from a barrel. Honourable members opposite cannot justify their scale of intervention on any contention that what was involved was the life or death of Australia.

As for the thesis of Chinese primary interest in this, China would be totally undisturbed if we sent one million men from Australia back into

Vietnam. It did not matter to China if the French fought for 10 years. It did not matter to China if the Americans fought for 7 years. The Chinese were totally undisturbed.

I have heard the Chinese diplomats at a number of conferences in Europe. They never once used the expression ‘Soviet Union’. They used the expression ‘that super power which seeks world hegemony, which, while mouthing the slogans of detente, engages in subversion, pressure and terrorism, which militarily occupies those unfortunate enough to be called its allies and which is trying to win the emerging world into its orbit’. If the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth) had given a description of Russia, he would almost have given it in identical terms to those used by the Chinese delegates. I saw them going around during the conferences, urging all Europe to be united or it would be taken over by Russia. It is perfectly clear what their major preoccupation is, and it is not Indo-China.

I asked one of my officers who had come back from Peking whether all those words were rodomontade or whether they were a genuine conviction. He said that when he was in Peking he was taken underground and saw what was virtually a duplicate city which had been built under Peking against the day when it thought it might be subject to aerial bombardment from the Soviet Union. I do not believe that people burrow or build like that to put up sham preoccupations. Far from being particularly preoccupied, they will support revolutionary parties everywhere. This is well known; there is no pretence against it- But the thesis that they are strategically preparing to use Vietnam to attack this country is, I suggest, a childish thesis. They have neither developed the military capacity for a navy to thrust south nor the sort of aerial forces to thrust south. Their preoccupation is with their borders with the Soviet Union. The first distinguished statesman to have the nous to see this, and to see the possibilities of the freedom of Europe in it, was Charles de Gaulle.

I remember believing Sir Robert Menzies when he leaned across the table and said: ‘Does the honourable member dare to suggest that if the United States fleet is attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, it should not defend itself?’ Let us look at the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. The American Senate Committee inquiring into it says that it never took place. It is inherently unlikely that in the wild night in which the American destroyers ‘C. Turner Joy’ and ‘Maddox’ were out in the Gulf of Tonkin in what was practically a typhoon any of the motor boats of

North Vietnam would have been involved. But as they were going through their manoeuvres, they had as their sonar operators greenhorn national servicemen- a thing which the British Navy would never have allowed to happen. Every time a destroyer turned its own rudder would go alongside its own propellers and a particular note was given, which they said were torpedoes coming at them. They radioed the Pentagon that they were being attacked. That was the first point. Secondly, in their actions they lost position; they lost one another in the wild night. Suddenly a ship appeared on the radar screen of one of the destroyers. All guns and rockets were trained and the order was given to fire. But the first officer had the right to press an inhibitor button and ensure that the guns and rockets did not go off while he checked. They illuminated the target with star shell and this revealed that the ship was their consort. That is what the Senate inquiry has established. I did not believe that the Australian Government was so totally misinformed. I am not saying that they were liars or hypocrites. This was the level of information which was coming to the then government from abroad- that American destroyers had been attacked. What was the retaliation? The retaliation for an attack which never took place was the most massive aerial bombardment in history which was started on North Vietnam.

I do not care whether a man is a communist or not, but if he is accused of having done something he has not done and then suffers a massive aerial bombardment as a result of it, what earthly thesis would he ever come to, except a thesis of imperialist aggression? That is the thesis which was adopted. One does not have to issue certificates of respectability to the Vietcong or certificates of respectibility to the southern authority to know that a civil war is bloody and vicious and that the way each side will treat one another is bloody and vicious. There were My Lais and atrocities against European prisoners, every horror that a civil war ever has. But when this is projected into a wider scale and alleged to be a basic and fundamental interest of Australia and that we should be involved, I do hot know in what respect we are to be involved; if it is by humanitarian action it is not clear to me what humanitarian action the Opposition is advocating; and if by military action, it is not clear to me what the Opposition is advocating; and if by representations to the communist governments, it is not clear to me why the Chinese Government would regard itself as particularly involved- it is an accusation in point of fact that the Chinese are ordering what is taking place in neighbouring countries.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Luchetti)Order! The Minister’s time has expired.

Mr KILLEN:
Moreton

-I move:

That the following words be added to the motion: ‘and calls upon the Government to provide more meaningful aid and assistance to refugees in the Khmer Republic and South Vietnam and at the same time calls upon the Australian Government to seek a cease fire in both the Khmer Republic and South Vietnam and urges that:

The Government approach North Vietnam to seek observance of the Paris Agreement and permit Red Cross, Red Crescent and United Nations inspection teams to be present in areas held by North Vietnam.

The Government approach the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China to seek observance of the Paris Agreement

The Government approach other countries to build pressure

to seek observance of the agreements and

to persuade other governments of the urgency of providing aid in Vietnam.

The Australian Government approach the United Nations

to get the United Nations’ agreement to achieve support for United Nations action in South Vietnam and

b ) to maximise support for refugees which involves the support of the United Nations High Commission for refugees.

The Government expand its own in-country support to South Vietnam in food, clothing, and medical supplies.

The Government plan to take into Australia some thousands of refugees, including orphans, if consultations with South Vietnam indicate that this is a desirable course.

The Government plan for continuing civil aid in South Vietnam even in areas overrun by the Northbut on condition that United Nations inspection teams, or appropriate voluntary agencies, supervise - the use of aid in support of refugees.

The Government provide additional support for voluntary agencies in their relief work’.

Like the Minister for Education (Mr Beazley), over the last 20 years I have listened to an infinite variety of speeches on this tragic matter, and like the honourable gentleman I speak as one whose mind from time to time has changed. But I think that the conspicuous feature about this debate today is that we cannot bring the past back. There is no more poignant word known to language than the word ‘if’. As my honourable friend observed, if Napoleon had committed a greater force at the proper time, then the whole course of European history may have changed. If a shot had not rung out at Sarajevo, World War I may not have broken out. If the world had taken notice of the warnings given concerning Adolf Hitler, World War II may not have broken out.

But there is nothing we can do about the past. I say to all of my honourable friends who sit on the Government benches: ‘Fling at us your taunts, present all the indictments against us you will; seek to justify in every imaginable fashion every charge you make against us’. There is nothing that any one of us here today can do about that. The fact is that there are those who seek today to justify, to vindicate, the ugliness of South-East Asia by asserting the errors of the past. For the purpose of meeting their convenience, let me concede that they are right. The fact remains that there is nothing- not the slightest thing- that any one person in this world today, more particularly in this Parliament, can do about the past.

I am not going to refer to the past other than to deal with one charge that was made today by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) when speaking about what happened when Australian troops were committed to Vietnam. He said- to use his felicitious language- of those who on that day sat on the Government benches that they laughed as they lied their way into the war. I want to say to the honourable gentleman that that was a most contemptible thing to say. Then he quoted Ozymandias to us. ‘My name is Ozymandias ‘. There the honourable gentleman stood before us this afternoon, king of kings, and spoke to us with wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command. We are inviting the Government he leads today not- to look back on the past, with all its errors- egregious, tragic, call them what you will. Not one of those killed can come back. The blood that has been spilt can never be put back into the veins. The dead that have gone to another world can never come back to this world and all of the tears, whether real or imaginary, can do nothing about it.

We are dealing today with one of the stark tragedies of the 20th century, and it has some tragedies to compete with in order to command that position. There are 2 issues that we of the Opposition wish to raise in this debate, which was initiated by the Prime Minister and responded to by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in a speech which, if I may say so, was a very fine speech indeed. The first issue we wish to raise with honourable gentlemen opposite is with respect to the Paris Agreements. When the Agreements of 1 973 were signed there was the hope and the expectation that the issue would be settled ultimately and, above all, in a peaceful fashion. That is why I want to ask honourable gentlemen opposite this afternoon whether, for example, they would agree that the sentiment expressed in the preamble to the Paris Agreements of 1973 has not been infringed in a most grievous fashion. Let me cite the language used. It reads:

The parties participating in the Pahs Conference on Vietnam, with a view to ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam on the basis of respect for the Vietnamese people’s fundamental national rights and the South Vietnamese people’s right to self determination, and to contributing to the consolidation of peace in Asia and the world . . .

Is there any honourable gentleman sitting opposite today who would seriously say that the people of South Vietnam are now asserting their right to determine their own future? Is that argument seriously advanced? Does my friend the Minister for Education, putting to one side the didactics of his speech this afternoon, seriously contend that the people of South Vietnam are, as at this day of grace, in a position in which they are determining for themselves what will be the fate of their country? I shall turn to one or two of the Articles in the Paris Agreement because I think that the country deserves to have at least some reflection upon them. I turn to Article 15. 1 do not apologise to the House for wearying it, if I am doing so, by citing these Articles as I think all of us need to be instructed on what the Paris Agreements were all about. Article 1 5 states:

The reunification of Vietnam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Vietnam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference.

Is there no coercion and no annexation in South Vietnam today? This is a world of reality, this is not a world of make believe. Here it is said that the reunification shall be carried out step by step. The Prime Minister today sought to persuade the Parliament and the country that that is being honoured. It is all very fine for the honourable gentleman to say that there have been breaches of the Paris Agreements. What we are asking this afternoon and what the Leader of the Opposition has asked is what action has the Government taken to seek to draw to the attention of the North Vietnamese Government that we take the view that there have been transgressions against the Paris Peace Accords of 1973. 1 should have thought that the remarkable, dove-like Minister who is the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns), with his powerful friends in Hanoi, which is the description he gave- ‘I am proud to call these people my friends’- and who takes the view that all virtue, compassion, understanding and love for peace is bound up in his one body and that other people have no understanding of those things, would have reached out and said to his friends in Hanoi: ‘In the name of humanity, stop this’. But no, the honourable gentleman came into this chamber this afternoon with taunts, insults and charges. In the most cringing of fashions he said: ‘You have not even bothered to read my 2 books’, as though he is the only author. What has the Government done and what will the Government do in response to the challenge made by the Leader of the Opposition to enable him to see what cables have gone to Hanoi? The Prime Minister knows perfectly well that any member of Parliament who has been a member of the Executive Council is bound to continue to respect the oath that he took as a member of the Executive Council. If those documents are shown to the Leader of the Opposition on the condition that he respects the oath that he took as an Executive Councillor, they will be inspected and the oath respected immaculately.

The second matter to which I wish to refer and to which my amendment refers is the subject of the future of” the refugees. Surely no person today with any sense of humanity and any sense of understanding has not been dreadfully moved by the plight of the people in these two sad and tragic countries. The account given by the honourable member for Kooyong (Mr Peacock) and the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party (Mr Sinclair) of what they saw surely would rouse us in the first instance to a sense of indignation and in the second instance to a sense of purpose, commitment and, above all, action. That is what we seek to do in the second part of our amendment. In the first part we call upon all those nations that have any friends at court, no matter whether the court may be the South or the North, to try to get the genuine forces of reconciliation unleashed before further tragedy is visited upon those people. The second thing that we seek to do is to rouse the conscience of the world- the language used by the Leader of the Opposition- to reach out with a hand of understanding and a hand of help to see what can be done to bring back to the minds and to the hearts of these people a belief that, in a world which is not, I trust, completely inured to cynicism but a world which has been terribly mutilated in the last generation, there is still in existence compassion and understanding. I hope that the Government will find it within its capacity and its sense of understanding to accept the amendment I have moved.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is the amendment seconded?

Mr CONNOLLY:
Bradfield

-Mr Speaker, in seconding the amendment moved by the honourable member for Moreton I wish the House and the people of Australia t to appreciate that the world, as well as the people of Australia has been in recent weeks the shocked observer of the tragedy, the final act, of the Vietnam war. We have seen an avalanche of human misery the likes of which man has not known since the worst days of Hitlerite excesses during the Second World War. We have seen a mighty army moving south from North Vietnam. For 3 weeks before the Thieu regime decided to withdraw its forces from the highlands, Highway 1 from the seventeenth parallel to Hanoi was filled bumper to bumper with military transport moving to the south. This was a direct and completely premeditated invasion of South Vietnam. This was not the first invasion of that hapless country but, regrettably, probably it will be the last.

For over 20 years we have lived with the crisis and the human catastrophe of Vietnam. Mistakes have been numerous; errors were made, by the Americans and their allies in particular, not because the objective was wrong but because we made the fundamental mistake of assuming that mere military might would be able to defeat what was essentially a guerrilla enemy and that mere military power would be able to defeat a very deeply committed Communist movement in Vietnam. Despite these failures in the method of fighting the war there is no reason to say that the reasons for fighting that war were wrong. Australia went into the Vietnam war, in support of the other allies of the South Vietnamese Government, because we believed that our involvement in Vietnam would enable a noncommunist South Vietnam to give its people the prospect of a better future than they would have under a form of government forced upon them by the dictatorship of the North.

We have been told today by many Government speakers how the North is merely trying to liberate the South and that after all what we are seeing is nothing more than a civil war. I have been to Vietnam. I have worked with the Vietnamese there. With sadness 1 say that I know that with the fall of Saigon many of the people I have known will have no future whatsoever and many of them will be shot. This Labor Government that stands before the world mouthing new standards of intellectual platitudes fails to appreciate the fact that when the Ho Chi Minn Government took over in North Vietnam, with the failure of the French and their withdrawal, over 1 million North Vietnamese were taken from their villages, hamlets and towns and most of them never returned because members of the Communist regime of the North appreciated the fundamental dictum that their power would remain only while they were able to crush, utterly expunge from their society any possibility whatsoever that there would still remain a flicker of freedom in the minds of men. They succeededextremely well. When some years after their takeover there was an uprising in the North, it was years before we found out about it because North Vietnam happens to be a closed society. As has been so well pointed out by the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen) and others, no journalists, except for those who are prepared to peddle the lies and the distortions of the North, are able to move freely in that part of Vietnam.

When I first went to Vietnam in 1962-1963 I went into the hamlets and saw what was happening to those ordinary simple Vietnamese peasants who defended themselves with wooden guns because they had nothing better and whose only means of communication was to bang 2 sticks against each other so that the fellow a bit further down the road could be warned in time to try to defend himself and his family against the incursions of the Vietcong who would come in the night murdering, looting, plundering and stealing. We are being asked to support that sort of activity.

The people of Australia have been fortunate enough to be born in a democracy. We have been fortunate enough to be able to stand in this Parliament and argue matters of state because this is a democracy. Yet, for some extraordinary reason one group in this community- the present Government; I refuse to associate it with the culture, character and conscience of the majority of the Australian people- seems to be prepared to take the view that what is to happen must be allowed to happen. The Government believes that it has to be able to get on well with the North Vietnamese Government, therefore let us cut our losses with the South- they are a lost cause- and when it is all over, when the blood is on the floor and someone must come and mop up, the people of Australia will be told in this Parliament in the next Budget debate what will be the Government’s budgetary intentions for aid for a united Vietnam. We will be told that we are going to help to rebuild that country. We will be told that the Australian people will have a real opportunity to make a finite contribution to the wellbeing of Vietnam.

After all these years, after all the pain and after all the blood of honest and honourable men and women who have done nothing wrong except to wish to live in the South and to be able to make decisions of their own free of the dictates of the communists who control the lives and hearts of all those who are unlucky enough to be under their control, what have we to give and what is our message of sympathy? I have heard nothing from the Government today that makes me want to be proud to be an Australian. Over 400 Australian men have died in Vietnam and many other Australian men and women to this day have the courage of their convictions to stay in Vietnam and to work for those poor people in that country who have lost everything but their desire for life and freedom. But today we have heard callousness, of which I am appalled and I hope that other Australians will join me in that sentiment.

We have been told, quite rightly, by members of the Opposition that the world today is not only complex but also is one in which we cannot regard the future and the past of our fellow human beings with complete equanimity. The future of Vietnam will affect Australia because whether we like it or not we are at the end of the Asian land mass. More important than that, the people who happen to form the community of the Asian nations have been consulted by Liberal governments in the past but more recently they have been told by our great Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), who travels the world to express his opinion, how everything must be seen in accordance with the dictates of his will and conscience. But those same people look to Australia and expect from this rich land not crumbs, not just empty words but a real contribution, especially at a time of such need. Last week I took it upon myself to monitor as closely as I could the almost total lack of activity in Australia of this so-called government of compassion. I want the people of this land and this Parliament to know that it was not until the afternoon of last Friday that a submission went to the Government recommending what criteria should be considered for Vietnamese refugees wishing to come to Australia. At the eleventh hour we are finally considering to whom of these hapless people should be offered a second chance.

I remind this House that November 1973 was the month in which the Paris Accords, of which we have heard so much today, were signed. On that occasion the Prime Minister was prepared to make the point that the conclusion of the cease-fire agreement was a hopeful first step towards a goal of eventual reconciliation of the contending forces in Vietnam. Those lovely mellow tones! But they hide the facts of life. They hide the facts that open, naked aggression was perpetrated in South Vietnam. I am not concerned about the niceties of who the Deputy Prime Minister knows in Hanoi. What I am concerned about is this: If Australian taxpayers are expected to pay millions of dollars a year in foreign aid and to run embassies in Hanoi, Peking, Saigon and Moscow, where is the strong diplomatic right arm which our Prime Minister in his world travels would have other nations believe we possess? Not only do we ride upon the turbulent sea of the future of our nation more or less defenceless, but when it comes to a question of moral virtues and moral standards and the qualities which make every man- whether he be Asian, African, Latin or American- know what is right from wrong, and when those qualities are being examined, where is Australia?

We fought the First World War essentially over a piece of paper because one small nation was invaded by another great power. We went into the Second World War to remove from Europe and from the world the naked oppression of the Nazi tyranny. We fought the Japanese because they were invading other people’s countries. When we fought in Vietnam for what I fundamentally believe to this day was a just cause we found in our midst people who would question the very premise upon which any government of responsibility will found its actions. The sad fact I put to honourable members today is this: The world of simplistic issues is over. The difficulties we will be facing in the remainder of the twentieth century will all be in subjective terms various shades of grey. Not all men will agree on the decisions taken by any government. But if life is sacred, and I believe it is, I believe that the peasant in Vietnam or Cambodia, his child and his refugee wife have got as much right to live in peace and freedom as has any Australian.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
Special Minister of State · KingsfordSmithSpecial Minister of State · ALP

– Listening to the whole of this afternoon’s debate, one would think that the Australian Government has made no effort at all to assist the people in Vietnam. Let us put the record straight. Let us make the position clear. We have just heard from the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly), who was an employee of the Australian Government in the years when perhaps he could have made a more forthright contribution than he made today. If it was so important to get into the struggle, believing that it could be won with guns and bullets, surely that would have been his role then. But is it not a tragedy that in Vietnam we lost 400 Australians, many of whom were conscripted and did not want to go there anyway? What was the issue they were fighting for, if we look at it now? We are talking about a system of government, whether it be in the north or the south of Vietnam, which we do not have in Australia. Why is it that honourable members opposite think they can interfere in the internal activities of people and then say they are supporting the cause of peace?

The real tragedy of Vietnam is this: The Vietnamese people have been looking for a national unity for years. They could not get it under the French control so they had to fight against the French. Following the signing of the Geneva Accords in 1 954, there was a chance for elections in North Vietnam and South Vietnam, but those elections were never held. According to some people in the world, it was important that the power struggle be brought into play, that the Foster Dulles concept of China being contained be immediately implemented in Vietnam. So a President was put into Vietnam. He was not elected. Subsequently he was assassinated. The present President, who played a keen role in getting to that position, has not really been the subject of a contested election. He was elected unopposed. We now read that all political parties in South Vietnam are banned. There is no oppotunity to have a political party in South Vietnam.

Mr Calder:

– What sort of political parties are there in North Vietnam?

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-Most of the Press has been banned. As Australians, what are we talking about? The honourable member for the Northern Territory talks about North Vietnam. What about the bombing of Hanoi? What about the thousands who were killed there in December 1972? People talk about death and destruction in South Vietnam. It is certainly a disgrace, but there was death and destruction in Hanoi.

Mr Sinclair:

– Are you condoning it today?

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-Nobody condones it, but you were actively involved in it. The previous government was a government that participated. People in Hanoi will show you the Australian guns that they say killed their people. They will show you the American B52s that killed thenpeople. As Australians we have to query what we were doing in Vietnam. What is it that the American people had to say? They said: ‘We have lost 60 000 dead in a war that was not even a declared war’. Why is it that the other big nations of the world were not militarily involved on that same piece of land? How is it that only the United States, Australia and one or two others were involved? Why is it that we all had to get out of Vietnam?

It was very important that Kissinger’s principles of 1973 be implemented. Why were they not implemented? Was not there going to be a national council of reconciliation and concord? Why was it not set up? The simple reason is that there is a strong suggestion that the President of the South would never agree to it because it made no provision for a president. Those people who were invited to take part in the Paris discussions, namely the Provisional Revolutionary Government, submitted that there should be 36 representatives on that national council- 12 from the Provisional Revolutionary Government, 12 from the South and 12 from what was known as the third force. There was no provision for a president. That is the basis on which an arrangement was being sought in 1973. The President never agreed then and has never agreed since. As I said before, it is obvious that this arrangement which was spelt out in detail on the basis that there be free and democratic elections in Vietnam meant nothing unless the type of elections to be held was spelt out. Who was to spell out what type of elections were to be held other than the national council which was to be created under the articles of the cease-fire agreement. Why was the council not created?

That is the position honourable members opposite have to face up to. Is it any wonder that we have the tragedy of Vietnam when one side is urging that a national council be set up and when the President, never under challenge, is able completely to dominate the whole South, saying that he will not agree to that? Because of that situation that council was never created. Have members of the Opposition ever discussed this matter with the Canadians who were there in 1 973? Did not the Canadians tell the honourable members the hopeless situation they were in when trying to hold the peace line? They said it was impossible. Within a matter of months of that cease fire agreement the number of infringements was as many as 30 a day on both sides. The Canadian general said that this was an impossible situation. It is hopeless for anybody to come in an say that we can maintain law and order on the basis of a cease fire agreement unless we can establish some supervisory body which had to be the national council. That is the fundamental weakness of Vietnam today.

The very essence, the sheer kernel, the whole idea of the cease fire agreement was to create that council. It was never created. How in the name of fortune can honourable members opposite say that we will get peace by bullets or by bombs? We will not. What is the situation in the south at the moment? There is more consternation, worry and tragedy because of the mass evacuation of refugees. But it happened unexpectedly. There is a great argument as to whether this was due to military aggression or military evacuation. According to reports in the Foreign Office one of the fiercest battles has been fought in a small area called Ban Le Thuot. It was fought by the Montagnards, the hill tribesmen, and they took that town.- That is where the most savage fighting has taken place.

What they are saying in South Vietnam- it has been incomprehensible to anybody outside- is: Why was the evacuation so sudden, so unknown, so mystifying and so tragic? It was because all the troops have lost their morale and their positions. There are millions of refugees. All these people have been uprooted because of something they cannot understand. No warning was given. But we come back to this situation: Why is it that we should now expect to solve that problem all of a sudden? Australia has given aid both to the South and to the North. It has been aid of a proper nature. In Vietnam itself military hospitals and orphanages have been established. The aid to the North has meant shelter. It has meant galvanised iron and food for those people. We have embassies both in the North and in the South which is something honourable members opposite could never do and would not want to do.

It is fatal to think that we can ever solve Vietnam ‘s problems by war. The one hope for that country was set out in a recent statement which was made in Algiers last week by the appropriate representative for the Revolutionary Government. She said that they still favour the establishment of the National Council for Reconciliation and Concord. If that is the position and if the Australian Government can work towards that solution there is hope for Vietnam. Under that national council elections can be held. They want elections for a national assembly, not for President. They want proportional representation and they want it on the basis of the populations of the provinces. We would then get a national assembly which, on behalf of the South Vietnamese people, could establish their constitution. That is what the ceasefire agreement intended. They are the specifics of the submissions made by the Revolutionary Government to the Paris peace parties. That is what it favours. Why is it that the South did not agree to that proposition? It was because the President would never agree and would never vacate. It is a waste of time to talk democracy when the people have never heard of it or, at least, they have never had a chance to practise it.

I say to honourable members opposite: Think of the tragedy you have caused to the Australian people. Think of the 400 boys who were killed and of the thousands who were wounded. Why is it that we were one of the few countries involved? What happened to France, Germany, Great Britain and all those countries? Why is it that they were not involved if the war had become the issue honourable members opposite tried to make out it was? The fundamental facts are that a peasant-like people have been deprived of land. They have been under autocratic rulers for centuries and, in the main, occupied by foreigners. Is it any wonder they are seeking a national identity? Of course there are communists. Of course we have to try to oppose them. But we will not beat them with guns and bullets. That has been tried and it has failed. The peasant sees very little difference between a capitalist and a communist when he is getting nothing from either of them.

The big issue we have to look at is the dictatorship which has taken place in this area. Perhaps this is so of the North and of the South at the same time. But nevertheless it is there. Here was a chance for the people at least to vote on their own behalf in their provinces for a national parliament, to set up a constitution. That choice was denied them.

Sitting suspended from 6 to 8 p.m.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner I was making the point that the real tragedy of Vietnam was due to the fact that Articles 1 1 and 12 of the ceasefire agreement were never really implemented. They provided the whole crux of the solution to the problem of Vietnam. They meant that the parties themselves could meet together. Three parties were envisaged- the revolutionary government, the Government of South Vietnam and what was called the third force. The point I want to emphasise is that specific proposals were put forward as to how the council should operate. Those proposals were put forward by the warring groups and it was necessary only for the President of South Vietnam to agree that this should be the way it functioned.

The solution provided for a council of 36 people- twelve from the revolutionary government, twelve from the Saigon government and twelve from what is known as the third force which would have been selected by both of them. A presidium was provided for. Again there would have been 6 people able to control that council. The whole idea was to organise free and democratic elections for the whole of South Vietnam. It could have worked. If one looks at who were the parties to those ceasefire agreements one sees that they were the most involved and the most responsible people on both sides. The Government of Canada was one of those that executed that particular agreement. As the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen) said, it is no good worrying about the faults of the past. If one looks at the tragedy of the past one realises that the problem cannot be solved by sheer military hardware. It is a battle for people’s minds. There was a chance to solve the problem, agreed to by all sides, and that council only had to be established. It cannot be denied that it has never been established because of the attitude of the President of South Vietnam. That was one chance to find the solution.

The question of aid was mentioned belatedly in the course of the debate by the honourable member for Moreton who moved an amendment. This Government has given aid both to the north and to the south. It has recognised both the north and the south. In fact it has an opportunity to talk to both sides. Honourable members opposite never had that opportunity or the will to do so. The Government has given substantial amounts of money in aid. I have been given some figures which indicate clearly that the amount given so far this financial year is $2.4m. It has been aid that nobody would deny. Last November the United Nations Children’s Fund received some $550,000, Red Cross received $100,000 and the refugees received another $500,000. In March the Red Cross received a further amount of $200,000 and in April, the refugees received a further $lm. I am now advised by my colleague the Minister for Science (Mr Morrison) that a further $lm has been provided as recently as yesterday. The Australian Government is actively involved in all matters that really count- that is, the solution of the problems of Vietnam.

The attitude of the former Government was to bludgeon a solution by military force. It did not work. It could never work. It cost countless lives. Both the American and the Australian people now recognise that. I suspect that they recognised it all the time. The great tragedy for democracy is that often governments act contrary to the opinion of the people they represent. The Australian public opinion about involvement in Vietnam was never tested by referendum. It is too late now for the Opposition to say that it could have saved the day. The previous Government caused most of the tragedy by its involvement. The issue now is whether we can work towards a solution. I think we can.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister’s time has expired.

Mr HOWARD:
Bennelong

-Mr Speaker, this debate has been remarkable -

Motion (by Mr Nicholls) proposed:

That the question be now put

Mr SPEAKER:

-The question is: That the question be now put. Those of that opinion say ‘aye’, to the contrary ‘no’. I think the ayes have it. The House will divide. Ring the bells.

Mr Garland:

– No division.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be added (Mr Killen’s amendment) be so added.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Hon. G. G. D. Scholes)

AYES: 58

NOES: 62

Majority……. 4

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar

-Mr Speaker, this is one of the most important motions-

Motion ( by Mr Daly) proposed:

That the question be now put.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Hon. G. G. D. Scholes)

AYES: 62

NOES: 58

Majority……. 4

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1285

ASSENT TO BILLS

Assent to the following Bills reported:

Australian Industry Development Corporation Bill 1 974.

Book Bounty Bill 1974.

Australian Film Commission Bill 1 975.

Appropriation (Development Bank) Bill 1975.

Remuneration and Allowances Bill 1975.

Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1974-75.

Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1974-75.

Australia Council Bill 1974.

National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill 1974.

page 1285

PRIVY COUNCIL (APPEALS FROM THE HIGH COURT) BILL 1975

Mr SPEAKER:

– I have received a message from His Excellency the Administrator informing the House that His Excellency has, under section 74 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, reserved the Privy Council (Appeals from the High Court) Bill 1 975 for Her Majesty’s pleasure.

page 1285

COMMITTEES

Motions (by Mr Daly)- byleave- agreed to:

That Mr Berinson be discharged from attendance on the House Committee and that in his place Mr Keogh be appointed as a member of the Committee.

That Mr Speaker be discharged from attendance on the Committee of Privileges and that in his place Mr Luchetti be appointed a member of the Committee.

That Mr Hurford be appointed a member of the Standing Orders Committee to fill the vacancy now existing on the Committee.

page 1286

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 5) 1974-75

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced.

Bill presented by Dr J. F. Cairns, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr J F Cairns:
Treasurer · LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

That the Bill be now read a second time.

This Bill, and the accompanying Appropriation Bill (No. 6), which I shall introduce shortly, seek appropriations of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the services specified in the schedule to each Bill. The 2 Bills constitute the normal additional Estimates for the year ended 30 June 1975 and will provide additional funds required to meet necessary expenditures up to that date. They follow 2 earlier Bills which sought additional appropriations required, particularly as a result of the Darwin cyclone and to provide additional assistance to the States, and which were enacted on 6 March.

Appropriation Bill (No. 5) seeks appropriations for salaries and pay amounting in all to $ 175.4m. Of this, $ 138.3m is required to meet increases in rates of salary and wages that have become effective since the Budget, as a result of the operation of upwards of 460 awards and determinations. Payment of the $ 138.3m for increased rates has already been authorised under section 5 of the Appropriation Act (No. 1 ) 1974-75.

The elements of this amount now sought under various departmental items are submitted for formal appropriation action and to clear the charges temporarily made to the special appropriation. The remaining $37. lm sought for salaries and pay also under the relevant departmental items is required to meet the cost of overtime, furlough, reclassifications, allowances and increases in staff numbers. In the latter category are 1041 staff for the Department of Social Security- 913 for processing unemployment benefits and other social welfare payments and 128 for Darwin re-settlement activities.

Defence $152.8m is sought for the Department of Defence. Of this, $70m is for payment to Papua New Guinea to facilitate the purchase from Australia of defence assets associated with the transfer of the responsibility for the defence function to that Government. A corresponding credit will be paid to revenue in this financial year. Of the balance of $82.8m, $71m is for salaries and pay and $ 11.8m is attributable to general price increases. A further amount of $12.9m is included under the Department of Manufacturing Industry for expenditure related to defence, again mainly due to general price rises.

Aboriginal Advancement Trust Account

An amount of $3.5m is required for payment to the Aboriginal Advancement Trust Account to cover, among other things, an allocation of $2m from the Trust Account to the recently established Aboriginal Housing and Personal Loans Fund. This Fund will be administered by the Aboriginal Loans Commission and will provide loans to Aboriginals to enable them to acquire homes and to meet other personal needs. The balance of the additional provision is mainly for allocation to Aboriginal housing and building societies in Queensland.

Independent Schools in the Territories

Under the capital aid scheme in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory the Australian Government has been reimbursing independent school authorities each year, over a period of 20 years, one-twentieth of the principal sum borrowed for approved school projects. It has now been decided that, as a measure of assistance to these schools, the reimbursement period should be halved- from 20 to 10 yearsthereby doubling the annual rate of capital reimbursement. The total reimbursement, of course, remains the same. The estimated additional cost in 1974-75 is $3.2m.

Adult Secondary Education Assistance

The Government has decided to introduce a new measure of assistance affecting adult students undertaking the final year of full-time matriculation studies at secondary schools and other approved institutions. The new scheme, operative from the beginning of 1975, provides means-tested living allowances and other benefits similar to those available under the tertiary education assistance scheme. The additional cash requirement in 1974-75 is $638,000.

Foreign Affairs and Overseas Aid

A further $4.6m is sought for expenditure on Colombo Plan aid projects because of a greater availability of equipment and other supplies in Australia which has enabled purchases for various aid projects to proceed faster than was envisaged.

Assisted Migration Program

To provide for increased air and sea fares, an amount of $966,000 has been included for the assisted migration program. A further $109,000 is required for payment to the Intergovernmental Commission for European Migration.

Child Migration Education Program

A further $1.4m is required to meet increased teaching costs in schools.

Health Insurance Commission $3.5m is sought for the running expenses of the Commission. This includes the cost of 1,700 new staff for 70 cash payment centres which have had to be opened following the refusal of most private medical and hospital benefit funds to act as agents of the Commission.

Compensation for loss of or damage to Property -Victims of Cyclone Tracy

An amount of $25m has been included in the Appropriation Bill (No. 5) to enable payment of compensation in respect of property damage resulting from Cyclone Tracy. Payments from this proposed appropriation will be conditional on the passage of separate legislation dealing with the compensation arrangements which the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation will introduce shortly. A further appropriation of $33m will be sought for this purpose in Supply Bill (No. 1) 1975-76 in order to meet payments in the new financial year.

Handicapped Children Assistance

An additional $3m is provided for assistance to handicapped children reflecting an increase in the number of eligible organisations seeking grants under the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act.

Australian Government Taxation Office- Sydney

In accordance with the Government’s policy to increase the proportion of its office space requirements that is Government-owned, an amount of $7.4m is being provided for the acquisition of a site in Sydney on which to erect a large office block to consolidate the various elements of the Taxation Office in Sydney which are now widely dispersed over leased accomodation.

NCDC Construction Program

A further $ 13m is sought to meet rise and fall payments to contractors, higher consultants’ fees and larger contract payments than expected on the Commission’s 1974-75 construction program.

Civil Works Program

An additional $8. 8m is sought because of improved progress on many projects together with increases in building and construction costs.

Post Office

Appropriation Bill (No. 6) seeks a further $ 127m for the Post Office to meet unavoidable increases in costs which have arisen since the Budget was framed. This will maintain the Post Office program at the level then envisaged.

Defence Service Homes

A further $ 15m is sought to meet increased requirements for advances under the defence service homes scheme, following the decision to increase the maximum loan to $15,000 and the liberalisation of eligibility conditions.

Commonwealth-State Law Courts- Sydney

Faster progress than anticipated together with rising costs has meant that a further $720,900 is required to meet the Australian Government’s share of construction costs in 1 974-75.

Acquisition of Part of South Australian Railways

An amount of $26.434m is included for payment to South Australia in the current financial year by way of a financial adjustment in respect of the proposed acquisition by the Australian Government of part of the South Australian Railways. Details of the arrangement will be available when the formal agreement between the Australian and South Australian governments is brought before the Parliament shortly. Payment of this financial adjustment to South Australia, of course, will be subject to ratification of the agreement by the Australian and South Australian Parliaments.

In all, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) seeks appropriations totalling $399,649,000. This includes the $138.3m already authorised under section 5 of Appropriation Act (No. I) 1974-75 for increased rates of salaries to which I referred earlier. Appropriation Bill (No. 6) seeks appropriations totalling $240,313,000. Savings are expected to occur in some appropriations already made for 1974-75. While the figures cannot be precise because of possible changes in the circumstances affecting them between now and 30 June, departments have estimated that, for various reasons, unspent appropriations will amount to $ 136.8m. As honourable members will be aware, all annual appropriations lapse at 30 June of the year in respect of which they were made.

Nor can these savings be used to offset the additional appropriations now sought in these Bills. An information statement detailing the estimated savings has been distributed to members.

I commend the Bill to honourable members.

Debate (on motion by Mr Ellicott) adjourned.

page 1288

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 6) 1974-75

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced.

Bill presented by Dr J. F. Cairns, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr J F Cairns:
Treasurer · LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

That the Bill be now read a second time.

This Bill seeks appropriations of the Consolidated Revenue Fund totalling $240,313,000 for the services outlined in my second reading speech on the introduction of Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 1974-75. 1 commend the Bill to honourable members.

Debate (on motion by Mr Ellicott) adjourned.

page 1288

SUPPLY BILL (No. 1) 1975-76

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced.

Bill presented by Dr J. F. Cairns, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr J F Cairns:
Treasurer · LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I move:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

This Bill seeks interim appropriations totalling $2,691,760,000 for the ordinary annual services of the Government and is to meet expenditures which will fall due for payment in the period 1 July to 30 November 1975. Supply Bill (No. 2) 1975-76, which I will introduce shortly, seeks interim appropriations totalling $1,081,981,000 for capital works and services and payments to or for the States to enable payments to be made in respect of those services for the period 1 July to 30 November 1975. 1 now mention some provisions of particular significance for the information of honourable members.

Food Aid

An amount of $22.9m is sought under the Department of Foreign Affairs for expenditure on food aid. Of this, $9m is for emergency relief, to be provided to most needy countries in accordance with Australia’s food aid commitment announced at the World Food Conference in November 1974. Provision has also been made for expected large shipments, in the early part of the financial year, of wheat provided by Australia under the International Wheat Agreement in order to assist in meeting an expected food scarcity in India, Bangladesh, Khmer . Republic, Laos and certain African countries.

Compensation for loss of or damage to Property- Victims of Cyclone Tracy $33m is included under the Department of Repatriation and Compensation for payments, which connot be made prior to 30 June 1975, of compensation in respect of loss of or damage to property of victims of Cyclone Tracy in pursuance of legislation to be introduced by the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation.

Aboriginal Loans Commission

Provision is made for payments from the Aboriginal Advancement Trust Account to the Aboriginal Enterprises Fund- $0.5m- and to the Aboriginal Housing and Personal Loans Fund$5m to permit the continuation of the financial support provided to individual Aborigines, and Aboriginal groups and enterprises, which commenced in 1974-75.

Health Insurance Commission

The Medibank Scheme, authorised by the Health Insurance Act 1973, will come into operation on 1 July 1975 and an appropriation of $335m is sought for payment into the Health Insurance Fund. The Health Insurance Commission will draw on the Fund to make payments to eligible persons and organisations and to State Governments participating in the cost-sharing arrangements. These payments will be in the form of medical benefits to individuals in all States and of payments to State governments and hospitals in particpating States. The hospital payments will represent subsidies to participating States to the extent of 50 per cent of the net costs of operating their public hospital systems. In addition, approved private hospitals in participating States will receive payments of $16 a day for each patient.

Australian Shipping Commission $43m is required for the Australian Shipping Commission to allow the Australian National

Line to meet commitments entered into under the program of expansion commenced following the 1974 Budget.

Darwin Reconstruction Commission

The $30m provision in Supply Bill No. 2 for the Darwin Reconstruction Commission’s works program includes $27m for expenditure on works in progress at 1 July 1975 and $3m for proposed new works next year. Most of the proposed expenditure will be incurred on the construction of 2,700 houses having a total estimated cost of $94.5m and for which contracts are shortly being let.

Payments to or for the States -Treasury

An appropriation of $ 10m is sought under the Department of the Treasury for natural disaster relief and for payments to Tasmania in respect of the Tasman Bridge disaster. I commend the Bill to honourable members.

Debate (on motion by Mr Ellicott) adjourned.

page 1289

SUPPLY BILL (No. 2) 1975-76

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for proposed expenditure announced.

Bill presented by Dr J. F. Cairns, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr J F Cairns:
Treasurer · LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

That the Bill be now read a second time.

This Bill seeks interim appropriations of the Consolidated Revenue Fund totalling $1,081,981,000 for capital works and services and payments to or for the States. Particular items of significance included in this Bill were referred to in my second reading speech on the introduction of Supply Bill (No. 1) 1975-76. I commend the Bill to honourable members.

Debate (on motion by Mr Ellicott) adjourned.

page 1289

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION BILL 1975

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 6 March on motion by Mr Enderby:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Upon which Mr Killen had moved by way of amendment:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “ while the House supports the Bill ‘s condemnation of acts of racial discrimination it is of the opinion that the Bill should be substantially amended because it-

denies the operation of the rule of law by the conferring of ‘star chamber’ functions and powers upon administrative officials;

contains objectionable intrusions upon individual rights and privacy, and (hi) fails to provide adequate rights of appeal, legal aid and representation”.

Mr CLAYTON:
Isaacs

-When the debate on this Bill was adjourned on 6 March 1975 I was commenting on remarks passed by the honourable member for Boothby (Mr McLeay). When I began to address the House the honourable member was heard to comment, in reference to me, ‘A bloody Pommy bastard’. Mr Speaker, I would not lower myself to ask for an apology from a person who would make such a despicable remark. I do not consider that I am any better or worse than anyone else simply because of my English background. The honourable member is becoming infamous for his bigoted racist comments. The honourable member is the same Mr McLeay who, in 1970, appeared on television in Zimbabwe singing the praises of the illegal Smith regime and praising that traitor Smith at the same time. He is not alone. Many members and former members on the other side of the House hold basically racist attitudes. For 13 years the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) contributed to publications of one Mr Eric Butler, a raving antiSemitic megalomaniac and author of the publication ‘International Jew’. Even when challenged in the House about his associations with Mr Butler’s League of Rights the honourable member avoided dissociating himself from the League of Rights.

In 1972 we had the spectacle of the then member for Evans, Dr Mackay, and the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth) addressing meetings during Captive Nations Week, a week of political activism backed by that gloriously radical organisation, the National Socialist Party.

Mr Bennett:

– Did he have his whip with him?

Mr CLAYTON:

– I was not . told that. This organisation in 1971 aroused the spontaneous indignation and ire of the people of Melbourne to the extent that the Nazis needed police protection in the journey back to their headquarters. Their peaceful nature came bounding forth when they returned; they fired shots at people walking past on the footpaths.

Before I spoke about the remarks from the honourable member for Boothby I referred to and quoted from F. S. Stevens’ introduction to ‘Racism-The Australian Experience’. Many people think that there is no racial discrimination in this country. On the contrary, racial discrimination is found at the highest levels. We have the recent example in Western Australia of the Premier, Sir Charles Court, resisting the Australian Government’s Royal Commission into allegations of police brutality when dealing with Aborigines. Further to our north, Queensland Premier Bjelke-Petersen has resisted Australian Government initiative to give land rights to Aborigines. If Aborigines were given land where they could lead their own lives in peace, the source of cheap labour would soon dry up. Queensland is only one State where Aboriginal people are classed as inferior citizens.

Discrimination exists everywhere. Many examples might be thought to be un-Australian, but they happen. A Citizens Advice Bureau reports that a client answered an advertisement for a flat. He was told that because he was a migrant he must get from his employer a guarantee for rent payment. When a Bureau staff member contacted the estate agent, she was told: ‘These people cannot be trusted and experience has shown that we must demand a guarantee’. A principal of a local school stated recently: “The South American children at this school are causing a lot of problems’. People who are not citizens cannot join the Public Service or the armed Services. People appearing in court cases very often must provide their own interpreters. Interpreters are very expensive and, on many occasions, people appear without interpreters because they cannot afford the expense involved.

The first people to become unemployed are unskilled, non-English-speaking migrants. Some employers now state clearly that only Englishspeaking workers need apply for positions. A local government authority submitted to the Grants Commission recently among other proposals in support of its need for extra funds the proposition that one of its housing estates contained mainly English and Irish migrants who were bad debtors with respect to council rates as 20 per cent of that authority’s non-payers came from the estate in question. These 6 examples are only the tip of the iceberg. The Racial Discrimination Bill is long overdue.

With such bigoted persons as those to whom I referred adorning the Opposition benches, is there any wonder that when they were in government they never introduced a Bill to ratify the International Convention on Racial Discrimination? But the Labor Government has taken advantage of the delay to observe the operation of similar legislation in other countries. The Race

Relations Board in Britain, which carries out similar functions to those to be performed by our proposed Commissioner for Community Relations, has recommended amendments to its legislation in the light of its experience. These recommendations include giving the Board power not to act if the complaint is trivial or the complainant no longer wishes to continue with it, making it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of nationality, and recognising that the complainant should have the right to go direct to court if he or she so desires. These and many other improvements have been incorporated in the Bill before the House. I do not pretend that the legislation will alter the real life situation overnight. But it will enable positive action to be taken against such discriminatory activities and it will help mould community attitudes, not only because of the existence of the legislation but also because the Commissioner will have the power to promote education and research. I commend the Bill to the House.

Mr MacKELLAR:
Warringah

– It was a great pity that the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Clayton) chose to resume his speech tonight with some personal attacks on members of the Opposition and also on individuals outside this chamber. I do not think such action helps the cause to the conclusion which I believe we are all seeking to see achieved, that is, a diminution in any discrimination or racial prejudice which obtains in Australia. I wonder whether the honourable member in fact warned those honourable members whom he mentioned in his speech that he was going to draw attention to them in this way. If he did not do so, I hope that next time he proposes to indulge in this type of activity he will take the usual action of warning those people whom he is going to mention in this way of his intention.

Let us deal with the Bill itself. The Government has introduced the Racial Discrimination Bill into this House after 3 Bills on the same subject had been introduced previously in the Senate. In the words of the Attorney-General (Mr Enderby) ‘The purpose of the Bill is to make racial discrimination unlawful in Australia and to provide an effective means of combatting racial prejudice in our country’. I notice that the Attorney-General is not in the chamber. That is a pity. I thought the second reading speech by the Attorney-General was totally inadequate and revealed not only an insensitiveness to the feelings which I believe could be easily aroused in the community as a whole by this Bill but also treated members of the Parliament on this side and on his own side with thinly veiled contempt.

His speech almost totally lacked any detail of the intended structure and workings of the Act which will result.

To substantiate this criticism, I believe one needs only to look at the second reading speech of the then Secretary of State for the Home Department in the House of Commons when that gentleman introduced the British Race Relations Bill in 1968. Mr Callighan spoke for 41 minutes, having reduced the length of his speech at the request of the Speaker. He went through the Bill in some detail and explained to all members the manner in which he saw the individual clauses of the Bill being interpreted. It would be a great advance if the Attorney-General and other Ministers would be more forthcoming and provide more information and fewer platitudes in their second reading speeches when introducing legislation. Debate in this chamber would be assisted and the role and function of Parliament would be enhanced.

Before I look at the Bill in any detail I think some general statements are in order. We are dealing tonight with discrimination- not only racial discrimination but discrimination against people of different nationalities as well as of different races. It should be said at the outset that discrimination does exist in Australia just as it exists in every country in the world. I believe that we can legitimately divide discrimination into 2 broad categories. These are discriminatio by intent and discrimination by inadvertence. This distinction should be made. Whilst the effect on the victim is manifestly the same, that discrimination which comes about by inadvertence implies no underlying hostility on the part of the discriminator. This is important because if discrimination comes about through inadvertence there are no underlying community attitudes which have to be changed. We find that once this kind of action is publicly identified, public opinion will tend to support the development of public awareness against such discriminatory attitudes.

I do not have any research figures to back up my assumption, but I believe that the great bulk of discrimination within Australia comes about not deliberately but by inadvertence. Obviously if this Bill does increase racial tensions, its operation will be counter-productive and the individuals it seeks to assist will be far worse off. It is therefore of not small importance to clearly establish that in broad terms the Bill is designed to protect individuals from situations of prejudice and disadvantage due to race rather than to suggest that confrontation should be encouraged or that solutions to problems should be sought through rigid legal process rather than by conciliation and compromise. Keeping that statement in mind, perhaps even greater stress should be placed on the educative provisions which are laid down in clause 20 of the Bill.

It is in this regard that I feel some concern for the clauses of the Bill relating to civil proceedings. In my view, greater stress should be placed on the need to try all avenues of negotiation under the guidance of the commissioner or his agent before resorting to the courts of law. Apart from being a desired aim that understanding rather than mere solution be reached, such recourse to the courts, while the Bill fails to include provision for legal aid services, would be both expensive and a basic deterrent to many genuine plaintiffs.

A further matter that should be investigated at the Committee stage is that the Bill carries with it an underlying presumption that all racial discrimination is deliberate, which I dispute. The Bill must clearly establish that it is not attempting to encroach upon an individual’s rights or privilege to be, if we care to use the expression, ‘frivolous’. I believe it is true that many cases of alleged discrimination are unintentional, careless and when they are pointed out, mostly regretted. In this case, the provision of clause 21 should be strengthened to ensure that misunderstandings do not arise. This is not a claim that there are not thousands of cases in Australia where individuals have been deliberately prejudiced or discriminated against due to race. I am merely pointing out that there are many situations where unintentional discrimination and racial intolerance do take place. These offenders should not be penalised to the same extent as wilful offenders and, furthermore, should not feel that a restraint on their liberty, as crass as it may be, is being applied. To this end I would encourage the House to develop further the educational provisions of the Bill.

The objective we all desire- that of overcoming the radical prejudices and discriminations that characterise an uncultured society- must be sought as strenuously through the avenues of education and understanding on a broad general level as it is sought in post-event cases where discrimination has actually taken place and the courts have become involved. Ideally, of course, pre-emptive educational process would eventually be developed to the point where punitive measures were no longer required. Again, in relation to unintentional discrimination, it could well be that this style of discrimination is brought about by little more than a lack of understanding and awareness. A thorough educational program of pointing out our racial problems and difficulties in society would for the most part overcome those situations based on ignorance rather than malicious intent. On this base the educational punitive balance must be carefully observed and protected. It would be a great shame for the worthy ideals of this Bill if it were to be seen as yet another opportunity for the rather scaly finger of the law to further extend its ambit over individuals. Where deliberate and obvious breaches of Part II of the Bill are established there should certainly be adequate measures available to the courts, but not to the extent that the people are fearful of exercising their normal whims or desires.

The Bill, in its philosophy, should be concerned with protecting individuals who are in some way in an oppressed or prejudiced minority; not with creating conflicts between cultural or ethnic societies or urging ideological or social confrontation, but with affording those individuals in the community who have for so long been denied any sort of recourse the opportunity to preserve the idea of equality of opportunity that has for so long been lauded but only sometimes practised.

I am not a lawyer, and I am hesitant to enter into the legal aspects of the Bill, particularly with so many distinguished gentlemen of the law around me, but I would still like to commend clause 26 (c) of the Bill which virtually gives legislative effects to dicta handed down in the classic authorities on contracts mistakenly formed: Nemstas v. Nemstas Lee v. Ah Gee and, more recently, Gallo v. Gallo. For too long, because of the deficiencies in the common law, parties mistakenly entering into contract with little knowledge of the language have been virtually obligated in a non est factum situation, to agreements that can adversely affect them, generally financially, for many years. I am sure that this measure will be welcomed not only by the jurists among us but also by those migrant people yet to master the language as well.

One should also note that the Bill covers only racial discrimination. To concentrate solely on racial discrimination is to run the risk of over.simplifying the issue of discrimination as a whole. It is discrimination of any kind which cannot and must not be tolerated in any society with pretensions of sophistication. Certainly racial discrimination is readily discernible and more easily demonstrable, but other areas of prejudice should not go unnoticed. Careful immigration programs and selection process of course are major factors in smooth racial inter-relations in Australia. In many ways we can be proud that apart from certain animosity in the Queensland canefields in the last century and resentment felt towards the Asian peoples generally during the gold rush days, Australia ‘s multi-cultural population has coexisted in remarkable friendship. It could well be established that even though there are many individual cases of discrimination, the Australian people have a basically good-spirited attitude to people from other nations. Therefore, I believe it is very important to consider the basis of immigration into a country when faced with problems such as those covered by the Bill.

Problems of discrimination can be engendered by immigration policy. An essential precondition for the solution of such problems within a community such as Australia’s is adequate control of immigration. But such control of itself does not solve any internal problems which already exist. All such control can do is prevent the problem from getting worse. Whilst there are plenty of jobs, plenty of houses and plenty of educational opportunities, problems of a discriminatory nature will be subdued. It is principally in adverse times that problems of a discriminatory nature surface. Australia has, as I have already mentioned, particularly since the Second World War conducted a massive campaign to seek and welcome migrants from a great number or countries. We have always been a multi-cultural society and we always will be because such a significant proportion of our population either came directly from, or have recent antecedents in, countries with their own strong cultural heritage. In the main, whilst many migrants will be able to complain of individual instances of prejudice or discrimination that they personally have experienced, Australia has developed with their help and effort, largely free from significant racial or cultural prejudice.

One can agree or disagree with our immigration policies of the past but, taken in the broad and in no sense complacently, we have every reason to be enormously thankful for the capacity of newcomers to integrate and assist in the development of a fuller, more tolerant, more vigorous and more sophisticated Australian society. In my view it is essential that future immigration policies recognise the inherent sovereignty of the host country in the control of the movement of people into that country. As one distinguished speaker recently put it: ‘Although free trade in citizens may no doubt be an ideal, it is an ideal impossible of accomplishment in the present state of the world’.

I have spent some little time on immigration aspects of the Bill and I have pointed out that the control of the immigration flow, whilst essential, does not solve the problems already existing. One thinks particularly of the Aboriginal population. There can be no doubt that much remains to be done before we can all claim that for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike equality of opportunity exists, the prejudice and suspicion have been eliminated and that discrimination no longer exists in Australia. I believe that it would be asking far too much of this Bill to expect it to bring about those desirable situations by itself. There is no doubt in my mind that the law not only has the responsibility for outlining rules for the regulation of the behaviour of human beings in society but also has the social function of bringing about the realisation of certain human aims in society. The law has both a direct and an indirect function towards people. The latter should be to seek to instil an attitude, to mould or change people’s feelings, opinions or behaviour. The stress placed on those two functions clearly determines the nature of the law. There is some argument which suggests that the preventive or deterrent role of the law should not be overemphasised; rather that the educative role, particularly in those fields of social relations, should gain more attention. It is with that background in mind that we should assess the structure and functions of the Racial Discrimination Bill as presented to the House.

I would like to mention a small number of specific points in relation to the Bill. Before doing so I must reiterate that I heartily support its basic aims. Firstly, it should be clearly established in Part III that the evidence used in the preliminary part of investigations is not admissible in a later court hearing. The Attorney-General (Mr Enderby) did mention something along these lines during his second reading speech, but I do not believe that this has been brought out with sufficient clarity in the Bill. To avoid this important level of the complaint process reaching a star chamber situation such a provision must be incorporated, otherwise the implications of situations such as blackmail and standover tactics could well arise, which would render the most important aspect of the legislation- that is, the solution through conciliation- virtually useless. If that stage does fail, however, the courts must be approached without prior material so that in starting afresh both parties can rely on judicial impartiality.

The Opposition’s amendments, which will be presented in some detail later by the honourable member for Bennelong (Mr Howard), will essentially require that conciliation procedures must be undertaken before any civil procedures are entered upon. These civil procedures require the conciliation procedures to have been unsuccessful. We will also seek to ensure that proceedings during the conciliation procedures are not admissible as evidence during later proceedings and also to ensure that the person making the complaint- I believe this is very important- and the nature of the complaint are known to the person being complained about. Similarly clause 10 of the Bill, which concerns the rights to equality before the law, is I believe somewhat confusing in its drafting in that it appears to discriminate in favour of a minority. That may be something of which people are in favour, but I believe that in the long term discrimination of any sort should be overcome. Merely to adjust the scales in favour of the lesser influence is only a timid and shortsighted readjustment of the existing situation. It does not really solve anything in the long term.

I welcome the establishment of a Commission for Community Relations as I believe that personal communication and understanding should be the basis of any social interaction. I welcome any attempt to overcome discrimination against individuals who are badly done by or disadvantaged, particularly Australia’s Aboriginal population. I welcome the opportunity being provided to fulfil the obligations that Australia has undertaken with the United Nations in relation to the international conventions on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. We must, however, remain cognisant of the need to avoid appearing to be encroaching upon the freedom of individuals, of the distinction between unintentional and wilful discrimination and of the need to ensure that the proposed conciliation procedures do not become an opportunity for persecution or character assassination. I reiterate that much can be gained by the passage of this Bill, bearing in mind the necessary modifications that we of the Opposition will outline, not only by Australia as a nation showing itself to be mature enough to tackle the problems of racial discrimination but also by each individual who has for so long been disadvantaged by the sad deficiencies in our present system.

Mr INNES:
Melbourne

– I rise to support this Bill, which I regard as being one of the great legislative milestones of the House. It is a Bill that seeks to enact our firm intention to confront the evil of racism. I believe that we ought to realise just to what extent racism exists in Australia. I am very happy to hear Opposition speakers say that they accept the fact that racism reigns supreme in this country.

Mr MacKellar:

– I did not say that.

Mr INNES:

– If the honourable member for Warringah did not say it, I will say it. That is just another example of the sorts of things one comes to expect from members of the Opposition. They say all sorts of things and make flowery speeches and then move away from the real issues at stake. I will tell you what are the real issues. They are things for which you stand condemned.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury:
RYAN, QUEENSLAND

-Order! I would suggest to the honourable member for Melbourne that he should direct his remarks to the Chair.

Mr INNES:

– I would suggest, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you might ask the interjectors to remain quiet.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– If the honourable member directs his remarks to the Chair I think that he will find that he will be free from interjections.

Mr INNES:

– You could have fooled me. This Bill gives weight to the Government’s determination to eliminate what is probably the major evil of this century. In this century we have seen a great deal of activity. Human beings ought to hang their heads in shame for some of the things for which other human beings have been responsible. In this century we have seen Hiker’s unspeakable campaign of genocide against the Jewish people and other European ethnic minorities. We have seen a shameful participation in what was essentially a war of racism in Vietnam. Honourable members on the other side of the House have suddenly found that there is an alternative to the privations and miseries visited upon the people of Indo-China during the terrible years in which we were committed as a country to support of intervention in the affairs of the Vietnamese people. They have now had a change of heart. They are supporting the Government’s action in bringing to this country as refugees young children from that war-torn country. However they must go further than that. What they have to do is give their support to this Bill not by way of lip service but by way of genuine intent.

There are classic illustrations to which one can point of the existence of racism in this country. We have seen aspects in the last two or three weeks examples of discrimination against certain people who have made applications for jobs. A classic example occurred only recently in my own electorate involving a free legal service for Aborigines in Fitzroy. The case of a highly respected Aboriginal family which had found it almost impossible to obtain accommodation in the area was brought to attention. There were 2 young children aged 1 and 3 years in the family. The father of the family had come from Alice Springs, where he had been employed as a field officer with a legal service there, to Melbourne to further his studies with the intention of becoming a lawyer. This young man and his family went to 20 real estate offices in search of accommodation and at each one it was a case of the vacancy mysteriously disappearing between the time of the father’s telephone call and his arrival in person at the offices. At one office he was offered accommodation in a flat if he could put up a deposit of $ 1 ,000. It is that kind of outrage that this Bill will prevent. It is outrageous that the original inhabitants of this country are treated as outcasts in their own country.

The second point I wish to make is as follows: While I consider this type of legislation to be a breakthrough it is with sadness that I recognise that there is a need for it in this community. In 1975 we have suddenly found it necessary to introduce legislation to prevent racial discrimination. Once again I think that we ought to hang our heads in shame.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

– Have a look in a mirror.

Mr INNES:

– If I were you I would never look in a mirror. How much do you charge to haunt a house? It is a scar on the face of our community that we should need legislation like this to counter the actions of people like the honourable member for Cowper. It is a scar on the face of our allegedly civilised community that we have to pass laws to prevent discrimination from occurring. The sooner this legislation has achieved its aim- in this respect I emphasise that the educative provisions of the Bill are exemplary; I agree with the comments of Opposition speakers in this sense- and the sooner we can have it wiped off the statute book as an unnecessary reminder of some barbaric age the better it will be. But judging from our past performances that time is still a long way off.

If one needs proof of the general attitude of our people one should have a look at the reports which flow in the daily newspapers and take special account of one of the issues to which I made reference tonight. Consider the history of the white colonisation of this continent. It is only now that we are beginning to appreciate the complexity and the sophistication of the culture that lived harmoniously with this land for 45 000 years before the white man stepped onto Australia. Certainly our first settlers saw nothing of the dignity and wisdom of the Aboriginal people. The honourable member for Warringah (Mr MacKellar) shed crocodile tears about the Aboriginal people. But what did his Party really do for the people who were the first inhabitants of this country and who were considered as vermin, competition for grazing land and of less worth than the cattle and sheep that the settlers brought with them? They were considered as vermin to be hunted and poisoned, to be scattered from their sacred home sites and left to die deprived of their cultural ties. Throughout the 19th century it was comfortably thought that the Aboriginal problem would be solved, that the problem would solve itself. It was complacently believed that the poor old black fellow would die out, that he was the last representative of a dying race. But the white culture was not entirely content to sit back and watch this decline without doing what it could do to speed up the process throughout the 19th century. Hunts were a popular sport and pastime, aimed at destroying the Aborigine. When the new generation of young Aboriginal people come to write the history of their race we will realise the extent of these atrocities. I predict that very soon we will be seeing the emergence of books like the excellent and horrifying history of the American Indian.

This is where much of the current rethinking of Aboriginal- white relations in this country is coming from- the Aboriginal people themselves. They are taking a lead. The idea of the race dying away was replaced in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the idea that the Aboriginal people were disappearing in another way, that they were becoming just like us. The policy of genocide was to be replaced by a policy of assimilation- of physical death by cultural death. It is only just recently in the late 1950s and 1960s that we have heard first the notion of integration and more recently still the notion of selfdetermination. It is with this in mind that we must consider the Bill. The ultimate aim is to give every individual in our society an equal right and an equal place in that society while retaining for each individual the essential right of maintaining his or her unique cultural heritage. It is in this respect that I again wish to comment on the powers that this Bill gives to launch an educational program within the community. For far too long our children have been fed in their schools, in their places of learning, a view of the Aboriginal that is inaccurate, racist and discriminatory, a view that not only denies the Aboriginal rightful recognition of the contribution he made to the history of this land but also denies us as white Johnny-come-latelys access to the wisdom derived from 45 000 years living and working on this continent. I am hopeful that this educational program will make every Australian aware of how much we have to learn of the history of this land before white colonisation, a lesson even more vital when we consider that in the short 250 years of our history we have already ravaged and made almost unlivable parts of this land. This destruction would have been unthinkable in the older culture which recognised very well the interdependency of the land and its people.

I want to turn specifically to issues involved in the Bill and the concepts that need to be borne clearly in mind when one is considering the underlying philosophy of the legislation. First, the Bill seeks to ensure that racial discrimination should be proscribed by law and fundamental rights and freedoms, without distinction as to race, should be guaranteed by law. Second, it is proposed that there should be created a comprehensive framework of legal remedies for the enforcement of these rights. Third, the Bill embodies the principle that there should be established formal administrative machinery to investigate individual instances of racial discrimination and attempt to achieve a settlement of issues by conciliation. Fourth, the Bill proposes that there should be fostered- and I believe that this is very important- programs of education and research and other programs to combat racial discrimination and promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among racial and ethnic groups. This legislation should not become a bonanza for the legal eagles to whom my friend the honourable member for Warringah was so worried about not belonging. I am very proud of the fact that I do not belong. This legislation should operate in the way in which the Conciliation and Arbitration Act operates. In that legislation the prime consideration is for conciliation and when all else fails arbitration is then adopted. Legal processes are not envisaged in this Bill.

Comments made by the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen), our poor man’s Perry Mason, in regard to issues that would preclude a person from knowing who would be the complainant are absolute rubbish and complete grandstanding. It would never be envisaged in the conciliatory area that the complainant would not be involved. I concur with the philosophy behind the legislation. It does not have to be hard relentless sell; it has to encourage people. I go along with that proposition. There is a difference between intent and inadvertence. I think this matter has to be viewed in its proper perspective. I think that conciliation has to be taken to its logical conclusion and every avenue looked at to achieve a result. In this respect education will be a reality rather than a myth. We are going to be able to encourage people to take a different view of the rights of individuals because all Australian citizens should have equal rights.

The 4 points to which I have made reference are contained in the philosophy of a convention of the United Nations which was signed on 14 October 1966. That was a pretty tardy effort by the people on the other side of the House who had plenty of opportunities to introduce this legislation and to do something positive about it a long time before this.

Mr James:

– A long time ago.

Mr INNES:

– A long, long time ago. That lapse of time is an indictment of the attitude of the Opposition. That is why I take issue with honourable members opposite. I do not believe that this sort of issue ought to be a political football. But let us face the facts. It is hypocrisy to indicate that the Bill is intended to do what the honourable member for Moreton and other speakers have put to this House tonight. They say that the complainant is not put before the individual against whom he is alleging discrimination. That is complete rubbish. I have had an assurance from the Attorney-General (Mr Enderby) that if there is a weakness in the legislation certain steps will be taken to ensure that the legislation covers it.

It was said that the court would not have that sort of information available to it when all aspects of conciliation had failed. Surely the honourable member for Moreton must have been kidding in the suggestions he made to this House. I suggest that his contribution is just another act in the plays involving Raymond Burr.

Mr Fisher:

– Who?

Mr INNES:

– Raymond Burr. For your edification, he is Perry Mason.

Mr Cohen:

– He thought it was something that comes off a sheep’s back.

Mr INNES:

– Yes, the back of the sheep man. There is a racial discrimination flowing through the community. We have to come to grips with it. We have to ensure that the concepts we are developing in the legislation are along the same lines as those we have adopted in industrial legislation. The whole accent should be on conciliation, and any role that the court would play in the final analysis would be in determining the issues that could not be handled at the conciliation level.

There is another aspect that reduces the legislation in the United Kingdom to a very ineffective level. We saw this illustrated during the time when the conciliation arm of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act was challenged in the 1960s by employer organisations. It should be the right of the chairman of any council to accumulate facts. It is no good people just going along to a conference that is convened by the chairman of a council and sitting there not wishing to give effect to the spirit of conciliation simply because they do not have to do so. That is what happens under section 28 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Employers come along to a conference concerning an industrial dispute, sit there for two or three hours and say: ‘We are here. We are hard to get. Our evidence is ours. Whatever you have to say we will listen to with a lot of attention, but we will not enter into the spirit of the conciliation ‘. If that is the attitude and that is allowed to happen within the framework of this legislation, then it falls to the ground. We may as well rip it up. It would not be worth the paper it is printed on.

I think the Bill has much to commend it. I think it is coming to grips with one of the greatest problems we face in this country. I believe that if the Opposition were serious, whilst maybe straightening out some aspects of the legislation which it may feel are anomalous, it would cooperate in supporting the spirit of the Bill in its entirety as it should be supported.

Mr HUNT:
Gwydir

-The honourable member for Melbourne (Mr Innes) made a most unconstructive contribution to the debate. Most of his time was devoted to trying to denigrate the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen), who of course gave a very powerful speech in this House a month or so ago in opposition to the Bill. I understand that the honourable member for Isaacs (Mr Clayton) made some side-swipe at me. I did not hear it. I will check Hansard in the morning and see whether he is worth replying to. I assume from what I have heard that it was not a very constructive contribution either. Having said that, I think we should get away from personalities and personal attacks and get down to the basis of the legislation.

This Bill owes its origin to a convention entered into by a Liberal-Country Party Government in 1966. That Convention is to be ratified by this legislation. The Opposition condemns racism in all its forms. However the Opposition will move to amend this legislation because it firmly believes that the Bill in its present form will infringe upon the rights of the individual and exacerbate racism in this country. The Bill in its present form will sow the seeds of hatred, racial prejudice, ill-will and disruption among our people. The function of government should be to legislate for the peace, order and good government of the people for the people. La administering justice not only must justice be done but justice must be seen to be done. The Bill will not ensure that justice is seen to be done.

It is significant that the principal architect of this legislation, indeed the Human Rights Bill, is no longer a member of the Parliament. Both Bills seem to give expression to the same obsessions -to break down the long-established system of British common law, to lay down a means of prosecution that will ultimately destroy the professed objectives of the legislation and to use oppressive abuse of power against the fundamental rights of the individual. The Bill provides a healthy breeding ground for sneaks, informers, pimps, jealousy and revenge, and an army of racial officials whose role will be of an inquisitorial nature with wide powers of law enforcement. Instead of ending hostility and racial prejudice between different racial and ethnic groups in our community, the enforcement of the provisions of this Bill will foment and exacerbate hostility. As each victim of the provisions of this legislation as it now stands is sentenced, a growing reservoir of bitterness, hatred and racism will swell in our society. I say this because of the extraordinary provisions in the Bill under which the victims or those sentenced will in fact be sentenced. The victim will not believe that justice has been done.

All compassionate and sensible people would aspire to end racial discrimination. This objective must be one of the paramount objectives of mankind during the rest of this century. Unfortunately racial discrimination has characterised modern history as man of different ethnic origins has achieved greater mobility enabling him to move rapidly from his own environment to the environments of other ethnic groups. Racism was probably not a problem for early man. The evolutionary mobility of man made racism possible. Primitive man probably knew no social grouping larger than his family. Because of the natural enemies of man, the family groupings enlarged into a tribe or tribes for selfpreservation. Wars produced combinations of tribes, thence nations, empires and alliances. As a result of self-interest and the need for self-defence men and women became increasingly capable of cooperating in substantial groupings. Lord

Bertrand Russell in his book ‘Has Man a Future ‘ said:

As man has emerged from the perils of his non-human environment, he brought with him into his new world the instinctive and emotional make-up by means of which he has survived through previous ages. . . .

He had reached alert wariness, watchful fear, and, in crisis, courage in face of danger.

Lord Russell asked:

What was he to do with his apparatus of habits and passions when the old perils had been overcome? He found a solution, but unfortunately not a very happy one. He turned the hostility and suspicion which he had hitherto directed towards lions and tigers upon his fellow man- not all of them, since many of the skills by which he had survived required social co-operation.

Russell said:

In this way, through tribal cohesion and organised war, he reconciled for many centuries the need for social cooperation with instinctive ferocity and suspicion which past struggles had bred in him.

These quotations and indeed the theme I am developing may seem irrelevant to this Bill and the objective it sets out to achieve. But I do not believe the theme is irrelevant. I see it as being the background of human history against which one should approach such prejudices as racism. Clearly, the emergence of man with the experiences gained in the dawn of his history have led to nationalism which could be more aptly expressed as national prejudice. During the last centruy and this century the spirit of nationalism has tended to foster racial competition, prejudice and racist attitudes.

Lord Bertrand Russell possibly did more than any other modern philosopher to demonstrate the futility of fostering the modern concept of national prejudice. He warned that this form of nationalism could well lead to the destruction of the human race. How right he was. The Nazi regime and Hilter in Germany during the 1930s cleverly used national prejudice in the name of nationalism to mobilise people into a frenzied attempt to rule the world. Had the atomic bomb been developed 5 years earlier Hitler could well have conditioned the people into accepting the destruction of a large percentage of the human race. While I applaud the need for a national spirit and national pride in one’s race and country, I believe we should heed Lord Russell’s warning of national prejudice being commonly expressed and accepted as nationalism. The ingredients that produce national prejudice can produce bigotry, racism and political fanaticism.

The weakness in human nature has led to some of the most bloody religious wars. The socalled reformation of the Christian church was followed by traumatic events which produced prejudice and bigotry. If a Bill were introduced into this Parliament to remove religious bigotry from our community by similar penal provisions as are contained in this legislation I believe it would resurrect religious prejudice and bitterness to a degree which we do not want to suffer today. Probably the most serious threat to the security and safety of mankind today is the aggressive ideological advance of communism. Of course it is often expressed in such glossy terms as a world liberation front and a world peace movement. The belief that the world will not be free until it is liberated by Communism seems to give the adherents to that belief the divine right to murder, to starve and to commit the worst human atrocities. Of course this is another form of bigotry. It is political prejudice which is cruel and intolerable.

But can one control these human weaknessessuch as the desire of some humans to overpower others either materially, intellectually, commercially or spiritually because of the prejudice or passions of man- by an Act of Parliament which defies British common law and the civil law practice? Such practices have been a feature of our legal system and have been accepted- by our community as the legal system which we require. I fear that this legislation as drafted will only intensify human intolerance and prejudice. Let us look at some of the provisions of the Bill. I agree with a great number of them. Clauses 9 and 10 make it unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin. I fully subscribe to those clauses. They mean that persons of a particular race, colour or national or ethnic origin shall enjoy the same rights as persons of another race, colour or national or ethnic origin. I think such provisions are desirable. I give the Government credit for setting up a commission to negotiate with people and to try to get a different approach among the different ethnic peoples in our community.

However, I am completely opposed to the oppressive powers conferred on the so-called commissioner of the Community Relations Council and to the powers of the Council. The powers of the commissioner do not fall into the concept of the rule of law. Under the Bill powers are conferred which could be abused by threatening or at least qualifying a person’s right at law. The commissioner is given statutory powers to settle matters out of court with the sanction of then proceeding with court action if the defendant does not settle on his terms. This is a denial of human justice. It is a rule of threat and intimidation. It is a denial of human rights. In the broad the commissioner has 2 types of functions. The first is to promote an understanding and an acceptance of the Act by developing and conducting research and educational programs to combat racial discrimination. Of course, these are desirable powers for the commissioner to have. I welcome and support these powers. It is the second function which I vigorously oppose. This is the function to inquire into alleged unlawful acts and to endeavour to effect a settlement of the matters alleged to constitute infringements. If he is unable to do so he is to institute proceedings. Of course this is a matter which should be settled by civil law proceedings and not by that commissioner who had endeavoured to reconcile the 2 parties concerned.

Clause 23 should be deleted in its entirety. This clause enables the commissioner to require a person to attend before a prescribed authority, to answer questions, to produce documents and to keep appearing day by day until excused. I submit this represents a blatant attack on the rights of individuals and denies a person privacy to which he ought to be entitled. The commissioner is extended coercive powers greater than the powers possessed by the police forces. Such powers enable him to require persons to attend before him. Such persons are forced to deliver papers and answer questions. Even if the person is required to attend before a judge the judge cannot prevent questions being asked. Moreover, he has no power to grant legal representation to the person attending. He cannot prevent answers received being used as evidence against other persons.

Clause 28 makes it an offence to disseminate ideas based on racial superiority or hatred. It prohibits the publishing or distributing of written matter, broadcasting or uttering words which could be considered to promote such ideas.

Mr Cohen:

– The honourable member is not opposing that, is he?

Mr HUNT:

– Although I am not opposed to the concept behind that idea I am opposed to the way in which it is intended to be administered. Although the ideas may be quite abhorrent- as I say, racism is abhorrent- such a prohibition, in my view, in the way in which it is to be administered is illiberal. As much as I detest communism and fascism and their propaganda I do not suggest that it be prohibited. I have always felt that such action within a free society drives underground those forces which are undesirable until they ultimately erupt and do more damage. So prohibitive are these laws that under clause 28 (c) if, for instance, 2 people were talking in Civic and if one were to say: ‘Things look bad in Phnom Penh. It looks as though the city might fall’, and if the other person said: ‘It is the Chinese. You cannot trust the Chinese’, it would only take one person to hear that and all he would have to do is to report to the commissioner the incident, the time and the public place at which it happened. The commissioner would have the power to call that person before him to explain why. If he were not satisfied he could fine him $500 and warn him never to do it again. Under this legislation the pimp does not have to identify himself.

Mr Cohen:

– The honourable member is drawing a long bow now.

Mr HUNT:

– No. The honourable member should read the Bill. The Bill could destroy freedom of speech and attempt to stifle freedom of thought. For those reasons I believe that this Bill has an authoritarian and repressive aspect. Let us hope that the Government agrees to the amendments that take away the power and privileges of the pimps provided for in this legislation. As I said earlier, I believe that this legisltion could well provide the breeding ground for a lot of trouble. I can see it being used as a focal point by professional trouble makers. A Bill of this character is sure to become self-defeating and create tensions where none existed before. One does not sweep racial prejudice under the rug by legislative process. One will have some success through education and more generally tolerant attitudes, by using the processes of negotiation and conciliation. That is the first power that the commissioner has under the provisions of the Bill.

This legislation, no doubt drafted with the best of intentions, follows literally the provisions of the convention. I believe, for the reasons I have stated, that it violates certain human rights and fundamental freedoms. It intrudes into State law spheres. Another factor that needs to be taken into account is that although there are many signatories to the convention, no other country has found it necessary to enact the literal provisions of the convention by legislation. The Opposition will move amendments in the Committee stage, not designed to condone racism but intended to dismantle what could well become a legisltive monster that would be more suited perhaps to a totalitarian type of dictatorship where the rights and privileges of the individual are of no consequence but where the rights of the state are supreme.

Mr COHEN:
Robertson

-I have listened with interest to the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Killen) and other honourable members on that side of the House, and I am impressed with their sincerity. I believe that they genuinely support the principles behind this Bill. Perhaps in more emotional times I have taken the view that some honourable members over there were supporting racist regimes but I do not think that that would be true of the majority of the members of the Opposition. I just disagree with them and I think that they are naive if they believe that they can do all this through goodwill.

Mr Hunt:

– And civil law.

Mr COHEN:

-And civil law. Well, I think there is evidence to show that, if anything, legislation that outlaws racial discrimination has had some effect in countries where it exists, such as in Canada and in the United States of America where the Constitution is being used to outlaw it. I think there is plenty of evidence to show that the reverse has occurred in countries where there is no legislation. If we reject all theories of racial superiority or inferiority, if we genuinely believe that the only differences between the peoples of the world are physical, cultural and environmental differences then we must ask ourselves why it is that racial antagonism still exists in today’s society. Throughout history man has had a basic fear of any group or individual which was different. Anyone who strayed from the accepted norms of the community was ostracised and often persecuted for his difference. We are all expected to behave within certain parameters of accepted social behaviour. If we do not, we will soon find how disapproving the community will become. Even if what we do is not illegal it will still earn the condemnation and often the ostracism of our peer group. For strange, irrational, often subconscious reasons people feel insecure when faced with some new alien idea, concept or culture within our society. Homogeneity is regarded as a great virtue, diversification a vice.

If we can be so irrational about a different mode of behaviour by a few individuals who are of the same ethnic group, the same religion, the same economic strata, and speaking the same language, is it any wonder that the reaction is so much stronger if those individuals or that group is of a different colour, a different culture, a different nationality, very often speaking a different language? In their article ‘The Sociology of Race Prejudice’ D ‘Alton and Bittman commenced:

At the time of Wilberforce there was no such thing as race prejudice- other races simply were inferior. There was no doubt of this- it was an objective condition of existence. Superiority and inferiority were given and the proof was in the dominance of one culture over others. That the other cultures provided alternative methods of social organisation was not considered and superiority was defined in terms of power, both economic and military.

We can be grateful that society has progressed considerably from the days of Wilberforce. Attitudes changed slowly over the years until by the 1930s official attitudes at least had, with a few exceptions, ceased to propagate theories of racial superiority. Tragically, one of those exceptions in Nazi Germany led to the greatest racist aberration in history. The systematic mass genocide of 6 million Jews and other ethnic groups- I mention other ethnic groups because it was not simply Jews who were persecuted and exterminatedled to a recognition by the world that racism was the vilest of all evils and that everything that was humanly possible should be done to stamp it out.

I do not wish to canvass the whole history of racism throughout the world. Few countries have been free of it. It is all a question of degree. It is an evil whether it be South African whites discriminating against and persecuting their black and coloured countrymen, or Ugandan or Kenyan blacks persecuting those of Indian descent. This Bill refers to what happens within Australia. While great strides have been made within Australia by both this Government and its predecessors, a great deal remains to be done. I pay tribute to actions taken by previous governments and refer to the immigration reforms of Prime Minister Holt and the May 1967 referendum. I believe that our predecessors made considerable strides of which they can be proud. A great deal still remains to be done. It is not enough to say that racism exists in other countries or to make the excuse that racism is an inherent part of human nature. While it exists, and it does, it is up to us as legislators to root it out and to try if humanly possible to see that it does not occur again.

There are 2 important aspects of this Bill. One is the legislative portion attempting to outlaw acts of racial discrimination. The other is the educative section that seeks to change community attitudes both now and in the future. I am one of those who firmly believe that there is little one can do to legislate hatred and prejudice out of the hearts and minds of individuals, but a legislative framework that makes it illegal to commit acts of racism creates a community atmosphere that will have both a short term and a long term benefit. What was once unethical and immoral now becomes illegal and subject to sanctions under the Act. I imagine that it will remove the last vestiges of racist legislation from the statute books of Queensland. It will make it illegal for anyone to be discriminated against with regard to housing and the provision of goods, services and employment.

I am sure that many honourable members here would be staggered to know how often such discrimination occurs, particularly as it affects Aborigines. The judgment is made by the person who is guilty of the act of discrimination not on the basis of the person’s suitability or unsuitability but solely on the basis of the colour of his skin. When a black man presents himself to a real estate agent seeking rental accommodation he is often told that there is nothing available when this in fact is quite untrue. His black skin is, ipso facto, proof of other vices- dirtiness, alcoholism and economic unreliability. I have been told by agents in my own area: ‘He may be the best citizen in town but I could not take the risk. I knew an Aboriginal family who brought all their relatives in and chopped up the furniture’. All honourable members would have heard that hoary old tale about Aborigines. I wonder that there is a house left in Australia considering all the furniture that they have chopped up! The same agent would have been appalled at being called a racist. He would have considered that what he was doing was sound business judgment. So it is that all Aborigines are branded with inherent racial characteristics and inherent patterns of social behaviour.

I had such an experience with an Aboriginal family recently. Some months ago I was able to assist an Aborigine with a wife and 4 children to find a job. He, like many whites at the moment, was finding it extremely difficult to obtain work. Having succeeded in finding employment, with both himself and his wife clearing nearly $200 a week, he found his lease on his flat was due to expire. I might point out that he was paying about $35 a week for very modest accommodation. This amount was about $5 to $10 a week over the going rate for such accommodation. He visited every real estate agent near where his children were going to school in an attempt to find a modest family home. He was told that nothing was available. He came to my office and told a very heart rending story of 40 years of being pushed from pillar to post, of being refused jobs and accommodation and of being thrown out of homes for one reason or another, mostly because he was black. He told me of years of being forced back to the horror of the Queensland Aboriginal reserves. He said: ‘I am not going back again. I have got 4 children who are at least two to three years behind white children of the same age. We want to settle down in a place where they can feel secure and where they feel that they belong. If we have to sleep in the gutters we are not going back to those bloody reserves.’ I telephoned a real estate agent friend of mine, explained the whole story to him and within a few days he found a home. Similar situations like this occur by the thousands throughout Australia today. In this case it involved an Aboriginal. In other cases it may be an Italian, a Greek, an Asian or a Jew who is involved.

There have been plenty of instances of similar discrimination in which a person’s religion was a barrier to accommodation and employment. No civilised society should permit such a situation to continue. Undoubtedly legislation will not end it. But people will think very carefully before refusing accommodation or employment because of the colour of a person’s skin, his nationality, his religion or whatever may be the case. We should not deny the landlord the right to refuse tenants he thinks would not pay the rent or damage his property. We should not deny an employer the right to choose an employee he thinks is best suited for the job. But legislation of this nature will make sure that they are equally careful not to eliminate somebody from consideration on a racial basis.

I would like to point out the sort of undesirable people that will have their actions curtailed by legislation like this. We have all heard of Mr Eric Butler. I doubt whether there is a more despicable type in our society today. The garbage that Mr Butler and his confreres push out through their bookshops- racist literature of the very worst type- will be eliminated. It will not be possible to purchase the literature and he will not be able to poison the minds of young and old Australians. We will see the end of these vicious, nasty, racist, immigration groups who took such a role in the last election campaign in the electorate of Riverina. I certainly think that most honourable members on the other side of the House disclaimed any connection with this sort of thing and were disgusted with it. That sort of thing cannot happen again. Under this legislation such groups will be nailed and they will be fined or action of a worse kind will be taken if they continue to push this sort of vicious, nasty literature.

But racism does not involve only the Eric Butlers in this world. Racism is not confined to one side of the House or one side of the community. On 31 January 1975 an article appeared in an Australian newspaper at the time of the debate on the Palestine Liberation Organisation delegation coming into Australia. Mr Hartley, a member of the Australian Labor Party Federal Executive, was quoted as making a statement which staggered me because nobody on either side of the House said anything about it. I want to quote the statement because I believe that it is one of the most vicious racist statements I have ever heard. I think that it is disgusting that it should have come from a member of the ALP. It is even more disgusting that nobody said anything about it. He said:

I am in no way anti-Semitic but it is easy to see how antiSemitism occurs when a group of this type -

He was referring to Jews- exerts political, social and, especially, economic pressure in a way which is far in excess of their numerical position in the Australian community.

I ask honourable members to pause and consider that. I will quote again the relevant racist portion of the statement: - and, especially, economic pressure in a way which is far in excess of their numerical position in the Australian community.

This is straight out of ‘Der Sturmer’ of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. In other words, every person in the community of a racial ethnic national group should be very careful when he or she makes any statement or exerts any pressure in the community that he does not say anything which will have an effect out of proportion to the group’s numbers in the community. For instance, if there were 5 Asians in Australia they must exert .00005 per cent pressure, or whatever it may be, in the community. The next thing that Mr Hartley will be recommending is that we revert to the days when in Poland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics there was a quota placed on Jews entering universities which was in proportion to their numbers in the community. This statement I have quoted went unchallenged in Australia. I hope to God the day comes that when this sort of statement is made by a socalled social democrat it is hammered at by everybody in the community and that the person who makes the statement is shown up for what he is.

Australia has an unfortunate history of racism. The white Australia policy is a blot upon all of us. It is not a matter of which honourable members on either side of the House can be proud. It was the first plank in the platform of the ALP in the 1890s. We changed our attitudes. We have revolutionised our attitudes towards this matter. I believe that the members of the Liberal Party did a lot back in the 1960s to change attitudes towards this. We are progressing from that point. Our attitudes have changed. We all agree now that the treatment of Aborigines is a disgrace. We have taken the first steps. We can continue to improve on those first steps in this legislation. For 100 years politicians exploited the threat from the north and the yellow peril. God forgive us if we ever have that sort of thing in Australia again. There may be threats but let us see that they are not made on a racist basis.

Anyone who has any illusions about our racist background need only read copies of the ‘Bulletin’ newspaper at the turn of the century. I hoped to have with me tonight a reprint of an early copy of ‘Bulletin’ which is on sale in newsagents. The cartoons in this early copy of the ‘Bulletin’ are outrageous. These were common things. The ‘Bulletin’ was a very popular newspaper back in those days. It was probably the most popular periodical in Australia. It was the most blatantly racist propaganda sheet one could possibly imagine. We have racism in clubs and in pubs. Unfortunately there are still many clubs- probably many of us belong to such clubs- which engage in this racism. I do not but I know that there are members in this House who do belong to clubs which exclude people on the basis of the colour of their skin, their nationality or their religion.

One has only to go to a football match and listen to the remarks if there happens to be a black footballer or a Jewish footballer playing to hear the overt racist remarks. I went down to Melbourne and watched my first game of Australian Rules with the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Chipp). As a Rugby convert I was not very impressed. But I was even less impressed when Sid Jackson who was playing was insulted nonstop right throughout the match. I thought that he was a local hero. I am afraid that it happens in Rugby also. George Rebner was a Jewish player who used to play for Balmain. Every time he dropped a ball he copped half a dozen racist comments from the sideline. It is part of our culture and we simply try to ignore it. We would not want to see everybody who said from the sidelines ‘Hit him with your boomerang, Sid’ carried off to gaol. But this is part of community attitudes that have grown up.

Since I became a member of this House and for a long time before that time I have yearned for the day when we will start a real education program in this regard. It can be started only in the schools. It is very difficult to root out racism in an adult of 30 or 40 years of age. If he is a racist now I am afraid that he is gone. It starts in the schools. It is a 30 or 40-year program. It is in this section- in the schools and in the textbooksthat I believe we will make the greatest longterm progress. This could be done by making part of the curriculum an overt attempt to eliminate racism- the sort of racism that unfortunately is carried on from the family dinner table, from father to son and so on through the various generations. We will eliminate it in the textbooks of the schools and in the media by consciously making television and radio broadcasts and printing newspaper articles and so on in which the evils of racism are explained to people- not just the evils of it but that it is wrong, that there is no basic difference between people of different colours, skins and religions and so on.

We should teach people to respect other people’s cultures, religions, nationalities and so on. We can do this in that format. We can do it also by encouraging cultural groups to put on plays and various other cultural activities which would help to combat a racist attitude in our society. I am only sorry that the Opposition, while not opposing the Bill, is in a way damning with faint praise. I really think members of the Opposition are wrong. I do not know whether I can convince them that they are wrong but I genuinely believe that legislation used with discrimination, not used with the mailed fist, can be the framework for the next great push in Australia to eliminate racism and racial discrimination.

Mr HOWARD:
Bennelong

– I think the House should be indebted to the honourable member for Robertson (Mr Cohen) for having restored to this debate, so far as the Opposition side is concerned, a level of rationality and a level of calm discussion that unfortunately was absent during the earlier part of the debate. He was at least gracious enough to concede that the sincerity with which members of the Liberal and Country Parties oppose racial discrimination is not in dispute. There is a difference of opinion in this House on this legislation but it is not a difference of opinion regarding the abhorrence of racial discrimination; it is rather a difference of opinion as to the best method by which the problem of racial discrimination in our society can be handled.

I do not want to canvass the evidence of racial discrimination, much of which has already been alluded to during the earlier part of the debate. There is no doubt that in certain areas of Australia the level and the incidence of racial discrimination is totally unacceptable and that methods must be devised to eradicate such incidence and to bring down such level. I put it to the Government that there is room in the context of this debate for the view that the real path to tolerance between the races and between persons of different race is not primarily to be found through legislative coercion. In preparing my remarks for tonight’s debate I read a document which was prepared, I think about the middle of last year, and which was sent out under cover of a letter from the Commissioner for Community Relations, the former Federal member for Riverina. In that document the case was explicitly argued. It represented an examination of the policies of the various political parties and the experience of similar legislation overseas. It was expressly conceded that the best hope of advancing the field of the elimination of racial discrimination was to be found in the processes of conciliation and of education. That is the basis on which the Opposition, during the Committee stage, will bring forward a number of amendments to this legislation.

We concede- no, we go further, we totally endorse- the declared intention of this legislation to eliminate forms of racial discrimination. We accept that they do exist in our society. We recognise the need for the legislation. We merely quarrel with the Government on the best way in which remedial action should be taken. Just as there is room in this debate for a view that the best way to tolerance is not necessarily through legislative coercion, it is equally true that there is no room for the view that the essential liberties of people in any society are not necessarily to be protected in the ultimate by the passage of legislation which lays down explicit rules as to what rights people have, as to what rights people can enjoy and as to what things people can and cannot do.

During the Committee stages of this debate the Opposition will propose a series of amendments, the main thrust of which will be that if a person complains that he or she has been the victim of discriminator)’ conduct of the kind prescribed by the Bill that person may make a complaint to the Commissioner who then would be obliged under the terms of the Bill to bring together in consultation the person making the complaint and the person against whom the complaint has been made and, in an effort to effect a reconciliation, for them to state their differences and perhaps in the process to impart to the alleged offender, the alleged discriminator, some of the understanding to which the honourable member for Robertson rightly referred in his remarks. If that process of conciliation fails we believe then and only then that there should be a right of civil action available to the person who complains that he or she has been the subject of discrimination. I know that there will be some on the Government side who will immediately say that the Opposition is speaking with 2 voices, that on the one hand we say that we are against racial discrimination but on the other hand we want so to emasculate the Bill that it will not be possible for any effective steps to be taken against the incidence of racial discrimination in our society.

Mr Enderby:

– It has happened before.

Mr HOWARD:

-That is an argument that I know will be put forward. Judging from his reaction, the Attorney-General probably will put it forward. But I point out that for the greater part of Australia this legislation breaks new ground. I know there is similar legislation in South Australia and in similar societies in other parts of the world. But for the great majority of the Australian people this legislation does break a new field. In our society there is a very strong body of opinion- it was given eloquent expression by the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt)that we will not lessen the incidence of racial tension and racial discrimination by passing fairly stringent laws about it. So taking these factors into account I think there is a case for saying that at the beginning we ought to adopt a rather soft approach as a first step.

I would not argue that the sort of legislative pattern that the Opposition will outline during the Committee stages of the debate would be perfect for all time. It may well be that in the light of experience of legislation of that nature it will be necessary to strengthen it. It may well be that the arguments that have been advanced in support of this legislation by the Government after the passage of time will be proved to be correct. I would not be so dogmatic as to say that that will not be the case, but what I do say is that the Government at least ought to consider that as a first step something rather less drastic and draconian than what is proposed by the Bill in its present form be considered. Above all, if this legislation is to have value the value is to be found in the consultation, the conciliation and the education provisions. So if the Bill is amended to make the main focus of it on consultation, conciliation and education I think the prospects of it achieving the objective which it is declared it sets out to achieve are far more likely to be achieved.

Legislation of a roughly similar nature to that proposed by the Government has been passed, I understand, in the United Kingdom. I know that and I know equally well that conciliation committees are established under that legislation. I know that they have been successful, but I would ask the Government to consider the fact that, while there is a problem of racial discrimination in Australia, there are significant differences between the problem that we have and the problem experienced in the United Kingdom. One of the great difficulties about this legislation, because it is to have Australia-wide application, is that while there are serious problems in certain areas of Australia there are large areas of Australia where legislation in the form proposed by the Government could be quite inappropriate, for the reasons outlined by the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) and others, particularly as it is a first go at some kind of legislative proscription of racial discrimination. I ask the Government to give some consideration to those proposals in the Committee stages.

Motion (by Mr Nicholls) agreed to:

That the question be now put.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and committed pro forma.

Progress reported.

page 1304

NATIONAL HEALTH BILL (No. 2) 1975

Bill returned from the Senate without amendment.

page 1304

ADJOURNMENT

Meat Industry- Medibank

Motion (by Mr Enderby) proposed:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr KING:
Wimmera

– I commence my remarks by reminding the House that over recent months there has been a great deal of discussion on the seriousness of the position of Australia’s primary industries. I refer particularly to the meat industry and to the way on which prices have deteriorated to a non-paying level. Each time this matter has been raised, both in this chamber and outside, we invariably receive a reply from someone on the Government side to the effect that the problem has been brought about by the international situation and lack of purchases from other countries. I suppose that there is little argument against that claim because, as Australia is chiefly an agricultural country dependent in many instances on overseas markets, is it any wonder that if the overseas markets deteriorate this has some effect on Australia? 1 believe that a number of questions should be asked of the Government. What has the Government done about this problem? Has it made sufficient representations to the various countries concerned? Statements have been issued by the Minister for Overseas Trade (Mr Crean) and the Minister for Primary Industry (Senator Wriedt) to the effect that they have had negotiations and so on, but they come back with the same answer. I want to know whether the Government has looked at every available avenue of assistance? We have heard the Minister for Northern Development (Dr Patterson), who represents the Minister for Primary Industry in this chamber, say that the Government has done everything possible that the Australian National Cattlemen’s Council has asked for, but on close examination and cross questioning we have found that what the Minister told the House was somewhat misleading in that he said that the primary producers had not used all the funds made available on loan to this industry. Of course, when he made that statement he was not prepared to tell us what rate of interest these people would have to pay for the money. He did not tell us that it was something like 1 1½ per cent. Anyone who understands the beef industry will appreciate that on today’s prices no grazier could borrow money at 11½ per cent, particularly when his actual returns from the disposal of his cattle are at an all-time record low. I do not wish to bore the House with a lot of quotations, but if one looks at the list of prices issued by the Department of Agriculture in November 1973, one sees that certain types of bullocks were bringing in the vicinity of 99c a kilogram. Today they are bringing below 30c. Is it any wonder that these people cannot afford to pay 11½ per cent for money that the Government is supposedly making available to them?

I also ask the Government whether it has had a close look at the competition that is being experienced by our exporters. In a document issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on 13 March 1975 it was alarming to see the levels of this import competition. Table 1 sets out imports by sections and divisions of the Australian import commodity classification. I was interested to see that for the 8-month period ending in February of this year Australia imported $3.4m worth of meat, yet we cannot sell our own meat. If one looks down the list, there are some amazing figures related to commodities imported. For instance, $9.5m worth of dairy products imported in the same period.

Mr Cope:

– Where from?

Mr KING:

– These imports come from various countries. Another section relates to fruit and vegetables. In this country we pride ourselves on being agriculturally minded, and yet in this 8-month period we imported something like $58m worth of fruit and vegetables. Just think of it- $58m worth in 8 months! Just what is the Government up to when it allows that sort of thing? The figure for the same 8-month period in the previous year was in the vicinity of $2 8m. One could go through and quote a lot of things. For instance, certain types of textiles- and heaven only knows most people in this country today realise the situation in the textile industry. Look at the thousands of people who have been retrenched. Yet when one compares the figures of imports today with those of last year, is it any wonder? I quote item 84: Clothing, accessories, articles of knitted or crocheted fabric. These imports totalled $147m worth compared with $7-2m worth the previous year. Is it any wonder that there is a disturbance within these various industries?

I hope that the Government will have a very close look at some of the issues that I have raised because, after all, on the one hand we cannot export meat and yet, on the other hand, we are importing large quantities. Requests have been made to some fruit industries to reduce their production and to pull out trees. The honourable member for Murray (Mr Lloyd) would be well aware of this. Yet we imported something like $58m worth of fruit and vegetables in 8 months. Add one-half to that and you arrive at the figure for a 12-month period. I am informed that tomorrow the world meat exporters are meeting in Brussels. Had the House been sitting last week no doubt I would have been speaking in ample time for some of my views to be put forward to that particular conference. I am informed that at that conference discussion will be held by meat exporting countries to see whether there could not be some avenue through which the European Economic Community could increase beef imports from Australia. As you know, Mr Speaker, Australia has not exported beef to the EEC countries for some 8 months. It is about time we broke back into that market. Failing this, I issue the warning that the meat industry in Australia has reached such a state today that large numbers of graziers will reduce their stock numbers to what I think could be a dangerously low level, so that in the not too distant future we could find ourselves in a position of not having much meat to export. When the world situation levels out, in accordance with the statements by Ministers of the Australian Government and their supporters, then we could find ourselves in a position where there could well be a world shortage of beef. If anyone complains today that the price of beef or the price of meat is too high then I can assure him that it could be higher unless we do something about the position pretty urgently.

Mr SPEAKER:

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

Mr CORBETT:
Maranoa

-Tonight I too want to talk about the position of the beef industry in Australia. The delay of the Government in taking any worthwhile action to assist the Australian beef industry has dismayed not only beef producers but also all residents of country towns and provincial cities, particularly those which derive a great deal of their prosperity from beef production. The Government has a callous disregard of the welfare of beef producers, the workers engaged in the industry and in towns servicing areas where beef production is largely or partly responsible for the existence of these towns and the jobs they provide. This indicates that the Government has little concern for workers outside the metropolitan area apart from primary producers. The government claims in this House, through the Minister for Northern Development (Dr Patterson), who represents here the Minister for Agriculture, that the Government has done what the National Cattlemen’s Council asked it to do and, at the same time, claims that this was the attitude taken by the Opposition parties when in government. What the Minister did not say was that the National Cattlemen’s Council acted on advice that the only relief that cattlemen could hope for at that time was from a request, which was made in about October of last year, that some funds be made available to producers at commercial rates of interest. The Australian National Cattlemen’s Council took this action with the object of having some finance available for cattle producers.

Mr King:

– They were told to take it or leave it.

Mr CORBETT:

-As my friend, the honourable member for Wimmera says, they were told to take it or leave it.

Mr Duthie:

– That is not true.

Mr CORBETT:

– I do not know whether it is true or not. But if the honourable member for Wilmot had taken more interest in the plight of cattle producers in Tasmania and elsewhere he certainly would have seen to it that his Government at least would have lifted the export tax on meat. But he sits there and in a sneering sort of way says that our claim that the cattle producers were told that they could take or leave what was offered to them is not true. I ask the honourable member to tell me then what his Government did do. That is the important point. You should not tell me what the Cattlemen’s Council advice was, because you would not know what its advice was or where it got it. You would not know anything about it. Anyhow, since then the Government has had another -

Mr Duthie:

– You think that you know everything about everything. You make me sick.

Mr CORBETT:

-Mr Speaker, I should like the honourable member for Wilmot to keep a little bit quiet for a while.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I suggest that the honourable member for Wilmot remain silent. I also suggest that if the honourable member for Maranoa were to address the Chair and not address the honourable member for Wilmot he might get the silence he craves.

Mr CORBETT:

-Mr Speaker, since that time the Government has had another more realistic but still very modest proposal from the Australian National Cattlemen’s Council. It has had it before it for many weeks, but no action has been taken on it. I believe the honourable member for Wilmot might be a member of the Government’s Rural Committee. If he is, it is time he and that Committee took some action to see that the request of the Australian National Cattlemen’s Council was acceded to by the Government. This bitterly anti-rural Government has not even removed or deferred the meat export tax, which was not justified even when it was first imposed and now, in relation to the very low prices being received by cattle producers, is a very savage and oppressive tax. The price of beef has fallen to well below the cost of production and marketing in many instances. Because of my concern- and I am sure the concern is shared by members of my Party and indeed by members of the Opposition generally- a few weeks ago I sent a telegram to Dr Patterson. I sent it to him because he was the one who said in this House that the Government was doing what the Australian National Cattlemen’s Council had asked it to do. The telegram read as follows:

You will recall claiming in Parliament that the Government had met the request of the Australian National Cattlemen ‘s Council.

A more realistic, but still very modest proposal from the ANCC has been before the Government for over a month. The desperate financial situation of cattle producers demands immediate action by the Government to implement completely these latest proposals, including the long overdue lifting of export tax on meat.

On behalf of cattle producers in Maranoa and elsewhere I request your urgent reply stating clearly the Government’s decision on the latest ANCC submissions.

Any further delay would be inexcusable.

Despite the fact that I sent that telegram, I have not even received an answer; I have not even received an acknowledgment of that telegram. I suggest that this is further evidence of the complete disregard by this union dominated, metropolitan oriented Government, of the rural towns and districts and the people living in them. Recently I was asked if it was correct that the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) had been advised that the Japanese Government had indicated its willingness to allow the resumption of imports of Australian beef. I now ask the Prime Ministerand I told him I was going to speak on this tonight- whether this is correct. I hope he will give me a reply as soon as he has had the chance to have a look at the record of my remarks tonight. If it is correct, I ask him why an announcement has not been made. I pose the question: Is it too soon after the return of the Queensland Government’s trade mission to Japan under the leadership of the Queensland Minister for Primary Industry, the Honourable B. B. Sullivan, which made such a favourable impression in that country, for the Prime Minister to answer the question? In any case, I ask: What does the Government intend to do even at this late stage to assist the beef industry and all those people who depend on it? Does it intend to continue its inexcusable and indefensible delay in complying with requests made by the industry and indeed made by me and by other members of the Opposition? That is the clear question that I am asking the Government tonight I ask it on behalf of cattle producers everywhere and on behalf of the people who reside in the towns, including the workers of those towns, and provincial cities which are dependent fairly largely in many instances and very largely in some instances on the cattle industry for their survival.

In the course of the short time remaining to me, I will refer to a letter which has been sent to the Minister for Agriculture (Senator Wriedt) by the Australian National Cattlemen’s Council. This long letter was written on 13 February of this year. I will quote a couple of paragraphs from it. That will be sufficient to show what the change in the attitude of that Council is. I draw attention to the fact that the Council was most moderate in its earlier requests. Therefore, I ask the Government to look at this request from that angle bearing in mind that many requests have been made asking for much more than this letter seeks. Let me quote one example. The Council says in its letter:

The current interest rate of 1 Vi per cent is too high for most producers.

That would be the understatement of the year. The letter continues:

Many producers will not be able to pay interest at these rates and hence are not making application. The Council would recommend that the rate of interest be subsidised to no more than 5 per cent, during the period that cattle prices are low. The cost of such a subsidy would be $2.6m per annum assuming loans to producers eventually total $40m.

The Council requests also that:

Consideration should be given to capitalising interest at 5 per cent, into the loan for those producers who are unable to pay interest in the first year (this could result in cases where there is no outlet for cattle, such as store breeders, producers in the (Catherine and in areas where the supply of cattle offering is greater than the abattoirs can process).

It states further:

The original $20m be add-,i ‘o as required.

In the light of the conditions being suffered by cattle producers today, one could not get a much more moderate request. The cold hard facts are that the Government is not interested. It certainly could have done much more. The very least it could have done would have been to lift the export tax which was only applied in 1973. If the Government had any indication of what these people are suffering, I am sure it would have done something about the situation. It is obvious that the Government does not have any idea about what is happening and, furthermore, those who do know- if there are any members of the Government who do know- just do not care.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

-I wish tonight to address myself mainly to the question of the introduction of Medibank and the associated attempt to arouse fear and apprehension in a section of the community which is most susceptible to those feelings with respect to Medibank. On 2 April 1975 a letter by Dr John Prior of Boggabri was published in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’. In that letter, Dr Prior claimed that from the introduction of Medibank pensioners who at present are eligible under the Pensioner Medical Service will have to pay 15 per cent of the medical costs of their treatment. This claim is completely untrue. He concludes his letter by saying:

Pensioners, organise yourselves now, so that you can demand the free treatment the Government is promising. Don’t be fobbed off with 85 per cent of your doctor s account. Demand that the Government refunds you 100 per cent.

I am not sure whether Dr Prior is unaware of the procedure to be followed under Medibank or, as is more likely, is trying to scare pensioners. The latter is probably the case, I think, because, if he is a medical practitioner, he should be aware of what has been happening in negotiations and claims on the pan of the Australian Medical Association and the General Practitioners Society for the last 2 or 3 years.

As honourable members are probably aware, at present pensioners who satisfy certain income limits are eligible for free pensioner medical service from general practitioners who are cooperating with the pensioner medical service. Over probably the past 3 years the more extreme groups in the profession have argued that doctors should not provide pensioner medical services at a great discount but that the Government should enroll all pensioners in the health funds that presently exist, with the doctors then being willing to treat the pensioners from the refund received from the health funds. Governments, including the previous Liberal and Country Party Government and the present Labor Party Government, have not agreed to this.

Now, under Medibank, the system advocated has in effect come about and Medibank will cover all pensioners. In exchange for this cover, we naturally assume that medical practitionersgeneral practitioners in the first instance- who are at present giving service under the pensioner medical scheme will provide the same service at a rate of 85 per cent of the common fee. Let us remember that doctors will get a significant increase in income. At present co-operating general practitioners, that is general practitioners who subscribe to the pensioner medical service, receive $3.75 for a consultation with and $5.70 for a visit to an eligible pensioner. From 1 July 1975 under Medibank they will receive $5.30 and $7.85 respectively for pensioner consultations and visits if they accept an 85 per cent payment. So that the increases will be from $3.70 to $5.30 for a consultation and from $5.70 to $7.85 for a visit. Obviously, it is in their interests to transfer from the present pensioner medical service to the new Medibank scheme.

In addition, specialists will be able to see pensioners and charge a rate of 85 per cent of the fee for service provided in their rooms, or of sessional fees in public hospitals instead of rendering services in an honorary or unpaid capacity as is the present position. As members are probably aware, at present pensioner medical service patients do receive free medical services from general practitioners but they do not receive free medical services from specialists. There is no system under the present scheme for providing free medical services from specialists. What happens is that pensioners have to attend an outpatients department at a hospital, or an inpatients department if they have to be admitted to hospital, where they are treated free of charge. Therefore, pensioners receive free treatment, while doctors must provide free treatment as they may not charge pensioners. Under the Government’s proposal, the doctor will be paid on a feeforservice basis.

I think that it is extremely unpleasant that some members of the medical profession are engaging in a type of scare tactic with regard to pensioner services. Obviously, Medibank will now be introduced. While medical practitioners who opposed Medibank thought that there was a possibility of preventing Medibank operating, one could see some political point in their trying to disrupt it or to scare people off it. Until probably four or five weeks ago there was a possibilitysome people believed there was even a likelihood- of an election being fought in the middle of this year, and the Liberal Party had given an undertaking that Medibank would not be perservered with if that Party won the election.

Before the change in leadership, Mr Snedden gave an undertaking- and now the new leader, Mr Fraser, has done so- that there would be no interference with the Supply Bills and that therefore there would be no election in the middle of this year. The new Leader of the Opposition went further and quite correctly said what we have been saying for some time- that Medibank had been an issue in at least 2 elections, that it had certainly been an issue in the last election that there had been a double dissolution and a Joint Sitting of the 2 Houses of Parliament during which Medibank had been accepted, and that it is now law. He said that there was no point in opposing Medibank and it would be the aim of the Opposition if and when it came into Government to make Medibank work, rather than to reject it or to change back to the old system. I appreciate that; I think it is a step in the right direction on the part of the Liberal leadership at least.

I hope that now that Medibank will obviously come into operation, people who ought to be fairly responsible people in the community- this includes the medical profession- do not try to scare the community when it is pointless even politically. After all, there will not be an election before Medibank comes into operation, so whatever scare stories they may be able to spread amongst the pensioners will not have any political effect at a time when political effects are worth while from their point of view. I appeal to them to co-operate in explaining the facilities and the services which will be available under Medibank from 1 July this year, and to cooperate in bringing it about.

It has always been my view that the vast majority of general practitioners will not be adversely affected by Medibank and will in fact show some small profit. A large proportion of specialists will in fact be better off under Medibank and a small proportion of specialists will be financially worse off. The only people who will really suffer under the introduction of Medibank are the executives of the present health funds. I do not feel particularly sorry for them because the other day when I went through their assets contained in the last annual report tabled in this House I found that the assets of private health insurance organisations amount to over $200m at the present time. This is a huge amount and I am sure that most of them will not be able to spend that sort of money by the time they die.

I therefore appeal to those who are not executives of the health funds but who are interested in providing reasonable health care delivery to the Australian people not to be associated with the spreading of scare stories especially where pensioners are concerned.

Mr MacKELLAR:
Warringah

-The honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) . continues to try to justify the introduction of Medicare and Medibank and like a number of the people on his side of the House he continues to put forward the misstatement that implicitly if not explicitly the Opposition Parties are seeking to oppose Medibank because we are worried about the doctors and the extent of the moneys which they will get either with Medibank or acting as they are at the moment. This is not the Opposition ‘s concern about Medibank. We are concerned about the standard of medical care which will be provided to the people of Australia. The standard of medical care which is provided to the people of any country which is suffering- I use the word advisedly- under a nationalised health scheme is something which should concern everybody.

The cost to the taxpayer of this scheme is still not clearly delineated. It took questioning at some length from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Malcolm Fraser) to elicit finally from the Treasurer (Dr J. F. Cairns) and from the Minister for Social Security (Mr Hayden) some preliminary estimation of the cost of Medibank. Of course that cost has not yet been totally quantified but it looks like being in the order of $ 1,400m to $ 1,600m in the first year. That is a massive amount of taxpayers’ money being expended in order to come up with a service which many people quite legitimately believe will be a lesser service to the general population of Australia. The cost to the taxpayer will be immense.

There are some things which still concern a great number of people about Medibank. For instance, what about the additional costs which may be incurred by people who must have medical treatment? What is the position if they are not insured and wish to go into an intermediate or a private ward and they have to sustain the cost of that intermediate or private ward out of their own pocket? Will the money that they pay to the doctor or to the hospital still be tax deductible?

Dr Everingham:

– Yes.

Mr MacKELLAR:

– It will be tax deductible. That has not been made clear and many people are very concerned about it. We know what happens with a nationalised health scheme. I, like many other people, have lived in Britian. I remember very clearly the 3-minute consultations which are the order of the day in general practitioners rooms, I remember the 3-year wait for non-urgent medical cases which is the order of the day under a nationalised health scheme. What about pensioner medical card holders? At present I believe that they are entitled to a 50c rebate on the amount of money that they pay to pharmacists. Under the proposed system how will pharmacists know who is and who is not entitled to the 50c rebate, because I believe that there is no provision on the Medibank card to detail the status of the holder of that card. These are some of the many things which will be quite awesome possible effects of the introductions of a nationalised health service into Australia.

The other matter that I should like to raise tonight is the question of taxation generally throughout Australia and, at the same time, its relationship to the problem of inflation. It seems to me that the proper responsibilities of any national government require that that government should, firstly, guarantee the security of the nation and, secondly, guarantee the value of the money of the people of that nation. In both these areas- the security of the nation and the guaranteeing of the continued value of the people’s money- this present Government has possibly the worst record of any government in living memory in Australia. Inflation is an insidious thing. In fact, it operates as indirect taxation because as people move up the taxation scale they pay a greater percentage of their income as taxation.

We are seeing the destruction of the initiatives, ambitions and hopes of many Australians as they face the problems caused not only by the rampant inflation that is operating in Australia at the present time, but also by the increasingly heavy taxation burden that they have to bear. I believe that inflation can never be controlled while taxes are rising. There should be a diminution in the rate of taxation, both personal and corporate. This Government is destroying both personal and corporate initiatives. If you ask a number of people why they are taking more time off and why they are not working as much overtime as they used to work, the answer is inevitably the same- ‘it is not worth our while to work overtime; it is not worth our while to work a little bit harder, it is not worth our while to invest more money in a particular undertaking which we seek to pursue’. The simple reason is that the rate of taxation which they have to pay on any income which accrues is prohibitive. As I have said, this is destroying both individual and corporate initiative.

Whether we like it or not, even the Deputy Prime Minister has recently come to the conclusion that we need a private sector within Australia and that if we are to have a continued viable private sector it must have some hope, some opportunity, some initiative left to it to enable it and to encourage it to invest, capitalise and seek expansion. Under the present taxation rates, both corporate and personal, this initiative, this encouragement, simply will not come about and the whole community will suffer. We see other areas where this is also occurring. The Government has decided to limit to $300 the amount of taxation deduction for rates and taxes. It thinks that people who have to pay more than $300 -

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! It being 1 1 o’clock the House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

House adjourned at 11 p.m.

page 1310

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated:

Overseas Students: Medical Courses

Attorney-General’s Department: Appointment of Women (Question No. 101)

Mr Snedden:
BRUCE, VICTORIA

asked the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many women have been appointed to senior positions in his Department since 2 December 1 972.
  2. Who are they.
  3. To what position has each been appointed, and what is the function of the position.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

The right honourable member’s attention is drawn to the reply of the Prime Minister to a similar question (No. 97) asked by the right honourable member. The reply of the Prime Minister is published at page 625 of Hansard of 24 July 1974. The information there furnished is equally applicable in reply to the right honourable member’s question.

Department of Tourism and Recreation: Staffing Position (Question No. 267)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Tourism and Recreation, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many staff are employed in his Department.
  2. What are their classifications, divisional status and salary levels.
  3. How many additional positions are on the establishment but have not yet been filled.
  4. What are their classifications, divisional status and salary levels.
  5. For those officers above Class 7 level, what are their backgrounds and past experience.
  6. How many clerical assistant positions are provided for on the establishment.
  7. How many of these positions are staffed.
Mr Stewart:
ALP

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

The following is the staffing position as at11 February 1975.

The following is the break-up by classification, division and salary:

  1. Officers above Class 7 level have a variety of backgrounds and experience related to their functions.

. (6) 16.

(7)15.

Kangaroos: Conservation (Question No. 556)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Customs and Excise, upon notice:

  1. Who paid for the printing and distribution costs of a letter dated 22 April 1974 signed Lionel Murphy, Minister for Customs and Excise, and addressed ‘Dear Conservationist’.
  2. Who printed the letter.
  3. To whom was the letter distributed.
  4. Who distributed the letter.
  5. What was the cost of printing and distribution.
  6. Did the letter state that if the Liberal/Country Party gets into government you can be sure that merciless slaughter for export of our kangaroos will resume; if so, what was the authority for the statement.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

– The answer to the right honourable member ‘s question is as follows: .

  1. and (2) The letter was printed and paid for by a nongovernment source. Approximately 300 of the letters were sent in government envelopes from the office of the Minister for Customs and Excise.
  2. and (4) It was distributed to interested conservationists who had previously written to the Minister for Customs and Excise. It was also provided in bulk form to one conservation group for private distribution by them.
  3. Since the printing and distribution was done largely by a non-government source this information is not available.
  4. Yes. The authority for this statement was the record of the former Liberal/Country Party Government which during its time of office placed virtually no restriction on the export of millions of kangaroo skins.

Department of Housing and Construction: Management Consultant Firms (Question No. 808)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

  1. For what purpose has the Department used management consultant firms in the last 12 months.
  2. Which firms have been used.
  3. 3 ) What was the total cost.
Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. The management consultant firms listed in 2 (i) (ii) (iii) were engaged to carry out a survey of the Department’s stores and plant workshops and to continue studies in respect of project management and establishment of a management information system.

  2. (i) Colin Woodley Pty Ltd.

    1. John P. Young and Associates Pty Ltd.
    2. Campbell Mahlook Partners Pty Ltd.
  3. The total cost was $22,934.

The Treasury: Research and Development Staff (Question No. 867) Mr Snedden asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Ho w many officers or employees of his Department or of authorities under his control are employed on research and development work.
  2. Where are they employed.
  3. What is the nature of the work being undertaken.
  4. What is the total expenditure per annum in maintaining this research and development program.
  5. Who decides the nature of the programs or projects included in this research and development work.
Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

ns- The answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows:

The following estimates of research and development work have been collected in connection with the SCORE Project being undertaken by the Department of Science. They relate to the financial year 1973-74 and do not necessarily include work of a research and development character arising incidentally to continuing policy or other functions. (l)and(2) Treasury- 56, Canberra. Australian Taxation Office-41, Canberra. Commonwealth Banking Corporation- 151, Sydney. Reserve Bank-22, 14 Sydney, 8 Melbourne.

Major areas of research and development work include the following:

Treasury- study of economic trends and short-term forecasting, budgetary systems and Government accounting arrangements, resource allocation issues, financial institutions and the insurance industry, the Australian tax system; metallurgy and other research related to manufacture of coins.

Taxation Office- Research into automatic data processing systems, study of administrative and management techniques related to taxation.

Commonwealth Banking Corporation- Electronic data processing systems, statistical and operations research techniques applied to management problems, portfolio analysis.

Reserve Bank- Construction and use of theoretical economic models, development of note printing machines and security techniques.

The following estimates of current expenditure on research and development in 1973/74 include wages and other labour costs, expenditure of a non-capital nature, and overhead costs attributable to research and development work in that year:

Treasury-$238,000 Australian Taxation Office-$598,000 Commonwealth Banking Corporation- $ 1 ,520,000 Reserve Bank-$160,000

  1. Such decisions are taken in the ordinary course of administration. In the case of the Treasury, this can involve, as appropriate, consultation with the Treasurer and other authorities such as the Public Service Board. Responsibility for research projects in the Reserve Bank, Commonwealth Banking Corporation and Australian Taxation Office is taken by senior officers of these authorities.

National Pipeline Grid (Question No. 913)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. What amount of the 1973/74 Budget allocation for the national pipeline grid has been expended.
  2. Of the total amount expended from the Budget allocation, what proportion could be attributed to (a) administrative overheads, (b) labour costs and (c) material costs.
  3. What proportions of the 1973/74 Budget allocation for the pipeline grid were estimated at the time of allocation to be attributed to the 3 factors outlined in part (2).
Mr Connor:
ALP

– The answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows (figures rounded):

  1. $66.3 million.
  2. and (3) Information is not available in the form requested. Nor is it possible to separate labour and material costs because most of the work is being carried out under contracts the terms and conditions of which do not provide for such separation.

Natural Gas (Question No. 914)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) At the current world parity price for the gas contained in the deposits in the off-shore areas of North West Australia, what would be the estimated cost per gallon of motor spirit of converting the gas to motor spirit.
  2. What is the current equivalent world market price for gas of the type contained in the North West Shelf gas deposits of Western Australia.
  3. For the purposes of price negotiation with the consortium which owns these gas reserves, what is regarded as a reasonable rate of return on capital which the consortium should receive for the sale of its gas.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2 ) This would be dependent upon the costs of the gas. There is not an established world market price for gas of the type contained in the North West Shelf deposits, namely, natural gas, because unless it is conveyed by pipeline, it must be converted to liquefied natural gas or to methanol for transport As the product must be competitive with other energy sources at the destination, there are wide variations in prices.
  2. This is a matter for future negotiation.

Marijuana (Question No. 926)

Mr Chipp:

asked the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has he or his predecessor issued or caused to be issued any instruction or suggestion, to any members of any Police Force under the jurisdiction of the Australian Government, that persons found in possession of marijuana, in such a quantity as to suggest personal use, should not be prosecuted.
  2. If not, has he heard whether any such instruction has been issued.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) The practice in the Australian Capital Territory for some years has been not to arrest a person in possession of marijuana unless the quantity in his possession indicates that he is trafficking in marijuana and that, where there are doubts, the person is not to be arrested but the matter is to be reported. I see no reason to alter the practice. No instructions have been issued although I understand that the former Attorney-General discussed the matter briefly with the Commissioner, Australian Capital Territory Police Force.

Western Australia: Employment and Training of Aborigines (Question No. 958)

Mr Bungey:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. What special work project grants for the provision of employment or training of Aboriginals in Western Australia have been approved since 30 June 1972.
  2. To whom were the grants made, and for what purposes.
Mr Bryant:
Minister for the Capital Territory · WILLS, VICTORIA · ALP

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

  1. The following table provides the information requested by the honourable member.

Education: Government Expenditure (Question No. 981)

Mr Killen:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. Under what Acts of the Australian Parliament was money spent by the Australian Government for educational purposes in 1973-74.
  2. What sum was spent with respect to each Act in 1973-74. i
  3. What organisations, bodies, universities, schools, colleges or persons were the recipients of moneys pursuant to these Acts, and what sum was received in each case.
  4. What system of financial accountability functions with respect to the expenditure by the Commonwealth of moneys for educational purposes.
  5. Has such a system examined the expenditure of the moneys referred to in part ( 3 ).
  6. If such an examination of expenditure has been made, were there any instances of moneys having been spent in a manner not in accordance with the terms and conditions of the grant; if so, what are the particulars of the discrepancies.
  7. Was any money spent by the Australian Government for educational purposes in 1973-74, not being moneys spent pursuant to an Act of the Australian Parliament; if so, what were the details of the expenditure, and what was the nature of the purported authorisation for the expenditure.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) Funds specifically for educational purposes are authorised under the following Acts.

Other expenditure on education is authorised in the Appropriation Acts. Pages 34-40 of Appropriation Act (No. 1) 1974-75 and pages 9 and 10 of Appropriation Act ( No. 2) 1974-75 give details of expenditure in 1973-74.

The Appropriation Acts include expenditure authorised under the following Acts:

Commission on Advanced Education Act 1971-1973 Australian National University Act 1 966- 1 973 Canberra College of Advanced Education Act 1967-1973

Commonwealth Teaching Service Act 1 972- 1 973 Education Research Act 1 972- 1 973 Immigration (Education) Act 1971-1973 independent Schools (Loans Guarantee) Act 1969 Schools Commission Act 1973 Student Assistance Act 1973 Universities Commission Act 1 959- 1 974 Universities (Financial Assistance) Acts

  1. The information required by the honourable member is not readily available. Should the honourable member specify the information he requires I will endeavour to have information prepared for him or direct his attention to the relevant material.
  2. My Department is bound by the normal rules of financial accountability for Australian Government money. Estimates and expenditure are subject to review by the Senate Estimates Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, the Auditor General’s Office and normal internal audit procedures.

The States Grants Acts require the Minister for Education to lay periodic statements of expenditure under the Act before both Houses of Parliament based on information provided under each Act.

  1. Yes.
  2. Expenditure in 1973-74 was generally in accordance with prescribed procedures. The most significant exceptions to this are referred to in the report of the Auditor General for the year ending 30 June 1974.
  3. No.

Indonesia: Australian Scientists (Question No. 1013)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice:

  1. What Australian experts were conducting research or making scientific surveys in Indonesia under the Indonesian Government’s First Five Year Development Plan in 1973 and 1974.
  2. What were the fields of study of each.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2) There were no Australian aid experts conducting research or making scientific surveys in Indonesia in 1 973 or 1 974. However, in this period CSIRO scientists carried out preliminary investigations for, and planning of, an animal research centre to be established near Bogor in West Java. The aims of this centre are to improve the research capabilities of Indonesian scientists and to carry out research into both the production and efficiency in production of animal protein, with emphasis being given to meat and eggs. Australia’s contribution, in the form of construction assistance, research facilities, scientific and administrative staff and the training of Indonesian scientists, is expected to extend over a ten year period and to cost about $9 million.

Other CSIRO scientists made short visits to the Research Institute for Estate Crops to advise on laboratory techniques for measuring the nutritional requirements of rubber and other estate crops.

Education: School Retention Rates (Question No. 1315)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. What is the first to final year retention rates for (a) girls and (b) boys in (i) government, (ii) Catholic and (iii) other non-government secondary schools in (A) each State and Territory and (B) Australia in the most recent year for which figures are available.
  2. What proportion of all (a) boys and (b) girls in (i) each State and Territory and (ii) Australia attend each type of school mentioned in Part ( 1 ).
Mr Beazley:
ALP

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

Tables showing the information requested are set out below. School retention rates are ‘apparent’ as they only reflect the relationship between total numbers enrolled at the relevant stages. It is not feasible to trace actual student cohorts through the various school systems. ‘True’ retention rates are obscured by

overseas and inter-State migration over the periodfor example, retention rates in the Australian Capital Territory are higher partly because of gains through population inflows;

net migration between schools over the period- rates are influenced by movements from government to nongovernment schools during secondary years. This movement can explain the occurrence of apparent rates exceeding 100 percent.

The latest year for which theses figures are available is 1973.

Education: School Retention Rates (Question No. 1314)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

What were the first year to Junior Certificate level retention rates for (a) girls and (b) boys in (i) government (ii) Catholic and (iii) other non-government secondary schools in (A) each State and Territory and (B) Australia in the most recent year for which figures are available?

Mr Beazley:
ALP

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

A table showing the required retention rates is set out below.

School retention rates are ‘apparent’ as they only reflect the relationship between total numbers enrolled at the relevant stages. It is not feasible to trace actual student cohorts through the various school systems. ‘True’ retention rates are obscured by

overseas and inter-State migration over the period- for example, retention rates in the Australia Capital Territory are higher partly because of gains through population inflows:

net migration between schools over the period- rates are influenced by movements from government to nongovernment schools during secondary years. This movement can explain the occurrence of apparent rates exceeding 100 percent.

The latest year for which these figures are available is 1973.

Department of Housing and Construction: Housing Research (Question No. 1384)

Mr Lynch:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

What is the nature and extent of his Department’s research into (a) co-operative housing and (b) medium density housing.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. The Australian Government has been financing cooperative housing on a substantial scale since 1956 by means of funds supplied to terminating building societies under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. My Department maintains a close interest in the activities of these cooperative societies and also undertakes a regular examination of co-operative developments in other parts of the world. We are currently examining some of these developments, such as cost-rent societies aimed particularly at low income earners, in connection with the activities of the proposed Australian Housing Corporation.
  2. Medium density housing is one of the main topics being handled by the Housing Research Branch of the new Division of Building Technology and Sociology in my Department This research project will be long term and comprehensive and will require an examination of alternative dwelling types and the effect of these different types on resident attitudes. Factors such as the net dwelling densities, the efficiency of land utilisation, the area of private open space and the provision of car parking will be takeninto account when making a comparison of costs between medium density housing and traditional low density housing. The study will determine how these costs bear on the occupier, and how they bear on the community as a whole through the provision of services. Following the pattern set in a study done in Norway, a comparison will also be made between what has actually been achieved in medium density developments, and what can be theoretically achieved.

Department of Housing and Construction: Publication ‘Shelter’ (Question No. 1417)

Mr McLeay:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

  1. How many issues of the publication ‘Shelter’ have been printed.
  2. How many individuals and organisations are on the mailing list
  3. 3 ) Will he make this list available to the Opposition.
  4. Will he invite members of the Opposition to contribute to the publication.
  5. 5 ) What is the cost of each issue.
  6. What are the names and qualifications of each contributor.
  7. Has any fee been paid to a contributor; if so to whom and how much.
Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. 1 ) Fifteen issues of ‘Shelter’ have been printed.
  2. ) Approximately 4,500 copies are distributed by mail.
  3. ) Opposition members may obtain a copy of the list on application to the Department of Housing and Construction.
  4. ‘Shelter’ will accept contributions from anyone, including the Opposition and, in fact, every edition has car- ‘ tied a special invitation calling for articles. The Editor does reserve the right to select articles for publication.
  5. Each issue costs around $650 to print- typesetting charges vary.
  6. and (7) The names and qualifications of the contributors are shown in the following table. Also included in the table is the fee paid to contributors where relevant.

Market Forecasting (Question No. 1500)

Mr McLeay:

asked the Minister for Overseas Trade the following question, upon notice:

  1. Has he or his predecessor received submissions from the originator of the market forecasting scheme known as BIMARK; if so, when.
  2. Will implementation of the scheme be beneficial to governments, the building industry and the Australian public.
  3. If so, what steps are being taken to implement the scheme.
Mr Crean:
Minister for Overseas Trade · MELBOURNE PORTS, VICTORIA · ALP

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

The honourable member for Boothby directed a similar question on notice (No. 1503) to my colleague, the Minister for Housing and Construction. I refer the honourable member to the answer to that question which appeared in Hansard on 5 December 1974 (page 4830).

Incinerators: Airports and Seaports (Question No. 1510)

Mr Lloyd:
MURRAY, VICTORIA

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice:

  1. 1) Is his Department the constructing authority for incinerators at airports and seaports.
  2. If so, what requests from the Department of Health for incinerators are outstanding at the present time.
  3. When will incinerators be built at Newcastle, Darwin, Alice Springs and Adelaide.
  4. Would it be more satisfactory for the Department of Health to assume control for the construction as well as the maintenance of incinerators at ports.
Mr Charles Jones:
Minister for Transport · NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

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

In relation to quarantine incinerators installed at airports-

1 ) The Australian Government construction authority for quarantine incinerators is the Department of Housing and Construction. The Department of Transport has the financial responsibility. Previous to early 1972 the Department of Civil Aviation did provide funds for the construction of incinerators at airports. However, it is now considered that the responsibility for the disposal of such wastes rests with the Department of Health and the generators of the wastes.

The Department of Health is considering a new incinerator capable of destroying quarantine wastes for Perth Airport. The Department of Transport has given technical assistance in the planning of this unit. The Minister for Health would be in a better position to provide a target date for its completion.

There is no requirement for quarantine incinerators at Newcastle, Alice Springs and Adelaide Airports. Turning to Darwin, before the disaster caused by Cyclone Tracy a quarantine incinerator was in operation at the airport but the installation did suffer considerable damage. Target dates for the completion of repair work are not available. However, with the temporary cessation of the vast majority of international traffic through this airport, secondary facilities are being used to dispose of the small amount of quarantine wastes generated.

It seems that it would be more satisfactory for the Department of Health to have the responsibility for the provision and maintenance of quarantine incinerators at airports.

With regard to seaports, my Department is not the constructing authority for incinerators and questions relating to this area should be directed to my colleague, the Minister for Health.

Department of Customs and Excise: Government Grants (Question No. 1548)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Customs and Excise, upon notice:

  1. What programs does his Department or statutory authorities under his control administer which enable individual groups or people in the community to apply for grants from the Australian Government for a specific purpose.
  2. What is the name of each program.
  3. ) What is the purpose of each program.
  4. What are the conditions surrounding eligibility for a grant under each program.
  5. When did each program commence.
  6. What is the legal authority for the existence of each program.
  7. How is the community informed of the existence of each program, and its entitlement to apply for a grant.
  8. How many applications for grants under each program have been received in each of the last 3 years or for the period of operation of the program if it has been in operation less than 3 years.
  9. Who decides which applications for grants should be accepted.
  10. What percentage of applications for grants under each program have been successful in each of the last 3 years or in each of the years in which the program has been operating if it has been in operation for less than 3 years.
  11. What proportion of total funds allocated under each program in each of the last 3 years, or in each year the program has been operating where it has been in operation for less than 3 years, have been allocated to individuals as against groups.
  12. Are any attempts made to assess the extent to which the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the program and the means by which applications can be submitted; if so, what attempts.
  13. What checks are made once applications are received for each program to determine if the attempts to widen access to the funds have been successful.
  14. Is he confident that the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the program, and is aware of the application process.
  15. What procedures exist to assess the use to which the grants are being put, and to attempt some accountability for the money granted.
  16. What is the total amount that has been paid out under each program in each of the last 3 years or in each year of the operation of the program if it has been operating for less than 3 years.
  17. What is the total amount of money paid out for all such programs administered by the Department or authorities under his control
  18. What attempts are made to ensure that the same individual organisations or persons do not receive several grants under different programs which he or other Ministers are responsible for and which, when added together, may be unwarranted.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

  1. The Department of Customs and Excise does not administer any programs which enable individual groups or people in the community to apply for grants for a specific purpose. There are no statutory authorities under the Minister’s control.
  2. -(18)See(l).

Department of Housing and Construction: Government Grants (Question No. 1563)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice.

  1. What programs does his Department or statutory authorities under his control administer which enable individual groups or people in the community to apply for grants from the Australian Government for a specific purpose.
  2. ) What is the name of each program.
  3. What is the purpose of each program.
  4. What are the conditions surrounding eligibility for a grant under each program.
  5. 5 ) When did each program commence.
  6. What is the legal authority for the existence of each program.
  7. How is the community informed of the existence of each program, and its entitlement to apply for a grant.
  8. How many applications for grants under each program have been received in each of the last 3 years or for the period of operation of the program if it has been in operation less than 3 years.
  9. Who decides which applications for grants should be accepted.
  10. What percentage of applications for grants under each program have been successful in each of the last 3 years or in each of the years in which the program has been operating if it has been in operation for less than 3 years.
  11. What proportion of total funds allocated under each program in each of the last 3 years, or in each year the program has been operating where it has been in operation for less than 3 years, have been allocated to individuals as against groups.
  12. Are any attempts made to assess the extent to which the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the program, and the means by which applications can be submitted; if so, what attempts.
  13. What checks are made once applications are received for each program to determine if the attempts to widen access to the funds have been successful.
  14. Is he confident that the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the programs, and is aware of the application process.
  15. What procedures exist to assess the use to which the grants are being put, and to attempt some accountability for the money granted.
  16. What is the total amount that has been paid out under each program in each of the last 3 years or in each year of the operation of the program if it has been operating for less than 3 years.
  17. What is the total amount of money paid out for all such programs administered by his Department or authorities under his control.
  18. What attempts are made to ensure that the same individual organisations or persons do not receive several grants under different programs which he or other Ministers are responsible for and which, when added together, may be unwarranted.
Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. and (2) Home Savings Grant Scheme.

    1. To encourage and assist young married persons, and young widowed or divorced persons with dependent children, to buy or build their own homes, and to reward savings made towards that objective.
    2. Briefly, to be eligible for a grant of up to $750, a person must-
    1. have married;
    2. be under 36 years of age;
    3. have contracted to buy or build, or have commenced to construct as an owner-builder, the person’s first matrimonial or family home, valued at not more than $22,500;
    4. d ) have held savings in Australia for at least three years in an approved form before acquiring a home; and

    5. be an Australian citizen, or a resident of Australia, for at least three years.

    6. 20 July 1964.
    7. Homes Savings Grant Act 1964-1973.
    8. (a) By distribution of the Departmental explanatory pamphlet ‘A Grant for Your Home’, and application forms, which are available free of charge from banks, building societies, post offices and offices of the Department;
    1. by extensive publicity in the early years of the Scheme, and on each occasion the legislation is amended;

    2. by continued liaison with savings institutions and lending authorities.

    3. 1971-72 41,735

1972- 73 47,260

1973- 74 41,609

  1. The Secretary to the Department and officers holding delegated powers under the legislation.

    1. 1971-72 92.1 percent 1972- 73 91.2 percent 1973- 74 92.2 percent
    2. 100 per cent.
  2. and (13) Departmental officers in each capital city are in daily contact either personally or in writing with applicants and prospective applicants, and with savings institutions and lending authorities, throughout Australia, to explain the requirements of the Scheme.
  3. 14) All reasonable efforts have been made to bring the existence of the scheme, the eligibility conditions and the application procedures to the notice of the community.
  4. There is no requirement in the legislation that the grant must be expended on the purchase or construction of the dwelling but, if the purchase or construction has not been completed at the time of application for the grant, the recipient of a grant must advise the Department if the purchase or construction is not subsequently completed. Checks are made in cases of doubt.
  5. 1971-72 $17.4 million 1972- 73 $2 1.3 million 1973- 74 $24.7 million
  6. 1 7) $ 1 53.8 million for the ten-year period from the inception of the Home Savings Grant Scheme on 20 July 1964 to 30 June 1974.
  7. 1 8) A Home Savings Grant may not be made in respect of a home purchased from a State housing authority (or from another person with the assistance of a loan from the authority) if the home was built or the purchase is financed with money provided under a Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement or if the terms of purchase are subsidised by reason of an Australian Government grant to the State under the States Grants (Housing) Act 1971-1973. Similarly, in the case of a home in the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory, a grant is not payable if the home is purchased from, or with the aid of a loan from, the Australian Government or the Northern Territory Housing Commission. This is checked at the time of examining an application for a grant.

Department of Science: Government Grants (Question No. 1570)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Science, upon notice:

  1. What programs does his Department or statutory authorities under his control administer which enable individual groups or people in the community to apply for grants from the Australian Government for a specific purpose.
  2. What is the name of each program.
  3. What is the purpose of each program.
  4. What are the conditions surrounding eligibility for a grant under each program.
  5. 5 ) When did each program commence.
  6. What is the legal authority for the existence of each program.
  7. How is the community informed of the existence of each program and its entitlement to apply for a grant.
  8. How many applications for grants under each program have been received in each of the last 3 years or for the period of operation of the program if it has been in operation less than 3 years.
  9. Who decides which applications for grants should be accepted.
  10. What percentage of applications for grants under each program have been successful in each of the last 3 years or in each of the years in which the program has been operating if it has been in operation for less than 3 years.
  11. What proportion of total funds allocated under each program in each of the last 3 years, or in each year the program has been operating where it has been in operation for less than 3 years, have been allocated to individuals as against groups.
  12. Are any attempts made to assess the extent to which the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the program, and the means by which applications can be submitted; if so, what attempts.
  13. What checks are made once applications are received for each program to determine if the attempts to widen access to the funds have been successful.
  14. Is he confident that the widest cross-section of the community is aware of the existence of the programs, and is aware of the application process.
  15. What procedures exist to assess the use to which the grants are being put, and to attempt some accountability for the money granted.
  16. What is the total amount that has been paid out under each program in each of the last 3 years or in each year of the operation of the program if it has been operating for less than 3 years.
  17. What is the total amount of money paid out for all such programs administered by his Department or authorities under his control.
  18. What attempts are made to ensure that the same individual organisations or persons do not receive several grants under different programs which he or other Ministers are responsible for and which, when added together, may be unwarranted.
Mr Morrison:
ALP

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

The following programs administered by my Department and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) enable individual groups or people in the community to apply for grants for a specific purpose. This information supplements that provided in my reply to Question on Notice No. 95 (Hansard, 5 December 1974, pages 4854-59).

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE

Australian Research Grants- made in support of high level research projects by individuals and groups.

) Australian Biological Resources Study- made for the study of the taxonomy, distribution and ecology of Australia’s biological resources.

Crown of Thorns Starfish Research Grants- made for research into the problem caused by the crown of thorns starfish.

US/Australia Agreement for Scientific and Technical Co-operation- made to provide additional opportunities for the United States and Australia to exchange ideas, information, skills and techniques and to collaborate on problems of mutual interest in the field of civil science.

Details relating to the above programs may be found in the following ‘documents published by the Australian Government Publishing Service:

Department of Science. Report for the period 20 December 1972 to 30 June 1973. Department of Science Annual Report 1 973-74. ARGC Report 1970-72. ARGC Grants approved for 1973. ARGC Grants approved for 1 974. Australian Biological Resources Study Interim Council. Report 1973-74.

US /Australia Agreement for scientific and technical co-operation. Report on activities to 30 June 1972.

COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC and INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANIZATION (CSIRO)

1 ) Grants to research associations, e.g. Sugar Research Institute, Bread Research Institute of Australia.

) Grants to other national bodies where support by the Australian Government is channelled through CSIRO, i.e.

Standards Association of Australia (SAA)

National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA)

3 ) Extra-mural grants to universities and similar bodies.

Grants from the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF)

The purpose of these programs, which have been in operation for many years, is to foster and stimulate scientific research. They have as their authority the Science and Industry Research Act 1949-1973 and the Science and Industry Endowment Act 1926-1949.

Grants under these programs are not publicised in detail but by reference to CSIRO Annual Reports and from general knowledge within the scientific community, interested parties would be aware of the existence of these programs.

The amount paid under each program in each of the last three years is provided in the following table.

Records of unsuccessful requests for grants are not maintained for the first three programs and it is only in respect of SIEF grants that applications from individuals are considered. As shown in the table below (see (4) Science Industry Endowment Fund Grants) relating to these grants, the majority of SIEF grants are made to individuals.

All applications for grants are considered by the Executive of CSIRO, acting either in that capacity or as Trustees of the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. In some cases it is necessary for the Executive to seek the approval of the Minister for Science and the Treasurer for grants to e.g., research associations.

As CSIRO is represented on the managing boards of research associations, the SAA and NATA, it is in a position to influence decisions on the purposes for which grants are to be used. Similarly CSIRO is able to assess the use of grants. In these and other cases, CSIRO receives annual reports covering both the financial and research aspects of the grants.

The Executive of CSIRO, through liaison with other grant agencies, attempts to avoid any possibility of duplication of grants and, as an additional safeguard against this possibility, applicants are required to state in their application whether funds have been sought from other sources.

Further details on each of these programs follow:

Grants to research associations.

To be eligible the association must demonstrate that sufficient financial support is available from industry for its establishment and operation and it must have as its objective the undertaking of scientific research and such associated activities as are approved by CSIRO.

Grants to other national bodies.

The Standards Association of Australia and the National Association of Testing Authorities were formed as a result of policy of the Government of the day in the 1 920 ‘s and 1 940 ‘s respectively.

The Standards Association of Australia brings together representatives of industry, commerce, government, the professions and other interested parties to develop detailed standards specifications and provides facilities for review and revision of standards from time to time. The resulting standards are published in the ‘Standards Association of Australia Monthly Information Sheet’ and the ‘Australian Standards Annual List of SAA Publications ‘.

The National Association of Testing Authorities was established to organise a national service to provide testing facilities to meet the demands of Government, industry, and commerce and thus assist in maintaining the products of industry at a high standard.

Extra-mural Grants.

These grants are made to support research in university departments and similar institutions when that research is of interest to CSIRO and can more profitably, both for CSIRO and the university, be pursued by taking advantage of the facilities and staff availability in the university concerned.

Science and Industry Endowment Fund Grants.

There are no formal conditions attached to the grants, however the Executive of CSIRO, as Trustees of the Science and Industry Endowment Fund, allocates grants from the Fund to provide assistance:

to retired professional scientists, for individual work in an area in which they have demonstrated their competence and standing;

to gifted amateurs recognized by professional scientists as being competent workers in their field; and

for activities encouraging greater interest in scientific research among young people e.g. school science competitions.

The Trustees rarely approve support from the Fund if assistance might be given by existing institutions (e.g. applications from members of staff of universities or other institutions having research as one of their functions).

Some statistical details on the Fund for the last three years follow:

Capital Fund for Aboriginal Enterprises (Question No. 1758)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. 1) Do the provisions of capital funds or other funds or grants schemes enable a non-Aboriginal spouse of an Aboriginal to receive money.
  2. ) If so, under what conditions is approval given.
  3. How many such approvals have been given in each of the last 5 years.
Mr Bryant:
ALP

– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question: (1), (2) and (3) The Aboriginal Enterprises (Assistance) Act 1968 provided for the Capital Fund for Aboriginal Enterprises to extend financial assistance to enable persons of the Aboriginal race of Australia to engage in business enterprises that had prospects of becoming or continuing to be successful. A similar provision is included in the Aboriginal Loans Commission Act.

When considering applications for financial assistance where one spouse was non-Aboriginal, the Capital Fund Advisory Committee’s practice was to apply the following criteria:

  1. If the breadwinner was Aboriginal and intended to be the main participant in the proposed enterprise the loan, if approved, was made to that breadwinner.
  2. If the breadwinner was non-Aboriginal, careful consideration was given to the likely degree of involvement in the enterprise of the Aboriginal spouse.. Where it was considered that such involvement would be minimal, the applicants were advised that they were not eligible under the Act. In the event that such involvement was considered to be substantial, then the loan, if approved, was made to the couple as a partnership.

Since January 1970, the Capital Fund for Aboriginal Enterprises provided 25 loans to partnerships where one spouse was not an Aboriginal. The break-up was as follows:

Grant schemes administered by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs are applicable only to Aboriginal communities or groups. The question of a non-Aboriginal spouse of an Aboriginal receiving financial benefit from these schemes does not therefore arise.

Ministerial Staffs (Question No. 1850)

Mr Connolly:

asked the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many persons are on his personal staff.
  2. What are their names, designations and salaries.
  3. Which of them are (a) permanent or (b) temporary public servants.
  4. From which departments have the permanent public servants been seconded.
  5. How many advisers and consultants have been or are employed by him, and what are their names and salaries.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

I refer the right honourable member to the answer given to Question No. 1862 by my colleague the Special Minister of State on 5 December 1974 (Hansard pp. 4841-4847).

Ministerial Staffs (Question No. 1866)

Mr Connolly:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many persons are on his personal staff.
  2. What are their names, designations and salaries. .
  3. Which of them are (a) permanent or (b) temporary public servants.
  4. From which departments have the permanent public servants been seconded.
  5. How many advisers and consultants have been or are employed by him, and what are their names and salaries.
Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. to (5) I refer the honourable member to the details concerning the Department of Housing and Construction given in the Special Minister of State’s answer to Question No. 1862 published in Hansard of S December 1974, pages 4841 to 4847.

Medical Benefits Fund of Australia: Contribution Rates (Question No. 1953)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What were the weekly family contribution rates to the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia in New South Wales on (a) 1 May 1974 and (b) 1 December 1974, and what are the current rates, in respect of (i) medical plus public ward cover, (ii) medical plus intermediate ward cover, and (iii) medical plus private ward cover.
  2. What was the percentage increase in each case, and what was the corresponding percentage increase in average weekly earnings during the same periods.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) The weekly family contribution rates of the New South Wales Branch of the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia, on the relevant dates, are shown below together with details of average weekly earnings per employed male unit in New South Wales for the quarters ended June, September and December 1974. Comparable figures for earnings prior to the June quarter 1974 are not available due to a change in the basis used. Also shown, on a percentage basis, is the degree of increase between the various levels of contributions and earnings.

Coal: Darling Downs (Question No. 1957)

Mr McVeigh:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What stage has been reached in the development of a hydrogenation plant to convert Darling Downs coal into fuel energy forms.
  2. Has any finality been reached in the development of the Milmerran coal deposits.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) The proposal for the development of a hydrogenation plant ‘to convert Darling Downs coal into fuel energy forms ‘ is a joint proposal of the Milmerran Coal Pty. Ltd., which owns coal leases in the area, and the Mitsui Company of Japan. As presented to me on 4 November 1974 by officers of the two companies, the proposal envisages the operation of a 10 000 tonne/day commercial plant by 1 98 1 .
  2. No final decision has yet been made concerning the development of the Milmerran coal deposits. Such a decision will depend on the result of a five year exploration programme now underway, and the availability of conversion technology now under investigation in Japan.

Control of Wages (Question No. 1962)

Mr McVeigh:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

Does he have any plans to control wages in an endeavour to reduce the present rate of inflation of 20 per cent to a more reasonable and acceptable rate.

Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

The present rate of inflation is not 20 per cent, nor was it at the time the honourable member’s question was placed on notice.

The index used in Australia to measure the rate of inflation normally is the Consumer Price Index. In the 12 months to the end of December 1 974, the Consumer Price Index for the 6 capital cities increased by 16.3%, not by 20%. In the December quarter of 1 974, it increased by 3.8%.

The honourable member will know that the Australian Government does not possess the constitutional power to control wages. A referendum seeking that power for the Australian Parliament failed to pass in December 1 973.

Nevertheless, in the present inflationary situation, the Australian Government is cognisant of the need to achieve some moderation of the increase in money earnings while at the same time seeking to maintain the real living standards of most wage and salary earners.

To this end, the Australian Government has submitted to the full Bench of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission hearing the current national wage case that a form of indexation of wages and salaries should be implemented and that other grounds for wage and salary increases be limited.

The final decision in this matter rests, of course, with the Commission.

Hutt River: Income Tax (Question No. 1970)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

Hashis attention been drawn to a statement by Leonard Casley, wheat farmer of Western Australia and self styled Prince Leonard of Hutt River, in which he claims that he and other resident citizens of Hutt River Province do not pay taxation on income earned totally within the Hutt River Province; if so, is the statement correct.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

Contrary to the impression conveyed by Mr Leonard Casley, the so-called Hutt River Province has not seceded from Australia and has no legal status. The Commissioner of Taxation has advised that there is no provision in the income tax law under which persons residing in the Hutt River area of Western Australia may be granted exemption from tax on income arising from sources in that area.

South Pacific Meetings (Question No. 1977)

Mr Garland:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) With reference to the press release by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, dated 20 December 1974, in which reference was made to a meeting of the leaders of the South Pacific Forum held in Western Samoa 11 to 16 December 1974, did Australia send a sufficiently high representative when practically all the other countries were represented by Prime Ministers, Presidents, Chief Ministers or Premiers.
  2. Did the Minister for Foreign Affairs have more important duties than attendance at this meeting.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) Because of a prior commitment to visit countries in Europe and Asia I could not myself accept the invitation extended to me or one of my colleagues to attend the informal gathering of leaders of the South Pacific Forum held in Western Samoa in December. I asked the Honourable W. L. Morrison, Minister for Science and Minister Assisting the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Matters Relating to Papua New Guinea, to attend since he had recently attended the South Pacific Conference and South Pacific Commission.

My Government has placed more emphasis on relations with the governments of the South Pacific than any earlier government. I am the first Prime Minister to have visited Western Samoa, the Cook Islands or Fiji. My ministers and I have attended meetings as follows:

Zambia: Australian Assistance (Question No. 1978)

Mr Garland:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice:

  1. With reference to the news release of the Minister dated 22 December 1974, how is it proposed to see that the payment of $150,000 to the African national liberation movements will be confined to humanitarian assistance for peoples in Zambia.
  2. Is it a fact that the payment will make other funds available for violent purposes.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. Australia’s assistance of $150,000 will be provided to a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) project in Zambia. The project is of a humanitarian nature and involves provision of schools, health clinics, child care centres, agricultural training units and nutrition units for refugees from Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, Namibia and Angola who have temporarily settled in Zambia. Our contribution will be made available to UNICEF which is responsible for the project and will ensure that donor contributions are spent for purposes for which they are intended.
  2. An officer of the Australian Mission in Nairobi has visited the refugee camps in Zambia and his observations indicate that the support currently given to the women and children in these camps is extremely limited. The Australian contribution would therefore be used to fulfil a need not being currently met and would be most unlikely to release any funds for other purposes.

Interdepartmental Committees (Question No. 1991)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

When will he answer my question No. 283 which first appeared on the Notice Paper on 1 6 July 1 974.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

The question was answered on 26 February 1975 (Hansard, page 807).

The Treasury: Research and Development Staff (Question No. 1992)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

When will he answer my question No. 867 which first appeared on the Notice Paper on 2 August 1 974.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

I draw the right honourable member’s attention to the answer to this question provided in today’s Hansard.

Civil Defence (Question No. 1993)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

When will he answer my question No. 1137 which first appeared on the Notice Paper on 26 September 1 974.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

The question was answered on 4 March 1975 (Hansard, page 1029).

The Treasury: Publications (Question No. 1995)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

When will he answer my question No. 1579 which first appeared on the Notice Paper on 1 3 November 1 974.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

The question was answered on 26 February 1975 (Hansard, page 810).

Antarctic Expeditions (Question No. 2138)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Science, upon notice:

When will he answer my question No. 1762 which first appeared on the Notice Paper on 13 November 1974.

Mr Morrison:
ALP

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

I refer the right honourable member to my answer to question No. 1762 (Hansard, 6 March 1975, page 1236).

Public Service: Mandata (Question No. 2160)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Special Minister of State and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Matters Relating to the Public Service, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Further to question No. 1 320 concerning the operation of MANDATA, has the consultative group representing staff been established; if so, what is its composition.
  2. What are the accepted principles which ensure the rights to individual privacy are preserved.
Mr Lionel Bowen:
ALP

– The Public Service Board has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question:

  1. 1 ) A consultative group representing staff was established in April 1973. The consultative group comprises representatives of the peak Councils of staff associations and unions with members in the Australian Public Service. These Councils areCouncil of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations

(C.C.P.S.O.)

Australian Council of Trade Unions (A.C.T.U.)

Council of Professional Associations (C.P.A.)

Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (A.C.S.P.A.)

  1. Access to specific information to be held in the MANDATA system about individuals will be made available to users of the system only on a ‘need to know’ or ‘right to update’ basis. This means that an authorised Public Service Officer will have access only to that information in the system which he needs to carry out his official duties.

Design features will be incorporated in the MANDATA equipment and also suitable procedures will be established to ensure that access is by authorised staff only and that such access is on a restricted basis.

In its operation of the MANDATA system the Board will of course have continuing regard for any general principles which may be established by the Government on the rights of individuals in respect of data held about them in computer systems.

National Employment and Training System (Question No. 2177)

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration upon notice:

  1. How many people are now enrolled under the National Employment and Training System.
  2. How many people applied for training under the System to date.
  3. How many people were registered as unemployed when they enrolled.
  4. How many were (a) persons threatened with redundancy, (b) women returning to the workforce, (c) Aborigines, (d) students who had already begun a course and (e) blue collar workers.
  5. What is the average period of training approved for (a) white collar and (b) blue collar workers accepted under the System.
  6. 6 ) How many people in each category are undergoing ( a ) full-time and (b) part-time training.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

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

  1. 1) to (6) I shall be issuing shortly a detailed report to me by my Department on the first three months operation of the National Employment and Training System (NEAT). I think the honourable member will find that the answers to his question will be provided by that report but if, on reading it, he wants further elaboration I shall do what I can to provide it for him.

Income Maintenance Scheme (Question No. 2178)

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. What is the average income of people on the Income Maintenance Scheme.
  2. How many people were getting support from this figure at the end of January 1975, and what is the estimated figure for the end of February 1 975.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I am informed that the answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. The average income to the nearest dollar of people on the Income Maintenance Scheme is $89 per week.
  2. In the last pay week of January 3085 people received $89 and over; 6187 people received less than $89. In the last pay week of February 4648 people received $89 and over; 5579 people received less than $89.

National Employment and Training Scheme (Question No. 2186)

Mr Lucock:
LYNE, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. How many people from the rural sector applied for training under the NEAT System for the first time during the months of October, November and December 1974.
  2. How many people were accepted for training during this period.
  3. Do the statistics that are being kept under the System enable identification of the previous occupation of the applicants such as (a) farmers, (b) dependants of farmers, (c) farm workers, (d) dependants of farm workers and (e) other members of the rural workforce, including those working in industries closely associated with the rural section, e.g., agents for tractors and agricultural machinery, garages, etc if so, what are the details.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

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

  1. 1 ) to (3) I shall be issuing shortly a detailed report to me by my Department on the first three months operation of the National Employment and Training System (NEAT). I think the honourable member will find that the answers to his question will be provided by that report but if, on reading it, he wants further elaboration I shall do what I can to provide it for him.

Fuel Supplies (Question No. 2188)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. Did he state on 17 September 1974 that the annual throughput of refineries in Australia was 220 million barrels of crude and liquids associated with crude.
  2. Did he also claim that there were 3300 million barrels of these liquids in reserve which by simple division gives Australia 1 5 years fuel reserves.
  3. If so, does he adhere to these figures.
  4. Do his figures for liquid reserves contain approximately 1000 million barrels of liquid petroleum gas.
  5. Has he any estimate of the percentage of liquid reserves which are recoverable at the present Australian price of crude oil; if so, what are the details.
  6. What is his projection of demand for refinery feedstock during each of the next 1 S years.
  7. Did the Forecast of Consumption of Primary Fuels 1972-73 to 1984-85 published by his Department state at page 3 that refinery feedstock demand will increase by about 4.9 per cent per annum; if so, what is the reconciliation of this estimate with the figures he gave on 17 September 1974, which imply constant annual demand.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) See Hansard of 17 September 1974 at page 1263.
  2. 1 adhere to what I then said.
  3. About 900 million barrels of L.P.G.
  4. Remaining liquid reserves recoverable from fields declared commercially viable aggregate about 75 per cent of reserves when fields which have not yet been declared commercial or are awaiting connection to a pipeline are included.
  5. Because of factors influencing future demand, like those I mentioned in my answer on 25 February to Question No. 917 (Hansard page 699), I am not prepared to make projections which would depend on too many assumptions to be of real value.
  6. Yes. No reconciliation is necessary. In stating explicitly on 17 September 1974 that ‘At present day consumption rates Australia has 15 years of fuel supply in reserve’, I clearly implied that the life of the reserve would vary inversely with consumption rates.

A.C.T.: Tenders for Residential Leases (Question No. 2193)

Mr Street:
CORANGAMITE, VICTORIA

asked the Minister for the Capital Territory, upon notice:

  1. Will the names of the successful tenderers for housing blocks in the A.C.T., and the amount of their tender, be published.
  2. Will all tenders be opened at the same time.
  3. Who will be present when they are opened.
  4. Can a tenderer put in more than one tender.
Mr Bryant:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: 1 to 4. In all cases where tenders are invited for residential leases (single residential leases and leases for medium density housing) in the Australian Capital Territory, the following procedures have and still continue to apply:

Tenders are invited and a closing time is nominated.

A formally constituted departmental tender opening panel opens tenders immediately after the closing time. An Internal Auditor attends on a random basis.

All tenders are opened at the same time.

Occasionally tenderers bidding for a single site have submitted more than one bid. In all cases the highest bid is accepted. Where a number of leases are offered together applicants can bid for one or all of the available leases indicating their order of preference and the number of sites sought.

Applications are considered by the Departmental Tender Board which makes recommendations to the Permanent Head of the Department of the Capital Territory.

The names of successful applicants are notified in the Australian Government Gazette together with details of the lease purchased and the price paid.

Company Taxation (Question No. 2195)

Mr Bourchier:
BENDIGO, VICTORIA

asked the Treasurer upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has his attention been drawn to the statement by a Professor Jones of the United Kingdom that the industrial decline in that country is caused by massive company and direct taxes, which leave too little money for re-investment or expansion.
  2. Can he say whether company tax in the United Kingdom is 1 9 per cent, in West Germany 27 per cent and in the United States of America 30 per cent.
  3. Does the Government agree that the Australian tax charge of 45 per cent is too high under the present economic pressures.
  4. Does the Government also agree that the private enterprise sector must be allowed to make a profit in order to offer continuous employment.
  5. Do taxes on profits at 45 per cent, in conjunction with high inflation rates, mean that residue profits are inadequate to permit required expansion.
  6. Will he take urgent steps to reduce this tax rate until such time as inflation is reduced.
Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1)1 have seen statements by a number of persons attribu-. ting the United Kingdom’s economic problems to a variety of quite different factors, including those mentioned by the honourable member.

  1. Of the three countries referred to, only the United States has the same so-called classic system of company taxation as Australia. In the United States the general company tax rate is effectively 48 per cent on all income in excess of S2S,000 (a lower rate of 22 per cent applies on the first $25,000 earned).

The Federal Republic of Germany has a split-rate system of taxing company profits under which undistributed profits are effectively taxed at 52.53 per cent and distributed profits at 24.55 per cent.

The United Kingdom has an imputation system of taxing companies and their shareholders under which a shareholder is permitted a credit against personal income tax on dividends received to allow for some of the tax paid by the distributing company on the profits it distributes. The credit is provided through what is known as advance corporation tax, paid at the time a distribution is made, and set at a level equal to the basic rate of personal tax. From 1 April 1974, the rate of corporation tax has been 52 per cent and the basic rate of personal tax 33 per cent.

  1. The present rate of tax on public companies is comparatively low in terms of recent experience.
  2. Yes.
  3. and (6) Questions relating to inflation and taxation, with respect to both companies and persons, are being studied by a Committee of Inquiry under the chairmanship of Professor R. Mathews. The report of the committee, to be submitted by May this year, will be most carefully considered by the Government.

Metric Conversion (Question No. 2196)

Mr Garland:

asked the Treasurer upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Did he write to Mr J. Mottram of Ajax Printing and Duplicating Pty Ltd, Thornbury, Victoria, on 10 June 1974 indicating that he thought the complications of metric measures are likely to confuse and distress persons much more than decimal currency and that he could not see that the benefits are immense.
  2. Did he also say that he favoured action to suspend conversion so that its costs and benefits can be reassessed.
  3. If so, was he expressing the attitude of the Government; if not, what action is he taking to change that attitude.
Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

  1. Yes.
  2. Yes.
  3. No. My letter did not purport to express the Government’s attitude. My colleague the Minister for Science, who is the Minister responsible for the metric conversion program, is aware of my personal views on the subject.

Nitrogenous Fertilizer (Question No. 2218)

Mr McVeigh:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy upon notice:

  1. Is the supply of nitrogenous fertilizer to the agricultural industry threatened.
  2. If so, is this caused by the knowledge that the operations of Consolidated Fertilizers, Gibson Island (Brisbane) Plant are jeopardised because existing supplies of natural gas in the Roma Gas Field could be exhausted within 10 years.
  3. What encouragement is the Australian Government giving in the way of provision of improved taxation measures and other incentives for gas exploration and development of improved gas flow to the Gibson Island Plant.
  4. Will he ensure that everything possible is done to make adequate supplies of nitrogen available on a continuing basis at reasonable prices.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. The Industries Assistance Commission concluded, in its report of 16 July 1974 at page 15, that total Australian capacity of the nitrogenous fertilizer industry is 1 .7 times the level of Australian market requirements for all uses and will not, it is estimated, be matched by Australian demand until 1980 at the earliest.
  2. See(l).
  3. and (4) The Pipeline Authority is consulting Queensland authorities concerning future supplies of natural gas to Brisbane with a view to reaching basic supply decisions this year and is in touch with the Queensland Government Gas Engineer and Chief Gas Examiner with a view to the early establishment of an authoritative assessment of probable long-term market demands so that the most economical solution can be found.

Works of Art: Acquisitions (Question No. 1659)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. What works of art have been purchased by the Government since 2 December 1 972.
  2. From whom were they bought and for what price.
  3. What is the name, nationality and age of each of the artists whose works have been purchased.
  4. What are the corresponding details for the equivalent period prior to 2 December 1972.
  5. What percentage of purchases by the National Gallery Acquisitions Committee has been of Australian works of art in each of the last 5 years.
  6. What percentage of the total money expended in acquiring works of art has gone towards Australian works of art in each of the last 5 years.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) to (4) The right honourable member will know of my interest over many” years in this matter. I refer him to my questions of 20 October 1964 (Hansard page 2 126), 29 September 1965 (Hansard page 1475), 28 October 1966 (Hansard pages 2423-4), 8 November 1967 (Hansard pages 2869-70), 27 November 1968 (Hansard page 3375), 9 September 1969 (Hansard page 1013), 12 June 1970 (Hansard page 3670), 21 October 1970 (Hansard page 2613), 24 February 1971 (Hansard page 624) and 23 November 1971 (Hansard page 3531) and my answers of 27 March 1973 (Hansard page 760), 13 December 1973 (Hansard pages 4778-84) and 5 December 1974 (Hansard pages 4829 and 4851-2).

I would also draw the right honourable member’s attention to the answer given by the then Prime Minister on 14 May 1970 to a question without notice (Hansard pages 2 128-9) concerning the time and attention required of senior departmental officers in answering questions on notice. He said, inter alia, “there can be no attempt to stop people asking questions to elicit information. That should be understood. But it should also be understood that if thousands of questions are placed on a notice paper then it will take a very long time to answer them . . . or it will tie up large numbers of public servants who .have other things to do . . . The problem is there; the solution is one of common sense and self discipline.” ‘ The very lengthy appendix to this answer lists, by artist and year of acquisition, works of art acquired for the Australian National Gallery from 1 July 1969 to 31 December 1974. It is not practicable to provide details of the nationality or ages of the artists since this information is, in many cases, either not available or would be difficult if not impossible to obtain.

It is normal international gallery practice not to make public prices paid for individual works of art as a matter of principle, out of regard, frequently, to the wishes of vendors and with regard to the effects such disclosures might have on market values whether up or down.

(5)

(6)

I should point out, however, that in 1973-1974, the first full year in which my Government was responsible for the purchase of an works, $467,320 were spent on Australian an- an amount over 60 per cent higher than the total expenditure on Australian an m any previous year.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 8 April 1975, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1975/19750408_reps_29_hor94/>.

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