House of Representatives
27 March 1979

31st Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 31st Parliament
  3. 1979

Mr SPEAKER (Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden) took the chair at 3.7 p.m., and read prayers.

page 1129

DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Mr SPEAKER:

– I inform the House that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is within the precincts. With the concurrence of honourable members, I propose to invite His Royal Highness to occupy a seat beside the Speaker’s chair.

Honourable members- Hear, hear!

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales thereupon entered the chamber and was seated accordingly.

Mr SPEAKER:

-On behalf of the House of Representatives, I extend to your Royal Highness a sincere, cordial and loyal welcome.

page 1129

PETITIONS

The Clerk:

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

Pensions

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

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments “that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

  1. Restore twice-yearly pension payments in the Autumn session.
  2. Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Adermann, Mr Anthony, Mr Donald Cameron, Mr Cohen, Mr Humphreys, Mr Keating, Mr Martin, Mr Morris, Mr O’Keefe, Mr Sainsbury, Mr Scholes and Mr Short.

Petitions received.

Medical Benefits: Abortions

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

The undersigned citizens of Australia humbly pray that you reject the motion to be moved by Stephen Lusher MHR which proposes: ‘to remove items from the standard medical benefits table which currently permit medical benefits for abortion ‘and ‘to cease the funding of medical benefits schemes through which claims for termination of pregnancies can be made’.

Your petitioners humbly pray that you support: a woman’s right to choose abortion as a claimable item under all health benefit schemes.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Dobie, Mr Hunt, Mr Innes, Mr Les McMahon, Mr Scholes and Mr Simon.

Petitions received.

Medical Benefits: Abortions

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

That the provision of payments for abortion through items of the Medical Benefits Schedule is an unacceptable endorsement of abortion which has now reached the levels of a national tragedy, with at least 60,000 unborn babies being killed in 1977.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Honourable Members should:

Amend the Medical Benefits Schedule so as to preclude the payment of any benefit for abortion.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Dobie, Mr Hunt, Mr Les Johnson, Mr Roger Johnston, Mr MacKellar and Mr Shipton.

Petitions received.

Medical Benefits: Abortions

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 present provision of payments for abortion through Items of the Medical Benefits Schedule is an unacceptable endorsement of abortion which has now reached the level of a national tragedy with at least 60,000 unborn babies being killed each year.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members should:

Request that legislation be introduced in order to prevent payments for the unnecessary destruction of unborn children.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Kevin Cairns, Mr Donald Cameron, Dr Everingham and Mr McVeigh.

Petitions received.

Pensions

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 in his 1977 election speech the Prime Minister supported by a majority of Members of the House of Representatives gave an undertaking that in exchange for electoral support he would guarantee the retention of twiceyearly adjustments of social security pensions in accordance with movements in the Consumer Price Index.
  2. 2 ) That this undertaking of the Prime Minister and a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives has been repudiated causing severe hardship to pensioners.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives will take action to require those Members who have not honored their undertaking, to resign from the Parliament in order that the people of Australia can choose Members who will represent the wishes of the electors and who will honor any undertakings they gave.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petitions received. by Mr Les Johnson and Mr Scholes. Petitions received.

Taxation: Tax Agents

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of Bruce Edmunds and Associates respectfully showeth:

THAT current requirements of the Commissioner of Taxation for the lodgement of Income Tax Returns by Registered Tax Agents restricts the trading of such agents to a period of 8 months in any fiscal year. The demands by the Commissioner for lodgement of Income Tax Returns before the 28th February following the tax year is an imposition and a restriction, limiting the trading from twelve to eight months.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the law should be amended to permit any registered tax agent to trade for a full year and lodge Income Tax returns to the close of the respective tax year.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petition received. by Mr Aldred. Petition received.

Pensions

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 whereas the Fraser Government was elected in December 197S after promising that pensions would be adjusted instantly and automatically in relation to quarterly Consumer Price Index Figures;

And whereas that Government subsequently announced that pension adjustments should properly be made half yearly each May and November;

It is the current intention of the same Government to legislate for pensions to be adjusted only once a year, and this constitutes a serious breach of generally accepted ethics, of Democratic Government, and also deprives many needy pensioners of increases that are essential to their Subsistence.

The foregoing facts impel the under-signed Petitioners to request the Australian Goverment to uphold the principle that trustworthiness of Governments should at all times be above question.

And to appeal to the Parliament to prevent the imposition of further economic hardship upon the Australian Pensioners, by rejecting any Bill which has for its aim the introduction of annual adjustments of Pension rates.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Anthony. 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 objection to the Metric System and request the Government to restore the Imperial system.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petition received. by Mr Burns. Petition received.

Broadcasting and Television Programs

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 because television and radio

  1. affect our social and moral environment
  2. are family media watched and heard by many children at all times, and
  3. present too much explicit violence and sex, they therefore need stronger control than other media and the existing standards need stricter enforcement in both national ABC, and commercial sectors.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That the Australian Government will amend the Broadcasting and Television Act, in relation to both national and commercial broadcasters, to legislate

  1. for adequate and comprehensive programs in the best interests of the general public,
  2. b ) for a ‘ Dual System of Regulation ‘ enforced by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal by internal regulation and external control,
  3. c) for an independant consumer body to represent the best interests of the general public, and
  4. for immediate and effective penalties to be imposed for breaches of program and advertising standards.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petition received. by Mr Cohen. Petition received.

Pornographic Publications

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 we the undersigned; having great concern at the way in which children are now being used in this production of pornography call upon the government to introduce immediate legislation;

  1. To prevent the sexual exploitation of children by way of photography for commercial purposes;
  2. To penalise parents/guardians who knowingly allow their children to be used in the production of such pornographic or obscene material depicting children;
  3. To make specifically illegal the importation, publication, distribution and sale of such pornographic child-abuse material in any form whatsoever such as magazines, novels, papers or films;
  4. To take immediate police action to confiscate and destroy all child pornography in Australia and urgent appropriate legal action against all those involved or profiting from this sordid exploitation of children.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will protect all children and immediately prohibit pornographic child-abuse materials, publications or films.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Dobie. Petition received.

Royal Commission on Human Relationships

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

That because the Report of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships and especially its Recommendations:

  1. Have been widely condemned for its support of unAustralian, anti-family, anti-child behaviour and morals such as incest, promiscuity, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, prostitution and brothels, etc.
  2. Have been strongly criticised by the medical profession for the absence of any medical practitioner on the Commission or on its staff of 31 persons, and for the Commissioners action in rejecting or ignoring relevant medical evidence.
  3. Have been discredited as irresponsible in adopting a new definition of the family, i.e., ‘a varying range of people living together in relationships of commitment’, which has effectively confused the real meaning and intentions of the Report where it refers to the ‘family’.

Therefore the Parliament has a responsibility to the families of Australia not to adopt this controversial Report and its Recommendations.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That the Australian Parliament will-

  1. Simply receive the Report and not adopt its Recommendations,
  2. Set up a Select Parliamentary Committee along the lines of the New Zealand Select Committee to conduct a public inquiry into the ways and means of supporting and strengthening family life and providing adequate protection for children from physical and sexual abuse before as well as after birth in accordance with the UNO Declaration of the Rights of the Child as part of Australia’s support for the Year of the Child.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will take no measures concerning the Royal Commission on Human Relationships Report that will further undermine and weaken marriage, child-care or the family which is the basic unit of our society.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Dobie. Petition received.

Pensions

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

We the undersigned wish to protest in the strongest possible terms the governments decision to abolish the twice yearly review of pensions. That this decision will cause untold hardship for people on fixed incomes who will now be a full year behind rising prices.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House will request that the government reintroduce the twice yearly pension reviews in line with the consumer price index. by Mr Hodges.

Petition received.

Commando Expeditions: Award of Medal

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

The Humble Petition of undersigned citizens of Australia respectively showeth:

  1. . In 1 943 and 1 944 two small scale raids were undertaken by Australian and British Commandos on shipping in Singapore Harbour.
  2. The first operation named ‘Jaywick’ reached Singapore in September 1943 from a base in Australia using a captured Japanese vessel known as ‘The Krait’, sank seven (7) ships, a total of 39,000 tons and returned to Australia. This was the longest successful small scale raid in the history of War.
  3. The second operation named .D:-n’., attempted to repeat that raid in September 1944. The raid was detected in the entrance to Singapore Habour and the commandos were forced to retire. A submarine sent to pick them up did not keep the appointed R.V. and the raiding party was forced to set out for Australia in their canoes.
  4. Many of the commandoes were killed by Japanese search parties near the Indonesian Islands. Three commandoes in an incredible feat of endurance and heroism, paddled two thousand five hundred (2,500) miles from Singapore to Romang Island only 400 miles from Australia. This journey was one of the most fantastic in the history of war- in the history of the sea.
  5. All the Commandos who had not been killed were finally captured, court martialled and ceremoniously executed in Singapore by Samurai Sword only 39 days before the Japanese surrender.
  6. The Commandos were ceremoniously executed because the Japanese considered- ‘It would be a disgrace to the fine spirit of these heroes if we thought of saving their lives’.

Major Kamiya the prosecutor at the Japanese Court Martial who made the above comment went on to say, inter alia- ‘These heroes must have left Australia with sublime patriotism flowing in their breasts and with the confident expectation of all the Australian people on their shoulders. ‘As we respect them, so we feel our duty of glorifying their last moments as they deserve, and by doing so the names of these heroes will remain in the hearts of the British and Australian people for evermore ‘.

  1. Due to the secrecy surrounding operation ‘Rimau’ its members were completely ignored and received no recognition at all. No attempt was made by the authorities to inform the relatives of the circumstances of death. The only official notification was that they had been killed in action in 1945. It was not until the publication of a book called ‘The Heroes’ by Ronald McKie in 1960 that the relatives read for themselves of the manner in which the commandos died.
  2. To date, the exploits and deaths of the .DI-ni.’ commandos have not remained undying in Australian history as the Japanese expected, following the ceremonial execution. They have been forgotten and ignored by Australia. They are the Forgotten Heroes.
  3. On Saturday 8 July 1978, the 33rd Anniversary of the end of operation .D,-n-‘ the members of the 1 Commando Association held a memorial parade to honor the memory of these gallant men, and of the men of ‘Jaywick’ many of whom were also members of the ‘Rimau’ raiding party. The parade was held before the Geat War Memorial in Hyde Park Sydney. Relatives of the men of ‘Jaywick’ and .D :-n, were flown from all parts of Australia to be present.

A specially commissioned March called ‘The Forgotten Heroes’ was played for the first time by the Band of the New South Wales Police Force.

  1. At the Memorial Parade a medal in the form of the drawing reproduced hereon was presented on behalf of each of the members of operation ‘Jaywick’ and ‘Rimau’. The medal was designed and presented because repeated requests by the 1 Commando Association at all levels of Government to obtain some official recognition for these men had been refused.

Your Petitioners humbly pray that the members, in the House assembled, will take the most urgent steps to approve the conferring of the medal on the men of ‘Jaywick’ and ‘Rimau’ on behalf of the people of Australia to honor the memory of these gallant men so that future generations of Britain and Australia will know and admire what these men did and their memory will remain in the hearts of the British and Australian people for evermore.

And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petition received. by Mr Howard. Petition received.

The Budget

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

That because this budget will further increase the number of persons unemployed, because it reduces the average worker’s spending power by $ 10 per week, because it will reduce the income of pensioners, because it is unfair in placing a greater burden on the poor rather than the rich, and because it is driving this country into a depression.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Federal Government withdraws this budget and provides Australia, within this session of Parliament with a revised budget that increases the level of economic activity in Australia, lowers unemployment, removes the burdens placed on the disadvantaged, and revives business and consumer confidence in the future of this potentially great country.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Les Johnson. Petition received.

National Natural Disaster Insurance Scheme

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

That the Government’s decision not to proceed with a national disaster insurance scheme will cause financial and personal hardship to people living in the country and city who are victims of natural hazards such as floods, land slip and tropical cyclones. That it is impossible to obtain adequate insurance cover for natural disasters from existing private insurance companies.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Federal Government reconsider its decision and honour its promise made in March 1976 to establish a National Natural Disaster Insurance Scheme.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Les Johnson. Petition received.

Australian Broadcasting Commission

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

That because the reduction in funding to the Australian Broadcasting Commission has reduced the standard of programs broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Commission and because the failure to reappoint a staff-elected Commissioner to the Australian Broadcasting Commission has denied staff democratic representation on the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Federal Government provides the Australian Broadcasting Commission with greater funds so that it may maintain the standard of its programs, and reappoints a staff-elected Commissioner to the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Les Johnson. Petition received.

Royal Commission on Human Relationships

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

That because the Report of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships and its Recommendations:

  1. contain matters of substance which ought to be pursued.
  2. result from a wide range of submissions made by Australians from all walks of life.
  3. identify many problem areas requiring attention.
  4. have been given media coverage which grossly distorts the contents.
  5. have thus far been ignored in Parliament. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray: That the Australian Parliament will:
  6. debate the Report and its Recommendations.
  7. make provision for rational public debate on the Report and its Recommendations.
  8. encourage its Members to support such public debate in their electorates.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will implement such measures to maintain the

Commissioners ‘ ‘ belief in the right and integrity of the individual to make free choices in the context of human relationships, and to have access to the knowledge and skills which give such a free choice meaning’.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray,

Petition received. by Mr Roger Johnston. Petition received.

Primary Producers: Fuel Costs

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

That we the undersigned, members of the Central Burnett Branch of the Queensland Graingrowers’ Association, wish to protest in the strongest possible way about the exhorbitant charges for fuel imposed on primary producers in the recent Budget.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government reconsider its action thus encourage production, development and enterprise to proceed in this fine country of ours.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Katter Petition received.

Commonwealth Government Employees Compensation

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of the State of New South Wales respectfully showeth:

That compensation benefits payable to injured Australian Government employees and Defence Forces personnel under the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act 1971 should be increased as a matter of urgency in view of the financial plight of recipients, particularly those suffering long term incapacity and because of the significant increase in the cost of living which has occurred since compensation payments were last adjusted; and

That statutory provision should be made for the automatic adjustment of compensation benefits.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Dr Klugman. Petition received.

Seals

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

That the Australian Government ban all future importation of Seal products whatsoever.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government:

Will implement the cessation of imported Seal products and that a formal protest to be made to the Canadian Government concerning the needless slaughter of the endangered Harp Seal species.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Mr Viner. Petition received.

page 1133

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
Prime Minister · Wannon · LP

- Mr Speaker, I inform the House that the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) will be leaving Australia later today to undertake discussions in the United States and Canada and probably Japan and New Zealand. He is expected to return on 12 April. The Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon) will act as Minister for Trade and Resources and as the Minister for Special Trade Representations until Mr Garland’s return from overseas. Mr Garland will then act as Minister for Trade and Resources.

page 1133

BUILDERS LABOURERS FEDERATION

Notice of Motion

Mr BURNS:
Isaacs

– I give notice that on the next day of sitting I shall move:

That this House condemns the black-mailing statements of the Secretary, Builders Labourers Federation, Norm Gallagher, who has publicly stated that the Builders Labourers Federation has black-banned work of various shopping complexes in Victoria unless contractors agree to pay all workers on the site $2 1 per week over the award.

It is the opinion of the House that the Government should appoint a Royal Commission to investigate the activities of the Builders Labourers Federation.

page 1133

QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

page 1133

QUESTION

PETROL PRICES

Dr BLEWETT:
BONYTHON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister for National Development: Did he hold a conference with representatives of the oil companies on 13 February of this year? Did the companies, specifically Shell and BP, increase the wholesale price of petrol by 1.5c to 2c a litre, or 7c to 9c a gallon, the day after that meeting? Did the retail price of petrol, within a few days of that meeting, increase by 2c to 2.6c a litre, or 9c to 12c a gallon, at what were previously discount service stations? Does the Minister support the virtual ending of petrol discounting which followed his secret agreement with the oil companies?

Mr NEWMAN:
Minister for National Development · BASS, TASMANIA · LP

– The answer to the first part of the question is yes. As to the implied results of that meeting, those implications are quite false. There was no question at that meeting- in fact there were no discussions as I recall it- that had anything to do with price adjustments and applications to the Prices Justification Tribunal. I have maintained a particular position, which I will repeat here, that I have told the oil companies that applications that they have in train with the PJT represent a matter that is between them and that Tribunal. If they wish to take PJT matters up with the Government it is a question of their taking them up with my colleage the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. As I have said, any implication that there were secret deals at this meeting are completely without foundation- as I made clear in a personal explanation to this House last week.

page 1134

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SAVINGS BONDS

Mr SHORT:
BALLARAT, VICTORIA

– I preface my question to the Treasurer by referring to the issue at par, as from 1 November 1978, of Series 13 Australian Savings Bonds and ask: Is it a fact that these bonds carry an interest rate of 8.73 per cent if not redeemed prior to 1 June 1979? If so, does this mean that an investor who subscribes now to the bonds would not be subject to a reduction in that rate of interest if he or she held them until after 1 June 1979? If so, does this mean that Australian Savings Bonds Series 13 are now an extremely attractive form of short term gilt-edged security?

Mr HOWARD:
Treasurer · BENNELONG, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

-The short answer to the honourable member’s question is yes, because if an investor were to subscribe now to the Australian Savings Bond and were to hold the bonds until 1 June 1 979 he would not be subject to a reduction of the 8.75 per cent interest. The honourable member for Ballarat is quite right to infer that in those circumstances, taken with its other attendant qualities, this form of investment is a very attractive form of short-term security.

page 1134

QUESTION

PETROL PRICES

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I ask the Minister for National Development: Has his attention been drawn to published statements that the oil companies are making higher profits under the Fraser Government than under the Whitlam Government? Is it a fact that the end of petrol discounting which resulted from the Minister’s meeting with the oil companies on 13 February will produce a further $ 1 50m in income?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The nature of the question asked by the honourable gentleman should be such that it seeks information, not make a statement. I will not allow a statement to be made in a question. The honourable member may seek information but may not state that a certain thing has taken place.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I asked the Minister whether it was a fact that the degree of profit to be received from the oil companies was of the order of $ 150m, and whether the source of that $150m was the extra price that was imposed on the Australian motorist, That is the question. Finally, how does the Government propose to justify this extra profit by the oil companies when they are already receiving record profits?

Mr NEWMAN:
LP

– I answer the first part of that question by repeating as clearly and concisely as I can that there is no relationship between the meeting of 13 February between the oil companies and myself and any decision taken by oil companies in their applications to the Prices Justification Tribunal, or any decisions made by the PJT. There is absolutely no relationship at all. The meeting of 13 February was to discuss the oil supply and demand situation in this country, as it was affected by the uranium situation. I do not think I can make that any clearer. As to the profits made by the oil companies, let me repeat the procedures for the honourable member because he obviously does not understand them. The oil companies make an application to the PJT based on the costs of their production and so forth, which the PJT then considers. The PJT then hands down a decision as to the wholesale price of those products. That decision is made entirely without influence by the Government. It is a decision made by the PJT itself.

page 1134

QUESTION

COMPUTER TENDERS

Mr CONNOLLY:
BRADFIELD, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Has the Minister for Defence seen claims made by the managing director of an Australian computer company that $500,000 worth of tenders called by the Department of Defence specified United States brand names only, thereby excluding Australian companies? He described this practice as a national scandal. Will the Minister advise the House whether the situation is as described and, if so, the reasons for excluding Australian brand names from the tender if they have plug compatible equipment?

Mr KILLEN:
Minister for Defence · MORETON, QUEENSLAND · LP

-The man who made the allegation has done so on completely false grounds. For a start, it is not the Department of Defence that called for tenders. The tenders were called for by the Department of Administrative Services. I speak subject to correction, but I understand that the computer is connected with the ongoing experimental Jindalee over-the-horizon radar system. Very few computers are compatible with that system. To ensure compatibility with certain computers would cost a very great deal of time and involve a very great deal of money. I suppose it would be somewhat akin to installing a gearbox from a 1978 LTD in a 1954 Holden sedan.

page 1134

QUESTION

CALTEX: PETROL PRICE RISE

Mr STEWART:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Is it a fact that the Minister for National Development has stated either privately or publicly that the arguments of Caltex for an 0. 1 5c per litre price rise in petrol have considerable force and merit? Is it also a fact that, according to a survey of service stations in Melbourne last November, Caltex was wholesaling petrol to discount outlets at approximately 4.5 c per litre less than the maximum wholesale price authorised by the Prices Justification Tribunal? If so, how can the Minister support the most recent demand by Caltex for a further price rise?

Mr NEWMAN:
LP

-The short answer to the honourable member’s question is that I cannot recall ever making any comments about a Caltex application to the PJT.

page 1135

QUESTION

MIDDLE EAST PEACE TREATY

Mr BURNS:

-Will the Prime Minister tell the House what the Government’s attitude is towards the signing of the Middle East peace treaty in Washington yesterday?

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
LP

-The Government and, I believe, all members of this House and all Australians applaud the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Australia joins all nations committed to peace in welcoming this milestone towards a lasting peace in the Middle East. Much remains to be done, but a very significant step has been taken, and that ought to be recognised. The Government supports all moves designed to end the long years of tension and suffering in the Middle East and to bring about stability and peace absent from that region for so long. The signing of the treaty is a significant step in that direction.

I pay tribute to President Sadat and to Prime Minister Begin for their courageous statesmanship, for the very real courage of a kind which is not always apparent, in bringing this about. I also pay tribute to President Carter for his untiring efforts in leading the two nations towards the treaty. I inform the House that President Carter sent a message outlining the results of negotiations in March involving Egypt and Israel. In my reply I assured him of the support of the Australian Government in his endeavours. We all know that much remains to be done. For a lasting Middle East settlement, other Arab states will need to take part in the peace process, and these states continue to have significant doubts about the negotiated agreement. The Government hopes that the new treaty will be progressively implemented and that work on a comprehensive Middle East settlement can proceed. This is a great day for all of those who believe in the capacity of man to resolve differences by rational discussion, by reason and goodwill rather than by fighting.

page 1135

QUESTION

DEFENCE: AUSTRALIA’S COASTLINE

Mr MARTIN:
BANKS, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question which is directed to the Minister for Defence is supplementary to the question asked by the honourable member for Bradfield. Is the Minister at present receiving sufficient funds from the Government to enable Australian defence forces to defend the thousands of miles of Australian coastline from the ‘enemy’? Is the Minister satisfied that funds at present made available to him are being used to the best advantage to defend us from the ‘enemy’? Which country does the Minister see as a threat to Australia and how real is that threat? What action is the Minister taking to defend our shores from the ‘enemy’?

Mr KILLEN:
LP

– I am left with the impression that that question was formed in the honourable gentleman’s mind after attending a very bad Halloween party.

page 1135

DISALLOWED QUESTION

Mr Cotter proceeding to address a question to the Minister for Post and TelecommunicationsMi Innes- Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The question that the honourable member is asking was placed on notice and is on record in today’s Notice Paper.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will give me the number.

Mr Innes:

– It is question No. 3478.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The question on the Notice Paper is a narrower question but it incorporates the material that is included in the broader question of the honourable member for Kalgoorlie. The question therefore is out of order.

page 1135

QUESTION

CHRISTMAS ISLAND

Mr DAWKINS:
FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

-Is the Minister for Home Affairs aware that a major dispute has developed on Christmas Island as a result of the action of the British Phosphate Commission in employing non-union European workers in place of a small number of striking Asian workers? In fact, is it true that the whole of the Asian work force on the island has now ceased work? Is it also true that the BPC seems intent on escalating the dispute into a race war by closing the company store to all Asian residents and by collecting the refuse of only European residents? Will the Minister intervene to ensure that the BPC desists from this madness?

Mr ELLICOTT:
Minister for Home Affairs · WENTWORTH, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– That is a very emotive question. If there is an industrial dispute, I do not think that it would be very wise for me to answer the question. There is a dispute on Christmas Island and the Arbitrator has been notified of the dispute. The dispute involves most of the workers on the island, including administrative workers, and I have instructed a representative of the Department of Home Affairs to appear before the Arbitrator this afternoon to notify him of the dispute as far as it relates to the administration. At this stage, I do not want to say any more.

page 1136

QUESTION

PRIMARY INDUSTRY BANK OF AUSTRALIA

Mr O’KEEFE:
PATERSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Primary Industry: Has the Primary Industry Bank of Australia announced that it is seeking funds from depositors? Will the Minister inform the House of the progress of the Primary Industry Bank since its inception last November? Is the Bank receiving adequate funds from income equalisation deposits and private sources to enable it to carry out its role?

Mr SINCLAIR:
Minister for Primary Industry · NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP/NP

-Since its establishment, the Primary Industry Bank of Australia has provided a different sort of facility to the primary producing community- directly through the loans that it advances on a longer term and, indirectly, through the stimulus that it has given to the participating banks to ensure that they also provide significantly longer lending opportunities to their clients than was previously the case. As far as the facility is concerned, I think that many people felt that the income equalisation deposit funds, which were created by the Government specifically to enable primary producers to have some offset against the swings of the pendulum of both seasons and markets, were in some way going to be the only source of finance for lending by PIBA. This of course is not so. As the honourable gentleman’s question suggests, the Primary Industry Bank of Australia is raising funds, both by subordinated loans from the participating members of PIBA and also through direct subscription from the public. That direct subscription is covered by more than adequate security and funds deposited attract the commercial interest rates. I believe that it is a very valuable investment for ordinary members and specifically those in the primary industry sector of the community who have a direct interest in it.

One of the problems in PIBA is that there is still quite a number of branch managers throughout the country who have not adequate knowledge to provide lending on the terms that their customers would hope for. I believe that there are difficulties in providing adequate funds. Although loans totalling $40m were advanced in the first three months of PIBA ‘s operation, there are many in the country who look for somewhat longer terms of lending than have customarily been available to them. Where individuals have difficulty there is an opportunity to go to the Commonwealth Development Bank as it provides a back-up lending facility. I believe that there is an adequate chance for anyone with a reasonable proposition to secure a loan from PIBA. Where there are difficulties, they can come back to the head office of their own bank, to the Development Bank, or to PIBA to ensure that the loans are meeting the general objectives of the Government. The lending has been most successful and I believe that this facility is a worthwhile extension to primary industry, forestry, fishing and agriculture, at a time when demonstrably that sector of the Australian community is contributing so much to the economic revival of this country.

page 1136

QUESTION

INDEXATION OF PERSONAL INCOME TAX RATES

Mr HAYDEN:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND

– I ask a question of the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the statement made by his predecessor in the August 1977 Budget where, with reference to personal income tax rates, he said:

Full automatic indexation . . . will be maintained in respect of the new system in future years.

That is, from and including the 1979-80 Budget. Will the Treasurer give an unqualified guarantee that he will honour the promise of his predecessor and introduce full indexation of personal income tax rates in 1979-80? Would such an undertaking involve a loss to revenue of the order of $500m by moving from the present half indexation to full indexation in the next Budget?

Mr HOWARD:
LP

-I have already indicated both in this House and elsewhere that in the time between now and the Budget it will not be my intention seriatim to respond to specific questions raised by the Leader of the Opposition as to what may or may not be included in that Budget. I have nothing to add to the earlier statements made by either my predecessor or me on that subject.

page 1136

PETROL PRICES

Mr GOODLUCK:
FRANKLIN, TASMANIA

-The Minister for National Development will be aware that the price of petrol throughout Australia has varied consideraby from State to State for many years, sometimes to the detriment of many motorists in country areas, particularly in Tasmania. Is it a fact that there is no conspiracy between the oil companies and the Federal Government in relation to the price of petrol and the further availability of petrol and that some of the statements attributed to the

Opposition are nothing more than mischievous -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. The last part of the question is clearly out of order. Enough of the question was in order to be answered.

Mr NEWMAN:
LP

– The last part of the question is fairly relevant because the only motive -

Mr Young:

– I take a point of order. Mr Speaker, you have just ruled that the second part of the question is not relevant. The Minister is reflecting on your ruling.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I call the Minister for National Development.

Mr NEWMAN:

– The Opposition has tried to say that there is a conspiracy between the Government and the oil companies in the fixing of the wholesale prices for petroleum products. All I can do is repeat what I have said in answer to other questions today: It is the Prices Justification Tribunal that hears applications from the oil companies as to the reasons why they require increases and the costs are laid bare to the PJT. It is the PJT that decides the prices. I repeat that as far as I am concerned I have never, on behalf of anybody, let alone the oil companies, been to the PJT on any matter supporting any application before it.

page 1137

QUESTION

TAX AVOIDANCE

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
KINGSFORD-SMITH, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Will the Prime Minister confirm that he has received a memorandum with independent estimates from both his own Department and from the Treasury that the level of tax avoidance has reached $3,000m per annum, notwithstanding the elimination of the Curran scheme?

Mr HOWARD:
LP

– I have received a number of memoranda from the Taxation Office and from the Treasury regarding the size of tax avoidance. I take the opportunity of informing the House of the implications of a decision of the Federal Court of Australia last week. The decision received some publicity. It involved a now amended section 36a of the Income Tax Assessment Act. The amendment was passed on 21 April 1977 by the House. On my advice from the Taxation Office, the effect of that decision will be to cost the revenue about $500,000 in the current financial year. In subsequent financial years, if the decision had gone in favour of the Taxation Commissioner, it would have been hoped that an additional $100m of revenue would have been collected.

So if the honourable member is genuinely concerned about the level of the tax avoidance in this community I share that concern. In the next week or so I hope to be in a position to provide the House with some further substantial figures so far as the level of tax avoidance is concerned arising out of individual schemes. I do not have any recollection of a memorandum which ascribes that particular figure. I think the honourable member would be aware that this is an area in which figures tend to get bandied around. I mention the Westraders Pty Ltd case as an example of how figures can be bandied around. It was suggested that the cost to revenue of that decision in one quarter was $ 1000m. My advice is that if it had gone the other way we would have gained an extra $100m in revenue. If the honourable member wants me to provide the House with hard information as to the level of tax avoidance, I will do my best. In any event, apart from his question it had been my intention of so doing, but I think he will understand that until very hard evidence is available it hardly contributes to a mature debate on the subject to bandy figures around.

page 1137

QUESTION

PETROL PRICES

Mr PORTER:
BARKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

-I refer the Minister for National Development to the article in today’s Australian Financial Review regarding a telex from Caltex Oil (Australia) Pty Ltd. Is the Minister satisfied with the security of his office? Would the interests of Caltex be served by the release of the telex referred to in that article? Has the Minister already dealt publicly with the fuel situation and rationing in an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10 March? Finally, does the Government agree that oil companies ought to be able to recover the higher costs of nondomestic crude provided such increases in domestic prices of fuel take fully into account the proportion of cheaper domestic crude to which the companies have access?

Mr NEWMAN:
LP

– I think the short answer to the last part of the honourable member’s question is yes. Simply, the procedure with the Prices Justification Tribunal is that where an oil company has to import from overseas supplies which are at spot prices in excess of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries market prices or where they are on a surcharge on existing contracts, of course it is quite open for a company to go to the PJT -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister as a matter of courtesy is speaking towards the honourable member but it so happens that he is turning away from the microphone. I ask the Minister to speak towards the House.

Mr NEWMAN:

– Yes, Mr Speaker. I was saying that it is open to any company to go to the PJT to demonstrate a case for an increase and let the PJT decide. As to the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review let me say this about the report: In short, it is bunkum. There is no hush up; there is no cover up. There was a meeting of the oil industry and myself on 13 February, as has been referred to in this House already today, and at that meeting amongst the discussions between the oil industry representatives and myself it was decided that there should be a responsible and accurate statement to the nation on what we talked about. So immediately after that meeting I made a statement, and I have, on previous occasions now, repeated that statement. The position exactly is this: Based on the advice of the oil companies, I can say that up to about the May /June period the matter of oil supplies in this country is under control. There will be only one thing that will disturb that situation and that is if there is any increase in demand and an upsurge, say through panic buying; that may make a change. After the June period, because of the situation in Iran and the OPEC countries generally, the position is not known. It is a question as to what will be the position after June. I am now on record as saying, in trying to gauge what is the situation and the shortfalls that may occur, that one option might be to look at rationing in this country. I believe that that is an option we will not have to go to because there are other things that we now have put in train that will avoid that situation. Just let me repeat that the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review is entirely without foundation. The country is informed as to the situation as I am being -

Mr Hayden:

– Are you saying there was no telex?

Mr SPEAKER:

-I call the Leader of the Opposition to order.

Mr NEWMAN:

– The country is being accurately informed on the situation as I am being briefed by the oil companies and the situation is being assessed by my Department of National Development.

page 1138

QUESTION

PETROL PRICES

Mr KEATING:
BLAXLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for National Development a question relating to the previous question. The Minister will recall telling the Parliament on 22 February in answer to the honourable member for Bradfield:

I met executives of all the oil companies in Australia a week or so ago and they agreed with the Government’s assessment that there is no immediate concern about Australian supplies of crude oil or products. I think that is the outlook for about the next six months.

In the light of the release of the Caltex telex which outlines the Government’s request to the oil companies to play down the seriousness of Australia’s oil supplies, did the Minister not purposely mislead Parliament?

Mr NEWMAN:
LP

-The short answer to the honourable member’s question is: No, I did not mislead Parliament. After that meeting of 13 February I held a Press conference in Parliament House. I also released a statement. That statement is entirely consistent with the remarks that I just made to this House about the outlook for Australia for the first two quarters of this year up to the end of June and the months after June. So I really do not know what the honourable member is on about. What I said is entirely consistent with what I have just said. If honourable members would like the record to be clear, and they have not seen my Press statement of 13 February, it is here on the table and I am happy to have it incorporated in Hansard.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable gentleman request that it be incorporated in Hansard.

Mr NEWMAN:

-Yes, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is leave granted?

Mr Young:

– On the basis that the telexes are incorporated also.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is leave granted?

Mr Young:

– No, not unless the telexes are incorporated also.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Leave is not granted.

page 1138

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN FILM INDUSTRY

Mr HODGMAN:
DENISON, TASMANIA

-Can the Minister for Home Affairs provide the House with facts and details concerning the present state of the Australian film industry? Is it going well or is it in difficulty? What is the current standing of the industry both within Australia and internationally?

Mr ELLICOTT:
LP

-I thank the honourable gentleman for his searching question. I think every Australian is very proud of the rebirth of our film industry. I notice that that is acclaimed by both sides of the House. One of the things that we have been waiting for in relation to the rebirth of our industry is for it to be successful overseas. One fact which is clear is that we cannot support an industry that is simply able to show films to our 14 million people; we need to break into the wider market. Very good reports are coming from overseas about Australian films.

For instance, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Last Wave, which are both personal triumphs for Peter Weir, have broken into the toughest market- the United States of America.

The Last Wave reached position No. 25 on the list of the current 50 top grossing films in the United States and 10,000 seats were sold in the first three days for the showing of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Newsfront has been showing in London to full houses for eight weeks and brilliant reviews are following its showing. After an initial opening at five theatres in London the Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith is now showing to capacity audiences in London. Last month the Berlin film festival, as one of its major events, ran a special information category on Australian films. I was also told by the honourable member for Denison that there are very good reports on A Australians After Dark in Hong Kong.

Honourable members will be aware that some years ago the Australian Film and Television School was established and that last year its first graduates graduated. Another group of graduates graduated this year. Those graduates are starting to move into our film and. television industry and to succeed. Most of them are in work, and this is extremely important in the film industry. One factor I find disturbing- I hope that honourable members also find it disturbing- is that the Australian Film Commission, I understand, has been asked by the New South Wales Film Corporation not to support four films at the next Cannes festival. Why? It is because the New South Wales Film Corporation wants to do so itself? I would hope that the tendency overseas to fragment our industry will stop.

We have the strange position now of a New South Wales Film Corporation office as well as an Australian Film Commission office in Los Angeles. I hope that the efforts of our film industry through our commissions will be at one overseas. We cannot afford this split personality which seems to be designed to bolster the personality of the Premier of New South Wales. I finish on a pleasant note. Honourable members will recall that last week I sent them a letter inviting them to see The Odd A Angry Shot at six o ‘clock in the National Library tonight. I remind honourable members of that invitation. I also remind members of the Press Gallery that they are invited.

page 1139

MOTION OF CENSURE

Suspension of Standing Orders Mr KEATING (Blaxland) (3.5 1 )-I move:

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

That the House censures the Minister for National Development for

His deliberate and calculated attempt to mislead this House and the Australian people as to the gravity of the oil crisis currently facing Australia;

His attempt to obtain $ 1 7m from the Treasury to fund a publicity campaign to now mislead the public as to the gravity of the petroleum situation; and

His failure to evolve anything approaching a comprehensive energy policy in Australia.

Mr Speaker, I move this motion because ;

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the honourable member be not further heard.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat.

Mr Keating:

– They run away from the debate. The Minister should come out and fight.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Blaxland will -

Mr Keating:

– He has been exposed again for his duplicity and for the lies that he tells in this Parliament.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The House will come to order. The honourable member for Blaxland will withdraw.

Mr Keating:

– I withdraw, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Blaxland will also apologise to the Chair for continuing to shout after the Chair had asked him to resume his seat.

Mr Keating:

– I was provoked, Mr Speaker; but, if you insist, I apologise.

Question put:

That the honourable member be not further heard.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden)

AYES: 81

NOES: 36

Majority……. 45

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Mr YOUNG:
Port Adelaide

-This is a corrupt Government which is in the pocket of the oil companies. The reason it will not debate this issue in the Parliament is that it is hiding what the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman) said behind closed doors.

Motion ( by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the honourable member be not further heard.

Mr Young:

– He will not disclose in the Parliament what he said.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Port Adelaide will resume his seat.

Mr Young:

– This is a corrupt Government in the pocket of the oil companies.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I warn the honourable member for Port Adelaide. I am not prepared to allow an honourable member to continue speaking after he has been called to order in accordance with the Standing Orders. I warn the honourable member for Port Adelaide.

Mr Young:

- Mr Speaker, I was not being disrespectful to the Chair. Because all the yahoos on the other side were making so much noise, I could not hear.

Question put-

That the honourable member be not further heard. The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden)

AYES: 80

NOES: 34

Majority……. 46

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

That this House censures the Minister for National Development for

1 ) His deliberate and calculated attempt to mislead this House and the Australian people as to the gravity of the oil crisis currently facing Australia;

His attempt to obtain $17m from the Treasury to fund a publicity campaign to now mislead the public as to the gravity of the petroleum situation; and

His failure to evolve anything approaching a comprehensive energy policy in Australia.

Mr HURFORD:
Adelaide

-It is vitally necessary to have this suspension to flush out the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman), to find out the truth.

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) put:

That the question be now put.

A division having been called for and the bells being rung-

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

– I wiSh to rise to a point of order. How much longer -

Honourable members interjecting-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There is too much noise on my right. I ask honourable members to remain silent. I call the honourable member for Newcastle.

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

- Mr Speaker, how much longer is this Government going to be tolerated -

Mr SPEAKER:

– There is no point of order.

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

-. . . in using its numbers in this Parliament to cover up a crooked and corrupt Minister and Government?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Newcastle knows that he is not entitled to use that language. I ask him to withdraw it.

Mr Bungey:

– Ha, ha, ha!

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Canning knows that those incredible noises are out of order. I ask the honourable member for Newcastle to withdraw.

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

– Mr Speaker, I understand -

Mr SPEAKER:

– I ask the honourable member for Newcastle to withdraw.

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

– Even though it is the truth, I withdraw it.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Newcastle will withdraw unqualifiedly.

Mr Charles Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

– Well, I withdraw unqualifiedly.

Mr Yates:

- Mr Speaker, on a point of order -

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman is free to stand.

Mr Yates:

– I understood, Mr Speaker, that when a division was in progress honourable members had to be seated and covered. Therefore, I remained seated.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I will give the honourable gentleman a full and complete answer later.

Mr Yates:

– Thank you, Mr Speaker. Question put:

That the question be now put. The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden)

AYES: 78

NOES: 34

Majority…… 44

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative. In division-

Question put:

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

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden)

AYES: 35

NOES: 78

Majority……. 43

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 1143

MOUNT LYELL MINING OPERATIONS

Mr Eric Robinson:
MCPHERSON, QUEENSLAND · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present copies of agreements dated 1 November 1977 and 30 June 1978 between the Commonwealth of Australia and the State of Tasmania relating to financial assistance to subsidise Mount Lyell mining operations.

page 1143

ABORIGINAL LAND COMMISSIONER

Mr VINER:
Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs · Stirling · LP

– For the information of honourable members I present the report of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner on the Alyawarra and Kaititja land claim, together with the text of a statement by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Senator Chaney) concerning the report.

page 1143

SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

Mr ADERMANN:
Minister for Veterans’ Affairs · Fisher · NCP/NP

– For the information of honourable members I present the text of the Government’s response to the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations on its examination of the 1974-75 annual report of the Australian Housing Corporation.

page 1143

QUESTION

RECORDING OF DIVISIONS

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-I Mr Speaker, I would like to place a matter before you for consideration. On Friday of last week the Sun-News Pictorial reported in alphabetical order the names of all those honourable members who voted for and against the amendment moved by the honourable member for McMillan (Mr Simon) in this House on Thursday last. The form of reporting followed the practice adopted by Hansard and, indeed, the Votes and Proceedings of this House, whereby members’ names are recorded alphabetically and the tellers are shown at the bottom of the list. I supported the amendment of the honourable member for McMillan and voted for it. As I also counted the votes, my name appeared as a teller. Obviously, it was not clear to people how the tellers voted. Many people rang me and, as my name was not included in the alphabetical list, they asked why I had not supported the amendment. I explained that my name was appended at the bottom as one of the tellers. So I ask you Sir, to please give consideration to this problem with a view to examining the method of recording votes cast during a division so that it is clear to those who may care to read Hansard, and perhaps not understand the system, how the tellers voted.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I will certainly examine the matter raised by the honourable member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson). Of course, the manner in which Hansard records the voting has been the same for very many years- for as long as I can remember. It does, as the honourable member states, give a list of those who vote for and against. Hansard puts the names of the tellers at the bottom. In my recollection there exists nothing in the column to indicate to anybody not experienced that the tellers have actually voted. I will check that situation. I have just received a page of the Votes and Proceedings from the clerk. This certainly shows the ayes which run down in alphabetical order to Mr Young. It then shows the tellers, Mr Hodges and Mr L. K. Johnson. Those names are included under the heading of the ayes. I think, in looking at the list now, that it would be quite obvious really that the tellers have voted for the ayes. If the honourable gentleman looks at the page he will see that. I am sorry if the division was reported in such a way that it did not include the teller and if that has embarrassed the honourable gentleman. But certainly the page from the Votes and Proceedings makes it clear that the honourable gentleman did vote for that amendment.

page 1143

QUESTION

HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR BANKS

Mr MARTIN:
Banks

-Mr Speaker, I crave your indulgence. Mr Speaker you were present, as was I, at the dinner for Prince Charles today. You are aware that intoxicating liquor as well as non-intoxicating liquor, to wit, orange juice, was served. I drank only orange juice today. There was a clear implication by the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen), in reply to a question which I put to him, that I had over-indulged. I am therefore craving your indulgence, Sir, so that it can be put on the parliamentary record that I did not drink any intoxicating liquor as I am a Deputy Chairman of Committees and as I am in the Chair between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. today. I drank only orange juice.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There are two points to be made. The first is that the sobriety of the honourable gentleman is well known to the House. Secondly, I did not gain any inference from the answer of the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen) that could lead to any such implication. I am quite sure that the Minister for Defence did not intend any such implication. It would be unwarranted had he and I am sure he did not intend that.

page 1144

QUESTION

RECORDING OF DIVISIONS

Mr BOURCHIER:
Bendigo

-Mr Speaker, further to the matter raised by the honourable member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson) there are two points to which I would like to draw your attention. The first is that the Press does not necessarily print the names of tellers all the time. In one newspaper, I am led to understand, the list was cut off without the tellers’ names being mentioned. That does support the argument raised by the honourable member for Burke. I ask that you, Mr Speaker, have a look at this matter and that the tellers’ names be included quite clearly in alphabetical order. Also, Sir, in your own remarks you said that the tellers voted for the ayes. I think, with due respect, you should have said that the tellers whose names were listed under the ayes voted for the ayes and that those whose names were listed under the noes, as my name was, voted for the noes.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Bourchier) is perfectly correct. I will rephrase the answer I gave. The tellers for the ayes, Mr Hodges and Mr L. K. Johnson, voted with the ayes. The tellers for the noes, the honourable member for Bendigo and the honourable member for Maranoa (Mr Corbett) voted with the noes. I draw the attention of anybody from the media- the ink Press- who reports proceedings to the fact that he should bear in mind for the future that the names of the tellers should be recorded among those voting aye or no. I will consult with those responsible for Hansard and for the Votes and Proceedings to see whether the situation can be rendered differently.

page 1144

QUESTION

HONOURABLE MEMBER FOR BANKS

Mr KILLEN:
Minister for Defence · Moreton · LP

- Mr Speaker, I understand that my friend, the honourable member for Banks (Mr Martin) was concerned or distressed with a reply I gave to him at Question Time. May I assure my honourable friend that under no circumstances whatsoever would I reflect upon him in any ungenerous way. I apologise unreservedly to him if he feels in any way offended.

page 1144

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

Mr SPEAKER:

-Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-I do. In the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial yesterday- that is of 26 March- an article appeared under the heading: ‘MP Urges Pay for housework’. Articles with a similar heading appeared in the Melbourne Herald, Brisbane Courier-Mail, Perth West Australian and in New South Wales and South Australian papers. A report along similar lines was presented on television on ‘Willesee at Seven’. The reports referred to a speech I made last Saturday to the Women’s Action Alliance Conference in Melbourne. I prepared and distributed the full text of my speech entitled: ‘Our options on jobs’. Needless to say I would be glad to have it incorporated in Hansard. Nowhere in it did I suggest that housewives should be paid a wage. What I was arguing was that the economic significance of unpaid domestic work ought to be recognised in some way in the national accounts. Today I sent the following telegram to the papers mentioned, to the Melbourne Housewives’ Association and to the Women’s Electoral Lobby, both of which attacked me in the Melbourne Herald last night. I also sent the telegram to Willesee at Seven. It states:

I told Women’s Action Alliance at weekend that the economic value of domestic work should be assessed and recognised in the National Accounts when we are calculating GDP and that housewives should be counted when determining workforce numbers. Paid domestic work is a likely area for job creation when both husband and wife are working. I did not argue that women should be paid a wage for domestic work because their work value would often be greater than the breadwinner’s total wage. Request correction.

I did suggest that there was some possibility of paid domestic work as a major area of job creation in response to the problem of growing unemployment.

page 1144

CIVIL AVIATION NEGOTIATIONS WITH ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH EAST ASIAN NATIONS

Ministerial Statement

Mr NIXON:
Minister for Transport · Gippsland · LP

– by leave- When I first announced Australia’s new international civil aviation policy last October, I gave an undertaking to provide the House with further information. Subsequently, I made a detailed statement on 6 March 1 979. 1 consider that it is appropriate now for me to give honourable members a further report, following the negotiations between myself and my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock), with Association of South East Asian Nations Ministers in Jakarta last week. These were meaningful and profitable talks at which positive progress was made. We were all in agreement that there is a need to lower air fares between Australia and ASEAN countries and we all agreed that such lowering of fares should be brought about as quickly as possible.

Both myself and the Minister for Foreign Affairs were extremely pleased at the positive attitude adopted by all Ministers at the conference, and at the co-operative, good humoured and cordial atmosphere that was maintained throughout the two days of negotiations. Reading some of the Press reports in the weeks prior to the meeting one would have thought that the talks were heading for confrontation. Let me assure the House that at no time was there any indication that such a situation might arise. Indeed, as the joint Press statement said:

The meeting was held in a cordial and constructive atmosphere, in keeping with the long established tradition of close and co-operative links between the ASEAN countries and Australia.

I shall now explain just what we have achieved in Jakarta. Most importantly, as I have mentioned, we are all in agreement that lower air fares are necessary. There was general acknowledgement that the lower air fare arrangements we have already reached with other nations should not be jeopardised. It was the consensus of the Ministerial meeting that lower air fares should be negotiated as soon as possible between Australia and each ASEAN member country. Australia had submitted indicative lower fares in discussions between officials late last year. We will now be entering into bilateral negotiations with the five ASEAN countries in the near future to consider the ranges of cheap fares which ASEAN proposed at the Jakarta meeting and which we found attractive and accepted in principle. Considerable detailed work has to be done to establish precise fare levels and conditions. It is most significant to note here that, as the joint statement said, such bilateral discussions will in no way effect the ASEAN collective approach. Accusations have been made recently that Australia, in implementing its new low fares policy, has been trying to split ASEAN unity. This is not the case. It never has been the case. We assured the ASEAN Ministers in Jakarta, quite unequivocally, that we had never held any desire to prejudice, let along split, their unity. They accepted that assurance. The wording of the joint statement, pointing out that we can move to bilateral discussions without affecting the ASEAN collective approach, clearly proves the point that the ASEAN Ministers accept that Australia is acting in a completely even-handed manner in the implementation of its new air fares policy.

I believe the meeting provided an excellent opportunity for Australian Ministers to reiterate the positive features of the policy we have adopted. We emphasised that the policy allows completely equal participation by the carriers of developing countries in the carriage of traffic between their countries and Australia; offers a means of avoiding disputes over capacity entitlements; provides a stimulus to tourism between Australia and ASEAN; and allows Australia and each of its bilateral partners to sit down to discuss and agree the manner of change in air service arrangements that will permit lower fares.

Concern had been expressed that our new policy could damage tourism in the ASEAN region. I have consistently held the view that lowering fares between Australia and ASEAN would benefit tourism in the region. Our estimates of traffic growth based on the fare levels suggested by ASEAN last week confirm this view. After allowing for both generation of new traffic and normal growth we estimated that the growth in traffic in the first 12 months after introduction of the new fares would be at least 25 per cent and probably closer to 30 per cent. We have not yet, of course, agreed on what the precise reductions in fares between Australia and the ASEAN countries will be. That is a matter for the bilateral negotiations. But I can tell the House that indications at this stage are that they will be about 30 per cent for lower fare types and in some cases could be even more. By way of comparison, the lower fares we now have in place between Australia and the United States average a 28 per cent reduction on the previous comparable fares.

There are two other issues which emerged from the Jakarta conference. One is the question of the level of fares which allow stopovers in the ASEAN region on the Kangaroo route between Australia and the United Kingdom-Europe. The other is the question of ASEAN airlines participation in the carriage of traffic on the direct point to point fares between Australia and United Kingdom-Europe. Before I discuss these points, let me say that since we began discussions with ASEAN last year, I have been seeking its proposals on the changed arrangements that Australia had suggested to them. Immediately after I announced our new policy last October, Australian officials visited each ASEAN country individually. In January, we held two days of detailed discussions here in Canberra with ASEAN civil aviation experts, where our proposals were explained in great depth. These discussions in all cases were carried out by an Australian team consisting of officials from both the

Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Transport.

We have now received detailed proposals from ASEAN. We now have a positive base on which to work. I have said all along that the sooner we can get to the negotiating table the sooner problems seen by ASEAN countries can be resolved. The ASEAN Ministers put forward to us a proposal for stopover fares at significantly lower levels than those we had advanced. They believe their proposals are better suited to their needs, and are economically viable in relation to the Australia-Europe end-to-end fares. We are now studying these proposals as a matter of urgency. Also, the ASEAN Ministers put forward to us a proposal to enter into the carriage of end to end traffic between Australia and the United Kingdom-Europe, which they consider will not in any way jeopardise our cheap air fare arrangements with our European partners. All Ministers recognised that they should not be jeopardised. We were not in a position to examine fully their proposals during the short time we were in Jakarta. It was agreed, therefore, that they should be put to urgent study.

We have agreed that officials should report back to their respective Ministers on these two points. I expect that, within one month, an ASEAN-Australia officials meeting will be held to consider the studies now being undertaken on those points. This all amounts to a positive and most satisfactory result to the ministerial meeting.

Mr Speaker, I would now like to turn to the question of our relations with ASEAN in so far as our air fares policy is concerned. As I said at the outset, both myself and Mr Peacock were delighted at the atmosphere of goodwill and cooperation that existed throughout the talks. There is no doubt that the outcome of the meeting reflected a determination on the part of all the Ministers present to avoid an atmosphere of confrontation and to find a solution at the negotiating table. There is more understanding now between Australia and ASEAN of just where we stand. I think it is appropriate to repeat part of what my colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs said in his opening statement to the conference:

Over the years we have consistently placed high value on our relationship with the countries of South East Asia. Australia has clearly demonstrated both its unequivocal support for the concept of ASEAN, and its commitment to work closely with the Association. We have always believed ASEAN to be of critical importance to the strength, stability and progress of the region. I reaffirm to you that this policy remains unchanged and that it will guide the approach of the Australian delegation at this meeting.

The ASEAN Ministers accepted those assurances completely, and without question. This was the first time that we have had formal ministerial negotiations with ASEAN on this subject. We can now work on the proposals that came from the meeting, and I am confident that we are now well on the way to achieving agreement with ASEAN. I present the following paper

Civil Aviation negotiations with the Association of South East Asian Nations- Ministerial statement, 27 March 1 979.

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Mr MORRIS:
Shortland

-The statement by the Minister for Transport < Mr Nixon) is welcome as it provides some meagre information on last week’s discussions with the Ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations concerning the new international airline arrangements. The statement lacks frankness and is notable for its vagueness and generality. If the Minister provided Parliament with full and factual statements on all aspects of the proposed changes of international aviation arrangements, then public discussion on this issue would have been based upon fact rather than upon speculative assessments. Honourable members of this side hope that meaningful and profitable progress was made at last week’s talks. It is hard to ascertain from the Minister’s statement whether this is so.

Clearly the two major issues under discussion have not been resolved. They are the stopover fares to the ASEAN countries and the participation by the ASEAN airlines in point-to-point travel from Australia to the United Kingdom and Europe. We have not been told of the Government’s views on both of these issues. It has been left to the media to inform the Australian community that Singapore suggested a stopover surcharge equivalent to 10 per cent of the full applicable fare. This is $56 on the Australia-United Kingdom off peak fare of $568. It is said that Qantas suggested a stopover surcharge ranging between $200 to $300. The Minister in his statement sought to dismiss any suggestion that a confrontation had developed between Australia and the ASEAN nations. We regard that attempt as an insult to Australian intelligence. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock) were virtually summoned to Jakarta by the ASEAN nations because the rupture in relations between those nations and Australia had developed to such an extent.

Let me refresh the Minister’s memory of the yards of columnists’ space devoted to the animosity expressed in regard to Australia by ASEAN newspapers and the reaction of Australian editorial writers recently. In the Australian Financial Review of 28 December last there was a letter from Mr Rajaratman of Singapore to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The letter stated:

In his recent letter to Mr Peacock the Singapore Foreign Minister branded Australia’s aviation policy blatently protectionist and discriminatory. . . . Singapore officials have suggested that by offering better terms for revising bilateral air services agreements to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand then to Singapore the Fraser Government is trying to ‘divide and rule’ ASEAN.

The same article refers to the Singaporean Government’s attempt to influence the British Government to change its attitude towards the Australian-UK fares in this whole region of air fare negotiation. I turn to the Straits Times of 14 December. I believe this kind of publicity has been some of the most damaging of all so far as Australia ‘s standing in Asia is concerned. It starts with the heading:

Air Talks End with Ultimatum. Aussies deal ‘crisis’ blow. Nixon’s double talk.

Then there is a quote by John Tan of the Business Times:

Mr Nixon is counting on the fact that he can play off one ASEAN country against another in this respect, and is gambling that one at least of the other four will grant him more second freedom flights, even if Singapore refuses.

The article states:

The ASEAN countries and Australia are accelerating rapidly towards a collision that could leave relations in the Australasian region soured for many years to come.

I say sincerely that despite what has been said there, I hope that last week’s discussions did do something to retrieve that situation. Then the editorial of that same paper states:

Mr Peter Nixon’s thinly veiled attack on the Singapore aviation authorities, and not the press as he purported, must rank as a masterpiece of double deception.

Further on the editorial continues:

In this statement, maintained no threats were made to Singapore. Yet, by his own admission his team of negotiators had made it clear to Singapore that Canberra could have taken steps more deleterious to the Republic. And those steps can still be taken if Singapore refuses to fall in line.

The editorial concludes:

If Singaporeans do in fact become alarmed, then it might be argued the alarm has been caused not by misreporting but by the inexact and insensitive information from the Transport Minister himself.

It is the very point the Opposition has been making time and again in this Parliament on the whole subject of air fare negotiations. There have not been frank discussions; there have not been frank exchanges of information between the nations concerned, nor with the Australian people and this Government -

Mr Ruddock:

– Tell us about the hi-lacking

Mr MORRIS:

– Why don’t you go back to sleep and leave it to the gentleman at the table? In the Straits Times of 19 January, the senior Minister for State (Finance), Mr Goh Chok Tomg, urged Australia to postpone the introduction of a cheap air fares policy because of the incalculable damage it can cause the ASEAN economies. That morning he was being interviewed by telephone on Caroline Jones’ program, the Morning Extra.

In the Straits Times of 3 1 January, the Singapore Foreign Minister, Mr S. Rajaratnam told Mr Peacock that unless international civil aviation policy was substantially modified ASEANAustralian relations could take a course ‘which neither of us want’. Mr Rajaratnam accused Australia of wanting to knock out airlines of developing countries such as ASEAN from the international civil aviation field. He rejected the claim by Mr Nixon that ICAP would encourage a greater flow of tourists to ASEAN countries, and so they go on. Even as recently as 21 February the Senior Minister of State (Foreign Affairs) Mr Dhanabalan said in the Straits Times:

We consider Australia as part of this area of the world. But its policy (ICAP) will isolate Australia from this region.

Further on he stated: . . . the potential threat of Australia’s protectionist policy in civil aviation may spread to other countries later.

I refer to the headline of the Straits Times of 24 February:

Dismay in Canberra.

It quotes an Australian official as saying:

We were hoping they -

page 1147

ASEAN-

wouldn’t be as hardline as this. We were hoping that the whole thing could be solved to everybody’s satisfaction. We did not expect the ASEAN response to be as combatative as this.

The report suggests that Australian Government officials expressed dismay at the tough line adopted by ASEAN.

I turn to the Australian of 17 January. I think this is a rather remarkable editorial. It states:

The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anthony, made a remarkable statement yesterday when he defended his Country Party colleague, the Minister for Transport, Mr Nixon, in his handling of the Government’s much debated air fares policy. Mr Anthony said: ‘I am not aware of any strong reaction from ASEAN countries following the air fare negotiations . . .’.

Quite obviously the Deputy Prime Minister is living in an igloo, as does the member for Dundas (Mr Ruddock). Yards and yards of the most damaging columnist space in the ASEAN newspapers and other media have been brought about by the insensitivity and lack of frankness of the Minister for Transport, who is at the table, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

The Minister sought to dismiss any suggestion in his statement that a confrontation had developed between Australia and ASEAN nations. That attempt is an insult to our intelligence. The fact is that the Ministers were summoned to Djakarta. I refreshed the Minister’s memory on those statements. But it seems the Minister for Transport has been speaking through the Deputy Prime Minister’s hat rather than through his own departmental advice. The Minister described last week’s meeting as being held in a cordial and constructive atmosphere. How else would we expect this nation, discussing matters of state abroad, to handle its affairs? I hope that the Minister did not expect that it would be conducted in the same way that he talked to the Newcastle shipyard workers a couple of years ago, in dirty, little and offensive ditties.

Cheaper air fares to Asia were mentioned by the Minister but no detail was given. Again it is left to speculation in the media, and this is where the damage is done. I put it to the Minister at that level. It is quite clear that if the information is available to the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Associated Press -

Mr MORRIS:

-The Minister would have helped us if that had been mentioned in his statement. But the fact is that the information is being leaked. There is speculation and the whole exercise damages Australia’s standing. The Minister said on page 2 of his statement:

We are all in agreement that lower air fares are necessary -

As we are all in agreement that we are in support of Australian motherhood.

Leaving aside the generalities and vagueness of the Minister’s statement, the core issues are these: Firstly, the severe damage caused to Australia’s standing in Asia as a result of this Government, in particular this Minister’s, incompetence in negotiating with the ASEAN nations. He is Australia’s ‘innocent abroad’ and that has always been the problem on this issue. Secondly, there is the role of the absentee Minister for Foreign Affairs which also has contributed to the difficulty that has developed. Earlier in the picture he avoided involvement. He has since become involved but what help has he been? There has been no evidence to show that the presence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs has had any impact on our relationship with the ASEAN nations. Why was it that all the statements were made by the Minister for Transport? Why were all the interviews conducted by him? Where is the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon? Why is he not here in the chamber to participate in support of this statement? It was a joint delegation. It was an issue that demanded the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, not to be left to the Minister for Transport to carry the bundle again in his own way.

The Opposition hopes at this late stage that some of the avoidable damage to Australia has been repaired. Bilateral discussions on cheaper fares will in no way affect the ASEAN collective approach- to which the Minister referred. Let us put the ‘collective approach’ that he referred to in his statement. From a reading of Dr Mochtar’. letter reported in the Australian Financial Review of 26 February of this year it is obvious that the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have not affected the ASEAN collective approach because the ASEAN Ministers have refused to budge. The way in which this Government failed to consult properly with the ASEAN nations before the Minister for Transport announced the new Australia to Europe air fares during last December and the way in which they carried out that exercise had a stunning effect on the ASEAN governments and resulted in the formation of their collective approach to Australia.

The ASEAN airlines participation in Australia to Europe point to point travel and the reaction of European airlines to this is a matter for major consideration. It is the second major issue in the discussions of last week that has yet to be answered. It is clear that the United Kingdom Government has rejected approaches from the Singapore Government on this issue and it is clear that the pressure now has been directed to Australia. But on this subject the Parliament is still left in the dark. There is nothing we can gain from the Minister’s, statement that will give any clear indication of what is happening in that aspect of the discussions. On stop-over fares for flights through the ASEAN countries, again we have been told nothing. Today’s statement, like the statement of 11 October and 6 March, is another episode in this continuing saga of international air fares and continuing incompetence. Since 1977 we have said that open and public examination of the aviation industry would ensure a better deal for air travellers. Instead we have seen secretiveness and procrastination. We have seen severe damage caused to our relationship with our ASEAN neighbours. We have seen disruption to the Australian travel industry and we have seen a great deferment of travel and confusion created to the Australian community. All these things would have been avoidable if responsibility, frankness and competence had been applied on the part of the Government.

It has been rammed home to this Government that the ASEAN nations have real interests that must be taken into account by Australia and that these nations will not be fobbed off by platitudes dressed up in the style of ministerial statements. The debacle that has occurred points to the Government’s weakness in the handling of regional economic issues and of regional foreign policy. For the sake of our national interests, it is to be hoped that some real progress has been made by the Minister in repairing the damage that has been caused to Australia’s relationship with ASEAN. I put that in a bipartisan approach to the Parliament. It is to be hoped that some real progress has been made towards the introduction of cheaper fares to the ASEAN countries. Regrettably it appears from the Minister’s statement that we are back to square one because the two fundamental items of stop-over surcharges to the ASEAN countries and ASEAN participation in point-to-point travel from Australia to Europe have not been resolved.

Debate (on motion by Mr Ruddock) adjourned.

page 1149

CRIMES AT SEA BILL 1979

Assent reported.

page 1149

ABORIGINES IN QUEENSLAND

Discussion of Matter of Public Importance

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

-Mr Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Kingsford-Smith (Mr Lionel Bowen) proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to fulfil its obligations to protect the human rights and the right to self-determination of Aborigines in Queensland.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places-

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
Smith · Kingsford

- Mr Deputy SpeakerMotion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed: That the business of the day be called on.

That the business of the day be called on.

Mr Lionel Bowen:

– I raise a point of order. The Government has moved that the business of the day be called on. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will notice that the only business that the Government has in mind is the notation of a paper. In other words, the Government does not intend to take any action in respect of that matter. It is merely a matter on which formal notice has been given. The matter of public importance which I have proposed to Mr Speaker for discussion is a clear matter of importance for this House which could legislate on it and it is a matter that is being dealt with in the Queensland Parliament at the present time. I make the point that the Government has no business at all apart from noting a paper compared with the Opposition’s matter of public importance which is a positive step towards taking some action.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! There is no substance in the point of order. It is not the responsibility of the Chair to determine the nature of the business before the House. The Leader of the House has acted within his rights.

Mr Young:

– I raise a point of order. I also want to raise with you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the person being silenced by the motion of the Leader of the House is one of the chief office holders of this Parliament, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and we consider it an insult the way in which this Parliament is being used.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! There is no substance in the point of order.

Mr Bourchier:

- Mr Deputy Speaker, further to the point of order raised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Is the honourable member for Bendigo raising a point of order?

Mr Bourchier:

– I am, Mr Deputy Speaker. Further to the point of order raised in connection with the program, if the Deputy Leader of the Opposition cares to look at the back of the Daily Program sheet he will see that Bills are listed for debate.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! There is no substance in the point of order.

Question put:

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

The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker-Mr P. C. Millar)

AYES: 75

NOES: 32

Majority……. 43

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

page 1150

HOURS IN WORKING WEEK: NEW SOUTH WALES

Ministerial Statement

Debate resumed from 22 March, on the following paper presented by Mr Howard:

New South Wales Electricity Commission- Grant of 3714-hour Working Week- Ministerial Statement, 22 March 1979- and on motion by Mr Fife:

That the House take note of the paper.

Mr STREET:
Minister for Industrial Relations · Corangamite · LP

– Honourable members are all by now well aware of the irresponsible action of the New South Wales Government in offering a reduced working week to power workers in that State. That decision is quite contrary to the interests of the community in that State and is totally against the national interest. The Commonwealth Government’s economic policies have been consistently directed towards creating the conditions or environment necessary to underpin sustained economic recovery. Indeed, these policies have resulted in a substantial fall in inflation and reduction in the growth of labour costs. They have set the stage for a renewed and sustainable expansion in activity and employment.

It is important to recognise, however, that in the interests of the whole community it is critical to build upon, and not let slip, the important gains already made in stabilising prices and costs. In line with this the Government will continue to emphasise at national wage and other major hearings before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission the need for maximum restraint in wages and other labour costs as part of the Government’s integrated policy to consolidate and foster the current signs of recovery. There is no room whatsoever for complacency. In its December 1978 national wage decision the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission repeated earlier warnings that:

Regardless of the reasons for increases in labour costs outside national productivity and indexation, regardless of the source of the increases (award or overaward wage or other labour cost) and regardless of how the increases are achieved (arbitration, consent or duress), unless their impact in economic terms is ‘negligible’, we believe the Australian economy cannot afford indexation.

The Commission also commented on what it saw as a ‘groundswell of opposition’ to the indexation system and said that if the trend of industrial disputation continued it must undoubtedly endanger the whole indexation package as we now know it. Regrettably, the warnings of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission would seem to have been ignored by some self-interest groups in the community. Hardly a day goes by but the community is beset by industrial disputation of one kind or another. I refer for example to building workers, transport workers, airline workers, oil industry workers. (Quorum formed). I refer also to storemen, the metal trades employees and postal workers. The list goes on.

There has been a range of increases in wages and allowances, other than national wage increases, occurring in recent times. Many of these have been in what might be termed key industries, and the increases consequently attain an even greater significance, economically, because of their ‘flow-on’ impact. Labour cost increases, in addition to national wage adjustments, can only add to the growth in labour costs, fuel inflationary pressures in the economy and jeopardise the current signs of renewed growth in activity and employment that we have worked so hard to achieve. It is essential that the whole community work together in an endeavour to restore fully the health of the Australian economy. Governments, as custodians of the public interest, have a particular responsibility to provide proper leadership to this end. It is against this background that the Government is disturbed- indeed disgusted- at the irresponsible, presumably politically expedient decision of the New South Wales Government to introduce shorter working hours in the New South Wales Power Industry.

The Commonwealth’s views on so-called productivity bargaining deals of this kind were outlined in its submissions to the Inquiry into the Principles of Wage Fixation conducted by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission last year. The Commonwealth made its view clear that the concept of productivity bargainingparticularly as it has emerged in recent times- is incompatible with the national and orderly wage fixation system which embraces the equit-able concept of national sharing of productivity gains. The Government is opposed to productivity bargaining arrangements, such as that introduced in the New South Wales power industry by the Wran Government- for economic, equity and industrial reasons. Rewarding employees for productivity gains in their particular industry, by way of reduced hours of work, and then allowing them to participate in any wage increase based on aggregate productivity growth which might flow from a national wage decision, only makes those employees a privileged group. Their wages would be adjusted for productivity increase at two different levels but it would be the same productivity.

The Government also rejects such productivity bargaining arrangements on ‘equity’ grounds.

The Australian economy is composed of industries which have widely varying levels of output, performance and capacity for productivity growth. An industry’s potential for future productivity growth is dependent on a wide range of diverse factors and relationships- including the scope for the introduction of new machinery; the application of new technology; and its position to take advantage of economies of scale. Moreover, the scope for significant improvements in labour efficiency and changes in work practices will also vary widely. Accordingly, there is no correlation between how hard or how fast employees in different industries work and the comparative productivity performance or scope for improvement in those industries.

For these reasons, the Government strongly believes that the benefits of any productivity improvements should not be confined to particular groups of workers. To do so is totally inequitable. It should be distributed for the welfare of the whole community through general wage adjustments, by lower prices or improved standards of service. Thirdly, since all industries and enterprises do not have the same scope to improve their productivity performance, such bargains as this one in the New South Wales power industry will generate additional pressures for shorter hours in other areas which do not have the capacity to afford such concessions. The more instances of productivity bargaining that emerge, the greater the risk that expectations will build up and concessions will be extended to other groups regardless of the capacity of the economy to sustain those concessions, or the ability of the individual enterprises or unions to achieve or to offer the required productivity improvement.

It should also be emphasised that bargaining for improved wages and conditions against increased work performance directly discriminates against employees in industries and enterprises which are already efficient in the sense that these industries and enterprises have less capacity to improve performance significantly, either because of employees’ cooperation with management in the past or for other reasons. It would favour employee groups which have indulged in restrictive work practices and the like in the past and which have, therefore, greater ability to improve their work performance. The supporters of productivity bargaining argue that the potential increases in productivity are dependent on the participation of employees in changed work practices or arrangements and will not emerge without some form of trade-off by the employer. They say this sets this increase in productivity apart and makes it ‘special’.

The Commonwealth does not agree with this proposition. If there is scope for significant improvement in labour efficiency, changes in work practices and so forth, there is scope for lowering the unit costs of production. In other words, the Government would suggest that the increase in productivity that the New South Wales Government says will compensate for the increase in costs resulting from the shorter hours should have occurred in any case and the benefits distributed to the whole community through lower prices for power. Even if extension on productivity grounds were to be limited to those industries and enterprises which could in fact meet certain rigorous conditions and criteria of productivity increase, we would be confronted with the emerging situation of a very clear division between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’- a situation under which wages and fundamental conditions of employment are to be governed by capacity for productivity improvement in particular industries.

It is for all these reasons, as I said earlier, that the Government is most concerned at the effects of arrangements- such as that introduced in the New South Wales power industry- on the community. Even if the increase in costs is offset by productivity increases, and this is not at all guaranteed, such increases should have occurred in any case and the benefits distributed to the community. In addition, this decision cannot be expected to be confined to the power workers in New South Wales; it will inevitably lead to pressures for flow-ons to other areas with obvious adverse economic and industrial consequences.

Mr Wran is reported in the Australian of 23 March as saying that it was the present Federal Government which had reduced hours of work for employees of Telecom and Australia Post. Such a statement is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. Firstly, it was the former Whitlam Government which moved towards a reduction in standard hours of work in Commonwealth employment as part of its overall policy in making the public service a ‘pacesetter’ in the area of pay and conditions of employment. An in principle agreement on reduced hours had already been reached between the parties when the Governor-General appointed the caretaker Government in November 1975. Furthermore, that Government was bound by the conditions of its appointment which stipulated that it should not change any policies of the Labor Government during the caretaker period, and this, of course, included that Government’s policies in relation to a reduction in standard hours in Commonwealth employment.

In December 1975 the Australian Telecommunications Commission and the Australian Telecommunications Employees’ Association sought to have the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ratify a consent agreement for the introduction of reduced hours for ATEA members. The Commonwealth intervened in those proceedings in the national interest. Since the matter had reached such an advanced stage and given the spirit of the obligations it undertook during the caretaker period, the Government felt constrained to argue that provided the Commission was fully satisfied with the substance and reality of the arrangements in the proposed agreement, and subject to their compliance with the national wage indexation guidelines, the Government would not oppose the ATEA-ATC agreement being ratified. In March 1976 the Government opposed a reduction in hours for ATEA members employed by the Australian Postal Commission and in its submission to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission argued that a concession of the union’s claim would create pressures for a general flow-on, the overall effects of which would be economically damaging and jeopardise the indexation package. Furthermore, the Government submitted that the concept of productivity bargaining as a means of reducing hours of work was economically unsound and industrially inequitable, and its piecemeal approach was contrary to the history of standard hours cases for a reduction in hours.

Members of the House can therefore see that this Government’s policy has been one of firmly and consistently opposing a reduction in hours of work in the public and private sectors. The Government’s views have been put before the Commission whenever that tribunal has been considering claims for reduced hours, and, as I have already discussed, before the wage fixation principles inquiry conducted by the Commission last year. Earlier this month, the Government advised the peak union councils that it would not be altering its policy on reduced hours, and that the shorter hours guidelines for the consideration of hours claims in Commonwealth employment would not be reintroduced.

The pressures to flow on the Wran Government’s offer will be significant. It can be expected that unions covering some 17,000 workers in electricity distributing councils in New South Wales will press for a flow-on of the 3 7 ‘A hour week. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric

Authority, a Commonwealth authority, will also be placed under pressure to concede a reduction in hours as it has a number of employees working side by side with Electricity Commission of New South Wales employees at power stations in the Snowy Mountains. The economic and industrial consequences of the Wran Government’s decision cannot be confined to New South Wales alone. The offer of a 3714 hour week will inevitably increase the industrial pressures upon State electricity supply authorities in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia to make a similar hours concession. The Wran Government’s actions in this matter are economically and industrially irresponsible, and it is this attitude which has become a hallmark of the Labor Party at both the State and federal levels. Instead of facing up to the need for wage restraint, as this Government has done, the Labor Party continues deliberately to ignore the need for wage restraint because it realises that its links with the trade union movement would make implemention impossible.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr MartinOrder! The Minister’s time has expired.

Mr YOUNG:
Port Adelaide

-By any standard which one judges members of this Government, it must be said that they are the most incompetent bunch of people in economic or as in this case, industrial relations matters. The Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) knows that what he said is pure humbug. The fact that he has made this statement after the ranting and raving and the four-paragraph statement of the Treasurer (Mr Howard) to which this Parliament was subjected last Thursday shows that the Government is not interested at all in good industrial relations. The Government is the largest employer in this country of people who work less than 40 hours.

Some major decisions have been made while this Government has been in power. I refer not just to the decisions of governments, unions or employers. The senior industrial tribunal in this country has spoken on the question of a shorter working week and on the question of workers sharing the benefits of greater productivity. It does not see those benefits as being merely in the form of wages; it sees those benefits also in the form of a shorter working week. I wish to quote what Deputy President Isaac had to say on the question of a shorter working week in the case of the Australian Postal Commission versus the Telecom technicians. He said:

With practically no extra cost to the consumer, but also promises of better industrial relations and greater production in the future, we would be failing in our statutory duty if we did not grant the application and applaud the new spirit of industrial relations which it represents.

The senior industrial tribunal in this country spoke on how the matter being discussed before it assisted the work force in sharing the benefits of greater productivity not only by an increase in wages but also by a shorter working week. The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) sent his boy, the Treasurer, to rant and rave in a four paragraph statement last Thursday. This important statement which has been put to the House today to be debated by eight speakers shows quite clearly how much seriousness is given to the matter by this Government. One would have thought that this was a major breakthrough and that the decision of the New South Wales Government to grant a 3VA hour working week to the power workers in New South Wales was some unique precedent that did not exist in the rest of Australia. What absolute nonsense! What absolute rubbish! A shorter working week applies in many institutions throughout this country, none more, as I said previously, than where this Government is the employer.

If the Minister for Industrial Relations were in private employment he would be known as the personnel officer. He would be the personnel officer for more people working fewer than 40 hours than any other man in this country. He can give his employees a shorter working week, employees of the Commonwealth can have a shorter working week, but when Neville Wran in New South Wales says that the 54 per cent of the power workers in New South Wales who are working a 40-hour week should join the other 46 per cent, mainly the white collar workers who are working 37V4 hours a week, this Government says that he cannot do it. The Government has said that it will cut off funds to New South Wales. If it does so the voters of New South Wales will wipe the floor with it.

The standard working week in Australian Government employment could be said to be 36% hours. The vast majority of employees who work for the Australian Government work a standard week of 36% hours. During the past few years there has been a trend for those wages employees, in particular those who worked a 40-hour week, to have their standard working week reduced to 36% hours. As an indication of this, workers in the Australian Telecommunications Commission, the Australian Postal Commission, the Overseas Telecommunication Commission, the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and almost half the staff of the Reserve Bank of Australia have had their hours reduced from 40 to 36%. These employees should be added to all other public servants. This, in essence, represents a movement in the last few years of no fewer than 60,000 employees working directly for the Commonwealth Government or for statutory authorities.

The position with respect to the electricity generated industry is that the majority of employees work fewer than 40 hours per week although there is a dichotomy between wages employees and professional staff which the New South Wales Government has attempted to remove. In the State Electricity Commission of Victoria all clerical, administrative, engineering and technical staff work fewer than 40 hours a week. In the State Energy Commission of Western Australia engineers, chemists, draftsmen, technical officers and assistants and administrative and clerical officers work fewer than 40 hours a week. In the Hydro-Electric Commission of Tasmania the professional and clerical staff and the majority of technical staff work fewer than 40 hours a week. In the Electricity Trust of South Australia all employees work fewer than 40 hours a week. They work a 37W hour week. In the northern electric authority and regional electricity boards of Queensland the professional, administrative and clerical staff work fewer than 40 hours a week. Employees of the Sydney County Council work fewer than 40 hours a week. All clerical and administrative staff of the electricity councils of New South Wales work fewer than 40 hours a week.

I re-emphasise and reiterate that there has been gross discrimination in many of these areas between the white collar workers and the blue collar workers. For decades white collar workers in Telecom have worked fewer than 40 hours a week. But when Telecom moved to reduce the working hours of its blue collar workers this Government spoke as though the heavens would fall on the Parliament. It is an estimate of the unions involved in the electricity industry that over 75 per cent of all employees who work in that industry throughout Australia work fewer than 40 hours a week. There are a number of areas in the community in which the standard is less than 40 hours a week. All employees under all awards and agreements in the oil industry are entitled to a nine day fortnight. Nearly all State instrumentalities in Victoria and in most other States provide for work between 35 and 3716 hours per week. The stevedoring and waterside industry, the coal mining industry, the insurance and finance industry and the health and research industry provide for a working week of fewer than 40 hours. From a list tendered in the proceedings before the Conciliation and Arbitration

Commission in the 1975 State Electricity Commission of Victoria case over 80 major federal awards provided for standards of fewer than 40 hours to all those employees working between 38 and 40 hours per week.

I now refer to productivity. The Electricity Commission of New South Wales has demonstrated a very high rate of productivity growth. For example, the evidence tendered in the SEC case in Victoria had as its source the fact that the electricity supply in Australia indicated a productivity growth of over 8 per cent per annum during the 1960s and early 1970s. The average annual rate of growth of productivity over the period 1954 to 1974 was 6.7 per cent. The Federal Conciliation and Arbitration Commission accepted these decisions with respect to Telecom, Australia Post, the OTC and the CSL as being within the guidelines of the Commission. This is an enormously important point of which the Government ought to be cognisant. Unless it wants to change the terms of reference of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission or try to interfere with the legislation setting up an authority which all sides of industrial relations recognise, it should recognise what the Commission has to say about the shorter working week. The Commission has said not once but on a number of occasions that workers in this country are entitled to the benefits of increased productivity, whether in wages or in a shorter working week. If the Government says that they cannot have a shorter working week, indexation will be thrown out of the window. If the Government says that the workers of this country can increase productivity but cannot share in the benefits there will be no increased productivity. The work force will be totally against all the ideas being put forward about the new technology.

As I said, there has been gross discrimination by the authorities against blue collar workers. At present 5,450 employees are working a 40-hour week in the New South Wales Electricity Commission. They represent 65 per cent of the current work force in the Commission. Of the remainder, 2,871 work a 35-hour week. They represent 34 per cent of the Commission’s work force. Also 4.3 per cent of the Commission’s employees work a 37V4-hour week. Following lengthy and detailed investigations by the parties, agreements have been reached to introduce new working procedures and new shift procedures which will have the effect of increasing productivity in the industry. Implementation of the various shift arrangements will enable the output of high productivity power stations to be increased. These increases will be matched by reductions in generation at older and less economic power stations. The effect of these productivity improvements will ensure that the reduction in hours will be matched by these cost saving methods and will not result in any additional costs being incurred by the Electricity Commission by agreeing to reduce hours.

Honourable members should remember that there will be no increase in costs to consumers in New South Wales by this action. I draw attention to the fact that when the Full Bench of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission consisting of Deputy Presidents Isaac and Sharp and Commissioner Cohen gave its decision to award a shorter working week for Telecom employees, one of the conditions was that Telecom had to report back to the Commission within a year to show whether there had been any increase in costs as a result of the reduced working week for 25,000 of its employees. In April 1977 Telecom reported back to the Commission. Deputy President Isaac was satisfied that no increased costs to consumers had resulted from the lowering of working hours for the employees of Telecom. So much for the humbug with which this Government carries on.

The procedures involved in the examination of the productivity of the industry follow the same lines as were adopted by the parties representing Telecom and the Postal Commission in their case for a reduction of hours. Employees and management came together at all levels of the industry to examine work methods and practices with a view to increasing productivity.. The decision by the court in the case of Telecom was made in March 1976, nearly a year after the introduction of wage indexation. In fact, the Federal Government argued that to grant reduced hours would be ‘economically expensive and would jeopardise the indexation package’. That extreme view of the Federal Government led by this man, Malcolm Fraser, was rejected by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The Conciliation and Arbitration Commission found that the Federal Government was wrong in its prediction- and that was three years ago. History has proved the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission right and the Federal Government wrong.

As I have already said, in September 1977, the Commission was required to decide whether a reduction of hours from 40 to 36% a week by consent for other employees of the Postal Commission breached the indexation guidelines. The Commission said:

Nothing was put to us which could lead us to the opinion that the orders sought in the applications would not be in the possible interest or would conflict with the principles including the indexation principles, followed by the Commission.

A shorter working week in which it could be proved that there was no additional cost to consumers is within the guidelines of the most senior industrial tribunal of this country, and this Government challenges the proper workings of that industrial tribunal.

The criticism by the Federal Government and its followers in New South Wales of the decision to reduce conditionally the hours of work of employees in the Electricity Commission has been ill-advised, inconsistent and fallacious. Arrangements are being entered into under which Electricity Commission employees will have their hours reduced in return for extension of shift work which will be of beneficial effect to the nation and the community generally by ensuring continuity of electricity supplies without any increase in cost of electricity generation. The new arrangements will provide for maintenance work to be performed on a shift work basis for the first time in the Electricity Commission’s modern power stations. For a generation there has been an absolute refusal by maintenance workers to perform this work on a regular shift work basis. There has been some short term shift work, but this has been irregular and unsatisfactory. Whilst the present agreement is that shift work be confined to volunteers, the Commission’s right to recruit new staff, specifically on the basis of the requirement to work shift work, has been accepted. The benefit of the performance of maintenance on a shift work basis is that it will slash the time in which generating units are out of service. In time this will save costs when the larger, more modern and more efficient units are able to be repaired or overhauled in the short term and brought back into service.

Honourable members will notice that no one from the Government side, not the Minister for Industrial Relations or the Treasurer, makes any mention of the refinements of the arguments which have been taking place in New South Wales over a number of years. It is just a question of: Bash the people of New South Wales because some decision has been made to bring some of the employees- in fact 5,000 of theminto line with tens of thousands of people who work for this Government. Is it not about time that we stopped discriminating against the blue collar worker who, because of his work, increases the productivity of his industry? Is it not about time that we recognised his right as well as the rights of white collar workers who have had a reduced working week for decades? This Government ought to recognise that fact but it sees some political advantage in fighting it and it continues to do so.

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

Mr FIFE:
Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs · Farrer · LP

– The speech by the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) this afternoon and the statement by the Premier of New South Wales last week indicating that a 37V4 hour week is to be introduced into the New South Wales power industry have signalled the fact that the big push for a shorter working week throughout Australia is on again. This time it has been initiated by no other person than the Premier of New South Wales, a person who has been portrayed by the Labor Party over recent years as being a moderate, as being responsible.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Martin:
BANKS, NEW SOUTH WALES

Order! The Minister, by speaking now, is closing the debate. Does the Minister wish to close the debate?

Mr FIFE:

– No, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am taking part in the debate.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– Well, by speaking now, the Minister is in fact closing the debate. The usual practice is to call an honourable member from the other side of the House, so I call a member of the Government Parties. I call the honourable member for Cowper.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP

-I am sure that the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife) would not desire to close the debate. But in view of the point that you have raised, Mr Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the Government I am pleased to continue the debate on this very important issue. There is no question at all that once again the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) has displayed his one-eyed approach to these matters. He has put to the House a whole range of references to past events and to decisions by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and he has put his own interpretation on them. This, I believe, is very much to the discredit of the honourable member for Port Adelaide and certainly does not reflect a responsible approach by the Opposition to this very important matter.

First of all, let us recall what has occurred in the electricity industry in Australia. If we go back a very short time, we will recall that there was extreme industrial disruption in the industry in

New South Wales. It was disruption of a nature that required weeks and weeks of difficult negotiation on the part of the then New South Wales Government in an endeavour to get the electricity workers back on the job. In the process, of course, the efforts of the trade union movement to break down the decision of the then New South Wales Government on this matter did not succeed. As a consequence, undoubtedly there was some degree of acceptance of the position by the unions concerned. Nevertheless, at that time they declared that they would continue their fight on this issue. Subsequently of course in Victoria there was the greatest industrial disruption for perhaps a decade in this particular industry, not on precisely the same issues, but on related issues. Yet the honourable member for Port Adelaide has chosen to use as evidence some out of context references to statements made by a commissioner of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to justify the action that has now been taken by the New South Wales Government. It is just not good enough for the Opposition to approach this matter in such a shabby way because undoubtedly the losers will be the public of this country.

Looking at this matter in isolation, what has been said in respect of the customer in New South Wales? Not a single word has been said. The New South Wales Government is ignoring the customer in this issue. In other words, it is ignoring every pensioner, every person who is a low income earner, every small businessman in that State who is a consumer of electricity. It is ignoring completely the fact that there will be cost pressure within the electricity industry as a result of its decision to grant a 3 7 Vi hour week.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– But that did not happen in Victoria under a Liberal Government which did exactly the same.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP

– Here is another honourable member trying to justify this action on the very premise that I mentioned a moment ago, the premise of saying that some other very unsatisfactory situation is justification for this current action, when obviously it is not. I think the words of the honourable member for Port Adelaide were to the effect that the decision came as a matter of resolving the issue of productivity. The honourable member knows very well that he has twisted the truth in this matter. The reference from the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission undoubtedly related to the impact of industrial disruption on the total community- the effect of a long period of industrial disruption in Victoria- and the need to get that part of Australia back into business again.

Well, if that is the way in which we are looking at what productivity means, we are looking at it in a very lopsided fashion. So I say again that the Opposition is totally irresponsible in its approach to this matter.

Of course in what the Opposition has said thus far it has ignored completely the Government’s very responsible approach. The Government’s wages policy is based on the need to correct a number of imbalances which still exist in our economy. Of course in criticising the Government’s policy, the Opposition has consistently glossed over these imbalances because it was the Labor Party which largely was responsible for creating them. During Labor’s term of office the growth of wages far outpaced that of productivity. The result was a dramatic increase in unemployment and inflation while investment and business confidence fell. It is essential for economic recovery that the reverse of what occurred then should occur now. That means keeping wage increases to a minimum as well as improving productivity. We cannot divorce this issue from that general premise, yet the Opposition pretends so to do.

Under Labor, the share of the national product taken up by wages rose dramatically and the share taken up by industry’s profits, of course, fell correspondingly. We will hear the catch cry that in recent times some industry or enterprise has shown an increase in profits. That is just not good enough. If we look in the broad at the balance sheet in terms of total industry in this country, it is still struggling under an economic malaise which has to be overcome. It can be overcome only if the Government’s policy, recognised in part by the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, is pursued. He has made a number of statements which in fact now recognise the need for such a policy, but an important section which claims to represent the trade union movement- I refer to the members of the Labor Party in this House and in the States- has failed to acknowledge what has been acknowledged by the President of the ACTU. That lets down the interests of every Australian and certainly of the people that the Opposition purports in the main to represent.

Labor, when in government, has shown clearly that it has not a particular regard for a consistency in terms of economic policy. Statements made, even more recently, by the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) strongly support such an assessment. So it is no surprise to find the very illogical support that is now being given to the move by the New South Wales Government, at the behest of its Premier, Mr

Wran, to take the drastic action of granting a 37te-hour week to this section of industry. It has been claimed that a range of other workers in this country already has a 37V4-hour week.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– Or better.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP

-Or worse. When I say ‘worse’ I refer to a fact which must clearly be asserted and which cannot be glossed over- that many people who want to work cannot find jobs. The honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) is always crying about this in the public arena, but those people are receiving a dismally low income simply because many of these industrial activities have occurred. So let us be frank: We cannot say that in some sections the benefits being derived are even greater, when we consider the other side of the score and discover that the level of unemployment today is such that hundreds and thousands are worse off. They will never be better off until this kind of stupid approach is held down, until such time as the imbalances to which I have referred have been effectively overcome.

If we look at the New South Wales situation, it is quite evident that in that State electricity is certainly not cheap. The cost to the ordinary householder, when compared with that of several years ago, is escalating, and escalating fairly rapidly.

Mr Lionel Bowen:

– It is less than the rate of the CPI.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP

– The Deputy Leader Opposition claims that the escalation is less than that of the consumer price index. I say quite clearly that it would need to be, taking into account the benefits that flow from improved technology and the availability in New South Wales of high grade, easily mined coal. If it were not, there would be something wrong with the management of that industry. Therefore, let us just not refer to CPI figures. Let us consider the real facts about electricity generation, its cost structure and the lack of benefit that flows to the consumer. If we go back half a decade, five years only, costs have escalated simply because of the industrial situation in this industry. That adverse situation has impinged upon the prospects of the Electricity Commission and the other distributing authorities passing on benefits to industry and to the small person in that State. Industry is important, but as far as I am concerned the small person comes first. I have mentioned their position.

Let us think of the situation in terms of industry. Industry is leaving New South Wales or not accepting opportunities to go to that State. A range of announcements has been made by the Premier seeking new industries for that State. They have all come to naught. At the end of a few weeks the industries have moved off to Queensland, or have not gone on with the proposition. We heard about an alumina plant. Where is it? What is happening about it? Reference was made to an experimental project on the conversion of coal to liquid fuel. What is happening about that? It is going to Queensland. Will the 3716-hour week in the electricity industry do anything to arrest that drift from the State of New South Wales? Of course it will not. Again it will be taken quite seriously as an indication of the industrial status of New South Wales, one that simply cannot stand up against that of other State in terms of basic costs for important major industries, particularly heavy industry.

I put it to the House that the Government’s stance in this matter is one of great significance and importance. If we are to overlook, and treat in a cursory way, this move by New South Wales- contrary to the assertions that already some sections are getting a similar benefit- there is no doubt at all that the pressure will well and truly be on to extend that benefit to other sections of industry. If the cost is tallied it will be seen to be enormous. If its effect is translated into the consquences for employment it will be seen as a great imposition indeed. This nation just cannot afford that sort of thing at this stage in the recovery of its economy- a recovery which is on the way but which at every turn is being attacked by the trade union movement, or sections of it. The Government’s serious concern is based, quite properly, on assessments that have been referred to by the Treasurer (Mr Howard) and very ably by the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street). I am sure that later it will again be referred to by the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife). It is a vital fact of life that unless productivity can be raised, unless inflation can be kept down and a greater level of unemployment can be provided we will not see an end to the economic difficulties that confront this nation. We cannot confuse the two issues.

Technology is, of course, changing and changing rapidly. If it is to be utilised for the benefit of the economy we certainly must withstand the pressure for it to be dragged down by the granting of concessions which will cost money, which will cost the community dearly and which will rob us of those benefits that could quite fairly flow, if given an opportunity to do so, to the benefit of the small man.

Debate interrupted.

page 1158

MINISTER FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Suspension of Standing Orders

Mr KEATING:
Blaxland

– I move:

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

That this House calls for the resignation of the Minister for National Development for wilfully misleading the House during Question Time by dismissing as ‘bunkum’ a newspaper report on his dealings with oil companies which, it is now claimed, had been submitted to him before publication and he then described as ‘a good story’.

The Opposition moves this motion because of another outrageous breach of parliamentary propriety and accountability by a corrupt, lying Ministry, which is without honour and without pride.

Motion (by Mr Fife) proposed:

That the honourable member be not further heard.

Mr Keating:

– Only the Fraser Government could produce a dishonourable Minister like the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman).

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Martin)Order! The honourable member for Blaxland will restrain himself. The question is: ‘That the honourable member be not further heard ‘.

Question put.

The House divided. (Mr Deputy Speaker- Mr V. J. Martin)

AYES: 72

NOES: 28

Majority……. 44

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Mr SINCLAIR:
Leader of the House · New England · NCP/NP

– I seek your indulgence on a point of procedure, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that it might meet the convenience of the House if we were to suspend Standing Orders at the conclusion of the present debate. I understand that there are five more speakers to take part in this debate. When it has concluded, I will propose that we suspend Standing Orders to take note of the motion, notice of which has been given by the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating). We will then deal with that matter.

Mr Young:

– How do you mean we will ‘take note of the motion ‘?

Mr SINCLAIR:

– I mean that we will suspend Standing Orders so that the debate will ensue.

Sitting suspended from 6.3 to 8 p.m.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:

-Is there a seconder to the motion moved by the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating)? There being no seconder the motion lapses.

page 1159

DIVISION OF HOUSE: LOCKING OF DOORS

Mr Peter Johnson:
BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND · LP

-Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek your indulgence. Prior to the suspension of the sitting for dinner I attempted to attend a division of the House. I arrived at the doors when the bells were still ringing but the doors were shut. Normally the situation is that I can enter the House when the bells are still ringing. I wish this matter to be recorded in the minutes of the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:

-For the information of the honourable member for Brisbane (Mr Peter Johnson) and of other members, I point out that the ringing of the bells does not strictly indicate the period allocated for the calling of the division. The time allocated is measured by the sand clock. At the expiration of the running of the sand the Chair calls: ‘Lock the doors’. If the bells should unintentionally ring beyond that period that does not extend the opportunity to honourable members to enter the chamber beyond the allotted time. The honourable member’s remarks are noted.

page 1159

HOURS IN WORKING WEEK: NEW SOUTH WALES

Ministerial Statement

Debate resumed.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
Smith · Kingsford

– The matter we are now debating is the statement made rather hurriedly, unexpectedly and without notice in this House last Thursday. It was made by the Treasurer (Mr Howard) who was accompanied by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser). It was made as a great announcement of urgency on the grounds that the Parliament should be informed. Last Thursday the then debate was interrupted to allow this statement to be made. We have heard no more of the matter until now. The anxiety is hard to understand because the content of the statement that was made by the Treasurer has nothing to do with this Parliament at all. It is not within its legislative competence. The matter is nothing on which the Parliament would dare interfere as it relates to industrial conditions in another State. Putting it clearly, this statement has all the earmarks of just being a political sham from the point of view of what the Government is about.

The issue was brought into the Parliament by the Treasurer on the grounds that another government in Australia had no right to do what it was doing in relation to industrial conditions. Everybody in Australia knows that there are both Federal and State awards. Those awards work harmoniously. We have this ridiculous statement made by the Treasurer that Australia cannot afford a 37’A-hour week. That is the whole context of the statement. He said that if New South Wales was to dare to go ahead and to give to some workers in power stations a 37Vi-hour week then retribution would be made by the Commonwealth. He suggested that tax moneys would be withheld from the people of New South Wales. It is their own money, not this Parliament’s. The people of New South Wales are to be mulcted to pay taxes which will be kept by the Fraser Government. The threat is that the money will not be refunded to New South Wales because the Government dared suggest it could get peace and harmony in a power generating position in New South Wales by granting a 37’/i-hour week. The Commonwealth Government said that this would create pressures for a flow-on. Let us look at the hypocrisy of the situation. This Government has been in office of some time now on the basis of being able to deal with Federal awards. What has it done? For example, it clearly consented to a 36%-hour week in 1975 being granted to Telecom Australia employees.

Mr Ruddock:

-That is a misrepresentation.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-It is no misrepresentation. It was made by consent. Let me have the chance to talk without interruption because I know the Government is sensitive about the matter. Members of the Government will be more sensitive as they hear the facts. The fact is that in 1975 the Fraser Government agreed to a 36%-hour week for Telecom employees. This is the Government which now says that New South Wales should not grant a 37’/i-hour week. In March 1 976, because an election had taken place and the Fraser Government was deemed to be safely ensconced in power, it decided then to oppose a similar application for Australian Postal Commission employees. So we have the ridiculous situation of within a matter of three months the Fraser Government saying to one group of employees: ‘Yes, by consent you can have a 36%-hour week’ and then after an election has taken place the Government comes back to the next lot of employees and says that it will not grant their application. That case went to the Full Bench of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in March 1976 with this Government arguing strongly against the fact that employees should be given a 36%-hour week. The Commission stated: . . . with practically no extra cost to the consumer but also promises of better industrial relations and greater productivity in the future- we would be failing in our statutory duty, if we did not grant this application and applaud the new spirit in industrial relations which it reflects.

Let the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife) answer that statement. Why is it that New South Wales will be pilloried on this sort of ridiculous situation without this Government looking at the facts of what has happened right throughout the power generating position?

Prior to the suspension of the sitting for dinner we heard the honourable member for Cowper (Mr Ian Robinson) bleating about power costs in New South Wales and how he thought that they were wrong. We have all had a lot of information about power costs generally. I would say that power costs in New South Wales are amongst the cheapest in Australia. One of the things that the honourable member for Cowper ought to remember from the point of view of power reticulation is that irrespective of where the pick-up point is throughout New South Wales it is a standard rate so that people in the country do not pay any penalty for the cost of transmission. That is the position. What was the position before New South Wales established an electricity commission? We had blackout after blackout under Liberal governments in New South Wales. What are the power costs now? If we look at the last 10 years we find that on average the selling price of electricity to the consumer in New South Wales has gone up from the standard 100 per cent to 159.3 per cent. The consumer price index which is directly under the control of the LiberalCountry Party Government, in the same period has gone up from 100 per cent to 240.2 per cent. The cost of coal has gone up from 100 per cent to 205.6 per cent on a similar basis. That is where we get efficiency, greater productivity and an understanding of what good industrial relations are about.

In this debate earlier tonight we also heard the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) deploring the fact that there would be this breakthrough from the point of view of a lowering of the working week and that this would cause pressures for flow-on. Has the Minister forgotten his Government’s position in respect of the case known as the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories case? Is the Minister really serious when he comes into this Parliament and ignores the fact that in that case again, this Government opposed the application for Commonwealth employees to be granted a 36% hour week and that it lost the case. It lost the case again on the basis that it could not sustain the argument. Let us have a look at the law report in the Australian Industrial Law Review in respect of that case. This is a case dealing with an application made by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories for a 36%-hour week. What do honourable members think we find? I think this should silence any criticism from the Government. In May 1976 the Commonwealth Government issued a document entitled: ‘Procedures for Handling Claims for 36%-hour week’. That is the title of the document cited, in the case. This document set out the criteria to try to sustain the Government’s success. There had to be a rigorous examination. The same service had to be provided and the cost increases had to be insignificant. They were the criteria issued by the Government in May 1976 as to how it should proceed for a 36%-hour week. The Prime Minister and Treasurer had the audacity to come into this Parliament last week and suspend all operations to condemn this situation. It is hypocrisy of the worst kind to think that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer would lend themselves to this exercise.

Special arrangements have been in made in New South Wales with the result that for the first time the power workers doing the maintenance work who receive this benefit will now perform this work on a shift basis. This could not be achieved before. For the first time the workers are prepared to do something of benefit. This comes within the guidelines. If, for example, one unit at Liddell was out of action and closed down because no shift work was being performed at times contrary to previous arrangements, it would cost New South Wales $50,000 a day. An arrangement is then made between the employer and the employee that there is going to be a new deal from the point of view of modern power stations. In the past maintenance workers have refused to perform this work on a regular shift basis. That difficulty has been overcome and this agreement will guarantee that there will be no difficulty in recruiting new staff; that there will be no breakdown in maintenance and supply, which meets the guidelines clearly announced by the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) and which were particularly adopted in the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories case. How many people have already enjoyed the fruits of a working week of much less than the 37 Vi hours now agreed to? There are quite a number. In a Telecom position and the Postal Commission those advantages are all agreed to, having had to be won in the course of debate before the appropriate Arbitration Commission.

What do we find from the people, particularly from New South Wales, taking part in this debate? One of these people is a former Minister of the Askin Government, and another is a member of that same government. Let us examine this. Sir Robert Askin was not a bad politician and they miss him sadly in New South Wales at present. It should be remembered that in March 1968 the Askin Government introduced the 3 5 -hour ordinary week for public servants in New South Wales. Yet we are getting this sort of nonsense from the present Commonwealth Government. The Premier of New South Wales, Mr Wran, has challenged the Prime Minister to debate this matter on a public platform anywhere in New South Wales. Will the Prime Minister avail himself of the challenge? Not at all. How can he? Let us have a look at the situation where the Treasurer has said: ‘If you dare do this I will not give you back the tax that I collect from you’. I hope that everybody in New South Wales keeps this in mind when we next go to the polls, particularly in the Bennelong electorate.

Let us consider how we could give the people of New South Wales the appropriate information. On the latest statistics- and these are not up to date- in 1975-76 this Scrooge-like Treasurer extracted $705 per head from everybody in New South Wales. How much was he giving back? An amount of $359. He is keeping most of it. Has this man, who thinks he can run a federation on the basis of keeping tax money, completely forgotten his law? If he dared to do that would not New South Wales have to impose its own tax? Does he seriously suggest that one Liberal candidate will be elected in New South Wales if he has caused double taxation for the people? Would not the State Government have to levy its own taxes to get the money that this Government would not give to it? Does this Government really think that after taxing each person federally $700 and refusing to give the States money to maintain their states they are going to let it pass unnoticed? Why is it that the Government fails to answer the situation which the Opposition puts firmly before it? In dealing with industrial conditions we talk about greater productivity and benefits for the work force, but this has been achieved, despite the objections by this Government in two cases I have mentioned: March 1976 where the Government opposed the situation and lost, and in the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories case in which the Commonwealth Government opposed the application and lost. Is it any wonder that it lost when there are guidelines clearly indicating that if anyone wants the benefits of a 36%-hour week, one must be able to show after a rigorous examination, that the same service could be given with no cost increase. That is the point.

We come then to what this resolution is all about. It is one that is going to cause no end of discussion from the point of view of trying to create a complex that New South Wales is doing something untoward. It is not for me to say that other States are always keeping up with New South Wales but in some cases, for example the salaried employees of the Victorian State Electricity Commission employees, are on a 38-hour week now. In South Australia all employees of the Electricity Trust are on a 37te-hour week. Good luck to them; they are entitled to it. There is no mention of these matters. What about the employees of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission? What about the employees of the Atomic Energy Commission? At the present time they are all enjoying those benefits. If we go back and look at the facts we see that the air traffic controllers and the coal miners are now down to a 35-hour week. The stevedoring industry is working on a similar basis. The oil industry has had a variation of awards over a period. There we have the complete situation, that there has to be a test of special and particular circumstances. This power industry meets that test. The arrangement is for special shift work to be performed and it ill becomes the likes of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to come in here to urge condemnation and threaten financial retribution against the people of New South Wales when they are themselves making such a mess of the economy and hounding the worker on every occasion.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Order! The honourable gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr RUDDOCK:
Dundas

– I follow the most disappointing speech that I have heard in this House from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lionel Bowen) in the time that I have been in this Parliament. I have never heard him before having to strain at the interpretation of language in the way he has tonight. I have never heard such a speech from a man who I thought was far better fitted to be the Leader of the Opposition than the man who presently holds that position. Putting that aside, if we look at what he has had to say in this particular debate it becomes quite clear that the Opposition are certainly worried men. They are worried about the actions of the Premier of New South Wales and his colleagues in agreeing to this most disastrous compromise, as they would like to call it, or capitulation in the industrial commissions of New South Wales and the Government’s conscientious decision to agree to give up resistance to the increased benefits for the employees in the electricity generation area.

The fight in New South Wales has been going on for a long time. It is seen quite clearly as a substantial issue, one upon which not only the workers in the electricity area are interested and concerned, but also employees in a whole host of areas. We see the situation where the Labor Party, when it was in office federally, previously capitulated in relation to Telecom and Postal Commission employees. We see the situation now where as soon as the Wran Government secures a majority in both Houses of Parliament, and as soon as it was conveniently possible after securing that majority, instead of adopting a moderate pose it has capitulated to those left wing elements in the Labor Party who kept quiet for them and have now given it away. They have said: ‘Here are the extra hours that you have wanted. You have played the game by us and now we, the Government, will play the game by you, our employees’. That is the very situation that we are faced with. If we do hot recognise this as being the first chink in the destruction of a sound, economic policy for the whole of Australia we do not recognise the harm that is being done to Australia.

We saw this strained interpretation given by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition who endeavoured to suggest that the very basis upon which the State Government in New South Wales could justify its position was that in 1975, in the period of the caretaker Federal Administration, where the situation has arisen in an industrial matter which had been proceeding for some time that the Government prior to 11 November had agreed to this particular compromise, the Fraser Government, bound by the conditions of its appointment by the GovernorGeneral not to make any change in policy of the Whitlam Government during that caretaker period, had to accept it. It is evidence of the integrity of the Government that in upholding the injunction of the Governor-General it agreed to that position, notwithstanding the very firm opposition that it held. As has been mentioned by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lionel Bowen), at the first available opportunity, when the Government was in a position to re-establish the position firmly by going before the Arbitration Commission and arguing the case properly, it did so.

There is nothing loose on the part of the Government about it. It was part of its strength that it said notwithstanding what was given to these men in other areas and notwithstanding the apparent injustice- it is an apparent injustice- it is not in the national interest to allow this matter to go any further. We have the first position now in which one State Government has given up. It seeks to establish that the Commonwealth Government, through its reimbursement grants, will have to meet the additional commitments in wages that the New South Wales Government has been prepared to pay. That Government is not asking for the people of New South Wales to pay these additional benefits for its employees but is asking that Australian taxpayers subsidise higher wages and costs in New South Wales because that State Government is not prepared to meet them.

Mr Stewart:

– What are you in favour of? Longer hours and lower wages!

Mr RUDDOCK:

-Shorter hours do involve additional costs for workers. As a New South Welshman, I am not ashamed to stand up and to criticise the New South Wales Government for the position that it has taken. I speak with some shame of the position that the State Government has taken on this particular issue because it has intervened positively in proceedings in which it did not need to intervene. It could have kept its resolve and left the matter to be dealt with by the proper conciliation and arbitration body, the Industrial Commission of New South Wales.

The honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) this afternoon criticised the Government for becoming involved and putting a view before conciliation and arbitration commissions. Yet he did not recognise that that is what is happening in New South Wales because it is a positive intervention by the State Labor Government in this particular industrial dispute to come up with a result that suits it and its own particular position. It has to be recognised that it has intervened. It has been argued that the reduction in hours will be paid for because the employees in the Electricity Commission of New South Wales will now co-operate. What does that mean? It means that the employees have not co-operated before with their employers to develop a situation in which they will permit people to be employed in other shifts to do certain maintenance work. The position is that the employer is not able to organise his labour and to pay for additional hours worked during penalty rate periods. He cannot employ people to work at a particular time.

In New South Wales the position is that the union has said to the Electricity Commission that it will let the Electricity Commission’s maintenance people maintain the electricity generation plant only at a time when all the other employees are on the payroll and in the plant. That is the area in which the employees are to increase productivity. It is an absolute disgrace that a union has been able to blackmail the Electricity Commission thus preventing the people of New South Wales benefitting from the increased productivity that could have flowed long before this. It is a disgrace that that particular union has prevented the people of New South Wales gaining the benefit of decreased electricity generation charges which would have occurred had that increased productivity ensued. If that is called a responsible trade union approach, I do not think anybody can hold himself to be responsible in any area. It is the most pitiful approach that I could imgaine being taken by any group of people who are interested in their fellow citizens. In my judgment- and I believe the judgment of the New South Wales people on this particular issue- no credit can be given to the Wran Government for its capitulation.

In his speech today the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street) clearly pointed out that the unions in New South Wales have sought to gain for themselves the benefits of increased productivity and not to share these benefits with people in other areas who, because they are efficient, cannot contribute to further productivity gains. The Government has made its position quite clear and has argued before conciliation bodies that productivity gains ought to be shared among the whole work force. There have been cases before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission where these particular matters have been thrashed out.

The line of the Australian Council of Trade Unions- which I believe is a fairly reasonable approach- has been undermined by this response. This is borne out by the Australian Financial Review of 10 January which demonstated that the ACTU was looking at a situation in which it would be prepared, in arguing for a shorter working life, to forgo higher wages which would result from increased productivity across the board. It seemed to me to be an extreme position to take in the spirit of an appearance before a conciliation body, but a position which could be argued legitimately. However, that position is undermined because, instead of it being argued for all workers in general, the position has been reached where a collective bargaining situation is to be argued concerning particular workers in particular places. I note that the honourable member for Burke (Mr Keith Johnson) always likes to be in the position of collective bargaining and yet is always prepared to scream and rant about the position of the unemployed. Yet the very decisions that have been taken by the New South Wales Government are to the disadvantage of the unemployed people there. (Quorum formed) It is to the disadvantage of the unemployed throughout Australia because increased labour costs resulting from shorter working hours in this situation can lead only to decreased opportunities.

If a government wanted, through a reduction in working hours, to be able to effect a result which would not disadvantage the unemployed and would increase opportunity it could be done effectively if those people involved were prepared to take a reduction in wages corresponding with the reduction in working hours. If the people involved were prepared to do that- I suggest that in this area it would be most appropriate- there would be some real advantage for the unemployed and some real advantage for New South Wales. If that were part of a responsible arrangement we might have been in a far better position than we are at this time. One might have some sympathy if one were in a position in which the people involved were essentially lowly paid, but as I understand it- maybe I am citing those people who are at the top of the line- but a drag line operator in the New South Wales coal fields associated with the Liddell power station earns, I understand, $28,000.

Mr Cadman:

– How much?

Mr RUDDOCK:

-I have been told that $28,000 is the wage of a drag line machine operator in the coal fields of New South Wales. Not only that but by insistence of the union involved not just one drag line operator has to be employed but there has to be two in the cab. In addition they need a greaser on the same salary in the same cab. When I made inquiries about people who were working in other positions in the coal fields I found that the wage levels were correspondingly higher than one would find in other areas of industry and enterprise. Yet these are the people whose hours are being shortened. These are the people whom the Wran Government is seeking to advantage in this way to the disadvantage of the unemployed and to the disadvantage of the people of New South Wales.

Mr WILLIS:
Gellibrand

-The socalled ministerial statement which we are now debating typifies this Government’s approach to the economy. What happened was that last Thursday at some time after 5 o’clock the Treasurer (Mr Howard) rushed into the House and delivered a statement off the cuff. He had no written notes. He delivered an abusive statement in which he threatened the State of New South Wales with financial repercussions for having the audacity to do what other States have done- to introduce a 3714-hour week for its Electricity Commission employees. This typifies the seatofthepants, ill-considered, threatening approach this Government has to economic policy. Firstly, what was done was not trend setting. As other speakers on this side of the House have already stated, various other areas of government employment, federally and State, have granted weekly hours of work less than 40, 3716 or even

  1. Of course a similar situation applies even in some areas of private enterprise. In a very similar area- the Electricity Trust of South Australia- a 3716-hour week has been operating since the middle of last year without any adverse economic repercussions. The South Australian Deputy Premier, Mr Hudson, was reported in the Australian newspaper of yesterday, as saying:

The fact is we in South Australia were able to give our power workers the reduced working week at virtually no extra cost to the community while maintaining among the lowest electricity unit costs in Australia.

The reason South Australia was able to do that was because of the productivity agreement with the unions in which the unions promised there would be a reduction in work bans or an improvement in working methods which would enable productivity to be improved and there would therefore be no increase in labour costs per hour of work. A similar situation is applying in New South Wales where there has been, as has been said by previous speakers on this side, an agreement by the unions to change work practices in respect of maintenance work and shifts thereby enabling the New South Wales Government to provide a more efficient electricity service. That is the quid pro quo, which it is said will enable the Government to save many millions of dollars. It will mean that there will be no increase in unit costs of production as a result of a reduction in working hours. What is wrong with that? If there is no increase in unit costs what is the problem?

Honourable members opposite seem to be railing about some tremendous increase in costs. There has been no increase in costs in South Australia and there will be no increase in costs in New South Wales. What was done was not against the wage indexation principles. Those principles specifically encompass this kind of happening. We should understand that that is the situation. It is not as though the union and the State Government were breaching the indexation guidelines. What they were doing was totally within the wage indexation guidelines. Those guidelines were reconsidered last year by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission after lengthy discussions amongst the parties at the wage indexation inquiry which went on for many months. After the inquiry reported back to the Full Bench of the Commission there was a very extensive hearing in which the whole of the wage indexation principles were reconsidered, with almost half of the Arbitration Commission judges and commissioners on that bench. They came down with a set of principles which specifically endorses and encompasses the idea of productivity agreement. Let me read from the Australian Industrial Law Review of 27 September 1978 which summarises that judgment. On page 424 under the heading ‘Productivity bargaining ‘ it reads:

The Full Bench set the parameters for productivity bargaining as follows: ‘So far the concept has had a fairly narrow application to hours of work at establishment level and has been dealt with by the Commission only when change was an agreed objective of the employer and employees and where the exercise was undertaken on a joint and co-operative basis, subject to the criteria of negligible cost and maintenance of standards of performance.

In our opinion this constitutes the proper ambit in which proceedings of this nature should be considered.

The Arbitration Commission is saying that if the parties can come together and agree on a procedure by which there is a reduction in working hours and the quid pro quo is an arrangement which involves negligible costs- those are the key words in that quote which I have given to the House- then that is okay. The Commission approves of that kind of procedure, and why not? If there is no increase in costs to the consumer then why should not that procedure apply? It is specifically within the wage indexation principles and nothing that honourable members opposite can say can take away from that fact.

Of course the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Street), who should be expected to know these things and probably does, never mentioned that in his address here today. He talked about the way the Commonwealth Government had argued against productivity bargaining as being an allowable procedure, but the Government was overruled by the Commission. I point out that it was overruled by a bench consisting of almost half of the members of the Arbitration Commission. The Full Bench overruled the Commonwealth Government and said that there should be productivity bargaining provided it proceeds along proper lines, but the Minister for Industrial Relations has conveniently forgot to mention that.

The Minister said that productivity should not be distributed in this way. He said that if there is any productivity improvement to distribute it should be by way of reduced prices or improved services. There are two points to make about that. Firstly, if he means this as a general proposition is he really saying that the real wages should never increase or the working conditions of workers should never improve in real terms? Does he say that their hours should never come down and their real wages should never go up? If he says that productivity improvement should be distributed only in terms of reduced prices or increased quality of product is he saying that there should never be an increase of real conditions of employment for all wage and salary earners? What an absurd and ridiculous proposition. I am amazed to hear a Minister who generally has some common sense put up such a ridiculous proposition to the Australian people and to this House.

In this case productivity improvement would not have occurred if there had not been this incentive of reduced hours. It is not as though productivity improvement was there. The only way to get productivity improvement was to offer the reduced hours. It was as though this productivity improvement was available for a reduction in the price of electricity services or whatever. It was not there until the offer was made on reduced working hours. So the point of the Minister about the distribution of productivity improvement just does not make any sense at all.

The Treasurer and the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) both threatened to penalise the State of New South Wales and that involves- I stress this- a serious breach of promise to another government. It is not something that one does just off the cuff. This Government which has a great record of broken promises to the Australian people- an unprecedented reputation in that regard- is now surpassing that by starting to breach promises that it has made to other governments. That is what is involved in the threats made last week by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister- ill-considered and ill-thought out threats. Let me just quote what the Treasurer had to say last week in this four-paragraph socalled ministerial statement which is more like ministerial rankings. He said:

In particular, I make it quite clear that there is no way that this Government will go on supporting a guaranteed formula for general revenue payments or tax sharing which enables a State to receive an automatic adjustment for cost increases which result from that State ‘s irresponsible decisions.

That was the Treasurer’s irresponsible and illthought out threat. That threat involves breaching the first stage of Fraser federalism. That first stage involves the Commonwealth introducing general revenue grants to the States as a percentage of personal income, tax revenue rather than on the previous formula which applied. As a back-up to that new procedure for the sharing of personal income tax receipts there was a guarantee that revenues would not be less than provided under the formula for the guarantee of such grants under the Labor Government. It is just as well that that guarantee was provided because it has been needed every year that it has been able to be applied since 1976-77. 1 refer to Budget Paper No. 7 which deals with payments to or for the states for 1978-79. This details the new arrangements. Under the heading ‘Personal Income Tax Sharing Between the Commonwealth and State Governments: Points of Understanding’ item No. 11 reads:

There will be a ‘guarantee’ arrangement to ensure that the States ‘ Stage 1 entitlements in any year are not less, in absolute terms, than in the previous year. This arrangement will be supplemented in the first four years of the new scheme … by a further undertaking that the entitlements will not be less in a year than the amount which would have been yielded in that year by the financial assistance grants formula as laid down in the States Grants Act 1973.

That is the specific understanding. That is the guarantee. That is the promise that was made. It is this guarantee and this undertaking about which this Government is now saying: ‘To hell with that. We gave that a few years ago. What does that matter? We will just breach that guarantee now. We do not care about broken promises, broken agreements and broken understandings’. There were no qualifications whatsoever to that guarantee. There is nothing in the agreement which says that a State government has to abide by a certain industrial relations policy or whatever. This was a specific, unqualified guarantee. It is that unqualified guarantee which this Government is now seeking to break. It is this unqualified guarantee which is incorporated in the legislation of this Parliament in the States (Personal Income Tax Sharing) Act of 1976. If the Government is going to break this agreement, as it has threatened to do, it will have to change that legislation. So honourable members opposite will all have to stand up here and be counted on just how much they can be trusted in the future when they make promises to governments because they will have to vote here to break promises to other governments.

The threat of the Treasurer and the Prime Minister is also based on a false understanding of the guarantee formula. The Treasurer said that the Government would not go on supporting a guarantee formula which enables a State to receive an automatic adjustment for cost increases resulting from that State’s decisions. I read that section previously from the so-called ministerial statement. The guarantee does not do that. The formula was on the basis of the preceding year’s grant for each State being adjusted for increases in three factors. The base rate- that is the previous year’s grant to the State- is increased by three factors. They are: The percentage increase in population for that State, an increase in average wages per person employed in Australianot in a particular State, in Australia- and a betterment factor of three per cent. Those three items made up the adjustment formula which applied to the State grants in the previous years under the Labor Government. It is that formula, continued, which provides the guarantee under the current arrangements for the sharing of income tax revenue. I emphasise that the wages factor in the formula is not on a State basis at all; it is for all of Australia.

The reduction in wages does not increase average wages per person employed. The Bureau of Statistics confirmed that yesterday to the New South Wales Government. It said that reduced hours could increase average wages only if overtime were increased. The very point of the productivity agreement is that there will not need to be an increase in the working of overtime. The idea is that productivity will increase to make up for the reduced working hours of the employees. Even if there were an increase in overtime it would have a minuscule effect on average wages per person employed in Australia. If there were some small increase in overtime for the Electricity Commission workers in New South Wales, the whole 6,000 of them,- I say that will not happen but if it did- what effect would it have on average wages per person employed in Australia? One would not be able to measure it to a fraction of a cent. Yet the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have ranted in this House and outside about how they will not allow the States to increase costs and then have the money automatically recouped under some Federal Government formula for taxation reimbursement. That just would not occur. They just do not understand their own formula. It is incredible that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister are so ignorant of this facet of their own policy about which they have been so proud and boastful in the past. They simply have not understood the way in which the so-called new federalism operates.

The Treasurer admitted that the Government will not continue with the guarantee in respect of New South Wales. It is an admission of failure of the new federalism policy which I mentioned previously this guarantee is irrelevant. If the new revenue sharing arrangements for personal income tax are working all right and proving better than the previous arrangements there is no need for the guarantee. The guarantee is necessary only if the new arrangements do not provide more than under the old formula. In all previous years the formula has not provided as much as the old formula which operated under the Labor Government. The so-called new federalism has been a farce in the past and on the Treasurer’s admission it will continue to be so. He is saying that the Government will not continue this guarantee in the near future. There would be no need for the guarantee if the new arrangements were worth while. Obviously the Treasurer thinks that they are not going to produce more revenue for the States than the old arrangements that operated under the Labor Government.

These actions totally contradict the Government’s arguments that the centre point of its new federalism is increased State independence. Honourable members were told that the new federalism meant that the Federal Government gave the States money and did not tell them what to do with it. We were not told that federalism was all about giving the States more independence. Where is that independence now? When a State undertook legitimate and reasonable action within the wage indexation principles this Government came in here browbeating, thumping and threatening to break the agreement which it made with the State governments in the past.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Giles:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

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

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-The Treasurer (Mr Howard) burst into the chamber last Thursday to make a statement after being advised that the New South Wales Government had made a 37V4-hour working week available to the power workers in New South Wales. The honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Willis) described it as ‘ranting’. It was not a statement at all; it was ranting. Honourable members who sit in this place heard it and the public listening on the radio would be aware of the irrational way in which the Treasurer burst in upon a debate that was taking place in this House and proceeded to beset the popular Wran Government of New South Wales. It is unusual for this House to spend as much time on ministerial statements as it has recently. It is indicative of the way that this present Government lacks positive legislation to bring before the Parliament for discussion, positive legislation that could have an effect on the lives of all Australians. Tonight when we are debating this statement by the Treasurer we find that only four members of the Government side are to support him and half a dozen members of the Opposition are prepared to rise to condemn the Treasurer for his statement and the Government for its attitude towards the matter.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be aware that the general traditions and forms of the House were not observed by the Government last Thursday. Without any warning at all the Treasurer burst in with some handwritten notes at 5 o’clock in the afternoon- which he thought was prime listening time- and interrupted a debate and proceeded to set about the New South Wales Government. With a most curious statement not only did he set about trying to justify that the Federal Government could not agree with the introduction of a 37yi-hour week for power workers; he also made explicit threats in the middle of his statement. He said that if the New South Wales Government was going to waste the money that was being paid to it by the Federal Government then the Federal Government would have to take action and stop that happening. I notice that the honourable member for Dundas (Mr Ruddock) nods his head in agreement but it was the same Treasurer and the same Prime Minister who saw federal funds being wasted by the Liberal Government in Victoria which was purchasing worthless land with it and buying flood prone land through the Victorian Housing Commission with funds provided by this same Federal Government. Yet I do not recall the honourable member for Dundas, the Treasurer or the Prime Minister standing up in outraged fury and saying that no further funds will go to the Government of Victoria. Surely this is the greatest exercise in cynicism that this country has ever seen.

For the record I point out that we have a Liberal government in Victoria. The Federal Government can hardly berate that Government. But it is a different matter with the extraordinarily popular Labor Government in New South Wales which is supported by threequarters of the people in that State. That worries the Treasurer who comes from that State. It worries the honourable member for Dundas because if an election were held tomorrow his own seat would be in jeopardy. This is because of the actions of the Wran Government in New South Wales. The honourable member for Dundas is a very young man; a capable man, some people have been heard to say. I am not one of them. The same gentleman, were he alive many years ago, centuries before his time, would bewail legislation that was passed by progressive people to stop children going into the mines.

Only last Sunday I had the pleasure of visiting Bacchus Marsh, a most delightful town in Victoria, where a blacksmith’s cottage was being opened. An historian, a very prominent professor, gave an address and related the working hours of the last century. He told tales of boys- it is a matter of record- who were no higher than the table in the chamber and who were working in the factories, mines and mills. This is not a matter for jest- those things happened. Before the Second World War men working for the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board in Victoria were required to be on duty 18 hours a day. Although they were required to work only 10 hours the other eight hours had to be spent around the depot in broken shifts. Those things have changed. They will never return as long as fair-minded people are in responsible positions.

We have a history right up until 1947 of long working hours gradually being reduced. Then, somehow or other, this most progressive ship I am talking about seemed to hit a rock and founder. There it stopped. It is of some significance that from 1949 we had a Federal Liberal government for 23 years. It is clear why there was stagnation in that period. The people we are speaking about work in an area of production that is probably more highly automated than any other. Another area that I suppose could be included is the waterfront. I am not too sure that the honourable member for Dundas or any other honourable member on the other side of the House has yet been prepared to see the men who load and unload the ships that come to our shores.

Dr Cass:

– They would not know where to go.

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-The honourable member for Maribyrnong is right. These men, because of the advance of technology and the methods of handling cargo through containerisation, work only 35 hours a week. Yet throughput in that area has never suffered as a consequence; in fact, it has increased. Oil workers work 35 hours a week. Miners work 35 hours a week. If the honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) was present he would tell us of white collar workers who do not work even 20 hours a week. That is his story, not mine. Almost since Federation the public servants of Australia have worked less than 40 hours a week. They work 36 3/4 hours a week; certainly not 40 hours. They have worked those hours for a long time. I did not hear the honourable member for Dundas saying that their hours ought to be extended to 40. 1 would not expect him to say that; I would not support him if he did.

There is no doubt that there is a great need for the working hours of people in industries which are becoming more and more automated and mechanised to be shortened. The honourable member for Gellibrand is acknowledged throughout this land as the greatest authority on economics in or outside of Parliament. He is a very modest fellow. He would not tell the House what I am about to relate. I will have to say it for him. He is acknowledged as a great authority on these matters. Honourable members heard the very erudite exposition he gave tonight on the non-effect of these people having their hours reduced. It is a pity that the honourable member did not have the opportunity of saying that to the Treasurer who, it is acknowledged inside and outside the Parliament, knows nothing about economics. The Treasurer did not have the benefit of the advice of the honourable member for Gellibrand otherwise he would not, as he did last Thursday, have talked about matters of which he obviously has no knowledge. He just took the normal, Tory reaction to a situation where the working hours of working men and women were being reduced. Nobody was really surprised; that view was rather expected.

In this enlightened day and age which most of us care to think we live in a number of attitudes need to change. The shellbacks who sit opposite will never change. That is acknowledged by everybody. The enlightened Wran Government, a Labor government, in New South Wales has seen the wisdom of and finally agreed to the long standing claim by the power workers. It probably should have been agreed to earlier. I sat here and listened to most of the debate. I could not make a lot of sense out of the contribution of the honourable member for Cowper (Mr Ian Robinson). I was unaware whether he was arguing for or against. In the end I thought he was doing both and having two bob each way, which is typical of the National Country Party. I thought that the honourable member for Dundas was making some dreadful statements. He is a lawyer. I believe that he is a barrister.

Mr Ruddock:

– Solicitor.

Mr Keith Johnson:
BURKE, VICTORIA · ALP

-He is a solicitor. Yet he seemed to me to commit one of the seven deadly sins in that he embraced envy when he spoke about dragline operators earning $28,000 per annum. I will concede that he did not say that they did; he said that he had been led to believe that they did. He did not give us the source of his information. I do not know how he came to believe that and I am not one to argue as to what those people earn, but I have a fair idea of the nature of the work they perform. He did not tell us how they come to earn $28,000. He left us- it was a typical lawyer’s trick- way up in the air by saying that for 3VA hours a week these guys take home 28 grand a year. Frankly, the honourable member must be joking. He would certainly know better than that. He did not bother to say what these people have to do and what degree of training and skill they have to have. He did not describe the onerous nature of their work and the great responsibility that they bear because of the large and expensive equipment that they operate. They cannot afford to make mistakes. He took no account of that; he gave us no explanation. I invite the House to reject completely the statement which leaves us with the impression that for 3714, 35 or even 40 hours a week some people take home $28,000. If the honourable member uses these sorts of things in argument he ought to be more frank. He ought to explain his statements and not just leave everything hanging up in the air.

There is no rational argument- certainly none was put forward by the Treasurer last Thursday- against the actions of the Premier of New South Wales. I would like to make it quite clear that I am not a States’ righter. As far as I understand it, all the States’ lighters- those that believe in the rights of the States to do their own thing- sit opposite. Let a State do its own thing, or a Premier of a State take his own decisions. But this Government wants to use section 96 of the Constitution. I do not agree with that: I am defending the Premier of New South Wales and giving him his right to make decisions in this matter. I repeat my position about the Liberal Government in Victoria, which has done far more dastardly things than that which is alleged against the Premier of New South Wales. Never at any time has there been any indication by this Government or by the House that funds ought to be cut off to Victoria because of the misuse of public money by that corrupt State Government.

We are talking about electricity generation. In Victoria, the generation of electricity has increased by 30 per cent over 10 years. The work force has fallen by 30 per cent in that period without an increase in the relative cost of electricity. The honourable member for Dundas and other honourable members opposite may care to take that fact on board. I shall repeat it. The generation of electricity- I suppose that honourable members opposite would define it as productivity- has increased by 30 per cent in Victoria over a 10-year period. The work force has fallen by 30 per cent. The honourable member for Dundas is the mathematician. He can work it out. It seems to me that, if productivity is moving one way and the work force is moving the other way, something has to fill in the gap. The relative cost of electricity in Victoria has not increased.

How can any reasonable person stand in this House and say that the working hours of people engaged in the power industry, in the generation of electricity, should not be reduced? No reasonable person can say it. No reasonable person has said it. The Treasurer (Mr Howard) must be condemned for his rash statement. I am sure that he regrets it now. He should not make such statements in this House without a shred of evidence, purely and simply on the basis of his own emotions and conservative attitude towards working men which are well known throughout the country. He should not attack one of the finest Premiers Australia has ever had- Neville Wran.

Mr FIFE:
Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs · Farrer · LP

– in reply- The decision taken and announced by the New South Wales Government last week to introduce a 37Vi hour week into the electricity industry of that State signals, of course, the start of the big push throughout Australia for a shorter working week. It is under way again. This is not the first time that Labor governments have moved in this field unilaterally and outside the industrial courts of the country. As in the past, this decision, taken at the political level, will lead to a flow-on, a push from other unions, for a shorter working week. There is no way that the New South Wales Government will be able to quarantine its decision. I suggest that there is no way that the New South Wales Government wants to quarantine its decision.

A great deal has been said during this debate about the Premier of New South Wales. He has been referred to as Premier Wran of New South Wales. I refer to Neville Wran, Q.C., who appeared in 1973 for the unions on whose behalf he is now acting. As the legal representative for the unions concerned he put the same arguments for a shorter working week but he failed to convince the Industrial Commission of New South Wales that the power industry should as a separate case be granted what was then sought- a 35 hour week. He failed then as a lawyer to convince the Industrial Commission. He has now moved in as a politician and used political power to grant what he was unable to achieve fairly in the courts of his own State. The decision taken by the New South Wales Government is irresponsible. Economically it is potentially disastrous for Australia. The announced decision affects a selected group of employees but I suggest that there Will be a flow-on. A political decision, which subverts the industrial decision making process in New South Wales, has been taken by the New South Wales Government. The New

South Wales Government’s action in this matter is contrary to the industrial and economic evidence so far presented for a shorter working week.

In New South Wales there have been no fewer than three court hearings to date to arbitrate on the issue. Two have been dismissed out of hand. The third has been adjourned by the court since early last year. Why has not the New South Wales Government appeared before the court again and tested the strength and validity of its arguments? Is it afraid that it will fail in the same way as Neville Wran, Q.C. failed in 1973? As I said, this is not a new move. It is the start of another move to bring about generally a shorter working week in Australia. The claim for a 35-hour week by Electricity Commission workers employed on a 40-hour week basis was for some years appended to the usual log of claims submitted on behalf of employees. In 1970 the 35-hour week issue came into prominence with statements by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and in turn the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council that the union movement would seek a 3 5 -hour week in certain industries, including the power industry, as a spearhead for the introduction of a 35-hour week generally. I emphasise the word ‘spearhead’. That is not my word; it was the word used by the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council.

Although there have been many statements during the past 10 years to the effect that there are special grounds for a 3 5 -hour week in the electricity supply industry, there is no doubt that the campaign is designed to secure a breakthrough for industry generally. Until now it has been resisted bearing in mind the severe inflationary consequences. On 17 June 1971, the then Minister for Labour and Industry in the New South Wales Government referred the matter to the State Industrial Commission to report whether there were any grounds for a reduction of hours in the electricity supply industry, which involves the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. The inquiry was conducted by a full bench of the New South Wales Industrial Commission which carried out a comprehensive review of the industry, that is, the generation and transmission of power by the New South Wales Electricity Commission and its distribution by the county councils. The Industrial Commission found that there were no grounds for the reduction of working hours for the employees in the electricity supply industry who worked a 40-hour week.

I was then the Minister for Mines and Power in New South Wales. My recollection is clear in relation to what occurred at that time. The Industrial Commission reported to the then New South Wales Government on 5 February 1973. Almost immediately afterwards bans and restrictions were placed on essential repair and maintenance work at power stations, causing great inconvenience to the residents of New South Wales. At a conference with the then Premier, Sir Robert Askin, the Trades and Labour Council put forward submissions to the effect that the first report of the Industrial Commission had covered the whole of the electricity supply industry, whereas it considered that the inquiry should have been limited to the power generation industry. Following this conference, the New South Wales Government which was prepared to arbitrate with these people and to sit down and talk to them to try to solve the problem in an amicable way undertook to refer the matter again to the Industrial Commission for further report. This time an inquiry was conducted into whether there were grounds for the reduction of hours for employees of the Electricity Commission alone who worked a 40-hour week.

The New South Wales Government at that time also stated that it would give effect to any recommendation that the Industrial Commission might make to its Minister. That Government was prepared to accept the umpire’s decision: The union, of course, would not give the same undertaking. The second inquiry was conducted by the same three judges and the Commission reported to the Minister on 24 September 1973 that the conclusions reached in its first inquiry were not altered as a result of its considerations being confined to the New South Wales Electricity Commission. Following the Commission’s second report, there was an intensification of industrial action which spread to the Snowy Mountains area when the then Commonwealth Minister for Minerals and Energy, Mr Rex Connor, in this House and on behalf of the then Labor Commonwealth Government gave a directive to the Snowy Mountains Council that the Tumut power station, manned by New South Wales employees, should be operated in a manner which did not run counter to the intentions of the selfstyled, self-appointed, 35-hour week committee. So that is how these people act when they are in government.

It is claimed by the New South Wales Government now, in 1979, that the State Electricity Commission can afford a 3716-hour week without increasing electricity charges to consumers because of its high productivity. I doubt the validity of that statement, but if it is true, if this shorter working week can be passed on to employees without added cost, then I say to the New South Wales Government: ‘You ought to reduce the cost of electricity to consumers rather than reduce the hours of work of employees in the Electricity Commission of New South Wales’. The Electricity Commission of New South Wales is a huge investment and it is one that belongs to the people. It does not belong to the Government, nor does it belong to the employees of the Electricity Commission. Any benefits that flow from this investment of course in the first instance should be passed on to consumers.

I said that I doubted the validity of the statement that the Commission could afford a 37!£-hour week for its employees. Evidence was presented to the 1973 inquiry that the added cost to the Commission of a four-day, 35-hour week would be $ 10.1m in the first year and $5.6m per annum in subsequent years. But those are 1973 figures and taking into account the period of Labor inflation from 1973 to 1975, the amount expressed in 1979 figures would be more than double that amount. These were the estimated costs to the Electricity Commission alone. At the second inquiry the Industrial Commission made it clear that in its opinion one would be burying one’s head in the sand to assume that a 35-hour week to Electricity Commission employees would not flow on to the county councils and other industries in the State. Taking the Commission and the councils as a single industry, the added cost of a 35-hour week in 1973 would have been $2 1.9m in the first year and $ 17.4m per annum in subsequent years. The Commission rejected the view that employees in the industry were entitled to reduced working hours because of increased productivity. The Commission commented that:

Technology … is the real cause of the improvements which have occurred.

It noted that large sums of public money had been invested in the Electricity Commission to ensure that electricity was produced at the lowest possible cost. It also pointed out that the resultant benefits belonged to the community as a whole and should be shared by the community in the form of lower electricity tariffs. In the Commission’s opinion, to accept the productivity claim would involve the rest of the community in subsidising each employee of the Electricity Commission by $1,060 per annum- again I remind the House that those are 1973 figures- for a four-day, 35-hour week. Such a subsidy would, the Commission said, be unfair to the community and should not be allowed to come about.

I said earlier that there was no way in which this decision by the New South Wales Government could be contained. There will be flow-on effects, there will be added costs, and there will be higher inflation as a result of the decision. It is in the area of economic dislocation that the decision made on Thursday of last week merits the severest possible condemnation. The Premier of New South Wales denies that flow-on effects will occur. He is not prepared to submit that opinion to industrial judgment. If he is so confident of his grounds, let him state them before the State Industrial Commission in his own State and see what that Commission says. In 1973 the New South Wales Industrial Commission came to this very definite conclusion about the possibility of flow-on effects:

We therefore conclude that from a reduction of hours in the electricity supply industry, there would be two general economic effects apart from the direct consequences of additional expenditure to be incurred by the industry and the increases in prices flowing to the community therefrom.

These are that there would almost certainly be other areas of industry where a (33) hour week would be sought, in some cases successfully. This would further increase prices and costs in the community but to what extent we cannot say.

Moreover there would, for the reasons we have mentioned, be a resistance by employers to the demands which would be made. These would unquestionably lead to stoppages of work, some of which would be quite expensive and costly to the community.

So much for the good industrial relations that the honourable member for Port Adelaide (Mr Young) said that the Government of New South Wales and the Government of the Commonwealth should be fostering.

The decision taken by the Government of New South Wales to introduce a 37Vi-hour week is a retrograde step which will add to the general community costs. It will tend to send inflation on an upward spiral. It will be only the economic policies of this Government that will contain the situation and prevent that from happening. The Government of New South Wales has not cooperated in the national interests so far as the economy is concerned.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Giles:

-Order! The Minister’s time has expired.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1171

MINISTER FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Suspension of Standing Orders

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

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating) moving forthwith the motion of censure of the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman) of which he has given notice for the next sitting.

Motion of Censure

Mr KEATING:
Blaxland

-Mr Deputy Speaker, before I move this censure motion, I make the point that the Opposition is intent upon moving the second proposition. The Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair) advised the Table Office that he would suspend Standing Orders to enable the first proposition to be dealt with. As far as we are concerned, this is a cognate debate, but I will move formally the first motion. I move:

That this House censures the Minister for National Development for:

1 ) his deliberate and calculated attempt to mislead this House and the Australian people as to the gravity of the oil crisis currently facing Australia,

) his attempt to obtain $ 1 7m from the Treasury to fund a publicity campaign to now mislead the public as to the gravity of the petroleum situation, and

3 ) his failure to evolve anything approaching a comprehensive energy policy for Australia.

Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner I had moved another motion which was:

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

That this House calls for the resignation of the Minister for National Development for wilfully misleading the House during Question Time by dismissing as ‘bunkum’ a newspaper report on his dealings with oU companies which, it is now claimed, had been submitted to him before publication and he then described as ‘a good story’.

We on this side of the House believe that this whole matter should be aired and we are appalled by the fact that the Government did not have the gumption to bring on the debate earlier in the day. In subsequent discussions that I have had with the Minister tonight he alleged that Government Business precluded such a debate. That is sheer nonsense as every observer and every honourable member of this Parliament knows. The Government gagged the debate. It thought that it could brazen its way out of it. It thought that it would brave face the whole issue and finally talk its way out of it by devious sentences, plays on words, subterfuge and the like.

What brought us to the second proposition was the knowledge that the journalist who wrote the story, Judith Hoare from the Australian Financial Review, was told by the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman) when she checked her story with him, that her story was a good story. The Minister now denies that she so checked the story. He said- and I will quote from his answer to a question in the House of Representatives- ‘As to the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review, let me say this about that report . . .’ Now, the words ‘about that report’ are scratched out of the greens, but it is in the original script- ‘about that report’. ‘In short, it is bunkum. There is no hush up; there is no cover tip’. He then said to Mr Porter -

Mr Newman:

– I rise to a point of order. I would just like to make it clear that if the honourable member opposite is implying that I or my staff changed the green by scratching it out, I wish to put on the record that no such change has been properly made.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Giles:

-Order! I cannot see that there is any point of order at this stage. The honourable the Minister would have a chance later in the debate to explain any discrepancy.

Mr KEATING:

– The honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter) asked the Minister a question and he answered by saying, ‘Just let me repeat that the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review is entirely without foundation’. He denied the report. He then, between the end of Question Time and the PM interview, moved his position by saying that he did not deny the report. He then only denied the headline and the editorial on the following page. So what we really have is just a play on words, a tragic, even pathetic, defence by the Minister surrounding a semantic question- that a hush up is not a play down, for instance. It is the substance of the report that was read to the Minister, and that he did not deny. If he had denied the report it would not have been printed. The report was printed because he believed it was accurate, and he as good as said so by saying that it was a good story.

As any honourable member knows, the headline of any newspaper has nothing to do with the journalist who writes the story. That is a matter for the sub-editors and editors of a newspaper. So too is the editorial. It is unreasonable and foolish to argue that the journalist concerned should have read to the Minister the editorial and the front page lead headline of the Australian Financial Review when, in fact, she was reading the story to him. The clear import of the story was that the Minister had sought, with the oil companies concerned, to play down the serious question concerning Australia ‘s imported oil supplies. The Minister, to save himself, has impugned the integrity of an honest journalist who honestly put a story to him. He denied the report. He denied the accuracy of the story. He then shifted his ground to say that he denied only the headline in the editorial but not the accuracy of it, and it is the accuracy of the story that is the damning factor about this whole question. This man in my view has blatantly misled Parliament, and any fair assessment by any other honourable member will lead him precisely to the same conclusion.

What are the issues involved here? They are simply that the Minister, for reasons best known to himself, decided that the Australian public should not know the real issues concerning imports of Australian oil and the problem facing the Australian refining industry and the Australian motoring and consuming public. He believed, apparently, that the Iranian problem would go away. He wanted to contain the matter within the oil companies. The oil companies then sought to recover from the Prices Justification Tribunal a premium that was being charged on official Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ prices because of the scarcity problem. They went there to recover 0.7 of one per cent of the wholesale price. The Tribunal stood the inquiry over but said that it did not believe that the supply question was a serious consideration. The company then telexed the Minister, repeating all these terms such as ‘play down’ and ‘undertakings’ which he had concocted with them, and requiring of him that, as the official Minister of the Government, he intercede either directly or indirectly through another department, with the PJT to apprise it as Caltex requested- the word is ‘apprise’- of the issues surrounding the real supply crisis and how the companies were entitled to fix the precedent of recovery of premiums above the OPEC price.

We have that request being made and the Government going ahead with it- all this in the face of answers to questions, put earlier by the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly), that there was nothing to worry about; that there was absolutely no problem concerning oil supplies in Australia. We find that just some weeks before Caltex was discounting up to 1 8 cents per gallon, not 0.7 of one per cent, below the official PJT wholesale price, but that this was terminated by agreement between the companies on 13 March. We find that they were then going to threaten the Commonwealth Government with the diversion of oil cargoes from the Middle East because they could not recover 0.7 of one per cent. The Minister complied with this tactic.

We are told in the newspaper story that he said- it is reported accurately; the story was put to him and he corroborated it- that the Caltex argument had merit. So he complied with the tactics of the oil companies. That is the charge against this Minister. He has not denied the charge. Perhaps it is not true to say that he has not denied it. He denied it at Question Time but has gone back on that denial. His whole defence now concerns whether or not ‘play down’ or ‘undertakings’ or any of the import of the story, are in fact accurately portrayed in the ‘hush up’ headline on the front page, or the editorial on the second page. How fatuous and how tragically pathetic a defence that is from a Minister of the Crown.

This Government has no honour. Ministers endeavour to cling to their perks, to their cars, to all the perks of office and to stay in the Government. This is not the Parliament of Westminster; that much is obvious. If it had been, Government Ministers would have done the honourable thing and resigned. This Minister is not going to resign. He is going to talk his way out of it, like the proverbial talking head that he is. He will try to go all the way, but we have found that this man, the Minister for National Development, has been marked negotiable by the oil companies of this country; that he is a dog-eared cheque for Australian business. That is the reality of his position in the Government, and by threatening to divert cargoes and having the Minister cave in -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Giles:

-Order! I did not quite understand what the honourable member said but I rather gathered that he ought perhaps to withdraw it.

Mr KEATING:

– It was very technical, Mr Deputy Speaker, very technical.

The other factor concerns the International Energy Agency. The Minister and the Government probably through the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) when he was overseas- we do not know what he does when he is away- got us caught up in the International Energy Agency. We have heard a lot about how good that is for research and development as well as for information. The Minister tells us that every time he is in a public forum, but he will not tell us, he never mentions, that we are caught up in the emergency oil sharing arrangements of the International Energy Agency. Those arrangements are assessed upon the consumption by a country of hydrocarbons, of petroleum, not the level of its imports which, in Australia’s case is small, representing only 30 per cent. It is assessed upon total consumption, so countries which are more dependent upon imports are assessed more fairly and treated better under the arrangements than are the countries with a major reliance upon indigenous petroleum resources.

Therefore, in the assessment Australia will suffer, compared with other countries. As soon as the shortfalls in cargoes show up, when stocks and inventories are run down, when oil prices play havoc on the world oil scene, when Iran’s production fails to regain its peak levels, we will find that the International Energy Agency’s grip will tighten on Australia. Then we will not only be in the position of seeing our cargoes of imported crudes diverted to other countries but we could be in the very parlous position of exporting indigenous crude to other countries of the International Energy Agency.

These are all important factors. Have we heard anything from the Government concerning them? We have heard not a word in the Parliament or anywhere else. All of this is done in secret, behind closed doors in the Minister’s offices, with the oil companies. They know all about it. The public does not, nor does the Parliament. When a journalist writes a story to bring the matter into the open she is besmirched, virtually branded a liar, by the Minister in his condemnation of her- when we know clearly that one word from him would have been enough to deter publication of the story. That is the real import of the story. They are the real charges against him.

Under the International Energy arrangements Australia has to effect a five per cent reduction in its consumption. How such a reduction will be effected we do not know. The Government has neither an energy nor a conservation policy. It has relied exclusively on price, on slugging the motorist, hoping that he will not pay the extra 50 odd cents a gallon for petrol. That is the only conservation effect. We have heard nothing from the Minister about a conservation policy. No direct controls have been introduced. The Minister says that he has a policy. He has no policy. As I said to him earlier tonight, he is all tip and no iceberg. He is all front, all show. There is no substance to him or to his policy whatsoever.

We on this side of the House believe that the Australian public is entitled to know whether Australia is in a parlous energy position. According to telexes floating between companies and the Minister, we are in a difficult position. The Minister denies that that is the case. He thinks that I have been unfair with him. He thinks that the Opposition has been unfair with him. He says that the stories are incorrect, that the journalist was not right, that the Australian Financial Review was unfair. The telex is available. It is available to the Australian Financial Review. The telex will probably be published. We have seen and heard extracts from it. But the telex is in the hands of that newspaper, and I can say that the Minister will be exposed when the telex is published. Companies do not fancifully send to Ministers telexes which talk about undertakings or agreements to play down the situation if such agreements were never made or if such undertakings were never sought or given. No company sends incomprehensible telexes to Federal Ministers on an issue which affects its own commercial life and in a business in whose proceedings the Minister is constantly involved.

It is clear that the telex is authentic, that the import of the telex is as it says. But it is crazy to rely upon the proposition that an oil hush-up is not a play-down, or that undertakings were not given, or that the company should not tell the public the real situation, especially when one considers that the Government is now contemplating a $17m conservation publicity program. Yet the Minister will not come clean and tell the public of the parlous position in which we find ourselves. We are even told that Cabinet has already rejected the $ 17m conservation publicity program proposal. I do not know whether that is true; I have heard that it is true. If it is true, it makes a complete mockery of the Government’s position. The Minister, if not the Government, intends spending on a publicity campaign more than he does on energy research and development. He intends to do that without looking at any of the administrative or direct controls available to him by way of a conservation program. I refer to such things as requiring the Australian motor vehicle manufacturers to meet certain standards.

Henry Ford in an interview which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald just two days ago said, when talking about the costs imposed on the United States motor vehicle industry, that the United States fleet hoped to reach 27.5 miles per gallon consumption average by 1985. What standards do we have in this country? All we have in this country is a growing demand for petroleum. When that demand is compared with that of similar countries, we find in those countries not only a slower rate of growth than our own but also an actual reduction in the absolute demand for petroleum products. We have seen no such policy implemented by this Government. Instead of that the Minister talks about the need for bipartisanship in energy policy. He attacks me and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Hayden) on any private platform, in front of any group of businessmen, by saying in a bleeding heart fashion: ‘I want a bipartisan energy policy’. All he wants is his cosy little arrangements with the oil companies. Such arrangements have the effect of fattening the pockets of the oil companies at the expense of the Australian motorists. When he is found out, he does not do the decent thing, as most Ministers would do, and resign immediately; instead he comes into the chamber and tries to brave face it. The Government intends to crush our efforts by using its numbers.

Many questions were asked in the House today on this issue both from the Opposition side and from the Government side. Great interest was shown in it. The Government would not have a debate on it. It has brought on the debate tonight, believing that as it is 9.30 p.m. most of the newspaper reporters have gone to bed and that any damage which is inflicted on the Government during the debate will not show up in tomorrow’s Press. There are a few Government members in the House. The Government Whip is probably beating them off at the door to keep them out so that neither I nor any other Opposition speaker has a full House to which to outline the real gravamen of the issues which involve a senior Minister in the Government who holds an important economic portfolio and whose position in the Fraser Ministry is up for grabs.

Where is the Prime Minister when one of his Ministers is seriously under attack and is asked to resign by the Opposition, the alternative Government? Where is he? He is probably listening like ‘keyhole Jack’, as usual, to the intercom located under his desk. He never fronts up. The false and fleeting Fraser never comes into the chamber when such matters are raised. He is always locked up in his office, listening in from there. He is never game to front. There is not a soul on the Government benches. Government will not stand behind the Minister to defend him. We will see the truth of my remarks by observing whether they come to the chamber.

The issue simply is this: Was the story that Judith Hoare wrote correct? Did the Minister say to her that it was a good story? Did he corroborate the story? If he did, and he has now denied this story in Parliament, he has misled Parliament. If he has misled Parliament, he is duty bound to do the honourable thing and to resign his commission with the Governor-General. That is what he is obliged to do. That is the simple issue. The telex is available; the story was written from the telex. It can be corroborated. It is only a matter of time before the telex is published and the source of it is revealed. The Minister cannot effect a flimsy escape by talking about hush-ups or the fact that he did not approve the editorial. What politician has ever had the right to ask a journalist what the editorial of his or her newspaper will be the next day and to have it read to him? What a stupid, foolish defence to be advanced by this Minister who does not have the decency or the gumption to resign his commission.

I wind up on this point: We on this side of the House have looked at this issue fairly. We have looked at all of the issues, but we find the Minister wanting. We find the members of the Government front bench wanting. They tried to kill the matter at Question Time and they tried to kill it in the chamber later this afternoon. It would not go away because today we found out that the journalist had, in fact, corroborated the story. We also found out that the Minister apparently denied that the person concerned had corroborated the story and that he had said that he did not approve the headline of the editorial. We simply say to the Minister, to his colleagues in the Fraser Ministry, and to the Prime Minister that the Minister should do the decent thing and resign. If he is not decent enough to do that when he is found to have misled the Commonwealth Parliament, at least the Prime Minister should determine his commission. If he is not decent enough to do that, the Cabinet should do it for him.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Armitage:
CHIFLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Is the motion seconded?

Mr YOUNG:
Port Adelaide

-I second the motion. This Government has set an appallingly low standard of behaviour. Even the behaviour of the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman) will only be an equal to the behaviour of this Government in a couple of instances which have been revealed in the last three or four days. It took a Senate committee to reveal that $10m was being taken out of the Treasurer’s advance account to buy a VIP aircraft. No decision was made and no statement was made to the Parliament. It took an exposure in South Africa to tell us that one of the Government Ministers had been a guest of the information office of South Africa for the purpose of telling the people of South Africa that Ministers and politicians in this country supported its terrible regime of apartheid. Let me read to the House the standards which Mr Fraser said he would set when we were in government. I quote from page 3607 of Hansard of 9 July 1 975:

Ten per cent or even SO per cent of the truth is as good a way of misleading this Parliament and the Australian people as a downright lie.

No one in this Parliament believes that the Minister for National Development has not been guilty to a degree of having misled this House. But such is the corruption and deception of this Government in almost every field of its administration that this Minister’s action will go unnoticed in the Government. It will go unnoticed by the very standard it has set.

What an issue we have before us. Today we debate what appeared in the Australian Financial Review. As the honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating) has told the Parliament, the matter goes far deeper than that. What happened on 13 February in the meeting between the Minister and the oil companies? What did the Minister tell the oil companies that allowed three of the major companies the next day, 14 February, to eradicate any discounting in petrol pricing in this country? What decision did the Minister express to those oil companies that allowed those oil companies to sell their fuel at an additional profit to them of $150m per annum? Is this Government governing on behalf of the oil companies or is it governing on behalf of the Australian people? Last year, in the Budget, the Government said: ‘We will have to go to world parity prices. We have to have more money for exploration in this country. It is a decision of the greatest national consequence that we must abide by world parity prices for our fuel. The Australian people will have to put up with it because we need more money for exploration. ‘

This Government is handing out millions of dollars without any justification at all to some of the largest companies in the world- not just in Australia but in the world. It is the greatest rip-off that this country has ever seen. That is so not merely because of the deceit which this Minister brings to the Parliament. His deceit is exceeded only by his incompetence, because on either level he fails this Parliament and he fails the people. The Minister for National Development- we have lost the word honourable today- told the Australian people in his Press statement of 13 February, after he met the oil companies in Canberra which must have been a nice sleazy meeting, that after discussions with oil industry representatives he was satisfied that there were no grounds for concern about the immediate outlook for the supply of petroleum products to the Australian market. Let me remind honourable members that the next day three of the largest oil companies in this country eradicated discounting.

Why did that happen? Why does the Minister not tell the Parliament why those oil companies took the decision the next day, that is 24 hours after he met with them? Why does the Minister not produce all the documents relating to the price of oil in this country including the now famous telex which has been referred to in today’s newspaper? Why are they not given to this Parliament? Why are they hidden away in the Minister’s office? All honorable members on the Government side of the Parliament must understand the frustration being met by the Australian motorist and by the Australian people as oil prices continually go up and up. The Government says that this is happening at the behest of greater exploration. It is not at the behest of greater exploration at all. It is at the behest of greater super-profits by the oil companies so that they can contribute next year to the coffers of the Liberal-National Country parties so that they can remain in office.

If I were running an oil company I would not say: ‘Here is $10,000 for you for the elections in 1 980 ‘. I would say: ‘Go and spend what you like. I will underwrite your campaign because you are so good to us. I will underwrite your campaign completely.’ If there is no dishonesty in the situation that campaign funds come from oil companies to the Government, and if there is nothing to hide, then why does the Government not adopt some reform in that field. I will tell the Government what will happen in 1980. All Government members know it. Although their greasy fingers might not touch it, it will be the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) and the people who sit on the front bench, who will go to the uranium companies and to the oil companies and say: ‘Look, we cannot give you decent government. We are not asking you to support us because we can give you decent government. We are asking you to support us because we will give you greater profits. We will give you greater access to the resources of this country which a Labor Government, acting in the interests of the Australian people, will never give you. ‘

That is the reason the Government will give. That is the reason why the Minister for National Development ought to be dismissed. But why should he have to go when that is the standard of this Government? How many Ministers have been found guilty of some charge against them because of their behaviour? But some people argue that this is a very good government. They say that no government in the history of Australia has had so many Ministers found not guilty. But no government in Australia has had so many Ministers charged with bad behaviour, with misdemeanours, with trying to bribe candidates and with trying to have some influence on electoral commissioners. Of course, the Minister has been up to this. He cannot explain his behaviour or explain the behaviour of the Government today.

At Question Time when the censure motion was moved the Government hoped the matter could be quietened. All the evidence was there. Why did the Government not take the censure motion on board at Question Time. No, something else had to happen and what happened? The Minister was totally exposed this evening when the reporter who wrote the story substantiated it and when another journalist substantiated her story. Everybody in Australia now knows that last night this Minister told the journalist: ‘It is a good story’. So what does he do today? He gives a Dorothy Dix question to one of his back bench members, the honourable member for Barker (Mr Porter), and we all know what back bench members have to do for Ministers. They have to do everything except something really ugly.

Mr Porter:

- Mr Deputy Speaker I raise a point of order. The honourable member for Port Adelaide has alleged that I am incapable of my own thought and that the question I asked the Minister was a Dorothy Dix question. It was not a Dorothy Dix question.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Armitage)Order! The honourable member for Barker will resume his seat. That is not a point of order. The honourable member will have the right, at a later stage in the debate, to make a personal explanation if he so desires.

Mr YOUNG:

-It does not matter whether the honourable member for Barker asked the question because of his own supreme intelligence or whether in fact the messenger from the Minister for National Development brought the question around to him. Irrespective of either of those two events taking place the Minister was asked a question about the story. Now the Minister has some reservations about what he said at Question Time. Let me quote him to see whether anybody else in the Parliament misunderstood what the Minister said at Question Time in answer to the honourable member for Barker as to the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review. He stated: . . . let me say this about that report: In short, it is bunkum.

Later on he stated:

Just let me repeat that the report in this morning’s Australian Financial Review is entirely without foundation.

What is the Minister saying tonight on the program PM1 He has had a change of mind. He tells us:

Just let me finish for a moment. The point that I was making to Mrs Hoare -

Ms Hoare I expect he meant; was that there was no attack on her article. What I was attacking was both the headline and the editorial . . .

Now would honourable members not have thought that a sophisticated Minister like the Minister for National Development would know the difference between calling a story bunkum and refuting the headlines. Would they not have thought that a sophisticated Minister like the Minister for National Development who bungles along in this Parliament- as he did last week and as he is doing this week- would know the difference between the descriptions he gives to the story. But he did not come in, as he should have today, and say: ‘Well look, I have been partly found out but everything is above board. Here is all the correspondence and telexes between the oil companies and myself. I want the Parliament and the people of Australia to know that they are being represented by a decent, honest Government’. Honourable members may ask why he did not. It is because he cannot. We are being represented by a rotten, corrupt Government that thinks more about the telexes it receives from the oil companies than it does about those it receives from millions of Australian voters.

Sir William McMahon:
LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

- Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. I ask that the word ‘corrupt’ be withdrawn. The honourable member is speaking of the former Government and not of the Government on the Treasury benches today. I ask that the word ‘corrupt’ be withdrawn.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! If the word ‘corrupt’ is used in a general sense of a government it is not out of order. But the word ‘corrupt’ used against an individual is out of order. I do not think the honourable member used it in that particular manner.

Mr YOUNG:

– There are some people on the other side of this House who are not corrupt. Unfortunately they are not in the Ministry. Let me say this: A lot of this matter revolves around what will happen to the Prices Justification Tribunal. It set a price for crude oil in this country. The oil companies saw fit to sell their products way below the price set by the PJT. They were setting prices varying across the country depending on how it suited them. But the prices were way below the price set by the PJT. Now there is complete collusion between this Government and the oil companies about what they want the PJT to do. Now the PJT as such, is dead. The Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife) who sits behind the Minister for National Development tonight, knows that in fact the PJT is dead. But the collusion between this Government and the oil companies would not stand up to any scrutiny of the Trade Practices Act because of what they are doing in this country. The Trade Practices Act would find the collusion between the oil companies and this Minister illegal. The operation is illegal. We do not need any further collusion to see what price those people can get through the PJT. Everyone knows, as we do on this side of the House, that three and a half years of Malcolm Fraser have seen that the only attack in this country is on wages, not on prices. If there is anything the Government can possibly do to assist big business and to rip off more money from the Australian people, it will continue to do it. That is what is behind all this. The Minister at half past two said that it was bunkum, but he had reservations at S o’clock. This only tends to demonstrate the absolute dishonesty of the Minister. As the honourable member for Blaxland pointed out, if the Minister had any decency at all, if there was one speck of decency in this Government, six or eight of the Ministers would have resigned a long time ago, led by the Prime Minister, because it is a corrupt Government. It services completely big business, at the behest of big business, at the price of the Australian people. It will continue to do this. As I said earlier, we had to squeeze out of the Government during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations, the fact that $10m was sneaked away to buy the VIP aircraft.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will remain relevant to the motion.

Mr YOUNG:

– Honesty is involved in the motion, Mr Speaker. If I can prove the Government is dishonest on the VIP aircraft matter, which I think is substantiated, then I think that helps to substantiate this case as well.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will obey the ruling of the Chair, He will remain relevant to the motion before the Chair.

Mr YOUNG:

-Why is it that we have to squeeze this information out? Why is it that this Parliament is always the last to know? Why is it that the Government treats the Parliament with such contempt? Why is it that the Government keeps carrying on like this? It has done so for 3!£ years. Why is not this Parliament the first to know when the Government makes decisions of this nature? Why is not this Parliament the first to know the consequences of the sleazy meeting between the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman) and the major multinational oil companies that operate in this country? Why is it that this Minister prefers to rip-off the Australian public rather than be of service to the Australian public? It is totally dishonest. What he has done today has misled the Parliament. He should take his glass of water and resign.

Mr NEWMAN:
Minister for National Development · Bass · LP

– For the last 35 minutes I have sat here and listened to an hysterical attack by Opposition members. They have accused me of dishonesty, collusion, misleading this Parliament and a host of other things which it is almost impossible to recall. Fortunately in this Parliament and in this country diatribes do not take the place of facts; blustering does not take the place of conviction; and wilful accusations do not take the place of truth. What have I been accused of? For the moment we will leave aside the question of conservation and energy policies. What, then, have I been accused of? I think that there are four charges. Firstly, I have been accused of misleading this chamber and the people of Australia about the true position of oil supply stocks in this country. Secondly, is the report in the Australian Financial Review bunkum? Thirdly, did I influence the Prices Justification Tribunal? Fourthly, did I encourage the decision by the oil companies to stop discounting? Let us take these claims one by one. First, what is the position with regard to oil supplies in Australia? The position is this: For the first two quarters of this year- say to May-June- the position with respect to oil supplies is under control. I have said that that is unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a sudden rush of demand through panic buying. That could happen, particularly at a time when oil refineries are under maintenance, or when the pipelines that carry the production of oil from Bass Strait are being checked. Another extenuating circumstance would be if there was industrial strife. Apart from those special circumstances, that is the situation in Australia. The matter of oil supplies is under control up to May-June.

Beyond that, the position is much more questionable. I do not think that anyone in Australia will be able to say what will happen after June. I have made that quite clear to the Australian people. This will depend on whether Iran starts to produce the previous export quantities that it used to; whether other Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meet the shortfall and whether we can put other measures in trainwhich we are doing- to make up the shortfall in our own domestic supplies. I have gone further and I have told the Australian people that the position may be such that we may have to introduce rationing. I hurriedly add that, because of other steps that we have taken, that would be the very last option that we would adopt. Is that consistent with what I have said in this place, in other places when I have been addressing forums or talking to the Press, or what I said after the meeting on 13 February? The answer is that every statement that I have made has been totally consistent with that original statement and the statement that I have just made.

Mr Keating:

– What about private conversations?

Mr NEWMAN:

-If the Opposition would like me to, I would be quite happy to table those Press releases.

Mr Keating:

– Tell us about the private conversations.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Blaxland has been heard.

Mr Innes:

– When you have sold the place out, tell us what you said.

Mr Keating:

– What about your private conversations? We want your private conversations. We do not want your public conversations. We want to know what you said in the Cabinet Room.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. The honourable member for Melbourne will remain silent. The honourable member for Blaxland has already spoken in the debate. I ask him to listen in silence to the reply of the Minister.

Mr NEWMAN:

– The question is whether I have misled the Parliament on the oil supply situation or whether I have misled anybody. Let me make it absolutely clear that I have not misled the Parliament; I have not misled the Australian people. The assessment which I have just given was totally in agreement with the assessment which was made on 13 February and which has been made at various times since. I would add one point to this aspect. We have had meetings with State officials, as well as the oil industry meeting with the Department of National Development. I forget the date but we have had a meeting of the Oil Supply Committee. There will be another meeting in April. The States have been completely apprised of the facts that I have just described. I might just add one other thing to make it absolutely clear. At that meeting it was decided that the Australian public and this Parliament should be told the responsible accurate situation and this does not vary from what I have already given.

We come now to the question of the newspaper report. It has been said that I misled the Parliament today by saying that the report in the Australian Financial Review was bunkum. So that there is no mistake, let me call it bunkum again. The report is bunkum. There are three elements in this report. There is an article by Miss Judith Hoare. There is a headline and an editorial. It is true to say that I had four telephone conversations with the author last night. The crux of those conversations was that I objected in the first instance to making a Press statement over the telephone. Two questions were posed to me. The author said that she could not come and see me face to face. I accepted that. In the course of the third telephone conversation I asked her whether she would call me back and let me know what she was going to write. The important point to make here is this: When I made that request, she said that if she did she could make no change, although she offered to go to her editor to find out whether he would accept a change. I said: ‘I accept that position and I would not wish to change your article in any way. But I want to know what you are going to write’. For the honourable member to say that one word from me would have killed the article is quite demonstrably wrong. The arrangements would never have allowed such a thing to happen.

We now come to the final point. Did I say that the author was writing a good story? I did not. There are two points to be made. When she read her article to me, she did not read the headline as that was not yet written. I suppose, to give her credit, that she also did not know that the editorial was written. The Opposition has mounted its attack tonight on the basis of the headlineand I have categorically denied that there was a hush-up- and the editorial which accuses me of duplicity and conspiracy of silence. The second point about the article that I made to the author was that I did not particularly like the article. That was my assessment of the story.

Mr Keating:

– Are you trying to shift again? We are sick and tired of the damn lies. We want the truth.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. The House will come to order. I remind the House that this is a motion of censure against the Minister. Accordingly I ask the House to remain silent and to allow the Minister his defence.

Mr NEWMAN:

-The other point which I think it is very important to make here is that in the article I can find no justification for either the headline or the editorial upon which the article was based.

Mr Uren:

– Is it true or false? Do you agree or disagree?

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Reid will remain silent.

Mr NEWMAN:

– The Opposition is making a very determined effort to stop me from having my say.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable gentleman will address the Chair and continue with his remarks.

Mr NEWMAN:

– I want to mention one more point about the position in the National Times. The honourable member for Blaxland (Mr Keating) made accusations that I had cast doubts on the credibility of the author. I have never done that. I did not do it today and I will not do it in the future because there would be no reason to do so.

I move on to the next point. I have been accused of influencing the Prices Justification Tribunal in favour of the oil companies. It is worth while reiterating exactly what I said in answer to a number of questions in this place this afternoon, and it is this: The PJT is an independent body; the oil companies make their applications to the PJT in support of their requests for additions to the wholesale price of their products. I said this afternoon, and I repeat it now, that I have told the oil companies that I will not buy into their arguments with the PJT. The PJT is an independent body and I will not step between it and the oil companies. Therefore, I categorically deny any accusation that I somehow have been acting as an intermediary for the oil companies and the PJT. There is no truth in the accusation.

I next refer to the matter of encouraging of discounting. The only facts that the Opposition produces to show that I somehow have encouraged the stopping of discounting in this country is the statement that on the day after we had the meeting with the oil companies they stopped discounting. Nothing could be more absurd than to suggest a correlation between us in their discounting decision.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister will resume his seat. I warn the honourable member for Blaxland that if he interjects again I will have to deal with him.

Mr NEWMAN:

– In summary, in any forum that I have been in with the oil companies, I have never encouraged them to stop discounting practices. I cannot make it clearer than that. I think that summarises the four issues that the Opposition has particularly made in its accusations of my dishonesty and of my misleading of this Parliament. I do not know what else I can say but to say what I have said again tonight, that in no way have I been acting in collusion with the oil companies, in their discussions with the PJT, on their decisions on discounting or on the issue of whether we conspired to stop the Australian people from knowing the true position of the oil situation in this country.

I ask the Opposition and every honourable member in the House: If I have been misleading the Australian people as to the true situation in Australia and it is now six weeks since I made that assessment and made it public, have I been right or wrong? Is there any crisis? Of course there is not because the assessment is correct. Has the Opposition told us why it believes my assessment is incorrect in relation to the position between May and June? Has it given one tittle of evidence to show why there should be any problem between now and May and June? Of course it has not because it does not know and because my assessment is correct. The men opposite me who amount to the Opposition in this place will say anything, will do anything, and tonight we have seen another example of that. I remind this House of how I began: Blustering will not take the place of facts; diatribes in this place do not take the place of truth; wilful, wild accusations mean nothing unless they are backed up by facts. I know that this honourable collection of gentlemen- at least on this side- and the people who are listening to this debate will be making the proper decision now as they listen to the way we have argued the case tonight.

I just deal with one other point because I think it is important, namely, the second accusation that has been made by the Opposition on the question of a publicity campaign. The second paragraph was this:

His attempt to obtain $17m from the Treasury to fund a publicity campaign to mislead the public as to the gravity of the petroleum situation.

Can I deal with that because that paragraph- if no other thing could be said tonightdemonstrates the lengths to which these people will go. (Extension of time granted).

It demonstrates the lengths to which the Opposition will go to besmirch the reputation of people on this side of the House.

What are the facts about this conservation program? The honourable member for Blaxland had the gall to pretend that he had some information that suggested that the Cabinet had rejected a program worth $17m for energy conservation. That is a wilful lie, and he knows it. Last July the Government decided that it should investigate a national energy conservation program for this country. It was taken to the Ministers of the various States to get their agreement. The States and the Commonwealth drew up terms of reference that could be given to a consultant to carry out a consultancy report for the Australian Minerals and Energy Council. One of those Ministers, Mr Hudson from South Australia, is here tonight. He knows the truth of what I am saying.

The Government went further and, on the terms of reference decided by the Australian Minerals and Energy Council, commissioned a consultant. That commission was given in November of last year. The consultant reported to me in February. That is the fact of the matter on the conservation program. It was not something that the Government suddenly dreamt up now, not something it produced out of a hat in response to the Iranian situation. That had nothing to do with it. It was a determined attempt to put in place in this country a national energy conservation program that would deal with the medium and long-term problem of reducing demand for oil supplies. To suggest it was done for reasons of confusing the issue on Iran is sheer nonsense. That is why I label the member for Blaxland a liar.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will withdraw that.

Mr NEWMAN:

– Yes, I withdraw that. I think no more is to be said about that issue. In summary, there has been a string of accusations made by the Opposition, not backed by one fact. This Government is determined to do three things. Firstly, we wish to ensure that the immediate situation which we face because of the Middle East crisis is dealt with adequately and properly so that we may preserve for the Australian people proper supplies of very important fuel. Secondly, the Government will not be deterred by the nonsense it has heard tonight about the conservation program. That program will go ahead once the Government has evaluated it because that is all it is, a consultant’s report. When that report has been evaluated I will take it to Cabinet for a decision whether we should go ahead. Thirdly, this Government, unlike the Opposition, does have a vigorous energy policy- a developing policy, that is true- that is encouraging exploration in this country. It is a policy that is creating development of fields which would never have been developed under the last Government called Whitlam. It is a government that has put in place for the first time in the history of this Commonwealth a proper, coordinated research and energy development program which is allowing the Commonwealth to co-ordinate energy research around this country and which is allowing projects ranging from solar energy through to oil from coal projects to be funded and assisted. So I think we have given the lie to the nonsense we have heard tonight. I hope that we will hear no more of it.

Mr Barry Jones:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

-Mr Speaker -

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) agreed to:

That the question be now put. Original question putThat the motion (Mr Kea ting’s) be agreed to. The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Rt Hon. Sir Billy Snedden)

AYES: 34

NOES: 73

Majority…… 39

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 1182

FAMILY LAW AMENDMENT BILL 1979

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 20 March, on motion by Mr Viner:

Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time.

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Bill (on motion by Mr Sinclair) read a third time.

page 1182

ADJOURNMENT

Purchase of Naval Vessels- Yugoslav Airline Service: Petition-Film ‘The Odd Angry Shot’- Commonwealth Employees Compensation- Brisbane Public Transport System -Government Publications -Oil Industry- Alleged Social Security Frauds

Motion (by Mr Sinclair) proposed:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr SCHOLES:
Corio

– I want to raise in this House tonight a matter which is of some concern. I regret that the Minister for Defence (Mr Killen) is not available to answer on the matter at this stage. A report is circulating, which I am informed is accurate but I am not able to verify this and I had hoped that the Minister would be able to verify it, that the total project cost of the purchase of three FFG frigates from the United States of America at the latest estimate has escalated to $900m. This is an escalation for the cost of three ships from an original projected price of $ 189m for two ships. The cost of the ships has more than doubled. The cost of the equipment has risen by at least SO per cent, most likely more, substantially as a result of the types of financial arrangements which the Australian Government enters into with the United

States Defence Department which are substantially unchanged since the fiasco in relation to the price of the Fl 1 Is. They were to be purchased at a stated price but arrived at a price many times the original. The three vessels appear to be in almost the same category. When ordered the two frigates had a price tag of $ 189m. The latest estimate for three ships is $900m. Part of the increased cost is due to escalation in the United States and part is due to the delays in decision making in Australia. One change which has taken place which may not have added to costs was due to a severe lag in the development program of the Mylloka sonar equipment which subsequently was not able to be placed on the Australian FFGs because the development program had fallen at least two years behind.

Serious questions which must be asked in this House are: Is the new estimate correct? Is the price escalation justified as an exercise in financial management and what reliance can be placed in future defence orders for major items of equipment placed in the United States in view of what has occurred with the two most recent orders? I say this advisedly because we have under consideration a project, base priced at about $500m at this stage, for the purchase of a tactical fighter force in which three out of four possible aircraft to be chosen are from United States companies. An indicted cause of the escalation is the Australian Government’s inability to make a decision on what types of helicopters will be placed on these vessels when they are required. The first is due into service in 1 98 1 . Because of the delays in the process by which the choice of a helicopter is made it is now estimated that helicopters will not be available for at least 1 8 months after the ships go into service.

These vessels have been under consideration since at least 1973. So it would seem that the choice of the purchase of helicopters could have been finalised by this time. The helicopter has an effect on the structural costs of the vessels but it will have a very substantial effect on the capacity of these vessels to operate successfully. The helicopter is an integral part of the weapons systems of the ships. It will not be available because the Australian Government has not yet been able to make up its mind what helicopter it is going to buy. Another cost not yet determined is that of putting the Phalanx defence mechanism for close-in defence against precision missiles on the ships. At this stage, as far as we know, it is not intended to place that equipment on the ships. If it is not placed on these ships they will be very vulnerable to attack from precision missiles and could well be inoperable in a hostile situation because of that weakness. I ask that the Government give an explanation of the cost escalation.

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

Mr NEIL:
St George

– I raise two matters. On 6 March this year I presented to the House a petition from certain citizens asking that airline services by the Yugoslav airline between Australia and Yugoslavia be discontinued. I make it clear to the House that that petition was presented because a number of signatories resided in the St George electorate. I have a great respect for those persons in the electorate who wish to express their views and present petitions. But it is clear that petitions do not necessarily represent the views of the members presenting them. Many persons in the St George electorate are Macedonian Yugoslavs and they travel by JAT- Yugoslav Airlines. They tell me that it is a very good airline. There may be other persons who do not share that view. However, I have been approached by the airline which is concerned at the petition having been presented. It drew an inference that I supported the terms of the petition.

I forwarded a telegram that I received from the Clerk to the manager of the airline. The Clerk points out that the right of petitioning the Parliament is a very ancient right of the citizen. A petition may be presented only through a member of Parliament. There is certainly a moral duty upon members of Parliament to present petitions. Otherwise the citizen would not have his views put before Parliament. I also pointed out that if a petition were brought to me asking for more nights to Yugoslavia by JAT- Yugoslav Airlines I would be duty bound to present that petition. I make it plain that, with all members of Parliament, a petition is presented in the course of duty and is not to be taken as representing the views of the member who presents it. I also must declare to the House that it has been suggested to me that the airline might want me to travel on one of its aircraft at some time. I consider that if time permits and such a request is made I should travel on it to see what the airline services are like.

The second matter I wish to raise is the action of the Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Ellicott) in inviting members of the Parliament to attend a screening of a film called The Odd Angry Shot. This film was produced in Australia and is making good box office headway. I was very interested to see the film after having served in

Vietnam. In my opinion it is an excellent film and I congratulate the producers, the actors and, in particular, Mr Kennedy, who was the leading actor. As far as the intangibles are concerned, it would be of interest to the Australian public to know that the attitude of the troops, their views on many different issues, their humour and spirit and the indefinable yet very strong comradeship of young Australians in war circumstances seemed to be very competently portrayed. The film showed in a genuine fashion the experiences of young men in the Vietnam conflict. It also accurately captured the spirit of the Australian soldier throughout many wars in which he has been called upon to fight. The point made in the film was that the average, ordinary citizen often has been called upon to respond to this country’s needs in the military sphere. This was expressed very well.

This film is a great tribute to the Australians who have served in many wars. One might think about one or two technical matters. The action scenes were very good, although many Australian soldiers experienced action against North Vietnamese regular units in very fierce combat. I recommend the film to all members of this House. I think that it would be of great value to them in understanding servicemen and particularly in understanding the problems that some young ex-servicemen from Vietnam experienced. They felt that they were being neglected by the community and that they did not have a place of honour in their own country. I believe that they have very much a place of honour in their own country. I hope that every member of the House goes to see the film. I hope that as many members of the public as possible will see it.

Mr WALLIS:
Grey

-A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the need for the upgrading of lump sum compensation payments to Commonwealth employees. I feel that the Government should have a closer look at a number of other aspects concerning Commonwealth compensation. No alteration has taken place in this area since 1976. 1 note that the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) in answer to a question in the other House recently said that the Government would be having a look at this matter in the Budget. I certainly hope it does.

I think that I should draw attention to the anomalies that exist. One of the anomalies, apart from the matter about which I spoke a couple of weeks ago, is found in respect of lump sum payments. The value of the Commonwealth lump sum payment in the event of death has been eroded by inflation. The amount is still behind that paid by a number of State compensation Acts. I hope that the Government has a close look at this aspect. At present some $25,000 is paid in the event of death of an employee. We find once again that these people were victims of what happened in 1975. The then Labor Government had legislation before Parliament to increase that amount to $28,000. That legislation went by the board with the sacking of the Labor Government. When the present Government introduced legislation 12 months later the lump sum payment was set at $25,000 which was $3,000 less than what the Labor Government was prepared to enact. The value of that $25,000 has now been eroded considerably. As I say, it is below the amount provided in a number of State Acts.

The Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations recently made a submission to the Government regarding people receiving compensation. It referred to the need for lump sum payments to be paid at the rate applying when payment is actually made and not at the rate applying when death actually occurred. At present payments are made at the rate applying at the date on which the injury occurred. If a person who is injured and hospitalised for a lengthy period passes on as a result of that injury, compensation is paid at the rate applying at the time of injury and not at the rate applying at the time of death. I know of a number of cases where the Commonwealth questioned the right to compensation. A rather lengthy procedure takes place under the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act. In one case a wife was paid finally for the loss of her husband two years after his death. The amount received was considerably less than she would have been paid if the payment had been made at the rate applying at the time of payment. The woman concerned had wanted to purchase a home. The difference in the amount was about $6,000. She was paid at the lower rate. This made it more difficult for her to purchase a home. I hope that this aspect is looked at.

The definition of a de facto relationship in compensation cases has been worrying a number of unions. At the moment a de facto wife has to prove that she has lived with the deceased worker for three years on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis. The issue of the three year requirement has been raised in the Senate before. The Minister indicated that she would consider it. But again, to date, nothing has been done.

The submission made by the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations some time ago was that a three-year requirement of dependency should be replaced by a requirement similar to that for dependant females under the Social Services Act. Apparently the requirement under the Social Services Act is quite different from the requirement under the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act. It was felt that making the Social Services Act and the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act compatible and having the same position applying to de facto wives in the event of death would be much fairer than the present situation. In quite a number of cases the Taxation Office has taken a quite different view in regard to de facto relationships from that taken under the Social Services Act. In this case, the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act takes a different view again from other Acts of the Commonwealth Parliament.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar)Before I call the honourable member for Bowman, I draw the honourable member’s attention to the fact that it is not consistent with the forms of the House for him to rise in his place seeking the call before the previous speaker has concluded his speech. I call the honourable member for Bowman.

Mr JULL:
Bowman

-The honourable member for Griffith (Mr Humphreys) is a rather well liked member of this House. In most matters he seems to be fairly rational. However, in a speech that he made during the adjournment debate on 28 February 1979 he went into a very strong tirade against the Queensland State Government because of its attitude towards the Brisbane City Council public transport service. He accused the Queensland State Government of deceit and duplicity in denying flow-on funds from the Commonwealth Grants Commission to the City Council to look after its bus service. I am afraid that this disturbs me, as the whole operation of the Brisbane City Council bus service disturbs me. It is probably worth spending a brief moment looking at the recent history of the Brisbane City Council public transport system.

The Brisbane City Council took trams off the streets of Brisbane in 1969. 1 believe it is unfortunate that since then preference has been given to the movement of motor vehicles, when the movement of people probably should have been the Council’s main consideration. Since the trams were removed to allow for faster movement of motor vehicles, the number of bus passengers has actually decreased and transport losses have continued to grow. The Brisbane City Year Book, volume 2, shows that revenue from trams exceeded the operating costs in every year of operation up to 1968. In 1969 the trams were taken off the streets, and the losess started. On the other hand, the operating costs of buses have exceeded revenue every year. For example, in June 1975 the loss was $5.7m, in 1976 it was $8.1m, in 1977 it was $10.3m and in 1978 it was $ 13.3m. To June 1979 the loss is budgeted to be $ 15.9m, which is equal to $68.72 per ratepayer per annum. That is a reasonably frightening situation.

Nobody will argue that public transport should not be primarily a service industry and that there should not be some government subsidisation; but I think it is fair to say that the management of those resources should be as efficient as possible. The present situation of the Brisbane City Council worries me. Many new developing areas have one or two bus services a day. There are old established routes that are serviced by so many buses that they are carrying only about two people at a time. The meeting agenda of the Brisbane City Council of 13 February 1979 contains a question asked by Alderman O. L. Olsen. He asked:

Does the Brisbane City Council keep records in relation to transport operations which would enable the following information to be supplied:

How many passengers were carried on the 177 Bus Route for the year ended 30 June 1978?

We should bear in mind that the 177 bus route, which runs from New Farm to West End, is one of the most established services and has been running for many years. The question continued:

  1. b) What was the total amount of fare box receipts on the 1 77 Bus Route for the year ended 30 June 1 978?
  2. How many kilometres were travelled by buses on the 1 77 Bus Route for the year ended 30 June 1 978?
  3. What was the cost of operating buses on the 177 Bus Route for the year ended 30 June 1978?

The answer was that no records are kept. No statistics are kept on the number of people using the bus route, the amount of money taken, the number of miles travelled or anything else that may be relevant to that situation. To my mind, that is unbelievable. Surely the ratepayers of Brisbane and, indeed the members of the Queensland Government and of this Parliament have a right to demand that the Brisbane City Council keep accurate records and manage its bus service properly. When answers like that are given in the official records of the Brisbane City Council, I believe it is about time something was done by the State authorities to investigate fully the operations of the Brisbane City Council buses.

There is great dissatisfaction in many areas of Brisbane. One area in my own electorate, Wynnum, has a population in excess of 46,000 people. They are serviced by private bus services; yet they are still expected to subsidise losses on the cost of running other bus services through the suburbs of Brisbane. One can only hope that this Saturday in the local government election the Australian Labor Party Brisbane City Council will be thrown out of power, that the Liberals will be returned and that some decent management strategy will come back into the operation of the Brisbane City Council. If not, surely the State Government must then institute a full inquiry into this disgusting situationthe operation of the present public transport system in Brisbane.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-For some time the Government has enjoyed the advantage of having two publications available for its use in disseminating statements issued by Ministers. Those two publications are called the Commonwealth Record and the Ministerial Document Service. As honourable members will know, the availability of these documents to the Opposition is restricted. Only the leaders of the Opposition are entitled to have their releases published and disseminated through these publications. I want to put a case seriously in consideration of the needs of the Opposition now or at any time in the future. I believe that in respect of a number of matters of this type there is a new dimension of democratisation. This is accepted as a fair process by the Australian community at large. It seems to me that it would be regarded as a very serious deficiency in the democratic process for the statements of shadow Ministers not to be treated significantly. It is important that the libraries of this country should have such recorded statements and should have access to them. It is important that the media or the public through the media should have knowledge of the statements of shadow Ministers.

Recently I asked the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr McLeay) for information as to the cost of producing the Commonwealth Record and the Ministerial Document Service. A lot of information was provided in answer to Question No. 3290 which I asked on 28 February. In respect of the Commonwealth Record, the effect of the answer was as follows: The cost of the publication is $265,000 in round figures. Revenue from subscriptions is $247,850. There is a considerable shortfall. In 1978 50 editions were produced. The level of production was 3,000 to 3,400 copies. The Minister then referred to the salaries of people associated with the production of the Commonwealth Record. The clerk who seems to be in charge of the document earns $ 17,000-odd a year. The Minister mentioned several other staff members. He said:

The number of persons involved from time to time in production and distribution of the Commonwealth Record is considerable. I am not prepared to authorise the work which would be involved in preparing the list sought.

I simply make the point that many people are involved in the production of the Commonwealth Record. Similar information was given in regard to the Ministerial Document Service. Honourable members seeking information.will find it in Hansard.

The Opposition now produces a collated publication which is called ‘Labor Statements ‘. It is a collation of the statements made by Labor spokesmen. It is put out each week. I should like to make its distribution much wider than it is. It certainly goes out at present to members of the Parliamentary Labor Party. It goes to State branches of the Labor Party and to some other essential avenues such as libraries. I should like to think that honourable members opposite could have the benefit of this information. Indeed, when the political pendulum goes around and we are on the other side of the House we will derive a similar benefit.

This is obviously a very useful process and I sincerely hope that the Minister for Administrative Services will give consideration to accepting responsibility for the publication and financing of this ‘Labor Statements’ series. This is a very fair proposition and I intend to write formally to the Minister about it. I believe that the Government has a very great advantage at present and that that advantage ought to be redressed by the Government accepting total responsibility for the publication and dissemination of this new publication ‘Labor Statements’ which, as I have said, is a collation of all the statements issued by the Labor Party’s shadow Ministers.

Mr GOODLUCK:
Franklin

-In the last three years I have found that there is a lamentable lack of knowledge about the oil industry and today I heard many things said by the Opposition in relation to the discounting of petrol that were completely removed from the facts. I return to the year 1975 when the report of the Collins Royal Commission on Petroleum was handed down. That Commission cost about $1.5m and certain recommendations were made in its report. Unfortunately, since that time the oil industry, like any other industry, has changed. I made a speech on this subject when I first came into this House in 1976. 1 said that there was a quite incredible variation in the price of petrol from one capital city to another and that most Australian motorists and most State governments were completely unaware of it. I think that if that speech were turned up it would surprise many members of this House.

At that time I said that Melbourne was the only city to benefit from the discounting of petrol. Discounting occurred because the oil companies were able to sell petrol to jobbers- by ‘jobbers’ I mean discounters- at a price far cheaper than they could sell it to their normal dealers. That discount price was far below the price at which petrol was being sold to dealers in every other capital city and, of course, in every country area in Australia. There was a theory that the oil companies could do this under the allocation system. By that I mean that local crude oil, being far cheaper than imported crude oil, was sold on an allocation basis and the oil companies found it necessary and, of course, desirable to sell it as quickly as possible to the people in the densely populated areas. So we had the situation where the price of petrol in Melbourne was far lower than the price of petrol in every other capital city and certainly far lower than it was in any country area in Australia. This situation existed for many years.

Today shortages are occurring and there is a need for exploration. Of course, I agree with the views of the Minister for Trade and Resources (Mr Anthony) and the Government; I do not agree with oil companies. I believe that for many years the companies have sapped and used the motorists of Australia in a way that would be difficult to describe without being libellous. I received a telegram from Ampol at one time which said: ‘Mr Goodluck, are you inferring that what we are doing is illegal? The contents of your speech have been referred to our legal advisers’. I wrote back and said, ‘No, not illegal, just immoral and the contents of your telegram have been sent to my legal advisers’. I have heard nothing about it since.

The point is that the oil companies had been doing that for so many years but only some Australian motorists were benefitting. Other Australian motorists were subsidising them. Now that the Minister, or the Government, has brought the price of oil up to world parity we have the one price for petrol and the oil companies in their wisdom realise that there is no longer an allocation system. They have to sell petrol at a competitive price and they realise that today. Unfortunately we are starting to get ourselves into a bind whereby the people who have benefitted by discounting for so many years, particularly those in Melbourne, are starting to feel the crunch. The people in the country areas of Western Australia are starting to realise that their petrol prices are going to remain relatively stable, and that is the important thing.

Mr Scholes:

– Are they going to pay less or more?

Mr GOODLUCK:

-Hopefully they will be paying less or round about the same price. That is the reason for my disagreeing most vehemently with the fuel price equalisation plannot with my Government, but with the fact that people in country areas were going to pay a cent per litre above the relevant city prices.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar:

Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

– I was surprised to hear the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck) attack the fuel price equalisation plan and in so doing be supported by the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Cotter). I would have thought that in the Kalgoorlie electorate at least there would not be many people who would benefit from the fuel price equalisation plan. Yet the honourable member for Kalgoorlie seems to support the honourable member for Franklin.

But that is not the reason for my rising to speak tonight. I am really pleased to see the Minister for Productivity (Mr Macphee) in charge of the House tonight because he is one of the very few reasonable members on that side of the House and I would like to hear either privately or publicly- of course preferably publicly- his comments on the problem that I wish to raise and, for that matter, the comments of the honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman) who is a lawyer.

Mr Neil:

- Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. Is it in order for the honourable member for Prospect to try to misrepresent the honourable member for Kalgoorlie, knowing that the honourable member for Kalgoorlie will have no opportunity to reply?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr MillarOrder! There is no point of order. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie will have the opportunity to seek the indulgence of the Chair if he claims to have been misrepresented.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– A court case is going on at present- I will not refer to the actual proceedings- and one of the points that was made yesterday by the Crown Prosecutor acting for the Commonwealth, and I emphasise that he is acting for the Commonwealth, was that evidence had been gained through a recording device placed in the Kingsford surgery of one of the defendants. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr Rofe, Q.C., said:

For the first time in Australia the Crown hoped to rely on this evidence.

I think such an action is completely wrong. I do not know what the legal position is, whether ponce or people working for the Commonwealth Department of Social Security have the legal right to do such a thing, but I assume that they have- otherwise they would not have produced the recording in evidence. I can just imagine the screams, and I think the justified screams, from the legal profession or from politicians if this were done for the purpose of obtaining evidence in the offices of legal practitioners or of politicians

I think in a way it is worse when it involves doctors’ surgeries. I think that morally it is completely wrong for government agents to place a listening device in the surgery of a medical practitioner when it is quite obvious that a significant number of conversations that take place between the patient and the doctor are of a private nature. They should not be recorded. They should not be available for some police to enjoy themselves afterwards. I do not know what evidence has come out of such a recording. Maybe it is criminal evidence. But the sorts of recordings that will have been made in that doctor’s surgery will obviously also refer to other things. I think it is completely wrong that the Commonwealth Police should have access to recordings of private conversations between a medical practitioner and his patients.

I do not know what kind of action this House can take, but I do think that as individual members we should express at least our objection to this son of thing happening. One can imagine the laughter and possibly enjoyment that Commonwealth Police derived from listening to private conversations between patients and their medical practitioners. I appeal to honourable members on the other side of the House- after all, we on this side have no way of controlling the Government- to extract from the Government at their party meeting tomorrow some sort of undertaking that the Government will not do this sort of thing in the future, that it will not place recording devices in doctors’ surgeries or, for that matter, legal chambers, politicians’ offices and other places where people are prepared to speak freely and we encourage them to speak freely and to tell us the truth in whatever capacity we are listening to them.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr MillarOrder! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr COTTER:
Kalgoorlie

– I would like to make the point tonight that I was totally misrepresented by the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) in the speech in which he claimed that I supported the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Goodluck) and was against the fuel freight subsidy scheme implemented by the Government. I totally reject that contention. I believe that it is a despicable and deplorable attitude by the honourable member for Prospect to take advantage in what I would regard as a mean way of a speech very late at night to try to impute that I support the honourable member for Franklin in regard to something which I totally reject. In fact, the fuel freight subsidy scheme has been of immense benefit to the electors and industries of my electorate. It has been of great concern and interest to the people who live in the Kalgoorlie electorate and it is demonstrably of advantage to them. The misrepresentation was along the same lines as the misrepresentation today by Opposition members of the stand taken by the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman). There is no difference in their attitude. They tend to stretch the truth and to misrepresent the facts to the point where attitudes, beliefs and truths are distorted. I want to place on record once and for all my total support of the Government’s policy in regard to the fuel freight subsidy scheme and the fact that it has been, is and will continue to be in the future of immense benefit to the people of the Kalgoorlie electorate. That has been demonstrated.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 1188

NOTICES

The following notices were given: Mr Sinclair to move:

That the legislation committee considering the Prices Justification Amendment Bill 1979 have power to meet during the sitting of the House on Wednesday, 28 March 1 979.

Mr Groom to move:

That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for investigation and report: Construction of patrol boat base, Cairns, Queensland.

Mr Keating to move:

That this House censures the Minister for National Development for-

1 ) his deliberate and calculated attempt to mislead this House and the Australian people as to the gravity of the oil crisis currently facing Australia;

his attempt to obtain $ 1 7m from the Treasury to fund a publicity campaign to now mislead the public as to the gravity of the petroleum situation, and

3 ) his failure, to evolve anything approaching a comprehensive energy policy for Australia.

House adjourned at 10.58 p.m.

page 1189

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated:

Pathology Services: Medical Benefits (Question No. 213)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 28 February 1978:

Will he supply figures for claims per contributor for payment of pathology services in 1976-77 by (a) Medibank, (b) Medibank Private, (c) HBA, Victoria, and (d) private funds not allowing bulk-billing.

Mr Hunt:
Minister for Health · GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES · NCP/NP

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

This answer replaces the answer appearing in Hansard of 9 November 1978, page 2708.

The figure for claims per contributor for payment of pathology services in 1976-77 sought by the honourable member are not available from my Department, the Health Insurance Commission or the private health funds. This is a consequence of the movement of over half of the population from the Medibank coverage to private health insurance subsequent to 30 September 1976. The number of contributors to, or persons covered by Medibank Standard, Medibank Private or the private funds is not known for the various parts of that year; The pathology services for which benefits have been paid by the Commission are not separated; and the statistics from the funds are not available.

I have been concerned about the need for more detailed information on health costs. I will be tabling in the near future, the results of a study which throws new light on the patterns of health expenditure in recent years. I have also ensured that the new health insurance and benefits arrangements to apply from 1 November 1978 are utilised to improve the availability of relevant statistical information.

I informed the House in my Ministerial Statement of 24 May 1978 that preliminary information indicated an appreciable decline in the quarterly costs of pathology. The gross benefits payout by Medibank for pathology decreased by 29 per cent from the June quarter 1977 to the March quarter 1978. These figures related to roughly half the population, and did not cover persons covered by the private health funds.

With the assistance of Medibank and the private health funds, it has been possible to prepare preliminary estimates of benefits expenditure for pathology services for the sixmonthly periods, July to December 1977 and January to June 1 978 for the total population. These are shown below in conjunction with the figures for January to June 1973 and 1976 that were shown on page 4 of the March 1977 Report of the Pathology Services Working Party (tabled on 23 May 1977).

A significant feature of these figures is that there is an absolute decrease in the benefits cost of pathology services for the period January to June 1978, compared with July to December 1977, though charges were raised for pathology services provided to privately insured persons by the following government laboratories for the first time as from:

Capital Territory Health Commission- 1 October 1977 Commonwealth Laboratories- 1 November 1977 State Health Laboratory Services of WA- I January 1978

It is quite clear from these figures that the 1 August 1977 pathology benefits changes have not only arrested the previous year by year absolute increase in the benefits cost of pathology services, but they have resulted in a decrease. This proves that the work of the Pathology Services Working Party has been well worth while.

  1. (i) Estimates are based on medical benefits paid by registered organizations for privately insured persons before July 197S and from October 1976, and by the Health Insurance Commission from July 1975.

    1. Pathology fees increased by 4.2 per cent from 1 July 1975 and a further 15.6 per cent from 1 January 1976. There have been no fee increases since.
  2. b ) Includes Australian Capital Territory.
  3. Includes Northern Territory.
  4. The Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in South Australia was covered by a Health Program Grant for services provided to private patients from July 1973 to 31 December 1976, consequently fees eligible for medical benefits for services provided during that period were not raised. (Apparent errors in addition are due to rounding).

Pathology Services: Bulk Billing (Question No. 369)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 7 March 1 978:

  1. What is the estimated increase in staff for Medibank and Medibank Private, made necessary by the proposed abolition of bulk billing for pathology services.
  2. What is the estimated increased annual cost in administering the proposed changes.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

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

This answer replaces the answer appearing in Hansard of 9 November 1978, page 2708.

and (2) At the same time as direct billing for nonpensioner pathology services was abolished there were other changes made to billing for these services.

A new schedule of pathology services was introduced and the doctor who requested the pathology tests had to be identified on the claim.

As a consequence, of these other changes no direct comparison of processing costs before and after abolition of direct billing for non-pensioner pathology services is possible. It is estimated that, had the abolition of direct billing been the only change that occurred (i.e. had the schedule of pathology items remained unchanged and the requesting doctor not had to be identified), the number of staff required to handle the increased workload and the resultant estimated additional costs would have been as follows:

Repatriation: British Veterans (Question No. 685)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, upon notice, on 15 March 1978:

Are British ex-servicemen receiving Australian service pensions entitled to the pensioner health benefits; if not, why not.

Mr Adermann:
NCP/NP

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

British veterans in receipt of Australian Service Pensions are eligible to receive Pensioner Health Benefits on the same basis as Australian veterans.

Motor Spirit: Alternatives (Question No. 2375)

Mr Hayden:

asked the Minister for National Development, upon notice, on 28 September 1978:

  1. 1 ) When does he expect to receive a report from the National Energy Advisory Committee on the use of alcohols and alcohol-motor spirit blends as alternatives to motor spirit.
  2. Why did he put the NEAC proposals on lead levels in petrol to the Australian Minerals and Energy Council before the possible alternative alcohol fuels report was available.
Mr Newman:
LP

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

  1. 1 ) In view of the considerable technical complexity involved in using alcohols as additives to motor spirit, the National Energy Advisory Committee (NEAC) has advised that technical consultants should be engaged to prepare advice for the Government on this matter and that the use of consultants should be considered by the National Energy Research Development and Demonstration Council (NERDDC). I therefore referred the question of a consultant’s report on alcohol additives to NERDDC, to be considered by them along with other proposals for using Government energy research funds. I have been advised by NERDDC that a consultancy investigation is warranted and the nature of such an investigation is currently being considered.
  2. The extent to which alcohol addition can affect the anti-knock characteristics of motor spirit (as lead additives presently do) and the general suitability of alcohol as a fuel additive are, as stated in ( 1 ) above, complex technical issues which cannot be resolved without detailed and lengthy examination. In view of the immediate importance of the NEAC Report on ‘Motor Spirit: Octane Ratings and Lead Additives’, I asked the Australian Minerals and Energy Council to consider the recommendations in that report at the earliest possible opportunity.

Sewerage (Question No. 2750)

Mr Uren:

asked the Minister for National Development, upon notice, on 9 November 1 978:

  1. How many dwellings are unsewered in (a) each State capital city and (b) the population centres containing more than 20,000 persons of each State and Territory.
  2. How many dwellings were sewered in each State capital city during each of the last 5 years.
  3. What is the estimated cost of eliminating the backlog in the supply of sewerage services in (a) State capital cities and (b) all population centres containing more than 20,000 persons.
  4. How many years will it take to eliminate this backlog.
Mr Newman:
LP

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

  1. (a) (b) Not yet available with regard to population centres in the States, but relevant figures are expected to be available about the end of next July from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. With regard to Canberra, there are no unsewered dwellings, and in Darwin there are 88 unsewered dwellings.
  2. This information is not available from Commonwealth sources.
  3. (a) and (b) and (4) This information is not available from Commonwealth sources with regard to population centres in the States. With regard to Darwin, the cost of eliminating the sewerage backlog is estimated at $2. 145m, with completion currently scheduled for mid- 1981.

Civil Aviation Policy (Question No. 2882)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice, on 16 November 1978:

  1. 1 ) Did his Department make a submission to the Review of Australia ‘s International Civil Aviation Policy.
  2. If so, (a) what was the substance of the submission and ( b) will he release it for the benefit of the Parliament.
Mr Groom:
Minister for Housing and Construction · BRADDON, TASMANIA · LP

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

  1. No.
  2. See answer to (1).

Overseas Travel by Ministers (Question No. 3121)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Administrative Services, upon notice, on 24 November 1978:

  1. 1 ) Will he table (a) warrants issued this year for overseas travel by Ministers, (b) credit advices received by his Department from international airlines for unused Australian sector travel by Ministers since I January 1978 and (c) details of airports at which Ministers boarded and disembarked from international aircraft since 1 January 1978.
  2. ) Is it in order for Ministers to transfer credits for unused Australian sector travel from international airlines to domestic airlines so that travel credits can be used by nonministerial or non-governmental personnel.
Mr McLeay:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

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

  1. 1 ) (a), (b) and (c). As a matter of principle, having regard to the clerical work and costs involved, I am not prepared to table such blanket material. If the honourable member can be more specific as to his interest I will give the matter further consideration.
  2. No.

Ministerial Travel (Question No. 3122)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Administrative Services, upon notice, on 24 November 1978:

  1. Has his Department received requests formally or otherwise from any airline for the approval of the transfer to a domestic airline of credits for unused Australian sector travel covered by a warrant for international Ministerial travel.
  2. If so, when were these requests made and in respect of which Ministers were they made.
Mr McLeay:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

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

  1. No.
  2. Not applicable.

Domicilary Nursing Care Benefit (Question No. 3153)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 20 February 1979:

  1. When was the $2 per day domiciliary nursing care benefit introduced.
  2. What would its value be in February 1979, if it had been indexed according to the CPI.
  3. What would be the estimated cost of indexation of the benefit for the financial year 1978-79 starting from the $2 per day base on 1 July 1978.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

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

  1. On 1 March 1973.
  2. $3,96 per day.
  3. As the question is worded it is possible to apply only two rather than four CPI adjustments to the period in question which would render any estimate meaningless. This is on the basis that the benefit would remain at $2 a day for the first quarter of 1978-79 and that any adjustment for the final quarter would require a forecast of the CPI increase to be applied. It would not be appropriate for me to attempt to make such a forecast.

I am therefore unable to provide an estimate of the additional costs involved within the ambit of the question.

Solar Energy (Question No. 3197)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, upon notice, on 21 February 1979:

  1. What studies has the Government undertaken to determine the feasibility of introducing solar energy water systems as standard requirement for all new homes approved or built by the Defence Service Homes Corporation.
  2. What are the estimated costs of introducing the alternative solar energy domestic systems to an average 10 square house.
  3. What are the estimated differences in running costs between solar energy and non-solar energy alternatives.
Mr Adermann:
NCP/NP

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

  1. 1 ) No study has been undertaken or initiated by the Defence Service Homes Corporation. The view has been taken that the type of water system to be installed in a Defence Service Home is a matter of individual preference.
  2. and (3) See (1) above.

Solar Energy (Question No. 3210)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice, on 21 February 1979:

  1. What studies has the Government undertaken to determine the feasibility of introducing solar energy water systems as standard requirement for all new homes approved or built by his Department.
  2. What are the estimated costs of introducing the alternative solar energy domestic systems to an average 10 square house.
  3. 3 ) What are the estimated differences in running costs between solar energy and non-solar energy alternatives.
Mr Groom:
LP

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

  1. Investigations into the feasibility of introducing solar hot water systems in houses were undertaken by my Department some 25 years ago, and the results of those investigations contributed towards the formulation of Government policy in this area.

Since 19S9 it has been Government policy to instal solar hot water systems in all Commonwealth owned houses where such systems are technically suitable and cost effective.

Up to the early nineteen-seventies Australia featured the world’s largest number of solar hot water systems, most of which were provided by my Department in Commonwealth houses.

Departmental practice in the use of solar hot water systems has since been extended to all buildings, subject to technical suitability, economic considerations and acceptance by clients.

  1. The installed cost of a solar hot water system for a family of four averages approximately S90O on an Australiawide basis, and ranges from about $750 in the accessible sub-tropical region in northern Australia to the order of $ 1 ,200 in the colder south-eastern parts of the continent.
  2. For the average user the difference in running costs between a solar and a non-solar hot water system would amount to approximately $40 per annum in Melbourne. For Darwin this difference would increase to some $130 per annum.

National Nutrition Policy (Question No. 3222)

Mr Chapman:
KINGSTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1979:

  1. What progress is being made by his Department and other bodies, such as the National Health and Medical Research Council, in developing a national nutrition policy.
  2. When does he expect to make a public statement on the adoption by the Government of a nutrition policy.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

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

  1. Both my Department and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH and MRC) are studying the implications of adopting a national nutrition policy having as its objective improvement of the nutritional status, and hence the health and well-being, of the population. Adequate nutrition for all Australians can only be achieved by a co-ordinated approach with all interested bodies participating.

Adoption of a national nutrition policy as has occurred in several overseas countries, would have far-ranging implications. Because of this, a considerable amount of preliminary study is now being given to the arrangements that would be needed to implement such a policy.

  1. 1 would hope that the studies now being undertaken by my Department and the NH and MRC would enable me to be more specific later in the year.

Sewerage (Question No. 3272)

Mr Uren:

asked the Minister for National Development, upon notice, on 28 February 1979:

  1. 1 ) Can he say:

    1. which areas of (i) Sydney and (ii) Melbourne remain unsewered and
    2. what is the population of these areas.

  2. If so, what is the cost of providing sewerage services to presently unsewered areas of:

    1. Sydney and
    2. Melbourne.

  3. When is it expected that the backlog in provision of sewerage services in:

    1. Sydney and
    2. Melbourne will be eliminated.
  4. Which Sydney beaches are polluted by sewerage outfall.
  5. What is the level of pollution at each of these beaches and how has it changed over the last 10 years.

  6. What is the level of pollution resulting from sewerage effluent in:

    1. a ) the Yarra River and
    2. Port Phillip Bay and how have these levels changed over the last 1 0 years.
Mr Newman:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5) and (6). This information is not available from Commonwealth sources. If the honourable member wishes to explore these matters further, I suggest that he contact the relevant State authorities.

Lead Content of Petrol (Question No. 3273)

Mr Uren:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Science and the Environment, on notice, on 28 February 1 979:

  1. 1 ) What are the maximum permissible levels of lead in petrol sold in each State and Territory in Australia.
  2. In each case, what changes in these levels have occurred in the last 10 years or are scheduled for future introduction.
  3. Is the Minister able to provide similar details in respect of (a) the United States of America, (b) Japan, (c) West Germany, (d) the United Kingdom, (e) France, (f) Sweden and (g) Canada.
Mr Groom:
LP

– The Minister for Science and the Environment has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. 1 ) The current maximum permissible levels of lead in petrol in Australia are:

    1. 0.45 gm/litre in Victoria, Tasmania and the Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle areas of NSW.
    2. 0.64 gm/litre in other areas of NSW.
    3. No other State or Territory has legislated limits for lead in petrol.
    4. Prior to the introduction of controls on lead additives by some States, a uniform voluntary maximum of 0.84 gm/litre applied throughout Australia.

  2. The following regulated lead levels have been or are expected to be introduced in Australia.

New South Wales:

From 1 January 1973-0.64 g/1 for all New South Wales.

From 1 January 1977-0.45 g/1 Sydney- WollongongNewcastle 0.64 g/1 rest of New South Wales.

From 1 January 1980-0.40 g/1 Sydney- WollongongNewcastle; 0.64 g/1 rest of New South Wales.

Victoria:

From 1 October 1975-0.60 g/1 for every locality in Victoria.

From 1 January 1977-0.50 g/1 for every locality in Victoria.

From 1 January 1979-0.45 g/1 for every locality in Victoria.

Tasmania:

From 1 February 1976-0.64 g/1 for all Tasmania. From 1 January 1977-0.55 g/1 for all Tasmania. From 1 January 1979-0.45 g/1 for all Tasmania.

  1. Full details of the reductions in the lead content in petrol sold in overseas countries are not readily available. Most countries have introduced progressive reductions in lead levels, which I understand are as follows:

    1. The United States of America: Maximum 1.12 g/1 (leaded) with 0.013 g/1 (unleaded) available from July 1974. Quarterly average of total gasoline pool set at 0.45 g/1 January 1975,0.37 g/1 from January 1976, 0.26 g/1 from January 1977, 0.21 g/1 from January 1 978, 0. 1 3 g/1 from October 1 979.
    2. Japan: 0.3 1 g/1 from July 1971, (premium). 0.02 g/1 from February 1975, (regular).
    3. West Germany: 0.40 g/1 from January 1972,0.15 g/1 from January 1976.
    4. United Kingdom: 0.64 g/1 from January 1973, 0.55 g/1 from November 1974, 0.50 g/1 from December 1976, 0.45 g/1 from January 1978, 0.40 g/I from January 1981.
    5. France: 0.64 g/1 from December 1966, 0.55 g/1 from April 1976, 0.50 g/1 from January 1979, 0.40 g/1 from January 1981. (0.40 g/1 is the maximum EEC standard from January 198 1 ).
    6. Sweden: 0.40 g/1 from January 1973, 0.70 g/1 from December 1973 (temporary relaxation), 0.40 g/1 from May 1974, 0.15 g/1 (Regular) from January 1980, 0.15 g/1 (Premium) from July 1981.
    7. Canada: 0.77 g/1 from January 1976. Lead free premium is also available, with leaded premium accounting for less than 6 per cent of total petrol sales.

Commonwealth Motor Vehicles (Question No. 3279)

Mr Scholes:

asked the Minister for Administrative Services, upon notice, on 28 February 1979:

  1. 1 ) What is the additional cost of purchasing vehicles with built-in airconditioning.
  2. What is the extra cost of having the standard radio receiver left in Commonwealth vehicles.
Mr McLeay:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

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

  1. 1 ) It would cost an additional $500 approximately for each vehicle purchased with built-in airconditioning, or a total of about $2,015,000 for all the cars and station wagons in the Central Transport Authority fleet controlled by my Department (4,030 out of a total of 6,405 powered vehicles). There would be additional costs for the substantial fleets of Commonwealth vehicles operated by the Department of Transport, the Department of Housing and Construction and other authorities. Cost of airconditioning any goods vehicles would be extra. There would also be costs for maintenance and increased fuel consumption.
  2. It would cost about $50 per vehicle extra to have vehicles supplied with a radio as standard equipment, or about $201,500 extra for all cars and station waggons operated by my Department.

International Air Agreements (Question No. 3281)

Mr Jull:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 28 February 1979:

  1. 1 ) With- which countries does Australia have current International air agreements.

  2. Which of these countries are not serviced by:

    1. Qantas and
    2. their national carrier.
  3. When was each agreement signed.
Mr Nixon:
LP

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

  1. and (3): Austria-22 March 1967; Burma-23 September 1976; Canada- 11 June 1946; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) - 12 January 1950; Egypt-14 June 1952; France- 13 April 1965; Germany, Federal Republic of-22 May 1957; Greece-10 June 1971; India-11 July 1949; Indonesia-7 March 1969; Ireland-26 November 1957; Italy- 10 May 1963; Japan- 19 January 1956; Lebanon-29

September 1953; Malaysia-28 January 1973; Nauru-17 September 1969; Netherlands-25 September 1951; New Zealand-25 July 1961; Phillipines-15 November 1971; Singapore-3 November 1967; South Africa-2 April 1970; Thailand- 26 February 1960; United Kingdom- 7 February 1958; United States of America-3 December 1946; Yugoslavia-3 April 1975.

In addition Australia has arrangements with Fiji and Papua New Guinea for Air transport operations between Australia and those Countries.

  1. (a) Of the abovementioned countries Qantas does not operate services to the following:

Burma; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); Egypt; Ireland; Lebanon; Nauru; South Africa.

  1. The following countries, from those with which Australia has Agreements, do not have their national carrier operate services to Australia:

Austria; Burma; Ceylon (now Sri Lanka); Egypt; Greece (temporarily suspended); Ireland; Lebanon.

Immigration (Question No. 3286)

Mr Jull:

asked the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice, on 28 February 1979:

How many short-term visitors arrived in Australia, for a period of up to 12 months, from (a) West Germany, (b) Denmark, (c) Norway, (d) Sweden, (e) Finland, (f) Switzerland, (g) Holland, (h) Belgium, (j) France and (k) Austria during (i) 1973-74, (ii) 1974-75, (iii) 1975-76, (iv) 1976- 77 and (v) 1977-78.

Mr MacKellar:
Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs · WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

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

The number of short-term visitors from each of the specified countries for the financial Years 1973-74 to 1977- 78 were:

Cape Cleveland Lighthouse (Question No. 3324)

Mr Morris:

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 1 March 1979:

  1. What is the nature of the transport service to Cape Cleveland Lighthouse under the terms of the contract number TSQ68/78 mentioned on page 67 of the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette of 27 February 1979.
  2. For what period will the service be provided.
  3. Who formerly provided the service.
  4. Under what item of his Department’s accounts is the cost listed.
Mr Nixon:
LP

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

  1. Periodic provisioning by launch of food, mail, et cetera, to a manned Commonwealth lighthouse.
  2. 1 January 1979 to 31 December 1980.
  3. Gregson Charter Service, Magnetic Island, Queensland.
  4. Division 655/2 07.

Victorian Family and Community Services Program (Question No. 3392)

Mr Lloyd:
MURRAY, VICTORIA

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 7 March 1979:

  1. 1 ) Does the Federal Government provide finance for the Victorian Family and Community Services (FACS) program.
  2. If so, (a) how much and (b) what percentage is this of the total cost of the program.
Mr Hunt:
NCP/NP

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

  1. and (2) The Federal Government does not provide finance for the Victorian Family and Community Services (FACS) program. It does however, make use of FACS regional committees to receive applications for the Family Support Services Program, and provide information to assist the Commonwealth/State Management Committee to assess applications for funding.

The FACS program, established in April 1977, is administered by the Department of Community Welfare Services in Victoria. The aims of the program, which are to encourage the development of services which preserve and strengthen family life, promote personal growth, and help people to play an effective part in their community, are similar to the aims of the Commonwealth’s Family Support Services Program.

The Family Support Services Program has a total of $8.7m allocated for the three year period. Victoria has been allocated 24 per cent ($2. 1 m).

Review of Passports: Interdepartmental Committee on Removal of Children (Question No. 3220)

Mr Chapman:

asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1979:

  1. What were the recommendations made by the interdepartmental committee on the issue of passports referred to in answer to question No. 1 (Hansard, 8 March 1978, page 569).
  2. What action has been taken to implement these recommendations.
Mr Peacock:
Minister for Foreign Affairs · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

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

The interdepartmental committee to which the honourable member referred considered, but did not make specific recommendations on, the departmental review of passport matters. The results of the departmental review and the IDC consideration of it are taken into account in the Passports Amendment Bill and were dealt with in my second reading speech on the Bill (Hansard, 7 March 1979, page 707).

During the passport review it became clear that the problems of child abduction went beyond the simple matters of passport issue, and a further interdepartmental committee was therefore established to investigate all aspects of this specific problem.

That committee has now concluded its investigations. After Cabinet has considered its report an appropriate announcement will be made.

Passport Applicants: Security Clearances (Question No. 3254)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 22 February 1979:

  1. Has his Department issued directives or guidelines in each year since 1 970 that Australian citizens of certain ethnic backgrounds are not to be issued Australian passports or other travel documents without a security clearance.
  2. If so, (a) what ethnic backgrounds are the subject of such directives or guidelines, (b) how many Australian citizens have not been issued with an Australian passport because of their failure to obtain a security clearance, and (c) what procedures exist for an Australian citizen to appeal against or seek a review of such a decision.
Mr Sinclair:
NCP/NP

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

  1. No.
  2. See (1) above.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 27 March 1979, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1979/19790327_reps_31_hor113/>.

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