22nd Parliament · 2nd Session
The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin) took the chair at 3 p.m., and read prayers.
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Assent to the following bills reported: -
Income Tax and Social Services Contribution
Assessment Bill 1957.
Loan (Housing) Bill 1957.
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– Has the attention of the Minister for Civil Aviation been drawn to Ansett-A.N.A. advertisements for certain “ Rocket “ services between capital cities? ls the Minister aware that Trans-Australia Airlines has been using the term “ Rocket “ in advertising certain of its services since 1951 and that the term is still used in current T.A.A. flight schedules? Is it a fact that airlines advertising slogans are registered with an international air transport body and that since 1951 the term “ Rocket “ has been so listed as a T.A.A. promotional term? Will the Minister indicate whether this unethical attempt by Mr. Ansett to appropriate a term already extensively used for years by T.A.A. constitutes fair competition? Will the Minister ensure that T.A.A.’s government-assisted competitor will observe accepted business standards in the future?
– I am aware, of course, that for some years T.A.A. has operated services which it has styled “ Rocket “ services. I have seen the recent advertisements to which the honorable senator refers in connexion with services now operated by Ansett and described as “ Rocket “ services. I am not aware that there has been any infringement of any ethic, of any undertaking or of any principle that may be laid down in the rules of an international air transport body. I should have thought that had T.A.A. been upset about it, my attention would have been drawn to the matter long before this. That has not been the case. However, as Senator Benn raises the possibility of there being some infringement of an undertaking, I shall certainly be prepared to have a look at the matter, but I do not think there has been -such an infringement
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– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Labour and National Service. Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to the disastrous strike of waterside workers in Sydney? This has been continuing for more than a week and is costing the shipping companies £30,000 a day. In addition, shippers and owners of cargo are suffering serious losses. The dispute has spread to Melbourne and Hobart. Wharf labourers in Melbourne have refused to handle cargo for Sydney left in an overseas liner. This may mean that the liner will have to return overseas with the shipment. It is reported that a ship left Hobart recently without having discharged several hundred tons of sugar urgently required by the Tasmanian fruit-processing industry. This may cause great loss and hardship to fruitgrowers in Tasmania. Is the Commonwealth Government taking immediate action to deal with this urgent situation? If so, what action is being taken?
– It is not competent for me, within the compass of an answer to a question without notice, to outline all the acts and doings of my colleague, Mr. Harold Holt, in an endeavour to exert the influence of the Commonwealth to bring this unfortunate dispute to a close, but I do assure the honorable senator that Mr. Harold Holt is doing what he can, and that he has his ideas well crystallized as to what should be the appropriate methods for him to adopt. The Parliament may hear from him further on that point directly.
– My question, which deals with a subject similar to that referred to by Senator Wardlaw in his question, is addressed to the Attorney-General. As the Attorney-General is aware, the waterfront stoppage in Sydney was caused by a man named Krespi, who has been described by the Minister for Labour and National Service as “ one of our least desirable imports “. The Minister will also be aware that although this man alleges that he was wrongly deregistered by the Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority, he has, with the connivance and support of the Communist party and the Waterside Workers Federation, refused to appeal to the Commonwealth Industrial Court against his deregistration. The Minister will also be aware that the Waterside Workers Federation has placed a black ban on the employer who dismissed Krespi and that the union’s Communist leaders have virtually brought the port of Sydney to a standstill, have spread the dispute to Melbourne, and are trying desperately to spread it to other ports. I ask the Attorney-General - (1.) Is it a fact that on Thursday last a member of the Sydney branch of the Waterside Workers Federation, named Buchan, lodged an appeal to the Commonwealth Industrial Court against his suspension for refusing to work for Krespi’s employer? (2.) Is it a fact that on Friday last the Waterside Workers Federation obtained in the High Court an order nisi to restrain the Commonwealth Industrial Court, and Buchan, from proceeding with the appeal? (3.) Is it not a fact that Buchan and the Waterside Workers Federation have combined to start these proceedings in order to allow Krespi to claim that there is no tribunal to which he can appeal? (4.) Will the Attorney-General have an expert examination made of the documents filed in these cases to ascertain whether, although they purport to be independent of one another, and to have been filed by separate solicitors, they were in fact typed on the one typewriter? (5.) If the documents were in fact typed on the one typewriter, will the Attorney-General advise the Senate whether this attempt to deceive the High Court constitutes any criminal offence by the union, or its officials, or Buchan, or the solicitors concerned? (6.) In any case, as the High Court action is only a sham, and is the result of collusion on the part of Buchan, the union and its Communist leaders, will the AttorneyGeneral move at once in the High Court to have the proceedings struck out and thus expose this plot to prolong the strike and to keep Krespi away from the properly constituted appellate tribunal?
– I am aware generally of the circumstances mentioned by the honorable senator. Conditions in that particular industry are under the administrative arrangement and control of my colleague, the Minister for Labour and National Service. I have already discussed the matter with him. I shall pursue my discussions with him, and the honorable sena tor may rest assured that the Government will take whatever action it deems appropriate in the circumstances.
– Senator Cole, when asking your question, did you reflect on the High Court? I did not quite catch what you said when you used the word “ sham “.
– No, 1 did not reflect on the High Court.
– What was your reference to the High Court?
– I asked - (5.) If the documents were in fact typed on the one typewriter, will the Attorney-General advise the Senate whether this attempt to deceive Hie High Court constitutes any criminal offence by the union, or its officials, or Buchan, or the solicitors concerned?
Part 6 of my question was as follows: -
In my question there is no reflection on the High Court of Australia.
– I rise to order, Mr. President. I submit that any reference such as that made by Senator Cole to any action that is pending in any court of law is a reflection on the impartial right and justice of the decision of that court. It is entirely disorderly in any House of Parliament to make a reference to the “ sham “ of any proceeding in any court of justice.
– I uphold the point of order that has been made by Senator Wright. Senator Cole will withdraw the reference in his question to the High Court.
– I withdraw part 6 of my question.
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– My question to the Minister for National Development relates to the recent announcement by the Prime Minister that the Government proposes to make available to the Western Australian Government an amount of £2,500,000 for the development of the north-west of Western Australia. That offer was very generous in the circumstances and was very favorably received by the general public in
Western Australia, although it was inappropriately reported in the “ West Australian “. The Premier of Western Australia, Mr. Hawke, has already endeavoured to embark upon mineral production as a State enterprise and recently announced that he proposes to utilize all the money to which I have referred for mineral production in the north-west, although 1 admit that he has not announced the circumstances in which he proposes to do so. In view of those statements by the Premier of Western Australia, will the Minister inform the Senate that the Government does not propose to make any of this money available for use by the Hawke Government for nationalist or socialist enterprises in the north-west of Western Australia?
– I hope that there is no conflict of ideologies or principles between the Commonwealth Government and the Western Australian Government. I should think that the amount of £2,500,000, spread over five years, might well prove a very solid foundation for development in the Kimberleys area which we have been hoping to see for a long time. I should hope that the two governments would work amicably in spending the money to the best advantage. From memory, I believe that the only reservation made by the Commonwealth Government in making the money available is that there must be agreement between the two governments on the projects to which the money will be applied. In those circumstances, I do not consider there is any room for apprehension that the money will be used in a manner unsatisfactory to the Commonwealth Government. I am sure that the Commonwealth Government would be very greatly influenced by the representations of the Western Australian Government on the order of priority in which the money is to be spent.
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– Has the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry read a leading article, and a special article written by the Financial Editor, which were published in to-day’s issue of the “ Sydney Morning Herald “ directing, attention to grain prices and the price of bread? Secondly, is the Menzies Government aware that if the prices of wheat, bran, and pollard are permitted to rise abruptly by as much as 25 per cent, to 33 per cent., it will cause hardship and ruin to poultry farmers and will cause the price of bread to rise by as much as 4d. a loaf, thereby seriously increasing the cost of living of the people of New South Wales? Thirdly, will the Minister give serious and urgent consideration to the position in New South Wales that has been caused by the drought, to the necessity to import wheat from other States, and to the passing on of freight and other charges to the consumers? Fourthly, will the Menzies Government follow the example of the preceding Labour Government which, on 27th May, 1947, introduced a bill to provide for a payment of £750,000, which is equal to about £2,500,000 in terms of to-day’s money value, to assist New South Wales and also to meet freight on the carriage of wheat to non-wheat-growing States?
– The questions that have been asked by Senator Ashley, and which relate to an article in this morning’s “ Sydney Morning Herald “, not only are extremely comprehensive but also cover questions of policy. In the circumstances, I think the most suitable way in which they could be dealt with would be to have them placed on the notice-paper and brought to the notice of the Minister for Primary Industry, who would answer point by point all the matters about which the honorable senator inquired.
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– I direct to the Leader of the Government in the Senate a question in relation to the tragic losses that have been sustained by citizens of New South Wales, particularly in the Blue Mountains area, as a result of devastating bush fires. Will the Commonwealth put in hand plans for providing some government relief on a £l-for-£l basis with the New South Wales Government to give succour to the unfortunate people who have been so grievously affected?
– I am sure that the honorable senator is well aware that in the past the Commonwealth has always matched contributions made by the respective States when such tragedies have occurred. I have no reason at all to believe that on this occasion the Commonwealth will do other than fall in with those usual arrangements.
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– I ask the Minister representing the Postmaster-General whether it is the practice of the Australian Broadcasting Commission to have correspondents stationed in various parts of the world. Was the commission aware that the people of New Zealand were electing a new Parliament on Saturday last, with the result that there was a change of government and Labour was elected to office? If the commission was aware of that fact, did it know that there was a good deal of public interest in the matter in Australia? Why did the commission fail to broadcast the result of the election on Sunday morning last, and especially on the 12.30 p.m. and 1.30 p.m. news services?
– I can only say that I shall bring the question before the PostmasterGeneral and ask him whether he will furnish me with an answer that I may pass on to the honorable senator.
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– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In view of the fact that the people of Australia have shown their continued confidence in the financial policy of the Menzies-Fadden Administration by again oversubscribing a Commonwealth loan, will the Government consider devoting the surplus loan money now available to home-building in Australia?
– I will be very happy to discuss the proposition put forward by the honorable senator with my colleague, the Treasurer.
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– I desire to ask a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services. Has the attention of the Minister been directed to press reports of a police court case in Perth where a person was charged with having insufficient means of support? Upon the attention of the magistrate being directed to the fact that the accused person was in receipt of unemployment benefit, the police still maintained that the .charge should stand, being one of having insufficient means of support. If social service payments are insufficient, according to police standards, and if any citizen unfortunate enough to have no income other than a social service: payment is likely to be charged with an* offence, will the Minister consider raising, the amount of the payments to make them more in line with the standard of adequacy required by police standards?
– I think it is not. right to take a case like that in isolation. We were not present in the court. We donot know what other facts were brought forward which caused the police magistrate to take that point of view. I am sure that had we been there and had we been in the position of the police magistrate, we would have had a much better understanding of the case than it is possible to obtain from a brief press report.
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– Has the Ministerrepresenting the Minister in charge of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization noticed a report inthe press to the effect that rabbits are again on the increase and that many farmers are leaving the destruction of rabbits to the disease known as myxomatosis? Has theMinister received any information to confirm that statement? If not, could a survey be carried out so that the Senate could have the latest information on the rabbit positionin Australia?
– I have read that apparently rabbits are developing a resistance to myxomatosis, but I have no very recent information on the matter. I shall: discuss it with my colleague, and find out whether he has any material which would, be of interest to the honorable senator and. to honorable senators generally. If he has, I shall make it available.
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– My question to the Minister representing the PostmasterGeneral arises from a statement in the most recent newssheet issued by the United Kingdom Information Service relating tothe United Kingdom Post Office. It is headed, “Lowering ‘Phone Charges in United Kingdom “, and reads -
From January 1, most telephone calls which now cost 6d., 9d., or ls. will be reduced to 3d., and most charges for trunk calls will also be reduced.
That was announced in the House of Commons recently by the British PostmasterGeneral, who went on to say that the economies effected by the operation would ultimately save £15,000,000 sterling a year. The newssheet item continues -
By the end of 1970 three-quarters of all trunk calls would be dialled by subscribers and this system would cut out the work at present done by 1,500 clerks, who each year sort out 330 million trunk call tickets.
In view of the financial and employment implications of this advance, I ask the Minister representing the PostmasterGeneral whether inquiries are being made as to the application of automation in this regard to postal services in Australia and also whether the Postmaster-General would be good enough to make a statement on the matter at an appropriate time.
– I will be only too glad to bring the honorable senator’s question to the notice of my colleague, the Postmaster-General, and ask him to supply a detailed statement that I can give to the Senate at an early date.
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– I desire to address a question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. By way of preface, I point out that the general manager of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Curphey, who recently returned from Europe, has been reported as having said that West Germany and Italy have capital, in relatively large amounts, available for investment in Australia. He is further reported as saying that West Germany was “ booming beyond anticipation “. As the percentage of immigrants from West Germany and Italy has been very high, could the attention of interests in those countries be invited to the importance to channelling some of their surplus capital towards the provision of housing for their nationals in Australia? The housing policy of this country, by providing accommodation for West German and Italian immigrants, has in the past undergone considerable stress and strain.
– The proposition inherent in the honorable senator’s question appears to have considerable merit. The housing of immigrants has put quite a strain on the Government. I shall bring the honorable member’s proposal to the notice of my colleague.
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– I direct the attention of the Minister representing the Postmaster-General to the absurdly high cost of posting parcels interstate by airmail. Is the Minister aware that it costs 40s. 6d. to send a parcel weighing 3i lb. from Sydney to a suburb of Adelaide, but only 6s. 9d. to send the same parcel from the Trans-Australia Airlines terminal in Phillipstreet, Sydney, and have it delivered to the door? Can this extraordinary disparity in freight charges be investigated?
– I shall be glad to bring the honorable senator’s question under the notice of my colleague, the PostmasterGeneral, who will doubtless conduct an investigation and let me have an early reply for the honorable senator.
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– My question, which is supplementary to that asked by Senator Anderson, is directed to the Minister responsible for matters concerning bush fire relief. My question is as follows: - If the Commonwealth Government is to make a grant to those who have suffered tragic loss in the Blue Mountains fires - and we must all concur in any such action - will the Government insist that in future the New South Wales Government, and also local governing bodies, take adequate precautions and put out fires in their initial stages, instead of waiting until they reach dangerous proportions before doing so? Is the Minister aware that, though fires were burning near Leura several weeks ago, there was little concerted effort to put them out when it would have been a relatively simple matter to do so? [Question not answered.]
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asked the Minister representing the Postmaster-General, upon notice -
– The PostmasterGeneral has supplied the following answers: -
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asked the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, upon notice -
– I have been supplied by my colleague with the following answers: - ‘ “ ‘ ‘*
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asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -
– The Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answers: - ,
Farm School, Pinjarra, the Methodist Children’s Home, Victoria Park, Church of England Swan Homes, and the Catholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association for the eight Catholic institutions and farm schools catering for child migration.
In addition, the Commonwealth pays an outfitting allowance of £10 to equip each child upon arrival in Australia.
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asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, upon notice -
– The Minister for Immigration has supplied the following answers to’ the honorable senator’s questions: - 1, 2, 3 and 4. No deportation order was issued against the eleven-year-old German boy who stowed away at Cuxhaven, Germany, on the liner “ Groote Beer “. In view of the boy’s age and as he is a German national, it was decided, in his own interests, to arrange his return to his mother and sisters in Germany on the vessel which brought him to Australia. This action was taken in consultation with the German authorities.
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asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Interior, upon notice - -
– The Minister for the Interior has supplied the following answers to the honorable senator’s questions: -
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– On 21st November, Senator Scott asked me the following question: -
Can the Minister representing the PostmasterGeneral inform me if there is to be a radio telephone link between Perth and Derby? If there is to be such a link, can he say when it will be completed? Will the Postmaster-General consider the installation of radio telephone connexions to other outback towns of Western Australia?
As promised, I have made inquiries of my colleague, the Postmaster-General, who advises that the new radio telephone link between Perth and Derby should be put into service toward the end of 1958. The possibility of providing radio telephone services to certain other centres in Western Australia was covered in my earlier reply of 10th April, 1957, to the honorable senator and the position regarding Onslow, Wyndham and Port Hedland is unchanged although consideration is being given to the possibility of having Port Hedland connected to the Commonwealth telephone network by landlines.
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– On 21st November, Senator Wade asked the following question: -
Is it a fact that in all States, with the exception of Victoria, a flat rate of subscription operates for medical and hospital benefits, regardless of the age of the subscriber? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative, will the Minister say whether the position in Victoria is due to a regulation issued by the Victorian Government, or to the bias of some officer administering the Victorian Department of Health? Are the insurance organizations in all States of the Commonwealth equipped with substantial reserves to enable a flat rate to be imposed?
I have now been furnished with the following reply: -
The registration of every medical and hospital benefit organization under the National Health Act is conditional upon compliance with all relevant State laws. This requirement recognizes the traditional responsibility of the States to exercise control and supervision over friendly societies and other organizations providing similar types of benefits. In Victoria, a number of organizations has adopted differential contribution rates for persons over and under 50 years of age in accordance with requirements of the Victorian authorities. Similar differentiation also applies to Tasmanian friendly societies. In all other States, medical and hospital benefit organizations operate flat-rate contributions regardless of age and have been able to build up reserves on this basis.
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Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority . . 0
AYES
NOES
-There being 27 “ Ayes “ and 27 “ Noes “, the question is resolved in the negative.
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Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority . . 0
AYES
NOES
– There being 27 “ Ayes “ and 27 “ Noes “, the question is resolved in the negative.
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Senator SPOONER (New South Wales -
Minister for National Development). - I call on the Banking Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a bill intituled “A Bill for an Act to regulate Banking, to make provision for the Protection of the Currency and of the Public Credit of the Commonwealth, and for other purposes “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority 0
AYES
NOES
– There being 27 “Ayes” and 27 “Noes”, the question is resolved in the negative.
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– I call on the Banking (Transitional Provisions) Bill 1957.
-I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “A Bill for an Act to enact certain Transitional Provisions consequential upon the enactment of the Reserve Bank Act 1957, the Commonwealth Banks Act 1957 and the Banking Act 1957 “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority . . 0
AYES
NOES
– There being 27 “ Ayes “ and 27 “ Noes “, the question is resolved in the negative.
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– I call on the Audit Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Audit Act 1901-1955 ‘, as amended by the ‘ Salaries (Statutory Offices) ‘ Adjustment Act 1957 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority . . . . 0
AYES
NOES
– There being 27 “ Ayes “ and 27 “ Noes “, the question is resolved in the negative.
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– I call on the Commonwealth Employees’ Furlough Bill 1957.
– I have received from the. Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Commonwealth Employees’ Furlough Act 1943-1953 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) put -
That the bill be now read a first time.
The Senate divided. (The President - Senator the Hon. Sir Alister McMullin.)
AYES: 27
NOES: 27
Majority . . 0
AYES
NOES
– There being 27 “ Ayes “ and 27 “ Noes “, the question is resolved in the negative.
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– I call on the Crimes Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘Crimes Act 1914-1955’”, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the Gold-Mining Industry Assistance Bill (No. 2) 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Gold-Mining Industry Assistance Act 1954-1956’, as amended by the ‘Gold-Mining Industry Assistance Act 1957 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Bill (No. 2) 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Act 1936-1956 ‘, as amended by the Salaries (Statutory Offices) Adjustment Act 1957 ‘ and by the ‘ Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assesment Act 1957 ‘, and for purposes connected therewith “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the National Debt Sinking Fund Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ National Debt Sinking Fund Act 1923-1950 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Standing Orders suspended.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the Northern Territory (Lessees’ Loans Guarantee) Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘Northern Territory (Lessees’ Loans Guarantee) Act 1954 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the Officers’ Rights Declaration Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill intituled “ A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Officers’ Rights Declaration Act 1928- 1953 “’, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
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– I call on the Re-establishment and Employment Bill 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a bill entituled “A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Re-establishment and Employment Act 1945-1956 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
page 1642
– I call on the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Bill (No. 2) 1957.
– I have received from the Speaker of the House of Representatives the following message: -
The House of Representatives transmits to the Senate a Bill entituled “A Bill for an Act to amend the ‘ Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1935-1956’, as amended by the ‘Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act 1957 ‘ “, in which it desires the concurrence of the Senate.
Motion (by Senator Spooner) negatived -
That the bill be now read a first time.
page 1643
Motion (by Senator O’sullivan) - by leave - agreed to -
That leave be given to introduce a bill for an act to amend the Acts Interpretation Act 1901-1950.
Bill presented, and read a first time.
Standing Orders suspended.
– I move -
That the bill be now read a second time.
The main purpose of this bill is to amend the Acts Interpretation Act 1901-1950 by defining the “ Governor “ of a State, for the purpose of any reference in a Commonwealth act, so as to include any other chief executive officer or administrator of the government of the State. The need for the amendment arises as a matter of urgency, in order that an agreement may be executed without delay with the State of Queensland, pursuant to section 5 of the Statistics (Arrangements with States) Act 1956, for the integration of the statistical services of the Commonwealth and the State. This section provides that the Governor-General may enter into an arrangement with “ the Governor of a State “.
The office of Governor of Queensland is at present vacant, and will remain so till February next. The duties of the office are being performed by the Chief Justice, as Administrator. But there is no definition enlarging the meaning of the expression “ Governor “, for the purposes of Commonwealth acts, so as to include the person administering the government of the State for the time being. This is the first occasion on which the absence of a provision of this nature has created any difficulty, though the problem could easily have arisen in connexion with other provisions in Commonwealth legislation for the taking of action by a Governor of a State, such as section 78 of the Public Service Act 1922-1957, which provides that the Governor-General may arrange with the Governor of a State for the performance of services for the Commonwealth by an officer of the State Public Service. It is, in fact, surprising that a difficulty similar to the present one has not arisen earlier.
What is now proposed is an amendment of the Acts Interpretation Act, to extend to the interpretation of Commonwealth acts generally the principle already recognized, but only for the purposes of the Constitution itself, by section 110 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth. This section provides that references in the Constitution to the Governor of a State shall extend and apply to the Governor for the time being or other chief executive officer or administrator of the government of the State. The opportunity is also being taken to elaborate the definition of “ the Governor-General “, as already contained in the Acts Interpretation Act. The present definition, which is contained in section 17 (f) of the act, provides that “ ‘ the Governor-General ‘ shall mean the Governor-General of the Commonwealth, or the person for the time being administering the government of the Commonwealth, acting with the advice of the Executive Council “.
The Constitution of the Commonwealth makes provision, in section 4, for the appointment by the Queen of a person to administer the government of the Commonwealth in the absence of the Governor-General, and, in section 126 for the appointment by the Governor-General himself of deputies to perform such of his functions as he may assign to them. The existing definition of “ the GovernorGeneral “, contained in section 17 (f), refers to an administrator, but does not refer specifically to a deputy appointed by the Governor-General. While no difficulty has been occasioned by the present definition, it is nevertheless desirable that it should contain a reference, not only to an administrator, but also to a deputy. The present amendment merely recasts the definition of the expression “ the Governor-General “, appearing in any act, so that specific reference is made to a deputy, when exercising any function conferred on the Governor-General by the act, and assigned by the Governor-General to the deputy. I commend the bill to honorable senators.
Debate (on motion by Senator McKenna) adjourned.
page 1643
Bill returned from the House of Representatives with amendments.
In committee (Consideration of House of Representatives’ amendments):
Clause 6 - (1.) In addition to any other powers, privileges, immunities, duties and responsibilities, a Commonwealth Police Officer has -
the like powers, privileges, immunities, duties and responsibilities as are conferred or imposed on a constable or other officer of police by or under a law of the Commonwealth; and
in relation to the laws of the Commonwealth - the like powers, privileges, immunities, duties and responsibilities as are conferred or imposed on a constable or other officer of police in the place in which the Commonwealth Police Officer is acting (2.) A Commonwealth Police Officer is not required under, or by reason of, any law of a State or Territory of the Commonwealth -
to obtain or have any licence or permission for doing any act or thing in the performance of his duties or the exercise of his powers as a Commonwealth Police Officer; or
to register any vehicle, vessel, animal or article belonging to the Commonwealth.
House of Representatives’ amendment No. 1-
Omit clause 6 and insert the following clause: - “ 6. - (1.) In addition to any other powers and duties, a Commonwealth Police Officer has -
the like powers and duties as are conferred or imposed on a constable by or under a law of the Commonwealth; and
in relation to -
the laws of the Commonwealth;
matters in connexion with property of the Commonwealth or of an authority of the Commonwealth; and
matters arising on or in connexion with land or premises owned or occupied by the Commonwealth or an authority of the Commonwealth, the like powers and duties as are conferred or imposed on a constable, or on an officer of police of the same rank as the Commonwealth Police Officer, in the place in which the Commonwealth Police Officer is acting. “ (2.) Where any provisions of a law of a State apply in relation to offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, those provisions so apply as if -
any reference in those provisions to a constable included a reference to a Commonwealth Police Officer; and
any reference in those provisions to an officer of police of a particular rank included a reference to a Commonwealth Police Officer of that rank. “ (3.) Where a writ or warrant is issued under the law of a State or Territory of the Commonwealth in relation to an offence or other matter under a law of the Commonwealth, the writ or warrant may, notwithstanding that it is not addressed to a Commonwealth Police Officer and notwithstanding any requirement of the law of the State or Territory of the Commonwealth as to the person by whom it may be executed, be executed by a Commonwealth Police Officer. “ (4.) A Commonwealth Police Officer is not required under, or by reason of, a law of a State or Territory of the Commonwealth -
to obtain or have a licence or permission for doing an act or thing in the performance of his duties or the exercise, of his powers as a Commonwealth Police Officer; or
to register any vehicle, vessel, animal or article belonging to the Commonwealth. “ (5.) In this section. authority of the Commonwealth ‘ includes any authority or body, whether corporate or not, constituted by or under a law of the Commonwealth; powers and duties ‘ includes authorities, rights, privileges, immunities and responsibilities.”.
The Schedule -
Sections 5 and 10.
page 1644
I, A.B., do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth in the office of Commonwealth Police Officer, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will, until I am lawfully discharged: So help me God!
page 1644
I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth in the office of Commonwealth Police Officer, without favour or affection, malice or illwill, until I am lawfully discharged.
House of Representatives’ amendment
Omit the Schedule and insert the following Schedule: -
page 1644
page 1644
I, , do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, and that I will well and truly serve Her in the office of Commonwealth Police Officer, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will, until I am lawfully discharged:
page 1644
I, , do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her Heirs and Successors according to law, and that I will well and truly serve Her in the office of Commonwealth Police Officer, without favour or affection, malice or illwill, until I am lawfully discharged.
– I move -
That the amendments be agreed to.
Clause 6 of the bill is designed to confer on Commonwealth police officers, in relation to the laws of the Commonwealth, all the powers and duties of State police officers, either at common law or by the statute law of the States. The formula at present used follows in substance the provision which has existed since 1925 in the Peace Officers Act. Since the bill was drafted, doubts have been expressed by a New South Wales magistrate whether, by reason of the particular wording of certain State laws, the present formula really achieves the desired result. I am advised that the present formula is adequate, but I see no advantage, a question having been raised, in allowing such a provision to be open to any doubt. A fresh draft of the clause has accordingly been prepared.
With regard to the schedule, in the interests of brevity and simplicity, the oath of service at present prescribed by the bill is an oath that the officer will well and truly serve “ the Commonwealth “. Several of our colleagues have stated a strong preference for an oath of allegiance and service to the Queen, in the usual form. There is, of course, no legal objection to the change, and appropriate new forms of oath and affirmation have been drafted.
Progress reported.
page 1645
Bill received from the House of Representatives.
Standing Orders suspended.
Bill (on motion by Senator Henty) read a first time.
– I move -
That the bill be now read a second time.
This bill is designed to give effect to the decision of the Government to extend for three years, to 31st October, 1960, the operation of the Flax Fibre Bounty Act, which expired on 31st October, 1957. The bounty has operated from 1st November, 1954 and is paid on sales of flax line fibre processed from straw grown in Australia. It first applied for a period of two years and was then extended following recommendations by the Tariff Board in its report of 8th February, 1957, for a further year to 31st October, 1957.
Honorable senators will recall that the Tariff Board recommended a three years’ extension of bounty, but the act was extended for only one year pending a comprehensive review by the Government of the necessity for the further maintenance of the industry, including the Flax Commission, and the form of assistance. The review has disclosed that the industry is operating under considerable difficulty, attributable principally to the depressed world market for flax following the pressure exerted by Russia in selling low priced, low quality, flax line fibre, and also the necessity for considerable capital expenditure on modern plant and adequate straw coverage. There exists intense overseas competition in the finished product.
Flax fibre is processed in Australia by the Flax Commission, which is a Commonwealth authority operating mills at Ballarat, Colac, Drouin, Lake Bolac, Myrtleford, and Strathkellar in Victoria, and at Mount Gambier in South Australia. A small cooperative company also operates, with material assistance from the State government, a mill at Boyup Brook, i* Western Australia. The main function of the Flax Commission, as expressed in the Flax Industry Act, is the maintenance and development of the flax industry in Australia to ensure that sufficient supplies of flax are available for defence, and that the industry will have the capacity to produce adequate supplies of flax in the event of war. lt is now, however, apparent that continued assistance to the flax industry cannot be justified on defence grounds alone.
In the light of the continuing trading losses of the Flax Commission, which last year exceeded £100,000. despite the receipt of bounty, and the urgent need for further capital, the Government has decided to withdraw from the field of flax production at the earliest opportunity by the closure of the mills in Victoria and South Australia after the current year’s harvest has been processed. Naturally, consideration will be given to any offers to purchase mills as going concerns, and the benefits of the bounty will continue to be available on the flax subsequently produced and sold.
The following amounts of bounty have been paid on flax produced and sold since 1st November, 1954: - Year ended 30th June, 1955, £4,907; year ended 30th June, 1956, £58,070; year ended 30th June, 1957, £49,823. The present bounty entitlement for the current year is £40,922.
The productive capacity of Australian processors of flax line fibre is regarded as being in the vicinity of 1,450 tons per annum, but actual production has not attained that figure. Tonnages sold to spinners during the years ended 30th June, 1955, 1956 and 1957 were respectively 1,188, 1,157 and 871 tons. In the last two years this fell far short of the capacity of the market to absorb supplies, and 934 and 1,216 tons of fibre were imported in the respective years.
The bounty proposals follow the Tariff Board recommendations, except in two directions. It is proposed to re-commence the application of the recommendations as from 1st November, 1957, and to eliminate the annual limitation on the amount payable as bounty on the sales of any one year. The extension of the period of bounty for a further period of three years is proposed because it would cover the Flax Commission during the closing down of operations, would give the co-operative in Western Australia the opportunity to rehabilitate itself and complete its plans for the installation of new machinery and facilities so necessary for economic production, and would give a measure of assistance to the purchasers of any of the commission’s mills.
An annual limitation on the amount payable as bounty is deemed unnecessary because the maximum rate of bounty has been fixed at £75 per ton of fibre and payments are limited to what the market can take; that is, bounty is paid on sales. The expectations are that bounty payments are unlikely to exceed £90,000 per annum. The basic rate of bounty is £65 per ton of Grade B fibre, and it is proposed, in accordance with the Tariff Board recommendations, to reduce this rate progressively by £5 in the second and third year as results flow from the anticipated efficiency following in the capital improvements. The present practice of adjusting the basic bounty rate inversely, and by the same amount, as movements in the landed cost of imported fibre, will be continued. The maximum amount by which the rate of bounty can so rise is £10.
Honorable senators supported the bill for the original act to give assistance to this industry, and I am sure that they will raise no objection to the extension of its application till 31st October, 1960. The question of further assistance after that date will be the subject of a reference to the Tariff Board, and will receive consideration in the light of the circumstances then prevailing. I commend the bill to honorable senators.
Debate (on motion by Senator Kennelly) adjourned.
page 1646
Bill received from the House of Representatives.
Standing Orders suspended.
Bill (on motion by Senator Cooper) read a first time.
– I move -
That the bill be now read a second time.
The main purpose of this bill is to give effect to the proposal announced by the Treasurer (Sir Arthur Fadden) in his budget speech for an increase in the rate of Commonwealth additional hospital benefit. I would like to refresh honorable senators’ recollections by explaining two terms used to describe hospital benefit. The term “ Commonwealth benefit “ means the 8s. per occupied bed per day paid by the Commonwealth as the result of an agreement with State governments, and the term “ Commonwealth additional benefit “ means the amount paid through hospital benefit organizations to persons who insure themselves with those organizations.
At the present time, the rate of Commonwealth hospital benefit is 8s. a day, and the rate of Commonwealth additional benefit is 4s. a day. The increase proposed is to the additional benefit, and it is a substantial one. Commonwealth benefit is de- ducted from the hospital accounts of all patients, both insured and uninsured. Additional benefit is, as I have said, paid to the persons who are members of hospital insurance organizations registered under the National Health Act. This bill provides that the rate of additional benefit will be increased to 12s. a day for persons who are insured with registered hospital benefit funds for a fund benefit of 16s. a day or more. The Commonwealth additional benefit rate of 4s. a day will be retained for persons whose insurance premiums entitle them to a fund benefit of at least 6s. a day, but less than 16s. a day. It will be entirely a matter of choice for contributors, but I would like to point out that a great many are already insured for 16s. a day or more. It will be apparent that this increase will be a great help both to members of hospital insurance funds and to all concerned with the problems of financing hospitals throughout Australia. I want to remind the Senate that the principle of the Commonwealth additional benefit is to help those who help themselves, to assist individuals to make provision for expenses they may incur. This was clearly stated when the scheme was first introduced. It is in fact subsidized insurance, a partnership between the government and the people. The Commonwealth additional benefit is designed to help individuals to handle their problems of living and make their way in this developing country.
This scheme has been an outstanding success. The number of persons covered by registered hospital insurance organizations has increased from 1,900,000 in January, 1952, the year in which the scheme was introduced, to nearly 6,000,000 to-day. Approximately 61 per cent, of the Australian people are now covered for hospital insurance. Many others are taken care of by direct Government aid, e.g., pensioners, repatriation patients and others.
Commonwealth ordinary benefit of 8s. a day for every hospital patient is now being paid at a rate of more than £6,000,000 a year to public hospitals and £2,000,000 a year to private hospitals. The total value of this direct aid to hospital patients and hospitals throughout Australia has been over £37,000,000 over the last five years.
Commonwealth additional benefit of 4s. a day to insured persons is now being paid at a rate approaching £2,000,000 a year. Payments of this benefit have been worth nearly £7,000,000 to patients during the last five years. The same patients have also received, by way of fund benefit, something like £20,000,000 over the last five years, and these payments of fund benefit are currently being made at a rate of £7,000,000 per year. These are very large sums of money, and they speak for themselves as to the benefits flowing to hospitals and hospital patients as a result of the Commonwealth hospital insurance scheme. This amendment will produce further benefits.
In passing, it is appropriate to point out that these two benefits are not by any means the only assistance provided by the Federal Government to the Australian hospital system. Another instance of which I wish to remind the Senate is the fact that the Commonwealth provides all the capital expenditure for chest hospitals, and nearly all the maintenance expenditure. As a result of this, such buildings as the thoracic blocks at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the Royal North Shore Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, the large hospital being completed at Chermside in Brisbane, another large chest hospital in Perth, and many others throughout the Commonwealth have been erected without cost to the States, who will make full use of them.
It is considered that this increase in the Commonwealth additional benefit rate will only be completely effective if it is accompanied by something like a corresponding increase in the payment of fund benefit. It is for this reason that the bill provides for the 12s. a day Commonwealth additional benefit to be payable to persons who are insured for a fund benefit of 16s. a day or more. The premium for a fund benefit of 16s. a day is about ls. 6d. a week (family rate).
I am sure all will agree that the benefits to be derived from such a low premium are now most attractive, and that contributors who are insured for a lower amount have every reasonable incentive to transfer to a 16s. a day or higher rate table and so qualify for 12s. a day Commonwealth additional benefit. In common with all other hospital patients, these contributors will also have the Commonwealth benefit of 8s. a day deducted from their accounts, making, with the fund benefit, a total of at least 36s. a day available towards the cost of their hospital expenses. It may be, however, that some contributors will prefer to remain in their present tables, for example, 6d. a week for a fund benefit of 6s. a day, or ls. a week for a fund benefit of 12s. a day. For these persons, the present Commonwealth additional benefit of 4s. a day will be retained.
Up to the present, Commonwealth hospital benefits have always become payable immediately upon a contributor joining a registered insurance organization. The organizations themselves find it necessary to provide for a waiting period - generally of about two months - after joining an organization during which fund benefit is not payable. With the introduction of a new Commonwealth rate of 12s. a day, the Government thinks it is reasonable that there should be a waiting period for Commonwealth additional benefit in conformity with the practice of hospital benefit organizations. This bill, therefore, provides that as a general rule Commonwealth additional benefit will not be payable at either the 4s. or 12s. rate in respect of hospital treatment given during the first two months after a person becomes a contributor. An exception will be made in cases where the organization pays fund benefit in accordance with its rules, for example, accidents which occur after a contributor joins a fund. The waiting period clause will not debar payment of benefit in cases where the contributor transfers from one registered organization to another, or in cases where a contributor transfers from one benefit table to another within his own organization. Those already insured will, of course, be unaffected. This is consistent with the Treasurer’s announcement in his Budget speech.
There is, moreover, an important reason for this waiting period. As the Commonwealth additional benefits are now substantial, it would be quite possible to defeat the principles of hospital insurance by shortterm insurance so that contributors obtained only temporary cover and ceased to pay contributions as soon as they left hospital. It is obvious that this could have widespread effects of a most undesirable nature. I need hardly point out that the institution of a waiting period makes it all the more advisable for those contemplating hospital insurance to effect it as early as possible, especially as it is expected that the benefits provided by this bill will be made available for hospital treatment received by insured persons on and after 1st January next.
As a consequence of the increase in the rate of benefit, this bill includes a number of clauses to effect necessary amendments to machinery provisions of the hospital benefit sections of the act. I will be pleased to explain these amendments in detail and to provide honorable senators with any additional information they require during the committee stages of the bill.
In addition to the increase in Commonwealth additional hospital benefit rates already referred to, it is proposed by this bill to correct a number of anomalies and inconsistencies in the amounts of medical benefits specified in the schedules to the act. Numerically, these amendments are fairly extensive, but no general increase in the rates of benefit is involved. Many of the medical services concerned are new medical techniques, or treatments which have come under notice since the schedule was last revised. A statement giving full particulars of these amendments is being circulated for the information of honorable senators.
The opportunity is also being taken to effect a complete revision of the format of the schedules of medical benefit. This revision has been undertaken at the request of medical benefit insurance organizations, who are experiencing certain mechanical difficulties in processing claims under the existing schedules. This revision involves a re-arrangement and renumbering of the items in the schedules, but the changes in amounts of benefit or the substance of the items in the schedules are negligible. The statement circulated to honorable senators fully explains the nature of the changes being made to the schedules. These alterations are also expected to be effective from 1st January, 1958.
This bill will provide very substantial benefits for the community. The value of the increase in rate of Commonwealth additional hospital benefits is estimated to be about £3,000,000 in a full year. The medical benefits amendments are mostly by way of minor adjustments but are estimated to be worth about £105,000 in a full year. I therefore hope that the bill will receive the full support of all honorable senators.
Debate (on motion by Senator McKenna) adjourned.
page 1649
In committee (Consideration resumed) (vide page 1645).
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Resolution reported; report adopted.
page 1649
Debate resumed from 28th November (vide page 1629), on motion by Senator O’sullivan-
That the bill be now read a second time.
.- Before the debate was adjourned, we were quite obviously looking for an opportunity to consider these regulations, and, as we were drifting towards an adjournment, I did take the trouble to direct the attention of the Senate to the provisions of the regulation which exempts these canteens from any licensing laws of a State. Regulation 24 permits the Royal Australian Air Force Canteens Service Board, upon such terms and conditions as it determines, to -
Further consideration of these provisions induces me to believe that, unless there is a practical instance of abuse, one would be justified in accepting the view that they will be strictly confined to Air Force canteens purposes and can be permitted.
But a perusal of regulation 19 shows what I think is a serious departure from the proper situation that we should permit. These regulations are made under the Air Force Act in relation to Air Force canteens. Regulation 19 reads -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial or of an officer dealing summarily wilh a charge, a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force -
to make good any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board;
as compensation for any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board, occasioned by the commission of an offence by the member, that sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the Board and, without prejudice to any other means of recovery, may be deducted from moneys which are, or which become, due and payable by the Commonwealth to the member and may be paid to the Board in such instalments, and in such manner, as the Air Board directs.
It is difficult to understand the situation here because the Regulations and Ordinances Committee had before it, in May, 1956, a similar bid for power on the part of the Air Board itself by means of an Air Force regulation. That regulation provided that where the Commonwealth had suffered damage, or where there was a deficiency of stores, if the Air Board considered that the loss or damage had been caused through the neglect of a member, that member should be liable to pay to the Commonwealth an amount, and the amount should be deductible from the member’s pay.
The Regulations and Ordinances Committee reported to the Senate that the regulation authorized deductions from a member’s pay not only for deficiency of stores and materials, but also for third party claims. That objection is not available to the regulations now under consideration. The Regulations and Ordinances Committee also reported that the regulation authorized deductions from a member’s pay of unlimited amounts, without appeal, without providing a member with any procedure, such as a court martial or civil court action, to be heard, and without protecting any proportion of the member’s periodical pay.
When that report was tabled, the Minister for Air (Mr. Osborne) withdrew those regulations. The Minister for the Navy (Mr. Davidson) withdrew similar regulations in his department, and we are still waiting - with some anxiety and increasing impatience, as I indicated to the Minister when I spoke on the Estimates - a replacement of those regulations by regulations which are proper to protect Commonwealth property consistently with justice to members of the forces.
It is in that context that this lapsed regulation provides that where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial, a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force to make good loss or damage occasioned by the commission of an offence by the member, that sum shall be deemed to be a debt. I owe an acknowment to the draftsman of the regulations inasmuch as this regulation 19 is to some extent an improvement on the regulation made in 1945, which it intended to replace, in that the liability under the old regulation was expressed to be imposed on the member, irrespective of whether there has been a court-martial or other inquiry.
Having said that, I submit that this regulation directly infringes what is proper in respect of a regulation. The Senate will notice that the regulation states, “Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial, a sum is required to be paid to make good the loss “. The regulation does not say, “ Where in pursuance of the order of a court-martial . . .” or “ Where, in accordance with the award of a court-martial, a sum has been adjudged by that tribunal to be paid “. It says, “Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial … a sum is required to be paid “. Such language is totally inapt to impose liability in respect of a decision of court-martial or the C.O.’s orderly room. I can see how the draftsman has lapsed into that latitude because he has embodied language which was in the previous regulation in another context. But the fact is that the regulation, if permitted by the Senate, will apply to the case where, in consequence of a court-martial, a member is required by the Royal Australian Air Force Canteens Service Board to pay a sum in replacement of loss or damage. If it depended upon that technical position, I do not know that I should be disposed to persist in opposition to it, because I would think that any draftsman to whose attention that obvious awkwardness of expression was drawn would remedy it by an amendment to the regulations.
But the objection to this regulation stands out clearly. The regulation purports to give to an Air Force disciplinary tribunal, a court-martial or a C.O.’s orderly room, the right to adjudge the payment of a civil liability as a debt without limit in respect of amount.
– Do I understand you to say that is applicable even to a C.O.’s orderly room?
– Under this regulation, that is the intention.
– There is a vast difference between the C.O.’s orderly room and a court-martial, I must agree.
– A vast difference between a court-martial and a C.O.’s orderly room?
– Yes. They are as apart as the poles.
– Of course! And it will not be assumed that I have no knowledge of either?
– Not at all!
– Who has been on the receiving end?
– I have never been on the receiving end yet, but I deserve to be if this regulation passes the legislature.
– The point I am trying to get at is that a C.O.’s orderly room is surely only for minor offences.
– Quite so, but if the honorable senator will direct his attention to the C.O.’s orderly room for the moment he will see that this regulation says that where, in consequence of an officer’s dealing summarily with a charge, a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force to make good any loss to the Canteens Service Board occasioned by the commission of an offence, that sum shall be deemed to be a debt owing by the member to the board. That is to say, where, in consequence of an officer’s dealing summarily with a charge, a sum is required to be paid by the member to the Canteens Board to make good the loss to any of the board’s property, that sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the board. It is the enormity of that proposition that provokes me to opposition.
– Is that the same type of principle that the disallowed regulation embodied?
– Yes. Senator Byrne was not in the chamber when I referred to that matter. I pointed out that this regulation does meet several of the objections to the regulation which we reported as suitable for disallowance in May, 1956. Nevertheless, this regulation is still open to many objections. I ask that the report of the committee be passed to Senator Byrne for his consideration.
Apart altogether from this surprising situation, there is a matter to which I direct attention. In consequence of an officer dealing summarily in an orderly room with a charge or as a result of a court-martial an unlimited amount may be required to be paid, and that sum becomes a debt. It is not the function of either a court-martial or a commanding officer’s orderly room io adjudge whether a member of the Air Force :is civilly liable to pay to the Canteens Service Board a sum of money to make good damage that has been done to the board’s property. The proper function of a courtmartial and a commanding officer’s orderly room is simply disciplinary.
Apart from other authorities established for the purpose of imposing discipline, they are quite properly invested with authority to make deductions to a limited amount from a member’s pay so long as an appropriate proportion is retained after each deduction to make a liveable surplus available to the member. That penal deduction, by way of discipline, is the function of those authorities alone.
We must be alert in this House to protect members of the forces from having disciplinary tribunals adjudicate upon their civil rights and debts. I am not speaking of this matter merely in the abstract because a relevant case is now actively under consideration by members of this Parliament. It is claimed to be a long lingering example of gross injustice. The amount adjudicated in this case was £601. It is a matter of longstanding and reveals the degree to which a sense of injustice has burned into the soul of the complainant concerned.
I submit that it is entirely wrong for -disciplinary tribunals to claim that they -should have the right to adjudicate on civil debts. It is perfectly appropriate that they should have the right to make a penal deduction up to a limited amount, so long as they preserve, in the weekly deductions, a proper balance between the amount that is deducted and the liveable surplus upon which the man concerned can maintain his family. As to the right of the Air Force under this regulation to deduct £601 or £1,000, I submit that it is our responsibility to protect the members of the forces, while requiring a ;proper regulation to be brought in for the protection of Commonwealth property.
I have mentioned a particular case because at the committee stage, I intend to move an amendment to the bill designed to -exclude Regulation 19 from the regulations to which this bill seeks to give validity.
.- I had intended to speak on this bill in a context different from that which it has been discussed by Senator Wright. I had intended merely to direct the attention of the Senate to the extraordinary manner in which history repeats itself, and to acquaint the Senate with the sensitivity that was felt in the House of Commons when a similar matter arose. The Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan) and the department under his administration, having assumed responsibility for ensuring that the regulations under discussion are tabled, have conceded that the failure to table them previously was the result of an oversight that has not been allowed to run on for a very long time. I was interested to read in Mr. Herbert Morrison’s work “ Government and Parliament “, which was published as recently as 1954, a whole section dealing with Ministers and civil servants under the heading “ An Unfortunate Blunder “.
At the risk of prolonging this debate unduly and, perhaps, of boring honorable senators, I think it would be salutary if I read a section of this work as part of my contribution to the debate, because I think it would be as well for honorable senators to realize how an unfortunate circumstance of this kind was handled in the Mother of Parliaments. Mr. Morrison recalled an incident such as this in these words -
Occasionally, however, something may go wrong or the Minister may be badly served. If a mistake is made in a Government Department the Minister is responsible even if he knew nothing about it until, for example, a letter of complaint is received from an M.P. . . .
Mr. Morrison goes on to discuss a position that arose in England in the early stages of World War II. when it was decided to bring the national fire-fighting services under a central authority - particularly the services in Scotland - so that a common rule would apply to all of them. First, there was departure from constitutional practice which would be to present a detailed bill to the House of Commons and let procedures merge in a detailed act of Parliament. Mr. Morrison was not prepared to do that because of the exigencies of war so he insisted - to use his own term, “to the dismay of the parliamentary draftsman “ - on presenting a small bill, leaving the substance of the requirements to be carried into effect by rather extensive regulations. Then, by an unfortunate oversight, the regulations were not tabled. That position continued for three years. Mr. Morrison continues the story in these words -
I had one such experience when I was Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security in Mr. Churchill’s War Government. It was a curious and, in a way, sad circumstance that this serious mishap occurred in the Home Office with its long traditions of constitutional rectitude, and not in the freshly created war-time Ministry of Home Security. The service concerned was the Fire Service. The use of the incendiary bomb by the enemy involved widespread fire risks. Experience showed not only that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to get a quick mobilization and concentration of the local fire brigades over a wide area on a town or district that had been subject to severe enemy attack, but also that the differing practices and the grading of the officers and men and the variations in equipment and methods of fire-fighting made it impossible adequately to blend the contingents brought together from a wide variety of local authorities of various sizes and with somewhat varying practices and traditions. They were all brave men, and I am not here arguing about the efficiency of the local organizations for their peace-time duties. But we were at war; and, though I am a local government man and did not like taking away local authority services, the nation was fighting for its life and the national interest really required that we put the situation right for the period of the war. So it was necessary to establish a National Fire Service. All the strains that fell on Ministers at that time, especially on those who, like myself, were taking a major part in resisting the enemy, made it undesirable that much parliamentary time should be spent on the consideration of what would inevitably have been a substantial and detailed Bill, quite apart from the labour involved in its preparation. I therefore decided (at first, I fear, somewhat shocking the parliamentary draftsman) that the Bill must be a short one. In substance it enabled the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for Scotland by means of Regulations to transfer for the war period the local fire brigades to themselves and to set up a National Fire Service.
Naturally, however, the parliamentary right to challenge the Regulations was provided for. The Act accordingly stipulated that each Regulation should be laid before Parliament ‘ as soon as may be after it is made’ and that either House could by negative resolution annul it within twenty-eight sitting days after laying. The quick merging - and it had to be quick - of the local fire brigades into the National Fire Service was a huge task which very much occupied the labours and attention of the Home Office Fire Division and myself. Anyway, a terrible thing happened - everybody forgot to bring the Regulations before Parliament; the Department forgot, I forgot, and it was no less extraordinary . . .
I think it was very extraordinary - that neither House of Parliament noticed that the Regulations had not been submitted. Not one M.P. or Peer spotted it. Nor did the Press.
It was not until some three years after the passing of the Act, during which we had gone right ahead in organizing and operating the National Fire Service, that somebody in the Home Office discovered that we had’ committed a capital parliamentary offence
Those are the terms in which Mr. Morrison regarded matters of this sort - as “ a capital parliamentary offence “ - and that the National Fire Service was without full and proper parliamentary authority. Those concerned were most apologetic and very mortified. I was very mortified and very cross. I made my displeasure known, but, after all, I had myself forgotten, although a Minister rather expects the Department to bring such things forward. Nevertheless, I was guilty as well as the Department. And indeed the House of Commons and the House of Lords were guilty, too, for not noticing the offence. But whilst I gently mentioned the fact to the House I was careful not to rub it in ‘, for it would not be human to expect the House of Commons to blame itself when it had a Minister ‘ on the spot ‘ who had no alternative but to plead guilty. And it is always well to remember that in the last resort the House of Commons is the master. So I went down to the House of Commons and to its consternation explained what had happened and confessed my guilt, sincerely apologizing ‘ in italics ‘ for the offence; for it was indeed a most serious offence. It was necessary to bring in an Indemnity Bill to validate the error and this gave an opportunity for further apologies. As a whole the House was generous, although quite naturally there were criticisms and some pointed observations about the dangers of delegated legislation. Although (and I do not complain) no M.P. criticised the House and its Members for not having noticed the failure, probably a number of them wished they had noticed it, for what an opportunity it would have been for a really exciting Question in the House whereby the Home Secretary could have been put in the soup. The Home Office and its Secretary of State almost went into mourning. After all, we were not a new-fangled Department like the Ministry of Supply. This serious sin against the rights of parliamentary democracy had been committed by the Home Office with its rich experience of constitutional matters; the Home Office, which was the guardian of civil liberty, the rights of the subject, and of constitutional rectitude. We certainly were ashamed of ourselves
I just happened to come across that passage, and I thought that in these particular circumstances it would be interesting to bring it to the notice of the Senate. I do not expect the Minister who bears the responsibility for this matter and in whose office, perhaps, the error occurred to come into the chamber thoroughly ashamed or anything of that nature; but the report does show that these things are seriously regarded in that place from which our parliamentary procedures stem.
There is some reflection on members of this chamber. When all is said and done, it is our responsibility, subject to demands on our time and the opportunities that are available to us, to keep our eyes on such matters. Of course, it is not always practicable to do so, but it is a salutary thought. I think that in future we should regard such matters with the same care and concern as Mr. Morrison seriously and obviously conscientiously regards a minor dereliction on his part. One thing will be noted: Although this was a time of war, he did not plead that fact as a circumstance of palliation; that was no defence at all. It was a grievous sin against constitutional practice, and he merely pleaded guilty.
Having said that, I wish to refer briefly to the submission made by Senator Wright, which I feel disposed to support in the committee stage for the reasons advanced by him. Some of the reasons I had the pleasure of hearing; others I can imagine having been submitted because of our previous association on the Regulations and Ordinances Committee with the regulation that was subsequently disallowed. The regulation that was withdrawn went far beyond what I shall call the pernicious features of the regulation that is now under criticism and attack. In the former case, a civil liability was established, even in the absence of a specific charge and penal proceedings. At least, a penal procedure is involved and is required in the case of the regulation now before us. A civil liability may emerge, that being the matter which is criticized and disputed by Senator Wright.
Having made those observations, I indicate that I shall support Senator Wright’s proposal at the committee stage. I commend Mr. Herbert Morrison’s comments to honorable senators.
– in reply - I shall deal with the last comment first. I quite agree with the sentiments that were expressed by Senator Byrne in regard to the failure to table the regulations. There is no excuse for it. All I can say is that this is the first time in ten years that it has happened, and I hope that it will not happen again.
– My comment was not intended as a reflection.
– I know that. The record is not a bad one, but once in ten years still is too often. That brings me to the proposition that has been advanced by Senators Wright and Byrne. 1 think that it has been misconceived by both of them. Regulation 19 does not purport to give to a court-martial the power to inflict penalties, to make charges, or to determine that moneys are payable. That authority is conferred on courts-martial by the imperial Air Force Act to the extent to which it has been adopted in Australia. That act has been adopted in Australia not in whole but in substantial part.
Regulation 19 reads -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial . . .
The regulation does not attempt or purport to clothe a court-martial with authority to impose a monetary penalty. As I indicated, that authority is given under the act. But, a penalty having been inflicted, the regulation prescribes how it is to be recovered. The only substantial difference between the present regulation and the 1945 regulation is that the money, when it is recovered, belongs to the Canteens Service Board and not to Consolidated Revenue. Hitherto, fines and penalties so recovered had to be paid by the Air Board into Consolidated Revenue. This regulation provides that it shall be the property of the Canteens Service Board.
– I think there is an error there. The preceding regulation provides that it shall be paid to the board.
– That is quite true; but, under the old regulation, the money so paid had to be paid by those receiving it into Consolidated Revenue.
– I do not think that is so.
– That was the position. The chief purpose of the alteration is to enable the Canteens Service Board to enjoy the benefit of the money and not to have to pay it into Consolidated Revenue. My understanding. I repeat, is that hitherto, when the money was paid to the Air Board, it then had to be paid into Consolidated Revenue.
Let me refer to what T think is another point of misconception. Senator Byrne asked whether the regulation now before us was substantially the same as the regulation that was disallowed by the Senate. I understood Senator Wright to say that it was substantially the same. I think that is a complete misunderstanding of the situation.
– I did not say that.
– I think I asked whether the same type of principle was involved.
– Very well, I shall compromise by accepting that. It has nothing whatever to do with the same type of principle. The explanatory memorandum circulated by the Department of Air on the regulation that was disallowed read as follows: -
The purpose of this amendment to Air Force Regulations is to provide adequate authority for the Air Board to make deductions from the pay of members of the R.A.A.F. for losses of public money or property or for damage to property occasioned by their neglect or misconduct. The amendment makes provision for delegation of the Air Board’s authority.
In that case, there is not any semblance of a judicial proceeding; it is purely an administrative decision of the Air Board unrelated completely to any court-martial. There is no charge, no defence, no hearing
– And no appeal.
– And no appeal. I now quote the report of the Regulations and Ordinances Committee that came before the Senate in regard to that regulation. It reads -
Having considered the Regulation, the Com- mittee is of the opinion -
That the Regulation is not authorized by the Act;
That the Regulation includes provisions of substantial alterations of the law appropriate only to enactment (if at all) by Parliament;
That the Regulation authorizes deductions from a member’s pay -
not only for deficiency of stores and materials but also for third party claims,
of unlimited amounts,
without appeal,
without providing the member with any procedure (such as Court Martial or Civil Court action) to be heard, and
without protecting any proportion of the member’s periodical pay–
I think the Senate will agree that Ministers had no hesitation at all in agreeing to the disallowance of that regulation, because it did not provide for any remedy, relief, or protection for the member dealt with by a court-martial–
– What appeal does a member have against a decision in pursuance of Regulation 19?
– As I indicated earlier, regulation 19 does not clothe a court-martial with power to inflict a penalty but merely says that, consequent upon a penalty having been inflicted by a courtmartial, it shall be recovered in a certainway. The earlier regulation that was disallowed merely provided that the Air Board, by an administrative act, could declare a certain amount to be owing by a person. So the disallowed regulation and the regulation now before us are quite different. I point out, too, that since the disallowance of the earlier regulation a courts-martial appeal tribunal has been established. This obligation to pay what constituted a debt to the canteens board can apply only after a conviction by a court-martial or a ruling by a commanding officer. The regulation reads -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial or of an officer dealing summarily with a charge, a sum is required to be paid . . .
At present there is a provision - there was not earlier - for appeals from decisions of courts-martial to an independent tribunal called the Courts-martial Appeal Tribunal, consisting of a distinguished Queen’s counsel and other distinguished counsel practising on their own account. In the earlier regulation, which, with all due respect, I say was very properly disallowed, there was no appeal at all from an administrative decisions of the Air Board. I think that, on further reflection, the honorable senators who haveraised this issue will agree that action under this regulation follows the decision of a court-martial. The regulation does not authorize a court-martial to do anything. A court-martial is constituted under a specific act, incorporating the English Air Force Act. This regulation merely provides how a sum ofmoney, so determined, shall be paid to the canteens board.
– Why cannot a courtmartial be vested with power to make an order relating to restitution or payment of the sum in default, instead of that power being referred to the Air Board?
– That is precisely what the court-martial does. The regulation deals only with the method of recovery.
– That is a distinction without a difference.
– The court-martial determines the quantum, but the Air Board determines how the quantum is to be discharged.
– That is so. It was suggested that it would not be sufficient if it were deducted from the member’s pay. Suppose it were determined that a substantial amount was owing by a member of the services to the canteens board and the only method of collection open to the canteens board was deductions from pay. The person concerned might cease to be a member of the services. In that case, the debt would not be paid, although there had been substantial damage to the canteen board’s property.
– Does the AttorneyGeneral say that in those circumstances the canteens board could not sue in the civil courts for the recovery of the amount as a debt?
– Certainly I do not, I do not thing the right given under this regulation is exclusive. The Crown does not abandon its normal common law remedies.
– In that case, I cannot understand why you do not give the courtmartial the power that you are now endeavouring to give to the Air Board. That is the point I should like to hear discussion on.
– I do not think that that is a subject for a court-martial. The question before the court-martial is the charge made against the airman that he has been the cause of £X worth of damage to Air Force property. The court-martial has to determine whether he is guilty or not guilty of that charge. If he is found guilty by the court-martial, this regulation provides a method whereby restitution can be made. If the airman is not satisfied with the decision of the court-martial as to his guilt, or thinks that the amount awarded against him is grossly excessive, he has a right of appeal to the Courts-martial Appeal Tribunal. No rights are being taken from him.
– Has he any right of appeal against the action of the Air Board in pursuance of this regulation?
– The Air Board does not do anything in pursuance of this regulation.
– I disagree with you there.
– Let me read the regulation -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial or of an officer dealing summarily with a charge, a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force -
to make good any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board; or
as compensation for any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board,
. that sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the Board . . .
That is, after the court-martial has heard and determined the matter. The regulation continues -
– Is not that an action by the Air Board - a direction as to the manner of repayment?
– In a matter like that, with all due respect, I think the Air Board would be in a better position to determine an equitable manner of repayment than would be a court-martial.
– Assuming you are right there, is there a right of appeal by the airman against the determination of the Air Board under this regulation?
– Are you suggesting that if the Air Board determined that the man was to pay the debt at the rate of £5 a month, he could appeal to some other body and, in effect, say, “ That is too much; I want to pay only £2 “?
– Precisely.
– There is no appeal on that.
– If the Air Board wished to act capriciously, it could say that the man was to pay £100 a week.
– That would not take the matter any further. The question to be decided on appeal is whether the man is guilty or not guilty. Senator Vincent says that the Air Board could determine an unreasonable rate of repayment which was incapable of being met by the airman concerned. In reply to that suggestion, I say that this is not an exclusive remedy. There is nothing to stop the Canteens Board from sueing in a civil court, from making the man bankrupt and levying distress. There is no means whereby the Air Board can be restrained from insisting on payment forthwith if the man has sufficient assets. I do not see any reason why the common law remedies of the Canteens Board should be whittled down. The main thing, on which I. think we all agree, is that the man should be given a fair trial on the issue as to whether he is guilty or not guilty. On that issue, he has a right of appeal to a higher tribunal.
– He has no right of appeal against the action of the Air Board.
– He would not have such a right if he were ‘ proceeded against in a civil court.
– He would have a right to appeal to a higher court.
– To prevent him from being declared bankrupt? I have never heard that proposition before.
– That is not my proposition at all. I suggest that an ordinary criminal court has an exclusive right to decide in what way restitution shall be made and that neither the Attorney-General’s Department nor any other department can make a decision relating to the repayment of the amount of any defalcation. There is a right of appeal from the decision of a civil criminal tribunal which, under this regulation, would not be given to an airman.
– I do not accept that proposition at all.
– Can the AttorneyGeneral tell me where I am wrong?
– I am not aware of any instance of a man who has been found guilty of wilful destruction of property being given unlimited time to make reparation, or being permitted to make restitution at his leisure, as it were.
– Is the court-martial limited as to the amount it can order to be paid?
– I am not aware of any limitation. I should imagine it is not limited. It is conceivable that a complete air force station could be burnt down as the result of the deliberate act of one person.
– The court-martial has unlimited jurisdiction in regard to adjudication on the debt.
– The airman has a right of appeal from the decision of the court-martial.
– Can the AttorneyGeneral assure the Senate that under the Courts-martial Appeal Act an airman has a right of appeal against the assessment of his civil liability, as distinct from his conviction?
– All I can tell the Senate is that he has the right of appeal against his conviction.
– Is the term “ sentence or award “, or “ conviction “, used in courtsmartial?
– I have heard both used. I do not know whether any term of art is used. “ Conviction “ would be the more common term.
– Is the term “ award “ used particularly in the sense of “ financial award “, rather than of conviction?
– The courtmartial could not make an award without first making a conviction. The award of the compensation would follow the conviction. Regulation 19 provides -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial . . .
I think that the words are interchangeable. I do not see any distinction between “ sentence “ or “ award “. I will be happy to answer any further questions at the committee stage.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time.
In committee:
The bill.
.- I refer to clause 3, which states -
The Air Force (Canteens) Regulations (being Statutory Rules 1957, No. 48) are declared to be, and at all times on and after the first day of September, One thousand nine hundred and fiftyseven, to have been, of full force and effect, notwithstanding that they have not been laid before each House of the Parliament in accordance with sub-section (1.) of section forty-eight of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901-1950. and move -
After the figures “ 48) “, insert, “, except Regulation 19”.
This is a validating bill. The only effect of the amendment would be for the Senate to refrain from validating Regulation 19. There would be nothing to prevent the Government from producing to-morrow, by ordinary regulation-making processes, a regulation in precisely the same terms, if that were proper. There would be nothing to prevent the Government from improving it.
– If anything had been done under the regulation in the interim there would then be no validation in retrospect. Would that not leave a gap?
– Quite so. 1 was merely pausing so that honorable senators would have time to consider my submission. If the suggestion of the Attorney-General as to the effect of the regulation is correct, it would only result in a regulation set-up instead of, as in ordinary circumstances, a common law set-up. I cannot see that there is any great dependence upon the validation of this regulation. What 1 am concerned about is the conversion of a court-martial, or commanding officer’s orderly room, to a civil court which, by virtue of an award or sentence, and without limit as to amount, may adjudicate that a man is liable for a debt.
We of the legal profession are most scrupulous to ensure that when a man has to face an adjudication for civil liability in respect of a certain amount, which in my own State is more than £250, he is entitled to a Supreme Court Judgment. Senator Vincent has referred to the Appeals Court. In ordinary criminal court cases there has long been a collateral jurisdiction for the court summarily to award restitution of stolen property. However, in Tasmania the limit of the award in the police magistrate’s court has. until recent days, been £20. The
Tasmanian House of Assembly has given serious thought to an amendment put before it in the last month to extend the jurisdiction to £200. This regulation suggests that a disciplinary court-martial - a military tribunal - should have power to adjudicate as to the liability between the serviceman and his employer, the Canteens Service Board, in respect of a civil debt - for the loss of the employer’s property - to an unlimited amount.
– You are right there.
– I am pleased to have the support of Senator Critchley, because he has taken a most persevering interest in the welfare of servicemen. My submission is reinforced by the possibility of injustice occurring in an actual case, and I am not merely theorizing. It is merely a matter of preserving the protection of the serviceman by the maintenance of a proper judicial system. There is, on the part of service tribunals, a disposition to be arbitrary and to brush aside the judicial process. Courts-martial were never intended to adjudicate upon civil liability. I should have thought that no damage could be done to the framework of these regulations by the acceptance of my amendment and that, in the calm of the morrow, or during the next fortnight, a proper regulation could be brought down remedying any omission that might be caused.
– With all due respect to Senator Wright, he is completely misunderstanding the position. Nothing that we can do to this regulation will upset the present courts-martial procedure. Whether or not we like courtsmartial, as at present constituted, is entirely beside the point. These regulations do not enable a court-martial to be established. They do not clothe a courtmartial with the power to make an award, nor do they authorize it to inflict a penalty or fine.
– But the regulation does convert a fine into a civil debt.
– With all due respect, that is not the position. The powers and authority of a court-martial are established under the Imperial Air Force Act, as applied to Australia. I beg honorable senators to read Regulation 19 yet again. They will see that it does not clothe the court-martial with any authority at all. It provides, quite clearly -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial … a sum is required to be paid . . .
– Reading that as meaning that in pursuance of the sentence he is required to pay a sum, that sum is a debt.
– I will read the whole of it to show the limitation.
– There is no limitation.
– That is not by virtue of this regulation, but by virtue of the Imperial Air Force Act, as adapted by our own Australian act. The courts are established under that legislation.
– You are not suggesting that that legislation makes the award a debt?
– I am suggesting that it is the authority for the establishment of the court-martial. After it has given its award the procedure set out in Regulation 19 may be followed. Regulation 19 flows from the pronouncement of the courtmartial. It does not clothe the court-martial with any authority to make an edict, award or sentence which it does not already possess. Regulation 19 merely determines what shall happen in order to give effect to the award. With all due respect to the points made by Senator Wright, whether or not we like courts-martial and the way they are established is quite beside the point. If we disallowed the whole of the regulations it would still not have the slightest effect on the constitution or conduct of courtsmartial.
Sitting suspended from 5.45 to 8 p.m.
– I hoped that the Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan) would be in his place to hear what I wish to say on this matter, but obviously he has been unavoidably detained, so if I repeat myself on his arrival I trust that the committee will forgive me.
One or two honorable senators on this side of the chamber are disturbed about regulation 19 of the regulations that are now being validated - and validated retrospectively. There has been some discussion of the matter, and I should like Senator
O’sullivan, who has now entered the chamber, to be good enough to listen to the propositions that have disturbed Opposition, senators and tell me whether I correctly interpret the regulation.
As I understand the position, this regulation has nothing to do with the functioning of courts-martial, or with officers acting pursuant to another authority dealing summarily with offences. That lies in a separate category of law altogether, and it is subject to the appellate system that this Parliament set up in respect of appeals from courts-martial and the rest. In the light of the explanation that the AttorneyGeneral gave before the suspension of the sitting, it seems to me that regulation 19 deals only with a situation where under proceedings properly instituted under other law altogether, a member of the forces is found responsible in respect of damage done to property of the canteens board. AsI understand it, where there is a penalty of that kind imposed by a court-martial or otherwise subject to appeal, the money iscollected and the proceeds go into Consolidated Revenue.
– That cannot be so* under the previous regulation, which saysthat the money shall be paid to the board-
– I am speaking of matters at large where a penalty is imposed by a court-martial.
– The money is handed over to Consolidated Revenue.
– Let me put the case this way: Suppose a member of the forces misconducts himself outside a canteen by assaulting an officer, that he does damage to an Air Force car, and then upon entering the canteen he wrecks the furniture in one of the rooms. I think in that case he might be charged before a courtmartial in respect of three matters. Let us say that the court-martial fines him somuch for the assault on the officer, and so much for the damage done to the car, and decides to recover from him £10 for the damage done to the canteen property. Thisregulation, in my comprehension, provides that if a court-martial - to confine it to that nne body - decides that some amount is to be repaid for damage done to the canteen property, then the sum of £10. instead of going in the normal course into Consolidated Revenue will be paid to the canteens board so that the board can repair the damage done to its room, and the board is thus restored to its original position.
As I understand the position, this regulation does not empower courts-martial to act or otherwise officers summarily to fine people. It simply says that if the ingredient of damage to canteens property arises in the course of those proceedings, then the fine or the amount of damages awarded will go to restore the canteen property.
– Does the Leader of the Opposition say that the Air Board, under the regulation, has the power to order payment by the airman of the hypothetical damage of £10, and also make an order deducting that money from his pay?
– It is very clear that it does. It is clear that the board, in the case I have instanced, may order the £10 to be paid by instalments deducted from the man’s pay. I am interested to ascertain whether, under other legislation, the board is precluded from taking the whole of a man’s pay. I should imagine there would be some provision elsewhere in law that would prevent the board from taking the whole of the pay of a member of the Air Force. One or two honorable senators on this side are intimately concerned with this matter, and I should be glad if the Minister would explain the position.
– Who determines the extent of the damage?
– There are tribunals. In the first place, there could be an officer dealing summarily with a minor matter. Secondly, there could be courtmartial. From either of those bodies there could be an appeal. There is a whole appellate process set up by this Parliament within the last year or two.
– It was set up this year.
– I remember it as a very recent event. We are not concerned with the process of court-martial or summary jurisdiction and appeals. This regulation picks up the position where, after all those bodies are functioning, with the right of appeal and everything else, and says that if in the award or fine imposed there is an ingredient of damage to canteen property the amount awarded, instead of going intothe Consolidated Revenue, shall go to the canteens board. But boiled down, the regulation empowers the Air Board to make deductions from the salary of the man, in such instalments as it thinks fit. I think we quite reasonably believe that the board in determining the instalments would have regard to a man’s family commitments, the need to exist.
– Does the Air Board determine the extent of the damage?
– No, it is determined according to the proper process of the right of appeal.
– What is?
– The amount of the damage.
– There is no right of appeal.
– I beg to differ.
– There is no right of appeal, certainly not from an order as to this.
– Of course there is.
– I should like to hear more about that from both the Minister and Senator McKenna.
– I should like to be informed of the position, because as far as the decision of a court-martial is based, this Parliament provided complete appellate jurisdiction fairly recently. If I am wrong in that-
– I think Senator Wright is referring to any right of appeal from the determination of the board in pursuance of Regulation 19.
– I am not suggesting that, nor have I ever suggested it.
– Apparently we are at cross purposes.
– We seem to be, because I have never suggested that my reference was to the right of appeal from decisions of courts-martial not only in relation to guilt, but also awards of damages.
– An appeal from a conviction, but nothing else.
– I see. If that is the case, I should like to be advised further on that point. I would not favour that proposition. If a tribunal has authority to award damages of an unlimited amount, unquestionably there should be a right of appeal against that award. But I do argue that that is not a matter which arises in considering the regulation. It arises in relation to the legislation which deals with courts-martial and with appeals from them.
– If this regulation were to cut out the court-martial procedure to the extent to which the procedure is not acceptable, that would relieve its operation in connection with canteen determinations.
– Yes. Let us assume that this regulation goes. Whatever right of appeal is now available under ordinary court-martial procedure would still be available. The only difference, by and large, would be that the amount recovered as a result of an award in respect of damage to a canteen would go to Consolidated Revenue, not to the board controlling the canteen. That would be the only difference if this were cut out. It seems to me to be a very proper provision that if a member of the forces does cause damage and an award is rightly made against him by some tribunal in respect of that damage, the proceeds shall go back to the body aggrieved.
– Of course it is.
– If we are agreed on that, we are getting the regulation into some kind of perspective. I rose out of consideration for some of my supporters who have an active interest in this matter, and I undertook to present their viewpoint, as they were disturbed. I put the matter from that viewpoint in quite an objective way. I conclude by asking the Minister whether there is some law, apart from what we are now considering, that would prevent the Air Board, pursuant to the authority conferred here, from taking the whole of a man’s salary.
– I listened with a good deal of interest to the Leader of the Opposition (Senator McKenna). He expressed very concisely some of the problems in relation to regulation 1 9, but one aspect of the regulation which he touched on only lightly is causing me a great deal of concern. The regulation, as I see it, seeks to give to the
Air Board a certain power of directing how money shall be paid by an airman who has been convicted of an offence and ordered by a tribunal - either his commanding officer or a court-martial - to pay a specific sum in pursuance of his conviction and sentence. As I see it, the Air Board is being given a semi-judicial function and, in addition, the right to determine how the money shall be repaid - whether from the airman’s pay, by instalments, forthwith and so on. Normally, those are the functions of the tribunal itself.
In civil life, if a man is charged with an offence relating to property and is convicted, the magistrate or the judge has full powers to order repayment of the sum embezzled, either forthwith or by instalments. Then the courts can enforce that judgment by process of execution, against either the person or the property of the accused. I submit that those are judicial functions and that the Air Board is being invested with a portion of those functions.
I do not for a moment quarrel with the regulation so far as it goes. I think that in certain circumstances it would be proper for the Air Board to be invested with the function of ordering the payment of an amount of money. My concern is with the rights of the accused after the Air Board has taken that step. To my mind, the accused has no right of appeal in respect of the determination of the Air Board. I am not suggesting that the decision would not be just. 1 do not think that that is relevant to this discussion. I feel that in the exercise of any judicial process, or portion of any judicial process, there should be some right of appeal, and I submit to the Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan) that this regulation gives no right of appeal so far as the Air Board’s activity is concerned.
Again, I apply my reasoning to what happens in civil life. If a man is convicted by a criminal court of an offence and is ordered to make restitution of a specific sum, either immediately or by instalments, he can appeal, not only with respect to the amount or quantum of the fine or order, but also with respect to the order for repayment, and an appeal tribunal can say, in effect, “ We think the order is too harsh. This man should not be required to pay this money forthwith, but should be allowed some time for repayment “. There is no argument about whether an appeal tribunal can do that.
When we apply that principle to this regulation, we see that there is nothing in the regulation which gives anybody a right of appeal. I do not object to the Air Board’s having this right. I think there are circumstances in which the Air Board should have such a right. It might not be actually a part of the court-martial’s task to make such a determination. There might be circumstances wherein a court-martial could not make a determination, or would not feel disposed to make it. That is entirely the province of the court-martial. I see nothing objectionable in giving the Air Board this right with respect to public property, but, having given the board the right, we should, I submit with great respect, ensure that the man convicted will have some right of appeal in relation to the Air Board’s direction. 1 am not arguing that this regulation affects the processes of courts-martial. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that the regulation does not in any way attempt to affect the activities or functions of courtsmartial. It is an administrative act when the Air Board directs payment by a convicted person to the account of the Canteens Board. 1 think that that is a very proper power. My argument is that in using that power the Air Board is exercising a quasijudicial function, or perhaps a completely judicial function, and that in those circumstances there should be some right of appeal. The regulation could very easily be modified to give a right of appeal such as is now given to a convicted person under the present courts-martial procedure.
– I have listened with interest to this debate and I quite agree with my leader and other honorable senators that there should be a right of appeal. There is a principle inherent in this regulation with which I thoroughly disagree. I submit that no tribunal should be able to make an order which would authorize the deduction from’ a man’s wages or salary of money to discharge a penalty which the tribunal has inflicted. In the very early development of the Labour movement, we had a hard fight to have adopted in Australia legislation known as the Truck Act, to prevent any tribunal from ordering deductions from a man’s wages or salary, on which his family was dependent and his commitments were based. If a nian commits a crime, a tribunal should not be in a position to say to him, “ You caused damage to the extent of £500. That sum will be recovered from your salary at so much a week.” That is wrong. No tribunal should have that power. If a man is in a position to contribute something from his salary, that is a different matter. For instance, if the penalty imposed is £500 and a man finds, after examining his affairs, that he can afford to pay so much out of his salary, then I see nothing wrong with his signing a procuration order permitting that to be done in order to amortize the debt over a period. If he is not in a position to do so, then his salary or wage should be sacrosanct. If there is an alternative penalty, if the penalty is £500 or six months’ imprisonment and if a man’s family responsibilities and other commitments are such that there is no balance of salary from which to meet payments towards amortizing the £500, then he will have to serve the term of imprisonment.
In any event, it is wrong in principle to permit a man’s wage or salary to be garnisheed by a tribunal against the decision of which he has no appeal. It is wrong to allow his income to be garnisheed irrespective of whether his wife and other dependants will be left with enough on which to live after satisfying the garnishee. It is wrong to place those dependants in such a position that they could become an embarrassment to society.
I suggest that we provide for an alternative penalty, such as being confined to barracks or to imprisonment for a certain term. I submit that a man’s income should remain sacrosanct, that it is something to which he is legally entitled. It should not be garnisheed in any way. It he is in a position to pay something towards satisfying his debt, then let him sign a procuration voluntarily.
I admit that if a man has committed a misdemeanour he should be punished, but it is wrong in principle to give any tribunal power to impose a penalty for a misdemeanour and then garnishee a person’s income to satisfy the penalty. I admit that a person who commits the crime should pay the penalty, but until it can be established that he has no other commitments or prior claims to his income no authority should have the right arbitrarily to take so much from him each week. I repeat that his salary should be sacrosanct although his penalty certainly must be met in some way or other.
– Do you think he would be better off in gaol?
– That has to be decided. My submission is that the fundamental principle is that a man is entitled to his salary irrespective of whether his actions have been wise, unwise, criminal or otherwise. That salary should not be interfered with by any tribunal. No tribunal should have power arbitrarily to deduct anything from it in satisfaction of a penalty that may be imposed. Whether a man be in the Army, the Air Force or any other service, in all probability his salary would cease upon commission of a serious crime, and then there would be nothing from which to recover a penalty in any event.
The fundamental principle for which Labour has always fought is that a man is legally entitled to salary for his services and nothing should be taken from it unless he voluntarily signs a procuration order or enters into some other arrangement. No tribunal should be allowed to say to any person who has committed a crime that as he is earning, say, £10 a week, then irrespective of what his present commitments may be, irrespective of his family responsibilities, so much will be deducted from that £10 each week. Such a practice could cause untold hardship. For instance, a man may have a large family, and I point out that the members of his family have not committed the crime.
– Would you put him in gaol?
– The authorities could do what they liked with him. It is his affair if he commits a crime. If he is in gaol his family will receive a certain amount of support because it is a principle of British justice that no one other than the guilty person shall be punished for a crime. The honorable senator knows full well that when a man is sent to prison for committing a crime the State takes some responsibility for his wife and family while he is in gaol if the family’s circumstances warrant it. I say that this Senate should recognize the principle that a man’s income is sacrosanct, that nothing shall be taken from it arbitrarily. As I have suggested already, if his present commitments and family responsibilities are not such as would absorb the whole of his income, then I see nothing wrong with his voluntarily signing a procuration order for so much to be taken in amortization of the debt over a period. Do not let us establish a position in which a tribunal can order that so much be deducted from a person’s income irrespective of his civil and moral responsibilities. Such a principle is wrong in every sense and should not be tolerated, for it can lead to a position in which the innocent as well as the guilty are punished.
– I listened carefully to Senator Cooke, and it seems to me that he is challenging the whole Army act.
– I will challenge the lot.
– The point is whether, by rejecting or altering this regulation we will affect general Army procedure. Is it not the normal procedure in the Army, if any sum is to be collected in satisfaction of a penalty, to collect it from the pay book?
– That does not make it right. Your argument is that you cannot change a wrong.
– I am not putting any such argument; I am arguing that men under discipline in the Army have voluntarily entered into a position where they accept rules and regulations which are not those of civil life.
– I shall deal, first, with Senator McKenna’s remarks, and endeavour as best I can, from memory, and the notes I made at the time, to answer his question. I agree that this has nothing whatever to do with either the Constitution or the procedure of courts-martial. This relates to something that happens after the court-martial has sat, heard evidence, weighed the evidence and made its determination or awarded compensation. This is what follows after that. As Senator McKenna has pointed out, this ii restricted in its application not to all penalties awarded by courts-martial in the Air Force but only to awards made in respect to compensation for damage done to Air Force canteens property. It would have nothing whatever to do with a penalty inflicted for personal behaviour, for burning down an aerodrome, or for damaging aircraft. It is restricted exclusively to damage done to Air Force canteen property.
– Is that in any special category? Is this a regulation quite above the law?
– No. There are other regulations that deal with that. As the title indicates, this provision purports to deal only with Air Force canteen property regulations. It does not deal with the Navy, the Army or even the whole of the Air Force; it deals merely with Air Force canteen property. It is in that context that I should like the honorable senator to apply his mind to it.
As to what happened in connexion under other regulations, I am advised, and I believe, that under section 81 of the Constitution all fines, indeed all moneys collected under circumstances similar to this but under another provision, would go into Consolidated Revenue.
– Are they deemed a debt?
– Apparently. Up until now, such fines, awards, penalties and so forth which have been received have been paid into Consolidated Revenue.
– The authorities can impose a penalty and order its deduction from a man’s income?
– If it is in respect to Commonwealth property, yes, but section 81 of the Constitution applies to penalties imposed under other provisions. Whether it is right or wrong is not for me or for Senator Vincent to debate now. That has been the practice up to the present. Section 81 of the Constitution provides -
All revenues or moneys raised or received by the Executive Government of the Commonwealth shall form one Consolidated Revenue Fund, to be appropriated for the purposes of the Commonwealth in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities imposed by this Constitution.
I have not had personal experience of this in practice, but I have been informed that all fines and penalties go into Consolidated Revenue.
– Would this be a penalty or a fine?
– All I am saying is that any fines or penalties or awards of this nature made by the Air Board since the 1945 regulations were drawn up, if not before, have been paid into Consolidated Revenue. Whether that was right or wrong, wise or unwise, is not for me to debate now. That has been the practice, and the chief purpose of this regulation is to ensure that if an award is made in respect of damage that has been done to Air Force canteen property, the Royal Australian Air Force Canteens Service Board should be reimbursed and payment should not be made to Consolidated Revenue.
– The regulation does not state “ shall “, but “ may “.
– I shall deal with that matter later.
asked if any provision had been made for a minimum reservation of salary after deduction of an amount pursuant to an award such as it contemplated in these regulations. Under the imperial act, which we have incorporated substantially in our own act, that provision is made. We have also incorporated in our legislation a minimum residue, but I am not able to say now precisely what that figure is. The point is that some statutory requirement has been made to ensure that a minimum residue must remain. I am quite sure that no air board with a sense of responsibility, and no government, would approve of dependants being deprived of money to such an extent that they would be destitute.
– I have suggested the safe way. A man’s salary should be protected.
– With all due respect to the honorable senator, that is not the point we are debating. That is provided in the statute and has nothing to do with this regulation. The Leader of the Opposition asked if a minimum amount was provided under the regulation. I assure him that there is a minimum, but this regulation has nothing to do with it. That is a statutory provision which we incorporated in our act which adopts the provisions of the English act.
Senator Vincent has suggested that there should be some appeal from the determination of the Air Board as to taking or collecting amounts by instalments.
– The manner of repayment.
– With all due respect, that is not a matter I wish to debate. This is not a judicial matter under which an appeal in law could arise to determine whether a man should pay 10s. or 1 5s. a week. That is an administrative matter. The point I am making is that at the time of a man’s conviction before a court-martial, in the first instance, or at a subsequent hearing before a court-martial appeal tribunal, he has several courses open to him. Those who have seen courtsmartial in action, know that they are very just.
– At that stage, the man is under the jurisdiction of the court and no order is made against him.
– There is an order. The court-martial makes an order that the man should make reparation. It could direct that reparation be made on terms. Generally, there is adequate provision to ensure that there is no miscarriage of justice, and expense is no item in providing legal representation for the man charged. Counsel is provided for the asking. If the court-martial, in the first instance, makes an award for a substantial amount against the man who has been charged, his counsel may plead that the man cannot pay that amount. He may want time to pay and counsel can bring evidence of the man’s circumstances.
– Counsel is not given that right before the Air Board.
– That is true, but we disallowed that regulation. That has gone entirely. The regulation that the Senate disallowed some time ago related to an administrative act of the Air Board. The point is that if the man believes that an award is more than he is in a position to pay, or that it will cause undue hardship to himself or his family, his counsel may tell the court that he requires time to pay. I should imagine that the court would consider the man’s circumstances. That would be relevant to the judgment, conviction, award or sentence which was still appealable to a civilian tribunal which this Parliament has recently established, which is presided over by a distinguished Queen’s Counsel and which contains in its membership other eminent counsel. An appeal can be based on the whole issue before the court. Senator Wright has said that it can be made on a conviction only. After all, this regulation contemplates something that is done following a conviction. I direct the attention of the Senate to the provision of the Courts-Martial Appeals Act 1955. Section 20 states - (1.) Subject to this Act, a person convicted by court-martial after the commencement of this Act may, with the leave of the Tribunal, appeal to the Tribunal against his conviction. (2.) A person is not entitled to apply for leave to appeal to the Tribunal against a conviction, other than a conviction involving sentence of death -
And the act then contains a number of reservations. Section 23 of the act provides - (1.) Where, upon the hearing of an appeal against a conviction by a court-martial, the Tribunal considers -
that the finding of the court-martial -
that, on any ground, there was a miscarriage of justice, the Tribunal shall, subject to this Division, allow the appeal.
As I read the act, and subject to correction, a man could be convicted and ordered to pay a given amount. The tribunal might assess the damage he has to pay at £2,000. It would be quite competent for the appeal tribunal to state that the finding was unreasonable. Let us suppose an award was made that the amount should be paid forthwith. That also could be found to be unreasonable in the light of the circumstances that the appellant could bring before the appeal tribunal. It is much more satisfactory to have a man’s rights determined in an open tribunal to which the public is admitted and where those who appear before the tribunal can be represented by counsel. Justice is much more likely to be done in that way. 1 cannot see that any infringement of the rights of an individual are involved. The regulation provides that all these rights may be pursued to the full before the matter goes to the Air Board for determination. If this regulation is wiped out entirely, we would not be helping any victim of a wrong or the perpetrator of a wrong because, in the absence of this regulation the money would be payable to Consolidated Revenue. The person against whom an award for compensation was made would have to make his peace and come to terms with the Treasurer.
– From what authority has the Attorney-General been quoting?
– I have referred the honorable senator to Section 81 of the Constitution. I have nothing further to add unless there are some questions that I have not answered.
.- It is very regrettable that the issue has been so little understood by some honorable senators, as shown in the submissions that we have just heard. If honorable senators look at the regulation that is in force at the present time, not having been repealed by the regulations we are now seeking to validate, they will note that it provides -
Any penal deduction made from the pay of a member of the Air Force in respect of a sum required to make good any loss, damage or destruction of canteen property or compensation therefor, whether such deduction is made in consequence of the sentence or award of a court-martial or Commanding Officer . . . shall be paid to the Board.
So, since 1945, there has been in existence a regulation which specifically states that compensation for damage to canteen property shall be paid, not to Consolidated Revenue, but to the board.
– It shall be paid to the board, but the regulation does not provide that it shall be the property of the board.
– Please let me proceed. I want to induce understanding, not destroy it.
– You are going the right way about it.
– I have just read the 1945 regulation, and I want to make the point so plain that it will not intelligently be open to controversy during any subsequent speech. I repeat that the regulation provides -
Any penal deduction made from the pay of a member of the Air Force in respect of a sum required to make good any loss, damage or destruction of canteen property or compensation therefore . . . shall be paid to the Board.
– Then what happens?
– Nothing else is to happen. If the regulation now in force was designed to have the effect that is claimed by the Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan), the draftsman of 1945 was capable of using most apt and lucid language to achieve that result. That is all that the regulation says. I again direct attention to the fact that it provides -
Any penal deduction … to make good any loss, damage or destruction of canteen property . . . shall be paid to the Board.
I hope that no honorable senator who is sufficiently interested to join in the discussion to-night will suggest that that is wrong. It is a perfectly proper regulation, except that it is not limited as to amount. It is limited to a deduction that is penal in nature and is therefore limited to some extent. But no one here is suggesting that the canteens service board should not receive any deductions which are properly made from the pay of Air Force personnel in recompense for damage to canteen property.
– Is not that what Senator Cooke suggested?
– No, Senator Cooke did not say that. No honorable senator suggests that the recompense should not be paid to the board. When the 1945 regulation sought to make that provision, it did so in the clearest of terms.
– May I ask whether it made any provision for payment by instalments? Did it involve the payment of the whole amount?
– It just takes that position as assumed, and refers simply to any disciplinary penal deduction made from pay. And that is quite right, when it is limited to a certain amount. Surely no one would suggest other than that it should be paid to the board in recompense.
Before I come to the regulations now before us, let me take the trouble to mention to the committee that during the suspension of the sitting I had a look at the Australian Military (Canteens Service) Regulations. Although obviously those regulations were the mould in which the regulations now before us were shaped, that is, in giving trading powers and other constitutional powers to the canteens board, they contain nothing that resembles Air Force (Canteens) Regulation 19. I looked also at the naval regulations, which in general structure are similar, but again I found nothing resembling the Air Force regulation that is now before us. So, Mr. Chairman, no argument can be offered to the committee to show that my proposal would strip bare the Air Force Canteens Service Board and expose it to the ravages of malicious members of the Air Force, because up to the present time no similar provision has existed in the Army and Navy canteen regulations.
Now let us see what regulation 19 substitutes for the very clear language of the 1945 legislation, which, I repeat, simply provided that any penal deduction from the pay of a member in recompense for damage to canteen property shall be paid to the board.
– Which board?
– It shall be paid to the Canteens Service Board. Regulation 19 comes in full blast with these words -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial … a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force -
to make good any loss . . . that sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the Board and, without prejudice to any other means of recovery- which obviously means civil action - may be deducted from moneys which are . . . payable … to the member … in such instalments, and in such manner, as the Air Board directs.
That involves the principle of the Truck Act, and any one who has ever been solicitous for the welfare of the wage-earner since 1840 has always referred to the principle of the protection of earnings which represent family sustenance. However, here it is a principle which is left only to the discretion of’ the Air Board. I am not making that point other than as a subsidiary one, but it is involved.
Is it supposed that the draftsman who introduces this language, which provides that the sum shall be a debt due and owing by the member to the board and may, without prejudice to any other means of recovery, be deducted from his pay, was just playing noughts and crosses and was writing something that had no legal operation? Of course he was not! The deliberate choice of language in departing from the 1945 regulation, which had the purpose of which the Attorney-General has been told, that is, to divert the payment from Consolidated Revenue to the Air Board, is -
That sum shall be deemed to be a debt dueand owing by the member to the Board and, without prejudice to any other means of recovery, may be deducted- from his pay - in such instalments, and in such manner, as the Air Board directs.
But, if we allow this regulation to become law, the tribunal which adjudicates that the sum payable in consequence of a courtmartial award in compensation for damage to property, whether it be £10, £1,000, or, as the Attorney-General mentioned, £2,000, is to be a debt is the court-martial itself. A court-martial is not the appropriate body to adjudicate upon civil liability. A courtmartial is the appropriate body to deal with penal deductions in order to enforce discipline, but when the question involved is constituting as a debt a sum in compensation for damages, a court-martial is quite an inappropriate body, even if its decision is appealable.
– Surely it is appealable?
– Only in so far as it is a conviction. A judgment in a civil court is not a conviction.
– There must be the conviction first.
– I claim that a courtmartial has no jurisdiction other than of a disciplinary and penal nature. Therefore, anything it properly awards is a part of a conviction. The very essence of my argument is that we should not allow a courtmartial to turn compensation for loss or damage to property into a debt. A court-martial might make an award that an airman shall pay £2,000 in recompense for whisky lost because of negligent navigation of an aircraft. Honorable senators smile, but there is nothing ridiculous about that. Within a month of our considering the previous regulation an aircraft touched the mast of a yacht in Sydney Harbour, causing upwards of £2,000 damage to the aircraft. lt is not merely the serviceman’s regular periodical pay that we have to protect, but also his reserve pay. I mentioned this afternoon the case of a man who has been complaining of arbitrary injustice since 1945. The whole of his reserve pay was confiscated to pay a debt exceeding £600 that had been adjudicated upon by a courtmartial. If this regulation became law, once a court-martial made an adjudication such as that, the sum involved would be deemed to be a debt: and the Air Board could, as it were, stride over to a civil court in Sydney and lodge a writ of summons. The member of the Air Force concerned would have no defence against the writ because the legislature had said that the court-martial was a proper authority to specify a sum in its award. That sum would constitute a debt due and payable by the member to the Air Board. As I have said, there is no comparable regulation in the Army or the Navy. This regulation will extend the civil authority of a court-martial to an extent never dreamed of in the original regulation.
I therefore ask the committee to say that this regulation should not be validated. An appropriate regulation designed to give effect to the provisions of the 1945 regulation could be put through the Executive to-morrow. If it survived the scrutiny of the Regulations and Ordinances Committee, it would then become law.
.- I think that Senator Wright has been making a mountain out of a molehill. The general powers and functions of the Air Board are very clearly defined in the new regulation, which deals with the activities of the canteens board, the moneys that come under its control and the protection of its property. As most of us know, the property of the canteens board must be protected from the enthusiastic Air Force member who allows his enthusiasm to overrule his judgment. The regulation provides that, as a disciplinary measure, the canteens board shall receive, as recompense for loss or damage of its property, any fines imposed by a courtmartial on’ a member for an offence involving such loss or damage. I feel that the traditions of the Air Force are such that the Air Board would not penalize a member of the Air Force to such an extent that his family would be deprived of sustenance.
– Whether the honorable senator thinks it would or would not, it should not be in a position to do so.
– I feel quite certain that the Air Force regulations, properly interpreted, impose a limit on the extent to which the Air Board can fine a member of the Air Force. I cannot recall the section, but from experience I know that every Air Force man believes that a great proportion of his pay cannot be confiscated.
In dealing with another point more or less highlighted by Senator Wright, I refer the Senate to the wording of regulation 19, which provides -
Where, in consequence of a sentence or award of a court-martial … a sum is required to be paid by a member of the Air Force -
to make good any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board; or
as compensation for any loss, damage or destruction of property of the Board, occasioned by the commission of an offence by the member, that sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the Board.
– Tell us the meaning of that.
– That provision has always applied. While a man remains in the Service, he must comply with any sentence that is imposed on him by a properly constituted court-martial. I think there is a certain amount of confusion between two things. It is implicit in this regulation that previously the moneys were paid to the Air Board and then into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This regulation provides that the money shall be paid to the canteens board, so that the board can replace the damaged property.
– The honorable senator is only dreaming; he has never read the 1945 regulation.
– The honorable senator has waxed sarcastic to-night. He has been tilting with windmills for so long that he has become bemused. I conclude by saying that the Air Board is fully aware of the family responsibilities of members of the Air Force. By obtaining, in the form of a fine, recompense for damage done by a member to canteen property, the Air Board is acting in accordance with the traditions and practices of the Air Force. There is no basic departure from practice in this regulation.
– I find it hard to become wildly excited about this matter, but 1 would like to ask a question. Would it be possible, without serious detriment to the regulation, to substitute the words that Senator Wright says are used in the Army and Navy regulations?
– I am afraid that I see no advantage in what Senator McCallum has put. Senator Wright has made quite a feature of the fact that new regulation 19 provides that the particular sum shall be deemed to be a debt due and owing by the member to the board. There is no great significance in that.
– What is its significance?
– I am coming to that. Surely it is a debt in any case. Regulation 19 does not empower a courtmartial to do anything. The power is elsewhere contained.
– The damage has been done.
– Yes. The courtmartial makes an order for the payment of a sum of money. It is payable to some one, not to the Archangel Gabriel! My advisers and I believe that, normally, under section 81 of the Constitution, it would be a debt payable to Consolidated Revenue. To make it perfectly clear, we do not say that the operative words are, “ that sum shall be deemed to be a debt “. It is a debt. The operative words are, “ a debt owing by the member to the Board “, and not to Consolidated Revenue.
– The debt has been determined by a court-martial.
– It is a debt only if there is, in effect, a malfeasance which the court-martial thinks creates civil liability.
– For good reasons, or ill, the court-martial has determined that there is a debt - a sum payable to some one. The Air Board does not determine it. It has been determined, antecedently, that a debt is payable by the person charged.
– A civil court or jury might say that there was no debt.
– The point is that the court-martial has determined that there is a debt. The accused can appeal to a service tribunal - the Courts-martial Appeal Tribunal, which is constituted of civilians learned in the law. Whether or not an appeal is made against the decision of the court-martial is beside the point, for it has been determined that a sum of money is payable to some one - in the absence of any other expression, to Consolidated Revenue. Therefore, for the purpose of clarifying the matter, we say, “ to the canteens board “. That is the whole purpose of the provision. I should like to emphasize once again that if regulation 19 were entirely deleted it would give comfort to no one. It would not prevent courts-martial from proceeding to fine persons convicted by them, or from awarding damages against such persons.
– 1 suggest that you cannot point to any authority under which a court-martial has power to award damages against any member of the services other than by way of a penal deduction from his pay - such as is contained in section 81 of the Army Act.
– I am sure that I could, but I have not the provision at my fingertips. If what Senator Wright says is indeed correct he need not worry, because nothing in regulation 19 authorizes courtsmartial to do anything. I challenge any honorable senator to point to one sentence in the regulation which authorizes or empowers a court-martial to do anything. All it does is provide that after a courtmartial has made an award, or recorded a conviction, the award shall be collected in a certain way. I cannot put it any more simply than that.
– Can the Minister tell us why the regulation applies to the Air Force alone, and is not to be found in the regulations for the Army or the Navy?
– I should think that it is probably because these regulations are the more modern. It h*s nothing to do with the rights of individuals before a courtmartial. It deals purely with the disposition of the award of moneys made by a courtmartial. I regard it as an improvement, which probably springs from a more enlightened approach to the provisions and obligations of section 81 of the Constitution, under which, according to general opinion, all moneys belonging to the Commonwealth must be paid into Consolidated Revenue. For instance, our taxes are paid to the Commissioner of Taxation, but no one suggests that he does other than receive them on behalf of Consolidated Revenue. The mere fact that the sum has to be paid to the board does not mean that the board keeps the money. Similarly, moneys are paid to the Comptroller-General of Customs. It is not suggested that he keeps them for his own department. It is merely the method by which payment is made. In the case before us, it is made perfectly clear that though the money is paid to the board it is the property of the Commonwealth.
– Under this provision, a court-martial could not arrange for payment by instalments?
– It could. My authority is section 21b of the Crimes Act. My advisers and I believe that it is not necessary for an authority to be expressly given power to extend terms of repayment, and that the power to inflict a fine carries with it the power to permit the fine to be paid by instalments. Under section 21b of the Crimes Act - which is a Commonwealth act - Commonwealth tribunals have often allowed time for the payment of penalties that they have imposed. Section 21b provides -
Whenever any person is convicted of an offence against any law of the Commonwealth the Court may, in addition to any penalty imposed upon him, order the offender to make reparation to the Commonwealth, whether by way of money payment or otherwise, in respect of any loss suffered by the Commonwealth by reason of the offence.
Reparation for damages is clearly in contemplation there.
– Does it apply to members of the forces?
– It applies to any one offending against Commonwealth property. Under it, time “to pay has frequently been given to people convicted and ordered to make reparation.
– Would a determination by a court-martial as to the terms of repayment run parallel to a determination by the Air Board? What happens in those circumstances?
– The Air Board would only come into it to determine what instalments, if any, would be acceptable when the court-martial or court of appeal had not done so as part of its judgment. That is the point which I made earlier. The person affected would, as a rule, be represented by counsel. If terms were required counsel would strongly urge that they be granted, and would place the circumstances of the offender, or victim, before the court. I should imagine that if such an order were at all warranted it would be made. If it were not, the appeal would then have to be made to the Air Board. I have no doubt that if the court order provided for terms the Air Board would have to accept its decision.
– Would you say that under this regulation, if a court-martial convicted a person of embezzlement and ordered the sum to be paid, but made no specific order as to how or when it should be paid, the Air Board could follow up the court order by directing that it be paid in a certain manner?
– If the courtmartial itself did not make any terms?
– If the court-martial made no specific order as to the manner of repayment or restitution, do you say that under this regulation the Air Board could continue the processes of law and make an order?
– It would be not an order but a matter of compromise. It would not be a matter of an order any more than if I went to the Commissioner of Taxation and said, “ I cannot pay my taxes immediately, but I am prepared to pay so much a month “. That is an arrangement. But that would not arise in regard to embezzlement. This regulation concerns the loss, damage or destruction of property. It is no more an award than if the Commissioner of Taxation, in the instance I have mentioned, granted time to pay. It is not a judicial discretion against which there is no appeal. If an award were made to order X to make deductions of pay in relation te damage to canteen property, that would be a matter of arrangement.
– After listening to the contributions to this debate by the legal fraternity, I am quite convinced that there is grave room for suspicion. The Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan) has stated that the regulation does not deal with courts-martial. I point out that the court-martial declares the debt, and therefore references to courts-martial are completely relevant to the regulation under discussion. It is clear from what the Minister has said that Air Force courtsmartial are overriding the civil courts of Australia, and if this practice is allowed to continue it will ultimately displace the civil courts. The Minister has stated that there is a right of appeal against verdicts or findings of a court-martial. Is there a right of appeal to the Supreme Court or to the High Court? No! An appeal can be made only to another court within the Air Force. Therefore, a serviceman suffers a disadvantage compared with civilians from the point of view of appeals.
– That is rubbish.
– It is not rubbish. The regulation provides that the Air Board may decide the amount of damages and the instalments to be deducted from moneys due, or to become due, to the airman. The Minister has not yet said that an appeal may be made against the decision of the board. There may be an appeal against a conviction, but not against the amount assessed in respect of damage and the weekly deductions that shall be made.
Of course, I could mention another case of injustice in relation to an ex-serviceman, but I shall not do so now. The Government clamps down, not only on servicemen, but on ex-servicemen. It seems to be the function of certain high officials to grab money from people as quickly as possible. These officials are not greatly concerned about the hardship that is caused thereby. Do honorable senators think that the board will be any more lenient in its collection of debts than the other officials to whom I have referred?
As Senator Wright has pointed out, an airman convicted by a court-martial will have no right of appeal against the assessed amount of damages or deductions from his weekly income as ordered by the courtmartial. After listening most attentively to the remarks of the Attorney-General, I am convinced that a convicted airman will have no right of appeal in this direction on the ground of hardship. I agree 100 per cent, with the contention of Senator Vincent and Senator Wright that the rights of the civil courts to determine these matters should not be usurped by courts-martial.
– We did not say anything like that.
– These matters should be determined by the civil courts.
– That is pure nonsense.
– Apparently Senator Vincent thinks that I am saying something entirely different from his original contention. As a legal man, surely he believes, as I do, that members of the services should enjoy a right of appeal similar to that enjoyed by those outside the services. It is apparent from the debate that has taken place between the legal members of this chamber that members of the services are at a disadvantage in this respect. I firmly believe that there should be a right of appeal against the assessed amount of damages and the weekly deductions from pay.
– Can the Attorney-General (Senator O’sullivan) refer me to the provisions of the relevant act giving to a court-martial or to a commanding officer exercising disciplinary powers the right to make an order for restitution in cases of embezzlement of Air Force property?
– The relevant section is section 138 of the Air Force Act, that is, the Imperial act, which we have adopted.
– It was adopted in our Air Force Act?
– Yes. Concerning loss, damage or destruction of property, that section provides -
The sum required to make good such compensation for any expenses, loss, damage, destruction occasioned by the commission of any offence as may be awarded by the court-martial by whom he is convicted of such offence, or by the authority dealing summarily with a charge under section forty-seven of this Act, or if he is on board ono of His Majesty’s ships, by the commanding officer of that ship, or where he has confessed the offence and his trial is dispensed with by order under section seventy-three of this Act as may be awarded by that order or by any other order of a competent air force authority under that section:
That is the authority.
– Does it cover damage to canteen property?
– The reference is to damage or destruction occasioned by the commission of an offence.
– Does it include the property of the Royal Australian Air Force Canteens Service Board?
– I have a note on the matter that reads -
The words “ expenses “ and “ loss “ are not limited to public and service funds and property but would also extend to (e.g.) loss of wages and doctor’s expenses incurred by a civilian as the direct result of the offence of which the airman is convicted. But occasions will rarely arise when it is advisable for a service tribunal to exercise its power of awarding a penal deduction to compensate a civilian, who has always his proper legal remedy of bringing a civil action against the airman for recovery of damages.
Question resolved in the negative.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.
Bill read a third time.
page 1671
Debate resumed from 28th November (vide page 1624), on motion by Senator Paltridge -
That the bill be now read a second time.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.
page 1671
Debate resumed from 28th November (vide page 1576), on motion by Senator Spooner -
That the bill be now read a second time.
– The Opposition approves and gives its support to this bill. The natural criticism of such measures is that they do not provide enough assistance, but on the other hand one realizes that it is most difficult to make a beginning with a project of this kind. The Government has presented a bill under which it proposes to make available £500,000 a year to assist in the stratigraphic drilling for oil. This is not a lot of money when one considers the amounts expended in searching for oil; nevertheless, I congratulate the Government on at least having made a beginning, and I hope that in future much larger amounts of money will be made available.
The discovery of oil would be of amazing benefit to Australia. I do not think that at this stage it would matter whether the discovery were made on the mainland or in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. The important thing is that oil should be discovered. The importation of oil involves a serious drain of Australia’s overseas resources. During the last few years, great refineries have been built in this country, and our economy has benefited by millions of pounds through the reduction of petrol imports. But even now. although we have oil refineries in almost every State, oil imports cost £120,000,000 a year. Until such time as we are able to develop power from nuclear fission, oil will continue to be most important to our modern way of life. It is essential to provide the power we need to keep industry moving. Transport, whether on the ground, by sea, or in the air, is almost entirely dependent on oil, and so the Government finds it very difficult to cut oil imports, because any reduction is reflected in every phase of Australian industry.
The need to expend £120,000,000 a year on oil imports will, of course, disappear, if we can discover oil in payable quantities in this country. In the last few years much has been done. I suppose that in the last 50 years £50,000,000 has been spent in the search for oil in Australia, with little or no result. Certainly, it has not resulted in the discovery of oil in commercial quantities. Of that £50,000,000, about £30,000,000 has been spent by the Caltex organization, which is associated in Western Australia with the Ampol organization. The circumstances associated with the discovery of oil at Rough Range, in Western Australia, were most unfortunate. An incredible thing happened. The first bore put down by the organization struck oil, and it seemed as if the oil was present in commercial quantities. Actually, the number of bores that have now been put down are very few indeed compared with what has been done in the great oil-bearing countries of the world, where hundreds of bores were put down before oil was found. In some instances, as many as 2,000 bores were sunk before oil was finally found in commercial quantities. I believe, therefore, that the discovery of oil in Western Australia at the first boring, was in effect, rather a setback, because great disappointment followed when it was found that the oil was not present in commercial quantities and further boring did not prove the presence of oil.
I congratulate the Bureau of Mineral Resources on its work in the search for oil. It has spent a good deal of money in an unobtrusive fashion in helping the search for oil in this country. As the Minister for National Development (Senator Speener) said in his secondreading speech, the bureau has already spent over £1,500,000, and in this financial year it will spend just under £400,000 in oil search activities. It is now proposed that an extra £500,000 shall be expended annually until 1961, so that the Government will share with private companies the cost of drilling stratigraphic holes to prove the nature of the country, and this is very important for investigation purposes. In one respect the Government is at fault. I suppose the matter has been well considered, but the Minister’s speech contained no reference to what will happen if, in stratigraphic drilling activities, we are fortunate enough to discover oil. I am one of those who believe that if that should happen the Government should not just walk away.
– The Government would give it away.
– That seems to be the intention. It would not even sell its interest. If, by some fortunate circumstances, oil were discovered as a result of drilling a stratigraphic hole, would the Government merely shake hands with private enterprise and say, “ Good-bye and good luck “? I should think that after spending perhaps £100,000 or £150,000, the Government should retain some interest in the venture if oil is discovered. Failing a retention of interest in the bore, the Government should evolve some method of recouping the expenditure incurred by it. The Minister was silent on that point in his second-reading speech. From a national point of view, something wonderful would have been achieved in discovering the oil, but as the same time 1 do not think the Government should turn its back on a potential sources of great wealth if, by some fortuitous accident oil was discovered. Why, in all countries where oil has been discovered the governments are extracting greater and greater sums by way of royalties from the companies exploiting the oil deposits. Something along those lines could be done here. To me, the one weakness in the bill is that, having shared the burden, the Government apparently intends to turn its back on this potential source of great wealth and leave the benefits to the companies.
– It should at least give some credit to the officers of the department.
– That is so. The department has a very fine set of officers and I do not think they are so greatly interested in the credit, but at least they should get credit for what they have done. But what is even more important still, the Government should share in any rewards to be had from the discovery of oil.
– Do you not think Sir Arthur Fadden will see to that?
– Only in the same way as he does with everything else. This is something more important than that, and I do not think the honorable senator’s interjection answers the problem.
Another interesting point is that it is proposed that all preliminary expenses shall be borne by the oil companies. For instance, they will be required to build the access roads. These are very expensive. Finally, the Government will share the cost of putting down a bore, constructing the roads, preparing the site and so on, provided the Government has agreed that the bore be put down in a particular site. The Government will then make progressive payments, but no subsidy will be payable until the drill hole has reached a depth of at least 2,000 feet. I cannot recall an exact figure, but I should say that by the time a company had built access roads, done all the preparatory work, and sunk a bore to 2,000 feet it would have expended a very large amount of money indeed.
Each bore, of course, has a different cost. A bore on a readily accessible site would be relatively cheap compared with one put down in the highlands of New Guinea where the cost might be anything up to £1,000,000 by the time access roads have been built and all the other preparatory work carried out. Certainly that is in difficult country, but I am wondering how far £500,000 subsidy will go on the proposed fifty-fifty basis. I do not wish to be critical because I realize that the great difficulty always is to get these schemes started. I congratulate the Government upon having made a start, but I am afraid that £500,000 will not go very far anyway, especially if the Government accepts responsibility for a percentage of the cost of access roads and the preparatory work. To me it would seem that with £500,000 we could subsidize only two or three bores each year.
But do not let us criticize the proposal. I congratulate the Government upon making a start because there can be no denying the fact that at the moment nothing could be more important to the economy of this country than the discovery of oil. What it would do for Australia is beyond our imagination. The mere fact that it would mean the saving of £120,000,000 a year in foreign exchange would be only a minute fraction of the tremendous advantage that would accrue to this country from the discovery of oil in commercial quantities.
The Opposition does not oppose the bill. We congratulate the Government upon laying down a principle that may prove of great value indeed to Australia in the future.
, - I am indeed pleased that the Opposition does not intend to oppose this measure, and I congratulate the Government upon making available £500,000 a year for payment by way of subsidy to drilling companies searching for oil in Australia.
With other supporters of the Government, I have spent a considerable amount of time travelling around Australia inspecting operations in the field. I have also communicated with all the major oil companies to ascertain from them what they think the
Government should do to help them in the search for oil. One of the major recommendations made by almost every company was that the Government should subsidize deep drilling in Australia in areas that have not been proved hitherto. This measure will be of considerable assistance to those companies that are looking for oil in Australia, and it is interesting to know that already eight or nine companies have approached the Government with a view to taking advantage of this legislation.
Oil is vital to Australia. That this is true has been amply illustrated during the recent Suez crisis. While that crisis lasted, some European countries had to resort to the rationing of petrol. Indeed, the Australian press stated that we would have to introduce petrol rationing, but fortunately, we had adequate stocks to carry us through. But who knows what may happen In the future? I do not think any sum would be too great for any government to spend on the search for oil.
Australia has erected some large refineries in the last four or five years, and we axe now refining from 80 per cent, to 9.0 per cent, of our total requirements. Despite the erection of those refineries, imports of oil are costing Australia about £120,000,000 a year and the cost is increasing by about 10 per cent, each year. If we did not have refineries in Australia treating about 80 per cent, of our requirements, the cost of 011 imports to Australia would be nearer £200,000,000 a year.
Over the past 50 years, approximately £50,000,000 has been spent in Australia on the search for oil. It is interesting to note that £33,000,000 of that £50,000,000 has been spent by oil companies in Australia and New Guinea during the past four years. The Government can help the oil companies in the search for oil in two ways. One is through the Bureau of Mineral Resources by making the bureau’s mapping section available to its geologists so that they can do the necessary geophysical and geological surveys and make them available to the oil companies. The oil companies can then engage in concentrated geophysical work and decide where drilling can best be started.
The second way to assist the oil companies is by way of income tax concessions. At present, shareholders are given a tax deduction in respect of 33i per cent, of all calls made by companies engaged in the search for oil. An oil company may be granted a tax concession in respect of all expenditure incurred in exploration work, drilling and setting up of plant to produce oil, retrospective to the initial commencement of operations, but only if and when oil is found.
Overseas companies searching for oil in Australia use money that they have obtained from the sale of petroleum products in other parts of the world. They can claim expenditure on oil search in Australia as a tax concession in their own country, but until oil is found, an Australian company and those who have subscribed the capital for it, do not get the benefit of such a tax concession. The Government could well investigate that matter.
– They can get a tax deduction only when there is a loss in the course of their business?
– No. I did not say that. I said that the major American oil companies which are producing oil and are selling it at a profit can search for oil outside America and claim expenditure thereon as an offset in determining their net profits from the sale of oil. Australian companies and investors can claim a tax concession on expenditure in the search for oil only when oil is found. Until oil is found, the persons who invest capital in an Australian company which is searching for oil can claim as a tax concession only onethird of the calls levied upon them. Once oil has been found, the company concerned can claim the whole of the expenditure incurred in the search as a deduction for income tax purposes.
I congratulate the Government on taking the step that is implicit in this bill because it will be of great assistance to the oil companies. Quite a few of them will take advantage of these concessions. Already nine of them have approached the Government, through the Bureau of Mineral Resources, for assistance. We shall find oil in Australia only by increased drilling. Although we have expended about £50,000,000 on the search for oil in the past 50 years, we have been able to drill only about 400 holes in Australia and the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Before oil was found in the Sahara, the major oil companies sank about 2,000 miles of drill-holes. In Alberta, about 3,000 miles of drill-holes were sunk over a period of 30 years before oil was discovered.
We are only scratching the surface in Australia. The Minister indicated in his second-reading speech that about 400 miles of drill-holes had been sunk. If we have to sink between 2,000 and 3,000 miles of holes before oil is found it will be seen we are now only one-fifth or one-sixth of the way towards our goal. This bill is designed to encourage the companies to increase drilling operations in Australia. I have no doubt that we shall find oil eventually in Australia if the search is intensified. Western Australian Petroleum Limited struck oil with its first bore at Rough Range No. 1. The company and the Government were disappointed to find that oil was not present in sufficient quantities to make Rough Range a major field. The oil was found in only a small area. The company hoped to find more oil nearby, but no more oil has been discovered although eight or nine additional holes have been sunk.
The company is confident that there is oil in Western Australia. Company officials have said that they do not know whether they will find oil or not, but they intend to keep on trying, and the assistance proposed by the Government will help them considerably. As the Opposition does not intend to oppose the bill, I shall not detain the Senate further. I hope that the Government will take advantage of all practical constructive suggestions that are made to it so that the search for oil in Australia can be intensified. The introduction of legislation of this kind is one of the most important ways in which the Government can help the industry. I have no doubt that it is examining other ways in which it may help, but the availability of £500,000 in an ordinary year and £300,000 in this financial year will be of considerable benefit. I congratulate the Government upon having introduced the bill.
– 1 think it is apparent to every Australian that it is necessary for this country to discover oil as soon as possible. We have only to think for a moment or two of the sum that Australia spends overseas on the purchase of oil supplies to realize the truth of what
I have just said. If, by discovering oil within this country, we could save ourselves that expenditure, we undoubtedly would be able to engage in further development and 40 achieve greater things than we arc achieving at the moment. The daily demands of oil-burning machines should remove any doubt that we may have about the need for money to be taken from the coffers of the Commonwealth and spent on the search for oil.
This measure provides for an annual subsidy of £500,000 to companies and other organizations that are engaged in a certain kind of boring in the search for oil. We of the Opposition support the measure and say that the idea behind it is a splendid one. If a similar offer had been made 20 or 30 years ago, possibly we would now be using our own oil. I should like to see a sum of at least £1,000,000 a month spent on the search for oil in Australia and the Territories of the Commonwealth.
I can recall a discussion that took place in this chamber some years ago in relation to the purchase of deep-boring plant. 1 held at that time that whatever was done in that direction was strictly in order. I added that, if I had any objection at all, it was only in regard to the number of plants that were being purchased. I think that the number should have been trebled and that the Government itself should have engaged in boring operations.
The method of distributing the sum that is to be made available may be quite all right. I have no doubt that the Minister for National Development (Senator Spooner) and the highly skilled officers of his department will get their pound of flesh and will have some arrangement whereby they will have full knowledge at any time of what is being done by those who will seek the subsidy, and will be able to judge whether the money is being spent properly. We all know that some companies raise shareholders’ funds, select a site somewhere in Queensland, the Northern Territory or Western Australia, and seek to find an oil supply. We know, too, just how unsuccessful such companies have been, and that, after the shareholders’ funds have been exhausted, no more exploration work has been undertaken. That has happened repeatedly and we do not seem to have got anywhere in the search for oil; but I think that the new arrangement is quite a good one and that the scientific knowledge that the department has at its disposal may, when made available to the companies, lead to a discovery of oil.
Almost every lay person in Australia has some idea about where oil may be found. I have my own idea; I think that, if the boundary between the Northern Territory and Western Australia were followed, eventually oil would be discovered. I think it is more likely that it will be found in that locality than elsewhere on the mainland. Some companies have spent huge sums of money in the Territories that are under the control of the Commonwealth, but we know just how unsuccessful they, too, have been so far. Perhaps they are following a too scientific course and are being guided too much by what has been done before and the information that scientific study has made available to them. The great mineral discoveries of Australia have been made by chance. The Mount Morgan gold mining field, which is one of the most notable, was discovered not by a geologist but by a miner. The great Mount Isa silver lead mining field was discovered by a fossicker who had great difficulty in persuading even his own workmates that he had discovered a valuable mineral. Uranium was discovered, not by a scientist or geologist, but by a nomad who was wandering through the country surrounding Rum Jungle.
– There is very little parallel there.
– There may be very little parallel, but we know just how often a fossicker has m’ade such discoveries without being assisted to any great degree by scientific knowledge within the Commonwealth. I could cite other discoveries, including the discovering of opals and coal. Only twelve months ago, I visited a certain part of Queensland where an open-cut coal mine was being worked no more than a mile or two away from an underground mine where coal was being mined perhaps several hundred feet below the surface. That outcrop was discovered purely by accident. We will probably find that at some time in the future companies that are searching for oil will, contrary to scientific advice, sink bores in certain places and discover oil.
– That has been done before.
– I have just been informed by a man who has more knowledge of the mining industry than I have that that has been done before. But I do not wish to labour the point.
I support the bill. I have already indicated that I have one fault to find with it - that is, the sum to be provided is insufficient. Not too many companies can be subsidized annually with £500,000. When we see just how many motor vehicles are on the roads, how many internal combustion engines and industrial plants are in operation, and how much modern heavy equipment is being used, we know that the discovery of oil in Australia is essential if we are to stabilize and improve our economy. 1 hold the opinion that no country can become great, in the sense that America and Canada have become great, unless it has its own oil supply. I need not dwell upon that proposition because it is apparent to every one. If Australia had its own supplies it would be a vastly different country within a year or two. We speak about developing power from uranium, but perhaps that is still a long way off. Even if such power were developed, Australia would still have to import oil from other countries. I look forward to something tangible being achieved as the result of this money being made available.
– in reply - I accept all the complimentary remarks that have been made about the legislation and shall deal only with the critical comments, or perhaps it would be better to call them analytical comments. Senator Armstrong asked what would be the position if oil were discovered in one of these stratigraphic holes. I think that that is an extraordinarily long shot. It is not contemplated that oil will be struck in the drilling of these holes, which are to be drilled for the purpose of obtaining geological information.
– That is why the subsidy is to be paid.
– That is the reason why the subsidy is to be paid. It is not considered likely that oil will be discovered in these holes, but the Government wishes to encourage people to drill the holes, or, at least, not to do anything to discourage people from drilling them.
This is not a simple matter. If the unexpected occurred and oil were discovered in one of these holes, many considerations would be involved. The company that was drilling the hole, for which it was receiving a subsidy, would own the plant and have a lease or a title to the area in which the drilling was taking place. It would, most likely, have spent large sums of money in searching for oil in other areas and by other means. The fact that oil is discovered does not mean that the discovery will be a commercial proposition. Many are called but few are chosen. A company might strike oil and then spend large sums of money to exploit the discovery, but still not obtain the harvest it expected to garner.
What would be the position as far as the Commonwealth Government is concerned? What proportion of future expenses would the Commonwealth find, and what would be the equitable way of apportioning the interests involved? That is all I shall say on that point. It would not be just a simple matter of oil being found and the profits being split 50-50 by the two parties.
– Oil could be found in one of these holes.
– It could be.
– It was found in Texas in that way.
– It could be found. The Government’s responsibility is not to cloud the atmosphere, not to discourage people from drilling these holes by trying to work out long, complicated formulas as to what should be done in certain circumstances.
– I presume that royalties would be payable to the State.
– I do not think the Treasury would lose. Let us take another case. A stratigraphic hole might be drilled, and, as a result of information obtained from it, another hole might be drilled a mile away and oil found in the second hole. The Government might not be able to claim an interest in the second hole that had been drilled by the prospector. I make that statement without intending to commit myself as to what would be the position. I think a case like that would have to be looked into.
Senator Armstrong said that, as he read the legislation, a prospecting company would be called upon to spend a large sum of money before it became eligible for a subsidy when the hole was down to a depth of 2,000 feet. That is so. But if honorable senators will look at the legislation, they will see that the process is in two parts. The company puts a proposition to the Minister. If that proposition is approved, the company, at that stage, asks for a subsidy. It may be that the money will not be paid until the prospecting company has made a substantial investment. That is as it should be. We do not want to pay out Government money and then find that the prospecting company is unable to carry out its part of the bargain. The proposition is put to the Government and approved by the Government. The company knows then that when its work has reached a certain stage, it will be able to obtain a subsidy. It carries on its programme against the background of a definite and certain arrangement.
Senator Armstrong has said that £500,000 will not go very far. That remains to be seen. It is at least £500,000 more than has been available in the past. A good deal of organization must be done. There are about a dozen of these sedimentary basins in Australia and Papua and New Guinea, and the Government’s aim is to have stratigraphic holes drilled in each of these basins. A great deal of this drilling has not been done up to the present time, because it is a very expensive proposition. As I said in my second-reading speech, the natural inclination of the oil companies, and of the people who invest money in these speculative ventures, is to drill holes where they think they will strike oil, instead of drilling holes to obtain information on which to base a long-term search for oil. We will have to wait and see. It may be that this £500,000 will produce the result at which we aim - to have one deep stratigraphic hole drilled in each of the twelve sedimentary basins. Four or five such holes have already been drilled by companies engaged in the search for oil.
Senator Scott dealt with income tax concessions. He stated the position accurately when he said that at present one-third of the amount paid on calls is an allowable deduction. A company that is successful in striking oil has the right to set off against its profits in the future the expenses it has incurred in its search for oil. We have also to remember that, quite apart from taxation concessions, there is a tremendous reward waiting for a company that is successful in striking oil. That reward will far outweigh any advantages to be gained.
Senator Benn suggested that he would like to see more money spent on the search for oil. He advocated the expenditure of £1,000,000 a month, and intimated that he would prefer to see the Government itself engaged in boring operations. I must differ from his point of view - not on any ideological ground, but on the ground that the whole art of the exercise is to get people searching for oil in as many different areas of Australia as possible.
In the judgment of the Government’s professional advisers it is infinitely better that we should employ our resources upon the work that is basic to a good oil search programme. I refer to the early geological and geophysical surveys concerning the nature of the country, upon which are based geological maps that are available for all to see. The Government provides this basic, foundational work. The experience of oil search throughout the world has shown that a government is more likely to attract interest and encourage actual search if, instead of dissipating its resources upon boring, it provides this basic information. Boring is, of course, the last act in the process of searching. It is the culmination of what I have always pictured as a detective research job. First, the geologists, and other experts, examine geological formations with the assistance of aerial photographs. They are followed by geologists and geophysicists operating in the field. A geological picture of the area is then available, and from it conclusions may be drawn as to where the hole should be drilled.
The provision of subsidies to encourage deep drilling is another link in forging the chain of adequate information, which is needed if we are to attract, not only local investment, but also investment from overseas. Tn my second-reading speech I gave some figures to show how necessary it was that large scale investment be encouraged, for substantial sums of moneys are involved. The Government’s policy, based on professional advice, has been to provide basic information in the most adequate way possible.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.
page 1678
Debate resumed from 28th November (vide page 1578), on motion by Senator Cooper -
That the bill be now read a second time.
– The bill seeks legal authority for the payment of repatriation benefits to natives of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, or an island of the Torres Strait, and other adjacent islands within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth, who served in the Australian forces during the second world war. Since the war eligible natives have been granted repatriation benefits, and this bill does no more than give legal authority for the continuance of such payments.
The Minister pointed out in his secondreading speech that in 1941, when it was decided to raise native units, the natives were paid according to the social and economic conditions which they enjoyed at the time of enlistment. The rates paid to those who worked for the Administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea were different from those paid to, say, Torres Strait islanders.
The bill specifically provides for the application of the War Gratuity Act, and repatriation benefits, as well as compensation for incapacity or death, to natives who have served this country in time of war. It is perhaps worthy of note that, notwithstanding the absence of legal authority for so doing, full appreciation has already been shown, in the granting of repatriation benefits, to those natives who so greatly assisted the Australian forces. We must never forget the great contribution that they made, under extremely adverse conditions, to the war effort. They permitted their village life to be interrupted, though they could quite easily have remained at home, despite the occupation, and profited by physically assisting the enemy. However, they felt a basic loyalty to this country and its people and it is a great tribute to the pre-war administration that, in contrast to what has happened in countries which have been branded as colonially minded, the natives of our Territories responded to their humane treatment by volunteering in such a grand way. Their attitude was further revealed in the many acts of devotion to duty and heroism that they displayed during the worst stages of the war when we most needed their help. I should think that considerable attention will have to be given to the question of the eligibility of a native to receive the benefits provided by the bill, because many Australian ex-servicemen have experienced difficulty in establishing their eligibility for repatriation benefits. As we know, over the years attention has been focussed on the onus-of-proof provision of the act. Because records are incomplete, or were lost, many ex-servicemen have been precluded from obtaining repatriation benefits. Although the wording of the bill is sufficiently wide to include the natives who served with our forces during the war, I do not consider that the full spirit of the Repatriation Act has been incorporated in this legislation in order to ensure that the natives who suffered incapacity through their war service are properly compensated by means of repatriation benefits. So that we may retain the full confidence of the natives, which we enjoyed during the war years by doing something worthy to acknowledge their assistance to our forces, I think that the district patrol officers should assist natives in their areas to establish their claim for repatriation benefits if their disabilities are attributable to war service.
The Opposition does not oppose this measure, the desirability of which, we believe, has been overlooked in the past. It provides to the natives who rescued many of our servicemen who had been injured while fighting in the jungle, and brought them back to casualty clearing stations, tangible evidence of the appreciation of the Australian nation. In a small degree, it shows that we deeply appreciate the assistance that the natives rendered to our forces during World War II. The Opposition gives the legislation its blessing.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.
page 1679
Debate resumed (vide page 1643).
– The Opposition supports the bill. It is a purely machinery measure to amplify the definition of “ Governor-General “ in the Acts Interpretation Act, to include the GovernorGeneral through his deputies acting on the advice of the Executive Council. There is a corresponding provision in relation to the Governor of a State. The term is expanded to include an administrator acting in that capacity. The existing definition of “GovernorGeneral” in section 17 is repealed. These are necessary provisions, and we support them.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.
page 1679
Motion (by Senator O’sullivan) proposed -
That the Senate do now adjourn.
– I regret my action in detaining the Senate at this late hour, but I wish to bring before honorable senators a matter that, to me, is very important; if I do not do so now, I may not have another opportunity to refer to it before the end of this session. This afternoon, I received from the Minister acting for the Minister for Immigration a reply to a question I had asked, upon notice, on the subject of child migration, in which I have been intensely interested ever since the inception of the post-war scheme based on the 1946 legislation. In 1947, I met the first batch of child migrants that came to this country.
The agreement to bring child migrants to Australia from Great Britain and Malta was brought about by the exigencies of war and the necessity to find homes for as many war-orphaned children as could possibly be accommodated. Due to the necessity for speedy action at that time, some aspects of the matter were overlooked, and they havenot since been rectified. I do not think sufficient attention was given at the time, nor has it since been given, to the care of these . children after they reach the age of sixteen years and are no longer able to remain in institutions; when they no longer are the direct responsibility of various child, welfare organizations.
At this stage, I should like to pay a tribute to Mr. Young, the child welfareofficer in my own State of Western Australia. He has done, and is still doing, a wonderful job in connexion with child migrants. Unfortunately, however, during, the last few months a few of these teenageboys, as well as other teen-agers in-the community, have been running foul of the law. The percentage of migrant boys soinvolved has been considerably less than the percentage of boys from the rest of the community, but the very fact that some boys involved are migrants has been unduly stressed in the press, with the result that there has been a great deal of adverse publicity and criticism, not only of theboys but also of the whole scheme. I regard this criticism as being completely unwarranted. However, it does raise a problem which I have discussed with the various authorities concerned.
Unfortunately, honorable senators did not hear the answers given to me this afternoon by the Minister for Immigration. Most of those who have been in some kind of conflict with the law - they are mainly boys, because boys have been giving the most trouble, as usual, I suppose - are between the ages of 16 and 18 years. This, naturally poses a question as to how far the responsibility of the Commonwealth Parliament extends to children whom it has helped to bring to Australia.
In Western Australia alone, there have been 1,394 child migrants in the last ten years. Of those, 298 have been absorbed by the Fairbridge farm school scheme, which was well established long before the war, and has an excellent organization both here and in England. It has its own after-care officers, and its wards are of the type we need in this country.
Of the other children, eight have gone to the Methodist Children’s Home, 195 to the Church of England Swan Homes for girls and boys, and 893 to Catholic institutions in the State. I was astounded, as perhaps other honorable senators will be astounded, to learn that the Commonwealth Government’s sole contribution to the support in Australia of these children is only 10s. a week in child endowment. The United Kingdom Government, or the Government of Malta, in the case of those children who come from Malta, contributes 12s. 6d. a week for each child. The Western Australian Government contributes £1 2s. 3d. a week for each child, plus ls. if the children receive education at schools on the premises of these institutions. An amount of 7s. 6d. per week is provided by the Western Australian Lotteries Commission. We are rather getting migrants on the cheap when we have recourse to a lotteries commission to help us support these children. I know that the institutions are very glad to get this money, but although the Commonwealth Government has sponsored the scheme it is paying only child endowment toward the cost of their maintenance, in addition to an outfitting allowance of £10 to equip a child with clothing on arrival in Australia.
The Minister’s answer also states that £146,000 has been made available in Western Australia as a joint contribution by Commonwealth and State governments towards the capital cost of providing accommodation for migrant children, and more than £500,000 has been spent for this purpose throughout Australia. I understand from official sources that Western Australia has received more than half the child migrants under this scheme, but it has received only a little over one-quarter of the total contribution towards capital cost of accommodation. The Commonwealth Government has been paying, on an average, 4s. a week for each child for accommodation in Western Australia. We take due cognisance of that fact, and thank the Government for it.
I come in contact with numbers of these boys. Many of them visit me at my home, and since they first arrived many have called me “ Aunty “ because I have taken a personal interest in them. I know some of their problems. Coming from institutions, they go into employment and, for the first time in their lives they have money of their own in their pockets. For the first time, they have complete independence. An examination of their ages shows that they were born either in the year war was declared or in one of the early years of the war. In their youth they knew nothing but war and the problems associated with it. The result is that, when they have money in their pockets for the first time, the first things they buy are pink socks and yellow shirts, or some kind of so-called bodgie outfit, not because they are bodgies but just because that is what the other lads are doing. We find that the greatest problem is that of accommodating them after they have left the institutions and providing them with proper supervision. It is all very well for the department to say, as the Minister said in his reply, that adequate arrangements with the Child Welfare Department and church organizations exist for the after-care of these children. Fairbridge, of course, has its own after-care officer.
I have discussed this matter with the church authorities concerned. They, too, are very anxious about the problem, but their funds will not extend to paying welfare officers of their own to see that these children are adequately supervised. Although these organizations do their best - I pay a tribute to Mr. Robertson of the Anglican church and to Miss Sanderson of the Catholic Migration Committee for the work they are doing in trying to keep supervision over these lads who are scattered in various homes - their task is difficult. I think the Government should perhaps help by subsidizing the cost of employing at least one officer to carry out supervisory work for all the church committees, as they are the ones who are sponsoring these children. That is not a great deal to expect. Officials of the Child Welfare Department are at the present time fully occupied with all their other duties. They have to look after neglected and destitute children, and children who are committed to their care by the Children’s Court. The Child Welfare Department has not the time or the personnel to ensure that this job is adequately done. I have visited some homes in which children are billeted, and have found that in some instances the homes are one of the causes of the problem. They are not always satisfactory, and a boy is sometimes moved from one home to another because satisfactory arrangements are not made. In many instances there is nowhere for him to go after the evening meal. Sometimes he is regarded as a meal ticket by the householder, and after the evening meal he has either to sit in a back room of the house or go down to the corner milk bar. In no time he is in a street gang, and in a few weeks he is in difficulty before a court.
I know that these things are true. In the last few months I have spent some days in courts speaking on behalf of children who have become involved in minor breaches of the law. They would not be so involved if we had some kind of hostel for the care and accommodation of boys of from sixteen to eighteen years of age. Nobody asks for expensive buildings, but they need some place where they could become more used to the ways of the world and be more easily assimilated into the community. Of the boys who leave institutions each year, a high percentage would be normally assimilable into good families. Many people are only too pleased to take these children into their homes, but, as in every community, there are always problem boys, and those are the ones of whom we must take more cognizance.
I have been making a survey of the various suburbs where the lads are located, and I find that lads in those suburbs which are most conducive to the existence of gangs are far more likely to finish up in some kind of trouble. Some of the homes to which they go are not very suitable, and some of the boys are in trouble with the persons in the houses to which they are assigned. I should like the Commonwealth to consider helping the church or welfare authorities to establish a church hostel. They are quite willing to work in together on this matter. I have spoken to all the authorities concerned and they are willing to work together to help the boys between sixteen and eighteen years of age. This would not require a very big institution. It would not need to be a replica of the one they had left. Perhaps the better system would be to have several small homes catering for an average of twelve boys who would gradually become ordinary members of the Australian community.
These are really worth-while lads. They are very likeable lads. Even though some of them have served prison sentences, I have been very proud to have them in my home. They come to see me regularly, and I submit that it is the responsibility of us, who pass legislation to bring these boys to Australia, to do our utmost to carry the job through to a successful conclusion by helping these lads through the very difficult period between sixteen and eighteen years of age and to see that each of them is given the opportunity to become the decent citizen that I know he can be.
.- I, too, regret having to detain the Senate at this late hour, but I cannot ignore an invitation by the Minister for Shipping and Transport (Senator Paltridge) to take any means at my disposal to obtain redress in the matter to which I am about to refer. The only means I have at my disposal for ventilating the matter, if I feel that my electors are not being treated fairly by government departments, or if I feel that Commonwealth officers are not playing the game fairly, is to bring the matter before the notice of the appropriate Minister in the Senate.
I have been doing that. About twelve months have elapsed since I first took up this matter, and I propose now to give reasons why I approached the federal authorities. On 5th October, 1956, Mr. H. R. Driscoll, manager of the Agricultural Bank in Hobart, sent to Mr. O’Shea a letter which read, in part -
This decision by the Commonwealth-
He did not say “ State “- is binding on all closer settlement boards, and I must therefore require you to let me have a payment forthwith and to make payments regularly in future.
On 19th October, 1956 - which was not yesterday - Mr. Driscoll concluded a letter addressed to me, with these words -
I would suggest that if you desire to make representations on behalf of Mr. O’Shea you should approach the Minister for Primary Industry in Canberra.
Honorable senators will notice that he did not say, “ the Minister for Agriculture in Tasmania “. He said, “ the Minister for Primary Industry in Canberra “.
Naturally, accepting that good advice, I raised the matter here. I have asked a number of question, and I have raised the matter on the motion for the adjournment. In the first instance, the Leader of the Government (Senator O’sullivan) took up the question. He soon fell out. I was then directed to Mr. Colquhoun. Mr. Colquhoun asked me for certain information in the form of affidavits. I obtained that information and handed it to him, and the charges I make are based on what is contained in those affidavits, not on hearsay. They are based on what is contained in the affidavits and what I saw for myself - but mainly on what is contained in the affidavits.
On a number of occasions I have asked whether the statements contained in those affidavits were statements of fact or whether they were not. The Minister has sidetracked answering on every occasion. He has refused to answer “ Yea “ or “ Nay “. He will not dispute them. He will not say they are false, and he will not say they are true. That leaves me in mid-air again, and in the circumstances I can only bring up the matter here.
The Minister himself has admitted that he is not an agricultural man. He has amply demonstrated that. If he had been an agricultural man, he would not have put up the Aunt Sallys that were passed up to him when he spoke last on that matter here. I shall deal with them shortly.
In the course of his reply to me on the last occasion, the Minister said -
I sum up. This man contracted a debt through inefficiency, and there is obviously no reason at all why the public purse should be expected to subsidize inefficiency.
If this man had contracted this debt through inefficiency, purely through his own fault, I would not be here to-night speaking in his defence. I charge the departmental officers with displaying as much inefficiency as that shown by this man. I assert that 75 per cent, or 80 per cent, of Mr. O’Shea’s so-called inefficiency was due to sickness in the family and to accident, and emphasize that there is no excuse whatever for the inefficiency shown by the departmental officers.
If this man was so inefficient, why did not the departmental officers step in sooner and direct him? It must not be forgotten that Mr. O’Shea offered to stay on that property. He was not anxious to move off. He offered to work on the property under the direction of the officers, and to take so much as wages. He has stated that in a signed affidavit. The departmental officers refused his request, and sold him up. If there was any inefficiency there, I submit that the departmental officers showed as much inefficiency as did Mr. O’Shea, especially in connexion with the purchase and sale of O’Shea’s stock. If what Mr. O’Shea says about what was circulated about his stock, who bought the stock and for whom it was bought is true, does it not reek of something shady, does not the transaction bear all the appearances of being shady? I repeat that this man’s allegations are contained in an affidavit signed by him. I now ask the Minister whether he can produce affidavits from departmental officers contradicting what Mr. O’Shea has said.
Let me go a little further. The Minister put up the argument that this man had ordered a new car. Can he produce a signed order form from any car dealer to show that this man did order a new car? I have done a little car selling in my time, and I know that no car is ordered until a man’s name is on the dotted line of an order form. Every car salesman knows that. No car salesman will say that any man has ordered a new car unless he has some proof of it, especially if the prospective buyer is buying on hire purchase. Let the Minister produce the signed order form. Do not let us have Aunt Sallys built up on hearsay or on some statement circulated by somebody who is out to down another man.
Let us now deal with the other car mentioned by the Minister. If O’Shea’s wife was able by some other means to save money and buy an old second-hand car, is that to be held against the ex-soldier? If she has money of her own, has she got to put it in to wipe off this man’s alleged debt to the Government? I should like the Minister’s reply on that point. Has she got to put her own money in? Has she got to put in money that she has obtained from other private sources? In any event, O’Shea could not afford to run it or to keep it on the road, and it lay in the back yard.
Having dealt with the point raised by the Minister in connexion with the car, I come now to another matter mentioned by him. He said that too much superphosphate had been applied to some paddocks on O’Shea’s property, and that none had been put on others. Did the departmental officers go to O’Shea and tell him he was making a mistake? Were they there to see what superphosphate he had spread over the paddocks? If they were, did they check him and tell him he was making a mistake? I should like to know. I say they did not. I say that the superphosphate is on the area now. The suggestion put up is that O’Shea applied two bags to the acre on some of the land and none to other parts of the land. According to the Minister’s own words, some of the closer settlement land - I am not referring to King Island now - that this Government has been backing financially requires the application of 5 cwt. to the acre. As one who knows a little about the land, I can only say, “ God help the public purse if land has to be fed with superphosphate at the rate of 5 cwt. to the acre in order to grow grazing grass “ ! Some of this land might have had two bags of superphosphate to the acre, but O’Shea might have been directed to fertilize it heavily. The main point is that O’Shea bought the fertilizer and it is now on the land and the person who is making a success of the property now is getting the benefit from that superphosphate. The man whom the Government is asking to pay for the fertilizer is getting no benefit whatever. The man who followed him would get the benefit and this ex-serviceman is not to be allowed any compensation for the manure, although he claims that he could have made good if he had been given an opportunity once he recovered his health.
The Minister said that this man was guilty of a terrible crime. He must be put off his property because he spread too much manure on one part of his land and not enough on others. The Minister’s second point was that the settler should be put off the farm because he allowed his bull to run with the cows. I was milking cows in 1930 when butterfat was 6d. per lb., so I can talk with some knowledge about bulls running with cows, but I doubt whether the Minister for Primary Industry knows anything about it. When Mr. Colquhoun gave this explanation I thought he was joking. I did not think that he would have the cheek to get the Minister to put this matter to the House.
Let us consider the proposition. What sense is there in keeping the bull away from the cows at certain times of the year? If a dairyman knows his job, he will want the cows to come in at a certain time. On most farms it is not possible to have cows coming in at all times if the farmer hopes to treat them properly. Unless he has help, he must have cows coming in at intervals so that he can handle the stock. An efficient dairyman knows that all the calves have to be reared as a rule, and a man is in a fix if he tries to handle 20 calves at a time on his own. There is the brutal way of doing it by leaving the calves in a paddock so that they will either drink or die. Some of them will die before they will drink. Calves should be nursed. It was essential for this farmer to have his cows coming in at intervals. He was quite within his rights and could do no harm in allowing the bull to run with the cows unless they would come in too early, and the district is an early one for feed.
The Minister said that the man had a broken ankle. He had his bull fenced in one paddock and he had to get his cows to the bull. What hope did he have with a broken ankle and a crazy, mad bull on one side of the fence and a half-crazy cow on the other side? Is the Government going to put a man off a farm because he did not separate the bull from the cows when he had an broken ankle? Honorable senators who know nothing about dairy-farming may laugh, but anybody who knows the finer points of the industry, will realize that these are hard cold facts. This farmer had every good reason to run his bull with the cows. With his broken ankle he would have been in a terrible fix if he had not done so.
The Minister said that the settler broke his ankle playing football, and that that was sufficient reason to push him off the farm and sell his property. When a man goes on to a war service land settlement property, does he have to stay there day and night, Saturdays and Sundays included, and not have some recreation? Is he to be just a slave for the War Service Land Settlement Division? Must he ask permission of the division before he can play cricket, or golf, or football? Any honorable senator could trip on the steps while walking out of this chamber, and break his ankle. Would it be said that he had no right to be on the steps, and that he should have been sitting in the chamber doing his job? Can the Minister claim that because a man wants a little recreation after working his farm it is a crime for him to kick a football with some of his mates? Is it such a crime that he should be sold up and put off the farm? The Minister will not deny that he gave that reason among others for putting this man off the property.
These are Aunt Sallys that have been put up by the Minister because the Government has not got a case to answer the representations that I made. This man has been accused of being lazy. The Minister should ask his present boss, the man for whom he has been working ever since he was pushed off the farm, whether or not he is lazy. His employer will not describe him as being lazy. If he had been lazy, he would not have kept his employment all the years since he was put off the farm.
The Minister said, for good measure, that the settler suffered his illnesses a long time ago. That is true. If he had not been sick a long time ago, he would not have been pushed off the farm. He lost the property because of his bad health. His wife has had a heart attack, or a stroke, since then, and the settler has been in the repatriation hospital, but his recent illnesses have not compared with those he suffered when he lost his farm.
I reiterate that the Commonwealth Government has not played fairly with me by stating that this is a State matter. It has kept me waiting for twelve months before trying to slip out from under. For twelve months, Commonwealth officers have accepted the responsibility. Now they want to say that this is a State responsibility. If it is a State matter, why did the Commonwealth authorities enter into negotiations on this case? Why was I not referred to the State at once. The State authorities said that this was a Commonwealth responsibility and that they could do nothing about it. I have correspondence from the State officers to that effect. Therefore, I have no recourse but to raise this matter in the Senate. If I cannot get any satisfaction or reasonable redress for this man, I will raise the matter wherever I speak, from one end of the electorate to the other, because I believe that I have a good case.
The Government has not bowled over my case. I do not blame the Minister for Shipping and Transport for not having answered my questions adequately. He has to put forward the reply that is suppliedto him. I do not propose to accept it in this instance.
– I do not propose to speak at length in reply to Senator Aylett. There is no need to do so because this case has been before the Senate frequently. Senator Aylett has not failed to use every opportunity to bring this matter to the notice of the Senate. The cold unyielding facts are that the man concerned was settled on a war service land settlement farm. It should not be necessary to me to remind the Senate that it is not the function of the War Service Land Settlement Division to kick ex-servicemen off farms. It is the function of the division to establish them on properties. As I have said on a number of occasions, in every State throughout Australia the record of the division is one of which we as a Parliament, and not as party supporters, should be justifiably proud. Senator Aylett has come forward with an isolated case, and has said that this man has not been given a fair go. He claims that this man has been unfairly treated. Mr. President, I submit that this case has been examined with a sympathy that is characteristic of the administration of the War Service Land Settlement Division. The case has been given every consideration. It has been considered by State officers who are responsible for the administration of the scheme. It has also come before the responsible federal officers and the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr. McMahon), and has received the attention of those men because it has come on the representations of Senator Aylett.
Despite the fact that this matter has engaged the attention of State and Federal officers for a long time, the decision remains unaltered and, I fear, unalterable. This man has proved himself, by every standard, to be an inefficient farmer. Senator Aylett says that is not right; but I say that, on the evidence submitted by the honorable senator, it is right. If Senator Aylett now claims that he has some fresh evidence which is available, as I understand it, by way of affidavit, I invite him to submit that fresh evidence and let the case again be re-opened on that basis. On the basis of the evidence that he has produced in the past, the whole case fails.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Senate adjourned at 11.1 p.m.
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 3 December 1957, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1957/19571203_senate_22_s11/>.