31st Parliament · 1st Session
The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Condor Laucke) took the chair at 2.15 p.m., and read prayers.
page 1371
– I inform the Senate that the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair) is leaving Australia today to undertake discussions in the United States of America concerning the Countercyclical Beef Legislation passed by the American Congress. During his absence the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Mr Adermann) is acting as Minister for Primary Industry and I will now act as Minister for Foreign Affairs until Mr Peacock’s return.
I also inform the Senate that the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr Lynch) will depart tomorrow to represent Australia at the inauguration of Pope John Paul II. The Minister will later be having discussions in Britain, the United States and Japan. He is expected to return on 5 November. During his absence, the Minister for Productivity (Mr Macphee) will act as Minister for Industry and Commerce.
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– I present the following petition from 3,385 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the 3,372 undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That it is urgent for the Commonwealth Government to take the initiative of lifting all forms of sanctions imposed against Rhodesia and to cease preparation of any legislation to close the Rhodesia Information Centre in Sydney.
As Rhodesia now has an interim government which will lead the country to majority rule and as Rhodesia is fighting a war against communist terrorism your petitioners strongly urge that sanctions be lifted:
. To assist in providing more employment and education for Africans by allowing normal growth and expansion of industries.
To assist in the defence of Rhodesia against threatened disruption by communist terrorists so that an orderly and peaceful general election may take place.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 3 1 7 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth:-
That the Termination of Pregnancy Ordinance (No. 16 of 1978) has the effect of prohibiting the operation of private abortion clinics in the A.C.T.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Senators should vote to:-
1 ) retain this Ordinance, and
reject any move to disallow this Ordinance since its disallowance would enable private abortion clinics to operate in the A.C.T.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 12 citizens of Australia:
The Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled.
The petition of the Victorian Federation of State School Parents ‘ Clubs respectfully showeth:-
That as citizens of Victoria and parents of State school children, we are most concerned that the quality of education available in our school be of the highest possible standard.
We believe that this can only be achieved if adequate Federal funds are provided. The recently announced policy of direct cuts to Government schools for 1979 must have an adverse effect on them.
Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should arrange for:
. Withdrawal of the Guidelines to the Schools Commission for 1979 and acceptance of its recommendations for Government schools.
An increase of a minimum of 5% in real terms on base level programmes for 1 979.
Restoration of the $8 million cut from the Capital Grants for Government Schools.
Increased recurrent and capital funding to Government schools. and your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 487 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth;
That any downgrading or closures of Country Rail Services in South Australia would have grave consequences for the Railway Industry, Primary Industry, Individual Country Communities and the State as a whole and calls on the Parliament to ensure that the Federal Minister for Transport takes the necessary action to maintain all existing services.
That continued and increased Public Subsidy is fully justified in the long term National interest.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 1 8 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate, in Parliament Assembled.
The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth;
That whereas the Fraser Government was elected in December 1975 after promising that pensions would be adjusted instantly and automatically in relation to quarterly Consumer Price Index Figures;
And whereas that Government subsequently announced that pension adjustments should properly be made half yearly each May and November;
It is the current intention of the same Government to legislate for pensions to be adjusted only once a year, and this constitutes a serious breach of generally accepted ethics, of Democratic Government, and also deprives many needy pensioners of increases that are essential to their Subsistence.
The foregoing facts impel the under-signed Petitioners to request the Australian Government to uphold the principle that trustworthiness of Governments should at all times be above question.
And to appeal to the Parliament to prevent the imposition of further economic hardship upon Australian Pensioners, by rejecting any Bill which has for its aim the introduction of annual adjustments of Pension rates.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
-I present the following petition from 752 citizens of Australia:
To the honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth.
That we deplore the increased hardships imposed by the terms of the recent budget.
That we believe that the changes to Medibank will cause many to place their health at risk in an attempt to maintain their standard of living.
That the Government’s budgetary actions will sharply increase the economic gap between those who have and those who have not.
That the cutting back in real terms of monies allocated for pensioners will cause extra burdens to those already under great stress.
That the actions of the Government can do nothing but increase the already dangerous level of unemployment.
That we as citizens of Australia with a great love and concern for our country, fear that this budget will bring dishonour and disgrace by increasing poverty and crime and will sow the seeds of violence within our democratic community.
Your petitioners therefore respectfully ask that the Government move to lift the onerous burden placed upon them. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 23 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:
The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth objection to the Metric system and request the Government to restore the Imperial system.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
-I present the following petition from 465 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That any downgrading or closures of Country Rail Services in South Australia would have grave consequences for the Railway Industry, Primary Industry, Individual Country Communities and the State as a whole and calls on the Parliament to ensure that the Federal Minister for Transport takes the necessary action to maintain all existing services.
That continued and increased Public Subsidy is fully justified in the long term National Interest.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 80 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled-
The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That whereas the Faser Government was elected in December 1975 after promising that pensions would be adjusted instantly and automatically in relation to quarterly Consumer Price Index figures; and whereas that Government subsequently announced that pension adjustments should properly be made half yearly each May and November; it is the current intention of the same Government to legislate for pensions to be adjusted only once a year, and this constitutes a serious breach of generally accepted ethics of democratic government and also deprives many needy pensioners of increases that are essential to their subsistence.
The foregoing facts impel the undersigned Petitioners to request the Australian Government to uphold the principle that the trustworthiness of governments should at all times be above question, and to appeal to the Parliament to prevent the imposition of further economic hardship upon Australian pensioners by rejecting any Bill which has for its aim the introduction of annual adjustments of pension rates.
And Your Petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 60 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken part in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their stated objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enacting legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely: ° Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension. ° Unemployed divided into those with dependants and those without. ° Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 4 1 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken part in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their stated objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enacting legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely: ° Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension. ° Unemployed divided into those with dependants and those without. ° Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
-I present the following petition from 69 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken part in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their stated objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enacting legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely: ° Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments. ° Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension. ° Unemployed divided into those with dependants and those without. ° Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– On behalf of Senator McAuliffe, I present the following petition from 24 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken pan in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their state objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enact legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely:
Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension.
Unemployed divided into those with dependents and those without.
Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
-I present the following petition from 36 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken pan in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their state objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enact legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely:-
Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension. ° Unemployed divided into those with dependents and those without. 8 Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 36 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken pan in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1975 and again in December 1977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their state objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enact legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely:- ° Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension. 9 Unemployed divided into those with dependents and those without.
Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension age- invalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
The Acting Clerk- Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows:
ACT Schools Authority: Staff Ceilings
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled.
This humble petition of certain citizens of the Australian Capital Territory respectfully showeth their grave concern that the right Honourable the Minister for Education has directed the ACT Schools Authority to comply with certain arbitrary cuts in the staffing and financing of the ACT Schools System which, particularly in the case of staffing, are contrary both to established practices and to prior undertakings of the Government.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the guidelines and recommendations of the ACT Schools Authority in respect of the 1978/79 Budget will be reconsidered and duly accepted by the Government and your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Knight.
Petition received.
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled-
The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That whereas the Fraser Government was elected in December 1975 after promising that pensions would be adjusted instantly and automatically in relation to quarterly Consumer Price Index figures; and whereas that Government subsequently announced that pension adjustments should properly be made half yearly each May and November; it is the current intention of the same Government to legislate for pensions to be adjusted only once a year, and this constitutes a serious breach of generally accepted ethics of democratic government and also deprives many needy pensioners of increases that are essential to their subsistence.
The foregoing facts impel the undersigned Petitioners to request the Australian Government to uphold the principle that the trustworthiness of governments should at all times be above question, and to appeal to the Parliament to prevent the imposition of further economic hardship upon Australian pensioners by rejecting any Bill which has for its aim the introduction of annual adjustments of pension rates.
And Your Petitioners in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Lajovic, Knight, Douglas McClelland and Peter Baume.
Petitions received.
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the people of Australia having taken part in the government of Australia through universal suffrage in December 1 975 and again in December 1 977 and that on the basis of their expressed choice at the ballot box the people of Australia gave authority to the LiberalNational Country Party Coalition to form a federal government to bring into effect specific policies promulgated throughout the length and breadth of Australia by the said Coalition and that, whereas by virtue of being elected through universal suffrage, the Government Members now sitting in the House of Representatives were authorised to implement their state objectives by legislation and that such authority did not extend to acting otherwise or to enact legislation not previously submitted to the will of the people, namely:-
Revoking the legislation for twice-yearly pension payments.
Imposing a freeze on the free-of-means-test pension.
Unemployed divided into those with dependents and those without.
Imposing income tax on pensions under age pension ageinvalid and repatriation service pensions; rehabilitation allowances and incentives; sheltered employment and allowances for tuberculosis sufferers (civilian and service) and any other impositions.
Your petitioners submit that all or any of the foregoing proposed legislation of the Lower House, if implemented, will greatly disadvantage many thousands of citizens as either against their expressed will or not submitted to universal vote as the democratic right of the Australian people, therefore,
Your petitioners call on the Senate as the House of Review to take appropriate action to release these persons from burdens unfairly placed in order to finance a deficit not of their making.
And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Hamer.
Petition received.
To the Honourable President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled.
The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully say that we are concerned about the discrimination which exists against the children of those parents who are in receipt of the Supporting Parents Benefit in comparison with children of Single Parents who receive the Widows Pension. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Parliament take immediate steps to ensure that this year’s budget allow for Lone Parents to be given the right to receive a pension with the same benefits as are given with the Widows Pension, and we also request that Parliament take immediate steps to instigate one ( 1 ) category of Lone Parent Pensions to eliminate the discrimination currently experienced.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Guilfoyle.
Petition received.
The Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled.
The petition of the Victorian Federation of State School Parents’ Clubs respectfully showeth:
That as citizens of Victoria and parents of State school children, we are most concerned that the quality of education available in our school be of the highest possible standard.
We believe that this can only be achieved if adequate Federal funds are provided. The recently announced policy of direct cuts to Government schools for 1979 must have an adverse effect on them.
Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should arrange for:
Petition received.
page 1376
– I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:
That, in accordance with section 5 of the Parliament Act 1 974, the Senate approves the following proposals:
Erection of a cooling tower at the rear of Parliament House, Canberra.
Erection of police guard boxes within the parliamentary zone.
Honourable senators- Hear, hear!
-I acknowledge the ‘hear, hears! ‘ from both sides of the chamber. Pursuant to section 5 of the Parliament Act 1974,I present proposals for the erection of a cooling tower at the rear of Parliament House, Canberra, and police guard boxes within the parliamentary zone.
page 1376
page 1376
– I direct my question to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. It concerns the decision by Qantas Airways Ltd to refuse entry and transit facilities to Jews on its international flights. Was the Government consulted on the decision and, if so, what was the Government’s response? Could the Minister tell the Senate what are the arrangements under which Qantas is required to comply with the restrictions which presumably are imposed or can be imposed by foreign governments on other nationals under the international airlines agreements?
-Senator Wriedt’s question, no doubt, is based upon a story in the Age newspaper this morning. The Government was appalled to read the story in the Press and expresses the abhorrence, I think, of all Australians if in fact there is discrimination against any citizens, whether Australian citizens or not, on the ground of religion or other discrimination. The facts as to the story have not been determined yet. For example, Qantas has indicated that it has no knowledge of the particular passenger who allegedly was refused access to Qantas carriage. The story suggests that the passenger was one who, in England, approached a travel agency. Nevertheless, the Government is earnestly pursuing that to get the facts.
Senator Wriedt asks a more detailed question: Was the Government consulted? The Government has no knowledge of this particular situation, but the basic situation is that the Chicago convention on civil aviation gives every country complete sovereignty over the air space above its territory. In this respect each country has unfettered sovereignty to make arrangements or to pass laws relating to the operation of air services in or above its territory. A number of countries, Australia included, are signatories to the International Air Transit Agreement which allows scheduled aircraft to fly through their air space without prior inter-governmental agreement. However, a large number of countries are not signatories to this agreement. Therefore, rights for transit are secured either by bilateral government agreement or by arrangements made by the airlines or governments concerned.
In the case of Syria, which is not a signatory to the air transit agreement, Qantas overflies Syria on several of its services between Australia and Europe. A condition of this overflight arrangement is that at least one Qantas service in each direction each week should land at Damascus. Syria has imposed travel restrictions which prohibit either entry or transit to persons holding Israeli passports, to holders of passports containing a declaration that the passport is valid for Israel and/or a visa for Israel, whether valid or expired, and to passengers of Jewish faith of any nationality. A number of other Arab countries have somewhat similar travel restrictions to those in Syria. The travel restrictions imposed in Syria and other Arab states have been in force for at least five years. A number of other countries impose travel restrictions under their domestic laws. For example, Israel refuses admission and transit for nationals of the countries of the Arab League.
To get to the nub of this matter, I am advised that Qantas does not instruct its own staff or the staff of its travel agencies to inquire as to the faith of passengers using its services, but if asked by the passengers, advises intending passengers of proscriptions imposed by the foreign countries. In particular, agencies and airline employees rely upon a traffic information manual issued by the International Air Transport Association which brings together all the travel restrictions imposed by countries around the world. A passenger who wishes to disembark in Damascus and is unable to meet the entry requirements imposed by the Syrian Government would be informed of those requirements and may be denied boarding. Passengers transiting in Damascus on the same service would have these restrictions pointed out to them and their attention invited to the desirability of travelling on alternative services in case technical failure meant passenger disembarkation and travel to a city hotel while repairs were effected.
Nevertheless, the Government has asked that a study of this matter be made quickly and reported to Ministers. The matter is one of immense detail. It is to be debated later when I will amplify that detail, but that is the skeletal information. We are seeking more detailed information. I repeat that all honourable senators will share the Government’s abhorrence of any situation in which the ordinary freedom of the individual is restricted because of religious discrimination, whether anti-semitic, as in this case, or otherwise.
page 1377
– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. I preface it by saying that no doubt the Minister will remember that last week I asked a question relating to the overcharging by Telecom of some subscribers and that I thought that Telecom was robbing some people who have little recourse about their accounts. I now ask: Is the Minister aware that one account that was subsequently drawn to my attention was nearly $1,350 more than the subscriber’s average account of about $85, that such an account would require more than 50 minutes of STD each day from Hobart to Sydney for more than 3 months, and that this subscriber had two business telephones that he could use for STD purposes if he wanted to save tax? I also ask whether the Minister is aware that these and other obvious errors in accounts that Telecom cannot explain away are bringing the whole of Telecom ‘s accounting and recording system into a position where there is grave doubt about its accuracy. Where else is someone required to pay an account that the supplier of the service cannot justify, which service is cut off if the subscriber does not pay the account? Why should the onus of proof be on the subscriber? Having regard to the case I have detailed and others in my file will the Minister agree to emphasise the need for a recording system that details all STD calls irrespective of the cost involved in installing that system? Will the Minister ask the Minister for Post and Telecommunications to set up an independent accounts appeal tribunal until an accurate recording system is introduced?
– I recall the honourable senator asking me a question on this matter last week. I indicated to him then that my experience was that complaints of this sort were dealt with with considerable sympathy by Telecom Australia. However, the honourable senator raises a quite disturbing example. I ask him to let me have the details of it so that I can examine the particular case which he has brought before us. With respect to the specific matters about which he asked at the end of his question, I state that I am not aware that the onus of proof in a strict sense is on the subscriber. As I understand it, Telecom carries out a check of equipment if there is a complaint of this sort. On the basis of that check, Telecom then agrees or disagrees with the challenge. I will, however, have a look at the -
– The subscriber never wins.
– I can only say to the honourable senator that that is not my experience. I speak as someone who has had complaints brought to my attention by constituents in Western Australia. In any event the question whether strictly in the event of a continued dispute the onus of proof is on the subscriber is a matter that I would have to examine. I will do so and come back to the honourable senator on that point.
Secondly, the honourable senator raises the point that this shows a new system is required. The information which the honourable senator places before the Senate and which he says is but one of many complaints indicates that there would be some value in having a different sort of accounting system. I outlined last week that Telecom had under study an automatic message accounting system which might meet some of these problems. I indicated then that a very high capital cost was involved in the introduction of that system. The third question dealt with whether there might be some sort of independent tribunal which could determine disputes between a subscriber and Telecom in the interim. That suggestion is quite novel to me. I will take it up with the Minister for Post and Telecommunications and get a reaction to it.
page 1378
-I direct a question to the Minister for Education and refer to the Government ‘s policy in relation to compulsory membership of student organisations that has been enunciated in the Senate. Did the Prime Minister write to the State Premiers seeking implementation by the State governments of what one might describe as complementary legislation? What have been the nature of the responses, if any, to those letters written by the Prime Minister? Which institutions in which States are subject currently to legislation which the Government regards as being consistent with its policy on this issue?
– It is true that quite some months ago the Commonwealth Government announced that it intended to enact legislation with respect to its own Commonwealth institutions in the Territories of a similar nature to that which the Victorian Government had proposed to enact and had prepared for enactment with regard to the University of Melbourne. The Commonwealth indicated that it would write, through the Prime Minister, to the Premiers indicating that it would pursue such action and inviting the other States to take similar action.
At that time, the Western Australian Government had taken action broadly along those lines. The Victorian Government was in the process of doing so. My instinct is that for particular reasons the Victorian Government amended the legislation for the University of Melbourne presumably because each institution has its own statute and no doubt was intending to apply it to others. I do not have full information in regard to the responses of the Premiers. I take it that the intention of the Commonwealth was to draw their attention to the matter. Incidentally, the Commonwealth also had drawn the attention of institutions–
– Why don’t you forget about the whole thing?
-I hope that Senator Georges ‘s interjection which I think was ‘Why don’t we forget about the whole thing and be done with it’ is recorded. I could not think of anything more abominable in terms of human freedom than to forget about the rights of individuals to freedom of choice. In Australia today there are cases of people being denied freedom of choice-, which is part of the very freedoms that are in the Declaration of Human Rights.
– Rubbish! You know it is rubbish.
-I am always delighted when Senator Georges gives the backdrop and calls out ‘rubbish’. I do not believe that the Senate Leader of the Australian Labor Party holds these views, because I think that, as is recorded in Hansard, he has indicated that his views are not beyond parallel with the Government’s views. Let the Labor Party clarify its mind. I simply say this: It is the Government’s view that a student attending an academic university or college shall satisfy his academic pursuits by the ordinary examination and inspection processes and that that student compulsorily must pay a fee for sporting and recreation facilities which are available for all and which, in fact, all use; but the Government believes that a student should not be compelled to pay fees for socio-political activities which may be abhorrent to him or her and, therefore, that the student should have choice in that regard. The Government also believes that no student body in a university should have the right to use the funds compulsorily taken from students for purposes other than authentic student purposes. This seems to be impeccably fair and in keeping with all the democratic tenets or principles. It is not surprising that Senator Georges finds himself out of step with it.
– I wish to ask a supplementary question. Would the Minister be prepared to table a copy of the Prime Minister’s letter to the Premiers and the responses to the Prime Minister from the various Premiers, the relevance being that it is desirable that one policy should apply to all students in Australia, whatever that policy may be?
– I certainly will ask the Prime Minister whether he will accede to that request. I could not agree more with Senator Button that there should be one policy for all students in Australia. It was with that in mind that I approached the vice-chancellors and the principals of colleges and sought by their voluntary discussion, each with the others, for that to be achieved. Unhappily, that was not achieved. It is desirable that there be one policy for all Australians. That is why the Prime Minister invited all the Premiers to follow suit.
page 1378
– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications: Is it a fact that, while there is a subsidy for telephone rentals paid by pensioners, Telecom allows no concession in respect of telephone installation costs? Does the Minister agree that the provision of a telephone in the home of an aged or infirm pensioner is no longer a luxury and could be vital in such a person making contact with a medical practitioner or relative in the event of urgent need? In the light of the obvious humanitarian considerations, will the Government request Telecom to consider extending telephone installation cost concessions to pensioners who also would be entitled to reduced telephone rental charges?
– The comment in Senator Messner ‘s question is self-evident and the fact that a telephone is not a luxury to many aged people is recognised in the existing concessions to which he referred. I will refer the question of additional concessions in respect of the installation of telephones to the Minister for Post and Telecommunications for him to take up with Telecom.
page 1379
– I direct my question to the Minister for Education and refer to the payment of student fees. I know that I am not allowed to use the word ‘hypocrite’ as it is unparliamentary; so I will not use it. I ask the Minister: Is it not a fact that the thrust of the proposed legislation which he intends to introduce and the legislation which he is discussing with the States is that the university itself- not the organisations- shall collect the fees, which shall be compulsory? What then is the difference? Is it not a fact that compulsion will be maintained and that the university itself shall collect the fees?
-I am surprised that Senator Georges is not aware of what pertains today because it was under his Government, when academic fees for students were abolished, that arrangements were made for the institutions to continue compulsorily to collect student dues. Those student dues have been collected by the institutions ever since, under the arrangements of the Whitlam Government. Those student dues have two components. One is that part which relates to the amenities- the basic essential services-that are used daily by all students, that is, the sporting and recreational amenities, the ordinary everyday facilities. I do not think that anyone argues other than that the students should pay those dues.
The other component is detached by the individual institutions and treated in two different ways. There is one component which goes to student unions for what I call ‘socio-political’ purposes. It always has been collected by the institutions and always has been paid. Indeed, collection is made by the institutions of subscriptions to the national student body, the Australian Union of Students. So no hypocrisy is involved in this. If it were, it would have to lie latently in the decision of the past of the Whitlam Government because the same situation still pertains.
– I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. Again, so that the universities and various organisations concerned may understand the matter clearly, I ask: Is the Leader of the Government in the Senate saying that the second component of the fees is not to be collected by the universities? Is this to be a requirement under certain new conditions which the Government plans to bring down? Is the Government determined to pass legislation which will prevent the collection of the second component of fees?
– Nothing could be more confused than the question. The fact is that what the Government intends to do is to make compulsory the payment of that first part of the dues which relates to student amenities and to make voluntary the payment that relates to sociopolitical activities. The institutions can collect the voluntary fee. There is nothing to stop their doing so. It will not be compulsory for the institutions to collect the voluntary fee from all students; it will be voluntary. The institutions will be free to do so. We certainly will not make the facility of collection of that voluntary fee impossible. Let me make it clear: The Government would be keen to have the maximum voluntary participation by students in student bodies and student activities. It is a source of some joy to me that throughout Australia today the growth in student participation has been such that it has been possible substantially to defeat the extreme left virtually over the whole of Australia.
page 1379
– My question is addressed to the Minister for Science and refers to the Minister’s recent response to a question concerning water purification and the invention by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Sirotherm, which involved a reference to another process developed by the CSIRO known as Sirofloc. As we have heard little or nothing about Sirofloc, will the Minister explain its origin? What are the claims made for the new process? Finally, does the Minister know of any plans for the industrial use of Sirofloc?
-A great many developments of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation do not have the benefit of disclosure in the Senate, but I will be very pleased to gather together a list of some of the outstanding achievements of the Organisation and make them known to honourable senators. Last week a question was raised, I think by an honourable senator from Western Australia, about the condition of water in that State and the possibility of treatment plants being set up to improve that quality. The CSIRO ‘s Division of Chemical Technology has developed a novel process called Sirofloc. I think we have already discussed Sirotherm and some other patented names which have the ‘Siro’ notation before them.
But this particular item is basically for the purification and the decolouring of water and, as noted last week, this process should have application to large-scale purification of domestic water supplies as well as to a number of water reclamation and industrial pollution control uses which will be particularly important. The techniques of this matter involve the use of cheap magnetic particles, the surfaces of which are activated so that they will remove suspended solids and will dissolve coloured materials in one fairly cheap, simple treatment. The purification is rapid and the settling or separation of the particles becomes extremely fast. The actual treatment allows the magnetic particles to become easily handled and a simple regeneration step permits the continual re-use of the particles, which makes this a cheap process.
There has been a joint development of the Sirofloc process under licence from the CSIRO to several large companies in Australia following the calling of tenders by CSIRO. Perhaps I could give further information on that to Senator Scott later. It certainly is of great importance to Australia, particularly to industrial towns where water of a lesser quality than that enjoyed by large domestic dues certainly calls for some process such as this.
page 1380
-Has the Minister for Science seen the report of the Australian Science and Technology Council for June of this year? In that report it is stated:
ASTEC is concerned that the consequences of poor administration of our marine environment and of an inadequate and unco-ordinated research effort, could be severe.
Does the report not also recommend that the Minister for Science be charged with the responsibility for facilitating and co-ordinating marine science and technological activities? I further ask the Minister: Does this not mean that the Minister has been unwilling and incapable of co-ordinating Australia’s marine science and technology research? What action does the Minister propose to take on the matter?
-The honourable senator asks a particularly interesting question and one which is of great importance to Australia. I certainly have seen the report and, like the Leader of the Opposition, I am delighted that ASTEC, the main adviser to government in these matters, had so much confidence in the Minister for Science that it advocated that this matter should be co-ordinated by the Minister for Science, because traditionally, under this and under former governments, that has not been the case. So I thank Senator Wriedt for the publicity he offers to the Department of Science, not necessarily to me. It certainly does not mean that I have been responsible for the co-ordination of marine science. Undoubtedly the Leader of the Opposition, having played a very prominent part in a previous Labor government and having been Minister for Primary Industry, would understand quite well the interests of even that particular Department in relation to fisheries and marine science so far as it concerns living organisms in the sea.
The point is that the Australian Science and Technology Council advocated that Australia should move to a point whereby the interests of marine science, oceanography, coastal engineering and all those things that are involved with marine science as we know it and work which is done within universities, within State governments and which is certainly done within CSIRO, within my own Department and within the Australian Institute of Marine Science- work which in actual fact would be done were we to develop further in areas of Antarctic researchshould come under one particular ministry. The Government is at present giving attention to that matter and undoubtedly the Prime Minister will make an announcement shortly.
page 1380
– I am not sure whether my question which is addressed to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs can bring forth as interesting an answer as the last one. My question is asked further to the presentation today of a petition signed by nearly 3,500 Australians. Now that an internal settlement has been achieved in Rhodesia, all elements of apartheid eliminated and arrangements made for full elections, does this not mean that the people of Rhodesia should be permitted to pursue this act of selfdetermination free from the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations? Will the Australian Government seek to have the United Nations withdraw those sanctions to permit the continued economic and social development of the people of Rhodesia irrespective of thencolour?
– Although, however temporarily, I am the acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, I do not know the specific details. I certainly would not like to affirm or deny the first proposition that Senator Rae puts down on the basis that there is an internal settlement and that full elections are to take place. I am not at first hand aware of that. I think that what I should do is to take the question to the Minister in another place and seek detailed information for the honourable senator.
page 1381
– My question which is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate relates to the high and growing tragedy of unemployment in every State of the Commonwealth. The Leader of the Government would recall that the States were given permission at the last Australian Loan Council meeting to seek their own loan raisings overseas but when the States submitted a number of projects the Loan Council deferred them for consideration by a working party of State and Federal officials. As these loan raisings involve important works and employment creating projects in every State, I ask: What has become of the working party report? Has the working party completed the report and, if so, when will some action be taken in the matter of overseas loan raisings by the States? If the report is not completed, what is the reason for the delay?
-Senator O ‘Byrne is no doubt referring to what is potentially one of the major innovations in the loan field since the 1 927 financial agreement. He is referring no doubt to the proposals that were initiated by the Commonwealth Government and offered to the States to provide for a new form of infrastructure borrowing. I should say that the conditions are that the borrowing must have final approval from the Loan Council, There was never any question that there should be unilateral action by individual States, otherwise the whole basis of the 1927 agreement would have been destroyed.
But, acting upon the initiative of the Federal Government, the Premiers’ Conference gave thought to this matter and set up a working party. The working party received a series of major projects. The working party ‘s aim, as I recollect it, is to sort out in terms of priorities the major projects. My understanding is that the Premiers’ Conference is to meet in the weeks immediately ahead- I think in early November- to consider the report of the working party and to consider what would be the borrowing programs and, of course, the capital works programs in terms of infrastructure borrowing.
page 1381
– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Trade and Resources. In view of the decision by the United States Congress to block the sugar Bill for domestic reasons, how long is this decision expected to prolong the United States ratification of the International Sugar Agreement? Will the ratification of the International Sugar Agreement be discussed during the visit of the Minister for Primary Industry to the United States?
– The Government certainly is very concerned that the United States has not yet passed legislation to enable it to participate fully in the International Sugar Agreement before the end of this year. This is also of great concern to the sugar producers. But I think it should be borne in mind that the only real immediate implication is that the provisions of the sugar stocks financing fund cannot become operative as early as member countries had originally anticipated. The Government remains confident that the United States will ratify the agreement, although this cannot now occur this year. The Government has no doubt that the United States recognises the importance of the agreement and of its responsibilities to the international sugar community. During the last couple of days officials of the Department of Trade and Resources have been in touch with senior officials of the State Department in the United States. Certainly the Administration itself is very concerned about this matter. It is undertaking a review to see what might be done. It is anxious to have this legislation passed.
The failure of the United States to become a full member this year has implications for the successful operation of the Agreement, but it is obviously in the interests of the exporters that the members of the Agreement should continue to apply its full disciplines. Australia will continue to be in close contact with other interested countries and will continue to liaise closely with the United States Administration in order to ensure that the Agreement is maintained and continues to operate as effectively as possible. As for Senator Maunsell ‘s question as to whether the Minister for Primary Industry will be having any discussions about this matter, I cannot answer for the Minister for Primary Industry but I will refer the question to him and endeavour to obtain an answer for the honourable senator.
page 1382
– Is the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs aware that this week has been designated as National Book Week? Is he also aware that the Labor Government commissioned an inquiry into the state of public libraries in Australia, that the inquiry reported as long ago as February 1976 and that since that time no action has been taken by this Government on any of the 53 recommendations put to it, apart from the establishment in April 1 976 of an interdepartmental committee to examine the report? Has the report been permanently pigeon-holed by the Government or is the Government merely choosing to ignore the urgent recommendations of the inquiry for the time being?
– I am unable to give the honourable senator any accurate information on this matter. During the last few days I have spent some time listening to Estimates Committee D interrogate officers of the Department of the Capital Territory and the Department of Home Affairs in relation to a variety of matters but I do not think that this matter has come forward, although last evening the Committee dealt with the National Library as one particular matter of interest. I do recall that an inquiry was set up. I do not recall when it was set up but if the honourable senator claims that it occurred during the Labor Government’s reign, he, as a Minister at that time, probably would be reporting correctly. I would have to refer to the Minister the comment that no action has taken place in relation to the 53 recommendations. I will certainly do so. I will attempt to get an answer as to whether that report has been pigeon-holed. I do not know the quality of the report. I am unable to make any further comment at the moment.
page 1382
– I direct a question to Senator Carrick as Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and as Minister representing the Minister for Defence. I refer to reports of an impending war between Vietnam and Cambodia and in particular to the present massing of large numbers of Vietnamese troops in offensive positions on the Cambodian border. Can the Minister tell the Senate whether any Australian citizens are temporarily or permanently resident in Vietnam or Cambodia and, if so, how many? What procedures has the Government established for the safety of Australians in this area of Indo-China? Also, can the Minister give an assurance that no military assistance is being given or will be given to either country and that no Australian military personnel are now or will be in any regard located in this region?
-Senator Teague has asked a series of questions relating to the dispute between Vietnam and Kampuchea. My advice is that we in Australia are aware of reports of an impending large scale Vietnamese attack on Kampuchea, formerly Cambodia, to coincide with the beginning of the current dry season. There are many reasons for the current fighting between Vietnam and Kampuchea which have roots deep in the history of Indo-China. The information available to the Australian Government on precisely what is happening in this area is necessarily limited. Whilst it does not permit a categoric affirmation or denial of the accuracy of the recent reports, it does suggest that there may be some degree of exaggeration in some of them. What does seem to be the case is that both sides have used the wet season lull in fighting to regroup and rearm for renewed intensive campaigns as soon as the weather permits. These offensives could result in temporary changes in effective control over some territory.
The present situation causes the Australian Government considerable concern. In addition to the further human suffering involved in this very troubled area, it is having an adverse effect on the prospects for economic reconstruction and regional stability and offers opportunities and temptations for outside interference, of which the honourable senator will be aware. However much we may dislike some of the internal practices of the Government in Phnom Penh, we attach importance to the independence and territorial integrity of Kampuchea as a state. Accordingly, Australia would very much like to see the parties resolve their dispute quickly and peacefully. As far as we are aware, there are no Australian citizens in Kampuchea. We are advised that those Australians who are in Vietnam are well away from the area of fighting. The question of safety procedures beyond those normally established by any Australian embassy on a contingency basis therefore does not arise. No form of
Australian military assistance to the countries of Indo-China is being given or is contemplated and no Australian Defence Force personnel are serving in the countries. It is hard to see that circumstances would arise to cause any change in that position. I think that answers the elements of the honourable senator’s question.
page 1383
– My question is directed to the Minister for Social Security. Has her attention been drawn to correspondence in the Italian newspaper La Fiamma recently, urging the Italian Government not to agree to a request by the Australian Government for a list of names of Italians receiving Italian pensions in Australia so that the Australian Government will not be able to reduce Australian pensions by that amount and suggesting that Australian pensions are meagre and cause empty stomachs compared with Italian pensions? Has the Australian Government made such a request? What reply has it received from the Italian Government? Could the Minister give the Senate a comparison of pension rates in Australia and Italy?
– I have not seen the comments in La Fiamma that were mentioned by Senator Grimes. I will need to obtain a report from my Department as to whether any action of that kind has been taken by the Department. It is not an action that I requested and I am unaware whether anything of that nature has occurred. I will be able to supply, on notice, a comparison of the pensions payable in the two countries. I reiterate that the portability of pensions from this country is the way in which we are able to assist those people who go to live away from Australia after they have become eligible for pensions. I am unaware of any other negotiations that have been required of the Government.
page 1383
– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. With the continued tragic deaths in Rhodesia of so many black and white people being killed by black guerrillas, will the Australian Government encourage the major powers- the United Kingdom and the United States of America- to take steps to stop the current butchery by the insurgent guerrillas which is doing nothing to bring about a peaceful solution in Rhodesia, but rather is only bringing about increasing and continuing tragedy to all people in that country?
– I think everybody is very concerned, indeed horrified, at the continued savagery and murder that is going on in that country. The question is directly one for my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I shall bring Senator Young’s question to him and seek his comment.
page 1383
– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. In view of the Government’s attempt to blame members of the Australian Labor Party for Aboriginal opposition to uranium mining and the Government’s allegation that all the lawyers involved are members of the Australian Labor Party, I ask the Minister: Is it a fact that the lawyer representing the Northern Land Council, Mr E. Pratt, who is reported in the National Times this week as being responsible for the so-called simple English version of the draft Ranger Agreement is, or until recently was, a member of the Australian Liberal Party?
– I am not able to inform the Senate on those matters raised by Senator Keeffe. I shall refer them to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to seek information from him.
page 1383
– Is the Minister representing the Treasurer aware that continuing delays in releasing specifications for a new computer system for the Australian Bureau of Statistics are causing departmental concern about the Bureau’s ability to handle its current work load? Further, despite substantial lead times in procurement and installation of the equipment and in getting software running, can the Minister assure the Senate that the Bureau will be in a position to handle the 1981 national population census and other related matters, including the early implementation of the economic census that will result in a rationalisation of business returns for Australian companies?
– I was not aware, until now, that there is some critical situation with regard to the matter raised by Senator Watson. It has never been suggested to me that any defect in the electronic equipment available to the Australian Bureau of Statistics might threaten its capacity comprehensively to carry out the 1981 census. However, since the matter is one of considerable importance, I shall ask the Treasurer and seek a response from him.
page 1384
– I ask my question of the Leader of the Government in the Senate. It concerns the present excursion to the United States of America of Mr Sinclair with the announced intention of rescuing the Australian beef industry from the effect of the United States beef legislation now awaiting presidential assent. Is it not the case that it has been widely known and acknowledged among United States political and agricultural writers for months that this legislation was essentially a domestic, political stunt motivated primarily by a desire to appease midwestern beef producers in the congressional election due in the first week of November? Is that why there was no ministerial representation from Australia at the earlier stage? Further, is it not the case that because of the rising of the Congress for that election in the first week of November, the legislation in question will lapse automatically without the necessity of any affirmative presidential veto? Is it not the case also that it is universally anticipated in the United States that the President will make use of this so-called pocket veto and the legislation will lapse accordingly and that, as a result, Mr Sinclair’s visit will make no conceivable difference whatsoever to the outcome? Further, is it a fact that any grandstanding he might be tempted to do on his return will as a result be entirely unjustified?
-As I understand the series of questions by Senator Evans, they are based clearly on the proposition by him that the visit of a senior Federal Minister of this Government to America now to secure the stability and indeed future increase of beef supplies from this country to America is not justified and should not be undertaken. All I can simply say is that I would not have believed that any thinking Australian, certainly anyone interested in the long term urban or rural future of Australia, would ever oppose the idea of an Australian Minister going to America to widen our trade prospects. Clearly the Australian Labor Party is saying that it is opposed to Mr Sinclair’s going.
Opposition senators interjecting-
– Honourable senators opposite do not disguise by noise the absence of the validity of their arguments. The situation is very simple. Whether beef politics are active in America at any point of time is irrelevant. In every country on earth rural producers have, of course, important claims to internal politics. That is not the relevant situation. The relevant situation is that Australia has gone to express a vigorous voice. I think that the beef producers of Australia and the Australian people ought to know that the Labor Party apparently opposes the idea of a Minister for Primary Industry going to America at this stage to secure beef supplies.
– I have a supplementary question. Will the Minister answer the substance of the question that I put to him which was: Does the Government anticipate that the legislation will in any event be vetoed as a result of domestic political considerations irrespective of the presence of Australian ministerial representation?
– I am well aware of that, but I cannot believe the fundamental of the honourable senator’s question. If there is a chance at all that the intervention of an Australian Minister will secure the well being of all Australians, does the honourable Labor senator honestly say that the Minister ought not to go?
page 1384
– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. It relates to the recent action by the Minister whom she represents to reduce to a month the maximum time allowed an intending resident of Australia to live in Australia as a single person under the provision of fiance visas. I recognise that the main reason for the Minister’s action is to reduce abuses of the system, but will the Minister attempt to modify the present catch-22 situation which is creating unnecessary difficulties for genuine applicants? The problem to which I refer is that in many cases the date of the intended wedding can take many weeks to arrange, which date is required before the visa is applied for, but that it is usually impossible to forecast within a month the time it will take to process the application.
- Senator Thomas has raised what appears to be a very human problem. I have no knowledge of the requirements of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs in this matter, but I will refer the question to the Minister and see what he is able to do to overcome the personal difficulties that have been explained by Senator Thomas.
page 1384
– My question is to the Leader of the Government in the Senate and follows the one asked by Senator Evans. What action did the Government take four months ago when it was common knowledge around the world that the United States Congress intended to introduce the legislation referred to?
– The Government has been fully pursuing very strong action, no doubt from its Washington embassy and its trade delegation. It seems to me extraordinary that anybody would be seeking to suggest that additional action by a senior Minister to seek to secure valuable trade, which means valuable employment and well-being for Australians, is not a good thing. Be it upon the Labor Party to make that decision.
-Mr President, I direct a supplementary question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In view of his answer, is it not logical that the action which is being taken now should have been taken four months ago?
– The fact is that strenuous actions have been taken over a long period. The Prime Minister himself has taken a very real interest in trade between our two countries. This has been a continuing matter and this visit is just the culmination of it. How much more real it is, therefore, that the Minister for Primary Industry should be concerned to sell to the world Australia’s rural products for which he is directly responsible.
page 1385
– I direct a question to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer, in a similar vein to the question asked by Senator Young, to the terrorist attacks in Rhodesia resulting in the murder of many hundreds of innocent men, women and children. Can the Minister provide me with information as to the extent to which these terrorists are being assisted by Cuban troops or Russian armed insurgents?
– I do not know at first hand the details of the outside assistance to these people. I will seek the information and, if I can secure it, let Senator Jessop know the position.
page 1385
– I direct a question to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. In view of widespread and continuing public concern about the apparent failure of the Government to establish the reasons for the murder of six Australian journalists in East Timor in late 1975-1 refer to the deaths of five men at Balibo and that of Mr Roger East- will the Minister inform the Senate whether an inquiry into this matter is still continuing? What results has it achieved? Has the inquiry yet taken evidence from Timorese refugees now in Portugal and said to have been in Balibo at the time of the killings? Is the Minister not concerned that, unless this matter is properly cleared up, it must seriously affect Australian media coverage of events in Asia in the future and seriously inhibit editors and chiefs of bureau assigning journalists to that area, thus denying the Australian public important facts? What will be the long term implications to Australian national security of our current soft line diplomacy, in this instance aimed apparently at the avoidance of facts rather than the establishment of truth? Finally, what might have been the reaction of the Indonesian Government if six Indonesian journalists had been killed in similar circumstances in an area controlled by the Australian Army?
- Senator Mason asks a very lengthy series of questions, some of them posing hypotheses. It is not for me as a Minister to respond to hypothetical questions; but I do say this: Every Australian was shocked by the deaths of the journalists and everyone in Australia would have been very anxious that the circumstances of those deaths in October 1975 in Balibo should have been established. Equally, everyone will share the anxiety caused by the lack of information concerning Mr Roger East, the journalist, since he was last seen in Dili in December of that year.
– He was shot down like a dog.
– Apparently, Senator Primmer has some information of which we are not aware. If Senator Primmer has some specific information, may I invite him -
– You know it as well as I do.
– I do not know it. Perhaps the Government and the people of Australia will be better informed if Senator Primmer gives us information concerning Mr Roger East. I recall that on 2 June 1976 my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, made a comprehensive statement in the House of Representatives on the subject of the deaths of the five journalists. I am aware that other inquiries took place. I am not aware of any continuing inquiries. I will refer that aspect of the question to my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, when he returns and seek further information.
page 1385
– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Transport a question in which I am seeking further information in respect of the matter raised by Senator Wriedt earlier today concerning the reported agreement by Qantas Airways Ltd to accede to the demands of the Syrian Government that Jews be banned from the airline’s weekly flights to London via Damascus. Specifically, I want to know whether the Minister, Mr Nixon, was correctly reported in the Age this morning as saying that ‘any restriction on Jewish passengers was part of an arrangement under which Qantas operated its Damascus service’ and, more significantly, that it was part of Qantas’ normal commercial operations and the Federal Government had taken no part in the decision’. Is not Qantas the responsibility of the Australian tax payer and obliged to abide by Australian legislation and policies on racial discrimination? Should the Australian Government not take all necessary action to protect Australian citizens and legitimate travellers from brutal intimidation and prejudice which flout the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
– I am not in a position to say whether the Minister for Transport was correctly quoted in this morning’s newspaper. I will have to ask the Minister about that and get a reply for the honourable senator. However, in respect of the questions raised by the honourable senator, 1 would have thought that the information provided to the Senate already by the Leader of the Government in the Senate probably indicates that Qantas Airways Ltd itself is not exercising any active discrimination against people within Australia. It does appear that some countries visited by Qantas and a number of other countries impose various restrictions on airlines using either their air space or their facilities. As I understood the answer given by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, those restrictions are made known to people seeking to use the airline. With respect to what action might be taken, the Leader of the Government in the Senate also advised the Senate that the Government had asked that a study of this matter be made and for a report to be submitted to Ministers. The Government will be giving all these matters consideration.
page 1386
– I direct my question to the Minister for Science who will be aware of the recommendations of the Australian meat survey mission to the Middle East some three months ago. Amongst those recommendations is one that the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation should give priority to research into ways and means of overcoming claimed taste differences between Australian sheep meat and other sheep meat available to consumers in the Middle East and Iran. Has the Minister informed himself on whether the CSIRO has undertaken such a research program as a matter of urgency? If he has, can he inform the Senate of the state of the project? If he has not informed himself, or if the CSIRO has not commenced such a study, will the Minister ensure the speedy implementation of this aspect of the mission’s report in order to help the Australian sheep industry?
– I do not recall having read the report to which the honourable senator refers. So far as I am aware, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is not working directly on resolving the taste differences in meat exported to Middle Eastern countries. The Division of Food Research in New South Wales as part of its normal work undertakes tasting of various types of food in an attempt to upgrade them and to resolve some problems that arise in, for example, the preservation, canning and freezing of foods. I am unaware whether CSIRO is working directly on the question raised by the honourable senator. However, I will raise that matter immediately with CSIRO and attempt to have an early answer for the honourable senator.
page 1386
-In my reply on 12 October to a question asked about the Moscow Olympic Games I undertook to check the basis of statements attributed in the Press to Mr Vladimir Koval, the Vice-President of the Soviet OlympicGames Organising Committee, concerning possible restrictions on overseas visitors to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. I do not have available to me a transcript of Mr Koval ‘s remarks but I understand that the media reports emanated from a Press conference given by Mr Koval on 10 October in Melbourne. I understand further that the question of possible restrictions arose in connection with remarks about possible limitations on accommodation available in Moscow during the Olympic Games. I have no further details available but can confirm that the Government would be most concerned, and would express itself to the Soviet authorities accordingly, should prospective visitors to the Games be faced with restrictions based on political or other related considerations.
page 1386
-On 12 October Senator Sim asked me whether the Government had any confirmation of a report which alleged that Vietnamese and Laotian government forces were using poison gas against the fiercely independent Meo tribesmen. The honourable senator will appreciate the difficulties in obtaining reliable information on current events in Indo-China. Following extensive inquiries, I regret I am not able to confirm or deny the report by a French doctor concerning the Meo tribesmen of Laos. Such information as is available to the Government, however, suggests that joint operations by both Lao and Vietnamese ground and air forces against the Meo are continuing and that resistance elements have suffered major losses. I am not able to confirm the past or present use of poison gas or napalm. Neither am I able to confirm, from information available to the Government, claims of the poisoning of wells or the destruction of crops or livestock. The declared policy of the Laotian Government is to resettle the Meo tribesmen peacefully in pursuits other than opium poppy cultivation. It has recently appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for help in reestablishing 47,000 Meo tribesmen who, it said, had requested the Laotian Government’s assistance.
page 1387
-by leaveLast night Senator Bonner and I had a fiery exchange of words across the chamber concerning my use, misuse, or non-use of a certain four letter word. I want to quote two or three paragraphs of the Hansard record of what was said, at the end of which, if Senator Bonner agrees, I will be prepared to apologise. Senator Bonner said:
If Senator Keeffe wants to question that then he should question it with the Northern Land Council. Let Senator Keeffe ask the Council members who has a right and who does not have a right to be at their meetings. They invited me and they accepted me as one of them. Senator Keeffe talks a lot of nonsense about me being sent up there or my being a pimp.
That was the word over which the controversy arose. Senator Bonner continued:
Does he know what a pimp is? If he knows what a pimp is he will not use that word in this building. A pimp is a person who sells women in prostitution. I have never done that in my life. If Senator Keeffe would like to use that word outside this building, then let him try it. If he has the guts let him say it outside. I will not take him to court.
I do not know whether he was inviting me out. That was when I interjected to ask:
Who called you that?
Senator Bonner responded:
You did this evening.
The exchange on that point went on until you, Mr President, intervened and Senator Missen took a point of order. I had no memory of using the word but, to put it in its right context, I will read the Hansard record of that section of my speech. I said:
This is what disturbs me. Here is a strong, Aboriginal leader -
I was speaking about Mr Yunupingu- who has backed down on the things he said only a few days before, in the same way as we saw Charles Perkins tonight in this chamber, and last night in this chamber, down on his stomach because the Government has driven him there: it is driving the Aboriginal leaders to the stage where they have nowhere else to go except on their stomachs, crawling to the Government. We saw Senator Bonner, a man who in the Aurukun and Mornington Island situation put up a strong stand. What does the Government do? The Government sends him there to pimp on its behalf and to talk to the Land Council to drive its uranium deals.
Mr President, it is obvious that, unfortunately, in an emotive moment I used the word referred to. I do not recall having used it. But it was not used in the context in which Senator Bonner took exception to it being used, so I apologise to Senator Bonner.
– by leave- I wish to make a brief statement to give Senator Keeffe a second chance to apologise. 1 notice in yesterday’s Hansard that, when reference was made to a visit to Meekatharra by me and Senator Rocher, Senator Keeffe is recorded to have interjected saying that we went to the races. Since we were there two days before the races to attend a meeting of pastoralists and graziers, I thought that Senator Keeffe might like to withdraw that interjection.
– If the Minister is really upset about that, I just hope that he did not take his bookmaking bag with him. If he wants a withdrawal, I do so, and I hope he made a few bob on the races.
– You withdraw, Senator Keeffe. Thank you.
page 1387
– I have received a letter from Senator Chipp proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:
The appalling action of Qantas Airways Ltd of banning Jews from flights which land in Syria ‘.
I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places-
– I thank those honourable senators for supporting this matter of public importance. For the benefit of people who are listening to the broadcast of the Senate’s proceedings, the Sessional Orders of the Senate demand that when an honourable senator puts a matter of public importance before the Senate, the support of four other honourable senators is needed. Normally, for obvious reasons, this usually follows Party lines but I am delighted to say that today members of all political parties in this Senate, with the exception of the National Country Party, rose to support the discussion of this matter of public importance. I thank the Senate for that.
The matter of public importance before the Senate for discussion is:
The appalling action of Qantas Airways Ltd of banning Jews from flights which land in Syria.
As I understand the situation, Qantas has landing rights in Syria. Syria, by government decree, has placed a ban on any person of Jewish faith, of any nationality. It must be understood that the ban on anybody entering Syria applies not only to people of the Israeli nation bearing an Israeli passport but also to people of the Jewish faith of any nationality.
Though the terms of reference of my matter of public importance mention only Qantas Airways Ltd, I believe that there is a much bigger question involved in this matter; and that is the question involving the Government of Australia. Might I say at the outset that I was delighted as, I could see, was the Senate with Senator Carrick ‘s categorical statement today that he and the Government had abhorrence for this particular situation, and I thank him for that. I thought that was a very responsible and welcome thing for Senator Carrick, as Leader of the Government in the Senate and as acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, to say.
Whilst I am pleased about that, I still have very serious misgivings about the role of the Government in this particular instance. Words such as those used by Senator Carrick do not totally allay my concern. If it were Qantas only that had done this deal with the Syrian Government, that would be bad enough. All of us in this chamber are very proud of our national airline which most of us rate as being one of the best, if not the best, in the world. It carries the name of Australia with great dignity and credit everywhere it goes, not only in terms of performance, but also in terms of courtesy and its contribution to world aviation. As I said, if Qantas had done this on its own, it would be bad enough, but if the Government did it or if the Government knew about it, the situation would be absolutely appalling.
I am not questioning the words that Senator Carrick used in the Senate today; as I understand it they were very carefully chosen words. But I find it very difficult to believe that the Government did not know of or was not consulted in any form on such an arrangement that our Government airline could have made with another country. Why do I conclude that? I conclude that from the words of the Minister for Transport, Mr Peter Nixon, who, on Monday evening of this week on the Willesee television program Willesee at Seven was interviewed regarding the Laker cheaper air fares. I hope that I quote him accurately; I believe I do. He said:
Any arrangements relating to flights over airspace of a foreign country or any landing rights in a foreign country are on a government to government basis because Qantas is a government airline.
The Minister’s own words were ‘government to government’. Who is ‘the Government’ in this infamous deal that somebody has done with the Syrian Government? Who is ‘the Government’, assuming that it was done by the Government? Is it a departmental official? Of course it could not be. I have great admiration for the good sense and the sense of delicacy and sensitivity of government public servants. Was it a Qantas officer? I have far too much respect for Sir Lenox Hewitt- who in my view is a magnificent Australian and is a credit to Qantas and to this country- and for his long experience and expertise in the Public Service to think that he would even contemplate concluding a deal of such sensitivity with a foreign power. It is absurd to conclude that it was done by a departmental official.
If the arrangement was made on a government to government basis, was the Minister for Transport informed of it? I find it incredible that an arrangement such as this could have been made without the Minister being informed either by his departmental officers or by the chief executive officer of the statutory corporation, the government owned airline, Qantas. Surely Mr Nixon must have been informed of this. If he .was not informed we would have cause for even greater worry as to what people might do without reference to government in the future. Again I have too much respect for Mr Nixon’s political acumen, his sense of propriety and in fact his sense of survival, having been a colleague of his in previous Liberal-Country Party governments, to think that he would make that decision unilaterally or take that advice unilaterally. It passes my credibility that Mr Nixon would have known about this and not at least referred it to the Government.
I hope that Senator Carrick, the Leader of the Government in this place, will respond and speak in this debate. I hope that he will deny categorically that the Government or Mr Nixon knew anything about this secret deal with the Government of Syria. My fears are not allayed by a statement attributed to the Minister in an article in this morning’s Melbourne Age. The article states:
The Transport Minister, Mr Nixon, said last night any restriction on Jewish passengers was pan of an arrangement under which Qantas operated its Damascus service.
Then this incredible statement appears:
It was part of Qantas’ normal commercial operations . . .
Normal’! Is it normal? Do we have a Transport Minister of Cabinet rank ascribing the term ‘normal ‘ to the operations of our government airline which can undertake such a monstrous alienation of human rights with a foreign country without reference to the Government? The newspaper article then quotes Mr Nixon’s concluding words: the Federal Government had taken no part in the decision. Whichever way it is- whether the Government knew or did not know- it is a matter of great seriousness.
This matter assumes very serious proportions. Why? Discrimination of any type is rightly deplored by members of all political parties in this country. All political parties are sincere in deploring discrimination. There are many forms of discrimination. Discrimination against race is despicable and is to be deplored. Discrimination against colour is equally monstrous. Cultural discimination and sexual discrimination are bad and are to be condemned. But, of all the types of discrimination, in my view the worst- if there can be a worst type- is discrimination against a person’s religious beliefs, and that is precisely what the Syrian Government’s action in this instance is. I repeat that the Syrian Government is not discriminating against citizens of Israel. It is discriminating against any citizen of any country who happens to have a certain religious persuasion. Australia is going along with that kind of discrimination. I hope that all parties in this chamber will condemn this action for what it is- the worst of all possible forms of discrimination.
We now find that some of the people who are being discriminated against are in fact Australian citizens. Australia is now a nation made up of people of many former nationalities. Surely we cannot accept a situation in which Australians are vetted as to their acceptability and banned by other nations on the basis of their previous nationality or present religious beliefs. An Australian citizen who was born into a family that had been Christian for generations and who changed his or her religious beliefs to the Jewish faith would come under this blanket discrimination by the Syrian Government. I am shocked that the Australian Government or one of its instrumentalities has accepted that position.
A constituent of mine is the person aggrieved. I have difficulty in believing that the Government is not able to find out who he is. I had no difficulty in doing so. In fact, I spoke to him this morning. He is quoted in the Melbourne Age and he confirms the story. He said that his mother’s travel agent in London had received a circular from Qantas outlining the Syrian ban. He said that the agent had booked his mother on another flight leaving the same day. My constituent rang Qantas this morning. What I am saying is not a criticism of the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am not trying to score a point. However, I am disturbed by the statement that he made today. I know that he is impeccable in making sure that the information he gives to the Senate at Question Time is accurate as far as he personally is concerned. But in part of his statement today he said that his advice was that Qantas had not instructed its staff” to inquire into the religious beliefs or faith of its passengers. I am worried that the Minister has been given wrong advice. This is not his fault.
My constituent rang the passenger reservations section of Qantas. He picked up the telephone book, found the passenger reservations number, rang that number and asked the question. The person who answered the question was not a top executive. This matter is no secret in Qantas. My constituent told the passenger reservations officer who answered the telephone that he would like to book someone on the Melbourne to London flight through Damascus. The Qantas official said: ‘We are not allowed to book a person with a Jewish passport on a flight to Damascas’. My constituent asked: ‘What is a Jewish passport?’ The Qantas representative said: ‘Anyone of Jewish faith’. That is a statement of fact which was elicited this morning by my constituent and which conflicts totally with the advice that the Minister received from the Department or from the office of the Minister for Transport before Question Time.
We say this type of international banditry or diplomatic and political terrorism practised by
Syria and other nations is to be deplored. By this act, whether the Government, the Cabinet or the Minister was responsible or knew about it, Australia now has this black mark against it. While we are supporting the Camp David accords, while we are deploring discrimination, Qantas, which is our international front window, with or without Government knowledge is speaking with two voices. In this act of Qantas, Australia must be seen as at least condoning the Syrian action or at worst agreeing with it. The significance is that Australia will be seen as taking sides in the Arab versus Israeli or Syria versus Israeli situation. We believe such a situation to be very serious.
Leaving aside religious discrimination, let us look for a moment at the country to which we have been seen to bow because of political blackmail- Syria. At the present moment Syria has 60,000 troops engaged in bloody slaughter in the Lebanon. The Syrian army virtually occupies that country. Syria is adding to international tension. The prospect for the escalation of the Middle East conflict is ever present in a situation in which there remains a warning or notice from Jerusalem that Israel would not stand idly by and watch its Christian allies in southern Lebanon crushed by the Syrians. That danger is now apparent, being caused by Syria.
Many observers see a direct link between the increased Syrian fighting in the Lebanon and the Camp David Accords. Syria is one of the hardline rejectionist Arab states which have been hostile to the peace process begun so boldly by President Sadat, joined in so magnificently by President Begin and monitored so wonderfully by President Carter. The hard-line Arabs have wanted no concession to Israel. This is another example of that. The thing that grieves me is that Australia, either through an overt or covert act, has now been seen to be taking sides, to be accepting one point of view over another. I believe that this matter ought to be resolved immediately- without any further delay. I welcome the Minister’s denunciation of the act. I hope that further action will be taken and that the strongest possible protest will be sent on behalf of the Australian people against this outrage of human rights. If the Syrians are intractable in this regard, as they are in everything else, I believe that we have no alternative but to direct our national airline- our government airline- to reroute its flights so that it will not go over the sovereignty or territory of Syria but will go somewhere else. I believe that this matter is one of supreme urgency for the Government to act.
– This matter of public importance has arisen from an article in the Age newspaper today. The first thing that I want to say is that, as yet, the facts as asserted in the Age newspaper are not determined and the Government is earnestly seeking to determine them. Secondly, I would ask all Australians, including all honourable senators, to reserve their judgment on Qantas Airways Ltd or any other person or body pending the exposure of the information. Although Government senators rose in their places to support the debate, they would not sit in judgment on the thesis put forward by Senator Chipp that the action of Qantas Airways is appalling because as yet the details are not fully known.
I repeat what I said at Question Time, that is, the Government deplores discrimination in any context on grounds of race, religion or for any other reason. Therefore where discrimination arises, as apparently it has arisen in this instance, the Government is strongly opposed to it, not only in rhetoric but also in the force of its actions. It is a firmly established policy of the Government to seek ways of having any such restrictions removed whenever they occur. Nevertheless the Government has no alternative but to recognise that pending resolution of the Arab-Israeli dispute, to which Australia is not a party, such discriminatory practices are unlikely to be withdrawn. One can sympathise with the general thrust of Senator Chipp ‘s contribution. Nevertheless I think he was viewing the situation in isolation and failing to realise that it is taking place not in one country but in a whole range of countries which I will mention in a moment or two and which are all caught up in this Arab-Israeli situation. Most if not all of them are caught up in discriminatory practices. To state that is not to condone it; it is simply to show that we are dealing with a very wide theatre of action.
The fact of the matter is that it is absolutely necessary for all the airlines of the world, including the Australian flag carrier, Qantas, to proceed through the Middle East in some form or another, using its air space in some form or another. Therefore Australia and the other countries using the air space have to fly over countries whose policies, whether of race, religion or otherwise, they certainly would not support and not condone. Demonstrably it is virtually impossible to avoid the air space which constitutes the general area of the Middle East.
Although I made some comments on this matter at Question Time, I want to repeat in substance the information that is available so that the debate itself will proceed on the grounds of factual information that is available to us. I pointed out that the Chicago convention on civil aviation gives to each country complete sovereignty over the air space above its territory. Let me make that clear. Every country has sovereignty over that air space and therefore every country is able to set the conditions under which the use of that air space shall be permitted or denied. In this respect, therefore, every country has unfettered sovereignty- those are the words I used at Question Time- to make arrangements or to pass laws in relation to the operation of air services into or above its territory. I repeat that a number of countries, including Australia, are signatories to the International Air Transit Agreement- IATA- which allows scheduled aircraft to fly through their air space without prior intergovernmental agreement. There are, however, a large number of countries which are not a signatory to this agreement. Rights for transit are therefore secured either by a lateral government agreement or by arrangements made by the airlines or governments concerned. All the countries around the world are faced with the situation of being subject to the laws that are made about air space. I repeat that in the case of Syria, which is not a signatory to IATA, Qantas overflies Syria in, I think, six services each way each week and part of the understanding of the permission to overfly is that once each week each way a Qantas flight must land at Damascus. That is the understanding. That is important to the points I wish to develop.
It is true that Syria has imposed travel restrictions which prohibit either entry or transit to persons holding Israeli passports, to holders of passports containing a declaration that the passport is valid for Israel and/or a visa for Israel, whether valid or expired, and for passengers of Jewish faith of any nationality. That is a fact which Australia may abhor, as it does. But the fact is that it is the responsibility of every travel agent in the world to disclose to his client the conditions under which Syria will accept passengers, whether in overflight or in transit- I will make the point in a moment or two- because the very safety of the passenger himself or those who fly in the aircraft could be utterly jeopardised. Therefore the telling of the story is a duty. The person who, as an agent, says that this is the condition is not himself saying that he supports the condition. He could in fact reject it out of hand, as most right-thinking people would do, but he is honour bound not to do so because he could put at risk the person concerned. So it is not surprising that all airlines put out information as to the conditions that apply and operate in a particular country.
When they make known those conditions they are not supporting them; they are simply stating the facts as I did during Question Time today concerning what is asserted to be taking place between Vietnam and Kampuchea. They are stating a situation which we all deplore but which is a statement of fact. If someone were going to those countries we would state the conditions. One should not be surprised that a travel agent in England would say to a passenger: ‘If you are going to Syria and if any of these restrictions apply to you- if you hold an Israeli passport or a passport containing a declaration that that passport is valid for Israel, if you hold a visa for Israel, whether valid or expired, or if you are of the Jewish faith of any nationality- Syrian law says that you are prohibited’. As I understand it, that information is conveyed by travel agents and airlines throughout the world as a fact and not as something that they support. Let me say simply that there is grave danger to the person concerned if that person does not understand or does not have conveyed to him or her the implications of those restrictions. If those restrictions are not conveyed to that person, loss of either security or life could occur. Equally, because of emergent terrorism, which is unhappily not unknown in the Middle East, there could be a threat to innocent passengers of the airline itself. I repeat that it is necessary to make known these conditions which Syria lays down.
A number of other Arab States have somewhat similar travel restrictions to those applying in Syria. I am advised that the travel restrictions imposed in Syria and in other Arab States have been in force for at least five years. A number of other countries impose travel restrictions under domestic law. For example, Israel refuses admission and transit to nationals of countries of the Arab League. People who move between Arab countries and Israel are well aware of the prohibition on travel into Israel by people who hold particular passports.
– But if you are an Australian of the Muslim faith it is a different proposition.
– I am simply reciting the facts at the moment. I am not condoning the situation. I sympathise with the principles expressed by Senator Chipp but I am simply reciting what happens in the real world however earnestly he and I would want to reform it. Let me provide honourable senators with a rundown of the countries of the Middle East which apply restrictions. I have mentioned Israel and Syria already. In addition Iraq refuses admission and transit to holders of Israeli passports, holders of passports stating that the passport is valid for Israel or has a valid or expired visa for Israel or any data indicating that the passenger has been in Israel, and Jewish passengers whose Jewish religion is mentioned in their passport. I give these details not to condone them but to indicate what applies in other countries. Jordan has similar restrictions except that the proscription in respect of Jewish passengers reads: ‘Jewish passengers irrespective of nationality’. Saudi Arabia has limitations similar to those applying in Iraq. Egypt has a restriction on holders of Israeli passports but does not proscribe members of the Jewish faith. In Bahrain restrictions apply only to holders of Israeli passports and the situation in Kuwait is similar to that in Bahrain. In addition a wide range of other countries have admission limitations. I have referred to Israel’s prohibition of members of the Arab League. All of these are racial and religious restrictions. They are all appallingly bad, but they exist.
– How is the Israeli restriction racial?
– I think that is a proper intervention and I correct myself. It is a restriction of a political nature. I acknowledge that that is a genuine point of interjection. These are areas of great restriction by which the individual countries assert their sovereignty in terms of the use of air space. Syria is one example of this. As I pointed out, I am advised that this practice is now some five years old. No one would want a travel agent or airline to ask a passenger his or her religion. That is abhorrent. Nevertheless it is true that passengers frequently have a vested interest in terms of their religious practices in the food and drink provided on the airline. It is quite usual for people of the Jewish faith to ask for Kosher-type food and it would be responsible, therefore, for any travel agent or airline to remind that person of the conditions whilst not approving of them. I am advised that that is basically the situation at the moment. Of course the Commonwealth Government would be eager to be able to use air routes over air space where conditions resulting in any kind of discrimination were not applied. Sadly, over virtually threequarters of the globe those restrictions do apply. The Iron Curtin countries have their own political restrictions in terms of limitations on the people who may fly; so we are looking at a world which, unhappily, suffers massive restrictions.
There may be much more that we need to find out in detail about the present situation and I do not want to put forward what I have said today as being the total situation. The Government will fully investigate all aspects and will look very hard at any way by which it can secure air routes throughout the world which are not restricted in any discriminatory fashion. I am bound to say that the real world is a world in which such restrictions apply and in which violence and terrorism are not strangers to the air routes of the world. It would be wrong for anyone in a responsible position, knowing the conditions that apply in these countries, not to state to the passenger the conditions that apply and their consequences and not to indicate to the passenger that there are alternative routes which avoid any such danger. I simply repeat what I have said and that is that there could be a grave danger to a passenger to whom these restrictions apply in an aircraft which, for whatever reason, whether it be over-flying or technical troubles or even complying with the twice-weekly requirement to land in Damascus, was required to land in a country where these restrictions applied. In such a situation that passenger could find his or her security or life jeopardised because the airline or travel agent did not give the information.
I repeat that the Government, in common with all Australians, hates that thought and regards racial discrimination as evil. It has a deep concern in particular for the Jewish people and the persecution of those people and their religion over the centuries. It has a deep sympathy for their wish to find peace for themselves. In terms of racial and religious discrimination, it would deplore anti-semetism wherever it may be. But, in deploring it, the Government cannot but acknowledge that it is necessary for an airline and for travel agents to indicate to the people concerned the real world in Syria and in all the Middle East countries. If, because this matter has been exposed, it is competent for any government to find solutions that can be achieved in flying the routes of this world and minimising discrimination, this will be a good thing and a useful debate. Certainly I can pledge that the Government of the day is looking very hard at all aspects of it to see what reforms, if any, can emerge.
-I am pleased to be able to support the resolution which has been moved by Senator Chipp. I regard this as one of the most important matters which has been brought before the Senate in the 1 3 years that I have been a member of the Senate. It does not appear to be a matter which has attracted the attention of a great many honourable senators. I do not think that it could be denied that there are a lot of other matters which the Senate would regard as being more important than this matter but I think that this reflects discredit on the Senate rather than suggests that there is anything trivial about the matter that has been raised. I have listened very attentively to what Senator Carrick has said. I must say, with respect to him, that I was not impressed by what he said. I have the feeling that his heart was not in this matter. I think he was given a poor brief. I am sorry he did not decline to accept the brief.
What is the issue that has been raised? The Minister said earlier today in answer to a question something to the effect that this is a complex matter. If I may have the temerity to say so, I do not believe it is a complex matter; I think it is a very simple matter. I think it is a very simple matter to this extent: Is Australia to be the sort of country which will say that its own GovernorGeneral, its own Head of State, cannot fly on an Australian airline on an ordinary scheduled flight? Is that what Australia is going to say? Is that what we have been reduced to? Because of the problems of travel agents, because of the business that is involved in flogging tickets, have we been reduced to the abject level that we have to act so sycophantly towards the Government of Syria that we have to reduce ourselves to a stage where we say: ‘Yes, it is deplorable but unfortunately there are business considerations and we cannot do anything about it’. I believe the issue is just as simple as that.
What is the allegation that has been made which appeared in this morning’s article in the Melbourne Age to which Senator Chipp has referred? It is an allegation which has not been denied by the Minister. We have heard a great deal about all sorts of complex matters which go on with regard to booking tickets and travelling on aeroplanes, but we have not received an answer to the questions which are raised in this morning’s Age. There appeared a quotation attributed to a spokesman- as he is described- for Qantas. This statement has not been rebutted by the Minister. A report in today’s Melbourne Age says: the Syrian Government had been refusing entry and transit facilities to Israeli citizens and Jews of any nationality for some time.
He said the ban applied to Qantas, even though all passengers remained on board the airline’s jets during Damascus stopovers.
All airlines and travel agents were reminded of the ban in the monthly Travel Information Manual published by the International Air Transport Association, of which Qantas is a member.
The Minister has said that we deplore these terrible things. We deplore racism. We hate it. But we live in the real world, and there is the real world, and facts are facts; and there are the facts. If we allow this to continue we are accessories to those facts. We are parties to those facts. It is no use our saying: ‘We deplore it. Isn’t it horrible? Is not this practice of racial discrimination a shocking thing, but there must be some hundreds of thousands of dollars involved in the trade so we will continue with it’. It reminds one of those highly moral captains of slave ships who used to transport the blacks from Africa to the American colonies in the eighteenth century and who saying their prayers said: ‘What a dreadful thing the slave trade is, but unfortunately business is business. You have to to make your living some way or the other, so we will ship them across there ‘. That is what we are saying about this.
I may appear to have a cavalier attitude towards Australia’s financial arrangements, our balance of payments and the future of our airline industry, but as far as I am concerned I would rather see Australia have no Qantas airline at all than that we should be parties to something like this. I think this is the same as saying you are in the gas chamber business and that Mr Eichmann has made a request for some gas chambers. Although you deplore what he is going to do with them, think of all your employees, think of your balance of payments for your gas chambers. Of course you will have to sell them to him.
What we are doing by saying that is to indicate that quite clearly we are going to aid and abet the Government of Syria to practise what has been described as religious discrimination, but it is racial discrimination, against Jewish people including Australian Jews. I am not specifying them as I believe the rights of any other resident of Australia or any other person are as good as those of an Australian citizen but I think it shows just how abject we have become when we include our own citizens, including our own Governor-General, among those people whom we would not carry on Qantas on a flight which would stop in Damascus. We are just as guilty as those people who are mouthing these insane statements in Damascus and in Baghdad. We are parties to it. We are just like those good German policemen, good solid Liberals and Social Democrats who carried out their orders from Hitler after 1933- people who would never have voted Nazi in their lives and who said: ‘Isn’t it shocking. I am really sad about those people I had to go around and collect and take to the camp’. That is what we are doing here. I am not in the least bit impressed by a recitation about various countries with lists of names and requirements they have on them.
Although I concede that the Minister was prepared to accept the qualification that I interjected, I think it is quite unpardonable to suggest that the actions of Israel in this matter are in any way equivalent to those of Syria. There is a state of war between Israel and the Arab League countries. Israel will not accept- I suppose there is a difference now with at least Egypt but the practice has been in the past that Israel would not accept- people travelling on passports of countries belonging to Arab League because of the state of war. Conversely, the Arab League countries would not accept the passports of those who are Israeli citizens. That they would not accept Israelis is unfortunate but that is a political consequence of a political situation.
If the Syrian Government had said: ‘We are in a state of war with Israel; therefore, we will not accept Israeli passport holders’, we could then say that all these terrible things would not be solved until the Middle East situation has been settled. We could say all of that and no doubt we would be satisfied about it- or some of us would be- and that would be fair enough; it is reciprocal. However, what is being said here is that no Jewish person- it does not have to be an Israeli; it can be our Governor-General- is not allowed in. Israel has not said that no Arab is allowed to go into Tel Aviv. In fact, the streets of Tel Aviv are full of Arabs- Israeli Arabs and all sorts of Arabs- passing through that country. The have not said that Indian Muslims or Australian Muslims or people of Palestinian or Lebanese origin who have become naturalised Australians are not allowed to go into Israel. There is absolutely no parallel whatsoever.
If I may say so, I get a bit tired sometimes when I am faced with a very significant moral issue and hear it said: ‘Of course everybody is just the same. One is just as bad as the other. It is all very difficult. Here is Australia in this awkward situation. The Israelis will not let some people in. The Syrians will not let some others in. We have to look after our business. We will just do the best to see the trade keeps flowing along’. That is not the case here. This is a very simple, clear case. I do not care whether there are 50 other countries doing it; the fact is that oneSyria has been drawn to our attention. We have some sort of arrangement with Syria whereby Australian aircraft are landing in Damascus and various flunkeys around Qantas offices, performing the traditional role of a flunkey, are saying to good Australians: ‘You cannot travel on our aircraft because you are Jewish’. I think it is disgraceful. I think it is shameful. I think it reflects great discredit on Qantas. I have been very proud of Qantas too, but I am not proud of Qantas while it is doing this sort of thing. I am ashamed of Qantas and I am ashamed of a government which allows this to continue. I do not think it is good enough to say: ‘We are looking into it and here is the real world. Sooner or later everything will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds’. It will not be, if this continues. People spent the 1930s talking about beef subsidies and matters of this kind, and not looking at the real issues and at what was really happening in the world. It was not the beef subsidies that got us into the Second World War; it was the sorts of things which the Nazis were doing and which bear a very great similarity to what is being done by the present Syrian Government.
I do not want to digress too far, but one matter that has been agitating my mind for a little while has not concerned Jews at all. It is concerned with the position of Lebanese Christians. I am speaking with complete impartiality on these matters, as a long-standing atheist. The position of the Lebanese Christians at present is also quite intolerable. I do not think there is any doubt that what is taking place at present is a campaign of genocide by the Syrian Government and the Syrian armed forces. As moderate and restrained a newspaper as Le Monde of Paris- one of the best informed newspapers in the world- in an article only a week or two ago referred to the situation of the Lebanese Maronite Christians as one of Calvary. Our Government, as far as I know, has said nothing about that. It might have issued the usual bromides about looking forward to a peaceful settlement and hoping that good sense will prevail or something like that; but it has made no condemnation of the situation. To compound that, we find here that we are crawling to the Syrian Government by refusing our own citizens the right to travel on Australian aircraft. If it is so awkward to fly around Syria, let us stop flying the aircraft there at all. I think it is a most disgusting state of affairs that Australian citizens and residents or any other persons should be placed in this position by a national airline. We have a responsibility for Qantas. This Government and this Parliament have a responsibility for Qantas.
If people think that they are going to bring about peace in the Middle East or anywhere else by conniving at actions of this kind, I think that they are going to be in for the same sort of surprise as Mr Neville Chamberlain had in 1939.
We do not get peace that way. We shall get peace only by making our position perfectly clear, by saying to the Government of Syria or the government of anywhere else, whatever it does or whatever is done by governments of the other countries on the list with which Senator Carrick regaled us, that at least Australia is not going to be prepared to tolerate it. We are a small country and I am not suggesting that we send gunboats into Beirut harbour; but at least we should be able to say that, whatever other countries are doing there, we are not going to do it here and that we are not going to have booking clerks in Melbourne acting as agents for the Syrian Government. That is what we are doing at present. That is what I believe this matter of public importance is deploring. I hope that it is carried. I hope that the Government takes some notice of it and does not just pass it over and say that it is going to look into it and that in the fullness of time everything will come out in the wash, because it will not.
– I am grateful to my colleagues who have brought up this subject for debate and for the contributions which have been made up to this moment. We rarely have the opportunity in the Senate to debate issues which relate in any way to questions of religious tolerance or the rights of religious minorities. Of course, we do not do it, because we rarely have to. In this country, with our backgrounds and traditions, we have a history of religious tolerance and acceptance which makes it difficult for us to understand some of the provisions in other countries and other lands. We are concerned at present because the barbarities and complexities of the Middle East are being intertwined with our own policies and actions and they are, as Senator Wheeldon said, being constructed in such a way that citizens of Australia will be involved.
I read in the Age newspaper this morning the article which has been referred to. The first thing that emerges is a point to which Senator Carrick referred in his speech; that is, that the facts set out in that article have not been confirmed so far. But, if they are true, they are outrageous. If they are true, an Australian has told the Age newspaper that his mother was refused a seat on a Qantas flight from London to Tullamarine via Damascus because she was Jewish.
– He told me that too.
– In response to Senator Chipp ‘s interjection, let me say that I spoke to the gentleman this morning. If that is true, it is outrageous. Senator Carrick has said that the facts are not yet known, and I accept that; but they must become known quickly and without any attempt by Qantas to equivocate or to smudge or slide past the facts. The second fact set out in the article is that the airline’s reservations staff in Melbourne are not allowed to book Jews on the Damascus flight. If that is true, that is outrageous. The facts have to become known quickly and clearly in answer to that specific point. It is either true or not true. If it is not true, we would like to know what conditions are imposed or what pressures are brought to bear on people of a particular religion in this country not to book on certain flights. But we are entitled, as an urgent first step, to have the facts made crystal clear. If the Age newspaper story is wrong, we want to know. If the Age newspaper story is right, we want action from the Government.
This debate really is not about Jews. It is not about Arabs. It is not really about Syria or about Israel. The fact that the Jews and the Arabs in the countries of the Middle East can make a mess of their own affairs is their own business, and that may be a set of facts with which we do not have to be concerned today. If people want to see the central issue as one of discrimination by Syria against Jews, I think that is to misunderstand the issue. I accept the point that Senator Wheeldon made about some of the contemporary history that Syria has to live down and the things which Syria is doing, but that is not what this issue is about. The debate concerns Australia. It concerns our national airline. It concerns the view which our Government will take of what our national airline is doing. That is the issue which we are entitled to have addressed by the Government and on which we are entitled to have a response. Honourable senators so far have no referred to our Constitution. One of the very few freedoms guaranteed under our Constitution is in section 1 1 6, which states among other things:
We are not talking about offices or public trusts, but it is interesting that in our Constitution -
– What if it is a Jewish airline pilot?
– I thank the honourable senator for his interjection. It was seen fit to lay down in our Constitution, in relation to some Commonwealth matters, that no religious test shall be required as a qualification, and we are talking about an Australian airline which is prepared to impose a religious test as a qualification for the right to travel on its aeroplanes. If one reads The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth by Quick and Garran one finds the reason that this section was put in. I quote a section of that book:
The prohibition of religious tests was a denial of power- a denial which was necessary, because otherwise there would have been nothing to prevent the Federal legislature, in defining the qualifications for federal office, to impose such tests.
That is a nice indication of the ways in which statutory bodies established under the Commonwealth should behave. In that same section the word ‘Commonwealth’ is used. I quote again from Quick and Garran:
The term Commonwealth . . . does not mean the Federal community, but the Government of the Commonwealth acting through any of its agencies or instrumentalities.
I am inclined to believe that what comes out of this is that Qantas Airways Ltd, as one instrumentality, should at least be aware of what the founding fathers were trying to get at and it should be prepared to follow what they were trying to say. Other commentators on the Australian Constitution have dealt with this matter in their work. For example, Lumb and Ryan state:
This part of s. 116 emphasises the principle of religious freedom. No person shall be subject to penalties -
Such as not being able to obtain travel- or any form of discrimination based on his religious beliefs.
Let us dwell for just a moment on this question of freedom from religious tests. It is a matter of no little interest to me. Certainly, as regards Jews, it was in only 1 846- a short time ago- that the Toleration Act of 1688 was extended to give Jews freedom in English law and the kind of toleration which allowed them to enter into the full communal life in that country. When the Australian Constitution was written, we took steps to try to extend religious freedom here and to exclude tests based on one’s religious beliefs forever from the way in which the Government proceeded and, I would hope, from the way in which its instrumentalities and agencies proceeded. Yet, we have here apparently the national airline which is prepared to impose a religious test as to whether I or any other Australian citizen can travel on the particular airline flight of our choice. This brings us back to Qantas Airways Ltd. It is a national possession. I note from the Qantas annual report that it describes itself in the following terms:
Qantas Airways Ltd, which has completed 57 years of operation, is wholly-owned by the Commonwealth of Australia.
The report sets out the airlines function which is to develop and to operate international air services as the Australian flag carrier. It carries more than just our flag. It carries our national beliefs, our national standards and our national ethos. This is the kind of argument to which we must address ourselves because it is clear that Qantas does know and has known about the arrangements which it set up with Syria five years ago. The fact that this happened five years ago indicates that governments of both political complexions have been in power while these arrangements have been operating. I think, as other honourable senators have told us, the arrangements include an agreement to Syria’s demand that passengers of the Jewish faith of any nationality shall not be able to land in Syria. I repeat that this applies to passengers of the Jewish faith. I agree with Senator Wheeldon; there is nothing wrong, if Syria is at war with Israel, with it excluding people of the Israeli nationality as part of that state of war but we are told that people of the Jewish faith should not be allowed to land in that country.
At this stage I believe the problem facing us becomes quite clear. The national carrier which bears our flag and shows our face to the world has chosen, in pursuit of commercial advantage, to agree to quite intolerable conditions which include a religious test to be applied to Australian citizens who may wish to be passengers on its aircraft. It appears that Qantas is prepared to agree, for commercial security, to place these conditions on access to its services; conditions which are not in keeping with the spirit of our Constitution nor in keeping with the sentiments of this country. I return to the point that Senator Carrick made: If the facts are correct, and we want to know quickly whether they are correct, this is commercial harlotry on the part of Qantas. It is an abdication of responsibility in the pursuit of profit. It is not the fault of Syria. It is not the fault of anyone except the airline that would agree to such an arrangement. Now that it has become public, it would be the fault of any government that continued to honour such an arrangement.
It may be argued that our civil aviation routes to the Middle East are essential. They are not essential: They are very important. The question remains: How much are we willing to pay to keep them? Mr President, I put this proposition to you as I develop this argument: There are some prices it is not worth paying. To argue that the Government has no alternative but to accede to the wishes of Syria is nonsense. We do have an alternative. It may be an expensive alternative, but we have an alternative. We are not obliged to place this kind of religious test on people who may wish to travel on our aircraft, whether they be of this religion or any other religion. It has been argued that if Qantas does not abide by these conditions, it may not be able to guarantee the safety of its passengers in Damascus. If that is the case, it should not fly to Damascus. That is the answer to that proposition.
It may be argued that every other Arab nation may refuse landing rights to Qantas. I would say in defence of this principle that that would be a price worth paying if we had to pay it. It may be argued that a failure to maintain landing rights in the Middle East would incur additional costs due to longer routes and higher air rates. It would be worth it if the alternative were to agree that those people of a particular religious belief could not travel on any flight of our national carrier on which they wished to be passengers. No Australian should have to pass a religious test to use our national airline. The airline’s directors should never have agreed to conditions which impose such a test. I have had reason to criticise Qantas before. But I believe this decision should give the airline cause to examine its competence and practices. It is now up to the Government to declare that the situation is inconsistent with its concepts of religious toleration and for it to forbid Qantas to continue to agree to the imposition of these conditions. In the end, there is no price I would not pay to uphold the kind of religious toleration set out in our Constitution and practised in this democratic society. If the price is an alteration in an air route or more expensive fares, it will be worth while paying that price to ensure that principles which set us apart in the world as one of the small group of real democracies are neither lost nor abridged.
– The Opposition came quickly to the support of the matter of public importance presented by Senator Chipp. As is the case with many honourable senators on the Government side of the chamber, honourable senators on this side of the chamber unanimously took the view at a Party meeting this morning that they should resist the position that has been revealed in the Senate this afternoon in clear terms by speakers who have preceded me in the debate. It is the view of members of the Opposition that the most despicable of human attitudes is racial prejudice. I do not think that we expected to have this matter brought before us in such a way that we as a nation, operating a flag airline, should have that airline bring us into disrepute and humiliate us in this way. I was surprised that the Leader of the
Government in the Senate (Senator Carrick) endeavoured to justify the position taken by Qantas in some way, the continuation of this state of affairs by taking the same view as the Minister for Transport (Mr Nixon) apparently took when he gave his statement to the Age. I take it that the report is accurate. It reads:
The transport Minister, Mr Nixon, said last night any restriction on Jewish passengers was part of an arrangement under which Qantas operated its Damascus service. It was part of Qantas’ normal commercial operations and the Federal Government had taken no part in the decision.
The Minister enlarged upon that statement. He approached this very serious matter in the same commercial way as Qantas and it is to his disadvantage that he did so. It seems to me that the simple course would have been for Qantas to say, and say firmly, that it could not operate a flight from Australia across to Europe in a way that would debar or prohibit any person travelling on that flight because of racial or religious background. That surely is the simple ethical position that Qantas should have taken immediately. In international arrangements we should take the position clearly that we cannot accept such a proposition, arrangement, or agreement. Yet is seems that for quite some time this is not what has been occurring. Suddenly the issue is before us and, having been brought before us, it is necessary for the Government to take swift action to bring the practice to an end. I hope that this debate will bring some weight to bear upon the Government to convince Qantas immediately that, no matter what the commercial loss may be, it would be far better not to fly six times weekly over Syria and to land one of those flights in Damascus but to go by another route.
I sought some information how this could be done but, unfortunately, the only map available to me is a very small map that I obtained from our transport office. It seems to me that Senator Baume has a much better map. However, even this small map seems to indicate that there are alternatives available. Those alternatives should be taken advantage of immediately. I rang the Department of Transport and sought from it some information on what alternative routes were available to Qantas and what would be the commercial loss if they were taken. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain much cooperation or information because, for some reason, all the responsible officers were not there. I think there was an interdepartmental committee meeting which was engaging their attention. What fascinated me was the suggestion that I should refer my questions to the Minister for Transport. I made the point that it was rather odd that the Opposition should have to ask the
Minister for information which it could use against him. It is a typical response from departments these days, as we on Estimates committees have discovered. It seems to me that they are insensitive to their responsibilities just as Qantas is quite insensitive to its responsibility to carry out the will of the Australian people as reflected in the speeches that have been made in the Senate.
We are rapidly getting the reputation of being a servile people. We seemed to bow quite easily to the demands of Indonesia over Timor and one suspects that the reason we made no firm protest over Indonesian actions in East Timor or, for that matter, over the death of the six journalists referred to by Senator Mason today was that Indonesia could make it tremendously difficult for us by refusing us the right to travel over Indonesia. So we bowed to the requests of Indonesia in the face of the possibility of that commercial disadvantage. We bow to the requests of other nations when they apply pressure to us, and evidently we have succumbed to a request by Syria. In fairness to Syria, it may be that it said that it was not in a position to protect people of Jewish origin who were on a plane going over that territory- I cannot quite see how that is so- and if it happened to land those people may be at risk and the rest of the passengers also may be at risk. It has never been put to us in those terms that that was the real reason for Qantas ‘s decision. I do not think it is. I think the real reason is the economic sanction that would have been placed upon us if we had not made a decision based on racial grounds. That is quite unacceptable.
This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself opposed to a Palestinian or Arabian position. It is said that I am the only Arab, or Arab by near kin, in the Labor Caucus. I accept that, but–
– They should leave us Semites alone, Senator.
– Those of us who come from the Caucasian area are all Semites under the skin. We need to be reminded of that from time to time. We seem to change our religious attitudes and views but even they should not put us apart. It seems that the horror of the Middle Eastern situation could be underlined by those remarks. Nevertheless, that is the situation which exists. Some of us have great sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people and some of us, sometimes the same ones of us, have considerable sympathy for the Israeli plight, just as we are concerned about the situation in Northern Ireland and other places. The proposition which is being put to the Senate is a simple, humane, sensible and highly ethical one- that we ought not to succumb to this sort of pressure which, if we did succumb to it, would place us in an extremely indefensible position against a claim that we are racist- nothing more or less- and that we have succumbed to carrying out what is essentially a racist action.
We need to be consistent. We take a very strong stand against apartheid in South Africa and have very firm attitudes opposing what happens in South Africa on racial grounds. We adopt the same attitude in respect of Rhodesia and we should be consistent and take the same stand to resist anything that has a racial overtone or undertone. It does not seem as though there is any opposition in this place to the proposition put by Senator Chipp, that is, that ‘the appalling action of Qantas Airways Ltd of banning Jews from flights which land in Syria’ should be condemned out of hand. This is one of the occasions when I deplore our Standing Orders because they prevent us from coming to a vote on these matters. We really should be coming to a vote on this very important issue. We should force honourable senators to take a position on it. I find it difficult to find the right words to condemn the attitude of Qantas and the position taken by the Minister for Transport purely on commercial grounds. I merely rest upon the fact that other members of the Senate have been far more eloquent and far more emotive, and justly so, in support of the proposition put forward by Senator Chipp.
– I suppose it is unusual on a Wednesday, when we are discussing a matter of public importance, to find so much unanimity on both sides of the chamber. Usually, we find ourselves in the midst of quite a debate. This afternoon it is more of a forum than a debate, with the only difference being on the degree of enormity of the problem or the degree of abhorrence which each and every one of us has for this aspect of the overseas operations of Qantas Airways Limited. Australia signed the relevant United Nations Charter on 1 November 1945. Syria actually signed it before Australia did. It signed it on 19 October 1945. 1 wish to quote from Article 55 of Chapter IX of that Charter, headed ‘International Economic and Social Co-operation’. The preamble states:
With a view to the creation of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, the United Nations shall promote:
I shall quote clause (c) of that Chapter, which states: universal respect for. and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
As I said, we are a signatory to that Charter. Syria is also a signatory to that Chaner yet, as with many of the articles of United Nations charters, all too often it is found that the signatory nations give it only lip service. The matter of public importance was raised today because of an article which appeared in the Melbourne Age this morning. Unfortunately, we have not had the time to collect full details on the matter. If the article is correct- I think we all agree that part of it is obviously correct- it is an indictment of Australia and of our national flag carrier. Unfortunately, because of the drivel that is dished out to us in the Press these days, we do not know how much of the article is correct or what the full story is. Be that as it may, the article contains enough to concern each and every honourable senator on both sides of this chamber here today.
It represents an imposition and a restriction of which we would never have thought that we, as a country, would be a part. We have always thought that we are above that sort of thing. We have always thought that the only parties to that sort of thing were other countries, Third World countries- third rate countries, if we like. We find that a country over which we have overflight rights has imposed certain conditions. This is not new. The Minister for Education and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Carrick) alluded to that today in answer to a question and also when he took part in this debate. This approach is an integral part of negotiations in international civil aviation. Unfortunately, Syria is not a signatory to the Air Transit Agreement so Qantas has to come to its own separate arrangement with Syria as does every other airline.
A condition of these over-flight arrangements is that at least one Qantas service should land at Damascus each way each week. Of course, it is that particular flight that is causing the trouble because Syria, for reasons that we do not know, has acted in the way it has. We all have our suspicions and we do not like what we suspect. Senator Georges raised another point, namely, that perhaps Syria feels that it might not be able to guarantee the safety of any Jewish nationals who land at that airport. Be that as it may, Syria, in imposing this restriction, has sought to put restrictions on the Article of the United Nations Charter from which I read which, to our minds, reek of racial intolerance and religious prejudice.
It constitutes a discrimination not only against religion, not only against race, but also against nationality- all three. That is an intolerable situation for us to find ourselves in and for us to be a part of.
Religious discrimination of the type practised to enforce this ban is reminiscent of the Middle Ages. It would be thought that in the twentieth century we would have reached a higher level of human tolerance, but it seems that we still live in an age in which a person ‘s religion is a criterion on which his human rights are determined. As I said, and every honourable senator agrees with me, that is an intolerable situation. What we are finding hard to stomach is the calm acceptance by Qantas of these restrictions, contrary to any beliefs we have in freedom of religion. It is ironic that we find that these restrictions have been in existence for five years. It is a discrimination that is worse than that of the Middle Ages, yet we are supposed to be living in an enlightened age. The apathy which Qantas has exhibited is akin to acceptance of racial and religious intolerance.
Where do we go from here? It is quite easy for us to stand up and say that Qantas should not have done what it has done. But what are the alternatives? Sure, Syria is not the only place that we have to over-fly. It must be said that this intolerance applies apparently only to the one flight of the many flights that Qantas operates each way each week. This applies not only to people of the Jewish faith but also, apparently, to those people who have been into Israel on an Israeli visa. But this restriction applies just to that one flight. It is not as though these people are precluded from ever flying to Europe or England from Australia. I think that we must bear that in mind and recognise that the situation is not as bad as it at first seems. That is my understanding of the situation.
If Qantas did object to the restrictions, what would be the situation with the other Arab nations in the Middle East? Would we still be granted over-flying privileges in Iran, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt and so on? This is something that we would have to consider. If Qantas were to object to these restrictions it would mean re-routing Qantas flights. If Qantas were the only airline to stand up on this issue, it would be placed at a severe commercial disadvantage. I know that Senator Wheeldon has taken issue on the question of just how far one can go with commercial disadvantage. That is a question at which the Government and Qantas have to look. Senator Georges raised also the problems that would exist if we disagreed with what was happening in Indonesia. We would be at a very severe disadvantage in the international sphere if we fell out with the entire Arab world and with Indonesia. Are we going to fold Qantas up and say: Because Qantas is under these restrictions no airline that does not observe the same restrictions as Qantas observes can come to Australia?
Where does the matter begin and where does it end? I believe that it is here that the Australian Government, now that this matter has been brought to its attention, has to take a lead. It has to negotiate with the Arab countries and tell them about this situation. In particular, the Australian Government has to negotiate with Syria, which has an abominable record at this time when we consider what is happening in Beirut. We have not only to negotiate with the Arab countries, but also to tell them that we find the situation with Syria intolerable. We have to get agreement with other nations on this matter, as we have done with international hi-jackings. I am sure that it would be possible to do so and to sit down with representatives of other nations which are signatories to Article 55 of this United Nations Charter and say that we think that this is an intolerable situation and that those nations also should accept the fact that we cannot go along with this intolerance and this prejudice.
I agree that, although this is Qantas ‘s responsibility- it took the initial decision and this day it has been condemned for taking that decision on its own- this does not necessarily represent an indictment just of Qantas. Because of the intolerance, the prejudice, the bigotry and the racism involved in this, it is a general indictment of the whole of the society in which we live today that such a situaton could have arisen and could have been allowed to exist for up to five years. I believe that we as a Parliament and we as a country have to do all that we can and not be- I think Senator Georges used this term- servile to situations such as this created by Third World countries or other countries which seek to impose these intolerable prejudices on us. We should not be servile. We should stand up, seek out the other countries which are signatories to this United Nations Charter and make them put their money where their mouth is and stand up for what they believe, if they really believe that there should be no discrimination as to race, sex, language or religion. I am sure that if we put a bit of steel into our own backbone we would find a lot of steel in the backbones of others. Then we could stand up against such a practice, especially of a country with such a shocking track record as Syria has at this point in our history.
– I rise to speak very briefly in this debate because I think that really most of the points that have to be made have been made by other senators who have contributed to the debate. I include the Minister for Education and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Carrick), who explained the factual situation as he saw it. This matter of public importance comes before the Senate very largely, I think, as a result of an article which appeared in the Melbourne Age today. That article is headed: ‘Air veto on Jews: Qantas accepts veto order from Syrians’. They are very emotional headlines calculated, one would rightly suspect, to produce a very emotional response. No one in this chamber, one would hope, would like the notion of an air veto on Jews or on any other people of a particular religion or racial origin. Nobody in this Senate, one would hope, would like to take the view that Qantas Airways Ltd, Australia’s so-called international airline, would accept a veto order imposed on it by any foreign government in relation to the types of passengers it carries. That, of course, is the point of this matter of public importance and the reason for the expression of concern by honourable senators on both sides of the chamber.
The unfortunate part of the article, about which there does appear to be a degree of confusion, is a statement which appears at the end of it. It reads:
The Transport Minister, Mr Nixon, said last night any restriction on Jewish passengers was part of an arrangement under which Qantas operated its Damascus service. It was part of Qantas’ normal commercial operations and the Federal Government had taken no part in the decision.
With the greatest respect to the Minister for Transport, that looks like a fairly glib sort of copout of the whole argument. After all, Qantas, as a statutory corporation, is responsible to the Minister and it ought to be responsible to the Minister in respect of any decisions it makes which have implications in terms of human rights or international affairs. That seems to be the crunch in this situation. If the Minister is indicating the correct position in that statement, if Qantas in fact has regarded this as part of its normal commercial operations, then Qantas, as a responsible statutory corporation, has not seen the implications, in terms of human rights and international affairs, of the decision which it apparently has made. Let me add that it is not clear from this debate, or as much as I have heard of it, when in fact the decision was made by Qantas and how long this practice has been going on.
Of course, as the Minister and others have pointed out, a number of factors have to be considered. As has been pointed out, these sorts of policies are applied by a number of countries and are given effect to by a number of airlines for which those countries are responsible. But the fact is that in this Senate and in this debate it is not our task- indeed, it is not our business- to tell other countries what they should do in respect of their own airline’s policy. It is very easy to do so here, from the Senate, in relation to Middle East airlines, whether they be Arab Middle East airlines or Israeli airlines, but it is very difficult to determine what one would do if one were confronted with the sorts of situations with which those countries are continually confronted. We are not in that situation. Qantas is not in that situation at all, and we, as members of this Senate, and the Minister, as the Minister for Transport of this Parliament, are of course very much responsible for the actions of an airline like Qantas and very much responsible in terms of our position internationally and the way in which we discriminate, against not only our own citizens and residents of this country but also visitors to this country who may, for example, be of the Jewish faith or of Jewish ethnic origin.
So, I share with others in the Senate the concern that has been expressed. I hope that the Minister will make a much more detailed statement about this matter so that it can be considered further by the Parliament in the light of further facts which ought to be available. I think it is the Minister’s responsibility to see that that information is given to the Parliament as quickly as possible. I think we all deplore the notion of discrimination against any of our citizens, particularly on our international airline. For that reason, I strongly support the matter that has been raised by Senator Chipp.
– As Senator Button has just suggested and as the Minister for Education and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Carrick) pointed out in his remarks, all the facts relating to this case are not entirely clear at present. Senator Carrick suggested that in fact we should reserve final judgment on the matter; but, given the information that was reported, for example, today in the Melbourne Age, I think it is important that the Senate indicate its views on the basis of what is now known and understood to be the situation.
The Minister, in his statement, made the point that the sorts of discriminatory practices to which this debate is directed are unlikely to be withdrawn by the countries involved- in this case, particularly Syria- but one of the important points which the Minister made and which has to be emphasised is that these practices vary from country to country and even amongst the Arab countries of the Middle East there are wide variations of the application of what can generally be described as discriminatory practices. There are, of course, clear differences between rules and regulations which apply, on the one hand, to certain passport holders and, on the other hand, to people who have passports which contain visas, either current or in some cases expired. Then, of course, there is the application of these provisions to people of a certain faith. It is that latter fact which we are discussing in particular with respect to Qantas Airways Ltd.
Senator Wheeldon made the point that it is no good our saying how bad it all is and that really we have to do something about it. Often it is the case that we cannot do much about things. We can be critical of what is happening in many countries, for example in Uganda, Kampuchea or the Soviet Union; but often we cannot do a great deal about those things. But surely in this case we do have a capacity to do something, to exert some influence. It seems to me, therefore, to be particularly important, appropriate and essential, now that this matter has come to lightand it seems that the situation has existed for some considerable time- that this Senate express a view and perhaps thereby have some influence on altering the situation.
It is important to note, as other speakers have done, that the Arab countries do consider themselves to be in a state of conflict with Israel, no matter how latent that conflict may be. As Senator Wheeldon pointed out and as other honourable senators have mentioned, at the moment Syria is actively involved in Lebanon. The Arab League countries, for the most part, consider themselves still to be in a state of conflict with Israel, despite the very significant peace moves that have been made by Egypt and Israel and despite the initiative of their national leaders, which was referred to by Senator Chipp.
Senator Button has just referred to the fact that we ought not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and indeed we must recognise and accept the national sovereignty of other nations. Of course to that extent the Syrian Government has a right to make rules and regulations which apply within its borders. Whilst we may not agree with those rules and regulations, to a degree at least we must be prepared to accept the right of other countries to exercise their national sovereignty. There will be occasions when, as has occurred in the case of South Africa, we will find we cannot accept what has happened and we will take action to try to do something about that. But in the main we have to accept that countries, including Syria, have the right to determine what happens within their borders.
I have already mentioned that other countries, including Syria, discriminate in various ways particularly against people who have Israeli passports. But some countries go further than others. Jordan, for example, has rules and regulations similar to Syria. However, I understand that Iraq and Saudi Arabia, for example, do not discriminate against people of Jewish faith unless their faith is specifically mentioned in the passport of the person concerned. Again, as I understand the situation, it is relatively rare for a passport to carry this information. In fact, one ‘s faith or religion is rarely mentioned in a national passport. Therefore this qualification has to be recognised even in relation to nations like Iraq and Saudi Arabia which take a very strong line against Israel. My information indicates that the religious intolerance expressed by these countries does not exist in Egypt, Bahrain or Kuwait. In fact, the ban relates to people with Israeli passports or people with Israeli visas, current or expired, in their passports.
I think that distinction is important, because I understand that Israel refuses to permit into Israel people who hold passports from countries of the Arab League and that again reflects a state of conflict between those Arab countries and Israel, It emphasises the distinction between discriminating on the basis of nationality or citizenship- that is the passport- and discrimination clearly based on the faith or religion of the person concerned. It is, of course, this that is of particular concern with respect to Syria and Qantas flying through Damascus.
I do not believe the issue necessarily is one of Syria’s right or anyone else’s right to determine what happens within their borders and within certain limits. Despite the fact that a nation might be an adherent of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or a signatory of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as Syria is, one can accept that countries should decide what happens within their borders. However, as Senator Baume has mentioned, the one fundamental human right that is mentioned in our Constitution- we do not have a Bill of Rights- is the right to religious freedom and the unacceptability of discrimination on grounds of religion or faith. It is important that we ought to note that that is mentioned in our Constitution. I think this is a fundamental element in the Australian ethos. Yet Qantas, which is an Australian flag carrier, is flying via
Dasmascus to London and thereby, I believe, contravening what is seen in our Constitution and in our society through our adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, as a fundamental right.
I do not accept Senator Chipp ‘s statement that we will be seen as taking sides in the Arab and Israeli conflict. I do not believe that is the case. But I do not believe the situation is any the less important for that. I do not believe it is a matter of taking sides one way or the other. It is a matter of Qantas, a statutory authority which it is important to note was established by this Parliament, contravening a fundamental right of Australian citizens and for that matter any other citizens who happen to be Jewish, because they want to fly via Damascus.
I understand from my reading of the reports that this ban applies not only to people wanting to leave the aircraft in Damascus but also people who are in transit. We have in Damascus an embassy which I understand was established in February 1977. The embassy is staffed by a number of Australian diplomats. The embassy has been operating now for almost two years. It would seem to me that this is the sort of issue that really ought to be taken up urgently by Qantas, by the diplomats in Damascus and by the Australian Government.
As Senator Chipp said- and I must agree with him- this is a matter of significance to the Australian people. Senator Baume pointed out that Qantas is wholly owned by the Commonwealth. In effect it is an airline in which the Australian people have a direct interest and therefore its actions are also of interest and significance to all Australians. I would suggest that since our diplomatic presence in Damascus has been established we ought to perhaps use this as one channel through which this matter can be examined with the Syrian authorities.
If it is found that there is no way to overcome this discrimination against Jewish people whether of Australian nationality or any other nationality it seems to me that Qantas ought to start examining alternative routes to avoid the discriminatory practice which has to a degree been forced upon it but which it has accepted by flying via Damascus. The issue is that the Australian Government, through one of its instrumentalities, is in fact condoning discrimination against 70,000 or 80,000 Australians as well as other people of Jewish faith because these people presumably cannot fly with Qantas to London via Damascus.
It is important that we recognise that Qantas internationally is a very significant symbol of this country. In my experience it is recognised universally as Australia’s airline and as representing this country. I believe it is a symbol that has served this country remarkably well over more than the half century it has operated. However, because of its role internationally and because it is recognised as a symbol of this country Qantas has to be extraordinarily careful that it does not take action which can reflect badly upon this country. It seems to me that this sort of thing is occurring or will occur because of the decision to fly via Damascus. As I have said, not just Australians will be affected. If a person anywhere in the world tries to book on Qantas and indicates that he or she wants to fly via Damascus the question will have to be asked and that can only reflect poorly on this country whose Constitution mentions the right to religious freedom. Yet, our national flag carrier, our international airline, has to ask people about their religious faith if they want to fly with it via Damascus.
This is a matter for the Parliament. Qantas is a statutory authority established under an Act of this Parliament and obviously the Government should look at this matter and the uncertainties that have arisen ought to be cleared up as quickly as possible. I believe it is significant that a number of senators from all parties have expressed concern in the Senate this afternoon about the report that appeared in the Melbourne Age and have asked that the Government ensure that action be taken as quickly as possible to clarify the facts in relation to this situation and, if the facts are as reported, to do something about it. The Government should ensure that Qantas is not involved in what can only be considered to be unreasonable discrimination on religious grounds against a large number of Australians and people of other nationalities.
page 1403
– On behalf of Senator Chaney and for the information of honourable senators, I lay on the table the official report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka during the period 30 June to 26 July 1978.
-by leave- I move:
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
page 1403
– I have received a message from the House of Representatives acquainting the Senate that, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Accounts Committee Act 1 95 1 , Mr Kerin, a member of the House of Representatives, has been appointed a member of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts in the place of Mr John Brown, discharged.
page 1403
Debate resumed from 1 7 October, on motion by Senator Guilfoyle:
That the Bill be now read a second time.
-The Social Services Amendment Bill 1 978 is an omnibus Bill, as social service amendment Bills frequently are, amending many sections of the Social Services Act to provide for the Government’s Budget policy. We of the Opposition oppose this legislation. We oppose it because of the injustices which will result from the implementation of its provisions. We oppose it because of the broken promises contained in itpromises made during election campaigns in 1975 and 1977. We oppose it because of its discriminatory nature. It discriminates against welfare recipients in general but, more particularly, it discriminates against the single unemployed. It is mean legislation, making pensioners and other beneficiaries bear an excessive share of the Government’s economic measures at little gain to the public purse.
Sections of the legislation have been condemned by supporters of the Government, by almost every welfare organisation in this country and by the editorials of some of the most conservative journals in this country. We believe that we are in good company in our opposition. Originally, of course, the Government had other intentions. It intended to tax the blind and the handicapped. Proposals in that respect have been withdrawn. They have been withdrawn as a result of protest- protest by members of the Government, protest by members of the Opposition and protest by members of the public. It was intended to introduce an administratively difficult and unjust means test on family allowances which would partly have the effect of penalising poor families whose children helped out by earning small amounts. These proposals were also discarded as a result of public outcry.
We believe that the Government would do well to look again at the injustices which remain in this legislation.
In the debate in the House of Representatives on this measure we had the quite extraordinary situation of only the Minister handling the Bill making any real attempt to defend it. Speaker after speaker on the Government side of the chamber attacked various provisions of the Bill and some abstained from voting. Government back bench members were plainly embarrassed, and they have much to be embarrassed about. The Bill runs contrary to promises made in two previous election campaigns when the Government went to great pains to reassure pensioners that they would not be disadvantaged by Government measures. This Bill is merely the latest in a long series of actions by this Government in the last three years or so against the underprivileged in this country. These actions started with the first legislative act of the Government in 1976 of abolishing the subsidised health and pharmaceutical benefits scheme and continued with a long campaign conducted by Government members against the unemployed and with the failure to increase benefits to pensioners and children as well as supplementary benefits in the time the Government has been in power and they culminate in this legislation. I daresay that it will not stop here.
The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) was very keen in 1975 and 1977 on making promises to the aged and disadvantaged. He went on at length about his concern for those who needed help. Back bench members and new candidates, taking their cue from their leader, promised to look after their aged constituents. I can well remember stating last November that if the Government pursued its policy of unreasonable contraction of the economy and blind faith in the reduction of the deficit pensions would inevitably suffer and the indexation of pensions twice yearly would go. The Minister for National Development, Mr Newman, alleged that I was being unfair and trying to frighten the pensioners. The honourable member for Denison (Mr Hodgman), who is ever delicate in his approach, called me bluntly a liar. I ask the constituents: Who was misleading the pensioners? Who was a liar? I leave it to the pensioners to judge that, as did the electors of New South Wales a little more than a week ago.
This Bill abolishes the twice-yearly indexation of pensions and benefits and replaces that indexation with annual increases. This change has dismayed pensioners across the country- we have all heard from pensioner organisationsand disturbed some Government members, as well it might. The promise to index pensions twice yearly was made in 1975 by the then shadow Minister for Social Security, Mr Chipp. His chief cry- a cry that has been taken up by the Government many times since- was that the Liberal Party would take politics out of pension increases by indexing them. When, after considerable prompting by the Opposition and Mr Chipp, who was then a back bench member of the Government, the Fraser Government introduced indexation there were loud cries of self-praise and many quotes about fulfilling promises. The indexation in fact was not what was promised but it was indexation of a sort. The promise was for automatic and immediate indexation. There was a delay of four months in allowing the pensioners to catch up with price increases, but it was a regular increase and it was an expected increase and the Government felt that it had fulfilled it promise. Now, to save the expenditure of $27m this year and $60m in a full year, the Government has abolished the twice yearly pension increases.
Despite all the promises of Mr Fraser and his colleagues, this method of indexation has been abandoned. The only reason given for that, the only excuse given for that, is that the rate of inflation has been reduced somewhat and that a twice-yearly change is not necessary. That was not the view of the McMahon Government. In 1971 the rate of inflation was 5.2 per cent and in 1972 it was 7.8 per cent but the McMahon Government increased pensions twice yearly. A search of the promises made by Mr Fraser, Mr Chipp, Senator Guilfoyle and Mr Snedden reveal that no-one at any time qualified the promise to increase pensions twice yearly with the qualification that if the rate of inflation dropped the increases would cease. The simple fact is that pensions were assured that they would receive the increases twice yearly. They were assured regularly. They were assured at the last two elections but the promise has been broken at the first available opportunity. As a result of this legislation the unemployed who do not have dependants will not receive indexation at all but will await each year the whim of the Government. The unemployed with dependants will, of course, receive the same treatment as other pensioners and beneficiaries and will receive their indexation yearly instead of twice-yearly. This failure to index unemployment benefits paid to those without dependants will not apply to sickness beneficiaries or anyone else.
Is the implication of this action that the unemployed people without dependants are out of work because they do not wish to work? Is the Government saying to the thousands of young people seeking work that they are second class citizens? Is the Government saying to the middle-aged bachelors or spinsters or widows or widowers in this country who have no dependants, who have lost their jobs through technological change or structural change and who cannot get jobs because of their age that they are less worthy than others in the community? The Government recognises the fact that it costs more to live singly than in pairs when it pays pensions. Why has it reversed this situation in the case of the single unemployed person? Is it another example of the long-standing campaign conducted by this Government against the unemployed, the campaign against the so-called ‘dole bludger’.
I remind the Government that unemployment in this country is at a record level and that on a seasonal basis it is increasing. On the admission of the Government and the Treasurer (Mr Howard) in this Budget, unemployment will increase even more. The end is not in sight. If one looks at the unemployment statistics, amongst the biggest areas of increase are the young, who cannot get jobs at all, and the middle-aged who are being displaced by technology and by automation because their skills are no longer needed and who cannot find replacement jobs. We all have endless queries from people in this age group who seek work but cannot get it and who are told that they are too old, that there are no retraining schemes available for them to retrain and that there are no jobs for them to be retrained for. These people are out of work through no fault of their own. The Government is saying to them that they are overpaid and that this affluent country cannot afford to assist them.
Not only is unemployment at a record level; the duration individuals are receiving unemployment benefit is also at an all-time high. The average duration people are receiving unemployment benefit is now 26.2 weeks, that is, 6 months plus a bit, which is double the time it was when this Government took office. Also the ratio of unemployed to job vacancies is very high. It is 18 to one and quite recently it was 20 to one. In the case of the young it is very much higher than that and in some regions, such as the area around Newcastle where for juniors the ratio of unemployed to job vacancies is in excess of 100 to one, it is extremely high.
Last week figures were produced by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations which tell us that 98.6 per cent of unemployment beneficiaries without dependants in this country have a continuing income of less than $3 a week. That means that there are some 200,000 single unemployed beneficiaries with no children who are totally or almost totally dependent on unemployment benefit cheques. They represent 75.6 per cent of all unemployment benefit recipients. Yet in the second reading speech of the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) we are given no explanation for this harsh measure and no costing. We are just told that it is to be done, that it is a Budget decision. This is from a government led by a man who in 1974, as Shadow Minister for Labour, said that unemployment benefit payments should be increased as unemployment rises, who said that unemployment benefit payments should be increased to the level of the minimum wage as unemployment increases and who then showed an apparent concern for the unemployed.
– That was before an election, was it?
-That was well after the election in 1974. This comes also from a government whose Minister for Social Security says repeatedly, as she did last Thursday, that there is no evidence that the unemployed are abusing the system any more than any other beneficiary; yet we hear frequently from Government members- we have heard it in another placethat this is the reason for this sort of discriminatory measure. Why has this harsh discriminatory policy been introduced against the unemployed? In the absence of an explanation one can only assume that it is to feed the conservative discrimination of members and supporters of the Government. But there are other reasons to oppose this legislation. A further reason can be seen from the manner in which this legislation and the manner in which this Government, since it has been in power, have failed to recognise- it has frequently taken steps to disadvantage them- families with children, particularly families of those in receipt of various social security benefits. When the family allowance system was introduced it was pointed out from this side of the House that unless the payments were indexed for inflation their value would drop. The people who were so reliant on them and the people who were initially advantaged by the introduction of the family allowance scheme, the low income earners, would suffer unless there was a regular upgrading of these payments. Many people have introduced into this House and had incorporated in Hansard tables demonstrating that this in fact has happened. There is no need to do it again.
Allowances for pensioners’ children and beneficiaries’ children have not been increased at all by this Government, not in this Budget or in any previous Budget. They have remained at their present level since 1975, an effective annual cut in assistance to these people. Supplementary assistance to pensioners and beneficiaries for rent has not been increased by this Government. These people are the poorest of the poor in the community. They are on the pension. They have next to no extra income and they are in rented accommodation. They have not had an increase in their supplementary assistance. In this legislation the children of pensioners or beneficiaries who manage to get one or other of the tertiary scholarships available in this country will not have family allowances paid on their behalf. We will have the situation, once this legislation comes into being, where the children of those who are well off, who have no scholarship, will attract the family allowance while the children of the poor, those in the lower and middle income groups, who have a scholarship, will attract no allowance. One must remember that tertiary education allowance scholarships are in fact heavily means tested.
– By how much did the allowances go up?
– These people will not in fact receive a family allowance. Senator Walters makes one of her brilliant interjections. She points out that the tertiary education allowance has been increased by $3 odd and that this in fact makes up for this means test. It does not make up for it and it does not get away from the argument, Senator, that your children and my children- separate children- who may not have scholarships will attract family allowances whereas the children of the poor -
– I hope you have made that distinction.
– I have made that distinction very clearly. Those children will not have a benefit paid at all. This is a ludicrous and unjust situation and demonstrates, as I believe this legislation and other measures have demonstrated, that the Government again has not thought things through. Added to these thingsthat the family allowance is eroded in value, that the allowances for pensioners’ children and the allowance for rental assistance have been eroded because they have not been increased, and that children who get a tertiary allowance of some kind will not have the family allowance paid in respect of them- other things have been done without warning, such as the maternity benefit being abolished. I accept that this benefit was not much. It had not been increased for something like 35 years. But it had become part of our social security system. People were expecting it. The only people, I will admit, who benefited from it were the low income earners.
– Why shouldn’t they?
-‘ Why shouldn’t they?’, as Senator Tate says. If we want to stop people who do not need it getting it, then we should introduce a means test, not abolish it like this. I put it to the Government that a pensioner or beneficiary who has three or four children will lose about $30 in the first year because of the changeover to the new system of child endowment. We will produce the figures to show that quite clearly in the Committee stage. Their family allowances, supplementary benefits and rent allowances have been eroded in the last three years. In future they will wait 16 months for increases in their benefits instead of the four months that they wait at the moment. If they should have a child they will lose their maternity allowance. All these are small changes, but when added together they can mean a large sum relative to the total income of these people. When added to the general increases in costs, they mean that these citizens are falling behind the general population.
– Do you necessarily mean a means test, or would you accept any more efficient way of measuring need?
– As Senator Baume knows, I will accept a means test; I will accept an efficient means of distribution; I will accept an abolition of a maternity benefit and the introduction of proper family support paymentsanything he likes. But, if one is going to reform, one introduces changes and gets rid of the old. One does not just blindly come in and scrap whatever exists.
Leaving the family, a further reason for our opposition to this Bill is the Government’s complete about-face on pensions for people over 70 years of age. Very recently pensioners were given a firm assurance by the Government that these pensions would not be affected. It is my understanding that the Liberal Party platform still says that the means test will be abolished.
– Yours doesn’t, does it?
– No. I accept that. I was one of those who were responsible for having it removed. Cheap political tricks like that will not help the Government in this situation. This will save the Government some $ 14m in this financial year. It will save the Government some $45 m in a full financial year. When the Government came to power in 1975 the firm policy was that it would abolish the means test. In 1 977, Mr Fraser was asked what his attitude was and what his Government’s attitude was to the means test free pension for people over 70. Mr Fraser assured the pensioners that they could be quite happy and secure that they would not have a means test introduced to qualify for their pensions. He said that he did not think we could really get back to the situation where the pension would be means tested for people over 70. This was a firm electoral promise. No one- no pensioner organisation- expected that the Government would go back on it. Yet the Government, at the first available opportunity, has introduced an income test. It would seem that in the field of social security the best way to predict what will happen when the present Government is in is to take the Prime Minister’s assurances in the past and assume that he Will go back on all of them. He seems to have a pathological desire to kick the less fortunate in the community in the teeth, and his colleagues go along with it. I know he believes that life was not meant to be easy. I have said in this chamber before that that does not necessarily mean that life has to be difficult for those who are in an unfortunate situation.
There are other aspects of the Bill which cause disquiet and which we will seek to clarify in the Committee stage. The second reading speech does very little to clarify some of the decisions. In fact there are not explanatory notes and there is no explanation of many of the changes. The migrant community, rightly or wrongly, is deeply suspicious of the restrictions introduced on the payment of family allowances and other benefits overseas. In view of recent events in Sydney, I suppose they can rightly have some degree of suspicion of the Department and of the Government. We need a greater explanation of the reasons for these changes and we need an explanation of the effects of the changes, the effects on some of the migrant communities, the migrant families, and the effects on the Government purse, before we will agree willingly to what may or may not be reasonable changes. The migrant communities deserve reassurance and they deserve an explanation. Similarly, the change to the definition of a child to an upper limit of 25 years seems quite reasonable on the surface, but what will be its effects? How much money will be saved? Are there not some handicapped persons perhaps- I have no means of knowing- who, because of their disability, need more years to develop their skills and to develop self-reliance in the community and who are still getting this benefit or who may qualify for this benefit in the future? Will those families be disadvantaged by this measure, and to what extent?
The reason given by the Minister for the changes, that is, that there should be uniformity in the legislation, is just not good enough if people are going to suffer in these circumstances. We need much greater explanation. We will seek much greater explanation. For instance, I know that the change in clause 16 of the Bill seems, to my untutored mind, to make no difference to the legislation. I have asked my legal colleagues, and I even went to the extent of asking a lawyer who is not on my side of the House, just what it means. None of them seemed to know. I am hoping that my legal friend, Senator Cavanagh, will be able to explain it to us in the Committee stage. Certainly we will be seeking an explanation of this in the Committee stage.
-That is one that assists. That is a liberalisation of the present provision.
– I hope that it is a liberalisation. The Minister may be sure of that. Her Director-General who has the discretion may be sure of that. But I am afraid the lawyers whom one consults ‘around the place are not sure just what it means. Briefly, we oppose this legislation in general and we will oppose the motion for the second reading. In Committee we will oppose those clauses which we find offensive. We oppose it because it is mean legislation and because it breaks almost every promise made in the field of social security by the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the last two years. We oppose it because the decisions in it are frequently unjust. We believe that the Government has not thought through the consequences of all those decisions.
It is not often that someone on this side can quote from an editorial in a newspaper like the West Australian, but in fact the West Australian is opposed to certain aspects of this legislation. The West Australian of Saturday, 14 October, points out in its editorial, in talking about the decision to change from twice yearly to once a year indexation of pensions- it had previously talked about the changes to the family allowances scheme from which the Government withdrew:
Now the focus shifts to an even more niggardly and less justifiable proposition- a switch from twice-yearly to onceayear indexation of pensions. This renunciation of yet another election pledge (plus the erosion of a commitment to ease the means test on pensions) has brought a heartening back-lash from the Government backbench -
Then there is a bit of parochial stuff: . . and it is good to see the MHR for Perth, Mr Ross McLean, in the forefront of the critics. The Government’s attempt to justify the change took up only one sentence in the Treasurer’s Budget speech: ‘This decision has been taken in the light of the significant reduction in inflation which this Government has achieved since its return to office ‘. The argument could be applied with equal force in reverse: Reduced inflation should make it easier for the Government to preserve the spending power of pensioners.
That sums up very well the situation with regard to that matter. But the Government’s arguments for that change and, I submit, for other changes are completely unconvincing. Where there are arguments at all, the Government has failed to produce figures on the effects of this legislation on the deficit and on Government spending. The only way that we have been able to receive such information is by asking questions at Question Time and we hope that the information that we further seek will become available at the Committee stages. So the Government has failed to argue for the changes. It has failed to give us detail of the effects of the changes on the Treasurer’s Budget. It has also failed completely in many cases to give us any details of the effects on the families who will be so badly affected. For this reason we oppose the legislation.
Sitting suspended from 5.56 to 8 p.m.
- Senator Grimes this evening, in debating the Social Services Amendment Bill, was very interested in attacking the Government but he was not very interested in the accuracy of his statements. He made several allegations which I would like to correct now. I will commence by dealing with what he had to say about tertiary allowances. He berated the Government for what might have been- about the fact that the Government, in the Budget, decided to tax some income earned by children by reducing the family allowance paid to the parents. It was called the newspaper boy tax by the Opposition. However, this did not happen. Senator Grimes seemed to take great delight in saying what might have been the case.
– Why didn’t it happen?
– It did not happen because the back bench members of Parliament made representation to the members of Cabinet. I believe that they made their point and that the Cabinet took note of the back bench. As a result, the Government introduced what the backbench had suggested. What might have been the case did not happen. However, Senator Grimes went on to say that the family allowance had been abolished for those parents whose children were getting a Tertiary Education Assistance scheme allowance. I am referring to the tertiary allowance paid for a dependent student. It was not until I reminded Senator Grimes that the TEAS allowance for those dependent students in fact had been increased that he said: ‘Oh, yes it has been increased some $3 a week’. I think he said $3.50’, but I am not sure. He said that it had been increased by $3-something. He claimed that this, according to me, would make up for the non-payment of the family allowance. In fact, Senator Grimes is entirely wrong. The TEAS allowance has been increased by $5.25 a week, not $3-something as Senator Grimes said. As the shadow Minister for Social Security, perhaps he should be a little more accurate in his statements and sure of his facts when he is debating this Bill.
The honourable senator also went on to say that the income test applied to pensioners over 70 years of age represented a broken promise on the part of our Government. I draw the attention of the Senate and those people listening to the debate to the fact, that Senator Grimes said he was one of the people particularly instrumental in having the abolition of the income test for people over 70 years in his Party’s platform. If we look at the promise made in 1972 by Mr Whitlam, we find that he said the means test for people over 70 years would be abolished in three years. During the three years that the Labor Government was in power it certainly did not abolish the means test. However, Senator Grimes assures us that he was instrumental in having that struck from his Party’s platform.
Senator Grimes also said that in 1975 he assured everyone the indexation of pensions would not last. He now claims that he was quite correct because this Government will have only annual increases in pensions. He is claiming that the indexation of pension rates has been lost. This is not true. We have annual indexation of pensions. Nobody is suggesting that he or she likes this legislation. This Government does not like this legislation, nor does the Opposition. We do not like this legislation any more than members of the Opposition like it. But the point is that this Government, being a responsible Government, has made this Budget a fair and just one. I will explain a little more clearly than Senator Grimes did why we consider that this Budget is just and fair. We are being told that we broke the promise made in respect of half-yearly adjustments to pensions. Mr Whitlam promised in 1 972 that the pension rates would be lifted to an amount equal to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. In fact, this did not occur.
– And they were.
-Senator Wriedt says that they were. But I have figures here which I would like to have incorporated in Hansard and shortly I will ask permission to do that. The figures prove that pensions were not increased to this level and never have been. I am sure that members of the Opposition have been spreading the rumour that the pensions were increased to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. Pensioners who have telephoned me have claimed that members of the Australian Labor Party have told them that pensions reached 25 per cent of average weekly earnings and that they are no longer at this level. This has been one of the points on which we have been lobbied so much.
I have discussed this matter with members of the pensioners union in Tasmania. I have tried to explain to them why the Government has taken this action. We have brought down the inflation rate to 7.8 per cent per annum. Inflation is now running at 7.8 per cent. The Government’s estimate is that in 12 months’ time the inflation rate will be about 5 per cent per annum. If inflation is running at that low level, there will not be the same need for the half-yearly indexation of pensions as there was under the Whitlam Government. Between March 1974 and March 1975, inflation was running at 1 7.6 per cent per annum. No matter what Senator Grimes says- he says that we have reduced inflation somewhat! A 1 7.6 per cent inflation rate is not somewhat- it is quite considerably- higher than the present 7.8 per cent inflation rate at the moment.
I would like to explain in detail what inflation means to the pensioner. I have taken out some figures that put the position very clearly. The cost of an ordinary milk loaf of bread increased by 10c between 1974 and 1975. I repeat that the cost of a loaf of bread in one year went up 10c- a 32 per cent increase. Last financial year, 1977-78- the same period of time- the cost of a loaf of bread increased by 2c. That is what inflation is all about. I repeat that between June 1974 and June 1975, the cost of a loaf of bread increased by 10c or 32 per cent and between June 1977 and June 1978 it increased by 2c or 4 per cent! The price of butter increased 10c or 17 per cent in that June 1974 to June 1975 period. The price of butter increased by 1.8c or by 2 per cent in 1977-78. I ask honourable senators to compare those percentage increases- 17 per cent compared to 2 per cent. A quart of milk went up 10c or 34 per cent between June 1974 and June 1975. In our period in government- during 1977-78- it has increased by 4c. That represents only a 9 per cent increase in cost. Between June 1974 and June 1975, the price of tea increased by 46 per cent. The price of tea went up by 1 4c. The price of tea in 1977-78 increased by just under 6 per cent. That is what inflation is all about. I have taken just those basic items of bread, butter, tea and milk because they are commonly used by all of us and certainly by pensioners.
In 1974-75 when the price of a loaf of bread increased by 10c, there were two increases in pensions. When the price increased by 2c a loaf in 1977-78, we also had two increases in the pension. In this financial year, 1978-79, if as the Government expects and as all actuaries expect, inflation drops to about 5 per cent, the cost of a loaf of bread will increase by only 2lAc and we will have one increase in the pension rate. If the pensioners look at those figures they will see that, if during 1974-75 under the Labor Government the price of a loaf of bread went up by 5c for every increase in pension, when it is going up by only 2 Vic a loaf for every increase in pension they will be ever so much better off. That might make it a little easier for the pensioners to understand.
Senator Grimes has said that indexation is out and that we are having just yearly increases. We are not using pensions as a political football and are not having just yearly increases as the Labor Government did. When it increased the pension it used to say: ‘We are good fellows; we are increasing the pension’. What the Government is saying is that there will be an automatic yearly increase in the pension to the full extent of the increase in the consumer price index. It will be not the partial increase that applies to wages, but full indexation. In the past we have had half-yearly pension increases and quarterly wage rises. As we know, the half-yearly pension increases were on the basis of the full increase in the consumer price index and the quarterly wage rises were on the basis of only partial indexation. The Conciliation and Arbitration Commission decided that inflation had been reduced so much that there was no longer a necessity for quarterly wage rises.
– The Commission made them half-yearly.
– The Commission decided on half-yearly wage rises. Consequently, instead of a half-yearly pension increase and a quarterly wage adjustment, wages are now adjusted half-yearly and pensions yearly. Inflation has come down to that extent.
Senator Grimes spoke at length about the income test for 70-year-olds. He called it a broken promise and abused the Government. Then he said that he did not believe in it anyway and was instrumental in having it written out of his
Party’s platform. He also said that the Government was not interested in the needy; that it was interested only in those who had money. He cannot have it both ways. At the moment the Government adheres to its policy to do away with income tests altogether. In the meantime, it has had to go back on that particular promise, and I make no apology for it. It is a temporary measure and, I believe, a justified one. The Government has just so much money; so it has said to those over 70 years of age that we should give it to those most in need rather than to those who have income which puts them beyond the description ‘needy’. We have said to those who are over 70 years of age that we should give it only to the needy. I sincerely trust and believe that at a later stage this Government will reintroduce the full flow-on for those over 70 years of age.
It has been put abroad, and said quite frequently, that the pension has been abolished for those over 70 years of age. When I was speaking to pensioners the other day they were quite surprised to find that it had not been abolished, only frozen. This is terribly important. In view of the way in which the Opposition has been talking, I am not surprised that many pensioners over 70 years of age who are above that income test feel that they are going to lose their pension altogether on 1 November. That is not so. Pensions for them have been frozen, not abolished. The blind pension has not been interfered with in any way.
– What about the 25 per cent that you were going to tell us about?
-Perhaps I could speak a little about the figure of 25 per cent. It is something that the Labor Party has been putting abroad quite dishonestly. In October 1972 the combined married rate of pension was $34.50 and represented 34.3 per cent of average weekly earnings. In October 1973, a year later and when the Labor Party was in power, it had risen to $40.50 and to 35.1 per cent of average weekly earnings. In August 1974, nearly a year later, it had risen to $51.50 and to 36.7 per cent of average weekly earnings. Honourable senators should note that these figures are not quite yearly; sometimes there was a lapse of only 10 months. In November 1 975 it had risen to $64.50 and to 38.6 per cent of average weekly earnings Honourable senators should not forget that I am talking about the combined married rate. In November 1976, when we were in power, it increased to $72.50 and to 38.7 per cent of average weekly earnings. By November 1977 it had risen to $82.20 and to 40.2 per cent of average weekly earnings.
If I now stick to the single rate of pension for the purpose of this exercise it might make my argument a little clearer when talking about the 25 per cent of average weekly earnings the Labor Party claims it achieved. The alternate months when there were increases- in March 1973 the average single rate of pension was $21.50 and represented 21.4 per cent of average weekly earnings. In April 1974 it was $26 and represented 20.4 per cent of average weekly earnings. In June 1975 it was $36 and represented 23.3 per cent of average weekly earnings. In May 1976, when we were in office, it rose to $41.25 and was 23.1 per cent of average weekly earnings. It should be noted that at no stage have we reached 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. In May 1977 the single rate increased to $47.10 and to 23.8 per cent of average weekly earnings. In May 1978 it rose to $51.45 and to 23.9 per cent of average weekly earnings. That figure of 23.9 per cent was the highest percentage of average weekly earnings since before 1972. At no stage did the Labor Government achieve a single rate of pension of 25 per cent of average weekly earnings, as it has claimed so loudly and for so long. It upsets me that the Labor Party is so inaccurate on this issue.
It has said that this Government is not caring for the needy. I would like to underline just a few of the things that this Government has done during the time it has been in power. In 1976 the handicapped children’s allowance was increased from $10 to $15. The Government has extended the eligibility for the handicapped children’s allowance to include lesser handicapped children, substantially handicapped children, where the family income is low. It was done not for the wealthy but for cases where the family income is low. Eligibility for the handicapped children’s allowance has been extended to cover 16-year- olds to 25-year-olds who are not in receipt of an invalid pension. A benefit is paid to organisations providing residential accommodation for handicapped children. This benefit was increased from $3.50 to $5 a day. The family allowance was introduced and this, despite what the Opposition could possibly say, was the biggest boon to the very low income families that it was possible for any government to introduce. I think that even the Opposition would not deny that.
– Yes we would.
-Senator Grimes said Yes we would’, so perhaps we should discuss that a little more. The rebates were taken away from the father when the family allowance was introduced, but previously the low income father with a large number of children was never able to claim all the rebates. He just did not earn enough to claim all the rebates to which he would have been entitled had he been on a higher income. Because of that this Government introduced the family allowance and the full amount that he would have been able to claim had he been on a higher income was given to his wife. The family allowance was not of any greater assistance than the previous arrangements to higher income families. As a matter of fact, we received complaints from people on higher incomes claiming that they lost out. But the family allowance certainly assisted people on lower incomes. I am surprised that Senator Grimes is not truthful enough to admit that. Also, lone fathers were assisted tremendously by this Government. For the first time they were placed on the same basis as supporting mothers for all their benefit entitlements. We also introduced the family support services program, which was announced earlier this year. This is aimed particularly at assisting families in need.
Perhaps the most important measure that we have introduced is the indexation of taxes because that has assisted everyone in the community. Let us not forget that in 1975 the present Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hayden, said that it was not possible to index taxes. The indexation of taxes has been very confusing for the average person and very confusing for the average pensioner. I believe that I can explain the indexation of taxation to their satisfaction. Let us understand quite clearly that since the introduction of the indexation of taxes the Government has returned $3,000m to the taxpayer. If we had done nothing about taxes and had kept them on the same line, as the Australian Labor Party did when it was in government, the taxpayers would be $3,000m worse off than they are now. That is an incredibly large amount of money- $3 billion.
Just what does the indexation of taxes mean to the average person? Let us look at the amount of money that people are allowed as annual income before they are required to pay any tax at all. That level of income is called the ‘tax threshold’- the amount of money that people can earn in a year before they are liable to pay tax. In 1975-76, before the introduction of tax indexation, that amount was $2,518. That amount has gone up since the introduction of tax indexation. In 1977-78, the financial year just passed, that figure had gone up to $3,750. This financial year, 1978-79, it will go up to $3,893.
That is tax indexation, where the original amount of annual income that people can earn before being liable to pay tax goes up each year with inflation. That makes governments honest. We have not done what the Labor Party did and just taken more tax from people as their wages rose through inflation. Tax indexation keeps governments honest. As people’s wages rise through inflation the tax threshold rises too. The dependent spouse rebate rises, the sole parent rebate rises, the invalid relative rebate rises and so does the dependent parent or dependent parentinlaw rebate rise.
Perhaps the situation with the dependent spouse rebate will illustrate the point even better to those women who stay at home. In 1975-76, as a dependent spouse, they were entitled to a rebate of only $400 on their husband’s income. With tax indexation that amount has gone up automatically without the Government making a song and dance about it and without it being pointed out to them every year. I believe that in this we have been wrong because people do not realise that these rebates are going up. But the dependent spouse rebate has gone up from $400 in 1975-76 to $555 last financial year, 1977-78. This financial year it will go up to $597. In 1975-76 the sole parent rebate was only $200. With tax indexation it went up last financial year to $388 and this financial year it will go up to $4 1 7. The invalid relative rebate was only $200 in 1975-76. Last financial year it went up to $25 1 and this financial year it will go up to $270. The dependent parent or parent-in-law rebate has been increased likewise. It has gone up from $400 in 1975-76 to $501 in 1977-78 and this financial year it will go up to $539.
These are the increases that point out to people what tax indexation is all about. The dependent spouse rebate has gone up by nearly 50 per cent since tax indexation was introduced. The sole parent rebate has gone up by over 100 per cent in that time. Yet the Opposition claims that we are not interested in any way about people in need. I believe that this is a claim that the Opposition has been trying to spread because it is very difficult for any government to get across to the people in detail a lot of its legislation. The Opposition has been having a heyday. It has been telling these untruths and getting across to the people a claim which is quite inaccurate.
The legislation to introduce the new Vi per cent tax surcharge on income was a piece of legislation about which the Government was not happy. But it had to bring in that measure. We have only so much money. If we want to spend money in the most responsible fashion possible on behalf of people most in need we have to raise the revenue to do so. We have a very large welfare bill. We have a very large deficit. Therefore, we had to increase income tax rates by 1½ per cent. If we look at that increase I might be able to point out that again people in need were the people who were assisted. Let us consider the situation with the ordinary man in the street with a dependent spouse, the ordinary Medibank levy payer who did not want to insure privately for health benefits or who was not financial enough to insure privately. If he is on an income of $150 a week, even with the 1% per cent income tax surcharge, as he will no longer have to pay the Medibank levy, he will be $1.75 a week better off. If he earns $200 a week he will be $1.70 a week better off. If he is receiving average weekly earnings he also will be $1.70 a week better off. These figures are indisputable. If people are on high incomes they certainly will not be better off; they will be paying more.
If we look at the situation with a taxpayer without a dependent spouse we find that those on a very low income of $ 100 a week will still be $1.80 a week better off. Let us consider the new private medical benefits arrangements that have been announced. I do not know the figures for States other than Tasmania, but in Tasmania the cost of coverage for 75 per cent of the doctors scheduled fee is $1.27 a week. So he is $1.80 better off with regard to taxation, and by the time he pays his health insurance of $1.27 he will still be considerably better off. But the man on the higher income will certainly not be better off. It is a fallacy to say that this Government is not interested in the needy. The Government has directed all its legislation towards those in greatest need. I would like Senator Grimes to make an apology and say that he was entirely wrong as regards the tertiary students allowance; that the increase is $5.25 and not $3.50 as he claimed.
– For the last half hour we have been listening to quite a laborious attempt by Senator Walters to defend this piece of legislation. I do not wish to make many comments about her remarks except, perhaps, to look at two aspects of her comments. She said quite clearly at one stage that this Government does not like this legislation. Well, for once Senator Walters and I agree because we in the Labor Party do not like it, nor do the people of Australia. She also suggested that although when in government we said that we were going to increase pensions to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings, we did not do so. Let me put the record straight: When we came to power in 1972, the standard rate of pension was then about 19 per cent of average weekly earnings. We said that we would increase this to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings and that is what we did. I will not cite figures ad nauseam about this matter but for those who are interested in seeing how we did increase the figure to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings, I refer them to pages 233 and 234 of the Senate Hansard of 25 February 1976. At that time I incorporated a table which showed how pensions had been increased.
When I found that we were going to debate this legislation I was reminded of the first speech that I made to this Parliament. In that first speech I spoke at length about pensioners and about the pensions that were then available in Australia. At that time I quoted from part of the Liberal Party policy speech in 1975. It is worth while now to look back at two quotes that I made in that first speech in 1976. 1 said that part of the Liberal Party policy speech read as follows:
The real value of pensions will be preserved.
I also said that later on in the Liberal Party policy speech presented in 1 975- again dealing with pensions- it said:
These benefits will be protected against inflation.
I wonder what the pensioners nowadays, if they were to look back to 1975 and what was said then in the Liberal Party policy speech, would think of those two promises: That the real value of pensions would be preserved and that the benefits would be protected against inflation? As I shall show later, this will not happen from now on. They were fine words back in 1975, but the pensioners of Australia nowadays are not interested in words: They are interested in actions. As I said, I will point out later how these two promises- promises that I quoted back in 1976 and which were contained in the Liberal Party policy speech of 1975- have now been wilfully broken. Mr Acting Deputy President, I am reminded of a quotation that you have probably heard as you have moved around the areas of Queensland. It starts: ‘Talk is cheap’. I will not continue that quotation, because some of what follows those words is not particularly nice. But I am reminded of it tonight because talk is cheap indeed. What the pensioners of Australia require is action.
Let me mention some of the other aspects that I mentioned in my maiden speech to this Parliament in 1976. At that time we were debating the $10 charge for pensioners’ hearing aids. The Minister for Health at that time, Mr Hunt, had introduced a $ 10 charge for hearing aids for pensioners. He said, when introducing that charge, that it would not create an undue burden. But five days later, that $10 charge was not going to be imposed. The Minister for Health then said that it would cause undue hardship. So in five days it moved from a state of not creating undue hardship to a state where it would cause undue hardship. What an about-face this was! But few of us realised in 1976 that Mr Hunt’s action was a harbinger of the Fraser Government’s ad hockery, of its reversal of decisions and of its general ineptitude during 1976, 1977 and 1978.
On that occasion I also spoke of the then impending abolition of funeral benefits. I wonder whether people remember back to the time when we talked about the possibility that funeral benefits might be abolished? Do we remember how the Minister for Social Security, Senator Guilfoyle, took out her accountant’s scalpel and attempted to cut out funeral benefits? It is amazing that only such a short time after the 1975 election I was forced to mention these things in this Parliament. But two years and eight months have passed since I had to make that speech. What has changed in that time? I would say that nothing much has changed. Certainly the funeral benefits legislation to which I referred was defeated, just as I hope this legislation that we are discussing tonight will be defeated. Over that time- over that two years and eight monthsunemployment has soared to dizzy heights, but even though it has soared to dizzy heights this Government continues to make ad hoc decisions that seem to be getting nowhere with the problems that confront us. If I may take the liberty of saying so, we can see that nothing much has changed because Senator Guilfoyle continues to wield her accountant’s scalpel.
In this Social Services Amendment Bill 1978, we see the most amazing about-face, the most bare-faced breaking of promises that I have ever seen. Even the previous speaker, Senator Walters, admitted that the promises that were made by her Government had been broken. But then she tried to rationalise why they had been broken. If promises are made to the electorate of Australia, the electorate of Australia expects those promises to be honoured. But they have not been honoured. If I were the Minister for Social Security, I would feel ashamed to come into this chamber to steer this Bill through the Parliament. If I were the Minister for Social Security in here tonight, I would be haunted by the broken promises that have been made by this Government.
Let us remind ourselves of the promises and the statements made by this Government in relation to pensions and benefits. It is now well known by the whole of Australia that promises mean nothing to this Government. The people of Australia have seen promises broken time after time. Even such a short period after the election campaign of 1977, promises made then have been broken. But so that the Australian people are under no misconception about these broken promises, let us examine some of the promises and statements made by this Government. On 22 November 1977, the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), addressed an Adelaide youth rally. When he referred to pensions he said:
We have taken politics out of old age pensions and all other social welfare and repatriation pensions by increasing them automatically in line with inflation.
Granted that after the increases that are to come into effect in November the pensions will be increased in line with inflation, but they will not be increased on a six-monthly basis as happened before. They will now be increased on a 12- monthly basis. Just to illustrate why it was well expected by the electorate that this six-monthly basis of adjustment of pensions would continue I quote from a Liberal Party advertisement of December last year which reported Senator Guilfoyle as saying:
We believed it was important to take politics out of pensions and that’s why we altered the legislation … we said that when we came into government we would have an automatic increase. We’ve done that and whilst the Act remains as it is there is, every six months, an automatic increase to take account of cost of living. I ‘ve had lots of people say to me ‘You’ve given us dignity because you don’t argue about our rises every six months’.
It was quite clear from that advertisement, which was part of the campaign to get this Government back into power in the 1977 election, that the people of Australia, the pensioners of Australia, were led to believe that these six-monthly adjustments would continue. But they are not going to continue at all. What has happened in this Budget? Politics has been reintroduced to pensions. It has been reintroduced with a vengeance. There will be an adjustment of pension rates next month but after that there will be no increase for 12 months. The system of six-monthly adjustments has been scrapped.
It is interesting to go back to the Liberal Party advertisement I quoted which reported Senator Guilfoyle as saying that pensions would be increased automatically every six months. In that advertisement she said: ‘. . . whilst the Act remains as it is . . .’ So few of us thought in 1977 when the election campaign was being waged that these words were so significant. The
Act will not remain as it is. It will be changed only 10 months or so after the statement was made because the Government has decided to discontinue the six-monthly adjustment of pensions.
Why has the six-monthly adjustment been stopped? Let me mention one of the reasons we were given by the Government. We were told:
This decision has been taken in the light of the significant reduction in inflation which this Government has achieved since its return to office.
I hold that it is absurd to use that argument and I will show why. Inflation is now running at a rate of a little below 8 per cent. In 1971 and in 1972 the McMahon Government adjusted pensions twice yearly. At that time inflation was not running at the rate that it is running today. It was then running at less than 5 per cent. If the argument now is correct that six-monthly adjustments should be removed because the inflation rate is low, what that must mean is that the McMahon Government was wrong in 1971 and 1972 in having six-monthly adjustments. But I hold that the McMahon Government was not wrong. This Government is wrong in scrapping the six-monthly adjustments. The record of the McMahon Government in doing what it did clearly exposes the duplicity of this Government in deliberately reducing the standard of living of pensioners by refusing to adjust pensions every six months as it said if would in its election policy promises.
Let us not forget that this six-monthly adjustment was a Fraser Government promise- it is a broken promise. Speaking of promises, what did this Government say about the means test for pensioners aged 70 years and over? The previous speaker tried to rationalise this by saying: ‘Oh, yes, the promise was broken but-‘. The promise certainly was broken. In his policy speech on 25 November 1975 Mr Fraser said:
We will move towards replacing means tests with an income test with a view to not penalising those who have saved.
I wonder what the people aged 70 years and over think of that promise nowadays?
I recently spoke to an old acquaintance of mine, a person whom I have known for over 35 years and who is now approaching her 90th birthday. This person is receiving an income of her own of $24 a week. Because of her income she will not receive any increase in her pension. She does not think much of the statement of Mr Fraser’s that the Government would have a view to not penalising those who have saved. It is due to her savings that she will not be eligible to receive the increase in pension in November.
Also in the same policy speech in 1975 Mr Fraser said:
We stand by our commitment to abolish the means test on pensions.
Yes, we stand by our commitment to abolish the means test on pensions! But now the means test has been reintroduced in respect of any additional increases available to people 70 years of age and over. But let us move from 1975 to last year. On 5 April last year Mr Fraser made the statement that there would not be a means test for pensioners over the age of 70 years. I shall quote some of the statements made in an article which appeared in the Australian. That article states:
The Federal Government will continue to exempt pensioners over 70 from any means test.
Announcing this yesterday, the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, ended speculation on the reintroduction of a means test for all pensioners in the August Budget.
The article continued:
During an hour-long session with announcer Vincent Smith, Mr Fraser said he was disturbed at speculation that a pre-Budget examination of welfare spending would mean an end to means-test exemption for pensioners over 70.
The article went on and quoted Mr Fraser as having said:
I don ‘t think we can really get back to the situation where the pension is means-tested over 70. I think it would be difficult.
In 1977 it was difficult. But in 1978 it is obvious that Mr Fraser has found a way to do this. The Budget states that in future pension increases for persons over 70 years of age will be subject to an income test. The promises were clear. The promise was that people aged 70 years and over would not be subjected to an income test. Now all their hopes of security have been dashed. Why has this been done? It has been done to save funds. It has been done to take away from the pensioners’ pockets money that will stay with government.
The removal of indexation this year will mean that $27m will be saved by this Government and that next year $60m will be saved. Because indexation will not apply this year, $2 7m has been taken out of the pockets of the pensioners- $2 7m that pensioners around Australia could well have used. The means test which has been introduced for people aged 70 years and over will save the Government $ 1 4m this year and $45m next year. So pensioners aged 70 years and over have been robbed of $14m this year. They have been robbed by a callous Budget which is to be consummated by the legislation we are now debating.
In common with a number of honourable senators, I have received many letters protesting at this piece of legislation. I will read a copy of one of these letters which is typical of the letters that I have received. This letter states:
I read with interest in Monday’s Courier-Mail (9th inst) your comment on the proposed legislation for the means test on age pensioners 70 years and over.
I would like to mention I wrote a letter of protest to the Prime Minister condemning his attitude in this connection and also on the revision of pensions to be made once a year.
I also pointed out to him that the price of commodities did not take a rise once a year. They increased in price daily. I also opposed the big increase in petrol which also affects pensioners, who have a car for their means of transport.
If the Prime Minister and Treasurer Howard must have more money there must be other ways and means of obtaining it, without imposing hardships on pensions. In my opinion it is a most despicable piece of legislation any Government could pass.
I must mention the Prime Minister did not acknowledge receipt of my letter.
I also noticed in the press the Government back benchers were opposed to the legislation and rightly so.
That is typical of the type of letter that I have received. We must remember that the broken promise about twice-yearly indexation will affect not only the 1,200,000 age pensioners but also the 50,000 women who are on what was once called supporting mothers benefit but is now called supporting parents benefit, the 140,000 widow pensioners and the 240,000 invalid pensioners. At this stage it is worth reminding ourselves that in England last year pensioners received a Christmas bonus. It was not a large bonus; it was a bonus of £ 10. Even though it was not large it was nonetheless welcome. What will be the situation for pensioners in Australia this Christmas? Certainly there will be an increase in pensions from November, but at Christmas the pensioners will have the prospect of a long- 12 months- wait until their pensions are once more adjusted. That long wait will be a direct abrogation of promises made by this Government over the past two years.
It is worth reminding ourselves when we are looking at this Bill- the Social Services Amendment Bill 1 978- that it also totally discriminates against those who cannot find a job and who have no dependants. Those people will not have their unemployment benefit adjusted on a once a year basis, as other pensions will be adjusted; nor will this happen to those who are under 1 8 years of age. The same provision will prevail for sickness benefit as well for those who are under 18 years of age. The Treasurer (Mr Howard) announced that these benefits will be reviewed annually at Budget time. ‘Reviewed’ is the key word. They may or may not be adjusted. The very livelihood of the unemployed person without dependants and the person who is less than 1 8 years of age will hinge on the generosity of the Treasurer. That reminds me of something that was said by Mr Fraser in 1974. He was quite generous then about the types of allowances that he would give to people who are unemployed. I wish to quote from an article headed ‘Fraser says jobless will pass 200,000 ‘ in the Daily Mirror of 9 September 1974. In part, it reads:
An unemployment level of 200,000 now seemed inevitable, Mr Malcolm Fraser said today.
Mr Fraser is the Federal Opposition’s spokesman on labour.
He said he believed the figure would go even higher before the Government was able to reduce it.
Mr Fraser suggested higher unemployment benefits if the number of jobless got much worse.
He said the Government should pay the minimum wage of about S80 a week if the number of people out of work reached 250,000.
By that time it will be almost impossible for these people to get a job’, Mr Fraser said.
I remind Mr Fraser that according to the latest figures- the figures for September- the number of people now out of work is 382,000. Although it is far in excess of the 250,000 which he said should be the mark at which the minimum wage should be paid he is reducing or effectively reducing unemployment benefit for a significant section of the community- the people who will not receive automatic adjustments, that is, the people with no dependants and those who are under 18 years of age.
My colleague Senator Grimes mentioned before the suspension of the sitting that the payment of maternity allowances was to be scrapped by the passage of this piece of legislation. Nothing is to be put in its place. It is worth while noting that assent was given to the provision of maternity allowances 66 years ago- on 10 October 1912. The maternity allowance that was paid then was an allowance of £5, or $10 in the terms of the currency used nowadays. Since then the consumer price index has increased 12 times. So, in monetary terms, the maternity allowance of 1912 would be really worth about $120 nowadays. I would like to quote what the Prime Minister of the day actually said about that piece of legislation. Prime Minister Fisher, said:
When this Bill becomes law a woman will know, and everybody acquainted with her will know, that there is £5 awaiting her. It is one of the features of the commercial life of the present day that where there is money about a number of people become interested in that quarter. The butcher, the baker, the tinker, the tailor, the medical man, and others, will all remember that there is £5 about, and although the money is not in their hands, the credit will be good.
Prime Minister Fisher, in introducing legislation providing for the payment of maternity allowances in 1912, pointed out that it would be of use to the women of that time to obtain credit where they wanted credit and to meet the expenses associated with the birth of a child. Would not the same situation still prevail for many of the underprivileged in our society today? I believe that it would. But this allowance has been taken away and nothing has been put in its place.
When I look at the legislation that is before us tonight- legislation that I still have hopes will not get through this Parliament- I think not only of the wide range of people whom it is going to affect, such as the supporting mothers and the invalid pensioners, but also and especially so of the aged in our society. It is unfortunate that the aged in our society are being singled out by this legislation to bear the brunt of what was a brutal Budget. The legislation that we are discussing was rightly described by the Queensland constituent whose letter I read to the Senate tonight as ‘a despicable piece of legislation’. This legislation is an assault on those in our society who are dependent on this Government for their very livelihood. I trust that sufficient honourable senators opposite will have a spark of compassion which will compel them to vote against this legislation.
When I commenced speaking earlier this evening I quoted a part of the first speech that I ever made in the Senate. I remember that speech well, as I suppose we all remember the first speeches that we made in this place. When I first entered this chamber in 1976 I said that I would fight for the underprivileged in our society. I am doing that tonight, as is every honourable senator on this side of the chamber. As well as fighting for those in our society who are underprivileged, we are fighting for those who have given a great deal of their labours to this country and who should now be able to enjoy their retirement using the pensions that they thought they would obtain in the evening of their life. Many of them will not be able to have the same standard of living as they thought they would because of changes wrought by this Budget. As I have said, we on this side of the chamber are fighting for the underprivileged in our society, we are fighting for the aged and we are fighting for those who are dependent on the Government for their livelihood. I will continue to fight, as will every other honourable senator on this side of the chamber. I hope and pray that sufficient people on the other side of the chamber will view this legislation in the way it ought to be viewed, namely, as legislation based on broken promise after broken promise. When the time comes to vote on this Bill I certainly hope and pray that it will be defeated.
– Social security is not an area in which I usually take a great deal of active interest, but because of the absolute hypocrisy of Opposition speakers thus far I have been persuaded and have persuaded myself to take an interest in this debate. I will devote myself to a couple of matters mentioned by Opposition senators. Senator Grimes, who led for the Opposition, made a rather interesting comment during his speech. He mentioned that in his opinion income tests should be applied to wide areas. I ask him which areas he suggests, because this is a fairly major departure from normal socialist policy.
Senator Grimes seems concerned about unemployment, as every right thinking person in Australia would be; but he seems less concerned about the causes of unemployment. I draw his attention to a publication called the National Times dated 9 September 1978, in which an adviser to the former Labor Government, Mr Paddy McGuinness, has written a quite large article. In the introductory paragraph of that article he states:
The necessary condition for any reduction in unemployment without acceleration of inflation is a reduction in wages.
I am not sure whether Senator Grimes has ever publicly advocated a reduction in wages, but if he has any sincerity at all he will accept the advice of the advisers to the Labor Party and speak out for that move which would reduce significantly the rate of unemployment. I feel that Senator Colston’s address to the Senate was completely hypocritical. He spent a great deal of time during his address talking about promises. I remind him that his former great and glorious leader, Mr Whitlam, said in his policy speech in 1972 that the Labor Party would abolish the means test within three years. That policy is not even mentioned in the Labor Party platform now. Mr Whitlam also promised that during the same period the Labor Party would lift pensions to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. Under Labor that promise was a long way from realisation. I remind honourable senators opposite that at this moment pensions, as a percentage of average weekly earnings, are the highest they have ever been since the Labor Party took office in 1972. I also direct their attention to the Hayden alternative Budget which honourable senators opposite obviously have not read because they certainly say one thing and mean another.
I wish to make some general comments in regard to the Bill before the Senate. Certainly many sections of the whole area of social services payments have been increased generously. What I think is vitally important is that they have been increased for those most in need. The Labor Party found, and certainly the electors agreed, that indiscriminate spending is not the right sort of policy for Australia. In fact, it created inflation and increased interest rates, and the people most affected by those policies were the people on fixed incomes. It is an inescapable fact that those who advocate solving our present employment problems by massive government capital expenditure would have to itemise the areas where they would reduce government expenditure. There is no doubt that, if we embarked on a program of increasing government expenditure without affecting the drive against inflation and without affecting the high deficit figure that we suffer at the moment, that expenditure would have to be at the expense of other government expenditure. I put it to the Opposition to identify the areas in which they see the Government reducing expenditure to embark on what they advocate as a massive increase in capital expenditure.
I support very strongly the moves the Government has made with regard to social security. In fact, I would support an even stronger move in the direction it has taken. We have a limited amount of money to spend in the area of social security and I believe that we should concentrate on the areas of most need. Those who it can be proved do not need assistance should receive less. The Bill includes an increase of 7 per cent in expenditure on the whole area of social service matters over the 1976-77 figure. In quantitative terms this means an increase from $5.1 billion to an estimated $8 billion in the current year. If the unemployment benefit is extracted from those figures, the residual amount increases by 8 per cent over the figure for the last financial year. In quantitative terms this is an increase from $4.6 billion to an estimated $7.2 billion.
Probably the most controversial decision of the Government with regard to the Bill we are presently debating is the decision to index pensions and benefits once a year. I remind the Opposition that, with the current low and rapidly decreasing rate of inflation, pensioners are far better off than they were under the high rates of inflation with indexation twice a year. There is to be no automatic adjustment to unemployment benefits payable to those without dependants, and certainly I think that many of those people can afford that. That also includes single recipients of unemployed and sickness benefits under 1 8 years of age. That point has been mentioned already by the Opposition. This decision is to be reviewed every year in the Budget context. We are reminded, of course, that under the Labor Government all of these pensions and benefits were at the whim of the Government every year.
The changes that we have made are dramatic and radical changes to the benefit of the people who depend on us. This November there is to be an increase in age, invalid and widows ‘ pensions and supporting parent and unemployment and sickness benefits based on the consumer price index. From now on that will be done each November. In quantitative terms it means an increase from $51.45 to $53.20 a week. In the case of the combined married rate of pension it means an increase from $85.80 to $88.70 a week. That is an increase of 3.4 per cent for the first half of the 1978 calendar year, which reflects exactly the increase in the consumer price index. As has been mentioned already by the Opposition, the increase in pensions received by those over 70 years of age will be subject to an income test. That is a policy that I can support. There are many people who have no need of the pension and who are well off. The Government’s decision means that the limited amount of money we have to spend in this area can be given more properly to the people who deserve it. It will mean an additional expenditure of $95.3m for the remainder of the 1978-79 year and an additional expenditure of $ 145.7m for a full year.
Another aspect of the Bill is that pensions to the blind will be paid free of income test. Those pensioners over 70 years of age with an income up to $20 a week will receive the full additional amount free of income test and those with an income up to $23.50 a week will receive a partial increase. That figure applies with regard to couples. It means that $34.50 is the minimum amount they can receive before the phased in amount is applied. The handicapped child’s allowance is at the rate of $ 1 5 a week. Under some conditions it is also payable to persons who have custody, care and control of handicapped children. This will be extended to full-time students between the ages of 16 and 25 years who are handicapped. We have continued what was a remarkable new policy with regard to the new family allowance introduced in 1976 and it will be paid monthly- a small change in the previous situation from when it was formerly paid every four weeks- but this will not make any difference at all to the amount of money received in a full calendar year. The Minister has announced the new rates that will apply from 1 November. The family allowance will not be paid in future to students who are recipients under the student tertiary education scheme but the TEAS allowance will be increased to take care of that disability and will be increased to compensate completely for the loss of that benefit.
There were some interesting aspects in events in the days leading up to the presentation of this Bill to the Senate. I think the most controversialcertainly the most widely publicised- was the socalled newsboy tax. The response from the Government was first class when the mistakes or potential mistakes were pointed out to the Government. It certainly indicated a very direct responsiveness- a responsive attitude by the Government. However, that does not excuse the mistake of the Government which created for it a great deal of problems. The fact that it changed the proposals for this tax very quickly meant to many people in the community that for the first time the Budget had become a negotiable Budget. I would strongly recommend that the Government keep this situation in mind next year.
I know the situation is different in Japan. I was fortunate enough to go with a parliamentary delegation to Japan earlier this year. The way that that country’s Budget is presented to the Japanese is quite interesting and may have some application to our Government in Australia. I would recommend that the Government look at the Japanese scheme to see whether any of it could be applied to our situation. In Japan, many weeks before the Budget is due to be brought down in their Parliament, the broad guidelines are announced widely and when that announcement is made the options which are open to the country are widely publicised. For the following several weeks, encouraged by the Government, there is a general public debate on the whole area of the Budget. It allows fairly firm opinions to be identified within the public sector. The final wash-up of the Budget is formulated from those ideas emanating from that public debate. It means that the public has a better understanding of the issues that face the Government. When the original announcement is made by the Government the public has access to the latest figures, knowledge of the priorities of the Government, the options available to the Government, and the Japanese public is enabled to participate completely in the debates leading up to the final preparation of the Budget. It leads to a greater understanding of the problems faced by government in drawing up budgets. I would certainly recommend that our Government here has a very close look at that system. In closing, I have no hesitation in supporting this Bill and strongly advocate that it be supported.
– In his speech a few minutes ago, Senator Thomas talked about the hypocrisies of Labor Party senators. I want to say that it is the Government which is being hypocritical. It is the Government which has broken a number of its promises- not just one- to the people of Australia. It is not the Labor Party’s members. We are endeavouring to make the Government keep those promises by our total opposition to this Bill. The true situation is that the Government is causing considerable suffering to the recipients of Australian social welfare programs. I think it is also causing considerable concern to a few of its own members. Some are finding it extremely difficult to become over-enthusiastic about this Bill. Government senators are expressing this concern in a number of ways. They are expressing concern that election promise after election promise is being broken by the Government. I know there are a number and I will be incorporating in Hansard in a moment a statement from the editorial in the West Australian which also mentions the honourable member for Perth, Mr Ross McLean, as being opposed to this legislation. First, I would mention Mr Goodluck, the honourable member for Franklin, because he is perhaps the most outspoken of all Government supporters. He has already told his electors how he feels about this particular Bill, the Social Services Amendment Bill. He did so in the House of Representatives during the debate on 28 September and he repeated it again last week, reinforcing it last week. I want to quote some of his words because what he says is very important to the people of Australia- it is important to Government members in this chamber and in the other place. He said:
In other words, he was saying that the Government cannot make idle promises to either gain or retain the Treasury benches. He continued:
In 1975 we said to the pensioners that we would fight for quarterly adjustments to their pensions in line with movements in the consumer price index. Unfortunately, during 1975-76 we paid pension increases on a half yearly basis. Now, unfortunately, we have made a Cabinet decision to pay pension increases on a yearly basis … I cannot support my Government on its decision . . . Also, there should be no means test on increases in pensions paid to pensioners who are over 70 years of age . . . When we say something to somebody during an election campaign we cannot go back on what we say . . . Many honourable members, like me, believe in the principle that if we say certain things ona platform we have to adhere to them.
Unfortunately, there are not very many members of the Government who are prepared to admit that the pre-election promises were just a ruse to get the pensioners and the thinking people in Australia to vote for this Government- vote it back into office to retain the Treasury benches. The Government knew when it was making those promises that it would not be able to keep them. It had no right to fool the people of Australia into believing that it would.
One has to question just how many honourable members there are in the Government. I believe Mr Goodluck can lay claim to that title because he sees the necessity of not just saying something to win government but that when government is secured to endeavour to make the party adhere to its pre-election promises. There are not too many members of the Government who can make that same statement. Not many voices opposite have been openly raised in opposition to this move on the part of the Government. However, I believe that comments by Mr Goodluck and some other Government supporters reflect the serious nature of the amendments proposed by the Social Service Amendment Bill. If the Government’s own members cannot support the 1978-79 Budget measures how can the Australian electorate have faith in the Government? It seems rather incredible to me that there are not more Government supporters who are troubled by their consciences. These are people who threw themselves at the mercy of the electorate in 1 975 and again in 1 977 and who made promises. They are now quite happy to sit back in this chamber and in the other place and see those promises broken. I think that it demonstrates a complete lack of social conscience on the part of Government members and the Government itself and a complete lack of integrity. How can Government members trust their leader? How can the Australian electorate trust the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser)? How can the people trust a man who in March 1977 said: ‘We are committed to take politics out of pension increases by giving automatic increases in line with price rises twice a year’? They are Mr Fraser ‘s words, not mine. That is what he said on 13 March 1977. Yet today we see in this place a condemnation of the Prime Minister in this very Bill that is brought forward to deny pensioners that twiceyearly review. Instead they will have a review once a year. Although there was a commitment on the part of the Prime Minister in March 1977 to take politics out of pensions by giving a twiceyearly automatic increase in line with increases in the consumer price index and an admission on the part of some Government backbenchers that they were committed to quarterly increases in 1975, we see this Bill, before the chamber today, which proposes an increase in pensions only once a year. I would put forward the proposition that the previous twice-yearly indexation already lagged some 4 months behind the CPI and that this latest Bill will mean a lag of up to 16 months behind the increases in the consumer price index. It means that pensioners will be 16 months behind in their actual purchasing power. I place on record in this House the concern expressed by the Australian Pensioners Federation, the representative of the people who are going to be affected by this brutal and harsh legislation. Following a Press conference which was held at Parliament House on 1 1 October, this is what the Federation had to say:
Following upon the August Budget the Australian Pensioners Federation was inundated with protests from its affiliated bodies.
The Federation on 12 September sought an interview with the Prime Minister on twice-yearly pension indexation and other matters of concern.
The Federation’s Chief Executive Officers yesterday met the Prime Minister and advanced reasons that no sufficient cause had been shown to amend the Social Services Act to substitute a yearly pension increase in lieu of the present legislated-for six monthly increases.
The Prime Minister stressed the view that the falling rate of inflation justified the change to yearly indexation.
This is an adopted line of justification by the Government following its Budget announcement.
This line of reasoning we reject as false. The less the rise in the CPI the smaller the pension increases. Even if the yearly rate of inflation is reduced to S per cent- and this would be welcomed by all pensioners- it would mean a single pensioner being entitled to $ 1 .35, and a married couple $2.20.
To me the next statement is the most important one, because the Federation said:
To be deprived of a justified increase for one year means justice delayed is justice denied.
Honourable senators on the Government benches might care to think over that statement made by the Australian Pensioners Federation. In the rather vain hope that it might inspire a few of the Government members in this House, I quote from an editorial in the West Australian last week. Honourable senators will be aware that I do not very often find cause for compliments to be handed out to the Press, particularly the conservative Press in Western Australia. I am much more likely to criticise it. There are very few occasions when it and I agree on any point. So perhaps it is appropriate that I take this opportunity to commend the West Australian on its editorial and to express my personal wish that Government members will find it commendable too. This is from the leading article in the West Australian, Perth, Saturday, 14 October under the heading ‘Pension justice’:
The Federal Government continues to reap a harvest of ill-will and political embarrassment from the seeds of moral insensibility in its Budget.
And deservedly so. The most unwholesome feature of the Budget was the way in which social justice was jettisoned for the sake of a cold exercise in accountancy. That was evident in the since-abandoned move to trim family allowances.
We all know what happened with the scheme to trim family allowances, as it is delicately put here. The leading article goes on to say:
Now the focus shifts to an even more niggardly and less justifiable proposition- a switch from twice-yearly to onceayear indexation of pensions. This renunciation of yet another election pledge . . .
I remind honourable senators that this is one of the most conservative newspapers in Australia making the very valid point that this is yet another election pledge being broken by the Government. It continues:
The Government’s attempt to justify the change took up only one sentence in the Treasurer’s Budget speech: ‘This decision has been taken in the light of the significant reduction in inflation which this Government has achieved since its return to office’. The argument could be applied with equal force in reverse: Reduced inflation should make it easier for the Government to preserve the spending power of pensioners.
Even with twice-yearly indexation, pensions have lagged behind price movements. For instance, the pensions rise due next month is related to price movements between last December and June. If the Government has its miserable way- to save $26 million this financial year- pensioners will not get another rise till November 1979, and then it will only be responding to price movements in the 12 months to June next year. Thus it will take 1 6 months for price movements last July to be reflected in pensions.
While the incomes of the rest of the community will be indexed twice a year, pensioners- the people least able to cope- will get an increase only once, with an indefensible time lag built in at that. Does the Government believe that pensioners are immune from the impact of its Budget imposts?
Two years ago the Senate championed the cause of pensioners when six government members crossed the floor to oppose abolition of funeral benefits. On that occasion a chastened Mr Fraser said that the Government had a lesson to learn without rancour.
The lesson has not been learnt. Once again it is up to the Senate to drive it home, and for Mr Fraser to accept it without rancour.
I remind honourable senators that this is the leading article from the West Australian in Penh on Saturday, 14 October. It has attracted a considerable amount of correspondence from a number of people in the community. It is most unusual to get Wednesday’s edition of the newspaper on Wednesday in our offices, but today we have it. In today’s edition there is a letter from Mr Alliston who is the Secretary of the Pensioners ‘ Action Group in Perth. He said:
We consider that all pensioners, particularly the over 70s (and many of our members are in this age group), will appreciate your stand in your editorial ‘Pension justice’ (October 14).
This latest niggardly treatment comes on top of all the other effects of inflation, such as the WA taxes and chargeswater, electricity and gas.
There is no end to it and our income is further reduced by this niggardly Federal treatment.
I think that is putting it in a nutshell. It is niggardly treatment.
– You do not agree with the over 70s one, do you?
– I am referring to the whole situation as far as pensions are concerned. I am devoting myself specifically to the decision, on the pan of the Government that there will be only once-a-year indexation of pensions.
– But it is your Party’s platform to have a means test for over 70s.
– I do not need Senator Walters to tell me what our platform is relating to pensions or anything else. I am here to tell the Senate what I think about this particular Bill.
I will just touch on what Senator Walters had to say tonight. She said that the Government had introduced the lone father’s pension. Let me just remind Senator Walters that, although she is claiming for the government credit for having introduced what she must have considered to be a rather sensational move, the Government of which she is a supporter had already committed itself to its introduction in a pre-election promise in 1975 but did not even put it into operation until November 1977 when it was time for it to go back to the people of Australia and justify that pre-election promise. Senator Walters should not sit there and give me all this codswallop about what the Government has been able to do because it has done very little except in areas where it has benefited. The Government made pre-election promise after pre-election promise and is breaking them all. The Government is breaking about six election promises in this Bill. Senator Walters tries to justify that to the electors in her State. Possibly she feels secure in this justification because she now has a sixyear term to serve as a representative of her State. But other members of her Party are concerned about more than sitting in the Senate for six years. They are concerned enough to stand up in the Senate and in the other House and say that they will not vote for this Bill because they do not see that justice is being done for the people who are least able to alford these sacrifices.
– But you do not think it is just enough to include it in your platform.
– I want to touch on a couple of other points in relation to this Bill. Senator Walters has already spoken in the debate and I am not going to give her the chance to take away any more of my time. I do not believe that time will permit me to cover all the areas I would like to cover; nor will it permit me to cover them in the depth in which I would like to apply myself to them.
In the first instance, I want to speak about the injustice of abolishing the maternity allowance. It may seem to a lot of people that a fairly paltry sum is involved; but let me assure you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that there are any number of mothers in the community who find it a most welcome relief to be able to afford a few essentials- not luxuries- that are always associated with the birth of a child. I have always been against the way in which the allowance has been applied in the event of multiple births. I have said so in this place and in other public forums many dmes. I do not believe that any child should be discriminated against. If it happened to be twins, triplets of quintuplets that the mother gave birth to, each of those children should have been regarded as an individual child for the purpose of the maternity allowance. Nevertheless, even though I felt that those benefits should have been the same and they were not, I was prepared to accept that a benefit was paid.
This Bill is disallowing the maternity allowance altogether. It is taking away from peopleonce again, many people who can ill afford it- the right to receive that maternity allowance. Perhaps it escaped the attention of the Government when it was framing this legislation- I remind honourable members opposite of this fact now- that it will become operative in November of this year, and 1979 just happens to be the International Year of the Child. For a whole year governments throughout the world will be endeavouring to enhance the lives of children. What do we find here in Australia? We find the Government taking away a few paltry dollars when a mother has a child.
In my State of Western Australia, we have our 150th birthday celebrations in 1979. It will be an extra special celebration because it will also be the International Year of the Child. In fact, it is the intention of the group which is organising WA ‘79’, as it is known, to issue a special birth certificate to every child who is born in 1979. I personally do not agree with the idea. I think that it discriminates against the children who are born in late 1978 or early 1980. But I am quite sure that, given the opportunity to choose the majority of mothers to be in that State, and in every other State and the two Territories, would prefer to receive a maternity allowance than to receive a special birth certificate signifying the birth of their child in that year. Once again, we see another callous decision making inroads into the lifestyles of people throughout the country.
The changes to family allowances will make an enormous difference to a large number of people throughout Australia because they have to budget from week to week. They do not budget on a calendar month basis or even on a four-week basis. One question arises in my mind on this matter: On my calculations, the change in the method of payment of family allowances from a four-weekly basis to a monthly basis will mean that parents with four children will receive $32 less in a full year. The Minister for Social Security may care to consult her advisers and substantiate or refute that claim when she replies to the debate on the Bill. Recipients under the Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme and recipients of adult secondary education allowances will be precluded from receiving family allowances. We are told that the amount involved will be made up in other areas. Let me assure honourable senators that it is not.
A person receiving a family allowance and a supporting mother’s benefit also receives additional benefits which are not available to that person if he or she happens to be a single parent in receipt of a TEAS allowance. For instance, such a person would have pharmaceutical benefits taken away. I am sure that members of the Government parties as well as members of the Opposition have received letters from parents who are endeavouring to further their education under TEAS or under the adult secondary education allowances scheme. Many of them are expressing their concern that they are losing special benefit entitlements. This Bill further disadvantages those people.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this Bill is that it does absolutely nothing for the unemployed person. It does not give unemployed people one skerrick of hope for the future. It does not give them a hope of being able to live with any dignity. The Government has acknowledged that there will be an increase in unemployment this year amounting to some thousands of people. Yet it has taken an amount of $6. 9m out of the Budget. One wonders how on earth the
Government will achieve its aims. If there is to be a dramatic increase in the number of people who are receiving unemployment benefits, these people have to be supported in some way. The freezing of the unemployment benefit payment will not achieve that. I think that probably it is the most ruthless and callous decision that has been made. I think that it is equally ruthless and callous to say that there will be no increased payment for unemployed people this year. It must be most disheartening for an unemployed person to know that the unemployment benefit levels will remain as they are. Yet Mr Fraser has acknowledged that unemployment is a cruel experience. In fact, on 1 7 July last year he said:
Unemployment is a dispiriting experience that not only undermines self respect but creates social problems. Its effects are not just confined to the person unemployed, but they are felt throughout the whole structure of family life.
They are the words of the Prime Minister just 15 months ago. Perhaps one could be excused for believing that a person who could make such a statement would be aware of the utter devastation and despair that is being felt by hundreds of thousands of Australian people who happen to be unemployed. Once again, Mr Fraser was mouthing platitudes. Obviously, Mr Fraser finds it very easy to mouth platitudes, because he seems to do this fairly consistently. He does not have any feeling for the unemployed. He probably has never experienced unemployment. I would say that that is perhaps not an unusual circumstance in this place or even in the other chamber.
But some of us in this chamber have experienced unemployment. Some of us know what it is like. Some of us can put ourselves in the place of people who are unemployed. Some of us know the way these people feel when they are being rejected for prospective job after prospective job. We know how these people feel when they know that for every job they apply for there will be another 20-odd people applying. Some of us know what it is like for people to trudge the streets looking for work- not necessarily work for which they have been trained, but any type of work that will allow them to live with dignity and not have it constantly put to them that we are becoming a welfare state, that they are welfare minded or that they are dole bludgers. I do not believe that we have a very great proportion of the unemployed in our community who we can honestly say are dole bludgers.
I believe that employment enables people to retain some dignity. It may not be highly paid employment, but at least it enables people to retain some dignity. It enables people to provide for their needs and for the needs of those people who are dependent upon them. In this Bill, we see a total freeze placed on unemployment benefits. Seventy-five per cent of the people who are unemployed are single, and these are the people who will be hit worst. Unemployment is the worst problem that Australia and a number of other countries face today. As the Prime Minister has said, unemployment creates many social problems. We are aggravating those social problems. It is impossible to gauge the effects of unemployment at this point in time; but we are, in effect aggravating those problems because we are doing nothing to create employment. Now the Government is freezing unemployment benefits. I believe that unemployment will be with us for a long time. It will take many years after a Labor Government is returned in 1980 to undo the mess that has been created since 1975 under this conservative Government.
This Bill represents a brutal assault on something like two million Australian men, women and children who are dependent in some way on social services; two million people whose standard of living lies in the calloused hands of this Government- hands that have become calloused because the Government has spent the last 34 months wiping its hands of every pre-election promise it made. The Opposition has outlined only some of the broken promises of the Fraser Government. We could stand here until next Tuesday fortnight and still not be able to cover all of them. We have touched just the tip of the iceberg. However, there will be many opportunities for honourable senators to remind the people of Australia that this Government cannot be trusted prior to an election or whilst it is in office. I want briefly to repeat what was said in the editorial in the West Australian last Saturday. It read:
Two years ago the Senate championed the cause of pensioners when six government members crossed the floor to oppose abolition of funeral benefits. On that occasion a chastened Mr Fraser said that the Government had a lesson to learn without rancour.
The lesson has not been learnt. Once again it is up to the Senate to drive it home, and for Mr Fraser to accept it without rancour.
I sincerely trust that there are sufficient Government senators to do just that- to drive it homeand that the Prime Minister will accept it without rancour. In the meantime, I oppose the Bill.
-We are discussing a Bill that gives effect to the Government’s proposals in respect of changes to social service pensions and benefits, such as the unemployment benefit and family allowances. It is really an amendment to a fairly complicated
Act comprising many pages. It is a Bill that takes a fair deal of understanding. For that reason I want to say at the outset that I feel that more time should be allowed us in which to deal with this type of Bill. If we are to act as a house of review, as I feel we must, it should become standard practice to present Bills in such a manner that would allow amendments to be made to them. Of course, some of the amendments that have to be made are very complicated to prepare and are prepared for us in many cases by our amendment advisers. Last week we had a Bill presented to the House of Representatives one day and presented here the next. It was a complicated Bill and it became my wish to formulate amendments to it. It was only through the excellent help of the Parliamentary Counsel that satisfactory amendments were available in time.
Before I speak to a couple of the clauses of this Bill I should like to correct something that the previous speaker in this debate, Senator Coleman, said. She did not really say that the Government was wrong but she intimated that perhaps people might receive less by way of family allowances now that family allowances were being paid every month. It is my belief that although they are paid monthly, the people who receive them -
– Only for -
-Just a moment, senator; wait until I have finished. Although the family allowance is to be paid monthly now, it is my belief that families in receipt of an allowance will receive exactly the same amount in any one year as they would have received previously. I know that Senator Coleman said this in a question to the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) but I thought that it was worth mentioning at this stage.
– On my calculations a family with four children will be paid $32 less. That is what I have invited the Minister to consider.
– I do not think that Senator Coleman is correct and I am sure that the Minister when replying to the debate will support what I have said. Last week the amendments that I had prepared were aimed at putting all people in the same boat with respect to annual and long service leave. This week my comments on clause 6 of this Bill are designed to do the same thing. I would like to see the pensioners of Australia in the same situation as those people who work. Those who work have their incomes adjusted twice a year now. It will be remembered that the Government attempted to have the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission accept once yearly wage adjustments but it was not able to win that argument. Consequently, we still have twice yearly adjustments for wage earners which, in my opinion, given the fact that the inflation rate is well down, is a satisfactory interval between income reviews. When inflation was higher maybe it was necessary to look at wages at three-monthly intervals and to make adjustments on that basis but I agree that six-monthly changes make sense now.
If we accept that wage earners are to have sixmonthly adjustments, there is a great deal of argument to suggest that we should treat pensioners in the same manner. They are not able to form the pressure groups that unionists and other people are able to form and, even though I do not like to have to speak against the Government which I know has done a lot in this country to correct the economic ills with which it was left by the Labor Government, I for one when I feel it is necessary will stand up in this place to try to do what I can to ensure that pensioners are treated in a manner that is fair and as similar as possible to the manner in which wage earners in the community are treated. I feel that that would be fair and that that is the principle the Government should accept. When the Government did not win its argument before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to have wage earners given once yearly wage adjustments, I thought that it should have decided then that it would let pension increases be governed by roughly the same rule.
Most Australians realise that they have to make some contribution to getting the country back on its feet but there are some who are less able than others to afford to help achieve that aim. In any case, I am not sure that the’ consumer price index always accurately reflects the costs in the area where pensioners have to spend most of their money- food. Those of us who understand the way in which the consumer price index is made up will realise that if housing costs go down, for instance, it could lower the consumer price index and, hence, could lower any pension increase.
– That is not right.
– Excuse me, Senator Walters, but I said that it could lower any increase. I did not say that it could lower the pension. Am I not right?
– If it is the increase, but the -
-That is what I said. I do not want to argue with Senator Walters but if she says that I am not right then I have to take objection.
– If the CPI goes down the pension does not go down.
– I did not say that. I was talking about the increase. I am sorry, Mr Acting Deputy President, I do not want to argue this matter which is one in which I am quite involved, but when a comment that I make is called untrue I have to respond. Pensioners are not in the business of buying houses; they are in the business of buying food and that is an area in which the consumer price index shows that costs always seem to be going up. Admittedly, when there is a small percentage increase in inflation, the pension increases if granted every six months will be only small, but that is not the point. The point I am trying to make is that the Government should as far as possible treat all people in the same manner.
There is one other point that bears some discussion- what was it that was promised. Pensions were removed from the political football arena when they became automatically indexed. I believe that we as a party promised to stick to that. I think it is time that all politicians learned that they should not make promises unless they will be able to keep them. It is my firmly held opinion that most people in the community are decent, law-abiding citizens who would keep their word even at personal expense. I believe that they simply do not understand it when politicians do not stick to what they have promised. People expect politicians to stick to their word. They expect to be able to bank on politicians’ policy statements. As I said last week, maybe it is time that we altered the Constitution, this time to insert a clause that would force politicians to stick to what they say. As you may have noticed, Mr Acting Deputy President, I have become both angry and embarrassed by what has happened. I get embarrassed when people do not stick to their word. I repeat: The people outside the ivory towers of Canberra just do not understand us when we do not stick to our word.
Mr Acting Deputy President, from what I have said I think it is apparent that I do not support the aspects of this Bill relating to the yearly indexation of pensions. Notwithstanding that this is a Budget Bill, I intend to oppose the relevant clauses. Let it be clearly understood that I will not abstain from voting. I am paid a very high salary to make decisions and to vote according to those decisions. That is something that I will always do. Early in my career I think I did once abstain from voting, but I want to make it clear that, particularly in the Senate, I feel that a person should follow his voice. Having dealt with that matter, I want to say that I feel that to means test the increase in pensions for people over 70 years of age will cost the country nearly as much as it will save. It is specifically against the Liberal Party platform. I must say publicly that I feel that it is a retrograde move. Maybe the Government in better financial times will be able to change back to the situation that we have now. I certainly ask it to do that if it is at all possible.
– In speaking to this Social Services Amendment Bill I would like to make a few comments about some of the Government speakers in this debate, particularly Senator Townley, who has just resumed his seat. He told the Senate that, unlike his Tasmanian colleagues in the other place, he is not going to abstain from voting on the Bill. I suppose that it is some small credit to Senator Townley that he is going to cross the floor and vote with the Opposition on this occasion. However, as we all know, Senator Townley has nothing to lose by doing that. It is well known in Tasmania that Senator Townley probably is enjoying his last term of office as an endorsed candidate of the Liberal Party of Australia. His name will not appear on the Liberal Senate ticket next time round. So, unlike Senator Townley ‘s colleagues in the other place, he has very little to lose.
– When that affects my vote I will walk out of this place. Don’t be such a hypocrite.
- Senator Townley said that if that affects his vote he will walk out of this place, but we all know that when he came into this place he came in as an Independent and then, like ex-Senator Hall, he quickly came back under the umbrella of the Liberal Party. Because of events that have occurred in Tasmania it looks as though Senator Townley is going to get out from under the Liberal umbrella and is going to walk out in the rain again.
I want to make a few comments about Senator Townley ‘s colleagues in the other place who did not have the intestinal fortitude to vote against legislation to which they claimed they were opposed. They stayed out of the House when the vote was being counted and did not deem to be counted. We have to take a close look at their reasoning. I would be prepared to say that they stayed out of the House with the full consent of Mr Fraser because of the large majority he has in the other place. They made no difference to the vote in doing this. They were able to go back to
Tasmania and to say to their constituents that they were very brave people because they refrained from voting on the provision in the Social Services Amendment Bill with which they did not agree.
If we look at last Friday’s edition of the Australian we find all those people featured on the front page under the heading: ‘MPs Revolt’. But we know why they are revolting. Their seats are in jeopardy in Tasmania and they have to act this way to try to curry a bit of favour in the electorate. Let us look at the people who took that action. They were people such as the honourable member for Denison, Mr Hodgman, and the honourable member for Franklin, Mr Goodluck, two of the people who are most vociferous when speaking against the Government on many occasions.
Let us consider what their actions would be if their Government’s term of office were in jeopardy. How would they vote then? Of course they would vote with the Government. They are similar to the Democratic Labor Party senators who used to be in this chamber. They took certain action on minor matters but never did they vote against the Liberal Party if the term of office of the Liberal Party was going to be in jeopardy. I venture to say that if the Fraser Government had a majority to two or three in the other place those very brave Tasmanians would not have abstained from voting. They would have been in there voting like most of their colleagues.
I was most surprised to hear Senator Thomas utter certain remarks when he rose to speak on this legislation. I have always given a great deal of credit to the integrity of Senator Thomas. But he said in his opening remarks that he does not generally take a very great interest in social security matters and that very rarely does he speak on that type of legislation. But he said that he was forced into speaking on this Bill tonight because of the hypocritical remarks made by Opposition honourable senators. Mr Acting Deputy President, earlier this afternoon, before any of our speakers contributed in this debate, the list of speakers for this debate was put in front of me. Looking at the list I find that Senator Grimes was listed to speak, followed by Senator Walters, followed by Senator Colston, then Senator Hamer- I do not know whether he spoke- then Senator Coleman, then Senator Thomas. So Senator Thomas’s name was on the list long before any of the Opposition honourable senators had spoken, yet he had the audacity to come in here and say that he was drawn into the debate because of the hypocritical remarks made by Opposition honourable senators. Has he some sixth sense that enabled him to forsee what the Labor honourable senators were going to say, or was he just trying to bolster his remarks in the debate by claiming that he was drawn into the debate by the hypocritical remarks made by Opposition honourable senators?
I stand by every remark that has been made by honourable senators on this side of the House. We are genuine in our criticism of this Bill. Let us look at some of the hypocritical statements made by honourable senators opposite and at some of the false promises made by the present Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) back in 1975 during the general election campaign and again last year during the general election campaign. When the present Prime Minister delivered his policy speech in 1975 what was his Party’s slogan? It was: ‘Turn on the lights’. We have all been waiting ever since to see members of the Liberal Party turn on the lights. As many people throughout the length and breadth of this country have said, either they have a dud generator or the fuses have been blown, because they have never turned on the lights. On page 10 of Mr Fraser’s Policy Speech he stated:
We stand by our commitment to abolish the means test on pensions.
What do we see in this Budget? We see proposals to do the very opposite. At page 7 of Mr Fraser’s policy speech of last year, under the heading Social Security and Health’, he stated:
We have taken politics out of pension increases by linking them automatically with the Consumer Price Index.
Further on in the policy speech he stated that his Party would continue twice-yearly increases of pensions. The Minister for Social Security, Senator Guilfoyle, is on record as having said the very same thing on many occasions. Yet we now find that the system with pensions is going to revert to the system which used to operate when the Liberal Party and the Country Party were in government for that lengthy period of 23 years. The Government states in this Budget that it will give pensioners an increase once a year. But the Government parties did not always do that when they were in office from 1949 to 1972, as I will point out later.
I am afraid that it is the fate of pensioners that, for every year this Government remains in office, they will be given a miserable increase when they should be given an increase which would keep up the standard of living to which they become accustomed under a Labor Government.
We oppose the Bill because it typifies the Government’s attitude to those in need of social services. It typifies the Government’s meanness in that it makes pensioners and social welfare beneficiaries suffer for small gains to public revenue. Of course those gains have been pointed out and I will elaborate on them later. Further, it typifies the Government’s discrimination in that it makes the unemployed without dependants second-class citizens. Their plight is not their fault. It typifies the Government’s dishonesty as regards promises made in previous elections, firstly, to maintain the twice-yearly increases in pensions in line with the consumer price index and, secondly, to retain an income test free pension for those over 70. All of those promises have been broken by this Government which in many cases, held out a hand of friendship to the people on pensions, saying that it was the only government that had concern for people in need. Well, we now know that the Government has no concern at all for these people and the pensioners know only too well that this Government has no concern for their welfare.
This Government had other intentions regarding this Budget. It was going to income test family allowances and to tax the blind and the handicapped. These proposals were withdrawn because of public protest. The Government should look again at the injustices that remain in this Budget. It is all very well for honourable senators opposite to get up and say that they brought pressure to bear upon their Government to bring about these changes before the Budget was introduced. I think some of these changes were made after the Budget was introduced. But those of us who have a real care for pensioners and for people in need know that it was the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Wriedt, who first exposed what the Government was going to do. Because he exposed the Government’s intentions, there was then an orchestration of public outcry against the Government’s intentions. Of course the Government quickly realised that the jobs of many people in border-line seats were in jeopardy the next time the electorate had an opportunity to go to the ballot box. That was borne out in no uncertain terms, firstly, by the results of the Werriwa byelection and, secondly, by the results of the New South Wales State election held about eight or nine days ago when the Fraser Government got a massive rebuff for the way in which it was handling the economy of this country and for its treatment not only of the States but of the people in need.
The disadvantaged are being asked to carry the burden of the misguided economic policies of the Government to save less than $100m this financial year- $27m by way of annual indexation of pensions; $40m by non-indexation of benefits paid to unemployed without dependants, by not increasing the unemployment benefits for 18-year-olds and not indexing pensions for those over 70 above the permissible income level. That is the way in which this Government has set about getting some money back into its coffers to try to decrease the deficit. But we know that the Government’s Budget plans have already blown out. The Budget deficit has skyrocketed. If we do what Mr Lynch used to do when the Labor Government was in office and multiply each quarter by four to get a yearly figure, we find that this year there will be a record Budget deficit. That is the only criterion we can use because the previous Government used to use it under Mr Lynch, particularly when he was citing inflation figures. He would multiply the worst figures for the year by four and of course hoodwink the people into believing that that was the true rate. So we must do the same when we criticise this Government. This Government’s deficit is much larger now than what it said it would be at this time. So we have to multiply the figure by four and tell the people what it is really going to be at the end of the financial year. The people are going to be in for a very rude awakening.
I made mention of the miserable increases given by the Liberal-National Country Party Coalition when in government since 1949. Let us look at the situation when a Labor Government went out of office in 1949. At that time, the pension rate for single, age and invalid pensions as a percentage of average weekly earnings, was 24. But the first figures we can ascertain for pensions under the Menzies regime in 1950-51- the date of introduction of the pension increase was 2 November 1950- show that the Menzies Government reduced the percentage rate of the pension as a proportion of average weekly earnings to 2 1 .6. If we go right through from 1 949-50 to 1972-73-the last Budget of the McMahon Government- we find that at no time in those 23 years did the percentage rate of pension as a proportion of average weekly earnings ever get up to what it was under a Labor government. Honourable senators can go right through the list. I have had a table on this incorporated in Hansard on quite a few occasions. But obviously members of the Liberal-National Country Party coalition never look at those statistics because they repeatedly stand in this place and in the other place and say that it was a Liberal-National Country Party government which gave the pensioners a bigger percentage proportion of average weekly earnings than a Labor government.
But what did we do when the McMahon Government went out of office in 1972-73? At that time the pension, as a percentage of average weekly earnings, was 19.7. We came to office at the end of 1972 and the McMahon Government’s increase, which took effect from 5 October 1972, brought the percentage increase up to 19.7. On 14 December very shortly after Labor came to office, we gave a pension increase of $1.50 which brought the percentage up to 2 1 .2. The next year it slid back a bit to 1 9.5 which was only 0.2 per cent lower than that given in the McMahon Budget. But in the following year we gave a further increase and we brought the percentage up to 22. The next year it was 20.9 and in the year of our last Budget, the last year in which Labor was able to introduce an increase, we brought it up to 24.3.
At no time during all those years did a government of the political persuasion of this Government get anywhere near that mark, except on 13 May 1976 when of course it was using the Hayden Budget. At that time we found that the pension rate was back to 24.3 per cent. Then in the next Budget, on 1 1 November 1976 it was up to 25.7 per cent of average weekly earnings. So honourable senators can see that for 23 years, people of the same political persuasion as members of this Government, never at any stage brought the percentage of the pension of average weekly earnings up to what we as a Labor Government achieved. I am afraid that this is what the pensioners of this country are going to have to suffer in the years that this Government remains in office. Already it has repudiated an election promise to maintain the twice-yearly pension increase. This Government has said that it will give pensioners only a once-a-year increase. As Senator Colston, Senator Coleman and Senator Grimes have pointed out, pensioners will now be 1 6 months behind in their increases. I would like to ask some of the people opposite, who are of very substantial means, how they would like to put themselves in the position of many of the pensioners of this country. I am afraid that they would have some very traumatic times if they had to live on the meagre amount of money that their Government is now prepared to hand out to pensioners.
The Treasurer (Mr Howard) admits that much more will be lost to revenue because of tax avoiders than will be gained from taking a few dollars here and there from the people in need. The Minister for Social Security, Senator Guilfoyle, said on 1 5 August 1 978:
The 1978-79 Budget demonstrates that the Liberal National-Country Party Government is committed to assisting those in need in our community.
What did Mr Fraser say? On 13 March 1977 he said:
We are committed to take politics out of pension increases by giving automatic increases in line with price rises twice a year.
He went on to say:
The Fraser Government will continue to exempt pensioners over 70 from any means test . . . I don’t think we can really get back to the situation where the pensioner is means-tested over 70.
That is another promise that he has repudiated. On 28 September this year Senator Guilfoyle, in answer to a question about whether twice-yearly indexation had ever been dependent on the rate of inflation, said:
The policy itself and the introduction of that policy into legislation made no qualification.
I refer now to the non-indexation of unemployment benefits for beneficiaries without dependants. The most recent research table available from the Department of Social Security shows that 173,5 10 unemployed people are paid at the single rate without dependants; that is 73.2 per cent of all unemployment beneficiaries. It also shows that only 34.2 per cent of unemployment beneficiaries are under 20 years of age and that 65.8 per cent of unemployment beneficiaries are between 21 and 65 years of age. Further, it shows that single people to be disadvantaged will be less often the young and increasingly the 40-year-old woman clerk made redundant by automation and the 55-year-old widower affected by factories closing down. The table also shows that between December 1976 and December 1977 more than 7,000 persons over 45 years of age had to go on to unemployment benefit.
That situation has been brought about because of the policy of this Government, and we all know what that policy is. The Government is obsessed with the idea that to get the economy back on the rails it has to reduce the rate of inflation. The Government has no concern at all for the pensioners or for the number of people unemployed, which is growing daily. It is trying to hoodwink the people into believing that because it has reduced the rate of inflation everything is nice and rosy so far as the economy goes. But the Government should talk to the housewife or to the pensioner. As I have pointed out here on many occasions, when these people go into a shop to buy every-day commodities they find that prices are going up daily. One only has to look at the price of bread, which went up the other day. If the Government was reducing the rate of inflation the price of bread would not be increasing. The price of every commodity that the housewife or pensioner has to buy at the corner store or the supermarket is going up a few cents practically every week or every month. So where does the Government get its figures to show that it is decreasing the rate of inflation? The Government cannot fool the people about that.
I am afraid that the Government has been given its answer on the only two occasions on which the people have had the opportunity to express an opinion since the Government was elected in 1977. As I said earlier, those occasions were the Werriwa by-election and the New South Wales State election. So I ask the Government to take some warning from what the electors are saying. If it does not do so, after the next election- and this may come sooner than many of us anticipate because of the way in which the Government is carrying on- honourable senators opposite will be sitting back on this side of the House and the people of Australia will be able to rejoice because then there will be in office a government with some concern for the people in need in this community. We have always believed that priority should be given to Australian citizens in need. Priority should not be given to coal-mining companies which the Government has let off in respect of the payment of coal export tax. The Government has let them transfer their wealthy profits overseas. We believe that when we have a natural resource the tax on that resource ought to remain and the revenue gained from it ought to be distributed among people who own this country and who own those products.
Let us have a look at the annual indexation of pensions. This measure will save the Government $27m this financial year and the cost to the pensioners will be $60m in 1978-79. This means that pensioners will have to sacrifice over $lm a month because of the measure we are discussing tonight. Pensioners received two rises a year in the time of the McMahon Government when the rate of inflation was 5.2 percent for 1971 and 7.8 per cent for 1972. McMahon, Snedden and Fraser all promised pensioners twice-yearly increases in line with increases in the consumer price index. No qualification on the rate of inflation was ever mentioned. As I mentioned, Senator Guilfoyle admitted this in the Senate on the 28th of last month. The Labor Government gave twice-yearly pension increases to bring pensions from 19 per cent to almost 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. I have quoted figures right back to the time when Menzies was elected to office on the promise of abolishing petrol rationing. The people who sit opposite always use gimmicks to hoodwink the people in order to get back into government.
Between December 1972 and December 1975, under a Labor government, pensioners received increases of 80.2 per cent in the standard rate of pension. Between December 1972 and December 1975 the consumer price index rose by 50. 1 per cent. We did more than protect pensioners twice a year; we got them well ahead of the increase in the cost of living. Mr Fraser said:
We are committed to take politics out of pension increases by giving automatic increases in line with price rises twice a year.
He said that on 13 March of last year. So where is the credibility of this Government and its leader?
Senator Guilfoyle, in an election advertisement on 5 December 1977, said:
We believe that to maintain the purchasing power of pensions and benefits is important We said that we would do that and we’ve done it and I believe that this is one of the things that has been most thankfully received by those people who do receive them. I’ve had lots of people say to me ‘You’ve given us dignity because you don’t argue about our rises every six months ‘.
This was the statement set out in the Minister’s election gimmick. What are the pensioners saying now to their members of Parliament? They are very disappointed people. The Pensioners Federation put out a statement on the 1 1th of this month in which it said:
To be deprived of a justified increase for one year means justice delayed is justice denied.
The people who have been made to suffer under this legislation have made many and repeated appeals to the Government to give them justice. The Government has made false promises. It has reneged on its promises.
It is very interesting to have a look at the document which Senator Guilfoyle provides each year to members of Parliament. The document sets out the number of people who receive pensions in each town in each State. I took the opportunity to have a look at the information in respect of South Australia. I will refer to the town of Pinnaroo, where I spoke at a meeting some weeks ago. I compared the number of pensioners in Pinnaroo with the number of people who voted for the Labor Party at the last election. According to Senator Guilfoyle ‘s document, 147 people in Pinnaroo receive either an age or invalid pension or deserted wives or supporting mother’s benefit. I am also informed that 1 14 people vote Labor in that town. I can say to the Minister now that the figure will be very greatly increased the next time these people get an opportunity to vote because I know that a great number of the 1 14 people who voted for Labor at the last election are not pensioners. Quite a few of them are very successful farmers who have supported the Labor Party for many years. We can see that a great number of pensioners in Pinnaroo were fooled by the Government’s promises that it would give pensioners a twiceyearly increase, that it would abolish the means test for people over 70 years of age and so on. Where have those promises got the Government? Where have they got the people who fell for the gimmick.
The Government’s promises in the social welfare area are like its promises in the income tax area. The Government published massive advertisements in which it said that it would give people great reductions in income tax. That promise did not come to fruition. Instead of the Budget giving people a reduction in their income tax, it gave them a massive increase. I find that the same situation applies in many other country towns in South Australia; that is, more people receive pensions in many country towns in South Australia than vote for the Australian Labor Party, which when it was in government gave them justice. I hope that people who are listening to this debate tonight will have a really good look at the Budget Papers and see how they have been deprived of the benefits which the Labor Government commenced to give them when it came to office. The Labor Government raised the value of their pension to something which was very worthwhile.
It is very interesting to compare the increase that this Government has given pensioners over the three years it has been in office with what the Labor Party gave the pensioners in the three years it was in office. When we came into government in 1972 the single age and invalid pension paid under the McMahon Government had been increased on 5 October 1972 to $20 a week. The last pension increase granted by the Labor Government was granted as from 13 November 1975. Of course, this Government had to pay for it, but we legislated for it. The single age and invalid pensioners then received $38.75 a week. So during our three years in office the pensioners obtained an increase of $18.75 a week. What do we find when we look at the figures now? I repeat that when we went out of office the pension of a single age and invalid pensioner was $38.75 a week. The pension for those very same people will be $53.20 a week when this Bill goes through. When one looks at the figures one finds that over three years we gave an increase of $18.75 a week to those pensioners I have mentioned, but this Government has given them an increase of only $14.45 a week. That means that they have received an increase of $4.30 a week less in the three years of office of this Government than they received under the Labor Government. People should realise that and they should bear it in mind when honourable senators opposite stand up and say that they have concern for the people on pensions.
There is one other matter to which I wish to refer in the short time I have left. Honourable senators opposite continually stand up in this chamber and say that they have freedom to vote according to their conscience. I have said on many occasions that they are bound by their party policy, except perhaps in the instance of Senator Townley, who has nothing to lose by doing what he is doing tonight. I wish to quote from a letter that was sent to the Australian on 17 July 1974 by Senator Withers about honourable senators opposite having a freedom of choice. He said:
They are also part of the total Liberal Parliamentary Party. They are bound by decisions and policies made by that total party, and have the right and indeed the duty to try to see those decisions and policies are carried out.
That was said by the then leader in this chamber of the Liberal Party. Yet we find honourable senators opposite having the audacity to stand up and criticise honourable senators on this side of the chamber because we do not cross the floor. As I have said on many occasions, we fully examined our policies before we brought them into the Parliament when we were in government and we have no need to cross the floor. Members of the Labor Party are entitled to debate fully what the party is going to bring in by way of Budget measures but honourable senators opposite have no opportunity at all to debate the matter.
– I will not delay the Senate for too long. Before getting on the the gravamen of this debate let me refer firstly to the speech of Senator McLaren, who has just resumed his seat. He started his speech by roundly criticising the speaker before him, Senator Townley, after Senator Townley had, I thought, indicated that on at least one substantial section of this Bill he would be voting on this side of the chamber and against the Government. It really is idiotic to attack an honourable senator on the Government side of the chamber straight after he has announced to the Senate his intention to vote with the Opposition. It is an extraordinary situation. I am sure that it will not alter Senator
Townley ‘s decision on this occasion, but it is not a great encouragement to supporters of the Government to cross the floor if after they have made that decision, which must be a very difficult decision to make, they are confronted with a barrage of abuse.
To go to the essence of the Bill, there are a number of aspects of this Bill about which I am concerned. I am particularly concerned about three aspects of it. I might mention at the outset that I will be voting against the Bill as a whole, but there are three aspects of it about which I am particularly concerned. The first aspect is the proposal for the indexation of pensions and benefits to be changed from a twice-yearly basis to annually. I believe simply that justice delayed is justice denied and if there is a standard of benefit or pension which is appropriate to a circumstance it is justice denied to fail to adjust that rate for increases in the cost of living as those increases in the cost of living are assessed. Supporters of the Government have mentioned, with some justification, that the basis for indexing pensions and benefits is superior to that which is used to adjust wages- in other words, there is full consumer price index indexation for pensions and benefits whereas there is only partial indexation for wages. But the point is that if a decision has been made to adjust pensions and benefits to ensure that their value is not eroded through price increases they should be adjusted when the Australian Statistician brings down his figures quarterly.
While I am on my feet I would like to draw the attention of the Senate- in particular, Senator McLaren- to the fact that on 27 April 1976 I moved in this chamber an amendment to the Social Services Amendment Bill deploring the failure of the Government to back date all increased payments to 1 January 1976. That dealt with pensions and benefits. The purpose of my amendment was to attempt to ensure that the adjustments were operative from 1 January. I did not get a seconder for my amendment.
– What about your Liberal mates?
- Senator McLaren was present and he did not second that amendment. I was left holding the bag. I think that those pensioners who are listening to this debate tonight should recognise the fact that I moved that amendment and did not get a seconder for it. Senator McLaren was silent on that matter.
Insofar as age pensions are concerned, I am opposed to the proposition that as from November 1978 pensions payable to persons aged 70 years or more will remain at their current rates but a pensioner may qualify for the new indexed rates subject to an income test. I recognise that the Government has serious financial problems to overcome. I hope that it is on the way to overcoming them; it has a long way to go. But I do not believe that it is at all proper to select a group of people over age 70 to implement a proposition which, as Senator Townley has mentioned, is clearly contrary to the policy of the major party within the coalition. The Government may have other valid reasons for doing so and perhaps the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) could comment on them.
The third point I raise is that the Minister said in her second reading speech that the Government will continue the new scheme of family allowance which it introduced in 1 976 and that this allowance will not be subject to any income test or to taxation. Nevertheless, as I understand it, the fact remains that of all the allowances and benefits, the family allowance is the only one which is not indexed. That is totally unjust to the large numbers of families who are receiving the family allowance. Here we have a system which was introduced as a trade-off for the previous system of child endowment and tax rebates. It is unjust to see these rates eroded; and eroded they have been. I incorporated in Hansard on 27 September 1978 figures which show the erosion of family allowance rates since this allowance was introduced in 1976. To cut a long story short, a family with five children is now worse off by $8 a week by way of loss of purchasing power than it was in 1976. 1 ask the Government to examine this aspect. I know that the Minister is very conscious of this matter but I urge that she and the Government give urgent consideration to a renewed family allowance and family support scheme.
Finally I deal briefly with the proposition in this Bill to abolish the maternity allowance. The maternity allowance is not worth a great deal but it is worth something, particularly to those on low incomes. I cannot accept the philosophy behind its abolition and I cannot accept the reasons given for its abolition. In the first place I believe that to take away anything which is supportive of the family is inconsistent with what I understand to be overall government policy. Secondly, to say that costs associated with confinements are now largely covered by health insurance arrangements is not true. I do not know whether those women who are on the way and who are listening would be able to apply to their medical funds for the cost of a basinet or nappies or the like and get refunds for them. Of course they would not.
One such lady said to me that at least the Government should have had the decency to make it operate nine months from the time the Bill comes into operation.
– They ought to make it retrospective.
-In a sense this is another retrospective piece of legislation. I said I would not keep the Senate long. I make those comments.
– To save the time of the Senate I agreed earlier in the day not to make a lengthy second reading speech on this Bill and I will honour that commitment. I just want to state so that it is in the record that the Australian Democrats find themselves in some mild dilemma in regard to this Bill. Our pledge to the Australian people was that we would not do anything at any stage to block Supply and because this is a Budget Bill it produces some dilemma for us. My judgment, after looking at the Bill, is that if it is not passed benefits that are payable today would remain the same. Very few minor additions or additional benefits are given by this Bill.
The overriding consideration that has come to me is that if we did vote for the second reading of this Bill we would be dishonouring our undertaking to the electorate during the election campaign that one of our functions would be to keep the Government honest to its promises. One of the main thrusts of this Bill is to be found in clauses 5 and 6 about which I will speak later and against which we will vote. In simple terms it would seem to me that if we voted with the Government on this Bill we would be virtually saying to the Government: ‘We know you have broken an overt promise to pensioners and we support you for it. ‘ For that reason I have come to the view that there is no way that we could possibly support the Government on either the second reading of the Bill or on clauses 5 and 6,
-The Senate has debated at the second reading stage the Social Services Amendment Bill. I have listened with interest to all the comments that have been made by those senators who have addressed themselves to the Bill this evening. The Bill is one of the Bills of the 1978 Budget and it gives effect to the Government’s proposals for the social services of pensions and benefits and other matters for this coming year. It reflects the Government’s concern that assistance to those in need should be maintained notwithstanding the necessity for restraint in government expenditure generally. I need to say that because I think that anyone listening to the discussion this evening may not understand the extent of welfare expenditure in this Budget or the burden of increased expenditure on income security and social welfare payments through my Department. It may not be understood that we are talking this year of approximately $7.2 billion that will be spent through the Department of Social Security.
There are those who have contrasted what might have been done in 1971 or 1972 or what might have been done in 1975 or 1976 with what is being done this year but if we look at 1975-76 we see that we were then talking about an amount of $4.6 billion compared with $7.2 billion for this year. If we are to make comparisons I think we ought to make fair comparisons and recognise the growth that has occurred in social security expenditure.
– How many more people do you have on unemployment benefits than in that year?
– More people are receiving the unemployment benefit, but there are numbers more in every category of pension and benefit. There has been a growth in every area of the income security system. Let me address myself to some of the matters that have been raised and to some comments to which some response is required. It was suggested that the family allowance scheme has some disadvantages at this stage. Senator Grimes questioned some matters with regard to the payment of the family allowances to those who are receiving the tertiary education assistance allowance. We sought some information. I am able to advise him that tertiary education assistance recipients have had their tertiary education assistance payments increased by an amount of $5.25 a week which takes into account the fact that there will no longer be dual payments of the family allowance and the tertiary education assistance allowance. An increase of $5.25 per week has been made to the tertiary education assistance. This has been done to take into account the fact that there will be no longer a dual payment of these two schemes.
Senator Grimes also required information for the Opposition with regard to family allowances for children living abroad. I state briefly that family allowances will continue to be paid for children outside Australia where the child is temporarily absent or the child is living abroad pending migration to Australia and will arrive in Australia within four years. Family allowances will cease to be payable for children who have never been in Australia and who do not intend to migrate to Australia within four years. There will be no change in the arrangements for payment of family allowances for children who are already in Australia. Briefly, that is the outline of the changes with regard to family allowances for children abroad. That was an explanation that was required by Senator Grimes.
He also sought information for the Opposition with regard to the handicapped child’s allowance. I state again briefly that this Bill extends eligibility for the handicapped child’s allowance to full-time children up to the age of 25 years. At present the handicapped child’s allowance ceases at the age of 16 years. This Bill brings the position of handicapped students into line with other provisions of the Act relating to student children. In this case the change arose from representations that were made of actual cases where a benefit would be achieved for a child who was able to receive the allowance for that extended time. I think that supplies the information, although I think Senator Grimes also asked for information with regard to clause 16. We could deal with that more appropriately in the Committee stage.
– Can you give any indication of what it is?
-I can say what the clause means. I think Senator Grimes was hoping that you might apply yourself to it, but I rather feel that the second reading stage is not -
– I can. My interpretation is that it is disastrous.
– I think the second reading debate is not the time to go into it but in case there are those who may be listening, I say with regard to the clause that it corrects a drafting order which had unintended bad effects in the past. Without the amendment which we are now introducing no person would be entitled to a supporting parent’s benefit unless action for maintenance had been taken. The amendment which is now introduced will enable a supporting parent’s benefit to be granted if the DirectorGeneral is satisfied that it is not reasonable to take action to obtain maintenance. Therefore, it is a liberalisation and is one that we believe will be of assistance.
– I think if they take action they are debarred. You have to decide between civil action or social security.
– I think that what needs to be understood is that the wording of the Act previously debarred people who had not taken action to receive maintenance from the payments -
– Now you debar them if they do take action.
– No, we are not. We are saying that, if the Director-General believes it would be impossible for them to take action or it is difficult for them to take action, they may now be paid. It is an amendment that has been introduced as a benefit and it is one that liberalises the payment of that particular benefit.
There were many references made to promises and things of that kind throughout the debate. In view of the time, perhaps it is not the point at which we ought to traverse a lot of that; they were political views in many cases. However, to listen to some of the Opposition speakers, it would seem to me that they have no knowledge of what is in the Hayden alternative budget. There are many speakers of the Opposition who spoke this evening as if they were going to continue the payment of the maternity allowance; yet there is no provision made for that in the Hayden alternative budget. There is no allowance in the Hayden alternative budget for raising pensions which are currently at the rate at which they are with the exception there is the commitment to index them twice yearly.
– That is in our policy.
– There is no commitment in the Hayden alternative budget to index family allowances despite the impression that might have been created in the Hayden Budget debate speech. There is no commitment in the Hayden alternative budget to raise pensions in any way at all other than with indexation. There is no way in which the Hayden alternative budget has provided for additional pensions for children to be indexed. Yet that is something that is constantly brought forward. There is no estimate made to increase the free area of income in pensions in the Hayden alternative budget. So, we would have to accept from that alternative budget that the Opposition does give recognition to the cost of the social security income system.
It has obviously recognised that to have radical changes to the system, to make rash promises in the income security system, would create expenditure which is not able to be tolerated by the Australian people without some other burden being placed upon them, probably through personal income tax or some alternative taxes to raise revenue for these means. I simply draw to the attention of the Senate that there is an alternative budget. To make claims with regard to the Social Services Bill and not give recognition to that alternative budget is not to state the facts as fairly as they ought to be stated.
With regard to the two provisions which I think have raised the bulk of the comment this evening, may I say on the indexation of pensions that it is acknowledged that the amendment to the Act to introduce indexation of pensions at a twice yearly level of change was an introduction of this Government to put into effect a policy that was the policy of the Government. We believed that to have an automatic increase was an essential change to the legislation. In this Budget the Government has decided that that automatic increase will now be on an annual basis.
I have listened with interest to the comments that have been made with regard to the disadvantages which this action can cause. But it is misleading to consider indexation questions apart from the inflation levels. I think that we must recognise that an annual indexation with a low rate of inflation will protect the value of pensions as much as two rises per year with a very high rate of inflation is able to do. If we were living in the ideal world and there were no restraints on expenditure it could be argued that an immediate increase on changes of the consumer price index would maintain effectively the purchasing power of pensions. The Government was not able to find the funds to achieve that in previous Budgets, nor in this Budget, but if we are looking at a level of 5 per cent inflation with an annual increase we can see that that can compare with any charts we can produce with two increases a year if there were a 10 per cent increase in the rate of inflation.
The other aspect that ought to be taken into account is that there are pensioners who have other income and there are pensioners who have fixed incomes; they may be small but they may be of a fixed amount. The lower the rate of inflation, the greater the maintenance of purchasing power of this additional fixed income. I think that that also needs to be taken into account if we are looking at the overall benefits that flow to pensioners and the whole of the Australian community by a reduction in the rate of inflation.
There was a matter raised by Senator Coleman with regard to the payment of family allowances which by this Bill will now be paid on a monthly basis instead of a four-weekly basis, that is, that there will be 12 payments in future years starting from May of next year in comparison with 13 payments which are made at present. I do want to explain that it is a proportion of the same amount over the year that will be paid in the 12 payments in comparison with the 13 payments that are now received. Half will receive the payment at the end of the endowment period and half will receive it in the middle of the period, that is, a fortnight earlier than would be the case. Because of the way the paydays fall those receiving the early payments will have 12 payments in this 1978-79 year. In the 1979-80 year and in subsequent years all mothers will receive 12 payments at the higher monthly rates. It is not a device to have a lower amount paid to parents. It is a change in the payment system from 13 payments to 12 payments. But the amounts are apportioned over the 12 payments instead of over 13.
– Is it not true that over that same 12-month period a parent with four children will in fact receive $32 less than if she were being paid each 4 weeks?
– I have no chart that shows that. Senator Harradine raised the same questions as other honourable senators with regard to annual indexation and the means test for people over 70 years of age. The remarks I have made would apply to the comments that were made by him. As to the maternity allowance and the other things that were raised by him with regard to support for the family, of course, his remarks are understood and the Government acknowledges that benefits have been changed by this legislation; but, as I said, because of the nature of the Budget this year and the extent of the growth of social security expenditure some of these changes were deemed to be desired in this year. There are no other remarks I wish to make at this stage of the Bill. I feel that we could perhaps proceed to the Committee stage following the vote on the motion for the second reading.
Question put:
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Senate divided. (The President- Senator the Hon. Condor Laucke)
AYES: 32
NOES: 26
Majority……. 6
AYES
NOES
Question so resolved in the affirmative.
Bill read a second time.
Senate adjourned at 10.59 p.m.
page 1435
The following answers to questions were circul
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Transport, upon notice, on 22 August 1978:
– The Minister for Transport has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:
asked the Attorney-General, upon notice, on 24 August 1978:
– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice, on 26 September 1978:
– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 27 September 1978:
– The Acting Foreign Minister has provided the following answers to the honourable senator’s question:
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 18 October 1978, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1978/19781018_senate_31_s79/>.