Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start my contribution this morning by thanking all of the officers within Australian Border Force and within the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for their work over the course of the last 12 months. It is fair to say, as previous ministers could attest, that there is always an issue to deal with in this portfolio on a daily basis, and there always will be. These officers, in particular those on the frontline, serve our country well. We are proud of the work that they do, and we are certainly very grateful for it.

I want to acknowledge the tragic passing of Brett Forte in Queensland, the senior constable who was tragically killed not far from the honourable member for Blair's electorate. It underscores to all of us that our Border Force officers are out working with the police across the jurisdictions on a daily basis. They are working with the Australian Federal Police in the raids they do and the interdictions that they make at sea, on land and at ports right across the country. It is dangerous work, and we should be reminded, at a time when we consider the expense within our portfolios, of the significant support that we are providing to those staff, because the work that they do results in our country being a safer place.

The work of our counterterrorism unit officers at airports has been a significant investment by this government over the course of the last several years. Again, in this budget process, we are funding that on an ongoing basis. Why? It is because it is very important for them to, in particular, talk to young people who might be on their way to the Middle East and the number of interventions that have been undertaken are significant and continue to grow each year. They work in concert, of course, with our law enforcement and intelligence agencies and do that not only for outbound passengers but also for inbound passengers. The travelling public can be assured that the support that is there at the airports makes it safer for people to travel and makes our communities safer here, given the intelligence that is gathered at that point at the airport where there is contact made. So I want to pay tribute to all of those officers.

In particular, I want to pay tribute to those officers who are involved in Operation Sovereign Borders, led by Air Vice Marshal Steve Osborne. There is a considerable amount of expenditure again in this budget for us to keep our borders secure. It has not happened by chance that we have been able to stop boats and stop drownings at sea. But getting the 8,000 children out of detention has been a significant outcome, and it would not have been possible without the assistance of those officers. Those officers that I have spoken to on the vessels in ports talk about their desire to make sure that our success continues. That is because, again, those frontline officers, over a long period of time, were involved in pulling bodies out of the water, dealing with the tragedy of a boat that had capsized and dealing with the reality of people smugglers taking money off innocent men, women and children who would hop onto these boats and, ultimately, in many cases, not make it to the destination of Australia. It is difficult work that our officers are doing in PNG at the Manus Regional Processing Centre in concert with the PNG authorities there. And, certainly, it is the case that it is difficult work for our offices and our contractors in Nauru as well. I pay particular tribute to them because a lot of criticism is levelled against them. Much of it is unjust because the work that all of these people collectively undertake on a daily basis is in our national interests and it allows us to be one of the most generous nations in the world in terms of the numbers of people we settle here, in particular through the refugee and humanitarian program. If we do not have an orderly migration program it is clear from all of the evidence that the Australian public will not support decisions of government at a point in time that are in our national and international interests. The intake of the 12,000 Syrians was possible only because of the fact that we had stopped the boats and we had regularised arrivals in this country, that we had stopped those drownings at sea and that we had got those children out of detention.

So I pay particular tribute to all those frontline officers and all of the officers within the budget unit, who report to Steven Groves, and ultimately to the secretary—the many people who have spent countless hours and given up weekends in the preparation of this budget. I thank all of them. On a number of occasions I had great opportunities to speak to staff at our offices around the country. They are wonderful people and I pay tribute to their work today.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with the minister in saying that our hearts, thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends, colleagues and comrades of Brett Forte, who tragically was gunned down. It goes to show just how important now our security forces are in this country—our police services. I also join the minister in thanking the men and women of Border Force and the immigration department for the work they do. It is often a thankless task and is difficult at times. It is challenging, it is physically demanding and they do not get the respect and gratitude they deserve. So I join with the minister in thanking them for the work they do.

Minister, during the federal election campaign the coalition followed Labor's lead in announcing a new temporary parent visa. The coalition promised, and I quote from the policy document, that 'adult children would be required to pay a bond'. But the minister has since announced that adult children will need to pay a fee, not a bond, and that fee will be $10,000 for five years and $5,000 for three years. It is expected to raise $99 million for the budget coffers over the forward estimates. The minister has said in his department's 'frequently asked questions' page that the new visa seeks to address long-standing community concerns about waiting times under existing parent visa arrangements. We know that the department has confirmed that there has been no modelling and no additional resources in relation to these visas. Migrant community stakeholders also confirmed during the election campaign that the minister's office confirmed that there would be no cap on the visa, because it would be under the visitor visa stream, but the budget estimates confirm a cap of 15,000. The policy has not been fleshed out, with the department saying in Senate estimates that 'we have not specified that to that degree'.

When asked about the types of health bills families may receive on top of the health insurance obligations, what is worse is that migrant communities are now in the tough position of having to choose between parents and parents-in-law, because only one set of parents is allowed to be sponsored at one time. There was no mention of that before the election.

Why did the minister tell migrant communities one thing before the election and now deliver another with the new temporary sponsored parent visa? Why did the minister abandon his commitment to a bond and introduce a fee? What does the minister say in response to criticism by migrant communities that, by charging a fee rather than a bond, the government is simply raising revenue on the back of adult children who want to reunite with their mums and dads? Why is the minister making families choose between parents and parents-in-law? Was this suggested by stakeholders or was it just an arbitrary decision made by the minister? What advice does the minister have for families who need to have a difficult conversation about which parents get reunited with their children? How should parents make the choice between parents and parents-in-law? Why didn't the minister mention any of this before the election? Minister, what does 'accepting legal liability for any outstanding public health debt their sponsored parents accrue' mean? Their parents will have already taken out health insurance. Will families be left with a huge unexpected health bill? Why is the minister announcing a new visa if his department has not worked out all the kinks? Does the minister accept that members of migrant communities may feel misled by the Turnbull government? Minister, simply, why have you broken your promise to migrant communities with respect to parent visas?

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

US senator John McCain was here in Canberra this week. It is his view that vast swathes of the world are in turmoil and that within our very region we are at a critical juncture due to risks including that posed by the North Korean regime, and I believe he is right. The global political economy is amidst a period of heightened volatility. Major conflicts are causing upheaval the world over, and, while there are also many economies crippled, there are millions of people who are struggling to survive. As I speak today, there are approximately 28 wars raging across the world. If you include smaller tribal conflicts in African states, that number jumps to 58 wars. In 2017 thus far, these wars have recorded 47,000 deaths. Due to such conflicts and the persecutions, violence and human rights abuses they create, 34,000 people are forced to flee their homes each day. We have an estimated 65.3 million displaced people around the world, about 21.3 million of whom are refugees and at least 10 million stateless.

Australia is one of the few countries in the world that have a planned resettlement program. It proactively goes out and selects the most vulnerable of these people and resettles them here in Australia. This is something that all Australians should be proud of. Australians are an open, tolerant and generous people, but we are also a pragmatic lot. I have never heard any Australian suggest we should invite all 21 million refugees to immigrate here or invite all 65 million displaced people to take refuge. We want to do all we can, understanding that there will always be limits to the resources we commit and the number of people who can immigrate.

A social compact, to which the minister has already referred, has emerged in Australia, and that reflects a correlation between how well the government manages its borders and the people's appetite for taking in new immigrants. But a social compact is more than just a numbers game. It is not as simple as saying: the stronger the borders, the more the immigrants. It is also about an expectation of integrity in the system, which includes ensuring that those who join us here in Australia have their allegiance to Australia and to its people. It is about ensuring that they are willing and able to integrate and to make a contribution to our community.

As a nation, we rightly celebrate our diversity. Indeed, all of us except our Indigenous peoples, our first peoples, are relative newcomers to this nation. What unites us despite our differences, and what must continue to unite us, is a common set of values. The foundation upon which our future must continue to be built is a common set of values, values that bind all Australians. There is no greater value than that of freedom, for nothing else guarantees happiness and fulfilment more than freedom, freedom realised through independence, self-reliance and the dignity of the individual, the individual who is equal, no better and no worse than other individuals. It is these ideals in turn that promote the protection of free speech and property rights and encourage human endeavour and enterprise, the very things that have created the Australia of today: an open, liberal, free-market political economy that is the envy of much of the world. Is it any wonder that citizens of Australia love their citizenship?

Let us not forget, however, that, while citizenship comes with rights, rights come with commensurate responsibilities. As citizens, it is our responsibility to embrace the very values that unite us, to integrate into our local communities and to contribute to our civic society. It is within this context, therefore, that I wish to ask the minister today: Minister, what action is the government taking to strengthen Australian citizenship, and why is it important that aspiring Australians share Australian values?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I will ask a series of questions in relation to the government's priorities concerning the staffing and resourcing of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in accordance with the budget. Under the immigration minister's watch, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is having more and more jobs cut from the ranks, and the minister is attempting to conceal those figures in the budget papers. The Senate budget estimates process reveals that the immigration department has had 509 employees cut from its workforce since 1 July 2016. The department started the financial year at 14,266 employees and now has only 13,757 employees. The 2016-17 budget stated that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was going to lose an average staffing level of 305 jobs. The reality, however, is that the department has cut 509 individual jobs this financial year so far. The 2017-18 budget shows a further cut of 245 to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's average staffing level number. That is hundreds of departmental staff who are no longer able to process visas or citizenship applications, to crack down on rorts in relation to the 457 visa program or other temporary protection visa programs or, indeed, to protect our borders. Given the government's track record over the past year, how many individual jobs is the government going to slash from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection?

This Senate budget estimates process confirms that the loss includes some 250 departmental staff from call centres in Sydney, London and Ottawa, jobs that will be outsourced in the coming financial year. The department, under the minister's watch, has been forced to close its Dandenong office, which sees more than 20,000 people each year. This is happening while waiting times for visas to be processed have ballooned out. This Turnbull government's indexing of visa charges means that the cost of visas will continue to rise with no correlating improvement in assessment times. In addition, there is the fact that the government is planning on having a new department office building built in Canberra at a cost of $256 million.

So the minister is closing a regional suburban immigration office, with an expected saving of only $212,000, at the same time as he is rewarding the brass with a shiny new $256 million headquarters, with an armoury whose cost to construct, ironically, is the same amount as the department is expected to save by closing the Dandenong office. Why is the minister allowing service staff, the people who actually process visas, to be slashed from his department? Can the minister explain why the government is considering the true number of employees being slashed from the department in the budget papers? Why is the minister allowing staff to be cut from the department's visa and citizenship group while announcing sweeping changes in both areas? Can the minister guarantee visa processing times will not continue to increase while the department's workforce numbers are savaged? Why is the minister allowing the outsourcing of departmental jobs, rather than keeping them in house? Why is the minister allowing his department to prop up the department's workforce by using labour hire companies, including some 446 IT staff alone? What do these agreements mean for the cost of running the department? What do these agreements mean for the efficiency of the department? How can the minister justify staff being slashed from the department while commissioning a new, $256 million building? Why is the minister closing the Dandenong office and building a new armoury in Canberra for the same exact cost, $212,000, as the saving? When will the minister stand up for the department's workforce and protect their jobs?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the members for their questions. In relation to the member for Blair's question on the parent visa, I can confirm that the government has made a significant investment and we do want to provide support to people who can sponsor under this visa category. It is a bit rich, though, coming from Labor, and we see it in the House, where some ministers get asked questions and others do not—nonetheless, it shows the hypocrisy of Labor, having thrust us into significant debt. Would we want to do more? Yes. Would we want to do more if we had money in the bank, to provide further support to people? Yes, of course we would. But did Labor rack up an enormous amount of debt?

Have they blocked us from passing savings measures in the Senate? Yes. That is the reality of what we are dealing with here.

I think the most important point to make in relation to the member's contribution on that particular topic around the parent visa is the complete ignorance about the long-run cost, particularly around health in relation to some of these people. If he is going to go out and make uncosted assumptions and commitments then let us test that, because there is a very significant issue to be dealt with here, and that is in relation to providing ongoing support around health, and the costs otherwise that can be borne not only in the forward estimates but also into the out years in relation to welfare as well. There is a significant cost to these visas that is completely ignored by Labor, and that is reality in terms what we are providing for in relation to what, I think, has been a very well-received policy. We will continue to work with communities in relation to each of those matters.

I will deal also with the staffing issues raised by the honourable member opposite. It is the case that we found efficiencies in bringing the Border Force arrangements into place over the course of the last couple of years. Of course, we do not require the staff the Labor did, because we do not have boat arrivals. That is a very important point that seems to be lost on the member opposite. The most ironic part of that is that Labor is still tearing themselves apart in relation to this policy. They have not learnt one lesson and this is the difficulty.

I will go to this call centre issue, because it is quite interesting. In Labor's day they allowed two call centres to be operated overseas. The Labor model was outsourcing those jobs offshore. The decision I have made in this budget is to bring our call centres back domestically and to have Australians fill those jobs. I am not going to take a lecture from the Labor Party. We are filling those jobs with Australians. The call centre activity has been conducted offshore in two locations. I am stopping those two locations and we are going to run those services onshore. This is for a couple a couple of reasons: (1) because we can do it more efficiently here and (2) because we can increase the level of service if Australians, particularly elderly Australians, are having their calls answered and responded to in a more timely way by somebody domestically, who can answer their query.

In relation to the more substantive point made by the honourable member for Fairfax in relation to citizenship, we have done significant things in this space. We have answered the call from Australians who have said to us: 'We want to have a more rigorous process in relation to citizenship.' We do want to help people from around the world. Since the Second World War alone we have settled over 845,000 refugees. Millions of people have taken Australian citizenship. We are proud of the fact that we want to continue, into the future, to accept the best people. Through these tests, and through these changes, we continue that work.

I commend the member for Fairfax for his significant interest in this issue. I thank him for an excellent visit to his electorate last week where we were able to talk about substantial issues on the Sunshine Coast. His interest in making sure that the Sunshine Coast is a safer place for families and businesses to live and work deserves significant recognition and credit. In this place, his engagement with community groups across a broad spectrum is to be commended. I thank him, again, for the time we had together in Fairfax last week.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government's crackdown on 457 rorts is really a sham and a con, and the budget estimates process shows that. The government's changes will not fix the widespread rorting of the 457 visa. Under the government's changes only eight per cent of visas granted will be affected. At least 18 of the occupations being removed from the list have not had visas issued in the last decade and 46 have not had visas issued in the last year.

As is usual with this government, this is a political stunt. It is not backed up by policy substance. It is a rebadging of the 457 visa program, just to give it a new name. The government's plan to get tough on foreign antique dealers and deer farmers is not going to make a scrap of difference to the abuse of 457 visas by companies bringing in cheap labour.

The minister and the government have rushed their temporary work visa announcement, and they failed to consult with businesses and industry. Even members of the minister's own Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration, MACSM, are unimpressed, with one member resigning over the lack of consultation on the skilled visa changes. Senate estimates proved the university sector was not consulted prior to the announcement, and we have seen a spokesperson for the Minister for Communications admit that there are 'unintended consequences' of the policy. Now we have a situation where, less than two months after the minister made this big announcement, he is reviewing the list with a view to adding jobs to the skilled occupation list.

Minister, how is this a crackdown? There have been no attempts to strengthen labour market testing, which the government mentioned they would do. What are the 'unintended consequences' of the minister's failed 457 visa policy? What is the minister going to do to fix these unintended consequences? Why has the minister failed to consult with industry stakeholders about the impact of the policy? Will the minister adopt Labor's policy and commit to genuine labour market testing? Will the minister concede that his failed policy may force innovation overseas? Can the minister guarantee that funding for the Skilling Australians Fund will be met regardless of any shortfall associated with the relevant visa levy? Can the minister guarantee ongoing safeguards to ensure that there is no exploitation of overseas workers under the new temporary skill visas? And why won't the minister simply support Labor's private member's bill to put local workers first?

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, welcome to the Federation Chamber. It is good to see you here. I know how busy you are and what an effective job you are doing on your portfolio. I heard the shadow minister congratulate you earlier, when he first started speaking. The Immigration and Border Protection portfolio has a direct influence on my electorate, and the coalition's strong and consistent measures to secure our borders have definitely had successful flow-on effects in my electorate of Swan. Minister, I also take this opportunity to congratulate your assistant minister and all the staff in your department, particularly on a lot of the requests for information from constituents in my electorate and some of the ministerial interventions you have made on behalf of particularly some of the church groups in my electorate. Those ministerial interventions for the people of Swan have been greatly appreciated, so thank you again to you and your staff.

My electorate has a diverse range of cultures, religious beliefs and ethnicities that reside within its borders. However, one thing I hear from many across all these different areas between them is their overwhelming support for the coalition government's consistent and strong stance on our borders. When the coalition government was elected in 2013, 8,500 children had been inside the walls of detention; 50,000 illegal arrivals had flooded into Australia on over 800 boats; and, tragically, at least 1,200 people had lost their lives at sea. This tragedy and chaos are no more. Under the steadfast leadership of the coalition government, we took control of our borders and put an end to these illegal arrivals. It has now been 1,039 days since the last boat arrived on Australia's shore.

In my electorate, many praised the minister for his steadfast and unwavering approach to protecting our borders, when he visited my electorate to host an immigration forum mid last year. An overwhelming number of the questions to the minister at this forum from the constituents were in regard to the 457 visa system and strengthening the system to gain Australian citizenship. Many of those who have migrated to Australia over the years know the value of Australian citizenship, and they made it plain to you on that particular day that it was important to them that we maintain the strength and the value of that Australian citizenship.

I am pleased to tell those who attended the forum and who called the office to express their concerns on these issues that the coalition has been listening. We are this fixing the system, bringing back integrity to the Australian migration programs and ensuring that businesses support Australian workers and that those who share the values of this nation are the ones who are allowed to become citizens.

As John Howard said in 2001, we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. Minister, strong borders are more than a national security advantage. The coalition, through pursuing strong borders, have been able to save $3 billion from the budget, which can be spent to deliver services for the community of Swan and for Australia. These are explained in the efficiencies you just mentioned in your previous answer. An example of this is the now-closed immigration residential housing in the suburb of Redcliffe in my electorate. This has now closed and, over four years, will save the Australian taxpayers $39.1 million. Just four years ago, the concept of closing this facility would have sounded like a bit of a joke. However, under the coalition we have managed to do just that and close another 16 detention centres across Australia.

With savings like these we are now able to offer another 2,500 places in the Humanitarian Program, raising numbers of refugees in our Humanitarian Program to 16,250 in the 2017-18, and increasing that to 18,750 in the 2018-19 year. The increase in the Humanitarian Program by the coalition government means that more of the most persecuted people can find safety in our country, and our commitment to stopping illegal arrivals means that we are not allowing those who threaten the safety of the most persecuted into our nation. This means the people of Swan can know that we are taking more of the people who need our help and we are not taking those who are economic tourists.

As all in this chamber know, the Labor Party is divided on this issue. The opposition will say one thing to people yet, in the backroom factional deals, will do another just to ensure factional mates get up. This is the nonsense that led former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to abandon the Pacific solution and created the tragedies that we saw unfold during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years.

In my electorate and across the country there is broad support for a strong immigration program into Australia, as long as it is through legal means. Minister, in light of recent events, particularly those in Manchester and overseas and the release of the report about the Lindt siege, can you explain why it is important to maintain strong and consistent border protection measures? How is the government dealing with the legacy of Labor's border protection policies?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Auditor-General has been scathing in its assessment of the minister's management of the department and key projects within it. In September 2016 we had the Offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea: procurement of garrison support and welfare services report. In January 2017 there was the Offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea: contract management of garrison support and welfare services report, which highlighted the minister's failures and the dysfunction in the department. The report highlighted that, under the coalition government, the department had spent over $1 billion without appropriate authorisation and had no ability to demonstrate appropriate risk management or even deliver value for money for the Australian public.

It only got worse. In February 2017 The Australian Border Force's use of statutory powers report was released. In that case, the ANAO found the Australian Border Force were conducting unlawful and inappropriate searches of passengers at international airports and routinely questioning people without documenting their legal authority to do so. So it would come as no surprise that in March 2017 the ANAO released the Cybersecurity follow-up audit which found that, under this minister, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection was only compliant with one of the top four mitigation strategies and was not cyber-resilient. 'Cyber-resilience' is defined as 'the ability to continue providing services while deterring and responding to cyberattacks'. Cyber-resilience also reduces the likelihood of successful cyberattacks. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is not cyber-resilient. It has failed to comply with the top four mitigation strategies. In fact, during Senate budget estimates, when asked about the ANAO report, departmental officers admitted: 'I do not disagree with the Auditor-General's finding technically. Technically they are correct; we are not compliant.' This comes on top of testimony at Senate estimates that the department is regularly a target of cyberattacks.

Minister, the immigration department collects and stores personal details and biometrics, including photographs and passport data, of millions of Australians and overseas travellers who pass through our borders each year. Do you agree the report accurately reflects the risk associated with the department's cyber-resilience? Given how many times the department is targeted by hackers and suspicious emails, is the Turnbull government putting the personal information of travellers at risk because of the department's failure to meet basic cyber-resilience benchmarks? Does the minister believe he is putting Australia's reputation as a tourism destination of choice at risk by failing to do all he can to protect travellers' personal and travel information? Why did the minister fail to meet the 2014 deadline for ensuring his department was cybersecure? What resources is the minister allocating to ensure the department is up to scratch on cyber-resilience?

Minister, can you guarantee that your department will meet benchmarks at the next cyberaudit? Are you aware that your department is under cyberattack on a consistent basis? Are you confident that the department can withstand the repeated cyberattacks? Minister, can you give this House a personal assurance that, under your watch, personal information about travellers and Australians will never be hacked from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members again for their contributions. I will touch on a couple of points made by the honourable member opposite. Firstly, in relation to the 457 program, Labor runs this nonsense line that somehow a small percentage of people or categories ultimately are affected. The fact is that everybody applying for a visa or who would have applied under the old arrangements is affected by the changes we make. We introduced labour market testing, which has been strengthened. That is not recognised by those opposite. Criminal history checks are now mandatory. Again, it affects every applicant. There is new genuine temporary entry assessment. Employers will have a strengthened obligation to contribute to the training of Australian workers. Tax file numbers will be collected and matched with ATO records. Every single applicant under the new arrangement will be subject to these conditions.

Yes, we abolished the 457 program because it was rorted. Labor presided over a particular mess in this area that has been well documented. Again, the Labor Party have to own up for the mistakes that they made and that they continued to make right up until the time they were thrown out of office. Labor's CSOL contained 651 occupations. It has been reduced to 435. Of the 435 occupations on the new list, 24 are available for sponsorship only in regional areas and 268 occupations are only eligible for a two-year visa.

The point is that we have restored integrity to the program. For example—and this again gives the lie to the words just uttered by the member for Blair—22,000 visas were granted under Labor in the occupations that have been removed from the list. They put the nonsense argument that we have dealt with the miscellaneous occupations on the list and have knocked out the insignificant ones, but 22,000 visas were issued by Labor under those categories—they are not eligible under our program.

Yes, we have said, quite prudently, that we will review the list twice yearly, as you would expect. If people have a good case to make to Employment—and we rely on advice from the Department of Employment—for occupations to come off or occupations to be listed, we will take that advice. I think that is prudent. Again, when some of these fundamental issues are missed by Labor it gives you an insight into the lack of capacity they have in management of these programs, which was evidenced so regularly when they were in government.

There was reference made by the honourable member opposite to the ANAO. Those issues were dealt with by the secretary in Senate estimates, but I make the point that it is pretty hard for this department when 1,000 people a week are being pulled off boats and processed on Christmas Island and they are having to, in rapid response times, set up camps and arrangements in concert with Nauru, PNG, Christmas Island or the 17 detention centres they had to open here. What is the criticism of the Labor Party? The criticism of the department by the Labor Party constantly in Senate estimates and again repeated here blindly by the member for Blair today is that the department should have gone through every process, every procurement box-ticking exercise—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They had to respond to people drowning at sea and a complete collapse of our border control system, and what is his criticism of it? His criticism is that the department did not go out and properly advertise or tick the boxes required through the procurement process. If that is the criticism that Labor can make, again it shows that they have learnt no lessons from their time in government. Frankly, it gives you insight into the difficulties that the Labor Party still have, why they are still tearing themselves apart internally and why there is this civil war between Anthony Albanese and Bill Shorten.

That is why Labor can never adequately respond to this particular issue—or citizenship. It is very clear to all of us at the moment that the Labor Party is completely torn between the left and the right in relation to these fundamental issues. It is no wonder that the Australian public is completely bewildered by the approach of the Australian Labor Party, demonstrated again today by the contributions of those opposite. I look forward in my next contribution to paying attention to a much more significant contribution to this debate by the member for Swan.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk on an important area in terms of Border Force for the people in my home state of Queensland, the same state that the minister hails from. In December 2015, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection announced two new high-performance vessels would be delivered to Cairns in September 2016. These fast-response boats, or FRBs, are designed to speedily intercept illegal fishers and protect our northern borders. Despite the name, the delivery of these vessels has been anything but fast. The immigration minister promised the people of Cairns that these boats would be delivered, and he has broken that promise time and time again.

In September 2016 it was revealed that the delivery of the FRBs would be delayed until mid-2017. At the time, the federal member for Leichhardt was quoted in an interview saying, 'I've checked on it to find there have been some production glitches.' Senate estimates last week then revealed they have been pushed back yet again until the end of this year, meaning they will not hit the water in Cairns until at least a year after they were due. You have broken your promise, Minister.

Labor wants these fast-response boats to be delivered as soon as possible to the north to protect against illegal fishing, to protect the future of the tourism industry and to protect jobs in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait. Why is the minister incapable of delivering these two boats as he promised? What impact has the failure to deliver these boats had on the ability of the Australian Border Force to stamp out illegal fishing in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait? What communication has the minister had with the federal member for Leichhardt and, more importantly, with the people of Cairns and the people of the Torres Strait about the prolonged delay of these vessels? When was the minister made aware of the production delays? What step did the minister take to mitigate these production delays? Can the minister guarantee the vessels will be delivered to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection before the end of the year, or will he break his promise yet again? Ultimately, will the minister, with his poor performance and poor attention to detail in his portfolio, accept responsibility for the perpetual delays of the fast-response boats for Cairns and the people of North Queensland and the Torres Strait?

Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, firstly, I thank you for coming to the Federation Chamber today to answer our questions. The immigration and border protection portfolio is one that is constantly responding to international developments and events, and I greatly appreciate your consistent and reliable engagement with all members of parliament.

We are an incredibly diverse country in both ethnicities and backgrounds, so your work is something that is of real relevance to people in my electorate of Dunkley and right across Australia. Given that we currently have more displaced people across the world than we did following World War II, the plight of refugees is something that is constantly topical. Approximately 23 per cent of Dunkley's population was born overseas, a figure comparable to the national average.

We have a number of wonderful facilities for those newly arrived to our community, including one that I recently visited—the Sudanese homework and learning club in Frankston. This is a program supported jointly by MiCare, the New Hope foundation, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Woodleigh School. It is run primarily by volunteers, mostly students and teachers from local schools who offer their time after hours as tutors and buddies to Sudanese young people. The program demonstrates that through community support Sudanese refugee and migrant children are able to accelerate their basic literacy and numeracy skills, enabling them to succeed in school and form relationships and friendships which consequently have a preventive effect on youth crime and other social integration problems later in life.

It is my firm belief that this program could be used as a template for other electorates to assist in community engagement with refugees. These programs are thoroughly deserving of support from the federal government, something which I recently raised with Assistant Minister Hawke. It is critical that we support such programs and encourage engagement and integration as well as avenues that provide refugees and migrants with the best possible resources to access the many and varied opportunities here in Australia.

There has been a lot of negative press in Victoria recently about specific ethnicities and their lack of integration into the local community, so it is pleasing to be able to witness the wonderful work that is going on within Dunkley to support these people and to enable greater integration as well as mutual understanding. I believe it is groups and attitudes like these that are contributing to restoring the Australian population's confidence in our migration system. Furthermore, the order provided around irregular maritime arrivals to Australia—particularly around the stopping of people smuggling and the drownings at sea—and the coordinated refugee intake through the United Nations humanitarian program enable us to better support a greater number of refugees in most need. Per capita, this makes us the recipients of one of the highest numbers of refugees resettled through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees program.

The objective of our refugee intake focus should, without a doubt, be on ensuring that people who are most at risk are given priority to come to Australia, particularly the persecuted minorities of women and children. The fact that we have now increased our refugee intake and that there are fewer people in offshore processing facilities than there were under the previous Labor governments indicates to me the change in approach when it comes to our acceptance of refugees. I understand that at least 17 detention centres have been closed and no children are now in detention.

The streamlining of our processing for communities has been productive overall and a great success. I would be pleased to see the success of our refugee program result in a higher but, importantly, orderly refugee intake in order to provide humanitarian assistance to more people, many of whom are suffering so much as a result of terrible conflicts that have uprooted so many lives. The Turnbull coalition government is demonstrating its commitment to providing assistance to ethnic and cultural groups who need aid the most, and is working with its international partners to proactively support and care for the world's most vulnerable people—people like Nihad, a Yazidi girl I met through my recent parliamentary delegation to the UK for our inquiry into modern slavery. Under ISIS, she was raped and, shamefully, sold as a sex slave, and also had a baby, whom she no longer has access to or can see. She is an example of modern slavery. She is the type of person that we should be helping. With these things in mind, Minister, can you provide me with the outcome of the intake of the additional 12,000 Syrian refugees? How does our refugee intake compare with other countries? Can you give an update on the US resettlement program?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, during the Senate estimates process, it was a surprise to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection that the taxpayer-funded departmental website border.gov.au was linked to the Liberal Party website. The link was on a page where people would have been seeking advice about options to reunite with their parents. Instead, they would have been pushed from the departmental website to the Liberal Party of Australia's website to learn more about Liberal Party policy and the immigration minister, and to be encouraged to donate to the Liberal Party. I have already referred this matter to the Australian Public Service Commission for investigation, but the minister is yet to apologise for the gross oversight on his departmental website.

Did the minister or anyone from his office ask for the link to be placed on the departmental website? How were party politics allowed to play out on a taxpayer-funded department website? How did the link end up on the departmental website three times? Was the minister aware of the links before they were mentioned in Senate estimates? How long were the links online before being torn down during Senate estimates? Who was responsible for the links being posted to the departmental website? Can the minister assure the Australian public that his department will never again be politicised like this?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want firstly to respond to the honourable member for Swan and thank him for his contribution. As he pointed out, we had a very successful visit to his electorate, meeting with some wonderful community leaders there. There was a lot to discuss, and I think they would have been very pleased with some of the announcements that we have made in this budget. The honourable member for Swan should be commended not only for his work within his electorate and the way in which he engages with his constituents to the great betterment of his community but also for the work that he does here as chair of our backbench committee in this space. He is professional in his dealings, he has a compassionate approach to cases that are brought to him as the local member for Swan, and he is to be commended for all of that work.

The member for Swan's most substantive contribution, of course, was pointing out Labor's failing in relation to their loss of control of our borders and the consequences of that. I do not think many Australians fully understand the extent to which this problem has cost us in other areas of government expenditure. So far, we have spent $13.7 billion on cleaning up Labor's mess. That is a lot of money that we could spend on schools, on roads such as the Bruce Highway, as the member for Fisher points out, on helping older Australians who are struggling with energy prices—there are all sorts of things we could do. The trouble is that it has not stopped there. This problem, this mess that we are still cleaning up, is costing $1.9 billion a year. Despite all of that, the Labor Party are still at war with themselves on border protection. They still cannot bring themselves to support the government's position. They pretended at the last election that somehow there was a dodgy bandaid solution, a bipartisan approach to this issue, because they did not want to talk about it. That has not been the case since the election, and I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in the run-up to the next election we will be reminding many Australians about that.

Could I cover off on a couple of issues the honourable member for Blair raised, firstly in relation to the fast boats. I have expressed my disappointment to the commissioner. I want those boats to be delivered because they will be an important asset for us. The commissioner has answered questions in Senate estimates only in the last week in relation to some of the further detail. There are delays, which, on the advice given to me, have been unavoidable, but I have been very specific in my advice to the department that I want the boats delivered as quickly as possible. There is a lot of work that we are doing in the Torres Strait, in the north, in particular around illegal fishing, and from both the commissioner's perspective and the whole organisation's perspective there is a desire to do even more, and we will continue to do that.

I want to thank very much the member for Dunkley, who I think has made a wonderful contribution in his short time in this parliament. He really has taken a great interest in these matters and is secretary of our backbench committee. He is a champion of the government's policies and the many successes we have been able to achieve in this portfolio, and I commend him for the work that he has done. He asked specifically about the intake of 12,000 Syrians. I can confirm that visas have now been granted for all 12,000 additional places for people displaced by the conflict in Syria and Iraq. I am advised that, as at 19 May, 11,714 people from this group have arrived in Australia. Again, there has been incredible work done by our officers here in Canberra and, most importantly, in the posts in the Middle East.

It is an amazing story that the member for Dunkley referred to: the Yazidis. We visited one of their communities, in Wagga, only a few weeks ago. These are the people we are helping and that all Australians should be proud of. I know the member for Dunkley is proud of the work we are doing in providing support to people who otherwise, in many cases, would have faced certain death. They were being slaughtered by Isis, and we have recovered the lives of these people. We have allowed them to create a new start in our country, in Melbourne. Certainly the electorate of Dunkley is one of the multicultural capitals of our country, and we are very proud of the support that the member for Dunkley provides to his constituents. I really commend him for the work that he has done.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the minister did not answer any questions about the departmental website and the links to the Liberal Party, the promotion of the minister personally and donations to the Liberal Party, and I am going to give him another opportunity to answer those questions.

Minister, I am going to ask you some questions in relation to your recent comments and your campaign against the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The AAT describe themselves as 'a one-stop shop for the independent review of a wide range of decisions made by the Australian government'. They aim to make the process 'accessible, fair, just, economical, informal and quick'. They review decisions 'on the merits', which means they take a fresh look at the issues. The AAT must 'make the legally correct decision or, where there can be more than one correct decision, the preferable decision'. The minister was quoted as saying:

I think for people to believe that magistrates or judges or tribunal members don't bring their own personal views to matters is a nonsense …

It is in black and white on the AAT website that the AAT must make the legally correct decision. Minister, on 15 May this year a story appeared in the Herald Sun. The story revealed details about six Iranian refugees and decisions made by the AAT on their cases. Stories appeared across the print media, internet and TV calling these people fake refugees. In a public statement, the AAT confirmed:

The decisions referred to in today’s articles have not been published and are not publically available.

That suggests that whoever released the information to a journalist may have breached the Privacy Act.

During Senate estimates, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection confirmed that advice on these cases has been provided to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Minister, did you or your office authorise the leak to the media of confidential decisions of the AAT? Will the minister uphold the integrity of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and immediately investigate the leaking of these confidential decisions of the AAT? What does the minister have against members of the AAT, who are making decisions based on law? Why does the minister persist in criticising members of the judiciary? Will the minister apologise to the members of the AAT, whose integrity and judgements have been questioned as part of the minister's unnecessary smear campaign? If decisions made by the AAT on six Iranian refugees were so bad, why has the minister failed to lodge a judicial review with the Federal Circuit Court or the Federal Court against the AAT's decisions?

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members opposite claim that theirs is the party that stands up for Australian workers' rights. They reckon that they have a monopoly on protecting workers' interests. But that old claim is starting to are very, very thin. It is a claim based not on their actions in the present but on their rose-coloured memories of the past. It is a tired claim, a threadbare and out-of-date claim. Today led by a man who has spent most of his life giving workers rights away, it is nothing short of laughable. In reality, the Labor Party's interest in protecting Australian workers has long been consigned to the dustbin of history. Those opposite cynically depend on the loyalty and faith of Australian workers while they shamelessly sell them out in their own interest and for the benefit of their union masters. The evidence is overwhelming. In every portfolio, they have a black record of tireless effort to stop new jobs being created, reduce freedom and choice and defend union exploitation.

One area where the bankruptcy of Labor's pretence is most clear is on the question of 457 visas, which were designed to support the Australian economy by allowing employers to fill rare, critical skills shortages in their workforce. They were supposed to help Australian workers, not harm them. Australia has a highly skilled and adaptable workforce. If an employer needs to look overseas for a skilled worker it should mean it is trying something new or rare in our country. This sort of innovation drives economic growth and creates more jobs for Australian workers. Those on the other side of the chamber have gone very quiet because they know this is extremely embarrassing for them. A well-used 457 visa program should be a positive benefit to Australian workers.

What happened to the 457 visas system under Labor? How did the so-called champions of Australian workers use it? Was it to the benefit of Australians? Of course it was not. Labor, including during the time that the Leader of the Opposition was employment minister, oversaw the granting of record numbers of 457 visas, more than 110,000 of them in a single year under the Leader of the Opposition when he was employment minister. There were 457 visas for work of every kind, work that should have been done by unemployed Australians. For example, under the stewardship of the now Leader of the Opposition, 457 visas were allowed for working on construction sites—for flipping burgers, even. Yes, under the fast food industry labour agreement established under Labor by the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition, fast food stores were allowed to bring in workers on a 457 visa.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It takes a lot of skill to flip burgers, doesn't it—something that Australians apparently cannot do, according to Labor!

The union movement has been particularly active in filling jobs that should have gone to Australians with workers from overseas. The Australian Education Union, the Australian Services Union, the Finance Sector Union, the Maritime Union of Australia, the National Tertiary Education Union, the National Union of Workers, the 'shoppies' union, the Transport Workers Union and United Voice have all brought in foreign workers on 457 visas.

We need a system that allows employers to bring in workers from overseas in certain circumstances. It is undoubtedly the case that there are skills shortages in our country and not all of them can be easily and quickly filled by local training. In emerging fields of enterprise and technology and in highly specialised roles we need to bring people in to ensure that we can stay up to date and exploit new opportunities. We want genuinely highly skilled people to come to our country, grow our economy, offer our people new products and services, create jobs and encourage inward investment. But we need to achieve that in a way that puts Australian workers first. We need to make sure that every foreign worker is adding something to our workforce, rather than taking it away.

I therefore want to ask the minister three questions. Would the minister please outline what steps the government is taking to ensure that highly skilled foreign nationals will continue to be attracted to work in Australia, but will not be a substitute for Australian workers? What are the key differences between the 457 visa, and the new Temporary Skills Shortage visas? What is the rationale for the new 'two-year work experience' requirement? If this wasn't already a requirement, what was there to stop foreign graduates from competing with Australian graduates for entry level jobs?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Going to a couple of points made by the member for Blair in relation to the AAT, I have been very clear about the government's objective. Having secured our borders, stopped drownings at sea, closed 17 detention centres and got 8,000 children out of detention, having restored integrity to a process I want to make sure that those people who are living in our community are abiding by Australian laws. If somebody is here as a non-citizen and that they commit a serious offence against an Australian citizen then they can expect to have their visa cancelled and to be deported. Some people have made comments around the AAT process—the six Iranians et cetera. My response in general has been that I do not care if you are an elected representative, as an occupier of public office you have a public to answer to. We live in a democracy and no-one is above the public's right to question decisions made in this place, in courts or anywhere else. If the honourable member for Blair is suggesting that the Australian people should be ignored in terms of their responses to some of the decisions in the AAT, then he should be more express about it, because dancing around these issues is not going to—I don't think—satisfy the queries that are rightly put by Australians when they ask questions of some of these decisions. I think that is a fundamental point to make.

To answer the member's question specifically, my office has not leaked information. Similarly, in regard to the member's question concerning the website, it is the case that, firstly, it was not something that was organised by my office, and certainly not by me. A mistake was made and it is being looked at by the secretary of the department, as he answered in estimates. As you would expect, it is not of the nature described by the member for Blair. That is the reality.

I will make this final point: don't look at what Labor says; look at what they do. That was their track record in government and frankly it has been their track record again here today. This is the 36th question that the member for Blair has asked in the Federation Chamber—not one question in question time.

Mr Neumann interjecting—

If you have something to put, or an allegation to make or a question to ask, go down to the A-league. Don't come up here into the Federation Chamber and pretend to beat your chest. Stand up to your tactics committee and ask the question in question time—has not had the guts to ask one question in question time in over 300 days. He puts out these benign press releases, which are bordering on embarrassing, and yet he does not ask one question ever—not one question ever!—in question time. The member for Blair, I think, demonstrates to his colleagues here, and certainly to his colleagues in the other place, on a daily basis why he is not up to this job. He has demonstrated it again today.

I go now to the excellent member for Fisher. I want to thank him for his question and I want to thank him for the work that he does on the Sunshine Coast. I want to say thank you for the way in which he engages in the important areas of industrial relations and workplace practices. He is an expert who has brought skills to this place. I commend him for the contribution he has made to this place already. He asked some very important questions in relation to the 457 program. I provided some of that detail earlier in my contribution, but I will repeat this point: we cleaned up another Labor mess, which was the rorts and rackets conducted in the 457 program. We found that mess and we cleaned it up. We cleaned it up because I want to see, like all Australians want to see, young Australians working in McDonald's, KFC or Hungry Jacks. I did not want to see Labor's imports working in those jobs instead of Australian workers, so we cleaned up those rorts and rackets, and we cleaned up a mess of Labor's making. We have restored integrity to another visa program.

There are lots of Labor messes that remain. We will continue to clean up all of those messes. It is taking time. It will take money. What I say to the Australian public in the run-up to the next election is that Labor has learnt no lesson from their time in government. They are still fighting and they are still divided. The civil war underway between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese is as rife as it has ever been. I think that the Australian public is starting to see through Bill Shorten and the mistakes that Labor continues to make. (Time expired)

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Health Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $11,081,570,000

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No wonder the Minister for Health did not want to go first; he has not had the best week, I would have to say. We might go to some of those particular events.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

The minister loves to throw a few insults out—angry little ant that he is. He loves to do that, so let's make sure that we actually go to the substance of the budget. It is no wonder that he does not want to get up and talk about it.

What I want to go to is, in fact, the significant rift between the minister and his secretary, which emerged through Senate estimates—the fact, Minister, that you do not have any departmental officials backing you up here in consideration in detail. We just saw a massive number of Immigration officials backing their minister up in consideration in detail, but there are very strong rumours that there is a very strong rift between the minister in the chamber and his departmental secretary.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

Minister, how can you do good policy when you have such a problem within your department?

I want to go to the first three hours of Senate estimates, where what we had—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

I would ask the Deputy Speaker to intervene on the minister here if she could, because he will have his turn to respond to questions. I want to go to the heart of what we heard in Senate estimates, which was that this government has been beavering away, allowing the department free rein, on a proposal for our public hospital system which would have seen the abolition of the private health insurance rebate and a substantial cut to public hospitals. I want to take the minister through the evidence about the development of this plan. This plan first emerged in the government's Federation white paper. This plan was discussed by the Prime Minister with premiers directly. The previous Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, raised this with the Victorian Premier and with the Queensland Premier at the time as the Commonwealth's proposal for public hospital funding. This was a government proposal.

The department was then instructed to undertake work on this proposal. We know that it was discussed by senior officials because it made its way not only into the Federation white paper but also into COAG documents. So the schedule on hospital benefits that the government put forward to officials in early 2016 contained the hospital benefit schedule, and I will quote from one of the clauses of that. It said: 'To finance the establishment of the hospital benefit, the Commonwealth will repurpose existing funding, possibly including public hospital funding transfers to the states, Medicare Benefits Schedule funding for in-hospital services and the private health insurance rebate.' Then during the process of Senate estimates it has emerged that the department has continued work on that proposal. It has continued work on that proposal with the tacit and explicit instructions of the minister.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will have his opportunity. I want to hear the member for Ballarat without interjection. I cannot hear the member for Ballarat.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This minister allowed a $55,000 departmental contract to go to a private sector company, Global Access Partners, which has strong links to the private health insurance industry. We had the minister admit that in fact he was briefed on this proposal not once but several times and that it was in his incoming ministerial government brief. Despite the fact that the minister claims to have rejected the proposal, work not only continued beyond his claim that he rejected it but also continues to this day. The contract with Global Access Partners has not been cancelled, the work has not ceased and in fact the departmental secretary stated clearly at Senate estimates that they were awaiting a project report. So my questions, of course, to the minister are these. Is this really just a frolic by your top officials? If it is just a frolic, what disciplinary action have you then taken against them? If you have learned your lesson on secret task forces, how come the task force is actually continuing? Are you going to make this report public? (Time expired)

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are many jewels in the sporting crown of my Northern Beaches electorate. Two of those are the Manly Warringah Gymnastics Club in Cromer and the athletics track in Narrabeen. The gymnastics club has 2,371 members—given it is almost to the hour, make that 2,372 members—has over 220,000 visits each year and employs 50 staff, making it the largest club in the largest state in the greatest country in the world. The club is entirely community owned and run, receiving no government funding. Forty per cent of the state team that went to the national championships were from the Manly Warringah Gymnastics Club. This is quite an achievement when you consider there are 191 gymnastics clubs in New South Wales. The club is in need of new premises. As growth of the sport of gymnastics continues to boom, the club is being squeezed out by other activities. With a membership drawn from over 55 postcodes, the club services a significant area beyond the Northern Beaches.

The second sporting crown jewel is a synthetic athletics track which is the training home of current and former Olympians. The track services a region with nearly a million people within it and is used by school after school for athletics carnivals. However, the track is no longer fit for purpose and is in such a state of disrepair that it is causing injury to young athletes. The track is owned by the New South Wales state government, and I am pushing them hard to fund the million dollars needed to repair the track and surrounding facilities.

In the context of these sporting jewels, I am proud that the Prime Minister has signalled a new focus on preventive health in 2017 from the Commonwealth government that will give people the right tools and information to live active and healthy lives. Sport plays an important role in improving mental health. It strengthens our community—everyone's community—along with increasing Australia's overall physical health. Participation in sport is important at all ages. I think the oldest playing rugby player in the world is a Japanese man who is 94 years of age. The National Sports Plan will set a vision for sport in Australia into the future, promoting generational behavioural change in our attitudes towards physical activity, driving healthy, active lifestyles.

From 2016 to 2020, the Turnbull government will invest close to $1½ billion in sport and recreation. Commonwealth funding for sport within the Health portfolio in 2016-17 includes $40 million for Sporting Schools. The Turnbull government is investing $160 million in Sporting Schools, including an additional $60 million announced at the election to extend and expand the program. Sporting Schools is delivering in almost 6,000 schools across the country. Only 19 per cent of our kids are meeting physical activity guidelines, so the Turnbull government is right to invest in our kids' physical health. The program currently covers primary schools and, from 1 July 2017, will also cover years 7 and 8.

Other investments includes: $20.4 million for sport participation activities through the ASC; $110 million to be invested in high-performance sport; $4.3 million for sport integrity measures; $14.1 million for ASADA to deliver its programs; $11.7 million for water safety and other safety initiatives; $156 million, which was provided to the Queensland government in the 2014-15 budget for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games; $154 million for sporting infrastructure; $2 million for legacy initiatives to support projects from 2013 to 2018; the Broadcast and Content Reform Package within the Communications and the Arts portfolio, which will include a community dividend in the form of further restrictions on gambling advertising during live sports programs; and $30 million over four years for subscription television to maintain and increase coverage of women's sport, niche sports and high-participation sports that are less sustainable to broadcast.

My question is: can the minister please advise how I can pursue opportunities for federal government investment in sporting infrastructure on behalf of my community, particularly for a new home for the Manly Warringah Gymnastics Club and for much-needed repairs to the Narrabeen athletics track?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that the minister has so far not risen to answer my questions, in particular those in relation to, if the minister claims that he has put the kibosh on this Commonwealth hospital plan and that it was a frolic that the departmental secretary was on, what disciplinary action he has taken against his departmental secretary. If he was not on a frolic of his own, will you come clean and actually say what your plans were for our public hospitals?

I want to go to the substance of this Commonwealth hospital benefit that this government has been working on for the past 18 months. This is not something that is new and that has just emerged. The Commonwealth currently pays for around 40 per cent of public hospital services and, through the private health insurance rebate, 30 per cent for private hospital services. Basically, under the government's plan, what this secret task force was developing was a Commonwealth hospital benefit which would have seen the Commonwealth pay 35 per cent of costs for both systems, which would have been a massive cut to our public hospital system. That is what this proposal that had been in development for some time would have done. The government cannot have it both ways. Either the secretary was on a frolic of his own—and the government should be telling us what it is planning to do about that—or the government was agreeing to the plan's development, which is what we actually know was happening.

Anyone who has been in a public hospital recently would know that a substantial cut to public hospital funding, which is what this proposal would have meant, would have a devastating impact on our public hospitals. We know already, from the Australian Medical Association's Public hospital report card, that the waiting times in emergency departments and for elective surgeries have blown out under this government and that this government is responsible for dropping the NEAT and NEST targets. It has taken its foot off the accelerator in dealing with those issues. Of the 48 targets the AMA measures, our public hospitals across the country are meeting only three. Perhaps that is why the President of the AMA described the government's secret plan as a 'disaster for our public hospitals'.

It would have also abolished the private health insurance rebate. The minister says he loves private health insurance, and I look forward to him saying that again in this debate, because we are planning to use it extensively, which we have done already on social media. It was in the presentation given at least twice by his top officials that the minister's plan was to abolish the rebate. I again reiterate to the minister: it is in fact in COAG documents that that is what your proposal plans to do. The minister now says that the plan is off the table—

A government member: My plan?

You are not a member of the government? You are not a member of the continuity of the government? Suddenly, somehow, you are not actually part of what has happened? Now the minister claims the plan is off the table. Frankly, I have heard that before. I have been through the GP tax debate, and we all know what the words 'no plans yet' mean. We know exactly what those words mean: that in fact you have been developing them.

I want to go specifically to what the budget does have. The budget papers show that in fact the government have reverted—in 2021—to Tony Abbott's hospital formula. The budget papers show they have reverted to that. After tearing up Labor's National Health Reform Agreement with the states and cutting billions of dollars out of our public hospitals as a result, in 2021 they will revert to the previous formula. The government's commitment for extra money, which they had to put in in the lead-up to the election campaign, only runs to 2020. So I want to ask the minister specifically: are you planning to bring back, in 2021, the cuts that you had in the 2014 budget? Because if you are planning to revert to that formula then that is what you are saying you are going to be doing. That represents, compared Labor's agreement, in that 2021 year alone, a $3.4 billion cut—in one year—to our public hospital system.

Again, the minister cannot have it both ways. If he says he is not planning to keep the 2014 measure in the 2021 budget—that it is just a placeholder in the budget—he has a problem, because he has a significant unfunded liability. Minister, you have a big fiscal cliff coming in 2021. You have a big black hole in your budget when it comes to health. So what is it? Have you got a black hole or are you reverting to the cuts of 2014?

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Fisher, we have a large number of older Australians. With the fantastic lifestyle and facilities offered by the coast, people from all over the country, indeed from all over the world, choose to spend their retirement enjoying our beaches and our hinterland. Almost half of the people living in my community are over the age of 55. Aged care is an important issue for a great many people in Fisher, and it is therefore an issue of critical importance to me. My electorate is full of active and empowered seniors. That is one of the reasons I have initiated my Fisher Seniors' Forum, through which I have learned that the experience of getting older has changed, on the Sunshine Coast and all over Australia.

Improvements in modern medicine and healthier lifestyles mean that older people are more independent, self-sufficient and active for longer than they have ever been before. Just in March this year, Jean Le Brocq, from my electorate, described in our local newspaper as the 'party girl from Kawana', turned 100. A former patroness of the local bowls club, Jean still plays indoor bowls and has no intention of slowing down. As her niece Estelle says, 'Whatever is happening, she'll be in on it.'

Life expectancy is rising. On the current trends, future generations can expect to still be going strong at 100 years old, like Elsie Brown. This demographic shift presents us with a challenge in terms of the sustainability of our aged-care system. The generations that are now retiring also bring new expectations of the services they receive. Those born as part of the baby boomer generation and since are used to products and services that are tailored to them as individuals. They expect to be able to make their own decisions about their aged care, just as they have been able to make their own choices about services throughout their lives.

The coalition government responded to those changes and has consistently acted to increase choice and to support sustainable, high-quality provision of aged-care services. In 2015, the government expanded—sorry, excuse me, Deputy Speaker. You've got to love technology, don't you!

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not a recharge issue.

A government member: It's an operator issue then!

It is likely to be an operator issue. But I digress. In February of this year, the minister launched the Increasing Choice in Home Care changes, which allow older Australians to direct funding to the aged-care provider of their choice. These changes make their home care packages portable if they move and allow them to change provider if they are not satisfied. The changes also further developed the My Aged Care online portal so that it operates as a genuine virtual marketplace where providers can market their services and consumers can find providers that are right for them.

The Turnbull government is not just improving the way the system works. We are also investing the money that is needed, almost $100 billion over the next five years alone. We are seeing the results of the Turnbull government's commitment to aged care in my own electorate of Fisher. Last week, the results of the 2016-17 aged-care approvals round were announced. The government is investing $649 million to create 10,000 residential aged-care places to provide greater choice for consumers, especially in regional communities like ours, on the Sunshine Coast. My electorate has been a beneficiary of this program, with 140 places allocated for residential care in Fisher. In particular, 120 places were allocated for a brand-new residential-care community on the Sunshine Coast, the planned Palm Lake Care Caloundra. In addition, TriCare Kawana Waters received a further 20 places. These 140 places will go a long way to ensuring greater choice for seniors in my seat of Fisher, on the Sunshine Coast.

There have of course been challenges in executing the new system. I have a constituent, Mrs Julie Penlington, who has written to me to tell me about the difficulties that a close member of her family has had in receiving a timely ACAT assessment. The process has been slow, and Julie tells me that she has heard from other older people who have unfortunately had a similar experience. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the aged-care system is straightforward to navigate and that there are no unnecessary barriers.

In the light of what I said, Assistant Minister, what is the government doing to support choice in aged-care provision for older Australians? What is the government going to do to ensure that aged-care packages are accessible and to improve the process of ACAT assessment? (Time expired)

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to ask the Minister for Health some questions in relation to the Child Dental Benefits Schedule. As the minister is aware, the program provides $1,000 over two years for free basic dental care for children from eligible families, those who receive family tax payments. The federal government under then Health Minister Sussan Ley sought to reduce the amount to $700 over two years, citing underutilisation of the program. As the minister would be aware, in March 2016—so some 14 or 15 months ago—a review of the scheme found that the program had been poorly promoted, and it subsequently made four recommendations to improve promotion and encourage greater utilisation of the scheme among families.

Those recommendations were to 'make the eligibility notification letter more attractive and recognisable as a "voucher" for services'; to 'engage experts in marketing and communication to better target efforts on program promotion including, for example, utilising communication channels other than the eligibility notifications'; to 'ensure hard copy notifications are sent to families who received notification through myGov, unless they have specifically opted out of hard copy communications'; and to 'provide hard copy follow-up notifications to eligible families who have not accessed services'. Minister, given it has been 14 months since those recommendations, would you please detail which of those recommendations have been adopted and implemented by government? If they have not been adopted and implemented, would the minister please detail his reasons why? I look forward to the minister's response.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In September last year I delivered my maiden speech in the House of Representatives and I spoke on that occasion about my father's death by suicide some 20 years ago. Suicide is one of the great challenges that Australia faces. The most recent statistics we have show that over 3,000 people died by suicide in 2015—that is roughly eight people a day and 100 people in my electorate over recent years. There was nothing unique about my speech, in that in a number of the maiden speeches delivered by the class of 2016 on both sides of the House people talked about the way in which mental illness, mental health, depression and suicide had affected their families and their communities. I think that underscores what an enormous national challenge this is for our country.

Suicide is by virtue of the subject matter a very dark topic, but subsequent to my maiden speech I found that prevention of suicide is something that elicits great hope right across the community. I have been humbled by the thousands of people who have contacted me to share their stories and the organisations that have been in touch to tell me some of the work they are doing. I want to share with the House a couple of stories people have told me. A fellow travelled from interstate just to see me and tell me about his worries about his son. This gentleman, whose father had died by suicide and whose son had recently attempted suicide—fortunately, he was unsuccessful—wanted to know what could be done to help him.

Another person who saw me told me their frightening story of having interrupted a family member in the process of taking their own life. That was a searing experience for that person. There was a person whose daughter had been going through issues with eating disorders. That had brought on an episode of depression and that person had contemplated suicide. That experience was turned around to good, as he focused on ways in which he could use some of his professional skills to help prevent suicide in his own industry.

One lovely thing about this space is the way in which trying to find answers to some of these questions prompts individual action. The mental health and suicide prevention space is very Victorian Britain in its outlook. There are, I am told, in the order of 35,000 organisations in this space across the country, from very large organisations, like Lifeline, the Black Dog Institute and beyondblue, through to small organisations, which were often set up in memory of a relative or the result of a personal experience people have had. In that respect I should acknowledge my friend the member for Eden-Monaro, who, along with me, is a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Suicide Prevention. I have to say on this particular topic there is great bipartisan goodwill across the House. I have been interested in hearing some of the things that organisations are doing in this space and some of the good thinking that is going on in academic areas. I met the distinguished historian Colin Tatz, who reminds us that suicide prevention is not merely a health issue; it is also an issue of what building blocks you can put in society.

I ran a very interesting forum with the life insurance industry because I continually heard stories of people not having insurance policies paid out where somebody died by suicide and stories of a spike after the 13th month, when somebody could qualify to take out life insurance policies. I am pleased to report to the House that it is not true that life insurance organisations do not pay out in the event of a suicide, but the evidence at the moment is inconclusive in relation to the 13 months. KPMG in particular is looking at that issue to see what evidence and information can be drawn.

One of the important things in this space is that, if people understand and notice the signs and see somebody is contemplating suicide, they know what to do. In the construction industry, I was pleased to attend a course run by MATES in Construction that focuses on that particular industry. On Monday at Gordon a group of us—me along with the member for North Sydney, the member for Bennelong and some of our state colleagues and local mayors—are participating in the Lifeline Harbour to Hawkesbury safe talks program to inform members of parliament better what can be done to prevent suicide.

Minister, there have been lots of people involved in steering the portfolio in this space, but there is a particular appreciation of the hard work you have done since being the minister. I would like you to outline to the House what is in the budget for suicide prevention.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): I want to acknowledge the member for Berowra's contribution and his advocacy in this space and thank him for raising such important matters in this chamber here today. In particular I also want to ask the minister about public hospitals. Minister, you have had this secret task force developing something. We do not know whether the departmental secretary has been on a folly of his own or not. But, anyway, we will continue to pursue that. In particular I want to get the minister to outline what his public process is going to be for the next public hospitals agreement. Labor in government spent a lot of time through the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission doing the work. It is a significant part of Medicare and our healthcare system. What is your proposal to develop the beyond-2020 health care and hospital system? If it is not this Commonwealth hospitals benefit, which you claim it is not—we know that it has been pretty actively pursued—are you going to have a public process? In my view, you should.

I also want to speak about the Medicare freeze. We had the former Prime Minister introduce the freeze in December 2014. I know exactly what the minister is going to get up and say on that, but I would remind people that in fact, because we had this weird historic indexation arrangement where the Medicare Benefits Schedule was indexed in November, Labor decided to change that indexation to July. In July 2014, under this government, re-indexation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule occurred. Then in MYEFO in December 2014 this government introduced a new freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. We had the initial freeze until 2018, and then we had the government decide that they were going to bank that until 2020, saving billions of dollars, all of which they tout loudly will go into the Medical Research Future Fund. They are pretty proud of that fund and think it is a good idea, but that is all the money that they have banked from this freeze—and it is their freeze.

What we did see in the budget papers—and I refer to those specifically—is that, whilst the government said that it had decided to stage the freeze, it had not decided to lift it immediately as Labor had promised to do in the election campaign. That damage still remains embedded, as does the damage that it has done to our healthcare system. Of course, the budget continues to rely on well over $2 billion worth of continued cuts to Medicare in that process. So the numbers are actually on that.

We had a whole raft of things being said by the government in relation to the freeze over a period of time. We had them saying the freeze was not much, that it was only 60c. I cannot remember which member said that, but one of them said that in the chamber. They have said that they have learnt their lesson in terms of the Medicare freeze. We have also heard them say: 'It has not really done much damage. Bulk-billing is as high as it ever was.' In fact, we have seen—and the minister likes to quote the overall figure and does not quote MBS item No. 23, which is the figure that is the most important when you are referring to bulk-billing figures—bulk-billing for GPs drop again since the election. That is the actual fact. Bulk-billing has dropped again since the election of this government. That is what has actually been happening. That is what the statistics actually show.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You keep saying that, but it has dropped since the election. The GP bulk-billing rate, item No. 23, has dropped since the election. That is what has happened.

A government member interjecting—

Yes, it has. You can squib if you want, but it has actually dropped since the election. We know, if we talk to people across the country, the impact that it has had. But what the government kept secret in the budget papers is that the freeze for all GP items will not be lifted until 2020.

Minister, there are 113 items—including mental health plans and healthcare assessments, which provide really important services to people; pregnancy support; and long consultations—that you have decided to keep frozen until 2020. In fact, all your budget has actually done is implement the original measure of the member for Warringah, the then Prime Minister. That is all your budget has done. You have maintained that. You have delivered for Tony Abbott exactly what he wanted to do on the MBS freeze. Minister, if an election and a change in health minister would not get you to drop your freeze immediately, what will?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me begin with the member for Berowra—I think that is an important place to start—and then, over the next couple of answers, I will address other items raised by other members. He has been a very courageous contributor to this parliament, particularly in the space of mental health and, in particular, suicide prevention. Today is what is known as Socks4Docs Day. One of the areas within the mental health and suicide prevention space where there has been an unrecognised and unmet need is the loss of life of and mental health issues for doctors and medical professionals. In part, that is perhaps because of believing that they are okay and that, as the carer, they may not need care, or it is because of a fear of professional ramifications.

On Friday, I had the honour of speaking with the AMA at their national conference. I said that day that we would work with the AMA on a partnership for dealing with doctors. I note that today is Socks4Docs Day, and as a small contribution I am recognising and promoting that. Much more importantly, we are developing a partnership with the doctors. In particular, we are contributing a million dollars to work with the AMA, the Black Dog Institute, beyondblue and others, as well as Orygen, with the extraordinary Pat McGorry, on nursing, on the medical workforce and on the trainees as they are going through the process. That partnership will develop as we go forward.

The next thing is that on Sunday we announced, all up, $47 million for suicide prevention, for 16 different groups, plus the Caring for Carers initiative. That will allow us to take real and constructive steps. As the member for Berowra said, there are over 3,000 deaths a year through suicide, and there are many more attempts, some of which leave permanent damage. When I visited the town of Grafton not so long ago with the member for Page, Kevin Hogan, we met with one family that had suffered a suicide attempt and was living with the tragic long-term consequences in the case of their son.

We need to do more. The budget itself, in addition, has contributed $11 million for preventive activities in suicide hotspots. That includes funding for Lifeline, as well as physical barriers. In addition to that, there is $9 million towards telehealth for those in rural areas. On top of that, and perhaps most importantly, we have contributed $80 million—and we are doing this on a matched basis with the states—to deal with psychosocial services for those who will not be within the NDIS. If those services are not met, conditions can worsen, and, as those conditions worsen, the risk of people taking their own lives worsens in itself.

There was, in addition, $15 million for mental health research. The member for Fisher strongly supported and advocated for the University of the Sunshine Coast and Thompson Institute research project addressing suicide and mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression, for young people. That was also supported by the member for Fairfax. Together, they have been strong advocates in this space. Further mental health work is being led, in terms of the workforce, by the assistant minister and, in terms of those in aged-care facilities, by the Minister for Aged Care. This package is extremely important. I particularly want to focus on this. In other answers, I will address other questions, but there is—and I note the shadow minister for mental health on the other side—a shared and bipartisan approach to mental health and suicide prevention in this place.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whilst I acknowledge the minister's contribution, I also remind you, Minister, that the Medicare item for mental health plans remains frozen until 2020 and that that is something you need to deal with if you are going to be serious about people's access to Medicare and that important part of the Medicare Benefits Schedule. I also want to briefly talk about out-of-pocket costs, which have risen substantially under this government, and also a little bit about prevention.

Under this government, we know that out-of-pocket costs for health care have absolutely skyrocketed. The worst part is that this budget is failing to deal with those immediately. Those out-of-pocket costs have been driven largely by the government's Medicare Benefits Schedule freeze. The fact that they have not dropped the freeze immediately shows that they have failed to understand the significant impact that this is having on members of our communities far and wide. People are seeing the impact of the government's freeze every time they go to the doctor and every time they go to see a specialist. Since the government announced the freeze in December 2014, average out-of-pocket costs for GPs have risen by $8.50 in New South Wales, $8 in Victoria, $7.70 in Queensland, $5.40 in South Australia, $7.30 in Western Australia, $5.90 in Tasmania, $5.80 in the Northern Territory and $11.10 here in the ACT.

Frankly, this is the GP tax. That is what this minister has delivered for the government: its GP tax. They could not get it through the parliament, so he froze the Medicare Benefits Schedule and did it by stealth. For years and years, the government's freeze has forced GPs across the country to abandon bulk-billing and to slug patients every time they visit the doctor. The worst part is that, because the government has not dropped the freeze immediately, that is continuing to have a significant impact on GPs and specialists across the country. I do want to again ask the government and the minister: how much more will Australians have to pay before this government's freeze fully ends in 2020? Does the government have any idea of the damage that its unfair cuts are doing to Australians' ability to access the health care that they need? Why is the government making Australians pay more every day for their health care while at the same time pursuing a tax cut?

One of the very disappointing areas of the budget has been prevention. There was a lot of speculation in the public health sector about what was going to happen on prevention. We had heard that some 70 proposals had been put forward by the department to ERC—that alcohol taxation had been proposed at some point but that that got knocked off, so there was no capacity for the government to actually improve its processes on prevention. We had the Prime Minister in his Press Club speech—obviously, early in the day, this minister had given him a line on health and told him, 'Our new focus is going to be on prevention.' Well, it was a pretty disappointing focus. There were a few initiatives in there which, of course, we welcome, but, really, they were far short of the millions of dollars that have been cut.

In particular, I want to ask some questions about tobacco. The government has completely dropped the ball when it comes to tobacco. Yesterday was World No Tobacco Day. Under plain packaging, we have seen a significant drop in the number of people smoking, but the government has done very little. There is no national education campaign around tobacco—no investment in that at all—and there have been cuts to funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander smoking prevention, both really important programs. Really, there have not been any significantly new initiatives in this space. So I want to ask the minister: do you think it is appropriate that Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco were present at the budget night dinner, a fundraiser for the Liberal Party; that they were donating to the Liberal Party on that night?

I also want to quickly ask the minister about Healthy Harold. The Minister for Education and Training, frankly, threw the Minister for Health under the bus today, confirming this morning in Senate estimates that it was a decision by Health, not Education, to cut the funding for Life Education—Healthy Harold. Why did the Minister for Health think it was okay to cut a children's health program in our schools? Frankly, is anything safe from this government's unfair cuts when it cuts funding for Healthy Harold? Minister, will you guarantee its funding?

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to speak here today on the recent health budget announced by my colleague and mentor the Minister for Health. Overall, it is a fantastic budget for the health portfolio. There is over $10 billion worth of new initiatives in that budget, and they are delivering in spades. In my particular bailiwick there were some really important announcements in the rural health space. One of the mental health initiatives mentioned was a $9 million e-health initiative targeting improved access to psychiatrists, psychologists and general practitioners for remote, very remote and outer regional residents of Australia. That means, if you are seeing a psychiatrist or a psychologist, you can have access to your psychiatrist via the internet and it is paid for. Four of 10 visits have to be face to face, because we need to have that initial human-to-human contact, but this initiative will remove the major burden of travelling all over the country to get access to mental health support from a registered practitioner, either a psychologist or a psychiatrist.

There are so many other initiatives—you only have to look in the general health budget. Forty-six per cent of headspace centres are in regional Australia. That is a coalition initiative. There is ongoing funding for them. We have a lot of other initiatives in the mental health space for rural access using telehealth through the PHNs. Many of them are looking at commissioning more services, and our state colleagues have already got a significant amount of investment in telehealth access. In WA and in New South Wales there are networks where remote practitioners can log-in via video linkages or Skype equivalents and get specialist advice.

There are many other things that I would like to comment on. The member for Ballarat besmirched the coalition government's effort to reduce smoking. We are totally on the ball when it comes to reducing smoking.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What have you done? You haven't done anything!

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just put up the excise for smoking, for a start, and we have the—

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

Don't Make Smokes Your Story campaign.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Ballarat has many opportunities to ask questions.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, the excise is going up again for smoking, and we have the Don't Make Smokes Your Story campaign running. Obviously, member for Ballarat, you are so busy in the House that you have not seen any of the ads on TV or the internet.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No-one has!

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For those of you who watched—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Can I just interrupt the assistant minister. The member for Ballarat has ample opportunity to ask questions, and I would appreciate it if she would not continue with the ongoing interjections.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Part of that program has just appeared. If you were watching the State of Origin game last night, you would have seen the Don't Make Smokes Your Story ad, which I had a bit to do with and actually spoke about on World No Tobacco Day.

The other thing is that there was a mention of e-cigarettes. The NHMRC and TGA have given very clear advice to the nation that the use of e-cigarettes has not been established as being a safe practice. There are toxins in e-cigarettes, including glycerol, formaldehyde—all sorts of things that in a heated environment can get right into your lungs. We have seen through occupational health and safety many fibrotic lung diseases and cancers that have developed over many years, and with traditional nicotine smoking and inhalation. We have a responsibility not to recommend or legitimise anything that we think is not safe.

There are many things in the rural health space that are right at the heart of the coalition government, and I have mentioned just a couple of them. These criticisms are not correct at all. We are very active in this space. there are the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline initiative, extra specialist training places, regional training hubs, three new university departments of rural health—the list goes on. There are so many initiatives by this coalition government in rural health and against smoking. (Time expired)

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whilst we do have bipartisanship in this place to deal with the very serious issue of suicide prevention, particularly given the suicide data and statistics for Australia at the present, that does not mean that we will not hold the government to account. We did see $115 million for mental health in the budget, but, whilst we welcome that, we are concerned that it is not enough.

I was interested to hear the minister's answer earlier when he talked about the $80 million that the government has committed to those people who are currently receiving psychosocial services and who will fall outside of the NDIS. I particularly liked the minister's comment that if these people do not get services their conditions will worsen if the services are not there. That is very, very true, which is why we are very concerned that this $80 million, even if it is matched by the states, assuming the states do match it, will still not be enough for those people who have serious mental ill health and who are at the moment relying on services in wonderful programs like Personal Helpers and Mentors, day to day living and Partners in Recovery. They are great programs that are working very, very well and people are getting the supports they need, but we are very concerned, and I know that people in the sector concerned, that this $80 million will not be enough. Indeed, when we asked the National Mental Health Commission's CEO, Peggy Brown, about that in Senate estimates this week, she said that the $80 million was a starting point. She went on to say that $80 million is not a lot, that it is not going to buy all of the psychosocial disability that is required.

So we have a mental health expert in Dr Brown saying that this $80 million is not enough, even if it is matched by the states, and we do not know where the $80 million came from. I ask the minister, genuinely: Can you tell us where the $80 million comes from? Where is the analysis? Where is the data? Where are the reports or whatever it is that led you to come up with this $80 million? Where did the number come from? We need to know where this $80 million figure has come from, because we need to understand the number of people who will be outside the NDIS and who are going to rely on these services, because we need to make sure that the services are there. As the minister himself has said, conditions worsen if these services are not there. There are already too many gaps in the mental health services system. Already, we know, too many people are falling through the system. Already, we know, people cannot get the supports they need in time. We need to know whether this $80 million is enough or not.

The other thing I want to ask the minister is: why are you drip feeding out the headspace site announcements? It was clear from Senate estimates that the minister was given a list of 20 headspace sites to pick from, and that he has made a decision on 10. We have had three of those were announced to date, which we welcomed—Grafton, Whyalla and Mandurah—but I am concerned about where the other seven are. When are they going to be rolled out? Are they going to be drip fed at one a month? When is this going to happen? The first one was announced in February. I would hate to think that the minister is sitting on the other seven announcements from February and is going to drip them out rather than announce them all at once. We do know that there are some coming soon, but we need these services up and operating as quickly as possible, and I am sure the minister agrees. There are many members in this place who appreciate the valuable work that headspace does in local communities. It does great work in local communities, but we also know that there is a need for headspace services in other communities. We also know that many headspace sites still have waiting lists, significant waiting lists in some places. I ask the minister: Realistically, when will the rest of the sites be announced?

Is there any analysis being done of where further sites are required? Are we sure that the waiting lists and the needs of the current headspaces are being met, because I am hearing serious concerns from people that there are waiting lists and people are going to headspace services and they are not getting the support they need?

Headspaces were originally designed for people with mild depression and anxiety. I understand that, because of the gaps in services, headspaces are actually dealing with people who have much more severe mental ill health than they were designed to deal with. They are doing a good job of coping with what is coming through their door but the resources available to them and the gaps in the system are serious issues. In that bipartisan manner, Minister, when are we going to hear the other headspaces? Do we know about the waiting lists in the other headspaces? What is being done?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to deal with a number of issues that have been raised in this consideration in detail. The centrepiece of the health budget is not the $10 billion that is being invested across different areas, including $2.4 billion in Medicare, $2.2 billion in the PBS, $2.8 billion in the hospital system, $730 million in the Mersey and other different areas. The centrepiece is the partnerships and agreements struck with not just one, two, three or four but five major health sector professional groups. In particular we have struck an agreement with the AMA and the Royal Australian College of GPs to work for the long-term benefit of the medical profession and patients. Central to that was the process of reindexation.

That included—and I respond to the member for Ballarat here—for the first time since 2004 reindexation of diagnostic items. These are items I know are not on Labor's proposed reindexation list. It is not something they have ever committed to. In particular there are 58 items, including mammography, fluoroscopy, interventional radiology and computed tomography, which are still frozen under the Labor Party's proposal. Let me give you an example. Item 55848 and item 55850 for musculoskeletal ultrasound will not be unfrozen under Labor. They were not in their proposed changes. Items 56001 and 56221 for CT scans of the head and spine will not be unfrozen under Labor's proposal. They have never proposed any unfreezing of diagnostic imaging. They went through six years and did not unfreeze them.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

Those are examples. I understand it is a slight embarrassment for them.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat! This works by you getting a turn and then them getting a turn. At the moment is the turn of the minister.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having made the point that we have achieved agreements—and I am advised by the department for the first time in Australia with all of these groups simultaneously—and expressed our support for the medical profession, I was surprised that last Friday the Leader of the Opposition launched a vicious attack on the medical profession. In front of the AMA Federal Council he referred to the AMA's shared vision partnership with the Australian government as a cash-for-no-comment agreement. This has been vigorously rejected by the AMA, has been vigorously rejected by the doctors and has been vigorously rejected by the Royal Australian College of GPs. None of these groups have a history of silence. These groups will not have a future history of silence I venture to predict. They are strong and independent.

However, this is consistent with a pattern of attacking others. It is fine to go after me. It is fine to go after the Minister for Aged Care, although personally I would not do that. We are elected members of parliament. It is wrong to attack the AMA and it is wrong to attack health officials.

I want to say to the member for Ballarat that attacking departmental officials is wrong, inappropriate and not the thing that a member of parliament—let alone an aspiring health minister—should be doing. Having said that, let me make it absolutely clear that our policy is that we believe in private health insurance. The proposal from the Federation white paper, which would see the abolition of private health insurance, is one that this government, myself and the Prime Minister comprehensively and utterly reject. It will not happen on our watch and is rejected.

At the same time, we have massively increased hospital funding, at a faster rate than occurred under the ALP. We believe in private health insurance, we are funding the hospitals and we have the highest bulk-billing rates for this quarter against any previous— (Time expired)

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to question the Minister for Aged Care. It was interesting that this budget did not have any aged care cuts. It is the first one in quite some time. I am pleased that the minister managed to not have aged care as an ATM for the government this time after $3 billion of cuts in the last few years. I think the older Australians, and their families who care for them, appreciate that there were not further cuts in this budget.

I want the minister to answer some legitimate questions, and I want raise some constituent issues that have been raised with me about homecare services. It is interesting that backbenchers on the other side have also raised the issue of ACAT assessments and waits for homecare packages, because there is no doubt that the ACAT assessments have blown out substantially. When we asked some questions in Senate estimates last year the department said, 'Yes, there is a bit of a problem,' and they have gone off to try to talk to the states to try to remedy some of those.

Since the change of the Living Longer Living Better reforms—which were Labor's reforms and bipartisan, and I acknowledge that—there is now a bit of an issue about the actual packages and the level of packages available, and the waiting lists for those.

I want to give the minister a couple of examples of what people who have contacted me have said. The first, whom I will refer to as Mr BF, is a consumer from Victoria. He was approved for a level 4 homecare package and is currently receiving a level 1. He has been queued now for 432 days for his level 4 package. These are frail, elderly people who need services. He has a diagnosis of dementia. His cognitive state is declining. It has been worsening with his behaviours and his outbursts. It is causing distress not just for him but also for his wife, who is his carer. He and his wife are in distress and they clearly are not adequately supported on a level 1 package. They have no indication of how long they are going to wait to get a higher care package and it is putting them at risk, and what is happening in that place at risk

I have another one here, which is from Mr MB from South-West Sydney. He has Parkinson's disease and was approved for a level 4 package on 9 March 2015. He has now been queued for 756 days. He has not been assigned any interim package at all. He is now a candidate for a premature admission to residential aged care, because he cannot get the services he needs.

Here is another: Mr B, a consumer from South Australia. He is a retried GP. He has progressive motor neurone disease. He and his wife have relocated from a regional area closer to family and medical services. He started on a level 2 package in August 2016 with an approval for a level 4 package. He now has been waiting 280 days for the upgrade. It is impossible for him and his wife to know where they are in the queue, how much further they are going to wait and where he is progressing. It has become very difficult for his wife. They cannot plan for his deteriorating condition. His wife has now had to give up her job to care for him full-time. The financial circumstances are now even more difficult for them while they try to source alternative options while they are waiting for this package.

Another is Mrs A, who has organised a package for her mother. She is from Tasmania. She was waiting for her mother to be assessed by the local ACAT. She had to wait 123 days for the ACAT assessment. When it occurred, she was told that the new digital format they required to provide client data is taking excessive amounts of time now and is causing problems with the assessment and causing the time to blow out from two weeks to now three months. She was told that her mother would not even be added to the waitlist for the package until the ACAT assessment had been completed. She received approval for a level 4 package after that assessment, and she has now been told by My Aged Care that she could be waiting up to nine months for that package.

These are very frail people whose condition is really serious. They are going to end up in an emergency department or end up prematurely in residential aged care. I know the minister understands this is an issue. What I would like to know is: what is the government doing to address it? Has the government done an assessment of the waiting lists? I am told that we will not have the waiting list data till July. In the meantime, what is happening to these poor people and their families is not good enough. How is the government going to fix this? It is not good enough, in today's day and age, with the money we are putting into the aged-care system, for this still to be happening to people and their families.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to ask the Assistant Minister for Health for some more information about the issues around telehealth, the initiative announced last month. As the minister would be aware, I represent a rural and regional area of Australia. I represent people in very small communities, often farming communities. I represent people from places like Augusta and Nannup, Donnybrook and Yarloop, Benger and Kirup and Balingup. All of these people certainly will have greater access to psychologists under the government's new telehealth initiative announced early last month, and that is very good news for people in those more remote areas. My area is a regional area, and I suspect that for more remote Australians this is fantastic news.

We know that one in five people each year will experience a mental health issue, and we know the emotional toll on the sufferers and their families that goes with that. Of course, we know that people in the areas I am referring to either find it extremely difficult to access services or are not doing it at all. Often we see greater health challenges in rural and regional Australia because of the lack of access to services. I know that under the new arrangements up to seven of the 10 sessions currently available under the Medicare mental health plan will be available via telehealth. That is fantastic news. People will be able to claim a Medicare rebate for what will be convenient and timely online videoconferencing consultations with psychologists and other health professionals. Depending on the condition of the individual, their particular psychologist could actually be thousands of kilometres away. People will be able to access those services even when they have challenges in actually travelling to the services they need. The health professionals themselves will be able to connect sooner and more regularly to patients in need of their services.

I know that Dr Ewen McPhee, President of the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, has acknowledged how important early intervention in acute mental health can be. I see that most particularly in rural and regional areas. I would mention in particular the little town of Yarloop, where we saw the dreadful bushfires. There is an ongoing need for these types of services for not just the people of Yarloop but also the broader farming community and the small businesses who were so affected by those fires. It is a long-term issue for them.

I know that my regional people are very strong and stoic, and often they do not talk about the problems that they might have. I think that some of them will find it far easier to be able to connect via telehealth, without fronting up at a physical location and having their car parked out the front. That is difficult for many to deal with, men in particular, which is also why our regional counsellors are so important. I know that this is very important, and it will be in the more remote and regional areas right across Australia. Assistant Minister, is this the first time a federal government is actually providing the Medicare rebate for psychological services for regional and remote Australians—something that is particularly important to them?

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind members that there is five minutes of speaking time left for each side and we will be finishing the debate at one o'clock. I call the member for Franklin.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We started five minutes late, Deputy Speaker—I am just letting you know that that is the case.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have a list of speakers to follow for adjournment.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to ask the assistant minister about residential aged care funding, now that I have raised some serious issues about home care packages. In my previous question is to the minister I said that the sector and the public particularly are very pleased that aged care has not had cuts in this budget, as it has in previous ones. Most of the cuts in the previous budgets have come from funding for residential aged care, particularly around the Aged Care Funding Instrument, ACFI. There has been a lot of upset over the changes in ACFI. There has been a lot of concern about the unpredictability of the ACFI modelling and the instrument itself.

As the minister would know, ACFI is a complex tool for funding. For some time I have raised the matter of this model being broken, in my view. I understand that the sector is giving the minister the same message and that the government is giving the minister the same message. Indeed, the minister engaged the University of Wollongong to undertake a review of the aged care assessment classification and funding models and to provide options. We asked some questions in estimates about when the government is going to respond to the report from the University of Wollongong, and whether or not the government agreed with the recommendations of the report from the University of Wollongong. It was very difficult to get a straight answer. So it would be good if the minister could say today whether or not he will formally respond to the report from the University of Wollongong, when he will respond to the report from the University of Wollongong, whether or not he agrees that ACFI is no longer fit for purpose and whether he believes ACFI should be replaced with a new funding model or a blend of ACFI and something else. It would be useful for everybody in this place to understand these things.

The industry needs certainty and predictability of funding for aged care so that they can get beds online. The minister announced an Aged Care Approvals Round, ACAR, just last week, which is interesting because some of the places from the previous ACAR are still not filled. Some of those beds have not yet been put online. Some people in the sector do not have the capacity to bring them online because they are worried about the unpredictability and the lack of certainty in the sector and in future funding.

I understand that a separate review of ACFI is underway by Applied Aged Care Solutions. I would like to know whether that report is going to be publicly released, and when. There is also the Deloitte Access Economics report, which will provide an analysis of unmet demand and the potential implications of uncapping supply in aged care. I would like to know if that is going to be released publicly, and if so, when? There are the Ernst & Young review of residential aged care legislation and the Ernst & Young consultancy to undertake an Aged Care Funding Instrument audit. So there are lots of external consultants doing a lot of the work that, I think, the government should be doing. I am curious as to whether or not these reports are going to be publicly available. Minister, could you tell us if they will be and when they will be, and why the department is not doing this work?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When's that happening?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the minister who spoke then has done what he should do in consideration in detail. You have addressed the questions that were put to you by the shadow minister. We may not always agree with the answers, but you have attempted to systematically go through the problems that were raised in aged care, unlike the Minister for Health, who has not answered a single one of the questions that I asked him. Is there a public process for hospital funding? You have completely failed to answer the questions in relation to your secret task force on public hospitals, what your department was doing in relation to the Commonwealth hospital benefits schedule and what your process is from here on. You have failed to answer the question on Healthy Harold. Here is a health department that has failed to fund this program. Your education minister said, 'No, we didn't cut the program; it was Health.' I asked you a question about it, and you could not even answer that. This budget is a litany of failures of this government and of this minister—a failure to invest properly in prevention, a failure to immediately lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. You were unable to get that through cabinet—still 113 items. The government likes to points to the deals. Deals are not a long-term health plan or a long-term health reform plan; they are settlements of disputes. That is what you have attempted to do: settle disputes. This is not about the damage that you have done to relationships with the AMA or the college. It is about the damage you have done to the healthcare system. I look forward to the government starting to have a proper health reform agenda and a vision for health, rather than just words. (Time expired)

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being approximately 1 pm, the debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.