Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start with redress, an issue that both sides of the parliament understand is very important to survivors of child sexual abuse. As the minister would be aware, the Gillard government established the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse back in 2013. We expect to see the final report from the royal commission at the end of this year, and I am sure all members are united in thanking the survivors of child sexual abuse for coming forward and giving evidence to the royal commission. I want to take this opportunity to particularly acknowledge the extraordinary advocate, the late Anthony Foster, who passed away recently. He did so much to support so many survivors.

One of the recommendations of the royal commission's interim report was the establishment of a national redress scheme, and I acknowledge the money that the Commonwealth has allocated in the budget for the establishment of the redress scheme. Nevertheless, we on this side of the House are concerned with the very slow progress of getting agreement from the states and territories and from institutions. As the minister would be aware, survivors are very concerned that some institutions or some parts of institutions may not come forward and opt in to the scheme. That is why Labor does not agree with an opt-in approach. But, that said, that is the policy of the government and, given that it is the policy of the government, we want it to be as successful as possible.

I understand that the minister has met with state attorneys-general recently, so I ask him to update us on how many states or territories and institutions have signed up so far and whether he is confident of reaching agreement with the states and territories and all the relevant institutions so that the redress scheme can start from 1 July next year. There is one specific question that survivors have put to me, which I am sure he is aware of: Minister, is consideration being given to the issue of eligibility? How will redress be delivered in cases where survivors have passed away in recent years? Will family members of survivors who have passed away be eligible for redress?

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise and ask the minister a question in this consideration in detail. I want to raise the very important issue of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the wonderful investment that is occurring in my community of Geelong with the establishment of the national headquarters of the National Disability Insurance Agency.

As Corangamite constituents would know, construction of the national headquarters is just about to begin. It is a $120 million building, and it will also house workers from the Department of Human Services. This is a great boost to our region and, of course, a wonderful win. I want to acknowledge the very considerable work of the former Victorian coalition government, which contributed $25 million to assist in the relocation of the NDIA.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

I take issue with the interjection from the member opposite, because it was while—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who actually made the decision?

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please do not interject. Madam Deputy Speaker, could you please ask the member opposite not to interject. It is just rude—very, very rude.

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The chamber will settle down now. The member will stop; she has asked me to intervene. Normally in this chamber there is some allowance for interjection, but it is getting too noisy. I do not like interrupting speakers. I would rather wait till the end to make the point, but we need to keep it a little bit under control.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to acknowledge the work of the former Victorian Liberal government in putting $25 million on the table and actually making it a condition, when the former Labor government announced that decision, that the Liberals in Victoria wanted to see the national headquarters in Geelong. There has been a great celebration that we are rolling that out. Techni Development has been chosen to develop the building and this is going to deliver hundreds of jobs to our region—both direct and indirect jobs—which is absolutely wonderful. This is going to be a landmark building. Some 450 NDIA staff and contractors will be based there, and we are already seeing that, at full scheme, we will have some 105,000 participants across Victoria, with an estimated 14,850 full-time jobs created. So we are seeing an absolute boom as a result of our government's commitment.

I am a passionate supporter of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is already supporting nearly 3,000 participants in Corangamite. I do want to acknowledge the work of Barwon Child, Youth and Family, which was recently awarded a $4.3 million contract to support the rollout of the NDIS across the Barwon region. BCYF will draw on its early childhood knowledge to help determine appropriate supports for children aged from newborn up until six who have developmental delay or disability. That is a great win for Barwon Child, Youth and Family. They are based in both Geelong and Colac. That is a really good recent example of the way in which local agencies are working to support the rollout of the NDIS.

There has been a lot of discussion about the need to fully fund the NDIS, and I would like the minister to update the House on how the government is fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme so that all Australians with a permanent and significant disability can access the care they need to live. Is the minister also aware of any alternative approaches?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In following the extraordinary contribution from the member for Corangamite, I would say that, if she wants to take a bipartisan attitude, she might acknowledge that the decision to locate the National Disability Insurance Scheme head office in Geelong, in the member for Corio's electorate, was actually made by the former Prime Minister with the agreement of the former Liberal Premier. We are quite happy to give credit where it is due, which, unfortunately, the previous speaker is not.

When giving his response the minister might be reminded that this is a Social Services consideration in detail, so I hope he will stick to—and we will, of course, make sure that he does—the appropriations in this portfolio, not in other portfolios.

The question I want to turn to now is on a very significant change that the government has admitted that it is determined to pursue, and that is the policy to increase the pension age to 70. This means that people born from 1 January 1966 will have to work until they are 70 before they have access to the age pension. Of course, there are many people in their early 50s and late 40s who are thinking about their retirement—how much extra they are going to have to put away in superannuation and so on. They are now having to face the fact that this government is determined to increase the pension age to 70. We all remember the origin of this idea. It was the 2014 Commission of Audit, which contained the most horrific recommendations that led to this government attempting to cut billions of dollars out of the pockets of pensioners and families.

You might all remember the extraordinary attitude of the member for Warringah and the former Treasurer Joe Hockey. We had the famous quote of 'lifters and leaners'. One thing that remains from the 2014 budget is this policy of increasing the pension eligibility age to 70. Even the Commission of Audit had recommended that that not happen until 2035, which is a full 18 years later than the government has actually decided. We did find out at Senate estimates that the government is going to see $3.6 billion come out of the pockets of these Australians as a result of this decision. This minister, of course, thinks this is a sensible decision. I want to quote from someone who has emailed me. Her name is Mandy, and she wrote:

It's unbelievable and disgraceful that the age pension age should be raised to 70 for those born after January 1966, and, as someone born in 1967, I find it particularly scary. My husband's in his early 50s and works in a very physical factory job which he couldn't possibly still work at when he's 70. I'm 50 and, after retraining for a new career start, I'm finding it impossible to find a job.

So many Australians are very concerned about this, so I ask the minister: when are you introducing the legislation to increase the age pension age to 70? When will that actually happen, Minister? Can the minister tell us how many Australians currently in the workforce will be affected by this proposal? If he does not have these numbers, I will put these questions on notice. For each year from 2025 until the change to age 70 is implemented, how many people in each age category are going to be affected? Can the minister tell us what other country is planning to increase the qualifying age of the age pension to 70?

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

The member made an important point during her contribution which I will remind the House of. We are considering at the moment the Social Services portfolio, but the Human Services portfolio will follow subsequently. Could people make sure that they correctly direct their questions to the minister during this period.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for enlightening me on what questions I should ask the minister. It is great to have the minister in the chamber and to see him here. He—and I am guessing the member for Jagajaga—will know what sorts of questions I am going to focus on.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

I just heard you talking about and asking the minister about the redress scheme. It is great that the minister used to be part of a government that probably gave the most generous redress scheme in the whole of Australia, the Redress WA scheme. So, Minister, you are part of two governments now that have been part of redress schemes that have been set up. This one is a national redress scheme which, unfortunately, when the apology was done in November 2009—

Ms Macklin interjecting—

It was a long time ago, Jenny. I remember being down at the parliament house in Victoria with you and we worked on the committee together. It is a great memory for the many people who came to Canberra—over 1,000 people visited. It has been part of a journey for them and a journey we have shared as well. It has been very important for them. The sooner we can establish this national redress scheme and make sure it works and has the best outcomes for those people who are, as you call them, survivors who have been through enormous pain during their journey, the better it will be. It was great to be part of that and to be part of the announcement in November last year when I joined with the minister in my home city of Perth as he announced that this government would establish a Commonwealth redress scheme for survivors of institutional child sex abuse. He invited the states and territories and non-government institutes to join the Commonwealth scheme to deliver redress to survivors. The member for Jagajaga and I have spoken about our efforts to try and get the states to come onboard. I can inform the member for Jagajaga that I wrote to the new Premier of Western Australia four weeks ago and, unfortunately, have not heard back from him at all—not one peep. It is a bit unfortunate because I know Minister Sue Ellery was very vocal and very supportive of a national redress scheme. So I am looking forward to a positive response from the new Premier.

In my maiden speech in the House, which was almost 10 years ago now, I said I wanted to bring the focus onto this national issue. Since then I have been advocating for a redress scheme with members on both sides of the House so that institutions who inflicted this abuse can be held accountable for what they did to far too many of this nation's children. In 2012, I welcomed an announcement by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard that a royal commission inquiry would be held into institutional responses to child sex abuse, which myself and members on the other side of the chamber called for. In March 2017, the royal commission had its 57th and final public hearing. Since its commencement, the commission has held public hearings in every state and territory and identified more than 4,000 institutions where abuse took place. More than 6,500 victims who gave private evidence said more than one person had abused them. I would like to take this opportunity to, again, acknowledge the victims and the survivors and thank each and every one of them who gave evidence. I know how traumatic it would have been for many of those people who did that.

It is very difficult for those who have suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse or trauma to relive their abuse when telling their personal stories. When I have joined with the member for Jagajaga and we have met with survivors, I found they had an underlying current within their personality of anger, which comes from the time and the abuse they received while they were in these institutions. Without their courage to share their experiences, without their bravery in having to explain their ordeals, a scheme like this would never have been established.

The Turnbull government listened to the survivors, and I know the minister and the Prime Minister will probably be sick of me beating a pathway to their doors with regard to this issue, but, finally, it was announced. We are demonstrating national leadership in following the royal commission's recommendations by developing a best practice, simple and supportive redress scheme for survivors. The Commonwealth will lead the development of the scheme and seek corporation of the states and territories to create a nationally consistent approach to redress. I know some of the institutions and charities have come onboard, and we can only hope that some of the states who are holding out will come onboard. Minister, the budget includes funding to establish this Commonwealth redress scheme. Can you provide detail on the package and how a Commonwealth redress scheme will actually help the survivors of abuse in Commonwealth institutions, not only in redress but also through the services they need and require to help them deal with the abuse that they have had over many years?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, last year in October, I asked you about the commitment in the Women's Safety Package of September 2015 of $12 million to trial with the states the use of innovative technology to keep women safe, such as GPS trackers for perpetrators, with funding to be matched by the states and territories. In October 2016, which is more than a year after the announcement had been made by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, you told us that only 1½ per cent of the total of the $12 million for that trial of the use of innovative technology to keep women safe had actually been spent. That was one measure worth $180,000. The remaining $11,820,000 had not yet gone towards keeping women safe. This was a major measure in the Women's Safety Package, but unfortunately very little has actually been committed. Minister, can you update the House as to what has been done since October 2016 with the $12 million that was committed for innovative technology to keep women safe? Has further money been spent from that $12 million allocation? If so, on what has that further money been spent? What projects have come to fruition in the intervening period? What proportion of the $12 million allocation has actually been spent to date?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will commence with redress. Two honourable members have raised the issue of redress and raised a variety of issues. Both of them mentioned the allocation in the recent budget. That is a very important allocation—funding of $33.4 million for 2017-18. That is funding that is shared between the Department of Human Services and the Attorney-General's Department to the separate amounts of $23.6 million and $1.61 million, and DSS to the amount of $6.04 million. That, in effect, allows us to commence the establishment of the administrative bureaucracy that will actually run the redress scheme. So it is very much evidence of the commitment to the scheme, the commitment to the 1 July 2018 commencement and very important money that is established in this budget.

With respect to redress, the member for Jagajaga asked how the redress scheme is envisaged to deal with people who have passed away. My recollection is that we are following the recommendation of the royal commission—I think it was recommendation 47. The royal commission recommended that redress should only be available for applicants who are alive at the time that the redress scheme is operative and available. We are following that recommendation, which is to say that the scheme is not envisaged to be available for those people who have passed away. We will have a system of prioritisation so that those people who are in aged categories or in categories of ill health will be at the absolute front of the applicants queue and considered first. In that respect, we are abiding by the royal commission's recommendation but also recognising that, of course, timing is important here. We will be making every effort and giving administrative consideration to bringing forward and making a priority those applications that represent people who are in conditions of frailty or ill health or who are aged.

As to the issue, by way of passing, that you raised as to Labor's view that it should not be an opt-in scheme, the observation I would offer there is that we are following the royal commission recommendations very closely. Given the constitutional status of the Commonwealth's ability to operate this scheme, it is hard to envisage that there could be any scheme other than that which we would describe as an opt-in scheme. You then say that progress has been, in your words, slow. The progress, I think, represents the significance of the challenge in front of us. I would not describe it as slow; I would describe the progress as substantial and positive. The meeting that we had with attorneys-general was very positive. Issues were raised there, but none of them seemed to anyone in the room to be insurmountable issues that would cause a barrier to any jurisdiction entering. As an observation, the tone, language and constructive nature of that meeting was very different from some of the public statements that have been made. As you are well aware, there were what I would describe as unfortunate early public statements from the South Australian government that they did not have an intention to join the scheme. Those were not statements that were repeated in the attorneys-general meeting that I presented at. But there were issues raised, and these issues probably come as no surprise to you, Member for Jagajaga, or anyone else here. There were issues around funding of last resort, around the nature of the administrative costs and how they would be delineated and how we would communicate those, and around the legislation itself. The intention is to have draft legislation available relatively soon. I am giving consideration at the moment as to how we would release a form of that draft for open comment. I think that that is important to garner as much confidence in the joining parties.

On the issue of non-government institutions, so the churches and charities, a range of complications arise whereby organisations that we would see from the outside as representing a single unit are administratively and structurally a combination of a variety of different decision-making units. I will use a few examples of meetings that I have had recently. Scouts Australia is not one body but a federation of individual state bodies, each of which, they inform me, would need to make an individual decision about opting into the scheme. The Anglican Church represents a range of dioceses, all of which have independent decision-making power. It is also important to have Anglican schools in the scheme. It is also important to have Anglicare in the scheme, and Anglicare itself has two decision-making bodies inside it.

So the stage that I am at, at the moment, is the point at which we are formalising our approaches to get some kind of formal recognition of an opt-in, and we are trying to delineate exactly who that should be made with. (Time expired)

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the minister again to respond to my questions about the progress in relation to the $12 million allocation made in September 2015 for innovative technologies to help keep women safe, a matter I asked him about in October 2016. I now ask him again to update the chamber in respect of the progress of that funding allocation for those innovative technologies, given that in October 2016 he told the chamber that only 1½ per cent of the money had been spent in the more than one year that had elapsed since the announcement had been made.

I also ask the minister to address some questions in respect of the 1800RESPECT trauma-counselling service. When will the tender process be finalised? How long will the term of the new service agreement be? Will the minister commit to ensuring that 1800RESPECT is funded for the remainder of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Their Children, which runs from 2010 to 2022? Is the minister able to confirm that the government will ensure that victims and survivors who contact 1800RESPECT are able to speak to someone who is in a professional setting, not working from home, who is a counsellor with a four-year-minimum degree and who has specific trauma-counselling experience and expertise?

Will the minister finally take action to prevent Medibank Health Solutions from gagging the subcontractor, Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, from making public comments critical of the system? I appreciate that the minister has previously said that is a matter between the subcontractor and Medibank Health Solutions, but of course this government is not a bystander; this government is responsible for ensuring that trauma counselling is provided to victims and survivors of family violence, and the minister ought to take action to ensure that the subcontractor is able to raise concerns about the quality and extent of the service being provided to victims and survivors of family violence who are contacting 1800RESPECT.

I ask that the minister also address some comments made by the department in estimates in March 2017 in which they indicated that $3.6 million had been allocated in 2015 by the department to Medibank Health Solutions for the engagement of 50 extra staff. Would the minister explain how many extra staff were engaged directly by Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia using that $3.6 million allocation that his department spoke about at estimates in March 2017? And does the minister stand by the department's answer in respect of the four-day expression-of-interest process for Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia to express interest in continuing to be the service provider for the 1800RESPECT service, whereby the department said that they thought that that was an appropriate length of time? If so, will the minister explain how giving someone notice on a Tuesday that they need to express interest by Friday of the same week, when that service provider is a respected trauma-counselling service and has been providing the service since earlier than 2010, is appropriate and why the minister stands by the comments of the department in that regard?

Finally, will the minister advise the chamber as to the progress of the expenditure of $14 million that was allocated in the 2015 women's safety package for DV-alert training? Will the minister advise how much of that $14 million has been spent since September 2015? Will the minister advise whether that training is to be made available to people beyond health and community services frontline workers who are likely to receive disclosures of family violence?

For example, will the training be made available to people in the retail and services trades and occupations who might be likely to receive disclosures of family violence, such as the hairdressing service community?

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the Minister for Social Services for this opportunity to have a look at the budget around social services in some more detail. I recognise that it is a part of the budget that is a significant expenditure. It is important that we ensure that we spend the public's money in a very proper manner.

I would like to reflect on one of the announcements in the budget and direct a question to the minister on the issue of the Newstart drug testing. I think we are all well aware that we have a significant issue in this country with illicit drugs in our community. This battle is a very tough one. We see every single day families who are affected by drugs, and, unfortunately, drugs do not discriminate; it can be a poor family, a middle-class family or a wealthy family.

In addition to that, it is not just those who are taking drugs and the problems that that creates for them and their families, but also all of the associated impacts on the community. Our frontline health services, our paramedics—those people are put at the forefront every day of dealing with people affected by drugs. The task before them is immense and, in many cases, it greatly affects those people. We regularly see reports of paramedics being bashed and hit by people who are affected by drugs. There certainly has been a very public discussion in Queensland about the issue of how paramedics are being treated and how we can help deal with those issues.

One of the ways that I can see for how we can help with that issue—and this is, in part, the purpose of this measure in the budget—is helping people get off drugs. The best thing we can do is help get them off drugs and restart and rebuild their lives. In taking these steps, we are seeking to encourage people to re-enter the workforce or, if they need, to retrain.

My question to the minister is: with the announcement in the budget, could the minister please provide some more detail as to how the trial for drug testing is going to work for the proposed 5,000 recipients of the Newstart allowance and youth allowance who will be in the random drug testing trial? What are the benefits that we are potentially going to see as a result of that to help give these people a hand up to allow them to rebuild their lives and make a genuine contribution to the community, which we all know they can?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the time remaining, I hope we will have answers from the Minister for Social Services to all of the questions that the member for Griffith has already made to him and also the questions that I put to him on the government's decision to increase the age pension age to 70.

I want to turn now to another new item in the budget this year, and that is the government's decision to abolish the bereavement allowance. As the minister knows, the bereavement allowance is a fortnightly payment paid for a maximum of 14 weeks from the date of the death of a spouse. I would like to get some details from the minister about how this is actually going to work. How many people will lose the bereavement allowance? How many people will be worse off on each of the different payments that will be affected? Could the minister outline each of the different payments people are on that are expected to lose the bereavement allowance, how much worse off they will be and—I am sure the department has this figure—how much worse off, on average, people will be over the 14 weeks?

This is just the latest cut from this government. We have seen some extraordinary efforts over the last four years. In the main, most of the horrific cuts have not got through the parliament. Some of the people on the other side may have forgotten—but we have not—that the Liberal-National government tried to cut more than $8 billion out of the pockets of family payments recipients. It wanted to cut indexation of the pension, which would have seen pensioners lose an extraordinary amount of money over the next 10 years. Fortunately, the vast majority of these cuts have not got through the parliament and Labor has been able to protect the poorest people in this country.

This latest cut of the bereavement allowance is extraordinary. I would like the minister to answer these specific questions: how much worse off will people be; how much will they lose as a result of the abolition of the bereavement allowance; and what are the details of each of the different categories of income support recipients who will lose that payment?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will begin with the questions around the RDVSA and the redress issue. I met with MHS very recently. The tender process, I understand, is drawing to a conclusion and will be finalised soon. With respect to the observation that there was a relatively short time to put in expressions of interest to the tender, I am advised that a short time for providing expressions of interest to a tender process is not at all unusual.

The independent probity officer was consulted on the time frame of the tender process overall, including the time allowed for organisations to respond to the EOI. The time for the EOI was determined to be in line with the level of information required in the EOI. With the formal tender process itself, the applicants were given 30 days to submit their tender documentation, so a short time in which to offer an EOI—it is a very simple thing to offer an EOI in the context. That was seen as reasonable by the probity officer. Those submitting their tender documentation, which RDVSA did, I understood, and in good time, were given 30 days to submit that tender documentation.

The other question was with respect to the $4 million provided in May 2015: how much of that went to RDVSA, and what the effect of that was on staffing. That was $4 million; $3.6 million of that went directly to RDVSA, which was to allow for a 50 per cent increase in staff to RDVSA. The expectation, in those circumstances, was that with that very large increase in funding, and the commensurate 50 per cent increase in staff levels at that point, there would have been a commensurate increase, an improvement, in the timeliness of calls being answered and the number of calls being answered. That did not materialise.

I have met with the union on this issue. They put the proposition that the reason it did not materialise is that there was a commensurate increase in the number of calls coming in. None of the data reflects that at all. The increase in the number of incoming calls was modest compared to the increase in funding and staffing, and so there is no explanation as to why there was not the significant improvement that we were expecting. Had we done nothing at that point, it is quite clear that we would have had a persistence of the outcomes we had been getting up to that point.

For the honourable member's benefit, the problems we were having at that point were that in the final quarter of 2015-16, following the full increase in staff—that is, the 50 per cent increase—approximately a third of calls were unanswered and the maximum wait time recorded was 88 minutes. So the reason why we took the action that we did to reform the system and offer the model that is now in operation was that that very significant increase in funding did not produce anywhere near the results that were expected or that were acceptable.

Following that, the government announced $5 million further to improve 1800RESPECT. However, that funding was provided following an independent review into the 1800RESPECT operational model, the first responder triage model. On 16 August 2016, 73 per cent of calls were answered within 20 seconds. The data from MHS between 16 August 2016 and 31 March 2017 shows that approximately 30 per cent of callers required intensive support provided by trauma specialist counsellors. The MHS data on call outcomes also shows that, of the remaining callers, 38.1 per cent received information, 34 per cent received initial trauma informed counselling and education, 19.2 per cent received information about provider options, 8.3 per cent discussed safety plans, and a small number—0.4 per cent—resulted in mandatory reporting to relevant state based—

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many of those had four-year degrees?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry?

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four-year degrees or sitting at home: those were the two aspects I asked you about.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there are various qualifications of the two groups. My recollection is that the first responders have at least a three-year minimum degree plus experience in a relevant field. There is slightly greater qualification for the RDVSA. But the whole point is that 8.6 per cent of the calls that went into 1800RESPECT were classified as crisis calls. To operate a system like this without any kind of differentiation at the opening point of the call meant that we were getting terrible results for callers. (Time expired)

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe there are still a few minutes left in the Social Services portfolio, so I want to again, for the third time, ask the minister to address my question about the $12 million allocation back in September 2015 in relation to innovative technologies to keep women safe, which we asked about in October 2016. By that time, only 1½ per cent had actually been spent.

I would also like to add another question to the minister: of the $20 million announced in October 2016 for the prevention and early intervention programs to break the cycle of domestic and family violence, how much of that allocation has been spent? Could the minister also answer the questions that the member for Jagajaga has asked in respect of the age pension and retirement age?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect to the funding that you have just raised, $180,000, as you note, has been applied to the South Australian scheme. There has been a further $1.8 million agreed, and we can provide details of that. There is also $8 million which is in negotiations. From the Commonwealth's perspective, we are ready to go with those, but, because this is a cooperative program with the states, the greater volume of that $8 million is pending approval by state cabinets. Otherwise, the Commonwealth's position on that is fixed and, as far as we are concerned, that money is ready to flow.

With respect to the pension age issue, it is very interesting that the member for Jagajaga noted that the relevant report that recommended this measure said that the pension age should not be lifted to 70 until 2035, which is what the member for Jagajaga noted. The government policy is not to lift the pension age to 70 until 2035. So the way in which this issue has been—

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Well, Member for Jagajaga, what you said was that the relevant report that recommended this said that the pension age should not be lifted to 70 until 2035. In fact—

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Well, Member, as you know, it is staggered over a period of time, but a child born today would have their 18th birthday—

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Jagajaga will cease interjecting.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

before the pension age hit 70.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could the minister please advise: of the $20 million for the prevention and early intervention programs to break the cycle of domestic and family violence announced in October 2016, how much has been spent?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Griffith. Before I continue, could I ask members in the chamber to cease interjecting, particularly when I ask for that to happen.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a separate question to the information that I just gave. That $20 million, I understand, was announced at the end of last year, and that is all under negotiations with the states at the moment. But again that requires state cabinet approval on all the cooperative schemes, and that process is underway.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Minister for Social Services. The Federation Chamber will now consider the Human Services segment of the Social Services portfolio in accordance with the agreed order of consideration. I call the Minister for Human Services.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the time that I have available, I would like to briefly discuss the things which Centrelink particularly and, more broadly, my department are managing, and also the projects which we have underway to improve the operations. As you would be aware, Centrelink is often under scrutiny, particularly by the Fairfax press, TheGuardian and, indeed, on a very regular basis by the Labor Party, and I think very unfairly in many cases. I would like to take the chamber and, through this chamber, the parliament through exactly some of the work that it does—the very good work that it and its 35,000 staff do on a daily basis.

First of all, let me give you the context. The Department of Human Services, apart from Defence, is the largest department. There are about 35,000 staff. It is equivalent to the size of Westpac in its size and in the processes that it operates, and the amount of money which it distributes. When you look at the work that it does on a daily basis, it is actually quite extraordinary. Each year, the organisation manages about 212 million transactions. Each fortnight, five million Australians receive a payment to support them with their day-to-day living costs. They get that payment each fortnight, they get it accurately and they get it on time. Those people are beneficiaries of that payment to help with their food, their clothing, their rents and other expenses. The department does that exceptionally well. I think we need to bear that in context.

The department sees 20 million people through its doors each and every year. By and large, the people who go to the Centrelink or the Centrelink and Medicare service centres get good treatment. They wait on average about 10 minutes before they get to see someone. But then they see a professional person who deals with their issues appropriately and, by and large, deals with their issues well and on time. You get people who appreciate the professionalism of those Centrelink officers. The department handles 56 million calls each and every year—again, an extraordinary number. Each year, that number increases in terms of how many calls it has to take.

Of course, as members would know, when an emergency occurs, such as recent floods which have occurred in New South Wales and Queensland, the department is exceptionally good at immediately putting its people into operation and ensuring that there are emergency relief payments available for people. And it does that within days—under the radar, frequently, without people being aware of it. It does that professionally without missing a beat, so the people who are in need get those payments. These are the types of things that sometimes I do not think the Labor Party and some members of the Fairfax press or The Guardian fully appreciate—in terms of all of the very good work which goes on.

Ms Burney interjecting—

I know that the member for Barton is interjecting there. She is a relatively new member. I think that it would be nice from time to time that she would recognise the good work which the Centrelink officers do.

Ms Burney interjecting—

At the moment, on top of the work which is already done, we have a huge investment in IT projects. This means that our welfare payment system is going to be upgraded in the years ahead, so we will have a much more seamless interaction. We already do an enormous amount in the digital space. There is still a lot more work to do, but about 130 million out of those 212 million transactions are already done digitally. People do not have to call the call centres and do not have to go to a Centrelink office. They can do all of their business online. We are improving those digital interfaces on a very regular basis. When you look at the Medicare payment system, which we also operate within the Department of Human Services, 97 per cent of transactions are now all done digitally. People know that they can go to the GP, see the GP and swipe their card, and they know they do not need to do anything else in 97 per cent of occasions. We hope that number continues to increase so that people do not have to take a paper based claim anywhere.

In the budget, we are putting 250 more people towards answering phones so that those call wait times can be lower. We know that, for many people, call wait times are too long, and we are working hard to reduce those call wait times, including investing in the technology so that people never have to call in the first place. It is a good record for Centrelink, and I would like the Labor Party to actually acknowledge that from time to time. (Time expired)

Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his attendance in the chamber today. It is a shame that the Human Services portfolio is only allowed 30 minutes for consideration in detail. It makes sense, though, given the complete lack of detail the minister has included in his departmental budget. We cannot consider where his 1,188 job cuts will come from—the department does not know, and the budget papers do not tell us. We cannot consider how his department will implement his drug-testing policy—the department says it has not planned it yet. We cannot consider how much it will cost—he does not know. He cannot tell us if it will work—he has not even looked at the experience with similar policies overseas. We cannot consider his new demerit system—he has not provided us with any actual detail, other than a few words he has provided to the media. We cannot consider his 250 privatised call centre jobs—he will not say how much they will cost or how much of a difference they will make.

Those opposite are very fond of dropping stories to the media, but, when it comes to detail, they are nowhere to be found. This is what we do know. The minister is happy to smear suburbs and electorates as being full of dole bludgers. He was happy to let robo-debt continue for months, even though everyone knew it was broken, and he has no problem expanding it to vulnerable age pensioners and DSP recipients. He knows there are 42 million calls a year which cannot get through to Centrelink. He sees no problem in making age pensioners wait over 20 minutes on the phone just to hear a human voice, while people with disability wait over half an hour. And he has no issue in paying PricewaterhouseCoopers $150,000 to provide a report on how to improve service standards and then totally ignoring its recommendations.

This is typical 'lifters versus leaners' thinking. The problem with this view coming from the top of the Department of Human Services is that it infects the culture of the entire organisation. Staff are demoralised and feel helpless to assist with those who contact them and who clearly need assistance. I know because I meet with them. This is the thinking that saw a woman who contacted my office recently—after leaving, with her children, a violent relationship and obtaining an AVO against her violent ex-husband—unable to get assistance from Centrelink for months. Centrelink staff wanted to help, but they did not feel that they could. This is the thinking that saw an age pensioner's payment withheld after she was wrongfully accused of owing a debt. It is the kind of thinking that says that it is age pensioners, people with disability and jobseekers against everyone else.

Overwhelmingly, people do not choose to be unemployed, Minister. They certainly do not choose to get older and live with a disability or to have a sick family member and have to become a carer. People who can work should work, and those who do not need assistance or are defrauding the system should be punished. There is no disagreement on this side with those points. But, given the minister's behaviour over last year and his claim yesterday that he would save $600 million through the government's ninth or 10th welfare crackdown, my question is a simple one: after robo-debt, after the fudging of the figures on call wait times, after his ethically reprehensible privacy leak, which we still have not gotten to the bottom of, how on earth can we trust this minister? How on earth can we trust this government to do the right thing by people who are seeking to do the right thing?

The robo-debt debacle was shameful, absolutely shameful. You know, in the department, that people have become sick, people have hurt themselves and people have taken their lives because of the blunders of this minister and the blunders of the top end of the department. I met with Centrelink staff the other day up in the Tweed, and they told me how they are feeling. They told me what they thought of the higher echelons of this agency. My question is: Minister, do you have a plan to improve service standards to make sure there are enough Centrelink staff to enforce compliance and answer phones, or do you just have a plan to punish honest Australians? That is my question, Minister.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I would like to begin by thanking you for making your time available this morning to answer our questions. I very much appreciate the opportunity to do that. Minister, my question today relates to the cashless debit card. To put some context around this question: the cashless debit card legislation was passed in 2015 with bipartisan support, so I acknowledge that support from the opposition, thank them for that support and hope that it is ongoing. Minister, as you know, after that legislation was passed, you instituted two trials, one in Ceduna and one in the East Kimberley.

My personal interest in this came from a series of suicides amongst young people in the town of Leonora, in my electorate, and a plea for help from that particular community. To your great credit, you responded almost immediately to my request for you to visit, meet with the community and perhaps discuss the possibility of a cashless debit card trial in that community. That meeting took place in Leonora in late 2015, and the community was very, very supportive of that process. There were some hiccups along the way in implementing that particular trial, and then we had an election, and you quite rightly pointed out that we were out of sync with the other trial sites and that perhaps we should wait and see how things develop.

I guess the important point to make here, Minister, is that you have always maintained that there will be no trial imposed on a community that does not want and welcome a trial site. To update you, Minister, on where we are at: the regional councils on the Goldfields of Western Australia, in my electorate of O'Connor, requested some more information on a cashless debit card trial, and once again you responded very quickly to that call, visited Kalgoorlie a month or so ago and met with those stakeholders. I am very pleased to report that the consultation and the extra information that those communities requested have been rolled out. I have certainly been meeting with stakeholders as often as I possibly can to provide any further information that they require.

Minister, the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder has organised a trip for local community leaders to go to Ceduna, meet with the stakeholders in Ceduna and get an update firsthand on how the trial site is working in their community. I also can report that people from the shires of Menzies and Coolgardie and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder will be coming here to Canberra next week as part of Local Government Week, but they are also very interested in meeting with you and giving you an update on how the consultations are going in their communities.

So, Minister, my question is: can you update the Chamber on the progress of the cashless debit card trial at the two existing sites, and can you comment and give any further information on any additional sites?

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will come to the cashless debit card trials second, but let me just first address a couple of the points from the member for Barton. I gave the opportunity and set the challenge to the member for Barton to say one positive thing about the work from the 35,000 dedicated Department of Human Services staff, and in all the five minutes not one positive thing could she say, despite the fact that they ensure that every fortnight five million people get their payments on time, accurately, to support them to pay the rent, to buy food and to pay for all of the essentials. Not once would she admit that they do some good work and by and large do a very good job.

She asked me: what are the plans to improve service standards? I outlined some of those things, but I will just recap on some of those. One, we are now investing a billion dollars a year in upgrading our information technology services—a billion dollars a year. This is not something which the Labor Party invested in; they just kicked the can down the road. But we are investing in the technology to improve services. We have improved the myGov site, and so now we have almost 11 million Australians—

Ms Burney interjecting—

who log onto myGov and have a record on myGov—hundreds of thousands of people, each and every week. We are making process improvements right now. Already, for example, we have brought the youth allowance processing time down from nine weeks to about 4½ to five weeks. We are also looking at other processes and improving the processes before these large IT processes kick in. And in the budget we are putting funding towards 250 additional people answering telephones. The member for Barton has not been around for very long, but she is constantly saying that we have been cutting staff and that that has been contributing to the so-called problems which she alludes to. I would like to ask the member for Barton—right here in this chamber—to look at the record, because the record will show that, when the Labor Party were in office, they cut 3½ thousand staff out of the Department of Human Services. And in that time what happened to call wait times? Call wait times went from three minutes up to 12 minutes in that time—because Labor ripped 3½ thousand staff out of the Department of Human Services. Look at the record, Member for Barton! She is in here every day saying that we are cutting staff, and in fact they are the ones that ripped 3½ thousand staff out of the Department of Human Services—they closed 110 Medicare and Centrelink offices. If you look at what we have done, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Ms Burney interjecting—

the staff levels have basically been constant since we have been in office and, as I have just alluded to, 250 more people will be answering telephones in the near future.

Let me get to the cashless debit card, which the member for O'Connor raised. That has been going as well as we could have possibly hoped in the two trial sites. I know that there are many members of the O'Connor electorate, community leaders, who would like the cashless debit card trial to be rolled out into the Kalgoorlie, Laverton and Leonora area. I have now been there several times with the member for O'Connor. I have spoken with many of the community leaders: some have been very impassioned about the desire for the card and the associated services to come to those locations because they are, quite frequently, in desperate situations. I recall a meeting which the member for O'Connor and I attended with some senior female elders who were pleading with us to introduce this card because of the state of the community, where they see desperate situations, with children roaming around at night in the streets because, as one of the elders said—and I will not mention her name—it is safer for them to be roaming in the streets than, often, it is to be in their homes. And she said that, unless we get on top of the alcohol, we are not going to address many of the other problems. So we are having a look at the Kalgoorlie, Laverton and Leonora area to see whether or not it is an appropriate location for a trial. As the member for O'Connor said, we will roll this card out into places where the community leadership would like it to be introduced. That is the basis for it. To date, we have had good support, but there is still more work to do. It is pleasing to hear that some of those leaders will be going across to Ceduna to find out firsthand on the ground there how people think it is going. This is not a panacea, but it can make a real difference on the ground to some troubled communities.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to remind the member for Barton that she is warned and to issue a general warning to members to my left that I will have no hesitation in using standing order 187 to direct a member or members to leave the room for a period of 15 minutes. It is the fact that I cannot hear the response by the Minister for Human Services when he is speaking. I would ask those members to my left to pay the same respect to the minister that is paid to them when they are speaking.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Davoren Park—which used to be called Elizabeth West—is a proud working-class suburb. It is a suburb where people have worked hard to scrape together enough money for a house, and enough money to settle, to go to school, to go to university, to go to work and to live proudly. I am thinking about people like Betty and Caesar Alberton—Caesar, who worked at Holden, and Betty, who has been a tireless advocate for the community and has worked hard for the community. The people of Davoren Park had to wake up yesterday, open The Advertiser to page 5 and read the headline 'Davoren Park is bludger central'. I have rung the Adelaide Advertiser about this headline and I have rung the journalist concerned about this headline about the damage it does and about the vicious nature of this headline. I have expressed my contempt for that headline.

That headline would never have occurred were it not for this minister. This minister comes into this room and talks about 35,000 hardworking staff—and they are hardworking and they are decent Australians. The problem is that they have an incompetent clown minister at the wheel. He is presiding over all of these disasters and then coming in here and hectoring us and asking for your protection like he is some sort of delicate flower, and yet he is rolling out these smears on working-class Australians and their suburbs. What does that do for those areas? What does it do for the northern suburbs? What does it do for Davoren Park? Does it do one ounce of good? Does it give anybody any hope? Does it make anybody get out of bed and say, 'Gee whiz, I'm going to try extra hard today'? It does not do any of those things. It is all about this rancid, vicious, nasty politics of smear. You should be ashamed of yourself. It is not just Davoren Park—

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield will address his remarks through the chair.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am allowed to have my go without your intervention, Deputy Speaker. If you want to eject me from the chamber, I would welcome it.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield will resume his seat. I would ask the member for Wakefield to refer to members by their proper title and to address his remarks through the chair.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And to respect the chair.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She doesn't need your help.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will respect the chair when you respect Davoren Park. I will respect the chair when you respect Blacktown.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield will resume his seat. I have asked the member for Wakefield to address his remarks through the chair and to address members by their proper title, not to use the word 'you'. Member for Wakefield, if this occurs again, I will ask you to remove yourself from the chamber for 15 minutes under standing order 187.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am quaking in my boots! If you think threatening me with getting kicked out is going to prevent me from expressing my views, you have got another think coming. This minister deserves the contempt of this House, as he deserves the contempt of every fair-minded Australian. This House should condemn him because he briefs the papers—he did—in this country: 'These are facts.' He proudly briefs the facts, smearing suburbs and smearing good Australians. And on what basis did he smear Davoren Park over? On the basis of 124 people. There are 5,000 people in Davoren Park. There are many, many more in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. There are many, many more suburbs all over this country, and they had to wake up yesterday and read this in the paper.

My question to the minister—if I am allowed to put it—is: what does he say to Betty Alberton and Caesar Alberton who live in Davoren Park? What does he say to those people who have worked hard all of their lives to buy a house in Davoren Park and who woke up yesterday to find that they are in bludger central—according to the Adelaide Advertiser? This is generated by this minister and this government, and he should be ashamed of himself.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to talk on this topic as well because one of the suburbs in my electorate was also named in the headlines yesterday in different papers right around the country. I think it was at No. 5, Deception Bay. Yes, there are people on welfare in my electorate in Deception Bay and, yes, there are some people that are not doing the right thing. But, overwhelmingly, the majority of people are hardworking; they go to work each day and they pay off their house. I will tell you what, I do not mind the truth being told, and that is what I endeavour to do as the member for Petrie. I endeavour to tell the truth and to talk about local issues. The fact is that, when it comes to welfare, one of those suburbs in my electorate has a higher percentage than normal.

As a member it is good for me to know that so I can address it, so I can continue to do things like my jobseeker boot camps that I do right around the electorate. We have good form in Petrie. Since the 2013 election, when I was elected, we have seen a big drop in youth unemployment. A lot of that has come down to jobseeker boot camps, encouraging businesses to hire local people. The member for Barton, opposite, gets up and reflects on the—I am out, regularly, talking to Centrelink officers in my electorate as well.

Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So am I!

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And so are we on this side of the Chamber. You are not the only one. There are other good members in this Chamber who get out there and do everything that you accuse the minister of not doing. Wake up. The Labor Party does not represent all Australians. In fact, the coalition are in government, and we reflect more than you do.

Ms Burney interjecting—

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barton will remove herself under standing order 187 for a period of 15 minutes. I have warned the member for Barton previously about interjecting, and I would ask her to remove herself from the Chamber.

The member for Barton then left the Federation Chamber .

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would say to the minister that there are suburbs in my electorate as well that have higher rates of unemployment and higher rates of noncompliance. Please could the minister address, a little bit, how as a government we are helping those people get back to work, be ready for work, get on with their lives and significantly improve their lives. Could he also tell me a little bit about the welfare compliance system and how it will work, how it will help the local people of Petrie.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2015 the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs released a unanimous bipartisan report regarding the inquiry into the child support program. The report was called From conflict to cooperation. That report recommended establishing a dedicated family violence response unit within the Department of Human Services. In the government's response to the report it did not agree with this recommendation but advised that the department had a family and domestic violence risk identification and referral process. There had been a scoping study on that process, in the previous year or two, in the government's response to the report.

I would be appreciative if the minister could provide an update on the department's progress on that family and domestic violence risk identification and referral process. In doing so, I would like the minister to advise how many clients to date have been referred to support services via that risk identification and referral process; whether that process is being rolled out across Centrelink and through child support agency personnel; and how the minister's cuts to 1,200 jobs in DHS will affect DHS's capacity to identify risk and refer people who are victims and survivors of family violence who are in contact with child support, Centrelink or other agencies.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have had three questions put to me now: one from the member for Wakefield, one from the member for Petrie and one from the member for Griffith. I will address, first of all, the two issues that are interrelated, from the member for Wakefield and the member for Petrie. It is a shame the member for Wakefield did not bother to be around to listen to the answer to his question. That indicates the seriousness of it. But I know the member for Petrie is here, and his question relates to it. Both were in relation to data on our new compliance system, which was in the newspapers yesterday. First of all, let me clarify that the data in the newspapers yesterday actually showed not the numbers of people who were on welfare in a particular area but the numbers of people who had repeatedly and consistently missed appointments, missed job interviews or failed to accept jobs that were offered to them. The unfortunate reality is that they are concentrated in certain areas.

I always point out, and I point out again today, that when you look at all of the jobseekers in Australia you will see that two-thirds are hungry to find work, never miss a beat and never miss an appointment, but there is a cohort of about 100,000 people in Australia who consistently and repeatedly fail to turn up to their appointments, fail to turn up to job interviews and turn down jobs that are offered to them. To date, many of them have been able to get away with it with very few repercussions. We believe that about half of those people may have some issues going on in their lives that we may not know about. There may be a domestic violence issue, as the member for Griffith was referring to, there may be a homelessness issue, or there may be something else that we want to know about to be able to offer assistance. But with the other half of this group there is no indicator that there are issues going on and, frankly, we believe that these people are taking the taxpayer for a ride. They are deliberately avoiding the system and have been getting away with it.

In part, they have been getting away with it because the Labor Party introduced a system of waivers whereby you could repeatedly and consistently fail to do your mutual obligation requirements but, if you were about to receive a penalty, you could ring up Centrelink and commit to re-engaging—sometimes in just an online course. One person did an online interactive gaming course and therefore avoided any penalty. We have completely redesigned the compliance system, and this compliance system, which will be introduced into the parliament in the weeks ahead, is specifically designed to identify earlier in the piece those people who need our assistance so that we will be able to provide that assistance. But it is also going to crack down harder on those people who are deliberately flouting the system.

It will work very much like your drivers licence demerit system, where you will accumulate demerit points if you miss appointments. You can accumulate up to four demerit points and, when you have accumulated four points, you will be asked to come into Centrelink. We will have a very comprehensive interview with the person once they are on four demerit points. If, through that comprehensive interview, we find that there are things going on in the person's life then we will provide them with guidance on how to get assistance. But if there is not anything going on then that person is on notice. The next time they fail to turn up to a job interview, they will lose a week's payments; the time after that they will lose two weeks payments; and the time after that they will have their payments cancelled and will not be eligible for four weeks.

We think this system strikes the right balance between finding those who need assistance and identifying them earlier in the piece. It gives opportunities for everybody to have a number of failures before they have to be put on notice, if you like. But then, if they are consistently, repeatedly and without reasonable excuse missing those appointments, we are going to be serious about the repercussions. We are doing this because we know that the best form of welfare is a job and that you are not going to be able to find a job unless you are serious about the job search, unless you are serious about turning up to the job interviews and unless you take the jobs when they are available.

I know that there is the domestic violence issue, which the member for Griffith raised. If there is a domestic violence issue going on in someone's life then we want to know about it as well if that is why they are missing some of their appointments. Typically, they would be able to ring up and that would be a reasonable excuse in any case, but if they have not identified that then of course that would be considered as part of that detailed assessment by Centrelink. I am happy to provide a more detailed briefing to the member for Griffith separately to this meeting. (Time expired)

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak about the budget for the Industry, Innovation and Science portfolio, a portfolio that I am immensely passionate about. I am focused on ensuring the future of Australian businesses, both small and large, is successful. In my opening remarks today, I want to talk about a particular area of interest to me—that is, what we have entitled the National Business Simplification Initiative. What is it in a nutshell? It is bringing a new approach to what has traditionally been deemed as red tape and regulatory issues in this country. How have we changed our thinking? We are attempting to bring business thinking to this space. It is quite clear that we need regulation across all three levels of government. What has unfortunately and sadly been the case in our system in our history of Federation is that, for 116 years, government has traditionally defaulted to a regulatory role. This is the thinking that my previous minister, Minister Hunt, who is sitting beside me, and the present minister, Minister Sinodinos, have been working with me to change through our department.

The fact is that we are actually also a business partner with every individual business in this country. Irrespective of their ownership structure, we get between 30c and 49c in the dollar. How are we trying to change the thinking in the department and the structure of that red tape and regulation? By realising the time taken to comply with it is an expense that appears in the profit and loss statement of every business. By default, we are up for 30c to 49c in the dollar of that. If there are ways that we in government can revolutionise the business-to-government relationship and take that red tape and regulation and codify it—for example, make it easy to comply with—ultimately, whatever we do, we make it time critical that we reduce the time taken. What happens then? A few things. The expense item decreases in the profit and loss statement and the profitability of the business increases. Where do we come for the ride? We obviously get an increased tax take because of the increase in company profitability. But what do companies do? What have they always done historically in this country when they increased their profits? They reinvest in their business. What happens at the back end of that? The business continues to grow—not only their profits but also the employment outcomes that result. And guess what? As a result of the increased employment, PAYE tax receipts increase at the same time.

That is the return on investment proposition we are talking about when considering the National Business Simplification Initiative. It was originally slated as NISA 3.0. However, due to the great work initially of our New South Wales colleagues, who through Service NSW were already embarking on this line of thinking, we on 8 May worked with them to deliver our first ICT linkage to their website through business.gov.au.

What is the policy? Minister Hunt has said this term and I borrow it frequently: a no-wrong-door approach. The idea in the specific example, the beta, that we chose in New South Wales in the Parramatta LGA district in the state of New South Wales in the country of Australia, which sadly for 115 years has operated as three different regulatory environments, was that we got all three systems to talk. We chose the category of opening a business: as a specific example—a beta if you like—a bar, restaurant or cafe in the Parramatta LGA district in the state of New South Wales in the country of Australia. We took the time that it takes to open one of those from 18 months on average to three months on average. What do you get at the end of that process? You have a business functioning for 15 months further than it would have done in previous situations. What happens? Tax receipts from that business flow to government quicker, as do the PAYE tax receipts of the wage earners flowing to government quicker.

I would like to congratulate Minister Dominello and his team at Service NSW. It is pleasing to note that, off the back of that, every state has signed up to the National Business Simplification Initiative. Minister Hunt announced it with me in late November. We have chosen a beta in every state. We have delivered New South Wales on May 8. Ecotourism in Tasmania has been delivered. We are not far away from Western Australia coming online. My great hope is that this initiative becomes the centrepiece of a new approach to attack red tape and deregulation in this country, something that politicians so often speak about with zero understanding of the impact it has on the frontlines.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I start by saying how disappointing it is that the Deputy Prime Minister is not here. This is our opportunity to scrutinise the Resources and Northern Australia portfolio. He has a responsibility in the House of Representatives to represent the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, and the fact that he is not here to face the music and answer questions put by representatives in the House is very disappointing and, I think, shows us the disregard with which he thinks of this process. Hopefully, the Minister for Health can answer some of these questions.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

I will be offended if you do not answer the question, because that is the point of this process. What I want to ask first is: why do you keep stalling on building a flood levee for the people of Rockhampton? This is a levee that will protect about 1,500 properties in the southern part of Rockhampton. More than 1,000 families live in that area and there are a lot of local businesses. Anybody who has paid any attention to this over the last decade will know that the area keeps flooding time after time. It happened in 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2015, and it happened again this year in the wake of Cyclone Debbie. And it is going to keep happening unless we do something about it. The damage and clean-up costs of doing this cost the local community a fortune—we are talking tens of millions of dollars every time Rockhampton floods. It also cuts off 3,000 people from their jobs and shuts down local businesses. One of them is a business run by a bloke called Josh Whitcombe in Depot Hill. Last time, when Rockhampton flooded in April, it cost his business 20 grand. He told the local paper, The Morning Bulletin, that it is too expensive to get insurance down there because of the risk of flooding. Instead, he just has to close; he packs everything up and waits until the floodwater recedes again. He wants a levee to protect his business, and he is not the only one.

The government is prevaricating on this and delaying by saying that there is not community support. Well, this is a survey that was done by the local council in 2013, funded with the help of the local university, CQU. It says that 64 per cent of the local community want a flood levee, 25 per cent are unsure and nine per cent do not want it. So you have support. You have majority support in the community—64 per cent want it and another 25 per cent are unsure. That is overwhelming support. They want it to protect their homes and their businesses from being flooded again. We have been talking about this for 25 years. Some of us were still at university then. It should not take this long to resolve a matter as simple as building a flood levee for the people of Rockhampton. The only thing that is missing is the money and the will to do it. The council has designed the levee. It has been through all the official processes. It will cost $60 million to build the flood levee, but, as I said before, the last three floods have cost more than that. The council is willing to put in $10 million. The state government has offered to put in $25 million, so there is $25 million missing. We have said as an opposition in this place that, if we are elected at the next election, we will make that $25 million available to build it. But it should not have to wait for an election. There could be another flood between now and then. If the government have $65 billion in the budget to give away to companies, if they have $6 billion to give to millionaires for a tax cut, why can't they find $25 million for the people of Rockhampton to stop the place flooding again? It tells you everything about this government's priorities.

Again, I am disappointed that Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, is not here, because before the last election, when they were in opposition, he wrote to Rockhampton Regional Council. He wrote to the mayor, who was desperately arguing for this flood levee, and said:

Your project looks like it has a strong case … I will ensure that it receives strong consideration from the Coalition.

It is now four years later, and we are still waiting. Rockhampton has flooded twice since then. It is time to stop talking, and it is time this government backflipped and delivered the money needed to build that flood levee for the people of Rockhampton. I want an answer from the minister. When are you going to do it?

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise in this consideration-in-detail debate and raise with the minister a very important commitment that has been made in our government's budget in relation to manufacturing. I was absolutely delighted with the commitment of $100 million for an Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which includes $47.5 million for a new Advanced Manufacturing Growth Fund. There was great excitement in the Corangamite electorate, including in Geelong, where we have punched above our weight in terms of the work that we are doing to grow the advanced manufacturing sector.

There are many advanced manufacturers in our thriving community that are doing incredibly well. Carbon Revolution is an absolute stand-out. It is manufacturing carbon fibre wheels for the global market and doing an incredible amount of work to impress upon the nation that we in Geelong and Corangamite are a premier hub for advanced manufacturing.

This announcement builds on the very significant number of programs and commitments that our government has made to support advanced manufacturing. I note the great success that we have had under the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, which has created some 857 jobs. Of course, $15 million is from the Commonwealth and $4.5 million from the state, and Ford and Alcoa have each contributed $10 million.

When I was first elected in 2013, the member for Corio was talking down our local economy, saying that this was the end. It was really quite disgraceful—the way in which he was trying to sap confidence from our region. I can say that we are very, very proud of the way in which we have grown and diversified our economy with the significant commitments that we have made. While this program was announced by the former Labor government, we have actually delivered all of the funding under this particular program, the full $15 million, and we are very proud of that. It is quite ironic that the member for Corio takes credit for some of these decisions, when in fact all of the decisions, all of the jobs delivered, were delivered by our government as part of this program.

Seventeen businesses have received GRIIF funding, including the global giant Cotton On, which is doing an incredible job, with 390 jobs. Last week I was with the Deputy Prime Minister in Corangamite, and we were talking about the wonderful work that the GRIIF has done for companies like the Australian Lamb Company. One hundred and twenty-five jobs were forecast with a $3.25 million grant under the GRIIF, and in fact the Australian Lamb Company have delivered 150 jobs under that program. So we have seen an absolutely great success, close to 1,000 new jobs, and we are so proud.

This, of course, is not the end. We have also committed our growth fund and, under our growth fund, $155 million. Many local manufacturers such as the likes of Backwell IXL, under the Automotive Diversification Program, MHG Glass and High Q have benefited from the very important grassroots contributions that we are making to support these companies as they look to diversify. Some, of course, had manufactured traditionally in the car component sector, and, with our support, they are now moving into other new markets. That is wonderful to see. MHG Glass, for instance, has received $1 million under the Automotive Diversification Program to develop a new architectural glass processing business, which is leveraging off its existing skills and capabilities. That is just a really good example of how, on the ground, our government is working so hard to grow these jobs.

Of course, that builds on the other very significant work of our Geelong region job connections program and the $20 million regional jobs and investment fund that we have announced. That now is open for applications, which is very exciting, giving local manufacturers more opportunities to get support from our government. I want to pose a question to the minister. There is a lot of work, I should say, in lobbying for some additional money to establish one of the innovation labs, which are part of the Advanced Manufacturing Fund, in Geelong. I would like to ask the minister: can he update the Chamber about these budget initiatives, including in relation to the $100 million for the Advanced Manufacturing Fund?

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hold here the Turnbull government's 2017-18 budget. Could the minister please advise on what page funding has been allocated for vital water security and energy infrastructure for Townsville? Townsville has a massive water security issue. The Ross River Dam is currently at 18 per cent, we are on level 3 water restrictions and the Townsville City Council is pumping water from the Burdekin Falls Dam at a cost of $34,000 a day. The Burdekin dam is only 130 kilometres from Townsville and is one of the largest dams in Australia. Whilst 70 per cent of Queensland is drought declared, the Burdekin Falls Dam has overflowed twice. Why hasn't the minister committed any funding towards the construction of water security infrastructure? Has the minister any plans to build water security infrastructure for Townsville from the Burdekin Falls Dam? Will the minister hear the chair of the water taskforce, Brad Webb, and commit funding towards vital water security infrastructure for Townsville?

The cost of wholesale electricity prices has doubled under the Abbott-Turnbull governments. Nowhere is feeling the cost of skyrocketing electricity prices and the lack of federal government action more than Townsville. Reports compiled by the AEC Group state that companies like Sun Metals, a zinc refinery in Townsville employing hundreds of locals, pay $10 million extra per year just for being in Townsville. Businesses like the Organic Pantry are closing down due to high electricity prices. Businesses cannot afford any further inaction from the Turnbull government. Will the minister explain why the Turnbull government has not committed even one cent for energy infrastructure in the north? What plans does the minister have to reduce energy prices for Townsville and North Queensland? What action has been taken by the minister to reduce energy prices in Townsville and North Queensland? When will the minister actually do something to address Townsville's skyrocketing electricity prices?

Bloomberg New Energy Finance has predicted for Queensland to become the epicentre of large-scale solar development in Australia because of its excellent resource, sprawling grid and demand for growth. Does the minister agree with this statement? If so, why won't the minister fund vital energy infrastructure in the north? Since January 2016 North Queensland has had an unprecedented level of renewable energy investment activity, with over 780 megawatts of large-scale projects either commencing construction or securing financial support. The total of these projects will deliver over $1.6 billion of infrastructure spending to North Queensland and will create over 1,400 jobs during construction.

Some of these projects include: one of Australia's largest solar farms being built in Clare, creating over 200 jobs; the $225 million, 148-megawatt Ross River Solar Farm, delivering around 200 jobs during construction; Sun Metals' 125-megawatt solar farm, which makes them the largest single-site user of renewable energy, creating 210 jobs during construction. Will the minister join the Queensland government, Sun Metals and other companies in constructing renewable energy infrastructure? Why hasn't the minister invested in the renewable energy boom in North Queensland? Why hasn't the minister invested in developing energy infrastructure in the north?

Bill Shorten and Labor are leading the charge in investing in North Queensland. In April this year, I hosted a 'back to work' round table with Bill Shorten, where water security and energy costs and constraints for Townsville were discussed. In less than a month, Bill Shorten returned to Townsville and announced $100 million for water security infrastructure and $200 million for construction of a hydropower station on the Burdekin Falls Dam. Why won't the minister listen to the community, like Bill Shorten has done, and commit to much-needed funding for a much-needed hydropower station project?

Why won't the minister listen regarding the need for water security infrastructure? Will the minister match Labor's $200 million commitment and $100 million commitment? Can the minister please advise why the Turnbull government has committed funding for the Snowy Hydro project in South Australia but refuses to commit even one cent to the hydro project on the Burdekin Falls Dam? Surely, if it is good enough for the south, it is good enough for the north?

In December 2014 Meridian Energy shelved plans to develop a hydropower project in North Queensland on the Burdekin Falls Dam because the Abbott-Turnbull government wound back and destabilised Australia's renewable energy target. Will the minister explain to the people of Herbert why the Turnbull government has policies which deter infrastructure being built to address our energy crisis? Will the minister act to rectify the Turnbull government's damage and set stronger renewable energy targets so as to allow vital energy infrastructure to develop in North Queensland and address our skyrocketing electricity costs?

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

I would like to welcome Minister Hunt and Minister Laundy, who are here representing the portfolio, and I look forward to giving them some questions, particularly on this industry portfolio, which is an exciting portfolio indeed. I must admit I spent some time working in industry. We had a manufacturing plant in the great state of Victoria—where Minister Hunt comes from—in Cheltenham. We employed over 100 staff at that manufacturing plant, but unfortunately in the eighties we had to shut it down because of the extraordinary demands of the metal workers union. So we became non-manufacturing and became a representative company.

But the industry portfolio is an exciting portfolio. It contains this government's National Innovation and Science Agenda, which defines our nation's strong innovation strategy to help shape our economic future. It really is science and innovation that can improve and change the world in which we live. The 2017-18 budget measure 'Maintaining Australia's optical astronomy capability' provides $26.1 million in new funding over the forward estimates to secure Australia's pre-eminence in optical astronomy research, industry engagement and instrumentation. The government is providing $119 million over 10 years to enter a strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory, known as the ESO. Astronomers in Australia will be eligible to compete for access to the world's best optical and infrared observing facilities, including eight-metre-class telescopes at the ESO La Silla Paranal Observatory, through a 10-year strategic partnership with ESO for 2017. Australian companies will be eligible to compete for work packages at the observatory on the same basis as companies from ESO member states, and Australian institutions will have the same opportunities as institutions in the ESO member states for involvement in instrumentation for the La Silla Paranal Observatory.

The government has also allocated funding for the Australian Astronomical Observatory, the AAO, which had been going to terminate on 30 June 2020. This measure will see the transition of world-leading research and technical capabilities in optical astronomy from the government operation to research sector ownership from 1 July 2018. A university consortium, led by the Australian National University, will fund the operations of the 3.8-metre Anglo-Australian telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, near Coona-bar-bran through to at least 2024—

An opposition member: Coonabarabran!

Thank you for the interjection and the correction from the member opposite. I am sure he has visited there many times.

An opposition member: I have.

And left his mark.

Honourable members interjecting—

An opposition member: It is a great spot.

I like the congeniality in this chamber for a change. A university consortium, led by the Australian National University, will fund the operations of the 3.8-metre Anglo-Australian telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, near Coonabarabran, through to at least 2024, extending its important role and supporting recently funded ARC Centres of Excellence to the end of its operational life.

On the advanced instrumentation capability front, a consortium led by Astronomy Australia Limited, a not-for-profit company representing the goals of the astronomy community, and interested university partners will retain and further develop the AAO's world-renowned Sydney-based instrumentation capability. I am sure the member for Blaxland will be interested in that. This will link to the world-class ANU instrumentation facilities at Mount Stromlo in Canberra and other university laboratories to create our national optical instrumentation capability. It will position Australian instrumentation developers to compete for contracts under the new ESO partnership. This element will be supported by the $5 million per annum of operating funding from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. A smooth transition of Australia's domestic astronomy infrastructure and expertise from the AAO to the research sector will support the ESO partnership, maintain key national strengths and capabilities in astronomy instrumentation, and foster innovation and research-industry engagement.

Could the minister advise people who are interested in the sector how the Australian government's 10-year strategic partnership with the European Southern Observatory announced in the budget will benefit the Australian science and industry sectors? And can the minister also outline how this new measure presents an opportunity to reshape Australia's domestic optical astronomy capabilities? I thank the Chamber.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago, Pippa Middleton, the sister of the potential future Queen of England, visited the Northern Territory, and it got a bit of publicity. You might have seen it on the TV. I am going out on a limb here, but I think it is a fair bet that that trip will probably deliver more economic development to the North than this government's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has in the last two years. That is because they have not done anything. They have not delivered any money to any projects in two years. Two years ago they announced the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility: $5 billion that they said they would use to fund job-generating, nation-building infrastructure in northern Australia. There was a lot of fanfare. The former Treasurer Joe Hockey said this was 'the first major step in our plan for our great North'. The Minister for Northern Australia said, 'The time for talk is over, and the time for action is here.' Since then, nothing has happened. No money has been allocated. They have spent over 600 grand on salaries and expenses for board members, but they have not delivered a zack for any project that is creating jobs in northern Australia. All we know is that, over the last two years, they have had 119 inquiries for funding and they are apparently considering 60 active deals, but there are only four projects that are currently subject to due diligence, and nothing has been funded. In two years nothing has been allocated.

More worrying, though, is what we found out in estimates only two weeks ago—in particular, what we found out about one board member, a Karla Way-McPhail. We found out that Ms Way-McPhail is a personal friend of the minister, that the minister put her forward for appointment to the board and that Ms Way-McPhail regularly attends LNP fundraisers and is a donor to the LNP. We also learned that Ms Way-McPhail is the CEO of two mining services companies that could benefit from potential NAIF funding. One is Undamine Industries, which hires out labour and machinery to mining operations, and the other is Coal Train Australia, a mining training company based in Central Queensland. She is also the director of a boat company that could benefit from potential NAIF funding for tourism development on Great Keppel Island.

The point I am making here is that there is a clear potential conflict of interest on that board. In a story in The Guardian last month, Ms Way-McPhail refused to say whether she had participated in board discussions where she has a conflict of interest. In the same story, a spokesperson for the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia said that NAIF's conflict of interest policies require board members to 'declare their interests and recuse themselves from discussions if there is a conflict of interest'. So we asked in estimates whether Ms Way-McPhail has done this: (1) whether she has declared conflicts of interest; and (2) if she has conflicts of interest that she has declared, whether she has recused herself from discussions where a potential conflict of interest may arise. That is when the shutters came down. The minister and the CEO of NAIF refused to answer any of our questions, on the basis of public interest immunity. That is not good enough. This is $5 billion of taxpayers' money. We have a right to ask whether proper governance is being applied in this board to make sure that the money is allocated to the proper places.

Apart from that, Australians have a right to know what is going on inside the NAIF. We know at least one person on the NAIF board is a political mate, we know she has a clear potential conflict of interest because of the companies she runs that could benefit from NAIF funding, we know the NAIF board has considered projects where conflicts of interest could arise, and this government refuses to say whether she was in the room for discussions about these projects or whether she recused herself. It is not good governance; it is a cover-up. It is why we have asked the Australian National Audit Office to investigate NAIF. It is why we have put forward a motion in the Senate today to refer NAIF to the Senate Economics References Committee for investigation.

When the Deputy Prime Minister was asked about this a couple of weeks ago, he said, 'If there's a claim that there's a conflict of interest, we'll check it out.' Minister, where is the investigation up to? Has it started? Has it concluded? Will you answer the question that the minister refused to answer in estimates: has Ms Way-McPhail recused herself or not from all discussions on the NAIF board, where she has a conflict of interest? (Time expired)

John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the minister a question surrounding onshore gas reserves and their role in contributing to the national energy mix. As I do that, I acknowledge that we and many stakeholders engage in discussions to secure a national energy future that will provide affordable and reliable supplies whilst meeting our emissions targets, and I reflect on my own electorate of Groom, which I believe provides a very interesting model of a balanced energy future that the nation should consider. My city of Toowoomba is the second largest inland city in Australia behind this city, the national capital. We are an emerging agribusiness centre of Australia. We are based on small business. It is a small-business economy throughout the entire electorate. We are the education and health centre for southern inland Queensland and northern inland New South Wales. We are also a very important energy centre with a truly technology agnostic approach to developments throughout our region.

Just to the north of Oakey, outside Toowoomba, we have the New Acland coalmine, which maintains an international reputation as having one of the lowest greenhouse gas-producing coals in the world. It provides direct jobs for 300 people and 160 contractors, and 2,300 more indirect jobs. It injects about $110 million just into our local economy each year. Within a few short kilometres of that, the 80 megawatt Oakey solar farm is being built. Nearby to that, the 332 megawatt open-cycle, dual liquid/gas-fired Oakey power station is providing yet another energy source. Slightly further afield, we have a range of other power projects, including AGL Energy's proposed $500 million Coopers Gap wind farm, which has a proposed capacity of 350 megawatts. Together with supplies from further afield, I believe these examples present an interesting case study just in my own electorate of a dependence on coal based energy supplies to provide our baseload requirements into the future, with the potential for renewables, fossil fuels, old technology and new technology all working together to ensure a stable, secure and affordable energy supply network into the future.

As is the case throughout the nation for the majority of my constituents—families, businesses, irrigators, farmers and industrial users alike—it is security and cost that matter most. Our local economy has benefited tremendously in recent years through the development of the coal seam gas sector in the Surat Basin to the west. Not without its challenges, as a former minister for agriculture in Queensland I was intimately involved in getting the parameters of coexistence right between agriculture and the gas sector in our region. I believe taking advantage of the natural attributes of a region in a sustainable way makes sense when it comes to energy production. In our region, our local gas and coal reserves do not necessarily play a direct role in meeting our local energy needs. In fact, our gas has largely been destined for export markets to date, but we all exist in the same national energy market. So our region is certainly concerned and vitally interested in the role that gas plays in the national energy market. We are all considering and we are all conscious that, as part of the changes underway in the national market, the Australian gas market is certainly undergoing significant structural change. Therefore, I ask the minister: what is the government doing in response to rising gas prices and to ensure there is adequate gas supply to alleviate pressures on industrial users?

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

The question is that the proposed expenditure for the Industry, Innovation and Science Portfolio be agreed to. I call the member for Lingiari.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton—'Mr Coonabarabran'! I just want to share my disappointment that the Deputy Prime Minister is not here. I understand the presence of the two venerable gentlemen at the table—and I would not often call you that, but in the context of the Deputy Prime Minister I am certainly able to. Let me say that the Deputy Prime Minister has been the single person in this country who has been advocating for the development of water resources in northern Australia—principally, dams. Yet my colleague the member for Herbert has raised significant questions, which remain unanswered, around water supplies in the Townsville region, and the minister, forever not here, cannot respond to those questions. So I ask the minister at the table: how can we make the Deputy Prime Minister respond to those questions? I understand that you may not have any knowledge of those questions but he certainly does. So it is with Northern Australia. I note again that you two wonderful gentlemen come from southern climes—one closer to Antarctica than to Northern Australia, probably—but that, nevertheless, we have a legitimate series of questions to be asked here about the development of northern Australia.

My colleague the shadow minister has spoken about NAIF. From the Northern Territory perspective, we regard NAIF as really a Queensland slush fund because, of all the projects under active consideration, 13 per cent were from the Northern Territory and 50 per cent were from Queensland. How many of the four which were referred to by the shadow minister are in the Northern Territory? And what are the prospects for other projects from the Northern Territory being actively considered? When are we likely to see some answers from the NAIF board as to what projects are going forward? These things are important for us. We know that this is a $5 billion facility. We are all in the dark as to how it is being spent. We are all in the dark as to what consideration has been properly given. So I ask the minister: could you provide us with that information?

I also want to refer briefly to the matter of roads. Again, with the greatest respect for the two members at the table—because the outback is a long way from where they live, and Northern Australia is even further—let me say this: in the context of the Northern Australia Roads Program, which is worth $600 million, and, for developing Northern Australia and improving beef cattle chains, the Beef Roads Program, which is worth $100 million, $30 million has been allocated to the Northern Territory. I ask the minister: how many kilometres of roads will that $30 million address, given that, in the Northern Territory, of our 36,000 kilometres of roads, around 70 per cent is unsealed, and that includes the roads which have been earmarked for that $30 million? So I would ask the minister: tell us in detail what the cost effectiveness of that $30 million investment is. Tell us in detail how many kilometres of roads will actually be dealt with, with that $30 million, given the need in the Northern Territory alone, as I say, of the unsealed 70 per cent of our 36,000 kilometres of roads—which, from my brief calculations, is about 26,000 kilometres. So there is a significant length of roads which need to be addressed in the Northern Territory. Many of those roads are beneficial to not only the pastoral industry and the tourism industry but also, most importantly, Aboriginal communities across the Northern Territory. So these are roads for joint use; they are not single purpose roads. I ask the minister: what is planned to make sure that those roads get properly addressed?

Then I go to the question of the $600 million. As I read budget paper No. 3, page 48, $231.5 million is allocated to Queensland. Could you give us the detail of what roads are proposed to be funded under that program? That $231.5 million of course is more than a third. Less than a third goes to the Northern Territory. Could you also identify which roads in the Northern Territory will benefit from the investment under the Northern Australia Roads Program? And could you advise as to what money will be made available for the development of the Tanami Road, the cost of which is understood to be about $750 million?

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

Let me deal in sequence with a series of issues that have been raised on both sides of the chamber. The member for Blaxland asked about a flood levy for Rockhampton. The advice I have is that the coalition has committed $416,000 from the Community Development Grants Program for the South Rockhampton flood levee planning and design project. I am advised of comments by the state member for Rockhampton, Bill Byrne, who I understand is a member of the Labor Party. On 6 April of this year he said: 'I'm already on the record as saying this proposal has merit but I've always said I'm not going to support something when the vast majority of my community don't want it.' That quote is on the record, and I note that it will be up to the ALP to develop a consistent, coherent internal approach to it.

The second thing I want to deal with here is the comments of the member for Corangamite, who has been a fierce advocate for manufacturing in her region, the electorate of Corangamite and nearby in Geelong. She has been one of those who has fought for and been successful in obtaining the additional $100 million which the Turnbull government has committed in new funds to help drive innovation in Australia. This is in relation to advanced manufacturing growth. As part of that, there is $47½ million for the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Fund, and I have seen in her own electorate the Carbon Revolution premises about which she spoke, and I have seen their product on display at Ford headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. That was one body helped by previous funding that the government provided. In addition to that, there is $20 million for cooperative research centre projects to support larger scale advanced manufacturing of up to $3 million funding over three years, $10 million to establish innovation labs and $13½ million dollars for a reduction in tariffs on imported vehicle prototypes—something I worked on with the assistant minister when I had the privilege of being in the portfolio.

The member for Herbert raised questions about the Burdekin Falls Dam. The advice I have is that under NWIF feasibility and assessment projects in Northern Australia, $400,000 has been made available for the Burdekin Falls Dam raising feasibility study. That is funding which is going to assess precisely this sort of investment but a full assessment is precisely the sort of thing that should be done before any decision is made. No person has been a stronger advocate for dams in Northern Australia than the Deputy Prime Minister—no person has been a stronger advocate. Let me be absolutely clear about that. The member for Herbert also raised issues about electricity prices. We abolished the carbon tax; that was opposed by the ALP. We saw the largest drop in electricity prices on record in Australia. We introduced the Emissions Reduction Fund, which has had considerable benefits for North Australia. She referred to 780 megawatts of projects under the Renewable Energy Target which have followed our settlement of that target. So there is a real investment occurring precisely as result of the actions we have taken.

With regard to the comments of the member for Swan, I am thrilled that Australia will be part of the European Southern Observatory, or ESO, project—the Chilean project. This will be one of the world's great astronomical projects. We are the only country that has been invited in on a discount rate, because of our expertise. It is a tribute to the work of people across Australia.

In relation to the member for Groom's comments, very simply the answer is quite clear: the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Energy are taking real action to deal with the consequences of the strike on new gas reserves in Victoria and elsewhere which has led to the impact on gas right around Australia. In relation to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, dealing with questions from two members opposite, there are 60 currently active assessments—28 per cent are in WA, 13 per cent are in the Northern Territory, 50 per cent are in Queensland and eight per cent of these projects are across multiple jurisdictions. The facts are clear—the commitment to Northern Australia is absolute.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From the north to the south: I want to ask about manufacturing in my home state.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

I have lived in Darwin and I loved being up there, as the member for Lingiari points out, but I love my home town of Elizabeth too, the place in which I was born, based largely around automotive manufacturing and the Holden factory, which still resides in it. When we talk about manufacturing, this government has a record you can tell in headlines. We remember the headline 'Hockey dares GM to leave.' There is no doubt about who was responsible for the decline of automotive manufacturing; in fact, there was a bit of a contest on between the former Treasurer Mr Hockey and the former Prime Minister Mr Abbott about who put the torpedo in the water. They used to brag about it prior to the consequences of their actions becoming apparent. These are consequences that the government has never released modelling for. It will not tell us how many workers will be made unemployed. Plenty of academic studies and plenty of figures from the South Australian government are out there, but this government has never copped to doing any work at all in terms of—

Mr Falinski interjecting—

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

The member for Mackellar!

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A member was kicked out of here before. You should punt him, Deputy Speaker.

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

The member for Wakefield will not reflect on the chair.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I digress. Anyway, most recently we had a headline just before the budget, 'Hang on … help is on its way', about how Mr Morrison, another Treasurer, is now promising $100 million for businesses to 'evolve' after Holden's closure. So we have one headline daring GM to leave and another headline telling us that help is on its way in terms of manufacturing. We know that literally thousands of real people's jobs and livelihoods across South Australia and Victoria, and the industrial base of our country, are being cast to the wind, and we have a member from New South Wales joking around like it is some fanciful argument. We have a government that have not done any modelling about the impacts of this. They have seemingly taken the decision on an ideological whim. They have promised that help is on its way, yet we know that their first package has already been spent and their second package is a long way short of $100 million. It is actually $10 million a year for South Australia over four years.

One must reflect on the enormous damage that has been done in South Australia, my home state, in my home town and in Victoria. Thousands of people are being made unemployed. Thousands of component workers are being made unemployed. I notice the government's shipbuilding plan has some genuflection about re-employing displaced automotive workers in the shipbuilding yards, but people need a trade plus at least another year on top of that in qualifications to work on the blue-collar side, and similar time at university to work on the white-collar side.

I am just wondering: what plans does this government have? Could the minister—I have asked this question in this place before—possibly enlighten us as to what specifically is going to be done for South Australian industry and for the workers who are going to lose their jobs? Is anything being done to link the job outcomes of those people with the very small things the government is doing? What is being done? How many workers are expected to be displaced? What is being done to help them? What is the government's plan for this area? What is its plan for South Australia? What is its plan for Victoria? What is its plan for manufacturing in the western suburbs of Sydney? If the minister could enlighten us on this, it would help the House, and I would stop having to ask this question year after year. We should remember that we are perilously close to the closure date in October, when thousands of people will lose their jobs and when this government's chicanery and lack of planning will become readily apparent, I fear.

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

My question to the minister is: what is the status of the government's reforms to country-of-origin labelling? I ask this question because we know a number of things about the importance of country-of-origin labelling. The first is: you cannot have a market operate effectively and efficiently if you do not have information available for consumers to make choice. It is called asymmetric information. It is incredibly important that we as legislators ensure that consumers have the information they need. Secondly, we know that there are enormous economic benefits from having proper information clearly communicated to the market. It is estimated that country-of-origin labelling laws will generate $66 million for the Australian economy. Finally, of course, there is the producer issue, as well. It is difficult for producers to spend the time, the money and make the investment to ensure that products are made here in this country, are sourced here in this country and are packaged here in this country if it goes into a marketplace where they cannot distinguish their products as being Australian made from other people in the marketplace who are deliberately hiding or seeking to confuse that fact and confuse consumers from the fact. It is for these three issues that I ask that question.

In my community, whether it be the mothers of Avalon or the fathers of Forestville, they have spoken to me on several occasions about the fact that when they go shopping they want to understand what they are buying and where they are buying it from. For those of us who are ocularly challenged, the current labelling laws at the moment make it very difficult to know what you are buying and where it comes from. It is written in six point. Often, there are chemical formulas involved. And, by the time you finished reading it, you probably would have preferred to read War and Peace. So it is incredibly important that, when we are going to buy products, we know what we are buying at the time of purchase.

This is not new information. This is not a startling revelation. It has been written about in behavioural economics, freakonomics and nudge economics for a long period of time. We cannot make proper choices for ourselves if we are not aware of what we are buying and where we are buying it from. It is incumbent upon all of us in this place and it is incumbent upon this government to make sure that the labelling laws in this country communicate as easily and as effectively as possible what it is that you are buying, and that that communication is made as simple as possible.

The other day I took matters into my own hands. I went to Forestway—an excellent shopping centre. If you are ever there, I highly recommend you go to the Gaslight Inn and purchase one of their cappuccinos. For those opposite, I understand that they do activated almond milk, as well. So if you are into that. Otherwise—

Mr Champion interjecting—

The member for Wakefield tells me on several occasions he has enjoyed the activated almond milk.

Mr Champion interjecting—

I hear rum goes well with milk, too! There are some who would claim that it is a crime against humanity, but there are others who have it a lot.

Anyway, back to labelling laws—something that Labor Party is not interested in. While I was there having my normal flat white, I decided to go to Woolworths and see what it is that consumers have to do to make sure that they are buying Australian. To my shock, there was a nice gentleman there by the name of Muhammed. He was actually demonstrating the new labelling laws to shoppers in Woolworths at Forestway. It is pretty easy to understand. A bit like a country fair that you might find in Mr Gee's electorate, where you go along and you bang something down and you see how far it goes up the pole, what you can find now on packages into the future is a bar graph. The more that bar graph is filled in, what you will find is: the more Australian it is. This is critical. When consumers are making decisions about what to buy, they can now easily see that at a glance of the packaging rather than having to understand and determine where products come from in six point.

An honourable member: And the shoppers loved it.

The shoppers absolutely loved it. The other thing is: the package has right there how it is calculated. It is not like a Google algorithm. Anyone can understand how it is that a product is more or less Australian. Minister, what is the government doing about introducing these laws?

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to ask some questions and talk about manufacturing, as my colleague from Makin just did, about South Australia, especially in my electorate of Hindmarsh in the western suburbs. My electorate was a hub of manufacturing. We made everything—you name it—from shoes to motor vehicles by Lightburn back in the sixties and seventies. What we have seen is the diminishing exodus of manufacturing industries.

This is what I want to ask the minister: what are you doing to assist manufacturing, especially in the western suburbs of Adelaide or South Australia? We had industries, like Perry Engineering, with over 250 workers. Perry decided to downsize, moving some of its operations offshore. We had Hills Industries do the same thing—another 250 workers gone. We had Clarks Shoes that employed up to 300 people on two shifts in the suburb of Marleston. They made a whole range of things, including school shoes. They offshored, to Fiji, to pay very cheap wages.

To top it off, we had former Treasurer Hockey dare GMH to leave—which they did. We would like to know why on earth Mr Hockey would make a speech like that which dares GMH to leave—and they did, the following day. They made the announcement that over 1,000 people lost their jobs, and there was the 30,000 ripple effect across the South Australian community in manufacturing and everything else.

There is one industry in my electorate. There is one bootmaker who is absolutely adamant about staying in Adelaide, in the western suburbs. It is the longstanding family owned company Rossi Boots. They are employing people locally. They are a proud family owned Australian business that has been operating since 1910. They are a significant contributor to my community and to manufacturing in South Australia. They are 100 per cent proudly Australian owned, employing about 100 people. And there are many people around the country, including me, who wear their wonderful well-made Rossi boots. In addition to being a popular leisure wear company they have gained a reputation for producing footwear that meets the specific high demands of industry, notably supplying the Australian military.

Unlike many other manufacturers, Rossi is determined not to move its operations overseas, because they are proudly Australian, they are proudly in the manufacturing industry and they are proud of the product they make. But this is proving difficult for them. For example, in 2014, this wonderful Australian owned company lost its bid to provide boots to Defence and other uniformed personnel, costing the company a substantial amount of time and money. Unfortunately, the contract was awarded to a company in Indonesia, which has no benefit to the economy in Australia.

The reason given by the government of the time was 'value for money'. But this is exactly the kind of manufacturing we need in Australia, especially in South Australia. The flow-on benefits, the value, are enormous for the local economy. They are enormous to people who would earn their wages locally, pay their taxes locally and spend their money locally. Compare those benefits to what the government calls value for money. I would like to know how that is calculated. Local industry provides benefits for the local area, in terms of taxes that are paid, money that is spent, which helps our economy go round, and jobs that are created. Compare that to people going on the doll queue. Tell us where that difference is and how that was value for money. They gave it to an overseas company. That has no benefit to our economy.

I would like to know why the government is continually failing to support South Australian manufacturers, like Rossi Boots. How will the government properly recognise the immense value that local companies provide to our economy, in future procurement processes, and what is the government doing to support local industries to become more efficient and competitive in the global market? What is the government doing to assist existing manufacturers keep their operations local and enable new industries to grow and thrive, therefore creating new jobs and more money in the economy?

A good example of this is the South Australian state government, which just gave them a grant for $250,000 to be able to have a product online to sell overseas, which will benefit them enormously. That is a good example of where we are helping manufacturing; I would like to know what this government is doing.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to answer the questions from my colleagues the members for Hindmarsh and Wakefield. Today is a continuation of something I have seen a lot in this place: because those on the other side say something does not mean it is true. This government has a proud record of standing up for our manufacturing industry. And what is not spoken about, and what is derided at every turn—and here is an unknown fact: in the last 12 months in this country, 100,000 jobs have been created in the manufacturing industry Australia-wide. The industry is in a transition and growth period. Why? Because it is at the back end of the launch of the National Innovation and Science Agenda.

I will give some specific South Australian examples. I was at Mawson Lakes last week, the UniSA campus, where there is a CRC project which the former minister, who is sitting beside me—now the Minister for Health—okayed. There is a company called SMR Automotive that is transitioning: it is staying in automotive, but high-technology, value-add—transitioning beyond—using the technology and patents driven out of UniSA at Mawson Lakes. There are contracts totalling $68 million that have been signed by SMR Automotive and UniSA to deliver new-age lightweight mirrors to Ford—and that is Ford international. That is a gateway to the automotive industry worldwide. There is interest worldwide. Why? Because the uni has come up with a way to attach an adhesive to plastic, for the first time: this is a non-glass mirror, lightweight. And in the world of automotives, weight is king—because the heavier it is, the more fuel it costs to drive, the more expensive it is, and the more carbon emissions result. The whole derivative here that they are trying to drive is lower weight. And this uni has some groundbreaking, world-first technology that is being leveraged off the back of a CRC project coming out of the National Innovation and Science Agenda—and not only keeping the jobs in SMR Automotive in South Australia but also creating more jobs into the future. Why? Because SMR, who have traditionally done automotive only, are right now as we speak looking at—again in partnership with the uni—developing a testing slide for cancer. That—again—will be a game changer, patented with the university and with worldwide application. This traditional, third-generation, family-owned automotive business will soon be providing cancer-testing kits worldwide. That is an example of transformation.

To the member for Hindmarsh: not far from his electorate is the Tonsley innovation hub, where we have TAFE, uni and the federal government coming together. I have been there to see, at the back end of our innovation program, a company that is heating molten silicon to 1,300 degrees. Why? Because for the first time, they have groundbreaking, innovative technology that will allow them to store renewable energy in such a way that it can be re-used. And the by-product—and this has signed off in a deal with a greenhouse farming, agricultural business in regional SA—is the heat that will be used to fuel those crops. We have energy companies piling in on the back of our entrepreneurs program to deliver—and I have spoken about automotive ongoing—a brand spanking new company that will innovate and grow in South Australia.

To the member for Corangamite: she spoke about the carbon hub at Deakin University. Under the CLC project there, which I launched in her electorate only a month ago, a company that had its research and development arm based in Germany—with 26 employees—has closed that down and has moved all 26 back to Geelong. The research and development arm of that automotive company will be based in Geelong—that is, 26 jobs, paying tax in Australia, which up until a month ago were located in Germany, the home of advanced manufacturing. These are real frontline grassroots examples sitting behind that number of an increase of 100,000 in our manufacturing sector in the last 12 months.

Unlike those opposite, we do not deride the manufacturing industry. We do not say things that are not true. We work out, if it needs to be transitioned, the best way to do it. That is, in the end, the policies sitting inside the National Innovation and Science Agenda, 29 of which have been delivered. There are five more to come and two are being legislated as we speak.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to hear the assistant minister speak about creating jobs. He might be concerned, though, to know that, according to LeadWest figures, there are 4,000 workers in the seat of Lalor whose jobs are linked to the auto industry, and many more in Melbourne's west. Workers in component businesses and supporting industries have, as we know, been struggling with the knowledge since that fateful day when Joe Hockey dared Holden to leave Australia, a sad day for Victoria and a very sad day for Melbourne, including Melbourne's west.

I would like to ask the minister, as one of my questions, exactly how many engineers were working in Holden's R&D division when that announcement came and where they are employed now. How many of them have maintained their employment in this country? How many of them have become part of the brain drain and headed overseas?

I understand that the government has done some things in its transition proposal. I understand that in key seats in the south-east of Victoria, such as Corangamite, and in certain parts of South Australia, as we have just heard, the government has made specific attempts to support people. Nothing specific, however, has been done for the people in Melbourne's outer west—nothing from this government. In round 2 of the Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Program, one grant recipient was from Melbourne's west. Unfortunately, although the business is based in Melbourne, those jobs are going to Kilmore.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 13:12 to 13:24

The fact is that, of $30,498,000 spent in round 2 of the program to help businesses deal with changes to the automotive industry, not a cent was spent in businesses in the west of Melbourne.

The Victorian government, on the other hand, have a good handle on this. They understand what the support industries affected in Melbourne's west need. They have committed $46.5 million for their plan to facilitate Victoria's automotive transition plan, which is called Towards Future Industries: Victoria's Automotive Transition Plan—a catchy title. As part of this plan, the Victorian state government have committed $10.6 million for Melbourne's north, $10 million for Melbourne's south-east, $7.5 million for the Geelong region and, critically, $5 million for Melbourne's west. The Victorian government appreciate the fact that our region has suffered significant job losses in industries tangentially connected to the auto industry. The Labor government in 2013 committed $30 million to assist businesses like those in my community under the previous Labor government's Automotive New Markets Program, something this government replaced with a poor imitation called the Automotive Diversification Program, which directed $10 million less to feed in and support businesses.

My questions are: when will the federal government come to the table and, like the Andrews government, support effective businesses in my community? Is it that the government does not understand the complexity of the issue, or is the government only committed to assisting workers directly employed by car manufacturers because that satisfies its political purposes? Either way, the workers in my community deserve better. Does the government have a comprehensive plan for workers in Melbourne's west—significantly, the estimated 4,000 workers in the electorate of Lalor? Has the government identified the component manufacturers and other linked businesses that are at risk? Has the government identified the workers? Will these workers be supported by this government, or will they join the 700,000 unemployed and the 1.1 million underemployed Australians as the cost of doing business in this country? Will the workers in my electorate find themselves being vilified by another minister in this government for their inability to find work? Will they become part of the casualised, insecure workers that live in my electorate, under enormous pressure trying to make ends meet? Will this government give a commitment that it will support the workers in Melbourne's west—not just workers in Melbourne's south-east and not just workers in Geelong but those workers who live closest to Toyota and those workers who are employed in the seat of Lalor in the motor car components industry?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can assure the member for Lalor that we are backing up workers Australia-wide, as I answered to the previous questions from the members for Wakefield and Hindmarsh on the stats in terms of manufacturing jobs moving forward. There was one thing I did not get to, because of time limitations, but subsequently checked out in the division. I am going to be cut off here in a minute, so I will go straight to it: a large portion of the defence spend that we are spending Australia-wide. The member for Hindmarsh mentioned Rossi Boots, and in the break I instructed the department to get in touch with them, because the Centre for Defence Industry Capability has been absolutely tasked, as we move into this crucial spend in our nation's defences, with better building the links between defence procurement and local business, with industry participation plans. There is a precedent here. RM Williams have already engaged with the Centre for Defence Industry Capability.

I note that the member for Hindmarsh has left, but I will seek him out when we leave here to tell him that the department will be in touch with Rossi Boots to work through this recently announced initiative co-hosted by the Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne—who likes to take all the credit, obviously, on all parts of this!—and my own Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. My wonderful Department of Industry, Innovation and Science is providing a lot of the grunt work sitting behind it, of course—sitting in the background getting the job done.

I want to finish where I started. We are committed to manufacturing. What we are trying to do through the National Innovation and Science Agenda is move from traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing, something we have had great success in doing over the last 18 months and we hope to continue to do.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 1.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 13 : 30 to 16 : 00

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make some brief introductory remarks overall for this portfolio. Clearly, the issues that we are facing in education are quite significant for us, and it is important that, as we go forward, we approach education funding as a continuum. I have on a number of occasions in this place made it very clear that in fact, when the government look at education funding, we do so on the basis that we are looking at education as a continuum. It starts at the preschool, the kindergarten, area. It moves through the primary and secondary schooling. It goes through, potentially, vocational education—although clearly, if you look at the education highway, that is a destination in itself—but clearly a pathway through to higher education. So the education stream that we look at is a continuum, and we on this side are very conscious that what we do has an impact on all parts of that education highway.

Let me say that in schools we are delivering, for the first time in Australia, a funding model that is fair, genuinely needs based, transparent and sector blind and provides unprecedented certainty to schools with its 10-year transition and enduring framework. We are delivering what the Gonski report actually proposed, to replace messy funding arrangements corrupted by special deals, trade-offs and a lack of transparency. We are delivering a funding model such that students and schools with the same need attract the same support from the Commonwealth regardless of where they live and regardless of what type of non-government school they attend. We are delivering a true level playing field for how funds are allocated to schools and greater transparency about who gets what.

We are delivering record investment into Australian schools. These are real funding increases, with an extra $18.6 billion over the next 10 years. Over 2018 to 2027, Commonwealth school funding will be a record $242.3 billion. Funding grows every year, from $17.5 billion in 2017 to $30.6 billion in 2027. We have appointed David Gonski to lead the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools so that our extra education dollars can be invested to improve our nation's education performance. The Turnbull government is committed to a school funding system that is fairer, nationally consistent, needs based and transparent.

With regard to higher education, more than a year ago, on budget night 2016, the Turnbull government set out possible elements of a revised higher education reform package. The Turnbull government took full fee deregulation off the table. The Minister for Education and Training said he would listen and consult, and that is exactly what he has done. After 1,200 submissions, countless meetings with stakeholders and advice from an expert advisory panel, the Turnbull government in this budget reversed the previous package of reforms and proposed a new package. The package is fair. It ensures sustainability so that, irrespective of financial means or background, future generations of students will continue to access higher education. It also seeks to ensure that higher education institutions are held to account for the learning experiences and job outcomes of their students, for whom they receive significant and growing taxpayer subsidies.

Not only does this package of higher education reforms keep the demand-driven system; it has ensured that we can pay for it and at the same time offers more choice to students by extending access to diplomas, advanced diplomas and associate degrees. We are, for the first time, funding work experience in industry as part of university courses. We will support up to eight regional study hubs in more regional and remote parts of the country, and we are seeking to enshrine the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, which supports low-SES, regional and Indigenous students, in legislation.

Funding for higher education has grown at twice the rate of growth in the economy, and, with these proposed reforms, funding is still projected to grow by 23 per cent between now and 2021. This package is fair because it is asking students who have not had an across-the-board fee increase in over a decade to pay a little more—1.8 per cent more next year. It is asking universities to fund from further efficiencies, through an on-average two per cent reduction to base teaching and learning funding, and the taxpayer will also contribute through this package, given $700 million less in savings. The taxpayer will continue to fund, on average, 54 per cent of the teaching and learning costs at universities despite many of those taxpayers having never been to university. This package is fair, it is sustainable and it will drive improved transparency and better outcomes. (Time expired)

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I start by welcoming the minister to this consideration in detail. Perhaps next time you might arrive on time. Perhaps again—

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Better late than never, I say to the member. Better late than never.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the member for Griffith is more optimistic than I am. I think we perhaps might have done better with the assistant minister responding to questions. But it is the attention to detail which you have just demonstrated, Minister, that perhaps explains why your colleagues have been so receptive of your package of reforms in the energy space. In any event, perhaps, representing Minister Birmingham, you can account for yourself rather better in this chamber than you have been in your party room.

Before we get to questions—and I will be dealing with questions in respect of the schools portfolio—it is worth reflecting on what the coalition has done to schools.

A government member: Where's your minister?

The shadow minister, soon to be minister, is away sick, actually. The rhetoric of this government has gone through many, many evolutions, but the reality remains the same. We remember on this side of the House that the coalition were on a unity ticket when it came to needs based school funding, before the infamous 2014 budget. Since then, what have we seen? We have seen two fundamental failures: a failure of process where the now minister, Senator Birmingham, has failed to engage with state and territory colleagues and with the schooling sector before delivering a package which is a substantive retreat from needs based funding; and an abandonment of a national responsibility of our national government for schooling standards in Australia.

What the Prime Minister and the minister are currently proposing is the opposite of needs based funding, however the assistant minister may dress it up. There are students in every suburb in every state throughout Australia whose needs will never be met by this government's inadequate plan, which does not provide a pathway to the schooling resource standard, which was the core of the Gonski recommendations. Every school in my electorate of Scullin will be worse off.

Let us be very clear: only the Australian Labor Party is committed to investing in our students everywhere based on their needs. Under the Prime Minister's plans, Australia's schools, principals and teachers will be $22 billion worse off, as the Prime Minister's own briefing note has made clear and as, perhaps, the minister at the table might be brave enough to admit in this consideration in detail. This is money that would make a huge difference to school communities and the educational experience of so many students. Under Labor, students would get every chance to fulfil their full potential, no matter their parents' background or bank balance or where they live.

I do not expect satisfactory answers from the minister, because the government are much more interested in avoiding their responsibilities to schools than in actually supporting students, but I will take the minister to recommendation 1 of the review, which said:

The Australian Government and the states and territories, in consultation with the non-government sector, should develop and implement a schooling resource standard …

How is your plan, Minister, with no requirement for states and territories to ever contribute their share of the SRS for public schools, meeting this recommendation? Further, what consultation did the government commit to, particularly with states and territories, with the private school sector and with the Catholic sector, while developing this framework, which has no logic underpinning it or evidence base supporting it? Where, Minister, in the review of funding did the panel recommend that 80 per cent of the SRS be paid by the Commonwealth to non-government schools, and where does it recommend—and this is perhaps the crux for many of us on this side—that 20 per cent only should be paid for government schools? What analysis was undertaken to determine this was the right figure?

Does the government believe that all states and territories have the same capacity to adequately fund their school systems? Last week, Minister, I was in the Northern Territory visiting schools in Darwin. If the government genuinely believed in needs based funding, it would not be producing a model, regardless of commitments to transition funds, that will leave every one of the 151 government schools in the Northern Territory worse off. Why does the Northern Territory—with 40 per cent Indigenous students, nearly 66 per cent low-SES students and the worst schooling outcomes in the country—get an increase of only 1.3 per cent a year?

This government has no plan to deliver needs based school funding. What it is presenting the parliament and the Australian people is walking away from needs based funding and, more fundamentally than that, walking away from an Australian government having an interest in educational outcomes for every Australian child. In so doing, they are undermining, for all of us, our future wellbeing.

Debate interrupted.