Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to have my second reading debate speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Appropriation Bill (No.1) 2006-07 appropriates over $53 billion for the ordinary annual services of the Government.

Major items of expenditure include Defence - $17 billion plus; Attorney General $3 billion plus; Health and Ageing $4 billion plus. The amounts allocated to each agency and the breakdown between departmental outputs and administered expenses are set out in Schedule 1.

Section 7 empowers the Finance Minister to issue money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for departmental outputs for an agency but restricts the total.

Section 8 deals with administered items in the basic appropriation but subsection (1) limits the amount of money the Finance Minister can issue for administered items from the CRF to the lesser amount specified in Schedule 1.

Section 9 deals with the ‘reduction of appropriations on request’. Departmental appropriations do not lapse with the financial year, and they can be spent in the following year and remain available across all financial years. However amounts appropriated for departmental expenses can be subject to a reduction process. The Finance Minister can issue a determination following a request from the relevant Minister. Such a determination is a legislative instrument and is disallowable.

Section 11 allows the Finance Minister to increase, by determination, spending on departmental items to a maximum of $20million. Such determinations are legislative instruments, but are not disallowable under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 see new subsection (3)

Section 12 allows the Finance Minister to increase the total amount appropriated in Schedule 1 by up to $175 million in urgent cases where the need for additional amount was unforeseen or not provided for due to ‘erroneous omission or understatement. A determination by the Finance Minister increasing the appropriation is a legislative instrument, but not disallowable under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 new subsection 12(4)

Appropriation Bill (No.2) 2006-07 is to appropriate approximately $9.215 billion for the non-ordinary (or other) annual services of Government.

This bill provides funding for agencies to meet: expenses in relation to grants to the States under s96 of the Constitution and for payments to the NT and the ACT and local government authorities; administered expenses for new outcomes; requirements for departmental equity injections, loans and previous years’ outputs; and requirements to create or acquire administered assets and to discharge administered liabilities.

The main provisions of the bill largely follow those of last year’s Appropriation. However, local government authorities are recognised in the bill for the first time.

Section 4 provide that Portfolio Budget Statements are considered as relevant extrinsic interpretational material under s15AB of the Acts Interpretation Act

Section 7 deals with the basic appropriation of funds to be paid to the States, the NT, the ACT and local government authorities. Section 7(1) limits the amount of money the Finance Minister can issue from the CRF to the lesser amount specified in Schedule 2 and the amount that the Finance Minister includes in a determination. Such determinations are not legislative instruments and thus not disallowable by Parliament. Payments to the States, NT ACT and local government authorities may only be made for the purpose of contributing to the relevant agency outcome listed in Schedule 2.

Section 8 deals with the basic appropriation of funds for administered items. S8(1) limits the amount of money the Finance Minister can issue from CRF to the lesser of the amounts specified in Schedule 2 and the amount that the Finance Minister includes in a determination. Such determinations are not disallowable instruments and thus not disallowable by Parliament under the Legislative Instruments Act. Amounts appropriated may only be made for the purpose of contributing to the relevant agency outcome listed in Schedule 2.

Section 11 provides that the responsible Minister may request the Finance Minister to make a written determination reducing the administered asset or liabilities item or other departmental item in the budget of an entity within their portfolio. The amount reduction is to be no greater than the amount requested, or where payments have already been made from the CRF, the difference between the amount appropriated to an item and the amount already paid. For entities within the Finance Minister’s portfolio, the reduction request must come from the Chief Executive of the relevant entity. Subsection 11(9) provides that a determination may be disallowed by either House of Parliament in accordance with the provisions of section 42 of the LI Act.

Section 12 – the Finance Minister is able to increase the amount appropriated for certain items, such as equity injections, listed in Schedule 2. The maximum additional amount is $20 million. Similar provisions are contained in previous appropriation Acts. Such determinations are legislative instruments but are not disallowable under the LIA.

Section 13 allows the Finance Minister to increase the total amount appropriated in Schedule 2 by up to $215 million in urgent cases where the need for additional amounts was unforeseen or not provided for due to an ‘erroneous omission or understatement’. This is a legislative instrument but is not disallowable under the LIA.

For specific payments to States, Territories and local government authorities, the relevant portfolio minister listed in column 3 of Schedule 1 is able to determine conditions under which payments can be made - see s15. Such determinations are not legislative instruments and thus not disallowable by Parliament.

Appropriation Bill (No.5) 2005–06. Basic appropriations are provided in Part 2 of the bill. Clauses 7 & 8 provide for appropriations for departmental items and administered items respectively. Specific amounts are outlined in Schedule 1 and include additional funding to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to enable a payment of $500 million to the Murray Darling Basin Commission in 05-06; an additional $310.4 million to fund a coordinated package of measures to assist those adversely affected by Tropical Cyclone Larry.

Grants totalling $265 million are made to medical research facilities including $50 million to the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research & the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Clause 9 deals with a reduction of appropriations upon request and gives effect to the intention to lapse unspent departmental expenses.

For departmental appropriations they do not lapse at the end of the financial year and can be carried forward unless the Finance Minister withdraws drawing rights.

Annual administered appropriations are determined by the Finance Minister and if the amount determined is less than the original appropriation, the difference lapses.

Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2005-06. Part 2 provides for basic appropriations and Clauses 7 & 8 provides for appropriations for departmental items and administered items respectively. Specific amounts are outlined in Schedule 2.

The major item of additional funding is for Dept of Transport and Regional Services to enable a total payment of $1.759b for a range of highway projects.

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2006-07 appropriates $171.6 million for recurrent and capital expenditure of the three parliamentary departments for the 2006-07 financial year.

Section 7 provides that for departmental items, the Finance Minister may issue from CRF amounts that do not exceed that listed in the Schedule to the bill, and that such funds must be used for the departmental expenses of the relevant parliamentary dept.

Section 8 deals for administered expenses and the Finance Minister may issue from the lesser of two amounts either the amount specified in the item, or the amount the Minister determines to be the administered expenses incurred by the parliamentary dept during the current year. Administered expenses are funds administered by the parliamentary department on behalf of the Commonwealth for its purposes and include grants, subsidies and benefits. In many cases administered expenses fund the delivery of goods and services by third parties.

Section 11 provides that the responsible Presiding Officer may request the Finance Minister to make a written determination reducing the administered asset or liabilities item or other departmental item in the budget of an entity within their portfolio. The amount reduction is to be no greater than the amount requested, or where payments have already been made from the CRF, the difference between the amount appropriated to an item and the amount already paid. For entities within the Finance Minister’s portfolio, the reduction request must come from the Chief Executive of the relevant entity. Subsection 11(9) provides that a determination may be disallowed by either House of Parliament in accordance with the provisions of section 42 of the LI Act.

Section 13 - the responsible Presiding Officer will be able to increase the amount allocated to a departmental item by a max of $200 000 for each of the 3 departments.

Section 14 is similar to s13 but deals with increases in items due to unforeseen and urgent circumstances to a maximum of $300 000 for each chamber and a total of $1 million for the DPS.

I have two sets of better accountability amendments I am moving jointly with Labor.

Appropriation Bill No 1 for instance is giving the Finance Minister the discretion to increase spending on departmental items by up to $20 million, and to increase the total amount appropriated by up to $175 million, with the added sting in the tail that the Minister’s determinations are not disallowable instruments.

The problem with a disallowance provision would be that the Minister would make determinations in a non-sitting period and the money would be committed and/or expended before the Senate had the opportunity to consider a disallowance motion, but without the disallowance provision he would probably have to spend it anyway.

The fact that a number of provisions in these Bills are non-disallowable legislative instruments is a concern, but the difficulty we have is that the Finance Minister does genuinely need flexibility speed and certainty in responding rapidly to some finance needs.

Up until 1 January 2005, the Department of Finance tabled monthly statements of issues from the Advance in Parliament. The commencement of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 altered this and the Advances are now posted on the Federal register of Legislative Instruments. They must be tabled within 6 days of registration and they are not disallowable.

As tempting as it is, making the individual determinations disallowable may try to go a bit far. AMFs are signed off by the Finance Minister’s delegate (Division Manager, Financial Reporting and Cash Management Division) where they are urgent and either unforseen or required because of erroneous omission. Often there is extreme time pressure involved in getting the money out - for example providing immediate relief after Cyclone Larry. So any perceived or actual delay or interruption in the capacity for agencies to contract or commit may cause problems in such time-pressured circumstances.

The solution is to have improved reporting of the detail of the AMFs and for them to be laid before the Senate as well as for improved descriptions on the current database. The current descriptions are limited. They are also somewhat ‘hidden’ on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments. Something which requires better information on the purpose, objects and expected outcomes would be a start.

If this amendment is defeated there is nothing to stop DOFA introducing this as good practice anyway.

The second accountability amendment is on a theme strongly pursued by the Democrats and Labor during the life of the Howard Government, particularly over the last two parliaments.

Since the early 1980s, the Democrats have campaigned for more controls on the misuse of taxpayer funds for government political advertising. All governments have been guilty of using taxpayers’ money for party political purposes, but under this Coalition Government, the scale and cost has escalated breathtakingly.

A notable achievement of the Democrats’ campaign occurred back in 2003 when, with Labor support, we successfully moved a Senate order to try to enforce tougher controls on government advertising. This was a notable step toward trying to enhance Australian democracy, and go some way to restoring public confidence in our institutions of government.

In a revolting display of arrogant unaccountability the Howard Government just ignored the Senate.

Disappointingly, the Coalition Government has contemptuously refused to comply with the Senate Order. It stated that the details of each advertising or public information project must be tabled in the Senate and must cover:

• the purpose and nature of the project;
• the intended recipients of the information to be communicated;
• who authorised the project;
• the manner in which it is to be carried out and by whom;
• whether the project is put out to contract;
• if so, whether such contract was let by tender;
• the estimated or contracted cost of the project;
• whether the project meets established guidelines; and
• if not, the extent of and reasons for the nonconformity.

I draw the Chamber’s attention to Appendix 1 of the Auditor-General’s Report No.12 which contains the following guidelines for government advertising.

The underlying principles governing the use of public funds for government information programs allows the public to have equal rights to access of information in relation to government policy or programs which effect their rights or entitlements.

It also allows governments to legitimately use public funds for information programs or education campaigns to explain government policies and programs to inform the public of their obligations, rights and entitlements

The guidelines are outlined as follows:

Firstly that material should be relevant to government responsibilities. In developing material to be communicated to the public it is suggested:

• That the subject matter should be directly related to the Government’s responsibilities;
• That an information strategy should be considered as a routine and integral part of policy development and program planning; and
• That no campaign should be contemplated without an identified information need by identified recipients based on appropriate market research.

Secondly, that material should be presented in an objective and fair manner. The guidelines are suggested to assist in determining whether the material communicated is presented in an explanatory, fair and objective manner. It states that:

• Information campaigns should be directed at the provision of objective, factual and explanatory information. Information should be presented in an unbiased and equitable manner;
• Information should be based on accurate, verifiable facts, carefully and precisely expressed in conformity with those facts;
• The recipient of the information should always be able to distinguish clearly and easily between facts on the one hand, and comment, opinion and analysis on the other and
• When making a comparison, the material should not mislead the recipient about the situation with which the comparison is made and it should state explicitly the basis for the comparison.

Thirdly, that material should not be liable to misrepresentation as party-political. The guidelines under this heading recommend that:

• Information campaigns should not intentionally promote, or be perceived as promoting, party-political interests;
• Material should be presented in unbiased and objective language, and in a manner free from partisan promotion of government policy and political argument;
• Material should not directly attack or scorn the views, policies or actions of others such as the policies and opinions of opposition parties or groups; and that
• Information should avoid party-political slogans or images.

And lastly, it sets out guidelines to ensure that the distribution of sensitive material should be controlled.

• Care should be taken to ensure that Government advertising material is not used or reproduced by members of political parties in support of party-political activities without appropriate approval;
• All advertising material and the manner of presentation should comply with relevant law, including broadcasting, media and electoral law;
• Material should be produced and distributed in an economic and relevant manner, with due regard to accountability;
• No information campaign should be undertaken without a justifiable cost/benefit analysis. The cost of the chosen scale and methods of communicating information must be justifiable in terms of achieving the identified objective(s) for the least practicable expense; and that
• Existing purchasing/procurement policies and procedures for the tendering and commissioning of services and the employment of consultants should be followed.

We put up this amendment with Labor not as a futile gesture but as a firm statement of the sort of standards and accountability an honest Government would not hesitate to abide by. That this one does not speaks volumes.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate speeches from Senators Crossin, Campbell, Hutchins, Marshall and Forshaw.

Leave granted.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows

I rise to speak on the various Appropriation bills under debate here today.

In so doing I have to say from the outset that as a Territorian I was, and remain most disappointed by this budget.

Can I say at the outset that I think my colleague David Tollner picked up the wrong speech in his way out of the office to speak on these Bills. He spent most of his time rambling about the Land Rights Act rather than boasting about the benefits of this budget to his electorate further evidence that he was not even aware of what he is talking about most of the time.

But he did suggest that the NT budget allocation tends to be higher per capita than elsewhere. What he fails to fully explain is that costs in the NT are usually far higher than most other areas and that this higher allocation per capita is just a part of fiscal equalisation.

Neither does he make any mention of the fact that the NT is one of the major production areas for so many of our valuable resources – minerals, tourism and pastoral. We contribute hugely to the National Income and to the tax take of this self aggrandising government.

I do want to concentrate on the Federal budget and how it fails Territorians.

Firstly of course it fails Territorians in the tax cuts which are given in the one hand but gone almost before they reach any hand or pocket. They are gone with the higher interest rates we are now paying. They are gone with the higher petrol prices we are now paying. They are gone with higher private medical insurance premiums allowed to be introduced by this government.

In the NT we have what must be among the highest petrol prices in the nation. Even in Darwin we are paying $1.42 a litre for unleaded petrol. In Nhulunbuy it is around $1.50 a litre. In Tennant Creek around $1.65 a litre. In the most remote places it is closer to $2.00 a litre.

This government refuses to do anything to reduce this very high cost.

With this high cost of fuel, freight prices have also gone up, reflected in the prices in our stores for most of our basic necessities.

Let me perhaps here use some figures from my colleague in the other place, where he quoted some prices taken from the NT Government market basket survey in April to June 2005 ( before petrol prices hit their present levels). Using Darwin prices as the base their survey found that basket of goods was 52% more expensive in the Barkly Region. It averaged 32% more expensive across the more remote communities.

That is a fairly heavy impost and one that this budget does absolutely nothing to alleviate. In fact as you will see later, for those needing child care this budget makes those costs even higher.

So the meagre tax cuts received by most people have more than gone – they get us nothing. Not even the milk shake and sandwich of a past tax cut. They have disappeared into the ether without even touching our pockets. Territorians don’t even get to see them.

Then I could talk about the lost opportunity once again to invest in our future – this budget gives nothing extra to Higher Education or Vocational Training.

Even the much vaunted Australian Technical College promised to Darwin is, like many others lagging behind and is not yet even off the ground. Here was an example of wasting funds in pursuit of an ideology when so many existing TAFE and other training providers could have been up and running with plenty of trainees if the ATC funds had gone to them.

The decision to fund ATC’s was one made entirely as a whim, ideologically based, to heavily involve business in the area of education. It is proving to be a totally ineffective and poor decision on the way to do this.

Indeed, even worse, what I consider to have been an important, if not financially large, initiative has been cut completely – the Women in Training program has gone in this budget.

This budget has cut $52 million in incentives to support women apprentices in training in traditional trades and rural areas. Some $38.5 million of this has gone from the women in trades program.

Then we might look at road funding in this budget for the Territory. Despite the huge budget surplus, this budget does little for our roads – certainly nothing new or major. The Victoria Highway, under Auslink, will get a $30 million upgrade for flood mitigation. But this project has been on the agenda for some time. The recent cyclone and consequent flooding made this project even more urgent.

Some other roads will get funding under Roads to Recovery, but with our enormous mileage of roads to maintain, these funds are never really enough and local councils are always playing catch up.

These councils will be happy to receive these funds and will already have projects in mind to use and benefit from these funds. However we also still have some 9000 kilometres of roads on unincorporated land which get none of this funding.

Our beef producers turn out great numbers and great value in cattle, but the beef roads get nothing. Many producers and transporters are complaining about the poor state of those roads and the damage done to both cattle and trucks. Damage which imposes even higher costs on them by poor roads on top now of fuel prices.

So despite the value of NT product to the national economy, whether tourism, minerals, cattle or horticulture, this budget does very little to improve transport, communications or infrastructure.

So how the Member for Solomon can think this is a generous budget – one of great largesse – for the Northern Territory, is beyond me.

It does nothing for the Territory taxpayers, little for roads, little or nothing for any other communications or infrastructure, nothing for higher education or training.

Of course it must be said equally that this budget does nothing for any average Australian worker. The Government’s extreme Industrial Relations laws take away any job security, take away most employment conditions, then the budget gives precious little in tax cuts which are already gone in higher interest, higher fuel prices and so on. God help the workers, for John Howard, Kevin Andrews and Peter Costello will not.

Neither unfortunately does the Government do anything to help child care. Nothing in this budget will do anything for child care in the Northern Territory.

In fact the opposite will be true in many cases since changes to funding arrangements of community child care centres will in fact mean they have to raise their charges or go out of business.

Many people in these regional and remote areas are low and middle income earners – the battlers – and they will simply not be able to meet the increased cost and will be forced to drop out of the workforce.

This will of course have flow on effects not just for individuals and families but for employment in regional and remote areas – it will become harder to recruit and retain staff in these areas.

But then this government shows no caring for regional and remote Australia and never has done.

And finally let me talk about the sad state of affairs with the budget for Indigenous people, who have been much in the news of late. The government has done a good deal of beating of the breast, and talking tough, but this budget does nothing for Indigenous Australians.

What the issue of Indigenous affairs recently HAS done is enable the government to have another go at Indigenous Australians. It has sadly enabled them to make a lot of noise about Indigenous problems whilst covering up the facts that this budget has gone down a bit like a lead balloon, and workers are starting to feel the bite of the so called Workchoices legislation.

Estimates has shown that this government policy of mainstreaming, whole of government and COAG trials simply has not worked, certainly not in the Northern Territory.

The COAG trial at Wadeye has achieved little or nothing. Many Indigenous projects show that Federal mainstream government departments spent as much or more on their administration fees as ever got on the ground in terms of projects to improve the living standards of Indigenous people.

Funds allocated nationally for domestic and family violence programs have been largely unspent.

Minister Brough’s Department has spent nothing in Wadeye since 2004 from its $37 million Family Violence Partnerships Program budget. Department officers admitted in estimates that nationwide only $5.6 million or a sixth of the money has been spent in the first two years of the program. The program was promised as an outcome of the Prime Minister’s roundtable on family violence with Indigenous leaders in 2003.

The Minister recently announced $30 million dollars for Alice Springs town camps, but when we get down to the nitty gritty we find that the government intends to take $10 million of this from the ABA. This latter is money set aside, under the Land Rights Act, into that account from mining royalty equivalents, for the use and benefit of Aboriginal people, and to be administered by them. So the federal Government just steps in and grabs a few million.

A further $10 million is the NTG contribution from their housing money, and the $10 million Federal money comes from a program announced back in 2004. So this budget gives no new money here.

This government has done what it is good at. It has made a lot of noise, it has talked tough about imposing law and order. Ministers have indicated support for taking “customary” law out of court decisions. They have indicated they think taking culture out of school curricula is worth considering. They are looking at the viability of homelands.

What they have not done is to come to grips with actually talking to Indigenous people, listening to them, and actually treating the causes rather than the effects.

The facts are too well known to bear repeating here, but if you were living 17 or 18 to a house, you might just get cranky. You might get stressed out, especially if you had no job or only a few hours a week on CDEP. There might be stresses leading to family violence.

Don’t get me wrong – it is probably good that the Minister for Indigenous Affairs has been out and about and raised these issues, but we don’t need just talk about tougher law and order. We don’t need more summit meetings to talk about the problems (and how many Indigenous people will be involved here? I hear no Indigenous representatives are invited to the summit).

We need on the ground action, and this budget just does not achieve that.

This budget contains little for Indigenous Australians. It lacks any overall coherent approach, and like everything under “mainstreaming” and “whole of government” is a piecemeal approach with no real strategy for addressing the real problems.

So this budget is, for the Northern Territory, a complete non event. The NT gets very little from it. Tax payers get nothing; Indigenous people get nothing; higher education and training get nothing.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

The 2006-7 Budget is a missed chance and a wasted opportunity. This budget signifies how out of touch this Government is. This Government has become so distracted by ideological crusades that they have taken their eyes off the ball. They have chosen to ignore the issues that are holding the economy back. It is ignoring the issues that matter to mums and dads, the issues that press home every single day.

Howard and his Government have become lost and out of touch. They have lost the will for good government, they now simply seek power.

In the Sunday Age on the 7th May, ANZ Chief Economist Saul Eslake was scathing when he said:

“The resources boom has dropped $100 billion into the Government’s lap that they hadn’t expected in 2002 and they’ve spent all of it and a bit more, and I honestly and genuinely struggle to find anything that has been done with it bar win elections.”

It is obvious that this Government is not looking at the national interest. They are only interested in the political interest.

John Howard used to talk about ‘Howard’s Battlers’, and Menzies used to talk about ‘the forgotten people’. But Howard’s battlers are the new forgotten people.

This Government is forgetting working families. Look at the facts: every year another big tax cut to the well off. We see Macquarie Bank chairman Allan Moss picking up $6,000 a week out of this budget, and what do middle income families get? A pathetic token. A mere $9.81 a week.

Does this cover bracket creep? No it does not. This $9.81 also fails to address high effective marginal tax rates, fails to cover rising petrol prices, fails to cover rising childcare fees, fails to cover rising health costs and fails to cover the impact of interest rate rises.

This budget is yet another failure from an old and failing government. The greatest failure of all is of course WorkChoices.

Let’s take a look at these Australian Workplace Agreements that the Government is hell bent on promoting. Every single AWA that the Office of the Employment Advocate has looked at cuts conditions from the relevant Award. Every single AWA has contained a cut to something.

The Prime Minister defends the system saying that workers have received pay rises. What pay rise did the Spotlight workers receive? Two measly cents an hour! Two cent pay rise or no, these workers will be $90 a week worse off. And what do we hear from the Liberal party room in response? I will quote the Member for Blair, Mr Cameron Thompson, who said that they are “sick of hearing this sad-sack sorry stuff”.¹

Instead of creating policy, this Government is creating poverty. Instead of delivering productivity they are delivering pay cuts.

Laurie Oakes belled the cat the other day when he wrote about the tactics of confusion. He said that John Howard always seeks to avoid the central IR issue, that is, that many people are going to be worse off. Laurie Oakes also reminded us of a quote from 1996;

“I have no intention of permitting the critical debate about industrial relations reform to be submerged again by a welter of false accusations that wages will be lower under a Coalition Government. That is why our policy for the coming election contains an explicit guarantee. Under no circumstances will a Howard Government create a wages system which causes the wages of Australian workers to be cut. Under a Howard Government you cannot be worse off but you can be better off. I give you this rock solid guarantee. Our policy will not cut your take-home pay.”

John Howard, 28th Convention of the Young Liberal Movement, January 8 1996

A rock solid guarantee. We all know about the Prime Minister’s “rock solid guarantee”, his “never ever” and of course, his “core and non-core promises”.

The Australian people are waking up to a simple fact. The Prime Minister and his Government have to go. They are a Government on the ropes, constantly stumbling and bumbling from one crisis to the next, mishandling issues and missing the point.

Of course they throw up diversions where they can, but things keep blowing up in their faces; WorkChoices, Iraq, AWB, migration, civil unions, childcare and electoral reform to name a few.

The Government is failing. They are tired, they keep dropping the ball. This Government is full of weary minds and weary bodies, barely dragging themselves from one disaster to another. And it is not only the Opposition saying it. To quote the Bulletin:

“There are no ideas…” says one Liberal frontbencher. “We are just drifting along… It’s like he [Howard] doesn’t know why he wants to be PM anymore and he’s taking pot shots – nuclear power and gay marriage one minute, the ABC again the next.”²

The Government’s latest trick is mauling the committees of the Senate. Earlier in the week they voted to minimise democracy for the Australian people, and now they want to ensure that the processes within government are as undemocratic as possible.

This is a Government that knows it is on the ropes. They have overstepped the mark on IR reform so now they are pulling every other stunt they can to try to avoid scrutiny and hide its failings. They are hoping nobody notices how drunk on power they have become. But these failings cannot be hidden.

Look at the foreign Debt explosion. Foreign debt keeps stacking up, and the net foreign debt is growing faster than ever before. Net foreign debt stands at more than 50% of GDP. 493 billion dollars! It is pressing down on the economy.

When John Howard launched the Debt Truck in 1995 he said;

“If it weren’t for the level of foreign debt, interest rates in this country would be much lower and every Australian today who owes money on his or her home is paying a higher interest rate than would otherwise be the case because of the size of our foreign debt.”³

He also said:

“I can promise you that we will follow policies which will, over a period of time, bring down the foreign debt.”⁴

He has had ten long years. I think it has been long enough. John Howard broke another promise to the country - our foreign debt is enormous and growing, but it does not stop there. Another massive problem is our record household debt.

Latest figures put the household debt ratio at 166.4%. This means that debt is more than 1½ times our incomes. Again, this is a record level and it keeps piling up. Household savings have been negative since 2002. We are spending more than we earn.

Around kitchen tables in houses all over the country, the bills are piling up and the bills are followed around by more debt. This rams home the sensitivity to interest rate movements

Australia’s attention must be drawn to the failure of the Howard-Costello Government to do anything about our ballooning foreign debt. Every Australian should know that this failure is what keeps pushing their interest rates up.

And how low are our interest rates, really? They are not low at all, they are comparatively high. Our interest rates are among the highest in the developed world. Check the figures! We have got higher interest rates than Canada, United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom and this has been the case since August 2001. This is true whether you compare nominal or real rates. Why is this? Wasn’t John Howard going to keep interest rates at record lows?

On the 29th August 2004, the Prime Minister asked Australian families:

“Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?”⁵

During the last election campaign, the Liberal Party claimed they would:

“Keep interest rates at record lows”⁶

Interest rates have risen twice since then.

Since August 2004, the average mortgage costs Australian home owners $879 more per year.

The Government has now been in power for ten long years, and since they gained control of the Senate they have been drunk on power. They have lost touch with ordinary Australians. They have been blessed with rivers of gold and they have chosen to squander their opportunity to invest in the future. Instead they invest in their own political futures. They were given the trust of the people and in return they took away their job security. Maybe the Australian people might want to return the favour.

The rot has well and truly set in. It is time to make a change.

1       SMH, Short shrift for shop lady’s hard luck story, Phillip Coorey, June 22, 2006

2       The Bulletin, 27^th June 2006, p.11.

3       Debt Truck Launch, Parliament House, September 20 1995.

4       Debt Truck Launch, Parliament House, September 20 1995.

5       Press Conference announcing the calling of the 2004 election at Yarralumla

6       Liberal Party election advertisement, screened during September and October 2004.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Families in my duty electorates of Lindsay and Greenway in western Sydney, Dobell and Robertson on the Central Coast, and Gwydir and Calare in west and north western New South Wales have a right to be disappointed by this Budget.

This Budget represents nothing new from a tired, old Government, whose arrogance after 10 years is already starting to poke through. It’s become a familiar tale on Budget nights under the Howard-Costello Government: Australians are all waiting for a promise to invest in the country’s future, but it never comes. This year was no different, but the disappointment was made all the more bitter by the fact this Government had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to capitalise on the revenue from the resources boom and put in place a future-thinking programme of investment, but we got nothing of the sort.

Under this regime we have seen 300,000 Australians turned away from TAFE courses. Not because they didn’t have the marks or the qualifications, but because there weren’t the places to take them. And running concurrent to this shortage of educational places has been a skills shortage that continues to worsen. This month the vacancies for skilled jobs rose again by 1.2 per cent. We can’t get the people to fill these places because they aren’t getting the opportunity. And what is this Government’s response? Instead of using some of the $10 billion to make sure young Australians aren’t being turned away for trades courses, they are relying on imported workers to fill the gap. John Howard said in question time this week he thought it ‘elementary’ to rely on foreign workers to solve the skills crisis his Government has sent us headlong. Well I say it is elementary to train our young people to fill those places before we turn to overseas labour.

Of course, this is part of John Howard’s grand ideological plan for the country with his Work Choices legislation. It is all aimed at slashing the wages of workers, whether it is employers drawing up Spotlight-style AWAs or it is business using labourers from overseas to undercut the wages of domestic workers. The only choices under this regime are accept lowered wages, no penalty rates and no rights, or be unemployed. These are the stark choices Australians are being presented with.

Even Gosford Liberal Councillor Malcolm Brooks knows this. In his newsletter, The Way Ahead Cr Brooks lambasted the Coalition for imposing its ridiculous IR laws, admitting it is deeply flawed and will make it harder for Australians to get a fair go in the workplace. Considering Cr Brooks’ newsletter purports to represent mainstream Liberal Party opinion on the Central Coast, I would assume Ken Ticehurst and Jim Lloyd share this point of view but haven’t had the ticker to come forward and stand up for their electorates.

At the centrepiece of this Budget was what Peter Costello referred to as ‘tax reform’, but in reality was a $10 tax cut that was eaten up by the triple whammy of interest rate rises, skyrocketing petrol prices and shrinking wages under this Government’s draconian IR laws.

According to the last ABS census, the vast majority of income earners in my duty electorates earn weekly incomes of less than $800 and will receive a tax cut of $10.

Labor has lobbied hard for a tax break for middle Australia. Those families on average weekly wages are bearing this country on their shoulders: they are the workers who are putting in overtime and working on weekends and public holidays, and they are the workers who are helping to strengthen the economy. But middle Australia also cops the brunt of the spikes in petrol prices, or when this Government’s poor management of the economy sees yet another rise in interest rates, or when an employer uses this Government’s IR laws to slash their wages for the sake of a profit.

They were short-changed in last year’s Budget with a miserly $6-a-week tax cut, and the extra $10 coming out of this year’s Budget is already spent as mums and dads at the kitchen table try and balance the books.

The Member for Dobell, Mr Ticehurst, in his contribution on the Appropriations Bill, regaled the tax cuts delivered by the Government. Mr Ticehurst said:

Improvements to tax and family payments in this budget will help middle income earners in Dobell, particularly those with families, and put more money back into their pockets. From 1 July 2006, all Australian taxpayers will benefit from new personal tax cuts worth $36.7 million.

In the seat of Dobell, 84% of income earners are earning less than $800 a week. 6.7% of people in the Dobell electorate will benefit from the cut to the tax rate of 42 cents in the dollar to 40 cents in the dollar, and only 2.55% will benefit from reducing the top tax rate from 47 to 45 cents in the dollar. Mr Ticehurst and his Government aren’t looking after middle Australians, they are delivering tax cuts to their mates in the top tax brackets.

In the past two years, the average income earners of my duty electorates have received $16 in tax cuts. But let’s look at the increases in the costs of goods and services they have been forced to bear in the past two years. In April 2004, the average cost of unleaded petrol in Sydney was 94.7 cents per litre. In April 2006, they paid an average of 132.5 cents per litre. If we look at filling up a family sedan, with a 75 litre fuel tank, in April 2004 this would have cost $71.03. In April this year, families were shelling out close to $100. That’s an extra $30 a week middle Australia is trying to find just to be able to commute to work, do the shopping or take the kids to weekend sport.

Let’s have a look at the increase in mortgages. Since October 2004, when John Howard made his hollow promise to keep interest rates low, the repayments on an average mortgage of around $227,000 have leapt by $879 a year. That’s an extra $18 a week families are scraping together to pay off their mortgages.

With their $16 in tax cuts, families are also trying to cover childcare fees that are climbing ever higher. Since the ABS’s 2001 Child Care Survey, the median weekly cost of childcare has increased by 48%. The median weekly cost of childcare for parents using 40-44 hours a week was $85 in 2001. In 2005, this had jumped to $130. That’s an extra $45 a week parents are having to find and fund.

Low income earners are going to find it particularly tough, because Peter Costello is making them wait until 1 July 2007 for their tax cut. Australians receiving the Low Income Tax Offset, which is a significant proportion of the tax cut received by taxpayers on less than $40,000 a year- and there are five million such people- won’t see that cheque for another 12 months.

Working mothers number large among recipients of the LITO. Mums coming back into the workforce after the birth of a child would benefit from the LITO, but even with a $10 billion surplus and a self-congratulatory pats on its own back, the Government couldn’t see fit to give these low wage earners a break and ensure they had access to this important offset.

If the Government does the arithmetic here and still concludes that the tax cuts it handed down in the Budget are something for ordinary Australians to marvel at, they are more out-of-touch than I thought.

I would like to take a moment to comment on the Government’s inaction on childcare in this Budget.

Mrs Markus said in her speech on this bill in the other place:

I would particularly like to highlight the uncapped childcare places in family daycare and before and after school care. While it is a job that is never done, child care must change with the social nuances of the time. It is a job that requires active listening and responsiveness.

Indeed, I would agree with Mrs Markus that there needs to be a lot of listening done on the issue of childcare. The problem is, it isn’t happening. Just ask Jackie Kelly, Member for Lindsay. She has jumped up and down about child care, but her Government colleagues aren’t listening to her. They’re certainly not listening to the electorate.

However, I found Ms Kelly’s response to the Budget rather perplexing. In the local press in my duty electorate of Lindsay following the handing down of the Budget, Ms Kelly had very little to say about child care.

I would like to read from the Budget coverage in The Western Weekender of Friday, May 12, by Kieran Colreavy, titled, ‘Eleventh Heaven’, which featured, incidentally, a photo of Ms Kelly quite chummy with Treasurer Costello:

Federal Member for Lindsay, Jackie Kelly, welcomed the Budget, saying it would leave workers and families better off.

“A new comprehensive tax plan, more childcare places, superannuation assistance and further family assistance are just some of the highlights of the 2006-07 Budget,” said Ms Kelly.

In the Penrith Press of the same day, journalist Louise Attard’s story has Ms Kelly singing the praises of the Government’s childcare provisions in the Budget:

“(The childcare rebate) will rebate 30 per cent of out-of-pocket childcare expenses up to $4000 per child per annum,” she said.

Of the uncapping of family day-care and out-of-hours care places, Ms Kelly said in the Press:

“This means any new service set up by any eligible group will be funded,” Ms Kelly said.

“It is expected that this will generate an additional 25,000 places by 2009.”

I found this very curious, particularly considering Ms Kelly’s previous tirades against her own Government. Take, for example, her speech to the Fisher Price Childcare Awards in November last year, where she declared her Government’s 30 per cent childcare rebate as ‘clumsy’. She goes on, in the same speech, to say, “The Government system to support those people (parents) is designed by people who don’t use it.”

This speech was followed by months of Ms Kelly calling her Government’s childcare system a ‘shambles’ and proposing radical reform. She even threatened to cross the floor at one stage if the Government did not install a world-class childcare facility in this House.

Yet come the Budget announcement, and we had an unusually tame response from Ms Kelly despite the fact she got nothing of what she was asking for, and Australian mums and dads were rightly disappointed by the absolute poverty of solutions for childcare from the Howard Government. Ms Kelly was in ‘Eleventh Heaven’, according to the local papers.

But come Sunday, May 14, and Ms Kelly had transformed into a maddened avenger who, after having expressed no initial concern about any of the childcare provisions in the Budget, came out and said, quite rightly so, that the ALP was more serious on childcare than her own party. She told the Sun-Herald newspaper:

Childcare needs a bit of leadership. We have missed an opportunity with this Budget. Kim Beazley is obviously talking childcare as an attack, saying you could have done more.

It’s hard not to disagree with that when you have got $10 billion in your kitty.

So we had a very sudden turnaround, from disinterest to anger, in the space of two days.

Ms Kelly was very correct, however, in saying the ALP is taking the issue of childcare more seriously than the Coalition. The Howard Government has, in the words of Ms Kelly, missed an opportunity to use that massive surplus and invest it in our future, to take that surplus and invest it in supporting our working mothers and fathers by making a childcare system that is affordable and accessible.

We do have the better policy. Kim Beazley demonstrated this in his reply speech. We will build 260 childcare centres on primary school and community grounds so parents can avoid the mad morning double drop-off. And those centres are going to be staffed by Australians who have studied the relevant TAFE courses for free, because Labor is going to abolish fees on those courses. We recognise that it’s about more than just rebates and uncapping places; we understand that those centres have to be built and have to be staffed as well.

It didn’t take Ms Kelly long to change her mind yet again, but it was more the monstering she received from her own party colleagues than anything, I suspect, that provided the imperative. The next day, May 15, she was out with her tail between her legs, well and truly cowed by the heavies on her side. She’s gone from saying the system is a shambles, that the rebate is clumsy, and that the Government doesn’t know what it’s talking about when it designs childcare policy, to statements like this one she delivered on the AM programme:

I mean, I think our Government’s got a great record on childcare, and I think this lifting of the cap on family day care is another step in the right direction. It’s an instalment, if you like.

She lit a fire, but couldn’t handle the trouble she got herself into and backed away from it.

Her hypocrisy on this issue continued on into her speech on this bill in the other place on 1 June. She said that, “Importantly for me, we did something on childcare”, and goes on to say she is looking for the second instalment in the Government’s childcare policy. Well, firstly, this Government has done nothing for childcare but paid it lip-service, and secondly, guess what, Jackie Kelly, keep looking for that ‘second instalment’ because this Government has no further commitment to deliver a solution to the problems wracking childcare.

I find it entirely disingenuous that this Member can’t even bother to put out a decent response to her local press after the Budget, then comes out swinging madly and telling the truth for once on this issue- that Labor has got it right-, but capsizes at the first sign of pressure. What kind of representative is this? The people of Lindsay don’t deserve an MP who will toe the party line at the first sign of heat from the thugs on her own side.

This is a disappointing Budget, and the Government have shown again they aren’t serious about the future of this country.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I bring to the chambers attention the plight of Timor-Leste, the world’s newest nation. The Timorese are a remarkable people, having come so far through such adversity. The formation of Timor-Leste is a testament to the strength of the people, and we must remember that there will be continuing challenges for these people and their nation.

I have been astounded to read some of the commentary arising out of the conflict that occurred in Timor-Leste. We have seen media commentators arguing that we should consider ‘harsh truths’ - putting the views that Timor brought the Indonesian invasion on itself and that the 1999 violence was not caused by Indonesia. I have even heard it said that Timor was not ready for independence.

These disgraceful revisionists ignore the well documented death and destruction wreaked by Indonesian forces. They ignore the abject failure of Portugal to provide infrastructure and opportunity as a colonial power and they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that Australian Government and media stood idly by whilst all this was going on. They conveniently gloss over facts such as whilst Timor-Leste was occupied by the Indonesians, Australian authorities had the temerity to use our Navy to stop medical supplies getting to Timor. Our Government even attempted to prosecute people trying to get Medicines to Timor on charges of drug smuggling!

Most glaringly they ignore that for the first time in centuries the Timorese people truly have the ability to take charge of their own affairs.

Yet like many countries the road to stable government and prosperity is one which will be marked by a steep learning curve, and this is where we should be helping to ensure Timorese can overcome the challenges, creating the opportunity that has so far been denied to them. We have to work with the Timorese on fundamentals such as education, healthcare and economic opportunity as the people of Timor-Leste are trying to reverse centuries of neglect rapidly. Their society is undergoing massive change, as many people try to deal with their past and the challenges that face them presently. There is a collective trauma, as evidenced by the findings of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, and made raw by the recent violence, these psychological scars will take generations to heal.

So we know that we must move forward and support Timorese in the long term, not as we did after 1999, when the Australian Government trumpeted INTERFET as a success, and then wound back its commitment to help build civil society and the economy in Timor-Leste over time. The Australian Government even pushed for the UN presence to be scaled back and withdrawn. This was not a sensible long term support of the Timorese people, and I am pleased to note that Australian communities took up the challenge by establishing Friendship relationships with communities in Timor-Leste, financing such fundamentals as local buildings, community education and skills exchange - working with Timorese with a long term view of stronger communities in Timor.

One of the largest contributions the Australian Government made however was the commitment to train the Defence Force of Timor-Leste, and had we done this well we may have avoided the conflict that arose in May of this year. 

Unfortunately as we look back it seems that we did little training of the Defence Force of Timor-Leste. Rather than turn them into a coherent, disciplined defence force this move became an immense Australian policy failure as the poorly trained and resourced Timorese soldiers became protagonists in the violence we have recently seen.

Australia did not train the Timor-Leste Defence Force; rather it sent hundreds of training advisers from 1999 onwards and did little but impart rudimentary skills. Deliberately ambiguous, conflicting orders from our military and civilian authorities, and serious differences between the departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs, underscored by a characteristic fawning toward Indonesia ensured the Australians charged with the task would never be able to achieve what they set out to do.

The Australian Government spent more than six million dollars on a training school at Metinaro, and rather than instilling a culture of unity, honour and cohesion it missed this opportunity, and both Timorese and Australians would later pay for this. This failure was encapsulated in the comment by Major Steve McCrohon, one of those charged with training the Timorese, as quoted in the Bulletin:

“There was never any discipline as such and all of this present trouble can be brought back to what happened when we were there. It was a complete dog’s breakfast and I believe it was one of the great lost opportunities for Australia to really make a difference”

Speaking to Australians recently evacuated from Timor-Leste they were scathing regarding the Federal Government’s continuing narrow focus on the short term and the lack of commitment to enabling peaceful and prosperous nations in our region in the long term.

This Government must realize that it cannot continue intervening when things go horribly wrong – it must avoid these conflicts by actively making substantial long term commitments, ensuring stable and prosperous countries in our region. That Timor-Leste’s ongoing growth and development could be significantly undone by such events underscored the fragility of this new nation and emphasizes the need for Australia to make a substantial long term commitment to the development of Timor Leste, with an aim to developing the great potential that exists.

I am ashamed at how successive Australian Governments viewed the plight of the Timorese people and ignored their suffering, ultimately doing little to assist their plight. This has now changed and we have a historic opportunity to make the future of Timor-Leste one marked by co-operation, strength and friendship. We can work with Timorese to ensure that they prosper and have the standard of life that we take for granted. What we should not do is see our relationship with Timor as one where Australian interests take over-riding priority.

We witnessed a terrible failure of civic leaders and institutions in Timor-Leste which meant that unspeakable acts have been committed on ordinary people through no fault of their own.

The violence largely arose out of ignorance and arrogance. Ignorance in that a largely meaningless arbitrary and historical divide separated neighbourhoods, pitting Timorese against Timorese in deadly violence, and arrogance shown by a Government that assumed everything was controllable and believed it had the trust of a largely sceptical populace, whose fears and distrust as it turns out, were well founded.

The current reality is complex and ugly and I hope this does not continue to claim the lives of Timorese, already having touched many. We need the Australian Government to broaden their focus from this narrow view of short term intervention to one of working together with the peoples of our region over our lifetime ensuring that they too have the opportunities and choices that our lives permit us.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

On Wednesday this week I spoke in this Senate regarding the disgraceful, inaccurate article entitled “Labor has a history of blind pacifism” written  by the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, and published in The Australian on  2 May 2006.  

I said in my speech that the article “distorts facts and history, draws erroneous conclusions and ignores the substantial evidence that contradicts his biased analysis.”

Tonight I intend to demonstrate further distortions and misrepresentations of history contained in Mr Downer’s article.  I will also refute other outrageous and offensive propositions advanced by the Foreign Minster particularly in respect to our current involvement in the Iraq war and its aftermath.

In his attack on John Curtin and the Labor Party Mr Downer wrote:

He [ie: Curtin] had consistently been a pacifist, wanting to appease tyrannical regimes, and called for Australia to remain firmly isolated from the world’s great struggles. In response to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, for example, Curtin opposed sanctions and stated that ‘the control of Abyssinia by any country is not worth the loss of a single Australian life’.

There are some interesting points to make about this spurious claim.

Firstly, I can find no record of Mr Curtin ever actually making this statement in the Parliament.  The words quoted by Mr Downer were made in a speech to the House of Representatives by Mr Forde, Leader of the Opposition, on 23 September 1935 when the Parliament debated a statement by the Prime Minister, Mr Lyons, on the Italo-Abyssinian Dispute.

Secondly, and consistent with the rest of Mr Downer’s article, the statements are taken completely out of context and twisted to denigrate John Curtin and the ALP.

Let me quote from Mr Forde’s speech.

Mr FORDE (Capricornia) [5.29]—Australia has been looking to the Prime Minister to make a definite pronouncement as to the attitude of his Government on the Abyssinian crisis. The other dominions outlined their attitude weeks ago. On the 8^th September the Prime Minister of Canada was reported to have said, “Canadians will not be embroiled in any foreign quarrel in which the rights of Canadians are not involved. We have bought and paid for security and peace and we mean to have them”. The Defence Minister for South Africa stated that no son of that country would fire a shot without the people being consulted.

Although I admire the efforts of countries that have been striving to settle the dispute in a peaceful manner, and particularly the way in which Great Britain has endeavoured to have conciliation used in this dispute, I strongly hold the view that Australia should not allow the statesmen of any other country to determine this country’s course of action. The Federal Government should instruct its delegate at Geneva that Australia will not be a party to war. Surely there is no more reason why Australia should become involved to-day than when four provinces were wrested from China by an original member of the League of Nations. If it were not for the oil-fields of Abyssinia, and other rich natural resources desired by great vested interests, there would not be these mad manoeuvrings for war. There would be the same apathy as was shown regarding the invasions of Manchuria.

What Minister Downer fails to acknowledge in his article is the similar attitude of the then Lyon’s UAP Government to this dispute.  The Lyon’s Government believed that it was a territorial dispute and should be sorted out by the League of Nations rather than by the use of force or resort to war. The following is part of Prime Minister Lyon’s statement to the Parliament that day:

The Commonwealth Government, while convinced that the upholding of the principles of collective security embodied in the League of Nations is essential to the world’s peace, desires to point out that none of the provisions of the Covenant has been violated by either Italy or Abyssinia. The Government feels that discussion on these matters should not, at this juncture, assume that either of these countries will violate any its obligations in this regard. It therefore seems unwise either to anticipate any breach, or to announce in advance the course of action to be followed by the Commonwealth Government in contingencies the nature and circumstances of which cannot at present be foreseen. While fully recognised the gravity of the present situation, the Government hold very strongly that it ought not, either by word or by action, to embarrass those who are earnestly striving to effect a peaceful settlement.

Thirdly, when Japan had earlier invaded Manchuria in 1932, ignoring the League of Nations and the principle of territorial sovereignty, the world, including Australia, simply ignored it.  Thousands of Manchurians and Chinese were massacred during those years of brutal occupation but the governments of the USA, the UK, France, and Australia did nothing.  They turned a blind eye and mumbled the usual diplomatic concerns.

It is rather ironic that on that same date, 23 September 1935, just prior to his statement to the Parliament on the Italo-Abyssinian dispute, the Prime Minister Joe Lyons made another statement welcoming a goodwill mission from Japan to Australia.

It pays to check the record.  Maybe Mr Downer thought he could get away with these gross misrepresentations and selective quotation.  This article is deliberately deceitful.  It ignores the appalling record of conservative Governments in Australia prior to World War II whilst making false claims about the ALP’s and John Curtin’s record. When Australia faced its darkest hour in 1941 the people turned away from Menzies and the conservatives and looked to John Curtin and the ALP for leadership.  He did not let them down.

Mr Downer has concocted his revisionist history to support his Government’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq and our continuing presence there.  He promotes the view that strong leadership is measured by how often you go to war irrespective of the cost and the justification.  Apparently, if you don’t support his view, than you will be branded as weak, an appeaser, and at worst, a supporter of totalitarian regimes.

Given this attitude one is entitled to question what has Mr Downer and the Government done to end the appalling genocide that has occurred in Zimbabwe and the Sudan. Why didn’t they act earlier to prevent the massacres in East Timor following the vote for independence – massacres that were predicted?  The answer of course is that they did nothing until after the carnage.  Should they be labelled appeasers and supporters of totalitarianism? 

The Liberals, of course, are expert in getting Australia involved in war.  On occasions their gung-ho attitude has led to disaster and/or an inglorious withdrawal.

In 1956 Liberal Prime Minister Menzies was determined to play a major role in the Suez Crisis. His bumbling diplomatic intervention was an international embarrassment and his support for Britain and France’s invasion of Egypt was a monumental blunder.  Fortunately no Australian troops were involved and therefore no lives were lost.

Vietnam, of course was a disaster.  The decision to commit combat forces, supposedly at the request of South Vietnam but which was later proved to be a lie, ultimately cost the lives of 500 Australians (185 conscripts) and 3,129 wounded (1039 conscripts).  The conscripts were young men who were not even old enough to vote. 

In the1966 Federal Election the ALP was vilified.  Anyone who opposed the Vietnam War was labelled a communist sympathiser, a coward or a traitor. Yet by 1971 the Coalition Government had to withdraw our troops from that disastrous futile war.  Many of those veterans still carry the physical and mental scars today.

When it has been justified the ALP has supported the commitment of our armed forces to overseas conflicts.  I refer to the Korean War of 1950 -1953, the Malaysian Emergency of 1950, the First Gulf War in 1991 when the Hawke Labor Government was in power and, more recently, the conflict in Afghanistan.  Similarly, the ALP has always strongly supported the deployment of troops and other personnel such as the AFP to assist in peace-keeping operations in many parts of the world and particularly in our own region.

The Government now has our armed forces stretched to the limit due to our involvement in the Iraq war and its bloody aftermath.  The Government’s decision to join the war in Iraq was based on a series of false assertions.  We were told by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister that the invasion of Iraq was not to bring about regime change - it was not about removing Saddam Hussein.  Yet in his article Minster Downer attacks the ALP claiming that “Beazley thought that we should have left Saddam Hussein in power; we were wrong to help our allies get rid of him.”  

What hypocrisy!  It was actually the Prime Minister Mr Howard and Mr Downer who said that there would be no need to invade Iraq if Saddam Hussein would just tell the world where his weapons of mass destruction were hidden.  In other words the Prime Minister and Mr Downer were quite happy to leave Saddam Hussein in power. 

We were told that we went to war because Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that would be used to promote terrorism.  Yet after three years no such weapons of mass destruction have been discovered. 

We are now told that the reason for our presence in Iraq is to help bring democracy and peace to the Middle East.  In other words, it was really about regime change after all.  After three years following that regime change the situation in Iraq has become a nightmare.  Dozens of civilians are being killed every day, usually blown to bits by suicide bombers.  Many are kidnapped and executed by terrorists and criminal gangs. The total number of civilians killed so far amounts to tens if not hundreds of thousands.

Over 2,500 US troops and over 200 British and other forces have lost their lives.  Religious fanatics from both the Shia and Sunni factions are provoking a civil war. Iran has become more emboldened and more belligerent. Osama Bin Laden still roams free.  Peace and democracy in the region are further away than ever before.

What is truly amazing is that Mr Downer, in his article, has the temerity to make the following statement:

Australia needs leaders who have the moral clarity to see right from wrong. We need to stand up for what we believe and live up to our responsibilities, as a significant country, to contribute to the global struggle.

Mr Downer’s attack on John Curtin’s legacy in his article in The Australian follows a similar speech he delivered on 17 May 2005.  The speech on that occasion was in honour of Sir Earle Page, the former leader of the Country Party.  Given Mr Downer’s vicious attack on John Curtin I thought it might be interesting to read what Sir Earle Page said in Parliament on 5 July 1945 following the death of John Curtin.  This is part of his tribute:

Sir EARLE PAGE (Cowper)—I desire to offer my deep sympathy to Mrs. Curtin and her children, and also pay homage of respect and gratitude to John Curtin for his great public services to Australia, the Empire, and the world. His premature death shocks every one in Australia. Especially does it shock those of us who were privileged to know him and to serve alongside him in this Parliament for so many years. He had died  as a direct result of the tremendous tasks and responsibilities that war has entailed. He is a war casualty, as much as is any fighting man.

John Curtin came into this Parliament with a well-stored mind and a very keen intelligence. It was a matter for pleasure to see how, with increasing responsibilities and experience of administration, his mental stature and grasp of affairs progressively grew. He became a spokesman for Australia, of whom we all were proud. He was one of our most gifted orators and masters of expression. He was a great parliamentary leader, and a distinguished servant of the people who he loved.

I extend my profound sympathy to his widow and family, to his party, and to the nation at his untimely passing when he can be so ill-spared.

Sadly Australia’s leader today, Prime Minister Howard, and his Foreign Minister Mr Downer, do not have the wit to see what a horrible mess their hubris has caused.  All they can do is resort to revisionist history and character assassination to try and elevate their own status and justify their decisions. 

Samuel Johnson was certainly correct when he said “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate my second reading debate speech in Hansard and I commend the bills to the Senate.

Leave granted.

The speech reads as follows

I am pleased to bring what has been a lively debate to a close and to thank those members who have made a contribution.

I would like to take this opportunity to provide an overview of the package of appropriation bills. I will start with the budget bills.

These bills provide for substantial funding totalling approximately $62.7 billion. They reflect the government's commitment to build opportunities for the future by investing in families, the aged, defence and security, and transport and water. The initiatives for which the budget provides include:

• Funding of $48 billion on health and aged care, including a new $1.9 billion package over five years for mental health services;
• A comprehensive tax reform plan that provides another instalment in income tax reform; incorporates a major improvement in business tax; and includes a proposal to simplify and streamline superannuation which represents the most significant change in nearly 20 years;
• Provision of additional assistance to almost half a million Australian families through the Family Tax Benefit System, costing $993 million over four years;
• Removing the limit on the number of subsidised outside school hours care and family day care places, which is expected to generate an additional 25,000 places by 2009;
• $5 billion to enhance our training and skills under the new national training agreement covering 2005 to 2008; and
• An additional $389 million over four years to combat illegal fishing, which will include increased surface and air surveillance and patrol capability, which is expected to double the number of fishing vessels apprehended in Australia's northern waters each year.

Also included in the package of five appropriation bills are two supplementary additional estimates bills for this financial year, 2005-06. These bills propose expenditure of $3.6 billion for important initiatives that can be accommodated this financial year because of the strength of our fiscal position and the Australian economy generally. The funding in the supplementary additional estimates bills provides, amongst other things:

• Increased funding of $2.1 billion for the AusLink Programme;
• An additional $521.2 million to extinguish the Australian Government's liability for the superannuation entitlements of former State Rail employees of South Australia and Tasmania;
• An injection of $500 million to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to undertake a range of capital works and improvements to protect the resources of the basin and enhance environmental flows;
• An additional $310.4 million to fund a co-ordinated package of measures to assist those adversely affected by Tropical Cyclone Larry;
• Grants totalling $265 million to a number of medical research facilities; and
• A payment of $270 million to the Australian Rail Track Corporation to assist with investment in Australia's interstate rail network.

Strong Economy and Sound Budget Management

I wish to emphasise that the significant level of expenditure proposed in the package of bills is only possible because of the government's continued strong management of the economy and ongoing economic reform.

Through its commitment to sound financial management, the government has put the budget in surplus, retired Government net debt, and commenced saving for its future obligations. This has freed the next generation of Australians to meet their own challenges, unencumbered by the legacy of past Labor Governments that spent beyond their means.

Australia's impressive economic performance of the last decade is set to continue. The outlook is for ongoing solid economic growth coupled with low unemployment and moderate inflation.

Tax Reform

The tax cuts announced in the 2006-07 budget build on the reforms delivered through the New Tax System (announced in July 2000), and the initiatives contained in the 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 budgets. The combined effect of these tax reforms has been to deliver significant reductions in tax for all taxpayers.

The Opposition has made misleading comments about the equity of the tax reforms announced in the Budget. As the Treasurer has demonstrated, the largest tax cut in percentage terms is for people earning $10,000 –they have a tax cut of 100 per cent.

Of course, in dollar terms, the tax cuts are greater for the higher income earners, but that's because they are paying more tax.

In distributional terms, however, the greatest percentage tax cuts go to lower income earners.

To those who argue that we have not addressed bracket creep, it should be remembered that eighty per cent of taxpayers are on taxable incomes of $75,000, or less. As their income increases, they do not move to a higher marginal tax rate. The great bulk of taxpayers can move through the range of $25,000 to $75,000 without changing their marginal rate, which means that most Australians will not be facing an increase in marginal tax rates over the course of their working lives.

Superannuation Reforms

However, this budget not only re-structures the income tax provisions, it also proposes the most significant and far sighted reforms to Australia's superannuation system in decades.

At the heart of the proposed changes is a plan to exempt people aged 60 or over from any tax on payments from their fund, where these are paid from a taxed superannuation fund.

In addition, reasonable benefit limits and age based limits would be abolished, and the self employed would be able to claim a full deduction for their contributions and would also be eligible for the Government co-contribution.

These reforms are simple to understand and will encourage people to save for their retirement and to stay in the workforce longer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the three budget bills for 2006-07 and the two supplementary additional estimates bills for 2005-06 are important pieces of legislation underpinning the government's activities and reforms to be introduced over the next 12 months. The initiatives contained in the budget will ensure that the economy continues to prosper and will position us to meet the challenges that lie ahead. I commend the budget bills and the supplementary additional estimates bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.