Senate debates

Thursday, 22 March 2007

Committees

National Capital and External Territories Committee; Report

Debate resumed from 1 March, on motion by Senator George Campbell:

That the Senate take note of the report.

6:06 pm

Photo of John HoggJohn Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise tonight to look at the response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories entitled Antarctica: Australia’s pristine frontier: the adequacy of funding for Australia’s Antarctic program. This was a very important report, as all reports of committees of this parliament are, into the funding specifically for the Antarctic Division and its home base in Kingston in Hobart, Tasmania, and of course our bases on Antarctica itself.

The committee report specifically focused on the adequacy of funding. I think that was very important. The report was very exhaustive in the sense that it took evidence not only here in Canberra but also in Hobart itself. The report basically found that, for a long period of time, funding for the Australian Antarctic Division had been fairly tight. That was reflected in the evidence given by the division itself. At page 13 of the original report, it was noted at paragraph 2.4:

In informal discussions with the Committee, the Division reported that there had been no new money invested in the AAD for many years.

That is something that is not new to the current government, and was also the case before 1996 with the previous Labor government. Over a long period of time, this excellent organisation has been the subject of some tight funding, which has, of course, made its operations difficult. Nonetheless, it has achieved a set of marvellous outcomes given the shoestring budget that it has been run on.

The report was tabled in June 2005. The government’s response unfortunately took until Thursday, 1 March 2007 to be delivered. That was a bit unfortunate because some of the recommendations that were made—and the report was completely bipartisan—went to making some initial and immediate grants available to the organisation to further what the committee identified as some important works. The issue of the ability to access Antarctica itself was central at that time. It is a matter of history that, in the 2005-06 budget, the government allocated $46.3 million to provide an air link with Antarctica; that was most welcome indeed. That initiative of the government, which was the first major boost to the Australian Antarctic Division in a long time, has certainly made the operations of the Antarctic Division a lot more appealing to many other scientists who found the trip down to Antarctica on the Aurora Australis a little bit too much even at the best of times.

That budget initiative back in 2005-06 is now coming to fruition. We saw this last Friday when the committee once again followed up its interest in the activities of the Australian Antarctic Division and received a very comprehensive briefing on how the division was faring with a number of its activities. Central to this was the fact that it has now taken possession, through a lease arrangement, of an Airbus A319 aircraft that will have the capability to land on the ice runway, which was under construction but is now completed in Antarctica. This will enhance opportunities for scientists to travel over the summer months and to stay for short periods to undertake important scientific research. This research is not necessarily seen in our everyday lives; it looks at long-term issues such as climate change and the benefits that our society can glean from understanding our past and how climate has changed over a long period of time.

When we were visiting the Australian Antarctic Division the other week, it was interesting to hear that they ranked 166,000th out of 100 million websites in terms of the number of strikes. That might not sound very high in the pecking order but, in terms of the number of websites that are available and the number of actual strikes, they are right up there with the leading sites throughout the world. They have to constantly update and upgrade their site because it is accessed not only by scientists but also by students and the public alike.

Whilst that has been a good initiative and a very commendable initiative on the part of the government, it is my view that organisation itself still has little capacity to operate totally effectively on the budget that is provided to it; this is fairly historical. It appears to me that the organisation has little capacity to return the efficiency dividends that the government demands of many departments and agencies. The Australian Antarctic Division deals pretty much with the nuts and bolts of scientific research. Its main consumables are items such as fuel, clothing, food and spare parts—all items whose prices increase with the CPI. The efficiency dividend that the Australian Antarctic Division must return ends up in some instances being funded out of other programs and projects because it is being funded for less than the CPI. Therefore, it has to trim its sails unnecessarily in some places, and some projects undoubtedly suffer as a result. From my perspective, there seems to be no fat in the budget of the organisation. I think this is a little bit unfortunate.

When one considers the recommendations that the committee made back in 2005, they were not outlandish by any means. The committee suggested in that report that funding be provided for a scoping study to look at a dedicated marine research vessel. It did not go down the path of suggesting that there should be a new vessel but instead suggested that a scoping study be done. The response of the government, tabled on 1 March, basically said, ‘Look, we’re putting in the Antarctic air link,’ but I think that that missed the point. The point was not just about putting in the air link; there may well have been a need for a further dedicated marine research vessel, given the dual role of the Aurora Australis.

We also went into extra funding for the International Polar Year activities and suggested that there should be additional funds made available immediately to help plan that year. That will be upon us in 2007-08 but no additional funds were given. The government’s response was that they could meet any requirements out of existing funds. That was disappointing. We also asked for additional grants to be made in the period 2004-05 to 2008-09 by doubling the grants to the Australian Antarctic Science Grants scheme to $700,000. Again, the government disagreed with that recommendation, but I and my colleagues thought that it was a highly commendable recommendation to be embraced.

6:16 pm

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Australia’s Antarctic Division, and our work in the Australian Antarctic Territory is a real success story for Australia. It is a success story of which the Howard government is very proud and is certainly very much a part of. I remember the controversy over the air flights from the mainland to Antarctica and I am delighted to see that it is almost a reality. I have to give credit to Senator Ian Campbell—my predecessor in the role of parliamentary secretary responsible for the Antarctic back in 1996—because it was Senator Campbell who first looked at the idea and started some work going. In the couple of years that I was in charge of the Antarctic Division we certainly pursued that. It is quite obviously a long-term process, because it is now some eight years after I left the portfolio and the process is almost complete. The flights are, as I understand it, about to start. So congratulations to all of those who have been involved. I know the Antarctic Division have done a fabulous job.

Photo of Kay PattersonKay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Patterson interjecting

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Senator Patterson reminds me that she is one of the few senators who had the courage to take on travel to the Antarctic on the Aurora Australis. Her influence and the influence of then Senator Knowles proved instrumental in ensuring that the government focused on the Antarctic and the Antarctic Division. All of the input from people like Senator Patterson and Senator Knowles has helped achieve a great story for Australia.

I want to turn to the report and comment on a couple of areas. Recommendation 3 was about the government allocating an additional $50 million, the committee said, to the budget of the department over a 10-year period to be administered under Australia’s Antarctic program specifically for remediation of past work sites in the Australian Antarctic Territory. The government’s response indicates that that recommendation is supported in principle. The government response goes on, quite rightly, to point out that the total cost of remediation of past activities has not yet been fully determined and any budget implications can only be considered when all requirements are known.

Australia is leading the way in remediation of former sites down in the Antarctic. I know there are other countries—I certainly will not name them—who go there, do some things, build some buildings, commit some environmental vandalism with the waste they leave about, and then do nothing about it. Australia’s original bases were left better than most, but still are a problem. It has been a major concern of the Howard government to try and remediate some of those. We have actually put a lot of money into it. It is not a cheap exercise. Once you get people down there, how do they remove material from the sites without exacerbating some of the problems and then ship it back to Australia for disposal? What do you do with that material when you get it back to Australia for disposal? There is a bit of the NIMBY—shades of the uranium waste debate—in the decisions about where you put this waste. But the Australian government and the Antarctic Division have done a sensational job over the years in doing the right thing as good world citizens in remediation of past works. I certainly congratulate them.

The other matter I want to refer to briefly is recommendation 4, which talks about the cultural heritage management of Mawson’s Huts. I was delighted yesterday that Mr David Jensen, who is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Mawson’s Huts Foundation, just happened by sheer coincidence to pop into my office to renew our acquaintance and the very close working partnership that he and I had back in the times when I was the Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and he was, at the time, I think, the chairman of the board of AAP, operating out of Sydney. Mr Jensen has a passionate commitment to Mawson’s Huts as a very significant part of Australia’s heritage. Although few Australians will ever see Mawson’s Huts in the flesh, so to speak, the work that has been done by Mr Jensen, members of his foundation board, and other committed people like him, in preserving Mawson’s Huts is creditable in the extreme.

Those huts form a very significant part of the history of Antarctica. I am privileged to have on a wall in my office a photograph signed by Sir Edmund Hillary of Mawson’s Huts and some of the restoration that was done. They were issued as a fund-raising gesture some 10 years ago by the Mawson’s Huts Foundation. Having that photo on my wall continually reminds me of Mawson and the great work he did as one of Australia’s pre-eminent explorers down in that very special continent.

Over the years, the foundation—and there are other groups that have been involved, too—has done a lot of work in restoring the huts that Mawson once used. It is expensive work. It is not easy. Anything you do in Antarctica is expensive. You have to get very special equipment. Because it is a heritage construction, you have to deal with it in a way that heritage architects would approve of. Then you have to get them and the equipment down there. The place where these huts are is remote from other Australian bases at the current time. It is an enormous problem. A lot of work has been done. A lot of money has been raised. There have been a lot of very generous corporate donors who have contributed to the foundation. As well as that, Peter Costello, as Treasurer over the past 11 or so years, has also been very generous on behalf of the Australian people. A lot of government money has gone in to support the foundation.

The foundation, Mr Jensen was telling me, is sending another expedition down there in the not too distant future through a kind favour of a tourist ship that goes down there. I wish I had my notes so I could indicate the name of that ship, because I would like to give that organisation a bit of a plug. They take tourists down there. They are allowing this expedition, which is going to do restoration work at Mawson’s Huts, to get on board. That will facilitate their attendance at Mawson’s Huts and enable them to do that restoration work. That work will require extra money. I have no idea what is in the budget, particularly these days, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that the approaches to the Treasurer for some additional government funding for Mawson’s Huts restoration work come to fruition. I will be watching the budget very closely to see if the great work that the foundation does will again be supported by the government.

I enjoyed the speech from Senator Hogg on this issue. He has obviously become an Antarctic fanatic, as most people tend to become once they get involved. Senator Patterson knew nothing about the Antarctic until she went down there, and now she is one of the most knowledgeable people—

Photo of Kay PattersonKay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I would not say that. I am passionate.

Photo of Ian MacdonaldIan Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

‘Passionate’ is probably a better word than ‘fanatic’. She is a passionate supporter of what happens down there. Congratulations to all of those involved. I am pleased that the committee had a close look at our Antarctic territories. The government response is a very good response. It deals with each recommendation in a very positive and forthright way. As I say, I congratulate the Antarctic Division, the Mawson’s Huts Foundation and others on the work that they have done to enhance Australia’s reputation in its Antarctic territory management. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.