Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Norfolk Island Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and related bills. As the deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, I would say to any member of this parliament or anyone in the community, for that matter, with a general interest in the progress of Norfolk Island that they would be well served if they read the committee's report, Same country: different world—the future of Norfolk Island, that was presented to this parliament in October last year. The government responded to the report in February this year, accepting the recommendations of the report, all eight in total. The report and the government's response has bipartisan support and, most importantly, broad support from the Norfolk Islanders. All agree it is time for action because the prospects for Norfolk Island future was bleak in the wake of a marked decline in tourist numbers as a result of the GFC, a serious budget deficit and ongoing financial management concerns.

The purpose of this legislation is to draw a halt to the downward slide, to address economic development on Norfolk Island, to address declining employment, to create growth in tourism, to better manage the island's revenue and expenditure, to bring an even greater confident outlook to the community of Norfolk Island and a satisfaction to the lifestyle of the islanders, equal to other communities on the mainland. This legislation follows the bipartisan support for the recommendations of the report I mentioned earlier: Same country: different world—the future of Norfolk Island. The first two recommendations deal with adopting a new governance model for Norfolk Island. The third recommendation is that the Commonwealth assume responsibility for key infrastructure items on the island, the Cascade and Kingston piers and upgrade them to Australian standards—very critical for the island. The forth recommendation, in line with the third recommendation, is that the Commonwealth purchase multipurpose barges for Norfolk Island. This vital infrastructure is paramount if the community is going to have access to food and fuel security. If the pier and/or barges are out of action the community comes to a halt. It is not an uncommon problem to island communities around mainland Australia. The fifth recommendation deals with upgrading roads, another vital piece of infrastructure. The remaining recommendations deal with provision of expertise from Commonwealth agencies to promote tourism and cottage industry on the island and that the Commonwealth take quarantine control matters.

The objectives of the legislation are to reform governance arrangements of Norfolk Island; the extension of mainland social security, immigration, health arrangements; and changes to the tax system on Norfolk Island. Norfolk Island is a remote community. Currently it does not receive social security benefits, access to the age pension or access to family tax benefits and does not fully participate in the Australian taxation system. This legislation introduces changes through a transitional period over the next 12 months, so that from July 2016 Norfolk Island residents will pay income tax and other direct federal taxes on all their income. The introduction of the mainland social security and taxation system will have enormous consumption and economic benefit to the island. These systems will provide confidence for investment in the island.

There is strong bipartisan support that the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly be transitioned to a regional council. This has not been welcome by some on Norfolk Island. The fact of the matter is that the Norfolk Island Legislative Assembly model has failed on many levels. The priority must be: what is in the best interests and welfare of Norfolk Island and Norfolk Islanders as Australian residents? This legislation transitions Norfolk Island to a regional council model. The establishment of the regional council will be in consultation with islanders and the Commonwealth and the state departments of New South Wales that will take responsibility for service delivery arrangements of state type services. The regional council established on Norfolk Island will have make decisions about what services it can manage and deliver. What are the challenges of delivering an adequate level of services to a community?

Importantly Norfolk Island must have an effective governance model and comprehensive and well-understood service delivery agreements for a health and hospital service, for adequate roads, for an effective and efficient electricity network, for new infrastructure, for maintenance, for a prosperous inclusive community, for economic opportunities and for regularly air transport and shipping services. The coming 12 months of what is titled 'the interim transition time' are critical for the future of Norfolk Island as a new foundation is laid through a local advisory council appointed by the minister to a fully regional elected council in July 2016—a process whereby state-like services will be negotiated with the New South Wales government and New South Wales laws will gradually be applied on Norfolk Island. As this happens, other federal services will be extended, such as the Australian migration system, customs and biosecurity services. As the minister pointed out in his second reading speech earlier in the year:

These changes will bring Norfolk Island in line with other Australian communities and ensure services are delivered to a modern standard by the appropriate level of government.

It is a challenge. It must be the Commonwealth in partnership with the Norfolk Islanders implementing the reforms. The community must be kept informed and must fully understand and, likewise, those from the Commonwealth employed in the implementation process must work with the community so that each change and its impact is understood.

It is pleasing that Norfolk Islanders are excited and expressing their support at the prospect of the changes, but they are apprehensive nonetheless that the transition period and the establishment of the regional council will not become a top-down process where bureaucrats—whether they be Commonwealth or state in the case of service delivery agreements—decide unilaterally what is best for the islanders of Norfolk Island. Islanders want to be informed of when consultations are taking place. They want their voice heard and they want to have a real say. They have concerns that the extension of social services go hand-in-hand with opportunities for economic development. They have a deep concern that the role of the administrator's position in relation to the islanders and the Minister for Territories be clearly stated and understood. Islanders want to see their community prosper. I commend the bills before you to the chamber.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories to also endorse the comments made by Senator Brown with regard to Norfolk Island and express my enthusiasm for a new era for Norfolk Island. People who have not visited the island would be surprised to learn that at this moment, and indeed up to the time when the committee visited the island and undertook its negotiation and discussions, Norfolk Islanders are not really fully Australian citizens. This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to the Australian community; it is unacceptable to the community of Norfolk Island. These changes—recommended in a bipartisan way by the committee, endorsed by the government and now in legislation that has come through the other chamber into this chamber—will not only give a high degree of certainty to Norfolk Island and Norfolk Islanders; they will certainly guarantee the commercial and social future of the island. I believe they are going to open up a completely new opportunity.

At this moment, a retired Australian, perhaps on a pension, who went over to Norfolk Island and contemplated residing there would not enjoy Medicare benefits and the other benefits they would back at their home on the mainland. This has to change. At the same time, I can understand the community apprehension, as expressed by Senator Brown, as to how the future will play out. From my point of view, I want to say that if I have any influence at all in how the new legislation is enacted and introduced it will be to take a high degree of interest in making sure that the island community remains a community which is able to have its input, receive information and see the benefits of being fully incorporated into Australian society as Australian citizens. I have not enquired but I certainly hope that the current practice of having to take a passport and depart from Sydney through the international terminal—being treated in some way as a foreigner when going to and coming back from Norfolk Island—stops. To me, it was one of the strongest expressions of the gap between Norfolk Island and that big large island to the west of it, which is mainland Australia, and of course Tasmania.

There is only one area of concern I want to express my views on. I have done so to the committee, to the minister with responsibility, Minister Briggs, and indeed to the Assistant Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg. It relates to second and third jobs on Norfolk Island. Having been responsible for the management and administration of an island myself, I am only too aware of the limited amount of labour that is available on an island. Let me give you an example. Somebody might be working as a mechanic in a workshop on the island when a vessel comes in delivering freight. That person, and others like them, are then required to stop what they are doing, go down and become lightermen so that the vessel can be unloaded. It may even be the case that in the event a cruise ship manages to get its passengers onto Norfolk Island—and I will come back to that in a moment—that same person may end up being a bus driver driving visitors around the island. This is not a nice-to-have situation. It is not a case of having a great pool of people out there to be trained as lightermen or to be trained as bus drivers. The simple fact of the matter is there is not that pool of labour. Therefore, we must have a circumstance in place in which, without disadvantage from a taxation point of view, that person can do a second and a third job on the island without financial penalty.

Here on the mainland, we know that a person undertaking a second job would be paying tax at the marginal tax rate. I say, and I have made the plea, that in Norfolk Island we need a circumstance in which people are encouraged and allowed to provide essential services. I am pleased to be able to report that in the tax arrangements, as they have been explained, and as in the documentation, there is in fact quite a degree of information for employees on Norfolk Island as to how they would be treated under that circumstance of a second or indeed even a third job so that, as we transition, it will be made clear to people where their circumstances are. Again, I will be watching this closely myself. As they transition, if you like, to be fully Australian citizens under our tax system, if for some reason there is a disincentive or it is not working, then I will be coming back into this place and I will be pleading with the relevant ministers to make sure we do not cut off the supply of labour to do these occasional but necessary and essential tasks.

I want to finish, if I may, on those people coming from cruise ships and visiting the island. Those who do successfully get onto Norfolk Island report the highest level of satisfaction to their cruise ship company of all of the places they visit. They just love getting onto Norfolk Island. So where is the problem? The problem is the same one that was experienced by the HMS Sirius, which was a vessel in the First Fleet of Governor Phillip in 1788. The Sirius was wrecked on Norfolk Island. The island is simply inhospitable when it comes to anchoring or mooring vessels. It is the case that of an evening no vessels are anchored around Norfolk Island. Everything comes out of the water—recreational vessels, lighters, et cetera. The difficulty at the moment becomes the fact that the landing facilities, or the two ports—I would not call them ports—are so unreliable in terms of safety that the cruise ships usually cannot successfully get their passengers onto Norfolk Island. Even for those who do come into Norfolk Island waters, I think the success rate is less than 15 per cent. You can then imagine, of course, there would be an enormous number of cruise vessels that would not even make Norfolk Island their intended destination because of that unlikeliness. If we can change that, if we can create economically a safe circumstance in which those passengers can safely get onto Norfolk Island and, equally, from the viewpoint of the captain, get back off the island to again rejoin the cruise ship, that is going to add dramatically to the tourism potential of the island, because the islanders were telling us, and the cruise ship companies I think would confirm, that once people have visited Norfolk Island as a cruise ship passenger it is likely that they will return for a longer period of time as an overnight passenger for two or three or four nights.

Never having been to Norfolk Island but having had responsibility for the administration of another offshore island, I was particularly interested and somewhat apprehensive as I read the information as I travelled from Perth to Sydney and then Sydney to Norfolk Island. But there is absolutely no doubt the environmental assets of the island, the historic assets of the island, the social assets of the island and the tourism assets of the island make it an imperative that we continue to support Norfolk Island. As Senator Brown said, there are now more opportunities for the island to tap into resources and services. At this moment, for example, Tourism Australia does not include much, if any, of Norfolk Island tourist information. It is essential that those sorts of services now become extended. So I am delighted, as a member of the committee, that the committee, in a bipartisan way, made the recommendations that we did and that they have been endorsed by government and they have passed through the other place. I, like Senator Brown, look forward to a very bright future for Norfolk Island as it becomes totally absorbed into the Australian commune.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contributions on what is a very important debate. The reforms agreed to today will put Norfolk Island on the path to sustainability and provide a solid foundation for economic growth. Importantly, these bills provide the building blocks for change, and their passage marks the beginning of the reform journey, a journey which the Australian government and the Norfolk Island community will need to take hand in hand. Together, the Australian government and the Norfolk Island community will build a better and more prosperous future for this important part of Australia, and I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.