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In recognition of the valuable role that community legal centres play in providing assistance to disadvantaged Australians, the Rudd Government has announced a one-off funding boost of $10 million for the Commonwealth Community Legal Services Program.

In the electorate of Fraser, the Canberra Welfare Rights and Legal Centre, Environmental Defenders Office and the Women’s Legal Centre (ACT and Region) will receive a total of $290,648 to help them deliver their valuable services.

I was very pleased to be asked by Kevin Rudd to be his shadow minister for Federal/State Relations. This is an area that Kevin has made a high priority for the Labor Party, as he sees a better functioning federation as vital to the continued social and economic progress of all Australians.

The debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills gives me an opportunity tonight to speak on three matters of my shadow portfolio: firstly, my constituents in the ACT; secondly, federal-state relations; and, thirdly, international development assistance.

The recent Budget speech by the Treasurer and the Budget Reply by Kevin Rudd illustrated the contrast in approach to Federal/State relations which is at the heart of the philosophical and policy division in this area in the lead-up to the 2007 election. The Treasurer made only one reference to the states and territories in his Budget speech – that was to blame the states for the inadequacy of current dental services to the poor and disadvantaged, not withstanding that his own government had cut $100 million from the programs which states run. By contrast, Kevin Rudd’s two principal initiatives of his Budget Reply were predicated on a cooperative, Federal/State approach.

In 2007 Australia not only faces what looks like a very tight election; it also faces a once in a generation opportunity to transform our federation.

We won’t be able to make more substantial progress without leadership from a federal government which actually believes in co-operative federalism.

So if the essential task of federation reform is going to be done, it will have to be done by a Rudd Labor Government.

Mr Downer must think the international aid community is blind and can’t see through his trumped up claim that Australia’s aid has improved significantly.

In claiming international recognition for an increase in overseas aid, the Australian Government has not been transparent about the real nature of the increase.

Australians are entitled to know where our aid money is going and Labor is calling for increased transparency in the overseas aid program.

I rise to support the amendment to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 moved by my colleague the member for Perth. When the Leader of the Opposition took that job, he gave high priority to the task of ending the blame game and getting rid of the attempts by one level of government to explain away their failure by blaming the activity on the other. Australians are sick and tired of the blame game and, if the speech by the member for Mitchell had been broadcast, they would understand why. I have never heard a more old-fashioned, tired exposition of the blame game than that which we just heard. There was not one step forward in what he had to say. It was a straight 1990s exposition of the modern Liberal Party. In the 1970s, he would have been kicked out of the Liberal Party for saying all that, but these days it is the modern Liberal Party version and it is sad.

Labor supports in principle the Government’s announcement that it will be suspending some forms of aid to Fiji because of the military coup.

The Energy Efficiency Opportunities Amendment Bill 2006 is mainly technical in nature and will enhance the operation of the existing arrangements in a manner that is necessary and desirable. It is not of itself in that way a very important bill, but it is a bill about a very important subject and, together with the second reading amendment, gives us an opportunity to discuss some important issues relating to this matter.

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this conscience vote on the private member’s bill presented by the member for Moore, the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendment Bill 2006. It is not possible for every matter that comes before the parliament to be considered as a conscience vote.

I rise more in sorrow than in anger to speak in this debate. As a former minister for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I have very high regard for many of the officials in that department and they were put in a terrible position as a result of the circumstances that developed.

I have pleasure in entering this debate to support the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Amendment Bill 2005, extremely disappointing as it is, and the second reading amendment moved by the member for Grayndler. I listened with interest to the member for O’Connor. I always try in these speeches to start by finding something in what the member opposite says that I agree with. I was battling right until the end when the member for O’Connor said that this bill will not do very much. I certainly agree with that, but I do not think much of anything else that he said.

This is a very important debate. It is important in itself because it is a debate about legislation, the passage of which has had significant impact on the framework of civil liberties in this country, as the Law Reform Commission makes clear. It is also important for what it says about the state of our rights and our democracy after 10 years of a government that has grown increasingly intolerant and arrogant.

There is no doubt you have to have a special sort of nerve, a particular level of temerity, to come in here as a representative of the Howard government and complain about the level of taxation, because you are a representative of what is now universally accepted as the highest taxing government in Australia’s history. I made that claim first some four or five years ago and it was disputed. We had a debate for about six months as to whether it was correct or not depending upon certain definitional issues. But that debate is over. Everybody knows that the Howard government is the highest taxing government in Australian history.

I rise to support the amendments moved by the member for Hunter, particularly insofar as they relate to the issues of abuse of market power and unconscionable conduct. These are amendments of general application. It is particularly appropriate in the immediate case that they apply to the area of petrol, and that is why the amendments are being initiated here. I welcome that and support that but, in the years in which I have been dealing with this matter, it has become more and more evident that section 46 is the gap in the trade practices regime of this country. It is the gap in the competition regulation of this country.

I rise with my colleagues to oppose the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. This legislation, notwithstanding some attempts to ameliorate it, cannot be saved. It shows clearly that the government never really believed in the reforms they proposed in 2005 to seek to accommodate the rebels in their midst.

I want to use this opportunity to raise once again my concerns about the treatment of David Hicks and about the continuing operation of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. It is humiliating to Australia that one of our citizens has had to seek to exercise a right to British citizenship to get a shot at justice.

I support the amendment moved by the member for Wills to the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2005. In this debate I want to refer to a slightly different matter in addition to those matters raised by the member for Wills which I just heard so ably outlined by the member for Gorton. What I want to refer to more is the monumental double standard reflected in this bill whereby the government is applying one rule for itself and one rule for others in Australia.

It is well established that gender equality is very important in development assistance debates for two reasons: one, which is clearly obvious, is that gender equality is a fundamental right; another is that there is clear evidence that gender equality is essential for successful economic and social development.

It is very interesting to have the opportunity to speak in the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006 on the day after the Treasurer has put out his ritual annual tough budget warning. I refer to yesterday’s Australian Financial Review, with the headline ‘Treasurer warns of tight budget’. I am sure that all the people who follow these things thought, ‘It must be mid-February again!’

It is perhaps a little earlier this year because of the Commonwealth Games, but essentially it is the Treasurer’s standard game—and I do not just mean this Treasurer. It is the standard game of ‘treasurers’, plural, and, in some ways, a proper and appropriate thing for them to do even in years when they do not mean it.

I wish to make it clear from the outset that I will be supporting the Therapeutic Goods
Amendment (Repeal of Ministerial Responsibility for Approval of RU486) Bill 2005 introduced by the member for Moore. I congratulate him and all those associated with bringing it forward. Coincidentally, I am the first male from our side of the parliament to speak. This is significant only because the Senate vote showed a dramatic gender divide in support for this legislation. It reflects a history of male domination breaking down in our country. On most issues this makes no difference. There has been a lot of rhetoric about how much change it would make, and in most issues it is absolutely irrelevant. But this is one example where the breakdown of the male domination of Australian politics is leading to a change in outcomes, and I welcome it.

In all these matters, for publicly elected officials the key question comes back to that which was posed in the Nixon impeachment hearings of 1974: what did you know and when did you know it? We now find out that the minister’s argument is that he never knew anything. That is not what I would call a great advocacy of ministerial responsibility and success because, as has been detailed on many occasions—and I will go back to some of them—on very many occasions the minister should and, by any credible explanation, must have known.

Like the member for Chisholm, I support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Melbourne to the Future Fund Bill 2005. I also support the idea of a future fund. In fact, I supported the idea when the Treasurer did not. With the member for Hotham, I was advocating what we were calling the ‘intergenerational fund’ when the Treasurer was mocking the idea.

Major political parties exist to form governments. Minor political parties exist to gain enough votes to influence the policies of the government of the day but not enough to form a government in their own right.

In the recent past Labor has been at risk of making an unwanted transition from a major political party to a minor one. Any Australian political party that fails consistently to attract 40 per cent of first preference votes must struggle to qualify as a mainstream political force.

I welcome the opportunity to launch this valuable monograph by Dr Angela Pratt. It is in my opinion a first class piece of work and a first class example of the strengths and value of the Parliamentary Fellowship program.

Global poverty is one of the four great challenges confronting the international community in the early part of the 21st century. And it should be the one most readily addressed.

Cyclist Kate Leeming was greeted as she arrived at Parliament House today by school children from Campbell Primary School and Member for Fraser Bob McMullan. Kate has completed her 27 000 kilometre ride around Australia, visiting schools and communities to promote the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

The editorial in The Canberra Times of November 22 was right to call on the Labor Party to focus on regaining its core constituency. Labor can’t win without achieving that. But as society changes so does key elements of that constituency.

The Howard government justifies its cuts to Indigenous programs on the grounds that it is eager to support Indigenous Australians to help themselves. I want to outline tonight an opportunity for the Howard government to put its money where its mouth is.

Speech given to the House of Representatives covering the topics of the Public Service efficiency dividend, the future of the Australian National University, and the Charter of Budget Honesty.

I congratulate Jon Stanhope’s ACT Labor Government on the creation of a Small Business Commissioner for the ACT announced by Ted Quinlan today.