Andrew Leigh

I spoke in parliament today in favour of a bill to create the NDIS.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill, 7 February 2013

Last month, I received a letter from Denise Reid, one of my constituents. Ms Reid wrote to me about her son Tim, a 21-year-old man with Down syndrome. She has given me permission to share the contents of that letter with the House today, so I want to begin by reading part of it. She writes:

‘I receive a part payment, sixty-five dollars and fourteen cents per fortnight, with the remainder paid to my ex-husband. We share care of our son, who is 21. He has Down syndrome. From time to time, Centrelink reviews eligibility for this payment. I find this extremely frustrating. My son has an intellectual disability. There is no cure and he will never grow out of it.’

She goes on to speak about him. She writes: 'Tim is a helpful, sensitive, caring and observant young man with a great sense of humour. He enjoys swimming.' She speaks about his enjoyment of rock and roll music. But then she writes:

‘The payment is small and sometimes I feel like giving up the bureaucratic battle. But I don't. I fill out the form and visit the GP to complete another form and wait to hear if I've been able to prove disability. That makes me sad.’

The story of parents whose children have disabilities that are lifelong having to again and again prove that their children's conditions have not changed is one that you hear so often in discussions around the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is a particular frustration because parents of children with disabilities work as hard as any other parent in Australia, if not harder. They are constantly dealing with night wakes. They are often having to do hard, physical work. What they do not need is a system that requires them to again and again prove disability, as Ms Reid puts it.

It is with that spirit and with a recognition that past governments have not provided adequate support to people with disabilities and their carers that this government is putting in place a National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is a nation-changing reform. Today is a significant moment for the almost one in five Australians who have a disability, have a family member with a disability or are a carer for someone with a disability. The first stage of the NDIS will benefit more than 20,000 Australians later this year.

I wrote a piece for the local Canberra Chronicle newspaper just over a year ago and noted that if you feel like you have had a tough week just try chatting with a parent who is caring for a child with a profound disability. Not only will they be bleary eyed and bone tired but they might be struggling to make ends meet, sometimes contending with their own health issues. Parents of children with a disability can find themselves caring for a 40-year-old who has the mental abilities of a toddler.

Like every parent they love their children, but it is because of that love that many of them face a searing fear from that awful question: what will happen to my child when I am no longer here? The National Disability Insurance Scheme, by providing better care to people with a disability, may hopefully allay that fear. In so doing it will resolve some of the indefensible anomalies in the current system. For example, if you become a paraplegic in a car accident you are more likely to get a payout than if you fall off your roof while cleaning the gutters. If you rent a car in one state and have an accident which causes a disability then you will receive different treatment than if your car is registered in a different state. That is true even if you are renting from the same car company. 'Check the number plates,' people with a disability will sometimes say. That is how much of a patchwork our current system is.

A National Disability Insurance Scheme system will not be cheap. Its path forward will not be straightforward because we need to bundle in many of the current supports that are provided. But thanks to the leadership of the then parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten, the government commissioned a report on the National Disability Insurance Scheme from the Productivity Commission. They came back with a strong recommendation that we go ahead. That is why we are working with the states and territories to build the foundations of a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

I am really proud that under the leadership of the Chief Minister Katy Gallagher, herself a former support worker for people with disabilities, the ACT did not skip a beat before signing up. Around 5,000 Canberrans with a disability will benefit when the ACT becomes one of the launch sites later this year.

I am a strong advocate of the NDIS. My parliamentary window has one thing in it—a Count Me In poster, put together by the Every Australian Counts campaign. I have spoken before in this place on the issue of disability and the importance of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In my own electorate of Fraser, I have held two community forums on the NDIS, seeking input from Canberrans about the scheme.

In August last year, one of the forums was held with Senator Jan McLucas and the member for Canberra. We held a forum in the Griffin Centre and heard many accounts from people with disabilities and their carers. Before that, in October 2011, I held a forum in Belconnen with Daniel Kyriacou from the Every Australian Counts campaign and members of the ACT Labor Party's Community Services and Social Justice Committee. That was, again, an important conversation about what the NDIS means and how people can work with the campaign to bring about an NDIS. Those forums were well attended by carers, people with disabilities and Canberrans of goodwill, keen to see this important social reform become a reality.

Earlier that same month, I met with a group of people with disabilities and their carers at a morning tea roundtable in my electorate office to talk about what an NDIS will mean for people with disabilities and for organisations that are supporting people with disabilities. I want to thank Simon Rosenberg, Luke Jones, Bob Buckley, Kerry Bargas, Trish and Glenn Mowbray, Susan Healy, Mary Webb, Kerrie Langford, Robert Altamore, Fiona May, Eileen Jerga, Adrian Nicholls, Christina Ryan, Brooke McKail, Sally Richards and others for sharing their stories and concerns with me. They helped me to better understand the issues around a National Disability Insurance Scheme and why Australians with disabilities and their carers need this scheme so much.

I appreciated a visit to the 1RPH print handicapped radio station in the ACT. Again, they are providing an important support to people with disabilities. I have visited agencies that support people with disabilities who have spoken about the charges that they will face in adapting to an NDIS.

The Every Australian Counts website asks this simple question: which developed country would expect someone to live with two showers a week?' At the moment, the answer is Australia. We heard at the forum in the Griffin Centre with Senator McLucas the story of a Queensland woman who has to reapply every 15 days for emergency care. We heard stories about mothers of children with Down syndrome who have to constantly prove that their child's chromosomes have not changed, stories like the one with which I began my speech.

We heard a story about a child in the Northern Territory who has to hand in his hearing aids when he leaves school at the end of each day. The hearing aids have to stay at school and he has to go home without them. You cannot hear these stories in a prosperous nation like ours without feeling a sense that there is something profoundly wrong with our nation's social contract, that we need to put in place a system which shares the cost of disability support services across the community. Yes, member for Longman, that involves states and territories doing more. That is not playing politics. That is the simple reality of building a national disability insurance scheme—an NDIS that will enable people with a disability to exercise more choice and control over their lives.

This reform is on par with Labor's legacy reforms of Medicare, universal superannuation and native title. But, as the NDIS rolls out, we need to keep on asking those whom it supports: 'What do you want and how can we deliver it?' The message that I have heard in the regular forums that I have conducted is that assessments under the NDIS need to be done no more frequently than is necessary and that over-frequent assessments are enormously frustrating and at their extreme can cost carers their jobs.

As I have noted, the ACT is one of the sites leading the way in improving care for people with disabilities. In July last year, I was pleased to join the Prime Minister and Chief Minister Gallagher at Black Mountain School to discuss the issues facing people with a disability. I pay tribute to Black Mountain School for the hard work that they do. In Hackett, my own suburb, Ross Walker Lodge is a supported accommodation facility for six people with intellectual disabilities. Ross Walker preached the social gospel and was a strong advocate for the most disadvantaged people in our community. By coincidence, his life followed a similar trajectory to that of my paternal grandfather, Keith Leigh, who was also born in the 1920s and came to the Methodist ministry after World War II.

In Holt, I attended an event at Sharing Places for what is known as a DisabiliTEA morning tea. That was part of a campaign for a national disability insurance scheme. Sharing Places focuses on providing day services to adults with an intellectual disability, and I appreciated meeting with the clients and carers alike. Some of them had been working in the sector for decades and they told me it was the most rewarding work they have ever done.

In December last year, I joined the member for Canberra in announcing the three ACT based organisations that received Commonwealth funding to help people with a disability, their carers and families adjust to the options available under an NDIS. The National Rural Health Alliance, Disability Advocacy Network of Australia and ACT Disability, Aged and Carer Advocacy received nearly $300,000 in funding to get ready for the introduction of an NDIS.

Last week, the Prime Minister gave an address at the National Press Club in which she spoke about how the NDIS is part of the government's vision for a fairer nation. She noted that in July we will launch the NDIS in five locations around Australia and pointed out how the NDIS is in the Labor tradition of knowing that it is smart policy to make us a fairer nation. The Prime Minister said:

‘… risk is shared as well, where those hit with life's cruellest blows get the help they need.’

That is what this bill will do. It sets out the framework for an NDIS and establishes important principles for a person becoming a participant in the scheme, how participants will develop personal, goal-based plans, and how reasonable and necessary supports will be guaranteed. The framework sets out how people will be able to choose how they manage their care and support.

The first stage of the scheme will, apart from the ACT, also be launched in South Australia, Tasmania, the Hunter in New South Wales and the Barwon area of Victoria. I acknowledge the work of the leaders in those jurisdictions in making this happen. The principles of the framework are based on giving people with a disability individual care and support that is based on their needs, giving them real choice and control over these supports, fostering innovative services that are delivered and coordinated locally, and bringing long-term certainty to the resourcing of disability care and support. We want to give people with a disability the security that they will get what they need over their lifetime.

I want to thank and acknowledge the advocates, those working in the sector, the family members and the people with a disability who have fought for a fair system that is based on their needs and that empowers them with more choice and control. As I have acknowledged before, it was Minister Shorten who initiated much of this reform but I also want to recognise the hard work of Minister Macklin, the Prime Minister and Senator McLucas, who have worked together to make Australia's social contract a little stronger, to make us a little fairer as a nation and, hopefully, to improve the lives of thousands of Australians with a disability and their families and carers.

I spoke in parliament today in favour of a bill that will progress the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Bill, 7 February 2013

We speak a lot in this House about Indigenous gaps. Yesterday we heard the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition speak eloquently about the gaps in life expectancy, educational attainment and employment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It is important to focus on those gaps, but it is also important to have a sense of optimism and pride in Australia's Indigenous heritage. As the member for Throsby noted earlier in this debate, it is great and exciting to know that we have in this country a people whose association with the land goes back tens of thousands of years. Maintaining that sense of excitement and living alongside people with the longest continuing link to their land is a great thing. This bill in some sense recognises our pride in Australia's Indigenous heritage. That Indigenous heritage involves maintaining a multiplicity of languages. As the member for Blair noted, there has been a decline in Indigenous language knowledge over recent years, and that is important to redress because language is culture—it maintains your links with generations gone by.

There is a terrific book called Stories of the Ngunnawal which talks about some of the Indigenous elders and significant members of the Indigenous community here in the ACT. One of those stories is about Carl Brown who was born in 1952. He said that he knows a few words in traditional language. Instead of asking, 'Who's the person?' there is a word for it: 'boothm'. He said that if a person is silly they call them 'murinj', they call tucker 'dungaan' and they call a dog 'mirigung'. He said his parents spoke traditional language like he does but they knew more words—he said they would have had to. He notes that Indigenous language knowledge has declined since the previous generation. You can sense in his story a little sadness at the loss of language. We need to maintain those languages, just as we need to attain this important symbolic recognition in the Constitution.

Next Wednesday will mark the fifth anniversary of Australia's apology to Indigenous Australians—the moment when a Labor government stood up and said, long overdue, that we were sorry for the wrongs of past governments; we were sorry to the children who were ripped from families, to the communities that were broken, and to the generations that suffered and whose pain remained unacknowledged by many governments for too many years.

The apology was driven by an understanding that words alone could not undo the works of the past and words alone would not absolve us from future actions in closing the gap. It was a symbol. Stolen generations elder Aunty Lorraine Peeters said it was a 'symbol of the hope we place in the new relationship you wish to forge with our people'.

This bill will be another important step towards strengthening this relationship, recognising that Indigenous peoples hold the unique place of being Australia's first peoples, and establishing an act of recognition that will be a step on the longer path to constitutional recognition. Once this bill become law it will promote community engagement with the issue and assist in building a national consensus.

When we come to a referendum, there are few more tragic things one could imagine than for a referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians to be defeated. The track record of referenda is not good—eight out of 44—so we need community consensus. The Gillard government agrees with the expert panel's recommendation that we need to hold a referendum at a time when its chance of success would be highest. We know, too, from history that with those defeated referenda sometimes the questions do not come back for the best part of a generation afterwards. At the time of the referendum on four-year terms there was talk that if it were defeated it might be returned in some other form. That was 1988 and we have not had anything since. There was talk at the time of the republican referendum that if that model were defeated another could easily be put to the Australian people a few years later. That was 1999 and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since. Reconciliation Australia has reported that while the idea of a referendum within Indigenous communities, fewer than one-third of non-Indigenous Australians are aware of the discussions. So it does suggest that we need to continue ripening the fruit of constitutional recognition before we reach to the tree and try to pick it.

This bill is a reflection of the Labor approach to Indigenous policy. In talking about the Labor tradition I want to recognise, as previous speakers such as the members for Aston and Hasluck have, that there have been important steps taken by the coalition. Many of the great steps have been bipartisan. But as a Labor member I do take particular pride in some of the steps that have been taken with compassion, with justice and with respect by leaders of my own party. Gough Whitlam championed Indigenous issues in his 1972 campaign. He spoke of:

‘… one group of Australians who have been denied their basic rights to the pursuit of happiness, to liberty and indeed to life itself for 180 years—since the very time when Europeans in the New World first proclaimed those rights as inalienable for all mankind.’

That was the approach that Prime Minister Whitlam took when he upgraded the Office of Aboriginal Affairs to the ministerial level, after he was elected. It was the approach he took when pushing for the Racial Discrimination Act, in 1975. It was the approach he took when he supported the findings of the royal commission into Indigenous land rights, and it was the approach that became law with the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It was the approach also taken by another Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, when, 20 years later, he said in Redfern Park:

‘… we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to the Indigenous people of Australia—the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.’

That again articulated the Labor approach of compassion, justice, progress and respect. It is with that approach that we have to continue working hard and seeing results in strengthening communities.

My predecessors in the seat of Fraser probably never would have attended an event at which a traditional elder engaged in a welcome to country ceremony. Now welcome to country ceremonies are a normal part of formal events in the ACT, and the parliament begins every day with an acknowledgment that it sits on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. I also have the honour to represent the Wreck Bay community in Jervis Bay, and there the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council has an elected executive.

We are investing in Indigenous education with over 200 additional teachers employed in remote community schools and supporting a school nutrition program that provides meals every day to around 5,000 children in remote Territory schools. We are improving funding for primary health care services in remote communities and also supporting Indigenous health centres such as Winnunga Nimmityjah here in Canberra. Recognising that rates of ear infections and oral health problems are higher in Indigenous communities, we are putting in place the Remote Area Health Corps and a mobile outreach program for Indigenous communities. Recognising issues of community safety, we have funded the continuing employment of 60 additional Northern Territory police officers working in 18 remote communities.

One way of thinking of much of what is happening in the Northern Territory is that at its heart it is about ensuring that children are able to attend school. That means you need to have housing right, you need to have health right, you need to have safe communities and you need to have communities with a commitment to learning.

After school, we are also recognising that it is important to provide additional employment opportunities. Our government has created 50 additional Aboriginal ranger positions. We have offered up to 100 local traineeships for people in remote communities and provided a job guarantee to young people completing year 12 in Territory growth towns.

I see much of this when I visit the Wreck Bay community, and people there speak about their pride of the work that is being done in the Booderee National Park. Taking care of country is something that Indigenous peoples have done for tens of thousands of years, and supporting the work of Indigenous people working in national parks is absolutely vital.

It is also important that we ensure that Australia's public service looks like the community it serves, so I want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the Community and Public Sector Union on making sure the government stays on track for our target to increase Indigenous employment in the Australian Public Service to a target of 2.7 per cent by 2015. This was an issue that was brought to my attention when the local Community and Public Sector Union moved a motion at the last ACT Labor Party branch meeting which noted that the State of the Service Report 2010-11 had found a decrease in Indigenous employees from 3,383 to 3,2036—a four per cent drop and the first fall in the number of Indigenous public servants since 2010.

I believe that maintaining Indigenous employment in the Public Service is important not only as a way of making sure that Indigenous Australians have jobs but it is also important as a way of ensuring that the decisions that come out of the public sector are right for all Australians. So I have been working over recent months with ministers and speaking with them directly about the strategies that they are employing in order to boost Indigenous representation in the Public Service through programs that range from mentoring to providing apprenticeships, training programs, links with universities and making sure that Indigenous Australians are attracted to and retained by the public sector.

That is a high priority for me and something that I fear may be threatened were those opposite to come into power. They speak very eloquently on the importance of Indigenous Australians playing a role in public life, but a policy that would see 20,000 public servants lose their jobs is almost surely a policy that would also see fewer Indigenous Australians employed in the Public Service.

A constitutional statement of recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—particularly noting their culture, their history and their connection to the land—a removal of references to race in reflection of Australia's rejection of discrimination and belief in equality, and an acknowledgement that we need to make further efforts in closing the gaps in Indigenous disadvantage are an important part of what we are working towards. Reconciliation Australia and the You Me Unity reference group have been spearheading this push, and I am confident that—with more time and more work—compassion, justice, progress and respect will prevail and we will be able to hold a successful referendum.

I spoke in parliament today about the benefits of super-fast broadband for the ACT.

National Broadband Network, 7 February 2013

When I was 11 years old, in 1984, I got my first computer. It was an Aquarius. It had 3½ kilobytes of memory. I was excited when I upgraded, finally, to a VIC-20 with five kilobytes of memory. Now, that might sound tiny, but at about that time Gareth Powell, the Sydney Morning Herald computer editor, wrote that he thought no program would ever need more than 16 kilobytes. Those sorts of statements about technology remind us that the things we can do with new technology often far outpace our imagination—and those that think that superfast broadband will just mean faster Facebook and YouTube do not get the power of technology.

It was my pleasure last week to join Senator Conroy, Senator Kate Lundy and the ACT Deputy Chief Minister, Andrew Barr, at Gungahlin Library to officially switch on the Gungahlin Digital Hub. Students studying Japanese at Harrison School engaged in a high-definition video conference via the National Broadband Network with students at Chitose Senior High School in Hokkaido. I commend both classes of students for the songs that they sang to one another.

The NBN is coming to the ACT, and it is already in Gungahlin. It is demonstrating the power of technology to improve education and health; to make businesses more productive; and to make us a more connected nation.

My Chronicle column this month is on love and related adventures.

Valentine's Day is a time for new and old love, The Chronicle, 5 February 2013

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, there’s probably no more inappropriate song to be listening to than Tim Minchin’s ‘If I didn’t have you… I’d probably have someone else’. In the song, Minchin tells us he thinks it’s mathematically pretty unlikely that he met the one girl on earth specifically designed for him while studying at a university in Perth. Life is chaos, he argues, not fate.

But despite the title, I still think the song has something special to say about romance. Love, Minchin sings ‘is nothing to do with destined perfection’. Instead, ‘The connection is strengthened, the affection simply grows over time … love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience’.

My wife Gweneth and I celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary last month. As we headed out to see a movie, we talked about how much our lives have changed since we met in Boston. With three children, I’d say that our ratio of nappy changes to cinema movies is running at about 100 to 1.

Our ‘ongoing drama of shared experiences’ includes the time our alarm didn’t go off for an early-morning flight, and the family holiday began with the sound of a honking taxi. Plus soccer lessons, food-throwing meals and hospital emergency room visits. And yet Gweneth and I have still managed to squeeze in the occasional ‘date night’ – to stare into each other’s eyes for an hour or two, and remind ourselves how lucky we are to have found one another.

One of the great things I get to do in this job is to arrange letters from Prime Minister Julia Gillard for couples who’ve been married for 50 years. When I asked one man his secret to a long marriage, he said ‘dunno mate – I just woke up one day and we’d been married half a century’. However you get there, it’s a great achievement.

Others find that the joy and stress of a relationship is greatest at the time of having children. New babies are a source of wonder and excitement; but they can also bring confusion and anxiety. That’s why I’ll be holding my third Welcoming the Babies celebration on Sunday 24 February. For new mums and dads, it’s a chance to meet new parents, and find out more from local service providers about playgroups, support services and even swimming classes.

So if you know someone who’s just had a new baby, please encourage them to register. Welcoming the Babies will be held in Glebe Park in the city, from 10.30am to 12.30pm. We’ll have a barbecue, a cake, and plenty of space for older siblings to run around.

So whether you’re celebrating new love, old love or a new baby, have a happy and safe February, and I look forward to seeing you around town.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com. To register for Welcoming the Babies or an anniversary congratulations, phone 6247 4396 or email [email protected].

On ABC RN Drive yesterday, I spoke with presenter Waleed Aly and Senator Arthur Sinodinos about trust in politics and economic management. Here's a podcast.

I spoke in parliament today about Canberra charity Menslink.

Menslink, 6 February 2013

Last week I was part of a local team that helped to raise funds and awareness for Menslink at the Prime Minister's XI cricket match at Manuka Oval. Menslink is a Canberra charity that provides counselling and mentoring services to young men. It recognises that while both young men and women suffer from anxiety and depression, the rates of young men who reach out for help are far too low. Only about half of all young men who need assistance reach out for it. There was an overwhelming response from the public to Menslink and a recognition of the important work that Menslink does. The crowd was asked to wear blue in support of Menslink and many did. As a result of more than 100 volunteers who worked the crowd at Manuka oval, six new volunteer mentors have become involved. Four young men and their families have made contact with Menslink and the charity raised almost $5,000. The main purpose of Menslink's involvement on the day was to raise awareness, but it was pleasing that a number of corporate sponsors and individuals pledged further support for Menslink in the future.

Menslink was founded by Richard Shanahan in 2002. It takes a strengths-based approach rather than focusing on what is wrong with young men. It identifies and works with positive resources and abilities so young men can move their life in a more positive direction. Silence is Deadly is one program coordinated by Menslink in partnership with the Canberra Raiders where players go to local high schools and share their stories with young men to send the message that not reaching out or speaking to someone can be deadly. There is also a mentoring program. People like my friend Tony Shields work in partnership with young men to talk to them about their life choices. As Menslink CEO Martin Fisk says, 'For young men who go through Menslink, the only statistic I want them to have is as a taxpayer.'

I want to give special mention to some of those who helped on the day: Michael Aicholzer, Scott Cassidy, Elias Hallaj, Glenn Cullen, Graham Hannaford, Shane Horsburgh, David Mathews, Sandra Marie, James Milligan, Fergus Nelson, Rob Regent, and Margaret and Ian Watt. I also thank Martin Fisk and Scott MacFarlane for inviting me to be part of the Prime Minister's XI Menslink team. Menslink fulfils a vital role in supporting the young men of Canberra. If anyone would like to offer assistance to Menslink or reach out for the help they provide, please contact them or my office.

I spoke last night on a bill that will see Australia re-engage with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and started my speech by telling the story of when I used to go along as a high school student in the 1980s to talk international development with my local MP, member for Berowra Phillip Ruddock.

International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill, 5 February 2013

It is a particular pleasure to follow the member for Berowra in this debate on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012. My first-ever engagement with a federal parliamentarian was when I was a young volunteer for an organisation called Community Aid Abroad, now part of Oxfam. Community Aid Abroad invited us to visit our federal member of parliament, to speak about the importance of foreign aid and why it should be increased. I suspect I was to the left of the member for Berowra even as a whippersnapper but I do remember him being very good to me, giving me at least half an hour of his time, listening through what I am sure were not particularly well-informed comments about foreign aid and providing some genteel responses about his views on the issue. Those meetings do occasionally come back to me now is a federal member of parliament, thinking about the importance of giving time to somebody who has passionate feelings about an issue even if one might know more about that issue than they do. I use this opportunity to thank the member for Berowra, some two decades late, for his generosity in that regard. It made a mark and it continues to shape my dealings with my constituents.

Mr Ruddock:  Can I interject and say thank you very much.

Dr LEIGH:  The interjection is greatly appreciated. The topic before the House today is foreign aid and global poverty. As Robert Lucas famously said, once one starts to think about the human welfare involved in these great issues, ‘it is hard to think about anything else’. I think it is important in this place that we do not just speak about the quantum of aid, important as that discussion is, and I am pleased to be part of a government which is increasing our overseas development assistance ratio to GNI to 0.5 per cent by 2016-17, but that we also talk about what that aid can do. We are in a world in which the statistics on poverty are staggering, where 1.4 billion people living in poverty and two-thirds of those are in our region. Every day 22,000 children under the age of five die from preventable diseases. Millions live in makeshift camps and gangs in Africa perform acts which are more abhorrent than anything a Hollywood movie producer could dream up.

Australia's aid does make a difference. To take one year's example, in a single year the Australian foreign aid program built 2,000 schools in India, funded a women's crisis centre in Fiji, prevented 8,000 cases of blindness in East Asia and provide clean water to 1.2 million people in Southern Africa. World Vision CEO Tim Costello claimed that the Australian aid budget in a typical year saves around 200,000 lives. So we can make a difference. Australia may be a country which contributes only a couple of per cent to the world's economy but what we do does make a difference.

In my view the Australian aid program should be shaped by the principles of comparative advantage, by thinking about what it is that our aid program can do better than other countries' aid programs. There are three areas in which our country's development assistance program has a comparative advantage over those of other countries. The first is in resource extraction. We are one of the few developed countries in the world with high mineral wealth and have useful lessons to teach developing countries about the effective extraction of those resources in a way which enriches the whole population.

Our second comparative advantage is in dealing with fragile states. The region in which we live has a large number of fragile states. I think the Australian experiences in East Timor and the Solomon Islands stand in stark contrast to other attempts around the world to intervene in fragile states. That is also an important comparative advantage of the Australian aid program. The third comparative advantage is in dry land farming. Australia's experiences with dry land farming are important for other countries. Our farmers have more experience in good water management, in the selection of hardy crops and animals and the management of seed stocks in environments in which rainfall is volatile. We convey some of that information through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, through involvement in the World Food Program, the G20's Committee on World Food Security, and our involvement and re-engagement with the International Fund for Agricultural Development is, I think, another way in which Australia's expertise in dry land farming can be conveyed to developing countries.

There is great possibility for bringing millions of people out of poverty through improving agricultural productivity. The 1960s and 1970s saw a green revolution in which the combination of hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides massively raised agricultural output. By one estimate, the green revolution saved a billion people from starvation. Yet today, when Africa should be a net food exporter, it has become a net food importer. African cereal yields are 66 per cent below the global average. Africa is a continent that has one tractor for every 868 hectares, compared with the global average of one tractor for every 56 hectares. So Africa is a place with fewer farm machines than it should have.

There have been some successes. Malawi's agricultural output has increased substantially. We ought also to think about innovative financing models. The economist Ted Miguel has argued that aid agencies should work with developing country governments to provide drought insurance to rural households, allowing them to deal with the volatility that will inevitably come from climate change. There are climate models that predict increased rainfall volatility in Africa's Sahel, the part of the world containing Chad and Niger, where average incomes are less than $1 a day and where people just do not have the financial resources to deal with climate shocks.

Australia has traditionally played a role in liberalising barriers to agricultural trade. It was the Hawke government that set up the Cairns Group of agricultural free-trading nations in 1986, bringing together developed and developing country agricultural exporters in order to bring down the tariffs that stood in the way of agricultural products. There is an international deal to be done in which the United States abolishes its ethanol subsidies and the European Union takes a more science based approach to genetically modified foodstuffs. Those two changes would bring enormous benefits to developing countries which are agricultural exporters.

The member for Wakefield detailed well why Australia has chosen at this point to re-engage with the International Fund for Agricultural Development. We understand that Australia's withdrawal from the fund in 2004 was based on the sense that IFAD was not delivering cost-effective and tangible returns and that it did not have a clear mandate or role. But our view is that IFAD has improved and that there is a strong business case for Australia to rejoin IFAD. Another important reason is that it is to our comparative advantage to do so. If Australia is to be a country that focuses our aid program on the things we do better than other donors then we ought to be involved more in resource management, more in fragile states and more in dryland farming. So it makes sense to re-engage with IFAD.

In closing, I encourage AusAID officials in their dealings with IFAD to urge it to carry out the most rigorous possible evaluations. The randomised trials revolution, which has swept the world of development economics, has its origins in agriculture. Randomised evaluations are known as ‘field experiments’ because it was in agriculture that they were first tried. Australian farmers since the 19th century have been setting aside two plots of similar soils, trying different seed varieties or a different fertiliser mix and seeing which performs better. But we can do that with our policies too. We can do that with policies that help countries deal with drought assistance, with smarter ways of providing information to farmers and with more effective strategies for seed management. All of these things should be rigorously evaluated, because if we had all the answers to world development we would not have over a billion people in poverty today. I commend the bill to the House and commend Australia's re-engagement with an important organisation to help us take our dryland farming expertise to the world.

I spoke in parliament today about a bill to crack down on the illegal firearms market, and discussed the Australian experience with gun control.

Crimes Legislation Amendment (Organised Crime and Other Measures) Bill, 5 February 2013

Last year the Australian Crime Commission did a national intelligence audit of the illegal firearms market in Australia. That audit estimated that, while there were more than 2¾ million registered firearms in Australia, the illicit firearms market consisted of around a quarter of a million weapons—around 250,000 long arms and, perhaps more concerning, about 10,000 handguns. Illegal firearms sourced through theft from licensed owners and firearms dealers consist in part of weapons that were made illegal in the 1997 gun laws, about which I will say more later, and deactivated firearms that have been reactivated.

This bill is a response by the Australian government to these concerning findings. It deals with the spread of illegal firearms by introducing new offences for aggravated firearms trafficking. It extends existing cross-border offences and introduces new basic offences for trafficking firearms across borders. Our aim is to hold traffickers responsible for the consequences of providing firearms to the black market. They are aiming to tackle the illegal firearms market from different angles—to seize the firearms, to break the code of silence and to improve our ability to trace firearms—and they complement other reforms the government is putting in place. These reforms include the rollout of the Australian Ballistics Identification Network, a national database which will allow police in states and territories to link up their information on weapons recovered from crime; better training, from the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which will happen in February this year; and an in-principle agreement with police ministers for a national firearms register. This national firearms register really is an important development, and I would urge those police ministers who are currently considering it to act immediately. I think it is vital that state and territory firearms registers are joined up. Australians move states or territories frequently and the information about those weapons should follow them.

These laws are also part of a package of reforms dealing with unexplained wealth. As the Minister for Justice explained:

‘These laws will help us to catch criminals. Just like with Al Capone - you can catch criminals by following the money.’

And through this broad suite of reforms we are cracking down on the illegal firearms market. In so doing we are supporting law-abiding recreational shooters. Law-abiding recreational shooters have the most to lose from an illicit firearms market in Australia because it is law-abiding firearms owners who are tarnished when these drive-by shootings occur, when crimes are committed with illegal weapons.

I am fortunate to have within my own electorate the firing range used by the Canberra Rifle Club. The Canberra Rifle Club is, I am told, the city's oldest surviving sporting body. It traces its conception back to a report in the Queanbeyan Age newspaper on 6 May 1913, nearly a century ago:

‘There was a representative gathering of riflemen at the residence of Mr. Hector McIntosh, Canberra, on Saturday last, to discuss the proposal of forming a rifle club at that place.’

And there had previously been rifle ranges at the Black Mountain Peninsula picnic grounds and the Mount Ainslie summit road, but the club's present facilities are at a better location in the Majura Valley. They opened in September 1969 and, in passing, I note the at they are just off Majura Road, near the Majura Parkway. The club's facilities will not be adversely affected by the construction of the Majura Parkway, the ACT's biggest road-building project, 50-50 funded by the federal and ACT governments and which it was my pleasure to attend the sod turning of this morning.

The range is named the McIntosh Rifle Range after Hector McIntosh, and since 1972 it has been the venue for the National Queen's Prize shoot. In 2004 the Canberra Rifle Club and Bungendore Rifle Club ran the inaugural Canberra Queen's Prize meeting, and they are a premier state and national rifle competition. The member for Griffith attended the presentation ceremony for the Queensland Queen's Prize in 2012.

The Canberra Rifle Club, importantly, has strict requirements for its members regarding firearms licences. Its rules say:

‘All members and users of the range may be required at any time to satisfy the Club that they hold a valid Firearms Licence as issued by the State or Territory in which they reside.

‘This is especially the case when purchasing ammunition or ammunition components from the Club. Consequently, you should carry your current Firearms Licence and your current NRAA Membership Card at all times.’

This is an example of a well-managed and regulated facility for sport shooters.

That state ands in stark contrast to the behaviour of some of the sport shooting associations in the United States. Following the Connecticut school shooting we have seen again on display the awful intransigence of the US National Rifle Association, a body which took a moderate stance in the 1930s when it supported federal gun control; which in the 1960s supported a ban on ‘Saturday night specials’ because, as they said at the time, they had ‘no sporting purpose’; but which was taken over in 1977 by people like Harlan Carter, Wayne LaPierre and the like and found itself in the 1980s opposing bans on armour-piercing bullets, which were being used to kill police on US streets.

The debate on gun control in the United States is so different from the debate in Australia. In part that is because of the initiative that was taken in 1997 by then Prime Minister John Howard and Tim Fischer, Leader of the National Party, who were willing to take on the extremists in their own party to see a gun buyback passed. I think sometimes in this place we pay too little tribute to the other side of politics. I was in here about an hour ago speaking about the fiscal profligacy of the Howard government, but let me in a different spirit recognise the forward-thinking actions of the Howard government and Tim Fischer in the Australian gun buyback.

By tightening firearms legislation, by buying back around two-thirds of a million weapons, Australia achieved a substantial fall in the firearms death rate. Firearms homicide and suicide rates fell by about half and have stayed down. These are figures that are sometimes contradicted by shills speaking for the National Rifle Association or other bodies in the United States but the facts do not lie: fewer Australians die as a result of firearms homicide and suicide thanks to the actions of the Howard government in 1997.

But we have to remain vigilant. We have to continue updating the laws to fit the times. This bill cracks down on the illegal firearms market. It is important that we keep the challenge in perspective. Australia's firearms death rate is low by international standards. Christine Neill of Wilfred Laurier University and I carried out two studies looking the Australian firearms buyback. We found when we looked at the time trends and when we looked across states it was very clear that the firearms buyback had saved lives.

Prior to the Port Arthur massacre Australia had experienced a mass shooting—that is, a shooting with five or more victims—on average every year for the previous decade. Since then we have not had a mass shooting in Australia. That could be coincidence, but the odds of that are less than one in 100.

Importantly, we have brought down firearms suicide, because that is the most common form of gun deaths, and we have brought down firearm homicide. The United States, though, still experiences over 80 gun deaths every single day—a horrendous death rate. One of the things that we in Australia can do is to present to United States legislators who are dealing with this very complicated issue—President Obama and Vice President Biden are now considering a package of gun law reforms—a bipartisan model of dealing with gun deaths. This is a bipartisan model that does not undercut the role of sporting shooters but recognises, as I have in my own electorate, groups of sporting shooters who are committed to enjoying their sport with shooting licences and with gun registration. They recognise that good laws are essential if people are to enjoy sport shooting in a safe environment. They recognise that the scourge of gun death in Australia has, in the past, been too high and that it needs to come down.

So I would urge those opposite to try and refrain from some of the partisan politicking in this debate. One of the things that has traditionally characterised the firearms legislation debates has been their bipartisan nature. Then opposition leader Kim Beazley did not hesitate before supporting John Howard in the package of laws that were put in place after the Port Arthur massacre. I urge those opposite to be wary of point-scoring and to recognise the value that we can bring to this place from sober, sensitive, reflective debate over reducing gun deaths.

We will probably never reduce the number of deaths to zero but we ought to do all in our power to bring it down. And we ought to do all we can to tell the world the story of Australia's firearms regulation. It is a good story. It is a story of conservatives who were willing to stand up to extremists in their ranks, of bipartisan law reform, and of ongoing law reform recognising that, as criminals advance in their methods of evading detection, Australian laws have to move to keep pace.

I commend the bill to the House and I commend the work of the minister, who is here in the chamber, on this bill.

I spoke in parliament today about the importance of good fiscal management.

Matter of Public Importance - Fiscal Policy, 5 February 2013

It is a pleasure to rise today to speak on an important issue of economic management. When we talk about the importance of good budget management it is important to remember one simple fact: if the tax-to-GDP ratio today were the same as it had been under the Howard government then the budget would be strongly in surplus.

Dr Emerson:  By more than $20 billion.

Dr LEIGH:  By more than $20 billion, I am informed by the minister. But if the tax-to-GDP ratio under the Howard government had been what it is today then many of their budgets would have been in deficit. That is a simple fact which those opposite cannot deny. Driving things at the moment are two big factors. First of all, mineral prices have softened, and that has brought down corporate revenue. Second, the Australian dollar remains high. Why does the Australian dollar remain high? Because Europe is underperforming. With Europe underperforming, investors are looking around the world to where they can find AAA-rated government debt. And they are finding it in Australia, one of the few countries that maintains that AAA rating. Despite the fact that minerals prices are coming off, the Australian dollar remains high. So this double-whammy hits revenues, and this is reason revenues for 2012-13 are $20 billion down from what Treasury projected in 2010.

So what should a government do under those circumstances? Prior to Christmas there was a suite of policy advice coming at the government from across the political spectrum. John Quiggin and Warwick McKibbin do not agree on every issue in public finance, but they were among the many economists who were saying that as revenue fell it was not the best approach to fill the government's revenue shortfall by making further budget cuts. The OECD and the IMF were among those saying the same thing. So that was what drove the Treasurer's announcement before Christmas.

But it is important to put this in a broader context. We have had a few bits of history being disinterred over recent times—we have just discovered where Richard III is buried. And thanks to an IMF report we have discovered a little bit about past budget practices in Australia. An IMF report released in January examined 200 years of government financial records across 55 leading economies. It identified two periods of fiscal profligacy in recent years. When were those periods? Well, if you listened to those opposite, you would be led to think that it was under the current government. But in fact that is not what the IMF found. The IMF found that those two periods of fiscal profligacy were under John Howard's term in office in 2003 and during his final years in office from 2005 to 2007.

Why did that fiscal profligacy occur? A report by David Hetherington and Dominic Prior from Per Capita called After the party: how Australia spent its mining boom windfall found that ‘the Howard government gave at least $25 billion away in tax cuts and concessions…. It used another $50 billion in inflated spending programs’. As a result, the report concludes, ‘we missed the opportunity to invest $75 billion into long-term productive assets’. And the Howard government, of course, was unable to make the tough decisions that have been made under this government.

Stephen Koukoulas has observed that during their combined total of more than 20 years in office the Fraser and Howard governments never once cut real spending. Labor governments have cut real spending on five occasions since the mid-1980s. In the last five years we have found savings of $138 billion, and they have not been easy savings to find. When we means tested the family tax benefits and the private health insurance rebate, those opposite said we were playing ‘the politics of envy’. When we phased out the outdated dependent spouse tax rebate - a measure that discourages work by secondary earners - we were told we were attacking the family. When we reduced the baby bonus for second and subsequent children the member for North Sydney drew comparisons with China's one child policy. That is how serious those opposite are about finding savings.

But you do not have to take my word for it. The IMF's article IV report from 16 November said that:

‘the authorities' adept handling of the fallout from the GFC, their prudent economic management, and strong supervision of the financial sector, has kept Australia on the dwindling list of AAA rated countries.’

The OECD economic surveys Australia 14 December said:

‘Adjustment to the mining boom so far has produced favourable results, thanks to the robust macroeconomic policy framework and the largely decentralised wage setting system …’

Authorities at the OECD think we have got the balance right on industrial relations, unlike those opposite.

At the same time we have been making the right investments. In my own electorate of Fraser the ANU has seen an increase in enrolments, up from 6,350 to 7,086. That is part of a nationwide increase of 150,000 in student numbers. ANU funding is up $130 million, 15,000 more students nationally getting youth allowance. And, as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition did, I would acknowledge the very generous donation today from Graham Tuckwell of $50 million to improve scholarship opportunities at the Australian National University.

This morning I joined the minister for transport, the member for Eden-Monaro, Senator Lundy and the member for Canberra at the sod-turning for the Majura Parkway, the biggest ever road investment in the ACT—$288 million, half federal, half ACT, which could teach the New South Wales government a lesson about co-contribution—an important road which will take the pressure off traffic in my electorate.

By contrast, those opposite have been coy about what will happen if they come to office. Senator Sinodinos said that the opposition was doing something like the dance of the seven veils, which does make one wonder whose head is going to be on the platter. Senator Abetz said that the opposition was offering a policy skeleton and that only further down the track would there be flesh on the bones.

But yesterday the cat was belled in the form of Senator Humphries. Senator Gary Humphries is now facing a preselection challenge from Zed Seselja, who assured the people of Brindabella of his undying loyalty just a few short months ago but has now decided that he would prefer to abandon them for a shot at the red carpet. When querying this on PM Agenda yesterday, the interviewer said that under an Abbott-led government the interests of the people of Canberra would not rate. Senator Humphries said, 'Well, it is a question then of making sure they are constrained in the knowledge that this impacts very badly on one of their colleagues.' Senator Humphries is now admitting that an Abbott government would impact ‘very badly’ on the ACT.

He said in another interview:

‘Canberra is going to be facing very heavy pressures. We know that this city will be the subject of some very tough decisions by an incoming government.’

We know why that is: the member for Canning, in a previous debate, described public servants as those who ‘feed on others’. The member for North Sydney gets the Public Service numbers wrong every time he stands up to speak on them and thinks that there has been an extra 20,000 public servants, a number in which he appears to be including Defence Force reservists as public servants. That now seems to be their new target for public sector job cuts—20,000 public servants. Those opposite say that they have an aspirational target for job creation, but the only policy they have released on jobs is a target for job destruction. It is a target for getting rid of 20,000 Canberra public servants.

Let me just finish with an article that I would commend to members of the House on 'The limits of hairshirt economics' by Tony Abbott, from the Adelaide Review, November 1994. This is an article in which the Leader of the Opposition questioned the floating of the dollar. He said as follows:

‘The floating dollar remains an article of faith with the leadership of both main parties, notwithstanding its exceedingly dubious outcome for Australia—'

Today I released the first ever 'people's map' of the Fraser electorate. The map is the result of an extensive exercise in community engagement, and was designed by a local design student.

To find out northsiders’ favourite spots, I collaborated with the Belconnen Arts Centre, which held public consultations in Belconnen, Gungahlin and Civic. This exercise produced hundreds of favourite Canberra places, which were then winnowed down to a smaller number that would fit on a map. In addition to favoured haunts, the map also covers northern Canberra’s landmarks such as the University of Canberra, the War Memorial and the Telstra Tower, making the map a reflection of where northsiders work, live and play.

Students at the University of Canberra then used their graphic design skills to design an easy to read version of the map. The winning entry was by UC student Michelle Lang which you can view here: