Andrew Leigh

In today's AFR, I have a column on why inequality matters.

Take the test, which society do you prefer? Australian Financial Review, 26 September 2012

To see whether you care about inequality, take this simple test. Suppose you had an equal chance of being born into any of the five wealth quintiles in Australia. Would you prefer to be born into a society where the share of wealth held by each of the quintiles was 1%, 6%, 12%, 20% and 62%? Or a society where the shares were 15%, 17%, 20% 24% and 24%?

Actually, I’m cheating, because I already know the answer. The first set of numbers is the actual distribution of wealth in Australia: 1% for the poor and 62% for the rich. But when surveyed about their ideal distribution of wealth, respondents almost universally want a more egalitarian distribution. Indeed, the figures I’ve shown are the wealth distribution preferences of the most affluent, who thought that the poor should have 15% of wealth, and the rich 24%.

So while I enjoyed Christopher Joye’s thoughtful column on inequality (AFR, 25/9), his view that we need a wider gap between rich and poor is definitely a boutique one. Asked to choose between the level of inequality in Australia and the United States, the vast majority of survey respondents opt for the Australian level.

As Treasurer Wayne Swan might put it, being Born in the USA seems appealing for those who get to drive a Pink Cadillac, but things look different for those in the Badlands and Backstreets. There is much to admire in the way that the US fosters great entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Marissa Mayer and Sergey Brin; but we must remember that the US is also the country that jails two-thirds of black high school dropouts, and where life expectancy for low-educated white women has fallen by five years over the past two decades. Inequality may not cause these bad outcomes, but the fact is the US is a dreadful place to be destitute.

Christopher Joye asks why we have progressive income taxes when we don’t handicap sportspeople. A glib answer is that Australian sport is replete with handicapping, from the different weight saddlebags in the Melbourne Cup to the salary caps that characterise most of our sporting contests. As many English soccer fans can tell you, too much inequality makes for a dull sport.

In the case of progressive income taxes, we ask the rich to pay a higher share of their incomes in taxes because they have more discretionary income than the poor. Put another way, the richer you are, the more capacity you have to fund our schools, army, hospitals, and pensions. And while it is true that higher-income people like Joye and me are lighter users of the income support system, we tend to be heavier users of other public services, including universities, roads and airports.

The flipside of progressive taxes is that government cash payments should be means-tested. I’m agnostic about whether $250,000 classifies you as ‘rich’, but I’m pretty sure that it means you don’t need to be on welfare.  And yet when our government has imposed means-tests on household payments and tax breaks, we heard an outcry from the Opposition (a reminder that they’re the heirs to those who opposed asset-testing the pension in the mid-1980s).

Australia is fortunate to have less inequality than many other nations, and to have seen a small drop in inequality over recent years. But the gap between rich and poor has grown markedly since 1980, with the top 1 percent doubling its share, and the top 0.1 percent tripling its share. And yes, inequality boosts growth, but it trickles down slowly.

Surveys prove that Australians care about inequality, and a plethora of economic experiments have shown that people are willing to pay to narrow the gaps between the rich and the rest. I can understand why Joye disapproves of envy, but as an economist, I’m surprised he would dismiss it as ‘irrational’. What brings us happiness isn’t just our own incomes, but also the wellbeing of others. Some people might find envy distasteful, but it’s no more irrational than altruism.

As ACTU researcher Matt Cowgill has pointed out, we should be sceptical of those who argue that it’s possible to worry about poverty but ignore inequality. What we define as a reasonable standard of living is invariably based on the wellbeing of the typical household. Someone who says they don’t care about inequality isn’t just saying that we shouldn’t worry about those at the front of the pack – they’re also saying that we needn’t worry how far the most disadvantaged have fallen behind.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and a former professor of economics at the Australian National University. He is currently writing a book about inequality.

I've had some queries over the last day about why I didn't vote on gay marriage yesterday afternoon.

I was absent from Parliament because my wife gave birth to our third son yesterday afternoon. To avoid any confusion on this issue, I put out the below statement this morning. Gweneth and I, as well as Zachary's two elder brothers, are all very excited about the new addition to our family.

MEDIA STATEMENT

Andrew Leigh MP

Member for Fraser



20 September 2012



LEAVE FROM PARLIAMENT

Andrew and Gweneth Leigh's third son, Zachary Keith Leigh, was born on the afternoon of 19 September.

Andrew is on parental leave from Parliament on 19-20 September.

Pairing arrangements did not apply to the conscience vote on same-sex marriage. Andrew has spoken in support of same-sex marriage on multiple occasions, and would have voted in favour of yesterday's motion.

I spoke in parliament tonight about the proposed Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.

Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill, 17 September 2012

It is my pleasure to speak on the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Bill 2012. Strengthening Australian community life is a great passion of mine but it is an area which, in recent decades, we have sadly seen go backwards. I am going to do a little auto-citation, for which I apologise. In a book called Disconnected that I wrote a couple of years ago, I said that pretty much whichever way you cut it Australians are less involved in formal organisations than they were a generation ago. If you ask individuals whether they are active members of an organisation, you find that in 1967 33 per cent said yes but by 2004 just 18 per cent said yes.

If you look at the Directory of Australia Associations, the so-called bible for Australian associations, you find that the raw number of Australian associations has not kept pace with the Australian population. From the 1970s to 2010, the number of associations in that directory fell from 7,000 to 4,300. Put another way, there were about seven associations per 10,000 adults in the late 1970s and less than three associations for every 10,000 adults by 2010. That means that the associations we have are older than they once were. In the late 1970s, the typical association was about 22 years old; now, the typical association is about 39 years old.

We are not growing new associations the way Australia traditionally has—the way we did in the 1950s and 1960s, when we saw the birth of the Endeavour Foundation, Community Aid Abroad, Brisbane's Blue Nursing Service, World Vision Australia, UNICEF Australia, the Scout Association of Australia, Choice and International Pen Friends, to name just a few.

If you ask the associations themselves, they tell you they are shedding members. The RSL, Scouts, Guides, Rotary, Lions, the Mothers' Union—if you put together what these organisations are reporting back, it is possible to track an index of organisational membership. Compared with 1950, membership was down by 14 per cent in 1980 and was down a full 67 per cent by 2009. So it is vital that we as policymakers do what we can to increase the strength of Australia's organisations.

As a member of parliament, I take great pleasure in being involved in the associations in my local community. Just looking back through my diary for the last fortnight, I have been involved with Micah Challenge; People Power; the Canberra Times Fun Run, which raised money for a range of different charities; the University of the Third Age; and Care Australia.

Australia's associations need a system of regulation which is as good as we can provide for them. The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is aiming to be a one-stop shop for Australia's charities. The notion of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission is that charities and not-for-profits will provide their information once to a single organisation. That organisation which will then pass that information on to other Commonwealth agencies, including the tax office. Once we get buy-in from states and territories, it will also be passing that information on to state and territory government agencies as well.

This is what past reviews into the sector have called for. As the inquiry into the bill by the House Standing Committee on Economics noted, there have been five major reviews into regulation and taxation of the sector since 2000—the inquiry into the definition of charities and related organisations in 2001, the inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Economics in 2008, the Henry review in 2009, a Productivity Commission review in 2010 and a Senate Economics Legislation Committee inquiry, also in 2010. All those reports recommended a single national regulator for the sector. It is a straightforward approach and one which would bring Australia into line with other jurisdictions. As the report points out, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have this same sort of single regulator. Moving towards a single regulator is good for the growth of the charitable sector. If we want to, we can squib this reform, as previous parliaments going back to 2001 have—that was when the first inquiry recommended such a one-stop shop for charities. But, if we do that, we would be doing Australia's charities a disservice and we would be continuing the red-tape burden which falls upon them.

As was pointed out by witnesses to the inquiry, the not-for-profit sector already has a regulator—by default. It is called the Australian Taxation Office. The Australian Taxation Office is not particularly pleased about this and many charities are not particularly pleased by it either. It has strained the relationship between charities and the Australian Taxation Office. But let's not pretend, as the member for Menzies has attempted to do, that there is no additional red tape being imposed upon Australia's charities. We heard a great deal of evidence from charities about the burden of having to provide the same information to multiple government agencies and about grant requirements which are subtly different and so require charities to employ people to provide information to government agencies—when they could otherwise be increasing their expenditure on front-line services.

So this notion of the charitable passport is enormously appealing and will allow us to continue to grow the sector. As the report notes:

‘The current regulatory framework for the sector is fragmented, inconsistent, and uncoordinated across a range of government agencies.’

The report went on to note that it is vital we cut the level of red tape within the sector. The Treasury submission to the inquiry said:

‘For some entities the reductions [in red tape] will happen immediately, particularly those entities that are regulated at the Commonwealth level.’

The Treasury submission went on to say that those entities will see a reduction in their red-tape and compliance costs.

Reducing multiple reporting is absolutely critical. The Community Council of Australia said:

‘I do not think people quite realise how often charities have to demonstrate their bona fides, and the capacity to do that, by having the equivalent of a charities passport, has incredible appeal’

In summarising the situation I referred to earlier—the Australian Taxation Office becoming the default regulator for the sector—ACOSS said:

‘… it was never intended (nor has it wanted) to be the sector’s regulator; and the relationship between the sector and the ATO is less than positive as a result.’

If we are able to provide a more streamlined reporting arrangement for Australia's charities, that will provide great benefit to these charities.

Some have asked why the states and territories have not signed on already, but I think this is putting the cart before the horse.

It is vital that we build the ACNC and then allow states and territories to look at exactly what they will be signing up to. I fully expect that states and territories will do just that. It is strongly in their interests not to be collecting data that is already held by an ACNC. It is in their interests to be able to simply encourage charities to use a charitable passport. That ought to free up public servants in states and territories to focus on service delivery, not on requiring not-for-profits to provide information they have already provided to other agencies.

I commend the member for Parramatta for her excellent chairing of the committee. The report made a number of recommendations. It suggested, for example, that in the case of private ancillary funds, a tax-effective mechanism for individuals to pursue philanthropy which requires at least five per cent of the wealth of the PAF to be distributed annually and that the government investigate ways to strengthen protection in the bills for private donors who wish to keep their philanthropy anonymous. Recognising the desire for anonymity is an important feature in the bill. The committee also referred to the director's liability regime. The report said:

‘The committee is concerned that either the directors' liability regime is unduly onerous, as suggested by a significant portion of expert evidence presented to the committee, or that, as presented in the Bill, it is not sufficiently comprehensible for people to understand its intent or purported mode of operation. … Placing an unnecessary burden of liability could be seen as … a disincentive, which is opposed to the purpose and objects of the Bill. The committee therefore recommends that Treasury read draft this section of the legislation with a view to clarifying its intent and operation.’

The committee went on to note that the penalty amounts in the bill were roughly comparable with state and territory provisions but there was uncertainty among some witnesses as to the amount of discretion that would be available to the commissioner. The committee recommended accordingly that the explanatory memorandum to the bills clarify that the commissioner has the discretion not to impose an administrative penalty.

The committee scrutinised the bills thoroughly but the majority of the committee came strongly to the view that this is an important bill, that this bill will cut through red tape for the charitable and not-for-profit sector, a bill which will reduce frustrating and unnecessary duplication. I could see in the eyes of many of the witnesses the sheer sense of frustration at having to write the same details on the same forms. We have all had it from time to time when dealing with an agency that requires us to provide back to it information which it knows already. But how much more frustrating must it be for many of these charities and not-for-profit to have to remit information to a second government agency which it knows is already held by the first government agency.

I am surprised that the coalition are not supporting this bill. I know there is a strong tradition in the conservative parties of supporting the charitable sector and of reducing regulation. I am disappointed that the member for Menzies has chosen to run something of a scare campaign on this bill and has chosen to suggest that the government is increasing regulation; whereas, in fact, we are in fact simply doing what so many inquiries, going back to an inquiry under the coalition in 2001, have recommended—that is, to take the approach that Britain, Canada and New Zealand have taken, to cut through the duplication by allowing the equivalent of a charities passport. The member for Menzies has been selectively quoting from the sector and has not recognised in many cases that organisations he has quoted strongly support the bill. For example, ACOSS, the Community Council for Australia, the National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations, Philanthropy Australia, the Smith Family, the RSPCA and Chartered Secretaries Australia are all supporters of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. I commend the bill to the House.

I spoke in parliament today about Mitochondrial disease, and the potential of advance market commitments to encourage research on new vaccines.

Mitochondrial Disease, 17 September 2012

I join the member for Flinders in strongly supporting the member for Cook staying in bed; I think there is bipartisan consensus on that point! More seriously, I commend the member for Cook for bringing this motion before the House. Too often, discussions about health care operate at the very high level—the millions of dollars that are spent, the institutions, the hospitals, the doctors, the researchers—and sometimes there is value in a particular motion that focuses on a single disease, highlights the plight of sufferers and allows us in this place to focus briefly on their stories and what we can do to alleviate their suffering.

I must confess that, of all the diseases that scare me, a fatigue related disease is perhaps my greatest fear. In common with many in this place, I quite enjoy doing too many things, so the description of mitochondrial disease as feeling like you are hitting the wall strikes me very much. That is why Stay in Bed Day, on Sunday, 23 September, is an appropriate way to recognise sufferers of mitochondrial disease.

Mitochondrial disease was discovered fairly recently and research on it is ongoing. There is a great deal we do not know about it, but we do know that its symptoms are various and severe. They can include deafness, eye disorder, dementia, muscle weakness, heart disease and kidney disease, to name but a few. I note in passing that one of the syndromes of mitochondrial disease is called Leigh Syndrome, which reminds me that researchers who ask for their own names to be given to a disease are brave people indeed.

The ongoing research into mitochondrial disease is of a piece with the increasing research on what has come to be known as personalised medicine. It is research which recognises that treatment for certain genetic disorders—mitochondrial disease can be caused by mutations to mitochondrial DNA—may require personalised approaches, treatments that are tailored to an individual's genetic structure. That is bringing health researchers and genetic researchers together—and some of that high-level gene research is taking place at the Australian National University. The John Curtin School of Medical Research is one of the great powerhouses of medical research in Australia, and I believe it is through research bodies such as the Curtin school that we are going to make great breakthroughs on mitochondrial and other diseases.

However, at present, as the Australian Mitochondrial Disease Foundation website notes, 'there is no cure, treatment is limited and diagnosis is difficult, costly and often missed'. That is because the mitochondrial mutations are due to the lack of an error-checking capacity of nuclear DNA. Consequently, mitochondrial disease is potentially tied in with disorders such as Alzheimer's, autism and cardiovascular disease—hence, any breakthroughs on mitochondrial disease may well affect our understanding of many other conditions.

I believe that there are two things that are at the core of dealing with mitochondrial disease. The first is ongoing research, what I think of as the push factors, for getting to a solution for mitochondrial disease, whether that is a vaccine or some other form of treatment. But there has also been increasing interest among economists on improving the pull factors—the attractiveness of finding treatments for diseases for which we do not yet have treatments.

The GAVI Alliance, formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, is currently experimenting with advance market commitments. Advance market commitments are commitments by countries to purchase certain amounts of vaccines. They have been used with great success with pneumococcal vaccine. They have been discussed for use with potential vaccines for malaria and HIV. As policymakers, we need to bring all of the innovation to dealing with a problem of this kind that scientific and medical researchers bring to thinking about the disease itself. There may be a role for advance market commitments in the future as a way of encouraging researchers to find the prize.

One of the benefits of advance market commitments is that they are available to anyone who comes up with a solution, whether that is an established research team or a group of mavericks who are working in a lesser-known institution or even outside an institution. An advance market commitment rewards ingenuity, and we need as much human ingenuity as can be brought to bear on diseases like mitochondrial disease and other diseases for which vaccines do not exist, such as malaria and HIV. I commend that policy tool to the House as a valuable way of addressing diseases about which we do not yet know enough.

I commend the member for Cook for his hard work on finding a solution to mitochondrial disease and am grateful to him for his continued advocacy on this issue.

I did a doorstop interview this morning covering a range of current events leading into another Parliamentary sitting week. Among other things, I pointed out that the weekend violence does not represent the mainstream of peaceful Muslims in Australia, and argued that horserace polls are the fairy floss of modern politics - they're rotting the teeth of the body politic.

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Yesterday, Anthony Albanese, Katy Gallagher and I announced that Fulton Hogan won the contract to build the Majura Parkway. It's the largest road investment in the Australian Capital Territory and I am delighted the Gillard Government invested $144 million to match the ACT Government contribution in recognition of the necessity of the Parkway for families and businesses. It's something I'd been pushing for since before I entered Parliament.

You can even view three digital flyovers of the road on the Territory and Municipal Services YouTube channel.

The media release is below.

Anthony Albanese
Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport

Katy Gallagher
Chief Minister
Minister for Territory and Municipal Services

Andrew Leigh MP
Member for Fraser


FULTON HOGAN AWARDED CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT FOR $288 MILLION MAJURA PARKWAY

With the awarding today of the construction contract to Fulton Hogan, work on the $288 million Majura Parkway project will soon commence. Tenders for the construction of Majura Parkway were called on 26 May 2012 and closed 31 July 2012.

“I’m pleased to announce Fulton Hogan as the successful company to undertake the construction of the Majura Parkway,” Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, said today. “This signifies the next step in this critical road infrastructure project which will deliver 11.5 kilometres of dual carriageway connecting the Federal Highway through to the Monaro Highway.

“Interest in the tender process for construction was well received by the industry with seven national infrastructure companies making submissions to undertake the work.

Fulton Hogan is a major civil and resources contractor that operates throughout Australasia. In Australia, the company has been involved in successfully building significant road infrastructure projects including the Princess Highway Upgrade, New South Wales ($242 million); and the Calder Freeway, Victoria ($156 million).

“The site supervision contract for the project has also been awarded to Professional Engineering Services who will oversee the construction project.

“Both the Australian and ACT Government regard safety as a critical element in the effective delivery of this project. As part of the prequalification requirements to undertake this work, tenderers were required to be accredited by the Australian Government Building and Construction OHS Accreditation Scheme to ensure robust management systems are in place to ensure the highest levels of safety during the works.

“Tenders were also evaluated on their previous safety record and their ability to demonstrate how safety would be managed during the implementation of these works.”

ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Katy Gallagher, also welcomed the news of the successful tender for the construction of the Parkway.

“Due to start in late-2012 and completed by 2016, this multimillion dollar project is the single largest road infrastructure investment in the ACT,” the Chief Minister said. “The project is jointly funded by the Gillard and Gallagher Labor Governments, both contributing $144 million each.

“Preparation for the construction of Majura Parkway has already commenced with sections of pine plantation in the Majura Valley region being cleared to make way for the road’s alignment.

“This project is great news for the ACT economy, for local jobs and businesses.

“The completed Majura Parkway will also play a significant role in improving the main national and regional freight route and the ACT will also benefit from additional capacity on its road network.”

A simulated flyover video allowing Canberrans and other interested stakeholders to get a sneak peak of what the completed Parkway will look like is publicly available on the project web site.

The flyover video showcases the Majura Parkway design northbound toward the Federal Highway and southbound towards the Monaro Highway, highlighting key features of the road. A separate video also provides a view of the Molonglo River Bridge – a 200 metre long elevated bridge over Morsehead Drive and the Molonglo River.

Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh said the Parkway will take pressure off the streets in the Inner North, and provide a faster way for northside residents to connect to the Monaro Highway.

“The Parkway will reduce the amount of time Canberrans spend sitting in their cars, making us a more productive city and freeing up time for us to spend with family and friends,” Mr Leigh said.

For more information about the Majura Parkway project visit www.majuraparkway.act.gov.au

I spoke yesterday on a Matter of Public Importance debate, on the topic of Australian government debt (and drawing upon the new Fairfax database of members' interests).

MPI on Debt, 13 September 2012

If you want to know what the member for North Sydney thinks about debt, don't listen to what he says in this House. You know what those opposite say in this House is not to be taken as gospel truth. Listen to what he said on 17 April, when he travelled to London to give a speech and talked about the debt that Hong Kong held. He said that the debt that Hong Kong held was 'moderate'. How much debt does Hong Kong hold? It holds debt that is 34 per cent of GDP in gross terms. That is about twice Australia's gross debt, which will peak at 18 per cent. So the only reasonable way the member for North Sydney could characterise Australia's debt would be 'low'. Australia's net debt will peak at 9.6 per cent. So, if you want to find what those opposite really think about the economy, look at what they say when they go to London. When the member for North Sydney went to London, he noted that Hong Kong's debt was moderate; therefore, ours would be low. When the Leader of the Opposition went to London last year, he said:

‘… Australia has serious bragging rights … Compared to most developed countries, our economic circumstances are enviable.’

The opposition get the economic truth-telling gold when they go to London! The trouble is that, when they get back to Australia, they do not make the medal ranks because they cannot be honest with the Australian people and tell them that Australia's debt levels are around a 10th of those of the major economies. Nine point six per cent of GDP is like someone earning $100,000 a year owing a modest $9,600.

If you want to know what those opposite really think of debt, again, don't listen to what they say in this place; listen to what they tell the Register of Members' Interests. If they really believed what they said, that debt is a bad idea, then you would not expect to find that any of them personally held debt, would you? You would think that, if debt is bad for the country, then it must be bad for them. You would think, for instance, that the member for Aston would not have a mortgage. You would think you would not see a mortgage for the member for Forde, the member for Mitchell, the member for Boothby and the member for Casey. The member for Paterson and the member for Mackellar also hold mortgages, as do the member for Dunkley, the member for Sturt, the member for Wannon, the member for Canning, the member for Herbert, the member for Flinders and the members for Groom, Mayo, Ryan and Gilmore.

I note in passing that the member for North Sydney himself has a mortgage. He thinks it is worth taking on some debt for his own future, but he thinks it is a bad idea to save the jobs of some poor people. The member for Bennelong, the member for Kooyong, the member for Pearce, the member for Curtin, the member for Higgins, the member for Hasluck and the members for Macquarie, Cowan, Stirling, Dickson, Berowra, Bonner, McMillan, Wright, Cook, Indi, Swan, Moncrieff and Leichhardt all hold mortgages, as does the member for Warringah. His mortgage was a little late in coming on to the Register of Members' Interests, but it did get on there eventually, with a story in June 2010 over his failure to declare a $710,000 mortgage. 'What's that as a share of income?' I hear you ask. 'If he's worried about this country's debt levels being 9.6 per cent of GDP, I bet he's got a small mortgage.' Well, no; in fact, his mortgage was then about 300 per cent of his annual income. There is nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly fine for the Leader of the Opposition to take out a mortgage because he thinks that is a good way of securing his future. I would just like to see him have the same commitment to securing the future of low-income Australians, because they are the ones that get wiped out in recessions.

Let's be very clear about what the opposition's anti-debt strategy means. When the global financial crisis hit, the revenue write-downs were two-thirds of the total debt we took on. So, if you take the view that we should not have taken on debt, what you are saying is, 'Bring on the firings; if only the government had cut back at the same rate as the private sector when the global downturn hit, everything would have been all right.' But we have a historical example of just that: Herbert Hoover, in the teeth of the Great Depression, as the member for Wakefield was reminding me earlier, cut back on government spending as the Great Depression hit. But the impact of doing that here would have been brutal to young Australians and low-skilled Australians, who are the first to be hit when a downturn strikes.

So, really, those opposite are just playing politics with debt. They do not really believe it. They carry debt themselves; they take out mortgages. But they come in here and rail against Australia's debt. If you take them to London, they might tell you the truth; but bring them in here and they will angrily rail against debt. I am reminded of one of the most awful Lenin quotes:

‘It would not matter a jot if three-quarters of the human race were destroyed; the important thing is that the remaining quarter should be Communist.’

Those opposite seem to be taking a leaf out of Lenin's book. They would rather see the Australian economy suffer than see Labor succeed. That is the Leader of the Opposition's modus operandi. As David Marr's Quarterly Essay reminded us:

‘There was always the Santamaria way: when you haven't got the numbers, be vicious. It's called minority politics. Abbott would come to play them superbly, having learnt in the Democratic Club how small constituencies can cause big trouble.’

Mr Marr talks about how the Leader of the Opposition pursued that strategy, first through 'don't know, vote no' in the referendum on the republic, and then in minority parliament. As the then tyro journalist writing for the Bulletin, now the member for Wentworth, wrote of the Leader of the Opposition—this is well before either of them entered politics, but you can imagine some of it is still there today—

Malcolm Turnbull wrote:

‘The leading light of the right wingers in New South Wales is twenty-year-old Tony Abbott. He has written a number of articles on AUS in the Australian and his press coverage has accordingly given him a stature his rather boisterous and immature rhetoric doesn’t really deserve.’

The destructive politics on debt are characteristic of the way in which this opposition does business. In a piece entitled 'Small target, big letdown' Peter Hartcher, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, talked about the opposition's strategy as being in the vein of Achilles: they rage against everything in front of them. My friend Macgregor Duncan has noted, similarly, that the opposition seem to be behaving like an Achilles rather than like a Hector. The opposition are out there to attack, to criticise to condemn. They are not there to build and to create.

I've omitted the points of order that came up when I tried to quote from David Marr's Quarterly Essay. The debate ended abruptly so that parliament could pass the super trawler bill.

I spoke in parliament today about the late war hero and public servant, Sir Richard Kingsland.

Sir Richard Kingsland, 13 September 2012

Sir Richard Kingsland passed away at Calvary John James Hospital after a short illness on Monday, the 27th. Like many of my constituents, his was a life of public service. His wartime service was marked by the bravery and ingenuity he displayed in the 1940 retrieval of Field Marshal Viscount Gort VC from a Moroccan hotel. It is a tale of derring-do that befits 007, perhaps with a hint of the Pink Panther.

Having received orders to extract Gort from the hotel in Rabat, he first seized a police boat, commandeered a car, then shot his way into the hotel. Then, because the French failed to take away his revolver, he shot off the lock, managed to free them both from the room in which they were held captive and made a dawn escape by flying out of Morocco under a guard of pro-Nazi police.

He later served with distinction in the Royal Australian Air Force, was Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs and was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, receiving his knighthood in 1978. He was an extraordinary Australian.

I spoke in parliament today on a government bill to restrict the impact of the super-trawler FV Abel Tasman (formerly the MV Margiris, among its previous five names).

Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill, 13 September 2012

Balancing the economics of fishing is no easy task. Quentin Grafton, one of Australia's leading economists of fisheries has argued that the massive expansion in fishing over the past 50 years has brought the industry to what seems like a paradox, where an immediate reduction in world-wide catch would actually increase future profits of the industry—he estimates it maybe by as much as much as $50 billion a year. There has been overfishing throughout the world and that has led to stock declines so severe that about 15 per cent of all exploited capture fisheries have collapsed or are at less than 10 per cent of their unexploited levels.

Quentin Grafton argues that world capture fisheries reached a plateau in the early 1990s and that aquaculture must be the future of fisheries. It is a classic collective action problem: because the fish in the sea are not owned by anyone there is an incentive for every individual fisher to overfish. Good fisheries management recognises this. It recognises that if each individual fisher—each fisherman and fisherwoman—is able to go out and take as much as they want then there will not be enough there for the future. We need to make sure that we have a set of policies that recognises not only individual species but also the ecosystem in which they operate.

In that context, the Abel Tasman poses a substantial challenge. This is a supertrawler that has a storage capacity of 6,000 tonnes. The weight of fish that this supertrawler can take is equivalent to 6,000 small cars. That makes it the second largest supertrawler in the world—the largest ever to have fished our waters.

We know a lot about the science of fishing in Australia. We have dedicated teams of researchers looking at the science and the economics of fishing. And I have great respect for those scientists. But when we are dealing with an entirely new way of exploiting fish stocks we need to be very careful. And we need to be careful particularly in the global context, where we know that, as a species, we have overfished and we need to cut back.

The challenge that the Abel Tasman poses to fisheries management is its ability to stay in a single place and to take huge amounts of fish from a single part of the ocean. The impact that that has on a species is complicated. If species move around a great deal then the impact on biodiversity of focused fishing in a single part of the ocean may not be so large. If species are restricted to certain parts of the ocean then it could have substantial impacts on fish stocks. We need to be careful in moving towards this.

When the Commonwealth Fisheries Management Act came into force in 1991 there was not a prospect of supertrawlers the size of the Abel Tasman. They were as distant then as the aviation of today was to the Constitution founders of 1901. They just were not contemplated. So we need to make sure that legislation keeps up with technological developments.

If you listened to the other side you would think that this was an assault on the very foundation of society itself. I was struck by the speech of the member of Fadden, who quoted the Magna Carta—surely a sign that we are about to move into crazy email land—and then talked about how this legislation was impinging on life, love and liberty. I thought he was actually going to talk about same-sex marriage at that point, because that seems the logical place to go with those words, but, no, he was talking about legislation that would allow the minister to restrict the activities of a supertrawler in Australia's waters.

We, of course, have a framework that regulates fishers already. We impinge on the liberties of the fishing community in order to make sure that their industry is stable. Member for Fadden, that happens already. But here I am struck by the way those on the other side are standing up for big fishing operations just as they stand up for big miners and big polluters.

The old argument of the left was: they stand for capital and we stand for labour. I always thought it was a bit more complicated than that, but sometimes that is the way it feels. There is no more capital intensive fishing operation in existence then these supertrawlers. The ratio of what they spend on machinery to what they spend on people is higher than for any other form of fishing. Let us not have lines about the impact on employment—capital-intensive fishing, such as a supertrawler, employs fewer people than labour-intensive fishing. As we have seen those opposite stand for the big miners and big polluters, they are now standing for the big fishers. We need to be cautious. As the minister has pointed out:

‘If we get this wrong there are risks to the environment, to commercial operators and to everyone who loves fishing and they are risks I am not prepared to take.’

The minister has pointed out that he has been lobbied by a number of Labor MPs. This is an issue that concerns me, but I cannot claim to have had the passion on this issue that the member for Fremantle has had. I pay tribute to her and to her hard work and devotion to this issue.

This bill will not impinge on recreational fishers. The minister has bent over backwards to put in place amendments that make sure that if you are going out in your tinny to pick up a couple of fish for dinner this bill is not going to impinge on you. This is a supertrawler bill. Make no mistake, if those opposite vote against it they are saying that they are happy for the supertrawler to come into Australian waters, regardless of the uncertainty that we have over what it will do to long-term fish stocks. That is not a pro-fishing position; that is an antifishing position. That is saying: 'We're not going to go and find out any more. We're not going to get any more research to find out how this impacts on the sustainability of an industry we love. No, just let her rip! Let the most capital-intensive form of fishing come into our waters and take what it needs.'

I have no problem with the fish from the Abel Tasman being exported. Australia has a proud export industry. I think it is a terrific thing that we produce many agricultural services and manufacturing goods that are used by the rest of the world—that is not an issue. I am an open markets guy; I am entirely relaxed about the export capacity. What I am concerned about is the sustainability of our fishing stocks and making sure that we have all the science we need to make those decisions. The minister is making sure through an expert panel that we explore the impact of the FV Abel Tasman before it is given approval to fish in Commonwealth waters. Using an expert panel will make sure that we make the right decision, that we undertake an open and transparent assessment process and that we have public confidence on this issue. I have been contacted by a number of my constituents who have raised concerns about the supertrawler.

I think they raise perfectly reasonable questions that suggest that we need to make sure that the decisions are based on sound science. The current regime is based on 1,500-tonne storage capacity vessels. We need to make sure that that is updated for 6,000-tonne storage capacity vessels and we need to recognise that there is always uncertainty in the science. We do not dispute the AFMA science on catch limits and the effect of localised depletion on target stocks, but the Abel Tasman's capacity to stay on top of a single school of fish, to take hundreds or thousands of tonnes of an individual species, means that it is uncertain what impact the Abel Tasman may have on individual species.

The Commonwealth policy on fishing bycatch, endorsed by then ministers Truss and Hill, makes clear at a broad level that the definition of fisheries bycatch includes all material, living or nonliving, that is caught while fishing, except for the target species. But in practice that term is used differently by different parts of the industry and by stakeholders. What we are concerned about, for the purposes of the EPBC Act, is bycatch of protected species. We are concerned about the impact of the Abel Tasman on seals, dolphins and seabirds. We need to make sure that the impact on those species is no larger than it needs to be.

In doing so, we need to make sure that we do not adversely affect recreational fishers. I have been contacted by recreational fishers who say that they support this bill. Why wouldn't they? They are not the ones going out with a supertrawler. They are the ones who want to make sure that Australia's fish stocks can be managed not just for our generation but for future generations. We are here not just for ourselves but for the generations to come. The work we do in parliament recognises that policy has continuity. We want to leave the country and the oceans better than we found them, not worse than we found them. We do not do a service to future generations if we allow a supertrawler to take fish species in a way that does irreparable damage to the oceans.

As previous speakers have noted, this bill fits in with a Labor tradition of standing up for our oceans. The marine parks that have been announced form a historic network. They fit in with a Labor tradition of looking after the environment. It is a Labor tradition that saw the creation of Australian national parks in the 1940s and 1950s, saw us sign the Kyoto protocol and saw us move to put a price on carbon pollution, because if you do not put a price on carbon pollution you do not save the Barrier Reef. We need to leave a legacy in the oceans for our children. The previous speaker, the member for Moreton, noted that in a splendid speech in Parliament House the great Australian author Tim Winton highlighted what a legacy moment that is.

Sitting alongside the network of marine parks that we have established is good fisheries management. It is making sure that we do not do harm to the oceans that cannot be done afterwards. That fits in with a Labor legacy of listening to the scientists and the economists and thinking for the future. Too often I worry that those opposite are here just for the here and now, for what can be grabbed. They are the supertrawlers of the policy world: they grab what they can and get out. That is not the Labor view.

On Sky AM Agenda this morning, I spoke with host Kieran Gilbert and Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer about the killing of the US Ambassador to Libya, why profits-based taxes are more efficient than mining royalties, and what the savage cuts in Liberal-run states tell us about Tony Abbott's secret plans.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/G2hxYhsp5mQ