http://jamiebriggs.com.auRSS feeds for Jamie Briggs MP60http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/209/Matter-of-Public-Importance-Water-and-Environment-Programs.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=209http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=209&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/209/Matter-of-Public-Importance-Water-and-Environment-Programs.aspxMatter of Public Importance - Water and Environment Programs Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (5:20 PM) —I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance. I would actually be happy to move an extension of time for the Parliamentary Secretary for Water so he could tell us about those on-farm irrigation investments, because we have not seen them. We have not seen one drop of water returned to the system since this government came to office in 2007—two years ago yesterday. They were handed, on a gold plate, a plan thought through by the now Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, the then Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and announced in January 2007. It has not been moved on in respect of agricultural investment. It is an absolute disgrace. There is a complete lack of effort being put into that area. Instead, there is just an obsession with buybacks in the wrong part of the system—not delivering any real water. We all accept that buybacks are a part of the answer to this crisis. They were part of the plan announced in January 2007 by the then minister for the environment. But what we have seen with this government is an obsession with buybacks because that is the easy thing for them to do. They do not have to do the hard yards like saving water through on- and off-farm infrastructure investments. So it is a complete ‘F’ for failure for the Rudd government in that respect—not enough spent, not enough effort made; lots of spin, no substance. We see that all too often. The parliamentary secretary also talked about all they are doing in relation to urban water in cities. We welcome that. We welcome such a commitment because the state Labor governments across the country have been fundamental failures in planning for the future. We have had eight long years of the Rann government in South Australia and clearly the Premier has had too much on his plate. Clearly he has been too busy; clearly he has been focused on other things. He has not been straight with the South Australian people. We know that. We have seen that all too often recently. He has not focused on this issue and therefore the federal government must come in and do something about it. It is a disgrace and on 20 March next year will see a change of government. We will see Isobel Redmond come in with real plans for recycled water. We will see Isobel Redmond come in with real plans to talk straight to the South Australian people about what she believes in and what she will do to fix the water crisis, not only in the urban centres of South Australia but also in the Murray-Darling Basin and in the Great Lower Lakes, which are in my electorate. We have seen a complete failure by the Rann government and by its Minister for Water Security, the Nationals SA member for Chaffey, who will lose her seat to Tim Whetstone next March. We have seen from the federal government two years of failure, having had a gold-plated plan handed to them by the then minister for the environment. And we have seen eight long years of failure by the Rann government in South Australia. The two of those combined mean we have an urban water crisis in South Australia, no investment in recycling, a Murray-Darling Basin crisis and a Lower Lakes crisis—complete failure by the Labor governments. We need a change. Malcolm Turnbull, the Leader of the Opposition, said two months ago in South Australia that when he is elected Prime Minister next year he will finish the job he started. That means putting real focus on on-farm and off-farm investment which will deliver real water. There will be 200 gigalitres put back into the Menindee Lakes system alone for environmental and irrigation flows. The Labor Party forgets that Australia still needs to grow its own food. If you buy out the farms—if you buy out all the water entitlements—you will have a situation where we do not grow our own food. That is a situation that we on this side of parliament want to avoid. It is a situation that those on the other side have not thought through, which is just so consistent with how this government goes about so many policy areas. It is disappointing to see the parliamentary secretary, who very rarely speaks on this issue in this place, raise the issue of the $10 billion water plan in negative sense. It was the most groundbreaking, well thought through plan on water that has been put to this place since Federation. It dealt with a lot of the significant issues. Unfortunately, when the Rudd government was elected it dropped the ball. It did a deal with John Brumby in Victoria and it failed to get a truly national system, and it is the lack of a national system that has caused most of the problems we face today. It is a failure of leadership by this Prime Minister, a failure of leadership by the Minister for Water Security in South Australia, who has had other things on her plate, and a failure by the state premiers. The South Australian Premier clearly has had other things on his mind. He has not been able to focus on these issues. He has been off topic. We do not know what he has been up to but he has not been up to water. That is what he has not been up to. It is disappointing. We will hear now the defence from the member for Kingston, a good member but one who is misguided on this issue. This is the most important issue facing my electorate. (Time expired)adminTue, 24 Nov 2009 21:11:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:209http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/208/Speech-to-the-House-ADJOURNMENT-DIGITAL-TELEVISION-PETITION-25-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=208http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=208&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/208/Speech-to-the-House-ADJOURNMENT-DIGITAL-TELEVISION-PETITION-25-November-2009.aspxSpeech to the House, ADJOURNMENT, DIGITAL TELEVISION PETITION, 25 November 2009 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (7:41 PM) —I rise to present petitions from two parts of my electorate, Yankallila district and Gumeracha district, in relation to the Rudd government’s complete disregard for their right to have television services after 2013. The first petition is from the Yankalilla district. The petition read as follows— To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives This petition of Yankalilla district residents and certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House concerns about the switchover to digital television expected to take place in 2013. The Yankalilla region currently has limited digital signal and poor analog reception. Under these circumstances and with the lack of information regarding blackspot funding, residents are concerned they will not receive an upgrade to digital television and will be left without television. We therefore ask the House to consider urgent funding for an upgrade to digital television in the Yankalilla area and a guarantee from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy that the residents of the district will receive digital television. from 712 citizens Petition received. Mr BRIGGS —The second petition is from the Gumeracha district. The petition read as follows— To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives This petition of Gumeracha district residents and certain citizens of Australia draws to the attention of the House concerns about the switchover to digital television expected to take place in 2013. The Gumeracha region currently has limited digital signal and poor analogue reception. Under these circumstances and with the lack of information regarding blackspot funding, residents are concerned they will not receive an upgrade to digital television and will be left without television. We therefore ask the House to consider urgent funding for an upgrade to digital television in the Gumeracha area and a guarantee from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy that the residents of the district will receive digital television. from 164 citizens Petition received Mr BRIGGS —While I support the switch over from analog TV to digital TV, what is occurring with the switch over to digital TV is that the Rudd government—and the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in particular—is failing to provide for those communities that have television reception difficulties and which have previously had alternative solutions. I will talk briefly about each district separately. Yankallila district, as members of this House may be aware, is a very hilly district and for a long time has had issues with television reception. In fact, it only started getting regular television signals in the late 1980s after the council put together enough money to build the required towers to service the area. We now have the issue that those towers will not be upgraded unless the Rudd government and this minister develop a black spots type program, which would be implemented as part of the digital switch over. And I think a very important program too if I may say in the sense that these days television is a right for people. We would all expect to have the opportunity to get our television. I think that this government at this stage is not paying enough care to those areas which it knows have a problem. There are two types of problems with the digital switchover. There is the tyranny of distance in Australia, which we are seeing with the initial trial in Mildura right now where a satellite service is being trialled to cover large amounts of area. Being from there originally, I understand the challenges. However, in Yankallila and Gumeracha the issue is simply that the towers need to be upgraded. The towers and the infrastructure are already there. This government could upgrade those services today. They know the problems there. The excuse of the minister that we need to consider how the trials go in Mildura just does not add up because the minister knows that he can fix the problem today and give certainty to these people. There is so much anger about this issue. We had a public meeting in Yankallila but unfortunately it appeared that every Labor member in South Australia and the minister had something on that night and could not make it down to the meeting. Instead, they sent a bureaucrat to face an angry crowd of about 300 people who just want certainty about their television services, which is completely understandable. They want to know that they can see the Adelaide Crows or Port Power, if that is their choice, on a Friday or Saturday night. It would be a game government that would prevent a community from being able to access those sorts of services. I am sure that in the end the government will fund these towers. However, the issue is that it should happen today. People should be given the certainty today. It would be good for the switchover. It would create an increased pace that would take away a problem. We have a farcical situation now where people in Yankallila and Gumeracha see the ads, go out and buy big, new flatscreen TVs, get home and cannot use them because there is no digital signal. All it would take is a simple program from this government, a well-thought-through program rather than the rushed decision making that we see, which would allow these people to have certainty that they will have their digital television services going forward from 2013. I am sure that in the end the government will fund these towers. However, the issue is that it should happen today. People should be given the certainty today. It would be good for the switchover. It would create an increased pace that would take away a problem. We have a farcical situation now where people in Yankallila and Gumeracha see the ads, go out and buy big, new flatscreen TVs, get home and cannot use them because there is no digital signal. All it would take is a simple program from this government, a well-thought-through program rather than the rushed decision making that we see, which would allow these people to have certainty that they will have their digital television services going forward from 2013. We know that the government is going to make many billions of dollars out of the sale of the spectrum and we see that as a sword above the head of Telstra. Another bill before the Senate that we have debated in this House means that that spectrum will be worth a large amount of money when the analog signal is turned off. So they know that they are going to have the money. They could develop a black spots program. I congratulate Senator Minchin, our leader in the other place, for the work he has been doing on this issue as the communications spokesman. This petition of 712 signatures from Yankallila and 164 from the small town of Gumeracha shows the level of interest in these communities. I call on Minister Conroy to do something and to act today. I call on the Rudd government to do something and act today. Give certainty to these people. Fix this issue today and we will move on happily and with digital television services.adminTue, 24 Nov 2009 21:06:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:208http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/207/Speech-to-the-House-ACIS-ADMINISTRATION-AMENDMENT-APPLICATION-BILL-2009-24-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=207http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=207&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/207/Speech-to-the-House-ACIS-ADMINISTRATION-AMENDMENT-APPLICATION-BILL-2009-24-November-2009.aspxSpeech to the House, ACIS ADMINISTRATION AMENDMENT (APPLICATION) BILL 2009, 24 November 2009 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (6:59 PM) —It is very disappointing that my favourite Rudd government minister is not able to stay for my contribution this evening to the debate on the ACIS Administration Amendment (Application) Bill 2009. Mr Champion —It better be good! Mr BRIGGS —And, to the member for Wakefield, the contribution will be short. Thank you for the intro. As I understand it, this bill corrects a technical error in a piece of legislation that we discussed not too long ago in this place. The government’s New Car Plan for a Greener Future committed to providing motor vehicle producers with a smooth transition to the new Automotive Transformation Scheme by providing increased assistance under ACIS in 2010. It was also the government’s decision that this additional assistance be conditional on the enactment of the Automotive Transformation Scheme Act 2009, which occurred on 29 September 2009. The amendment corrects, as the government has termed it, the unintended consequence arising from the link between the ACIS Administrative Amendment Act 2009 and the commencement of the Automotive Transformation Act 2009. It is a technical amendment that would give formal effect to the legislation already considered in parliament and would honour the original intent of the legislation. The bill clarifies that the commencement date for the ACIS act is 1 January 2010 and not 1 July 2010. The coalition do not oppose this piece of legislation. We do have some questions, which I will put in Hansard for the consideration of the minister. How was the unintended consequence of the original legislation overlooked? When was the mistake found? Was this due to a lack of consultation with industry? And was it, as we see with so many pieces of Rudd government legislation, a last-minute rush job which resulted in this error? These are issues which, I am sure, the minister will address in his summing up of this bill, which fixes an administrative error. Obviously, over the 11½ years of the coalition government the car industry received an enormous amount of support, particularly in my home state of South Australia, including Holden, which is located in the member for Wakefield’s electorate and which employs many people who live in the member for Makin’s electorate, and also Mitsubishi, which was in the member for Boothby’s electorate. However, it decided not too long ago to terminate its operations in Australia. I think that highlights a potential issue we will have going forward with this industry as the challenges become greater than they are today. As we said in the debate on the original legislation, this place and the government of the time will need to consider just how much assistance this country is willing to give to this industry. I acknowledge that it is an important industry in certain parts of Australia, but it is also a lot of money that we are paying. The amendments that we moved in the consideration in detail stage of the original bill provided transparency, and it was a pity that the government did not see the reasons for those amendments. It is something that is worth while considering, because they are large sums of money we are talking about with this industry and there are important considerations for employment in certain areas. There is a very thick set of jobs in certain areas and we are seeing that, with the assistance packages for Holden workers, more are taking them up than was expected. It will be a challenging time for not only the car industry but also the associated industries and communities. I suspect that this subject is difficult and touchy for many people and it is very difficult to manage. I know that the member for Wakefield is intensely interested in this issue, and we all look forward very much to his contribution to this debate, as we do to the contribution of the member for Makin. On that note, I will conclude my remarks.adminMon, 23 Nov 2009 20:42:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:207http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/205/Speaking-with-Kieran-Gilbert-on-Sky-News-Agenda.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=205http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=205&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/205/Speaking-with-Kieran-Gilbert-on-Sky-News-Agenda.aspxDownload Part One: LinkClick.aspx Download Part Two: LinkClick.aspxadminMon, 23 Nov 2009 00:12:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:205http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/206/HIGHER-EDUCATION-LEGISLATION-AMENDMENT-STUDENT-SERVICES-AND-AMENITIES-BILL-2009-23-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=206http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=206&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/206/HIGHER-EDUCATION-LEGISLATION-AMENDMENT-STUDENT-SERVICES-AND-AMENITIES-BILL-2009-23-November-2009.aspxHIGHER EDUCATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (STUDENT SERVICES AND AMENITIES) BILL 2009, 23 November 2009 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (7:34 PM) —I appreciate the warm welcome that the member for Isaacs just gave me as the warm-up act to my contribution this evening. It is always nice to hear from the member for Isaacs and be reminded of the talent that is sitting over there on the Labor Party back bench—so he tells us. Mr McMullan —No-one would ever say that about you, mate. Mr BRIGGS —I think there was an interjection from someone over the other side. The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. BC Scott)—The member for Mayo will ignore the interjection. Mr BRIGGS —I want to address a couple of comments that the member for Isaacs made about student unionism and the so-called attack by this side of the House on unions. It is actually not an attack on unions; it is an attack on compulsion, Member for Isaacs. We have no problem with unions at all. In fact, we have always supported their role in both the workplace and at university. Our problem is when you force people to be members of the union so that they can fund Labor Inc., so that they can fund the training ground. We accept that very senior members of our side—the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney; the member for Wentworth, as we were reminded; the member for Sturt; and, I think, the member for Warringah—were all involved in student politics. Of course they would be; they were interested in politics. The member for Isaacs was involved in student politics when he was a young buck. But the issue was that you chose to be involved. Our problem with this Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2009 is that you are charging a compulsory fee to bump up the bottom line of the student union so that it can go out and campaign on issues which largely are not representative of what most university students think. That has always been our problem and that has always been how we have outlined it. The member for Isaacs said that this is meeting an election commitment. I will read to you what the then shadow minister for education said: … I am not considering a HECS style arrangement, I’m not considering a compulsory HECS style arrangement and the whole basis of the approach is one of a voluntary approach. So I am not contemplating a compulsory amenities fee. I am not sure how that set of words is consistent with the election commitment they claim to be meeting. I would have thought that was the complete opposite of the election commitment the Labor Party gave. Like so many things that we heard from the Labor Party before the last election, it turns out that it is just not true—the approach on this issue, their economic conservatism or the buck stopping with the Prime Minister on health and hospital reforms. As we heard today, not one single hospital has been assisted. These promises made before the election have failed to be delivered. We were going to have a superfast internet network, NBN mark 1. We now have NBN mark 2 on the drawing board. All of these promises were made purely to get through an election campaign. The creme de la creme, we should not forget, was, ‘I’ll turn the boats back.’ That was the best promise that we had from the Prime Minister. It was just days—two days, I think—before the last election that he made that promise, and we have seen that that promise is as fraudulent now as it was when he made it. So this is clearly a commitment the Labor Party have gone back on. This reintroduction of compulsory student unionism is a broken election commitment. The second issue I wanted to address with the member for Isaacs is that he talked about the Liberal Party being the party that likes to censor debate. But we are not the party that have introduced censorship of what we can send out, including whether copies of Hansard can be sent out. I do not think that was our side of politics, Member for Isaacs; I think that was the side of politics that you are on. Under the biggest control freak of a Prime Minister in the history of our country, we now have to check what we can say about the policies of the Labor government of the day with bureaucrats in its censorship bureau. But the member for Isaacs has the gall to allege that we are the party of censorship. Give me strength. This is Orwellian in its nature. It is 1984. These guys will say and do anything to mislead this place. It is an extraordinary suggestion to say that the Liberal Party is the party that wants to censor or stop debate. We saw it at the Labor Party’s national conference. The minister for finance and his thought police at the front of the room had to see any motion before it could be put to the floor of the conference. That side of parliament have become a North Korean style communist organisation run by a factional warlord, and they want to control every single word, every single sentence and every single thing that happens—so much so that they are now trying to control this side of the House as well. All we have heard in the last few weeks is how much of a debate we do have on the Liberal Party side of politics. So the member for Isaacs’s arguments are somewhat befuddling, I must say. The real intent of this bill is to get back to what Labor believe in, which is a compulsion for unionism, a compulsion to ensure they get the money and the numbers. The student unionism plays an integral part in the flow-through of young people who make up the Labor Party brand across the country. There is no better example than the several members of parliament from South Australia. My friend the member for Kingston who is, I grant you, a hard worker, came through the training school. The minister responsible for this bill, Ms Kate Ellis, spent five years at Flinders University, three of them, from memory, as president of the student union, so she has a very long history with this area. She went from there into Labor Party staffer land in South Australia, with now Deputy Premier Mr Kevin Foley. So there is a long history here. The usual tactic with the Right in South Australia is that Don Farrell, dubbed the ‘godfather of the Right’ by the Adelaide Advertiser—and tonight he and the member for Port Adelaide hold the future of the Premier of South Australia in their hands, whether or not they believe the story, but we will not get into that during this debate—gets the numbers through compulsory student unionism, in the first instance, which allows them to build up their numbers base. They move into the right side of the SDA and they are able to control Labor Party branches and conferences in that way. I am sure my friend the member for Wakefield will very soon correct any mistakes I make on this matter. So this is very much Labor Inc. This is what they do. Student unionism is an important part of the Labor organisation and its structure in terms of how the Labor Party is able to operate, particularly in my state of South Australia, and we have seen that for a very long time. The $250 student services fee was first part of the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities, and Other Measures) Bill 2009 introduced in February 2009, which included a section on VET FEE-HELP. It passed this House in March, and we voted it down in the Senate in August. It has been reintroduced in this place without the VET FEE-HELP section, which has been hived off into a separate bill. So this is very much the ‘student unionism bill 2009’. Let me make this very clear. Unlike what the member for Isaacs said, this was not promised before the last election. Indeed, it was the very opposite that was promised before the last election. There was a very specific promise by the member for Perth as the shadow minister at the time—now our foreign minister—not to do this. But instead we are seeing the second attempt to get this student services fee through. I was interested that the member for Isaacs mentioned a couple of senators who had made contributions on this bill—I think they were Senator Birmingham and Senator Cash. In fact, I thought what the member for Isaacs did was make a very good argument, which was that this is about freedom of association; this is about choice. If students want to be part of the clubs and use the services that are offered at universities, they will join. There is no need for the compulsion. The only reason for the compulsion is to get the funds in the door so the student union, run by the Labor Party organisation, can run their campaigns, as they have for very many years. What Labor do not like about voluntary student unionism is that it has been chipping away at the underbelly of Labor Inc. That is what this bill is about: re-establishing those arrangements, which were taken away in 2005 by the former government. This bill is, very simply, about the reintroduction of student unionism in Australia. It is not about services. It is not about students’ wellbeing on campus. It is about the beginnings of Labor Inc. and important aspects of how the Labor organisation works. That is very much what this bill is about. The minister responsible for this bill is a beneficiary of the Labor Inc. organisation. She has very much benefited from how this set-up works, from student union days all the way through. She is now the minister who has been able to reintroduce this bill in an attempt to re-establish Labor domination at universities. What we are saying is that this bill should be treated as we treated its predecessor earlier in the year—with the contempt it deserves. This is a bad piece of legislation. It is a backwards step. It is purely about the reintroduction of compulsory student unionism in Australia. As I said earlier in my contribution, the issue is about compulsion. It is not that we do not like student unions. If people want to be involved in politics at university, if they want to get involved in student unionism or if they want to get involved in sports clubs at university, of course that is encouraged and of course that is what people should do if they wish to, but it should not be compulsory that they do so. They should not be forced to do so. This is a very Labor Party bill. The Labor Party is now trying to censor this side of the House as well as its own MPs and its own members. The Labor Party conference had the thought police at the front there run by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Any idea to be presented had to go through the minister for finance. This is the most controlling government in the history of Australia. The most controlling Prime Minister in the history of Australia is now trying to control this side of parliament as well as his own. This bill should be treated with the contempt it deserves. It will obviously get through this place when it is put to a vote, but I am sure in the Senate it will be treated as it should be.adminSun, 22 Nov 2009 20:47:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:206http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/204/Speech-to-the-House-WATER-ENTITLEMENTS-AND-HOME-INSULATION-BILL-20092010-19-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=204http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=204&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/204/Speech-to-the-House-WATER-ENTITLEMENTS-AND-HOME-INSULATION-BILL-20092010-19-November-2009.aspxSpeech to the House, (WATER ENTITLEMENTS AND HOME INSULATION) BILL 2009-2010 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (10:30 AM) —It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010 and the Appropriation (Water Entitlements) Bill 2009-2010 and follow the member for Lindsay, who I do acknowledge is one of the more thoughtful members on the other side. It is pleasing to see the member for Lindsay speaking from some notes but without a written speech, which is an unusual event for those on the other side, and I congratulate him for doing so. He did a reasonable job in defending what is very difficult legislation to defend. The member for Lindsay is right: the opposition will support these bills, as has been the history in this place of supporting appropriation bills, except for some time ago when a famous one was not supported. I thought the speech of the shadow minister, the member for Dunkley, was a cracker in the sense that it very much highlighted the problem with this government that it does not think through the consequences of its policies; it does not think through the policies it is implementing. We have seen this across a wide variety of issues, such as the home insulation of pink batts from China policy; the water policy, which is particularly pertinent to my electorate and is a very important issue in my part of the world; and the disaster which is the Julia Gillard memorial halls project, the $17 billion that has been thrown out of the window at a rate of knots. We saw another good example last week on the front page of the— Mr Perrett —How are those school openings going, Jamie? Mr BRIGGS —It is interesting you mention school openings. I will briefly touch on that. At the Meadows Primary School, for instance, the school is now having to knock down a building, move another and close down a playground because the government will not build on the land next door. The state governments in South Australia and also Queensland, the state of the member for Moreton, are simply incompetent. We are seeing policies which are not well thought through and we are having to clean up the mess, like we are today, by rushing through appropriation bills. This is an unusual event, as is the tradition in this place, but we will support the bill so that the programs are funded. I will touch briefly on the Home Insulation Program, the pink batts program, which is the first part of the bill. There are two aspects to this. There is the macro policy level, which we have seen the member for Lindsay defend on the basis that it has created thousands of jobs—I think that was the suggestion— Mr Billson —There are more utes! Mr BRIGGS —That is right. It has created a lot more utes, but we will not get into utes again in this place. Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting— Mr BRIGGS —I will take the opportunity to also congratulate the minister at the table, the Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services. I was on your side. You heard during question time that I was making my support known for you very clear, Minister. I congratulate you and I am very pleased to see you will be here for some time yet. The member for Lindsay was talking about the pink batts policy— Mr Perrett interjecting— Mr BRIGGS —That is right, it is probably good to read your speech. The pink batts policy was about jobs and about getting insulation into Australian homes. We know this program was suggested to the previous governments as part of the wish list in the ERC process. The former Treasurer was never particularly keen on it, for very good reasons, because it does create a false market in a sense. It has bumped up the price. We have seen example after example. The most famous, of course, is in the electorate of Griffith, which is the Prime Minister’s electorate. It has bumped up the price significantly and therefore the money is not effectively or well spent. Thus, we are seeing again not well thought through policies which are impacting enormously on today’s economy. They will also impact on the economy and budget situation in the future, with a massive debt that our children and future generations will have to pick up, because of these badly thought through decisions. So this is not working at the macro level, but it is also not working at the micro level. I have a great example in my electorate of that. I wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. He is not responsible for climate change, which we should make very clear in this place. Don Purvis lives at Woodside Lodge in a beautiful part of my electorate. He lives in a retirement village type situation and the whole village applied for the rebate for solar panels. He signed in the wrong spot. He signed in the installer’s section rather than the recipient’s section. The rest of them signed in the right spot. He has been denied the funding. So I have written to the minister. Presumably, the minister will overrule that decision, because it does highlight the bureaucratic nature of this. They are not thinking through the policy implications of their decision. I think it is an example, which is very similar to this case, of where the policy was rushed out the door, not well thought through. We are seeing the results by having to debate these bills today. I thought the shadow minister addressed the pink batts policy quite well. He made some comments about water. It is the biggest issue in my electorate. It is the biggest issue in South Australia and I think it will be a major election issue come March next year and, potentially, an election loser for the Rann government. People will send them a message about how they have handled this issue over the last eight years. In South Australia today we still have a real and genuine problem with water security because the government has not invested in it over a long period of time. In relation to the Murray-Darling Basin, we have seen just a complete hotchpotch of an approach from the Rann government and we are seeing, unfortunately, from the Rudd government a similar policy approach. Members would remember that on Australia Day in 2007 the then Prime Minister and the then minister for the environment made a historic announcement about a $10 billion water plan to address the problems which face the Murray-Darling Basin. It was a visionary plan and it was the right plan. It focused on two very particular policy initiatives. The first one was the buyback of over allocated water licences throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly those in eastern states. Importantly—and I emphasise this point—it focused on getting water back into the system through the smart use of infrastructure investments in the Murray-Darling Basin. South Australia in the early 1990s went through a lot of this process, particularly in the Riverland, by investing in pipes, getting rid of open channels and lining dams et cetera. These actions save real and genuine water which can be used for environmental flows and by irrigators. Unfortunately, other states have not invested. So in January 2007the Howard government, as part of the Water for the Future plan, as part of the Howard-Turnbull plan, allocated large amounts of money to address water infrastructure issues. Unfortunately when the Rudd government came in in 2007 they were ably assisted by the Bracks-Brumby government in stopping a national system from being formed. That was a major part of it and an absolute goal that needed to be fixed. I am very pleased that my leader, the Leader of the Opposition, when elected as Prime Minister is committed to finishing the job he started in January 2007 so that we have a truly national system, not the half-baked solution we have today. Importantly, what we really need is the upping of the ante on investment in the infrastructure. Minister Wong is not really focused on water; she is focused on the ETS issues. Given the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin to South Australia and to my electorate, I think it is a disgrace that the minister has let water go by the wayside. The member for Moreton, being from Queensland, probably does not realise that I have half the Lower Lakes in my electorate. Patrick Secker, the member for Barker, has the other major part—Lake Albert and the Coorong. Those lakes are in dire need of a drink. Unless we take immediate action to address the Lower Lakes, we will lose that environmentally historic site to action which I do not support—flooding them with saltwater. One of the things that can be done is genuine and fast spending on infrastructure to prevent loss of water through open channels and to deepen the Menindee Lakes. I understand that the engineering work that has been done will save approximately 200 gigalitres of water a year. It would be just fantastic to get that water back through the system to help irrigators in the Riverland and the southern half of the basin and also to get some environmental flows into the Lower Lakes through the Gawler channel and down the Coorong to really give that system a boost and save it from the terminal decline that it is in at the moment. We have seen from this minister an approach of just buybacks. She is purely focused on buybacks and, again, this is what this bill addresses today—bringing forward some of the allocated money from the original Turnbull plan for the buybacks. Buybacks are part of the answer—buybacks with regional plans to help those workers in the affected towns to manage the changes. Labor is simply forgetting workers in those towns. When they buy back the water they are not assisting these people find new industries and adjust to the situation. It is okay for manufacturing businesses in large cities. They get assistance packages and dedicated government resources, but if it happens in rural communities in New South Wales, there is nothing. They just come in, buy the water and walk away. Of course there need to be buybacks. I support the buyback program. Some on this side of the House are not as supportive about it, and I understand their reasons for that. I do support the buyback program, but with focused support. More important is investment in the infrastructure which can save real water today without destroying jobs. It can mean that we can continue to grow our own food in this country, which of course is the major issue that we face. I am thankful for the work Senator Heffernan has done which focused on the food security issue in particular and raising Australians’ awareness of the challenges facing Australia and the world in growing enough food to sustain our way of life. We need to do more on infrastructure investment. I plead with this government to focus on investing in this infrastructure and spending some dedicated money—and not just on another study. I understand that the Menindee Lakes project up to about its third study. It is quite insane. They should be getting on with this today. We get a bill rushed through to do the easy bit. The buyback is simply the easy bit. It is buying back licences. Much of the water is not being returned to the river system right now because it is not there. But there is the water there for the infrastructure investment. There would be savings with the infrastructure investment, but it takes a bit more dedication and a bit more work. I suspect it is an ideologically different approach from what this minister wants to do. I do not think that she has a lot of respect for the rural communities and what they deliver for our country. In that respect she is focused on the buyback. She thinks it is the easy answer—that is her approach on this issue. We see that through this bill. It is not well thought through. Again, it is a consistent problem with this government. They are not thinking things through before they implement their policy. They do not see the consequences of their policy. We on this side of the House stand up for regional communities. We stand up for the communities that need their water and their local jobs and we see the effects of the water crisis day after day. We want to see some real action on this issue—not just rhetoric, not just a focus on the water buybacks, which we have seen. In the first two years of this government we have seen that buybacks buy a lot of air and not much real water, because the water is not in the system. The water is there with infrastructure investments. So rather than debating today another $650 million for the buybacks, which are of course part of the answer, we should be debating how the infrastructure can assist to get real water back into the system. Mr Billson —Instead of using taxpayers’ money in private roofs! Mr BRIGGS —That is right; it is not well thought through. I will make some comments in respect of the other issue troubling South Australia, that being water security. This government has spent so much money over its first two years. It borrowed money to hand out $900 cheques. We saw last week that even its advertising about the borrowed money for the handouts misinformed people as well, so that is another issue about the approach of this government. It borrowed $23 billion to hand out. Imagine what we could have done for the water security challenges this country has by investing that money, rather than just handing it out to the punters. We could have seen a real investment in water security, as we have done in Adelaide, in South Australia, throughout regional New South Wales and Victoria and so forth. Instead we have seen that money disposed of up a wall, so to speak! Again, it is a badly thought through decision that will be costly for us in the future. It will cost Australian taxpayers when we start paying higher taxes; we are seeing interest rate increases already. It was a such a missed opportunity. It is such a pity that we are now lumbered with this huge debt with nothing to really show for it. In conclusion, and as I said at the start, we support the passage of these appropriation bills. We are disappointed that the government have to rush through bills. They are not thinking through these policies, they are not thinking through the consequences, and it is high time they started to do so.adminWed, 18 Nov 2009 22:49:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:204http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/203/Speech-to-the-House-ADJOURNMENT-WOODSIDE-ARMY-BARRACKS-19-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=203http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=203&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/203/Speech-to-the-House-ADJOURNMENT-WOODSIDE-ARMY-BARRACKS-19-November-2009.aspxSpeech to the House, ADJOURNMENT, WOODSIDE ARMY BARRACKS, 19 November 2009 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (12:19 PM) —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on what is International Men’s Day, a very important initiative. I rise to speak today in this adjournment debate about a very important issue to my local electorate, which is that of the Woodside Army base and the plans of the Rudd Labor government in relation to Army bases, particularly smaller Army bases. My concern is for the Woodside Army base located in the Adelaide Hills in my electorate of Mayo. The Woodside Army base has a long and prestigious history in the Adelaide Hills. It has a very close link with the Woodside community and is very much loved as part of that community. The former member for Mayo, to give him due credit, played a significant role in ensuring that the air defence regiment remained located at Woodside during his 23 years as the federal member for Mayo, and I intend to walk in the same footsteps. The Woodside Army base is a very important aspect of the community of the Adelaide Hills. As I said, it is tied very closely to the community. Many people who are located there of course have children who go to local primary schools and high schools, and those people are part of the fabric of the community. The Woodside pageant, which is coming up as Christmas approaches, traditionally has a celebration of the Woodside Army Barracks’ commitment to, and celebrated history in, that community. It is very important that following the review by George Pappas, some of which was released yesterday, we get a commitment from the Minister for Defence to retain the Army base at Woodside as an operational Army base. I understand there is a push to create superbases around the country. It is not for me to comment on the overall policy implications of those decisions; I will leave that to the appropriate shadow minister. However, in some respects and in some cases it makes good sense to do those types of things. However, in the Woodside case, there are a couple of very pertinent reasons why it does not make sense to move the regiment out of that base. If you were to create these superbases I imagine there would be two reasons for it. One would be strategic, and those are important considerations as far as our defence goes; the other would be economic, for savings in the defence department, which of course is a big-spending department. How to ensure that spending is kept in check and spent appropriately is a matter of constant discussion in this place. On the economic side of this debate, closing Woodside would actually have very little benefit, because the land in Woodside is in the watershed of the Mount Lofty Ranges, which is very important for Adelaide’s water supplies. It is very much part of the catchment and therefore is not able to be sold off as other land bases around the country would be for development. The government of South Australia is unfortunately pursuing very proactive development policies in the Adelaide Hills, which of course is very much against community wishes in a lot of respects. We would not want to see the federal government move the regiment out of Woodside to create a situation where a state Labor government saw some dollar signs pop up with a potential sale and benefited from it. That would be the first and important reason in that respect. So the economic reason of selling the land is therefore not there. It makes good sense to leave what is a very popular and accepted part of the community in Woodside, and of course people from the base live in the surrounding towns as well. In Mount Barker a member of the Woodside regiment lives across the road from us. As I say, it is an important part of the community. These people work in the RSLs and assist with community development. This defence minister, in fairness to him, wrote back to me very promptly when I wrote to him on this matter. There was not much in his letter, but he did write back very promptly and I appreciate that. But I now want, very importantly, a commitment that Woodside will remain open, active and part of the Adelaide Hills community. It is a very important part of the Adelaide Hills community and I hope to get that assurance very soon.adminWed, 18 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:203http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/202/Speech-to-the-House-FAIR-WORK-AMENDMENT-STATE-REFERRALS-AND-OTHER-MEASURES-BILL-2009-17-November-2009.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=202http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=202&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/202/Speech-to-the-House-FAIR-WORK-AMENDMENT-STATE-REFERRALS-AND-OTHER-MEASURES-BILL-2009-17-November-2009.aspxSpeech to the House,  FAIR WORK AMENDMENT (STATE REFERRALS AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2009, 17 November 2009 Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (6:55 PM) —In the debate on the Fair Work Amendment (State Referrals and Other Measures) Bill 2009 it was fascinating to listen to a member of the ETU—he is now leaving the chamber—discuss how this great reform of a national workplace relations system is seemingly being moved wholly by the Labor Party. That of course is a complete and utter joke. The national system approach to industrial relations was part of the initial announcement in relation to the changes made in 2005 to the workplace relations system by the then Prime Minister. It was a key component of the five principles announced in this place in May 2005. It was the first time that the federal government had sought to introduce a national industrial relations system. In fact, it was the Labor Party, through its states across the country, which spent millions of dollars on a High Court case opposing the national system. So it seems a little strange that the member for Deakin’s notes, which I presume were written for him, failed to pick up on the sheer facts that relate to this matter. Facts of course are not something that those on the other side like to associate with too much on debates about workplace relations. We saw during the last election campaign, particularly in the seat of Deakin, many millions of dollars spent focused on what were distortions of facts on workplace relations and we see the member who was elected, thanks to that false campaign, continue to distort facts in this place today. The truth is that a national workplace relations system was first proposed by Peter Reith when he was Minister for Industrial Relations. He released a discussion paper, one of several discussion papers post the 1996 reforms to the initial 1996 reforms—the wide-ranging reforms that led to and were part of the untold success story that the Australian economy was for 11½ years. I think the House understands—certainly Glenn Stevens, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, understands this—that the changes made by Peter Reith and John Howard in 1996 played a large part in the success story of the Australian economy over that period. Post those reforms, Peter Reith released a discussion paper in, I think, about 1999, which referred to the advantages of a national system. I have previously put on record in this place in another debate that I am an unapologetic supporter of a national system. There are some on my side of politics and some on the Labor side of politics who do not support a national workplace relations system. The Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change is a well-known supporter of a national system and has been for some time and I acknowledge that fact. However, there are others on that side of politics who do not support it, as there are on this side, and who believe that the states still have a role in workplace relations matters. I think that, in a modern economy, where state borders and boundaries mean very little, particularly for medium-sized businesses wanting to grow—it is not so bad for large businesses which have IR departments or for law firms on contract which can deal with the complexities of different systems—this reform is a no-brainer. It gives those businesses the opportunity to grow without being restricted or facing red-tape barriers that are the six or seven different workplace relations systems we have operating around the country and which of course have been very conflictive at times, particularly the federal system that has, for a long time, been more complicated than many of the state systems. Simplifying and reducing the amount of regulation in this area is a good thing and will be a good thing for Australian business going forward. That is why the Liberal Party, in 2005, introduced into this House a bill which created a national workplace relations system. We did so of course by using the corporations power under the Constitution, which was then challenged in the High Court. In the Work Choices case the High Court found that it was permissible within a section of the Constitution to do so. Of course, there has been much discussion as to whether that was a very wide reading of the power. I suspect it was and it has increased the role the federal government can take. This next step is the right approach to go to. However, this bill is flawed and that is why the shadow minister earlier this evening so eloquently outlined our concerns with it. I do support a national system. I support the coverage of small businesses that are largely left behind. My home state of South Australia—including my seat of Mayo—is a small business state. South Australia is, and has been for a very long time, a small business driven state, more so now than ever before. The South Australian economy has changed largely on the back of reforms made in the 1990s to the economic structure in moving away from a largely manufacturing base economy to a now much more dynamic and flexible economy. We have vast amounts of various industries including a growing tourism industry—particularly in my electorate of Mayo—where small business plays a vital role. The unincorporated businesses in South Australia, I suspect, would outnumber those across most other states. Therefore, this bill will have an additional impact—presuming, of course, that the South Australian parliament passes the state referral bill. I think that is still up in the air. So I am a supporter of this national approach to workplace relations. However, we have two major objections to this bill. I note that the member for Deakin, and others on the government side, in their contributions have noted the employer organisation, AiG, as evidence for their case. I understand that AiG is actually opposing the passage of these bills, for the very same reason that we do. The first of our two large concerns is that this bill and the agreement that sits alongside it is flawed in that it will require two-thirds of the states to agree to changes being made by the federal system, or, they can pull out over a three-month period while the federal government continues to pick up the tab. In other words, they are holding any future changes to a federal system to ransom for political reasons. We have seen in the past that the Labor Party takes great delight in using fear campaigns in discussions on workplace relations. In their view that is a perfectly reasonable method of campaigning. We have a great concern—as AiG does—that that provision should be changed. That is one of our objections to this bill. We think that there should be an ability for states to pull out of the system completely, rather than this three-tiered approach. I am interested in what Mr Steve Smith, the National Workplace Relations Director of AiG, had to say before the Senate committee. I am appreciative again of the efforts of Workplace Express to report this. The report said: In his oral evidence to the inquiry Smith went further, saying AiG was so concerned about the whole package—the legislation, the bilateral and multi intergovernmental agreements—that it did not support its passage. The most problematic element was the provision in the IGA allowing a two-thirds majority of the states to frustrate or block amendments to the Fair Work Act. In other words, AiG is making the very same criticism that the shadow minister and this side of parliament—the Liberal Party—is making to this bill. We support this bill but we do not support the flawed approach to it. It seeks to hold future governments to ransom. I suspect it is a clever political tactic that the Deputy Prime Minister has dreamt up but it is actually bad policy. The second aspect on which we have major concerns relates to the operation of the larger Fair Work Act. How the unfair dismissal system operates, good faith bargaining and award modernisation are by far the most public of the issues that have been ventilated in recent times. We have seen concerns from small businesses about award modernisation. I was at a local restaurant a couple of Friday nights ago and the owner of that well-known establishment in Stirling—a very successful local small business employing many local people; you would probably nearly call it a medium-size business as it has been so successful—was very upset by the changes that have been made by this government and the potential changes coming through with the award modernisation project. This has been a complete and utter stuff-up. From industry to industry there has been no doubt about that. I think the Deputy Prime Minister has had to intervene in the process eight times now. Clearly there is a very troubling trend in relation to the award modernisation project. A lot of small businesses will face a massive increase in costs, particularly in South Australia which has come from a lower base award arrangement. Those small businesses will be picked up and taken to levels which ultimately will cost jobs. So while those on the other side like to talk about protecting employees and workers, and they used to say working families—we do not hear that phrase so much any more—they will be the very people who are impacted on. You will see higher unemployment and fewer opportunities for young people especially in those industries such as restaurants, bars and clubs and so forth where they just will not get a chance in the future because of the increased costs that these small and medium businesses will face. This will be the real impact of the Fair Work changes that the Labor Party have made. They ran very hard in the last election and they spent many millions of dollars. Their paymaster spent more millions than most people could comprehend getting them elected on this issue. This was one of the issues that was fought out in the last election campaign—there is no denying that fact. However, the test for the Labor Party and for their laws will be: what will be the impact of their laws in the future? What will be the impact on unemployment? What will be the impact on strikes? What will be the impact on inflation and interest rates? We have heard the Reserve Bank governor recently before the House economics committee say that if you put more stoppages into the supply chain, particularly in the resource sector in Western Australia, you will increase pressure on inflation and interest rates, and I think there is a real chance that that is starting to occur. I will talk briefly in a moment about some of those disputes in some of those big industries across the country, the big employers, because of the tools that have been given now to third parties to intervene in disputes, which they have not had for many years, if ever, in the Australian workplace relations system. I refer there to, in particular, the new provisions in relation to good faith bargaining, which are really a step in the dark for our country. We have never before had a provision where a group of employees—a small group, potentially, out of a workplace—can force an employer to bargain, can actually force an employer to change how they manage their business. And that is the system that we now have. If a small majority of employees decide that they wish to bargain, they can force an employer to do so. They can force an employer to change the way they operate their business. That will have in the future, I suspect, real implications for particularly small and medium sized businesses, which have traditionally had problems dealing with workplace relations. Because of the very nature of the system, it will always be complicated. That is why there are those very highly paid and successful partners in many law firms around the country who focus on this issue for their career, because it is a very technical issue and always will be. As to the good faith bargaining provisions I think we have seen a significant development today. Again, Workplace Express has reported a decision by Senior Deputy President Matthew O’Callaghan today, relating to a dispute in South Australia where Cadillac Printing has been forced to commence bargaining with its 34 production employees at its facilities in Plympton. The commission, or whatever it is today—Fair Work Australia—was presented with a petition signed by 23 employees indicating their support for the union to represent them in negotiating an enterprise agreement. So this has been accepted: 23 out of 34 have decided that they want to bargain, and the employer is now required to bargain with them. The other 11, of course, are also forced to bargain—or forced to be covered by the terms and conditions of that agreement. The 23 cannot be the only ones covered by the agreement that they want to negotiate; the other 11 are covered as well. So their choice is out the window, even if they are perfectly happy with the arrangements; the other 23 have told them that they have to be covered, and now the employer has to bargain with them. I am not sure how that is freedom and choice in Australian workplaces. It has now been given to a small minority, potentially, to force others to be covered by the system or the agreement they want to be covered by, even if the employer does not want to. This is the very real concern that we have, particularly on behalf of small and medium businesses. Large businesses will always be able to deal with this. Even if they might not like the laws particularly, they will always be able to find ways to get around or use provisions in the act, and it has been forever thus. However, it has always been the case—and this was always our reasoning with small and medium businesses on unfair dismissals, and remains our reasoning on unfair dismissals today—that small and medium businesses do not have the resources to fully understand or always be across how they are meant to deal with complex legal entitlements or legalistic acts of parliament, whereas larger businesses can employ very well-paid lawyers to do so. So these are the very real concerns that I am getting in my electorate from small businesses. Many small businesses are concerned by the operation of this new act. I know the government is spending a large amount of money with friendly organisations like COSBOA in trying to explain the new provisions and how they will work. But the truth is that what they have done is change the whole power structure within the workplace relations system in Australia, to the end that unions or third parties can now use their law to force business owners to do something they do not want to do, and I think that is very concerning. I think we will find that that will be a very concerning and economically negative impact of the changes that this government has made. They will scream—as the member for Deakin and other members have done, as did my friend the member for Dobell, who I think has more problems with some of these third-party interventions than we have—that we are all Work Choices obsessed and want to go back, and it will be bigger and bolder and broader, or whatever the member for Deakin’s phrase was. But what we have said on this is that we recognise that, in the last parliament, there were aspects of the changes that were made that went too far, particularly in relation to the no-disadvantage test. However, this government has gone far too far the other way. They have introduced new concepts into the workplace relations system which will impact negatively on Australian workers because it will reduce their opportunities to get jobs. It will reduce their opportunities to get the real wage increases that we have seen in the last 12 years under the previous government’s changes. It will impact enormously on the economic performance of our country, particularly in relation to interest rates and inflation. They will be seen in the future to be wrongheaded changes and decisions, and it will be seen that we should not have taken the country down that path. That is why we are concerned about having provisions in a bill which will allow any future government’s hands to be tied. It does not make sense. It has never been the case that you could force a future government to accept a policy of the previous government. There should always be the ability for both sides of politics to make changes to legislation, and for state governments, if they desire, to take back their industrial relations system, as the Constitution allowed for in its framing—that unincorporated or small businesses in particular would be covered by state government laws. So, as to these changes, the overall merit of a national system I think is worthwhile. I support very much a national approach to workplace relations; it will reduce the cost of doing business in Australia, which I think means we will have more opportunities for our young people to get work in quality jobs and to earn more, and it will increase the productive capacity of our economy. I think that removing the regulatory barriers to that is a good thing. However, some of the provisions in this bill, particularly the political provisions in this bill, are the wrong way to go, and that is why we seek to make reasonable changes to this bill, and we hope the government sees the merit in making those changes.adminTue, 17 Nov 2009 05:40:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:202http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/201/Faster-Broadband-Speeds-for-Strathalbyn.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=201http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=201&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/201/Faster-Broadband-Speeds-for-Strathalbyn.aspxFaster Broadband Speeds for Strathalbyn I welcome the news that Telstra identified poor broadband speeds in Strathalbyn and that it undertook an outage earlier this month to upgrade the exchange.   A number of constituents from the region contacted my office expressing their concerns with the exchange and speeds, particularly at times of peak usage.   After contacting Telstra on their behalf, I was pleased to hear upgrade work would be completed and that residents should expect faster internet.    Critical at both work and home, keeping up with the ever-growing digital economy can be a challenge and no matter where you live, broadband should be an efficient service available to all.   This is a good outcome for the community and I will continue to monitor its progress to ensure faster speeds continue to be received.adminThu, 12 Nov 2009 02:32:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:201http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/200/The-column-on-Kevin-Rudd-you-wouldnt-get-in-the-post.aspx#Comments2http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=200http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=200&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/200/The-column-on-Kevin-Rudd-you-wouldnt-get-in-the-post.aspxThe column on Kevin Rudd you wouldn't get in the post In the dying days of the1996 election campaign Paul Keating famously said “when you change the government, you change the country” in an attempt to scare people away from taking the baseball bat to his Prime Ministership.  He did it on the basis that the Australian people recognised John Howard and what he had stood for over the years.  The line didn’t work, the government changed and so to did the country. In 2007 when the doom of the campaign set in, John Howard used the same line to try and get people to focus on what Kevin Rudd really stood for.  This was ultimately a difficult task because at that time what Rudd offered the public was one great contradiction.  For instance he had described the day of the introduction of the GST as “fundamental injustice day” but campaigned as an “economic conservative”.  Following a visit to Iraq in late 2002 he had said: “Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. That is a matter of empirical fact,” but proceeded to question the motive for military action in Iraq. Even today he defies logic by arguing that his approach to asylum seekers arriving by boat in northern Australia is “humane but tough”. It’s like being drunk and sober at the same time. Rudd could do this before the election because he had very little public history to haunt him; he had not been a minister as had most previous Prime Ministers nor had he been a larger than life public figure.  His most famous achievement prior to entering Parliament was being the chief bureaucrat of the Queensland public service.  It is fair to say that going into the Prime Ministership Kevin Rudd was the blankest canvas ever to take the reins of our country. Two years later we are starting to see Kevin Rudd’s true colours emerge. Kevin Rudd is unlike any former Prime Minister of the modern age. He is a bureaucrat looking to ‘run’ Australia. He wants to be the ultimate controller of power, people and information. Dennis Shanahan recounted a story in The Australian recently explaining how Kevin Rudd in a meeting with the Premier of South Australia on rail funding demanded a map of Adelaide to plot where the additional rail route would be situated.  Don’t we have experts to plan rail lines? Is that what we want our Prime Minister to be spending his time on? Equally, last week the Prime Minister delivered a speech to the Business Council about planning control in our major capital cities. We already have buildings full of town planners, landscape designers and urban developers – but Kevin Rudd thinks they could use his help. In the area of health we are seeing a new proposal every week to intrude on Australians lives under the guise of “preventative health”.  According to the Health Minister, Australians eat, drink and (some) smoke far too much costing our health budget gazillions more than need be. So Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon have a plan.  They will ban or restrict or worse still tax what they don’t like into submission. Rather than spending the money educating Australians about health choices the Rudd approach is to socially engineer through legislation. They will ban junk food advertising, restrict tobacco companies from labelling products and hit alcohol with new taxes all under the guise of ‘preventative health’. Do we really need the Government engineering what we eat and drink? What’s next a minimum sleep requirement? Kevin doesn’t like kids watching too much TV, so he has plans to restrict that as well.  Don’t worry about taking too much responsibility for your own family, Kevin’s guide to parenting will be law soon enough. Even the internet faces the looming threat of Rudd’s social engineering. He’s introducing a new censorship system designed to prevent you from viewing what he considers to be “inappropriate” content. Don’t worry about yourself; Kevin is here to micromanage what you see online. And don’t just take my word for it: the system is so bad that his unofficial marketing division GetUp have advertised against it. Kevin Rudd’s also worried about what you might read in the post. The Prime Minister has changed the rules for Parliament forcing MPs to clear everything they send by mail to their constituents to ensure it does not criticise the government.  If I tried to send this column to my constituents in the mail, the Government would black out anything that attacked Kevin Rudd or the Government in general.  Thank God for the (pre-Rudd censored) Internet. So far words like “mismanage” and “debacle” have been removed by the government censors from opposition letters.  This is an unprecedented level of micromanagement meets censorship. This is who Kevin Rudd is and this is what he believes in.  He said it all in the opening line of his maiden speech in Parliament – “politics is about power”. Kevin Rudd, bureaucrat-in-chief of Ruddstralia.  Hope you enjoy your stay. adminThu, 05 Nov 2009 01:24:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:200http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/199/Telstras-220-Back-Down-A-Victory-For-Common-Sense.aspx#Comments0http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/RssComments.aspx?TabID=74&ModuleID=376&ArticleID=199http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20-%20NewsArticles/Tracking/Trackback.aspx?ArticleID=199&PortalID=0&TabID=74http://www.jamiebriggs.com.au/Mayo/MayoEvents/tabid/74/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/199/Telstras-220-Back-Down-A-Victory-For-Common-Sense.aspxTelstra's $2.20 Back Down: A Victory For Common Sense The decision by Telstra to scrap its $2.20 over-the-counter bill payment fee is a victory for common sense and for the thousands of older Australians who pay their bill over-the-counter.   I raised the issue in the media when the fee was first introduced because many older constituents within my electorate contacted my office to express their outrage.   In fairness to Telstra they have listened to community concerns and have responded by removing the unfair fee.    I am very pleased, particularly for older Australians, that this fee has been scrapped.    My hope now is that other companies that apply this ridiculous over-the-counter style fee will take note of Telstra’s actions and follow suit.adminWed, 04 Nov 2009 01:20:00 GMTf1397696-738c-4295-afcd-943feb885714:199