Menindee Lakes, SDL water acquisitions and Lock Zero – MDBA Part 1

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The Murray Darling Basin plan has been a disaster for regional communities. Overwhelming complexity, water being flushed out to sea and bureaucrats thinking they know better than everyone else have caused enormous damage.

Despite the evidence, the government and MDBA refuse to take responsibility for the mess they’ve made.

MDBA questioning part 2: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/why-did-the-government-vote-against-a-water-trading-register-mdba-part-2/

MDBA questioning part 3: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/farmers-always-left-high-and-dry-by-water-allocations-mdba-part-3/

Transcript

CHAIR: Alright; thank you. Senator Roberts, over to you.

Senator Roberts: Mr Taylor, I’d like to reference an exchange we had at a previous estimates regarding Menindee Lakes. I’ll quote from Hansard. I said:

So, Menindee Lakes is a vital component of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan?

You said:

It’s a vital component of our environmental management of the system.

Then I said:

And it’ll stay there.

You said:

And we’re actually getting those golden perch out of that system, connected through the Great Darling Anabranch, down into the Murray and distributing those fish. They become callop, as they’re called in South Australia, and they travel thousands of kilometres over their life. So, this is a critical part of what we’re doing.

That was not an answer to my question. You dodged my question, so let me try again. Will the Murray-Darling Basin Authority keep the Menindee Lakes as an environmentally important wetland having the same area as it currently has, including water storage with the current capacity, with the level, of course, decided by basin inflows? This is Queensland water, and we’d like to see it used properly.

Mr Taylor : Not sure I’m in a position to answer on behalf of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in terms of feature plans and management. I think the other thing is that the Menindee system is a jointly managed lake and water resource, jointly managed between New South Wales, the Commonwealth, South Australia and Victoria. So I’m not in a position to talk about—

Senator Roberts: Is anyone from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority who could answer that question here?

Ms Connell : Mr Reynolds.

Senator Roberts: Will Menindee stay as it is, a vital part of the environment?

Mr Reynolds : As discussed earlier, New South Wales is scoping, or rescoping, the Menindee project, now called the Better Baaka project. That anticipates changes to the Menindee infrastructure and the operating rules for it. As departmental colleagues explained earlier, we’re yet to have a scope of that project brought forward by the New South Wales government. I can’t give you the assurance that you’ve asked for because that rescope project will inevitably change arrangements at Menindee Lakes. I think the proposal for the project is to look at how things can be done differently. If the project proceeds, then I think the circumstance at Menindee will be different to what they’ve been in the past.

Senator Roberts: So you can’t give me—

Ms Connell : It will continue to be subject to water resource plans and water sharing plans which will contain requirements in relation to environmental measures and environmental outcomes.

Mr Reynolds : Absolutely. The project in terms of its development will have to consider environmental impacts and benefits that can be achieved ultimately, but, until we see the scope of the works, I can’t advise on what the changes on the Menindee arrangements would be.

Senator Roberts: Setting aside the sustainable diversion limit acquisitions currently underway, how much water is still required to complete the sustainable diversion limit acquisitions? I’d like a figure. Secondly, how much is required to complete water acquisition, the baseline diversion limits?

Ms Connell : We addressed some of those questions this morning. The 605 sustainable diversion limit adjustment measure program is made up of about 36 projects for which a gigalitre component was identified when those projects were conceived. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will go through a process we refer to as reconciliation in the lead-up to 1 July 2024, and I’ll let Mr Reynolds talk you through that.

Senator Roberts: Okay.

Ms Connell : Earlier this morning we provided an update on progress towards the 450 in terms of current entitlement holdings that are with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, projects that are contracted and projects we are in discussions with states over.

Mr Reynolds : In terms of the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism reconciliation process, the authority is required to take a decision in December 2023 as to whether or not a reconciliation is required. That decision can’t be taken earlier than that, because states are able to advise notifications to modifications of projects up until that point in time. So we won’t have clarity about what the package of works looks like until that point in time. If, on the basis of our understanding of the projects, their progress and the condition they’re likely to be in in June 2024, the authority determines that the adjustment amount is likely to be different than what was determined in the original decision, we will undertake a reconciliation. We will assess the projects as they are notified at the end of December 2023 and make an assessment of the volume of water, or the offset that they will achieve at that point in time.

Senator Roberts: You have a document on the website of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority entitled ‘Progress on Water Recovery’. Under the heading ‘Summary of surface water recovery progress’ it states:

Following the amendments to the Basin Plan, the overall target for water recovery is 2,075 GL/y plus 450 GL/y of efficiency measures by 2024.

That’s 2,525 in total. And then, on the third page, under the heading ‘Total water recovery still required’ it is just 46 gigalitres.

Ms Connell : We addressed those figures earlier this morning as well. The gap bridging target under the Basin Plan is 2,075 gigalitres—2,100, and I think five gigalitres have been recovered and are held by way of entitlements with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. So 98 per cent of the target has been reached, but there remain about 46 gigalitres across the basin that need to be recovered from different water resource plan areas.

Senator Roberts: The other comment Mr Reynolds has already covered, so thank you for that. Before I move on, how much water is required to complete the baseline diversion limits, the up-water?

Ms Connell : I guess there are three overall programs. There’s the water recovery target of 2,075 gigalitres, so there’s 46 gigalitres still to go there. Then there is the 450 up-water program, as it is known, which I referred to earlier in terms of what’s being delivered, what’s contracted and discussions we’re having with states. Then the third program is the 605 sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism program, which Mr Reynolds was discussing in terms of the reconciliation process that happens in 2024. There are 36 projects which go to make up that program of work that South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales have to deliver, and the authority will look at that program of works at the end of next year to determine whether reconciliation needs to happen to identify whether the 605 will be met or what component of it will be met.

Senator Roberts: As I’ve discussed before with Mr Glyde and Mr Reynolds and also the previous water commissioner, it’s a very complex issue, isn’t it? The whole thing is very complex, with many variables and a lot of variation.

Ms Connell : There are some key, major complex areas of work. The Basin Plan is a significant water reform, and there are some complex components, as you would expect in a system, I think, where there are 20 surface water areas and about 13 groundwater systems.

Senator Roberts: Then we have a naturally variable climate. The north varies considerably, in a different way from the south. So I would raise that for the future. Turning to the south-east drains SDL acquisition, Mr Reynolds, a reminder of your answer at the last estimates:

The water from the south-east drains has been put forward by the South Australian government as an SDL adjustment mechanism project. So the water that comes from the south-east drains into the southern lagoon will be accounted for through that process.

That means it will be counted as SDL. How much water is the Murray-Darling Basin Authority counting against the remaining SDL target for the south-east drains restoration flow?

Mr Reynolds : As we’ve explained previously, the assignment of individual volumes to projects in terms of the adjustment mechanism can only be an estimate, because the whole package of projects is modelled as a whole, and they interact with one another. We have made a range of estimates against individual projects. I will see if I can get the number for that particular project. I don’t think I have it in my papers here. I will have to get someone to provide that to me, but I will provide it this morning.

Senator Roberts: I would be very interested to see that number. I’m wondering if we’ve just found some more water.

Mr Reynolds : Well, the south-east drains project is part of the adjustment mechanism, so it’s been accounted for.

Senator Roberts: It is my view that this is a significant unaccountable flow—it hasn’t been to date—and may provide a substantial part of the remaining SDL acquisition that can both take the pressure off farmers elsewhere in the basin while restoring the amazing Coorong wetland and moderating extreme salination in Lake Albert by flushing from the south-east, not from the north-west; from the north-west is not really flushing. Have you the south-east inflows? I think the answer was ‘no’ in the last Senate estimates in October. Have you modelled the south-east inflows, both aquifer and surface flow? How much water is available? How much can be redirected—and this is really important—without interfering with agricultural production?

Mr Reynolds : We haven’t modelled that directly. The South Australian government manages that part of the system. We have consulted with them about the volumes. There’s not a direct estimate available of the total flow from the south-east drains, including through the groundwater systems into the Coorong. The operation of the south-east drains does provide water back to the southern lagoon in the Coorong, and that scheme has been developed and the operating rules have been developed to achieve that. There are requirements to manage the flows through the south-east drains. It is drainage from agricultural land. It does carry a nutrient load. There are particular management challenges with that water. So part of the south-east drainage scheme passes water through wetlands and the like to remove nutrient loads from that water before it enters the Coorong. If that’s not done, there are undesirable ecological impacts in the Coorong itself. That limits somewhat the volume of water that comes from the south-east drains. The South Australian government is continuing to work through those issues.

Senator Roberts: As I understand it, the drains are made by humans? They’re not natural and they take up a significant quantity of water, straight to the ocean.

Mr Reynolds : The area that’s been drained naturally was a low-lying marshy area, and water tended to lie in that area. Some of it would have seeped through groundwater systems to the sea. Some of it would have made its way to the Coorong. The drains are man-made structures that have taken water from that area and dried it out and made it more productive as an agricultural area.

Senator Roberts: I’ve been there and seen those drains. They’re definitely man-made. There is a belief that there’s a significant amount of water to be recaptured and sent to the Coorong.

Mr Reynolds : And water is being captured through that system and does flow to the Coorong. I think from memory it’s in the order of 26 gigalitres, on average. Obviously it would change with seasonal conditions. In wet years it will be more; in drier years it would be less. But it’s of that order.

Senator Roberts: My understanding is there’s a lot more water to be captured than that.

Mr Reynolds : I think the South Australian government clearly has an interest in trying to improve the health of the Coorong. They’ve undertaken an enormous amount of work in that region to do that. I’m sure they’re examining whether or not it would be beneficial to take more water from that region if it’s possible to do so, for that purpose.

Senator Roberts: So the Coorong problem has been man-made, not by the rest of the basin, but by diversion of water that used to go through the Coorong straight to the ocean? I’m not being critical, because in those days they were trying to look after their narrow scope. That’s something that, to return the environment to its natural state, would require a lot of water to go back to the Coorong and keep it clean.

Mr Reynolds : There are obviously significant volumes of water diverted from the basin, which has reduced the volume of water that reaches the end of the system, particularly coming down the Murray. Part of the challenge is to address some of those issues. To get back to the natural balance of what happened in the Coorong before river regulation would require all of the water that’s subsequently been diverted to be returned to the environment. No-one is proposing to do that. We’re looking for alternative solutions and alternative balances.

Senator Roberts: Shouldn’t that south-east portion be counted as part of the basin? You just said water is diverted from the basin, but it’s not included in the basin yet?

Mr Reynolds : I’m sorry; when I said that I meant water is diverted from upstream right across the basin. Very significant volumes are diverted.

Senator Roberts: This water’s going straight to the ocean, and doing damage by not going through the Coorong.

Mr Reynolds : I think the benefits that can be provided to the Coorong, by diverting some water from the south-east drains, are being realised through the project that’s been implemented. I’m sure the South Australian government and others will continue to examine where additional benefits might be able to be accrued. Significant money from the Commonwealth government has gone to the Goyder Institute. I think $8 million has been committed to examine options and other interventions that might be possible around the Coorong, Lower Lakes and the Murray Mouth. That could include activities within the south-east drain system, although that has been explored fairly extensively already.

Senator Roberts: It’s very complex, and it’s made even more complicated by the politics involved at the state and federal levels. We will end it there for now.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but could you make this your last question? Sorry, Senator Roberts! We knew what was going on.

Senator Ruston :They don’t look anything alike.

CHAIR: They don’t.

Senator Roberts: I don’t know who you’re insulting the most. That was my last question.

CHAIR: Make this your last question, Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Concerning Lock Zero, in the last estimates, you spoke about engineering challenges and other issues, and you said, ‘Lock Zero was examined in some detail.’ If salt water is used in the Lower Lakes to protect against sulphur emissions—and that would be a one-in-100-year type drought; it’s an absolute last resort—then suddenly we will be wishing we’d built Lock Zero, won’t we? Doesn’t the Murray-Darling Basin Authority or the department have documentation on Lock Zero? Your comment ‘examined in some detail’ suggests such documentation exists. It seems like too significant a project not to have some formal process underway.

Mr Reynolds : During the millennium drought, Lock Zero was considered as to whether or not it would be an arrangement that would help protect the Lower Lakes. Part of that was looking at what flow would be required past Lock Zero to ensure that the Lower Lakes retained their ecological character. There is significant concern that if the flow of fresh water to the Lower Lakes was terminated, and if just sea water was allowed in, that would progressively concentrate through evaporation and become hypersaline, and so the Lower Lakes would not be a natural estuary.

Senator Roberts: It’s not natural at the moment, with the barrage, is it?

Mr Reynolds : No, but the Lower Lakes naturally would have had a much larger volume of fresh water flowing to the Lower Lakes, to the end of the system. We take a lot of water out upstream for irrigation and other productive purposes, and so the natural balance of mixing of fresh and salt water at the Lower Lakes cannot be reinstated unless there’s a lot more water coming down the river system. Building Lock Zero does not alleviate that issue.

Senator Roberts: We’ll leave it there for now.

/by

Why did the Government vote against a water trading register? MDBA Part 2

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Speculative water trading is a blight on our country. Even still, the Water Act 2007 specified that a transparent, public register of water trades should be established. 15 years later, we still have no public register.

The most recent attempt to establish a public register, my amendment to the Water Act, was voted down by the Liberals, Nationals and Labor. The question is, what have they got to hide?

MDBA questioning part 1: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/menindee-lakes-sdl-water-acquisitions-and-lock-zero-mdba-part-1/

MDBA questioning part 3: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/farmers-always-left-high-and-dry-by-water-allocations-mdba-part-3/

Transcript

[CHAIR] Senator Roberts.

[Senator Roberts] Mr Reynolds, as a senator for Queensland, I have to cover many issues and, although I’ve travelled the entire Murray-Darling Basin, have overflown it and crisscrossed it many times, in listening to people I just can’t keep all the acronyms and numbers at hand. I just can’t keep them in my head. Fortunately, we have many farmers who watch these Senate estimates sessions in particular and they let me know when I’ve missed the details, and they’re excellent auditors. They know, from being on the ground, when I’m getting nonanswers. They tell me, and they’re blunt auditors. It seems to me that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is now avoiding the numbers for both acquisition and total targets. The Murray-Darling Basin—and Senator Patrick knows this—is all about numbers. The plan has reduced farmers’ businesses, rural communities and Australia’s agricultural capacity to a set of water numbers, supposedly, for the environment. Getting those numbers is like pulling teeth, and I welcome Senator Patrick’s partial success on the 605 earlier. For the rural community watching this at home to get a hint for the future, I’d like to ask again. I’m asking for three simple numbers. How much water has the government acquired so far under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan? How much is under acquisition? How much will the shortfall be against the plan in the absence of further projects, and where do you intend to get that water from? The third question was two combined.

[Senator Davey] Senator Roberts, do you mind if I throw one in as well to complement yours? From the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, how much actual wet stuff allocation do you have this year? There’s the difference between the entitlements you have, but this year the allocations may be over the 2,750 gigalitre rule. Who knows?

[Senator Patrick] And the costs associated with each of those [inaudible] too.

[Senator Davey] We want to know everything!

[Senator Roberts] We do.

[Ms Connell] I’ve lost track of the question! I’ll just provide the headline numbers, and then I’ll ask Mr Taylor to come to the table and talk to what he has available in this water year. In terms of surface water recovery, as I said before the break, 2,106 gigalitres of surface water has been recovered and is now held in entitlements by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. In relation to groundwater, 35.3 gigalitres has been recovered. In relation to the 450, two gigalitres in entitlements have been returned to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. We have another 16.4 under contract, and we are discussing arrangements in relation to about another 10 to 15 gigalitres with the states. In relation to the 605 gigalitres, the concept of that program of works is to—in lieu of 605 gigalitres being recovered from the consumptive irrigation pool, there are a suite of 36 projects which deliver environmental benefits in lieu of that. The framework under the Basin Plan requires the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to have a look at the end of next year at the progress of those environmental projects and the extent to which they will contribute, from an environmental measure, towards the 605. It is quite a complex concept.

[Senator Roberts] It’s very complex.

[Ms Connell] Yes. I do appreciate that. In terms of the current holdings that the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has to utilise this year, I’ll pass to Mr Taylor.

[Mr Taylor] This year, we have new allocations, up to 31 December, of 2,054 gigalitres. Up to the end of that same six-month period we have used 1,038. So we’ve used about half our water for this year at halfway through the year.

[Senator Davey] How much did you carry over from the previous year?

[Mr Taylor] The previous year’s carryover was 738 gigalitres.

[Senator Davey] That would have made available this year 2,7—

[Mr Taylor] 85.

[Senator Davey] Thank you.

[Ms Connell] I will just note that the department does have a webpage that sets out these water recovery targets, so we’d be happy to provide you with that information.

[Senator Roberts] We will come asking if we need more. Minister, the South Australian water storage is outside of South Australia—

[Senator Ruston] Yes, for geological reasons.

[Senator Roberts] We’re not complaining about that. South Australia’s a valid part of the plan. This is a national plan that includes—

[Senator Ruston] Thank you very much, Senator Roberts. We’re very delighted that you would think that.

[Senator Roberts] While we’re concerned about wasting our water, we’re not concerned about supplying South Australia and Adelaide, in particular, with water—

[Senator Patrick] It’s not Queensland’s water [inaudible].

[Senator Roberts] Well, we can argue that—

[Senator Patrick] It’s national water.

[CHAIR] Let’s not get into that.

[Senator Roberts] I’m not interested in getting into that. I’m just saying that South Australia has a right to that water. It’s longstanding.

[Senator Ruston] Everybody in the Murray-Darling Basin has a right. We can go into a discussion about ‘riparian right’ and the like but the plan outlines that this is a shared resource that has to be maximised to the benefit of all people in Australia.

[Senator Roberts] We want to protect the South Australians but we also want to protect the environment and we want to protect all the other stakeholders. It gets messy. It’s had a long history; some argue it is ingrained in our federation. South Australian water storage is outside South Australia, at Dartmouth, which South Australia partly funded, Lake Victoria and Menindee Lakes. Menindee Lakes has held water eight years out of 10. Even though government raised the natural banks a little to create a larger storage, Menindee has been a natural wetland since before Western settlement. Menindee stored South Australian water and local—

[Senator Ruston] They’re ephemeral, aren’t they?

[Senator Roberts] You could argue that, but they have stored water eight years out of 10. Menindee stores South Australian water and local irrigation water. While that water is there it sustains the amazing wetland around Menindee. And that has developed to counter natural climate variability. In Australia, the climate is more variable than in probably any other continent. But we wonder why a frog near a coalmine is an environmental matter of national significance yet 47,000 hectares of wetland is not. With 220,000 bird movements a year, it is a national treasure. And now the testimony in this place is that the state and federal governments are going to murder Menindee. The Murray-Darling Basin is murdering an environmental treasure to come up with water to meet environmental targets. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

[Senator Ruston] I don’t think there would be anybody else in the room who would agree with your term ‘murder Menindee’. That is a highly emotive way of describing how, collectively, everybody is trying to work together to engineer a solution to ensure the long-term sustainability of the river system whilst dealing with the social and economic implications of water recovery and the like that minimises any detrimental impacts. The sole purpose of the plan was to protect the amazing riverine environment, so I cannot accept your terminology around what’s happening at Menindee. At the moment, we do not have the submission back from the New South Wales government in relation to the proposal for activities at Menindee. Until we can actually see that, I don’t know that anyone could be making the kind of assessment you’re making. I acknowledge that you accept that the plan is for all Australians, particularly all those who live in the basin, but you are picking on one particular component of it and suggesting that it is environmental vandalism when at this stage we don’t really have any clarity around what is going on there. We need to be really careful that we don’t compare what happened prior to the development of the river system and what is happening now. There has been so much intervention along the river—through dams, locks, weirs and all sorts of infrastructure, including the urban build-up in towns—that it’s almost impossible for us to do anything apart from assess what’s before us at the moment. I would counsel against talking about what Menindee Lakes used to be like and what the Lower Lakes used to be like because so much has changed in the years since irrigation has occurred along the river. So we need to manage what is before us now.

[Senator Roberts] I accept that. At the same time, a fundamental target for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been to restore the Coorong, and that cannot be restored while we’re avoiding the science. But let’s move on to something else—

[Senator Ruston] It’s really about the words that you use. We seek for the Coorong to be healthy. Does that restore it under the true definition of the word ‘restore?’ I would suggest that that is very difficult. I mean, the barrages are there. They weren’t there.

[Senator Roberts] The barrages are there. The drains are there.

[Senator Ruston] Yes. When we talk about ‘restoring’, what we want to see is a healthy Coorong, a healthy Murray-Darling Basin system. We want to see environmental assets protected. But we also want to protect the river communities because they are such an important part of the economy of Australia and all the people who are supported by it. I think we need to be careful of the words we use because we don’t want to give the impression that somehow we’re going to turn the river system back to exactly what it looked like before there was any intervention. What we’re seeking to do is make sure the environmental outcomes are good.

[Senator Roberts] One thing that is very frustrating in the parliament is that so few decisions are made on data and science. They’re made on emotions, whims and looking after vested interests. You said everyone wants to protect the environment. I’ll get onto more of that in other questions. Minister, I have trust for you, so I’m not having a go at you. I’m having a go at several governments in the past and possibly this government. I don’t have much faith in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because it’s not based on data. We don’t measure much of the river system, yet we’re allocating water. An ABC report was entitled ‘Basin states agree to support ACCC Murray-Darling Basin water market reforms to regulate brokers and market behaviour’. Last year when I moved an amendment to force the water trading register into life, which is a requirement of the Water Act 2007—the one that the Murray-Darling Basin has been required to produce since then—the Liberals, Nationals and Labor voted against it. I was told there was no need for a water trading register. It’s just speculation. There is no profiteering and no need for a register of water trading. What changed so that the states are now taking action?

[Senator Ruston] I’m not sure that I agree with the fact that the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Labor Party last year thought there was no need for—

[Senator Roberts] They voted against the amendment to bring in the water register.

[Senator Ruston] Yes, but there were a number of other complex technicalities around what was being proposed at the time, so I don’t think you can naturally jump to the conclusion that the government or the opposition didn’t believe that water regulation could potentially improve the operation of the river systems and improve the operation of how water traded. I think possibly it was that the mechanism by which you were proposing to do it was not something that we were necessarily agreeing to. But I’m happy to take that on notice and get you some more information because I have to say I can’t remember exactly.

[Senator O’Neill] Senator Ruston, just before you continue. Is there any chance that the document Senator Roberts was referring to could be tabled?

[Senator Ruston] That’s just a media story, isn’t it, Senator?

[Senator Roberts] Yes, this is a media story from the ABC. They’re talking about a mandatory code of conduct.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, would you like to have that tabled so others can refer to it?

[Senator Roberts] Yes.

CHAIR: Thank you.

[Senator Roberts] It just seems like this code of conduct is a way to smokescreen their reluctance to have a water trading register. It’s a way of avoiding the issue.

[Senator Ruston] I might speak with the secretary. In terms of the ACCC review and implementation I wonder if you could give Senator Roberts a bit of an update about where that’s at. We could see if in any way you can alleviate some of the concerns he appears to have.

[Ms Connell] Water trade and water markets are principally the responsibility of state jurisdictions at the moment, so states and the ACT are responsible for having and maintaining water registers. Each of them does have a register in place. In terms of the media release you’re referring to, it was to indicate that the water market reform process had been set up. Minister Pitt announced last year that he would appoint a principal adviser. Mr Daryl Quinlivan has been appointed to work with states to take what is a very significant report by the ACCC—I think it goes to about 700 pages and makes a broad range of recommendations—

[Senator Roberts] It has some serious concerns.

[Ms Connell] That’s right. Mr Quinlivan has been working with Basin states, supported by an advisory group, and consulting stakeholders more broadly to determine what should be the initial recommendations that are progressed. We can table a copy of Mr Quinlivan’s December advice. The advice sets out the five principal initial reforms that he recommends be progressed, and the basin states support recommendations in principle. Critically, at the moment there’s no code of practice to govern the behaviour of water market intermediaries, water brokers, so one thing the states agreed to is the development of a code that can put a compliance framework around the way that part of the market operates.

He also recommended that the Commonwealth introduce legislation to prohibit insider trading and market manipulation, so that’s something the department is looking very closely at. He made recommendations around collection and publication of trade data and a number of other recommendations. He is now working with basin states and stakeholders to develop a final draft which is due to the minister in June this year. So, the terms of reference for the work that he’s doing are on our website and we can provide you with a copy of that as well.

[Senator Roberts] Ms Connell and Senator Ruston, can you see the public and farmers, in particular, are very concerned? I haven’t discussed this with you, but apparently you had a successful business with flowers. Water is key to that, and you’ve developed remarkable efficiencies in the use of that water, as I understand it. I’m not a farmer, but I know listening to farmers that water is like gold. It dramatically increases the productivity of farmland, so it’s worth a lot of money. But it’s also worth a lot of money to traders and speculators, and we’ve removed the connection between water allocations and farmers’ property ownership.

[Senator Ruston] You’re talking about the unbundling of water from land?

[Senator Roberts] Correct; I am. What I’m saying is that, in the absence of significant measuring of water flows right across the basin, in the absence of science, the contradiction of science and the highly variable climate, which is natural—and we’ve got the north being different from the south, and people not understanding each other—there’s a lot of suspicion that the government, and governments in the past, have simply protected water traders because we still don’t have a water trading register. Whether that’s a state and territory issue, it needs to be done. And now we’ve got the ACCC saying there are significant concerns even though they didn’t identify any particular fraud. This does not build confidence in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, nor the plan.

[Ms Connell] I think there are three components to the question. So, under the constitution, states are principally responsible for water resource management, so the obligation is on them to establish and maintain water registers. Each of the Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions has in place a water register at this point in time.

[Senator Roberts] I’m not interested in why we can’t do it; I’m interested in what we should do.

Ms Connell : It’s being done—

[Senator Roberts] It’s a major impediment to you.

Ms Connel l : and you can get access to those registers online. I think the Bureau of Meteorology now aggregates information from each of those state registers in their water information portal, so we can provide you with the link to that quite easy to use website.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you.

[Ms Connell] I would just like to get on the record that the ACCC didn’t find any evidence of speculative activity.

[Senator Roberts] I just said that, but they had significant concerns.

[Ms Connell] One of their key recommendations was to get in place a code backed by enforcement and compliance powers to improve the integrity and transparency of the market, and that’s what the basin states have agreed to and the principal adviser has reported on. We’re now working with basin states to look at how we can develop that.

[Senator O’Neill] But it hasn’t happened. What’s the date for that to commence? Senator Roberts, I’ve got a whole lot of questions that I want to follow up on. When you get out there and talk to people, as Senator Roberts has said, they just tell you straight up about—

[Senator Roberts] The corruption.

[Senator O’Neill] The corruption that’s happening. Their computers aren’t fast enough to compete with people who are in the space. You would’ve heard it as much as I’ve heard it. What’s the timing on the response to this?

[Ms Connell] We’re currently working with basin states to look at the development of a draft code. One of the key things will be to consult with stakeholders on what that draft code will look like. When making changes that will impact on a regulated community it’s important to undertake a process whereby we publish a proposed draft code, provide an opportunity for comment and also provide a period of time for that regulated community to come into compliance. We’re actively working with states on progressing that proposal.

[Senator O’Neill] But do you have a time line?

[Ms Connell] I can take that on notice; I don’t have it in front of me.

[Senator Roberts] I brought eight copies of an article from News Weekly, ‘Murray-Darling Basin Plan ruining the Edward River’. Once again, we’re talking about environmental damage of a type never before seen along the Murray system, caused in all probability by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The first paragraph of this article says:

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP), which has the goal of protecting the environment—

As Senator Ruston said—

is instead destroying it.

And there are so many examples; it’s the same type of damage that we’re seeing elsewhere. We’ve raised this about the Murray itself. When is the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or the department, going to convene a proper public inquiry into environmental destruction along the Murray River system? Landholders along the Edward are just flabbergasted at how much damage is being done in the name of the environment.

[Mr Reynolds] The Edward system, in effect, runs parallel to the Murray. Part of the work we’re looking at around the choke is how we manage water through that part of the system, and that includes water through the Edward River as well. Clearly, there are a lot of demands on the system to manage it for consumptive use as well as for the environment. One of the key things we’re looking at as part of the Barmah Choke Feasibility Study is how to manage the system holistically, not just moving a problem from one part of the system to another. So there’s a lot of activity to examine the Edward system as well.

Erosion is a natural feature within our river systems. We have a heavily regulated—

[Senator Roberts] Excuse me; some people would disagree with you. They’re saying the amount of water and the duration of high river flows are quite unnatural. Farmers along the Murray and people along the Edward are saying the same thing. That’s what’s doing the damage, according to them.

[Senator O’Neill] Exactly, that’s what they’re saying to me too, Senator Roberts.

[Mr Reynolds] There’s no doubt that we’ve regulated the river system to achieve a whole lot of benefits which that provides, but that has substantially changed the natural flow patterns in the river. We have higher river flows through summer because we’re delivering water to meet irrigation demands which are critical to the prosperity of many communities throughout the basin. That’s one of the aspects of the Basin Plan: we work through that balance between environmental outcomes and the social and economic prosperity of communities throughout the basin as well.

There are going to be impacts on a regulated system—there’s no doubt about that. We’re looking, through the Barmah Choke Feasibility Study work, at options we might have to alleviate some of those pressures on that part of the river system—the Edward, the Murray and, indeed, the Goulburn system as well. I can’t say that there are no impacts on a regulated river system, but I guess those impacts are balanced against the other benefits that they provide to communities in a wide range of—

[Senator Roberts] I’m not accusing you—and I mean this sincerely—or anyone here of anything. Government in this country—and I’m not talking about the Morrison Joyce government, I’m talking about federal governance—is quite often about wealth transfer. The more regulation we have then the more that can be hidden. It’s built into this, the whole thing. There are just so many avenues for it to be loose and sloppy and the people who pay, time and time again, are the everyday Australians who pay for the mess in government.

I’m not having a go at you; I’m not looking at you in particular. I’m just saying that this is a mess. How can we sort it out so that the people and the environment stop paying the price for mistakes?

[Senator Davey] I think that finishing that choke study might be a good first step.

[Mr Reynolds] In that part of the river system, in particular, there is significant work, investigation and analysis on how we can manage some of these detrimental impacts while still achieving the good impacts that people are looking for.

Some of the impacts we’ve seen in terms of high river flows and the river flowing at higher flow rates, or at least at levels higher than it has in the past, are the result of lost capacity in the river system and the deposition of sand within the Choke. That means to get the same volume of water through the Choke and downstream that we had in the past, the river needs to run at a higher level for a longer period of time. That’s absolutely the challenge that we’re dealing with. The work that we’re doing to understand that, and to understand the options we have to take the pressure off the river system, is a critical part of that intervention.

[Senator Roberts] I’m saying the core problem may be something even deeper. Thank you.

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Services Australia burning $90.7 million for flash riverfront city office

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Services Australia is pressing ahead with plans to move to convert 5 suburban offices into one riverfront high-rise office. The fit-out alone will cost taxpayers $89 million. After that, the leasing costs for the high-rise office will be $1.7 million a year more expensive than Service Australia spent on leases for the entire financial year.

How on earth can an extra $91 million cost be justified as ‘value for money’ for taxpayers? I certainly don’t feel like it’s money well spent.

Transcript

[Chair] Senator Roberts. So we’ll give Senator Roberts a call.

[Malcolm] Thank you Chair and thank you for being here tonight. Might, also have some questions about Services Australia’s service centres. Services Australia is spending $89 million purely on a fit-out for their expensive new riverfront high rise office in Brisbane. Minister, when Australia has such a huge debt, due to the COVID restrictions, what is the cost benefit that a Services Australia would achieve from year one? And why not postpone it?

[Chair] Senator, you may be surprised to learn that I haven’t done a personal cost benefit analysis on the particular project. But I’m more-

[Malcolm] Wouldn’t most projects have a cost benefit?

[Chair] I’m just saying I haven’t-

[Malcolm] No, no, I mean-

[Chair] Yes, of course. So what I was gonna say is that I would, perhaps, if with your indulgence, ask the agency to please provide the cost or the justification for that particular project.

[Services Australia] Senator, we support a work force that’s over 30,000 people. We require both office space and as I’ve outlined, have a range of service centres and residential properties. We have 392 commercial properties. We are where we can looking at ways to reduce the overall costs of the office footprint. And so you will see us in places like Brisbane, amalgamating some of the office space. They all go through a proper procurement process, which in the whole and the whole cost benefit analysis is looked at. It is important to that we maintain office space that meets contemporary work, health and safety standards. And is able to manage a modern and contemporary technology. So all of those aspects go into ensuring that office space remains fit for purpose. And I can assure you that we look very carefully at making sure we manage our property footprint and service centres within the agency’s envelope for property.

[Malcolm] Thank you. Looking at some of the, I think five service centres, from the suburbs in Brisbane are being amalgamated into one, downtown?

[Services Australia] No not service centres. We need to be very clear about that. The service centres are separate. We are looking to amalgamate a smattering of different back office leases into a better fit for purpose centre.

[Malcolm] So these are not service outlets?

[Services Australia] No senator.

[Malcolm] Okay. They’re not customer-

[Services Australia] They’re not shop fronts if you like. So we, as I said, we’ve got a very large workforce. Most of our telephony and things are done in big smart centres, we have large technical workforce lawyers, all sorts of people. We all work in offices and we have 318 shop fronts and then access and agents points. We also do have some residential properties to support our remote and regional servicing.

[Malcolm] From the figures I’ve got, the annual, the current annual leasing bill for Services Australia in Brisbane, this financial year, is 32.35 million or 1.73 million cheaper than the proposed new building. That’s per annum. Are there any risks to productivity? Because of-

[Services Australia] There’s no, no Senator, there’s no risks to productivity.

[Malcolm] So you’re gonna pay more to go downtown? 1.73 million more?

[Services Australia] I will take on notice… Lease costs are renegotiated at various points in the leases of other buildings anyway. So extrapolating how other lease costs may have gone up around a single lease. Let me take on notice particular details around the five sites versus the cost of the one.

[Malcolm] Okay, thank you. How many public servants in your department are now working from home?

[Services Australia] For various reasons we have around 10,000 people working from home. So Services Australia has a mixed workforce. So some 28, 29,000 Australian public servants, but there are also service delivery partners that support us. And some, and contractors, particularly in our ICT space. So a number of those people were also working from home and some of our service delivery partners have been able to work from home. But broadly about 10,000 people are working from home as part of the Services Australia at the moment.

[Malcolm] Is there any reluctance from people coming back to the office?

[Services Australia] We’ve not experienced that we’ve had. We are nationally distributed. So our workforce, we manage our workforce against each of the state and territory requirements. For example, we had many more people working from home in Victoria for large parts of last year In Canberra, most people were still coming into the office if they to work; we’ve seen different arrangements through Omicron. You know, our work is our people both work from home and come to the office and we haven’t had any real issues with people coming and going in that arrangement.

[Malcolm] Yeah, thank you. Last question. I understand Services Australia has the federal government’s second largest property portfolio after the Department of Defence and you lease around 720,000, almost 721,000 square metres of commercial property. What do you do to ensure that property costs are reduced and that services are located where they’re needed? I know, I’ve just learned that these are nothing to do with customer interface, but… What are you doing?

[Services Australia] So Senator, I think, as I’ve stated, we are, what you’ve outlined with things like, bringing together five leases in Brisbane, we’ve done something, we’re doing something similar. There’s a new building being built in Adelaide which brings and reduces three or four leases into one. So we are trying to drive an efficient and fit for purpose, office requirements. Every dollar that comes out of my budget into a property is money I can’t use for transformation or other things. So we are very focused on driving an appropriate fit for purpose workspace that delivers the outcomes for the best value, which is as we are required to do, under the PGPA; and consistent with the finance property guidelines.

[Malcolm] So in your response that you’re gonna give me on notice. You’ll be able to tell me why we’re going to go downtown and have $1.73 million more expensive than the current scattered five outlets in five centres in Brisbane.

[Services Australia] Well, I will take on notice that framing of your question and we will-

[Malcolm] And you’ll check the assumption?

[Services Australia] Yeah, we’ll check the assumptions that you’ve got there and own the decision and the context around, the full context of our decision to do that.

[Malcolm] Okay, thank you very much, thank you, Chair.

[Chair] Thank you, Senator.

/1 Comment/by

What changed to make the Coalition adopt country-killing net-zero?

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https://youtu.be/25wrsuzXz8Q

Scott Morrison won the last election by bashing Bill Shorten on his climate policies, especially a net-zero emissions commitment. After getting elected for not buying into the climate nonsense, Scott Morrison unexplainably signed us up to net zero despite CSIRO confirming there was no change in the ‘Science’™.

There’s still no proof that human produced carbon dioxide affects the climate and needs to be cut. By signing up to net-zero, Scott Morrison has given a death kiss to productive agriculture, mining and every Australians power bills with no justification..

Transcript

If you could be as quick as you could.

[Roberts] Thank you. And thank you all for attending. My questions are gonna be initially to the minister. And then if there’s time to the Chief Executive, of CSIRO. Minister, referring to the government’s change in its 2050 net zero policy in the 2019 election, the government’s opposition to the UN’s 2050 net zero carbon dioxide policy gained you many votes and a lot of political traction and you used the the policy, Labor’s adoption of the policy to really smash the opposition leader Bill Shorten. Just two years later, after emphatically repeatedly and thoroughly criticising Labor and the Greens, there was an unexplained reversal last year and the government adopted the UN’s 2015 net zero carbon dioxide policy. What is the specific change in climate science in which the government’s change of policy is based?

Oh, well, thank you. I think to answer that question in detail I think it will probably be best for the environment minister, but I would simply say that I don’t accept the premise of all of what you’ve said in terms of-

[Roberts] What do you disagree with?

Well, you said unexplained. I mean, obviously we went through quite a detailed process. The prime minister spoke on a number of occasions about his desire to get to a net zero position if it can be done in a way that protects Australian jobs and continues to see industries thrive. And that’s what Minister Taylor worked on. Now we’re not obviously in the space where we have the detail in terms of those portfolios, but it was explained over a period of time. The government made the decision. Obviously, it played out publicly where there was a conversation, I think, with the Australian people. And obviously, there was a live debate that you were aware of that the coalition went through when the government came to a conclusion.

[Roberts] Okay. It wasn’t explained in terms of some change in science. There was no references. There was no document. No publications referred to no specific page numbers of the change in the data or the cause. So there was nothing to change the policy.

Well, as I say, the government was not prepared to commit to such a policy without being able to do the work as to how we would get there and how we would do so in a responsible way. And that was the the job that Minister Taylor in particular was tasked with. And that was the the work that fed into the government decision. Now, in terms of the detail, the various portfolio parts of that, I think that’s probably for another part of estimates.

[Roberts] Okay.

I think that summarises the government’s position.

[Roberts] Well, let’s go back a step further. What’s the basis of the government’s climate policy and ensuring policies on consequent policies on energy, agriculture, manufacturing, social policy and other aspects that the UN’s climate and associated policies impact? What’s the overall basis?

Sorry. I might just get you to repeat that question, sorry.

[Roberts] What is the basis of the government’s climate policy and the consequent policies that stumble on from that on energy agriculture, manufacturing, social policy and other aspects that the UN’s climate and associated policies impact?

Well, look, it’s a fairly broad question.

[Roberts] It is.

I might ask officials if they can assist.

[Man] There are appearing in my data.

Yeah. [Joe Evans] Miss Evans.

Very quickly, Joe Evans, the deputy secretary in the department and Senator, the basis is really the globally agreed science on climate change, which is articulated through the International Panel on Climate Change reports

[Roberts] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change?

That’s the one. Yeah.

[Roberts] Okay. Thank you. That was nice and quick. Back to the minister. Cutting human carbon dioxide output has had huge costly impacts across our society, especially on fundamentals for productivity and prosperity, for example, energy. Surely the only sound basis for a policy with such economic consequences is the specific effect of changing human carbon dioxide output. The impact for example of a specified change in human output of carbon dioxide, what specific impact would it have on climate factors such as temperature, rainfall, droughts, wind? So the specific impact. Then when the effect is quantified, only then can we do a cost benefit analysis of the cost of doing that and the benefits that come from that. And significantly, we can’t do any measurement of progress as we implement the policy unless we’ve got that specific impact of carbon dioxide. What is that specific impact of carbon dioxide on various climate factors?

Well, I’m happy for officials to elaborate, but I mean, in terms of what the government’s approach has been, it has been to be part of The Paris Agreement. So part of collective action across the world where we are doing our part, and we’ve been doing that obviously with our emissions reductions to date, which have been tracking, in fact, ahead of many comparable OECD nations and many sort of comparable resource-rich nations, such as Canada.

[Roberts] So what would be the extra impact of tracking?

But if I can also go to your question, and in the preamble to your question around, you talked about other economic impacts or impacts in relation to higher energy prices and the like. What we’ve seen under our government in the last few years is actually energy prices coming down year on year and coming down quarter on quarter. So we as a government never look at these issues in isolation. We look at it as part of that collective response and taking our responsibilities to the environment seriously, but never taking our eye off the ball, in terms of the need for affordable and reliable energy for instance. And that’s something that we’ve been delivering and that’s been our track record.

Senator Roberts, we got to go to the office of the chief scientist at 6:25. So I know you did want to ask some questions to the Chief Executive Officer, of CSIRO. So I just wanted to give you that chance.

[Roberts] Thank you. So essentially what you’re saying, Senator Seselja, is that your answer is the same as the one Senator Cormann gave me repeatedly when I asked questions in the Senate and wrote him letters? That was, we’ve got to do our part of global agreements.

I’m not aware of exactly what former Minister Cormann-

[Roberts] That’s the gist.

Well, as I say, I’ll take you take your word for that.

[Roberts] I can show you his letters.

Sure. I’m not disputing. All I’m saying is I’m not aware of exactly what Minister Cormann told you, but my evidence is the evidence I’ve just given.

[Roberts] Assuming what I’ve said to you of Senator Cormann’s responses, you’re agreeing with it.

Well, look, it’s a difficult question to answer without seeing all the detail of what you’ve said but I think my evidence speaks for itself.

[Roberts] Okay. Bob Hawke’s Labor government first introduced the climate topic in the eighties. Then in 1996, the Howard Anderson Liberal-National’s government first made it policy. On what specific quantified effect did they base that policy? Do you know?

Well, look, I think you’re talking about history of before I was in this place. And so I would prefer without having been involved in those discussions, I don’t feel qualified to give a detail answer on that.

[Roberts] No, I understand. It’s okay. Are you aware that the Howard-Anderson Liberal-National’s government implemented their renewable energy target that is gutting electricity and industry, generally? That they stole farmer’s property rights to use their land. And they did that deceitfully going around the constitution, section 51, clause 31. And that John Howard was the first leader of a large party to adopt an emissions trading scheme, which Tony Abbott rightly called a carbon dioxide tax. Are you aware of those major policies that are now still in play? And John Howard actually said that the renewable energy target has gone too far now?

Well, I certainly wouldn’t accept your characterisation of some of those policies in the way you’ve framed them, and certainly in relation to those fine leaders of our nation that you’ve sort of characterised their policies in a certain way. So no, I wouldn’t agree with that.

[Roberts] Okay. Thank you.

Sorry. Senator Roberts, I’m sorry-

[Roberts] I just got one thing to follow up.

Well, it’s gotta be very quick.

[Roberts] It will be very quick. Are you aware that six years after being booted from office in 2007, in 2013, John Howard admitted, at a global warming sceptics annual address in London, that on climate science he was agnostic yet he introduced these policies?

No, I wasn’t aware of that, but I am aware-

[Roberts] Thank you very much, chair.

Thank you, Senator.

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70% of Australian COVID deaths had a pre-existing condition

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Recently the Government changed its tune, but you used to be a conspiracy theorist for pointing out there was a difference between dying with COVID or from COVID. Now with the official release of Australian Bureau of Statistics data we have it confirmed just how many of those who died had other contributing factors.

It’s just another tick on the list of things “conspiracy theorists” been saying all along that the Government has tried to deny the truth of.

Transcript

[Malcolm] Thank you Chair, and thank you all for being here. My questions have to do with death data, particularly from COVID and information gathering. Can I reference your diagram entitled, Data Flow for Doctor Certified Deaths? I think that’s it there. It’s off your website.

[Committee Member] Do you need a copy of that, Mr. Gruen?

[Dr. Gruen] It’s a question of whether it’s in this publication or not but I know a copy would be helpful.

[Committee Member] Not sure this is speeding things up.

[Malcolm] Multitasking.

[Dr. Gruen] So just in summary, it’s a really simple workflow. So it’s a data flow for doctor certified deaths. The workflow is, someone dies, death event, doctor certifies, or it goes to a funeral director, but that’s only a small percentage. And then from there it continues to where the doctor then sends a certification sent to the state births, deaths and marriages. And then from there, the state officers send data weekly to the ABS, that’s broad summary.

And of course Senator, it doesn’t include deaths that would go to the coroner, so it’s not all the deaths.

[Malcolm] Correct, but that’s a small number.

[Dr. Gruen] 20 percentish, I think.

[Malcolm] 20, okay.

[Dr. Gruen] I believe so.

[Malcolm] But they eventually get entered in later, when the coroner has resolved.

[Dr. Gruen] Yes.

[Malcolm] And we’ve also got the Queensland process here, but that just verifies what you’re saying. Can I have copy back please?

[Dr. Gruen] Yes, certainly.

[Malcolm] So is that correct?

[Dr. Gruen] If it came from our website, it’s correct.

[Malcolm] And my summary, which is backed up by the-

[Dr. Gruen] I think the summary, I didn’t hear anything in the summary that I would take exception to.

[Malcolm] Thank you. When a doctor certifies a death, they certify a cause of death, thank you. If the cause of death is unknown, the matter is referred to the coroner to decide. Between 86 and 89% of deaths are doctor certified, meaning we know the cause of death at the time we know of the death. So my question is, the transfer of doctor certified death data from the state to the ABS, how long does that take? And has this reporting time changed over the last three years?

[Dr. Gruen] We can take that on notice exactly how long it takes but certainly what we have started to do, and we started doing this, I think in 2020, was to start publishing deaths data purely on the basis of deaths certified by doctors. So before that, we had an annual publication of all deaths but it was very substantially delayed. So the annual publication would come out something like 10 months after the end of the year for which it was reporting. One of the other things that we did as a consequence of COVID, was to see whether we could provide useful information on mortality much faster, and so we instituted a new publication, which is monthly, which is called Provisional Mortality Statistics. And what we do is report on doctor certified deaths that we have collected up to that point in time.

[Malcolm] And then if they come in later because the doctor is slow, whatever, you add them.

[Dr. Gruen] Exactly, so in other words, if you look at the subsequent month’s publication, it will have slightly more of certified deaths in the previous month because new ones have been added, that’s correct.

[Malcolm] Okay. So referencing your website, the causes of death in Australia, the last data release, I think you may have explained this, was September 2021 for the period calendar 2020. That’s what you said, it was about nine or 10 months later. Is this the most recent data, other than the COVID data released on the 15th of February? That’s this one here, COVID mortality in Australia.

[Dr. Gruen] I’ve got it. So the answer is, the annual data is the deaths from both doctor and coroner certified. That’s the annual data, but we are as well as that, doing a monthly publication of just doctor certified deaths. Those come out monthly.

[Malcolm] So the annual is accurate in terms of, it got the coroners.

[Dr. Gruen] It’s complete.

[Malcolm] Complete, thank you. Yeah, they’re all accurate. So, let’s continue. So referencing the COVID-19 mortality in Australia which you have in front of you, issued 15th of February, 2022. Quote, it says, “COVID-19 deaths that occurred by 31st of January, 2022 that have been registered and received by the ABS.”, end of quote. So here we’ve got death data, and cause of death data that’s only two weeks old. Not three months old for single mortality figure or 10 months for the cause of death. Could you go through that report on the bottom of the first page, Mr. Gruen? 2,639 deaths where people died with or from COVID. What do you mean by with or from, specifically?

[Dr. Gruen] So that’s explained later in the document. The vast majority of them are from, a small number are with. So if you look at page three, it explains, there were 83 deaths, which were COVID-19 related. Sorry, I’m reading from a doc point in the middle of page three.

[Malcolm] No, no, I’ve got it sampled.

[Dr. Gruen] 83 deaths, which were COVID-19 related. The person died with COVID-19, confirmed or suspected, but it was not the underlying cause of death.

[Malcolm] So COVID was not the underlying cause, it was something else.

[Dr. Gruen] That’s right. So just to be clear, there were 2,704 deaths that were either with or from COVID, and of those, only 83 were with, the rest were from. So the vast majority are from.

[Malcolm] The cause of death was COVID, okay. So if we turn over to page two, at the top of page two, you have chronic cardiac symptoms with the most common preexisting chronic condition for those who had COVID-19, certified as the underlying cause of death. That goes back to the previous page, the second bullet point, the majority of deaths had an underlying cause. So where would that fit in, the 83?

[Dr. Gruen] No, no. So there were a substantial proportion of the people who died from COVID had preexisting conditions, right? But the preexisting condition didn’t kill them, but the COVID was the underlying cause of death. But the fact that they had a preexisting condition, was material.

[Malcolm] So is there any percentage of those who died with or from, who had chronic cardiac conditions?

[Dr. Gruen] Yes. It’s a good publication, Senator. It’s worth reading.

[Malcolm] I haven’t read it all.

[Dr. Gruen] No, that’s okay. Associated causes conditions in the a causal sequence, page eight. That will tell you about all the… Hang on, preexisting conditions, sorry. Preexisting conditions, page nine. And there’s a chart on page 10, which shows you what the conditions were and the proportions.

[Malcolm] So that’s percentages, are they?

[Dr. Gruen] Yes.

[Malcolm] Okay, so these are percent of the 83?

[Dr. Gruen] No, percent of the 2000. We’re talking about people who have… Yes, that’s it. Preexisting conditions were reported on death certificates for nearly 70% of the 2,556 deaths due to COVID. That’s a sentence at the bottom of page nine. And then the conditions, that chart-

[Malcolm] On the graph.

[Dr. Gruen] The chart shows you the proportion of chronic conditions that were reported on the death certificate. And you can have more than one, cheerfully.

[Malcolm] Cheerfully, right. Okay, so turning now to birth data…

[Dr. Gruen] That’s not gonna help.

[Malcolm] The Australian Bureau of Statistics releases birth data at the end of the year following. This data could influence the debate around the effect of vaccines on reproduction and may provide reassurance to vaccine customers. Why does it take so long to report on a simple metric like births? I understand the delay in the deaths for the getting the accurate annual figure, but why does it take so long for births?

[Dr. Gruen] Yeah, so I don’t know the answer to that question.

[Malcolm] I will take that on notice, Senator.

[Dr. Gruen] Yeah, we can certainly take that on notice.

[Malcolm] So the Australian Bureau of Statistics budget has grown 18% in the last year from 497 million in 2019/20 to 588 million in 2021. Is that enough to get your data out in a timely fashion?

[Dr. Gruen] So as you would be aware, the bureau publishes data across a very wide range of topics, economic, social, environmental, demographic. And so, obviously timeliness is one of the things that we care about, and in answer to Senator Walsh’s questions, I was talking about some of the new products that we have produced that have been much more timely to help decision makers in the pandemic, but there’s no question, there’s a limit. And the other thing that we care critically about is accuracy and making sure that what we produce is correct. So some of these things do take a substantial amount of time, that we are cognisant of that, and we do our best to publish them as quickly as we can, and it ultimately is a function of the resources available to us.

[Malcolm] Last question. What you’re saying, and I would agree if this is the case, is that it is better to have accurate data a little delayed, than timely data that’s not accurate.

[Dr. Gruen] It depends on the circumstances. In a situation where a pandemic has just broken out, we made the judgement that we were happy to produce data that was somewhat less accurate, fast. So there are circumstances where you are willing to accept that trade off.

[Malcolm] Is there any way we can get that

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How many Aussie businesses are on the verge of collapse? 

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The amount of business tax debt that is overdue with the Australian Tax Office has skyrocketed by 14% in 12 months to $40 billion. This is a very worrying sign. A business which is struggling to keep afloat will try and delay their payments for as long as possible, hopefully to keep some liquidity and survive another day.  

Eventually however, many businesses can’t keep going like this and collapse. This blowout in overdue debt is a worrying sign of how many businesses in Australia are on the edge. The Government’s response to COVID has wrecked our economy and country and the full effects of lockdowns and restrictions are still to be fully felt. 

Transcript

Around. Thank you.

Okay. Senator Roberts.

Thank you chair, and thank you all for attending. Minister, When all the COVID protections, when are all the COVID protections ending for businesses? You know, for example, the Australian taxation office pause on debt collection activities, and what have you provided to ensure businesses are supported and not thrown to the wolves?

Well, Senator, to answer the second part of your question, types of measures that we outlined in the last couple of budgets, such as, the lost carryback arrangements, the small business loans programmes, they’re the types of support that have been embedded for businesses to help with the economic recovery coming out of COVID. In terms of the dates of when, in some cases already have occurred, or to occur in the future. Certain protections around solvency arrangements, or ATO debt recovery practises, coming to end. I’ll let agencies, where they can speak to any of the details of those. Probably not the right person for that though.

So Senator, there’s a range of support measures that have been provided. The minister referred to the loss. Carryback there’s also obviously the temporary full expensing measures that go to June 2023. They’re the support measures, stimulus measures that I’m aware of in the tax space. I will pass to the ATO who can talk about the administrative actions that they’ve been taking to support business. And I think some of your question or some of the aspects of that support in the space of insolvency or, you know, market front features is probably best put to markets group later this evening. But I don’t know if the ATO want to add anything on the administrative actions.

Yes, Senator. We have recommenced the very measured approach to debt collection. We are concerned that the longer businesses sort of stay out of engagement with us. The more problematic those collection of debts are. I mean, the fact of the matter is that our total collectible debt has, as at 31 December, 2021, has increased by nearly $5 billion. That is collectable debt which is largely, I understand undisputed debt. So they’ve put in a bad statement. They’ve said, they’ve earned this amount. They’ve withheld pay as you go, they’ve collected GST, and for one reason or not, they haven’t remitted amounts they’ve acknowledged they’re responsible for. We are instituting a process of contacting businesses individually to make sure they’re aware of the debt and trying to come to an acceptable payment arrangement at least. But it is something we just cannot ignore because of the debt stock has gone up about 14% from the same time last year, and it’s now around $40 billion. So we have to focus in as empathetic way as we can. But it’s something we just have to get on with without jumping out there too quickly. It’s very well known in the advisory community that we are doing this now. And in some cases they’re saying, well, you should because the longer we leave it the more likely some of these amounts just won’t be paid. But if our Chief Service Delivery Officer wants to add anything to that, I’ll pass over to Melinda Smith.

I thank you. Commissioner Melinda Smith. Chief Service Delivery Officer. I just echo the commissioner’s comments. Last year, we actually had over 8 million engagement activities that we put in place to help small business and individuals. And the growth tends to be in the small business debt to actually help them and assist them to understand what’s their liability and how do we help them to actually get back on their feet. And we’re seeing some positive signs payment plans are being set up. We have very high kept rate in terms of those effectiveness of those payment plans. And as the Commissioner commented, we’re getting some terrific feedback from the community about the balance we’re having to take very empathetically based on quite unique circumstances.

Thank you. So it it’s fairly, and this is not a criticism of you. It’s a comment about the situation. It’s fairly vague. And I understand that. So what does your research indicate will be the likely business insolvency rates for the next two years and across what industries and regions

Senator, I don’t know that the ATO, and they can obviously speak for themselves. We don’t know the ATO undertakes its own modelling or research in relation to business insolvency rates. And again, revenue group of treasury wouldn’t be the right agency to provide analysis in that regard. To just add to at least answer to your first question. I just wanted to check but the relief for directors against personal liability for insolvent trading, that was part of the initial package of measures has also expired. So, in that sense some of those initial early extreme COVID protection measures that were put in place at the depths of uncertainty have come to an end as the ATO indicated from their perspective, they now manage debt recovery in their cautious and targeted ways that they’ve indicated and are very conscious in terms of, in terms of the impact of their activities and seeking to maintain business viability while doing so. The government did outline some other insolvency reforms which I can get some information tabled if you like. I’d note that insolvency rates have been down quite significantly as a result of both some of those temporary measures, but also the additional financial support government has provided to businesses during the pandemic. I’m not aware of there being any spike in those insolvency rates since any of these measures have come to an end. But we would expect to see at least a normalisation of those rates.

Minister. Thank you. The early on. And in fact, the first and second day of sitting single day sessions on this coronavirus issue were on Monday, March 23rd, 2020, and then Wednesday the April 8th, 2020. And I pointed the government to Taiwan. Which has had a far superior performance to ours. They, despite having a population similar to ours, have had one quarter that casualties per million population that we’ve had. They did it without locking down. In the previous Senate estimate sessions, I confirmed with the Chief Medical Officer and the Federal Department of Health Secretary, the seven components that would be suitable for seven strategies for managing a virus comprehensively and properly. And the Federal Government has missed the two key ones. Never even looked at it even though they were mentioned months ago. And as I said on the first single day sessions back in 2020. I believe the Federal Government has mismanaged COVID. Now you probably won’t agree, but,

No I won’t Senator.

But you know, the facts are there. So, What’s happening is that the Federal Government has not protected people. And at the same time has decimated their economy and we are losing a lot of revenue.

Senator Roberts. Have you got a crisp question-

Yes. I’d like to know when the government is gonna come up with a proper comprehensive plan.

Well, as, you noted on the way through Senator Roberts, I don’t agree with your assessment there. Australia has some of the lowest fatality rates in the world and some of the strongest economic outcomes, a jobs market that is booming and is seeing levels of participation that are at record points for Australia and are above the performance of other developed economies. So Senator Roberts, I think we have a very strong record there as Prime Minister’s indicated. Has every decision that we have managed to, that we have made right throughout the course of the pandemic and being the one that we would make with the benefit of hindsight. No, of course not. If we’d been able to foresee every potential twist and turn along the way, we would navigate the route differently. But we’ve been dealing with the global pandemic with different variants that have come along to the COVID 19 virus and we’ve responded accordingly. We have applied through the last two budgets in economic recovery plan that has stimulated business investment that has seen the jobs market recover very strongly in Australia, that has seen the budget improve in ways beyond what had been forecast. And we’re obviously committed to continuing to implement that plan.

Thank you for that minister. I just quote some figures here from Adam Creighton. He’s a well respected, clear thinking economist who relies on data. And he’s pointed out, Australia overtakes Japan in COVID deaths, a densely populated nation with many old people that never once lockdown, never mandated vaccines and barely tested anyone. No riots, no tear gas. The lockdown argument has become a sad joke. You didn’t implement lockdowns, but you enabled the states to. Taiwan with a similar population to ours. We have 4.4 times higher death rate per million population. Taiwan never locked down. They properly tested, traced in quarantine. So my question was, when will you, I’ve checked with this Chief Medical Officer. There are seven strategies that he confirms. I’ve omitted none. I’ve got none that are in there that shouldn’t be there. Seven strategies. The government is not doing the two most important ones. When will you come together with plan

Senator Roberts? We have applied a plan right throughout the pandemic, responded to circumstances and have the clear economic recovery plan as I said before. I’d also just make the point in terms of your comparisons there, that lockdown is used as a single word or phrase to encompass what different people have in mind. There have been, in the countries you referenced, some very tight restrictions on human movement and activity in response to what, COVID 19 and limitations in terms of areas of activity that have had in terms of economic impacts and impacts on different businesses. Very significant impacts in parts of their economy. There are circumstances that every country’s grappled with. I don’t say that as in any way as a criticism. We have indeed engaged quite closely at different times with Japan and with Taiwan during the pandemic in terms of sharing information, in terms of assistance between between one another where possible for things like PPE or the like, so. There is much that we admire and respect about their responses, but I think to sort of characterise as you have that makes it sound like they’ve managed in a way where there haven’t been some very tight restrictions that are analogous in parts to the way some of the states have applied lockdowns or ongoing restrictions is not accurate in terms of what they have actually done in those countries or in the country of Japan and of course the economy of Taiwan.

Of Taiwan, which is way in front of us in terms of performance on COVID has not locked down. Their economy and their economy has basically suffered just a minor blip. I think 0.6 of-

Senator Roberts. I need to share the call.

Thank you chair. I’m finished.

Excellent.

/by

Are our Navy Frigates going the same way as cancelled submarines? 

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It has been revealed that our Navy frigate program is facing big problems, with fears they will be underpowered, unable to run propulsion and radar at the same time and have serious flooding design flaws. 

One Nation led calls with other Senators to ditch the expensive French submarine duds. Defence acquisitions doesn’t have a great track record, will these frigates follow the same path as the submarines? 

Transcript

[Chair] Please Senator Roberts, you have the call.

[Roberts] Thank you chair, and thank you for appearing today. We’re pleased that the government has at last listened to and cancelled the submarine contract. What was the cost to Australia as a result of cancellation of the French submarine contract?

[Dalton]Senator Roberts expenditure to date on the attack class submarine programme was $2.4 billion. We’re in a process of negotiating with the two prime contracts, Naval group and Lockheed Martin Australia, the transition out of those contracts, that they’re sensitive negotiations, you’ll understand,

[Roberts] Yeah, I can. that we don’t want to talk about how that might play out in terms of dollar figures.

[Roberts] Sometimes I might argue, but not then. What progress has been made in determining the future of Naval defence procurement of submarines and other hardware options?

[Dalton] In what sense?

[Roberts] How can we make sure this doesn’t happen again?

[Mead] Senator, Vice Admiral, Jonathan Mead, I’m the chief of the nuclear power submarine task force. And I’ve been empowered to deliver a nuclear powered submarine capability for the Australian government, for Australia. So since the 16th of September, 2021 the task force working with other government departments and working with our US and UK partners, have made excellent progress in order to get to an important milestone, in beginning of 2023 so that we can identify the optimal pathway for Australia to acquire these nuclear powered submarines. I would just like to sort of emphasise that the pathway is more than just the actual platform. The platform is something that we can readily identify

[Roberts] Excuse me, platform being the boat itself?

[Mead] Correct, the actual submarine itself there Senator. But first and foremost, we need to satisfy a number of prerequisites. I can’t emphasise this enough, the safety and the security aspects associated with anything nuclear, but particularly nuclear powered submarines, need to be recognised with every aspect of the programme. And we, you Senator, the Australian public would absolutely expect that the department and the government would keep safety and security at the top of our requirements. So we’re working with our US and UK partners. There is a very significant series of delegations in Australia right now, combined US and UK teams. There are three specific delegations that are in Australia, two right now, they’ve been in Canberra talking to defence officials, obviously talking to the task force, talking to other government departments. They have gone down to Melbourne. They’ve gone down to Adelaide and had significant discussions with ASC, ANI, they’ve looked at the shipyards. They’re talking to workers down there. There is an another delegation, from the US and UK, that have just arrived. And late next week, there’ll be an even more senior delegation where I will take them down to Adelaide, and I will host, what’s called a joint steering group. That is a key decision body, a recommending body, that assesses the risks and the progress of what we are working on. This will be the third such steering group, I went to Washington in December of last year, where we had the first joint steering group. We did a virtual one in January of this year, and I’ll host the third one in late February. We are making very good progress. There are a number of key areas that we are working on right now. I’ll put the platform aside. But these absolutely support the platform itself. We are working on strategy and legal aspects and we are working on education, training, opportunities, the workforce. So you’ll know we’ve identified a scholarship programme, 300 scholarships over the next five years. We’re sending people as I speak, Australian Navy officers, to University of New South Wales to do nuclear engineering degrees, nuclear science degrees. We’re sending people overseas to do degrees at MIT. We’ve got a scholarship programme within the department of defence. We are a scholarship programme with STEM for cadets.

[Roberts] All right, what aren’t you doing?

[Roberts] So I welcome your comments about safety. As far as I know, the nuclear powered submarines have been around for decades. So, and coming from the Americans and the British.

[Mead] That’s correct. So US, UK have been operating nuclear powered submarines for about 60 years. We intend to leverage off their impeccable safety record, but I do want to emphasise that safety and security, when you’re dealing with nuclear, nuclear power, nuclear powered submarines must be afforded absolute priority, Senator.

[Roberts] We’re pleased to hear that. Senator Hanson and I support the nuclear decision, it seems very sensible to us, so that’s not a concern, but it is something new to Australia, so that’s obviously a risk. Has Australia done it again, this is in general to defence again, has Australia done it again by entering into the $45 billion contract for the hunter class frigates, already described as expensive duds by some, that will be slower than called for and underpowered, in terms of running its radar systems at the same time as operational propulsion systems?

Senator Roberts I’ll invite Mr. Dalton, seeing as he’s still at the table to respond, at least at a high level to that commentary, noting that quite a bit of detail has been covered already this morning on that project.

[Dalton] Senator, I think we’ve spent the last hour and a half discussing in quite some detail, some of those issues that we’re managing around the hunter class frigate. I would say that the projected total acquisition cost of the programme is $45 billion. That is not the contract value, and that is not the current approved value. So we’re taking much smaller bites as we go along, but

[Roberts] Depending upon success?

[Dalton] Yeah, that’s part of it. But I think you know, the discussion that we’ve had today demonstrates that we’re on a process, a design process, that is structured to manage risks and we, and the chief of Navy, has already testified this morning that he is confident that the hunter class frigate will fulfil the needs that the Navy has for a modern, state of the art frigate, optimised for anti-submarine warfare.

[Roberts] Okay. So I’ll keep my questions short out of respect for everyone here. Is it true that there are risks to the crew in the event of flooding or fires?

[Dalton] Again, Senator we don’t think that’s a likely outcome in the final design. We’re working through some risks that have come up, in the design process and looking at what’s happened.

[Roberts] So there are some risks, but you’re hoping to manage them?

[Dalton] There’s always risk. These are war ships, they go in harm’s way. And what we’re looking at is how do we mitigate best those risks and what happens when the ship is damaged. So we are making sure that when the ship is damaged, that the risks are absolutely mitigated as much as we possibly can. But we should not be fooled. These ships are designed to go into combat and combat can create damage.

[Roberts] I accept that, but if there are inherent flaws, before they even reach combat, that make them even more vulnerable, that’s my concern.

[Dalton] Senator what we’ve canvased this morning, at some length is in terms of those media reports being informed off of some documentation, which was work done by defence, seeking to identify extensively the potential risks faced in relation to the Type 26 and the hunter class that will be built across the type 26. Importantly, as officials have outlined, that report didn’t go into the detail of the type of mitigations and other work that is equally being done to manage and address those risks, which importantly is being done on the type 26 platform and of course on the hunter class platform.

[Roberts] So thank you, minister, it seems then that these problems were foreseen before the contracts were entered into, in review?

[Woman] No.

Senator Roberts, as a few people have addressed already this morning, these are always highly complicated procurement activities, design and build activities, that all come with risk. Nobody should think that there is a risk-free proposition in relation to building a highly sophisticated war ship.

[Roberts] We’ve just come off several, and the submarines we’ve been talking about this morning, several damaging processes in defence, so will the frigates go the same way as the sub’s, what’s your level of confidence?

[Birmingham] No Senator, they won’t, we do have a level of confidence there and the systems in terms of design finalisation and moving into the build stages, are systems that are built having learnt lessons from previous procurement decisions. The fact that defence is clearly undertaking the type of risk assessment work that has been discussed this morning is a plus. We should all be pleased for the fact that they are identifying those risks and working through them at these early stages, while we are still in design stages, where such mitigations can be pursued. These are some of – it’s similar in the sense that, you know this is a project, where right now the work that is being undertaken in Australia, is prototyping work. That’s a lesson learnt from the past, in terms of ensuring that we test those build systems before we get to a point where you have actually created a bigger problem in the build undertaking that could have been rectified if you’d learnt those lessons before through activities such as prototyping.

[Roberts] So these are my last questions on this topic. Are these fresh designs or are they rebuilding or modifying an established design?

[Birmingham] Perhaps I’ll let Mr. Dalton explain that again.

[Dalton] So the frigate, the hunter class frigate is based on the United Kingdom’s type 26 reference ship design. That is different from what we were doing in the attack class submarine programme, where the attack class submarine was a new design submarine. It evolves from previous ones, but it was a new design for Australia. And I would say Senator, that the attack class submarine programme, you know the government has made, you know, a very brave decision in light of changing strategic circumstances and that revolves around how we could employ conventionally powered submarines in high risk environments, high threat environments in the 2040’s, in 2050’s. The decision to move away from the attack class submarine programme was not based on the performance of the attack class submarine project, it’s based on the changing strategic circumstances that Australia finds itself in. So I don’t think you can compare those, you know to say that the programmes are broken because we’ve moved on from the attack class submarine programme.

[Roberts] The changing strategic circumstances we find ourselves in and the changing availability of capability to Australia.

[Dalton] Exactly.

[Roberts] Yeah. The last question.

I’ll come back. Do you want me to do it now?

[Ross] You have the changing security control requirements getting worse, but a delivery date.

[Chair] Tells me about another five minutes so we might just sit over time for a short while.

[Roberts] Last question on submarines. Has a live torpedo ever been fired from a Collins class sub?

[Dalton] Yes.

[Roberts] Have all the torpedo’s been unarmed dummies?

[Dalton] We can show you pictures Senator.

[Roberts] Sorry?

[Dalton] Yes.

/by

Companies illegally back filling risk assessments to justify jab mandates 

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Workplaces jumped the gun and implemented jab mandates for employees without doing their legally obligated risk assessment. When caught out, some have tried to ‘backfill’ their risk assessment, to make it look like they had done the process properly in the first place.  

As the Fair Work Ombudsman has told me, on the face of it this would be fraudulent under Workplace Health and Safety laws.  

If you suspect a workplace has backfilled or retrospectively made a risk assessment for a jab mandate after implementing it, you should immediately report them to the Work Health and Safety Regulator in your State. 

Transcript

Thank you.

Oh! Senator Roberts. Sorry. Sorry, It’s the lights.

That’s all right. I don’t mind. Ms. Parker, I’m not aware of the details of the Fair Work Act. Immense as it is. I’m concerned with companies employers including universities, backfilling risk assessments. It’s a topic Senator Matt Canavan touched on earlier, backfilling risk assessments to justify the decisions on mandating injections. Is that part of your remit to explore that?

Look, it’s a work health and safety matter. So, if they are undertaking a health and safety risk assessment, as you say, they’re doing it afterwards to make it look like,

Well, when I meant by back filling is exactly that, to make it look like they do it up front but it’s rubbish.

Yeah, I understand. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what I mean.

It’s a work health and safety issue and they would need, I would encourage them, whoever you’re talking about, particularly to contact their Work Health and Safety Regulator in the state that it’s occurring in.

Unfortunately that’s a state government.

Yes, that’s correct.

Which is quite often putting the pressure on the mandate injection.

It depends on, there’s a difference between mandating and actually coming up with a risk assessment after the fact. I think that’s a different issue.

What I’m talking about is the risk assessment is done supposedly upfront.

Yes.

But it’s rubbish.

Yes. I still think they could contact the work health safety regulator because that seems to me a breach of the requirements but it’s on the face of it, but it would have to see it in.

Rather than the breach of due process in negotiating something.

Speaking in the general,

Appears that way, yes.

Speaking in the general, to reverse engineer a risk assessment rather than genuinely taking into account that the risks and benefits and,

Consultation.

And the genuine matters for consideration would without giving you legal advice, be something that’s fraudulent under Workplace health and safety laws. And so I would suggest people in that situation take a good look at that and consider the safety regulator that’s relevant to their workplace.

The only thing I’d add to that Senator is, the Work Health and Safety Authorities are independent statutory authorities. So they operate independent from government and it’s not unusual for Work Health and Safety authorities to take departments to court, etc for where they feel they’ve failing their duties. So, people should have confidence in going to their regulators.

Thank you. One final question, just getting a gut feel from you. The massively thick, Fair Work Act has got a hell of a lot of, I can see you smiling before you broke burst into laughter, got a lot of complexity in it. And it works for the members of the IR club, HR consultants, legal lawyers, large union bosses, employer associations that are kept in work by having problems to fix. The employer-employee relationship, which should be the fundamental and primacy of that relationship at work has been ignored, shoved aside, and too often vested interests get involved. Do you see any sense of that?

So, what I would say is that, it’s our job to try to cut through that. So, we’ve been established to try to educate and help people with that. So, absolutely agree there’s complexity, there’s individual arrangements, they’re all different, people have case by case issues. It’s complex system, but so is work, so is life, so is going, you know, everyone with different jobs has a different arrangement. That’s the nature of the business we operate in. Our job is to try to cut through that and help people to determine what’s the right thing to do. So if an employer rings us then we will talk them through what it is they’re concerned about and we will help them to make it right. We can provide them with outsourced legal advice. We can give them written advice. We have very good education products, very good websites. We try to make them simple. We consult on them. We get feedback on them. We have a small business hotline. We work very hard to try to simplify the system as much as possible. So they don’t have to feel overwhelmed, which is what I think you’re talking about.

I am .

Sorry. In fairness to Ms. Parker, she only gets to work with what we parliamentarians give her.

Exactly.

And it is a very large and it is a very complex act. But as you and I know, Senator Roberts, it’s the kind of sensitive area that requires all the different parties in this parliament to work together in order to get it through. And as we saw recently with the last Industrial Relations Bill to come before the parliament, some in this parliament would stand in the way of the kind of simplicity and transparency that makes it fairer for everybody, and that generates the kind of economic opportunity that works best for the people who need it most in our community.

Can I just highlight, hang on, Senator Roberts. Can I just highlight, we are 20 minutes over our supper break. Is it? What do they call it? Late break. I like supper better Still Late for smoke senators Roberts. But, do you want to continue or-

Yeah, just very briefly in response to the minister.

Be very brief. Thanks

The complexities make it impossible for some small businesses and especially for some workers, including those represented, by so-called, big unions. because the union bosses are part of the club.

They are.

And so what we need, and Ms. Parker alluded to it, the primacy of the workplace relationship between employer-employee needs to be brought back with unions, If the workers want representatives. Got no problem with that. But I’ve already got Dave Nunan, Michael Ravbar, the BCA, other groups, interested in exploring that issue, because the CFMEU legal counsel, the ETU legal counsel had both said we’ve got too many damn lawyers in this mess. They’re lawyers.

Well look, I don’t disagree fundamentally with what you’ve got to say there but the barrier doesn’t lie with government. The barrier lies over that side of the room.

I would say the barrier lies with a lot of people in this room and other rooms.

Okay. Well without getting into a debate. Thank you Senator…

/2 Comments/by

Reserve Bank wants a Central Bank Digital Currency in Australia 

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A Central Bank Digital Currency goes hand in hand with the idea of a Digital Identity. With all of your information and money stored online, central banks or governments could turn off your access to money and society in the blink of an eye.

The last time I asked the Reserve Bank about a Central Bank Digital Currency, there seemed to be no real plans. Conveniently they are now considering it, just as the feared Digital Identity Bill proposal is being pushed by Government.

Transcript

[Chair] Senator Roberts.

Thank you. Thank you for appearing again. I’m gonna start with a sincere compliment, Mr Debelle. I’ve been impressed with your frankness and your directness and your succinctness. You convey a lot of confidence and I would also like to start by complimenting the Reserve Bank for the answers I received in the last estimates, which after examination were complete and factual. So question one, Chair: the Reserve Bank has now signed on to the International Central Bank Digital Currency Platform, Project Dunbar, and I quote, “aims to develop prototype shared platforms for cross border transactions which will allow financial institutions to transact directly with each other in the digital currencies issued by participating central banks.” Now, as I understand it, Mr Debelle, Australia will be testing this platform, along with Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa, which suggests we have a digital currency to use, to test the platform. Where is the Reserve Bank on the development process for the Reserve Bank Digital Currency and what’s the timeframe here for testing and implementation?

Hello, pass that one to Ms Bullock, please, Senator, she’s the expert in this space. Well, has carriage of this, at least.

Thank you, Senator. So, the first thing to note is that Project Dunbar is a proof of concept, so I’d distinguish it from a pilot. Pilot is where you actually have actual real money. This isn’t a pilot, it’s actually a proof of concept. So really, what it’s about is going through the technical infrastructure you might need, the legal arrangements you might need, to patent requirements you might need to set this sort of multicurrency approach up. So there is no Central Bank Digital Currency, we don’t have one, the other central banks don’t have one, it’s purely a proof of concept, if you like, It’s a little bit of a desktop exercise with a little bit of experimentation with technical approaches to do it, so there’s no actual Central Bank Digital Currencies involved.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, sorry.

I was just gonna go on to your second question, if that’s all right.

Okay.

So, your second question was about where we are at with Central Bank Digital Currency. So, we’ve had a multiyear process in this. We’ve done some small experiments. We’ve experimented internally with the concept of a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency. Again, it’s not real, it’s just sort of a mock-up if you like, and we’ve done that internally to see whether or not individual banks could perhaps use it for settlement between them. We’ve also expanded that fairly recently. There was a report in December, Project Atom, which was an experiment again with Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and Consensus and ourselves. And the concept here was, again, a proof of concept. It wasn’t a pilot; a proof of concept to see whether or not a Central Bank Digital Currency, paired with tokenized syndicated loans, would actually make a more efficient way of having syndicated loans transacted through the economy. We released the report on that in December and I think it proved that there were some efficiencies in this area, but –

Excuse me, did you say there were inefficiencies?

Efficiencies.

[Roberts] Efficiencies.

Efficiencies. So, syndicated loans is a very manual process, and quite lengthy, and what the project proved was if you tokenized the syndicated loans, you had a Central Bank Digital Currency to transact amongst the various players in the syndicated loan, that actually that made that a much more efficient process. Whether or not you can do it with normal payment systems as well is another question, but we didn’t test that, so there’s that. We’re also participating, as you mentioned, in Project Dunbar with the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub and those three other countries, and we’ve recently formed ourselves a Central Bank Digital Currency Group in the Payments Policy Department, and we’re going to be engaging with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, which is looking at all sorts of things digital. We’re going to be engaging with them on looking at Central Bank Digital Currencies as well, so that’s a little bit of a potted history of where we’re at with our work on this.

Okay. Thank you. If a new digital currency is to be created out of electronic ledger entries, will existing amounts of cash be converted into digital dollars? The public may be confused about how this is going to work. Can the Reserve Bank please provide a simple overview of what happens after the project gets the green light? Where’s the value coming from? So when we have a cash?

What we’re assessing, Senator, really, is exactly that: their value, given we have a pretty decent payment system as it is, which includes cash, clearly, but also electronic settlement, and you sort of nailed the question, really, which is: is there value in this? Is it worth the investment at this stage or not? Michelle, I don’t know if you wanna add anything to that.

The only thing I’d add, Senator, is that there is no suggestion in which we are getting rid of cash. This concept is not to replace cash and it hasn’t even been decided that we would do it. This would be a decision not for the Reserve Bank, but for, in fact, the Government, and it wouldn’t be replacing cash, so that’s very clear.

When I was talking about the value, I wasn’t talking about the value of the process. Is it gonna be more efficient? Is it worth doing, so I appreciate your answer and that quite clearly, that’s one valid interpretation of my question, but what I was getting at was, if someone’s got so much value in Australian dollars, how will that be converted into digital currency dollars or whatever the currency is? Will they still have that purchasing value?

Sure. So the way that most central banks are looking at this around the world is that the central bank itself won’t be providing people with digital money. It will work like cash does. So at the moment, if you want cash, you go to your ATM or your bank and you withdraw some cash from your bank account. A digital currency, if we had one, would work in a very similar way. You would go into your bank and your bank would have presumably a digital wallet, or you’d have a digital wallet, and you would take some money out of your bank account and you would put it into Central Bank Digital Currency, just like cash. So you can think about it in a very parallel way.

Yes, but if someone’s got $2,000 in cash today in their bank account, will that give them the equivalent purchasing power if there’s a conversion into digital currency?

Yes. Correct. It would be exactly the same as if it was a $100 bill or $100 on your mobile wallet.

Okay. Thank you. Now the BIS is involved. So, one specific case: our foreign exchange reserves are used to settle international transactions. These will now be replaced with the Reserve Bank Digital Dollars, if it goes ahead. Is the process to simply replace the US dollars we have in reserve with US Government-issued crypto dollars or a similar value-basis digital currency?

[Debelle And Bullock] No.

[Bullock] Do you wanna take this?

Straight to the chase: no, Senator, we would still continue to hold $USD reserves in the instruments we currently hold them at, which is primarily US Treasuries.

Okay. That’s pleasing to hear. What are the risks in doing this, for example, if this was handled badly, not necessarily from the Reserve Bank, but for the people you’re dealing with overseas, if the system wasn’t tight? What are the various risks that you can foresee that need to be managed?

This is why I think there’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before any advanced economies really have launched into this. There are obviously cyber issues. You need to make sure that the system is secure. Overseas consultations demonstrate that people are very concerned about privacy, which is a very valid concern, but by the same token you’re also concerned about a use of digital currency for criminal purposes, so there’s a balance there. Another concern, that is one that most central banks identify, is concerns about the banking system and whether or not there might be a flight of deposits, if you like, to the Central Bank Digital Currency, which would have implications for banks’ balance sheets, potentially make it easy to run on banks, if people were concerned about banks, so there’s a whole lot of financial stability risks and issues associated with it. That’s just a sample of some of the issues that need to be considered if we were going to go in this direction and have some sort of what I would call “retail” Central Bank Digital Currency.

Thank you. Two more questions, Chair. Digital or cryptocurrency is not backed by any asset. It’s literally an exercise in trust that the government can protect the value of someone’s currency. Is this the time now to start talking about getting an asset backing behind this new currency, such as gold?

Senator, just like cash at the moment, it would be a feat currency, which is to say it isn’t backed by anything. And you’re right. It’s all about trust in the institutions of the country, in the government, in the Reserve Bank, so in that sense, it would be just like cash, if we were going down this route, it would be an unbacked currency.

But it’s backed by the government’s capacity to raise revenue from its citizens, basically.

Backed by the government’s capacity to raise revenue, did you say?

Yep.

Thank you. Last question. During COVID, there’s been a hell of a lot of money spent on non-productive outcomes. As much as food and rent can be considered non-productive, they’re essential, but they’re non-productive, the outcome of long-term borrowing for short-term gain is inflation. Is spending on productive capacity: roads, railways, bridges, dams and irrigation in this recovery phase, likely to produce a lower inflation outcome across forward estimates than continuing to spend on what can only be described as economic sherbet?

I don’t know, I mean, that’s an an interesting question, Senator. I mean, I’m not sure I would draw that distinction, I think food I would regard as a pretty productive and essential service, an essential thing for people to consume, so, I mean, we build roads for a purpose, not just because, which is to satisfy people wanting to use them, and the same with food and same with shelter, so not quite sure how we can draw such a clean line between what’s productive and unproductive.

Well, perhaps, well food is essential, as I said, perhaps spending on non-productive assets: entertainment, instead of travelling overseas, people are buying new cars, that kind of thing. What I’m talking about is spending on such items that may be essential, but not producing increased wealth, could lead to inflation. That’s the risk. On the other hand, spending on something that increases productive capacity, like a dam with irrigation systems to supply increased food productivity and lower the cost of food, leaves people better off and wealthier overall. That’s what I was getting at: a productive capacity, rather than just consumption.

There is a reasonable amount of dollars investment in infrastructure at the moment, that’s increased quite a bit, both from the Commonwealth and the State Governments, so that sort of spending is absolutely happening. Again, I’m still not quite sure I would draw such a clean distinction. In the end, people consume what they want to consume and I’m not sure it’s up to us too much to tell them what’s good and bad about that, within reason.

Well, that’s a wonderful statement to hear coming into my ears now. I love that, but yeah, sorry?

I said, “I thought you’d like that.”

So what we’ve got, though, is an acknowledgement that there is money being spent on infrastructure. You’ve answered my question. I just personally believe, Chair, that we need to spend more on improving our productive capacity. Thank you very much. Again, Chair, I’d like to put on record that the Reserve Bank always answers quickly, succinctly and factually. So thank you. It’s really appreciated.

[Chair] Dr Debelle, you’ve got a fan there.

[Roberts] Yep. He has.

[Debelle] Thank you.

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Coal LSL – Caught Out

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After an independent report vindicated One Nation and casual coal miner’s accusations of unscrupulous malpractice, the pressure has been on the Coal Long Service Leave Scheme to give workers a fair go and on Government to clean up their agency. Coal LSL initially tried to refuse coming to Senate Estimates and over the course of many more sessions repeatedly denied anything was wrong. We now know that was a lie.

Transcript

Chair.

Okay, thank you. I will go to Senator Roberts.

Thank you chair, and thank you for attending again. And, my first question is going to the to the minister, and I note that the KPMG review of Coal LSL report came out today.

Yes.

I haven’t seen it, but it came out.

Yes, it’s out.

So we’re looking forward to reading that. Thank you very much for arranging that.

Thank you for working so constructively with government on it.

Well, it’s a big concern as you know, for us, the coal miners in Queensland and New South Wales. Now, I note that KPMG was engaged to undertake the review of Coal LSL, in relation to the underpayment and abuse of casual coal miners. KPMG has also conducted the audit of Coal LSL. Doesn’t that create a conflict of interest? And what did you do to manage this conflict? Because the audit could have influenced the review and the review could have influenced the audit.

Look, I don’t regard that as giving rise to a conflict of interest. There was no direct financial interest for KPMG to do anything other than act consistently, with its duties as an independent examiner there.

Senator, I’m aware there was an audit,

and commissioned by the corporations, it’s conducted by PWC.

During procurement processor. When we selected an independent review and a KPMG, we looked at any consultant and at the time with engaged to buy. The corporations may causing a perception of a conflict interest, we have exclude them. So at the time we engaged KPMG and the KPMG wasn’t working with the collective corporations or any other projects, but Miss Pearl Kumar may have given updates on. Are they been engaging KPMG on the consult?

You welcome, thank Senator. Thank you, Senator.

I can confirm that KPMG has not been engaged by Coal LSL to conduct any work. They’ve not been involved in our internal audit programmes. They’re not engaged by the ANAO to do our external audit. So, from, yeah, I think we’re confident to say that any conflict of interest certainly wouldn’t exist with KPMG conducting that work on us.

Now I’m going to leave out my second question because the report may, the review report may address that. So I’ll just go straight to my third. When will Coal LSL fix its broken system that disadvantages coal miners, casual coal miners everywhere? And when would you remove the biassed and conflicted members from the board, so workers get a fair go? I’m talking here specifically about what I see and what we’ve talked about for a long time now. The conflicts of interest with having significant, well 50/50 minerals council in New South Wales and CFMEU from New South Wales involved. When will that be addressed?

Senator Roberts, without wanting to spoil your reading, because you know, spoiler alerts are sometimes needed on these things. One of the recommendations in the report is that there’d be independent directors added to the board and the expectation that that would assist with dealing with the problem you raise.

Okay. Thank you. We’re pleased to hear that. Last question, Chair. The one key resources case where many casual coal miners missed out on their fair pay back pay conditions, seems to have been blatant phoenixing to us. Yet, this rip-off of workers was accepted by your government, the courts, labour and the CFMEU and Hunter Valley. More needs to be done to protect casual coal workers to get equal pay and entitlements and safety. One nation has proposed the equal pay for equal work bill to protect casual coal workers. What are you doing to make sure that this doesn’t happen again people have lost there.

The KPMG report and I’ll paraphrase somewhat here, acknowledges that there has been difficulties and confusion associated with a lack of clarity on what constitutes a black coal worker and also the changing environment and timetables on which people work. It plans out our ways in which that can be dealt with so that we don’t face that problem in future. It also provides some good recommendations for how to resolve those concerns as they have arisen in the past. I’m optimistic that as we implement the government’s response to those recommendations, we will have that in a more satisfactory place for everyone involved.

Because this is affecting tens of thousands of families who are significantly underpaid compared with permanent workers doing the same job. But it’s just one of a suite of issues. This is just, it’s very important to coal miners. And we’ve been relentless in this, and we’re pleased to see what you’re doing, but it’s a one tiny aspect of the bigger picture, which we can.

Look, I share your sincere concern for making sure that this works for everybody. And that’s why I’m really optimistic that what’s come to us through the KPMG report, and all the recommendations to government have been accepted, in, you know one form or another. And I’m really pleased to say that we’ll be working to do what’s necessary to make all of that much more functional for the future.

I look forward to reading the report and thank you chair.

Thank you, Senator Roberts.

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