Dr SOUTHCOTT(11.31 a.m.) —In speaking to this omnibus bill, the Foreign Affairs and Trade Legislation Amendment Bill 1997, I am going to deal with each of the amendments as there is no overall theme which governs the bill.

The first amendment is the amendment to the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act 1994. The background to that act is that Australia signed the chemical weapons convention on 13 January 1993, ratified it in May 1994 and subsequently passed the act. In the original drafting of the act there was no provision made for observers from a challenge country to be granted diplomatic immunity and privileges when they were visiting a country. The amendment is to govern a situation where a challenge country may determine that a country is producing more than threshold amounts of certain chemicals and may request access to visit the facilities which are producing those chemicals.

It would be extremely unlikely that Australia would ever be challenged under the chemical weapons convention. It would be extremely unlikely that there would be an inspection team that would come to Australia to investigate a breach of the chemical weapons convention. Nevertheless, this amendment will extend the privileges and immunities to the observers from the challenging country.

The main part of the bill amends the International Organizations (Privileges and Immunities) Act 1963. It deals with an act that is 34 years old and there are a number of amendments made. The amendments to that act will tighten the definition of an international organisation for the purpose of defining privileges and immunities. Generally, the privileges and immunities will extend to representatives of an international organisation who are involved in their official capacity.

It will also allow for representatives of international organisations to be subject to ordinary Australian law—criminal and civil law, property law—and to be able to own property and so on. That means Australia will only be granting the privileges and immunities which are required by international law. The amendment is necessary to keep pace with the increasing number of international organisations. It also allows for things like sales tax exemptions for international organisations which are headquartered in Australia.

Another amendment allows the regulations regarding the international organisations to come into force when the actual treaty comes into force. It was necessary to amend the Acts Interpretation Act to deal with an anomaly there.

The amendment also gives effect to certain obligations. It will extend privileges and immunities to international law tribunals. As I have said before, it will provide sales tax exemptions for international organisations that are headquartered in Australia. At present there are only two, the Commission for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in Hobart and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna in Canberra. As a South Australian, I wonder why they did not headquarter that in Port Lincoln.

The sales tax exemptions will have a negligible financial impact. The one-off direct cost to revenue is likely to be about $5,000 to $10,000, and there will also be a net annual cost of $2,000 to $5,000. That will be more than outweighed by the revenue that would be gained from Australians gaining employment at the international organisations and the international organisations buying our goods and services. Again, the impact from any international organisation which does establish their headquarters in Australia in the future will be positive.

At this point I might just say something on Australia's role in international disarmament. It is worth noting that Australia has been a leading player in international disarmament in relation to weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons and also antipersonnel landmines. Last year the government was successful in concluding the comprehensive test ban treaty—in salvaging that treaty—and in September last year having it voted for overwhelmingly at the United Nations General Assembly. It is also worth noting the appointment of the Australians Dr John Gee, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Richard Butler, a former diplomat, to head up international bodies on disarmament.

In the area of antipersonnel landmines Australia has contributed to the campaign to end the use of landmines in warfare. In April 1996 Australia indicated it would support the global ban on the production, stockpiling, use and transfer of these weapons. It is worth noting that Australia does not manufacture landmines, and it does not export landmines. We still do have an existing stock of landmines, which are used for training and research. As many members would know, the Australian Defence Force has a number of units with expertise in the clearing of landmines, and that was especially visible in our peacekeeping operations in Cambodia.

Regarding weapons of mass proliferation, in September 1996 the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty was endorsed at the UN General Assembly, and the Canberra Commission, which was initiated by the previous Prime Minister, delivered its recommendations to the current government. Those recommendations, especially relating to the transparency of nuclear weapons and to delivery systems, have been sent to every government, and the Australian government has recommended that they consider those recommendations. It appears that they have had some effect, in that they were picked up by presidents Clinton and Yeltsin at the third START meeting in Helsinki this year.

Dealing with the amendment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act, Australia signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 1970. It was actually signed by the Gorton government. The act in 1987 gave effect to Australia's obligations under the non-proliferation treaty and gave effect to Australia's obligations under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It also dealt with things like setting up the ASO—the Australian Safeguards Office—and so on.

Since then, though, the lesson of the Gulf War has been that Iraq was able to have clandestine nuclear weapons which had not been detected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. One of the problems was that the declarations were not made when uranium and nuclear material for energy purposes was transferred to contribute to nuclear devices.

The IAEA has improved the safeguards and introduced a new protocol which is going to come into effect in Australia early next year. The practical effect of this will be that Lucas Heights is likely to be subject to increased international inspections. The uranium mines in Australia, and possibly Maralinga as well, are likely to be subject at least to declarations and perhaps international inspections. The Australian Safeguards Office has reported that the uranium mines and Lucas Heights have no objection to this international scrutiny and the stricter regime that will follow it.

The last amendment is an amendment to the Passports Act to expand the area dealing with the making of false statements in relation to passport applications. It adds the concept of recklessness in terms of people making false statements. As I said before, this omnibus bill is mainly a technical bill dealing with amending certain pieces of legislation. It really just tidies up some areas that were overlooked in the previous acts. I commend the bill to the House.