Senator McKIERNAN (6:07 PM) —I welcome the response to this report—and not only for the reason that the response has been lodged. The report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration into the working holiday makers scheme, entitled Working holiday makers: more than tourists , was presented to the parliament in August 1997. Here we are in September 1999, two years and one month later, and we get a response to the report—a report on a matter that the minister himself initiated that there should be inquiry into. There is a convention around the place, which I know is not rigidly adhered to, that the government respond to committee reports within three months. Nobody in the chamber expects that that will be adhered to on a rigid basis, but I think that having to wait two years and one month for a response is perhaps an indication that things could be done better than has been the case on this particular occasion.

The working holiday makers scheme, as the committee identified, is a very important element of Australia's tourism program. It is also of great importance to various sections of industry that depend on these people from time to time to fill holes in their labour market programs. The government response to the report is welcome, but in itself it is not enough. We are awaiting the report of Mr Noel Hicks. Mr Hicks has been commissioned by the government to look into other elements of what I believe to be part of the working holiday makers program; that is, those elements dealing with transient workers in the agricultural industry—the fruit picking industry. Mr Hicks has been commissioned to do some research and present the minister with a report. Unfortunately, we have no details of whom Mr Hicks has spoken to, where he has travelled and whom he has received submissions from. We are not even sure that the report by Mr Hicks will see the light of day.

I think it is very unfortunate that so many things are now being done in secret by the government. I do not think this leads to good policy development. I was of the opinion that a different body, perhaps even the Joint Standing Committee on Migration, could have undertaken the task that Mr Hicks has been engaged to undertake. Indeed, if the committee had undertaken that task, it would have been conducted in public. The community right across Australia would have been invited to participate in it. I have no knowledge whatsoever of Mr Hicks having any involvement with those involved in Western Australia in that very important element of the program. Anyway, that is an aside from the government response to the report.

The committee worked long and hard in developing the 41 recommendations in the report, which were put to the minister. I am pleased to note that the majority of the recommendations have been accepted by the government. While they have been accepted, however, not all of them have been accepted in full. But it is pleasing to see that the government is at least taking some interest in what the committee put forward to it. That some recommendations have not been accepted is also quite appropriate because, in developing the recommendations that we put to the government, we endeavoured to engage it in the thought processes of more policy development in this area. There were other recommendations which the government did not accept and, as I say, that is part of the policy development area as well, which is quite acceptable to us.

Another area which also probably deserves a mention is the work being commissioned by the minister in appointing the chair of the committee, the member for Hindmarsh, Mrs Chris Gallus, to chair a working group. The working group will oversight the progress and implementation of the harvest trail. Again, this is being done by Mrs Gallus, it is a working group of the government and there is no involvement of the parliament, as such, in its work. I am sure that Mrs Gallus will do a very thorough job of it, but it is a task that probably could have been undertaken by the committee as a whole. Others in the parliament would then be able to have an input into the work that is being done. I would hope that, when that report and Mr Hicks's report are completed and presented to the minister, they will be made public—or, at least, presented to the parliament in order that they can be made public—so that others who have a big interest in this area will be able to give some scrutiny to the work that was undertaken and to any recommendations that may develop from that work.