That the following matters be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 8 October 2003:

(a) the adequacy and appropriateness of the framework for employment and management of staff under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 (the MoPS Act);

(b) the role and functions of MoPS staff in assisting and advising their employers and interacting with the Australian Public Service and other stakeholder groups;

(c) the remuneration and conditions of employment of MoPS staff;

(d) the means by which MoPS staff are accountable to government, the Parliament and the public;

(e) suitable means by which the accountability of MoPS staff could be enhanced;

(f) the merits of introducing a code of conduct for MoPS staff reflecting the Values and Code of Conduct of the Public Service Act 1999, the key elements such a code should contain and the process by which such a code should be developed and introduced;

(g) suitable means by which the accountability of the Government for the employment of MoPS staff can be enhanced;

(h) the role of departmental liaison officers and their interaction with MoPS staff and departments; and

(i) appropriate amendments to the MoPS Act flowing from the above.

That the Senate—

(a) condemns the Prime Minister's re-writing of history, that bulk billing was never intended to be available to all Australians irrespective of their income;

(b) condemns the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) for seeking to make Medicare a second-class safety net for the poor rather than a guarantee of quality health care for all Australians irrespective of their ability to pay; and

(c) calls on the Government to urgently address the dramatically declining rates of bulk billing for all Australians as its highest health priority.

That the Senate—

(a) notes the Human Rights Watch report, from December 2002 regarding the use of cluster bombs, which described these munitions used by both British and American forces as `fundamentally flawed';

(b) recognises that by February 1993 unexploded bomblets had killed 1 600 Kuwaiti and Iraqi civilians and injured 2 500, sixty per cent of which victims were under 15 years of age;

(c) notes:

(i) that a leaked British Ministry of Defence report estimated that 60 per cent of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force during the Kosovo war missed their intended targets or were unaccounted for,

(ii) the provisions of the protocol additional to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol 1) of 8 June 1977, to which Australia is a state party, in which Article 51 forbids indiscriminate methods and means of attack,

(iii) that unexploded cluster bomblets are indiscriminate and cluster bomblets cause higher rates of live `duds' than other explosive munitions, and

(iv) that Article 35(2) of Protocol 1 additional to the Geneva Convention states, `It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering';

(d) accepts the status of these munitions as being as unacceptably dangerous to the safety of civilians as the use of anti-personnel landmines, which are banned under the Ottowa Convention;

(e) therefore, endorses the European Parliament's call for the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) State Parties to declare an immediate moratorium until an international agreement has been negotiated on regulation or restriction or ban on the use, production, and transfer of cluster munitions under the CCW, including air-dropped cluster munitions and submunitions delivered by missiles, rockets and artillery projectiles; and

(f) calls on the Government to guarantee that Australian forces will not use, or be involved in the use of, these cruel and indiscriminate weapons.