2013-08-27
STATEMENT BY CLERK
Absence of Speaker
Absence of Speaker
Mr CLERK: Honourable members, I advise that in the absence of the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker will perform the duties of the Speaker.
Mr Deputy Speaker Higgins took the Chair at 10 am.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Sanderson
Member for Sanderson
Mr ELFERINK (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave of absence today for the member for Sanderson on account of illness. During Question Time, questions normally directed to the Minister for Infrastructure are to be directed to the Chief Minister.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Barkly
Member for Barkly
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek leave of absence for today, tomorrow, and Thursday for the member for Barkly on account of electorate business.
VISITORS
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Honourable members, I advise of the presence in the gallery of Year 10 students from Casuarina Senior College. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors. I hope you enjoy your visit to Parliament House.
Members: Hear, hear!
STATEMENT BY DEPUTY SPEAKER
Absence of Speaker
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also advise members that with the Speaker away today I will try to uphold the same level of ruling she has used.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Sanderson
Member for Sanderson
Mr ELFERINK (Leader of Government Business): A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Prior to Question Time two motions were introduced to the House which were not put to the House in the form of a question. Therefore, for the sake of completeness, I move that a leave of absence be granted today to the member for Sanderson on account of illness. The member for Sanderson has been taken unwell. He is seeing a doctor this morning. Of course, all honourable members would hope for a quick and speedy recovery for the member for Sanderson.
Members: Hear, hear!
Leave granted.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Barkly
Member for Barkly
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move, for completeness, that leave for today, tomorrow and Thursday be granted to the member for Barkly on account of electorate business.
Mr ELFERINK (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, the primacy of the parliament in terms of our duty to the people of the Northern Territory and of our electorates means we need to have a pretty good reason to be away from the parliament. Electorate business if something we are all required to do, and all manage to do regularly, in between the sittings of parliament.
We have just witnessed a motion in this House in which the opposition attempted to bring down a minister by way of censure motion, but their own deputy leader, a former school teacher, could not bother to turn up for that because he is doing electorate business. What electorate business is the next question.
The member for Barkly comes from a large bush electorate, and I would be mortified to discover he is seeking to absent himself from this House with a view to going into his electorate and working the booths on the part of the Australian Labor Party. If he is, it is clearly not something this House could countenance his absence for. He has been elected by the people of Barkly to represent them, not only in the seat of Barkly, but their interests in this House.
What we saw this morning was a farcical attempt to bring down a minister, for which the member for Barkly could not bother to turn up. I understand the member for Greatorex, from memory, took three days off for the birth of his child. I can understand that. The fact is that the member for Barkly cannot bother to turn up to a sitting of this parliament.
The only reason the member for Sanderson is not here is because he is unwell. The Speaker has the leave of this House because she is unwell. If the member for Barkly is not capable of turning up to work, then we should not excuse him.
I remind honourable members that the Northern Territory (Self-Government) Act requires that every member should turn up at least one day in three. If this House does not give this leave - and I do not believe it should - for electorate business, then the member for Barkly should be asked to turn up to work.
Territorians may be surprised to discover the minimum amount of work a member of parliament has to do to satisfy the legal requirements is, essentially, 12 minutes a year. We have to turn up one day in three, and turning up, for people who are unfamiliar with this rule, means you walk into the parliament and you walk out of the parliament. Let us say you spend a minute here. We have to be here for 12 minutes a year, yet the member for Barkly is seeking leave from this House to do electorate business. He cannot even meet the 12-minute a year benchmark.
Mr Deputy Speaker, this motion is not supported by the government.
Ms LAWRIE (Opposition leader): Mr Deputy Speaker, this really shows the extreme arrogance of this government. For them to presume to determine what is a priority for opposition, what is a priority for another member of parliament not within their ranks, is arrogance in the extreme. I could understand some of the chest beating of the member for Port Darwin if there was any legislation to debate. There is not. It is unheard of in this Chamber to go a week in parliament with no legislation to debate.
If the member for Barkly, quite reasonably, wants to be with his constituents as they gather through that remote electorate - and they can perform on the opposite side because they know they are on uncomfortable ground in using their numbers; it is numbers, not a moral right. A crunching of the numbers is occurring here this morning. It is not your right to determine, on behalf of the opposition, its priority.
As members in the electorate of Barkly gather, as constituents gather, it is an opportunity for our member for Barkly to be with them, to see them, to talk to them and explain the importance of the election, because people in the Barkly have seen governments come and governments go. However, what they often get is the consequence of the decisions of those governments, decisions such as the intervention, for example. They might want to know what Tina MacFarlane will be standing for as the CLP candidate for Lingiari. They might want to know what Warren Snowdon, the Labor candidate for Lingiari, will deliver for them on top of the important allied health services he has already delivered.
Quite reasonably and rightly, the member for Barkly has said that with no legislation before this House, unheard of in this House since self-government, there is nothing to warrant a vote cast, a number in opposition.
In contribution to debate, we are a team. Just as if someone was ill, someone on this side of the House would replace them and speak on their shadow portfolio responsibilities, and I will be doing that today. The member for Barkly would normally have spoken on the infrastructure statement. The member for Sanderson is not here to give his statement because he is ill, so I believe the member for Fong Lim will be giving that statement for him, reasonably so. Just as reasonably so, I will be speaking on behalf of my colleague on the infrastructure statement.
These are policy debates, not passages of legislation. It is a mock importance you attach because it is, at the end of the day, government crunching the numbers in this debate. You will prevail on the numbers, but you are setting a precedence of extreme arrogance. It is not for the government to decide what is important in the priorities of a member of the opposition. It is for the opposition to decide, and therein lies the rub.
It is the arrogance with which you go about your business that has the community condemning your government.
Mr GILES: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Is the Leader of the Opposition suggesting all bush members in remote polling have the week off? Members for Namatjira, Arafura, Stuart, Daly, Arnhem, just take the time off. They do not believe in parliamentary process. Is she suggesting …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! There is no point of order.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not see that as a point of order, Chief Minister.
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Visitors
Visitors
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before you continue, Leader of the Opposition. Honourable members, I advise of the presence in the gallery of Years 5 and 6 from Holy Family Catholic Primary School accompanied by their teacher, Julie Andrew. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors and hope you enjoy your visit to Parliament House.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Ms LAWRIE: Mr Deputy Speaker, a very warm welcome to the students at Holy Family School, my local school which I visit frequently. I have enjoyed seeing these students at Holy Family school. Welcome to Parliament House.
We are debating a motion that is never debated in this House. What we have found in this term of government of the CLP is an arrogance we have not encountered previously. It is extreme arrogance. We are starting to debate motions that are never debated. It is accepted that members take leave of this House. The opposition and l believe electorate business is absolutely acceptable.
Those who understand the electorate of Barkly understand how vast it is. The opportunity for the member for Barkly to see his constituents as they gather for mobile polling is an exceptional opportunity. It saves, ultimately, taxpayers’ money to travel around the electorate. The member for Barkly travels a great deal; he is a totally engaged local member.
Ms Walker: But he does not run up a bill of $20 000 on fuel.
Ms LAWRIE: You are right, member for Nhulunbuy; he does it without running up a $20 000 fuel bill as the member for Arnhem has. He is an extremely dedicated member of parliament; he is dedicated to the business of this House and the business of parliament. He does his job in spades.
What is he missing by not being here? To listen to the ramblings of the government when they do not want to answer questions in Question Time. The minister did not answer those questions this morning. He did his best to deflect but, at the end of the day, the public will judge him because he is cutting teachers from our schools. What else would he have listened to today? He would listen to the member for Port Darwin talk about the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. We have no issue with that, but it is hardly a show stopper for the constituents of Barkly, I have to point out.
Regarding infrastructure, the member for Barkly is on the record countless times regarding infrastructure; everything contained in your Infrastructure statement he has already spoken to on numerous occasions. In your infrastructure statement there is nothing new. Your commitments you talk about are all Labor projects.
Without legislation to debate - legislation that is ultimately crunched on the numbers of government – pray tell, how is this more important to the member for Barkly than meeting his constituents as they gather across that vast electorate of his for the polling?
Yes, it is an opportunity for the member for Barkly to engage with his constituents, which he has taken up wholeheartedly. It is true, government could use its numbers to crunch and vote against a motion that has never been voted on and defeated previously in the Legislative Assembly.
We are seeing new levels of arrogance and controlling behaviour from this government, but that is the way they behave. Ultimately, they can continue to crunch and put the motion. It is a shame. The government needs to pause and take breath. They get a rush of blood to their heads, they get to puff out their chests, they get to say, ‘We can crunch these numbers, and condemn, and direct that this shall occur’.
At the end of the day, you are denying the people of the Barkly an opportunity to be with their duly elected member of parliament during a week when there is no legislation to debate. Through your own folly and chaos, there is no legislation to debate.
Anyone will have a subjective view on the relative merits of why a member is here or not. Illness is accepted. A newly elected member spending two weeks in London I would not mark up as something that would take precedence over estimates, but the government did. The government chose to give leave to the member for Daly to disappear for two weeks and not be at estimates.
We did not have the arrogance to say, ‘Well, that does not meet our measure of why you would be away’, and move motions against him. You do your business and decide your priorities. That is what you want. We will do our business and decide our priorities. You can, and do have the numbers to crunch, but pause, because every precedent you set in this term of government is a precedent in the way this Chamber does business. Do we take this matter to a debate on standing orders about whether or not leave is dealt with in this fashion, because a rush of blood to the head of the member for Port Darwin, supported by the Chief Minister, prevails? Or do you understand that the conventions of this parliament should stand? Do you understand that the convention that leave is granted should stand? You are being too arrogant in this behaviour.
Ultimately, the public tests whether we are okay with what we choose as priorities or not, just as the public will determine whether an increase to the education budget is okay and then turn around and cut teachers to our senior schools, middle schools and some of our primary schools. The public will determine whether that is a true test of appropriate behaviour for the Education minister.
You can reject the censure on a spurious notion that nothing can happen in this Chamber unless the member for Barkly is present, or you could choose to accept that this is a House of debate and debate continues.
Mr Elferink: Then turn up for work.
Ms LAWRIE: I pick up on the interjection, ‘Then turn up for work’. Member for Port Darwin, if dealing with your constituents in your own electorate is not work, then what is? It is hugely important that each of us ensures we are in touch with the views of our constituents. To ensure, on every occasion that presents itself, we attend where they are attending. The reality of the vast bush electorates are that mobile polling is such an opportunity, and the member for Barkly has turned up for work. He is working right now in his electorate. It is only the government which says, ‘Oh, but he has to be in this Chamber for it to meet a test of work’. Then you say, ‘Oh, but if you meet the 12 minutes a week rule …
A member: That is a year.
Ms LAWRIE: … if you are in here for 12 minutes an hour then that is okay, or 12 minutes a year, I pick up on the interjection. That might work if you are the member for Port Darwin, but if you are the member for Barkly, without air links to Darwin, living hundreds of kilometres away, then clearly 12 minutes a year is not going to be a practical reality.
You can crunch the numbers, and puff out your chests; you can be condemning in your arrogance. It is extreme arrogance for someone in government to determine the priorities of an opposition member; it is extraordinary.
Mr Elferink: The Self-Government Act determines the priorities. The voters determine the priorities.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: Member for Port Darwin, you will have your chance to talk your psychobabble, for which you are renowned; however it is, at the moment, the call of the Opposition Leader to talk on behalf of my colleague, the member for Barkly, on a motion we should not be debating because it is never debated in this Chamber.
Mr Tollner: Because it has never happened before.
Ms LAWRIE: I pick up on the interjection. There have been occasions when members have gone to their electorates because of important business. If the member for Nhulunbuy chose to be in Nhulunbuy because there was something going on with gas to Gove - not a problem.
For the constituents gathering in areas of the member for Barkly’s electorate it is very important for him as a local member to be listening to them, engaged with them, in touch with them, and talking to them about the real and very present issues they confront in their lives. That is what a member for parliament should be doing, instead of sitting here watching the government crunch its numbers, talk on subjects that contain nothing new, such as the infrastructure statement - nothing new in there, no initiatives, they are all Labor projects - and having no legislation to debate.
If there had been important legislation to debate, say alcohol reforms, then the member for Barkly would be here because that is a number he wants to be counted in. However, there is no legislation before us from the government to debate ...
Mr Elferink: They have done nothing.
Ms LAWRIE: Member for Port Darwin, another rush of blood to your head, another spurious excuse as to why you would not take a censure on education and the fact you are cutting teachers from our schools …
Mr Elferink: The most serious motion you can move in this House. It is more serious than a legislative motion, and your mate cannot turn up for it.
Ms LAWRIE: I pick up on the interjection. A no confidence motion on the government is the most serious motion. If you are going to do your psychobabble then at least get it right. You will be beating your chest, wasting our time, and you will be nowhere with this other than, of course, trying to pull the member for Barkly off the work he is doing across his electorate with his constituents. It is no big deal for us, because we anticipated, somewhat, your bizarre behaviour. We anticipated the extremes of this government. We witness it on a daily basis and the community witnesses it on a daily basis. You stand condemned in your community. The conversations had across the Northern Territory about this government are not conversations that hold you in good light. People are saying you are the worst government since self-government. Just this week, I heard the member for Namatjira said to Tony Abbott, ‘I got it wrong, I should have accepted your offer to be the candidate for Lingiari because they are truly bad …’
Bye, students of Holy Family. Nice to see you; see you at school.
People in the CLP are saying the member for Port Darwin is just a character they would rather not be dealing with on the occasions they are dealing with him. It is pretty bad. These are the things people are saying. I know people who are CLP to their boot heels, and they are appalled at the behaviour of this CLP government. You can crunch your numbers; the numbers prevail, but the argument does not prevail or stack up. Your behaviour is arrogant in the extreme.
If the member for Barkly attaches enormous importance, as he should, to being with his constituents as they gather, then that is a great thing, and all power and support to him from this side. You crunch your numbers in a week where there is no legislation to debate. That is arrogance, and that precedent will sit on the books.
Mr TOLLNER (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Deputy Speaker, from the outset, the Opposition Leader’s defence of the member for Barkly was delusional, talking about arrogance on this side. The arrogance is taking the parliament for granted. That is the height of arrogance. We saw the height of arrogance last week when the member for Karama, the Opposition Leader ran a censure motion, then decided she could not hang around for it; she had to nip upstairs and eat the school kids’ morning tea rather than pay some respect to the parliament. Now she gets up with some lame excuse suggesting a federal election is a perfect time for the member for Barkly not to participate in the parliament.
I have a copy of standing orders, Mr Deputy Speaker, which I know you are familiar with. In the standing orders, on page 63 titled ‘Bills’, that is the legislation we debate, it goes all the way to page 73: 10 pages of the standing orders about debating legislation.
The rest of standing orders, of course, are what occurs other than debating legislation. The other 90% of the 104 pages is about what occurs in the parliament when we are not talking about legislation: very important things such as holding the government to account at Question Time, ministerial statements providing direction on where government is going, allowing for debate to occur on that direction, and a range of other things such as condolence motions and adjournment speeches.
This parliament sits for 30-odd days a year, which is hardly demanding as far as parliaments go. I believe the federal parliament sits approximately 120 days a year; for almost six months of the year every member - 150 members in the House of Representatives and 75 in the Senate - are in Canberra pretty well all the time. I do not see any of them calling for leave to go campaigning in a state election when the federal parliament is sitting.
For some reason, the Opposition Leader seems to believe it is okay and a legitimate use of a member’s time, when an election campaign is on, for the member to campaign in the electorate of Barkly.
You have to ask why it is so important the member for Barkly is campaigning in a federal seat …
Ms Finocchiaro: Desperate!
Mr TOLLNER: Yes, member for Drysdale, he is desperate. They are desperate because they know Mr Snowdon is probably on the ropes and in the toughest electoral fight he has ever been in.
More to the point, if we look at the Australian Labor Party and the resources available to the Australian Labor Party, in 11 years of government they had an entire 5th floor of people who they were more than happy to push out into polling booths and use as foot soldiers in any election campaign. If there was a federal election all efforts would be made to resource the federal election from the Territory government’s side of things.
We saw how they spent more than $1m of taxpayer’s money in the Northern Territory trying to oppose the nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station, to no avail, of course. Kiss more than $1m goodbye and, goodness me, now they support it.
The member for Barkly is out there as we speak, and I would hazard a guess he has his four-wheel drive loaded up with posters and other campaign paraphernalia and propaganda, along with the mandatory how-to-vote cards. I would also hazard a guess he probably has one or two helpers in his taxpayer-funded vehicle carting them out to mobile polling sites as well.
I have to recall, to pinch myself, that we are the ones who are arrogant; we are the ones who are somehow using parliament. How bizarre of the Leader of the Opposition to suggest we are arrogant. The member for Barkly seems to believe it is his right to nick off from the parliament, not represent his electorate in this parliament - the most important forum. I suggest he has to be in …
Mr Elferink: Primacy of the House.
Mr TOLLNER: Primacy of the House, as the Leader of Government Business keeps saying, and he is dead right. The primacy of the House is number one. Really, the only duty a member of parliament has, in a formal sense, is to be in the parliament when it is sitting. Of course, there are occasions when someone is diabolically ill, or there is a personal tragedy or emergency, when people will not be available, but they are rare.
The member for Karama, the Opposition Leader, seems to suggest that a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegate should not be allowed to go. These decisions have been made over the years and we see it as important for the Northern Territory to be represented in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. That goes way back to self-government; it is no precedent for members to represent the Northern Territory in that forum.
However, there is a precedent being set today if we allow the member for Barkly to nick off and go electioneering in a federal election campaign. This is bizarre.
It also should be recalled that the member for Barkly has some form in this area. As the Opposition Leader put it, the arrogance in your position that you can just drop everything and go campaigning, is not new for the member for Barkly. It might surprise members that when he ran his first campaign he did so whilst he was on sick leave from his teaching job in the Education department. He took six months’ sick leave to go campaigning for his Territory seat. It seems to be okay in the mind of the member for Barkly that you can just nick off from your job, claim sick leave, and go campaigning.
It is the same twisted view displayed today, that he does not actually have to be in the parliament if there is something more important like having to back up his mate, Warren Snowdon, who looks like he could well be in some trouble. The member for Barkly seems to think, ‘If I load up my taxpayer-funded four-wheel drive with posters and campaign workers and the mandatory how-to-vote cards, I can help my mate, Warren, get over the line’.
Why you would want to do that is beyond me. Warren has never stood up for the Northern Territory; he has never done anything for the Northern Territory. In fact, he has been a handbrake on development and growth in the Northern Territory. Goodness me, the guy would have to be the worst representative any electorate could possibly hope for across the country.
It was interesting in the debate we just had on education in Question Time - you listen to the other side and they are all wonderful and great when it comes to education; all we seem to want to do is cut things out of education. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, Kevin Rudd, with his Gonski so-called reforms, demanded that we put in a great deal of money and he would put in a little, and as part of our reward for that Canberra would take over the management of education in this country. We would lose any autonomy or say we had in the Northern Territory about how Territory kids are taught, which probably goes against the principles of Federation and the idea that local people should be responsible for local decision-making.
The Gonski school reforms would have meant – the member for Fannie Bay might be interested in hearing this – Alawa Primary School would have lost more than $8m over the forward estimates in funding; Anula Primary School would have lost $10.3m over the forward estimates; Darwin High, $13m over the forward estimates; Ludmilla Primary School, in my electorate, $7.5m over the forward estimates; Moil Primary School almost $9m disappearing through the forward estimates; and Nightcliff Middle School minus $3.3m over the forward estimates.
This is interesting, Nhulunbuy would lose $1.7m over the forward estimates, and here we have the member for Nhulunbuy supporting the Gonski reforms. The one and only high school in her electorate would lose $1.7m over the forward estimates. It is bizarre that the local member would argue for that.
Palmerston Senior College would lose almost $12m from its budget over the forward estimates; Taminmin College at Humpty Doo, $15m less over the forward estimates; Woodroffe Primary School, $5.3m less. I could keep going - the list is long – Rosebery, almost $4m, Bradshaw Primary School, $6m. There are some big numbers here, but this is what the other team is arguing for. It is also what they are arguing for in relation to the Fringe Benefits Tax. They support Kevin Rudd in his madness. Not one member has spoken out about their harsh cuts in relation to Fringe Benefits Tax on motor vehicles, particularly when those most affected are charities, low-income workers and people who work for NGOs and governments.
For the last two weeks, all we have heard about is their support for public servants. Here we have something concrete where we can see that public servants are being dudded, and what does the opposition say about it? Nothing, they are not here to talk about it. The member for Barkly cannot even turn up. He does not believe that is important enough to talk about. He should be here talking about his electorate. He is a former chalkie, he should be talking about chalkies and the loss of their entitlements in relation to motor vehicles, because those changes hit low income earners, teachers, nurses, and the like, hardest. They are the ones who are forced to suffer.
We know about legislation. The opposition say, ‘Oh, we are not debating any legislation’. Well, hello! The opposition has just as much right and obligation to come in here with some legislation. In the last 12 months, this Chamber has passed more than 40 pieces of legislation. A large amount of legislation has been passed in the last 12 months. You might ask how many of them have been private members bills or bills that have been sponsored by the opposition?
Mrs Lambley: Zero. None
Mr TOLLNER: Zero. The member for Araluen is correct, zero. Nothing has come through from the opposition in relation to any legislation or debate.
The only thing the opposition seems to be intent on is trying to save some of the furniture for Kevin Rudd. It would be interesting to hear the opposition make a statement about anything in relation to federal politics. I would like to know the Opposition Leader’s take on Nova Peris and her pre-selection - the fact that the Northern Territory branch of the Labor Party has no say in the pre-selection of candidates. Mr Snowdon did not have a pre-selection battle this time; he was automatically endorsed as a sitting member. No contest. And we all know where Nova Peris came from - nothing to do with the poorly run Northern Territory branch of the failed federal organisation called the Australian Labor Party.
It is appalling that you can demand a leave of absence because the member for Barkly is away on electorate business. I have never heard anyone say they are not attending parliament because of electorate business. That is a bizarre statement, because the most primary electorate business any member has is in parliament. That is the number one job of an elected member: to represent your electorate in parliament. That is the point. To say, ‘I am not doing that this week because my mate, Warren, is in some trouble in Lingiari. I am going to have to fuel up the tax-funded vehicle, get a few mates and throw a few posters, stickers and throwaways in there, and trot to some wayward outstation and demand people vote for us again.’
I do not see that as an important function compared to the function we have here. I would be stunned if all members of this Chamber, apart from the member for Nelson perhaps, were not at a polling booth somewhere come Saturday 7 September. That is on a Saturday and is part of what we are affiliated with as party political members. We sign up to a party, and we have an obligation to it. It certainly does not come at the expense of our electorates and the representation we provide our electorates in this place. This is the most important place for a member of parliament to be when they a representing their electorate. Nowhere else has priority over the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly when the parliament is sitting.
As one of my colleagues said to me this morning, you virtually have to have a doctor and a priest reading you your last rights before you have a legitimate excuse not to be here. We understand there are times when that is not required; however, to suggest you cannot attend sittings to go to mobile polling booths handing out how-to-vote cards for a failed federal member is beyond comprehension. And to suggest we are arrogant for demanding the member be here, again, defies logic.
What type of nonsense show is this opposition running? They seem to treat parliament as if it does not matter; it is something you turn up to, make up a heap of nonsense, throw it at the government, then walk out the door and forget all about it.
That is not the way it is. You say you want sensible debate. We have a certain point of view on this side. We put our ideas out after rigorous debate within our ranks, after looking at things from every which way and ensuring what we put forward is what we believe to be the best possible way forward. That is what we do. However, we expect and hope, if there are problems with it, someone would be there to point them out. That is what parliaments are about: vigorously debating issues and statements. We come in here, give statements about the direction we are taking, the priorities of government, and we expect some debate on that.
The member for Barkly holds a few shadow portfolios as well. He is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, for goodness sake! What kind of message does that send, for a start, to the rest of the opposition team when the deputy can just excuse himself because he wants to go campaigning for a failed member of the federal Labor Party? He is also the shadow minister for Regional Development. You would think for the member for Barkly, regional development would be wholly important and he would want to be here for every debate. He is also the shadow minister for Infrastructure and Construction. We have a debate happening today on just that topic. He is the shadow for Lands and Planning and Transport. Goodness me. If he wants to do something constructive, he might want to lobby his mate, Kevin, in Canberra, and get some money for roads in the Territory. That would be a constructive use of his time. It will not help lobbying Warren, because Warren has always failed in that area. Maybe he could go straight to the top, talk to Kev, and try to get a few dollars …
Ms WALKER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! In accordance with standing orders, the member well knows he must address members of parliament by their electorate names, so it is the member for Lingiari and the Prime Minister, not Kevin, not Warren.
Mrs LAMBLEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, I move an extension of time for the member to complete his remarks, pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Ms WALKER: My point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I ask you to remind the member of how he refers to other members.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could you refer to members by their seat names?
Mr TOLLNER: Yes, of course, thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It would pay the member for Nhulunbuy to do her homework because we refer to members in this place by their electorate names; in other places we have a right to refer to them how we like. I call them Kev and Wazza …
Ms WALKER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Quite clearly, the member for Fong Lim is flaunting the rules of this parliament. He is flaunting those rules associated with respect to how members in this House are referred to. That also includes a member of the federal parliament who is Prime Minister.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just check a ruling on that, please?
It is a convention that you refer to members of other parliaments by their title, such as the Chief Minister, but if I read out Standing Order 62(1):
- No Member shall use offensive or unbecoming words against the Assembly or any Member of the Assembly or against any House or Member of another Australian Parliament or against any member of the Judiciary, or against any Northern Territory statute unless for the purpose of moving for its repeal, nor shall a Member attribute directly or by innuendo to another Member unbecoming conduct or motives …
Mr TOLLNER: Thank you for clarifying that, Mr Deputy Speaker. When it comes to flouting or flaunting the rules of this House, none flouts or flaunts them more than the member for Barkly today by being absent from this place. Why? Because he wants to help his old mate, Wazza, the member for Lingiari.
Ms WALKER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! In accordance with your last ruling about offensive language, Standing Order 62(1), I find it offensive that he continues to refer to the member for Lingiari as Wazza, and therefore ask him to refer to the member by his electorate title.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Treasurer, could you refer to him either by his correct name or the member for Lingiari.
Mr TOLLNER: All right. He has a solar panel for a moustache or something like that, the member for Lingiari. The failed member for Lingiari who, after almost 20 years, has managed to deliver nothing for the people of Lingiari and who has seen living standards go backwards his entire time in the parliament, who has never seen a road built, and has never seen anything of any substance happen at all. In the 2004 term, I almost fell over when he said his biggest priority for that term was to get a Centrelink office in Wadeye. That was his one and only priority. He wanted to get more welfare into Indigenous communities. Good on the member for Lingiari. In my view, he is a failed member.
I hope the constituents of Lingiari also recognise that at this election and I hope, for goodness sake, the member for Barkly does not secure the member for Lingiari another term. That would probably be one of the worst things that could happen for the Northern Territory.
However, we are not debating the member for Lingiari. We are debating the member for Barkly, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who should be leading by example. Instead of leading by example, where is he? He is in Lingiari campaigning for the failed member for Lingiari in this federal election. This is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money, a complete flaunting of the rules of this parliament, and completely arrogant in its nature. He has a track record, having taken six months’ sick leave from his previous job as a teacher to go campaigning, and he sees nothing wrong with this.
The most alarming thing is the Opposition Leader sees nothing wrong with this. The Opposition Leader sees this as her own personal playpen where she can make the rules up as she goes along. That is not how it works. This is a place for serious debate. We expect members of parliament to turn up, unless they have a legitimate reason, and electorate business is the most legitimate reason for being here. As an elected member your most important role is to represent your electorate in this place, whether legislation is being debated, or simply the policy and direction of the government. That is the most fundamental requirement of any member of this place.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I wholly support voting against this motion because it is absolutely wrong to ever give anyone the impression it is okay to nick off from the parliament whilst parliament is sitting to go campaigning in an election that has nothing to do with this place.
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Visitors
Visitors
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Honourable members, I advise of the presence in the gallery of Years 5 and 6 from Rosebery Primary School accompanied by their teacher, Nicole Reeves. On behalf of honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors and I hope you enjoy your visit to Parliament House.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Mrs LAMBLEY (Health): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the leader of opposition business for leading us to the position not to vote in favour of the opposition’s attempt to do something unprecedented in this parliament. I have been involved in this parliament for three years and I have never come across anything like this before. It is unprecedented and it is outrageous. The opposition members have been caught out with their tails between their knees.
The member for Barkly has made this outrageous decision not to attend parliament with the rest of us, the other 24 members of parliament, so he can go campaigning for the failed Labor member for Lingiari.
We know they have been caught out because the expression of shock and horror on the face of the member for Fannie Bay when this decision to vote against their motion came about, said it all. ‘Oh my goodness, we have been caught out with our pants down around our ankles.’ It is very embarrassing for the opposition …
Ms Lawrie interjecting.
Mrs LAMBLEY: I can tell by the response from the Leader of the Opposition they are deeply embarrassed ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 62: offensive. She should try to contain herself. This is a parliament.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, you have the call.
Mrs LAMBLEY: The most offensive thing about the debate today is the Leader of the Opposition’s attempt to convince the people of the Northern Territory that the member for Barkly is carrying out electorate business by handing out how-to-vote cards throughout the electorate of Barkly; and we, as a society and community, should agree and endorse that. It is outrageous, unprecedented and, quite frankly, peculiar and bizarre.
I listened with great intent to the Leader of the Opposition, wishing to clarify exactly what she was saying. She did not exactly define what the member for Barkly was doing, so we have had to try to read between the lines Make no mistake, in trying to interpret what she said, it is clear to us the member for Barkly is spending his time over the next three days – when he should be in this parliament, campaigning – carrying out the work of the ALP in his electorate of Barkly supporting the election of a member of the ALP in this federal election.
I have to ask the people of the Northern Territory, is this okay? Is this how the members of parliament in the Northern Territory should be spending their time? Is it okay for the member for Barkly not to attend parliament over the next three days but, instead, use taxpayers’ funds to go electioneering, campaigning for the member for Linigari?
I will answer on behalf of the people I represent; it is not okay. It is outrageous, and it is not acceptable for him to use the time he should be in here, campaigning for the ALP. It is outrageous and unprecedented. It is completely indefensible.
The other thing I find indefensible is, reading between the lines, the Leader of the Opposition advocating that we could all be doing the same. We could all make that decision if we chose to - leave parliament and campaign for our respective political parties. I am certain she was advocating that. In trying to defend the indefensible behaviour of the member for Barkly, she was saying it is acceptable for us all to go campaigning …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! No, that is what the member for Port Darwin was saying.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, you have the call.
Mrs LAMBLEY: The Leader of the Opposition was definitely advocating that. She was saying his behaviour is okay. It is okay for him to spend the next three days travelling through the electorate of Barkly, campaigning for the failed federal member for Lingiari, and it would be okay for any of us to do so.
The Leader of the Opposition is saying we should close shop today and walk out of parliament because it is okay for us to spend the next three days campaigning. Coming to parliament, according to the Leader of the Opposition, is not a priority, it is a second choice, optional, the taxpayers of the Northern Territory really do not expect us to be in parliament and go about the important business we do for only 36 days per year; and the member for Barkly’s behaviour is completely acceptable.
We are not going to accept that. The government of the Northern Territory, the people on this side of the Chamber, find it inexcusable. It is outrageous. We do not accept any member of parliament should spend time campaigning for their political party when they should be in this House.
It is a minimum requirement that we come here for 36 days a year, and for the member for Barkly, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, to believe it is okay for him to go campaigning with the member for Lingiari over the next three days is totally unacceptable. I hope every Northern Territory resident hears this today. I hope it comes to their attention what the member for Barkly is up to, and what the opposition has tried to pull …
Ms WALKER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! As per your ruling earlier, could you ask her to cease the finger pointing?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, could you please cease the finger pointing? Thank you.
Mrs LAMBLEY: It is hilarious that the opposition comes up with these irrelevant points of order to deflect and distract, and to conceal their embarrassment. It is really quite pathetic.
The opposition is bringing the parliament into disrepute because they are saying to all Territorians, ‘We, the members of parliament, do not have to be here for the next three days. We can go campaigning. We can spend time in our electorates trying to get our respective federal candidates elected, and the business of parliament is secondary, a low priority.’ We do not accept that. This government will never accept laziness and that pathetic attitude to the business of government. This is top priority over the next three days.
I take the calling out from the other side of the Chamber as a sign they are ashamed because the Deputy Leader of the Opposition could not be bothered turning up because he is out campaigning. We will not accept it, and we will vote this down today.
Debate suspended.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Barkly
Member for Barkly
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr CONLAN (Central Australia): Mr Deputy Speaker, in speaking to this motion - where is the member for Nhulunbuy? I wonder if she is okay ...
Mr Vowles: You are not allowed to do that. Come on!
Mr CONLAN: I did not refer to her at all. I am looking around the Chamber. I wonder if she is okay. Lynne, are you okay? Fair dinkum, she was hysterical and has been like that for the last four or five days. I hope everything is okay. If anyone needs a day off, it might be the member for Nhulunbuy …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 62: offensive. The member is making personal, derogatory comments about the member for Nhulunbuy. Why does he not stick to the debate?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you have the call.
Mr CONLAN: It is heartfelt concern. Witnessing the behaviour of the member for Nhulunbuy in this Chamber over the last couple of days, last week and this week, it is grave concern for her, and the way she has behaved in this Chamber ...
Mr GUNNER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 113: relevance. We are not here to talk about the member for Nhulunbuy. We are having a different debate, and I ask you to direct the member for Greatorex to the debate we are having.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 113 relates to questions, not debates.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you have the call.
Mr CONLAN: Mr Deputy Speaker, I have made my point. There were a number of interjections from the member for Nhulunbuy, and a number of statements and comments coming from her part of this Chamber over the last seven or so days ...
Mr GUNNER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 67, we are digressing from the subject. I ask you to ask the member for Greatorex to come back to the point of what we were talking about, which is not the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! It is hardly possible to digress from a subject when he is three sentences into the subject.
Mr CONLAN: That is okay. The point has been made.
You talk about relevance - exactly right. If there is anyone who is less relevant, or more irrelevant, in this Chamber, it is the member for Nhulunbuy. Irrelevant 67 or 113, whatever it might be.
We have to call the member for Barkly out on this. What electorate business could the member for Barkly possibly be undertaking that is so important it removes him from this Chamber?
The Deputy Chief Minister, the member for Fong Lim, articulated it perfectly today when he suggested there is no more important electorate business than being in this Chamber representing your electorate. That is what you are here for. You notice he is addressed as the member for Barkly. That is how he is referred to in this Chamber. He is not referred to as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, or the shadow minister for whatever. He is referred to as the member for Barkly. By virtue of being the member for Barkly and being referred to as the member for Barkly, he is representing his constituents in this Chamber.
There are some occasions where some of us may be absent. I have been absent from this Chamber for three days in six years, and that was for the birth of my son in 2009. That is it! There have been a number of occasions when members have been absent from this Chamber due to illness or undertaking important government business, and in some cases, important opposition business. Apart from those, there really is no excuse for not being present for the mere 36 days you are required to be here.
To undertake so-called electorate business, which the Leader of the Opposition has admitted is electioneering for the Labor member for Lingiari, is appalling. I wonder whether it is a breach of his electorate entitlements. Is he using the electorate vehicle? I am sure it is a breach of the Remuneration Tribunal determinations to utilise government-funded, taxpayer-funded vehicles and entitlements to undertake any form of electioneering for a Territory or federal election in any state or territory jurisdiction. I wonder if he is in an electorate vehicle or has driven an electorate vehicle to the polling booth, where he is most likely standing now handing out how-to-vote cards for Warren Snowdon, the member for Lingiari.
A member: I expect he is driving back to Darwin.
Mr CONLAN: I hope he is driving back to Darwin, but I wonder how all this originated. Did he get into his electorate vehicle? Has he been using his government taxpayer-funded mobile phone, provided by the Legislative Assembly? Has he been using his photocopier, printer and telephone in his office, the land line? Has he been using his staff to electioneer for Warren Snowdon?
The member for Nhulunbuy was right when she said, ‘Look at the guy next to you’, when referring to the member for Araluen. ‘He cannot stand being here half the time.’ Sometimes I would prefer to be somewhere else, and I have said it. I sat on the other side of this Chamber for five years listening to your rubbish, listening to a government spiralling out of control and denying what they had been doing to the Northern Territory. All of a sudden, in the last 12 months, you realise law and order is out of control, housing prices are out of control – it has all just happened in the last 12 months.
We have been telling you for the last 10 years, and I have been on the other side of this Chamber for that last five years, listening to you in denial. Do you know where I would rather be now? I would rather be at home with my family. But there is an obligation that we will be here when, at times, I do not want to be away from my family.
Not very many people in this Chamber, particularly on the other side, understand what it is like to be a country member of parliament. There is a great deal of travel involved. When you are a minister, there is compounding travel with interstate or international engagements, let alone the enormous amount of time spent travelling to Darwin. Sometimes it gets too much, and you wonder: what am I doing here? I would much rather be at home spending time in my electorate with my constituents, with my family and friends, and with my children who I have not seen for a fortnight.
Mr Elferink: We have not been able to get the member for Barkly into his electorate for ages; now, all of a sudden, he has found it.
Mr CONLAN: Good point. However, the member for Barkly is also a country member of parliament, who was also a minister of the Crown, who spent an enormous amount of time in his working life out of his electorate, away from his family and friends, and I concede it is very difficult.
However, there is a duty and obligation that we turn up for the 36 days we are required to be here unless you are ill, as is the member for Sanderson, and the member for Goyder, the Speaker; or undertaking government business, which is the case for a number of us on occasion. I have some government business between now and the end of the year which will clash with sittings, so I will be required to seek a leave of absence. It is perfectly appropriate that those who need to undertake government business, from a ministerial level, are able to do so.
Also from the opposition side, I remember five years in opposition, listening to you guys. There are a number of engagements that opposition needs to be part of. If you are to formulate policy with your fellow jurisdictions, you often need to be away on shadow ministerial meetings, shadow budget meetings, whatever they might be. It is appropriate that you do that, because it is business you undertake in the course of your duty as a member of this parliament, a member of the opposition, and a member of the shadow ministry; so that is fine. You will not hear us crowing about that, but to suggest it is perfectly legitimate for the member for Barkly to take three days off to electioneer for the member for Lingiari is appalling. I cannot believe the Leader of the Opposition defended it and believes it is perfectly appropriate and acceptable. The excuse is that there is no legislation. We have no legislation, so what is the point in being here?
The core business of parliament is to pass laws of the Northern Territory, but that is not the only business. A great deal of other business takes place in this Chamber, and we spend a mere 36 days doing it. The member for Fong Lim alluded to the fact we have passed more than 40 bills in this House since we came into government on 25 August. The first sittings were in October 2012, less than 12 months ago. I do not know what the average is. Is it a bill a week?
Mr Elferink: It is more than that; it is one a day.
Mr CONLAN: More than one bill a day. That is pretty good going, and we had a hefty session at the end of estimates where we were here until 3 am passing some crucial, ground-breaking legislation that needed to be in play by 1 July.
There is no legislation to be passed at these sittings, but there is legislation to be introduced and there are a number of statements outlining government’s policy and direction that have been, and will be, introduced on a daily basis as we continue towards the end of these August sittings.
To suggest campaigning and electioneering for Warren Snowdon, the member for Lingiari, is more important than conducting business in this Chamber is wrong, and it should be condemned. The member for Barkly should get in his car, drive to Alice Springs, board the 5.15 pm flight this afternoon, be here at 7 pm, and walk back into this Chamber. If this Chamber is not sitting at 7.30 pm or 8 pm, then he arrives first thing tomorrow morning at 10 am for Question Time.
I urge all members of parliament to support a motion that brings the member for Barkly back to this House, because the reason for which he has sought leave of absence is unacceptable. Supporting the member for Lingiari using a taxpayer-funded vehicle, telephone, office, and fuel card is unacceptable.
I bet London to a brick none of this is done on his own money; I bet the Labor Party is not paying for this, and I bet Warren Snowdon’s campaign team is not paying for this privilege. The Territory taxpayer is paying not only for the vehicle and phone entitlements, but for the absence of the member for Barkly today. It is unacceptable.
He is the shadow minister for Central Australia, and the shadow minister for Arts, two areas which relate to my portfolios - areas in the Arts and Museums portfolio and the portfolio for Central Australia, of which he is a community member - which I thought would be two critical areas. He says the Arts are very dear to him. Until today, I believed him. He said Central Australia is very dear to him. Until today, I believed him. I do not believe him any more.
If he cannot be here to ask a question or allude to, in debate, some issues or concerns he has about the arts community or Central Australia because he would rather be campaigning for the member for Lingiari, seeking a leave of absence for no good reason except that it is considered electorate business then, I am sorry, member for Barkly, your argument has turned to water, and your passion in the two areas I have just alluded to holds no credibility with me any longer.
You can bleat, pound your chest, and accuse us of everything under the sun, which I know you do. You love to diminish other people, that is your line of attack when things are not going the right way; you get personal. That is the way you conduct business in the Chamber. I have seen you do it over the last five years.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I condemn the member for Barkly. His absence is appalling. I do not know what example it is setting. It diminishes this House, it diminishes the purpose of this Chamber, and it diminishes all the hard work everyone else has done, all the effort everyone else has made to be here. Not all of us want to be here, as I said. Sometimes it is inconvenient to be here, sometimes it is hard work saying goodbye to your family for two weeks. It is hard work, but we all make that effort and sacrifice, especially those of us who live outside the greater Darwin area, and there are a number of us on this side, not too many on the other side - one lives outside the greater Darwin area.
Mrs Lambley: Two.
Mr CONLAN: Two. We all make that sacrifice and most of us have children and families, friends, constituents and electorates that need our attention. However, we ensure we prioritise, and unless it is government business, or opposition business - which does not include electioneering for Labor candidates – illness, personal reasons, they are all acceptable - we will be here for the 36 days required. I am amazed. I sat over there for a number of years, and that is why I referred to the member for Nhulunbuy and her comments about how I have not enjoyed being in this Chamber all the time. I have made that point. We all like it, but not on all occasions; it is not for everyone, every day, but we make the effort and commit to it. Sadly, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition today has failed that commitment to the people of the Northern Territory and, importantly, his own electorate.
Mr GUNNER (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a spurious debate and a cheap excuse to gag an important debate about cuts to education. A cheap excuse the CLP gave for not accepting that debate was this leave of absence.
Members take leave of absence. It has happened on a regular basis in this parliament for a variety of reasons. We may not always agree with the reasons but, in this Chamber, it has happened for a variety of reasons, and we have accepted it.
I took leave of absence earlier this year when my grandfather passed away. Those things happen. The member for Sanderson took a week’s leave for personal training. I would not necessarily agree with that reason, but he took a week for it. The member for Blain took a week’s leave to undertake a research scholarship in Taiwan, and the member for Daly took the estimates period off to go to London …
Mr Elferink: On the business of parliament.
Mr GUNNER: There are a variety of reasons members take leave. The minister for Primary Industry was not in the Northern Territory during the budget week. Obviously, as opposition, we had questions for the Primary Industry minister during budget week, but he was not here and we directed those questions to somebody else. It has always been a convention in this House not to challenge a leave of absence because we, as a rule, have trusted members of this Chamber.
This debate is spurious and one of those mad-rush-of-blood-to-the-head political stunts in order not to accept a censure on an education debate they should be prepared to have, and we were prepared to have. They are using a spurious debate and a cheap political excuse to avoid that debate.
I believe the people of Barkly would rather their member be in Barkly than in London, for example. I found the government media release issued on this debate quite amusing. It says:
- McCarthy missing in action: Barkly abandoned for Rudd.
In February, the member for Arnhem had leave of absence from this Chamber for electorate business. It is not unusual for members of this Chamber to take leave of absence for electorate business. On 14 February, the member for Arnhem is in the Parliamentary Record taking leave of absence for electorate business.
We, on this side of the House, know this is a stunt, a spurious debate, a cheap excuse to avoid a censure motion on education, and I have no doubt the people of Barkly will see it in the same way. The government has made a mistake in trying to have this argument around order of priorities and when leave cannot be granted. It has gone down a bad path and made a mistake.
In this Chamber, over a period of years, a number of members have taken leave of absence for a variety of reasons. What is the difference between their leave of absence and today? The government chose a cheap excuse to avoid a censure debate on education. They went down a spurious path because they did not want a debate on education cuts.
They know Territorians are hurting, teachers are losing their jobs, parents, principals, teachers, and students are frustrated at the decisions this government has taken to make cuts in education. They did not want to have that debate. They rejected the censure with a spurious argument to avoid that debate. It is quite remarkable. I say to them if they did not want to take it, do not take it, but to have this false argument when members of their own side have taken leave of absence for training or a research scholarship quite beggars belief.
I was extremely shocked that the minister, who is quite capable of talking about education issues, and the CLP, which has made a series of decisions to cut education to the bone, chose not to take the debate on education. It is remarkable that their excuse is so spurious when they have had members of parliament go away for a week of personal training, or go to Taiwan for a research scholarship. The member for Daly sought leave of absence to go to London, and we did not critise that decision.
The people of Barkly would rather their member was in Barkly than in London. Those things have happened before in this Chamber. This is quite a spurious debate, and it provided the …
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I draw your attention to Standing Order 70 in relation to tedious repetition. We have now heard the same argument, at least seven times.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Fannie Bay, you have the floor.
Mr GUNNER: The government does not like being reminded how poor their reasoning has been in raising this issue. We have not had a debate about leave of absence in this Chamber before, and the government has chosen an odd but politically convenient time to do it, because they want to avoid a debate about education issues in the Northern Territory.
When the member for Sanderson sought his week of leave for personal training, Madam Speaker at the time said, ‘Is that for the whole week? Is that right?’ and the Leader of the Opposition at the time said, ‘Yes, for the whole week’. He took a week off for personal training. The member for Blain took a week to go to Taiwan. This is a ridiculous argument from the government. I agree with the member for Araluen, it is a spurious argument and a cheap excuse to avoid a debate on education. The member for Barkly is apparently abandoning the Barkly by being in the Barkly. It is an extraordinary point the member for Port Darwin made.
We believe the member for Barkly should be provided leave of absence, just as a leave of absence has been provided in the past for countless members, including the member for Arnhem for electorate business in February. This is a rush of blood to the head, seized upon by the member for Port Darwin to avoid a debate. He is wrong to have taken that path, but I do not expect him, after the debate we have had so far, to say that. I cannot speak on his behalf, but I genuinely believe he realises this has been a mistaken argument to make.
The member for Barkly cannot abandon the Barkly by being in the Barkly. That is a ridiculous assertion. There has been leave of absence granted for a variety of reasons. We, on this side of the House, have moved a motion seeking leave of absence for the member for Barkly.
We believe that leave should be granted, and we move that the motion be put.
The Assembly divided:
Ayes 7 Noes 12
Ms Fyles Ms Anderson
Mr Gunner Mr Chandler
Ms Lawrie Mr Conlan
Ms Manison Mr Elferink
Mr Vatskalis Ms Finocchiaro
Mr Vowles Mr Higgins
Ms Walker Mrs Lambley
Ms Lee
Mr Mills
Mrs Price
Mr Tollner
Mr Westra van Holthe
Motion negatived.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory
Establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory
Mr ELFERINK (Attorney-General and Justice): Mr Deputy Speaker, most Australian jurisdictions have adopted centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunals which have, by and large, replaced the numerous appellant mechanisms which were built into pretty much any act where there was some decision-making capability.
The legislative rationale is sound, and is intended to provide balance and fairness to decisions by government instrumentalities. The test for us, as legislators, is to determine whether these worthy ambitions are met.
The move to a single body with standard lay processes to hear evidence and make decisions has become best practice in public sector administration. It has been commonplace throughout Westminster governments over the last couple of decades and is the norm throughout Australia. Legislation to establish the newest of such tribunals, the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal, NCAT, passed the New South Wales Legislative Council in February this year.
In all jurisdictions, this single body replaces the multitude of appellant mechanisms which were previously as diverse as the laws which brought them into being. The issue is also not new in the NT context, having previously been subject to the Northern Territory Law Reform Committee reports in June 1991, and again in September 2004, with both reports recommending the establishment of separate systems of administrative review outside the courts and ministerial processes.
There appears to have been widespread acceptance that this was, and remains, a good idea, but little has been done to advance the proposal, and much of the early analysis is salient today, over two decades later.
The 2004 report identified 122 pieces of legislation which existed at that time and allowed for some form of appeal process. Obviously there is little doubt that this list is in need of further review and is likely to have grown exponentially in line with the introductions of new laws.
A comprehensive audit would be necessary to establish just how many statutes allow appeals of administrative decisions. A recent review identified over 35 commissions, tribunals, committees and boards which have the power to hear appeals, and review, uphold or overturn the original decisions. Additionally, the Local Courts, with 35, and the Supreme Court, with 19, have specific appellate powers under a further 54 acts.
An AAT will provide avenues for review that are currently unavailable to aggrieved parties. Judicial review is limited to, essentially, that which is ultra vires. Judicial review does not provide avenues of appeal based on particular merits of a matter under consideration. As pointed out in the Australian Football League v Carlton Football Club (1998) 2VR 546 at 558, such an approach is an ‘impermissible task’. It is logically so because the courts are there to determine what is lawful, not what is merely fair. They are there to determine what a parliament has directed, not what a public servant has determined. Where courts may consider ultra vires issues of excess of power, improper purposes and such matters, an AAT can extend enquiry to concepts of unreasonableness, uncertainty, improper purpose, or inflexibility.
An Administrative Appeals Tribunal will have the power to both investigate and determine. The tribunal, with a semi-inquisitorial approach, has wider powers to determine the matter than is possessed by a court. Judicial review is the process by which courts investigate the legality of decisions of inferior courts, tribunals, and administrative decision-makers. Whatever the source of power to review administrative decisions, the power of a court is limited to review on questions of law and the courts do not have the power to substitute their own decision for that of an administrator.
Judicial review is restricted to considering the legality of action of a lower court or body but does not normally involve an outcome based on the merits of the case. That is to say, the function of judicial review is to ensure that decisions are made in accordance with law and the requirements of natural justice. It is not to review the decision on its merits.
An Administrative Appeals Tribunal will see the establishment of a body which can review administrative decisions on their merits and step into the shoes of the original decision-maker. A tribunal may exercise the power and discretion which are conferred upon the original decision-maker, whilst also considering new relevant information and, on review, may affirm, vary, or set aside the decision or remit the decision for reconsideration under directions or recommendations. The tribunal may also dismiss an application.
The tribunal is able to conduct its own enquiry in which there is no presumption in favour of the primary decision. It will make its decisions on the material before it, which may include information that has come to light since the original decision was made. This means that the tribunal may overturn a decision which, on the basis of the material before the primary decision-maker, was a correct one.
There are significant benefits for the Northern Territory moving to adopt this well-established practice of centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The government has indicated a willingness to take this direction, following a full review of the current status and identification of the efficiency and fiscal benefits.
The government recognises that the overall objective of any such centralisation is not necessarily to reduce the cost to government, but to reduce the confusion to users and provide a single, recognisable one-stop shop to increase Territorians’ access to justice, to increase the efficiency, timeliness, and quality of decision-making. This is very much consistent with our government’s commitment to streamline access to government decision-making through the reduction of red tape.
It is also a hallmark of conservative governments to maximise choice for Territorians. We do not believe that the government departments should be the sole arbiters in all things and that options should be narrowly and statutorily defined. While the life of bureaucrats and decision-making organs is made easier with having a limited range of options, it does not substitute for good governance. We recognise, however, that the greater the latitude for people to determine their own affairs the greater the potential for people to be aggrieved with the impact of their neighbour’s choices on their amenity and quality of life. Societies cannot function in a state of everyone having unfettered freedoms and governments will always legislate for the balance in the best interests of the good of all. These decisions surrounding what constitutes the good of all can and should be tested, and a tribunal provides a simple capability to do just that.
The span of such a tribunal has yet to be determined, although the current thinking favours a bias towards a larger ambit and, perhaps, some matters which are currently determined by the Small Claims Court.
This review has commenced and will report early in the new year. Its terms of reference are to provide me, as the Attorney-General, with advice on the approach to implement a tribunal that is independent, efficient, expert, accessible, flexible, and able to adapt to future pressures. The review will have regard to the NT Law Reform Committee reports of June 1991 and September 2004 entitled The Report On Appeals From Administrative Decisions and The Report on the Review of Administrative Decisions and Administrative Tribunal, respectively providing this advice. It will make recommendations on the scope and nature of the new tribunal and which existing tribunals could, potentially, be abolished and their jurisdiction transferred to the new tribunal and the current jurisdiction of the courts, which could also, potentially, be transferred to the new tribunal.
The focus will be to ensure the users of the system will have primacy and not those involved in the machinery. Whilst this should not be seen as a criticism of the legal profession, it is commonly reported that parties aggrieved by an administrative decision are dissuaded from seeking some formal remedy by complexity, costs, and overly-litigious processes involved in the current plethora of systems.
To quote the Northern Territory Law Reform Committees 1991 report:
- The use of courts is inappropriate in the review of administrative decisions on the merits because of formality, costs and delays associated with their procedures.
The formalities and costs of court proceedings are closely related. The formality derives from the evidence-gathering process; the costs derive from the fact that, as the procedures are so far removed from the experience of an individual, it is necessary for the citizen to engage an expert (a lawyer) to conduct the case on his or her behalf. The cost of so doing can be prohibitive.
I have a great deal of sympathy with this view. The new system will, therefore, not be a replica of a court system. The tribunal will not be bound by the rules of evidence and will inform itself in a manner that it considers appropriate.
The fundamental role of the tribunal would be to provide independent merits review of administrative decisions. The review mechanism will be designed to ensure that it is fair, just, economical, informal, and quick. The system will be able to be traversed by clients with no great understanding of the intricacies of the law; namely, ordinary Territorians. This feature will be critical to people having confidence in the system.
These basic features do not exist universally across the present appellant bodies. Some may well be redundant as they have no history of deciding any matters or, for that matter, even meeting in recent history. The obscure nature and conduct of these bodies may well have been a factor in their current non-existent workload. Aggrieved parties to a decision may not have been aware of their rights to appeal.
A further potential benefit of having the review of decisions sited outside of the original decision-making body is to demonstrably enhance fairness by ensuring the matters are reviewed in a totally independent way.
Merits review of an administrative decision involves considering afresh the facts, law, and policy relating to that decision. The tribunal considers the materials before it and decides what is the correct – or, in a discretionary area, the preferable - decision. It will affirm, vary or set aside the decision under review.
Prior to making any decision, the tribunal will attempt to find an accommodation between the parties through mediation. Any such tribunal will need to be independent, accessible, flexible, its proceedings efficient, economical, effective, informal, and its decisions must be just and fair. To give effect to these objectives, the enabling legislation to establish the tribunal may, for example, require the tribunal to:
comply with the rules of natural justice, to act fairly and according to the merits of each individual case without regard to the technicalities and legal form;
be accessible
require proceedings to be carried out in a manner that is responsive to the needs of users, cost-effective to parties, and as speedy as possible
determine its own procedures and determine matters on the papers, where appropriate;
to allow for early, cost effective resolution of disputes through alternative dispute resolution processes such as meditation and compulsory conferencing
allow for representation of parties in some matters and in others, only with the leave of the tribunal
providing that the parties bear their own costs in proceedings unless tribunal considers the interest of justice requires otherwise.
The overall objective is to improve the delivery of government services by enhancing the quality and consistency of original decision-making in government agencies and statutory authorities and enhancing the openness and accountability of public administration. In summary, providing quality administrative review and promoting compliance by administrators with legislation.
The following is an example to illustrate the complexities of the current state of play in the Northern Territory. Under the Planning Act, the owner of land or an authorised person may make a development application to carry out a development on land - the application is made under section 46. If the development application is refused, the applicant may appeal to the Appeals Tribunal within 28 days of being served with a notice of refusal. However, a person or local authority that made a submission in relation to a development application may also appeal to the Appeals Tribunal, but must do so in 14 days.
An appeal is commenced by lodging a notice of appeal at the Office of the Registrar. A notice of appeal must be in the approved form, state the name of the appellant, specify the details of the applications in respect of which the appeal is lodged, state the grounds of the appeal and be accompanied by the prescribed fee.
Once an appeal is lodged the parties are required to participate in a compulsory conference, the purpose of which is to determine the matters in dispute, discuss the reasons for instigating or resisting the appeal and, where possible, settle or resolve the matters in dispute.
If a compulsory conference has been held and the parties have not been able to reach a compromise or settlement, the appellant may then give notice to the Registrar that he or she wishes the matter to be determined by the Appeals Tribunal. The applicable tribunal is the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal established under the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal Act. Only some of the provisions of the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal Act apply where the tribunal is dealing with an appeal under the Planning Act, otherwise the provisions of the Planning Act apply.
Again, the notice must be in an approved form and accompanied by the prescribed fee. The appellant is required to make a written submission to the Appeals Tribunal and serve a copy of the submission on each party to the appeal.
The consent authority must then make a written submission in response and serve a copy on each party in the appeal within 14 days of receiving notice of the appeal. A party may then make a written submission in reply to a submission and by another party within 28 days of lodging the notice.
The Appeals Tribunal then determines the appeal in the absence of the parties and having regard only to the information available when the original determination was made and the written submissions made to it. The Appeals Tribunal has power to, if it thinks fit, require parties to appear before it and answer questions.
Following the determination of the Appeals Tribunal, a person may only appeal against this determination to the Supreme Court on a question of law.
So in summary, you can see under this process there are different times limits for different applications, and the tribunal has different powers afforded by multiple acts and there is, in effect, a double dipping process whereby the applicant lodges an appeal and pays a fee only to be referred to mediation. If this is not successful they are required to pay a further fee to have the matter brought before a tribunal where they have no right of appearance and the tribunal is limited to information it can consider.
By contrast, under a centralised administrative appeals tribunal, applicants would pay a single fee to participate in a more flexible and user-friendly system of decision-making. The tribunal would operate as informally as practicable so that lay persons can actively participate, and rules of evidence will be relaxed so the new material may be considered where it is relevant.
The tribunal may also adopt a semi-inquisitorial role so it can make inquiries and not just be bound by material presented to it. As indicated, it is this government’s intention to enact legislation required for the establishment of a comprehensive tribunal as a general merits review tribunal patterned on existing legislation of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the Australia Capital Territory and the legislation proposed for South Australia. Jurisdiction would gradually be transferred to the tribunal by appropriate legislation as individual acts are reviewed and amended. It will ensure that the enabling legislation creates the structure immediately, but the transfer of functions would then take place in an orderly and structured manner and the tribunal membership expanded over time, as necessary, to take account of the workload. It is the government’s intention that the enabling legislation will be enacted as soon as possible, and certainly passed within the next 12 months, with a review and amendment of existing legislation to occur over a two-year period to transfer all relevant review processes to the newly established tribunal.
The 2004 NT Law Reform Committee Report highlighted the complete lack of uniformity in dealing with appeals under Territory legislation. Some legislation restricts appeals to questions of law; others use the term ‘rehearing’, whilst others provide appeal rights: ‘only on the grounds that there has been a bias or that the facts have been misrepresented in a material respect, or similar terminology.
The report concludes that from this plethora of labyrinth-like appeal provisions, citizens faced with this confusing array of legislation may be dissuaded from accessing their fundamental right to appeal an adverse administrative decision. The NT and Tasmania remain the only two Australian jurisdictions yet to establish a single point of administrative appeal process. It is time for the Territory to join the mainstream of such administrative processes.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Ms MANISON (Wanguri): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, we all appreciate the importance of ensuring there are appropriate avenues people can pursue when they have a grievance with the delivery of government services, or as a result of a government administrative decision.
To have checks and balances in place is important, and this includes avenues of appeal for people. In this statement we heard that the government is looking into what benefits and efficiencies an Administrative Appeals Tribunal could achieve in the Territory. Most of this is, essentially, about streamlining avenues of appeal for people who are aggrieved. We all know there are several avenues of appeal that exist within different legislation in the Territory. As the minister outlined, there are some 35-plus commissioners, tribunals, committees and boards with powers to look at appeals and conduct reviews.
We, as local members, are often the first people to have the aggrieved on our doorsteps and in our offices because they have not had a positive experience dealing with government agencies, or they are not happy with an outcome.
We have seen no shortage of this with things like housing matters, particularly with public housing. Development issues tend to attract all types of views; decisions around children and families; decisions around professional qualifications and registrations, there are many areas.
When things do not go peoples’ way it can have profound impacts on their personal and professional lives. When that happens and people generally feel emotions such as anger, frustration, sadness and disenchantment, as well as high levels of stress, it is important that appeals mechanisms are in place and are accessible.
We would all agree we have a terrific public service with many hard-working people who take a great deal of pride in their work delivering the best possible services to Territorians every day. They take their duties very seriously and understand the responsibilities they have and some of the powers that come with those responsibilities and duties.
As we can all appreciate, from time to time things can go wrong in decision-making processes, despite peoples’ best efforts. People are not perfect, and sometimes do not see eye-to-eye. There are a range of reasons why this happens, but it is just another fact of life.
Sometimes there are major differences and points of view on outcomes, so there are laws or defined processes in place which need to be easily accessible so people can review the processes, outcomes and decisions, and how they came to be. It is also important they are in place so all parties involved get a fair opportunity to have their story heard.
One of the main issues we hear about is the frustration people feel at having to wade through extensive processes to deal with government. To go through an appeals process is one of these and, given the emotions of the parties involved, especially the aggrieved, it is important we make these processes as accessible to them as possible. In this regard, having a one-stop shop for people to take their grievances to will certainly, in theory, make their lives easier.
People want to see decisions made in a timely fashion, independently reviewed, and that merit is behind those decisions. They want an easier process with more flexibility.
Everyone wants to ensure there are avenues and mechanisms in place for aggrieved people and parties which are approachable and straightforward.
With this review, we know there are several forms of Administrative Appeals Tribunals and boards in existence across Australia. They exist at a federal level and, in most jurisdictions in Australia their formation has been seen as constructive. This is not the first time the establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal has been explored in the Northern Territory. As the minister outlined, two reviews were conducted in 1991 and 2004; so it has been explored before.
In reflecting on the experiences of Administrative Appeals Tribunals in other jurisdictions, the 2004 NT Law Reform Committee drew on remarks by Justice Daryl Davies, Second President of the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal. He said:
- … I should emphasise that, in its twenty years of adjudication, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has not only afforded justice to thousands of applicants by providing review on the merits of administrative decisions which have affected them, but it has also played a significant role in improving administrative decision-making throughout the bureaucracy. By enunciating the principles which have guided it in its decision-making, by analysing which are the relevant factors to be taken into account and by making findings of fact in a rational way, basing them upon sufficient evidence, the AAT has led the way. Fair and well-balanced decision-making has been promoted. Idiosyncratic and arbitrary decision-making has been discouraged. These are all outcomes for which the Commonwealth Administrative Review Committee aimed. The community is the better for it.
In the statement the minister said:
- Societies cannot function in a state of everyone having unfettered freedoms and governments will always legislate for the balance in the best interests of the good of all. These decisions surrounding what constitutes the good of all can and should be tested, and a tribunal provides a simple capability to do just that.
There is one recent decision of the government that could, perhaps, be examined under the ‘good of all’ test. The decision to award the water extraction licence to the CLP candidate for Lingiari ignored the substantial rights of other Territorians. The volume of water under the licence is greater than that available to all other licensees combined. The rights of amateur fishers have been ignored; the rights of Indigenous Territorians to have strategic water reserves allocated for their use have been ignored; the rights of ordinary Territorians who value our unique environment and ecosystems have been dismissed. Everyone’s reasonable rights have been made subservient to the interests of the CLP candidate for Lingiari. Perhaps this is the type of situation an Administrative Appeals Tribunal could examine.
If the Territory proceeds with the establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal it is vital the experiences of other jurisdictions are also looked at in its formation and that Territorians are able to have their say and are consulted about the formation and functionality of that tribunal.
The minister has advised the House he has commenced the review of the scope and nature of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and will report early in the new year. However, in this statement there does not appear to be any information on who will conduct the review or whether there will be an opportunity for the community to provide input into the review. It would be good to have more information regarding those plans going forward and how Territorians will be consulted throughout the process and have the opportunity to make submissions into the review. I ask the minister to do his very best to ensure that will happen.
A proper consultative process will help ensure the Territory’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal is, in fact, independent, accessible, flexible, and constructive in its working. A proper consultative process could draw on the expertise of the Territory’s legal fraternity as well as the day-to-day experiences of ordinary Territorians and their interaction with the public sector decision-makers.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, we will await more information about the review and contribute to that review, and see the outcomes of it early in the new year.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I thank the minister for bringing this issue to the House today. I read the statement last night and did a little research in relation to how these tribunals operate elsewhere.
I note the minister said only the Northern Territory and Tasmania do not have an Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That begs the question: do we need one? Because we are the two smallest jurisdictions in Australia, the question following whether we need one is: how many appeals are heard each year in the Territory? If it is a relatively small number, is there a need for it? I do not know how many appeal tribunals exist in the Northern Territory, and I do not know how many appeals, on average, we would have from those tribunals each year.
The one I am most familiar with is the Lands and Mining tribunal …
Mr Elferink: Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal.
Mr WOOD: Yes, that one. The one you appeal to if you are upset about a decision of the Development Consent Authority.
Whilst I am not arguing against a move to look at having one tribunal to cover all the appeal tribunals we have at present, what I have done is written a series of questions to see whether there is a need for it.
For instance, if you only have one tribunal, will the system be slower than if you have several? In other words, will you have to get in the queue for that tribunal to hear your case?
I note, looking at the New South Wales Administrative Decisions Tribunal Annual Report for 2010-11, Judge Kevin O’Connor AM, who is the President, said in his Year in Review:
- For the second year running, the disposal rate of the Tribunal has exceeded the intake rate, with the result there has been a further lowering of the average disposal time for applications. In the last two years, there have been 1735 first instant filings and 1921 disposals. The average disposal time across all Divisions is now 28 months (6.5 months), the second best result in the 13 year history of the Tribunal…
Then he mentions appeals. I am interested that there is an average of 6.5 months for someone to get their appeal heard. The Administrative Decisions Tribunal in New South Wales is made up of a series of smaller tribunals and they cover areas such as the general division, the guardianship and protected estates list, and the revenue division. There is a series of divisions the tribunal is split into.
This is similar to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), and the Commonwealth’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which looks at decisions in relation to family assistance, social security, taxation, veteran’s affairs, and workers’ compensation.
The Commonwealth tribunal is broken up into divisions and exercises powers in divisions which include general administrative, the national disability insurance scheme, security appeals, taxation appeals, and veteran affairs decisions. Whilst we are setting up one tribunal, are we setting up a series of divisions under that, which are more or less the same as we have now? He said they were separate, but we have them under one body.
It would be interesting to hear the minister comment on the Year in Review document I was just quoting from the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of New South Wales, it says:
- Appeals declined significantly, from 105 last year to 70 this year
There is obviously a need for an appeal of the appeal. The minister quoted some of the difficulties with the Planning Act about mediation. You go to the tribunal, and then to the Supreme Court.
Mr Elferink: You can go to the full bench of the Supreme Court, then the High Court, but you cannot go to the Privy Council any more.
Mr WOOD: That is right. There is an appeal system, so you would have an appeal panel. What I am getting at is, as in other states, it is not as simple as having one Administrative Appeals Tribunal; you have several tribunals within that tribunal. Then there is something called cost, if we are to set up a tribunal. What is the cost of existing tribunals?
Mr Elferink: We do not know, but I will talk to you.
Mr WOOD: I am throwing these questions out because it is good to have a review. I am pleased the minister has brought this forward, but what is the cost of tribunals now? I presume people have paid sitting and travelling fees, and you have to have secretariats etcetera which exist now for existing tribunals. If we have one tribunal it may have to have divisions. From a cost benefit analysis, is one better than the other?
One of my concerns, which you mentioned in your discussion, minister, is about people not being able to attend some hearings. Will appellants be able to attend tribunal hearings, and will they be open to the public? In mediation, the parties can attend, but not the people who may have objected, and that is not open to the public. I believe it is the same with the mining tribunal.
Mr Elferink: What was the second question? There were two questions there.
Mr WOOD: The second one was: will it be open to the public, and will appellants be able to attend tribunal hearings? Also, do we have enough qualified people with the required attributes in this area?
I looked up VCAT. I hear that name on the news occasionally and have not taken much notice; now I realise what it is. People use the acronym as if everyone knows, but it stands for the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and its motto is: fair, efficient justice for all Victorians. It talks about the skills required:
- A. Knowledge and Technical Skills
Relevant Qualities.
Conscientiousness, commitment to high standards
Then it gives a list of competencies and performance indicators. The next one is:
- B. Fair Treatment.
Fairness, courtesy, tolerance and compassion
Again, it deals with competency and performance indicators:
- C. Communication.
Firmness without arrogance. Courtesy, patience, tolerance, fairness, sensitivity, compassion and self discipline
We are thinning it down now, to get someone like that. That is the sort of person you need.
- D. Conduct of Hearings
Relevant Qualities
Firmness without arrogance. Courtesy, patience, tolerance, fairness, sensitivity compassion and self discipline
- E. Dispute Resolution.
Decisiveness, confidence, moral courage, independence and impartiality
The list goes on. In some cases, you need people who are professional in that area because when you are dealing with these matters you need to have at least reasonable knowledge.
I pointed out that even with the Commonwealth, when you are dealing with matters of taxation and revenue, disability insurance schemes, veteran appeals - you would hope to have people with good professional knowledge of those matters on the tribunal.
The minister also said we need some change. Presently, on the mining tribunal there is only a judge. I believe you need at least three people on a tribunal to give it some balance.
Mr Elferink: The name would imply it, would it not?
Mr WOOD: That is right, very good; you will quote me the Latin, tribunalis.
The Planning Act is discriminatory. I do not know whether the minister will take this up. It is in relation to third party appeals for which there is allowance in the Planning Act. Are third-party appeals allowed in relation to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal? I know this is political but, for example: I thought a particular water licence was excessive, but I am a third party. I am not coming from the government’s side or the landowner’s side, but I believe it was a bad decision. As a third party, do I have the right to appeal against that?
In the case of planning, you do have third-party appeals and it has been set out in the Planning Act and in the Planning Regulations. What I believe is discriminatory is you have third-party appeal rights depending on where you live in the Northern Territory.
If you look at the third-party appeals regulations, it says:
- A zone in land to which the NT Planning Scheme applies is a residential zone if it is specified in the planning scheme, or in a map to which the planning scheme refers, as one of the following …
It goes on to say.
- (2) There is no right of appeal if the determination relates to subdivision or consolidation of land.
- …
(d) and any other type of development on land that is not in a residential zone, for which no zone is specified …
The problem is that if you live in the rural area and you have a zone R or RL, you cannot appeal; you can if you live on a small block, but you cannot if you live on a larger block.
I raised this as being discriminatory when it was first introduced into parliament.
There was a case at Howard Springs where a small subdivision on the corner of Lambrick Avenue and the Stuart Highway which is zoned RL, rural living, and that is an anomaly but, the point is, they are small blocks. Next door are 2 ha blocks on one of which people wanted to put some development. At the time it was approved, yet even though those people lived on small blocks of land similar to Palmerston and Darwin, because their zone was not one of those specifically listed in Part IV of the regulations, they were not allowed to appeal.
When we are debating an Administrative Appeals Tribunal it might be worth raising the issue of whether there can be third-party appeals on matters the tribunal will make rulings on.
The minister also said this tribunal would be different from the more formal courts - not so judicial. Yet, when you look at the VCAT and the people on there, you get a list of judges five miles long. Whilst I do not disagree with what the minister said, is it the case these tribunals could end up having a considerable number of judicial people on them which, to some extent, deviates from what the minister wrote in his statement. I do not have that list with me of …
Mr Elferink: That is all right, I know what you are saying: do these things become a court by another means?
Mr WOOD: That it right. I agree that sometimes we need a place where appeals can be heard which will not be costly to the appellant or the people involved, which will be speaking roughly in layman’s terms and not getting down to mini lawyers’ picnics. We want to simply put the case and have people on the tribunal with good, commonsense experience in the matters who can make a ruling.
Minister, thank you for bringing this forward. It would be good, if possible, to get this out into the public because, although there is a section of our community which deals with this area on a day-to-day basis, either from a judicial or a planning point of view, the public sometimes becomes caught up in these things and often finds it very confusing.
You quoted from the Planning Act about how complicated it is, where there is meditation, but if meditation fails you go to a hearing of the tribunal …
Mr Elferink: And pay the fee twice.
Mr WOOD: That is right. You should not be charged twice; one fee is enough, and that is part of the complication. In both cases the public is not allowed and I have found that system quite annoying. I am not against it, but I would put in a submission either opposing it or supporting it but, generally, you would write a submission opposing something on certain grounds.
The Development Consent Authority might make a decision the developer is not happy with and the developer decides to go to mediation. The only person who represents the developer at mediation is the DCA, and the DCA might not agree with what they put in. So, it goes to mediation and does not get anywhere. Then it goes to the tribunal and no one is represented, except the DCA puts in a submission. I am unsure if the developer turns up at the tribunal, but anyone who put in a submission is not included in that part of it.
The average person participating in the process of putting in a submission to the Development Consent Authority, once the Development Consent Authority has gone to mediation, then the tribunal - the general public is left out of the decision-making process, and that is a failing as well.
I know you do not want these things to go on for a long time, and that is why I raised the issue of New South Wales where they talk about 6.5 months average. The government, on one hand, is saying, ‘Let’s reduce red tape and allow development to go through quickly’. Is it the case tribunals could slow that down? I am using New South Wales as an example because I imagine they would have more staff because it is a bigger state with more complaints.
The issue I have is not so much the process of meditation. The idea, of course, is to reduce cost. If you can reach agreement before you go to the tribunal it saves time, but the issue you raised about having two payments and filling in another set of forms seems a bit over the top. One set of forms, one fee, and if it cannot be sorted out at mediation it goes to the tribunal, and that should be fairly straightforward.
Thank you, minister. I will be interested to see how this discussion goes, and how much is in the public arena for people to comment on. It is certainly important for people who are interested in planning matters, because that is where many appeals are, but there are also other areas where an Administrative Appeals Tribunal is required, and I am interested in being part of the discussion process you are putting forward.
Mr WESTRA van HOLTHE (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I support this statement on the establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory. I congratulate the Attorney-General for conceiving this idea and bringing it into the public arena through the parliament.
The move to adopt a centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal which would bring the Northern Territory into line with other Australian jurisdictions, as well as cut red tape, can only be a step in the right direction.
A body that would provide an independent review of a wide range of administrative decisions made by government and some non-government bodies will serve to provide a voice for Territorians which, to date, has been lacking.
Many Territorians caught up in legislative matters would not be aware of the avenues available for them to appeal decisions, or the cost to do so, and would prohibit their decisions to progress an issue through the courts. The establishment of a one-stop shop designed to cut through red tape, reduce confusion, and provide wider options to Territorians is fair, decent, and also necessary.
I understand this matter has been researched thoroughly dating back to the initial NT Law Reform Committee report in June 1991. There has been widespread acceptance that establishing such a tribunal would be a good idea. Sadly, though, since that time, and despite an additional NT Law Reform Committee report in September 2004, little has been done to progress this matter. In fact, I note the 2004 review identified 122 pieces of legislation which allow for some form of appeal process. This number has, no doubt, grown in the decades since.
The departments of Mines and Energy, Land Resource Management, and Primary Industry and Fisheries have coverage of many of these pieces of legislation. With respect to the Department of Mines and Energy, particularly in mining and petroleum matters, the creation of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal could provide an opportunity for decisions made under all NT statutes, including under mining and petroleum legislation, to be reviewed by a centralised review body within a standardised review and decision-making framework which will provide obvious benefits with respect to consistency and to due process.
Currently, under the Territory’s existing mining and petroleum legislation, a number of individual decision review mechanisms exist. For example, under the current Mining Management Act, the MMA, Part 8 deals with the reviews of decisions made under the MMA. Section 65(1) of the act states:
- A person may apply for a review of a decision of the Minister or delegate of the Minister …
For the purposes of the Mining Management Act, a review of a decision under section 65(1) forms one of the functions of the Mining Board which was established under section 49 of the MMA. Importantly, this provides for the independent review of decisions made under the act. It is, therefore, important that any centralised tribunal system retains the ability, where necessary, to seek specialised input and advice from agencies and experts to inform its decision-making. This is particularly so when it comes to the mining and petroleum sectors.
In respect to the impact the establishment of a tribunal would have on the Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, there would be most impact on the Fisheries Act, the Agriculture and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Act, the Livestock Act, and the Plant Health Act. With regard to these acts, it is recognised that there is merit in the establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory to review those administrative decisions.
The tribunal would represent a fair, impartial, and independent review of administrative decisions without tying up the Magistrates Court on matters which may be comparatively minor in nature. It will encourage accountability and transparency in decision-making while representing a cost-effective way for aggrieved persons to have their cases heard.
There is also general agreement that any tribunal should be available to individuals, as well as government agencies. Currently, the Fisheries Act provides for a person aggrieved by a decision of the Director of Fisheries to have that decision reviewed by the Local Court under section 50. The court can only review certain decisions made by the director, namely: refusing an application for a licence or permit; the renewal or transfer of a licence; imposing a condition of a licence or permit; refusing to release seized items to the owner under sureties and conditions; cancelling or suspending a licence or permit - noting that the director can only suspend or cancel a licence in certain circumstances - or what is noted as a prescribed decision. However, the Fisheries Act also provides for a decision made by a delegate of the director to be reviewed by the director or a person appointed by the director who was not involved in the decision-making.
Decisions which may be reviewed relate to issuing of licences or permits, temporary and permanent transfer of licences, and appointment or otherwise of nominated persons or short-term operators. The director or a person appointed by the director to review the decision can confirm or substitute a decision made by the director’s delegate. The act requires that the decision review process under 11A is exhausted prior to submitting an application to the court for the review of a decision.
The review processes in the act are circular and nonsensical, with the director essentially reviewing his own decision. This causes frustration and doubt in the process for the aggrieved person. It is arguable whether the current processes afford the aggrieved person with true independent review of a decision made by the director. In circumstances such as this, the establishment of a tribunal would be a benefit to both the department and the aggrieved person.
One area of real concern raised with me was the use of the tribunal for possible appeals relating to action taken under a response to a biosecurity incursion or emergency. Currently, under the Livestock Act, these types of decisions are not appealable under section 118, and it is intended that the Plant Health Act is amended to contain a similar provision. During a biosecurity emergency the need for clear, decisive decision-making and action in response is essential. If it were possible to appeal this there would be a very great and real risk that a response would be delayed or compromised, resulting in the response failing and the exotic pest or disease managing to establish and cause serious consequences for that industry, the economy and, in some instances, human health and the environment. It sounds reasonable that decisions related to biosecurity emergency should be allowed to remain exempt from appeals, including those under the proposed tribunal.
The implications of a centralised administrative appeals tribunal for the Water Act would be widespread and appealing to both the department and the person lodging the appeal. Under the Water Act, all rights to water are vested in the Territory and are exercisable by the minister on behalf of the Territory. A decision made by the Controller of Water Resources can be reviewed by the minister, and the minister may establish a water resources review panel and refer matters to this panel. However, the establishment of a centralised administrative appeals tribunal would need to deal with the issue of the minister’s ultimate responsibility for water and clarify his ability to review appeals.
In such circumstances, I am in total support of a tribunal that would:
provide an additional avenue for people aggrieved by the decision of the controller
provide an avenue of independent oversight of the veracity of data and information used to make science based decisions
reduce the risk of naming of public servants in situations which are entirely inappropriate.
The Pastoral Land Act provides for appeals against the decisions of the board or minister by way of an appeal tribunal established under section 115 of the act. To date, the appeal tribunal has never been constituted, which means there has never been an appeal lodged under the Pastoral Land Act.
While recognising it is early days and this new review into the establishment of an administrative appeals tribunal is in its infancy, advice from my departments show that such a move would be regarded as positive. The establishment of means that will cut red tape, ease the burden of doing business in the Northern Territory, which will allow the little people a greater say without the need to retain costly lawyers, can only help progress the Northern Territory.
This government recognises there is a need for greater latitude for Territorians to determine their own affairs. This government also recognises that the overall objective of establishing such a tribunal is not necessarily to reduce the cost to government - although that would be desirable - but to reduce the confusion to users and provide a single recognisable one-stop shop to increase Territorian’s access to justice and increase the efficiency, timeliness, and quality of decision-making. As the Attorney-General stated, this is consistent with our government’s commitment to streamlining access to government decision-making through a reduction in red tape, and it is consistent with this government’s desire to maximise choice for Territorians and increase the scope for Territorians to determine their own affairs.
The establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal will create a body that can review administrative decisions on their merits, but which also has the power to investigate and consider additional information or evidence and then reach a determination. This is in contrast to the courts, which may consider all the points of law but which do not take into account concepts of unreasonableness, uncertainty, improper purpose, or inflexibility. As the Attorney-General stated, any such tribunal will need to be independent, accessible and flexible; its proceedings must be efficient, economical, effective, informal and, above all else, its decisions must be fair and just. I look forward to the results of the report which will be delivered in 2017.
Once again, I congratulate the Attorney-General for commencing a body of work that will change the face of administrative appeals across the Northern Territory.
Mrs LAMBLEY (Health): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I support the statement delivered by the Attorney-General on the establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory. It is a fantastic idea to centralise the administrative appeals systems within the Northern Territory.
I listened with great interest to the member for Wanguri who is, so far, the only member of the opposition who has bothered to respond to this very important statement. She said the last review into setting up an Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory was in 2004, which exemplifies the lacklustre and poor performance of the former Labor government. Once again, we have an example of an opportunity raised nine to 10 years ago in the term of the former Labor government – an opportunity to embrace a report which recommended the setting up of a centralised, comprehensive Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Northern Territory. Alas, nothing happened. They did nothing in this space; they sat on the report when it was delivered and probably could not be bothered to react or respond in a way people would expect a good government to respond.
It is with great pleasure that we, as a relatively new government – not brand new any more, we are 12 months into our four-year term – embrace the opportunity to set up an Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Of course, we are waiting for a review to be completed, which will be delivered in 2014. We will not pre-empt too much of the exact detail that review might deliver but, judging by what other jurisdictions have done in this space, we can rest assured it will be a system which comes off the back of the experience of other jurisdictions.
Most other states and territories in Australia have a centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal system. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, ACT, WA, and South Australia are well under way setting up their tribunals; it is only the Northern Territory and Tasmania that are dragging the chain. Eleven years of Labor in the Northern Territory and they did nothing in this space; just 12 months into government we are well on top of this issue and see the benefits of setting up this system in the Northern Territory.
The member for Wanguri did express her commitment to this model. As a new member of parliament, obviously she is not aware of the past failures of Labor and the former Labor government.
As Minister for Health, I have a particular interest in setting up an Administrative Appeals Tribunal because I preside over three tribunals and the Health and Community Services Complaints Commission. It would be in the interests of good governance, from my perspective as Minister for Health, to set up a comprehensive, centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal for all the reasons stated by my colleagues, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Mines and Energy. In the Health domain we would embrace a good quality, well-managed, efficient system which could bring together these different tribunals in the Health area, and embrace the synergies that naturally occur within these tribunals.
We are a very small jurisdiction in the Northern Territory; we have a population of approximately 238 000 at the moment, which is very small; it is half the size of the Gold Coast, if you put it into that perspective. We have, as the Attorney-General stated, 35 commissions, tribunals, committees and boards which have the power to hear appeals and review, uphold, or overturn the original decisions - 35 in a population of approximately 240 000 people. We are very top heavy in this regard. We spend a great deal of money running these 35 tribunals with many people involved. Having said that, there obviously is some duplication in what they do and how they go about their business.
For example, the administration involved with running 35 different commissions, tribunals, committees and boards would be duplicated 35 times. By setting up an Administrative Appeals Tribunal I can only guess we would be saving a huge amount on administration alone. This is an opportunity to find some synergies and efficiencies, particularly if themes within government were identified. For example, the Health sector perhaps combining - without being too pre-emptive - the Health Professional Review Tribunal, the Mental Health Review Tribunal and the Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal into one system. This might be an option recommended through the review that the three Health-related tribunals become a single system; which makes perfect sense to me. It is a good business model, particularly if it means a more streamlined system, a more user-friendly system, a one-stop shop, as the member for Katherine said, makes perfect sense. These systems are incredibly difficult for consumers to negotiate and we would be doing them a favour, as much as ourselves, by setting up a more streamlined and centralised model.
I am also responsible for the Health and Community Services Complaint Commission which currently sits within the Department of the Attorney-General and Justice. This commission undertakes a huge amount of work within Health, dealing with complaints in a quality and timely fashion. It employs six full-time positions. It is, at this stage, quite an expensive service to run, but it is essential because people need a mechanism where they can seek unbiased and fair processing of their complaints. In lieu of the possibility of a centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal, savings could be found by merging the different complaints tribunals across government, for example.
There are savings to be made, and it does not mean you lose the specialised input which exists within each of these tribunals and commissions. Within the Mental Health Review Tribunal, for example, at the moment there are three members who sit at each hearing: a legal member, a qualified psychiatrist, and a community member. A centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal could still ensure specialist panel members be included at the different hearings without, necessarily, having three unique panel members for each area of appeal - mental health, in this case.
The Health Professional Review Tribunal, again, is a board consisting of three or four professional people. The Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal is the newest tribunal to be created within the Health sector, which came about as a result of legislation passed late in June this year. It has a three-member tribunal: a legal practitioner, a medical practitioner, and a community member. As you can see, these three Health tribunals share a commonality in having a community member, who need not be specialists only in their particular area, but could be generalist health practitioners who have a broad understanding not only of mental health, but also the alcohol treatment area.
This is a commonsense idea which has been around for some time. The member for Wanguri said the first review of this idea was in 1991. It is now 2013, 22 years later, and we are still just talking about it in the Northern Territory.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I applaud the Attorney-General for bringing this on and making it happen. He is an action man; he has proven that time and again over the last 12 months in his incredible work in the Corrections area and the Sentenced to a Job program. He has done some amazing things across government already, and this is another example of our Attorney-General improving life in the Northern Territory, streamlining systems and, ultimately, making things a great deal better for Territorians.
Mr TOLLNER (Deputy Chief Minister): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, how refreshing it was to listen to my colleagues, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Mines and Energy, two people clearly switched on to their portfolios and doing wonderful things for the people of the Northern Territory. I congratulate them on their wonderful input into this debate.
As they both said, this idea is not original. I would like to be able to congratulate the Attorney-General for his original thought, as I have done on numerous occasions but, in this case, it is certainly not original. As the Minister for Health said, and it is probably right, the idea has been around for at least 22 years. It is not a new idea, but all credit to the Attorney-General for his common sense in introducing this move to the Northern Territory parliament and signalling to all concerned the direction government is taking in this area.
As people have said, this idea of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal is appealing in a range of areas. Obviously, it cuts red tape, it gives people certainty as to where their appeals and grievances can be aired, and it is a one-stop shop in that regard, as the Minister for Mines and Energy alluded.
Wearing my hat as Treasurer, I can say how supportive I am of the idea because it will save government money. When you are in government and you find yourself staring down the barrel of $5.5bn of debt, saving money becomes very important.
In that regard, the Attorney-General should also be congratulated. He has been involved in Treasury matters for some time, and takes a very responsible approach to managing money within his portfolio. He sits on the Budget Cabinet Subcommittee which is tasked with looking across government and finding efficiencies; he is a great contributor in that forum and it spills over into his job as Attorney-General. He has seen an opportunity and dove straight into it; he is in the business of saving government money, without reducing services. This is not about reducing services, it is about streamlining services and doing more with less, and that is something in which the Attorney-General has shown himself to be adept.
It also reduces duplication. In government these days, with the complexity of the world and our dealings, there are often grey areas as to which tribunal or committee people need to front about an issue. This removes that uncertainty and duplication, and provides direct access to people with complaints, queries, and concerns about decisions made by government.
I am happy to congratulate and thank the Attorney-General for bringing this statement to the Chamber, and wish him well in his future endeavours of drafting the legislation and convincing Cabinet he has that part of the job in-check, which I am certain he does. He is someone who has the job done before people ask for it. I have no doubt he is already working on Cabinet submissions.
For my part, as the Minister for Business, the Minister for Employment and Training, and the Treasurer, I am particularly enamoured with this legislation. It cuts red tape, reduces duplication and is focused on our budget bottom line. That is something every minister in this government is focused on, because we are in the situation of having the worst debt levels per capita in the nation. Belt tightening has become the norm for this government for the foreseeable future, and we are focused on that without reducing services.
This is a good idea put up by the Attorney-General, and I hope other people support his statement.
Mr CHANDLER (Education): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this statement before the House because it addresses the development of an important area of policy and administration. Dealing with government departments and other bureaucracies can often be a confusing and overwhelming task for ordinary members of the public. This is especially the case when an administrative decision goes against you, and you have no clear path to have that decision reviewed.
I recall many years in local government being frustrated on behalf of many people who used the regulatory frameworks built under the Local Government Act because you knew on one hand you were enforcing the legislation, but on the other you saw unfairness in regulations or, in some cases, by-laws. In some cases, people took issues to the Ombudsman, but the Ombudsman can only rule on whether an administrative process was correct or not. The Ombudsman could not rule on whether something was fair or not, and that is where many people became frustrated over the years: with the levels of bureaucracy governments at all different levels have built into their processes. If we, as ministers of the Crown, are frustrated with a process, how the hell does Joe Bloggs deal with that same bureaucracy?
Even when the mechanism of appeal is established it often remains obscured to members of the public, many of whom will be dealing with an issue like this for the first time. The ultimate purpose of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal is to make things simpler, less costly and easier to navigate for the person on the street.
Such a body may not be able to cover the responsibilities of every existing tribunal or other appellant body, but it is likely to cover most of them. In my time in local government the issues I encountered or became aware of were the frustrations people experienced with a limited number of options for appeal, often ending with the Ombudsman, as I already indicated.
This is a significant step forward in reducing red tape for Territorians, and I very much look forward to where this investigation might lead. The terms of reference for the review commissioned by the Attorney-General are spot on: to provide advice on the approach to implement a tribunal that is independent, efficient, expert, accessible, flexible and able to adapt to future pressures. If a body can be formed which can cover off on all these aspirations, we will be well on the way to improving the administrative appeals processes in the Northern Territory.
As mentioned by the Attorney-General in his statement, there are some administrative appeal mechanisms within my portfolio areas which would, or could, benefit, from an improvement or simplification.
Under the Planning Act, the owner of land or an authorised person may make a development application for land under section 46. If the development application is refused, the applicant may appeal to the Appeals Tribunal within 28 days of being served with the notice of the refusal. However, a person or local authority that made a submission in relation to a development application may also appeal to the appeals tribunal, but must do so within 14 days. An appeal is commenced by lodging a notice of appeal at the Office of the Registrar. A notice of appeal must be in the approved form, state the name of the applicant, specify details of the application in respect of which the appeal is lodged, state the grounds of the appeal, and be accompanied by the prescribed fee.
Once an appeal is lodged, the parties are required to participate in a compulsory conference, the purpose of which is to determine the matters of dispute, discuss the reasons for instigating or resisting the appeal and, where possible, to settle or resolve the matters in dispute.
If a compulsory conference has been held and the parties have not been able to reach a compromise or settlement, the appellant may then give notice to the registrar that he or she wishes the matter to be determined by the appeals tribunal. The applicable tribunal is the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal established under the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal Act. Only some of the provisions of the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal Act apply when the tribunal is dealing with an appeal under the Planning Act. Otherwise, the provisions of the Planning Act apply. Confused?
Mr Wood: No.
Mr CHANDLER: Keeping up?
Mr Wood: Yes.
Mr Elferink: One of the only people in the room who could.
Mr CHANDLER: Again, the notice must be in an approved form and accompanied by the prescribed fee. The appellant is required to make a written submission to the appeals tribunal and serve a copy of the submission on each party to the appeal.
The consent authority must then make a written submission in response, and serve a copy on each party to the appeal within 14 days of receiving the notice of that appeal.
I repeat: the consent authority must make a written submission in response and serve a copy on each party of the appeal within 14 days of receiving the notice of that appeal.
You are probably wondering why I read that section twice. Because, like many of the processes within governments they are particularly worded and are particularly confusing for most people.
A party may then make a written submission in reply to a submission by another party within 28 days of lodging the notice. The appeals tribunal then determines the appeal in the absence of the parties and having regard only to the information available when the original determination was made and the written submissions made to it.
The appeals tribunal has power, if it thinks fit, to require parties to appear before it and answer questions. Following the determination of the appeals tribunal, a person may only appeal against this determination to the Supreme Court on a question of law.
In summary, you can see in the process different time limits for different applications. The tribunal has different powers afforded by multiple acts and there is, in effect, a double dipping process whereby an applicant lodges an appeal and pays a fee only to be referred to mediation and, if this is unsuccessful, they are required to pay a further fee to have their matter brought before a tribunal where they have no right of appearance, and the tribunal is limited in the information it can consider.
By contrast, under a centralised Administrative Appeals Tribunal, applicants would pay a single fee to participate in a more flexible and user-friendly system of decision-making. The tribunal will operate as informally as practicable so lay persons can actively participate, and rules of evidence will be relaxed so new material may be considered where it is relevant. The tribunal may also adopt a semi-inquisitorial role so it may make inquiries and not just be bound by the material presented to it.
This is one example of how the administrative appeals process in the Northern Territory can be, at times, confusing. If we can find a way to make this less confusing and more useful to the public, that is the course of action we should be taking.
On that basis, I commend the work of the Attorney-General and look forward to seeing how this develops over the course of the review.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this is another example of the Country Liberals delivering valuable reform.
Mr ELFERINK (Attorney-General and Justice): Madam Speaker, I thank all members for their input into this debate. I realise that whilst we hear many passionate debates about many passionate issues in this House it is the sad truth that, in spite of my and the Minister for Health’s, best efforts to inspire some passion and rage in this House about an Administrative Appeals Tribunal, it has decayed to the level of merely pedestrian.
Whilst it may appear pedestrian to the innocent observer in this House or sitting in the public galleries, in truth, when you are the subject of an administrative decision which is counter to your interests, and sometimes counter to the intent of legislation, one feels emotions which are far from pedestrian and far from normal. Issues such as the planning process are the types of things which excite peoples’ passions like few other things can, so it is an important component of government to deliver tribunals effectively.
A number of interesting points were made by members in this House, and I will address them. First, I will deal with the member for Wanguri.
One of the issues she raised was: who is doing the review? The Attorney-General’s department. The second question was: will the public have input?’ Yes, I want the public to have input. I want people, perhaps the legal profession, the average punter, people who have been subject to administrative decisions in the past which they did not like, people who have been subject to an administrative appeals process which was unwieldy, unfriendly or unusable, to come forward and tell us what the shortcomings were. There will be some publicity around this; a media release will be issued shortly after completion of this debate, and we will be inviting, through other means, public input into this area.
That will not be a reason to delay, procrastinate or stall action on the part of this government in pursuing this area. It is not envisaged that every appellant body within government will fall under the auspices of an appeals tribunal; however, I suspect most can. The more you think about it, the more of these bodies can find their way into an Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Take liquor legislation in the Northern Territory, which is one area over which I have cast my beady little eye. The Liquor Commission sits as a board, or a body, or a quasi-judicial tribunal, and there is also the public service component of that operating through its inspectorial roles. So, there is a structure in place which can sometimes be a little confusing to the public because many people refer to the Liquor Commission when they are actually talking about the licencing authority, and vice versa. To have a one-stop shop for appellants to a tribunal would be an advantage.
I now attend to the matters raised by the member for Nelson. Do you have to get in a queue? Yes, you will have to get in a queue. How long will the queue be? The intent is to make those queues as short as they can possibly be. I note the comments you made in relation to a series of sub-tribunals you have noted in other jurisdictions. I do not expect in a jurisdiction the size of the Northern Territory we would have sub-tribunals of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. However, I believe a tribunal which deals with issues across government will work like an engine, in the sense that there are many engines in the appellant processes across government which are never switched on or, when they are switched on, are very clunky because parts of the machine are seldom operated, so it is not a particularly smooth system.
Let us, for argument’s sake, look at the appellant body in Treasury where we have our own taxation legislation. The way it works at the moment is you appeal a decision made by someone who works in the Northern Territory Revenue Office because you do not like the decision, and it is reviewed internally. I do not know how often that happens, but I suspect it does not happen very often; however, if it does happen, is there a consistent approach used by the Revenue Office? I suggest if they are not used to meeting on a regular basis, they will not be used to a consistent approach of applying a particular attitude towards natural justice and those types of things.
If the engine is constantly running, which is what I anticipate an Administrative Appeals Tribunal would do in the Northern Territory, it is constantly reviewing and looking at the systems it has in place, so it will not be clunky when it starts up, but will run with certain predictability. Predictability is very important for the consumers of government services and decisions. I suspect there is nothing worse in the world than dealing with an unpredictable government all the way from the upper echelons of policy down to the decisions made by public servants on a day-to-day basis.
The other component raised was cost. That is a fair question, because there will be a cost associated with this. Fortunately, one of the legacy items of the BDR is we have a tribunal room with a registry attached to it. It is there, ready to go, essentially. As far as I know, we are paying rent on it for the next 10 years. So, the physical room is already there and that is one place I would look. I am not guaranteeing it is going there, but it seems a fairly obvious choice at this stage. What will it cost? The short answer is, I do not know. However, I know there are a number of costs associated across the public service now for keeping these things in place at the moment: the cost of magistrates to look at the Lands, Planning and Mining Tribunal, and costs associated with other appellant processes and the like. I expect when we consolidate those expenses of other departments in one place, on an engine that continues to run, we would have cost savings to be made in this area. We end up having something that provides a predictable approach, running at less cost than the multiple approaches applied by government at the moment. However, that is yet to be borne out.
Can appellants attend the AATs? Yes, would be my expectation at this stage. If you consider the fundamental underlying principle of an AAT is natural justice, then natural justice would infer that the presence of an appellant would be admitted, unless there was a good reason not to. Ultimately, can the public attend? Again, my instinctive response is: unless there was good reason not to, such as commercial-in-confidence, or maybe a person involved in the process may not want to have a public hearing, they can make an application to the tribunal. In applying the rules of natural justice, they can determine whether or not it is an open or closed hearing. It is a good question, and one worthy of consideration.
Third party appeals - I do not know. We will find out; that is the short answer. I hear what you are saying. It is like the legislation that surrounds whistleblowing, and there was some consideration given to how much you can open up the public service to whistleblowers. There were legal decisions at the time that said, quite legitimately, you cannot hand the keys over to the lunatics in the asylum. You cannot have everyone walking out of a government department blowing the whistle on anything they feel like and then cover it with legislation; there still needs to be structures in place.
Reasonableness would be the test and, of course, reasonableness is one of the principles that drive administrative appeals tribunals.
One of the other questions was: do these things become a court by another means? The short answer is, no, they do not. The reason there are so many judicial officers involved in tribunals is there has to be an understanding of what the laws of evidence and legal processes are. The fact is, you need to understand what you are sidestepping, or why you are sidestepping the laws of evidence to demonstrate the reasonableness of the approach.
It is not intended to become a court by another means; it is intended to become a system by which people with a legal background can sidestep the nature of how courts operate to bring about better results.
I pointed out in the original document the principles that courts apply. When I spoke originally to the ministerial statement, I quoted a case in Victoria, the Australian Football League and the Carlton Football Club, where the courts referred to looking beyond the law as an impermissible task. The issue for a court when dealing with a matter of administrative concern is whether the issue it is asked to determine is lawful. It is proper that the courts restrict themselves to that.
I will give you another example. I refer to an old law book, and the case deals with the issues of unreasonableness and other limitations of administrative appeals. This is one of the seminal cases in these areas – Associated Provincial Picture Houses Limited v Wednesbury Corporation, 1948, King’s Bench 1 223. That is the Court of Appeal in England.
The issue came up of what was particularly reasonable. A local government authority had determined that:
- … no children under the age of fifteen years shall be admitted to any entertainments whether accompanied by an adult or not.
When it came to picture houses, the issue came up whether or not it was the intent of the legislative instrument available to this council to put together such a sweeping declaration. Lord Greene, Master of the Rolls, spoke about this at some length, and he repeatedly asked the question …
Mr Wood: It sounded like Monty Python, the person you quoted.
Mr ELFERINK: Okay. He then raised the issue and he said when it comes to considering these types of things:
- It is true to say that, if a decision on a competent matter is so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it, then the courts can interfere. That, I think, is quite right; but to prove a case of that kind would require something overwhelming, and, in this case, the facts do not come anywhere near anything of that kind.
Even when you have an express use of powers which, on the face of it, look unreasonable, the courts are still saying, ‘No, we are not going there’. It is still within the power that was given to that decision-maker to make that determination. So the courts quite rightly restrict themselves very much. They bind themselves up and say, ‘No, no, we are not going to interfere in this case and we are going to interfere in that case’. So, the effect of it is a court will essentially not overturn an administrative decision unless it is beyond the law, ultra vires, and there are many instances where decisions are made by public servants and decision-makers who are, in reality, not beyond their power, but far outside the domain of concepts of natural justice and reasonableness. Courts are not interested in going there and nor should they be. They determine the law that is bequeathed to them by this parliament when it comes to matters administrative.
If someone finds themselves caught up in a situation where they have an unreasonable decision go against them, then in most legislative instructions in the Northern Territory they only have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court to seek some form of injunctive relief, which is both expensive and, more often than not, beyond their power because the legislative instructions often say only on a point of law can you appeal. So very quickly you are in a very difficult situation.
Courts are an expensive option. Even if you can get into one, just filing the damned action is going to cost you over $1000. It is just too much. There could be another example where you would go to a court in the Northern Territory and that is to make a public servant make a decision, because there are processes where public servants simply refuse to make a decision when one is needed. And you can get a writ – it is called a writ of mandamus – to force a public servant to make a decision or a decision-making body to make a decision, but that is also an expensive exercise. You still have to lodge the paperwork, you still have to pay for it, and there is no guarantee you will get it because of the courts’ carefulness and caution in this area.
So you have an appellant system which is expensive and beyond the means of many people. The moment you say to the average punter, ‘You have to go and get lawyered up’, they just glaze over and walk away. That is just too hard. So this proposes to create a system which is consistent. At the moment our system is not consistent. We have a raft of appellant systems, many of which do not look like each other. They are incompatible with each other in their approach.
Let us consolidate it all into one system, turn the engine on and ensure it keeps running so the same principles of natural justice, which are applied by the Taxation Office through their appellant system, may look like the system of natural justice applied by the Licensing Commission, and then get things grinding through that system in an effective way so concepts such as irrelevancy, unreasonableness, uncertainty, inflexibility and those types of things can be referred to. But, unlike a court, this organisation will not say, ‘No, we are bound by the rules of evidence’. This organisation will say, ‘We are bound by the rules of reasonableness and common sense’. I am not saying the rules of evidence are not commonsensical, but to have a body which is easy and inexpensive to approach, responsive in dealing with you, and inquisitorial, which means it can actually pick up the phone and ask a few questions for itself, is a body more likely to get a result which is understood and accessible than the current systems in place.
For those reasons, I am anxious to go down this path and get a wriggle on in this area, because it is a worthwhile thing to do. But it is not just me. I did not just walk into Cabinet with a brain snap. I have spoken to representatives of the Magistrates Court, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, and numerous other people, including departmental officials, whom we collected into a room recently. I put the question to them as a collective group and said, ‘What do you reckon, folks?’ The discussion was fruitful and fulsome and the ultimate suggestion was, ‘Yes, it is time to go down this path in the Northern Territory’. Trust me, I am a politician. I will rephrase the trust me, but believe me if you will.
I am trying to achieve something that works, which is functional and simple. I do not want it to be buried under a mountain of complexity. I want it to be accessible and trustworthy. I believe it can be achieved, and I look forward to the day I walk into this legislature with bills establishing not only the existence of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal, but start quickly to transfer compellable processes to it.
The other advantage is for public service departments which carry many of these appellant responsibilities; it will remove a substantial amount of difficulty they have because it will become clear they will be decision-makers, and the appellant body will be somewhere remote from them. Take Treasury, for argument’s sake, which has the Territory Revenue Office and Territory revenue legislation. They will know once they have made a decision that they do not have to worry about the internal processes. If someone is aggrieved, there is somewhere else they can go.
There will be simplicity in the departments because, all of a sudden, ‘This is my job, these are the decisions I have to make, and if someone does not like the decision, the appellant body is somewhere else’. It removes the suggestion of potential conflict, if offers simplicity all round, and it offers ease of access.
I thank all honourable members, including those members opposite who spoke, for their contributions and I look forward to advancing this for the true welfare of the people of the Northern Territory.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Infrastructure in the Northern Territory –
An Update for the Assembly
Infrastructure in the Northern Territory –
An Update for the Assembly
Mr TOLLNER (Deputy Chief Minister): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the Minister for Infrastructure who is ill today, I am pleased to provide the Assembly with an overview of the work the County Liberals government is undertaking to deliver and manage infrastructure assets across the Northern Territory.
The government continues to strengthen the Territory, providing economic and regional development opportunities. Infrastructure spending in the 2013-14 budget, a well-delivered budget, remains high at $1.2bn, comprising a $550m capital works program and a repairs and maintenance program of $257m. We are providing increased funding for roads and housing, in addition to more funding to improve school and health facilities across the Northern Territory.
Our first budget also saw the commitment of $295m to upgrade, deliver and maintain vital power, water and sewerage infrastructure across the Territory. This investment will contribute towards a more efficient and reliable service for Territory consumers.
Private sector investment in the Territory continues to grow at a strong pace. In response to this growth the government has reshaped the infrastructure program to ensure maximum benefit for all Territorians. While the global spend is reduced in 2013-14 and over the forward estimates in comparison to recent years, the investment pipeline into the future is very strong.
This government is about targeted infrastructure investment to maximise opportunities for the Territory. As the Chief Minister has stated repeatedly, the Northern Territory is open for business. Forecasts suggest our economy will grow by 5% in 2013-14. CommSec’s State of the States report issued in July this year indicates strong economic growth in the Northern Territory. It states growth for the March quarter was almost 40% above the decade average levels of output. We lead the nation with our economic activity remaining strong, continuing to increase business investment opportunities. This strong growth is driven partly by major projects such as the INPEX Ichthys LNG project, the $495m NT secure facility, and the $110m Marine Supply Base. Other projects contributing to the Territory’s economic growth are the $60m expansion at the Darwin International Airport and the recently announced $300m Gateway retail centre at Palmerston.
Additionally, demand for the Territory’s natural resources has various mining projects being proposed in the Roper River and Mount Todd regions in the north and the Mount Charlotte, Mount Peak, Tanami and Nolans Bore regions in the Centre. These significant projects will further stimulate economic development and employment opportunities across the entire Territory.
Measures including red tape and green tape reductions and streamlining regulations demonstrate the Country Liberals government is all about ensuring investing in the Territory is as attractive as possible.
The Department of Infrastructure is a vital agency of government facilitating project management services for infrastructure projects across the Territory. We are, essentially, the Territory government’s builder. When we talk about the construction of new service facilities such as new bridges, new fire stations or road repairs, we talk about the asset owners, the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Children’s Services or the Department of Transport, for example. However, it is the Department of Infrastructure that stands behind the delivery of such government-funded built infrastructure. We work hard with these client agencies to capture the design intention, undertaking the tendering process for the works, managing construction, and coordinating the maintenance schedule after delivery.
The department plays a pivotal role in delivering infrastructure that enables remote residents to assess important services, helping to keep our communities safe, stimulating regional development, connecting communities across the Territory, and providing linkages between the Territory and new economy opportunities. Unlike Labor, the Country Liberals government governs for all Territorians.
The department is also central to the delivery of new public housing, overseeing headworks and newly-released subdivisions, enabling Territorians to take up new housing opportunities. DoI also provides the infrastructure to enhance the sporting and recreational options of all Territorians, enhancing our great Territory lifestyle.
The Department of Infrastructure is currently providing the project management services for the $521m NT secure facility, better known as the Darwin Correctional Precinct. The minister has recently visited the facility and is impressed by not only the scale of the project but also the planning behind the design. The systems that will be in place to help break the cycle of offending are, indeed, innovative and exciting. These systems will ensure those Territorians who are in secure custody are managed in accordance with the Australian and international guidelines for correctional centre facilities.
However, infrastructure is not just about bricks and mortar or asphalt. The infrastructure the Country Liberals government is delivering is helping to change the lives of Territorians. The new prison will enable each prisoner to engage in educational programs on a daily basis. There will also be rehabilitation programs and skill-based programs to enhance an individual’s life skills, as well as work skills such as the very exciting Sentenced to a Job program. The prisoners will be actively involved in undertaking work that will enhance the community and will also undertake maintenance work within the facility. The skills they will gain in these programs will help provide meaningful change to their lives and equip them with valuable skills to return to the community.
Looking at the project purely from a physical infrastructure perspective, this project has quite literally changed the landscape. Construction started on the site in April 2012 and we have seen the construction of a brand new road to the site, Willard Road. Work on the site includes the construction of the 1000-bed low, low open, medium, and maximum security correctional centre and related infrastructure for adult male and female prisoners. A 30-bed mental health and behaviour management centre, and a prisoner worker village with 48-beds are also being built. It is important to note the project is on track. At 30 June, the new facility was 63% complete, and 67% complete on budget.
Importantly, local industry participation is at 73% of the let trade value to date, and is forecast to reach 79% based on the outstanding trade packages. There are approximately 800 workers employed on the site, the workforce peaking earlier this year at 891. We see each of these people further contributing to the Territory economy. The new prison is being completed under a public private partnership model in order to provide an essential service to the community.
Another large-scale investment by the government is the Marine Supply Base, which comprises 8.66 ha and is being built on vacant land adjacent to the East Arm Wharf. The facility will have the capacity to service over 1000 vessels per year with a 12-hour turnaround. It will also be crucial in supporting the existing oil and gas industry, as well as enabling expansion as this exciting market grows into the future.
Other maritime industries will also be able to make use of the MSB. Initially, one berth will be used as a rock load-out facility to specifically service the rock armouring requirements of the INPEX Ichthys LNG operation. The facilities available at the MSB will include a berthing and mooring position, quay side lay down area, warehouse, new wharf structure, upgraded navigational aids, significant bulk storage, bunkering facilities, and associated administrative offices.
A secondary purpose of the Marine Supply Base will be tug refuelling. This investment will be a significant and much needed addition to an already busy Port of Darwin, and will provide significant opportunities to further grow the Northern Territory economy.
While we are delivering large-scale projects which are important to the future of the Northern Territory, the Country Liberals government has not lost focus on the people in the regional towns and communities of the Territory. As stated before the last election, the Country Liberals govern for all Territorians and we are continuing to ensure important local infrastructure is being delivered for all Territorians.
It is these local projects in communities across the Territory – Barkly, Nhulunbuy, Stuart, Nelson, in and around Darwin - that really have the ability to change lives. An example of life changing infrastructure is the health clinics in remote communities. We all know how vital good health is. Access to quality health services is pivotal to good health outcomes, especially in terms of closing the gap for Aboriginal people. The Commonwealth contributed $41.6m to continue the construction and upgrade of health clinics in nine communities: Ntaria, Papunya, Elliott, Ngukurr, Galiwinku, Canteen Creek, Numbulwar, and Kaltukatjara – thank you very much, member for Namatjira – and Maningrida. Improvements to these clinics will give people in these communities greater certainty when medical services are required.
Linked to the health clinics are upgrades to airstrips in remote communities such as Kaltukatjara, Utopia, and Lajamanu. This will enable the finest medical care to reach into the farthest corners of the Territory so anyone who lives, works or travels in these regions has the peace of mind of being able to receive top quality medical care. Unlike the previous Labor mob who took the bush for granted, the Country Liberals government wants everyone in the Northern Territory to have access to high-quality healthcare and we are getting on with the job of delivering. Unlike Labor, the Country Liberals can be trusted.
In remote communities, it is important that government services are available. For the many teachers, nurses, doctors, and police officers who provide those essential services, the Northern Territory government is providing quality government employee housing, and has identified an allocation of $44.6m to improve this housing in the recent budget. This investment is part of the whole-of-government plan to provide increased employment opportunities for Territory locals, as well as local Aboriginal people, through construction initiatives. This represents a win/win for the Territory.
As we all know, transport infrastructure is critical to Territorians with our cities, towns and communities separated by vast distances. Transport infrastructure enables the movement of people and goods across the Territory. Therefore, the Country Liberals government has allocated $373m of the 2013-14 Capital Works Program that will upgrade and improve important transport infrastructure including roads, airstrips, barge landings and investment in the Port of Darwin.
Major new projects for 2013-14 include national network upgrades valued at $46m, including a grade separated overpass on the Stuart Highway over the railway south of Alice Springs; strengthening and widening targeted sections and improved safety on the Arnhem Highway, including overtaking lanes valued at $16m; and a $5m upgrade of Charlotte River Crossing on Fog Bay Road.
Another significant project is very visible to anyone driving into Darwin on Tiger Brennan Drive. People will see that work has started on the duplication project from Dinah Beach to Woolner Roads. This project will enhance road safety by reducing traffic congestion, something that is highly anticipated by road users. Stage 1 of the project saw the completion of earthworks and drainage for the new inbound lanes between Gonzales Road and Woolner Road. The entire project will include duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive from Dinah Beach Road to Woolner Road; installation of traffic lights at the intersection of Tiger Brennan Drive and Gonzales Road, including safe crossings for pedestrians; upgrading with some modification of the intersection of Tiger Brennan Drive and Gothenburg Crescent, and upgrading the intersection of Woolner Road and Stoddart Drive.
This project will help alleviate congestion for people travelling from Palmerston to the Darwin CBD, or vice versa. However, the Tiger Brennan Drive duplication should be a much bigger project and would be if the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd federal Labor government had kept some of its promises. During the 2012 Territory election campaign, the federal Transport minister, Anthony Albanese – can you trust him? – and then Labor Chief Minister gave a commitment to duplicate Tiger Brennan Drive from Woolner Road to Berrimah Road. They pledged work would begin in 2013, completing the second major arterial link into Darwin and Palmerston. One year on, their commitment to the Territory has been exposed as a politically motivated fiction. Again, it goes to show you cannot trust Labor.
When the Territory Labor government lost in August 2012, the federal Labor government was no longer interested in funding the duplication. As usual, Labor has proved itself to be all talk and no delivery.
To our surprise, when the federal budget was handed down in May this year, we saw funding for the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive was pushed back until 2016-17. That is shameful. That is a full two years or two federal elections away. How quickly things can change. The federal Transport minister has falsely alleged that this delay was caused by the NT government’s tardiness in submitting required documentation – again, total fiction. The necessary paperwork has been lodged for quite some time, but the Labor government and minister Albanese are trying to manufacture a politically convenient excuse for their lack of action, and the disgraceful way he and federal Labor have treated Territorians on this matter. What do we hear from the mob opposite? Nothing.
Territorians deserve better treatment and to know when politicians make commitments they are kept. I know the Chief Minister has taken great interest in this project, as Transport minister, and has lobbied the federal government very hard on behalf of all Territorians. It seems the lobbying may well have paid off. At the eleventh hour, at the beginning of an election campaign, federal Labor changed its mind yet again. After going cold on the project, we are now advised by NT government officials that the federal government has revived its flagging interest in the program.
Federal department officials are now suggesting, on the eve of government going into caretaker mode, the money has been brought forward to 2014-15. Stand by for a Labor election stunt sometime soon announcing this money which was promised then taken away is promised again. It is typical of Labor playing games with Territorians and their needs.
Minister Albanese is being sneaky about it so he can re-announce funding with the local Labor candidate. Rather than being fair dinkum with Territorians, who obviously want the duplication completed, Albanese is again playing petty politics.
Today, we all call on the minister to come clean and confirm once and for all that the funding has been moved back to its original time frame so Territorians can start planning for the completion of the Tiger Brennan Drive duplication. The time for games is over. Voters deserve to know where Labor stands once and for all but, frankly, I do not know they ever will. We can contrast Labor’s sneakiness on this issue with the very public commitment by Natasha Griggs and the federal coalition of $70m to complete the upgrade of Tiger Brennan Drive. This commitment highlights Labor’s hypocrisy and appalling record on this issue.
I now focus on one of the ways we are assisting local tradespeople. As asset owners, we cannot simply walk away when new buildings are constructed and the keys handed over, or when the asphalt has dried. Our built infrastructure is robust, designed to last the extremes of Territory conditions; however, it is important the life of these often critical infrastructure assets is extended through appropriate maintenance schedules. The Country Liberals government’s $257m repairs and maintenance program is about more than just repairing and maintaining infrastructure. It provides additional benefit including employment and training opportunities across the Territory, and helps keep small businesses, local tradespeople, and suppliers in business, thereby building towards a strong economy and, by extension, a strong community.
As a government, we understand the need to ensure our built assets are well maintained. Therefore, we have committed an extra $100m to repairs and maintenance over the next four years. This extra funding is essential in fixing the funding shortfall in repairs and maintenance left to us by the previous Labor government.
Due to the Opposition Leader’s legacy of a projected $5.5bn debt, we have been required to make tough, but necessary, decisions to get the Territory back on track. The increase in the repairs and maintenance budget for 2013-14, compared with 2012-13, includes an additional $10m for targeted repairs and maintenance of regional roads as part of the three-year $30m regional roads maintenance program.
Again, this demonstrates the commitment the Country Liberals have to the regions of the Territory, so long and so often taken for granted by the previous Labor government. From the 2013-14 repairs and maintenance budget the following investments will be made: Territory roads, $74m; schools and education facilities, $43m; hospital and health facilities, $29m; public and government employee housing, $27m; the national network, $21m; sports, parks and art facilities, $14m.
I take this opportunity to update the Assembly on progress with the asset management system. The assets owned by the Northern Territory government take various forms to service the needs of the community, from hospitals to health clinics, schools, roads, boat ramps, bus stops, and everything in between. The planning, design, construction, maintenance and eventual asset replacement requires the Northern Territory government to operate an effective asset management system. This Assembly has debated at length the asset management systems operated by the Department of Infrastructure, including responding to the Auditor-General’s findings earlier this year. In fact, as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the minister initiated hearings to review the AMS program last year.
As we know, it has been a long and costly project. I take this opportunity to provide the Assembly with an update on the AMS project and how we are working towards achieving the design intention of one system replacing nine legacy systems which were reaching the end of their operational lives, provides more functionality than was previously available, and enables effective asset management across the entire Northern Territory government.
However, it must be said this is a legacy project from the previous Labor government, the mess of which we are in the throes of cleaning up. Responsibility for problems must rest with the former minister. Again, it adds to the list of messes the County Liberals are cleaning up after years of poor Labor administration. It is clear to me that the former minister went AWOL on the AMS project. If a department is like a ship, and the minister is the captain, clearly, the captain was asleep in his cabin with the AMS project. This is evidenced by the poor governance and the litany of problems which, as I stated previously, are ultimately the responsibility of the minister.
From February this year, the AMS project has been managed under a custodian whole-of-government service model to enable the delivery of government asset planning, construction, and project management. Under this model, an improved and reinvigorated program governance framework has been implemented and the Minister for Infrastructure and the sponsor, Anne Bradford, Deputy Chief Executive of the Department of Infrastructure, was appointed as the custodian to lead the project. My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I say, I am reading on behalf of the minister, so I take it that Anne Bradford is now the custodian of this project.
Good governance is important to the success of all projects, large or small, complex or simple. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. The governance framework within the AMS project details four critical layers: the AMS working group assessing the project from a tactical perspective; a business management group, covering the operational perspective; a steering committee, reviewing the project from a strategic perspective; and a ministerial oversight committee for government review. I take this opportunity to thank all members who serve on these four governance committees. They each play a vital role in the progression of the Asset Management System. I also thank Ms Bradford for her work in leading the AMS team.
In his review, the Auditor-General highlighted organisational change management as one of the contributing factors which led to the failure of the system meeting the needs of Northern Territory government users at the time of go-live:
- Limited ownership by the various Agencies that are users of the new system led to the shifting of responsibility for achieving business outcomes onto the project team. While the lack of engagement of Agencies was reported at several stages in the project, the issue was not raised with the steering committee early enough in the life of the project.
The new governance structure and input from each member will help eliminate this previous barrier and ensure that the AMS program’s deliverables accord with the government’s vision and agreed outputs and outcomes for asset management in the Northern Territory government.
My colleagues, the Chief Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing join me as standing members of the Ministerial Oversight Committee, and I thank them for their role in ensuring the whole-of-government asset management vision, intent, requirements, and priorities are incorporated and aligned across portfolio responsibilities through the Asset Management System.
A significant amount of work has been undertaken since this government came into power. This has included the identification of the high priority requirements for the system at the end of the last financial year. The project team delivered on high priority, end of financial year reporting requirements relating to GST, depreciation, agency transformation and billing by the Construction Division.
These were deemed most critical by whole-of-government representatives for the end of the 2012-13 financial year reporting. Delivery of the remaining high priority requirements will be achieved by November 2013.
The Business As Usual team within AMS worked successfully with agencies on end of financial year closure activities, and I am pleased to report that a zero balance was achieved in the Ledger Transfer Facility.
As the AMS team continues to strive towards the original intent of the system, I will share with you the vision statement for the Asset Management System Program: that it will deliver and maintain a contemporary, integrated asset management system tool to enable greater coordination of strategic government expenditure and capital investment.
The Asset Management System will do this through enabling the optimised whole-of-government investment management and decision-making; providing an accurate single point for asset related reporting and budgeting; ensuring transparency of commitments avoiding over or underspends; and providing a standard platform for the management of end-to-end asset life cycle. This is what the end-to-end management of government assets is about. It captures the critical work of the Department of Infrastructure assisting client agencies over the life of an asset through planning, designing, procurement, construction, operation, maintaining and decommissioning.
My colleague is proud to be the Minister for Infrastructure and to lead a department that will play a critical role in the continual economic and social development of the Territory. With developing Northern Australia becoming a significant national political issue, the economic future of the Northern Territory is very bright.
The Giles Country Liberals’ government is constantly looking at framing the future of the Territory as a prosperous one. We need to be ready to take advantage of significant infrastructure investment due to our proximity to Asia and the significant markets to our north. Considering that Asia’s GDP is expected to grow from $US21 trillion to $US67 trillion by 2030, and the middle class to grow from 500 million people to three billion by the same year; the Northern Territory must be ready to capitalise. Projects such as a new port, new rail lines for bulk export, large scale industrial parks and increased urban and communications infrastructure are all just over the horizon. It will require strong leadership to prepare the Northern Territory for this investment.
The Chief Minister has said the Territory is open for business. We stand ready to welcome investors, in partnership, to build the Territory for the future. The region we find ourselves in is the new global economic powerhouse.
The Country Liberals government is putting the Northern Territory and the people of the Territory front and centre, enabling them to take advantage of exciting opportunities. The future for us and our children is bright, and I am proud to be part of the Giles Country Liberal government.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Ms LAWRIE (Opposition Leader): Mr Deputy Speaker, I look forward to contributing to this statement on behalf of my colleague, the member for Barkly, the shadow minister for Infrastructure, as I indicated earlier today.
It is a statement the Treasurer would have choked on a few times, because it lauds the infrastructure that was planned for and delivered onto the program by Labor. It was really a song sheet of Labor success. I daresay even the Treasurer would have choked and baulked at reading out the song sheet of Labor success.
If you look at the infrastructure record of this government led by Chief Minister Adam Giles, who was not elected - got in there by knifing the member for Blain while he was on an overseas trade mission – on page one of Budget Paper No 4, which is the infrastructure program under the CLP, it says:
- … total infrastructure payments are expected to be $64 million less than 2012-13 and will continue to decrease over the forward estimates …
- … the new global economic powerhouse.
The track record is there, laid out bare on page one of Budget Paper No 4, Infrastructure Program. The CLP has taken an axe to that, just as it is taking an axe to our education system, cutting teachers from the schools and doing their best to hide and run away from public debate on that by rejecting the censure motion in this parliament today. May they hang their heads in shame, because they inherited the fastest growing economy in the nation from the Labor government in August of last year.
What they laud in this infrastructure statement in terms of success – I will quote from page two of the statement:
- As the Chief Minister has stated repeatedly, the Northern Territory is open for business. Forecasts suggest that our economy will grow by 5% in 2013-14. CommSec’s State of the States report issued in July this year indicates strong economic growth in the Northern Territory. It states growth for the March quarter was almost 40% above the decade average levels of output. We lead the nation with our economic activity remaining strong, continuing to increase business investment opportunities. This strong growth is driven partly by major projects such as the INPEX Ichthys LNG project, the $495m NT Secure Facility, and the $110m Marine Supply Base.
The three projects driving this economic growth have been delivered to the Northern Territory by the Labor government. It must have truly been difficult for the Treasurer to choke down those words knowing it is Labor effort and Labor work that is delivering the fastest-growing economy in the nation in terms of the predictions. That being said, if you look at the CommSec predictions, we are dropping below the ACT under the guidance of this CLP government because it is strangling business when it comes to the small end of town; but I will talk about that later in my contribution to this infrastructure statement.
The facts betray your political rhetoric. The facts are the main driver of the economy and the economic growth is that all-important Ichthys project, which the CLP opposed initially, saying it belonged in the 19th century. They distributed letters railing against it and, of course, there are volumes on the public record of the CLP opposing what they now refer to as the NT secure facility, ergo the Doug Owston Correctional Centre. The amount of debates and witch-hunts we have seen from the CLP going after that important PPP, public private partnership, slamming it, degrading it, rejecting it, saying it is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. Yet, here we are; we have pages of this government’s infrastructure statement dedicated to saying what a great project it is and what fantastic value we got out of the PPP, but I will go to that in a moment.
Then the third driver, the Marine Supply Base, the $110m project - again, there is plenty on the public record where the CLP castigated Labor for pursuing the Marine Supply Base. It was a project I had direct input into with the then Chief Minister, Paul Henderson. We drove and delivered that project for the Northern Territory, understanding how critically important it would be, not just during its construction phase to be an economic boost to the Territory, but through the supply chain it would provide to the growing oil and gas industry in the Top End based out of Darwin. It is the big kicker and driver through decades, ensuring we become the service and supply hub for offshore oil and gas exploration and servicing the platforms out there.
It is incredible to see in this statement the CLP lauding projects designed and delivered by Labor. Ichthys was not designed and delivered by Labor, but vitally pursued by Labor. Because I listen to the business people, I heard the debates prior to the final investment decision kicking around town, and one of the biggest doubters and naysayers of delivering the Ichthys project, the person who was telling business there was no way it would come here, was the member for Fong Lim. However, all of a sudden a rewriting of history occurs with this statement and it is a great CLP achievement. Go figure!
The claim they are open for business; I need to touch upon that. We know the Resources Council of the Northern Territory said the opposite when the budget was handed down and two mining levies were introduced in that budget - blindsided the resources sector of the Northern Territory. We know the Resources Council then said, very publicly, this is sending a signal this government is not open for business; it is closed for business. You have the government in its own little bubble of reality, and industry organisations saying the opposite.
With regard to the reference in the infrastructure statement to mines coming to production, you would think that, magically, in one short year, those mines coming into production had occurred within the time of the CLP government. Again, a rewriting of history, because we know the iron ore and ilmenite mines in the Roper region were going through the processes when Labor was in government. Again, feel free to rewrite history because that is what you consistently do to suit your own purposes. It does not have a shred of fact, but feel free to believe your own stories.
In the infrastructure statement, not a single project is a CLP initiative. That speaks volumes for the type of statement we hear from the CLP where they rename and rebadge work delivered by a previous government.
The prison, lauded in this statement - it is curious the member for Port Darwin has been so hung up on the description of the value of the prison. There are two different values attached to the prison. On the second page of the statement they attach a value of $495m to that all-important project they call the NT secure facility, which we know as the prison project. Further, on page 4 of the statement it is referred to as a $521m project.
Mr Wood interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: You might want to do a quick fact check on your statements to see if you have different figures referring to the same project.
Member for Nelson, I loved that interjection because they always referred to it as the $1.8bn project in previous debates when they were castigating and lambasting it and saying what a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars it is.
Try to be consistent. Within the one statement you have used $495m for the correctional facility, you then go to $521m, and you are consistently on the record as saying it is a $1.8bn project. Work it out, boys, sort yourselves out and try to be a little consistent, even though, of course, you are completely rewriting history in this statement and you could not stand that major project, you never understood the importance of the 1000 jobs that project was delivering to a fantastic local company, Sitzlers.
It is interesting that in the new infrastructure statement you do not refer to the numbers of jobs these infrastructure projects produce. If you go back and understand the work Labor did, you might want to pick up on some of that work. Have a look at the job generator effect on those projects. I can tell you the prison project created 1000 jobs.
The minister recently visited the facility and said:
- … I am impressed by not only the scale of the project but also the planning behind the design.
He went on to say:
- The systems that will be in place to help break the cycle of offending are indeed innovative and exciting. These systems will ensure those Territorians who are in secure custody are managed in accordance with Australian and international guidelines for correctional centre facilities.
Well, my goodness. I believe the member for Nelson is probably the only other one in this Chamber who might truly appreciate the extent of the incredible backflip from the government on the prison, given the amount of berating he received, which I also received as the person who oversighted the PPP process when I was the Treasurer. However, I welcome it nevertheless and thank you, Minister for Infrastructure, for recognising the importance of the design and scale of this facility.
He then went on to talk about the components of the 1000-bed low, open, medium and maximum security correctional centre, the infrastructure for adult male and female prisoners, the 30-bed mental health and behaviour management centre, and the prisoner worker village with 48 beds. They were all design components delivered by my colleague, the former Minister for Correctional Services, the member for Barkly, one Gerry McCarthy, who argued for what is a state-of-the-art facility.
On page 6 of his statement, the minister talks about the new prison being completed under a public private partnership model to provide an essential service to the community. Yes, that is right; it was a PPP and, if you look at the PPP compared to the public sector comparator, the taxpayer well and truly got value for dollar. It is good to see you have done a complete backflip on that and are now heralding it as a good example of a PPP. A little rewriting of history, but we will allow that, given the minister is now on board and understands what an important project it is and how it will contribute, not just to our economy, but how you deal with people in the Correctional Services system.
The minister then talked about the Marine Supply Base. It is interesting that the government paid $1m to their mates, called them the Renewal Management Board, and got the Renewal Management Board to deliver an interim report. We still have not seen the final report. The Chief Minister said in estimates he would talk to his Cabinet colleagues and find out whether it could be released. There has been a deathly silence ever since then. We suspect someone is still typing it and it was never delivered. Feel free to finish the typing and, at some stage in the future, deliver a final report of the Renewal Management Board.
Regardless, the interim report of the Renewal Management Board said the Marine Supply Base should be subject to an in-depth review. It was very disparaging of the Marine Supply Base, referencing that it did not think the base was viable. Yet now, rewriting history - massive backflip - the CLP claim it as:
- Another large-scale investment by the government …
In a massive backflip, the CLP is saying the Marine Supply Base, which was designed and delivered by Labor, will:
- … provide significant opportunities to further grow the Territory economy.
What an interesting rewrite of history when it comes to that important Marine Supply Base, which was a Labor project from inception to the construction phase.
Other than the first reference to the INPEX Ichthys major project, that was it. No further reference to a $34bn private investment project, the nation’s second-largest private investment project; Japan’s largest investment project in Australia; France’s largest investment project in Australia - one mention on page 2, and that is it; do not mention it again.
That is extraordinary, given the opportunities that exist if you understand that project and the opportunities that should be driven by this government, but are not. Re-institute a proper gas task force, get the training, and industry organisations around the table as they were. Work closely with NTICN as we did, and start to drill down and deliver in a more informed manner the opportunities that major project will bring to the local community. Then you will be congratulated. At the moment, people say your government is missing in action when it comes to the opportunities of that major project. When it rates a one-line mention in the infrastructure statement, little wonder people from the training and industry sectors, including business people, are saying the CLP is missing the opportunities from this major project.
The member for Nelson last week pointed out the fractured relationship between INPEX and the CLP, and this statement with just a one-line reference to that major project, confirms it.
You claim you are assisting Territorians; however, when you look at the opportunities for that all-important gas to Gove project and the major infrastructure which would come from the gas pipeline, you have completely missed the point of the work you could do in government to leverage major projects, because that does not rate a mention in the infrastructure statement. How could it not, given its importance to regional economic development and the regional economy in sustaining that refinery, and the jobs along the pipeline route? But, it does not rate a mention.
You cannot organise a meeting with the new CEO of Pacific Aluminium, now back in the Rio Tinto fold, and you have a damaged relationship with INPEX because of the foolish behaviour of the member for Braitling. Two of the largest companies operating in the Territory, and you have damaged relationships. You have a fair amount of repair work left to do.
There was no mention of education infrastructure apart from some repairs and maintenance. We know the repairs and maintenance budget has decreased, but there was no mention of that in this infrastructure statement because it did not suit the story.
You talk about regional projects, and it was interesting listening to the rhetoric of the Treasurer and the Chief Minister in this Chamber today and, frequently, last week, and the political rhetoric in this statement that you cannot trust Labor, Labor does nothing, and Labor never did anything and rant, rave, rhetoric. It is interesting that on page seven of this statement there is a reference to $41.6m committed by the Commonwealth, that would be the Labor government, to continue the construction and upgrade of health clinics in nine communities, and then you go on to talk about which communities they are.
Thank you, member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon. I place on the record my personal thanks, as a Territorian, to the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, who, through his allied health portfolios has delivered this incredibly important investment in Commonwealth health infrastructure right across his electorate.
He did not do it just to pork barrel, as a southern member of parliament could be accused of, he did it because this is critically important and highly needed infrastructure in these communities. So much so, the CLP is lauding it in its infrastructure statement. On the one hand you say only the Country Liberals govern for all Territorians - breathtaking in their rank hypocrisy – and on the same page talk about Labor-funded initiatives delivering health clinics across those nine remote communities. Seriously, wake up to yourselves, gentlemen.
There is another bizarre anti-Labor rant on page 8 before they go on to talk about the importance of the government employee housing program with a $44.6m spend. That program was massively ramped up under the Labor government, and the CLP has continued rolling out the program. Despite the political rant, the facts belie what they are attempting to present. The government employee housing program was a crucially ramped-up initiative under the Northern Territory Labor government. I am proud to have been part of that important delivery.
Regarding transport infrastructure, how curious; I was looking for the promise of an all-year access road to Wadeye, known as Port Keats Road, but there was no mention of it in the infrastructure statement. I guess we will have to hold our breath and wait for that. I was also looking for the promise of $20m for the port for the Tiwi Islands, because I know there are companies investing in Melville and the port, but there was no mention of the Northern Territory government infrastructure investment, which, of course, was another election commitment. Maybe that is an over-the-horizon type of infrastructure commitment - one of the visions the Chief Minister and Transport minister mentioned when he made his first statement as Chief Minister, which are now described as ‘over the horizon’. Is that the same as never-never, or is that just waiting for someone else to come and fund his thought bubbles?
We are also looking for the new school promised for Borroloola by the CLP. There is no mention of that.
If you look at the facts, the statement is ripping up those contracts the County Liberal Party signed across the regions because they are not contained in here in terms of any infrastructure delivery.
The infrastructure around transport - they talk about roads, airstrips, barge landings and other investments. Every item contained in this statement was on the Capital Works Program under Labor. Quite significant numbers of these items were funded by the Commonwealth Labor government. But do not worry about the political rants contained in the statement: $46m for National network upgrades; that is Commonwealth dollars - Labor. Yet you rant against the Labor Party in your statement. It shows the immaturity of this government not yet able to grasp the concept that, irrespective of what political party you are, if you are designing, funding and delivering programs in the Territory then perhaps is it called a partnership, and perhaps that is a good thing for Territorians. The strengthening and widening of the Arnhem Highway – again, that was a project Labor started.
The upgrading of Fog Bay Road on the Charlotte River – again, a Labor project. I know this is getting repetitive, but these are all projects that were on the Capital Works Program when I was the Treasurer, and they were funded through the Capital Works Program.
The classic is Tiger Brennan Drive, which is described in detail around Woolner Road; we know that came onto the Capital Works Program a couple of years ago under Labor. The earthworks had to settle, and the compacting work can now begin. There is bleating about the Tiger Brennan Drive extension dollars. I thank the federal Transport minister, Anthony Albanese. I lobbied him for additional funding for Tiger Brennan Drive and was delighted with the $120m-odd commitment he made to that project. Quite frankly, without it there is no way the Liberals would have come to the party with their announcement to match it. Well done, minister Albanese, because you have delivered a fantastic investment opportunity for the Northern Territory. Irrespective of who wins the federal election, that road will be duplicated due to Labor negotiations.
When I was Treasurer, I lobbied minister Albanese and upped the ante on the Liberals, who have now said, ‘me too’. Well, good, you have come to the party. You are a little late, but I am glad you have come to the party because Territorians will get that road duplicated regardless of which party forms the federal Labor government.
In repairs and maintenance, as I pointed out, whilst the amounts sound impressive, they have been reduced. In real terms, that means Territory businesses are hurting. I listen to those poor businessmen and women who run the trades and businesses across the Northern Territory, whether in the Top End, Central Australia, the regions of Katherine or Barkly, or in Nhulunbuy, I hear it consistently wherever I travel. They are hurting because of the reduction in spending, particularly in repairs and maintenance and minor new works programs coming out of government.
They are despairing also because the government does not seem to want to hear what they are saying. Often government will not even meet with their industry organisations, and when they do, are flippant and get into arguments. It is a ridiculous way to behave, but that is the way the member for Fong Lim likes to play. It does not mean he is regarded or respected, but that is the way he likes to play.
You would think there would be a reference to Palmerston hospital in the infrastructure statement. It does not rate a mention because the site they have chosen does not have any services. Essentially, they have chosen a site which will delay construction of Palmerston hospital by one to two years depending on the cost, scope and design of those service connections. I am not privy to that information, which is why I say one to two years. Northern Territory government, come clean on that. A detailed description of the scope, design and cost for those service headworks for the new Palmerston hospital site should have been included in this infrastructure statement. I look forward to obtaining that information because it should be on the public record. If you have chosen a site you would already have done the costings, scope and design.
The Ord is one of the main pillars of your economic drivers but it does not rate a mention. Why not? This is an infrastructure statement. It talks about how you are going to drive the Territory’s economy, yet you cannot put a sentence together on the Ord and what your investment in the Ord infrastructure will be, what it looks like, and how you will deliver on your commitments there. Extraordinary!
There is no mention of any investment in land release or headworks to support land release. You would think an infrastructure statement would provide that, but not a single mention. Why? Perhaps you know the investment sitting on the books and now occurring is investment under Labor’s program when in government, and you have no idea where to head next because you scrapped Weddell.
There is no mention of housing upgrades. What is happening at Kurringal? Where is the investment in infrastructure at Kurringal? You are decanting people, so where is the investment in infrastructure? There is no mention of the largest publically funded housing program, the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing. It is an infrastructure statement. Why would you not pay attention to the hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in NPARIH, otherwise known as SIHIP?
Why would you not go there? Because now you say it is fantastic and you laud the fact there are over 900 houses thanks to that program. Now you are truly claiming and owning that program. In the housing statement you made last week it was wonderful. But for those who have been around this Chamber a long time, the rank hypocrisy dripping from that statement was breathtaking. There is little wonder it does not rate a mention in the infrastructure statement. Maybe the hypocrisy through the rest of this statement was a tad too far for the person typing it.
There is no mention of the failed mandatory rehabilitation infrastructure facilities. When you talked about the importance of Power and Water infrastructure, you did not mention you have reduced spending on that program by $20m. There is no mention of the revote in the infrastructure statement, yet when the CLP was in opposition you devoted questions to it in Question Time and contributed to statements at length about the revote and how it was a sign of incompetence and failure. There is no mention that the CLP has a revote of $430m. Is that $430m of incompetence and failure? Or, do you finally get that the size of projects and the construction cycles of the Territory mean they straddle financial years? Who knows, because the rewriting of facts contained in this infrastructure statement, sprinkled liberally with doses of Liberal rhetoric, is quite bewildering?
Mr CHANDLER (Education): Mr Deputy Speaker, I support the infrastructure statement delivered eloquently by the member for Fong Lim.
I did not really understand the meaning of hypocrisy until I came into this Chamber and witnessed, for many years, the then Labor government and the way they spoke. It is interesting how the debates unfold now the tide has changed and the government is now the Country Liberals. It is bizarre. It is the same old, same old, just a different team. We were over there attacking you when you were in government and, now, you are over there attacking us. We will always have disagreements on who does what better and so forth.
From an infrastructure point of view, the number of cranes around the CBD at the moment is remarkable; there is a fair amount of development going on. The Opposition Leader talks about speaking to businesses and so forth; we do that too in government. In fact, I can give you my diary and show you the number of developers I have spoken to in the last few months, let alone the last 12 months.
I was looking at file numbers; approximately 2473 files have been across my desk, most of which were Lands and Planning – some Education and Housing – and they are all to do with developments, land releases, rezoning, new applications and so forth. The people I speak to are excited with what is going on for a number of reasons. We are changing our focus on the bureaucracy and getting back to working directly with developers to get on with it. You get out of the way, and let developers get on with it.
That does not mean we throw away good planning mechanisms or environmental concerns. No. We provide a very clear guideline to ensure the process is as effective as possible. That is how we stimulate business across the Top End.
Quoting directly from the statement:
- The department is also central to the delivery of new public housing, overseeing headworks and newly-released subdivisions, enabling Territorians to take up new housing opportunities.
That is music to my ears! I love the Infrastructure department because it works with developers and builds stuff. The Department of Housing has a budget and, of course, we work with Infrastructure to help deliver on that. The department of Education has a budget and we work with Infrastructure in delivering educational outcomes. As the Minister for Housing, I work with the Infrastructure minister and his good department to deliver on infrastructure.
Hearing some of the rhetoric coming from the opposition tires you. The member for Fong Lim mentioned the Tiger Brennan Drive duplication. How many of these things come out, time and time again, as election promises? It is only when people are driving on the bitumen that they really judge a government for what it has delivered, or whether something has just been a promise.
In remote communities it is important that government services are available for many teachers, nurses, doctors, and police officers who provide those essential services. The Northern Territory government is providing quality government employee housing. Do we have much to do? Yes, we have a great deal to do, because that is one area we need to focus on into the future.
The recent budget identified an allocation of $44.6m towards improved government-employee housing. This investment is part of the whole-of-government plan to provide increased employment opportunities for Territory locals as well as local Aboriginal people through construction initiatives. This represents a win/win for the Territory.
You buy into many agreements in government because they are in place. We came into government, looked at the fiscal position we were left in, as a legacy of the former Treasurer, the member for Karama, and the then Labor government. When you look at what we have promised Territorians and then weigh it up with the fiscal position we are in, is it a challenge? Damn right, it is! It is not to say we cannot do it; we have to do things differently. We have to be able to work and leverage what government has with the private sector.
Something I find extremely disappointing with the NPARIH negotiations - as the member for Fong Lim said - the former failed SIHIP program, is the agreement in 2009 of the price of the homes. The original scope of works and where those works were carried out was in some of the easier locations. That is not to say there are not challenges in the remote places, but the reality is we are now finding some more difficult and bigger challenges.
The federal government has been unwilling to negotiate on the prices. It is willing to pay for the delivery of these houses in remote areas, and that is something I will be taking up with the new government; whoever they are and whatever political affiliations they have. It is something we need to talk about, because the reality is it does cost a great deal of money to deliver services in the bush. It costs a great deal of money for infrastructure, such as roads, sewerage and electricity, on the scale it has been done, requested or agreed to. The lack of negotiation between the federal government and the Territory government in having any room to move on the prices quoted per house will make it extremely challenging as we move forward.
The increase in the repairs and maintenance budget for 2013-14 compared to 2012-13 - from the 2013-14 repairs and maintenance budget, the following investment will be made: schools and education facilities, $43m. If you listen to the Leader of the Opposition you would get the impression we are not investing in any repairs and maintenance in our schools and education facilities. In fact, there is $43m earmarked for repairs and maintenance in our schools.
Public and government employee housing, $27m. Again, if you listened to what the Leader of the Opposition just said, it sounded as if we are not putting any money into public and government-employee housing. The reality is, $27m is being invested in that area.
From an electorate point of view, and I know the member for Fong Lim has spoken about the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive, I was devastated to learn the money which had been promised for the duplication of Tiger Brennan Drive, by the federal Labor government at the time of the 2012 Northern Territory election, had been forgotten about, or removed. If money had been promised, unless there has been some dramatic change in events …
Mr Tollner: There was. It went from $1.1bn surplus to $30bn deficit.
Mr CHANDLER: A demonstration again of their fiscal economic management. Absolutely.
I mentioned earlier today in Question Time that governments need to live within their means, but you would think if money has been promised it would have been budgeted and allocated for that program, then to find it has just disappeared - I heard today it is back on the table from the federal government? Is that true?
A member: Yes.
Mr CHANDLER: This is going to become a political football, similar to the Palmerston hospital. The difference with the Palmerston hospital - I guarantee you, mark my words, Hansard – is there will be more than a temporary fence around a proposed hospital in Palmerston, as we saw in the lead-up to the 2012 election. By the time the next election comes around in 2016, I guarantee there will be more than just a temporary fence around the new hospital site. The hospital site will allow for future growth for years to come, and will not be choked in the site the former government put on the table.
The Palmerston council also said it was the wrong place for a hospital, and if any member of the then government - now opposition - spent some time at the corner of Roystonea Avenue and Temple Terrace of a morning, they would understand the traffic flows at the moment are well beyond the capacity of that intersection without major works being introduced. The hospital would have made it worse.
I constantly see the ambulances trying to get out of Gurd Street where traffic is backed up right down Roystonea Avenue, across Temple Terrace all the way to the Stuart Highway, before even a brick is laid on the ground, and they wanted to put a hospital in that place! The other day the Opposition Leader said they would remove the bulldozers from that site when they came into government, but there were no bulldozers there. Oh, sorry, except for the day of the photo shoot. But then all we saw there was a temporary fence, and the temporary fence remained there for months.
I get excited about what we can do with infrastructure, but it brings us back, again, to the fiscal position the former government left us. I recall, as will the Cabinet at the time, sitting in NT House on the 14th floor. debating the budget and the fiscal position the former Labor government left us in. As rightly pointed out, it was three times worse than even the federal Labor government left us.
Mr Tollner: Was Tom Jones on that night?
Mr CHANDLER: He could well have been, but why? There was not one happy face in that Cabinet meeting.
When we realised what we had inherited and what we had to do to bring things back into line fiscally, and the cost savings measures to be applied across every agency - I know I had many sleepless nights, as I believe many of my Cabinet colleagues did. I know the then Chief Minister, Terry Mills, was devastated when he told us what the position was, and we talked about what we would have to do, as a responsible government, to get us back into line. Even down to the debate we had earlier today in Question Time on education - did this government want to take savings measures in education? No. Did we want to take savings measures in any department? No. But what is the reality? The reality is the debt the previous government left us has to be paid back.
I will keep drumming on about that for many years to come, because it seems they believe if we forget to talk about the debt it will just disappear. Well, it will not disappear. Unless it is brought under control and we can find some level playing field – start, as a government, living within our means - then the debt will continue to grow well into the future.
The shadow minister for education, Mr Gunner, can criticise us all he wants about education and savings but, at the end of the day, if we do not get this under control today, the kids we are educating we are stealing from tomorrow. We are stealing their future, because they will be left with the legacy of a greedy society and a greedy government that has not, or could not, live within its means.
This goes right across the community. We all need to understand that whatever services governments deliver come at a cost. Governments do not have money; the only money governments have is the people’s money, which is raised through taxes. So, if the service level goes up, so too will the requirement to put up taxes, and this is right across the Territory and the federal government. There is this want in the Australian community, and you can understand it. People want what is, in some cases, right; but there will always be competing priorities right across the board, and we will always have ideological differences. There is only so much money to go around. We would dearly love to be able to provide every damn service to meet every expectation out there, but at what cost? Who will be prepared to pay that?
When we talk about cost savings measures across departments, including Infrastructure, we do so while realising what our fiscal position is and what we can deliver as a government. As I said before, I would love to say we can have two, three or four teachers in every classroom. Is it affordable? The answer is no, unless the community is prepared to pay for it.
The bottom line is, I have a responsibility to do what I can for education, and I give a commitment to do that. The easy thing for me to say would be, ‘I was not the minister at the time these savings measures were made, but I will work damn hard to claw them back’. However, I was part of the Cabinet that made those decisions, so I cannot walk away from them. They were made not because we wanted to make them, but because we responsibly had to make them. Unless we can live within our means, from a government perspective, we risk this government and Territorians being left with that legacy into the future.
That is not fair to my children; it is not fair to anyone’s children to be left with that legacy. I will do what I can in Education, I have a passion for education, but I will talk about infrastructure because that is what the statement is about. I digress, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Going back to infrastructure and education, I had a good, fruitful discussion with minister Shorten when he was in Darwin. I have also had some good discussions with minister Garrett, but I put on the table that I have a passion for improving special education in the Northern Territory, and I always said I would fight for a Palmerston special education unit. We have already earmarked and secured the land in Bellamack, and now we have to find the money to build the infrastructure. That is at the forefront of my mind. In the discussions I had with minister Shorten I told him the difficulty I had when I recently visited Henbury School and could not walk away from it and only focus on Palmerston. Whilst it would be easier from an electorate point of view, we also need a new Henbury School, without a doubt. I have had Education and the Department of Lands, Planning and the Environment look at suitable sites, how we can value-add to exiting sites, what we can do to build a new Henbury School while, at the same time, not taking my eye off Palmerston.
I spoke to minister Shorten and was surprised to learn he shared the passion of special education and welcomed my letter about building new schools. Of course, we have written to minister Shorten, but it is unfortunate for us at the moment being in caretaker mode and not knowing who will be in government after 7 September. However, that does not stop me continuing to fight. After September 7, I do not care who is in government. If, and I am really hoping we do not, we have a Labor government, I will be hitting Bill up for - I will not say his offer, but he asked me to write the letter, which I have done, and if we have a Coalition government, which the country deserves, I will be writing to whoever the Education minister is …
Mr Wood: Mr Palmer?
Mr CHANDLER: No, please! I will say I have written to Bill Shorten who shared with me his passion for special education, and we desperately need two new schools in the Northern Territory.
If the federal government cannot help us, knowing the fiscal position we are in, does it make the job difficult? It does, but it does not prevent me from delivering not only on a commitment, but I promise those schools will be delivered. It will just make me do it in a different way. Whether it will be like the former government with the prison in a public private partnership – I know they have worked successfully to deliver a number of schools in New South Wales and Queensland - it will and can be done, it will just be done differently.
It would be so much better to be in a position where we have the money in the bank to build this much-needed infrastructure, but we do not because of the fiscal position we have been left in by the former Labor government. I am hoping we get some support from the federal government to build a new Palmerston special education school and a new Henbury School. If we do not get help from the federal government, we will deliver anyway, we will just find a different way to do it. My concern in Education is not to focus so much on the amount of money going into it every year, but on how that money is spent. That is why I have called for an Indigenous review; there has not been one done since 2009. When I put out my hand to the federal government, I need to know what I am asking for.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend the minister for this statement and know we will deliver as a Country Liberals government because we are a government focused on working with business, not against it.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Deputy Speaker, when you talk on statements, it sometimes brings back memories of when the government was in opposition. There were statements like this, and the opposition would pound the table and, sometimes, call them puff pieces. There was all kinds of raving and ranting. Now, the boot is on the other foot. The government has issued a statement which is similar to statements we have had over many years.
Of course, we are in federal election mode, so some of what is in here is, obviously, about the federal election. There are quite a few pages in here talking of promises for Tiger Brennan Drive etcetera, which is what you expect of parliament at the time of a federal election. However, there are some things in here the government talks about which need to be discussed without the federal election background. They need to be debated on their own merits.
Going through this document, I too had to laugh when the government talked about INPEX and the increased economic activity. The member for Fong Lim saying today that we are number one on this and this, and number two on this and this. That is fine and great, but do not tell me the world turned around without some economic activity occurring before the last 12 months that did not have some effect on it. INPEX has had a major effect - in some cases good, in others bad - on the Northern Territory economy, and it did not happen within the last 12 months; it has been on the drawing board for at least five, six, or seven years.
Whilst I understand the government wants to claim things are looking good, and hopefully they continue to be good, the proof of the pudding will be not what you said over the last 12 months, it will be what you say over the next three years. Then you can skite. At the moment that skiting is a little false. It is the usual, ‘Look at me, look at me’ but, when you look at in depth, you realise it is a bit of spin.
The government did talk about INPEX. I agree with the Opposition Leader, I do not believe the government, when it was in opposition, had much time for INPEX. In fact, that is partly the reason the former Chief Minister went to Japan, to mend fences because the relationship between the CLP and INPEX was not good. I remember a meeting held near the new INPEX village just before the election. There was an issue in relation to the siting of the new sewerage pumping station at the village. Lo and behold, people you have never seen anywhere in the rural area popped out of the blue; that was the now Chief Minister and the member for Fong Lim, who turned up with their candidate at a meeting of the residents. They were so upset about the siting of this sewerage pumping system, but they had never been around the rural area before. They had gone there, basically, to stir the pot, and say this was inappropriate. In fact, they said things such as it would smell. They said that because in Alice Springs they have vents over the sewerage system which do cause an odour. The problem was, they are not used in the Top End; it was just a way of scoring a few cheap points at the time.
What it was signalling was they were not having a go at me; they were having a go at INPEX. INPEX did a great deal of work bringing the community on side.
They often accuse me of being the cause of INPEX being there. In fact, there was a sign up during the election that basically said, ‘2500 workers, did you vote Independent?’ That sign did not have CLP written on it, but had been authorised by the same person who authorised every CLP sign around the countryside.
When we had the debate in parliament about whether INPEX should be on that site, there were two people here, the members for Fong Lim and Goyder, and both said where the INPEX village is at the present time was a good site. I did not have much chance of winning that debate, but I still say it is on the wrong site; it should have been built further away from the existing Howard Springs residential area. But, it is there now, and there will be benefits for the community in the long term through the good infrastructure built there. The government, if it is in for a second term, will have to consider to what use that infrastructure will be put, because there is a huge kitchen, tavern, basketball courts, swimming pool - the only public swimming pool in the Litchfield area - a theatre, administration, laundry and workshops. I hope the government will provide discussion papers to explain how the infrastructure at the INPEX village will be used.
The government talks about INPEX as if they were their mates at the time, which they certainly were not, and it has taken time for that disagreement with INPEX to be resolved. The member for Blain did a great deal of work in mending those fences and that is part of the reason things are now back on stream, even though he was sacrificed while he was away, which set things back.
I know the Chief Minister has been back, and I do not know whether there has been a resolution since then, but we certainly need to have a good relationship between INPEX and the government.
The minister then went on to talk about general projects. He also spoke about the Darwin Correctional Precinct. It is strange to hear the government praising the place. I quote from the speech:
- The minister has recently visited the facility and is impressed by not only the scale of the project but also the planning behind the design. The systems that will be in place to help break the cycle of offending are, indeed, innovative and exciting.
He went on to say:
- However, infrastructure is not just about bricks and mortar or asphalt. The infrastructure the Country Liberals government is delivering is helping to change the lives of Territorians. The new prison will enable each prisoner to engage in educational programs on a daily basis. There will also be rehabilitation programs and skill-based programs to enhance individual’s life skills as well as work skills, such as the very exciting Sentenced to a Job program.
- The prisoners will be actively involved in undertaking work that will enhance the community and will also undertake maintenance work within the facility.
I agree with that; what has been put there is giving people who end up in prison a chance not to go back again. It talks about a 30-bed mental health and behaviour management centre, and a prisoner worker village with 48 beds also being built. It employs many people, but I note that in Question Time on 25 October 2011, Mr Elferink was asking a question of the then Treasurer and he started it with:
- Your new prison, your Taj Mahal, is fast becoming a mausoleum to failed policies and your misguided priorities.
That is certainly different to what the member for Port Darwin thinks of the prison now.
Mr Tollner: No, it is not.
Mr WOOD: It certainly is, and also the Minister for Infrastructure has it written here that it not a mausoleum to failed policy, it is a change. I hope it is a change for the better, because the existing prison is woeful and will not change people’s lives around. If you have ever been to the maximum medium security part of that prison, it is so out of date, and it is such a degrading place that you will never change things unless you have a facility where people have a chance.
I applaud the government for its program, Sentenced to a Job. It is an excellent program and I congratulate the government. We need to do more work in this area, especially work camps out bush and, hopefully, reduce the number of people in that prison. That would be a goal well worth looking at.
The statement talks about the Marine Supply Base, which is great but, again, it was set up by the previous government, and there does not seem to be any recognition of that.
It talks about regional projects: one in Nelson, which would be the upgrade of the road. I remember criticism at the last election about upgrading the Howard Springs Road. Yes, it has taken a long time and it has been a difficult project and is worth over $10m, but it has created jobs, just as the prison and the INPEX village have.
You would think from a government which is very much about private enterprise and developing jobs you would occasionally hear, regardless of whether the projects are the way they wanted them, some praise from the point of view of creating jobs - 860 jobs at the prison. That is people working and spending in the Northern Territory. It is the same with the INPEX village, but you hear very little about it.
The minister spoke about health clinics and I was interested to look at the previous government’s budget and this year’s budget. I notice a couple of health clinics in the communities disappeared from one budget: Milingimbi and Borroloola. I noticed Borroloola had $800 000 set aside for upgrades and Milingimbi had $4.5m for a new remote health centre. I do not know whether it has been built, but it certainly is not in the statement by the minister. I do not know what has happened there, but if it has been taken off, I am interested to know why.
The minister also talked about government housing, which is good. I am not sure whether he included the housing at Coolalinga where he just announced the government would purchase 60 houses at the new residential development. There is certainly a need for housing in the rural area for professionals like teachers and nurses. Taminmin College has complained for a long time that one of the difficulties in getting teachers is that there is no residential accommodation out that way. If this accommodation the government has announced is for professionals, and teachers can use those facilities, that is a great initiative.
The minister talks about transport infrastructure, which is good, but I pulled out the two budgets, saw what was in the last budget and what is in this one, and I see the same things. I do not mind the government saying what it is doing, but you could get rid of the party politics sometimes and say, ‘We are continuing a program the previous government started’. I have no qualms with that. But in this statement you seem to say, ‘We did it all by ourselves’, and I say, ‘Yeah, right’, because it is in the last budget, and it is in this budget. Give us a break! It does not take an Einstein to read these Infrastructure budgets. But there are times when you wonder. Give credit where it is due, but do not gild the lily too much and make everything sound like it is yours. I know next year you will develop your own budget, and that is fine, but this first 12 months you are living off some of what was put forward by the previous government and, to be fair, you should allow that to be recognised.
There is an area which needs some discussion. The minister talks about the repairs and maintenance budget and an investment of $74m which will be made to Territory roads. One of the issues that has fallen off the discussion paper - the Minister for Local Government would be interested - is something that has taken a long time and gone nowhere, as far as I know, and that is: who will look after the roads that, in theory, were to be handed over when the previous government amalgamated the shires?
The Territory government looked after the minor roads which connected all the small community government councils. That discussion has been going on for an awfully long time and I understand, from a local government perspective, there is no way they would take over those roads unless there was an equal amount of cash to go with them, because they would be an enormous burden on the councils and that cash would have to be guaranteed year in, year out.
I am not criticising the minister, but I heard the discussion about swimming pools. I have a local government background and I remember when the first pools were announced and people in local government said to me, Great, but who is paying?’ Some of this money came from the federal government; it was ‘no school, no pool’. The issue always was who would pay to run them. It is a burden on local government and many local governments do not have the financial capacity, even from a rates perspective, to pay for the upkeep of the pools.
It is the same with the roads. It is no good handing those roads over to a local government if it does not have enough money to look after them. That is just shifting the cost to another government body which will go broke doing it. I am interested to know, because it is important.
The minister also mentions hospital and health facilities. I know the minister is, unfortunately, sick, but I was looking at the Health department budget for 2012-13 and it said, ‘High voltage electrical system chiller and standby power upgrade, $37.7m’. I then looked into the budget for the government on this issue, and I noticed it had reduced. In the 2013-14 budget that chiller has gone from $37.7m to $15.35m. I do not know if they have spent money on it already, but that is a large reduction.
There are also upgrades to increase the number of beds in the emergency department short-stay unit and to provide an additional two operating theatres. That was federal government money of $22.023m, and it shows up in the new budget as $15.957m. Again, it would be nice to have an explanation. Has it been a cut, or has some of that money already been used and you are revoting part of it?
There are other issues in relation to facilities, such as the Cullen Bay pontoon replacement and the Cullen Bay sheet pile wall. In the previous budget, there was $3.8m for the pontoon replacement and $2.35m for the sheet pile wall. However, in the new budget, it is $1.8m for the replacement of the pontoon and $1.6m for the sheet pile wall. So I ask, has some of it been done and you are only showing in the budget the money needed to finish it off, or has there been a reduction? If there has been a reduction of that amount, what type of pontoon are you replacing it with because it is about half what was originally set aside?
The government also mentions upgrading different highways. In the old budget there is money allocated for upgrading the passing lanes. In the new budget there is money set aside for new overtaking opportunities and upgrading of the Arnhem Highway. Fine, but say, ‘We are continuing the program’. Most of the money for roads is federal government money. At least say, ‘We are continuing the program of the previous government’, because most of the money set aside is, basically, the same money.
Ms FINOCCHIARO: Mr Deputy Speaker, I move an extension of time for the member to complete his remarks, pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, member for Drysdale, my neighbour. You can come and visit my hospital one day. It is just over the road in Holtze in the electorate of Nelson.
Also, there are some issues which have been missed. I will give you one example which worries me a little and which I have raised before. The government talks about upgrading roads, but if we are ever going to develop regional areas and if local councils or local areas are going to grow, then infrastructure has to be improved. I know the government is putting money into the Arnhem Highway, and I still ask whether we are putting money into public roads or private roads. The Central Arnhem Road is partly permit-required and partly not. This is an area that has to be sorted through eventually.
I travelled down the Nathan River Road and the dirt section of the Roper Highway. The government is trying to promote tourism and there are opportunities for people to go to Borroloola, Numbulwar and Ngukurr using the Savannah Road, which is a disgrace. The Nathan River Road, which is part of the Savannah Way, is dangerous; it has been chopped up, I gather, by mining vehicles, and looks like it is desperately in need of maintenance. I know it is a big road. Everyone knows how long it has taken to get the Mereenie Loop Road bituminised. I am not saying this road should be bituminised, but it is advertised as the Savannah Way, an alternative route for people to come from Queensland, go through the Territory, and over to Western Australia. I do not expect the road to be perfect, but the Nathan River Road is a safety hazard. There have already been a number of bad accidents on that road, and it desperately needs an upgrade.
The reports I received said it has been graded once this year. When I was on the Roper River Road, I spoke to the storekeeper at Roper Bar and she said it had only been graded once this year. When I was leaving there was a grader sign up there, but this is August. How do you develop these regions if the roads are so bad the grey nomads will talk to one another on their radios and say, ‘Do not use that road’. That affects people who visit the national park, and people at Lorella Springs and Limmen Fishing Safaris, and people along the way.
Whilst I understand the government is putting out good news stories about what it does and what it hopes to do, they could have given us a forward program of what they are looking at, even if it could not afford it at the moment, and not so much of, ‘What a wonderful job we are doing and what a bad job the other mob have done’.
I know beef roads are important. In fact, part of the agreement I had with the previous government was to upgrade some beef roads. I could say they did not spend enough money, but they did work in the Douglas Daly and upgraded some of those roads. One of the issues the pastoral industry has is moving cattle in the Wet Season. When Ramadan starts in Indonesia and they want their beef, it is getting into the Wet Season which is the hardest time for pastoralists to move cattle out of the Northern Territory. The pastoralists are asking if they can get some upgrades of those roads so they can shift cattle in the Wet Season.
Again, I am not saying the government has the money now, but I thought the government would have a vision of what it is going to do in relation to roads, especially local government roads, beef roads, tourist roads, and roads to remote communities. What is their program? What is their target for the future? There does not seem to be much of that in this statement. That is the type of subject I would like to hear discussed in parliament because, as I said before, if we do not have good roads, we will never have good regional development.
The minister addressed the Asset Management System in his statement. If anyone was listening to the public meeting we had today with the department, they will realise the cost of this has gone from $14m to $50m, which is a great deal of money down the drain trying to fix the system. The reasons are complicated. At the meeting today we heard it is not a simple matter of something going wrong with the system from a certain point of view. It went wrong from many points of view, and whether it can be salvaged, only time will tell.
Unfortunately, the money that has gone into that could have been spent on the Nathan River Road, or elsewhere. However, you cannot turn the clock back. These matters have happened, and it is not good. You can jump up and down about it all you like, it will not change things. Unfortunately, this has happened, which is a pity, but things do not always go right.
The minister talked about the future, but it was fairly general. He talked about the new port, rail lines for bulk exports, large scale industrial parks and increased urban and communication infrastructure - all just over the horizon. It would have been good to hear what the government’s plans are for the second port. I presume it is still looking at Glyde Point, but the government has mentioned Murrumujuk as a future town. Is that what you are talking about when you say this? That is the kind of information we need to have, because the minister is right, we need to develop.
I have just been to see Sherwin Iron. It is sending out an 80 000 tonne sample load of iron ore to China to see if the ore will be taken up by the Chinese. As was said on the Country Hour, one of the problems is our port is a mixed port; dry goods and motorcars are mixed with cattle, manganese and iron ore and, maybe in the future, we will have phosphate. There is some doubt as to whether we should have a port handling a great mix of things, or whether we should have a new port.
I would like to hear more from the government on that type of infrastructure. What will it cost to build the port at Glyde Point? What will it cost to build a township at Murrumujuk? You would have to put in a road. In theory, there is a plan for a rail line to Glyde Point. What is the cost of infrastructure for water and electricity to go in there? Many of those issues are worthy of debate. If the government is saying we need a new port, then we need a bit more meat on the bone; we need to know how much a new port will cost, and what type of planning will be required.
We were just talking about the hospital at Holtze, the Litchfield and Palmerston hospital. The road that goes across there is planned as the beginning of the road to Glyde Point. This is why I have asked the minister to look at joining that road with Willard Road, which is the prison road. It would not take much to develop at least a hundred rural blocks there, and when the government puts some infrastructure in, you can build off that infrastructure. I do not see the hospital as a stand-alone; I see it as part of a process which will eventually see a road built through to Gunn Point.
I thank the minister for his statement. My complaint - if it is a complaint – is you must recognise in your first 12 months of being in government that the previous government did many good things. It is sad when we ignore that in debate, because that is what party politics is about. The reality is, you only have to compare last year’s and this year’s budgets to see nearly identical programs.
Good on the government, it will have its new projects come along, and we will probably be discussing them in 12 months’ time. Let us see how they go. They complain about a budget deficit which has made it hard for them, but they will have to deal with those issues as time goes on. We will be interested to see what new projects they bring on to develop a booming economy right across the Territory, not just in urban areas, but in the rural and remote areas also.
Ms ANDERSON (Regional Development): Mr Deputy Speaker, I support my colleague’s statement in the House this evening and acknowledge the Chief Minister, who had this portfolio in opposition and held Labor to account for failure of infrastructure, especially roads and clinics in remote Aboriginal communities. He focused on the importance of roads that connect Western Australia and Queensland and our regional towns such as Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, and Katherine, and he outlined the importance and uniqueness we have in the Northern Territory in connecting many of our remote Aboriginal communities to hub towns like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, and Katherine.
He has brought that passion from opposition to government and now, as Chief Minister, he is completely focused on economic opportunities, sees the importance of the Territory being linked to Queensland and Western Australia, and sees the north as a great opportunity across Australia. We can be a real example in the north. It is not just about infrastructure in the north; we are a government that is focused on delivering services. As the Treasurer said when he introduced this statement on behalf of our colleague who is ill, we serve and work as a government for all Territorians. We work for Territorians in the bush, rural towns and in cities.
Infrastructure is important in the sense that it brings all of us together. Our roads are really important to ensure our renal patients in remote Aboriginal communities access Alice Springs haemodialysis. The roads are critical to the small clinics we have in remote communities.
There was a promise made by Labor that the Tanami Road would be upgraded and bituminised all the way to Yuendumu, but we have seen nothing as yet. Due to the false promises made by Labor, we now have the Country Liberal member for Stuart sitting on this side in government, and a former minister and Labor member thrown out because Aboriginal people realise how important it is to ensure the infrastructure is what they want.
This government is also focused on clinics. We have seen the upgrade of clinics, and I am grateful to see upgrades of clinics and roads in my electorate. It is a fantastic opportunity we have now with a government focused on bringing the whole Territory together, and which sees the importance of all Territorians and giving them all the economic opportunities we can.
The Chief Minister said economic opportunity is there for anyone, and he said he will move heaven and earth to give these opportunities to remote communities as well. The remote communities have taken that. Today, the Chief Minister was on the Tiwi Islands, and he has been to Ngukurr and Maningrida, so this government is focused on ensuring the Territory is connected.
When I say that, I talk about the Plenty Highway in my electorate which, in the past, according to Labor’s false promises, should have connected Queensland straight through to Alice Springs, to Ayers Rock, and continuing on Tjukaruru Road, which is the road past Docker River, on to Western Australia. These are the great opportunities we have, not just for us as Territorians travelling on that road, but for the grey nomads, the tourist opportunities of people coming through from Queensland, visiting our beautiful regional towns, and going through to Western Australia, and vice versa coming the other way. These are the great opportunities this government will give all Territorians in the Northern Territory. We see the importance of carrying all Territorians forward socially and economically.
Yes, we have come into a $5.5bn debt in the Northern Territory from Labor, and we have had to restrict some of our spending, but we see the importance of the strategies and plans this government and the Chief Minister have made announcements about. We see the great opportunities we have through the mining industries, the economic hubs we have spoken about, the food bowl connecting the regional towns, ensuring our remote communities are linked to all this economic opportunity we forecast, as a government, for the future of the Northern Territory. These are the greatest opportunities you will see. We are a conservative government that is about driving economic change and ensuring everyone is on that exciting journey.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you are the local member of a bush electorate, and I have been in the Daly with you and heard the way you speak and encourage your electorate to be engaged in economic opportunities, sitting down with your constituents in Wadeye and Daly, talking about roads and how you can improve them. You are a fantastic member who comes to our wing meetings and talks up his electorate, like the members for Arnhem, Stuart and Arafura. There is not a wing meeting in the Country Liberal Party where local members do not hammer us as government. The Treasurer will vouch for this. The members for Arnhem, Daly and Stuart say, ‘What about our roads? We want our roads fixed. These are the priorities in our regions.’
This government and wing listens to these people and their priorities. They can bring their concerns to us and take the result back to their constituents.
We are a government focused on driving change in the Northern Territory. Not a social change, we do not want people to sit on welfare and not do anything. We want people to participate in the Territory’s economic future; we want them to be key drivers in opportunities. We want them to see there is opportunity through employment. We want them to do real training for real jobs, and we hear their voices when they talk to us about local government changes. We hear their voices when they talk to us about homelands policy or houses on homelands, changes to education, changes to health, and we have seen this government deliver fantastic results in the first year of governing the Northern Territory. It is not only in remote Aboriginal communities, if you look at the vastness of the Northern Territory you will see change delivered throughout the Northern Territory. We are not just talking about roads, we are talking about housing, power, sewerage, everything that can improve the economic future of the Northern Territory.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend my colleague’s statement to this House.
Ms LEE (Arnhem): Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to provide the Assembly with an update of the infrastructure developments in my electorate of Arnhem for this budget period. This will be a short but concise statement, as always.
From Budget 2013-14, an allocation total of $35.36m will be invested in the seat of Arnhem. This comprises the following: $0.67m for police overnight facilities; $5.93m for the remote health clinic at Ngukurr, something people in Ngukurr have been asking for going back 10 years, and Numbulwar is similar.
Ngukurr is probably one of the most advanced communities. It is very similar to the member for Arafura’s. The people in Ngukurr have a vision of where they want to go in the future, which is building it economically to a point where they are looking at working in partnership with other investors. That is a great deal to hear, especially coming from an Indigenous community. There are probably two or three communities in Arnhem Land that have had the discussion about opening up and trying to build the place up; and Ngukurr is one of the leaders. I commend the community; It has done a fabulous job in past years, regardless of the former Labor government with red tape all over the place. It has really pushed forward and tried to do something about it. Ngukurr has done really well in that sense.
There is $6.7m for the remote health clinic at Numbulwar. That clinic has been in Numbulwar, the locals tell me, since 1950 or 1960. It is a very old clinic. How many times since self-government has anyone walked into that clinic and really had a look at it? It is shocking. Does anyone even go to Numbulwar? You have to ask yourself that. Have any of my predecessors ever gone to Numbulwar since self-government in 1978? The state of the health centre is appalling. We are supposed to be looking after Indigenous people’s health; we talk about closing the gap, but that community is left with just one scrap of a building, like a demountable, and that is the clinic. All they put on it were stairs and a ramp to go up to it. That is shocking.
Ever since I was elected, even during the campaign, all they said was, ‘We just want to move forward’. Numbulwar has its own vision, and I am proud to hear the positives are coming out, because they have been drained out and hidden in the dark behind the fog; no one took any notice of what the people really wanted, and no one listened to them. Not the former Labor government. No one paid attention to the people in the bush. That is why we are here, to give that voice back to the people, to speak on their terms, to fight for what is really needed in the bush.
There is $13m for the Gove District Hospital emergency department. The people in my electorate will also benefit from that. The vision the Country Liberal government has is building something like the Gove, Katherine and Tennant Creek hospitals, bringing them up to standard for elective surgeries and issues like that. So, instead of the people of Arnhem flying all the way to Darwin, which costs a great deal of money, they can go to Gove and utilise that hospital. All we need to do is invest in that.
There are plenty of opportunities around but because we were left with a $5.5bn debt, it slows us down a little. The future and the vision in that place could go a long way, especially for the people in my electorate who are just out of Gove. Nhulunbuy is just one small seat and the rest is the seat of Arnhem, which is my electorate. That future and vision benefits many people, especially the mob in Arnhem.
There is $1.93m for childcare centres and $3.3m for the trade trading centres on Groote Eylandt. Before I came into this parliament, I went to all these communities to have a look, and most of these things are coming up, so they are doing pretty well. They have already started construction, which is really good. The community is happy about it, especially when it comes to the training centre in Ngukurr. There is already talk about utilising it. There is even talk about agriculture.
Has there ever been any light from the other side of the House about the vision of Ngukurr? Just recently the Chief Minister and I went there, and we had a fabulous time. The community was very happy to see us. I go out to my electorate very often, and they were really happy. The vision they have for that place is really good, and how they are going to utilise this trade training centre would blow your mind. There are plenty of opportunities there, but they have never been given the opportunity to strive for the best. They are sick of sitting down, being on the welfare system. Go there and listen to what these people have to say.
The elders are trying to make the right move for their young ones, but they are being held back by the red tape and bureaucracy. They put their faith in the Labor government for so long. They have backflipped on them now, and they realise that. That is a shame. I have never been a Labor supporter; you can keep that on record. My whole family will go down that line.
There is $1.1m for the trade trading centre at West Arnhem College, which will also benefit kids in my electorate and people who want to explore more job opportunities in that region. There are plenty of mines coming up, and you never know what is going to happen in the future, so we need to look at options. Each community has its own vision, so we need to work on that with every place.
There is $2.2m for the cyclone shelter upgrades to selected shelters and schools, which is a great thing. A few communities in my electorate are on the coast, so they will benefit from that. To continue the construction and upgrades of all these facilities demonstrates the commitment the Country Liberals government has to the development of remote community infrastructure. In other words, the Country Liberals are following through with the election commitment they gave remote Indigenous people and their community that local infrastructure would be delivered.
The continual upgrades to the health clinics, the allocation of funds for the further development of childcare centres, and the further development of trade training centres are proof that life-changing facilities are being developed and enhanced which, ultimately, makes a practical and real difference on the ground for Indigenous people in my electorate of Arnhem.
It is also worth highlighting the following: not all infrastructure programs were supported by the federal Labor government. We missed out on $25m for the Ramingining barge landing road. Every Wet Season the Ramingining barge landing road is soaked. It is like a river. In the Dry Season it is terrible and you cannot drive on the road without the axle being ripped out of your car; it is that bad.
The condition of the road is the first thing the community has been screaming about. I am fighting for some money - the Treasurer can describe it - to seal that road, and I still hold that ground today. The federal government pulled the funding, $25m, just to seal the barge landing road. Do you know how much money it costs these people in the Wet Season to go 10 kms or 20 kms down the road to get food? They have to push drums of food for those 10 kms or 20 kms to keep the drums of food rolling along. That is how bad it is. If I take you there you will have to look at that kind of thing. This is the state the Indigenous people have to live in. We have to invest in the future, but we cannot because we have a $5.5bn debt.
We cannot do anything for the people. There are many commitments, and I wish I had a magic wand to put the road there, make it appear the next day, but I cannot.
This is a cut from the Nation Building 2 Program. I have probably hurt the member for Nhulunbuy; she obviously did not like what I said. You speak a lot about my electorate, but you cannot listen to it.
Let me place on the record my appreciation of the expenditure for my electorate. We know in this Chamber the level of funds cut from the federal Labor government for the Nation Building 2 Program. The politics being played out by federal Labor is wrong and disgusting. It has been happening for years to Indigenous people, who have been used as a throwing ball to everyone. Even my community has been the same.
How many times has Karl Hampton promised Barunga lights on the oval? How is he physically or economically going to provide lights at the Barunga football oval that cost, in Katherine alone, approximately $250 000 a year to run? He kept promising the Barunga mob, ‘Oh, you are going to have it’. It did not happen last year because he got booted out. I was proud of that because I was not going to listen to that for another 10 years. The politics being played on my people in the bush is not funny. It is the lies; we even have members of the opposition spreading rumours about this and that. When the truth comes out, they sit in here and do not say anything about it. The minute they walk out of this Chamber and say it to the public, then that is another thing coming. They can accuse me of everything else but the politics. The minute an Indigenous person stands up in Parliament House for the rights of their people - it is wrong to do that.
We do not judge others. We want the best possible for every community. That is the whole reason we are in this Chamber, to represent our people. I have always been a bush girl, born and bred, and English is not my first language, but the change in my community was not a fight since self-government. It was a fight long before that. It is a fight my grandfather took with all the other elders in the Arnhem Land region. Back then there were missionaries who helped us out. There is history to every place you go, very similar, especially in Arnhem Land. We all have the similarities, with the Macassans coming in, and everything else. Go to a place in Arnhem Land, in the Jawoyn region, called Gabarnmung and look at the rock paintings. The first arrival of Captain Cook is there. There are paintings of a boat with blokes with hats on, really big bob hats, and one of the birds that is extinct. They were probably bigger than emus. I do not know what they are called, but they were in the dinosaur days apparently.
The paintings on that wall show that Indigenous people have been on this land for 40 000 years, fighting for survival, and we are still fighting for the same rights and survival today. Indigenous people thought they could invest in Labor. What did they really invest in? Did they really have a vision? No, they had a vision to hold them back. Yes, speak truly from their heart. Well, I do not know what heart that is, because that is not my heart. That is not where my people want to go. We need the support to be like everyone else. We need that helping hand and that vision to help us strive for the best, not to hold us back. And save us from what? What is the opposition really saving us from?
Mr Elferink: Success.
Ms LEE: Exactly. Preventing us from being successful in our own lives. Restricting it. Look at education! Education has not been renewed since 1999 in the Northern Territory, and they talk so freely and highly about education in the bush. I have a personal experience with my kids moving them from the bush to town. They were 10 steps behind any other kid in that school. That is how appalling education is in the bush. But no one cared about that. You go there and just talk to the teachers; you do not go there and talk to the parents and the kids. What about the kids? It is the kids’ future.
Ms WALKER: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 113: relevance. While I appreciate there is always latitude in these debates, the member should be addressing a statement to do with infrastructure. We are getting a far more wide-reaching statement than that.
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order Mr Deputy Speaker! Standing Order 113 refers to questions being asked during Question Time. It has nothing to do with what she is talking about. Digression from the subject is what the member for Nhulunbuy is talking about.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Arnhem, could you please ensure you do not digress. Thank you.
Ms LEE: Thank you. Even if that means embarrassing the opposite side? Let us go back to the point.
The National Building 2 Program - over $183m, or over 75% of the funding, is not available until 2016–17. That is from the federal Labor government. Because their team did not win in the Northern Territory, now they are holding the funding back and playing politics with the people of the Northern Territory. That is not right.
That funding will not be available until 2016-17, the middle or the end of the term of the program. We will not have enough time to build the things we want in the community. It is outrageous. It is disgusting. This makes delivery of key projects problematic as planning work cannot commence until funding is available, until the Northern Territory government funds it, which it is not responsible for, nor has it the money. Thanks to the opposition leader, Michael Gunner, and the NT Labor government’s $5bn debt, projects like the $36m for upgrading priority sections of the Arnhem Road are gone. Everything has gone. I understand $230m was pulled - a great deal of money. That is not funny, because I am talking about my electorate.
How long have we, in the bush, been crying to have that road sealed? Half the time we have to work with mining giants just to help support ourselves - support the government to look after the roads. Do we really have to go that far because we are in $5.5bn debt? Where is the federal Labor government? Where is their vision for the Northern Territory? People there want that road sealed.
I drove on that road two weeks ago all the way to Gove and back into Ramingining. Look at the road into Ramingining. It is so narrow a truck cannot even go through. You wonder why they have to get everything by barge. The roads in the bush are terrible, but no one ever talks about it.
Something has happened to the sign at Goyder River. Everyone knows when you go to the Goyder River you have to swerve around at the crossing because if you go straight through the middle you get bogged. It is too deep. That sign is not there any longer and the people in the bush have been screaming.
At Bulman they want new houses; they have been left in the dust for 20 years. The last house built there would have been 15 years ago. Since Labor has been in government, I have not seen one new house. I see Government Business Managers, GBM, buildings in every community, all federal.
Schools? What about houses? The population of Indigenous people in remote communities is growing by the day, and will continue to grow. Bad luck. We are in the seat now and have to make that change.
I commend the Minister for Infrastructure. This is a great debate, especially for the bush members, because infrastructure in our electorates is very much needed.
Mrs PRICE (Stuart): Mr Deputy Speaker, I support the Minister for Infrastructure’s statement regarding this government’s commitment to building the Territory. First, unlike those opposite who can do nothing but carp and whinge, I point out to the House the great work the minister and the government is doing to develop regional and remote Northern Territory, unlike those opposite whose 11-year Capital Works Program consisted of issuing media releases and glossy brochures.
What did those opposite do in my electorate of Stuart in those 11 years, other than promise much and deliver little? Meanwhile, the Country Liberals’ infrastructure spending in the 2013-14 budget is $1.2bn, made up of $550m in capital works and a repairs and maintenance program of $257m. However, one of the big differences between the failed previous Labor government and this Country Liberals government is we have not lost focus on the people in regional towns and communities of the Northern Territory.
In August 2012, the people of regional and remote Northern Territory spoke very loudly about how the previous government failed them, and they voted for real change. We govern for all Territorians, and we will continue to ensure important local infrastructure is being delivered across all parts of the Territory, not just in Darwin and Alice Springs. This government wants to encourage the Northern Territory to grow and develop and is supporting this through its infrastructure program.
However, infrastructure is not only about people building things, it is also about providing quality government employee housing for many teachers, nurses, doctors, and police officers who provide essential services across the Northern Territory government. Infrastructure also supports access to other critical social services, including health, which is vitally important to all residents, but even more so to those in regional and remote Northern Territory where access is restricted because of long distances. This is especially so in my electorate of Stuart where my people face serious ongoing health issues.
Access to health services in my electorate is often poor during the Wet Season due to flooding, wet roads, and dirt airstrips. I was pleased to see Budget 2013-14 provided much-needed funds for upgrades to airstrips in remote communities such as Kaltukatjara and Utopia in the seat of Namatjira, and Lajamanu in my electorate of Stuart.
Over $4.4m is allocated to relocate and upgrade the Lajamanu airstrip. This project will enable the finest medical care to be delivered all year round to the residents of Lajamanu, as well as those who work or travel in that region. This upgrade will also help deliver important government services in Lajamanu and surrounding communities and access for teachers, nurses, doctors and police. As well as Lajamanu, $2.25m has been provided for the upgrade of Yarralin airstrip to improve year-round access for the community. The Yarralin community has been waiting for something like that to happen. I do not know what the previous member for Stuart was doing.
As well as health services, education is critical to closing the gap and allowing my people to have the same quality of life and access to jobs as other Australians. Education is so important in breaking the negative cycle my people can become trapped in at a young age and gives them the ability to make better and more informed choices about what they want to do with their future.
It is great to see $0.14m has been allocated to Kalkaringi School for some much-needed upgrades and $0.88m to the great Yuendumu School to upgrade its administration block.
Turning to roads, which are vital in my electorate as the only means for my people to travel to do whatever they need to do. I have the second biggest electorate in the Northern Territory, bigger than the whole state of Tasmania, and roads connect communities with services such as health, education, police, and employment. Roads deliver food, people, and freight to communities.
Some of the key things that are so important in helping the communities in my electorate are mining, and pastoralists and the cattle roads, which mean a great deal to the people there who make a living off the land. That includes the Tanami Road.
I note that the NT government is committed to sealing the Tanami Road right through to the Granites gold mine and, eventually, the Western Australian border. That has long been a wish of my people as well, who are waiting to finally see the sealing of that road to the Western Australian border. When it does happen, the whole of Warlpiri will be celebrating to see the Tanami Road sealed. I note this government has budgeted $5m to continue that massive project, and I believe there is still over 200 km to seal.
At least this government is trying, unlike the federal Labor government which has abandoned the Territory when it comes to roads. This government asked Kevin Rudd, Warren Snowdon and the federal Labor government for over $420m worth of projects in my electorate, including over $345m for sealing the Tanami Road to the mine; $40m for building bridges on the Big Horse and Little Horse Creeks on the Victoria Highway; better year-round access to the Top End for locals, tourists and the transport industry which would link in with development of the Ord River Scheme; and $40m for flood immunity on the Saddle, Matheson and Sandy Creeks on the Victoria River Highway. But what we got for my electorate was a miserable $15m.
The Prime Minister spends more on weekly flights. Where are Warren Snowdon and federal Labor’s priorities? It goes to show federal Labor cannot be trusted and does not care about Indigenous people. Warren Snowdon, who has been in government for 23 years, has done nothing for Stuart.
The $15m is made up of $10m to commence sealing the Buntine Highway to Lajamanu, and $5m to continue sealing the Tanami Road. At this rate, it will take over 69 years to complete sealing that road. This is unacceptable, and federal Labor does not care. They do not care about blackfellas because they do not pay rates, so why bituminize their roads.
This government cares about regional and remote people and is fighting for more money from the federal government. But the federal Labor government is playing politics with the lives of Territorians through shortchanging the Northern Territory roads funding. Federal Labor cannot be trusted to look after the Northern Territory.
Meanwhile, this government will continue to fight for and look after Territorians. While there is more to do in my electorate, at least this government is doing something, unlike the opposition which was in government for 11 years.
Mr GILES (Chief Minister): Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I thank my colleague, the Deputy Chief Minister, for bringing on the Minister for Infrastructure’s statement. It is an important statement and one I am sure all members of parliament would like to speak on, except for the member for Johnston who sits there quietly not saying a word in this Chamber.
Mr Tollner: Like the member for Nhulunbuy in the previous term.
Mr GILES: That is right; she did not speak about gas to Gove. This could be the gas to Gove statement for the member for Johnston. No, he does not want to talk about infrastructure in the Northern Territory. He does not have a position, not even a negative Labor position where they just attack everyone.
There has been talk about the legislation brought into this Chamber. If you look at the scorecard for the amount of legislation this government has introduced in the last 12 months, it sets a record; and today we have the first private bill brought in by the opposition. Congratulations! It only took you more than 12 months to bring it in.
It is also interesting to see how much legislation and on how many occasions opposition members speak. On our side we have ministers who lead the legislative debate and we expect all opposition members to speak on that. However, it is interesting to look at the legislation each opposition person speaks on. You would think they would be biting at the bit to speak on it.
I have mentioned the member for Johnston. The House would be keen to learn how much legislation the member for Johnston has spoken on. I have gone through as much as I can find - 40 pieces of legislation as per my analysis – and am happy for the member for Johnston to correct me if I am wrong because it is a very exhaustive list. I have gone through the Pastoral Land Act, the Monitoring of Places of Detention Act, Local Government Amendment Bill, which is still coming through, Sale of Land Bill, Marine Safety, Transport of Dangerous Goods, Public Places, Bail Amendments, Sentencing Amendments - the list goes on. There are 40 pieces of legislation either passed or going through right now. How much legislation do you think the member for Johnston has spoken on? It is as very exhaustive list. That is right, one piece of legislation!
The member for Barkly cannot be bothered turning up. At least the member for Johnston turns up, but he has only spoken on one piece of legislation in a little over 365 days. Congratulations, member for Johnston, a hard-working member, who never takes his jacket off, and clearly does not work up a sweat in this Chamber.
The former member for Johnston might have made many mistakes in Health and other portfolios, including ruining tourism for the Territory, completely messing up public housing and getting SIHIP completely wrong, but at least he spoke in the Chamber. Not the new member for Johnston; he is a great representative for the electorate of Johnston and has spoken only once on legislation in 12 months. Mate, you have to get a better ticker than that and start doing some work.
Mr Deputy Speaker, infrastructure is one of the most important elements of economic development in the Northern Territory. Despite the fact the member for Johnston did not speak on this, I will say if we are going to grow the Northern Territory, we have to invest in infrastructure, particularly roads, bridges and telecommunications.
Within the first 12 months of government, this government has already formed a fantastic partnership with Telstra to put in place more mobile phone capacity and Internet access and download speeds.
We sought to build infrastructure for Northern Territory roads and bridges by seeking a partnership with the federal government. Normally, the way infrastructure for roads and bridges works is the Northern Territory government provides a component, usually around 20%, and the federal government provides around 80%. We put an application in for the Nation Building 1 Program, which ran for a five-year period. Some of that work is tailing off now. For the Nation Building 2 Program we put in more than $1bn worth of applications for roadworks to be undertaken in that five-year period. What do we get back from the federal government on Nation Building 2? Absolutely nothing. The only thing that was identified was a little work to be done on the Tiger Brennan Drive between Woolner Road and Berrimah Road in the out years of 2016-17, the out years of the forward estimates. That is clearly saying to the people of Palmerston and the rural area, ‘We do not care’.
I wonder what the Labor candidate for the seat of Solomon would say about the very poor effort and commitment by his Labor buddies in Canberra who have turned their backs on the Northern Territory. Fortunately, the Coalition, through Julie Bishop, the shadow minister for Foreign Affairs and the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, has responded to the hard work and efforts by the current member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, in her pleas for investment for the final leg of Tiger Brennan Drive. Last week, Julie Bishop was in town, at the request of Natasha Griggs, to announce the extra money for the completion of Tiger Brennan Drive - a road that was initiated by the member for Fong Lim when he was the member for Solomon. Tiger Brennan Drive has all been about the Country Liberals delivering that road. However, getting back to the point, the Coalition, through Natasha Griggs, Julie Bishop, and Tony Abbott, will be delivering now on Tiger Brennan Drive, with works to start this financial year on that final leg.
The work that is happening now between Woolner Road and Dinah Beach Road is NT government fully-funded works we brought forward to ensure it happens and the people of Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area have greater accessibility and connectivity to the capital city of the Northern Territory, which is a very important outcome.
I will go back to that point about road infrastructure not being a commitment in the federal budget this financial year through Nation Building 2. I will then get on to a particular road in the member for Stuart’s electorate.
The social outcomes in the seat of Lingiari would have to be the worst in the western world for an electorate, whether it is alcohol consumption, people ending up in gaol, the opportunities in education and employment, welfare dependency, health outcomes - everything. In that electorate over the last 20 or 30 years there has been a lack of investment in infrastructure to support economic growth and movement away from the paradigms of the social norms and social investment programs we want to invest in, breaking the cycle of welfarism. To do that, you need infrastructure to achieve outcomes.
We have come into government committed to being an infrastructure government, the same way Tony Abbott is committed to being an infrastructure Prime Minister to get the job done, but in Canberra we have Anthony Albanese, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and all the gaggling crew not providing investment support for the Northern Territory.
A moment ago I alluded to the electorate of Stuart and a perfect opportunity there. Within Infrastructure Australia there is a component for regional infrastructure which specifically looks at Indigenous communities, with a specific partnership around mining, where we can improve access to mining projects that have community service obligations to meet community needs. The Northern Territory government has been working very hard on an application to see improvements to the Tanami Road. There were about six different models we put up, including dual sealing the road from the Stuart Highway all the way to the Western Australian border, to the Granites Mine; or, just dual sealing the single lane to Yuendumu or to the Granites, or some forming up of the road. We put different models forward.
In the end we put up our first proposal which was just over $300m. It went to the Infrastructure Council, and Infrastructure Australia reviewed the proposal and said, ‘We do not think the dual lane seal the whole way is the right way to go’. As much as we disagreed, we accepted that. They came back with an alternate model of the second best option, which was more than $200m which would see the Infrastructure Council, Infrastructure Australia and the federal government support a fundamental investment in Central Australia through the Tanami Road. It would have provided greater connectivity to people in north Western Australia through Halls Creek; it would have supported the communities along the way; it would have helped open up mining opportunities and would have been a positive investment in the construction and civil construction industry. It would have been a great outcome.
It got through all the hurdles - through the bureaucracy, the administration, the Infrastructure Council and got to one last hurdle: signing off by the federal minister for Transport and Infrastructure, minister Anthony Albanese. All he had to do was sign it. It was not like the slush fund of money or the budget deficit and debt that are always spoken about. This is money set aside within Infrastructure Australia to provide those regional connectivity partnerships through roads and infrastructure. Instead of Anthony Albanese signing off to get a good outcome for the people of the Northern Territory, particularly within the Stuart electorate, he decided not to sign off on that application.
I call on Warren Truss, should he become minister for Transport and Infrastructure, to look at why Anthony Albanese did not do that, and look at the politics he participated in by not supporting the Northern Territory. It is the same as the Gonski model which sought to erode the Northern Territory. Anthony Albanese chose not to support the Northern Territory. This is a continual process the federal government is participating in, and the message is quite clear: you cannot trust Labor.
It is not just that road that was associated with Infrastructure Australia; there were roads across all electorates. We were seeking to provide infrastructure upgrades for the Port Keats Road, within your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sure you would support improvements in that area. Works were to be undertaken on the Tiwi Islands; works at Ramingining that would allow kids to get from communities into school, and $25m for the Ramingining barge landing road. That is what we were seeking to do. There was $20m to support Gapuwiyak for the road to the barge landing, $25m to seal the Kintore Road from Papunya to the Derwent River crossing in the Namatjira electorate and $40m to help extend the current seal along the Outback Highway towards Harts Range. These are essential pieces of infrastructure. We will undertake selective works along the straight road out towards Docker River; $10m to commence sealing the Buntine Highway to Lajamanu, that would be a great outcome for the people of Lajamanu and Kalkarindji in that area of the electorate on the Stuart Highway; $15m to upgrade and seal sections of the Sandover Highway, again within the Namatjira electorate; and $30m, as I mentioned, for works to be undertaken on the Tiwi Islands.
I was on the Tiwi Islands at lunchtime today, talking to them about economic development and the opportunities I believe will occur, and the work I want to see undertaken there. The $30m required for that road, one of the most essential pieces of infrastructure, would allow for the progression of economic development. It would allow opportunity for business investment, the opportunity for jobs to be developed, and would allow kids to get from one community to the Pickertaramoor school. These are things we should be investing in but, instead, nothing occurred because Anthony Albanese wanted to play politics.
Everyone wonders why the relationship is strained between the Northern Territory and federal Labor. It is because they do not support us. They are used to a previous government that they could tell what to do and they would bend over like lap dogs. We are not like that; we stand up for Territorians. This is the Northern Territory where we stand up for people and want to see positive investment.
However, back to infrastructure more broadly from a departmental point of view. Who can go past the failures of the Asset Management System, a program originally designed to cost around $7m which is now tipped to reach $70m, and we are still playing catch-up to fix Labor’s mess, which is not a new thing. Trying to fix Labor’s mess is a recurrent thing we do. It is hard to identify if it is good to see the monetary investment and us having to try to fix it, or not having the investment.
I go back to the electorate of Lingiari where we have had the worst federal Member of Parliament, Mr Warren Snowdon, for more than 25 years, governing the worst performing electorate in social outcomes in the western world. Relate that to the management of the Asset Management System, and it is no wonder Labor failed to deliver. They do not have their eye on the ball.
We came into government with a $5.5bn debt and are working out ways we can reduce it, particularly the deficit created this year by funding for the new prison which has to be built because Labor got its justice processes, its social reinvestment and its economic output so wrong that they were putting more people in gaol than they were putting into bedrooms with SIHIP.
Consider those models and think about the funding that went into that Asset Management System; think about how we are going to pay for that with our $5.5bn worth of debt. It means we cannot deliver on the other projects we wanted to. We cannot build the infrastructure we want because we are fixing Labor’s mess, paying back their $5.5bn debt, reducing their deficit.
It is a challenge for any new government to come into. I watch the news late at night, and I hear Tony Abbot on the television and think to myself: he is going to have a tremendous struggle trying to bring Labor’s debt and deficit back under control – a huge amount of trouble.
Then, relate that back to the Northern Territory and a $30bn deficit. It sounds terrible and it is terrible. Labor’s waste is disgusting. Relate that to the 23 million people in Australia’s population, and then think about the Northern Territory with a $1.1bn deficit for 230 000 people. Our figures look a whole lot worse: $5.5bn worth of debt for 230 000 people. Our debt position is almost twice as bad as the federal debt position.
Everyone in Canberra knows it is terrible and Labor has created a huge mess, but in the Northern Territory it is nearly twice as bad. We are in a tough position. Every time we want to try to find savings and pay back Labor debt, what do they do? You cannot cut this, you cannot stop that, you cannot be fiscally responsible; you have to keep spending. They stand around with their guts poking out like some magic pudding; they just rub it and more money turns up. They can sprinkle money around like confetti, like there is a money tree in the back yard. That is not how this works. That is why it is important we relate this to the infrastructure statement, a statement the member for Barkly, the shadow Minister for Infrastructure, will not be speaking on because he chose to go electioneering today rather than do his job. At least the member for Johnston turns up and does his job, even if he does not speak, he still turns up and keeps the chair warm. The member for Barkly’s chair has been cold today.
I commend this statement the Deputy Chief Minister has made on behalf of the Minister for Infrastructure, who is unwell. Infrastructure is an essential element to growing the Northern Territory. We have big plans, and it is clear we will not be able to deliver those plans under a federal Labor government. We will only be able to do it under a Coalition government with someone you can trust, like Tony Abbott, who will be able to assist us with developing infrastructure for the Northern Territory.
The alternative is quite concerning and worrying, and will tarnish Australia and its reputation around the world into the future. The alternative is Kevin Rudd, which no Australian wants.
Mr TOLLNER (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Deputy Speaker, I have to say how entertaining and enthralling it has been to sit here during this debate on the Minister for Infrastructure’s statement, particularly, listening to the Chief Minister at the end. There is a guy who is visionary. It is quite easy to see what motivates our Chief Minister, and that is the good of Territorians. He has a clear, bold way of doing the right thing by Territorians.
I pick up on the last point he made in relation to Kevin Rudd, and he is right. Kevin Rudd and federal Labor have sold the farm - a $30bn budget deficit, it is an enormous number. How do we deal with it? The question the Chief Minister, I, and other colleagues have been looking at is: how do we drive the infrastructure investment we need in the Northern Territory, bearing in mind we have this dreadful $5.5bn debt?
It is a hard game, and it is a difficult sum to add up. The fact is, much of it has to come from the private sector, and members of this government have been doing everything they can to encourage private sector development - to encourage enterprise to set up, take hold and grow. We are keen on building relationships with our international neighbours, because we want their help. We want them to start using Darwin as a distribution hub. In order to do that, we need their assistance in building the vital infrastructure of ports, rails, and other things associated with industry parks and industrial development.
That is being led by the Chief Minister, and it is his drive, determination and vision that is spurring the rest of the team on to ensure that whilst we tighten our belts, we are fiscally prudent and responsible. But, at the same time, we are doing everything we can to see private investment take place in the Northern Territory. That is what is so exciting about the Coalition’s North Australia plan, because we know, on this side of the House, Coalition governments tend to be fiscally responsible.
Peter Costello did an admirable job in the 11 years he was Treasurer for Australia. He paid down that horrific Labor debt that had been bequeathed by the Hawke and Keating governments, saving $8bn a year, I believe, in interest repayments. It was an enormous amount of money that was repaid. Peter Costello, of course put the government into surplus. He had the Future Fund set up, from which future needs of public servants’ superannuation requirements would be paid. There was also the Telecommunications Fund, where future infrastructure needs would be met for telecommunications and, of course, the Higher Education Endowment Fund so university and education funding always had a stream of revenue to make those big infrastructure decisions a certainty. That was a mere six years ago, and we see what has happened now. We have a freewheeling, free spending, let-the-reigns-go type of Labor government, and how quickly we find ourselves back in the slurry, in in the mud, up to our ears in debt with a $30bn budget deficit. It is amazing to think someone could get the numbers so wrong.
The point is, the other team is not very creative. ‘We will just spend the money. We do not care where it is coming from. We do not care how much debt we create.’ That is in complete contrast to the other team, the Coalition team, which say, ‘We understand we have to tighten our belts; we have to live within our means. Let us look creatively at how we might drive investment into vital infrastructure, how we might drive private enterprise and development.’
I am thrilled the Chief Minister has played a role in developing that plan, because I am hopeful we will have a Coalition government. The cooperation and the relationship which has been built with the federal Opposition Leader and this Chief Minister will be vital in the future for seeing the development of infrastructure we need so dearly in the Northern Territory.
I am somewhat disappointed at the opposition contribution to this debate. We have heard them ranting and raving about the fact there is no legislation but, goodness me, we brought on two important statements today: the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, for which the opposition put up one speaker who made a fairly lousy effort at putting any case at all. Then, the most vital of all subjects, the infrastructure statement, for which we had one speaker from the opposition. All credit to the Independent member, who had his two cents worth. Great infrastructure is going on in his electorate, thanks to him; he has a new prison happening there, and a workers’ camp which is something he said would never happen ...
Mr Wood: Bus depot.
Mr TOLLNER: He has a bus depot, and he did a great deal of work in the previous government in clearing away all foliage or greenery around the Howard Springs Reserve. It is the scorched earth policy of the member for Nelson. He turned a beautiful swimming hole into a dry, desolate, dusty - you cannot even call it a waterhole any more. He could have had the hole in the ground for the swimming pool, but he did not hold the government to account. It would have been a good bit of infrastructure ...
A member: He has a bike path.
Mr TOLLNER: He has a bike path. He got a bike path, a prison and a workers’ camp. At least he had the spine to stand here and talk about infrastructure, something most members of the opposition did not talk about …
A member: Did the member for Johnston speak?
Mr TOLLNER: The member for Johnston, of course, is holding up the team. He is the only bloke who has been in the room for most of the time so, good on him. I am not about to knock him for that.
The Infrastructure minister of course, as alluded to by others, is away, missing in action. We all know where he is. He is on the campaign trail trying to get Australia’s most useless Labor member re-elected ...
A member: He is the shadow minister.
Mr TOLLNER: He is the shadow minister for Infrastructure. He is not here for an infrastructure debate, but he is working hard to get Australia’s most useless Labor member re-elected. Goodness me, why do they persist with this guy? They did not even run him through pre-selection. They should have dumped him 20 years ago because he had passed his use-by date then. Alas, he is still with us. Labor will not take the tough decisions, they will not get rid of dead wood when they should, and we still have him running around the Northern Territory creating trouble for Indigenous people wherever he goes.
I was thrilled by the number of members on this side of the Chamber who took great interest in infrastructure development. It was particularly enlightening to listen to people from bush seats represent their electorates and talk about vital things in relation to infrastructure: roads, rail, schools, and police stations. These are all things we sometimes take for granted when we live in urban areas, but they are vital to a good, healthy and prosperous life in the bush.
Another thing I find appealing about our bush members is they are all switched on to the benefits private industry can provide in their electorates. It was so good to hear the member for Arnhem talk about the fact that mining companies are working on roads. That is a good thing; we want to see more mines and more opportunities for Indigenous people in mining jobs. Importantly, we want to see mines pulling their weight and ensuring the infrastructure is in place which not only benefits the mine, but benefits people in the bush areas as well.
It was great to hear the member for Stuart talking about things that matter to her and the long-held argument she has had trying to get money for the Tanami Road, another vital road. In the Northern Territory where remoteness is such a big issue, things like airstrips and roads hold vital importance and, for coastal communities, barge landings are vitally important to life in the bush.
I will not go on too much; I am mainly summing up the debate. Apologies from the Minister for Infrastructure who cannot be here, as we know. He has been taken very ill. He probably takes his job more seriously than most members in the parliament, and I have often said wild horses would not drag him away. So he must be terribly sick not to be here today when he had such an important statement to present. It has been my great honour to present his statement, and I am sure he will read the contributions of all members with great interest and take on board those positive, creative and practical suggestions which arose through the debate.
I commend his statement to the House.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr GILES (Chief Minister): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk about the NT Schools Digital Art 2013 competition and the wonderful work entered by Territory students. The competition was open to all our schools. Students were invited as individuals, in groups, or an entire class to make submissions in the form of digital films no more than three minutes long, with the theme ‘What new law would you make?’ They were to bring forward their ideas to change the lives of others in the community. Thirteen entries were received in all.
It was evident the students had put a great deal of time and effort with very creative ideas and filming techniques. Some entries were written prose, others poems. I would like to acknowledge and congratulate all the students who took the time to contribute to this year’s competition.
I would particularly like to congratulate Alice Springs School of the Air for a fantastic effort. They made a clean sweep of the prizes being placed first, second and third, and winning the People’s Choice Award.
The results were as follows:
1st Prize of $1000 and People’s Choice Award of $250, voted by visitors on open day, went to Caravans Only Travel Between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm Law by Cameron, Alice Springs School of the Air. That would be an interesting law - caravans only travel between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm - Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear would no doubt love to see that law introduced worldwide as well.
2nd Prize of $500 was won for the Eliminate Mosquitoes from the NT Law from Indra, Alice Springs School of the Air.
3rd Prize of $250 went to Viewers News - Bicycle Licence Law by Tim, from Alice Springs School of the Air.
The Highly Commended Award was won by Euthanasia - The Law; by Latryce from Taminmin College.
Mr Deputy Speaker, it was a great achievement by the students of Alice Springs School of the Air, proving that isolation can foster fantastic creativity.
Well done to all for their tremendous efforts.
Mrs LAMBLEY (Araluen): Mr Deputy Speaker, tonight I discuss the important issue of income management and Labor’s complete failure to provide these powers to the Northern Territory’s Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal. It is worth alerting Territorians to the impact of Labor’s decision to put politics ahead of people. It is yet further proof when it comes to honouring their word, you just cannot trust Labor.
On 28 June, The Australian newspaper reported that an agreement had been reached whereby the Australian government would hand over income management powers, and the Territory government would undertake an alcohol management plan for Alice Springs. On 2 July, I issued a media release welcoming minister Macklin’s support. It is worth outlining some of the points I made in that release to show the spirit of bipartisanship the Territory government was willing to take on this subject:
- I welcome the Commonwealth taking steps to ensure the welfare payments of clients placed in Alcohol Mandatory Treatment will be quarantined.
I said their move sent out a very strong signal to problem drinkers that the Territory and Commonwealth governments are determined to help problem drinkers get off the grog. I also pointed out that without welfare quarantining, problem drinkers would have, quite literally, a slush fund of welfare money to spend on grog at the conclusion of the 12-week rehabilitation program.
Numerous calls were made from my office to minister Macklin’s office throughout July highlighting we were on track to meet our commitment, and that they needed to move quickly on this to ensure the income management powers were transferred ahead of the feds entering caretaker conventions despite their empty promises that Macklin would sign the paperwork before Kevin Rudd called the election. Once again, you cannot trust Labor to honour their word, and the documents remain unsigned.
This is where it gets interesting. Not only did Macklin’s office advise the paperwork was being processed, and Macklin’s own Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs prepare the paperwork and recommend she sign it, but the federal Department of Human Services, the agency that is responsible for administering Centrelink, also thought Labor would do what they said they would do to the extent of the Department of Human Services’ website indicates the income management powers have already been given to our Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal. It tells members of the public how the Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal may refer people for three to 12 months of income management, in which 70% of payments and 100% of any advance or lump sum payments will be managed.
It is also telling the public that if our tribunal assesses that, to help a family further, it may decide to keep income management in place for a further three to 12 months. What wonderful news! If only Labor had followed through on their commitment.
We understand the federal Australian government is now madly, and embarrassingly, trying to take this information off their website. As a result, the first batch of clients due to leave Alcohol Mandatory Treatment in mid-October will have a three-month Centrelink war chest of up to $3000, and no restrictions whatsoever on how they spend it. As the federal government’s website states:
- Income Management is a way to help you manage your money to meet essential household needs and expenses. Through Income Management, you can learn to better manage your finances in the long term.
Minister Macklin and the federal Labor government should be ashamed of putting politics ahead of the health outcomes of Territorians. Labor will say almost anything to stay in power; unfortunately, they just cannot be trusted to follow through on their empty promises.
Ms FINOCCHIARO (Drysdale): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight in this adjournment debate I seek to talk about Driver Primary School, a beautiful school in the electorate of Drysdale.
It is truly Territorian in its diversity of the student population, and prides itself on its inclusive and supportive school environment. Driver Primary School is based on the four school values of: respect, safe learning environment, community of learners and excellence. Its motto is: Striving for Excellence’. The school’s vision statement is:
- To be a hands-on, vibrant and engaging learning centre implementing new and innovative programs in a secure, collaborative and sustainable environment for our community.
I must say that Driver Primary School could not be acting truer to its word.
I enjoy engaging with Driver Primary School for many reasons, but one particular aspect about this school that I love is its commitment to its kitchen garden program. I love gardening and have a modest kitchen garden at home and I know the satisfaction I get from picking my own herbs, fruit and vegetables, and so imagine the enjoyment of Driver Primary School students who have an outstanding kitchen garden. I have spoken in previous adjournment debates about the content of the kitchen garden, including the livestock of ducks and chooks. Tonight I want to speak about the importance and value of the skills students learn when taking part in the kitchen garden program.
Driver Primary School is fortunate enough, not to the exclusion of working hard and making their own luck, to be part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. Driver Primary shares its good fortune with four other Territory schools - Alawa Primary, Millingimbi School, Owen Springs Education and Yulara School. I have not visited the other Territory schools’ kitchen gardens, but if I was a betting woman, which I am not, I would certainly tip that Driver Primary School would take out first place. I was reading the Driver Primary website, and it says:
- A kitchen garden is created to provide edible, aromatic, and beautiful resources for a kitchen. The creation and care of a kitchen garden teaches children about the natural world, about its beauty and how to care for it, how to best use the resources we have, and an appreciation for how easy it is to bring joy and wellbeing into one’s life through growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing fresh, seasonal produce.
Sometimes in this life, we come across programs and incentives that sound great on paper, are incredibly aspirational, but their true measurable impact can be minimal. From my experience of volunteering to help Driver students at the farm, and from speaking with teaching staff, it is clear to me that the depth and breadth of the positive impact this program has on the students, the teachers and the school community is real.
Driver Primary School has a strategy in place for getting the best out of its students when engaging in the kitchen garden. Speaking now from the strategy as set out on the school website, it stresses pleasure, flavour and texture by encouraging talk and thinking which uses all the senses. It does not describe food to children using the word healthy as the main descriptor. It reinforces techniques over and over, so that children are able to cook simple dishes or plant seeds at home.
Menus are planned around seasonal availability. It seeks to expand the culinary horizons for children, and present cultural differences as fascinating, rather than strange. It seeks to expand the children’s vocabulary for describing flavours, textures, plants and plant families and names. It uses fresh ingredients at their peak; for example, herbs should not be past their season, and beans should not be overgrown and tough. The cooking of raw fruit and vegetables should be timed with great care; they do not want to present children with food that is unpalatable.
The garden crops underpin kitchen planning, lots of basil is likely to lead to a pesto a making session, lots of green tomatoes, to chutney or pickles. Menu planning would take account of growing timelines. In other words, the garden specialist needs to understand about ingredients for good cooking, and the kitchen specialist needs to have some understanding of gardening. Then the school comes together around a table at the end of the cooking, to share that meal.
In the Kitchen Garden Program, children across Years 3 to 6, spend a minimum of 40 minutes per week in an extensive vegetable garden they have helped design and build, and which they maintain on the school grounds according to organic gardening principles. They spend one-and-a-half hours a week in a kitchen classroom preparing and sharing a variety of meals created for their produce. The project employs two part-time specialist staff, a garden specialist, and a kitchen specialist to run these sessions.
There are two unique factors about the Kitchen Garden Program. The first is the intrinsic link between the garden, the kitchen and the table. The emphasis is about learning about the food and about eating it. No part of the program can exist without the other. The second factor is that the program is embedded in the curriculum; it is a compulsory part of the schools’ program for three years of a child’s life.
Madam Acting Speaker, I move on. The number of schools across the country taking part in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program is 363, which is truly amazing. It is not just the Stephanie Alexander Program that exists, I know Gray Primary School has seen the value of this program at Driver Primary School and has slowly but surely been developing its own kitchen garden.
Anecdotally, I hear the benefit to students with learning difficulties, and there have been a number of programs where disengaged primary and secondary school students have taken part in the life of the garden.
The Strong Boys program was incredibly successful in that it not only saw the construction of the chicken coop by the students, but the transformation and pride in the students themselves was something the teachers had not seen before. Students with learning difficulties often find sanctuary in the garden and are great contributors, as well as beneficiaries, of that environment.
I want to be very clear in stating that the garden is not just a tranquil and bountiful experience for the students; there is a very high expectation on students in respect to their behaviour. Students are tasked with very important jobs and they are expected to be respectful of one another, the staff, the environment, and the produce.
They take part in lessons in the outdoor classroom which involves scientific, mathematical, and biological content, whether it be soil or fertiliser composition, the process of pollination, animal husbandry, cultivation, construction of beds and pens, decomposition of plant material, the importance of bugs and slugs - and the list goes on.
Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending a tour of the kitchen garden with Stephanie Alexander. You could see on her face how impressed she was with the garden. You could see that she could see the hard work and the passion of the school in delivering this program. She commented on the brilliance and size of the outdoor classroom which, incidentally, was significantly funded by the school itself. Stephanie made numerous comments on the design layout of the farm, which was done by the school, and by the way the garden complements the weather conditions we have in the Northern Territory.
Following the tour, Stephanie held a kitchen cabinet where other schools attended a briefing by Stephanie on how their schools can get involved in the program. The Driver Primary School classroom kitchen was full of enthusiasts.
I commend Principal, Rob Presswell, Sherrida Edgecombe, Sharon, Karen Johnson and Trudy Dacey for their devotion to this program. You can see when you speak with these remarkable people that it is an absolute joy for them to come to work every day. They love what they do, the experiences they are able to give the students, and they are incredibly well respected by the students because of it.
I look forward to spending more time in the garden and, again, congratulate you on a first-class program.
Ms FYLES (Nightcliff): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, attending the Royal Darwin Show is a tradition that many Territory families, including mine, thoroughly enjoy. I remember attending as a child, and it is now wonderful to experience it and view it again through child-like eyes with my young children - the rides, the displays, the exhibits are all wonderful.
I congratulate all involved in presenting the show. It is a wonderful weekend and, this year, the weather was gorgeous, and there were many smiling faces.
My electorate office was a point for people to drop off their show arts and crafts nominations, and it was wonderful to see the different and talented work of local residents. A number of locals in my electorate entered events, and it was with much excitement that St Paul’s primary school Grade 1, which is taught by Mrs Sally Seden, and their Bush Chook scarecrow won first prize in the competition. It was very exciting and I congratulate everyone who entered the events.
I also thank everyone involved in the Royal Darwin Show, particularly those who volunteered their valuable time.
St Paul’s primary school also had two students who recently won the opportunity to name a turtle as part of a project with the Sea Turtle Organisation. Both students were from the same class and their class was given the opportunity to receive an information session by volunteers to look at tracking maps showing where the turtles they had named were travelling. One turtle had travelled all the way from northeast of Darwin, and it looked like he was heading off for Perth. It was a wonderful session with the children and a wonderful opportunity for them.
I was also invited to various science week experiments at St Paul’s primary school, and attended a leadership session with the Student Representative Council. The St Paul’s SRC members have been developing their skills and it was a wonderful opportunity to speak with them. I congratulate and take this opportunity to name the members of the St Paul’s SRC for 2013:
Jesse Clark and Chloe Chapman who are the school captains; Elise Mullany; William Hockey; Phoebe Stringer; Flynn White; Edda Baptista; Connor Dawson; Jenti White; Ben Clark; Isabella Llamas; Braith Hodges; Amelia Pollon; and William Burton.
It was also wonderful to meet with Mr Alain Van Gurp and his Year 5 students last week when they visited Parliament House. I know they very much enjoyed their visit.
Last Friday morning, I was at the Nightcliff Primary School and it was a privilege to present the whole school assembly merit awards. The students at Nightcliff Primary School had been very busy this term with school camps, sporting days, and are working very hard towards their school concert which is in a few weeks’ time. They are also hosting the Nuna 7 solar car team in the coming weeks.
The team will be using the school as a base for their preparation for the Darwin to Adelaide Solar Car Challenge. This is a great opportunity for students. I strongly remember attending the 1987 Solar Car Challenge which started on The Esplanade.
Late last term, I also attended the Nightcliff Middle School production The Circus which was a fantastic production, and all students and teachers should be congratulated. It was a very interactive performance with actors leaving the stage and moving amongst the audience and including the audience. Some of the young primary school students in attendance were asked to be a part of the production. They were fantastic afternoon and evening performances.
Before I conclude I must mention Essington School fair, which I attended last Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful Dry Season afternoon, there were many activities and stalls, and hundreds of families from both the school and the broader community attended. I congratulate all involved, particularly those who volunteered and made donations.
Mr ELFERINK (Port Darwin): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I draw honourable members’ attention to the terrific school in my electorate, a terrific school by virtue of the fact my kids go there. I have been very impressed with the quality of education my kids have received, both under the tutelage and care of Graham Chadwick, who has now moved on, but ably taken over by Fathma Maugher, now the current principal.
I had the delight and great pleasure of going to the 50th year celebrations held at the school recently. I love the way the school has such a strong community spirit and such great teaching staff.
As part of the celebrations the annual play was put on. This year the play was a tribute to the Lewis Carroll novel Alice in Wonderland. My particular congratulations go to Mrs Vrettis, Mrs Mattiazza, and Mrs Hotle, who were central to putting that play on. I hope those I have omitted to mention forgive me, but those are the three teachers that immediately spring to mind. It was a great night out.
One of the things I really love about Larrakeyah Primary School is when they do a show like that the parents turn out in droves. The quality of interest by parents in the operation and running of the school makes it a wonderful school community, and it is a great pleasure to be there.
My congratulations to the school, and my compliments to Mrs Maugher for her excellent management and guidance of the school, and my compliments to all the staff at that school who continue to do such a great job looking after my kids, and the kids of other Territorians.
Many of the kids in that school are from the nearby Army base and there will be further pressure from that area. I will certainly be pressing the Education minister in the near future to make certain the improvements planned for the school are brought forward as quickly as possible so we can have a great school made even better.
Once again, my congratulations to the school and its staff and for a wonderful show, the tribute to Alice in Wonderland show.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to comment on several announcements the Minister for Lands, Planning and the Environment has made in recent times. I support some of the announcements he has made.
One he recently spoke about was high-rise buildings in the Darwin CBD and his belief there should be space around them. I recently sent him a media release from 2008 saying exactly the same thing. I have, for a long time, believed if we continue down the path we were going under the previous government’s design for high rise buildings in the CBD, we will eventually end up with wall-to-wall buildings.
It is sad to see we have not learnt from the past. We have what used to be called the Saville Park Suites, Marrakai Apartments, and some of the older buildings, where Local Government used to be in Smith Street, they were set back with some lawns and gardens and you felt there was space in the city. Now you see buildings like Evolution and Pandanus, and the building on the corner of Edmunds and Cavenagh Street, which I opposed from day one saying the block was too small; they are wall-to-wall buildings.
If you keep going down that path under the present system, you could have tall buildings jammed up against one another and we lose, what I believe, is the opportunity to make the CBD of Darwin a tropical CBD. I very much support what the minister said. Sometimes Surfers Paradise is used as an example of ‘let us not go down that path’. But go to Surfers Paradise and you will find there are tall buildings there, but they are separated by tropical gardens and footpaths and, sometimes, cafs and all types of things.
If you were going to develop high-rise residential developments in Darwin, you have to realise they are, basically, vertical suburbs. If you want the community in those buildings to interact, then you have to break those buildings up, have some open space on the ground level, allow breezes, allow a bit of greenery, and allow communication between those communities, otherwise we simply end up with a concrete jungle. It is not the type of jungle I would prefer in Darwin.
The other announcement was by the minister about the hospital. I support the idea that the hospital should be in Holtze - which is where the extension of Temple Terrace would go - it is much better to have a bigger area than originally perceived by the previous government. I have said before, it should be near the highway so there is easy access for people from the rural area and from Palmerston. That is a good decision and it adds benefits to the area.
The extension of Temple Terrace could reach Willard Road, which is the road to the prison, and provides an alternative road for people working at the prison and also for people in Howard River Park and Whitewood Park, and takes some of the traffic off Howard Springs Road, which is fairly well trafficked road at present, and gives an alternative route to the rural area.
Also, if there is an accident it gives an alternative route out of Darwin, which has been a problem when accidents occur on the Stuart Highway and traffic has had to go down through Palmerston to get around that problem. This would give an alternative road there as well.
Not forgetting the extension of Temple Terrace - and I presume it would get another name because it is not going to be a terrace - would be a road that eventually ends up at Glyde Point as part of the government’s proposed industrial development.
It also will give an opportunity to develop some rural blocks, and I have mentioned this to the minister before. There is quite an amount of land in that area which could be developed into 1 ha rural blocks. The government is already upgrading the water supply to the prison, and my understanding is there is sufficient capacity of that water supply to provide rural blocks with water. There is also sufficient power in that area going to the prison to do the same, so you would get that as an offshoot.
I know a number of people in Wallaby Holtze Road have been looking to attach to a town water supply, and building the hospital there creates an opportunity to provide town water for residents along Wallaby Holtze Road - who would like it.
The minister made a statement about some 60 houses or apartments being made available in Coolalinga. I received a phone call from someone expressing concern that 60 public housing houses would be built in the new Coolalinga residential development. Not that I have anything against some public housing within new housing estates, but he saw that as a great block of public housing houses, which is not the case.
I found out that, basically, these apartments were to be set aside in the new Coolalinga residential development as places for professional people to find accommodation. This, I presume, would be nurses, teachers, and other people who were looking for accommodation, and I believe it would be a good thing.
Taminmin College has complained for a number of years that they have difficulty getting teachers to go to Taminmin because they have to come from town, and they do not like travelling that distance every day. So, by having some accommodation available for professional people, for public servants, in the rural area is a good thing. I congratulate the government on going down that path. However, I believe they could build some of those apartments in Humpty Doo, which would be a much more convenient than Coolalinga. But, it is a good start.
I have no doubt those places will be taken up because, as people who have gone past Coolalinga in the last week or so will know, all the buildings there for stock feeds have been demolished. There has been much work with bulldozers and scrapers, and that is the beginning of the new shopping centre at Coolalinga, which many people are waiting for; not because they necessarily dislike Woolworths, but because it has become so crowded it is difficult to find car parking space, and there is a need for some competition as well. So, Coolalinga is booming, and putting the new apartments the government has set aside for professional people there, that part of the rural area will boom.
Obviously, there has to be some improvements in infrastructure in relation to connection to the highway and crossovers. I am hoping the Minister for Infrastructure might announce what plans the government has for some of the traffic issues which will come with this type of development.
So, I agree with the Minister for Lands, Planning and the Environment that height is not necessarily the problem with buildings in Darwin if you have a formula which says if you want to go to such and such a height you will have to allow X amount of open space on the ground. If you do not own a block that is big enough to do it - you have a smaller building. If you are able to buy neighbouring blocks and you have a footprint which is much larger, perhaps you can build a bigger building.
I see some of the buildings in Darwin now, even on The Esplanade, where I hoped buildings would be set back like the old Travelodge, but now we tend to use every square inch of the land. On the corner of Daly Street and The Esplanade you see tall buildings right up to the edge of the footpath with a little garden but, considering the size of the building, it cannot really be regarded as open space.
I hope the minister can use his influence with government to set up some guidelines or rules to ensure tall building developments will have to provide X amount of open space.
A concrete jungle is not what I want to see in my capital city of the Northern Territory. I would like to see a green jungle with open space and communication between communities living in high-rise apartments.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016