2002-08-22
- Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Seniors Advisory Council
Seniors Advisory Council
Ms MARTIN (Senior Territorians): Madam Speaker, my government is committed to working with senior Territorians to plan our future. During the election we made a commitment to form an advisory committee to improve access of senior Territorians to government. As announced at the launch of Seniors Month on 1 August, I have now established a Seniors Advisory Council. This will ensure that the valuable contributions of senior Territorians can be made direct to me as Chief Minister and Minister for Senior Territorians.
The Seniors Advisory Council is a concrete example of this government’s commitment to working with Territorians. We value the contribution that the community has to make in the decisions which affect their lives, and we are committed to engaging with the community in important policy matters.
We consulted the community about what kind of council they would like to see. An options paper was released for public comment earlier in the year, and it was sent to over 120 individuals and organisations, and over 25 responses were received. I am pleased to say that based on strong feedback received during that process, we modified our original concept for the council. The Seniors Advisory Council will consist of 10 members plus a chairperson. Members will be required to be aged 50 or more and have a personal commitment to improve outcomes for senior Territorians.
Members will be representative of all regions and age groups and reflect the cultural diversity of the Territory. As we all know, there are large numbers of indigenous and multicultural senior Territorians across our community and it is important that they be represented on this council. Expressions of interest for membership on the council are currently being sought. Advertisements were placed in all newspapers earlier this month. Information was also widely disseminated including to seniors organisations.
The interest has been tremendous. Senior Territorians are clearly right behind the idea. We have received more than 40 requests for information and have received 10 applications already, even though applications do not close until 9 September.
People are staying longer in the Territory and more and more are choosing it as a place to live long term. This makes it even more important that our policies and program planning suits all Territorians. The Seniors Advisory Council is an important way for government to hear their perspective first hand on issues that are important to them.
Perhaps I should leave the last word to one of the senior Territorians who responded to the options paper. Nola Smith is the Secretary of the Darwin Laurel Club and wrote:
- It is a sign of wisdom and responsibility by government that this need which is long overdue is
finally being addressed.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, any initiative for our older Territorians is applauded by everybody in this House. It is pleasing to see that, in some small way, the current government is keeping up the very good initiatives that were put in place by the previous government. The Pensioner Concession Card, the Seniors Card, Terrace Gardens is now up and running, and the Portrait of a Senior.
One of the things that they did drop was the luncheon for seniors at the Alice Springs Show, and it was good that my colleague, the member for Greatorex, was able to provide some lunch for those seniors just to show them how important the CLP thinks they are. I was interested to see that the Chief Minister seems to have cut back dramatically on the luncheon that has traditionally been provided annually in this place in the Great Hall. I attended that lunch and, on my estimation, I think the numbers were down by half. There were a significant number of empty chairs, which is a first time I have ever witnessed this particular thing.
I hope the Chief Minister does put some of this rhetoric into action. People see it is a good thing that the seniors portfolio has been attached to the Chief Minister. However, they are a little bit dismayed that it seems to be assuming a very, very low priority, given the workload and the other activities pursued by the Chief Minister. I hope that the engagement with the community with this Seniors Advisory Council which, I might add, is a Palmerston City Council initiative originally, has some legs, and that the people who are appointed to it are appointed from a wide cross-section of our seniors community so that we can get the diversity of view and the diversity of geography and demography that is evident in our seniors community.
The Northern Territory government previously put a number of initiatives in to make sure our seniors stayed here. They were initiatives like our seniors villages, which are a very good success story. The member for Wanguri will hang his head in everlasting shame for the fact that he was so vocal in his opposition to this particular concept. We will remember, and so too will our seniors, because they know the things that were put in place by this government, and they are just hopeful that they will be kept intact, and maybe even built on by this current government, and we will see the very real worth of seniors being recognised by the current Labor government.
Ms MARTIN (Senior Territorians): Madam Speaker, it is interesting; we are not here saying that we are knocking what happened in every aspect by the previous government. We recognise that. However, it is important to recognise that when there is a change of government there will be change. Not everything that the CLP did for 27 years will continue and you have to come to terms with this. Certainly, in Alice Springs, we are delighted with the response we have had to seniors. We had a morning tea for Seniors Month and 160 people turned up. Then we had a film to follow and 230 people came. We are continuing these kind of real activities for seniors in Alice Springs and we are delighted with the response we have received.
With reference to seniors villages, I wonder what the CLP would have done, if they had continued in government, with Kurringal. There was a lot of speculation around about selling land. This government will have seniors accommodation being built at the Kurringal site for seniors and that is a big difference.
NT Expo 2002
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to report to the Assembly about the success of NT Expo this year. NT Expo is in its 32nd year and it has become more than a weekend of displays, with a range of activities and events designed to promote positive business outcomes in the week leading up to the Expo Trade Show.
The week commenced with the ‘interactive’ Information, Technology and Telecommunication conference, hosted by Optus, which was addressed by my colleague, the Minister for Communications, by video conference from Alice Springs. More than 120 people attended the conference.
The Future Prospects conference, organised by the NT Minerals Council, was rated by the participants as highly successful, and was attended by around 100 people. Another well attended event, sponsored by the Darwin City Council, was Who Let The Dogs Out? The 120 people who arrived for the business lunch were confronted by a dog lead, a pet poo bag and were updated on the role and responsibilities of the ACCC. How you brought all that together, who knows! Unfortunately, I could not get there.
The International Business Forum was a particular highlight. At the invitation of the NT Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the President of East Timor, Mr Xanana Gusmao, delivered the keynote address on Investment Opportunities and Trade in East Timor. Mr Gusmao’s visit to Darwin was hosted by the Northern Territory government.
Another successful address was delivered by Mr Paul Dominguez, the Senior Presidential consultant from Mindanao. Mr Dominguez has the post of roving Ambassador in South-East Asia for the government of the Philippines, is a long-time friend of the Territory, and a major force in the re-invigoration of the BIMP-EAGA growth triangle, the topic he addressed in the forum. Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Industrial Development, Datuk Tham Nyip Shen, spoke about the industry, tourism and international exposition that is being held in Kota Kinabalu in September. Datuk Tham also led a large delegation from Sabah, and extended an invitation to Northern Territory business to participate in its expo and to meet the participator’s keynote speaker at the event. Regrettably, the Sabah expo coincides with the Legislative Assembly sittings in September, so I will be unable to attend. However, my department is working closely with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry to coordinate a Territory business delegation.
In addition to the preceding events, NT Expo Pty Ltd and my department developed strategies to help business identify ways in which they could generate and evaluate the outcomes from their participation in NT Expo. One approach was a workshop for all NT Expo participants. The workshop focussed on mechanisms to improve performance in business matching, add value to Expo stands, and to make the most of the trade day. The workshop was very well received by the business representatives who attended. Another initiative employed by NT Expo this year to increase the benefits from the Expo was the distribution of a kit with information, advice and tools for the stall holders. This included advice about how to encourage people to buy, the do’s and don’ts of displays, and suggestions about how business could measure Expo outcomes.
Statistics do not really tell the story of success of NT Expo, but they do help paint a picture of the event. The Expo had 267 sites and approximately 200 exhibitors. This included exhibitors from around the Territory, a number of interstate exhibitors including a group of impressive displays by businesses from South Australia’s Upper Spencer Gulf region, and international exhibitors from East Timor, the Mimika region of the province of Papua in Indonesia, the Malaysian state of Sabah, and Mindanao in the Southern Philippines. The quality of all displays was as excellent as the best exhibitors awards that were hotly contested. The winners were: best Darwin exhibit, Top End Sounds; best NT exhibit, Woodside Energy; best government exhibit, Darwin City Council; best international exhibit, Royal Brunei; and best interstate exhibit, The Upper Spencer Gulf Common Purpose Group. The effort that NT Expo participants put into their displays was extraordinary and I extend my congratulations to all.
I understand that there are a number of good stories from local businesses that have written significant business from the Expo: Top End Sounds, Top End Tourism, NT Food and Beverage, Camels International - my favourite, Darwin Skylights, and In and Outboard Marine. They have indicated that their initial evaluations are positive.
The newly appointed Philippines Ambassador to Australia, Ambassador Gaa, made his initial visit to Darwin to coincide with the Expo. I understand he was impressed with what he saw and I believe that Ambassador Gaa and Mr Dominguez’ visits have opened the way for the Northern Territory government to re-examine our relationship with BIMP-EAGA and to re-invigorate our MOU with the Philippines.
In recent years the government has supported cultural displays at NT Expo. In the past, the focus has been on cultural troupes of dancers and musicians with performances at the Expo site, shopping centres and other public places during Expo week. This year, the cultural focus was on food. The Australian Culinary Federation NT Chapter, and the NT University supported my department in staging the event. I am sure anyone who attended the cooking demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday and were fortunate to sample the meals which Bert and Adrian prepared would have been impressed. While the event was to demonstrate the versatility of Territory product and encourage its use by the general public, there were also a number of side benefits.
The preliminary work was excellent and I can say that NT Expo is a fantastic initiative and we will continue to support it.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the NT Expo was a success. It is a showcase of, not only Territory businesses, but also people from interstate and overseas attended. As the minister quite rightly pointed out, there was in excess of 200 sites this year. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I am informed, gave it the thumbs-up and said the Expo was a success. A number of business people I spoke to when I toured the site also said it was a worthwhile exercise.
There was a cost to business in setting up and taking the time out to be there but, generally speaking, people were firmly of the view that the benefit and outcomes that could be achieved by this networking outweighed the cost. The Labor government, in supporting and continuing to support this CLP initiative, in my view is a step in the right direction in sending the right message out to the community and to business. I hope the minister took the time to talk to some of the business people there, not just attend the functions and talk to them but listen to what they had to say. The message was certainly clear: it is time to start getting on with the job and not just talk. It is about promoting the Territory, promoting business, and our future economic success.
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, I thank the generally supportive comments from the member opposite. I can assure him that I spent a whole day at the Expo site just wandering around and talking to individual business operators there. They were very pleased with the Expo and I did not receive any negative feedback at all. They thought that as a government we were pursuing the big picture issues. Many people wanted to talk to me about gas and where that was at.
While I am on my feet, may I say that I was having a look at the electoral boundaries the other day, and noticed that Wickham Point was slap bang in the middle of his electorate. I want to know why the member for Goyder as the shadow minister for business and industry in the Northern Territory has not made one supportive public comment …
Dr Lim: This has nothing to do with the ministerial report. What has this got to do with ministerial reports?
Mr HENDERSON: … on the record about a $3bn project in the middle of his electorate. So the business community are asking questions about his commitment …
Members interjecting.
Mr REED: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The minister has given his ministerial report. He is responding to comments now made by the opposition spokesman and I would have thought he was confined to the contents of that particular issue.
Madam SPEAKER: There is really no point of order. I cannot rule on what the minister should not respond to. He was responding to comments made by the member for Goyder. Have you completed your remarks, minister?
Mr HENDERSON: I have completed my remarks.
Sport and Recreation Grants - Funding
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, last week my colleague, the Minister for Racing, Gaming and Licensing, introduced legislation that would lead to change the arrangements for sport and recreation funding. It is important to emphasise, as Minister Stirling did, that the abolition of the lotteries fund will not impact on the amount of funding available for sport and …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I have said before that members of the government continue to use the names of ministers and members of parliament, rather than using the name of the electorate.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, there is a point of order. Members know they should refer to members in the House by their electorate or by the ministry, not by their Christian name.
Mr AH KIT: It is important to emphasise, as the minister did, that the abolition of the lotteries fund will not impact on the amount of funding available for sport and recreation grants. Funds will continue to flow into the sport and recreation budget for development purposes, but this funding will come from consolidated revenue rather than direct from the lotteries fund. And, just as occurred in the past, the matter of these funds will remain an issue to be determined through the normal budgetary processes. The bottom line is that the new legislative arrangements will have no practical impact to those sporting and recreation groups and organisations seeking grants through my department. Let me give an assurance to the sport and recreation community that the level of government assistance and support will be unaffected by these changes.
At the same time, it is important to point out that the Office of Sport and Recreation is currently reviewing the system of allocating funding under the sport and recreation grants. The current annual grants process requires significant time and effort by sport and recreation organisations, or local governments, to submit quality applications. It also requires significant work by the Office of Sport and Recreation staff to process and assess them. I believe there is room to update and streamline the basis on which grants are applied for and assessed.
The current system is input based but it may be better to have an emphasis on the total performance of the organisation being funded. Total performance may be assessed by such things as how well they are providing a quality service to their membership and the broader community; whether they are well governed, managed, business focussed and financially sound, with visionary strategic plans in place; do they look after their juniors, both in terms of general participation and talented pathways; do they develop and keep coaches, officials and volunteers; and do they have a quality plan that sets out where they are going and how they are going to get there?
There also appears to be a case to lengthen the funding cycle, perhaps over a triennial basis. This would provide some of the following advantages:
less time spent by organisations applying for grants, allowing more time to get on with
running their business;
which would allow more time for staff to be out and about helping organisations achieve their
outcomes; and
a better plan and organised activities and better security for the staff they employ.
To this end, the Office of Sport and Recreation is examining better ways of providing and processing grants to both sport and recreation organisations and local government authorities and, as a part of this process, the office is consulting widely with the relevant stakeholders.
Sport and recreation organisations in the Northern Territory are well supported. The national average for funding these organisations is around $9 per head. Here in the Northern Territory it is around $29 per head. Of course, with a widely dispersed and smaller population base in the Territory, we inevitably have to spend more to provide the same support and opportunities. But my responsibility is to ensure that we are getting maximum value for our dollars and that we are meeting the very real needs that exist in our community. In that context, I look forward to reporting to the Assembly on the results of the review with initiatives that will maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of the support we provide to sport and recreation throughout the Northern Territory.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Madam Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement and acknowledge the hard work of the members of the Office of Sport and Recreation. The issue of a review - simply the test will be assessed at the level of these small groups that need support. I give my full support to the process and we will simply wait for the effect that this review will take.
I take this opportunity to mention to sports organisations that often come to me, and I am sure they have come to the minister with regards to support, one is softball and the other is soccer. With that I welcome the statement and the proposed review, and look forward to the response that comes as a result of that review.
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, I welcome the support by the opposition spokesperson for sport and recreation.
As I said, it really is time for an overhaul, not necessarily a complete overhaul. We pride ourselves on the sporting abilities that we have in the Northern Territory. It is a part of our lifestyle. We have had representations at all levels, most nationally and many internationally. We want to continue that. As I said, we provide a lot more dollars per head than other states and territories and we want to continue that. We need to put in place a better process so we can continue to bring our people through the sporting fields, as a part of our lifestyle.
I want to ensure there is emphasis on development of juniors and that there is a commitment by these peak organisations because in the past some of that has been neglected and it is a slight concern. I thank the member for his contribution, and I look forward to reporting to the House next year.
Casuarina Coastal Reserve
Management Plan
Management Plan
Madam SPEAKER: Members may recall the member for Macdonnell was given leave to continue his remarks at a later date on the Casuarina Coastal Reserve Management Plan, so I acknowledge the member for Macdonnell.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I rise to complete my comments. When a minister brings a paper into this House and brings introductory comments along with it, one can only presume that he desires to debate it out, and this reflects the farce that the ministerial report system is. It is not done anywhere else in the Westminster parliamentary system. I have checked. It does not exist anywhere else, and it is an abuse of government of the parliamentary system to expect a 76 page report to be read, digested and ready for debate in two minutes. This is the absurdity of the system that is being thrust upon the people of the Northern Territory. It shows the contempt that this government has for the parliamentary process, a process that, while they were in opposition …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The honourable member has been given leave to continue his remarks in regard to the Coastal Management Plan. Now, that is the issue before the House at the moment, not a diatribe about the structure of parliamentary sitting days. I would like him to get back to relevance.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: It demonstrates the level of contempt that this government has for the parliamentary process in the Northern Territory, and now that they have achieved power, they want to do everything in their power to maintain that. That includes using systems like ministerial debates to gag the opposition. When this system was introduced, there was no right of reply from opposition members, and they were sensitive enough about that to give us a two minute right of reply.
I have sought that this reserve plan be properly debated. Consequently, I sought leave to bring it on for the next General Business Day and discuss some of the important issues that are in the coastal plan, things like lewd sexual behaviour on the coastal reserve, itinerants and drunks. Important issues which require much more than two minutes’ worth of debate and that is a clear demonstration that this government is trying its hardest to avoid its responsibility in terms of coming to this parliament and debating issues out properly.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
VISITORS
Madam SPEAKER: Members, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of the Chief Minister’s mother, Mrs Bernice Martin, and her brother, Mark Martin. On behalf of all members, I wish you a warm welcome.
COMMUNITY WELFARE AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 96)
(Serial 96)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The primary purpose of this bill is to amend the Community Welfare Act to replace the existing provisions relating to interstate transfer of child guardianship arrangements. A new part will enable the administrative and judicial transfer of child protection orders and proceedings between the Territory and jurisdictions with similar legislation. The bill will also amend the act to allow the court to grant warrants for the apprehension of children subject to certain child protection orders who have moved, or been moved, interstate without the approval of the minister.
The bill will amend section 53 of the act to clarify that the minister must cause an authorised person to periodically visit a child in care only when the child is resident in the Northern Territory. Finally, the bill replaces gender specific terms in the principal act with gender neutral terms, and converts penalties from dollar amounts to penalty units.
In October 1996, the Community Services Ministers Council agreed that a project should be undertaken to address the implementation of legislation and protocols throughout Australia and New Zealand so as to more easily transfer child protection orders and court proceedings interstate. An officials working group subsequently developed national model legislation on which this bill is based. The bill provides for a system whereby child protection orders made in the Territory, or ‘home orders’, be transferred administratively by the minister, or judicially by the Family Matters Court.
The minister’s authority to transfer an order is conditional upon the consent of the child’s parents and, where relevant, any person who has access to the child under the home order. Before the minister can transfer the home order, the minister must be satisfied that the order to take effect in the other state is similar to the home order, and must have the written consent of the competent interstate officer to the transfer.
The bill provides appropriate procedural safeguards. Having made the decision to transfer the home order, the minister must notify in writing all parties of his or her decision. All parties have the right to apply to the Family Matters Court for a review of the minister’s decision and to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will have discretion to hear the appeal and make orders as it sees fit, or remit the case to the Family Matters Court for further consideration.
The minister may also apply to the Family Matters Court for an order to transfer the home order to another state, provided the conditions laid down are met. The court does not require the consent of all parties to order the transfer, but is bound to take into account the wishes of all parties. Again, all parties have a right to appeal to the Supreme Court.
On the registration in the relevant interstate court of a decision by the minister, or order of the Family Matters Court to transfer a home order from the Territory, the home order ceases to have effect. Conversely, on the registration of an interstate decision by the competent officer or court order in the Family Matters Court, the interstate order is deemed to be an order of the Family Matters Court for all purposes. The bill provides for the revocation of prematurely registered orders.
The bill also provides for the judicial transfer, on application by the minister, of child protection proceedings between the Territory and other jurisdictions with complementary legislation. The court may not hear the application unless the relevant interstate officer has consented in writing to the transfer. Before making an order transferring a child protection proceeding, the Family Matters Court must consider amongst other things whether the welfare and interests of the child will be promoted or adversely affected by the transfer, and the wishes of the child and each parent of the child.
On the registration in the relevant interstate court of an order of the Family Matters Court to transfer a home proceeding from the Territory, the home proceeding is discontinued. Conversely, on the registration of an interstate court order in the Family Matters Court, the interstate proceeding is deemed to be a proceeding commenced in the Family Matters Court. The bill provides for the revocation of prematurely registered proceedings.
This system will, for the first time, enable the court to act in the best interests of a child who has been declared in one state or territory to be in need of care, but whose welfare would be best served by relocating to another state or territory.
In July 1997, the Community Services Ministers Council further agreed that all Australian states and territories should ensure that their child protection legislation provides for the issuing of interstate child protection warrants. The Community Welfare Act currently does not provide for interstate warrants, a deficit which the bill directly addresses. The bill stipulates that a child who is a subject of a child protection order, other than a child in respect of whom sole custody has been granted to a person other than the minister, may only leave the Territory with the minister’s written consent. Where a child is absent from the Territory without the minister’s consent, the minister may apply to the Family Matters Court for a warrant for the apprehension of the child, and the return of the child to the Territory. Such warrants will be enforceable interstate under the Commonwealth Service and Execution of Process Act 1992.
The bill also amends section 53 of the act, which states that the minister must cause an authorised person to visit a child in care of the minister at least once in every two months. Family and Children’s Services have found this requirement to be impractical and unnecessary in respect of a child who is out of the Territory for a period of longer than two months. Section 6 of the bill ensures that this requirement will only apply once a child is resident in the Territory. This amendment is not an abrogation of the minister’s or the government’s duty to a child in the care of the minister, as the interstate apprehension warrant provisions of the bill will enable children in the care of the minister who are outside the Territory without the minister’s consent to be returned to the Territory. The bill also provides the alternative of transferring the child protection order to the state where the child resides, if that is appropriate.
Finally, the bill replaces gender specific terms in the principle act with gender neutral terms, and converts dollar amounts to penalty units. The government believes the bill will facilitate the achievement of best possible outcomes for children in need of care. As I have outlined, it provides the mechanisms whereby a child protection order or proceeding can be smoothly transferred to another jurisdiction where it is in the child’s interest to do so. In doing so, it establishes sufficient procedural safeguards to protect all parties against arbitrary decision-making, and ensures that all affected parties have the opportunity to be heard.
I commend this bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
CRIMES (VICTIMS ASSISTANCE) AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 95)
(Serial 95)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of this bill is to review the Victims Assistance Scheme under the Crimes (Victims Assistance) Act in order to streamline court procedures, improve efficiencies, and better address the needs of victims. Ultimately, these amendments will have the effect of reducing the legal and administrative costs associated with the scheme.
The Victims Compensation Scheme, now referred to as the Victims Assistance Scheme, was introduced to provide financial assistance to victims of crime to help them overcome the impact of crimes committed against them. The aim of the scheme is to provide compensation for injuries sustained by victims as a result of offences. Injuries can include physical or mental injuries. The cost of maintaining the scheme has increased exponentially over the last few years. The cost of the scheme in the previous financial year was over $5.5m, of which $2.26m was paid in legal costs. This means that over one-third of the costs of the scheme are going to the payment of legal costs rather than to the intended beneficiaries of the schemes, that is the victims of crime.
This government is concerned that the growth in legal fees is disproportionate to the growth in the assistance that is paid to the victims themselves. In the 1998-99 financial year, 24% of the overall costs of the scheme were spent on legal costs. In 2001-02, this percentage has increased to 41%. Another way of looking at the figures is that since the 1996-97 financial year, payments to victims have increased by 60% while legal costs have increased by 513%. If this trend continues the money being paid to the victims would soon be outstripped by the cost of administering the scheme. Already we have seen cases where the legal costs associated with the claim are higher than the assistance amount that is awarded to the victim of the crime.
In 1997, the Crimes Victims Advisory Committee reported to the then Attorney-General on the operation of the scheme. The report revealed a perception in the community, including the legal community, that the victims assistance process was unduly expensive and cumbersome. The committee made a number of recommendations to improve the Victims Assistance Scheme. Not one of these recommendations were implemented by the previous government.
The concerns about the operation of the scheme continue. Over the last year I, and the Department of Justice, have received numerous written and verbal submissions from groups and individuals, including legal practitioners, concerned about the operation of the scheme. The escalating costs of the scheme have been the primary concern in those submissions.
The objective of the scheme is to assist victims of crime. This government is committed to ensuring that the scheme meets this objective. We are not prepared to stand by and see the scheme labour under unnecessarily cumbersome and costly procedures at the expense of the victims.
The amendments proposed in this bill address a number of recommendations made by the Crime Victims Assistance Committee in the 1997 report. The aims of the amendments are to make the number of minor, or ‘stop gap’, changes to halt the haemorrhaging of the current scheme and simplify procedures. However, a complete review and overhaul of the Crimes (Victims Assistance) Act is proposed within the next year. This will explore a range of options such as introducing a completely new system focussing on rehabilitation and counselling and the potential benefits of moving to an administrative, rather than an judicial process, for the determination of awards. A discussion paper and draft bill will be prepared and released in the October sittings for wide public consultation before any such changes are contemplated.
I now turn to the amendments before the House. One of the main ways that the assistance process will be simplified is to remove the alleged offender from the proceedings. This is one of the key recommendations made the by the CVAC in its report and is already the case in some other jurisdictions, such as New South Wales. Currently, the alleged offender is a party to the proceedings and most be served with the proceedings. He or she must also agree to settlement offers before consent orders can be made. If the offender does not agree, the matter must proceed to a hearing.
Involving the alleged offender in the assistance process can be distressing to the victim and has been the subject of criticism by victim groups. Involving the offender can also add unnecessary costs and lengthen the assistance process because of the difficulty in finding and serving offenders and because of their often unwillingness to be involved in, or agree to, settlement offers.
The alleged offender must currently be a party to the proceedings because the Territory has an automatic right of recovery from the offender for the amount paid by way of assistance to the victim. However, the recovery rate from offenders is extraordinarily low. Often the offender is in gaol and has no means to pay the amount. Alternatively, he or she cannot be found or simply cannot afford the amount owed.
In the 2000-01 financial year, less than 5% of the assistance amounts awarded to victims was recovered from offenders. In 2001-02, the amount recovered was only 6% despite the best efforts of the Solicitor for the Northern Territory. The cost to government of collecting these small amounts and the costs that are added to the scheme because of the involvement of the alleged offender are simply not economically justifiable. However, it was felt that an offender should not be able to get away scot-free. The amendments also provide for the Territory to commence separate recovery procedures against an offender after an award to the victim has been made. This will allow the Territory to effect recovery where it is considered appropriate and feasible, and it will ensure that the recovery rate is not reduced even further.
Only where the Territory commences such proceedings will the offender be given the right to argue his or her case, including whether the victim contributed to the offence. If the offender can establish contribution, the amount to be paid by the offender will be reduced accordingly. In any event, although an offender will not be a party to the actual proceedings for victim assistance, if there is any suggestion of victim contribution or a question of the offender’s identity, this will be in most cases addressed by the Territory’s legal representatives at the time of the victim’s assistance proceedings. Just because the offender is not a party to the initial proceedings, there is nothing to stop the Territory from gathering evidence from the offender at that time.
As mentioned above, removing the offender from the proceedings will also make the settlement between the Territory and the victim much easier to achieve. Other changes are also contained in the bill to provide more incentive for the parties to settle. Section 10A is to be amended to the effect that if an applicant rejects a reasonable offer made by the Territory and the court ultimately awards an amount equal to or lower than the amount offered, then the victim is not entitled to the costs incurred by him or her after the date of the offer. This will encourage parties to properly consider all offers for settlement and is aimed at encouraging proper mediation and negotiation and avoiding the court process as much as possible.
The process will be further simplified by allowing the decisions of the court to be made with as little formality as possible. Section 17(3) has been added to the act to provide that all evidence is to be given by affidavit, although the court will be able to allow cross-examination of a witness if it feels that that is appropriate. This means that most evidence will be presented on paper and the court will usually make its decision on the documents provided. The Chief Magistrate is supportive of this approach.
To reflect the simplified procedures that will be effected by the proposed amendments, section 15(4) has been inserted to provide that Judicial Registrars of the Local Court can perform all the functions of the court under the act. Judicial Registrars are legally qualified officers who already undertake much of the routine work of the court. Currently, Judicial Registrars conduct most of the proceedings under the act, including hearing interlocutory matters and conducting taxation conferences. The Chief Magistrate has indicated his support for changes which will allow Judicial Registrars to run the crimes victims assistance process, especially given the amendments aimed at streamlining the process.
As the role of the Judicial Registrars will be subject to Practice Directions, this will provide an adequate safeguard whereby the Chief Magistrate can ensure that any complex matters can still be heard by a magistrate.
The other significant amendment is the proposed reduction in legal costs payable under the scheme. The amendments to the act and Crimes (Victims Assistance) Regulations provide for a reduction in legal costs from 80% of the Supreme Court scale to 40% of the Supreme Court scale. This is to address the previously mentioned exponential growth in legal costs and to reflect the simplified processes effected by the amendments.
Currently the rate of other local court matters is set at 50% for awards of $5000 to $10 000 and 80% for awards of $10 000 to $50 000. Victims assistance is only available to a maximum of $25 000, and most awards are for amounts of less than $10 000. The average for assistance payments is around $7738. This reflects the last 500 assistance payments made prior to August 2002.
There is no reason why crimes victims assistance matters should ever have attracted higher legal costs than other local court matters. With the simplification of the process effected by the bill, it now seems appropriate to reduce costs and to reduce them across the board.
There are a number of other changes being made to the act. Section 12 is being amended to provide that a victim will not be entitled to an assistance certificate if he or she did not report the offence to police, unless the court is satisfied that circumstances existed which prevented the reporting. This tightens up the current reporting requirement and ensures full cooperation of the victim with the police.
Section 12 is also being amended to provide that assistance will not be available to a person who is injured while committing a crime. For example, this will mean that claims for assistance will not be successful where both parties were involved in a pub brawl. In those cases, it has been known for a victim to claim assistance for injuries sustained from an assault by another person, even though ‘the victim’ also assaulted the other person. This is not the aim of the scheme. The aim is to assist the innocent victims in our community. Because this is restricted only to ‘crimes’, it will not affect those victims who suffer injury from a serious offence while committing only a minor offence, for example, trespass.
Amendments are also proposed to allow the Territory to set-off amounts awarded to victims who were named as the offender in a previous award of compensation. There have been cases where offenders have not reimbursed the Territory for assistance amounts paid to the victim, and subsequently the offender has made an application for victims assistance in relation to an offence committed against him or her. Currently, there is no way for the Territory to automatically set-off the amount of victim assistance against the original amount owing. It does not seem fair that an offender is able to benefit from the scheme as a victim, while refusing to contribute in his or her capacity as an offender. Other minor amendments include a new subsection 13(2)(aa) to allow the court to take into account, in determining an amount of assistance, any private medical benefit received by the victim.
New section 17A is also proposed to abolish privilege in relation to medical documents related to an assistance application. This effectively means that the medical records can be subpoenaed so that the court can make more informed decisions as to the extent of injury and other matters.
New section 24(3) will allow the court to award costs against an applicant if the court dismisses or strikes out the application. Currently, there is no provision discouraging a person from making a false or vexatious application. Clearly, a person who abuses the legal system should not be permitted to get away with it without implication.
The bill also proposes an increase to the victims levy. The levy is payable by all persons found guilty by a court of an offence. It is also payable when a person expiates an offence by paying an infringement notice, such as a speeding ticket. This levy partly funds the victims assistance scheme under the act. The bill essentially doubles the amounts payable by the levy. Infringement notices will now attract a levy of $10 per ticket, and the levy on the finding of guilt for indictable offences will increase to $60. While doubling the amount payable may seem to be a large increase, it must be noted that these levies have not been increased since 1989, and this increase is consistent with the levies imposed in other jurisdictions.
The proposed amendments to the act are aimed at creating a victim assistance scheme that is more dependable, streamlined and cost efficient. The focus of this scheme should be on assisting the real victims of crime in our community. The amendments reflect this government’s commitment to practical initiatives to meet the needs of victims, and to a legal system that is both accessible and effective.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
Mr STIRLING (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising on Thursday, 22 August 2002, adjourn until Tuesday, 17 September 2002 at 9 am, or such other time and/or date as may be set by Madam Speaker, pursuant to sessional order.
Motion agreed to.
APPROPRIATION BILL 2002-03
(Serial 89)
(Serial 89)
Continued from 21 August 2002.
Dr BURNS (Johnston): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in support of our government’s 2002-03 budget. I am not the only one to support this historic budget. I would like to quote from a number of representatives from significant organisations in the Territory. Dave Malone, General Manager of the Territory Construction Association was interviewed by Julia Christensen on ‘Drivetime’ on 20 August and said:
- We think it is a strong budget. It provides over $400m worth of construction activity throughout the
Territory, so it is a major boost for our industry and a major boost for the provision of infrastructure
throughout the Territory.
There is a very positive report from Dave Malone of the Territory Construction Association. Responding to the question about the increase in stamp duty rebate, he was asked, ‘What sort of impact is it going to have?’ He said:
- It sure will have an important impact. The increase in the threshold of $125 000 will make it easier for
those first home buyers to own their own home.
Carole Frost, the CEO of the NT Chamber of Commerce and Industry was asked by Julia: ‘Carole Frost, you were agog yesterday. What is your reaction today?’
We are really pleased with what has come down. We are seeing that there is a forecasted steady 3.7% growth,
the continuation of tight fiscal management within the government departments and a steady debt reduction …
Mr Dunham: How come the papers don’t bear that out?
Dr BURNS: This is Carole Frost saying ‘steady debt reduction’.
We have also seen some cuts to business taxes, predominantly stamp duty on the franchise renewals and the
start of promised cuts to payroll tax.
Then, the reporter breaks in:
- Is it going to promote growth and investment in the Territory?
Frost: I think it will.
Here are some important business sectors. Now we will turn to the Australian Education Union. Robert Laird, who is President of the NT Branch.
- Laird: Well, overall I would have to say it is a very good start in terms of education reform by this
government. Obviously, there are a few major indicators there like the remote area housing for
teachers, security screens for that housing, additional capital works on schools and the funding for
schools which was announced yesterday.
On ABC TV news he continued.
- The additional per capita funding for schools is long overdue. Schools have been waiting 10 years for that.
Well, we have made a 25% increase to that per capita funding and I know schools in my area are very, very pleased about it.
On a more technical level, Fred McCue interviewed Professor Catley, who is Associate Dean of Business at the Northern Territory University, on Wednesday, 21 August.
Reporter: It seems as though, at the moment, Clare Martin’s on a winner.
That is Fred McCue.
- Catley: Oh yes, this is a growth budget. A pick-up in Territory growth, which has meant that the government
is able to spend more, and it has been pretty cleverly distributed across most sectors with some emphasis on
business and particularly, infrastructure spending which has a very quick multiplier effect into the rest of
the economy. So the anticipated growth of 5% coming up over the next five or six years, an annual growth
rate, one of the fastest in the country, this is very positive for government and for the community, of course.
Now here is Fred McCue with Graham Kemp, who is the General Manager of the Housing Industry Association on Wednesday:
- Kemp: Indeed, we are very pleased with the budget, Fred, very pleased with the proactive stand that
the government has taken.
Here is a look at various sectors of our community that have warmly embraced and welcomed our budget.
We have looked at the present. I would now like to look into history and project a little into the future. One of the things that has been apparent to me is the way in which the former government could not budget to save themselves. Percy Allan also commented on how they built in unrealistically low estimates of growth to their budget estimates. As a result, as the Public Accounts Committee, we heard evidence that there were blow-outs on the bottom line in successive CLP budgets of between $65m and $70m per year - over successive budgets. Much of this, we learnt, was caused by unrealistically low estimates of growth which forced departments to continually request supplementation during the year.
Let’s look at the contrast in our first budget. A planned deficit of $139m and an estimated actual of $117m. The unspent money, approximately $23m, will be carried over making the estimated deficit for 2002-03 $95m rather than the $72m forecast in our November 2001 mini-budget. Nevertheless, we are confident of still reaching our target of bringing the Northern Territory budget into surplus by the 2004-05 year. This confidence …
Mr Dunham: Net debt up. Page – figure 13 Budget Paper No 2.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, I would ask that other members show me some courtesy here.
Mr Baldwin: Why? You don’t deserve it.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Madam Speaker, I ask that he withdraw.
Dr BURNS: That was a curmudgeonly statement by the member for Daly. No, I don’t ask that. I want to talk about important things like the budget.
This confidence that we will bring the budget back into the black is also based on Treasury projections. This contrast extends further than the way in which the former government piled on one budget blow-out after another. It also extends to the way in which the opposition has attempted to criticise our budget. Initially they seemed to argue that increases in funding from the Commonwealth for relativity adjustments was a windfall and then foolishly proposed that we spend it many times over, showing that they have not really sobered up from their profligate spending propensities. That is an important aspect.
There are other important aspects in the bringing down of our budget and it is the adoption of accrual accounting and fiscal integrity legislation. As has been pointed out earlier today, we are world leaders in requiring the Under-Treasurer to sign off on the budget and the budget figures, in contrast to what happened in the last CLP budget. I believe that the United States has passed legislation to get large companies to get their chief financial officers to do similarly.
There is no doubt that the introduction of accrual accounting has caused some problems and as Public Accounts Committee chairman I have spoken to a number of people in the Territory and particularly interstate from the auditing sector and the government sector about the introduction of accrual accounting. Universally what I have been told is that it takes a number of years for the accrual accounting system to bed down because ...
Mr Dunham: Oh three year smokescreen, that’s handy.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, I am drawing on the experience of other jurisdictions here. I am just trying to report to the House what has been told to me. Now if other members want to make their own inquiries and find something different, I would be interested to hear. But what I heard universally was that it takes a number of years, the valuation and the depreciation of assets and the formulae used to do that, there are always problems with that. However, underlining it all, the effort by the Opposition Leader yesterday really just showed, I believe, that he did not understand the transition to accrual accounting and the very fact that he is saying that somehow that the Labor Party has knocked $1bn off the value of the Territory further underscores his lack of understanding.
It is because of accrual accounting that this has occurred and it is laid out for everyone to see what the liabilities of the Northern Territory are, what our unfunded liabilities were, and it was never there up front in previous budgets because of cash books. I am not saying there is anything particularly nefarious about that. I think we should just be honest and admit to the technicalities of what has occurred instead of trying to scare the public by saying somehow $1m has just evaporated out of the Treasury. It has not happened and it is because of accrual accounting that it has happened.
So let’s just get real about it because this budget – I have mentioned the accolades that it has received within the public and various sectors within the Territory. I think it presents a very difficult political problem for the opposition because we have business, and as I pointed out, we have heard from the construction industry. The major increase in capital works; I know there are many contractors in my electorate who are going to welcome that. So where does it leave the opposition? What is their constituency? Where does it leave them? They are complaining about a budget that is obviously going to have a benefit to business, a benefit to construction and they are being left out in the cold. Yesterday’s people. They are a shell. They are hollow. They have nothing to offer. We have offered it in our first budget, and I am very proud of our first budget.
As this budget was so obviously well received by the community, the opposition attempted to undermine it by calling into question elements of the budget related to the transition from cash to accrual accounting. Once again, like their denial of the black hole, they stand alone and have generally excluded themselves from any rational appraisal of the budget.
There is a dazzling array of positive elements in this budget and it is difficult to choose just a few of them to discuss in the time that I have available. I will attempt to choose a few and highlight them.
Itinerancy: this might seem a strange thing to talk about in terms of the budget, but in my electorate, itinerancy is a big issue. It is a large social issue that adversely affects people’s quality of life. Obviously, the people who are itinerants are lost souls and many of them in the grip of alcohol intoxication and addiction, so it is a very sad situation. That is why I was very happy to hear the initiatives related to itinerancy. It is a complex issue that requires resources and strategies to address the problem directly in the urban areas and to address areas such as poor housing, health care and unemployment which are the drivers for many remote Aboriginal people to move into urban areas.
That is why I am proud as a member for the northern suburbs, let’s say, because there has been a bit of talk here from some parts of the opposition who have said, ‘Oh, all these remote communities are getting money’. Some of them have even said, ‘The northern suburbs are getting all the money’. So there is a bit of a conflict in the line that they are running here. It might seem a bit paradoxical that a member of the northern suburbs is getting up to praise initiatives in rural and remote areas, particularly for indigenous Territorians. The reason I do this is because I recognise the problems of itinerancy are very complex, and many of them come back to the way in which infrastructure and other services in remote Aboriginal communities were allowed to run down over 27 years of CLP rule. So much so that the health systems were not operating, housing was …
Mr Dunham: Rubbish! It is not true. Were you here 27 years ago, mate? You wouldn’t have a clue.
Dr BURNS: I wouldn’t have a clue? I have spent quite a lot of time, as the member for Drysdale knows, out on quite a number of remote Aboriginal communities. I know what the score is, and I see Aboriginal people 25 to 30 in a house. I saw health systems that were completely dysfunctional and unemployment, lack of skills training and employment out there, and these are the drivers that propel Aboriginal people into the city. This is what this government is going to be addressing. That is why I am proud to get behind some of these issues around itinerancy and what this government is doing about it in the town and also in the bush, some of our initiatives there.
A total of $500 000 has been allocated for the itinerant strategy for Darwin and Palmerston focussing on patrolling, education, alcohol and accommodation. Substantial increases of $8.66m shared with the Commonwealth for remote area housing for indigenous people; regional and community development frameworks to enhance community capacity in service delivery functions; $2.2m for the establishment of specialist teams to support better health for Aboriginal children in regional areas. I support all those things. It would be interesting to go back through Hansard and see what former CLP northern suburbs’ members did in terms of their support for these kinds of initiatives. I would say that there would be very little, although I am willing to be convinced otherwise.
Mr Dunham: You’re the researcher, go and have a look. You are lazy. Why don’t you go and have a look, you researcher, you.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Dr BURNS: Thank you, member for Drysdale.
Capital works: the Johnston electorate includes many residents involved in the construction industry. I am sure they will be heartened, as I was, to learn that the total infrastructure investment approved in the 2002-03 budget is $432m, comprising $313m for capital works, and $119m for repairs and maintenance. When Power and Water is included, the total investment will be $513m. The cash spending on these items is $333m. As other commentators, including the construction industry, have observed, this represents the largest expenditure on infrastructure since self-government, and will provide an incredible boost to many in the construction industry.
Another aspect of our investment in capital works is that there is a mix of projects, both large and small, which helps both big contractors and smaller contractors and the geographical spread of our spend, especially in remote communities. The challenge for all of us is to use this as a stimulus for skills training in employment in remote areas, and that comes back to the issue of itinerancy that I mentioned before.
Home owners: the construction industry will be further boosted by our rebates and concessions to home owners, not only first home owners, but anyone purchasing a home that is their principal place of residence. For first home owners this will mean a 74% increase in the stamp duty concession. There is also a stamp duty rebate of up to $1500 for anyone purchasing a home in the Territory.
Boat ramps: many Johnston residents are boat owners and go fishing in and around Darwin. One in particular, Mr Alex Tsopanoglou, is a very keen fisherman and has often spoken to me about the need for better access and better security around boat ramps. I relayed his sensible ideas to the minister and his staff and Mr Tsopanoglou was able to meet with both the minister and his staff and put his views very strongly. I am glad to see that the budget includes these initiatives that he has suggested. These initiatives are, firstly, $200 000 for boosting security to Buffalo Creek boat ramp; widening the Dinah Beach boat ramp; and a provision of an all tide boat ramp in Darwin Harbour. In total, these latter two initiatives will cost $600 000 over the next two years.
In conclusion, I would like to quote from a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who gave a formal vote of thanks to the Chief Minister at the budget luncheon on Tuesday. She said:
- This is a responsive and responsible budget.
I will say it again.
- This is a responsive and responsible budget.
As I have outlined, it has been very well received by the business community, and by other interested parties. I have mentioned the education union, certainly the housing and construction industry, and I just ask again: where does it leave the opposition? No doubt we are going to get the remaining members of the opposition, get up and try to spin this yarn around, what does it all mean, and try and pull the figures apart. But the figures have been signed off by the Under Treasurer, and they will try to use the transition to accrual accounting from cash book accounting to try to put some shadows over this budget.
Well, I am not buying it. I do not think the public nor the business community of the Northern Territory are going to buy it. Once again, the challenge is for the opposition to get together and develop policies and move forward and present something positive to the community.
In our first term, we have been able to offer the very real prospects of significant growth in the Territory, which is being welcomed by everyone, in contrast to the former budgets of the CLP that had successive blow-outs. They come into this place and say, ‘We are only spending x on education or health, or globally, or capital works, and by the time the end of the year came there was a blow-out of $100m on the budget’. Sorry, I am overstating it - between $65m and $70m per annum on their budgets.
We have shown fiscal restraint in our first year to bring in our budget on target. I will say it again: to bring our expenditure in on target. We are on target to bring the budget into the black, it is in the 2004-05 financial year, and that is a very important thing. We are on target, not only with that, but with our debt reduction strategy. So it is little wonder that the business community welcomes our budget. I applaud it and I commend it to this House.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, from what I have just heard from the member for Johnston, I got the feeling that he was talking about a different budget. There seems to be one thing which is evident from the budget: there is a religious aversion to any initiative. There is maintaining some of the programs and a bit of rejigging, but there is no new vision, there are no new foundations for our future.
I intended to go through, in a summary fashion, the portfolio area of industries and business, make comments relating to the Department of Justice and then, of course, deal with the effect the budget may or may not have on the best electorate in the Northern Territory, the electorate of Goyder.
The portfolio of industries and business is a key portfolio. There is absolutely no doubt that, ultimately, it is the economic driver from which the government of the day will draw its taxes, or large proportion of all its taxes. Then, of course, the government of the day can fund what social policy it sees fit. The underpinning of the Territory economy cannot be understated. Budget Paper No 3, at page 151, gives an overview of what the department does. We are talking about increasing the capacity of business, improving the performance of business, improving the sustainability of business, improving equity, and building partnerships across the various industries. These are powerful pillars upon which the very substance of our community relies.
The real concern for me is what is not said in this particular document. When you read the policy initiatives contained under the broad heading of the Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development on page 153, it further confirms that no real weight has been given to this portfolio. It seems that the current minister is not properly championing the interests of business. It begs the question: was the minister in Cabinet at the time the budget was being prepared, or was he there and just did not say anything? There seems little doubt, for a person attempting to analyse a budget in any detail for the first time, that there seems to be a lack of real interest and weight given to this very important portfolio area. If the minister was part of a football team the coach would have substituted him a long time ago.
Mr Dunham: Have you seen the reserves bench?
Mr MALEY: Indeed. Business in this budget is the big loser. The Chief Minister, supported quite ably by the member for Johnston, referred to some of the industry groups and certain comments that have been made. It will be interesting to see - because it is no small task, of course, going through six or seven fairly lengthy documents - in a year’s time, whether those comments are maintained and whether they enjoy the broad support of business and people operating in Winnellie, and in the industrial areas of the Northern Territory.
We have already heard much about the so-called initiatives and the fact that this government is listening to business, and that of course is to be commended. But just by way of example, business is all about putting your money where your mouth is, and we have seen the Economic Development Summit, a well represented cross section of people in this very Chamber put together a number of recommendations. One of the important recommendations was to fast track the development of the wharf precinct. Shortly thereafter, the response from the new government was that the wharf precinct was going to be delayed for a another 12 months. The budget before the House still does not have any significant amounts of money allocated towards that very important project; the project which was always planned to fill the gap between the construction of the railway and the huge project of bringing gas onshore in the Northern Territory at Wickham Point. The budget confirms that the Economic Development Summit was a talkfest.
The minister for industries and business has let down Territory businesses. There used to be a time where a person operating his business in Winnellie, in an industrial area, trying to run a small business with all the usual [inaudible] which apply, would get a copy of the strategic summary of the budget and say, ‘Great, this is the new jewel which the government has planned for the Territory, this is the direction that we are going’. To pick up this particular budget does not create that euphoria. There is only the maintaining of some very important CLP initiatives, but there is nothing new.
There is nothing on the horizon, there is no light which business can say, ‘Great, this is the next big step, we know where we are going’. Instead, the budget is devoid of substance. The government will be judged poorly by history. We can see what has happened, what they have done to business, the bungling of the tendering process, and the rumouring of a land tax and putting land tax on the agenda. And I can say that the opposition can take full credit for ensuring that the government did not introduce their foreshadowed ‘Percy-billed’ land tax.
Well might the current government harp on about its social agenda but ultimately, who is going to pay? And that is the question that business asks, just who is going to pay, and ultimately, it is going to be them.
Mr Henderson: So we should not be spending money on health and education? Okay, you are on the record. Social agenda. Heaven forbid we have a social agenda.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! The member for Goyder has the floor.
Mr MALEY: Madam Speaker, the very thrust of what I am saying has been lost it seems in regard to the insight in that last interjection.
Business is of course the vehicle upon which government gains its revenue, or a large portion of its revenue, and that enables government to go ahead and pursue its social agenda. But if you do not have a strong and vibrant business sector, and you do not support them, and you do not have wealth creating projects, and you do not create some stability, and you do not create new initiatives then you are not going to have that income. History has taught us that. There are lessons from just prior to the Great Depression where the governments of the day continually regulated, and taxed, and then people understandably would say, ‘Oh well look, it’s all getting a bit hard, I am going to put off an employee, or I am not going to remain in business’. Then the pool from which taxes are drawn decreases, and that will have a drastic effect.
The Department of Justice has been subject to some amalgamation and changes at a structural level, and I just put this in the record: there is absolutely no doubt that a system of justice and the enforcement of rights and the criminal justice system is absolutely crucial, and indeed our entire system depends more than what we think on a stable and secure justice system.
One of the changes foreshadowed in this budget is an extra $1.3m to expand the conduct of management services and undertake government-specific legal services in-house. This seems to fly in the face of every other jurisdiction which is in the process of endeavouring to privatise what it can of government service-related industry. So it does not come as a surprise that the crimes victims assistance-type legislation is the target of bringing some of that work back in-house. It does not come as a surprise that there was not any real consulting with the legal community and the practices which have relied upon that work and have employed Territory people. The only inkling, of course, is from the usual leaks you get from government minders saying that there was $1.3m extra in the Department of Justice to bring the CVA-type work back in-house. But apart from that, there has been no real consultation.
The electorate of Goyder is an enormous electorate and there are very few real surprises in the budget for the people who live in the rural area. The Litchfield Times, formidable newspaper that it is, has done a good job in summarising the effect of the budget on rural people: ‘Few rural surprises in the Territory budget’.
Most of the capital works-type projects were either – I think the term is ‘revoted projects’ – were continuing as part of their ongoing capital works program, but the government should be commended for committing further monies to the upgrading and tarring and sealing of the Fogg Bay Road, the road to Dundee, and also the upgrade and sealing of a portion of the Cox Peninsula Road; not all of the 20 km of the dirt section, but certainly a large portion of it, and that is to be commended. It is most certainly appreciated by the people who have to travel those roads and traverse enormous numbers of kilometres every single day to go to work and secondly, to run and operate their businesses.
There are a number of big ticket items which were not part of the budget. They are big ticket items like the power connection to Dundee. We have heard the Chief Minister make certain comments that that is going to occur, and I am heartened by that. I am also heartened by the fact that there was a letter received from the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, as the member for Arnhem then was, saying that it is certainly in the system. That letter has been distributed to the many people who live in the Dundee region. The real question is in the detail. People of the Dundee region are keen to know in terms of their business planning, because there are some enormous farms out there, when the power is going to get connected, when the planning process is to occur and the construction time frame. Probably on top of that, because it is all about money at the end of the day, business is about money, are there any plans to levy block owners and residents who live in the region for the costs associated with the connection of the power grid? And, if so, the quantum of those levies. Also, for those people who are unable to make any payment up front, what interest or extension to defer that payment to some later time, the terms and conditions of such caveats, if any are going to be used, to somehow get some money back into the general coffers for this fairly large and expensive capital works project.
There is also the issue of a permanent police presence at Humpty Doo. There have already been numerous calls for further police patrols in the rural area, particularly those who live on Challoner Circuit which is the circuit that goes past my old school, Taminmin High School, and Humpty Doo Primary School. We have St Francis of Assisi and various other institutions, including child care and some other learning institutions. Prior to the election, both political parties made promises that within the next term there would be a permanent police presence. I am told, and I am indebted to my colleague, the member for Nelson, who says that somewhere in the budget papers there is an allotment of money which will globally deal with the planning of this development, but sadly there is not any commitment of money yet for the construction phase.
There has been talk of a pool to be constructed in the rural area. It is an issue which was certainly hot prior to the election and, once again, sadly, this particular budget does not contain anything that would buoy the confidence of rural people that the Labor government is going to come good with that promise and build the $1m pool in the rural area prior to the next election. The construction of a pool is a matter which will take some planning and you would think there would be some allocation to the development of that very important project for good rural people.
The other issue is that the electorate of Goyder is a large electorate. The Wagait Beach area, Belyuen, the Cox Peninsula generally, there is a problem with water there. It is an ongoing problem of which the government is well aware. There have been several public meetings, and I understand that representatives from the relevant minister, the Minister for Essential Services, have attended those meetings. It fluctuates between a $2m ticket item up to something a lot larger, but it is an issue which has to be addressed if that area is to develop. Yet, sadly it seems there is nothing allocated in this budget, at first glance, which would confirm that that area is going to receive the attention it deserves.
The electorate of Goyder, as the member for Wanguri pointed out, does include Wickham Point. He made some comment about whether or not certain comments had been made on the record. I assume he means the Parliamentary Record because he certainly does not mean the numerous comments I have made in the Litchfield Times in support of the project. He certainly cannot mean any one of the numerous …
Mr Henderson: I have not seen them.
Mr MALEY: Well, that is interesting. He says he has not seen them. He seems to write every second or third week about industries and business. It is funny, for a man who professes no real knowledge, he is a regular contributor to the Litchfield Times and they now regard him as the subject of some jocular …
Mr Henderson: Why didn’t you stand up at the AFANT meeting and state your support?
Mr MALEY: So, Wickham Point is certainly supported.
The difficulty and criticism which can be quite fairly levelled at the government is the very poor way it has handled the public meetings. The fact that there have been two public meetings called - one in my electorate and, I understand, one in town - and the minister did not bother to attend, nor did he bother to send a representative. It is very difficult to have an informed public debate when the minister does not even bother to send one of his scribes along, or someone who knows about what is occurring, so there could be a proper and informed debate.
Then the one meeting that he did attend, of course, there was the fairly atrocious language. My heart goes out to the young mother who had to take her two kids away once she heard that very bad language. There was some provocation - which is fair - from the back of the meeting, but only a minority were saying that. I had concerns about that language being used at a public meeting. Disgraceful, disgraceful.
The budget will, of course, be subject to a more detailed and finer review in terms of the Estimates Committee. I look forward to using that process, albeit limited by time, to flesh out the detail and the real effect that this budget will have on Territorians, not only today but into the future.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I preface my budget remarks this morning by indicating that the figures I refer to come from information provided in the Budget Overview, to highlight key initiatives, and Budget Paper No 3 that provides the budget in detail.
I believe that this is, by far and away, the most refreshing, honest, fair and responsible Territory budget I have witnessed - and I have witnessed many CLP disasters in the past. I commend the Chief Minister and Treasurer, her principal economic advisor, Don Parker, and all of Treasury for the enormous effort they have made to introduce accrual accounting and sound financial practices to the Territory’s budget - long overdue. Finally, we have a budget that tells it like it is, bringing onto budget all actual liabilities such as the public service superannuation which, of course, has affected our bottom line.
My congratulations also go to our ministers and their staff who have worked tirelessly to fulfil demand for additional services, while maintaining a fight fiscal regime to turn around the previously spiralling deficit we inherited from the Harry Potter school of accountants - the now discredited member for Katherine and his sidekicks. I will begin by highlighting the budget - and thank you to Wicking for the Harry Potter school of accountants. It is on the back of my laptop, by the way, just to remind you all.
I will begin by highlighting the budget initiatives that I have directly contributed to in delivering results on issues I have campaigned on. I will then expand on other budget initiatives that I believe will also be of great benefit to Karama and Malak constituents, those people whom I represent.
I have attended meetings of the Hospice Working Group and worked alongside the former Leader of the Opposition and member for Barkly, Maggie Hickey, to develop Labor’s promise of providing a hospice. I am delighted to say that this budget delivers on that promise with a commitment of $3m to provide a hospice in the Royal Darwin Hospital precinct. This initiative will provide a very real and meaningful difference to people’s lives: for both those palliative care clients who are unable to be cared for relatives and friends at home, and for the carers who struggle to nurse loved ones through the dying process. It will affect the young and the old. Palliative care clients are not confined to the elderly.
I am sure that the health department’s palliative care team, a team for whom I have the utmost respect, and the hospice working group, a dedicated committed group within our society who are true champions, will be able to recommend an appropriately designed facility that the people of Darwin have sought for more than 10 years. Thank God we have a Labor government. It did not take a junket overseas to look at Laura Ashley curtains to deliver a hospice. The NT News headline of the time was a classic: ‘Hi, I’m Sue, I’m new and I’m overseas’. Let that be to the eternal shame of the member for Port Darwin, but let’s not dwell on past disgraces.
In the area of law enforcement I have been a vocal advocate of our mounted police, who do a tremendous job, highlighting their success in reducing burglaries when I was editor of the Darwin Sun a few years ago. I featured their need for new stables on the front page of that paper some three years ago. I have expressed my views to our minister who cares about his staff’s working conditions. Finally, after working in appalling conditions for years out at Berrimah, our mounted police will benefit from a $400 000 budget initiative to provide a mounted police patrol facility to cater for eight covered horse stables, two day paddocks, a white plastic-coated fence for high visibility, gates, bedding, water down points and a wash down area, and feed stall. This is indeed a dream come true for our hard working mounted police who have endured hollow promises year after year from our CLP predecessors. They will be better able to improve their important patrols of Darwin and Palmerston and I hope for a future expansion of their proactive, preventative and effective community policing.
Another initiative that I have taken from the identified need to reality, thanks to the strength and conviction of our ministers, is the budget provision of $3m for security screens for tenants of Territory Housing. When campaigning through the electorate of Karama in 2000 and 2001, I spoke to many public housing tenants who said they felt unsafe in their homes, exposed to intruders due to the lack of security screens. It struck me as particularly unjust that the most vulnerable in our society - the aged, disabled, single mothers and disadvantaged families - were indeed the most vulnerable in a physical sense having to endure one criminal break and enter after the other. I raised this issue in the community newsletters I produced as a candidate and have continued to advocate for security screens. I congratulate the Minister for Housing, Jack Ah Kit, the member for Arnhem, for understanding that this need ought to be met and for delivering $3m in the budget to security screen homes.
Mr Mills: You know that program started two years ago? It did.
Ms LAWRIE: You should look at the funding and you should look at where they did it, okay.
Mr Mills: It started two years ago.
Ms LAWRIE: Units only and you should have a look at the funding and how effective that was.
I am so delighted it actually goes to homes where the break and enters are occurring, it is fantastic. This will deliver a very real community safety benefit to Karama and Malak constituents and provide them with security in their home. I also congratulate the minister for providing a further $3m to upgrade urban housing because I can assure the members that the CLP left public housing in a disgraceful state of disrepair failing to adequately fund repairs and maintenance. I fully believe that if we improve the quality of public housing we are actually improving our communities. Many of our constituents who own their own homes have expressed their despair at the derelict public housing homes in their streets. They believe it devalues their own property values. Our government is listening. We have responded with a long overdue capital injection into repairs and maintenance this is a win/win. Public housing tenants won’t be expected to live in dumps anymore and their neighbours will have a renewed pride in the neighbourhood.
I also congratulate our government for the initiative of the stamp duty changes that make it easier and cheaper to buy homes which will benefit the struggling families of the Territory giving them a $1500 rebate for the principle place of residence. This is so important, it is giving battlers the chance to buy their first family home. I also congratulate the initiative of $3m extra in the HomeStart lending scheme bringing it to a record $28m; again, tremendous news for our battlers.
Another budget initiative I have pursued from an idea to reality is the upgrade of Leanyer Recreation Park. It is great news that this budget provides $800 000 for what we now know as stage 1 of the upgrade, the provision of a water park – safe, clean and fun – with stage 2 worth $1.2m in the 2003-04 budget to provide other recreational options that include an extension of the skate park facility, kiosk, roller-blading and walking track and, importantly, a playground for children with disabilities, the first of its kind in the Territory.
I congratulate the minister responsible, the member for Casuarina, who has wholeheartedly supported this project and allowed me to nurse it through a community-based task force to provide a concept design currently out in the community consultation process. The support from other members cannot go unsaid. I thank the Chief Minister for her unstinting support of improvement to this facility; the member for Wanguri, Paul Henderson, has pursued an upgrade and improved security at Leanyer Recreation Park for many, many years; and the member for Sanderson has also been an advocate for a safer, cleaner and more dynamic recreation park. Because of this budget initiative, next year residents will finally enjoy a free, fun and, importantly, safe recreation facility that goes a long way towards meeting the community’s needs – again, thank God we have a Labor government.
When discussing their needs with constituents, many raise their concerns that the Territory’s education system had been allowed to run down for a significant period of time under successive inept CLP governments. I welcome our budget initiatives which include additional funding of $3.22m rising to $8.14m in 2004-05 for the employment of an extra 100 teachers over the government’s first term. $490 000 has been added to the 2003 budget increasing to $1.03m in 2004-05 for a student teacher bursary scheme. This funding will provide for up to 20 students to attend the Northern Territory University and other accredited NT training institutions for teacher training each year. We are delivering more teachers to our classrooms, something we so desperately need.
Additional funding of $17 000 increasing to $68 000 in 2004-05 for the employment of eight School Attendance Officers over three years. This is crucial. These officers will be located in major Territory centres and will help address truancy and behavioural problems in schools. The budget also includes funding of $500 000 for the implementation of diversionary programs or alternate education delivery models for disadvantaged children, and there is $1.03m ongoing incorporated into the budget to extend VET programs in schools down to Year 9 level.
Finally, I want to also highlight the additional funding of $1.62m per annum for 2002-03 has been included for additional funding to schools. This amount comprises $460 000 for support provided to students with disabilities to attend mainstream government schools. This is an issue that is very dear to my heart and I have pursued for years – improved funding to assist children with disabilities to be in mainstream education.
We have also increased the school supplies grants to school councils. That is a commitment of about $860 000. I congratulate our Deputy Chief Minister for increasing funding to our school councils. I have written to the terrific schools of Karama, Malak, Manunda Terrace and Sanderson High to give them the very good news.
Also of great concern are the lawless youth on our streets at night, gangs hanging out, disturbing residents and causing work for our police. It is with particular pleasure that I welcome the initiative of $320 000 that will provide a Youth Night Patrol and Safety House, and for the past few months I have worked with my community, the department, ministers and youth workers to assist in delivering the dollars on the ground. I thank the Chief Minister for the Youth Night Patrol initiative and commit myself to working with her and the Minister for Health and Community Services to improve outcomes for the youth of the Territory and our broader community.
On the issue of community disturbances, I congratulate the Minister for Community Development for providing $500 000 to implement an itinerants project that includes a community education campaign by Larrakia people, extended night patrol hours, and expansion of outreach and referral work. This comprehensive approach has been required for years, and I look forward to working with the itinerants project coordinator to bring a sea change in how indigenous visitors from communities can live in urban centres. I believe they need not to be shut out and ignored, or indeed harassed, and they in turn need to learn not to harass back. I believe we can work constructively together, to tackle the cause of their homelessness, medical needs and educational needs of their children. This itinerants initiative has incredible potential to create a harmonious and just society, with an equity of service delivery and understanding of cultural difference and, importantly, respect for each other. All hallmarks, I believe, of a civilized society.
It is early days and, due to decades of CLP neglect, we have a lot of work to do and a long path to tread to achieve true reconciliation. I look forward to the day when the word ‘itinerants’ is no longer relevant in our society.
On the issue of law enforcement, I congratulate our government for a range of initiatives. Specifically, justice funding that includes provision of an additional $260 000 to increase assistance for the Neighbourhood Watch Crime Prevention NT programs. Funding of $50 000 to provide clean up assistance to victims of crime. An initiative that will have lasting effect on our society is the implementation of community justice and mediation centres. There is $150 000 set aside for this initiative. I congratulate Minister Toyne for providing enough funding in this budget to see the formation of an office of the information commissioner. The introduction of freedom of information and privacy legislation will be implemented, will be enacted, and will be to the greater benefit of our entire society. It has been hollow promises for many, many years. This is a government delivering, and delivering clearly, strongly and effectively, and putting the money where their mouth is.
As further implementation of our six point and three point plans to combat crime, I congratulate the Deputy Chief Minister’s policy initiatives of: a commitment to provide 50 additional police members over a four year term. There is $2.58m provided for in this budget. The increase in police resources will ensure there are sufficient police members in place to target known problem areas and to help reduce crime level rates. Our government has given a commitment to provide additional resources for street patrols and the home invasion squad, and the doubling of the drug squad from 20 to 40 officers. We are also providing funding of $460 000 being made available this year in line with the government’s commitment to increase the fire service by 16 extra officers over its first term. The increase will provide five additional fire officers in 2002-03, and ensure the fire service has the necessary staff in place to provide an effective service to the community.
As part of the government’s commitment to increase assistance to Neighbourhood Watch, we have funding of $110 000 included in here to enable more community-based initiatives to be put in place to reduce crime, and make suburbs safer, in line with the government’s six point plan. My sincere congratulations to the Deputy Chief Minister for those policy initiatives.
I have many keen recreational fishermen and women living in Karama and Malak, and I am sure they will be delighted with Minister Henderson’s delivery of $500 000 to upgrade boat ramps and associated security and safety works at Dinah Beach and Buffalo Creek. The member for Daly yesterday crowed about what the CLP had done for recreational fishing, but I say, go out there, stop being lazy, go out there and talk to the fishermen and fisherwomen, and you will soon hear comments about the disgraceful state the CLP let facilities run down to. We will fix them up to stop the costly damage that is occurring to cars, boats and trailers.
We are not just about fixing up problems left to us, we are also a very pro-active government with vision, and I commend …
A member: Will there be more fish in the harbour?
Ms LAWRIE: They are breeding well at the moment, I’ve heard.
I commend the $125 000 in this budget that will fund the establishment of a Water Safety Council. Such councils have been proven to be worthwhile in other jurisdictions and I look forward to seeing its formation and future recommendations.
This budget has many tremendous initiatives in it. I have yet to delve in detail into health. My constituents, I know, would welcome increased funding which will deliver 75 extra nurses, boost accident and emergency resources, and increase ambulance services. However, I will move on to business initiatives that I know will make a direct improvement to providing the economic growth we need.
I congratulate Minister Vatskalis for a 29% increase - that is a $330m cash injection into infrastructure spending; and Minister Henderson for implementing the business case managers and, of course, business skills workshop.
Dr LIM: A point or order, Madam Speaker! This is getting repetitive …
Madam SPEAKER: It is becoming repetitive. Member for Karama, when you are referring to a minister, you refer to their portfolios. You have been spoken to about that before.
Dr LIM: This is a ploy. It will be coming up at the Standing Orders Committee meeting today. It will be coming up, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms LAWRIE: Okay, I will repeat that. I congratulate the Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Environment for a 29% increase - that is a $330m cash injection into infrastructure spending. I also congratulate the Minister for Business, Industry and Resource Development for implementing funding for business case managers and short course business skills workshops. These are very real improvements to assisting our small and medium size businesses to become more effective and to become, therefore, far more economically viable. This is something that should have been around years earlier, and I commend our Minister for Business, Industry and Resource Development for this important Labor initiative.
Mr Ah Kit: Another Labor initiative.
Ms LAWRIE: Another great Labor initiative. I also welcome the tremendous aviation initiatives which are providing an essential boost to our international marketing campaigns - $1m over two years. We are also providing $1.5m to facilitate Virgin Blue’s continued presence in the Territory. Virgin Blue was delivered here by a Labor team. We kept them here as a Labor government; we are meeting our commitments to competitive airline industry in the Territory which has an enormous impact on all range of businesses, as well as the mum and dad and kids who want to do a bit of tourism travel. Primary producers rely on it for shipping their produce out of the Territory. I know a many people in the fisheries industry rely on competitive airlines. This truly fits within a clear business initiative, supplementing and helping businesses, but also affecting the viability of our key earner in the Territory, which is the tourism dollar.
I also congratulate the Minister for Business, Industry and Resource Development for putting the money up-front to create an aviation specialist to attract further airlines to the Territory, because tourism, as we all know, is big business for us. I am also delighted to see the initiatives in the budget to protect our important primary industries. I welcome the estimated $91 000 that will be spent on upgrading the post-entry Quarantine Facility at the Berrimah Agricultural Research Centre. We will also maintain funding for animal disease surveillance programs.
The largest earner for the Territory economy is mining, and I close my comments on the budget by congratulating our government on an allocation of $4m to provide high quality scientific information for minerals and energy exploration in the Territory. This geological survey is world class and innovative. It is absolutely essential to growing our mining sector. Its results can, and do, lead to the creation of new mines that bring jobs and income to the Territory.
Madam Speaker, what a budget! It is a budget that covers key social needs, injects long overdue funding into key social needs while bedding down essential infrastructure, enhancing business and industries, and delivering funding to the important areas of education, health and law enforcement. It is an honest budget. It is done with accrual accounting and sound financial management. It is a budget that was delivered in a very tight time frame after having delivered a mini-budget in November, so an enormous amount of work has been done by our ministers, by their staff, and by their supporting departmental people. I believe wholeheartedly, as our Chief Minister has stated, that this truly is a budget that is delivering today and investing for tomorrow.
Debate suspended.
TABLED PAPER
Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 – Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 – Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I table the Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002, Ministers and Members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.
MOTION
Print paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 – Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Remuneration Tribunal Report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 – Ministers
and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Note paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 – Ministers
and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the paper.
I would like to make a brief tabling statement in relation to Report and Determination No 1 of 2002, prescribing members’ entitlements by the Remuneration Tribunal. As members would be aware, the government voted to disallow the previous determination in November as, amongst other things, it recommended an increase in office holder salaries at a time when the government was introducing a mini-budget to address the Territory’s unsustainable position, budget wise.
The government provided a further submission to the tribunal in August this year indicating that our arguments had not changed. Financial discipline needed to be maintained and further increases could not be justified considering many government agencies were implementing mini-budget savings and the Territory economy was still recovering. In addition, members did receive an automatic flow-on in base pay of $3200 from the federal parliament recently.
The government is pleased to note that the tribunal has accepted our arguments for financial restraint, and has corrected some anomalies in travelling allowance, and provided further restrictions on certain entitlements such as overseas travel. Additionally, we are pleased to see administrative arrangements for members electorate allowances have been simplified, resulting in savings to the Legislative Assembly and less red tape.
In relation to office holder salaries, the tribunal has accepted the government’s submission that these should not be increased; no increase has applied since October 2000.
Another area requiring reform was the inequity of members staying in private accommodation while in Darwin, yet receiving the full commercial rate of travelling allowance. The government submission indicated a non-commercial rate should apply as it does elsewhere in the public service where members do not use commercial accommodation. The tribunal has accepted our argument that a private rate of TA should apply when members stay privately. While the government submitted the rate of TA should remain at $160 for Darwin, the tribunal has found that this would result in an outcome below levels applicable to the public service and has accordingly recommended the travel allowance be increased to $195 per night. The government accepts this recommendation. As a result, this means members will now receive $72 per night for private stays in Darwin, as opposed to $160 per night previously.
While electorate allowances have not increased since 1996 and costs have risen, the government’s submissions argued there should not be any increase due to budgetary constraints. The government submission supported the view that there were good reasons for incorporating separately defined money entitlements into the electorate allowance to achieve administrative cost savings and reduce red tape for the Legislative Assembly.
Various separate annual allowances, like postage of $4000; electorate office cleaning, approximately about $2600 per annum; mobile phones and internet charges of $960; and air bags of $500; and others have been rolled into the electorate allowance accordingly. There is no overall increase to electorate allowances and changes are cost neutral and administratively more efficient.
In addition, the government submission that outgoing members should not be able to purchase the contents of their electorate office or their electorate vehicle has also been accepted by the tribunal. This, Madam Speaker, will stop the appalling situation of members stripping their offices upon defeat, as happened in August last year, costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
In relation to overseas travel, the government submission argued that more prescriptive transport cost limits should apply. The tribunal has adopted this recommendation and overseas travel has been limited to business class travel, as opposed to first class travel. Additionally, the government submission contended that overseas travel should not be permitted until a member has completed two years of parliamentary service. This restriction has similarly been adopted by the tribunal. The government is pleased this measure has been adopted, as the practice of being elected and then travelling overseas before accumulating appropriate levels of experience or knowledge is out of step with community expectations.
The next determination of the tribunal will occur in October this year. Advertisements will appear shortly calling for a fresh round of submissions. My government thanks the tribunal for its work, and is pleased that the government’s submission urging financial restraint and reducing red tape has been accepted. On that basis we are satisfied with the determination. Madam Speaker, I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
TABLED PAPER
Nitmiluk National Park Plan of Management, August 2002 and Summary of Public Representations 2002
Nitmiluk National Park Plan of Management, August 2002 and Summary of Public Representations 2002
Mr VATSKALIS (Parks and Wildlife): Madam Speaker, I table the Nitmiluk National Park Plan of Management dated August 2002, and the Nitmiluk National Park Summary of Public Representations 2002.
MOTION
Note papers - Nitmiluk National Park Plan of Management, August 2002 and Summary of Public Representations 2002
Note papers - Nitmiluk National Park Plan of Management, August 2002 and Summary of Public Representations 2002
Mr VATSKALIS (Parks and Wildlife): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the papers and I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.
Leave granted.
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
Mr STIRLING (Leader of Government Business) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I seek to make a correction to a statement in the budget speech I delivered yesterday. Under the funding for regional VET coordinators, I indicated that the figure for 2002-03 would be $450 000. The correct figures are: 2002-03 - $120 000; 2003-04 - $450 000; and 2004-05 - $680 000 for the sake of accuracy of the Parliamentary Record. I thank members for their indulgence.
APPROPRIATION BILL 2002-03
(Serial 89)
(Serial 89)
Continued from page 2322.
Mr REED (Katherine): Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to contribute to the appropriation debate 2002-03. From the point of view of some of the comments that have been made within this Chamber and publicly, there is going to be little time available for people to really understand what this budget is all about. The budget papers, whilst in a transition to the accrual process, are obviously providing a different level of information than that provided in the past. They are confusing and will be confusing for many because it is a transitional phase. That has not been assisted by the Chief Minister and Treasurer in the way that she has formulated these documents and ensured that it is just that little more complex to find information, rather than having a comparative analysis of the previous year’s cash allocation and expenditure, for example, against what is proposed for the 2002-03 year. One has to find that information elsewhere or, in many other cases, the information has to be asked for and hopefully you can get an answer. So, the clarity is not quite what the Chief Minister and Treasurer and other ministers have indicated that they make it out to be.
Notwithstanding that, we will see some benefits in some departments and government operational areas. Education, health and police are said to be some. I am doubtful that the benefits are going to come to fruition in the scope and the amounts of funding that the government has said they will. We have already seen, from the federal government, a questioning of the Northern Territory schools funding. Whilst the minister got to his feet recently and tried to explain that, he ignored the key factor in relation to the Commonwealth’s questioning of the education budget this year, whereby the growth is said to be by the Northern Territory government 11.4%, and the Commonwealth government believe it is 5.6%. The reason given for that - and this was very artfully skirted around by the minister in making a reason for it - is in the third paragraph of the federal minister’s media release, which reads:
- What the budget papers also reveal, however, is that the increase is largely made up by a transfer of
responsibility for repairs and maintenance of schools from the Department of Infrastructure,
Planning and Environment to the Department of Employment, Education and Training.
So, it is the pea and thimble trick, and I think …
Mr Stirling: Yes, you know what we claim? 3% growth, not 5.6%. We claim 3%.
Mr REED: Madam Speaker, members have largely been heard in silence …
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of Government Business, allow the member to speak without discussing it across the floor.
Mr REED: Thank you, Madam Speaker. So, that pea and thimble trick is going to emerge …
Mr Stirling: No, no.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of Government Business, I have already spoken to you. Just sit there and listen, thank you.
Mr REED: … across a number of areas of government and we will see more and more of that as time passes by.
For a government that does not like debt, that thinks that debt is the most awful thing that God created - or accountants or whoever might have created it - this budget sees debt increase by $111m in 2002-03, and indicates that it will increase by a further $40m in 2003-04. For a government that does not like debt, they are pretty heavily into it - up over the ears. From a government that purports that it is a responsible budget, you have to question at least their reasoning in relation to their former comments about their hatred of debt and the fact that is should never be entered into, when we are going to see debt increase to what will be record levels over the next year or so.
Bear that in mind when you consider the extra $130m-plus that the Territory government receive from the federal government for this financial year. Now, that is an unprecedented windfall in terms of additional funding unforeseen from the Commonwealth government to the Territory government, and $134m in one fell swoop does away with any perceived black hole. It does away with all of the criticisms that the members opposite have so regularly parroted over the last 12 months. What it does do is cut the link between the current government being able to make excuses and blame the former government. They are now on their own in relation to this budget. They are in unchartered waters, and what do you know – debt is a great thing to embrace. It is amazing how quickly things can change. They are into it as heavily as they can possibly get notwithstanding that they have even received increased funding from the Commonwealth to the extent of $130m.
An amazing thing happened at the end of the last financial year, 2001-02; I can recall in years past when there have been increases to the Treasurer’s Advance of $10m or $20m, and all hell has broken lose from the then-opposition, the Labor Party. Well, at the end of last financial year, there was a 10 minutes to midnight increase in Treasurer’s Advance of $90m - an extraordinary amount of money to be just flopping around at the end of the financial year to be used at the discretion of the Chief Minister and Treasurer. That of course is exacerbated by the fact that there has been a carry-over of $22m from last financial year into this financial year and that was monies that were not spent last year and services that in turn were not provided to the people of the Northern Territory as the Labor Party promised they would in their mini-budget.
There was one very significant nasty that was eliminated from this budget and that was the reduction to a number of government departments and agencies of 4% in their funding allocation. There was a very crafty and sneaky action taken in the mini-budget; the period in which it was delivered was quite appropriate in terms of the advice to agencies that many would receive a 2% reduction in funding. However, that particular item went on to say that in 2002-03, there would be a further reduction to those agencies of 4% in their funding. Now, the benefit of doing that from the government’s point of view was that it did not have to mention it in this budget. That is to say that those cuts, the 4% funding cuts to those agencies so affected, did not have to be mentioned in this budget because it had been mentioned formerly in the mini-budget.
So there is a very dramatic pea and thimble trick in regards to what the Territory thinks they are getting and what they are actually getting. We have heard all these wonderful, glowing stories of increases to government agencies and departments to provide better services to Territorians, but what the general member of the public does not appreciate is that the cuts were applied last year. And because they were in the mini-budget and taken into account in the formulation of the budget which is the subject of this discussion, they did not have to be mentioned again and as such were swept under the carpet and concealed as far as the general public is concerned.
It is not altogether …
Madam SPEAKER: Order. Member for Millner, you are disturbing the Assembly. If you wish to speak you could withdraw.
Mr Bonson: Sorry, Madam Speaker, I apologise.
Mr REED: It is not altogether lost on Territorians because whilst the government thinks they have done a slick trick and pulled the wool over the eyes of us all, there are some – we are not sure how many pay packets there are for public servants, but there used to be just over 15 000 so we will use the figure 15 000 – there are some 15 000 public servants who are very much aware of what the circumstances are. The Chief Minister and the Leader of Government Business have accused the opposition of unsettling the public service. We do not have to unsettle the public service. What is unsettling the public service is the fact that the government - and we have seen a dreadful case of it here today with the Chief Minister - will not admit to the staffing figures of the public service.
Now, that is tantamount to the Enron case that we have read about recently in that the government does not release figures in relation to its operations. If it were a business that was paying a huge total salary, something in the order of 15 000 employees every fortnight, and they did not know how many salaries they were paying, or if they did know and would not provide that information to the general public, then they would be in diabolical trouble. They think they are not, but in fact I can tell them that they are.
The very holding back of those public service numbers is creating enormous nervousness across the public service, especially when we see, as we have seen today, the Minister for Industry, Business and Resource Development get to his feet and say, ‘Don’t worry about the fact that there are a million dollars less in my salaries budget this year; your job will be okay’. Territorians and public servants are not that stupid. Public servants know that if the salaries budget is cut by a few hundred dollars, a few thousand dollars, or in this case, millions, then jobs are going to go.
Now, you might not get the sack, or there might not be a forced redundancy, but if the minister thinks that that smart alec talk – ‘Oh, there will be no forced redundancies’ - is accepted across the public service, he should have another think about the professionalism of his actions in trying to explain away the cut in salaries in his agencies. People do know what the circumstances are, and they certainly know that if there is a reduction in the salaries vote then there is going to be a reduction in the number of people who work in a particular agency, and that the desk next door is going to be unoccupied sooner or later.
Whether or not it is when that particular public servant at that desk transfers to another agency or leaves the public service altogether, they know that the position will not be filled. That is the bottom line and the sooner the government comes to terms with the fact that it would be in their interests, and that of the public servants, to release those figures, which they must have otherwise they would not be paying fortnightly salaries, very much the better.
The great shame about this budget is that it very seriously gets into the pockets of all Territorians. The additional $90 registration tax remains; there was no need for it to continue, bearing in mind the windfall of $130m plus that the government received from the Commonwealth, and there was certainly no need for the government to increase water and sewerage charges by 7.5% over the past year. Those and related increases to the cost of living, Territory government taxes and charges, over the last year, have seen every family lose about $300 a year. This was a government that came into being because it said it cared about the cost of living, it cared about the real impact of increased taxes and charges on Territorians and it was going to do something about it. Well, it did something about it all right. It was no sooner in government and within a year, had increased that impost by $300, and if you think that hasn’t gone unnoticed, then the government too has got something to answer for.
It is very interesting how the increased water charges have been assessed by the government as to what impact they will have on the people in the Northern Territory. I seek leave Madam Speaker, to table a page from the Issues in Public Finance Budget Paper 2001-02 delivered by the CLP government, whereby domestic water charges and the estimate of cost annually for a Territory household were based on a consumption of just under 500 kilolitres a year. That was done because that is what was considered to be the basic consumption rate for a Territory household. Bearing in mind that we have here, certainly in the Top End, a dry period for a lot of the year and in Alice Springs where you live, Madam Speaker, a high water usage because you have even lower rainfall. So that state average of $481 was applied because we considered it fair.
In trying to explain now, the Labor government, their 7.5% increases over the last 12 months, they have used an average domestic water charge based on an annual consumption of 425 kilolitres, or $387 a year. They have reduced the estimated cost of water consumption by $100 per family per year simply to make the increases that they have applied, 7.5%, to all Territorians look better. If they think that sort of deceit is going to go unnoticed, then they have something else to reckon with in relation to the deceit that they have undertaken in relation to that little beauty. I seek leave to table those two documents.
Leave granted.
Mr REED: Madam Speaker, I turn to Budget Paper No 2 to touch on a few issues. In the first instance, and I have already mentioned this so I won’t dwell on it too much longer, there has been an improvement in the 2001-02 budget of $22m because of a transfer of commitments from last year to this year. That goes hand in hand, as I said, with an increase late last financial year of $90m to the Treasurer’s advance.
It is interesting that the Labor government riled against the introduction of the GST loud and strong and, over a long period of time, and what do you find in the fiscal and economic outlook? I suggest members have a look at page 3. It is rather illuminating in terms of what a change of attitude a political party can have. I quote from the document:
- The key revenue item for the Territory is Goods and Services Tax GST revenue.
Well, Madam Speaker, this is the government that did not want it. This is the government that is now applauding the fact that their main revenue item is GST revenue – what an amazing turnaround. If these people had any pride, they would not get out of bed, they would keep their heads under the blankets all day.
I referred earlier to the $90 tax that every owner of a vehicle in the Northern Territory has to pay to the Labor government. That will accrue an additional $5m this year. Now $5m is a lot of money, but when you compare it to a windfall of $130m, Territorians want to know, and I have had a number of phone calls to my electorate office, if they have an extra $130m that they did not expect to get, how come they could not cough up with just $5m of that to eliminate the $90 registration tax? Most families in the Northern Territory, as you are aware Madam Speaker, have two cars, so there alone is $180 a year that this government has into their pockets for, and again, something that we should bear in the back of our minds when we are talking to constituents.
I have already referred to the increase in Northern Territory net debt, that is page 31 of the fiscal strategy, going up a $111m this year, and a further $40m this year, and it is increasing from net debt to total revenue as a percentage from 67% last year to 70% this year. This is the government that did not like debt. But it is all right to increase it now that they are in government, obviously, said the Labor Party.
At page 54 of the Fiscal and Economic Outlook in Budget Paper No 2, there is a graph - own source revenue per capita general government. This is the warning bell for every Territorian, given the record of the Labor government over the last 12 months and their increase in taxes and charges, because what the Chief Minister has said on a number of occasions, and she has repeated in her budget comments this week, is that she as Chief Minister and head of the Territory government, will not increase taxes above the Australian state average. There is a big difference between where we are now - and that is principally because of the low taxing number of CLP governments - and where the six state average is. There is latitude there of many millions of dollars for the Territory government to be able to, within that scope outlined by the Chief Minister, increase taxes and charges, but not above the six state average. If Territorians have comfort when the Chief Minister says, ‘We will not increase taxes above the six state average’, they should be aware that the Territory at the moment is very much below it and that there is an enormous area for the government to use in increasing taxes and charges, yet not exceed the six state average. That is the warning bell for the people of the Northern Territory.
I want to touch on a few points in relation to the Budget Overview and the way that has been put together. First of all, on page 6, I draw attention to the $2m to facilitate Virgin Blue air services to the Northern Territory. When you look at that it appears that there will be $2m applied to achieve that outcome. In fact, if you look elsewhere in the budget papers, you will find that there was $2m allocated for that purpose last year, only $0.5m of which was allocated. So $1.5m has been carried over into this year. Therefore, the allocation for this year, in truth, is only $0.5m, not $2m, because they failed to fully utilise - in fact only by 25% - that amount last year.
Just another way of demonstrating that interpreting these figures - and this is what the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the construction industry are going to find as time goes by. I suspect they will look back on their comments of last Tuesday after the budget was delivered when they welcomed this with open arms and very warmly. When they have had time to reflect on these budget documents and they see the actual impact - or, indeed, in many cases it will be the lack of impact of these policies and funding advice that we have received in these papers - then they will be rethinking the views that they expressed last Tuesday. They are going to find that what was told to them would materialise from the budget, will not. That will be demonstrated by the fact that many of the capital works items are not new.
In some of the regions, there is no additional activity at all to speak of - certainly in the Katherine region. I faxed copies of this document to some people in Katherine today to demonstrate to them precisely what the budget means to them. There was an amazing headline over the article in the Katherine Times last Monday, as provided by the Labor government: ‘$95m for Katherine in the budget’. That takes deceit to unfound levels - to completely new levels - in that all of the items bar one in this article - and this is an article that has been printed simply using the blurb put out by the Northern Territory government - are ongoing day-to-day responsibilities of a government to deliver services.
These are the highlights out of the budget highlights paper and they include things like running the Katherine Hospital, running the Katherine police station, running schools in Katherine. They are day-to-day, ongoing responsibilities of government. Does the Chief Minister really expect the people of Katherine to believe that they actually considered not funding those activities? Give us a break! Give people a little credit for being able to understand and interpret these figures. Just be little kind to themselves, because they are going to look the fools.
When you look down through the $95m, let us start drilling down through the $95m that Katherine has won out of this magnificent budget, what do they have that is new? They have a $350 000 morgue, very good, now they will accept that and that will all sort of filter through the system. They have $350 000 worth of walkways, stairways and boat landings in Katherine Gorge. That is simply a continuation of a pre-existing CLP program. The Territory government has taken credit for a step-down facility at the Rocky Ridge Nursing Home half of which, $600 000, is funded by the Commonwealth and the other half, the other $300 000, was that new money from this Territory government, from this gracious Territory government? Indeed it was not. It was $300 000 that was taken from the former year’s repairs and maintenance program and transferred to a capital works program so that it would look good in the budget. Now, how stupid does this government think people are? They have to come to realise that people will work through these documents and they will find the deceit and they will expose it. So that is the basis of where we are coming from in relation to these issues.
I want turn debate to Budget Paper No 5 and have a look in the first instance at the map on page 88, which shows the Northern Territory and potential development activities that could take place. The horticultural potential north of Barrow Creek and Ti Tree, land that was set aside by this government to do that. Are there any new initiatives in this government’s budget to construct new roads, to extend the electricity distribution system, to further investigate or drill bores so that land could be sold to develop more agricultural activity and horticultural activity? No. Are there any initiatives in relation to the Top End to achieve a similar outcome? That is what we are actually talking about here, not the social programs that this budget has focussed on. Whilst I do not pull back from the benefits of doing that, there has to be an economic aspect in terms of what is going to make the economy grow, where are we going to get more jobs from and where are we going to get more development from. You will not get it out of this budget because there is not any.
If you turn to tourism, there is very much the same thing. There is no adequate response in this budget to deal with the fact that in the central parts of the Northern Territory, that is between Alice Springs and say Pine Creek, over the period there was only weak growth of 3%, that was for the increase in visitor numbers. Across the Northern Territory there was an average annual growth of 6.3%. In that central area there was only 3%. These are the issues that should be addressed because these are the sorts of things that create jobs.
Mr Henderson: After 11 September and the Ansett collapse.
Mr REED: I know you are embarrassed about it. You have had your say in relation to this debate, so let’s give everyone else a fair go.
They are the sorts of things that a government should focus on because tourism in particular creates and employs more people than any other industry in the Northern Territory, and whilst the statistics are in the books there is no remedy to overcome the problem and to create and generate more economic activity. It is those sorts of areas where the budget is sadly lacking.
There is no vision beyond this financial year. The forward works and design list projects that industry could look at to see what was going to happen over the coming years has been eliminated from the budget. All you have this year is this year’s activity and there is no hope beyond it. For example, in Katherine and Tennant Creek there is nothing coming forward that will carry the region through and create more jobs when the railway is finished in 18 months. This government does not have the luxury of time to create that activity, to put the processes in place and to make sure that the jobs are continuing to grow and the economy grows with it. The budget is very much lacking in those crucial areas.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Treasurer, other Cabinet members, backbenchers, public sector officers and other members of the community who have all contributed to what is already being hailed as a responsive and responsible budget for all Territorians. I am proud to be able to say confidently to the people of Sanderson that the faith and trust you placed in Labor and I to be sound, strategic and equitable managers of the economy has not been misplaced or abused.
My electorate is a beautiful and somewhat idyllic place, one that I feel quite fortunate to have lived in for nearly a decade – the quiet cul-de-sacs, the leafy boulevards, parks filled with children laughing, people walking their dogs, chatting to friends when we go to local shops at Wulagi, Anula and Malak, sitting down and having a coffee after doing the weekly grocery shopping at Northlakes or Hibiscus shopping centre, going to the toy library or play group with the young members of the family, getting the older kids off to some of the friendliest public schools which are a credit to the teachers, students and parents of our community, going to work in the morning, chatting to the neighbours in the evening, enjoying the weekends fishing, working around home, playing a round of golf on some of the best greens and fairways in the Territory, having a drink and meal with friends in one of our many clubs or going to the football or one of the many other sports catered for at Marrara, the hub of sporting life in the north.
This is the electorate I live in and represent, the electorate of Sanderson. That is why as a local member I, like my colleagues, worked with the Treasurer to bring about what we believe to be the best budget to be tabled in this House in quite a long time. I am gladdened by this budget in that it provides many things for our citizens living in the remote and rural regions of our vast Territory. I am sure, judging by the look of joy on the member for Barkly’s face when he learnt of the equity of this Labor budget in addressing some of the most pressing health, education, community safety and infrastructure needs of the people of his electorate, that he is likewise gladdened. Similar principles were also applied to other districts such as Alice Springs, Katherine, Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands as well as Palmerston and the rural district. This budget is not Darwin-centric; this budget is for all, from Milikapiti to Kulgera, the Tanami to Avon Downs.
The people of Sanderson would likewise be happy about this approach for they travel around the Territory, they work around the Territory and they have friends around the Territory. They know how important it is for all of us to benefit from this budget, not just looking after mates, not pork-barrelling of rump seats as the underlying strategy of the previous government’s budgets.
This first full budget of the Labor Martin government will be remembered as the budget that reflects an election commitment to manage Territory finances responsibly while maintaining the delivery of services to the Territory community. This budget is the second instalment towards achieving a balanced budget by 2004-05, a real achievement, and one that was beyond the abilities or desires of the previous CLP government who now disavow any knowledge of their reprehensible treatment of the community purse.
This year’s budget builds on the successful and responsible mini-budget of last November forced upon us by the financially disgraceful practice of the CLP, spending money it simply did not have. The Martin Labor government has undertaken in this budget to increase education and training funding by 3% to $505m; 4% for health bringing funding for that sector to $527m; and 4.2% for justice and community safety, bringing total funding for this area of our community to $240m. In this budget, we are providing total infrastructure investment of $432m.
Since being given a mandate to govern, we have seen 3600 jobs created; unemployment down from over 7.5% to 4.2%, the lowest in Australia; and we have seen economic growth and strong business investment and consumption. Our budget will continue to support these trends; this means jobs and ongoing economic confidence for the people of Sanderson.
It is also relevant to note that our budget contains no new or increased taxes as we move to provide certainty and equity to business and the general community. We have moved to increase the first home buyers’ stamp duty concession from the first $80 000 of a home value to $125 000. This means that houses in Sanderson will become more attractive to potential first home buyers. As a generalisation, these buyers will tend to be people who are starting up their families so, indeed, the downstream effect of this budget in this initiative will be to ensure we have a strong likelihood of continued student enrolments at our local schools.
I am particularly happy that we have introduced a new principal place of residence rebate of up to $1500 for anybody buying a family home in the Territory. This has substantial impact on the cost of living and will benefit up to 2500 Territory households a year. Indeed, these are initiatives that delivers for Territorians today and invest for tomorrow.
We have also moved to reduce payroll tax to 6.3%; abolish stamp duty on wet hires; and move on stamp duty exemptions for certain types of corporate restructures. These moves, I am sure, are well received by the small business owners and operators of Sanderson.
What I am particularly warmed about is the announcement in this session of the substantial cuts to stamp duty on franchises by substituting lower lease rates of 0.5%. I was at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry budget lunch the other day and I was talking to one of the franchise operators of a car rental company. Let me tell you, he reckons this was great news, and it was especially pleasing for me, given I have been lobbying for this initiative for some time. As Madam Speaker would recall, we both met with Treasury officials on this matter back in February. For the benefit of other members, particularly the member for Macdonnell, who became quite upset during an adjournment debate I made on 28 February, and also given the comments recently delivered by the member for Araluen, who I think would do well to talk to her constituents instead of attributing her bile to others, I would like to quote a small part of that speech:
- I would like to report that after listening to Mrs Ellis I came back and arranged a briefing for taxation
officials in regard to the issues she had raised. In the company of the member for Braitling,
Mrs Loraine Braham, we both received a briefing from the Taxation Commissioner and the
Assistant Taxation Commissioner in regard to the issues that Mrs Ellis raised with us.
I was fortunate then the next day to be travelling to Alice Springs to represent the Minister
for Employment, Education and Training at the apprenticeship awards night. While I was
there I took the opportunity to visit Mrs Ellis. I sat down and had a cup of coffee with her
and told her about the briefing session that I had, and what the current state of play was in
regard to her representations.
Mrs Ellis is a good businesswoman, she understands the complexities of the taxation base.
She was happy that a member of the government, particularly a member of the government
from the Top End, should be prepared to go in and represent her, and what’s more, to report
back to her on that representation. I would like to say that that was nothing special that I did it.
I would like to say that this is indicative of what the Martin government is all about. The Martin
government is not about just looking in Darwin. It is not about the northern suburbs, as has tried
to be painted by some members of the Centralian CLP. What the Martin government is about is
representing all Territorians. I give you this undertaking right here and now, Mr Acting Deputy
Speaker, I give the undertaking to the people of Alice Springs, to the people of Tennant Creek and
to people all over the Territory: the Martin government, their ministers, their backbenchers are
here to represent all of them. I look forward to carrying out these duties over the term of this
government.
So I was particularly embittered about the member for Araluen’s comments about this being a northern suburbs budget.
I have long known of the people of Sanderson’s sense of community and their desire for their families to live in a safe and secure environment. This need is clearly recognised, reflected and addressed in our budget. The Office of Crime Prevention has been charged with implementing our election commitments and reforms through Crime Prevention NT. $400 000 will be available for supporting community-based crime prevention strategies to ensure effective partnerships with the community, partnerships which are the cornerstone of Crime Prevention NT. I will be working hard for my constituents, particularly my Neighbourhood Watch coordinator, Mr John Lear, and other members of our enthusiastic and well-respected Neighbourhood Watch committee. I should advise the House at this point that this committee is restructuring to encompass the entire electorate of Sanderson, and I am very supportive of their endeavours. I can give a commitment that over the coming year, I will work with John and the others to see what strategies we can put in place, and I thank the minister for his attention to this need.
My constituents also welcome the flagged increase in police numbers, and the strategy outlined in the budget papers for a street patrol and home invasion squad to tackle property crime, deter offenders and respond quickly when trouble occurs. It may be presumptuous of me, but I would also like to think that the $350 000 earmarked for stage one of the mounted police patrol facility at the McAulay Centre will see an increase of these very effective patrols through the streets and parklands of Sanderson. At any rate, I will be lobbying for this most brilliant and visual deterring police presence to make itself know to the people of Sanderson.
Another great initiative of this budget is the allocation of funding of $3m for security screening for public housing. I have been in touch with householders in Sanderson following this announcement, and they have told me that for years they have waited in hope for such a program to be introduced, but to no avail. Well let me tell the House that the wait is over. Let me also point out to members opposite that this initiative is for people in all electorates across the Territory and they should promote this initiative to their constituents. It would be more than a pity if, for political reasons, the CLP members deprived the people of their electorates access to this program out of petty jealousy. I will be encouraging the minister to contact tenants directly because, judging by the debate so far, that is what they are likely to do.
There will, however, be times when crime will occur, no matter what strategies we have in place. We will always be working to eliminate crime for we are not nave in understanding that there must be community support in place for victims. One of the clear election commitments of this government was to assist the victims of crime. $4m is provided for the Crimes Victims Assistance Fund. The Minister for Justice and Attorney-General has advised this government is committed to the better use of that fund by streamlining processes and reducing the level of legal costs to ensure the benefits go where they are intended – to help the victims of crime.
Much mischief has been tried to be made in this House by the member for Blain and, recently, the member for Brennan, in regard to the provision of school-based policing. Well, for all of his rumourmongering and talking down of this great initiative, which is fully supported by teachers and parents of schoolchildren, the Martin Labor government has allocated $1.09m. I feel confident that this is good news for our long-serving and well respected Sanderson school-based constables. I look forward to moving around the schools in our area together so that we can jointly show that this government is committed to promoting a positive relationship between the NT Police and Fire and Emergency Services and our school communities.
Sanderson is predominantly an electorate of families and, in this budget, families are not neglected. Going into the last election I was approached by the Playgroup Association of Marrara and asked if we are elected, could we provide airconditioning, some money to upgrade the outside play area and, if at all possible, some money for an inclusion worker to work with families who have children with special needs. We were elected and now I am happy to see $170 000 for building works and $25 000 recurrent funding per year for an inclusion worker for this great organisation. This is great news. Let me also say that I am aware that the family centre will have to move some time in the future, and I will be working hard with this group in order to make their views - and those of the families of Sanderson - made known to our Health and Community Services minister over the coming months and years.
The delivery of Labor’s promise to lift the child care subsidy by $7.50 a week is a highlight of this budget, and furthers our efforts to lower the cost of living faced by hard-working Territory families. The opposition like to claim that Labor has pushed up costs for an average family by $240. If a family has just one child in child care, that $7.50 a week increase in the subsidy amounts to $360 a year; that is based on a 48-week year. So, by the CLP’s own reckoning, this family is $120 a year better off under a Labor government. If they have two children in child care, even more so.
The families of Sanderson have also done well in other areas, mainly flowing from the hard work I did as a candidate and the continuing hard work I do as their elected member. In this budget, money has been set aside for the refurbishment of the tennis courts at Sanderson High School. These courts are not only a high school asset, they are very much regarded as a community asset. People from all over Darwin and Palmerston area use these courts. It is good news then, that we have secured $200 000 for these courts to be prepared to competition standard and that we will have water bubblers installed close by. It has always amazed, and somewhat distressed, parents who take their kids to these courts to play that such a great facility should not have immediate access to water. Under a Labor government, they now will.
The really great news, not only for my constituents but those represented by the members for Karama, Johnston, Wanguri and, as a matter of fact, for all constituents not only in Darwin but in Palmerston and the rural area as well, is the development of Leanyer Recreation Park. Over the coming years, in stages, the Martin Labor government will be providing for the people of the urban and rural areas of the Top End a first class facility for family recreation. The really good thing about this project is that it will cater for mum and dad and the kids, for grandmothers and grandfathers, for teenagers and young couples who want to sit in the park and enjoy each other’s company.
Of particular good news to me is the flagging of a special needs play area in the Leanyer Recreation Park complex. It is incredible that the CLP, in all of its time in power, never provided a suitable, specific recreational facility for families with children with special needs. One year in, and we are. I applaud my colleagues on this initiative and I condemn the CLP for their lack of compassion for the most worthwhile section of our community. Let me say again to those members of the Legislative Assembly who insist on creating divisions within our community, the Leanyer Recreation Park project is for all Territorians. It is a shame that the members opposite deride this fact.
This budget is not only about the good things in family life, it is also focussed on tackling the unpleasant, the terrible, and the unjust aspects some families are forced to face and endure. The Martin Labor government’s commitment to bring about change in the violent and abusive behaviors of offenders of domestic and family violence is reflected in this year’s allocation of $1.080m to provide a range of domestic violence strategies. No family should have to endure domestic violence and I am sure the families of Sanderson, and particularly those organisations in Sanderson that work with the survivors of family violence, support our government’s commitment.
On a very much less sensitive matter, I applaud this government’s initiative in regard to providing long awaited and sorely needed facilities for the boating fraternity. Although I do not own a boat, indeed I definitely do not own a 35 foot yacht with shade, as one of those infamous name-withheld letters claimed recently in the NT News, I fish and I vote. Indeed, within six homes on either side of where I live there are something like four boats. For these people and the rest of the boating fraternity of Sanderson and other people throughout the Palmerston rural area and Darwin, the provision of an all time boat ramp at Sadgroves Creek is good and welcome news.
It is also relevant to note the thanks from the member for Port Darwin for carrying out this work which will be of benefit to some of her electorate members. It is also very relevant to note that when the member for Blain pontificates about the need for improved boating facilities in his electorate, he did not have the same level of energy or commitment as his colleague, the member for Port Darwin, to place a submission before government. This will be to his everlasting shame. I hope the members of the Palmerston Game Fishing Club, whom he purports to represent, know and understand just how much he has let them down in his laziness.
Mr Mills: That is absolute bullshit.
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Withdraw that remark.
Mr MILLS: I will withdraw. I apologise, Madam Speaker.
Mr KIELY: It is also very relevant to note that when the member for Blain pontificates about the need for improved boating facilities in his electorate, he did not have the same level of energy or commitment as his colleague, the member for Port Darwin, to place a submission before government. That is fact. This will be to his everlasting shame. That is fact. And I hope the members of the Palmerston Game Fishing Club, whom he purports to represent, who he doesn’t, know and understand just how much he has let them down in his laziness, and that is fact. I hope to have an interjection, member for Blain.
Madam Speaker, I do not regard this development as being one for only the people of Darwin. It is for everyone who wants to fish in Darwin Harbour. Similarly, I have launched into Buffalo Creek and I too have had our car broken into while we were out on the water. For years, the problem at Buffalo Creek has been known but the CLP would do nothing. We have, and we will continue to address the need to provide safe and secure places for people to park their cars while on the water. It will take time, but Buffalo Creek is a start, and one that the people of Sanderson are happy about.
I would like to wrap up my reply to the Martin government budget with the observation that budgets are not just figures. They are a map of intentions and actions to improve the overall well-being of all sections of the community. We have seen in this debate the practice of wedge politics with the Leader of the Opposition claiming this budget is all about remote communities. I will leave it to others to decode that comment. We have also heard comments from the member for Araluen, and similar comments from the member for Goyder, that this is a budget for the northern suburbs. Well, their comments and falsehoods are seen for what they are. The CLP opposition can clearly now be seen as a party divided with tensions and rifts clearly visible. Their leader is unable to show sufficient leadership strength and is surrounded by controversy. It is clear from his budget reply that he has no understanding of how to read and understand the budget papers without the advisors he had access to in his past life. Yet his criticisms of the budget figures prepared by Treasury are exactly the same sorts of outcomes that would have occurred under the CLP’s plans to move the NT government to accrual output budgets. Maybe his real problem is that, unlike the Martin Labor government that operates under the Fiscal Integrity and Transparency Act, Denis Burke would have just told Treasury to change the figures, ‘I don’t like that bottom line’.
We can thank the Martin government for putting those days behind us, enabling Territorians once again to trust the budget figures they are presented with. Moving to a new accounting system was always going to be difficult but the Territory’s accounts simply had to be brought up to date with those of every other jurisdiction. If anything, the transition to accrual accounting has been made easier by this government because, thanks to Labor’s financial statement prior to the election and a mini-budget, all Territorians have a clear idea of the policies and initiatives this government will be introducing over this term.
We cannot, and are not, using the shift to accrual accounting, budgeting and reporting to hide anything – quite the reverse. We are enhancing and increasing the information placed before the public. This is in marked contrast to the CLP which had a national reputation for having the least transparent budgetary information of any Australian government. We have only to recall the fiddles that occurred in the CLP’s last budget with regard to the treatment of the Conditions of Service Trust and the secret cuts to agencies’ estimated outcomes to understand the CLP’s approach to budget honesty: tell the public as little as possible.
With a lacklustre leader at the helm, the CLP team lacks energy and skill and does not offer new direction and few new policies. Having distanced themselves from the business community, from the community sector, from indigenous Territorians and from a multicultural community, all of whom have praised this budget, one wonders where they are headed politically. Oblivion? We certainly do not want our wilderness polluted by their presence.
Unlike the CLP’s previous budgets, the Martin government’s budget is not seen as favouring some sections in the community. We have listened to the community and we keep in touch with our electorate as can be seen by this budget and the positive way in which it has been received by all sections of the community, the exception being the opposition.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to the House.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Speaker, I rise today to address for the first time the Northern Territory Labor budget. Budget 2002-03 is special for many reasons to many Territorians. To all the true believers out there, the Labor government did not let you down. The Labor government stuck by its founding principles similar to the Labor ideals of Chifley, the light on top of the hill. We have delivered a budget for the people by the people through consultation; it was best summed up by a speaker from the Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce and Industry:
- It is a responsible and responsive budget.
My grandfather, the late Don Bonson, while alive was the oldest living member of the Australian Labor Party. I was raised under the banner of Labor principles: jobs, education, health, housing, families, and a strong economy. I am proud to say to all Territorians and to all of my electorate and, most importantly, to all the true believers, we have stuck by our key principles. We have offered positive solutions to everyday people’s lives.
I am proud to be a part of this government. It has been a huge learning curve for myself and all the other members of government. However, recognition must go to the one and only member for Fannie Bay, Clare Martin, the first Labor Chief Minister. To all those Territorians who have worried over the last few years I offer this: the response to the government’s budget by the Country Liberal Party has been tired, lacking effort, lazy and incompetent, and that is why Territorians changed the way they voted.
Senior members of this parliament were disgusted with the performance of the Opposition Leader. It was inadequate. This budget destroys all the myths created by the Country Liberal Party propaganda machine - interested only in winning, not in creating a better life for everyday people. To all the true believers and to all the new members of the Australian Labor Party football team, you have a premiership and a team to be proud of. Under the leadership of the Chief Minister and with the team assembled, one on one, the Country Liberal Party do not match up.
This is also supported by the well known political commentator, Gayl McKay, in her document The 2001 Northern Territory Election:
- By the time the election was called the community knew the ALP had candidates of substance, who
although untested, looked at least as good on paper as the CLP candidates, and in some cases,
considerably stronger.
I now outline the Labor principles I believe in and stand for. This is what the first Labor government has delivered: Health up by 4% or $20m to $527m; Employment, Education and Training up 3% or $14m to $505m; Police, Fire and Emergency Services up by 6% or $8m to $142m; Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs up 10%, a $19.5m increase to $212m. What has a Labor government down for works in our community? We have delivered. Total infrastructure investment is $432m, this includes capital works and repairs and maintenance. If Power and Water is added, the total goes up to $513m. This will assist the construction and maintenance sector that is often the icing on the cake of government spending. The construction sector that has suffered under the Country Liberal Party has been given a cash injection which delivers jobs. This is fantastic news for our community and the electorate of Millner.
I am also proud that this government has the balance right. The additional spending for capital works and repairs and maintenance is balanced between the big and the small projects. Projects like the completion of stage 2 of the new port and the Royal Darwin Hospital redevelopment obviously help support the big end of town. However, there is plenty in this budget that will also help the small and medium size contractors pick up work for themselves. This is important to our community and our economy, and particularly members of my electorate.
The government also has the balance right between the different types of infrastructure. We have economic infrastructure like the port and roads, along with the social infrastructure like schools and health. We also have the balance right between urban centres and the bush electorate. I am particularly proud that this government is delivering on its promise to upgrade the infrastructure in many remote communities. From roads and airstrips to schools, medical facilities and employee housing. I remember well the appalling news that during the last big floods on the Victoria River the residents of Kalkarindji, the Gurindji people, were left stranded on the airstrip for several days, because in all of that vast region there was not one all-weather strip available to bring in relief supplies or to evacuate people from.
This government is addressing these sorts of problems in a smart strategic manner through a program to progressively upgrade these strips. These people are Australians, these are people are Northern Territorians, these people deserve to be looked after. What we have seen for such a long period of time was basically ignorance from the opposition about who these people are. These people are Northern Territorian citizens, they are Australian citizens and they deserve to be looked after.
What has the Labor government done for key supporters such as young families and couples? The Labor government has delivered two more key initiatives in this budget aimed at increasing home ownership for Territorians and making the Territory a more attractive place to live. The Labor government has raised the stamp duty concession threshold for first home owners from $80 000 …
Mr Ah Kit: Hear, hear!
Mr BONSON: … to $125 000, raising the maximum concession from $2096 to $3640. I pick up the member for Arnhem’s interjection of hear, hear – that is a fantastic result for all families.
Added to this, for all other home buyers a new rebate of up to $1500 will be available for contracts entered into from today for the purchase of a principle place of residence. This means all Territorians who buy their own home will get a rebate on their stamp duty. I am proud to tell all Territorians - all true believers and new supporters - that these two measures should assist more than 2500 Territorian households per year. Both initiatives should further improve home ownership rates, provide a much needed stimulant to the residential housing market, and cut the cost of living in the Territory.
The government has also announced that the HomeStart scheme will have an extra $3m allocated this year, taking the total amount of lending assistance available to Territory battlers to $28m, a record amount. This is of particular importance to the electorate of Millner. As many people would know, we are a working class to middle class electorate, and have many battlers, many long-term Territory residents who have been living there for up to 30 years. This will be welcome news to them, and I am happy to be providing it. I have spoken to many long-term and new Territory residents and encouraged them to buy and invest in the Territory. The Country Liberal Party should stop talking down the economy and start supporting the government in its attempt to turn around the mess they left all Territorians in.
The Labor government is about jobs, and big and small business create jobs. The Labor government has introduced the following tax reductions for business: substantial cuts to stamp duty on franchises by substituting lower lease rates which are 0.5% for convenience and duty, up to 5.4%; stamp duty exemptions for certain types of corporate restructures; abolition of the stamp duty on wet hires; and reduction in payroll tax to 6.3% funded through a broadening of the payroll tax in line with the Commonwealth and other states’ tax laws. To support business we have committed $640 000 this year to provide business skill workshops and business cash managers in the Territory. The skills workshops will assist business with financial management, human resources, IT and marketing.
I will now mention some quotes from businesses and other community leaders on the subject of the first Labor budget. Unlike the member for Katherine who, unfortunately, believes that the stakeholders in our community at present do not understand the budget and, therefore, do not understand the benefits that come from it, I do not think that Territorians are stupid. In fact, I put great support in the Territory people and the Territory leaders. For instance, Dave Malone, General Manager of the Territory Construction Association, said on ABC radio:
- We think it is a strong budget. It provides over $400m worth of construction activities throughout the
Territory, so it is a major boost for our industry, of course, and a major boost for the provision of
infrastructure throughout the Northern Territory.
It continues. Carole Frost, CEO of the NT Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on ABC radio:
- Well, we are really, really pleased with what is coming down. We have seen there is a forecast of a
steady 3.7% growth, the continuation of tight fiscal management within the government departments,
and a steady debt reduction. We are also seeing some cuts to business taxes.
Robert Laird, President of the NT Branch of the Australian Education Union said on ABC radio:
- Well, overall we would have to say that it is a very good start in terms of educational reform by
this government.
Hear, hear! Also on ABC radio again, Jane Alley, Executive Director of the NT Council of Social Services, said:
- This is really positive budget for us. It shows a real commitment by the Northern Territory
government to reinvesting in what was a previously neglected area.
Paul Nieuwenhoven, President of the NT Branch of the Australian Nursing Federation, said:
- For the first time in a while, we have had a real increase in health spending.
Robert Laird, President of NT Branch of the Australian Education Union, said:
- Additional per capita funding for schools is long overdue. Schools have been waiting 10 years
for that.
Another founding principle of Labor.
Finally Graham Kemp, General Manager of the Housing Industry Association on ABC radio yesterday morning said:
- Indeed, we are very pleased with the proactive stand that the government has taken.
On capital investment:
- Yes, very much so, and it’s so good for us from an employment point of view because we tended to see
a drift of trades going down to the southern and eastern states. I think, in actual fact, we’re going to
get people back here because we’re starting to see a fall off in the eastern states. We may, in actual
fact, start to see people coming back into the Territory. Fantastic news for all Territorians.
To hear the Opposition Leader and the member for Katherine criticise this budget just shows the lack of foresight of what we are really trying to achieve here in the Northern Territory. We are trying to make things turn around and we are trying to create better lives for Territorians and the opposition would be better off, as often stated by the member for Johnston, to develop their policies, get it out to the community, keep the Labor Party honest instead of the constant nagging and whingeing and negative behaviour that we see often across the other side of the House. I am not speaking of all members. I know there are some members there who are attempting to work hard, but in general I think yesterday’s men should move on.
What made me most proud about this budget was the Chief Minister, at her address to the Northern Territory Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the MGM Grand on 22 August 2002, stated to a prominent business audience:
- I know that your [that is the business community] vision extends beyond measures that might directly
benefit business. So I will take a few moments on health and education as these are so important to
all Territorians and such a high priority for my government.
We need to prepare Territorians for the future by providing high quality, accessible education for all.
Accordingly, as I already stated, the government has increased the education and training budget by
$14m, a 3% increase. This budget provides for a further 20 teachers to be employed in 2002-03 in
addition to the 20 extra teachers already provided in the mini-budget.
This is fantastic because education is an investment in our future and it requires investment in training and higher education. I am proud to say this government has delivered a total of $3.4m allocated to develop and implement the government’s employment and training strategy. $1m is allocated for the Training of Remote Youth Program aimed at 14 to 19 year-olds. That is a substantial and important investment in our future as I believe, over the next few years, this young group of people will be participating in everyday Territory life to a greater extent than before. I would have to say that in the past this group of people in remote areas have been ignored and when you have a population of between 26% and 30% not operating to full capacity for a variety of reasons and I don’t have time to go into those, but many learned people would recognise that there are many reasons why this is not happening. If you were running a small business and that small business was operating at a 26% to 30% inefficiency rate, then why would you not invest money into that inefficiency to create maximisation of those resources? If we are able to do that, if we are able to get that 26% to 30% to improve their output, if we allow them to be a part of our community, a part of the Territory, all those benefits flowing from that investment will come back to Territorians because those people live here, they grow their families up here and they are not going to move away. They are going to reinvest back into the Territory. So that is a fantastic start and I hope to see more.
Vocational education and training programs continue to be extended to Year 9, costing $1m. This will improve the relevance of school-based education and aims to increase retention rates and school to work transition rates. This is an important area of our youth because I look at my generation and, I suppose, younger generations and some just a little bit older than me, there is a problem with jumping from school to work and there is an issue of work ethic. This is across the board, black, white, green or purple, and if we can again encourage people to make that jump then, as everyone in this House would know, people with a work ethic often have better quality of living and a better lifestyle.
To encourage Territorians to take up a teaching career, $490 000 has been allocated, rising to $1m in 2004-05, for the student teacher bursary scheme. The importance of the Northern Territory University to the Territory community is also acknowledged in this budget through increased funding of $2m this year, to a total of $5m. Batchelor College and the university will receive grants totalling $1.8m for minor new works and repairs and maintenance.
I am proud that the Chief Minister has also publicly acknowledged to the business community that not only is the Territory an economy, but, most importantly, we are also a society. An investment in these areas is an investment in our future.
Another fantastic example of Labor’s commitment to core values is the increase by 21% of grants for school councils for school supplies. The opposition will have to give credit where credit is due. This is the first significant rise since 1993-94. Another core value of Labor principles is health improvement. This budget delivers an additional $20m for the health portfolio, a rise of 4% to $527m. This is a clear example of the government’s commitment to recruitment and retention of nurses and other health professionals to better deliver our health priorities. We will deliver extra staff to the Royal Darwin Hospital, and we have answered the workers who live in my electorate and who have often said to me that the Royal Darwin Hospital is in great need at all different levels. We have answered your call. The budget also allows for improvements to hospitals and health services around the Territory, and I won’t go into that at this stage, but in the budget you can also see that we have had great improvements in remote areas.
Just on the Royal Darwin Hospital, about 40 000 people per year attend the emergency department of the Royal Darwin Hospital, and no doubt many of them are Millner electorate residents. We will provide an increase in beds in the emergency department from 15 to 38 beds. This will obviously directly help the people in Millner.
An interesting initiative for my electorate is a Youth Night Patrol and Safety House which will be established in Darwin at a cost of $320 000 per annum. I look forward to working with the Youth Patrol. The budget outlines youth activity programs that will be trialled in Nightcliff and Borroloola costing $310 000 per year. Even though this is not in my electorate, the Nightcliff youth activities directly affect my electorate, in particular, Coconut Grove and the suburb of Millner, and of course wider Darwin as these kids grow up and participate and travel around and work in our communities. I will definitely be working with the member for Nightcliff to input some of my suggestions, and hopefully we can get something that is really going to attract young people.
I also recognise increases to government schools around my electorate which have a direct effect on my electorate. Ludmilla Primary School has a dedicated staff who have worked under conditions that they do not deserve, will receive a 2002 revised school supplies rate of $12 556. This is up from $10 245, a variation of $2310. Millner Primary School, the heart and soul of Millner, will receive a revised rate of $25 510 from $20 982, a variation of $4528. The Nemarluk School will receive a revised rate of $33 233. This is up from $27 397, a variation of $5836. Nemarluk Special Needs School will receive a revised rate of $8491 from $7000, a variation of $1491. I also make mention of three high schools that children from my electorate attend, which will receive a revised school supplies rate. Darwin High School will receive a revised rate of $223 404, this is up from $183 744, a variation of $39 660; Nightcliff High School will receive a revised rate of $73 159 up from $60 025, a variation of $13 134; and Casuarina High School will receive a revised rate of $207 964 up from $171 158, a variation of $36 806.
One of the real ways this government is helping Territorians and their families is the increase in the child care subsidy to $7.50 a week. This is a substantial benefit that will help address the cost of living we all face. It is an unfortunate fact of life that most families have to have both partners working to make ends meet. The Labor government is responding to the concerns of the public and the community in a positive and meaningful way. The people of the Millner electorate will cheer and thank us for this initiative.
Support for senior Territorians, as well as pensioners; pension concessions will increase to $7.6m this year, fantastic for my electorate, a real success story, as I have many senior Territorians living in my electorate, and they will be looking forward to that.
I am very pleased to announce this year the government will be committing funds to an urban beautification program along Bagot Road, the Aboriginal Bagot community, a community that has, well, let’s just face the facts – struggled over the years. However, we will be working strongly with the new council there, the new president Darryl Cooktown, and Natalie Hayward, who is worth her weight in gold. We will be working on a beautification program that will hopefully shelter Bagot from the Bagot Road noise, and create some privacy for the Bagot community, hopefully improving their lives. This is only step one. I can guarantee people of the Bagot community that we will definitely be fighting on and hoping to improve conditions there. The details of this will be announced in the coming weeks.
I should also mention too – a bit remiss of me – Millner School will also gain minor new works. Millner will get an upgrade on its first floor balcony worth $39 900, and will have its carpark extended and upgraded at a value of $8140.
I would like to briefly give a big wrap to some of the ministers and, in particular, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General – or not in particular, but just a big wrap to all the ministers. The Department of Justice is a department I have a special interest in as my background is in law. The minister has stated in his budget statement that he has presented this House with 49 pieces of legislation. That is nearly one a week, if not more than one a week, through parliament. That clearly shows that he has been working hard, that this government has been working hard. This government is dedicated and the staff at the Department of Justice are dedicated. I had the pleasure of working with some of those staff over the years.
This clarifies that the Labor government is implementing our policies and our law reforms. One of those that will have a major effect, I hope, is building on our drug law reform, and I am talking in particular about point 2 of our plan, which is the Northern Territory Drug Courts. Our allocation of $150 000 to commence the implementation phase, with $300 000 committed each year after that, will help the drug courts, as they have shown interstate, to be a powerful way of helping to break drug crime and the cycle of drug dependent people who, unfortunately, I have had experience with, who tragically do fall into a cycle. Of course, people who commit serious offences will go gaol, but the appropriate offenders will be treated through these courts and will be referred for treatment and rehabilitation in conjunction with their offences being dealt with by the criminal justice system. The fact is, drugs are heavily related to crime and, hopefully, through our three point plan on drugs, we will be able to minimise the effect drugs have in a negative way on our community.
The member for Arnhem and Minister for Sport and Recreation has shown a fantastic and strong commitment to upgrading and improving sporting infrastructure. In 2002, we have allocated $495 000 to upgrade facilities at Football Park Marrara, so that international cricket can be played in Darwin - fantastic.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr BONSON: I know, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would really be welcoming that. It would be fantastic to watch Steve Waugh and Shane Warne - well, Shane Warne roll around on the oval a little - and performers of that level come to Darwin. I know there are other members sitting in this House who also play cricket and would enjoy that.
Ms Lawrie: Oh, there are probably a few women who do.
Mr BONSON: Yes, of course. The program was developed with the consultation of the Australian Cricket Board.
I would also like to …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Honourable member, your time has expired.
Mrs AAGAARD: Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the member be granted an extension of time such that he may complete his remarks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr BONSON: To ensure that we have a safe and competitive athletics facility to the International Amateur Athletics Federation standards required for games similar to Arafura, the minister has importantly allocated $800 000 in the 2002-03 budget to replace the athletic track at the Marrara sports precinct. This would be a fantastic step. There are many more important facilities going on around the Territory, but we will not go into all of those.
One I want to mention concerns the member for Arnhem and Minister for Housing. It is also a very important one for my electorate, considering the amount of Housing Commission areas that I have in my area and that is the $3m security screen program the government has approved for 2002-03. It is the first stage of a program that requested we screen all public housing dwellings on a prioritised basis. The program is expected to cost approximately $8m to $10m over the next three to five years and, ultimately, will see security screens fitted to around 4500 public housing dwellings. The importance of this is these people are Territorians; they might be struggling, they might be battlers. The fact is they are part of our community and we need to support them. Their children will be long-time residents.
Briefly, I would also like to mention another issue that has become a highlight in the last few years and that is the itinerants project; in particular, the $500 000 that the minister and this government has allocated in the 2002-03 budget to implement our strategy to deal with the itinerants. Of particular interest to me is the increase of the community patrol and sobering-up shelter to provide more proactive patrolling and less police intervention; to establish an information and referral office to assist people to return home, to find pathways to more meaningful lives in the community; and an important one to all Territorians and, in particularly, to residents of the Darwin regional areas is the promotion of Larrakia cultural protocols, both in remote communities and in Darwin and Palmerston.
It is well recognised that if you are in Ramingining, Wadeye, or Lajamanu, and you misbehave you will be removed from that community. This is the only appropriate way for Aboriginal itinerants. We need another strategy again for non-Aboriginal itinerants but, in particular, for Aboriginal itinerants this is will be a driving force of how to deal with the problem. I would like to put on record that there has to be recognition that people do live a lifestyle, and sometimes the lifestyles are different from other people. We should definitely not be harassing people who we might clarify as itinerants, if they are not misbehaving. I just think that this discussion and this plan can sometimes get off the track in the sense of how pro-active government can be on this issue. I will definitely be working with the Larrakia cultural group to clarify protocols.
Finally, I would like to just mention the member for Nhulunbuy and some of his fantastic initiatives in his budget. For example, the Police, Fire and Emergency Services budget will increase by $8m to $142m, a 6% increase. As he stated, our government has given a commitment for the provision of 50 additional police resources in its first parliamentary term. Fantastic. This year, we have already commenced training of 10 additional police members. As people would know, I have a long association with the fire services. My father was a fireman for nearly 20 years and we have recently lost an uncle who was a fireman for 27. I currently have …
A member: Secretary of the union.
Mr BONSON: Secretary of the union, exactly, Robert Bonson, and a strong Labor member of course, and big time supporter of the last member for Millner, Terry Smith.
In August 2001, the government gave a commitment to increase the fire and rescue services by 16 extra fire officers over Labor’s first term. Funding of $460 000 has been made available this financial year to honour this commitment, and a fire fighters recruitment course commenced on 15 July 2002, including five additional fire fighters. This is fantastic for all Territorians, and all fire fighters.
In conclusion, just to speak from the heart about what I think about this first Labor budget. Over the last 12 months there is no doubt that it has been a huge learning curve for this government. But under the fantastic leadership of the member for Fannie Bay, people have fallen in behind her and she has 100% support from all the parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party and the party. And to have a look across the room and watch the opposition, as was mentioned through the election campaign, and as a summary of result, in the document, The 2001 Northern Territory Election, written by Gayl McKay and she summarized that one of the reasons that the CLP lost was that they were perceived as tired and dated. Labor was perceived as energetic and in touch with modern attitudes.
Anyone with commonsense and intelligence who really looked at the big picture of what the Labor party inherited, and what we have had to deal with, would definitely come to the conclusion that this has been a fantastic effort. A lot of that effort has been put in by the member for Fannie Bay, and the member for Nhulunbuy, and all the other long term members who have helped the new junior parliamentarians come on board.
The reason I stood for the Australian Labor Party and the reason I stood for Millner, was to deliver certain things. These were key principles of the Labor Party that I grew up believing. This Labor Party’s first budget delivers what I believe in. That is more jobs, better education and health care, creating safer communities and the feeling that you are part of the community, that there is no division in who you are, depending on your culture, your mix, your background, that you are all in it together, and a strengthening of our economy. At the end of the day, everyone in the Northern Territory knows that we have a large public service, yes, but we have to strengthen our economy to create real jobs in urban areas and remote areas. And these things have been delivered.
Sometimes during the last four months you think, well are you going to get where you want to be, where you want to head, and sometimes you doubt yourself when you go through trials and tribulations. But in the last two weeks, over this budget debate, we are seeing why we made a change, why this government has made a change. Not only in the culture of the Northern Territory forever and a day, but also in the way the opposition is viewed. Propaganda and myths about the Australian Labor Party and the Labor Party in the Northern Territory have been blown away for ever and a day because we have delivered all these fantastic things.
We will continue delivering these things by making sure that we have fiscal integrity in our budgets, and this has been guaranteed. This is one of the issues that I went to my electorate with and I door knocked, that we would guarantee that people could see through our budgets, that freedom of information was a part of their lives, and that if you wanted to keep an eye on government or big brother or whatever you want to call it, we would guarantee you would get this. We have made some real changes and some real strides forward. I definitely commend this budget to everyone in this House. I look forward to working with everyone in a positive way to maintain Labor’s core values which are jobs, employment, education, training, health and strengthening the economy.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to contribute for a short while to the debate on the Appropriation Bill and note - not that I am calling a point of order - but we lack a quorum in this Chamber. That is just an observation and nothing more than that. The quorum is 10 by the way if you are looking for your standing orders.
The Chief Minister and her colleagues were very quick to declare third party endorsements of their budget. You would note also that the media on Tuesday night made similar noises, but with a qualification that the endorsements were based on a very preliminary assessment of the budget. And ‘preliminary’ needs to be stressed. As you go into the budget in greater detail, things start to appear to be questionable.
First of all, I would like to speak to my specific shadow portfolios after which I will then move on to other matters. I refer to the Minister for Community Development’s opening comments when he made his response to the Appropriation Bill yesterday and he got stuck into the CLP one more time, as usual. Let me just quote from a short sentence. He said:
- The source of this legacy was wilful ignorance and mindless lack of imagination and morally bankrupt
politics. It was the product of a total incapacity to listen to or learn from the citizens of our remote
communities. It was the result of a deliberate refusal to benefit from the knowledge and skills our public
servants and non-government organisations.
I have to refute that comment very strongly. The minister was essentially speaking about community development and about housing and local government. The minister would be very aware that the IHANT program that we have here in the Territory is seen as the best in the country, a program of indigenous housing that the CLP government developed several years ago. It is seen by governments in all states and territories as a leading example of how the federal government and a state or territory jurisdiction can work with ATSIC together in a tripartite manner to develop and provide very good, appropriate and adequate housing for our indigenous Territorians.
The other example that I would quote would be the coordinated care trials, again, with the Tiwi and the Katherine West Health Boards. The member for Arafura in her previous life …
Ms Scrymgour: That is not a CLP initiative. You would be telling a blatant lie if you said …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: … in her previous life was very intimately involved in the Katherine West Health Board as she want to describe, and she would know full well that the benefits that these health boards …
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I would ask that the member for Karama withdraw her comment.
Ms Lawrie: I did not say anything.
Mr ELFERINK: I do hear …
Mr Kiely: You were not even in the Chamber!
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Deputy Speaker, I heard one of the members …
Mr Ah Kit: You were not even in the Chamber, you mug!
Dr Lim: You are not allowed to refer to the presence or absence …
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Deputy Speaker, there was a clear use of the term ‘liar’.
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has not finished his point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Deputy Speaker, I heard over the microphones clearly that one of the members opposite used the term ‘liar’ and it is not acceptable behaviour in this Chamber.
Ms LAWRIE: Mr Deputy Speaker, speaking to the point of order, the member for Macdonnell made inference that I, as the member for Karama, had used unparliamentary terms or language. That is, in fact, completely incorrect, and I would ask him to withdraw his comments.
Mr KIELY: Mr Deputy Speaker, speaking to the point of order, I was roped into this as well. I made no comment whatsoever.
Mr AH KIT: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker …
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw the point of order.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I would get a clarification. I know what was said, and I will get a clarification.
The member for Arafura did not call anyone a liar; she said: ‘It was a blatant lie’. I would ask the member for Arafura not to use that language. I will not ask her to withdraw it, but please refrain from using that particular phrase.
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! For the member for Macdonnell to race in here and call points of order …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker!
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit. Member for Arnhem, what is your point of order?
Mr Dunham: There is no point of order, he has ruled. Are you going against his ruling?
Mr AH KIT: My point of order is that he was not here to witness who uttered that so-called remark that was unparliamentary, and he comes racing in and he wants to call a point of order. Make up your mind, where you want to be?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point order; I have ruled on the point of order. Member for Greatorex.
Ms LAWRIE: Point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker!
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No point of order.
Ms LAWRIE: Mr Deputy Speaker, I do have a point of order. The member for Macdonnell said that the member for Karama used that language. Now, I did not and have asked the member for Macdonnell to withdraw that. That is still on the Parliamentary Record and I am asking, in all fairness, because I was accused of doing something I did not do, that it be withdrawn. He should withdraw.
Mr Dunham: Oh, rubbish!
Ms LAWRIE: He should. He said: ‘The member for Karama’. They were his words, they are on the Parliamentary Record …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, just a point of clarification. Are you referring to what was just said now, or previously?
Ms LAWRIE: I am referring to the fact that the member for Macdonnell came in here and used the words: ‘The member for Karama said …’ etcetera. Now, that is wrong. People in this House know that that is wrong, and I ask him to withdraw that. He accused me, as the member for Karama, of making a comment that I did not make.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have ruled on the point of order. I would ask the member for Macdonnell to state that that was not actually the fact that …
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdrew the point of order while they were busy screaming, so I withdraw it anyway.
Members interjecting.
Mr ELFERINK: I did, you moron!
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! No, I am not ruling. Order! Sit, member for Sanderson.
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Sit down.
Mr Kiely: The member for Macdonnell …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No point of order!
Mr Kiely: Are you allowed to call members ‘morons’ now?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, withdraw that please. You were referring to me. You know I can do - the manner in which you are speaking is at the Chair. Please withdraw that.
Mr KIELY: I will withdraw it.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
Dr LIM: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The time has passed - six minutes - and I have hardly commenced what I have to say this afternoon. I need to sit down and be done with it.
Anyway, I was speaking about the coordinated care trials, and the success of those programs in the Tiwi Islands and the Katherine West Region. I also mentioned that the member for Arafura knows full well the success of those programs. For the benefit of the member for Arnhem, I also said that the IHANT program and the coordinated care trials were great examples of initiatives that were supported very strongly by the CLP government. So, for the minister to harangue the former government for being wilfully ignorant of our indigenous aspirations is totally unsatisfactory.
I come to another matter that the minister spoke about in his portfolio of Local Government. He talked about the principal mechanism of partnership agreements between community governments and the Territory government agencies. I applaud that program. Again, it was a program that was started under the CLP, under the local government reform agenda. I know that there are some differences of opinion as to the success or otherwise of the program. However, I thought it was early days, and the inroads that we made into improving the governance of the remote Northern Territory have been significant over the last few years. I am glad and pleased to see that this government has continued the program.
I look forward to continuing improvements of the regional developments of community government, with improved training so that people in the area who are involved in governance are well prepared to take on this rather difficult task. What I am concerned about, though, is that we do not allow these regional groups under the partnership agreements to grow so large that they become one massive organisation; that would be a detrimental direction. I believe that it would be against the intent of allowing local communities to have their own governments and run their own destiny.
I raised an issue about CANCA many, many months ago - CANCA being the acronym for a proposed Combined Aboriginal Nations of Central Australia. I hope that model does not come about because, if it does, then it would go down the path of ignoring all local aspirations and a central bureaucracy would then start to take over the governance of our local communities.
In the area of housing, I am pleased to see the programs that we started under the CLP have also continued under this new government. It is great to see that this government has recognised the value of our seniors villages that we developed here in the Top End and laid the groundwork for another in Alice Springs. I look forward to the completion of Gillen Seniors Village – I am sure that is oversubscribed now - and when it is completed, I am sure that it will be a very welcome addition to the housing for senior Territorians in the Centre.
In the minister lauding his budget successes with housing, there was an issue that he failed to address. I put this question to the minister now hoping that he might respond to me at a later date, by letter or whatever. I know that he has spoken already to the Appropriation Bill and is not able to respond to this question. Maybe the Chief Minister might respond on his behalf. It was interesting to have the minister praise this budget for housing. However, I draw his attention to page 192 of Budget Paper No 3.
Mr Ah Kit interjecting.
Dr LIM: If the minister could be silent, he might be able to hear what I am saying; that if he referred to page 192 of Budget Paper No 3, he will see that the housing business services stated that it estimated that it spent $23.085m on repairs and maintenance in 2001-02. This is now going to be cut by $4.434m to $18.651m in 2002-03. This is a cut in the repairs and maintenance budget of almost 20%. Why has the minister done that? Why has the minister allowed Cabinet to do that to him? It is important for Territorians to understand, from the minister, why this is the case. The minister, obviously, is not able to respond to me this afternoon. That is fine, he might be able to pick it up during the adjournment, or the minister in reply closing debate could respond to that.
Let me now go through the media releases that the minister has put out - not only the Minister for Community Development, but also the Minister for Central Australia. Then I will come back to the minister’s responsibility in sports later on.
The Minister for Central Australia put out a media release saying that there is a whole package for Central Australia including many things that he listed here. When I look through the list, the only things that I could actually pick out that were new initiatives, new capital works initiatives for Alice Springs in particular were: $1.26m for improvements to airconditioning at the Alice Springs High School. It has been an issue that I have been badgering this government for for a long time. I complained quite strongly about the lack of airconditioning services for the high school in Alice Springs during our last very hot summer. I am glad to see that there is indeed a substantial amount of money put aside for the Alice Springs High School to get its airconditioning finally upgraded and hopefully before the onset of our next summer when our students have to put up with the extreme heat.
The other new initiative was the $700 000 for the additional chiller for the Alice Springs Hospital. Any other monies that has been put to the Alice Springs Hospital is really the continuation of the redevelopment of the facilities there. Two other small items in new capital works are the $250 000 for the upgrade of the equipment at the Araluen Arts Centre and the $880 000 for the Lovegrove Retardation Basin. That is it. The rest of it was continuation of programs that have been there for the last year or so, monies that were previously committed by the CLP government and then continued by the present government under their mini-budget.
The Minister for Central Australia then raised the additional $800 000 that is being spent on the Alice Springs hockey field as something new. That is very much a furphy. That money was committed well before the last election and works have been in progress for almost 12 months. I am glad to hear the minister say that it will be completed before the Masters Games commence in Alice Springs in a few weeks time. I look forward to taking part in the Masters Games. It is one of the better events. We have had the games six or seven times over the last 10 to 12 years.
One of the things that the Minister for Central Australia never informed parliament of was the announcement that he made as a pre-budget announcement. He announced $150 000 for a bike and cycle path for Stevens Road and Barrett Drive. You will recall that that was in fact monies that were committed by the former CLP government of $350 000 for not only the bike and footpath for Stevens Road and Barrett Drive but also to continue the path along the side the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens up to Stott Terrace to allow pedestrians and cyclists to cross the river at times when Tunks Road, which is a causeway, is under water during the flood of the Todd River. That money has still not reappeared and I think the government has short changed Alice Springs and has not done anything about it to fix it up.
The other things that the Minister for Central Australia claimed in his media release be it in education, or in health, to support families and build better lifestyles, community safety, regional development, tourism, national parks and reserves, are all recurrent things. All recurrent expenditure for the smooth running of government agencies. Nothing in terms of new initiatives. So for the minister to lay claim to that is very inappropriate.
Turning now to the Minister for Housing and his media release. He spoke about $92m of housing funds injected into the Territory.
Mr Ah Kit: You’re jealous, eh? I’m a better minister than what you were. I’m a better Chinaman, too.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order.
Dr LIM: Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it is unbecoming parliamentary behaviour for the minister to cast slurs on my racial origin. He has done it on not only on this occasion, but on several other occasions, and in fact I showed a copy of the Hansard to the member for Arafura not so long ago.
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I did not cast any racial slurs on the member for Greatorex. I said that I was a better Chinaman than he. How can that be racist?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Dr LIM: I did not call a point of order; I just said that it was unbecoming of the minister to do that.
Anyway, coming back to the minister’s media release and what he had to say apart from his $92m claim of housing funds injected into the Territory’s construction industry, he also included $11m in the $7000 first home owner grants for new and existing houses. Now, surely these are federal funds he is talking about, that the minister lays claim to be part of the Territory’s budget. These are federal funds given directly by the federal government to the home owner. It has nothing to do with the Northern Territory government.
So, when you add all these little figures in, I just wonder how inflated is this budget that was presented to us on Tuesday? ‘Creative accounting’ was the term used by the Leader of the Opposition to describe this new budget. What other bits of money that do not truly belong to the Territory are being used to pad out this budget? Maybe the minister or the Chief Minister might like to respond to that.
I have spoken about the Traeger Park Hockey Centre - actually, while I am talking about sports, Sunday this week there is going to be a sporting challenge between the CLP and the ALP. It is going to be a dragon boat race as part of the inaugural Dragons Abreast Dragon Boat Race for the Territory. The Legislative Assembly is entering a team as well. I just wonder whether the Minister for Sport and Recreation proposes to represent his party in the dragon boat race to lead the way.
Dr Burns: He’ll beat the drum. You could have him as a drum beater for your side.
Dr LIM: Well, I look forward. I will look forward to the Minister for Sport and Recreation beating the drum because that will be great. I hear this interjection from the member for Johnston that the minister will be beating the drum. Well, I think it is good that the Minister for Sport and Recreation for the Territory will be taking part in a sporting activity representing his side of politics. I look forward to that. I look forward to that and on Sunday …
Dr Burns: No, we want him on your side beating the drum.
Dr LIM: Well, in fact, let me just advise members opposite, as an aside, that the CLP boat will have at least 60% of its paddlers as members of the Chamber. I hope that there will be an equivalent number of paddlers on that side making up the percentage.
Mr Kiely: I bet you have the smallest crew.
Dr LIM: I will pick up on that interjection about the smallest crew. The member for Sanderson obviously considers me a small person and has a real problem with that.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! He is drawing inferences on what I said: ‘smallest crew’ refers to the number of people.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order. I take this in a humourous vein.
Dr LIM: In the case of me as a person of Asian ethnic origin, I in fact am of average size and so I have quite good feelings about my stature. Obviously members opposite have great problems with people of my stature. But I must say also that the member for Sanderson is no bigger than I am so maybe people on his side of the Chamber have a problem with his size.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, this a budget debate, not a debate about one’s height or sporting abilities. Can we come back to the budget, please?
Dr LIM: Mr Deputy Speaker, I will return to the budget and talk about the media releases the Chief Minister put out. Actually, I congratulate the government on a very positive move to stimulate home ownership in the Northern Territory. I thought that was a very good thing to do, to allow an increase in rebate on stamp duty, and also lifting the threshold of home prices stamp duty concession from $80 000 to $125 000. That will really stimulate the home ownership percentage in the Territory. I look forward to this full implementation of this program because it can only help with young Territorians who are desperately looking to save money to get their own homes. Saving money in the Northern Territory is not an easy thing. The costs that this government has imposed on Territorians over the last 12 months has been very significant. Really significant. It taxes anything that is moving; cars for instance cop a $90 tax pretty quickly. Water and sewerage is moving; it copped a tax as well. Before you know it, any time you walk you might have to pay taxes, too.
It is a problem that this government is a very high taxing government and it is the government’s right to do that, I do not dispute it. I believe it is very wrong of the government to impose such a high load on Territory taxpayers when in fact it has money to ‘burn’. The news item: ‘Spend, spend, spend’. That is what it is about, this government is prepared to spend money. In spending the money it is reaching into every Territorian’s pocket, ripping heaps of money out to allow it to spend. The CLP while in government always made a decision that it is better to leave the money in Territorians’ pockets so that they can have their choice of where to spend the money. It is the lifestyle that we have promoted, the lifestyle of the Territory, and that has continued in the last 25 or 26 years of self-government.
The news article, this is the NT News of Wednesday, 21 August, and the article was about ‘Spend, spend, spend’, and Camden Smith wrote:
- But she did it partly by borrowing more than $100m, increasing the Territory’s debt to more than $3bn.
That adds up to $15 000 for every man, woman and child.
That is a significant impost of Territorians. And with the money that they have received from the federal government, one would have thought that the impost on Territorians could be lifted.
Let me now return to Central Australia specifically and draw to your attention a few other things that the government has not done. We have heard all the ministers speak to the Appropriation Bill and not one mentioned Owen Springs Station. The Minister for Central Australia did not, the Minister for Lands and Planning did not. Owen Springs has been waiting for several years now for some action. The minister himself admitted that he has had all the proposals sitting on his desk for several months and yet we have had no action at all. Alice Springs needs something to be decided about Owen Springs so that business people and developers can make up their minds about what to do.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I will be running out of time shortly and I wonder whether there is any possibility of getting a time extension as much of my time was taken up by interjections and points of order.
Mr Ah Kit: No, Mr Deputy Speaker. You are too provocative.
Dr LIM: Mr Deputy Speaker, I asked the question while you were being distracted by the member for Arnhem, that my time is running out and I wonder whether I could seek an extension of time. Most of my time was taken up.
Mr McAdam: Let him, Jack.
Motion agreed to.
Dr LIM: Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the member for Barkly for initiating the motion.
Owen Springs has been an issue for a long time, and I seek the government’s expeditious decision on what to do there.
The minister for Central Australia - no it was not him, it was in Budget Paper No 5, page 100, if I might draw your attention to that, Mr Deputy Speaker, where it is written here. One would expect that what is here should be reported accurately, and I read, speaking about land availability in the Territory. This was in relation to Alice Springs:
- Conversely, there has been a shortage of residential land available for development in Alice Springs,
particularly at the lower end of the market. Native title issues have restricted the number of releases in
the past few years. To some extent native title issues have been resolved, clearing the path for 300 residential
lots to be developed. Some 40 lots were released in Larapinta, to be followed by a further release in
Mt John Valley scheduled for 2003.
Talking about this high-taxing government, you will recall what the Chief Minister said yesterday or the day before when she was comparing the Northern Territory with other jurisdictions. She said - not in these words, but if I can paraphrase her - that we - the Northern Territory that is – are the second lowest taxed jurisdiction in Australia. That tells me that, in the Chief Minister’s mind, that there are more taxes to come, if we are the second lowest taxed jurisdiction in Australia. There is room to move, is what she is saying, or suggesting and. therefore, we going to look at more taxes in the future. That is a real issue. It would be good if the Chief Minister could come in here and tell us, ‘No more taxes. No more taxes for the rest of term. No more increased taxes, no new taxes for the rest of the term’. It would be good to hear that but I doubt whether she will, and if she could prove me wrong, it would be great.
What I fear is that taxes will continue to go up and if her swimming pool legislation is anything to go by - again in the NT News of Wednesday of this week and I will read it to the Hansard: ‘Fencing cash put on hold’ it says, ‘The government has not allocated any money for pool fencing in this year’s budget’. If she is going to bring in legislation, what then? How is she going to implement it not only in metropolitan Darwin but in greater Darwin? First for the south and in bush communities. What would happen then? So there is going to be an impost on Territorians who own pools. It is an issue that this government has to deal with and obviously it has not. The Chief Minister has not got her mind across the issue. Something that she brought on herself by saying to Territorians that she was going to bring in Territory-wide pool fencing legislation. The Chief Minister has an issue to address there and I look forward to her response.
The minister for DCIS spoke about what DCIS has done in the last 12 months. I commend DCIS for the hard work it has done to coordinate the administrative services for the Territory. It has done a reasonably good job. It was a big transition for Territorians going from agencies looking after themselves into one central unit. But DCIS also has the difficult task of looking after our IT. I think some of the decisions or policies made by DCIS need to be questioned. The IT services for parliamentarians alone leaves a lot to be desired. The fees that we have been paying for our IT services in my opinion, my humble opinion, are quite high. With the monthly rental alone for a laptop for 12 months, I could replace the laptop each 12 months based upon the cost of the monthly lease payments. The $4500 to $5000 that we pay each year could buy me a very good laptop with all the software that I currently have in the laptop and I would still probably take home some change.
The minister needs to address the issue about the expertise that is within DCIS that is negotiating with industry. Industries are obviously out there to make a dollar, and that is its function. I do not have any difficulties with that. But I do not believe that we need to pay the top dollar that we are doing at the moment. It will be interesting to see if DCIS has the staff to manage the system properly so that it can buy services from service providers at the most cost-effective price.
I won’t go on much longer. There are many things in the budget that are open to question. Just in my short time on my feet here I pointed out quite a few anomalies in the budget, in the budget papers, as well as the figures that have been provided for us. One needs to question that if there are these glaring errors in our budget papers and presentation, what other mistakes there are, and how much padding has been brought into these financial figures.
Perhaps one more point before I sit down. On the issue about redevelopment of the Alice Springs Hospital, there was a $500 000 allocation made to the Alice Springs Hospital during the time of the CLP government to replace the John Hawkins Lecture Theatre. That money was taken away and it has not reappeared. The John Hawkins Theatre is no more. Instead of a central lecture theatre at the hospital proper, another room, tucked away right in the back of the hospital has been provided as the education amenity. That is a real pity. The John Hawkins Theatre was the central lecture room that could be easily accessed by all nursing, medical and other allied health staff. Within the precinct of the working wards including the emergency department, it allowed the medical, nursing and allied health staff to attend lectures, and that made it easy for them to then have inservice training, etcetera. Now they cannot do it, and I think it is a real pity. I look forward to something being done about that so that Alice Springs Hospital will have the facility once again.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to applaud the Martin Labor government’s first major budget and take this opportunity to congratulate our Treasurer whose vision is inclusive of all Territorians. It is a budget from which the Arafura electorate will gain significant benefits, a range of programs and initiatives aimed at advancing the capabilities, facilities and access to services of our remote communities. Those initiatives cover education and training, health and community services, community safety, community infrastructure, arts and culture, sport and recreation.
I want to touch on a number of budget highlights in my electorate of Arafura, but I will speak in particular of two. The first one is $1m from the capital works program which has been set aside for improvements to the Maningrida school. This is a community whose population is bigger than that of Jabiru, Timber Creek and many other towns that we see in the Northern Territory, that has been waiting for a long time for this funding despite the many pleas to former ministers and governments to address the needs of the children of Maningrida. Teachers and students have been forced to work in an environment that would not be tolerated in Darwin or Palmerston. It would be interesting if you took the existing school at Maningrida and plonked it in Palmerston, or one of the - and I am not casting any aspersions or anything on any of my colleagues in the northern suburbs - but if that school was to be placed in any of our suburbs in Darwin, even in the rural areas, I am sure the member for Nelson, the member for Goyder - I would like to take that school that is there and plonk it in their back yards and ask these children that in these rural areas and also the northern suburbs to go to this school and let’s see what the outcry is then from the wider Northern Territory population that this should not happen.
But it is an expectation, and it has been an expectation for a long time, that indigenous children in these communities should be grateful and go to school and learn under conditions like this. And also teachers; sending teachers out to remote communities and expecting them to also teach in schools like this.
It is interesting sitting here sometimes. I just want time - I mean, everybody else has had the opportunity - just to digress a moment and pick up on some of the hypocrisy from the member for Katherine. The man is just a hypocrite. He stood up and he had our great book, Regional Highlights of our budget, and he is going through and he said: ‘There’s nothing new. You have services in here that governments do anyway’. Let me just remind the member for Katherine this was the CLP’s 2001-02 Regional Highlights for Katherine. What do we find in here? Oh, Department of Chief Minister. If you were to do a comparison of both of these documents, if you look at his last budget in 2001-02, his fraudulent budget, he has done exactly what he is criticising this government of doing. If we are doing it wrong, then so was he.
Further, he used to claim expenditure in the regions by central agency when no such expenditure actually occurred there. You only had to go to that book, I have a photocopy of it actually, and if you look at the first one, regional highlights for Katherine - Department of the Chief Minister, $2.7m; Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency Services, for the whole region $11m; and Territory Health Services - and it goes on - Department of Education. It just highlights the hypocrisy. I do not know how he can put his head up and talk sometimes. At least we have actually highlighted the actual expenditure that is going to occur in the regions and not some amounts that represent spending on behalf of the region.
The other thing that I want to pick up on is from the member for Greatorex who I have heard speak a number of times in this Chamber about the coordinated care trials, which is a great initiative. The coordinated care trials was looking at something that was discriminatory, especially against indigenous people in remote areas, and that was those people’s access to MBS and PBS funding from the Commonwealth government. The Commonwealth government actually recognised this. This great initiative of coordinated care trials actually came from the federal Labor government. So it was not a CLP initiative. It was Dr Carmen Lawrence, who was then federal Health Minister for a Labor government, who designed and put up this program, who then had the different states and territories apply. These ministers should not take the credit for it because there are a number of very hardworking people inside Territory Health Services, as it was then, who had this vision and could see this anomaly that was being created out in many remote areas and then put up that submission and worked very hard with the Commonwealth. It was not these ministers. That is also hypocrisy when they stand up here and take the credit when they do not give credit where credit is due. Where those hardworking people who have and made coordinated care trials - even I do not like taking the credit for - and yes, I was involved with Katherine West but there were many people out there who were involved in these coordinated care trials and it just gets up the nose a bit.
I know there was a comment from this side of the Chamber this morning that self praise is not good. Well, sometimes they should have a look at themselves in terms of self praise. The whole point of coordinated care trial was to actually get the money from the Commonwealth into the Northern Territory to make improvements to indigenous health, given that there was very little money being put in or supported from that side of the Chamber.
Finally, one of the things that I was very happy about in this budget was that we have a minister for education who actually understands and knows what he is doing. It was very pleasing to know that Maningrida and Nguiu have been chosen as the pilot sites for establishing self-managing schools as part of our government’s commitment to the Learning Lessons review. This is an exciting new initiative of this government and hopefully will pave the way for many other schools to follow. This Labor government is committed to equipping our indigenous youth with the skills to meet the challenges of work and a changing world.
Further highlights in the budget that will benefit my electorate are as follows: $1.5m to construct a new health centre at Milikapiti. As the health minister pointed out yesterday, the existing clinic has been in a poor state for some time and there has been a need for new premises for many years. Once again, I would like to point out the history of Milikapiti - this was sent to me by the Tiwi Health Board, and I also had some stuff in my office from the previous member for Arafura:
- The Tiwi Health Board took over the Milikapiti clinic in April 1999 on the understanding that $250 000
would be made available in this year’s budget to build a replacement clinic. The Country Liberal
Party’s 1999-2000 budget failed to deliver the funding. During negotiations with Territory Health
Services, Tiwi Health made it quite clear it would only take over the health service on the basis that
the building would definitely proceed. On 30 June this year, the Tiwi Health Board will cease operating
in the old centre and hand back its operations. The old Milikapiti clinic houses a host of health, safety
and privacy issues for patients and staff alike. Maintenance on the building has basically been suspended
for four years, in anticipation of the new building being built. The current building is unsafe and unsuitable
for further operations as a health centre. This was a bitter blow for Tiwi Health and a slap in the face for
the Tiwi people.
For once, you had Tiwi people and Tiwi Health taking a leading role and accepting responsibility for health provisions for Tiwi people, and they felt seriously let down. The department did make a plea as I understand in talking to the Director of Tiwi Health Board and other people over there. The department did advise the minister of the implications in not funding this clinic and this was despite the department getting a structural engineer to go over to that clinic and actually classify that clinic as being condemned and that people should not be using that clinic, at least for running health services. Once again, I would like to take that clinic and a lot of clinics in my area and plonk it in Palmerston, or plonk it in the northern suburbs of Darwin …
Dr Burns: Or in Goyder.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: And Goyder. I would love to put some of these clinics where people are expected to have health services delivered from and then told: ‘Be grateful, and you will get served’, and to put up with it. Indigenous people have been expected to put up with this for 25 years and to be grateful and not to whinge.
This clinic was established in 1954 …
Mr Maley: What about the people at Dundee? They are all people, not just indigenous people.
Dr Burns: Make a trip out there, mate, and see for yourself.
Mr Maley: We don’t have a clinic.
Dr Burns: You haven’t got 2000 people.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: In 1998 when Cyclone Thelma - you should listen to this, because when you rubbish the budget, it is the first time in the history of the budget that …
Mr Maley: I have put more time in Maningrida than you have.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Ms SCRYMGOUR: … indigenous people in remote communities were actually given any kudos, which is quite an historic event. In 1998, Cyclone Thelma crossed the Tiwi Islands, thus causing a lot of damage to this clinic. It was soon after Cyclone Thelma that this clinic was condemned, but never closed down. The people had no choice but to continue using the clinic because there were the demands from the community. Where else were they supposed to go? Deliver health services under a tree? I would like to tell some people in Palmerston to go and deliver health services under a tree …
A member: Or Darwin.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Or in Darwin. It was pleasing to see that there was $1.5m to construct a new health centre at Milikapiti.
Continuing capital works - and I wait for the chorus over there, ‘A CLP initiative’ - a further $250 000 has been allocated towards the construction of Nguiu clinic. I went to the election with the Milikapiti clinic, and I am very glad that we have actually delivered on it. I think only a Labor government can deliver on things like this. $250 000 has been allocated towards the construction of the Nguiu Health Clinic. The member for Katherine pointed out before that our government was claiming kudos for a number of things in the budget when, in fact, it was Commonwealth funding, and we are continuing. But there was a lot of money which came from the Commonwealth which the former government used to always say was their money when, in fact, it was Commonwealth money.
Dr Burns: 80%.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: That is right. $750 000 to upgrade and seal the Pirlangimpi runway. Do I go on about airstrips and the need for airstrips and how indigenous communities every wet season, the lack of access, where you had people who could not be evacuated out those communities, where people had actually died as a consequence of not being able to be medivaced out of their communities. But once again, it was another thing that was just left. That was also an election promise and when the office notified the community it was very well received.
It was good to see $520 000 financial assistance for the Pivot Aquaculture venture in the Tiwi Islands which is a very important project to continue. It is a project that could also be developed in many of our other coastal comminutes. Milikapiti and Nguiu will benefit from access to $370 000 for libraries. $500 000 has been allocated to install a new 1500 kilowatt electricity generator set at Maningrida.
Dr Burns: Hear, hear!
Ms SCRYMGOUR: There will also be continuing capital works - I knew the member for Johnston would be very happy about all the stuff with Maningrida.
There will be continuing capital works of $200 000 to upgrade the fuel transfer pipeline from the barge landing to the power station at Nguiu. There has also been $40 000, and something that I am very please to have my hand in, for the Banteng research project in the Cobourg Peninsula region. I am also particularly pleased that this government is refunding - which the previous government did not want anything to do with - the ethnobiology project. It is a great document and it is a great project and it should be continued. It was strongly supported by community members and I know that my own people, the Tiwi people, when they did that project with Glen Whitely from the department, the community members fully supported that and were very happy. I know that Glen was quite keen to go into parts of Arnhem Land and West Arnhem Land and Jawoyn but no funding was available. It is good that our government is actually picking that back up.
There is $250 000 to complete regional waters studies based into Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands. Further increases of monies into community correctional services and mental health and I applaud the health minister’s increase in funding to the family and children’s services budget to an amount of approximately $0.5m. This extra funding, I believe, will allow the employment of an additional eight staff to work in the area of child welfare. It is certainly pleasing to note that four of those workers will be Aboriginal community workers. These increases should not have been an issue for the past government and there certainly should have been funding and resources for this area. Nevertheless, it is our initiative and we will be applying that and this funding will go some way in ensuring that our children, who are quite precious to us in remote Aboriginal communities, are going to be protected and they will be safe.
I did mention before, and maybe I am being a bit repetitive with this, but I really do find it interesting and amusing when I hear remarks from the other side when they keep jumping up and down and saying, ‘Yes, another CLP initiative’. The condemnation of the previous government in terms of its lack of commitment to Aboriginal health and to implementing the Collins Report is well deserved. Remote area health services and schools in the Arafura electorate have been doing it hard for a long time - another CLP initiative? Go on, you said it is. The deceit surrounding the fudging of figures in last year’s health budget speaks for itself in terms of failure to comply with basic standards of probity and proprietary. But what we should not lose sight of is that the main losers from that kind of creative accounting have tended to be remote Aboriginal communities. Another CLP initiative?
By contrast, this budget is responsible, and people have said that. It is responsible. It is responsive. It is about supporting and promoting rural and remote Territory regions. It is about good governance and government, and I commend the Treasurer and all our ministers. Our ministers have done a commendable job - and Treasury staff - but I think our ministers have done an excellent job to bring this budget to this House. I commend this budget to the House.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to respond to the budget and in doing so will cover a number of areas, these being comments relating to the budget generally, then to school education, to VET and TAFE, then to NTU, touching on sport and recreation briefly, issues related to youth, and finishing with general electorate issues.
To divide a response to a budget like this in terms of good and bad, good versus evil is not the line that I seek to draw. I would like to understand this contextually. When constructing a budget, whether a budget is a good budget or a bad budget, you need to consider some elements that go into budgeting. I always remember at a certain time of the year, I think it was about this time of the year, that my father would sit on the verandah and construct the budget for the farm for the coming year. Factors in that budget which would determine a good budget or a bad budget were factors largely out of his control. Sometimes there was the imposition of federal government initiatives with wheat quotas which restricted the amount that you would be able to sow. There were other factors such as union intervention restricting the flow of produce from the farm to the waterfront. Other aspects were rain or the lack of rain, and market prices. All of these factors combined sometimes against the operation of the farm, or sometimes for it - sadly, it seemed to be rarely. It is one of the reasons why I am no longer farming.
I remember that when the factors came together, and there was rain, and the market prices were good, and the goods were able to leave the waterfront were wonderful times. It allowed us then to spend money in ways that we could only wish for, such as sending the kids off to school or adding another bedroom to the house and so on, things that you would always like to have done. That year, I recall quite clearly, was a good year and we called it a good budget. It wasn’t that Dad did an extraordinary job on that verandah constructing that budget; it was that there were certain factors that were brought to bear on that budget that allowed it to be a time that was a good one. There were other times that were hard budgets. Very difficult decisions had to be made and priorities had to be reordered and sometimes they were not to our satisfaction or our pleasing. But nonetheless, we understood.
I believe that is a fundamental issue that we need to understand in this whole debate, that what we have in this budget are factors that have come together which have allowed certain areas to receive additional funding. It is a good budget in that respect, that there is more in the budget to be acquitted or to be spread out and to address some of the priorities. Do not think for a moment because they were unaddressed it was therefore a bad budget and bad people behind the scenes were deliberately withdrawing. It has to be recognised that there is an additional quantum of revenue to be budgeted. There is more money there. That has to be recognised.
So, for me to respond to education and say, because I am in opposition, ‘It’s bad’, quite the opposite. If I were the minister for education, I would be delighted to be able to invest in the most important aspect of the Northern Territory community, the education of our young people. I would be delighted. So I am not going to be drawing lines like that, those simplistic juvenile lines which I find sadly offensive, but rather to be more constructive and actually analyse some of those aspects and seek further clarification and make suggestions where I think emphasis should be where perhaps it is not. And at the same time to recognise those things which any fair-minded Territorian would also support.
But it has to be acknowledged that it is clearly a big spending budget, there is clearly an extra $131m. Undeniable. It has to be acknowledged also that there has been a significant increase in debt on the head of every Territorian. It has to be acknowledged that there is an increased burden on every family with the registration levy. Also small business has received an extra burden; that has to be taken into consideration and accepted as a fact. Water and sewerage has also increased. All of those factors together have allowed the booty to be distributed in particular ways.
I would have to say that in forming a budget there is a time when there is a certain amount that is able to be distributed and put in to satisfy certain agendas or wishes or dreams that you have had, things that you would like to address; now you have the resources to do it. That is good. There could have been a time when all the factors came together and they are gifts for everybody, but that would be irresponsible. A good budget also has the aspect of a longer term vision. A sense of vision that we are actually heading somewhere, the creation of something that we, as a community, can believe in. I am not being critical for the sake of being critical, but I am finding that aspect of this budget is not there. I believe people do need that sense of a higher vision, that it is actually for a purpose and we are heading in a direction. Maybe it is what we call, in a general sense, from the members opposite, building a better Territory, but we need to do a lot more work on that to find what is this better Territory that we are all building. Define it so that we can work towards it. It has to be that something that we can believe in and I do not find that it is contained in this budget. It does not mean then that it is desperately at fault. It means, to me, and others have commented, that that aspect is not strong in this budget. Not to say there will be other budgets, and I guess the vision will be developed as we go along.
Turning now to education. We have already referred to the fact there has been a significant increase in the budget for education, 3% increase, $14m. I have no other words than if I were the minister I would be more than happy to be responsible for the acquitting of that increase.
Going to capital works, to maintenance, to housing, security, to upgrades, to the inclusion support programs to the tune of $500 000, and the continued commitment to the additional teachers. That is all very good. One that I would like to draw particular attention to, which lines up with a current issue in education - the retention and recruitment of teachers - and I am pleased to see the attention to remote housing, and particularly security screens on housing. I am beginning to learn of the pressures that are on our young recruits who work in remote localities who feel quite vulnerable and exposed. To have this aspect addressed is a very welcome initiative and will address that fundamental issue of teacher retention. The worst thing that can happen is a teacher is recruited - and I have been through it myself - they have settled in, begin to understand the lie of the land, the challenges, and then they choose to leave midyear. This is a tragedy, but even at the end of the year is sad. It is a huge waste of personal capital as well as economic cost. So that is a very good initiative.
I am glad to see bursary scheme continue; that is a good idea. I would like to see it perhaps broadened to bring in consideration of those people who are mature aged, who have a career, and could be encouraged to train to do some teacher training. That means to change the entry into the Diploma of. Education courses so that they are attracted to have a change of career. It is not just those who have left school and are considering going into teachers training, but those who are already in a career who would be interested in changing career. That could be a room for expansion and strengthening that problem with teacher retention.
I am also particularly supportive of the initiatives of in-servicing. I will not go into that in depth other than to say an area of real interest of mine is the in-servicing of the early childhood section. That, to me, is a key area in education. It is an area that I have a lot of interest in. I believe it is an area that needs a lot more work to occur in that area to really stabilise and strengthen our education system.
An area of concern in the budget that I do not hear addressed in any way clearly enough, is what is the shape of the alternative education program? It is becoming very clear, particularly through research that I have been engaged in and discussions we have had with our Palmerston Crime Forum: how do we actually address the need that is apparent to anyone who is living in an urban community? It becomes clear that the profile of these kids are generally that they are adolescent boys - not always boys, but generally - and that they are in a situation where they really do feel that the school system does not accommodate them in a way that reinforces their own sense of self-worth, and there is a tremendous loss there. I do see quite clearly, articulated in the Labor Party election platform – I would have to say that I am very interested in how we respond to that clearly defined issue of providing an alternative structure to accommodate that need, particularly for 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 year olds. There is reference to it, but it is of a nature that I cannot really get a handle on. I foreshadow a continued interest in that to see how that actually does develop.
In a similar vein also, is the school attendance officers. That is a welcome announcement, and we did have an announcement of that kind at our recent Crime Forum meeting. Announcements are good, but it really is - from the point of view of opposition - the detail that is actually the most important. I am not in the business of getting too excited about announcements, but more the details. I will be calling for that, and I am sure many members of the wider education community will also be calling for details of that so that we can work through how it would be implemented. Announcements are one thing but making a difference is the other. That is the part that many of us are more interested in. That is another area we are paying particular attention to.
School-based constables remain an issue. Going through the budget papers, and the issue that was raised at Question Time today needs to be – it is not to create mischief - but it is that those figures did seem to match a certain concern in the community. I wish those figures spoke quite differently, but they do seem to indicate that. Granted, I have to admit it is very difficult to - characters in government will say, ‘It is a great budget and it is fantastic’. However, to be honest with you, sitting on this side, it is very difficult to try to track some of these things through the budget papers. It is difficult to compare things with other things. It might be a great budget, but we simply, in many respects, are left in the dark and not knowing how to compare things. It is a very difficult task, and you know that quite clearly. If you really have looked at this, if you really have tried to understand it, if you really have tried to do your parliamentary duty to scrutinise and to take responsibility for the decisions that you are making in this place, do not be fed a line. Ask the questions and make sure you understand it because we are actually responsible for all this.
With regards to the school-based constable figures, as I have mentioned, it does seem to indicate there is a reduced funding which seems to match up with the 10 constables, when in fact there are 21, and then there is the other announcement there are 10 additional constables. I am only asking the question, we just need the clarification. Simply that. I am happy to believe but we just need to have it completely confirmed, and these figures do not seem to substantiate it. Maybe I am not reading it properly, but it is difficult to see otherwise.
The reviews that are on foot. We have had the issues with the school-based constable scheme review, and off that trotted. There was genuine concern in the community particularly for any member of the Chamber who went to any of those community consultation exercises. It was very clear that there was an end in mind. All credit to those who attended, they made their position very clear. They are very keen to see what the results of that review were.
Another review that I have heard very little of but I am aware that it is under way, and I have not heard any more about it -perhaps it is remiss of me for not asking, but I take this occasion to ask now. It is the SHAPEs area, that is, sport, health and physical education. That discrete unit also, at the same time, underwent a review. I do not know what has happened to that review, what the intent of the review was. I am simply stating it now, for no other reason than what is going on in SHAPEs, and where are we at with that review?
Another issue that I will take this opportunity mention in addressing education is one that has not been mentioned in here for a long time, and it perhaps has fallen off the landscape. Though it may seem like a small program, to me it is a very important program, because it, once again, connects with a regional vision, or a Territory vision, something that was unique in the Northern Territory, and that is a vision of our engagement with the region in South-East Asia and Indonesia and the eastern provinces in particular. There was a vehicle that allowed that to be transacted in a very concrete way, and that was the Arafura School Games. The Arafura School Games is a program, I understand, that started in 1989. It commenced as a Memorandum of Understanding between the eastern provinces, was signed in Jakarta, and it was initiated by the Northern Territory. I understand that funding has been forwarded regularly to school sports. They were held annually for a period and then bi-annually, and then I think the last one was held in 1998 in Mataram in Lombok.
That was a tremendous program. I had the good fortune of going to the second last one. High school students from right across the Northern Territory, including from remote communities came together as a contingent and travelled to compete against their regional fellows from South Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, East Timor, West Timor and the like. There was a huge number of teams. The event was one thing, and we can just look at it and say it was conducted well and it was good fun and all that sort of stuff. But stepping back, this is a program that was running for a period of time. I am saying that the funding, I believe, has been continued, but the program has not. We already have significant investments in human infrastructure such as the school programs with Indonesia, the teacher exchanges, and then this sporting program which I believe capped it off beautifully. There was a strengthening of the relationship at that very critical level between Northern Territory showing its leadership nationally and the region.
I am simply describing that program, saying that it has fallen off the books and I would be very interested in calling for it to be reinstated as just one small step in keeping that vision alive in terms of our importance in this region and our responsibility to engage with our neighbours. We are small in population but that is one aspect of strategic importance that we must continue to face and respond to.
I have many things that I would like to say and many things will flow from my response on education into estimates, but there is the one issue, and that relates to the budget generally, globally, and to education. There are key issues in education. There are hot spots. In the community of educators and those who are interested in education and the parents, there is a lot of work to be done. There is this release of funding which I have explained earlier, see that in context. But much of it is like a short-term burst of activity. We really do need to calm down and start to speak about the longer term strategies and get a clear idea of where we are going in a proactive way of addressing some of these problems.
I could play the business in opposition of amplifying this teacher shortage, but I am just as interested in contributing to the debate so that we can find a solution. I am not so narrow that I do not recognise that it is a difficult problem. I do not blame the government for having a teacher shortage, but I will take issue with the response to the problem. That is my role in opposition: to identify the problem, to assess the response of the minister to that problem and the department, and to award bouquets and brickbats. I will give both, but I would have to say that we do need to lift our eyes up with regards to this teacher issue and make sure we step forward.
We do see some small steps forward in this budget, but we have to make some significant progress in energy in this area I have to say. The problem is not going to go away. I predict it will in fact get worse for this reason - and anyone who has a look at our teaching service will recognise that our ageing teaching service, we will have a huge amount of human capital that is set to retire in a fairly narrow band of time. If we do not have a steady building of our teaching profession, we are going to end up in a very difficult situation. What is this all about? It is about delivering a quality education, wherever it be, to the students in our classes.
A teacher in front of a class might save the day for a moment. There are times when a teacher is not available for a few days and you ring around to find a relief teacher and put that relief teacher in place. Then you can rest easy. You might even be able to get a coffee at morning recess time and you feel good that you at least have a teacher to look after those kids. Then you find that that teacher is not available the next day, so you cannot really rest until you have found a teacher for the next day. Then you might have a different one for the day after that. That is a fact. You might feel satisfied that you have teachers to cover these kids, but we have to lift our eyes up higher than that and say that actually compromises the quality of education that is being delivered to the kids. We all recognise that. So that is where our energy must be, and that is why we must be energetic because we need to strengthen the teaching service to cover that problem. It is the quality of the service delivery to the student that should motivate us. I will keep that alive.
Comments from the non-government sector, once again, were also generally supportive of the budget and I have been consulting with stakeholders in non-government education who are supportive of the increases, but of course, any time at any place people are going to say there could be more. I would have to say for the sake of the non-government sector that there is a measure that is used to calculate the amount of money that goes into the non-government sector. It makes up over 25% of our school population and the measure is called the Australian Government Schools Recurrent Costs. I understand that is calculated annually and is running at about 6%, that is a 6% increase. The amount of money it takes the government to educate a child in a school is calculated and it has been calculated and running at about a 6% increase each year. Those costs arise for a number of reasons. There is the servicing of the profession and the resourcing of those teachers and being able to deliver quality education to the students. It is increasing. We know the demands on education are increasing but in fact there is a significant increase annually. The non-government sector acknowledged that there has been an increase but the increase is not sufficient to allow them to continue delivering their service. That needs to be addressed and I would articulate that strongly that, that needs to be maintained, otherwise the services is going to run-down. Of particular concern in the non-government sector is the 1% increase for high school students. That really makes it incredibly difficult to keep up with the level of service delivery in high schools.
Moving on to NTU. Once again, I support the increase in funding but there are some questions that need to be asked. One is, it appears from reading the budget that the level of funding, the incremental increase is the same increase that has continued for an extended period of time before this government came to office. It is no actual extraordinary increase, it is the same increase. Now may be we cannot take issue with that but we can in one respect and that is that there were significant promises made by the Labor government with regards to additional funding to the Northern Territory University. One of those I believe, $28m over the term plus up to another $2m per year to specifically address social sciences and research, and another area that does not come to mind. I have to take issue at the fact that yes, there has been an increase but it is no significant increase extraordinary to the ongoing increase that has already been continued, to my reading, under the former CLP government.
I would like to draw attention to the commitment that was made by the Chief Minister at the graduation ceremony at the NTU of support for the university which is in desperate need of support. This does not seem to be substantiated by the tendering to the university. From my understanding that needs to be looked at. It does appear to be significantly down of Territory government agencies contracting their business, what ever they can, to the Northern Territory University. The commitment is not matched by the substance of it. There is a significant number of tenders being let interstate with other universities. I will be continuing with that one and watching with great interest.
NT Rural College has received its funding as it expected. But on the books and in the minister’s possession is a very genuine request for additional funding which is soundly substantiated. It needs genuine attention and sadly it is not reflected in the budget so it does appear the lack of its mention means that the need which is clearly articulated by the NT Rural College to service our growing pastoral industry has not been met. That will stay alive and I will make sure that that does not get forgotten.
There is a reference in the budget that says there is a $3.4m reallocated funding to the NTU. Celebrate - this funding has arrived! The concern is, in my reading of it - it may be just me – that when you have reallocated funding, the question is where was it reallocated from? I have concerns about the TAFE section at the NTU. If, in any way, this reallocation compromises the service delivery and the TAFE sector, I would like to know more about this. Of course, these inquiries will be pursued at a later stage.
Moving now to the VET and training section. I acknowledge, as anyone who has taken an interest in this area, it is an absolute critical area. I have mentioned before another critical area being early childhood. The VET and training section is also another very important one - challenging. I support the Year 9 program for the delivery of VET. However, I would have to say if we are serious about VET, we have to increase our resourcing and our strategic planning with regards to literacy and numeracy. It simply will be a good announcement and a good initiative that may deliver raised hopes but not deliver anything of substance if we do not seriously engage the pressure that is placed upon the schooling system when we raise hopes of kids getting some meaningful training, when there are problems with their literacy and numeracy. It is not addressed.
We have had the debate in here regarding the advisory board for NTETA. We need to get on with that and get it going and make sure that the views of industry are very strongly represented in the formation of that advisory committee. My understanding is that committee has not been formed yet. Because it is complicated and a very difficult area, it needs to be under way as quickly as possible. Is it finished?
Dr Toyne: Looks like it to me.
Mr MILLS: No, a bit more to go.
Dr Toyne: No, that’s it.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Do not speak from the door, thank you.
Dr Lim: He has four minutes yet.
Madam SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, I move an extension of time such that the member for Blain may complete his remarks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr MILLS: Madam Speaker, I do not have much more. Turning to sport and recreation. Other than to make reference to that which was raised this morning, the issues with soccer will continue, so we want to go further with issues related to the developing of a strategic plan for the satisfaction of the soccer community in the Northern Territory.
Going now to the Office of Youth Affairs. I have a concern, once again, with the issue of the budget papers and being able to get a responsible response in my own mind so that I can actually ascertain where we are at with the Office of Youth Affairs. When we have an amalgamation of agencies into one, it makes it very difficult to compare how the Office of Youth Affairs is going when it is now in a changed arrangement. It is now in the Community Engagement Division. It is very difficult for anyone to know whether appropriate funding is being delivered to the Office of Youth Affairs. Whilst I am more than ambivalent with the Big Day Out and I recognise the need of that, I have to say that is an iconic figure that is going around the contemporary youth landscape in other states. I would like to make sure that we can accentuate the depths of young musical talent in the Northern Territory to a high degree and make sure that perhaps rather than copying something that is a bit trendy in other states, we could spend the same amount of money to amplify the quality and the talent that we have here right across the Northern Territory.
I am interested in this trial youth activity. It seems a bit of a vague title with $310 000 attached to it, which will be trialled in Nightcliff and Borroloola. I am just saying it seems a vague sort of concept, a range of activities, it is a bit loose. I will have a look at that, and I am looking forward to learning more about that.
Turning now to issues related to my electorate, in closing. The indoor recreation facility is one of serious concern in our community. It will remain alive as an issue. It was a commitment. There is no reference to it at all in the budget papers and it is a matter that does need to be kept before the mind of government, not because it is a want of the community just for the sake of having something. The Palmerston community has expanded immeasurably in population, and to address some of our social issues, we seriously need a facility of this kind, which was a commitment. I understand there was $500 000 committed in the previous government’s budget to committing this project to the planning and design list. That seems also to have dropped off. To propose that we are going to consult the community see what they want, to me is just a time stalling mechanism.
With regards to the boat ramp and the security facilities there, rather than respond to a member who raised this issue before, the issue is that we are developing it as a concept with regards to a specific offer to apply for funding. The research that is being undertaken is research to reinforce proposals from the Palmerston City Council that are already before the minister. The Palmerston community is a cohesive community and we are not running into each other. In fact, it is a comprehensive need of the Palmerston community and the contribution that we make as a Palmerston Crime Forum is an offer of support to the wider community. It is in that context that the Palmerston boat ramp proposal sits. Further to that, I am aware of the difficulties attached to actually delivering a solution, and for that reason, we need to soundly discuss and understand the obstacles that are in their way, such as native title, which I am not going to go out and raise the hopes of people and make grand announcements. I want to make sure that we walk this one through properly and we will find a way of delivering it.
There are a number of other issues that I would like to raise, but I thank honourable members for their forebearance for the additional time and with those few words I conclude by speech.
Mr Kiely: Talk about your public housing!
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, you have had your turn.
Mr Kiely interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, did you hear me? You have had your turn.
Mr McADAM (Barkly): Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Labor’s historic first budget. It is historic and it is not just for that reason, but for the fact that for the first time in about 13 years, the seat of Barkly is on the radar of government. For the first time, the electors of Barkly are no longer being punished or treated with contempt for living in a remote region. It is summed up best of all by the commitment of the Martin Labor government as demonstrated in this budget towards health, education, community safety and infrastructure. It is a budget that lays the foundations for a Northern Territory that is more equitable within a framework of firm, physical responsibility. It is a budget that is moving us surely to wiping out the deficit which the previous government burdened us with.
In many ways, the seat of Barkly represents the many strengths of the Northern Territory. In many ways the seat evidences our problems and our weaknesses. We have vibrant communities in the Barkly. We are young, nearly half under the age of 25. We have rich cultural heritages. Just over half the population is indigenous, and one in six in the electorate was born overseas. Over one third of my constituents speak a language other than English. However, the economy of the region is poorly developed, as is its infrastructure, especially in remote parts of the seat. Health and education standards are very low, amongst the poorest in the Northern Territory as research by the Commonwealth Grants Commission has revealed.
The fact that the region is so poorly developed is an indictment of past neglect by the previous government whose sights rarely rose beyond the Berrimah Line, let alone Tennant Creek and the gulf regions, and it is for this reason that I welcome the following key areas of the budget. In health and community services the budget has allocated more than $17.5m for the Barkly. The key initiative in this appropriation, which fulfils a major election promise by Labor, is the establishment and recurrent funding of kidney dialysis facilities at the Tennant Creek Hospital.
End stage renal disease is having a disasterous impact on the Northern Territory, especially amongst indigenous people. Dialysis is not the solution to the multiple causes of kidney disease, but it extends the lives of people who suffer such illnesses and, for some fortunate people, buys time until a transplant becomes available. The provision of dialysis facilities in Tennant Creek will mean a significant number of Barkly constituents will now be able to be treated closer to their family and their country. I place on record the hard work and commitment by Ruby Frank, Mark Raymond, Dr Helen Carney and Dr Adam Randall who performed such an important role in bringing this initiative to fruition. A special thanks on this occasion to the minister for Health for her commitment.
I am happy to inform the House that on Monday this week, three Barkly residents have been able to return to Tennant Creek from Alice Springs for treatment. It is hoped that most of the other 17 Barkly residents still in Alice Springs will be able to come back home fairly soon. I was pleased to hear …
Mr Dunham: A 20-place facility, eh?
Dr Toyne: Yes.
Mr McADAM: I would not be saying to much about renal dialysis in the Barkly and interjections such as that deserve the contempt with which you treated people in the Barkly over the last few years.
Mr Dunham: No, I just wanted to know. A 20-place facility.
Mr McADAM: I can recall on many occasions in this House the previous member, Maggie Hickey, getting up and speaking strongly in respect to this particular need.
Mr Dunham: Yes, slandering me. I remember that, too.
Mr McADAM: I can also recall you, equally on many occasions, getting up in this House, and going to Tennant Creek on more than one occasion and making it very clear that your commitment was never ever going to be made. You often referred to the fact that you were waiting on other reports.
Mr Dunham: That is actually a lie, Elliot.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr McADAM: You simply treated the people of the Barkly with absolute contempt.
Mr Dunham: That is not true, mate.
Mr McADAM: It is absolutely true. If I were you, I would not be talking too much in respect of the renal dialysis unit. It is to your eternal shame, you and your CLP mates, you will go down in history as being the meanest, stingiest ...
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Barkly, talk to me. Member for Drysdale, no more interjections. It is getting too personal here.
Mr McADAM: As I was saying, Madam Speaker, there will probably be in excess of 17 Barkly residents returning home from Alice Springs in the very near future. As you can imagine, this will be of enormous psychological and physical benefit to the people who have been afflicted with renal disease, and I commend the government in keeping this promise to the people of the Barkly.
I also pay tribute to previous member for the Barkly, Maggie Hickey, who fought so very hard for this. I feel very proud to stand in this House today and to be part of a team that has fought so very hard for this. Again, a special tribute to Maggie Hickey for her hard work.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr McADAM: In the field of education and training, the budget has allocated $10.5m. This includes $3.2m to the Tennant Creek High School as well as over $5m to early childhood, primary and post-education in Tennant Creek and the 10 bush schools in my electorate.
The vote for community safety in the region is nearly $10m as well as over $0.5m in upgrades of Tennant Creek and Avon Downs Police Stations. I am pleased to see that $250 000 has been made available for juvenile diversionary programs. In addition, $90 000 will be allocated to the Community Justice Program which includes the Barkly community at Ali Curung. This program at Ali Curung is world class and I pay tribute to all the members of the community over the time we spent so hard in developing this excellent initiative, especially to Marjorie Limbiari and Gwen Brown.
There is $310 000 to be shared between Borroloola and Nightcliff in respect to trial youth activity programs. I can assure the member for Blain that those dollars will be most welcome. Certainly on the part of Borroloola there will be some very innovative programs for young people who live in that community. It is something that has been awaited for so long, and again, it is indicative of this government’s commitment to young people not only in Borroloola but in Nightcliff and indeed throughout other parts of the Northern Territory.
Labor’s commitment to capital works has not been limited to the big centres unlike the CLP in the past. My seat gets its share as well. The most striking commitment is $1.5m for the completion of the Nyinkka Nyunyu Indigenous Cultural Centre in Tennant Creek. This cultural centre, a local indigenous initiative, has a widespread community and tourism industry support and will be of continuing benefit in diversifying a local economy and value-added income to the people of the region.
It is to the enduring shame of the previous CLP governments that their support to indigenous culture was so pitiful. It remains exactly the same in opposition. Indeed, as the minister representing the Chief Minister on indigenous affairs pointed out in this place two days ago, the Northern Territory does not even have an indigenous arts policy or strategy. Never under the previous government. Despite its critical importance to the economy in general, how often have we heard the member for Katherine sprout around the countryside the importance of indigenous tourism to the local economy. I am heartened by the Chief Minister’s commitment that she gave at Garma and in the budget papers to rectify this shortcoming by this time next year.
Other capital works in the budget for the Barkly include $300 000 for stage 1 of lining the main drain in Tennant Creek. $450 000 to upgrade power generation facilities at Canteen Creek. $160 000 to construct new ground level water storage at Epenarra. $1m for upgrading beef roads comprising $500 000 for selected gravelling along the Barkly stock route - that is from Elliott to Anthony’s Lagoon - and also $500 000 for selected gravelling along the Calvert Road. I assure this government that this initiative is much welcomed by the pastoral industry and again it is something which shows our commitment and our support to the bush. I can recall saying in this House in my maiden speech that the push for the bush is on. I just think this is indicative and further highlights the neglect by the CLP in this particular area in respect to the pastoral industry. I am sure it is going to be most welcome.
The key to the future sustainability of the Northern Territory economy is in regional development. I am happy to report three key initiatives in this area for the future regional development in the Barkly. First, the government has given further commitment to the Barkly Blueprint in allocating funding for a senior officer to work on its implementation. I note that the actual position was advertised about two weeks ago in the NT News and I am expecting the appointment of that person very shortly. Secondly, the government is funding an indigenous fishing consultative committee to facilitate indigenous input into fisheries management and involvement in the fishing industry. This is of particular importance to people in the Gulf communities in my region, in the Borroloola region, and complements the already funded Indigenous Fishing Officers Program in my region.
Third, the government is allocating over $2.5m providing research and advisory services to develop mining and horticultural activities in the region. This includes $630 000 for industry business training and research in the cattle, pastoral and horticultural industries; and $1.2m, including $720 000 of new spending, for geoscientific data for the mining industry. The latter will be critical in extending geological knowledge outside the current Tennant Creek goldfields.
In addition, $320 000 will be made available to the Tennant Creek Regional Tourist Association. This will assist in local and intra-Territory marketing, and representation at consumer trade shows, as well as broader benefit through Territory-wide tourism initiatives.
The detail that I have been giving the House tells only part of the story of government support for the Tennant Creek region. We will also benefit from broader government programs, and of particular interest I note the following: the Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women, for which a total of $56 000 will be made available this year; very importantly, and very critically, over $1m will be made available on continuing work in the field of family violence and sexual assault; and we will share in 370 VET in School initiative programs, which will provide for remote area students gaining practical work skills across 16 industry areas while continuing general education. I am confident that the memorandum of understanding between the Borroloola Community Education Centre and McArthur River Mining, which provides school to work pathways, will benefit considerably from the VET in Schools program. Linked with this is the training for remote youth, which will further focus on getting our young people into the work force. This program, aimed at 14 to 19 year olds, is being funded to the extent of $1m.
The Chief Minister’s Seniors Advisory Council will provide direct input from our older citizens to policy development for seniors in the Northern Territory. I am absolutely certain that this will provide a bigger focus in respect to the needs of senior citizens who live in Tennant Creek or, in fact, live in the remote bush communities of the Northern Territory. It is a very important initiative.
The Office of Crime Prevention has been a major initiative of the Labor government, and was a promise to the people of the Territory a year ago. $2.05m has been set aside for this purpose in the next year. Of particular interest is the proposal to allow the establishment of regional crime prevention councils to encourage local solutions to local problems. I pay tribute to the community in Tennant Creek which actually commenced this exercise in January this year - the first of its kind in the Northern Territory - and I hope that it will go on to bigger and better things. I am certain that it will.
There is an old saying that politics is the art of the possible. In the past, the political processes gave very little to the people of the Barkly electorate. For them, the political process was a wasteland of lost hopes and opportunities. The election of a Labor government a year ago has made things possible for the people of the Barkly, and perhaps, in a little way, this budget is proof of that.
In conclusion, I applaud the Chief Minister and Treasurer for a fair and equitable budget; an inclusive budget; a budget that has been well received by industry, small business and big business, unions and the people of the Northern Territory. I commend the budget to this House.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about $900m. My shadow portfolios cover Health and Community Services and the Power and Water Corporation who between them spend $100m short of $1bn. It is a very important debate, therefore, to talk about these issues because, in the end, you have to remember that these funds are derived from taxpayers, and we have been elected here to allocate those monies for the best benefit of Territorians, and for orderly and good government in this place.
Therefore, as yet another opposition member, I am totally unapologetic about the necessity to provide a magnifying glass on some of these numbers. The numbers are very difficult to follow. Various commentators throw the jibe, ‘Well, that’s all accrual accounting’, and you must be somehow ignorant if you do not understand it. I think there has been a lot of cruel accounting here, and I will spell that for the benefit of Hansard, that’s cruel – C-R-U-E-L accounting. And the reason it is cruel accounting is that there is some sinister attempt, I believe, here, to merge two budgets in one, as admitted by the Chief Minister, spray figures all over the place, make it very difficult for the basis of comparability, and then run some lines out about a variety of increases that are difficult to prove and sustain. Going through these budget papers, I will attempt on every occasion to use figures derived solely from the budget papers, or on some occasions, the mini-budget.
I will state from the outset, also, that I am disappointed that all six ministers have spoken, with the exception of one, that being the minister being responsible for the Power and Water Corporation some $380m worth of money, and I would have hoped, that in the normal traditions of this House, that the ministers would have paraded out the good news and been very proud to talk about what their portfolios were doing. It is with some disappointment that the minister has chosen to leave his delivery until after I have spoken. Nonetheless, I am duty bound to speak on that particular area and I will do so later.
Starting with health and community services and to an issue that particularly concerns me. That is the issue of funding to the non-government sector. A question was asked of the minister about this, and a very evasive answer was given, but I will portray it in Hansard for all to see and I will be talking to the non-government sector about it. I was interested that the minister said that she had received plaudits from a number of commentators, including Jane Alley, the executive director of the Territory Council of Social Services, who said, and I quote from Hansard of Wednesday 21 August:
- This is a really positive budget for us. It shows a real commitment by the Northern Territory
government to reinvesting in what was previously a neglected area.
I guess one can strip away the political rhetoric and understand that there is some proximity between some of these commentators and the current government. But let’s look at a raw analysis of that, and in doing so, we should go to the mini-budget, which are the current government’s figures, and we should look at how much went to the non-government sector. We can do that pretty simply by going to the mini-budget, Budget Paper No 2 at page 108, and we can see the gross outlays and receipts for the Department of Health and Community Services. Grants and subsidies are down at $83.959m, that is a substantial amount of money - $84m. Whole departments sometimes run on that sort of money, so it is quite an incredible amount of money, $84m. But let’s look at what that money does. It provides funding for St John Ambulance, for Guide Dogs for the Blind, for the Carer’s Society, indeed, Jane Alley’s salary in fact comes out of that money. It is very important money in the health sector because this is the money that is used, generally in a preventative way, and in a way that keeps people out of the acute sector. So it is money well spent - $84m.
When we go to the budget papers that describe how the health minister is going to spend her money, we find that we cannot actually put a figure on that. We find that it is a very difficult figure to understand because it does not occur in any of the tabulations and when you go to the various sections, it only occurs in one - community health services, it is down there at $16.8m, $17m. We know that is not the whole figure, because it could not possibly have gone from $84m down to $17m, so I was very pleased to read that the NT News had a news breaker. They told us only a day or so ago that it was to be $64m. Alarm bells started ringing on the basis that $64m is $20m less than $84m and I would have assumed that had Jane Alley been made aware of those figures it would have been an issue of concern for her also. When I queried the NT News about where they got the figure, they got it from a press release. So the health minister is actually on the record saying that the non-government sector will receive $64m for this financial year, down $20m.
I rang the Council of Social Services and I asked whether they could provide me with documents that substantiated this audit trail, to show that they had been doing very well, and they could not do that. They had some oral undertakings from some departmental officers, that they would be treated well in the budget, and they had also provided some papers to the minister, copies of which I have, that show they required an extra 11% - that is 6.3% for accumulated deficits and another 5.8% for CPI and other predicted cost increases. So they believe 11% is necessary for them to tread water, and they have a $20m cut.
The question I would ask, having derived all of these figures from the minister’s media release, the minister’s budget papers and the mini-budget papers, is: please tell me I am wrong. Please tell me. I do not mind even if you use the normal rhetoric and call me an ignoramus and all that sort of stuff, but I cannot understand how cash - and forget the accrual accounting business - how cash left, $84m worth of it last year, and the minister is proudly pronouncing that $64m will go out this year, and she has a big tick of approval from organisations that believe the $84m was deficient by 11%. I need to see those figures sustained in some way. It would give some comfort to the sector. The sector is already doing it tough, and I suspect the minister knows all this stuff. What I want her to do is the reconciliation statement for me.
Nursing: it is interesting that the health minister has talked long about nursing and the wonderful things they are going to do. She has talked about the monies that are going into nursing, but there are a couple of things she has been very evasive on. First, the promise for nursing occurs in the Labor Financial Statement, fully audited and all that stuff. It occurs under a heading called ‘hospitals’. So one would assume we are talking about hospital nurses in the first place, but in any event, the descriptor of it leaves no doubt: ‘increase the number of hospital nurses by 75 over the next two years’ and in this year we need $8.4m in the budget. I note the sum of $8m in there, but let’s not quibble about the $0.5m. Let’s say $8m is a reasonable amount of money for them to attract these nurses and keep them in the system.
Now, there are a couple little frauds that have been perpetrated on nurses here. First is, when we really backed the minister into a corner where she had to answer this question, that took some months I might tell you, we found that the nurses that have been employed thus far are not hospital nurses. Neither can we be assured that the nurses that will be there to relieve the work burden on hospital nurses will occur this year. Neither can we be assured that those positions will actually be filled. I point the minister to the various pronouncements in these budget papers about outcome based budget. So what we are doing is budgeting for outcomes. It is not sufficient to come to this parliament and say we are going to employ 20 nurses and here is the money. There is my bona fides, I will put the money in.
What we want to see, is the actual outcome. We would like to see the nurses. We would like to know where they are working. We would like to know where they are going in terms of services. The old style of debate where you said we are going to buy a bus and I have $2m for a bus, we want to see the bus. You are putting this money into the budget, you have come to this parliament to ask us to approve it, and we would like to see the outcome of that money. We think that is an entirely reasonable thing to do given that various of your pronouncements about issues in public finance talk about working for outcomes. The minister may like to look that up, it is in budget paper no.6, and it talks about how the focus has got to be on outputs and performance, clearly defining links between outcomes and outputs and provision of full cost information for outputs.
So the promise about additional nurses, we do not want to see the appropriation. For all I know the appropriation could be $10bn because we know full well that there are vacancies there and this money will never be called on. This is a trick. So if the money is sitting there and if there are no nurses employed against it, it can be deployed elsewhere on the basis of good sound economic frugality. I suggest it is there because it looks good in the budget. We do not want to see the line in the budget; we want to see the nurses on the floor, in the wards. The minister is on notice that we will be following that and we will be following through estimates, and we expect you to give us some fulsome answers about it.
The youth night patrol has been talked about a lot and we are yet to see how this thing is to be designed. There is various rhetoric in there about people being consulted. I would suggest the community should be consulted. I would particularly like to know how it is that the young people on the streets at night being neglected are going to be taken to some other place. I would particularly like to know whether that is within current laws and therefore the operational procedures, or whether there is a need to amend our statutory base to allow these children to be deported to another place.
It is pleasing to see the hospice there. I must say though as somebody who has visited several of them like my colleague, the member for Port Darwin, it is not just a matter of saying, ‘We want to buy a hospice, you open the bottom draw, you get the plans out, you build a hospice’. The critical element in a hospice is the people. The critical element is the managerial regime and the funding; it is the resources. A hospice otherwise is just a building. And a building is a building is a building. There are many hospices in buildings that have been adapted from something else. What we want to see is the recurrent. And the recurrent in Labor’s financial statement was totally absent. It was not there. Why wasn’t it there? Why was it a zero? Because Percy Allan and others believed that it could be funded from the 75 nursing positions. Now, we already know some things. We know that the nursing positions are for the hospital. The reason you have a hospice is that you do not want a hospital-based service. So, that is a little bit of pea and thimble trick. But we would like to see the recurrent costs for a 12-bed hospice, and construction costs. Engineers, project coordinators, quantity estimators and people like that can procure this information. We want to see how it is going to operate and we want the minister to tell us about that in terms of recurrent.
It is interesting also that a variety of health pronouncements were made in this fully costed financial statement. Some of them seem to have fallen off. I note that oncology is one of them that I can’t now see in the budget papers. It was intended originally that the new oncology unit at Royal Darwin Hospital would have some $2m against it in this financial year and I am yet to see that. I would appreciate some advice on where that one is going as well.
It is now evident to us that the staged work on Royal Darwin Hospital that was committed by this government for stages 1 and 2 will come to an end after that. It is now evident that the further stages will not be progressed by this government. So all the boasting they are doing you have to remember is about the works that we put in process and as soon as they could get out of there with their money in their pocket, they did it. It is a great disappointment that that whole project which was packaged up over a number of stages is coming to an end as soon as the commitments finish. And they were commitments that were made by us. That is a great pity because the potential for that campus to be revamped into a hospital that will take us well into the future will be lost to some extent. It will be difficult to get those contractors back on site and the gap between the works program and bringing other people in who do not have the same familiarity with the campus will mean there is a period of some years before it gets kick started again. I would suspect in the next term of the next government.
I noted also that in the annual report signed off by the minister, the Alice Springs private wing disappeared completely. She then made various pronouncements to the press and then had a consultant saying that it was entirely a do-able proposition and they were working on it. We would like to know about the private hospital in Alice Springs and we will be seeking detail on that during estimates including the costs, the sorts of contenders that may be in there, and the benefit to the people of Alice Springs.
$7m is unallocated in this budget. It is unallocated on the basis that we do not really know what we are doing yet. We have a review that is going to tell us, and when they tell us we might need some cash up our sleeve. That is a pretty interesting way of doing business. In my day, that was a thing called Treasurer’s Advance where if you could not absolutely demonstrate a need, if you could not absolutely demonstrate how you were going to spend that money, you did not get that sort of petty cash, you did not get that sort of unders and overs tin. To have $7m afloat in the department for a rainy day, just in case a review comes in and says you need some more cash, goes to the very managerial style of this whole portfolio area. It is beyond belief that they would have a little cache of money sitting there, just in case it needs to be called on.
I was pleased that we have some more detail on the Tennant Creek renal facility. Apparently, at least 20 persons will be using it, according to the member for Barkly. We have heard some pronouncements on this. I flag that this is a matter that we will also be talking about in Estimates Committee because there are a variety of funding options that are available to the government, and we would like to know how they have been addressed. We would also like to know how they have addressed the significant element of risk attached with a satellite service so far from a major centre.
In her contribution last night, the minister made a variety of statements that are strange, but maybe that is the advice she is getting. I was interested that she has some statutory child abuse workers who have aims of stopping abuse recurring or even commencing. While that would be everybody’s aim - to have people out there with a statutory authority to intervene in a child abuse case before it occurred - I would have thought that was more an educative or community-based role, rather than a statutory role. I would be interested to know how that particular program will occur.
She talked about the degraded state of many health centres: ‘… fixing the problem will be neither cheap nor quick’. We would like the work program. I know that previous health ministers, before I came, upgraded and put significant work into new clinics across, possibly, a dozen communities. It was a fairly large program. While I recognise that some of the clinics were fairly old, they were certainly functional, and they were able to provide the service for which they were intended. Milikapiti springs to mind. It is included in this budget because it is 32 years old, and is described as, I think, not derelict, but some other word which conjures up a state of – I cannot put my hand on it at the moment. Okay, the Milikapiti clinic is in there. The Milikapiti clinic may well be old – so, too, is the clinic at Angurugu. It was upgraded and is a great clinic. It is better than a purpose-built one that you can plonk on the site; it is in the right spot in the community. I suggest that even though the Milikapiti clinic is being upgraded, it is a clinic that saw the edge of a category 5 cyclone, had substantial remediation works done on it and upgrade works, it is still a functional building. I, for one, would be very surprised to go out there and find it being demolished and not put to some further use. While it is an easy thing to say we are putting more money in there, I do not think you should look over your shoulder and criticise necessarily what has happened in the past.
The duress alarms in accident and emergency rooms, reception areas and clinic rooms of health centres are a good idea. The question I would put to the minister is one I have now put to her twice: what is on the other end of the duress alarm? If you are at Umbakumba, Ramingining - she mentioned she did a visit to Ramingining and had a look - and a variety of other communities, I would like to know where the bell rings. After the nurse has actually put the finger down, pushed the button, who comes running? In those two communities I mentioned, there is no police presence. I am pleased that she is going out and talking to people, I am pleased that she is trying to get a protocol going and talking to senior representatives and all that, but it is no good having an alarm bell that rings an alarm in an empty room. This is a very significant issue for the department.
I flag we will be querying issues relating to assaults on nurses. We will be querying issues relating to nurses exiting the Northern Territory. We are doing that because this is a cost. Recruiting additional nurses is a big cost. In fact, so confident was the Labor government that they would be able to retain nurses, that they have actually taken out $0.25m out a year - $1m over the term - to say: ‘We will save this money. We know that this money is going to be sitting there because we are going to have a lot more people staying here than ever did before’. Well, we want to know about that. We want to know about all the retention figures and we want to know whether that $0.25m for last year and this year will be realised. In other words, have they been able to secure many more long term employees, and thus recruit much less. I suspect that they might have some problems with that.
Another comment that does infuriate me to some extent is the minister’s comment that, ‘Before we came to government, community confidence in our hospital was being eroded’. Yes it was, by the member for Wanguri, who was the shadow Health spokesman, who ran a number of henny penny lines. He ran lines that Y2K would leave us debilitated. He ran lines that pregnant women would have to go south to deliver their babies. He ran various lines. He told a visiting Senate committee that nobody went to A&E because it was not a place that they would like to go. I note the minister has in here how many thousands actually go through the place, 20 000 I think, with 10 000 admissions per annum. Those lines are very disappointing because he sought to score a cheap political trick by running the line that because the hospital was so bad, in his view, therefore the government was doing a bad job. When you have a monopoly service like a hospital, that is an essential service that many of us depend on, and, as I said, you do not have much choice but to go there, and it is incumbent on members not to run those lines that erode the confidence in our hospital.
I have gone out of my way to not only praise the hospital, but if there are criticisms of it, to see whether they can be substantiated and do something about it. We have, on this side, tried to improve that campus. It is entirely evident to everybody how we have improved it, including the private hospital sitting in the forecourt. The Northern Territory government since self-government has done an enormous amount on that campus, and it is work that we are proud of. There is great confidence in our hospital. We think some of the commentators who have the capacity to be opinion formers and opinion makers like, for instance, a politician with shadow health responsibilities, should be careful about eroding this confidence. I suggest that the current minister, the member for Nightcliff, look to her immediate right if she wants to know why some of that confidence was sagging.
I have talked about the Youth Night Patrol at $320 000. I note that it is going to be articulated with some safety houses. The youth program in Nightcliff. And NT government agencies – I would plead for the minister to please give us some form of discussion paper, options paper, broad outline, whatever she wants to call it - not a mini-statement, I hope, because they are too short - but certainly give members of this parliament some detail on this. It seemed to be in the province of the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General and rightly has now returned to her. I would like to know exactly what the thing is.
The minister parroted pretty much her press release about the not-for-profits, but again, she talks about it being $64m, when in the mini-budget it was $84m. I would like to know how those maths occurred. Interestingly, when the minister talks about drugs, the big drug of the day that is so consuming the energies of the Attorney-General, and that is, illicit drugs, gets about a sentence. She says, ‘We are a responsible government; in many ways we have already commenced on this responsive budget. ‘The Treasurer yesterday announced already $0.5m has been allocated as our initial response to recommendations of the Illicit Drug Task Force’. Dare I say, she is treating this as a minuscule issue, because if it is as important as the Attorney-General would have us believe, certainly it should get as much funding as, for instance, those wussy little drugs like alcohol.
But, as we all know, this is chasing shadows to a large degree. Everybody knows that grog is the biggest offender up here in terms of our presentations to hospitals, people being incarcerated, people coming in contact with the police, judiciary and magistracy, and the trauma that is so offensive to the Minister for Central Australia when he described the Alice Springs Hospital as a war zone. I am sure what he was talking about was people with trauma inflicted by other human beings coming into that hospital. That ain’t smack, that ain’t amphetamines. That is grog. And we should get a bit of reality into this debate about how you are going to clean up all the crime by sooling the Attorney-General on to it. I look forward to a more rational debate on this matter and to the health minister, who has fairly heavy carriage on this matter, telling us why it gets a paltry $500 000 compared to some of the many millions of dollars for other drugs issues.
She talks about undergrounding of power and claims that this has been promised since Cyclone Tracy but never delivered. A couple of comments. I lived in Nightcliff before her. In fact, I was there for Cyclone Tracy. This was not something that was promised and had it been promised, it would have been promised by a Commonwealth government, Cyclone Tracy being circa 1974, self-government being circa 1978. I do recall that what people said at the time was that our head works in future should incorporate underground power for reasons of high winds and aesthetics. It was seen as something you would put in at the start of a subdivision rather than go through and replace the power.
Several times people have talked about this particular promise, and I would challenge her to, other than various anecdotes from old timers around the place, show me where it ever appeared in the newspaper or in a CLP policy document before an election. The promise, we know, is $80m which is starting to get pretty close to a black hole. I mean, if a black hole is $107m, $80m is starting to get right up there. If you look at the photos, you can see there is the hole going all the way around Nightcliff. So we have found our black hole. We have found $80m to dig a hole in Nightcliff. We are now going to justify why it is in place. Initially, the justification is that we have these terrible outages in Nightcliff.
Mr Henderson: Yes.
Mr DUNHAM: Yes! This is the minister who produced, as an opposition member, ‘Footy fans furious at Brownlow blackout’. I did English Literature and I was impressed with not only the alliteration but the onomatopoeia because that sort of headline really is grabbing. He was talking about the lovely Leanyer where I live. We had a lot of power blackouts with our underground power. Shock, horror! It is a bit trite just to say, ‘Well, the driving factor is outages’ because when we get to budget estimates, we are going to ask for a break-up of the system average outage duration, we are going for ask for a break-up of that and I think that Katherine might be right up there with getting their power undergrounded. If that is the main factor, let’s have a look and let’s do an analysis.
I am starting to get close to the issue of PowerWater mostly because it has been brought up by the health minister, but also because it is one of my shadow portfolios. There are several issues of significance. The first is, I am disappointed to speaking before the minister because I would have liked the opportunity to speak after him, and that is basically because there is still some great confusion about how this matter will be dealt with. We are talking about $380m. We know, for instance, that the matters relating to power have a big impact on business - tourism business, mining business, all sorts of business, power has an impact on it. We know that PowerWater has predicted that the economy will go into decline next year, and we would like to know whether that has been factored into other …
Mr Kiely: Oh, come on!
Mr DUNHAM: This is an independent organisation, and they have produced figures for us that show that there will be a decline in the economy next year. It is fairly evident. For instance, they expect revenue of this year’s target, $383m to drop to $374m, $9m. That might not seem much, but there are only two ways that can happen. First, PowerWater could drop its tariffs.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, your time has expired.
Ms CARTER: Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the member to be granted an extension of time such that he may complete his remarks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr DUNHAM: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. So the first possibility we have with this accrual accounting is perhaps next year they are going to reduce tariffs across some particular area. Now we know that not to be the case by all that we have heard so far including the whopping 7.5% increase for water and sewerage over this year. If that is not what is going to happen, what is going to happen is people will consume less. Unless you want to live in the long grass or in a cave eating your meat raw in the dark, you need power and you need water. If they are going to drop $9m worth of revenue, we would like to know how that is to occur.
I am very interested. There is a third scenario which is posed and the third scenario is that they will lose customer base. That is a pretty good scenario. The question for us is, how do we know that? And how do we ask the minister and how do we interrogate? We do it through this parliament and we do it through the estimates. I was a very disappointed shadow minister to hear last week that somehow our capacity to look at this $380m would be fettered. And the excuse was, ‘Sorry, it is a government owned corporation. You can’t go there’.
There are a couple of things against that. The first is, I was told by the Chief Executive Officer that he was preparing himself for budget estimates. That he was preparing himself so he was in readiness and quite prepared to divulge those things. As I said in a previous debate, we were quite happy to have a gentleman’s agreement that we would not go into those areas that erode their commercial-in-confidence status. So, it was interesting that we were told therefore that it was to be pulled out of the budget. The Chief Minister tried a little party trick this morning of saying, ‘Oh, the Leader of the Opposition has said that there is $1bn pulled out of the budget’. He never said any such thing. What he said was a $3bn budget previously is now $2bn because various elements adding up to $1bn have been removed from scrutiny, this being one of them. This is a significant issue for the Northern Territory. We must be allowed to look at the issues relating to the Power and Water Corporation.
The Chief Minister sees fit to talk about a variety of issues relating to the Power and Water Corporation in their budget in answers to dorothy dix questions. We should be given the same opportunity and latitude. We should be able to ask why it is so that, for instance, the community service obligations figure in the budget is wrong. This should be an issue of concern to commentators that the community service obligation in the budget is only a one line item. The one line is the uniform tariffs. For those who want to know more about it, there are papers here, but in summary, what we do is we provide Territorians the same price for electricity whether it is being generated at 0.80c a kilowatt hour or 0.10c a kilowatt hour. Everybody pays the same. Now to do that we provide community service obligations to them so that it recognises that there are some ups and some downs. It does not provide for political promises of the type like the pegging of electricity.
You would be well aware that the Under Treasurer told us that this particular promise is worth $50m. Indeed, Percy Allan admonished the government and said, ‘Please don’t do that. Please don’t use this as a political plaything. If you want to set up a government-owned corporation, you must fund them through your political promises’. So there is $50m that we know has been promised by this government, according to the Under Treasurer of the day. It does not appear in the community service obligations and I would like to know why that is so.
We also know that there is a works program because various members have stood up and talked about things that are going to be done. I am aware that some of that now sits with the Minister for Community Development in that Aboriginal essential services will run out of his program. So we know we can interrogate the Aboriginal essential services program. We know we can talk about the community service obligations because they are in this budget. We know we can talk about the profit line because it is in this budget. And we know we can talk about the yield to government. These are matters that we know that are in here.
What we would like to do is go beyond that. Most of us would like to know whether bat proofing the reticulation in the rural area is on the program. And if so, what year? We would like to know where these particular lines are. We would like to know about some of the issues that are in the statement of corporate intent relating to risk. We would like to know, for instance, with the power undergrounding, whether the priority suburbs are being treated in sequence; so if the sequence is to do with outages, whether there is any fudging on that. Whether some suburbs, per chance with a Labor member, are getting undergrounding power before other places per chance with a member from some other place, notwithstanding that the outages are greater in the latter case? These are things that should be subjected to the scrutiny of parliamentarians. I do not think it goes anywhere near the commerciality of the Power and Water Corporation. In fact, it makes them more robust, as a government owned corporation, so they can withstand that sort of scrutiny and provide the answers for the public who inevitably are the taxpayers, and who fund them and are the shareholders.
We are most disappointed that that line in the sand has not been drawn. We do not know, on the eve of going to Estimates Committee, whether we will be able to interrogate all of these matters. We are making the assumption we can, because they are matters that do not go to the commercial erosion of this particular instrumentality. We are disappointed with the staged trick by the government of having the responsible minister speak so late in the debate - it is very unusual. We heard the Treasurer speak, and then we heard the Deputy Chief Minister speak, and then we saw the sequence come around the table in the hierarchy that these people have given themselves. We got all the way to the health minister who is second from the bottom, and when we got to the bottom chap, who happens to be the minister responsible for this area, he went missing.
We had a filibustering diatribe from a variety of the other backbenchers over there. In the end we did seek, through the Whip, to find out whether we would have the learned member speak tonight and, particularly, to enlighten Territorians about whether they are going to have a chance to have a look at where this $380m is going to go. Since every one of them is vitally interested, because they get a letter from him every quarter saying, ‘Give me money’. There is not a person in the Northern Territory who is not vitally interested in this. We were disappointed that he chose to take two days, and to be the last speaker in this debate, to put on one of the most significant issues …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the member no longer be heard.
Mr Kiely: Standing order 70, page 34. Certainly fits that guide line, Mr Deputy Speaker.
A member: You didn’t like it, did you? Gutless! How do you sleep?
Mr Kiely: Oh, it’s rubbish!
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Excuse me, talking to the point of order, standing order 70 refers to irrelevance or tedious repetition. Listening to the debates that have been going on today and yesterday, I do not believe there has been much difference ...
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I have a motion before the Chair; I moved that the member be no longer heard. This is not in reference to a standing order. We granted the member an extension of time to conclude his remarks on the budget. He has spent the last five minutes lambasting the minister for speaking last in the debate. It has nothing to do with the content of the budget. We need to get on with the business of the House, and I move that the member no longer be heard.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the member be no longer heard.
The Assembly divided:
- Ayes 13 Noes 9
Mrs Aagaard Mr Baldwin
Mr Ah Kit Mr Burke
Mr Bonson Ms Carney
Dr Burns Ms Carter
Mr Henderson Mr Dunham
Mr Kiely Mr Elferink
Ms Lawrie Dr Lim
Mr McAdam Mr Mills
Ms Martin Mr Reed
Ms Scrymgour
Mr Stirling
Dr Toyne
Mr Vatskalis
Motion agreed to.
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Those not wishing to stay, please leave the House. Order, order! There is too much arguing at the moment. Those who don’t want to stay for the rest of the debate, please leave the House. I am saying those who don’t want to stay, please leave so we can get on with an orderly debate.
The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure.
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Mr Deputy Speaker …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! Minister, can you wait for one minute. Order!
A member: A point of order …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I am not taking any points of order. I just want some quiet. Minister, you have the floor.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can the member for Macdonnell please withdraw that unparliamentary remark. We all heard it.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear. There is so much talk going on, I did not hear any specific insults or whatever. I am saying that the floor is the minister’s. Please continue.
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, once again.
As my colleagues have already stated, the 2002-03 budget delivered by the Chief Minister is an historic budget. It is an historic budget for two reasons. First, it is a budget that demonstrates the Labor approach to the Territory economy and second, this budget is the first instalment of a clear budget strategy that will deliver economic growth and fiscal responsibility over the next few years. As hard as they have tried to pick holes in it, they have not managed to pick any. Good effort, but useless.
The Labor commitment to the Territory economy is overwhelmingly clear in this budget. We are delivering a jobs budget, a budget that provides an increase in funds for health, a budget that provides more money for education, a budget that boosts crime prevention monies. We are doing that within the context of an improving budget bottom line and with fiscal restraint and honesty up front. No more fiddling of the books for ‘presentation purposes’ in the way our predecessors shamefully manipulated their budget in 2001-02.
In our first budget we are demonstrating to the people of the Territory our clear path of delivery on our election commitments made in 2001. In the context of that strategy, my first and foremost responsibility as Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, Essential Services, Ports and Ethnic Affairs is the delivery of infrastructure and services that grow our economic base and create a climate for private industry to grow and develop.
The Labor government has shown its commitment to boosting jobs and the economy by providing the largest ever cash location to a large capital works budget. Let me remind the House of what we inherited in capital works. The capital works cash was swallowed almost entirely by the revote on program. No flexibility remained in the system for capital works announcements to be followed within a reasonable period of time by the letting of contracts and eventually work to be started. Our strategy in this budget is to reduce that problem significantly and it will happen, but this might take more than one financial year.
In this budget, we begin the financial year with a revote of $157.4m. But next year, the revote will go down to $99m. That in itself is an extraordinary achievement, and it has been made possible by allocating $48m additional dollars to the previous year’s budget expenditure of $165.5m for capital works.
In total, the Northern Territory government will spend $332.9m actual cash this year on capital works, minor works, repairs and maintenance and program delivery. The total capital works program, including works which will be committed this financial year is $432m. In addition to that, Power and Water Corporation’s commercial arm will spend $38m in repair and maintenance and $42m in capital works. In total, in excess of $0.5bn. We have achieved these cash boost at a time of severe fiscal restraint caused by the large budget deficit that we inherited. It will immediately mean more jobs. In the long term, important infrastructure will be set into place that will benefit the development of our community as a whole.
The government’s work program, excluding Power and Water commercial, consists of the following:
revote works - $158m;
new capital works - $155m;
repairs and maintenance - $119m; and
total - $432m.
The cash expenditure comparison for the capital works program excluding repairs and maintenance and excluding Power and Water commercial, shows a significant increase. The estimate in 2002-03 is $213.7m. The actual expenditure on 2000-01 was only $144.7m, a major boost in cash compared to the previous administration.
Included in revoted works this year are major projects such as:
East Arm Wharf which is expected to cost a further $52m this year,
the completion of the redevelopment of the Royal Darwin Hospital is expected to be
completed by October and a further $14m will be spent over the next few months;
Wickham Point Road will consume $8m. I know that you don’t favour that one, but that is
money that we have to spend; and
works at Marrara such as the basketball stadium and the reconstruction of football park will cost over $4m.
Ensuring the focus of the capital works budget is spread beyond major works has also been another important strategy the government has implemented.
Minor works feeds the smaller businesses, the backbone of our economy. The government recognised this and last year provided additional money in this area over and above what the previous administration had placed in the 2001-02 budget. If we had not done that, many of these businesses would have gone bust. This year, minor works have been given priority with $29.1m allocated in program and actual cash, $24m, is going to be expended.
Repairs and maintenance expenditure remains constant. However, unlike previous years, this program has been matched with cash. No promises. Real money. $120m. In my own Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, over $112m will be spent on works carried over from 2001-02 in a new project including capital works, minor works and repairs and maintenance.
Over $60m of this amount will be spent on roads. This project with program amounts includes:
the national highways - Finke River Bridge, pavement rehabilitation, upgrading of
strength deficient bridges, $38m;
NT roads including the Central Arnhem Roads - Stuart Highway to Beswick; selected
upgrading and sealing of the Tanami; the Cox Peninsula Road, 7 km; the Fog Bay Road, 11 km;
Lajamanu to Tennant Creek via Warrego; and that will be $42m;
boat ramps - Dinah Beach and Buffalo Creek, $500 000;
Wickham Point Road water and power, $19m in total;
the creating of Lake Leanyer, $800 000; and
over $52m will be spent on the continuation of the East Arm Wharf.
- Other department initiatives:
the establishing of a coastal and marine strategy and the Darwin Harbour Plan of Management.
This is one of Labor’s election commitments and in line with this commitment $200 000 is allocated to develop the plan of management for the Darwin Harbour.
resolve native title land acquisition issues to free up land for development while giving Aboriginal
people a stake in the future.
The government is committed to working cooperatively with the business people and their representatives to resolve native title matters and provide Aboriginal people with opportunities to participate in the economic development and natural resource management of the Territory. The budget provides for the administrative structure required to progress negotiation.
In Alice Springs we have already begun working with a prescribed body corporate and their representatives to resolve native title issues. Economic land use is important in Alice Springs where Aboriginal people want to engage with the local economy through their native title interests. These will be achieved partly through land release where we have progressed the negotiation stage for release of land for development in Alice Springs by mid-2003. Negotiations are progressing steadily over native title matters in Tennant Creek and Darwin. $110 000 will strengthened relationship building opportunities that will help in progressing negotiations over park management and native title issues and yield economic benefits for Aboriginal people.
$40 000 will see traditional owners involved in Banteng research and management of the herd at Gurig National Park. $50 000 is allocated to revitalise the ethnobiology project. Aboriginal ranger groups will receive an additional $20 000 in support.
In Palmerston, $25 000 has been allocated for the release of land in Rosebery for residential development. This release follows successful negotiations on native title. The Larrakia Development Corporation is one of the developers.
delivery of better transport services, better public transport services, which I believe will
interest some of you greatly.
This government is absolutely committed to providing an effective, efficient, safe and a sustainable commercial passenger transport system. This year sees the commencement and continuation of a number of significant initiatives, specifically:
public transport services and systems are currently under review. This review will identify
areas of improvements to public bus service and amenities such as cleaning, lighting and timetables
in bus shelters in Alice Springs and the greater Darwin area. $300 000 is provided in this budget for
this enhancement to commence early in 2003;
to encourage safety on our roads, to reduce congestion and to minimise total transport greenhouse
emissions, an additional allocation of $50 000 is provided in this budget for gift travel. This will
enable people from Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area as well as visitors to more fully enjoy events
such as the V8 Supercars, the Darwin Cup and the New Year’s Eve activities; and
an allocation of $35 000 will see seven dual fuel buses operating by the end of 2002 as part of a program
to progressively convert the government bus fleet to operate on more greenhouse friendly fuels by 2012.
Funding has continued to ensure the provision of special and school transport services for urban bus services. In Alice Springs, a total of $660 000 will be spent on urban bus services, and a further $700 000 will be provided for special and school transport services. Nhulunbuy students will benefit from the allocation of $370 000 for school transport services. Students in the northern region will benefit from $10.5m for public bus services in the Darwin and Palmerston area, with a further $3.3m for school and special bus services. Students in the Katherine region will benefit from $970 000 allocated to school and special bus services.
cleaning up the planning process: completion of planning changes, new planning schemes
and new objectives.
This government is committed to providing an effective and transparent land use planning and development framework. Through a program allocation of $1.6m, the budget provides for the review of the Planning Act to enable the promised reform of the planning process. Already, preliminary work has commenced on this and, in the near future, consultation will commence with the community and key stakeholders.
It also provides for the important work of collapsing the many stand-alone planning documents into an integrated planning scheme for the whole Northern Territory. Resources are being allocated to the rolling out of new policy plans within the planning scheme. I have already delivered on Central Darwin, Southern Suburbs, Nightcliff and the Finniss region. I expect Litchfield to be completed by the end of 2002. Regional land use plans will be developed for Alice Springs, Ti Tree and the Daly basin during 2003.
building registration and indemnity insurance.
Through a program allocation of $1.23m, the government will meet its promise to reform the building approval process by amending the Building Act by mid-2003. The amendments will include a requirement for domestic builders to be registered and carry compulsory insurance for non-completion of dwellings.
Honourable members may remember an announcement by the Chief Minister, on 13 November 2001, of the government’s intention to establish an industrial land corporation, with responsibility to develop and manage the East Arm development area, including the Trade Development Zone and the proposed industrial estates on the Middle Arm Peninsula, and at Glyde Point. The government’s commitment to establish an industrial land corporation has been extended, and the corporation will also cover commercial and residential development. The Land Development Corporation’s activities are Territory-wide and its main aim is to develop and manage industrial, commercial and residential land. As members are aware, the industrial areas mentioned previously are the subject of interest from large industrial corporations, principally involved in gas-related industry, or rail and shipping activities. The service areas that connect these areas that will be used for roads, power, water, telecommunications, gas and its products, will also be managed by the land corporation.
The government made an undertaking in the economic development strategy to have the Land Development Corporation operational by June 2003.
I would now like to outline a number of areas that will receive additional funding cover. Some of this funding supports key government policy initiatives that come into operation in this financial year. A new Heritage Advisory Committee has been appointed, and tasked with reviewing the Heritage Conservation Act. An additional $80 000 is provided to undertake this review.
To properly fulfil the department’s enforcement obligations, a total of $375 000 will be spent during this financial year. Of this, $75 000 is provided for the appointment of an additional resource within the Office of the Environment and Heritage to monitor compliance with environmental management plans from major development projects like the railway and the gas. Enforcement of planning and building regulations is boosted by an additional $125 000. The appointment of an additional Transport Inspector will be possible with additional funding of $75 000. An additional $50 000 has been allocated to Bushfires Council to help enforce the Bushfires Act, which will reduce the incidence of wildfires and property damage. An additional $50 000 will be spent on management of weeds on Crown land.
The NT government is serious about protecting our bushland and our native fauna and flora for future generations. My department has developed a policy for the clearing of native vegetation to ensure that any clearing activities avoid land degradation, and the Territory’s natural resources are protected. $150 000 has been allocated to help in the implementation of the clearing policy, and associated assessment and regulatory activities.
I now turn to the Darwin Port Corporation. In conjunction with my department, the corporation continues to develop its commercial focus at East Arm. Stage 2 works relate to the construction of facilities to accommodate the Alice Springs to Darwin railway project and the relocation of the petroleum industry from the city to East Arm. A four hectare railway container terminal and 100 m berth extension are due to be completed in November 2003. The new bulk liquids berth is also due to be completed by November 2003. $975 000 will be spent reclaiming 6 hectares of land on which to construct the corporation’s Operations Centre, and a construction budget of $550 000 has been provided to build the centre. $375 000 will be spent over two years on corrosion protection for the Stokes Hill Wharf.
The corporation has and will continue to explore commercial opportunities associated with the potential for gas to come onshore to Darwin. Already significant increases in the number of oil rig tenders operating to the Laminaria and Bayu-Undan gas fields are being experienced. Subject to approval for gas in Darwin, significant project cargoes and ultimately LNG exports will be accommodated through the Port of Darwin. The corporation continues to plan to accommodate this potential in growth which will feature more prominently in future budgets. The corporation will also be undertaking further repairs and maintenance within the mooring basin and the Fishermen’s Wharf area to ensure a tidal free facility and safe haven for the fishing fleet of the Northern Territory.
The board of the corporation continues to prepare the corporation ready for transition to government-owned corporation status, which is targetted for 1 January 2003. GOC status will provide the framework for improved performance with the objective of performing at least as efficiently and comparable to business and maximising sustainable returns to the Northern Territory on its investments. A constitution and statement of corporate intent have been drafted and will be used in the final negotiation with the shareholding minister prior to approval to proceed to GOC status.
I will continue with the Power and Water Corporation, and I am very sorry that the shadow spokesperson for Power and Water is not here to listen to what I have to say. Honourable members will notice that Power and Water’s budget is not detailed in the budget papers. The lines you can see are the community service obligation payments that government will provide, and the dividend payment Power and Water is expected to make at the end of the financial year. This signals a new era for Power and Water where its activities will be reported under the requirements of the Government Owned Corporations legislation. The Treasurer has already tabled the Statement of Corporate Intent during the course of the sittings. As the Treasurer pointed out in more detail, this document will provide honourable members with more information about the organisation than they ever had before.
As portfolio minister, I would like to turn now to the specific initiatives Power and Water will undertake to improve their service delivery across the Territory. In keeping with this government’s election commitment, electricity tariffs will not increase this year. This means there has been a reduction in real terms for electricity tariffs of 7.6% over 10 years for domestic customers, and 22% over 10 years for commercial customers. Territorians are able to enjoy the savings due to the focus of the board and the staff of Power and Water on improving the efficiency of the business in all areas.
It is expected that staffing numbers will remain stable over the 12 months at approximately 660. In addition, acknowledging its status as one of the Territory’s largest employers, Power and Water will continue to commit to the employment of apprentices, graduates and trainees, expecting to provide training for approximately 46 persons this year.
Power and Water will invest $42m in capital in 2002-03. The investment program has been developed with careful consideration being given to system growth requirements and renewal of assets, all with a view to improving services.
Honourable members will be aware of the recent power supply reliability problems that have been experienced in some rural areas of Darwin. Many of the interruptions have been caused by wildlife. Power and Water will spend over $1m this financial year to repair deteriorated wooden cross arms and upgrade old pin insulators with post top insulators in Darwin rural areas and the regions. The longer post top insulators provide greater protection against both lightening and wildlife.
A second 66kV line from Hudson Creek to Berrimah zone substation will be constructed at a cost of $1.85m to improve the security of supply to the northern suburbs. The corporation will also invest $8.3m in the construction of an indoor substation on the Power and Water land adjacent to Harbour View Plaza. The existing CBD tunnel system will be extended along Bennett Street to the new substation, and new 11kV feeder cables will be installed to connect the new substation into the distribution feeder network.
This financial year, $2.5m will be spent to underground the high voltage feeder to Nightcliff and Rapid Creek, along Trower Road, and work will begin undergrounding powerlines in the suburb of Nightcliff at the beginning of next year’s dry season.
On the water side of the business, $400 000 is being spent to renew the water supply rising main at Copperfield Dam to enhance the reliability of the water supply to the residents of Pine Creek. In response to last year’s unfortunate incident where fluoride was spilled into the environment, $1.1m will be invested in the construction of a new fluoridation facility at Darwin River Dam, replacing the facility at McMinns Transfer Pumpstation. Relocation of the facility will reduce the likelihood of chemical spills within a populated region. In the order of $0.5m will be spent on the installation of a sewer connecting the eastern CBD area to the Frances Bay area.
Power and Water is absolutely committed to the development of alternative energy initiatives. To this end, $2.7m will be spent in a joint federal and Northern Territory renewable energy project using photovoltaic panels capable of delivering 220kW of electrical energy to the remote King’s Canyon tourist resort in Central Australia.
Expenditure on repairs and maintenance activities is budgeted at $38m. Key maintenance activities include:
a major overhaul of the generator, known as Set 8 in Alice Springs at $500 000;
a major overhaul of Set 2 at the Channel Island Power Station, $3.4m; and
Power Networks will spend over $14m undertaking planned maintenance on the electricity distribution system and responding to unavoidable power outages. This year, a program to replace high voltage bulk oil circuit breakers will commence. These will be replaced with modern vacuum technology which substantially reduces the risk of failure and fire, and the amount of maintenance work required.
Power and Water will continue to give priority to maintaining essential infrastructure, with $8.1m budgetted for maintenance of sewerage services and $5.9m for maintenance of water supply systems. $310 000 has been allocated for Stage 4 of the relining of the trunk sewer main north of The Gap in Alice Springs, and this will extend the life of the asset and reduce the potential for infiltration of water from the Town Basin aquifer which contributes to the volume of sewerage to be treated by the Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds. $1m has been allocated to continue the sewer relining program in Darwin’s older sewers.
Mr Deputy Speaker, honourable members, you will be aware that the role of coordination of funding of essential services to remote communities was transferred to the Department of Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs last year as part of the government mini-budget. Power and Water is now contracted as a service provider to that department. The Minister for Community Development will elaborate further on specific initiatives.
I now turn to Ethnic Affairs. The 2002-03 budget for Ethnic Affairs has increased by $257 000, 22%, to $1.4m. This is a significant increase in funds and shows the government’s commitment to enhancing and further developing our multicultural community. The 2002-03 Personnel budget allocation has increased by $24 000 to cover the cost of the Business Office Administration Apprentice, $13 000, and increases in superannuation and other personnel costs.
For 2003, the government, as per its election commitment, has increased funding by $250 000 to $697 000. This increase includes $150 000 for the new Cultural and Linguistic Awards category, another election commitment. In nominal terms, the Ethnic Affairs sponsorship program is the fourth largest ethnic community sponsored program of any state or territory government, and by a substantial margin, the largest and most generous in per capita terms.
Mr Deputy Speaker, as you can see, this budget is a budget for development. It is a budget for jobs. The past three years have been notoriously terrible for a lot of small business, and big businesses, and a lot of professionals in the Territory. We lost many people. We lost many skills that are very difficult to replace, people with skills who will never come back unless there is enough work in the Territory to come and work not for one or two days, to come and work for a long period of time.
What we did this year is we have managed to put a significant capital works and repair and maintenance program out there, to provide a lot of work for all these people who in the past few years suffered a lot. They did not suffer for one year only, as the Leader of the Opposition led us to believe, this has been happening in the past three years, and I am well aware of it because most of the people in my community are involved in the construction industry, and the Minister for Business, Industry and Resource Development whose electorate is also in the northern suburbs, and I are well aware of the complaints we received in the past three years about the lack of work.
I stopped going to the Greek cafes for the simple reason that I could not continue to listen to these people with their problems about the lack of work, and following the election, about what were we going to do about it. This time I am very proud to go and show them what we are doing about these people, what we are doing about the small subcontractors, the painters, the plumbers. I am proud to talk to the big companies because the big companies as well were saying that things were so tough that quite a few of them were thinking of packing up and going somewhere else.
This budget is a great budget. We presented this budget to the Territory Construction Association and received praise from all these people. We asked for questions about the budget and were not given one question. The feedback we received from the Territory Construction Association was that it was a great budget. In the past few days we have noticed that the opposition has tried very hard to attack our budget, to find a fault, and they cannot. And what they do? They do not understand the accounting system. It is a difficult system; I acknowledge that. They attacked the way we presented the budget and the fact that we changed the system.
They attacked some of the elements such as why Power and Water cannot be examined in the estimates committee. At the same time, very conveniently, they forget that the TIO was never examined and the NT Lands Corporation was never examined. You cannot have it both ways. It is a government owned corporation. It has to trade in commercial terms.
We cannot put a business, and lay their budget bare on the table for the media, for the people who are there to listen, in the estimates committee. Some of this information is commercial-in-confidence. However, nothing stops any member on this side or the other side from questioning the minister or the portfolio minister about Power and Water, about the blackouts, about the power cuts, and about things that happen in Channel Island or Alice Springs. Nothing stops members questioning ministers about the service obligations. Nothing at all. The service obligations are listed in the budget documents. We cannot and we have not put Power and Water’s budget on the budget books and quite rightly so.
I find it hypocritical for people to argue that Power and Water’s budget should be stated in the budget books and be examined in the estimates committee when all these years they refused to present anything about TIO, they refused to present anything about the Land Corporation, they refused to present anything about the Power and Water subsidiaries. Despite the fact that at that time Power and Water was a government business. It was not a government owned corporation, it was a government business. If you go back and have a look, you will not find any information about these companies or these entities that I referred to before.
It is a great budget. It is a budget that means development, it means work. It is a budget that actually sets the foundation for the development of the Territory. It is a budget that I am very proud to present to my colleagues, to the House and I am also very proud to present it to the people out there. I am very proud to tell them that this time, this government is listening to you, this government is listening to your complaints and this government acts. No furphies, no projects with no money. Here is the real money. $500m program. $430m actual money. Real dollars. This money is going out to the community. This money is going out to Territorians. This money is going to pay for work done by Territorians. This money will help bring back the people with the skills that we have lost in the past three years. This money will bring back Territorians. They love it in the Territory. They want to be in the Territory but they were forced to leave the Territory because they could not feed their families, they could not pay their mortgage, they could not pay their bank loans. I am prepared to welcome these people back to the Territory because this time I can tell them that this government puts real money into your pockets.
Debate adjourned.
TABLED PAPERS
Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Deputy Speaker, I lay on the table the following papers issued by the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitution Affairs:
Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs Annual Report
for 1 July 2001 to 30 June 2002;
Information Paper No 1 - Northern Territory Constitutional Development
and Statehood: A Chronology of Events; and
Discussion Paper No 1 - Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs: An Examination
of Structural Relationships in Indigenous Affairs and Indigenous Governance within
the Northern Territory.
MOTION
Print Papers - Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Print Papers - Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Papers - Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Note Papers - Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs –
Annual Report 2001-02; Information Paper No 1 and Discussion Paper No 1
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the papers.
In accordance with standing order 21B of the Legislative Assembly standing orders, I have the pleasure of reporting to the Assembly the activities of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for the financial year ended 30 June 2001. The report addresses the activities of the committee for the 2001-02 financial year. Most of the issues within the report have been canvassed below and, therefore, there is no need for me to identify them at this point. The report does, however, incorporate the committee’s business plan and the personnel and administrative costs for the financial year.
On 20 August 1998, the Legislative Assembly, by resolution, established the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to inquire, report and make recommendations upon such constitutional and legal matters as may be referred to it by the Attorney-General or by resolution of the Assembly. Following the general election held in August 2001, on 16 October 2001, the Legislative Assembly reconstituted the membership on the standing committee.
On 25 October 2001, the Legislative Assembly resolved to enhance the standing committee’s role and function in providing additional terms of reference:
1. The committee shall inquire, consider, make recommendations and report to the Assembly
from time to time on:
- (a) any matters concerned with legal or constitutional issues including law reform,
parliamentary reform, administrative law, legislative review, and intergovernmental
relations;
Commonwealth;
of the Northern Territory as a new state of the Commonwealth; or,
and/or its residents;
2. With the approval of the Attorney-General, any other matters concerning the relationship between the
Northern Territory and the Commonwealth and/or the states in the Australian Federation;
3. Meet with any other state or Commonwealth parliamentary committee to inquire into matters of mutual
concern;
4. The committee shall report to the Assembly as soon as possible after 30 June each year on its activities
during the preceding financial year.
The additional terms of reference provides the committee the power upon its own motion to address three specific elements to that reference:
a general reference power in respect of legal or constitutional issues, including law reform,
parliamentary reform, administrative law, legislative review and intergovernmental relations;
development that may also be tied to a future grant of statehood; and
to address or investigate.
The committee, at its meeting on the 28 November 2001, taking into account the additional terms of reference, approved the development of a program of activity and future strategies. At that meeting, the committee further resolved that the recommendations for the committee’s Report into the Appropriate Measures to Facilitate Statehood, which was tabled in the Legislative Assembly in April 1999, be used as a focal point in developing its future strategies and programs, in particular:
the development and promotion of constitution and statehood issues that relate to an eventual
grant of statehood for the Northern Territory;
and
associated with Northern Territory statehood or constitutional development matters.
On 1 March 2002, the committee approved a program of activities relating to the committee’s future programs and strategies 2002-04. On 26 May 2002, the committee approved a detailed program of activities for 2002-03. The committee’s program of activities is as follows: a discussion and information paper program which is in two parts, namely: firstly, the development and preparation of papers in respect of a general reference power on legal or constitutional issues, including law reform, parliamentary reform, administrative law, legislative review and intergovernmental relations. Full details on this part of the program is set out in the committee’s annual report.
Secondly, the development and preparation of papers stemming from the committee’s Report into Appropriate Measures to Facilitate Statehood. This report recommended, among other things, that there be a public education program to inform Territorians about what statehood means and about the process of constitutional development, and that is was to be presented in a dispassionate, balanced and informative manner.
In restarting the process of community education, public consultation and involvement on this issue, the committee decided to prepare various discussion and information papers for publication. Subsequently, the committee has issued an information paper entitled Information Paper Number 1: Northern Territory Constitutional Development and Statehood: A Chronology of Events. This information paper is the first one in this series. Its purpose is to provide a background, chronology of events, to Northern Territory constitutional development and the statehood campaign conducted by successive Territory governments. The purpose of the paper is to assist Territorians to understand the basic constitutional position of the Territory and its various stages of historical development up to the present time, and how this compares with the rest of Australia. The paper also provides background to the statehood campaign and some understanding concerning statehood. The committee stresses that this paper is an information paper only and does not put forward any particular position or view.
The other major activity the committee is embarking upon is an Inquiry into Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs: An Examination of Structural Relationships in Indigenous Affairs and Indigenous Governance within the Northern Territory. On 22 May 2002, the committee, having regard to the resolution of the Legislative Assembly of 25 October 2001, in providing additional terms of reference, resolved amongst other things to conduct an inquiry into matters relating to indigenous governance in the Northern Territory, in particular, the examination of appropriate relationships that should exist between indigenous people/communities of the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory government and the wider Territory community:
a) under the present constitutional/legislative arrangements applying in the Northern Territory;
and
b) whether those arrangements might have influence upon a future grant of statehood to the
Northern Territory; including
c) the question whether the Northern Territory government should enter into a framework
agreement or agreements with the representatives of those indigenous people/communities.
In elaborating on frameworks agreements, the committee took into account its 1999 Report into Appropriate Means to Facilitate Statehood which included a discussion of the interests of the indigenous people of the Northern Territory as part of any grant of statehood. The report also discussed the subject of a possible framework agreement for the Northern Territory, that is an agreement between the Northern Territory government and the representatives of the indigenous people of the Northern Territory, concerning a range of issues of vital interest to the two parties and setting out a framework within which the relationship between the two could or should be developed in the future.
Although this inquiry is not directly tied to statehood the committee is aware that the outcome of this inquiry is an issue critical to the future success of statehood.
However, the standing committee recognises that statehood and major constitutional development in the Northern Territory will not occur without the support and recognition of the basic rights of indigenous people in the Northern Territory. Recent statistics supplied by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that indigenous people comprise approximately 29% of the Northern Territory’s population. The indigenous people/communities of the Northern Territory have a strong and distinctive cultural heritage and, as such, matters relating to the protection of land rights, sacred sites, local autonomy, the maintenance of indigenous language, culture, religion, and the recognition of customary law are strongly supported within that community.
The committee is aware that some of the representative indigenous organisations within the Northern Territory support a significant grant of regional or local autonomy and self-determination for indigenous people in the Territory. Whilst other indigenous organisations/communities within the Northern Territory may wish to achieve the recognition and the management of their way of life within in a single Territory constitutional and legal framework. The committee wishes to hear of the range of views on these matters.
The committee plans to focus on several key issues. These issues are intended to provide a starting point for consultation between the committee and those who make presentations or submissions to it. The committee begins its inquiry with these objectives in mind:
to provide an opportunity for reflection and public discussion on existing legislative,
political, administrative, financial and judicial structures and arrangements within the
Northern Territory, and on the other alternatives that are available, and to enable
indigenous communities and organisations in the wider community to express their
views on these matters;
communities and organisations in negotiating and implementing new relationships,
particularly with regard to processes for implementing appropriate frameworks of regional
or local autonomy, financing and economic development and representative processes,
within the overall constitutional position of the Northern Territory, including as a state;
whole that should or could be included in any framework agreement or agreements that
encompass the new structures, arrangements, and relationships;
or agreements must operate, including those constraints arising from the Commonwealth
constitution and the Australian federal system; and
in the Northern Territory to develop the capacity to manage appropriate and effective legislative,
political, administrative, financial and judicial structures and arrangements within the overall
framework of the Northern Territory.
In commencing this inquiry, the committee has issued Discussion Paper No. 1: Northern Territory Indigenous Affairs: An Examination of Structural Relationships in Indigenous Affairs and Indigenous Governance within the Northern Territory. The discussion paper does not enter into a detailed examination of the issues. Rather, it sets out some of the issues the committee wants to explore and poses some questions, to give greater focus to the public hearings and to submissions made to the committee.
The standing committee stresses that in accordance with the parameters of its terms of reference, this discussion paper and the inquiry by the community to which it relates are only concerned with structural issues of indigenous governance including as it might be expressed in any framework agreement or agreements that might be negotiated within the context of the Northern Territory as self-governing or as a new state. The committee is not proposing to consider options that might retract or unduly limit existing rights of the democratic participation by any one section of the Northern Territory community in the government of the whole the Territory in favour of any other section of that community. That is, the committee will not be considering proposals to dismantle self-government and the democratic rights under it except as substituted in proposals for a new state.
All options that are to be considered by the committee must meet the minimum basic standards set by international human rights law in terms of the rights of all peoples to participate democratically in the business of government, and must not be racially discriminatory in terms of those standards. This discussion paper is still an options paper and the views expressed therein do not necessarily represent the final views of the committee. The paper is issued to invite further comment and submission before the committee makes its report to the Legislative Assembly.
In conclusion, I wish to express my gratitude to the members and staff of the committee for their support during the year. I commend the papers to honourable members. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
ADJOURNMENT
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Mr Deputy Speaker, we have spent the last two days debating the budget in this House, and I have to come in here and correct some of the comments made by the shadow tourism spokesperson in her reply to the budget because she had so much wrong. I would like to put it right because it might well help her in terms of framing the questions that she may want to put to me and the department in the Estimates Committee. I am trying to help her out here because so much was wrong in the speech that she made to the House. I am just going to work through her speech in a chronological order.
The first point she had wrong was that the $42 000 for the aviation executive officer was to be deducted from the $0.5m international marketing. I can say that is totally wrong. The $500 000 is for international marketing only. There is no deduction of the aviation executive position. That is coming out of the core budget.
She then said that the 10% increase in the international marketing budget takes into account $2m for Virgin Blue. Again, totally wrong. The 10% increase is based on the budget from last year, last year’s budget. The last CLP budget for international marketing was $4.7m; it has been increased to $5.2m this year, an increase of in excess of 10%. It does not take into account Virgin Blue. She then went on to say that $500 000 - and this was the line that was run by the member for Katherine who should know better as a previous tourism minister in the Northern Territory government - won’t buy much when spread over three countries and two continents. I have tried to educate members opposite that that is a significant increase and there is an enormous amount of leverage we can get for that. I can quote from a specific example where the Northern Territory Tourist Commission contributed this year $150 000 to the Discover the Other Oz campaign in London which was worth $750 000 in total and we partnered our money with the South Australian Tourist Commission, Qantas and Bridge the World.
Out of that investment, there were 548 clearly identified bookings for the Northern Territory, and the total value for the partners in the campaign was $1.862m, with $690 000 worth of generated on-the-ground bookings for the Northern Territory product. So we can see that by pooling our money with those wholesalers and airlines in those international markets we do have that leverage. As I said, I can understand that the shadow minister who has been in the portfolio for a year now may not quite understand how that works. I can understand that; I have to get across issues myself. But the member for Katherine should certainly understand that and he is just being totally disingenuous as he normally is. She then went on to say that it is widely regarded that the $0.5m per year over the next two years is significantly insubstantial. I can say that all four regional tourism associations have welcomed the news when informed last week. Tourism Top End’s chief executive officer, Helen Galton, attended the press conference that I held, and she was effusive in her praise and acknowledged the importance of such a significant investment.
The member for Araluen then went on to say that the government should have provided $5m over two years. I can tell the member for Araluen that if she had gone back through previous annual reports that we are spending $5m; we are actually spending $5.2m on international marketing, not over two years, but this year and another $5.2m, or it may be more next year. Again, she has it wrong. We are putting in the $5m out of the total marketing budget for the Tourist Commission of over $20m.
We then move on to the misinformation about Virgin Blue. The shadow minister stated: ‘The minister said in the House that the payment to Virgin Blue of $2m would be’ - and she quoted from me – ‘a massive return on investments and that consequential returns would be in the tens of millions of dollars in the Northern Territory. The question has to be asked “what have the returns been”’. Virgin Blue provide an additional 1300 seats a week into the Northern Territory, and a conservative estimate of loading on those seats is 50% and certainly Virgin Blue has been doing a lot better than that in the recent past and considering the average spend and yield of your basic visitor here to the Territory, the return on that investment would be at least $9.5m to date. I would call that a massive return and it has been welcomed by everybody in the industry. But again, we still have not had a single positive comment from members opposite about Virgin Blue in the market place.
We then moved on to the so-called aviation ambassador. The honourable member claimed: ‘It was my idea,’ said the member for Araluen, ‘that the government picked up’. Yet again, we put the member right through the NT News that this idea was first raised at a meeting of the Northern Territory Aviation Committee in February. It was included in submissions to the government from Northern Territory Airports. It was actually their idea; it was not the shadow minister’s idea. She does herself no credit in the private sector to be stating that this was her idea because everybody knows that it was not - it actually came from Northern Territory Airports. They put that in a submission to me as minister back in February.
I was very enthusiastic about that. I immediately picked up the phone to the CEO there and said that this was a great proposal. I was keen to pick up the ball and run with it. I needed to get support from my department and the industry and did quite a big ring around of the industry to see if people would support that - nothing but total support for that. Then, out of the blue in June came a press release from the shadow minister calling on the government to do what had been widely being discussed within the tourism industry for the previous four months, and an idea that actually initiated from Northern Territory Airports. But then again, like I say, she does herself no credit to be claiming to be the author of ideas that actually originated in the private sector and were being widely discussed at the time.
She then went on to say:
- The successful applicant, as I understand it, will report directly to the manager of the
Darwin Airport Corporation.
Ms Carney: Not many people know what the Aviation Committee does? That is interesting, isn’t it?
Mr HENDERSON: Well, I have offered the shadow minister a briefing on this and I am trying to …
Ms Carney: Oh, and I take up my briefings. I have them on a regular basis.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Araluen, comments through the Chair, please.
Mr HENDERSON: I am trying to help the shadow minister. Again, I am more than happy to provide a briefing so we can get some constructive debate into what we both acknowledge and anybody here who has talked to anybody in the tourism industry would acknowledge that the single biggest issue facing the industry at the moment is aviation capacity into the Northern Territory.
Ms Carney: Well, why aren’t you doing something about it?
Mr HENDERSON: I put this on the record. She does herself absolutely no service in claiming the genesis of ideas that actually came from the private sector, and have been worked through to the point where we will now have somebody on board over the next month or so. I am quite confident that, with this investment, this partnership between the government and the private sector, and combined with the input into the international marketing to drive business, that we will see a return of some additional international capacity into Darwin. We are being constructive about that. All we have from the shadow minister opposite is running it down, running rumours, running misinformation, and …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! The interjections are too continuous.
Mr HENDERSON: I am trying to be helpful and constructive here by putting this on the record.
Ms Carney: Well, that is a joke.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr HENDERSON: Then she went on to say that there is some disappointment within industry that the government did not totally fund this position.
Ms Carney: There is, but you would not know about that because you have not asked them.
Mr HENDERSON: Well, there may well be if you run the line that the position …
Ms Carney: So you admit that?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Deputy Speaker, this is cute. It again gets back to the disingenuous way that the shadow minister operates. If you run the line that this position will report directly to Northern Territory Airports, then I can understand that some people in the industry - particularly in the airlines where there is a lot of debate out there at the moment about the charges at Darwin Airport in particular, they have gone up considerably. I understand that the airport has to meet fixed costs and operating costs and, with a declining number of planes flying in, obviously, they have to meet their fixed costs and put the price up. So, if you were in the aviation industry and believed that this position was working solely to the commercial interests of the Northern Territory airports, you would be concerned. But that is not the case. The position actually is going to be reporting to me.
Ms Carney: Via the Aviation Committee.
Mr HENDERSON: And via the aviation committee. Exactly. It is chaired by Maree Tetlow. I can provide a full brief to the shadow minister so at least when she is talking to people and they might have the idea wrong, she can say, ‘No, that is not right. The position is actually reporting to government’, and why the government has invested on this, in partnership with NT Airports. They going to be very disappointed when they read the Hansard when I get it out to them. This is a partnership because the NT Airports through their shareholding back in the UK have considerable access and expertise in international routes and networks. We have a lot of information on volumes, yields and what is coming through the marketplace.
We can put all of that information together with somebody from the industry and the executive officer from the industry and move the thing forward. It has been widely acknowledged by the tourism industry that this is a great initiative and certainly nobody has told me that we should pick up the full cost of that because that money would have to come from somewhere else. I don’t know whether the shadow minister thinks that we should pick up that $125 000 out of the marketing budget.
We are about partnerships. We will partner with the business community. If they come to us with an unsolicited new idea, an idea of how we can move industry forward, we will grab it and we will run with it and we will work with them and we will give them the credit for it unlike the member opposite who will pick up the idea that has been widely discussed for months and claim it as her own. I really think that is not too smart and the people are going to see right through where the member is coming from.
I will move through the rest of her speech and she states that, ‘Ever since the Australian Labor Party took office there has been a lot of scaremongering around the Territory’. Well, she certainly has it right. The only person who has been scaremongering around the Territory in the tourism industry has been the member for Araluen who has been running around the industry, the press releases are still out there saying …
Ms Carney: Absolutely rubbish! Absolute rubbish! Don’t ever be a witness in court because you would be accused of lying under oath.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr HENDERSON: …we are going to gut the funding from the RTAs, we are going to cut them off at the knees. We are going to cut the tourism budget …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! Member for Araluen, order! Member for Araluen, order! I am talking. I do not mind some interjections. That is over the top. They are continuous and I cannot hear the minister who has the floor. Minister.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The only person who has been running rumours and scaremongering around the Northern Territory has been the member for Araluen. First of all she said that running rumours that Flight West had this magnificent commercial business plan that had been supported by the Queensland government and everybody else …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, order!
Mr HENDERSON: … had not been supported by anybody but it had the support of everybody and we should have poured in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars into supporting Flight West where there was nobody supporting the proposal that was being run at the time. Then came into the parliament running allegations that Virgin Blue was cancelling flights because of loading - absolute rubbish. A simple phone call to my office or the Virgin office …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. There is a suggestion there which is quite untrue. The minister knows it is untrue and I ask him to withdraw it.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is the suggestion?
Ms CARNEY: The suggestion was that I said, what he said was that I had said - he can sit down while I am making this point of order I think, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that is the protocol.
Mr Henderson: I will stand up, if I like.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down please, minister.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Sit, Bubu, sit.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, the minister can be spoken to respectfully, please.
Ms CARNEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, the minister said that I had made various comments about the loadings of Virgin Blue. That is quite untrue. He knows it, and I ask you to direct him to withdraw it.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, you know that I cannot because I do not have the facts in front of me to judge whether your statement is true or not. Minister.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member is on the record. I do not have the Hansard but she came in here and there was a question in the House that stated …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to dwell momentarily on some former members of this House, indeed, some former members of the Australian Labor Party. Specifically, the two members I would like to dwell on are the former member for Wanguri, John Bailey, and the former member for Barkly, Maggie Hickey, both of whom were very honourable people in my estimation. One of the things that they, especially the former member for Wanguri, used to rail against from time to time was the way that this parliamentary system was abused by the executive arm of government. The reason I like to dwell on those two people is because I now have a much clearer understanding of some of the things that they were railing against, and the use of this parliamentary Chamber as just an extension or an organ of the executive arm of government is a matter of very great concern to me, indeed.
Prior to the last election, the Labor government used to make all sorts of statements about how the executive arm of government was suffocating this Chamber by virtue of it being a unicameral system, entirely dependent on the membership hopefully seeking decent outcomes. The truth of the matter is that when the Labor government came to power, they had a good governance document, and I have laboured on that at some length, but I feel that when I read that document from time to time, I sense the influence of John Bailey and Maggie Hickey in that document because there was a genuine attempt in that document, I believe, to change some of the things that happened in this House. Despite the fact that we lost, I thought: ‘Okay, the Labor government is now in power. They have every right to govern the Northern Territory’. The government has come in here and they have abandoned all of those principles and much, much worse.
It stands as a blot on the copy book of every member across the other side of the Chamber that when they were in opposition said, ‘Open, honest, accountable government’ and yet, the very first vote, before any other vote was taken on the voices, was to gag a debate
Ms Scrymgour: He was given an extension of time. Gee, you people mislead! It is just incredible.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!. Member for Arafura.
Ms Scrymgour: I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr ELFERINK: That motion to gag a debate, and that vote to gag a debate in that instance, was actually taken on the very first day that this House sat. It was no reference to what happened here earlier today. I will come to that in a moment.
The fact is that this government has turned away at absolutely every opportunity to fulfil the promises that they made. They have regressed to an even worse condition. I hear members sighing and saying it’s all horrible, it’s irritating that I bring this to their attention but the fact is that the whole parliamentary system by which the Commonwealth operates is that it is entirely reliant on the supremacy of the parliament. The failures and the shortcomings of that system, as it is reflected here in the Northern Territory, is what the former member for Wanguri used to rail against for hours. He used to come in here on adjournment debates, quite regularly like I do now, and say that this is not good enough.
The former government gagged debate from time to time. I was hoping that we would see a new form of government. The government, when in opposition, said there would a committee system that worked and worked for the good of the Northern Territory. Unfortunately, the committee system, once again, is nothing more than an extension of the executive arm of government and members opposite are utterly silent on this. The structure of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee was, at least, under the former government, equal representation from both government and opposition. That is no longer the case. That committee has been watered down. The introduction of a system of….
Ms Scrymgour: Two CLP, one Independent. The Independents have a seat.
Mr ELFERINK: I will pick up on that interjection because it is very important. What the former opposition promised was indeed a three/three split in the committee system, but what they have basically done, by a sleight of hand, is made it only possible for the government members to be offset by having the Independent, yourself - Madam Speaker does not enjoy this privilege – of being a member of all committees, a workload which is absolutely beyond any mortal, and they have shied away from the promises that they made. Their contract with the Northern Territory currently stands in breach. Their contract with the Northern Territory was reflected in the question from the member for Nelson this morning, which dealt with the quarterly reports of ministerial statements to the PAC. I do not believe that that has occurred, Mr Deputy Speaker. They are in breach of their contract, the contract that they made with the Northern Territory.
The system of ministerial reports that we now see, which is a farce, is not reflected anywhere in the Westminster system, I said this morning. The interjection from the current member for Wanguri was ‘Queensland’s got it’. Well guess what, Mr Deputy Speaker? Queensland has a unicameral system, and all of a sudden you have the executive arm of government inflicting itself on the parliament in a way which was never intended. The same situation, the same problem. And the ministerial reports are a system of ambush. The ministers can walk into this room and originally sought to proceed without debate. They simply walked into this Chamber, did not even go through the farcical process of asking a dorothy dixer to themselves, they just said I am going to report it to the House, no debate.
When I raised that issue, and I think that even the members opposite realised what a bald face abuse of their numbers it was, and so that they finally acquiesced and allowed debate. So, what is the debate that they allow? The debate is two minutes. What I find myself doing is, what members on this side of the House find themselves doing, is that a 70 page report will be dropped on the table and we are told, ‘Read this, you have two minutes to read it and answer to it’. That is just unrealistic. I have to then go through the process of making sure that that paper, which the minister seems so enthusiastic about the idea of having it debated in this House, and place it on the notice paper myself, so that it may be properly debated, and so that it may be examined by this House, in a system which is fit and proper.
The shadow minister for infrastructure was stuck in an invidious situation tonight when, during debate on the budget, a minister of the Crown showed so little intestinal fortitude that he cowered in his lobby and refused to stand up and speak until such time as that minister knew there would be no possible examination of what he had to say. He waited until every other member of this Chamber had spoken before he came into this Chamber and delivered his speech.
Let us look at the mechanics of what is going on. The Treasurer comes in and says: ‘I need this parliament to pass a bill. This bill will forward to me the $2.095069bn I am going to need to run the organ of government for the next 12 months’. That is the process that we are currently in. It is then up to the individual ministers, through the system of responsible government, to explain to members in this House the purpose for which they wish to expend those funds. Yes, they are in the budget documents but a verbal explanation is provided so that we, the membership inside this Chamber, can be convinced to pass a law that Treasury passes that money on to the government for expenditure.
I find it extraordinary in the extreme that a minister of the Crown would wait until the debate process was over before he explained why he needed the money, allowing no examination whatsoever of what he had to say. The reason is, I would guess, is that there are aspects of what he had to say which, if he spoke in relation to them, would have made them an issue for the Estimates Committee.
Let us look at what we have in the Estimates Committee. Government owned corporations are not allowed to be examined. That is the rule of the Estimates Committee. So the only way an examination of government owned corporations could occur is if the minister had made some reference to them in his speech. I am curious. I will read his speech carefully to see what references there are, and whether he has scooted around the issue in such a way that it cannot be examined in the Estimates Committee.
Last year, the figure that was requested by the Treasurer prior to the mini-budget, was over $3bn. I find it very difficult to believe that this government has been able to achieve a total one-third cut in all expenditure. However, the schedule of the act which is still before this parliament, requires a sum of little more than $2bn. It is certainly not reflected in government documents that there is a cut of fully one-third of all government expenditure. I am deeply concerned that a very large slice of taxpayers’ money is going to be used and expended by this government without any examination whatsoever. Maybe I am wrong, maybe it needs to be explained to me, but I am very concerned that there is that much taxpayers’ money which is not being brought before this House for examination.
When a minister comes in and asks for dough so that they can do their job, I have no problem with that. The executive arm of government has every right to govern; it is the elected form of government and those people who hold the commission of the Crown hold that commission by virtue of the fact that their leader commands a majority support in the House. What is of concern to me is that this is still a parliament, and a parliament is supposed to be allowed to examine those issues that government brings before it. A parliament should be unfettered in its examination of the issues, and lo! and behold, when the shadow minister makes those inquiries, he is gagged. The government, on its numbers, forces him to shut up. That is the bottom line.
It is sneaky; it is underhanded; it is cowardly and it is not open, not accountable, and it is not honest. It was only because the member started saying what he was saying and going down a particular path, expressing the views that he was going to express that the minister was decided it was time to gag him. He only had about four minutes to run. To gag him with four minutes to run? Surely not! This is not an exercise in somebody who simply wanted to shut somebody up because they were being repetitive. This was a shadow minister who was getting too close to an issue and this government did not want people to hear. That is the truth of the matter.
The arrogance that comes with that, the control and the pressure that is now being applied by this executive onto this parliament is causing a much more serious breakdown in process that had ever occurred before. The system of government in the Northern Territory is currently deteriorating because of it. The process of ministerial reports, the process of gagging debate simply because a person is asking the wrong questions, the process of a minister coming into this Chamber when he knows that he cannot be examined any further in a budget process is a corruption of the process that the Westminster system represents. This government stands condemned of crimes much more heinous than ever were committed by the CLP.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to talk on a serious subject that is becoming more and more distressing to the constituents of Karama and Malak, and that is the fact that Darwin City Council seems to be completely ignoring their duties in terms of safety of the public, and are failing to regularly clean the parks that we have in our area.
On 5 June this year, I wrote to all of the aldermen of Darwin City Council formally raising concerns regarding the local parks that have been consistently highlighted as a major hotspots in our community. The two key parks in question are a park opposite Karama Shopping Centre, lot 5326, between Mulla Mulla Circuit and Coolinda Crescent. The other park is lot 3860 between Malak Shopping Centre and Bayfield Street, opposite the Malak oval and opposite the Malak shops.
These parks are very central locations in my community. They are frequented by people who tend to leave behind a lot of rubbish - broken glass, nappies and a whole series of unhygienic and unsafe rubbish. I am particularly concerned about the Malak park, as I call it, because being opposite the shopping centre and opposite the oval, it is a bit of a draw card for children. There is playground equipment in the middle of the park which obviously attracts local children.
I raised my issues in regards to the unsafe and unclean parks with Darwin City Council, with the aldermen, and I have to say that it has largely fallen on deaf ears. What brought it home to me this week is late one night when I arrived home from sittings, I had a parcel from a local school sitting on the table. My children had brought it home from one of the teachers. Sadly, it is a series of letters to me from local school children. With the indulgence of the Assembly, I would like to read some of the correspondence.
- I am writing this letter to complain about the rubbish at Malak park. When my class, I am in Year 4,
Holy Family School, went to the park, we were disgusted with all the rubbish and smells. This is what
I saw: nappies, bottles, cans, paper, clothes and bags.
From Sean.
Another one:
- Dear Ms Delia Lawrie
Our class went walking to Malak park to get ready for our camp. When we arrived we saw a lot of mess
hanging around the playground and other areas. We would just like to ask you if you could please clean
it up and make sure there is no more rubbish pollution at Malak park. And the way I felt on Friday,
2 August, was disgust with the pollution because there were all kinds of dirty things like nappies,
boxes, clothes, broken glass, paper, and all kinds of dirty substances.
Dear Ms Delia Lawrie
I’m writing this letter to complain about Malak park. When my class, I am in year 3/4 at Holy Family School,
went to the park, we were disgusted by all the rubbish and by the stinky smell. These are some of the things
I saw on the ground: nappy, clothes, cardboard box, cartons and other stuff. We would really appreciate it
if you could clean it up so that the next time we go there we won’t be disgusted by the mess. Thank you.
After being elected to represent the residents of Karama and Malak, one of the things I very quickly identified is that a lot of the reasons people were coming to see me concerned Council related issues. So, being an active local member, I would get on the phone to Darwin City Council and try to deal with the appropriate officer, depending on what the issue was. I have to say that by and large, I was completely given the fob off and told: ‘It is none of your business. The residents need to talk directly to their alderman’. I responded by saying: ‘They can’t find their aldermen. Their aldermen don’t have an office. They all have day jobs, and so they don’t actually have access to their aldermen’. I was told: ‘Bad luck. They are in the phone directory’.
To overcome this barrier, I approached the aldermen, had a meeting with them, and asked them whether or not they would be willing, on a rotational basis, to be available to their constituents out in my Karama electorate office. That has been occurring for close to a year. Every second Saturday morning - and I advertise it in the windows of my electorate office, the dates the aldermen will be there - I have the aldermen available in my electorate office. I have my electorate officer make diary appointments for them. My electorate officer advises the aldermen about who will be there, what time constituents will be there to meet with them, also going to the extent of pre-warning what the sort of issues are that the constituents want to talk to them about. I have offered them every resource of my office.
What I am sad about is that there still seems to be no tangible result. The parks are still a disgrace, the footpaths still have not been fixed. You have to create a large petition to get Darwin City Council to do any kind of road works in the electorate.
People talk about the Berrimah Line in terms of NT government services in the past, but we also know that in terms of Darwin City Council, there is what is called the Parap Line. I must say that in my experience in the last 12 months, that is well and truly the way it seems to be. I do have respect for the three Waters Ward aldermen. I get along well with each of them.
Ms Carney: They would be the Labor ones.
Ms LAWRIE: No, no. They’re not Labor, actually. I could take you through their politics, if you like. Not one of the Waters Ward aldermen are Labor.
I am removing politics from this situation. It is about residents having access to their elected members and receiving services that they pay for through their rates. I am not interested in politics in terms of local government. I will put that on the record here and now. I am interested in residents receiving the basic services that they pay for.
I have made my office and everything in the office available to the aldermen so that they can meet directly with residents. Despite having pointed out repeatedly to the aldermen the problem with these two parks because they are in very central locations within the constituency, still nothing has happened. So then I wrote. Still nothing has happened. Now school children are writing, saying please clean the park. Nappies, broken bottles, cardboard, disused clothes. This is a park that Darwin City Council has told me is clean.
Maybe they thought that I was making it up, but if the school kids – grades 3 and 4 – see this degree of rubbish, I say to Darwin City Council: get out of your ivory tower down there on Harry Chan, get down to these parks out in the suburbs and have a good, hard look at the disgraceful state they are in. I can assure you that the parents I speak to won’t let their children play in that playground. It is disgusting. What a waste of ratepayers’ money to put playground equipment into parks and then not maintain the parks and not keep them clean.
I also have a lot of respect for the parks staff. I know some of them. I work on committees with some of them. They are very hard working people. I know they’re unhappy about the way Council has clamped down on resourced in terms of taking care of the parks. We have all read the NT News lately. Council aldermen and the Lord Mayor give themselves a 257% pay rise, but won’t give their staff a 4% pay rise. There is something going seriously wrong at Darwin City Council. They are ignoring the needs and concerns of the people.
Other examples I could give, of which we are all aware, Stuart’s Spire. It took a huge public outcry to can that project. Parking meters. The mayoral election was seen by everyone as a litmus test on whether the people of Darwin in favour of parking meters or not. If you look at where all the votes fell, irrespective of political bent, there was one clear answer out of that election: it was a ‘no’ to parking meters. Yet here they are; they are installed. I believe we have a Council that is out of touch with the people it is elected to serve, and that is a disgrace.
Another issue over which I have had to take on Darwin City Council recently - still unresolved, still unsatisfactory - is the Garden of Angels at Thorak Cemetery. I couldn’t believe it – and to this day, I grapple with disbelief about it – when I received a phone call from someone in tears, telling me that they were trying to bury a child, a four year old, in the Garden of Angels and the staff at Darwin City Council had said no to the permit. At some stage, the Council had decided that only 0-2 year olds could be buried in the Garden of Angels.
I spoke to the undertakers, and they said it had always been custom and practice since the Garden of Angels was established that children could be buried there. I have a letter from the then Superintendent of Cemeteries, Jim Mitchell, to the undertakers, advising that children up to age 14 could be buried in the Garden of Angels. Now Darwin City Council, joined by representatives from Litchfield and Palmerston, in their infinite wisdom, decide that it is 0-2. No consultation with the undertakers. These are the people who deal daily with families in grief who, in my view, are actually the experts on the subject. If you are going to find experts on death, the undertakers know it.
I went to Thorak Cemetery thinking: ‘Well, hang on a second. Maybe they are running out of space. Maybe they have been forced by lack of space to be arbitrary about this’. I have to say I stood there in a paddock. There was so much space in the Garden of Angels that it would take decades to fill at the current rate of deaths of children in the Top End.
I wrote to every member of the committee - some are elected councillors and some are staff - putting the case that they should not be making a decision to reduce access to the Garden of Angels to only 0-2s and certainly should not be making that decision without any public consultation, without even consulting with the undertakers, and ignoring custom and practice. That is, there are children older than two at peace, at rest, in the Garden of Angels.
I said: ‘In the interim, before a decision is made, before a public consultation process, including consulting with the undertakers can occur, please keep it as it is which is, according to that letter dated the year 2000, up to 14’. What was the response? ‘No, no. We have had a meeting. We have discussed it. It will be 0-2 and we will meet again in October to make a final decision’.
Sadly, I have to say - and I pray and hope this will not be the case - if a child dies and the parents want them buried in the Garden of Angels, that will not be allowed to happen. They will have to be buried in the adult section. This from a council which has become, beyond all belief, out of touch with the community. In this instance, I think absolutely cruelly so.
It is a shame in our society. I stand here tonight and say that I will quite happily take them on. I will be asking every member in this House to join me in saying very clearly that, as elected representatives of the people: enough is enough. Do the work that you are paid to do by the ratepayers. Listen to the ratepayers, and for God’s sake, allow children to be buried in the Garden of Angels.
Mr VATSKALIS (Casuarina): Mr Deputy Speaker, as elected representatives, we are called on sometimes to address some very strange problems. However, our job is to represent the people, and sometimes we help people resolve their problems, especially when their problems involve the public service and they come to us because we are the last resort.
At the same time, I have to say that sometimes people come to us as a first resort because they have not undertaken all the necessary negotiations, phone calls, working around, but they say ‘I can go to the local member and ask for help and I will get it’, and so be it.
One thing I must do first is congratulate Ms Marion Sneddon, the Territory Housing Area Manager for Casuarina. The reason for that is because she reacted very quickly to inquiries with regards to one on my constituents. This problem that I will describe might not be a big problem for you and me, but for the person in question it was quite a big problem. A Tiwi couple, Jan and Wayne Palmer, had a Housing Commission issue. Ms Palmer contacted my electorate office to inform me that three large pollen-bearing trees in the yard had become a health problem for her and her husband, who suffers from chronic asthma. Their neighbour, Marylin Que-Noy was experiencing the same allergic reactions and she was able to provide me with a doctor’s certificate.
On inspection, the trees in question were heavy with blossoms and the pollen was literally raining down all over the Palmers’ roof and back yard, as well as over their neighbour’s. I approached Ms Marion Sneddon and explained the complaint, and Ms Sneddon immediately reacted to the complaint by having these trees removed. As I said before, it might not be a big problem for me and you; they might be a beautiful tree with flowers. For the elderly couple, it was a tree that created problems with their health. When you are old and infirm, the last thing you need is an asthma attack or some respiratory problems. Once again, I would like to thank Ms Marion Sneddon.
Another thing I would like to say, is that Mr Him Sing Chung, a constituent in Nakara, brought to my attention some time ago concerns relating to a property he owns in Wagaman. The walkway adjacent to the property has been a centre of antisocial behaviour. It is a walkway between two streets. A group of young people use this walkway as an escape route after they have caused trouble in one street to escape to the other when the police arrive.
Mr Chung came and complained to me, and he told me that he had spoken with the council before. I approached the council on his behalf and I am pleased to advise that the Darwin City Council decided to close the walkway for a 12-month period and monitor the situation to find out if the closure of the walkway would contribute to the reduction of the antisocial behaviour in the area. This is a very common problem in Casuarina because Casuarina was designed with a lot of walkways. I have had numerous complaints about walkways being used as escape routes not only from residents, but also from the police.
I also would like to comment about the Tiwi Play Group. Tiwi Play Group is run by mothers with young children. They get together every so often, share a cup of tea, put their kids in a safe environment, and they play together and purchase a few pieces of equipment, and they use it for their kids. Unfortunately, the Tiwi School - the old Tiwi campus - is in a state of disrepair and I have called for tenders for demolition which will commence very shortly. The demolition will assist in the establishment and construction of the Masonic Homes nursing home establishment.
The Tiwi group find itself without a home. However, I had a discussion with the Principal of Nakara Primary School, Mr Barry Griffin, and I suggested that it would be a good idea if the Tiwi Play Group is accommodated in the grounds of the school for two reasons: first of all, it would provide a room for a community organisation; and second, Nakara could draw some of their recruits from play group. Mr Griffin was very, very helpful and he suggested that we use some of his facilities, which the Tiwi Play Group found very convenient, and they decided to relocate from Tiwi to Nakara. I understand the relationship between the Nakara Primary School and the Tiwi Play Group is very good. In addition, I have made arrangements to provide the play group with a shed so they can store their equipment when they do not need it.
I also had some feedback from the group coordinator, Ms Angie Hammond, that the arrangement is working very well. The membership levels, which had dwindled due to the ongoing problem with itinerants at the previous location in Tiwi, seem to be rising. I am very pleased that we have actually found a solution that will complement both the Tiwi Play Group and the Nakara Primary School.
Mr Glen Denmead, who lives in the Tambling Terrace Seniors Village with his wife Helen, contacted my electoral office to update me with a couple of problems faced by the residents there. The landscaped gardens of the village seem to have started dying unexpectedly. The other problem was a number of people who were driving inside the village were speeding. When you have a village where elderly people walk around, the last thing you need is some fast moving cars in the driveways. I raised this point with Territory Housing which sent inspectors who discovered that the sprinkler system was not working properly and as a result the garden was dying. At the same time, they monitored the speeding pattern and, as a result, they have installed some 20km/h limit signs. I have been advised that the gardens are reviving and they are doing very well, thank you very much. At the same time, the speed of the vehicles has reduced because people are aware they are moving in an elderly people’s village with a reduced speed limit.
At the same time, I would like to add my voice of concern to the member for Karama regarding the Darwin City Council. I am not very happy with responses I receive from Darwin City Council. Every time we forward a complaint, the response is: ‘Do not talk to us; talk to the local alderman’. I have worked in local government before, and that was not the response from local government when they were receiving complaints from a local member or from residents.
The response we used to give when I was in local government was immediate action, try to resolve the problem. We are not trying to make a name for the alderman. If a ratepayer was complaining, the city council had an obligation to respond quickly. If the ratepayer was complaining to the alderman, the alderman would provide the complaint to the town council and the town council would respond quickly. If the person chooses to complain to the elected local member - me, or anybody else in the area - the local council would immediately respond and advise the local member of the action they took instead of sending a letter saying: ‘Thank you very much for your complaint. Don’t bother talking to us. Talk to the local alderman’.
What I have to say, and I regret to say it, if the local alderman was doing what the local members are doing, walking around the streets and doorknocking every so often and find the complaints, local council would be aware of these problems.
I find responses from the council very poor, as I find it is for the ratepayers of Darwin. As you know, I am elected in a Darwin electorate. The response of council with regards to parking meters - a lot of people seem not to like the parking meters and I have to admit, I am not very fond of parking meters. I think Darwin is an open city and a city that you can park everywhere for an hour. I know some people abuse this right, but the majority does not. At the same time I find the response of the council with regards to the opening of the mall to traffic very, very poor.
I have had a number of people coming to me complaining about parking meters. I have had a number of people complaining to me about the mall situation and what is going to happen to it in the future. I have had a lot of people come and complain to me that there is nowhere else to go in Darwin after hours unless you want to spend some time in the cafeterias in Mitchell Street.
I join my voice of protest with the member for Karama and I will say: ‘Darwin City Council, it is about time you lifted your game’.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to respond to the adjournment speech made earlier tonight by the Minister for Tourism. I did not originally anticipate rising to respond but in light of his inflammatory and fairly concerning comments, I think on behalf of the tourism industry, it is appropriate that I do.
The minister, for reasons best known to him, raised some matters that were simply untrue and at very least, misguided. The minister, in my view, has demonstrated no support whatsoever for the tourism industry since he assumed the role of minister late last year. One might ask: why do I make a comment like that? Well, the answer is really quite straight forward. The answer is that in the budget, it is amply demonstrated that the minister is not generally supportive of the tourism industry or perhaps, putting it at its highest, the minister does not understand the tourism industry.
Of course, in opposition we do not have the resources of government, but what we do have is the hunger, the ability, the willingness to get out and talk to those in the industry. Certainly that is what I have been doing. The minister suggested a number of things and the inference was that I was scaremongering and that I had essentially, it seems, invented stories from thin air and have created some concern for him. It is the case and I am very happy to put it on the Parliamentary Record that I am not in the business of scaremongering. In my job as opposition shadow minister I am able, obviously moreso than the minister, to get out and talk to those in the industry. I can assure the members of this parliament that I have much better things to do with my time and my life than to lay in bed and invent stories about the tourism industry.
Why do I bring things to this parliament? It is because the people I speak to raise concerns with me. I am a woman who likes to sleep very well at night and, as I see it, I would not be doing my job properly at all if I did not voice my concerns in this place, if I did not test or question the tourism minister. So for him to suggest that I not raise these concerns borders on the bizarre.
It is the case that in fact serious leaders in the tourism industry raised with me concerns prior to the budget that the funding to the regional tourism associations would be cut. It was on that basis that I brought those concerns to the parliament and to the media accordingly. It was on the basis that members of the tourism industry raised with me their concerns that the Holiday Centre in Sydney would be sold. Accordingly, I responded by bringing those issues into this parliament and to the attention of the media.
It was also the case that in respect of Territory Discoveries, the NT government’s wholesaling arm, there was concern that either it would be abandoned or it would be sold. Naturally, in the course of doing my job, I brought those concerns to this parliament and I issued press releases accordingly.
I am now informed, as recently as tonight as coincidence would have it, that there is still a major concern within the tourism industry that Territory Discoveries will be sold and I understand that those members of the tourism industry who have been good enough to speak with me are so concerned that they are considering petitioning this government, both Darwin people in the industry and those in Alice Springs, to persuade the government not to sell Territory Discoveries.
It is the case that, having addressed those matters, I can assure the members of this parliament and, indeed, the increasingly nervous tourism minister that I don’t invent these things from thin air. They are put to me very genuinely by people in the industry in the course of my employment and I will happily raise them in this parliament.
I said at the outset that this minister has shown little support for industry as demonstrated in the budget. I can say that with authority and confidence. The fact of the matter is that the tourism industry, if members don’t already know, is the second biggest revenue raiser for the Northern Territory. It is appropriate, therefore - and in light of the events of September 11 and the collapse of Ansett - that any economy anywhere in the world would respond accordingly in relation to the obvious reduction of tourism numbers in to the Northern Territory.
Strangely, what this minister did was sanction a cut of $241 000 to the Northern Territory Tourist Commission in the November mini-budget. I don’t know for certain, but I think I can speculate that the Northern Territory would be the only place in Australia that would have cut the Northern Territory Tourist Commission’s budget at a time that was arguably the hardest time imaginable for the Territory’s tourism industry.
In this budget - again, strangely, in my view - what the government has done is nine months ago, they cut the funding of the Northern Territory Tourist Commission by $241 000. In this budget, this government allocates $500 000 for the next two years. If you take off various things that need to be deducted, it boils down to around about $450 000.
When one also considers the very low exchange rate and value for money - given by the minister’s press release and comments in this House, I might add - that marketing allocation must be spread over three countries and two continents. I think you would need to be a rocket scientist to work out how it is that he thinks this will make a significant mark. It is the case that, in essence, this minister has presided over significant cuts to the Tourist Commission’s budget only nine months ago, and then, nine months later, says: ‘Oh, dear. We seem to have made a mistake there. Whoops! We’ll fix that up. We’ll give it back its funding and, just because we’re a good government, we’ll give it a few extra dollars’.
Well, it is not good enough. Nine months later, he elects to reinstate its budget and at very best, it is erratic government. It is very erratic. Any person who lives in the Northern Territory would expect, in my view, leadership, decisiveness, authority and other such qualities from a minister of the Crown. This minister has presided over such erratic behaviour that it really does beggar belief. He is indecisive. I might say at this juncture that, from the people I have been speaking to in the tourism industry - and I am prepared to bet lots of money in this House, right here, right now that I speak to more tourism operators than the minister, and I would say again with confidence that would go unchallenged because I, unlike the minister, don’t have eight portfolios.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker! There is a bit of cross talk going across here which is not normal banter and it is unparliamentary language.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please be seated, member for Araluen. There are a number of members who are participating in the cross talk from both sides, and I would ask both sides to cut down on the cross talk so that we can hear the member for Araluen. Member for Araluen, please continue.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I might say I heard nothing of the cross talk. Again, my deafness is coming in to play.
I am quite certain that, because I am alleviated of the burden of eight portfolios, I do have the time to get out and spend my days and my nights talking to people in the industry. They say that the minister is rapidly developing the reputation of being little more than an enthusiastic moron - their words, not mine. So whilst he is enthusiastic, it would behove him to understand the issues of the industry better. No doubt he is, in the views of others, across his portfolios, but certainly it is the case that he is not across the issues in this one.
He said some time ago, you might recall, that the tourism industry was going gang busters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Visitor numbers are down. The people I speak to are talking about laying off staff. They are down between 25% and 40%. Serious business; serious language on any view. So the minister really needs to get out there and do more. Of course, it is the case that also he is known to be something of a phantom. Because of his very heavy responsibilities, no one can get to see him. At best, they are left with his minders, and the punters of the Northern Territory do not think that is anywhere near good enough. It is a badly managed portfolio on his part, and the minister really should, with the greatest of respect, down his tools in respect of his other portfolios and get out there and start to talk to the real the people in the industry, not talk to 30 year old minders from down south and getting his advice from there.
On to another matter, members of the House will recall that there has been a false hope for Central Australia, and being from Alice Springs I have a strong interest in this area. For almost nine or so months now, the minister and this government has assured the people of Central Australia: (a) there will be competition in the aviation industry. There is none; (b) there will be a second airline. There is none. Indeed, but for my comments and press releases in relation to Alliance Airlines, one can only imagine that the minister would not even have asked someone from his office to pick up the phone to ring them.
This is a government of inaction on the tourism front, and I speak only in respect of that area, which is an area dear to my heart. It is a minister who is indecisive. He displays qualities of enthusiasm on the one part, and on the other part shows moronic behaviour. That is amply demonstrated by two things: one, cutting the budget in the November mini-budget; and, second, by doing nothing for tourism in this budget. So it is a badly managed portfolio.
On to another matter, the minister mentioned in his adjournment speech that the Aviation Committee reports to him. It is good to know that, but the fact of the matter is, however, that not many people in the industry know what it is that the Aviation Committee does. Believe me, they have told me this. I have better things to do with my time and life than sit around in bed inventing these things. Perhaps there is a constructive suggestion to the minister to advise people in the tourism industry what it is the Aviation Committee does. I sincerely hope that the minister has the good grace to pick up my suggestion in that regard.
On to another matter in the limited time I have left, there is the suggestion of an Aviation Ambassador. The minister says it was his idea; I say it was mine. Well, look, let us split the difference. The minister says that he came up with the idea in February. Strangely enough, he needed to go back to his department to seek approval and permission as to whether or not it was a good idea. I say to the minister: lead from the front. If you want be good at your job, be decisive, manage your portfolio, make some decisions, be loyal to the tourism industry, and show some leadership.
This minister is the worst tourism minister in history. I am very confident that those in the industry - let alone the wider population of the Northern Territory - will attest to that in due course. I say to him: get on with the job, get your head around the portfolio. I am sad that he is the worst tourism minister in history. Having made those comments, I hope that he has taken some of them on board.
Mr McADAM (Barkly): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak tonight in respect of a young lady, Katherine Pearce from Tennant Creek, who has been appointed as a youth grant member by one of Australia’s leading philanthropic organisations, the Foundation for Young Australians. The Foundation for Young Australians is a dynamic not-for-profit organisation committed to creating exciting opportunities and effective outcomes for our young people. The Foundation for Young Australians undertakes this task by leading the development of innovative strategies that enable young people to reach their potential and participate fully in society. The foundation commits around $3m per year for young people; of which approximately 20% is committed to young indigenous people in Australia.
Katherine is one of 58 young people aged between 15 and 23 who have been selected to sit on this committee from all states and territories of Australia. It is worth noting that Katherine was selected for this important task from approximately 240 people who applied Australia-wide. Katherine’s appointment to this important committee is voluntary, and is an indication of her dedication and commitment to the young people of the Territory.
Katherine is a wonderful young person, who is actively involved in a number of other activities and organisations in Tennant Creek, and is always prepared to assist wherever she possibly can. Katherine, I would like to say to you on behalf of all the people in the Barkly that we applaud your appointment.
I would also like to pay tribute tonight to a young lady, Anjuli Afianos-Hill, who attended Alice Springs recently to receive a Bachelor in Teaching degree from the Northern Territory University on behalf of her mother, Susie Afianos, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. Obviously, Anjuli was very pleased to accept the award on behalf of her mum who worked so hard to achieve her teaching degree. Anjuli recently said in the Tennant Creek and District Times:
- Mum studied really hard so that she could finish her work.
Anjuli went on to say that her mother would have been so happy to receive this degree, and that she was proud to receive it on her behalf. I would like to say to Anjuli that we in Tennant Creek are very proud of you and your mum’s achievements, and on behalf of all the people in Tennant Creek, we wish you all the very best, now and into the future.
On 10 August this year, Dinny McDinny, Nancy McDinny, Myra Rory and Stewart Hoosan from Wandangula community near Borroloola exhibited their paintings at the Karen Brown Gallery in Darwin. Dinny McDinny was also selected to exhibit in the 2002 Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. This exhibition is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the people of Wandangula and Peter Callaghan, the coordinator of Barkly Regional Arts based in Tennant Creek, played a very important role in getting this exhibition together and supporting the people in Borroloola and the communities throughout the Barkly. Of importance is the role performed by Dinny McDinny and the people at Wandangula, and that is indicated by their commitment to undertake a training course in arts and culture in the media over 12 months which gave rise to the very successful Lidjarkarda Festival held in 1997.
The Lidjarkarda Festival embraced cultural protocols and involved traditional dance, contemporary music, arts and crafts as well as sporting events. It might be also worth mentioning here that Barbara McCarthy, who is actually from Borroloola, played a very important role in developing this training program and continues to support the people in Borroloola and the arts.
Mr McDinny is a respected traditional owner in the Borroloola area and is a song man, along with members of the family, of the Aeroplane Dance which documents the true story of the peoples’ struggles and search for a group of American air servicemen who went down in a plane crash in the Gulf in World War II.
I congratulate Mr McDinny, Nancy McDinny, Myra Rory and Stewart Hoosan for their inspiration in developing the arts industry in the region. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Karen Brown for exhibiting the artists. I understand that this group is the first group from Wandangula as a community in respect of exhibiting in Darwin.
Finally, I pay tribute to the community in Tennant Creek. They have been fund raising over the last few weeks to assist the family of a local, Dr Isaac Menge who was in an horrific car accident a few months ago and unfortunately was flown to Adelaide. He remains in Adelaide undertaking a rehabilitation program. He is now a quadriplegic. His wife returned to work in Tennant Creek on a part-time basis, along with her three school-aged children.
I am happy to advise, though, that Dr Isaac is doing very well. In fact, I have been advised that perhaps in the near future he will be returning to Tennant Creek to continue his practice as a doctor. I think that says a lot for Dr Isaac. It certainly says a lot in respect of his and his family’s commitment to Tennant Creek and, of course, the Territory.
Obviously, the community undertook this fundraising venture, one of many, to provide financial assistance to the family to offset unexpected expenses due to this accident. The latest fund raising activity was a night at the movies held on Saturday 17 August where the film Rabbit-Proof Fence was shown. This proved to be a very successful night with approximately 250 people attending. About $2000 was raised on the night. All the organisation for the movie, ticketing, food, a whole lot of goodies, was prepared by members of the community to maximise the profits. As I say, many people spent hours making popcorn, icecream, etcetera.
Unfortunately, I could not be there on the night in question, but they had a great night. I further understand that on Monday, the Tennant Creek High School also showed that movie and collected something in excess of $200-odd. So for the weekend, approximately $2200-odd was raised for the family.
The students at Warrego School attended along with some of the elders from Mungalawurra community. Obviously this was made possible by the children having Friday off - they came in to school on Saturday – to allow preparation for the trip. I want to pay tribute to Colin Baker, the principal, and his wife Sandra, who actually drove out to Mungalawurra community on the Saturday in two troop carriers, an hour’s drive from the school, and then into Tennant Creek so that the students could enjoy the school excursion and participate towards the fund raising exercise. This is a trip of around 200 km. It might not sound a lot, but over 100 km of this is done on very rough roads.
One of the pupils, Kershia James, actually featured in the movie Rabbit-Proof Fence. Her great grandmother, Eva Kelly, was there. Eva is a member of the Stolen Generation, and I understand it was very traumatic experience for her, but much enjoyed by everyone.
I want to quickly pay tribute to the people who put this together. They will continue to raise money into the future in respect of Dr Isaac Menge and his family. Barry Bradley, the Coordinator at Anyinginyi Congress Aboriginal Corporation, Margaret Lecons who also works at Anyinginyi Congress and sits on the fund raising committee; Jasmin Afianos from the Tennant Creek and District Times who is the publicity coordinator; Selina Bond from Territory Health Services; and Michelle Luey who is a doctor with Anyinginyi Congress also contributed immensely.
In conclusion, I want to pay tribute to my Electorate Officer, Gayle Dougall, who actually started with me around about two to three months ago and has proved invaluable but, more importantly, Gayle is a very community minded person, very much involved in a whole lot of activities in our community and does a wonderful job.
Dr Lim: This is the fourth one, isn’t it, Elliot, that has left your office?
Mr McADAM: Sorry? I do not think it is any of your business how many I have had. Are you finished, Dr Lim?
Dr Lim: I just wondered, that’s all. Just asking.
Mr McADAM: Are you finished, Dr Lim? Can I get on with it?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr McADAM: Is it okay, Dr Lim? You must like hearing your own voice.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Member for Barkly.
Mr McADAM: But as I say – and actually, she is the second. Are you happy about that? Mind your own business next time.
As I said, Gayle Dougall does a wonderful job in my electorate office and, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by that cretin across the side, she is a very community minded person and she has the community’s interests at heart, and I thank her for her very important contribution to raising these dollars for Dr Isaac Menge - a colleague of yours, Dr Lim.
To everyone associated with the night, I thank you very much for your contribution, and I know that the same committee will work hard into the future to continue raising money for such a worthwhile cause.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise - and my words will probably be lost on deaf ears tonight, being the last day of the sittings for these two weeks – to speak about the increasingly unruly behaviour in this Chamber.
Mr Henderson: Oh, God!
Dr LIM: I hear the Minister for Business, Industries and Resource Development moan with an utterance of God. Normally it is taking the name of God in vain, but obviously he thinks it is something that he believes I should not speak about because it is not worthy of his listening.
I would like to draw the Chamber’s attention to the behaviour of members in this Chamber. We have, in this term of parliament, become rather abusive. There are more interjections than ever. Interjections have gone on for much longer than the normal short, sharp interjections that makes a point …
Ms Lawrie: So you have done a statistical analysis of Hansard?
Dr LIM: … particularly like the member for Karama, who continues incessantly with her whining voice throughout other members’ speeches. And I think it is a real pity. The cacophony in this Chamber at times is really not becoming of members of parliament and the standards that we are supposed to set for the community. We are supposedly leaders of the community and the way we behave in here, in my opinion, is really not very acceptable.
A few things have been discussed about the breach of standing orders. Only a few days ago, on Wednesday 21 August, I called a point of order on the Deputy Chief Minister for using the name of one of his colleagues rather than addressing his colleague by his electorate. I draw members’ attention to standing order number 65 which states:
Member to be referred to by electorate.
- No member may refer to any other member by name, but only by the name of the electoral
division he represents.
In gender neutral language, I suppose it would be by the name of the electoral division the member represents.
I draw your attention to that in particular because that standing order has been broken on many occasions, particularly this last fortnight. When I raised that issue at a meeting earlier today, the member for Johnston asked me what motives members might have to use member’s names rather than the electorate names. I suggested to the member for Johnston that if he did not understand the politics of the matter, then obviously he admits to being very new in this Chamber and that is why he does not understand.
The new members of parliament, particularly the ones on government benches, need to understand that standing orders are there for a specific purpose. They have been there as our convention and rules of debate for a long time and they should be observed. No different than we observe a standard of dress when we come into this Chamber, and unless you do so, the Speaker does not have to recognise the member. The standing orders applying to dress code is no different from the standing orders relating to rules of debate. It is important that our newer members, ones who are very enthusiastic in their debate - have as much enthusiasm as you like - but do it within the confines of our standing orders.
Another standing order that I would like to draw our new members’ attention to is standing order 32, which is about the quorum at the time of sitting. I called attention to the state of House, I believe it was yesterday, and the Deputy Chief Minister berated me for doing so. I read that standing order for the benefit of members:
Quorum at time of sitting
The Chair shall be taken at the time appointed on every day fixed for the sitting of the Assembly;
but if a quorum of members is not present, and if within 5 minutes, the bells having been rung,
a quorum is still not present, the Speaker shall adjourn the Assembly to the next sitting day:
provided that if the Speaker is satisfied there is likely to be a quorum within a reasonable time
he shall announce that he will take the Chair at a stated time; but if at that time there be not a
quorum the Speaker shall adjourn the Assembly to the next sitting day.
I then prompted you, I believe, this morning when I said the quorum of the Assembly is 10 - and that is standing order 32.
It is beholden on a government to provide a quorum for the Assembly, and whether there be or one or 10 members of the opposition here is irrelevant. Mr Deputy Speaker, you know as well as I do, and every member of the Chamber knows, that we can monitor speeches being delivered in this Chamber via the closed circuit television sets in our offices, the lobby rooms, and elsewhere in Parliament House. Therefore, whether one is present in this Chamber or not, one can still listen and follow a debate. However, it is beholden on the government to provide the numbers. In a debate such as on a bill such as the Appropriation Bill, where it is very important to the government obviously - because that is all about supply - you would think that the government would provide adequate numbers to have a quorum in this room. If there is not, then I believe it is also the responsibility of the opposition to draw the Speaker’s attention to the state of the House. I say to the government: if they are in the business of government, do it properly; do not come in here and treat this Chamber with great disregard - particularly by the level of the behaviour of their members - and do their job right.
The other standing order that I believe has been breached on many, many occasions is standing order 62, which reads:
Offensive or Unbecoming Words
- (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; and all offensive references to a member’s private affairs and all personal reflections on members shall be deemed to be highly disorderly.
(2) Whenever the Speaker rules that words used by any member are highly disorderly, such words shall not be published in the Parliamentary Record.
With this point, I now note that Hansard actually incorporates just about everything that has been said, and that standing order has fallen by the wayside. Maybe that needs to be looked at by the Standing Orders Committee; or that Hansard, in fact, deletes anything that has been withdrawn unreservedly.
Mr Henderson: People want to go home. Nobody is interested in this.
Dr LIM: Standing Order 62(3):
- (3) The provisions of this standing order relating to unbecoming conduct shall not apply where a substantive motion on notice brings a charge of misconduct against a member.
The Minister for Business, Industry and Resource Development and business continues to interject so, obviously, he is one of the leaders of his government and the standard of his behaviour demonstrates to his newer members how he wants to see them behave. That is a real pity. If he is one of the senior members of his party, then I would suggest that he shows some leadership, and shows how well one should behave in this Chamber.
Talking about unbecoming words, the way that names have been thrown across the Chamber - to be called a racist by the member for Arnhem, is to me quite offensive. Not only by the member for Arnhem, in fact, the member for Karama – oh, the member for Sanderson - as well. Why they did that ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! I would ask the …
Dr LIM: I corrected myself, Mr Deputy Speaker and I think there is no point of order at all.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Greatorex!
Ms LAWRIE: Mr Deputy Speaker, I am speaking to a point of order, and I was not allowed to say anything. I have never referred to the member for Greatorex as a racist. I ask him to withdraw that allegation.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member actually corrected himself and mentioned the member for Karama - oh sorry, the member for Sanderson.
Dr LIM: There you go. See? We all make mistakes and I admit that I made a mistake. I meant the member for Sanderson and not mean the member for Karama.
It is important that those sort of comments are highly offensive and unnecessary and the ministers in particular on that side of the Chamber need to show some restraint, need to show their younger members, their newer members, how to behave in this Chamber. They laugh, they joke, they carry on like young delinquents that they want to be and that’s fine, that is their right. But I believe in this Chamber there is a level of behaviour that we should have and I suggest to members opposite that they do observe standing orders that they all have - whether they have read them or not I don’t know - but it is their duty to read the standing orders, understand them and remember them. If they do not, then obviously they can be pulled up and be reminded.
Members interjecting
Dr LIM: It is important that if we don’t - the members opposite continue to interject in a really senseless way. If it was a sensible interjection, then you think it is acceptable. But when they go on like this, one has to ask, What is the problem?’ I am not going to try to throw any insults across the Chamber tonight, I think enough is enough.
I say to the newer members, the younger members, learn your standing orders and the level of debate in this Chamber will be elevated and perhaps the public in the Territory will respect members of parliament as leaders of the community and we can show them that we deserve their respect that right now they do not have for us.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about a special occasion that was happening here in the House. But in response to the member for Greatorex’s complaints and whinges about being called a racist, I would like to draw attention to the unrevised issue of Hansard of Thursday, 15 August 2002, at page 65, to an adjournment debate by the member for Greatorex about his trip to South Australia for the CPA. Now, perhaps racism is a bit of a harsh term. Neocolonialism, imperialism - perhaps these labels would best suit his attitude.
I will read this paragraph and let the parliament and the readers of Hansard decide on whether the labels of racism are accurate or inaccurate. I quote from the member for Greatorex:
- I thought the conference was particularly interesting. I had great opportunity to make a lot of friends on
both sides of politics across Australia and also in the Pacific Islands. I was thinking that perhaps I should
actually make a trip across there and have a look at their IT systems first-hand and perhaps be able to provide
the CPA with some insight into what the real needs are of the Pacific Islanders and how the CPA could be
more productive with the financial assistance that they have provided to the Pacific Islanders to ensure that
they have good IT systems. Good not meaning first world standards but good meaning that it would do it all
the work that they need the computers to do for them and also making sure that there are enough people around
to at least trouble shoot to a large degree so that we do not end up with having computers not functioning,
being used as paper weights or door stops instead.
Well, I am just incredulous of that statement. The temerity of this man to say that he will go to another country and he will tell them how to work out their computer system. That they do not have enough resources, they do not have enough people, enough intelligence, enough skills level over there that he will travel from Alice Springs, this well learned, this first world man, and tell the people of the Pacific Islands how to run their own country and how to do their own business.
Well, if that is not racism, then it is neocolonialism or it is imperialism. It is just appalling that he should set himself up as being superior – which he does in here all the time – to people of other races and other religions and other nationalities. That, in my book, is racism and if he does not like it, then he can find his own label and he can go to whinge to anyone else he likes. It is incredible that he stands up here, that man who has been so insecure in his own upbringing that he attributes his own feelings to others. That is enough on that point.
I am in here tonight to speak about a happy event, a multicultural event, we in the Labor Party were happy to sponsor, particularly as government. On 6 August this year, a reception was hosted by the Chief Minister for members of the Northern Territory Islamic Society. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you will allow me, I would like to speak briefly on Islam for the readers of Hansard who may or may not have, but wish to have an understanding of this faith.
Islam means ‘submission’. That is, submission to the will of God, the characteristic attitude of members of the Muslim faith. In Islam, the concept of God is that Allah is the supreme being, the one and only God. Allah is the same God as that worshipped by the Jews and the Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians, who also use this name when referring to God.
Did you know that in the original unchanged Revelations given to Abrahamic and other prophets reaching back to Adam all came from the one true God? This common origin explains the similarities in many beliefs and values. Abraham is mentioned in the Qur’an as one of the great prophets. He was honoured with the title ‘Friend of God’. Abraham and his eldest son, Ishmael, were commanded by God to build a place of worship, the Ka’bah which is today is the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic faith has five pillars on which beliefs are based. The five pillars of Islam are the foundations of Muslim life: faithful belief in the oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad; establishment of the daily prayers; concern for and alms giving to the needy; self-purification through fasting; and the pilgrimage to Mecca for those who are able; and the faith or the Imam of Islam is that there is none worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.
This declaration of faith is called the Shahadah, a simple formula that all the faith pronounce. The significance of this declaration is the belief that the only purpose of life is to serve and obey God, and this is achieved through the teaching and practises of the last prophet, Muhammad.
What are the five pillars of Islam? One of the pillars is Salat, and that is the prayer. Salat is the name for the obligatory prayers that are performed five times day and are a direct link between the worshippers and God. There is no hierarchical authority in Islam and there are no priests. Prayers are led by a learned person who knows the Qur’an and is generally chosen by the congregation. Prayers are said at dawn, midday, late afternoon, sunset and nightfall, and thus determine the rhythm of the entire day.
These five prescribed prayers contain verses from the Qur’an and are said in Arabic, the language of the Revelation. Personal supplication, however, can be offered in one’s own language and at any time, and in the Islamic Society here in the Northern Territory, there are many languages. I am sure the many people who do follow the faith of Islam pray in their own language. Although it is preferable to worship together in a mosque, a Muslim may pray almost anywhere such as fields, offices, factories, and universities. Often times, visitors to the Muslim world are struck by the centrality of prayers in daily life.
Let me say that for the first time in Australia in any place of government practice, the prayers were held. It was a first for Australia, and it was a great thing that the Islamic Society actually held a prayer session here, in this House, and if that does not speak volumes for what this House is all about, a House of the people for the people, and we are a joint and united society, then I do not know what else can bring that about.
The Salat is a prayer, it is a translation of the Qur’an prayer. The translation is, and this is where a lot of English-speaking people do not understand the prayer to be, but it is: ‘God is Great, God is Great, God is Great, God is Great’.
Mr Mills: Allahu Akbar.
Mr KIELY: That is correct, member for Blain. Could you say that again and get that on record?
Mr Mills: Allahu Akbar.
Mr KIELY: Allahu Akbar, you will have to spell that, but that is wonderful.
- I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God
I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God
I testify that Muhammad is a messenger of God
I testify that Muhammad is a messenger of God
Come to prayer
Come to prayer
Come to success
Come to success
God is Great
God is Great
There is none worthy of worship except God.
People of the Islam faith also have to conduct a pilgrimage or a Hajj. The pilgrimage to Mecca, or the hajj, is an obligation only for those who are physically and financially able to do so. Nevertheless, over two million people go to Mecca each year, and from every corner of the globe, providing a unique opportunity for those of different nations to meet one another. The annual hajj begins in the twelfth month of the Islamic year, which is lunar not solar, or the hajj and Ramadan fall sometimes in summer, sometimes in winter. Pilgrims wear special clothes, simple garments and strip away distinctions of class and culture so that all stand equal before God.
The rites of the hajj, which are of Abrahamic origin, include going around the Ka’abah seven times, and going seven times between the hills of Safa and Mawar, as did Hagar, Abraham’s wife, during her search for water. The pilgrims later stand together on the wide plains of Arafat, and join in prayer of God’s forgiveness, in what is often thought as a preview of the Day of Judgement. The close of the hajj is marked by a festival, the ‘Id al Adha, which is celebrated with prayers and the exchange of gifts in Muslim communities everywhere. This, and the ‘Id al Fitr, a festive day celebrating the end of Ramadan, are two holidays of the Islamic calendar.
There is also the fasting. Every year in the month of Ramadan, all Muslims fast from dawn until sundown, abstaining from food, drink, and sexual relations with their spouses. Those who are sick, elderly, or on journey, and women who are menstruating, pregnant or nursing are permitted to break the fast and make up an equal number of days later in the year, if they are healthy and able. Children begin the fast from puberty, although many start earlier. Although fasting is beneficial to health, it is mainly a method of self-purification and self-restraint. By cutting oneself from worldly comforts, even for a short time, a fasting person focusses on his or her personal life by constantly being aware of the presence of God. God states in the Qur’an: ‘Oh you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed to those before you that you may learn self-restraint’.
The Islamic community has a strong sense of obligation, and the financial obligation is placed upon Muslims. An important principle of Islam is that everything belongs to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. The word Zakah means both ‘purification’ and ‘growth’. Our possessions are purified by setting aside a proportion for those in need and for the society in general. Like the pruning of plants, this cutting back balances and encourages new growth. Each Muslim calculates his or her Zakah individually. This involves the annual payment of one-fortieth of one’s capital, excluding such items as primary residence, car and professional tools. An individual may also give as much as he or she pleases. An individual may also give as much as he or she pleases as sadaqa-h, and does so preferably in secret. Although this word can be translated as ‘voluntary charity’ it has a wider meaning.
The Prophet said: ‘Even meeting your brother with a cheerful face is an act of charity’. The Prophet also said: ‘Charity is a necessity for every Muslim’. He was asked, ‘What if a person has nothing?’ The Prophet replied: ‘He should work with his own hands for this benefit, and then give something out of such earnings in charity. The Companions of the Prophet asked: ‘What if he is not able to work?’ The Prophet said: ‘He should help the poor and needy’. The Companions further asked: ‘What if he cannot do even that?’ The Prophet said: ‘He should urge others to do good’. His Companions said: ‘What if he lacks that also?’ The Prophet said: ‘He should check himself from doing evil. This is also an act of charity.’
Mr Deputy Speaker, the event here on 6 August was simply fabulous. In it were members from my own community. There was Dr Masood Ahmad, and I chatted with quite a number of people there. There were over 50 people there. There was Mr Tommy Djamul from Anula, Mr Nurul Huq and I had a great chat to all these people. We were talking about fishing, to tell you the truth. There was Mr Ferooz Khan, he is a great one to have a chat with. And Mr Anwar Latif, who I have done a lot of work for in my own electorate and I am happy to work with him. He has a few problems around the golf course, and we are working hard with him on and he is organising a meeting with the minister now
There was Mr Rafiuddin, from Wulagi, and my old friend, Bobby Wibisono, who the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure is quite aware of. Bobby is a great bloke. Bobby is a bloke at the Parap Markets who makes some great satays – wonderful chap. I am working with him on a few issues, and I hope to work with him further in the future. Mr Ahmad Yani from Anula, is another great man of the community who works with everyone. When we arrived, we were greeted by Mr Asad Mohsin, the President of the Islamic Society. He is a wonderful man, and we went to the mosque that he opened up after 11 September crisis to unite the community with members of his organisation.
Let me say that I have learned that the Muslim people are great contributors to the organisation. I seek leave to incorporate all the names of those who attended the meeting on the 4th floor into Hansard.
Leave granted.
Mr and Mrs Gholam Abbas Malik; Dr and Mrs Wagar Ahmad; Dr and Mrs Masood Ahmad;
Mr and Mrs Mohamed Akram; Mr and Mrs Oemar Aljufri; Ms Fareda Antwertinger;
Mr Pof Yusuf Arifin; Mr Muhammad Arsyad Al Lambany; Mr and Mrs Sakib Awan;
Dr and Mrs Hassan Bajhau; Mr and Mrs Syafrin Basyaruddin; Mr and Mrs Iskandar Basyaruddin;
Mr and Mrs Shafiq Chaudhry; Mr and Mrs Akm Chowdhry; Mr and Mrs Sadruddin Chowdhry;
Mr and Mrs Mohammed Daud; Mr and Mrs Tommy Djamal; Mr and Mrs Ali Djawas;
Mr and Mrs Mohammad Duncan; Mr and Mrs Ibnu Syed Ebrahim; Mrs Hamidah Hammat;
Mr and Mrs Nurul Huq; Mrs Feroz Khan Ibrahim; Ms Istilah; Mr and Mrs Feeroz Khan;
Mr and Mrs Imam and Adama Konda; Mr and Mrs Anwar Latif; Mr and Mrs Abrar Malik;
Mr Atif Masood; Mr and Mrs Tariq Mehmood; Mr Hisham Mohammed; Mr Asad Mohsin;
Mr and Mrs Kamal Mokak; Mr and Mrs Tariq Muhammad; Mr and Mrs Adbul Wahid Mukhlis;
Mr and Mrs Gholam Mustafa; Mr and Mrs Khalid Nadeem; Mr and Mrs Abdul Qadeer; Mrs Ruth Quinn;
Mr and Mrs Ashraf Qureshi; Mr and Mrs Rafiuddin; Mr Jillur Rahman; Mrs Nesma Rahman; Ms Umi Rasmi;
Mr and Mrs Abu Sarin; Mr and Mrs Mohammad Shafiq; Mr and Mrs Fadly Shidiq; Mr and Mrs Andrew Sunderland; Mr and Mrs Mohammad Tajjamul; Mrs Jumina Taylor; Mr Kamil Waqar; Mr and Mrs Alan Whykes;
Mr and Mrs Muhammad (Bobby) Wibisono; and Mr Ahmad Yani.
Mr KIELY: I would like to finish off this adjournment debate, thanking the Muslim community with the words ‘Jazak Allah. As Salaamu 'Alaykum’.
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not believe such wonderful words have been spoken at the end of the day.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will endeavour to keep my comments short. There are a couple of areas that I would like to touch on, before concluding with an accolade to the senior citizens of Palmerston.
I took a little too long this afternoon in responding to the budget. A couple of areas that I do need to include in the Parliamentary Record out of interest in the concerns of the community of Palmerston is the need for planning to be progressed with regard to a primary school for Palmerston. Palmerston is continuing to grow with a new subdivision in the Rosebery area. Bakewell School services the suburb of Rosebery and is currently overcrowded. We need to include planning for a school in the subdivision of Rosebery in an exciting new development which is being carried by the Larrakia Nation.
Secondly, with regards my shadow responsibilities for youth, I need to put on the record, in the interest of seeking further clarification, as I have indicated earlier, it is very difficult to get a clear understanding of the quantum of funding that goes towards supporting important programs.
I formally seek clarification of the level of formal commitment to the Junior Police Rangers scheme. It is a scheme that can be criticised from some philosophical quarters, in that it appeals to a certain sector of our youth community, but we do have to balance our support into promoting leadership in our youth community. I need to get an understanding of what level of support there is for this program.
I am not in the business of perpetrating rumours, but you do hear things around the traps. It is a small community here in the Northern Territory. I have seen no indication – not that I am able to, in fact, the budget papers do not reveal a lot of intricate detail – of any support, or reference to the Leeuwin program, another important youth leadership program. I seek clarification and confirmation that the Leeuwin program is going to receive ongoing support.
Another matter that I would like to refer to is a continuation of comments made earlier with regard to the actual substantiated support of this Northern Territory government for the NTU in one respect. As indicated earlier, I am more interested in the substance of the rhetoric than the rhetoric itself. That rhetoric serves only for a short time. With regard to the actual support for NTU, I simply ask this question: how much government consultancy work was given to the NTU in 2001-02, and how much of this consultancy work was redirected to other sources? And why, at the beginning of this financial year, has the Northern Territory government given the NTU only 31% of a contract to provide online professional development courses, while the bulk of the money, almost 70%, has gone to two universities in Western Australia? The answer to that question is, of course, extremely significant because it matches up and sits alongside the rhetoric. We need to see actual support, genuine and energetic support, for our own Northern Territory University.
I would like to pay very special respect to the senior citizens of Palmerston. Palmerston, as has been indicated before, is a cohesive community. We started as a discrete community of a small number, now grown to a significant number in excess of 24 000, but it is still one community. There are many distinctive aspects of that community, one being the active life of the senior citizens. A specific seniors group, which commenced in 1996, worked together with an aim to fund and resource activities for seniors around a specified Seniors Week. There is nothing that delights me more than having people with good ideas actually put these good ideas together, talk about it, and put it into practice.
In 1996, Ann McNeill and Irene Roli, and then later on, Elva Whitbread, came along. They spent 12 months fundraising with the aim of providing a single week of free activities for senior citizens. They now have a committee with the specific aim of working together for the duration of the year, the 51 weeks, I suppose, to raise funds to provide one week of free activities for the senior citizens of Palmerston. Their activities are extraordinary. When people work for other people they really are able to achieve a huge amount. This small group of Ann McNeill, Irene Roli, Elva Whitbread, Betty Chapman, Lucy Aylett, Iris McGregor and Joe Postl are a wonderful troupe of people. When I was elected in 1999, the first person who came to my office door was Ann McNeill, who basically read me my marching orders and told me that I did have to support this group. Of course, I have duly obeyed since that moment.
Their week of activities comprised an opening ceremony at Woodroffe Primary School; a fully funded morning tea at Cazaly’s; a quiz night at Cazaly’s; lunch at the Casino, remembering this was fully funded; a harbour cruise; a Hoi morning; mini golf – fully funded; lunch at Rydge’s Plaza; and a closing ceremony at Woodroffe Primary School, which I was happy to attend, which was, once again, fully catered in every respect.
All of this was catered for by the activities of the aforementioned committee who work on a weekly basis with bingo and supplemented by cash donations from businesses and local members. I would have to say this is an absolutely sterling achievement, and these people I use this opportunity to raise up high as an example to all of us as a way of building our community and strengthening that which we love about the Northern Territory. So with those words, I conclude my remarks.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016