2003-02-19
- Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 11.15 am.
PETITIONS
Marrakai School bus route - Extension of Service
Marrakai School bus route - Extension of Service
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I present a petition from 50 petitioners praying that members seek an extension of the Marrakai School bus route. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read.
- To the honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
We submit the following petition on behalf of all rural residents of the Marrakai region concerned with the
existing school bus routes for this area. Currently our children are being dropped off at the last bus stop,
being the Arnhem Highway, and having to then walk a further 3 km to 10 km home. The ages of these children
range from 5 years and upwards, and having to walk these additional distances in our tropical climate is
not acceptable, particularly in our wet season.
On Monday, 2 September 2002, a group of residents witnessed what could have been a fatal accident when a
young school boy walked around the front of the bus to cross the Arnhem Highway as another vehicle sped
past at the precise moment.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly undertake the following remedial action:
to extend the Marrakai School Bus route to include further bus stops situated along Barr Road, McGorrie Road
and Wyatt Road.
Genetically Modified Free Northern Territory
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I present a petition from 83 petitioners praying that members allow a genetically modified free Northern Territory. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that it be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read.
- To the honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory,
We submit the following petition on behalf of the Organic Producers Association of the Northern Territory
and all Northern Territory citizens concerned with the release of genetically modified organisms onto our
farms. Our concerns are supported by the fact Tasmania has been declared a GMO-free state and as indeed
many countries worldwide have also decided to take this option. GMO farming already has caused alarm
with documented evidence of disturbing environmental failures.
We pray the honourable members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly will be guided by nature,
which has never allowed plant or animal of different species to combine.
Please allow a Genetically Modified Free Northern Territory and support a world wide trend for the benefit
of all humanity.
Panorama Guth Closure
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I seek your indulgence. As the member for Nelson is not with us today I would like to present a petition as the member for Braitling so I seek leave to present the petition from this Chair. Is leave granted?
Leave granted.
Honourable members, I present a petition from 2872 petitioners relating to the closure of Panorama Guth in Alice Springs. This petition is similar to a petition presented to the Assembly on 17 February 2003. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms to the requirements of standing orders. With the concurrence of honourable members I propose the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read.
- To the honourable the Speaker and members of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
We the undersigned residents of, and visitors to, Alice Springs respectfully request that members of the
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory seriously consider the preservation of the Panorama Guth
building and painting to save both from being dismantled and lost to the town forever.
This unique building houses the only 360 degree painting in Australia. The Panorama Guth painting is one
of the main tourist attractions in our town. It is a valuable asset that needs to be preserved for our
future generations.
Your petitioners therefore request that the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory give this matter
their urgent attention and take appropriate action to keep the Panorama painting in Alice Springs.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE
Member for Nelson
Member for Nelson
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that leave of absence be granted to the member for Nelson for today and Thursday, 20 February 2003, owing to a family bereavement. I am sure all members will join with me and the government in passing our condolences to the member for Nelson and his family.
Motion agreed to.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Alice Springs to Darwin Railway
Alice Springs to Darwin Railway
Ms MARTIN (AustralAsia Railway): Madam Speaker, I would like to report to the House on progress on what is currently the Territory’s biggest construction project, the Darwin to Alice Springs railway. Since we last sat an important ceremony has been held outside Dunmarra, at the Buchanan Camp, to celebrate the final thermal weld on the section between Tennant Creek and Katherine. It was a terrific ceremony which received national coverage which took us, and the Territory’s great project, right into the hearts of homes all around Australia. The Today show covered it live and it also received good national newspaper coverage. It was a significant moment in the railway and of course there will be many more.
Here are some facts on the progress of construction: half of the track has now been completed; of 1420 km, some 752 km of track has been completed. Over 1259 km of the corridor has been cleared. The track work has been completed to approximately 99 km south of Tennant Creek and to the ballast quarry 20 km north of Katherine. All the earth works associated with the track should be completed by early next month.
There have been 1 283 082 sleepers manufactured, although that number has probably changed overnight; 2 388 484 tonnes of ballast have been produced; and 101 746 tonnes of rail has been delivered to Roe Creek, just south of Alice Springs, from Whyalla in South Australia. They really are awesome figures.
With the East Arm Port component of the project, earthworks have now been completed on the railway causeway and in the container terminal. The Elizabeth River bridge was completed months ahead of schedule on 13 December, and is the longest bridge of the project at 510 metres.
As far as jobs go, there are 997 direct employees and two-thirds of those, 661, are Territorians. In terms of the value to businesses through the Territory, $574m of business or contracts have been awarded to Territory-based businesses and industries. That $574m is an impressive figure when you consider the entire value of the contracts is $945m. As construction is in its final phases over this year planning has begun for the arrival of the first train in Darwin in early 2004. Part of that planning, of course, is the passenger terminal and an interim location was announced late last year, and that is adjacent to the Darwin Business Park; $9m has gone into that Business Park for the development of a freight forwarding area.
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: If the member for Drysdale is not interested, that is very disappointing because this is the Territory’s biggest construction project.
2002 was the year of construction. That is where we really saw the construction move ahead. This year, while that construction continues to move ahead, is the year of focussing on freight. There is considerable work being undertaken by the Office of Territory Development working with FreightLink and businesses both in the Northern Territory and South Australia, and the rest of the country, to attract new international freight to the Australasia trade route. There will be a joint Territory FreightLink marketing visit into key commercial centres in Asia in the second week of March and we will be targeting key investment and industry organisations and Asian businesses.
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: This effort is being undertaken in partnership with the Territory business community. On that trip I will be accompanied …
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: … by the president of the Territory’s …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale …
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, thank you!
Ms MARTIN: … Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bruce Fadelli, and Bruce McGowan, the new CEO of Freight Link, who is currently in town.
I will also be meeting with key ministers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia as well as the major airlines of these countries to advance the business case for these airlines to establish services directly into Darwin. It is a trip that includes international air links and also the important international freight component of the rail.
I look forward to briefing the Assembly on the outcomes of my visit when I return. That will be a report in April.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, in reporting progress on the railway, I take the opportunity now to say that I also reported progress on the railway when I met with the Vice President of the United States at the White House about a month ago. He takes a keen interest in what is happening, particularly in the Northern Territory in fact, and also in the railway.
Territorians should not forget that Mr Dick Cheney is the Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, Brown and Root, and was a major factor in bringing the railway to fruition. It was the investment of that company, and the belief in the railway he had at a time when some institutional investors were getting quite concerned about the work of their investment; he held fast, and in holding fast those investors also stayed. He was pleased to hear what is happening, he was pleased to hear it has made such great progress. I invited him to come, if he ever got the opportunity to come to the Territory, to see the railway for himself. One never knows, that just might happen one day.
What the member for Drysdale said is very important, though. You talk about this being the year of freight; this is when you are going to pick a trip overseas. That is fine. We support all of that. But what we would like to know is some detail. I mean, what is the competitive argument that you are going to put out there? What is that task force that has been put together actually saying? Do you know what the freight rates are?
Mr Henderson: Have you asked for a briefing?
Mr BURKE: Do you know the comparison – a briefing! This is the parliament of the Northern Territory. It is an opportunity to tell Territorians just what you are doing, exactly what package you are putting together that is competitive, that is going to take freight from road to rail, that is going to attract investors from overseas to invest in our railway and our port. We hear about, ‘Yes, we are doing these things, we are thinking about them, we are putting a package together’. For God’s sake, get on and do it so that Territorians have some confidence that when this railway is finished, it will be up and going and will be the great project it should be.
Ms MARTIN (AustralAsia Railway): Madam Speaker, because the current Leader of the Opposition was involved so closely in the development of the rail, he understands - and I am sure he does, and is not just playing politics about this – that running the rail, establishing the freight rates, is the work of a private operation. You do understand that: it is a private operation.
It is a private operation and it is run on commercial lines. So when he stands in here and says: ‘What are you going to tell Territorians?’, he should understand the nature of the project. FreightLink is establishing the operation of the rail. We are working with them because we have a vital interest in it. We are working with them. It is a commercial operation. Understand that. We are working to build those business connections. We are working with FreightLink, but it is a commercial operation. It is about time the Leader of the Opposition asked for a briefing rather than coming in here and throwing his hands in the air and calling on God to help.
Secondary Education in
Remote Indigenous Communities
Remote Indigenous Communities
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to report to the House today on another significant development in education brought about by the Martin Labor government.
As Minister for Employment, Education and Training, I am proud of our program to promote the delivery of secondary education in remote indigenous communities. In keeping with this government’s commitment to provide quality education to all Territorians regardless of where they live across this great Territory, we have, for the first time, Year 11 and 12 students in a remote community who will complete their NT Certificate of Education. The community is Kalkarindji and I congratulate those young people and, indeed, their teachers on their efforts to date and I wish them well for the rest of the academic year.
Further, congratulations ought be extended to one of those Year 12 students at Kalkarindji, Leanna Brown, who was recently awarded a $500 prize from the Australian Council of Educators for her outstanding efforts.
We also have 24 students from Timber Creek and nearby Bulla Camp who, for the first time, have the opportunity to continue with secondary education without having to leave their community. Anyone who knows anything about remote communities knows generally that families would much prefer that their children complete their studies without having to go away to boarding school.
Mr Dunham: You want to be careful about this. You are covered in shame.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale! You know the rules. When your interjections interrupt a speaker, they are out of order. Just …
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, which portion of standing orders deals with that?
Madam SPEAKER: Just believe me. Read your standing orders.
Mr DUNHAM: I shall, Madam Speaker, but I would like your direction to point me to it.
Madam SPEAKER: I shall, I shall. Minister …
Ms Lawrie: Are you challenging the Chair?
Mr Dunham: I am not challenging the Chair; I am asking for clarification.
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, I apologise for the rudeness of the member opposite.
The Martin Labor government is now providing that opportunity and we are doing so in cooperation with the local community who have asked for these programs to be established, and a Resource Centre at Timber Creek. For their part, they have provided the class room space and the transport of the students from Bulla Camp to Timber Creek.
The government is overseeing a rapid increase in the numbers of remote students participating in secondary education. We now have fully fledged secondary education programs operating in Maningrida as well. The new secondary education facilities at Jilkminggan will be open next month, and we will spend $340 000 at Minyerri which now has 28 secondary students, some of whom previously went to boarding schools.
Madam Speaker, we do have education on the move in a very positive way, and we are tackling this difficult task of secondary education provision into these remote communities. We accept that challenge, and we will not shirk the responsibility of providing access to quality education for all Territorians. From the outset, we have had education as one of our top priorities and we will continue to deliver a better and more effective service. Delivery of secondary education in remote communities is another example of the can-do attitude of this government when it comes to indigenous education.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Madam Speaker, I was at the presentation of the discussion that was led with regards to the Teachers Registration Board and, at that time, reference to the achievements of these indigenous students was made. Everybody in that group would have soundly supported and welcomed such news. Of course we would. But there are some things that need to be mentioned, one being Education on the Move.
We have teachers on the move to the Northern Territory displacing current Territorians who are resident here. It is a shame that we have teachers who are not committed to the Territory, who are able to move up here and displace, and move aside teachers who are standing here and have committed themselves already to the Northern Territory. We have Education on the Move in Tennant Creek, where we have the parent community supporting the local school by sending their students to Queensland.
I also need to make reference to the outstanding achievements of the non-government education sector. If you do the figures, you will find that Kormilda, St John’s College and Marrara Christian School do a far better job in getting indigenous students to Year 12 level.
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I am not sure what the marks relating to local versus interstate recruitment had to do with the provision of remote secondary education, but I will say this for the benefit of the member for Blain: that I as minister, and the department, will never – will never – compromise on the principle of merit.
Members: Hear, hear.
Recruitment and Retention of Nurses
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I rise today to report on the progress being made in the Northern Territory to recruit and retain nurses.
Since coming to government 18 months ago, the Martin government has demonstrated sincere and genuine commitment to the issue of nursing recruitment. I said yesterday that we have, in fact, created 31 new positions since coming to government. As everyone knows, there is a worldwide shortage of nurses, and all the states and territories in Australia struggle to maintain nursing staff. In the Territory, we are no different. That is why I am happy to announce details of our efforts to boost nursing numbers and provide a long-term strategy which will give us a sound base for the provision of top quality health care.
For those of you who read the NT News over breakfast or listened to ABC Radio this morning, you may have noticed reports on recruitment of 50 nurses from the Irish health system. These 50 nurses are Filipinos who, for the past several years, have been working in the Irish health system. Along with other major hospitals in Australia such as the Royal Adelaide, the Alfred in Melbourne, as well as several other major Victorian hospitals, I am able to say that the department is in the process of recruiting 50 nurses for Territory hospitals. The first of these nurses will arrive in the Territory in August, with the remainder being in place by December.
This is very good news for Territorians, good news for our hospitals, and good news for our nursing workforce. This recruitment initiative is a one-off, and is designed to be a medium-term solution to increase nursing numbers. The Filipino nurses will be contracted for two years. The experience of the Irish health system is that these nurses are loyal, highly skilled and hard working. This recruitment will take the pressure off our existing staff, and will also save us money as we will have less need to recruit nurses from agencies on short-term contracts.
I am very disappointed with comments made this morning by AMA spokeswoman, Robyn Cahill, who was critical of this recruitment initiative. The suggestion that Filipino nurses are timid and afraid to speak for themselves is not only ignorant, but degrading. These are highly skilled, professional people who have been working in the Irish health system. To suggest these people, who will receive the same award conditions as other nurses, are somehow going to be exploited is highly offensive. In the Territory we have unions such as the ANF, which are active in pursuing the rights and interests of nurses. We are a community which values skilled people and respects individual dignity. We are a very multicultural society.
Ms Cahill’s comments are very disappointing especially given the fact she represents a union of doctors and not nurses. In fact, I am so offended by these comments that I am going to send a transcript to the federal president of the AMA so that this matter can be looked into.
I have said this as a medium term initiative. We also have a long term strategy. Part of that strategy includes a major advertising campaign in targeted nursing journals and national newspapers. The advertising campaign, which will begin within the next week or so, features the opportunities and uniqueness of working as a nurse in the Territory. The advertising campaign is creative and eye catching. To coincide with the launch of this advertising campaign, we have created a new website for nurse recruitment. Wherever nurses are in Australia or overseas, they will be able to access information about a nursing career in the Territory and be able to apply for positions online.
We are determined to improve conditions for nurses in the Territory. Since coming to government we have implemented a re-entry program for nurses who have left the workforce and who wish to go back to work. Nurses who undertake skills upgrading can receive 75% of their salary while they study for three months. As part of the EBA we negotiated with nurses, they are now entitled to professional development allowances of between $300 and $600 annually.
We are doing all we can to recruit, retain and train our nursing workforce. The federal government has to do its part also. A long term solution to our nursing shortage requires us to turn out more nurse graduates from our universities. At the NTU this year, there are 275 students enrolled in the Bachelor of Nursing degree. This is great. However, there were 700 applicants for these same positions. The Australian health ministers conference is pushing the Commonwealth to increase funding for federal education in terms of nursing positions. Madam Speaker, this would be a very significant matter in relation to recruiting and retaining Australian nurses in Australia’s hospital systems.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for her report this morning. Nurse recruitment of course is at a crucial stage at the moment and the government’s efforts need to be applauded in this area. Many of the areas the minister has touched on this morning, indicate the work that is going on, that I know is going on, by the department at this difficult time. One of the key areas that needs addressing, and I was pleased the minister noted it, was with regard to university places. I am aware that many qualified people, who could have gone into university courses around this country to do nursing have been turned away this year. It is a real shame that that has occurred and it is great to hear that that area is going to be pursued.
I also support the recruitment of Filipino nurses to the Northern Territory. It is probably a stop gap process. I have worked with Filipino nurses in the past and they certainly provide a good service. They will be registered here in the Northern Territory and will have to meet the standards that are required.
However, it is a difficult area. Nurses leave nursing mainly because of dissatisfaction with workloads. I urge the government to do all it can to get more nurses on board. Victoria has developed some very good strategies. One is to limit the number of patients which nurses have to look after during a shift, which means that nurses can provide a service and can go home feeling that they have achieved something. That is a strategy I would highly recommend. There will be challenges because, for example, New South Wales has recently introduced funding increases to nurses wages that are really significant, very similar to Victoria.
There are going to be some real difficulties in attracting nurses to the Territory and a real challenge for this government to do that. I am still disappointed that of the extra nurses who come on board, I have yet to see positions created in acute hospital wards. These were the areas that nurses thought they would go into. They thought their workloads would decrease and that has not happened.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Port Darwin for her comments and her bipartisan support in general for this statement. I am particularly grateful that she supports the measure in relation to the Filipino nurses who are coming from the Irish health system. They are obviously registered in Ireland; their registration system is virtually identical to the Australian system. Other hospitals and states around Australia are looking at exactly the same situation and are facing the same kind of situation. It is wonderful that we are able to get 50 extra nurses into the Northern Territory. I appreciate those comments. Perhaps if the member for Port Darwin is talking to Ms Cahill, might like to pass on her comments to her as well.
In relation to the matters to do with the education system, given that the member for Port Darwin belongs to the CLP perhaps she would like to write to the Commonwealth and push the Commonwealth on this matter. It is something which the Australian health ministers are very concerned about.
Review of Building Act
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I am happy to advise members that last Friday, 14 February, I released a discussion paper outlining the government’s intention to review the Building Act. The paper has three main thrusts: it is proposing to introduce indemnity insurance for homeowners having their house built; licensing and registration for builders; and structural reforms to Boards administering the act. It is my intention that this government will do whatever it can to ensure that we never see headlines again like those about Bayview Homes and Jaymac. The paper was prepared in consultation with building organisations, insurers, building regulators and consumer protection agencies in other Australian jurisdictions.
The intention at the end of the day is to develop a more robust regulatory framework. We want to improve and strengthen the residential home building process:
by improving certainty of the transaction between the home buyer and the contractor by
introducing mandatory contracts with minimal contractual conditions and warranties;
by limiting the home buyer’s financial exposure while ensuring that the contractor has the
ability and the money to complete the contract;
by ensuring the integrity of building works by stipulating compulsory inspection stages at the
critical stages of the building process;
by introducing provisions in the legislation for dealing with non-compliance with the building
payment requirements by building practitioners; and
by amalgamating administration of all building trades under the one umbrella to ensure greater
uniformity and monitoring.
The intention is to encourage higher building standards:
by introducing a licensing scheme that ensures that eventually all building contractors operating in the
Territory in the residential building market will meet specified industry benchmarks for qualification,
experience, skills and knowledge;
by introducing annual renewal of all building practitioner’s licences to ensure that their performance is
monitored and reviewed regularly; and
by introducing continual professional development.
The introduction of the licensing scheme will provide an assurance to home buyers that their residential building contractor has the required qualifications, skills, experience, knowledge, and the money, to undertake and complete the project. This, along with tighter monitoring of all building practitioners’ performance, will provide a greater degree of protection.
Also articulated is the government’s intention to introduce a mandatory residential building indemnity insurance scheme which provides a similar level of protection to Territorian home buyers already enjoyed by most other Australians. The indemnity insurance scheme aims to provide the home buyers with protection from financial loss due to the non-completion of residential building projects due to the building contractor’s death, disappearance or insolvency. This protection will extend beyond the completion of the building contract, and includes non-compliance cover which will protect home buyers from financial loss should the building work not comply with building legislation.
Clearly, the development of these proposals has to be a consultative process as it impacts significantly upon the building industry, lenders, insurers and home buyers. To this end, in conjunction with the paper’s release, I have formed an industry reference group which will assist the government during the consultation and implementation period. The industry reference group consists of Ms Penny Whinney-Houghton, Australian Institute of Building Surveyors; Mr Michael Kilgariff of the Territory Construction Association; Mr Graham Kemp from the Housing Industry Association; Mr Paul Nowland, Director of Nowland Builders; Mr John Brears, Chairman of the Building Appeals Board and member of the Building Practitioners Board; and Mr Len Smyth, architect and registered building certifier. The group comprises a diverse range of knowledge, experience and expertise in the building industry. I thank them for volunteering their time for this important task.
The group will be chaired and administrative support will be provided by my Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment.
As I mentioned earlier, the discussion paper was released last Friday, 14 February 2003, for comment over the next two months and closes on Friday, 11 April 2003. I am fully aware that many builders in the Territory are of non-English speaking background, and I made sure that a summary of these proposals has been translated into Greek, Italian, Chinese and Vietnamese.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome the report from the minister today and the release of the discussion paper last Friday. The minister would know that leading up to the last election, much work had been done by the department under my direction. I note that some of the words in the discussion paper are lifted word-for-word from some of the documentation of that era. It is good to see, Madam Speaker, that the minister and the department have picked up on all the work that has been done.
The complexity of this issue is certainly recognised by this side and it is evident by the fact that it has taken 18 months, even though there was a huge amount of work done, to produce this discussion paper. There is a going to be a further one year before the implementation of any such scheme. So the timelines have been recognised by that side, and I am sure that there will be a few issues to work through over this next year before the implementation of the model that you have proposed.
The indemnity insurance is not an issue that takes a lot of working out; it is whether or not builder’s licensing is the way to go to achieve good indemnity insurance. The minister has proposed a model. I know there are some other models that others are talking about and we will get down to the detail in this forthcoming year. I look forward to that.
One issue that is not mentioned in here or mentioned by the minister is grand-fathering from the start, but I assume that is an issue that he is dealing with. But, yes, it will be very interesting.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his comments, but I have to correct him. This is not a proposal by the minister: it is a discussion paper for comment. It is a discussion paper for the members of the public. I table the document for the information of members.
One thing I have to say about the CLP work is that the only thing the CLP had done with this was the Home Benefit Certification Fund to cover non-compliance, and it was such a good fund that the TIO would pay compensation and there is no way TIO can go back and claim compensation from the contractor or the building certifiers. It was a dummy plan and that is the only thing they did.
The TCA admitted they were asking for 20 years for this scheme. The CLP never listened to them and was never prepared to do that. Bayview Homes went bust. Jaymac went bust. Other building companies went bust. I have had members of the CLP mail me copies of the letters they sent to the then Chief Minister, Denis Burke, asking him to do it, and they refused to do it. Why? Well, they had better answer that question.
Reports noted pursuant to sessional order.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS
Take Two Bills Together
Take Two Bills Together
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent bills entitled Terrorism (Northern Territory) Request Bill 2003 (Serial 127) and Terrorism (Emergency Powers) Bill 2003 (Serial 128):-
(a) being presented and read a first time together, and one motion being put in regard to, respectively,
the second readings, the committee’s report stage and the third readings of the bills together; and
(b) the consideration of the bills separately in the Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to.
TERRORISM (NORTHERN TERRITORY) REQUEST BILL (Serial 127)
TERRORISM (EMERGENCY POWERS) BILL (Serial 128)
TERRORISM (EMERGENCY POWERS) BILL (Serial 128)
Bills presented and read a first time.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Speaker, I move that the bills be now read a second time.
In relation to the Terrorism (Northern Territory) Request Bill, the purpose of this bill is to request the Commonwealth to legislate for the Territory in respect to national counter-terrorism offences. Whilst it is not constitutionally necessary for the Territory to refer this power, it is common practice for the Territory to request the Commonwealth to legislate. This ensures consistency amongst jurisdictions. This bill requests the Commonwealth to enact legislation in the same terms as referred by New South Wales and refers to the entire text of the Commonwealth amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995, the Commonwealth act.
Turning to the Terrorism (Emergency Powers) Bill 2003, the purpose of this bill is to provide members of the police force with special powers to deal with terrorist acts or threats of imminent terrorist acts. Unfortunately, the events of 11 September, the Bali bombings and, more recently, the terrorist attacks in Mombasa, Kenya on 28 November last year, shows that Australia and the Northern Territory are not sufficiently prepared to prevent a determined terrorist attack. We cannot afford complacency in our counter-terrorist precautions, and this government will not allow terrorists to threaten our way of life.
This bill forms part of a national framework towards the protection against terrorist acts. It adopts a position which, as far as possible, avoids unnecessary intrusions into our civil liberties but enables the police to act effectively in responding to a terrorist act or a threat of an imminent terrorist act.
Clearly, these powers will only be exercised in exceptional circumstances. They are intended to allow the police to act quickly on relatively short notice in response to a terrorist act or prevent such an act based on credible intelligence. Primarily, police need to act swiftly to catch the terrorists and collect the evidence required to bring these people to justice.
I now turn to the Terrorism (Emergency Powers) bill, which is presented in six parts. Part 1 contains the critical definitions of the bill. The foundation for the power is the definition of a ‘terrorist act’. For the benefit of jurisdictional conformity we have adopted the Commonwealth and New South Wales definitions. This definition means an action with the intention of coercing or influencing by intimidation, the government or the public or a section of the public in circumstances where any such action causes:
serious physical harm or death to a person;
regardless of whether the terrorist intended that result or not.
The definition has been drafted widely to capture all types of terrorist attacks and thus is not intended to be interpreted restrictively.
Part 2 of the bill provides special powers to members of the police force. Before these powers may be exercised, the Commissioner must make an authorisation. The powers sanctioned in the making of an authorisation permit a member of the police force to:
find a particular person, a ‘target person’;
An authorisation may also be used to target a specific premise, or a number of premises when used in combination with a target person or area.
The decision to make an authorisation is to be non-reviewable. The reasons for this are two fold. Firstly, an authorisation will, in the majority of cases, be sought as a matter of urgency and it would be prejudicial to the public health and safety if a person was able to prevent police exercising their special powers swiftly.
Secondly, it is well recognised that a bulk of police intelligence is received from informants. If a person were able to have the Commissioner’s decision reviewed, this information would be subject to disclosure. The identity of, and information provided by, informants has, as a matter of public policy, long been protected against disclosure by the courts. Primarily, the rationale is that, if the identity or the information is liable to be disclosed in court, the sources of information would dry up and police would be hindered in their capacity to prevent and detect offences of this kind. This does not mean that the police are not accountable. If a police officer, or a person assisting an officer purports to exercise a power under the authorisation unlawfully, his or her actions could be the subject of legal recourse, including disciplinary procedures under the Police Administration Act.
Under the common law, a person does not have the right to an appeal. That right is given by parliament. Various jurisdictions, including the Territory, have adopted non-reviewable decisions in their taxation legislation. Primarily, these decisions go to whether any material facts are, or are not, taken to be a tax avoidance scheme. They protect the revenue base. In this case, the decision to make an authorisation is protected, as far as is possible, to ensure the expedient response of the police to the threat.
The bill also provides a number of other key safeguards. The first measure is that an authorisation may only be given with the agreement of the police minister, unless the minister could not be contacted and is thought to be a matter of urgency, in which case the minister must be notified of the authorisation as soon as is possible. If the minister was not available at the time, ratification must occur within 48 hours or else the authorisation ceases to have effect. Secondly, as soon as is practicable after the authorisation ceases to have effect, the Commissioner must provide a comprehensive report to the police minister and the Attorney-General. Thirdly, an authorisation may only be made for a period of seven days, although further extensions may be granted.
Lastly, the authorisation may be revoked by the Commissioner of Police or a person authorised at any time. The powers granted under an authorisation allow a police officer, without a warrant, to search a person, vehicle, or enter and search premises. Further, a police officer may use a premise for a surveillance activity or to protect the health or safety of a person.
Some of the powers are new, and others already exist under the Police Administration Act. For example, a member of the police force will have the power to make a person disclose his identity and residential address and give proof of identity. A member of the police force may currently request a person to furnish him with the information under the Police Administration Act. Likewise, a police officer may already undertake an immediate search, without warrant, in cases of such seriousness or urgency.
In times of extreme emergency it is not practicable for a police office to obtain a warrant, or a number of warrants, to search a target person, vehicle or premises. Moreover, a warrant requires the police officer to identify the kind of thing which he or she reasonably believes may be found during the search. In a terrorist situation it is highly unlikely police would have such detailed intelligence in their possession. The making of an authorisation remedies these constraints and gives the police the tools to effectively deal with all potential scenarios. As I have noted, these powers are not for general use.
Part 3 of the bill provides for complementary powers. One important power is the ability to quarantine and decontaminate people in limited circumstances. Without these measures, people exposed to a contamination may unintentionally expose others. For example, in the subway terrorist attack in Tokyo in 1995 most of the casualties occurred by people becoming contaminated through touching an exposed person, rather than through any direct exposure to the contaminant gas.
History has shown that terrorists are prepared to use any chemical or biological weapons at their disposal to further their cause. Therefore, where a police officer suspects on reasonable grounds a person may have come into contact with contaminants used or released by terrorists, he or she may direct the person to remain at a place to be decontaminated. A time limit of 48 hours is provided. It will be an offence not to comply with the direction. The Chief Health Officer may extend the quarantine period for as long as is necessary to provide decontamination treatment. Decontamination provisions also apply to premises and other things.
Part 4 of the bill provides for a number of other powers which may be exercised without the making of an authorisation. These powers allow police, amongst other things, to secure the crime scene and seize evidence for the purpose of assisting in their investigations.
In addition, the bill recognises that other law enforcement agencies have specialist officers whose expertise would be invaluable in an emergency. The appointment of interstate law enforcement officers is for a period of 14 days. However, the police minister may extend their term. Appointed officers remain under the command and control of the police force of which he or she is a member.
Part 5 of the bill provides for the duties under the act. Two of the more important provisions are the rules relating to the search of a person, and for the return of seized things to the owner of the property. The search procedures are contained in the schedule of the bill. This part also provides that an acquisition of property is to be on just terms.
Part 6 of the bill contains miscellaneous provisions dealing with the bill’s relationship with other acts, and clarifies that the making of an authorisation is a relevant ground for forming a reasonable suspicion a terrorist act has occurred or is imminent.
Legislation of this type is new both in the Northern Territory and in other jurisdictions in Australia. In order to test the legislation in an operational environment it will be the subject of vigorous review and scenario testing, including the conduct of anti-terrorism exercises. In the event that deficiencies or gaps are identified in the bill, these will be the subject of further submissions by police for consideration of government.
The anticipated passage of the ASIO bill at the Commonwealth level will further provide a further opportunity for jurisdictions, including the Northern Territory, to review complementary counter-terrorism arrangements and legislation. This ongoing process of refinement is aimed at providing the Northern Territory with the best possible protection against the threat of terrorism.
Madam Speaker, these bills balance the need for the police to swiftly respond to any given threat against, as far as is possible, the preservation of our civil liberties and lifestyle. As such, I commend these bills to the House.
Debate adjourned.
POLICE ADMINISTRATION AMENDMENT BILL (No 2)
(Serial 119)
(Serial 119)
Continued from 28 November 2002.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I can signal from the start the opposition supports this bill. I only have one question with regard to it which may be easily answered by the minister. In essence, the bill attempts to manage people in custody, who are placed in custody in an intoxicated state, in a safer manner than has happened in the past. The legislation is drawn from a coroner’s report reflecting on the fact that the person was released from custody after being taken into custody for being intoxicated after a period, I believe, of about six hours; was subsequently hit and killed by a car and was found in the subsequent coronial to have had a level of 0.33 of alcohol content.
The legislation that exists at the moment is fairly onerous on police in that if they have any concerns about a person’s health or intoxication, they are required under present legislation to seek the opinion of a justice to hold the person in custody for a longer period. This gives the police more flexibility in terms of establishing the true medical state of the person and also allows the police to hold that individual longer if they believe they are still intoxicated, as I understand it.
In that regard the opposition understands the intent of the legislation and supports it.
The only question I would have is that, as the adjustment to the legislation arises out of an incident where the person was intoxicated when they were put in custody, when woken in the cells, appeared to all intents and purposes, on the statement of the police that is in the second reading speech, to be sober and was then released but found to have a high alcohol content, one wonders how this particular legislation, in fact, attends to that instance. Where police hold a person for six hours, they look to be fit and well and they are subsequently released and this incident, or something like it occurs. There may be a simple explanation to that.
As the legislation requires that the opinion of a medical practitioner, albeit a registered nurse, can be sought or needs to be sought if the person is to be held longer, I would have thought for an issue of simple intoxication, another breathalyzer test after six hours would have been the modus operandi, where you would say, ‘Well, we are not sure if this person has a blood alcohol content that could render them dangerous, even though they look fit and well’. We know from all the cases that we see before the courts, that there are many, many people who have an enormous capacity to appear sober when they are in fact highly intoxicated. It seems to me, on the face of it, that this legislation does not fix that particular instance. I can understand fully the fact that where there was any doubt in the police’s mind that a person was healthy and sober and fit to be released, they certainly should be able to use any and all means that are speedily available to them.
What I do not understand is how this legislation actually addresses the fact the person looks well. In the case of the person they released who was subsequently killed, the police had no visible indications that there was something wrong. So how does this legislation actually protects them? If I could get clarification on that, that would be the only concern I have.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the bill to amend the Police Administration Act Protective Custody Provisions. As usual I will take a brief look at the historical or past context of any piece of legislation that I might be interested in.
The concept of protective detention has a long and inglorious history in the Northern Territory. The piece of Commonwealth legislation known as the Aboriginal Ordinance has received a fair degree of attention in recent years due to its significance in the context of the stolen generations issue. As is pretty common knowledge now, the Aboriginal Ordinance permitted children of mixed race descent to be removed from their Aboriginal families and communities without any requirement for a court hearing or order. The implementation of a racist policy of breeding out colour was veiled under statutory language referring to protection and welfare. What most Territorians probably do not know is the Aboriginal Ordinance was not just a law relating to the removal or institutionalisation of children of mixed race descent. The main focus of the legislation was the regulation and control of Aboriginal people and their communities generally, again by reference to considerations of protection and welfare.
The public servant vested with supreme authority over the lives of Aboriginal people could dictate where and how Aboriginals should live, and individuals identified as trouble makers could be banished to communities many hundreds of miles away from their traditional country. The executive power wielded by the Chief Protector and his delegates included, as a kind of ultimate sanction, the power of protective detention.
During the Aboriginal Ordinance era, a case concerning the banishment from his community of an identified trouble maker, that is a person alleged to have had trade union associations, came before the High Court of Australia. Reflecting the views of most white Australians at the time, the High Court made it clear that it was not particularly fussed by the extent to which Aboriginal people could have their lives turned upside down by officials purporting to be acting pursuant to the Aboriginal Ordinance.
However, in more recent decades the High Court has expressed strong disapproval for any kind of forced detention of any individual which does not involve a hearing before a court and a resulting court order. This view has most often been expressed in the context of immigration and refugee matters, but the principle obviously applies even more strongly to the case of citizens, including Aboriginal citizens.
If we look now at our own Northern Territory Police Administration Act it is apparent that section 128 provides police with an unusually broad and far reaching power in relation to the detention of intoxicated persons. Detention under that section does not require any court hearing or court order. It is only calling a spade a spade to acknowledge that the vast majority of individuals who have been detained and who will continue to be detained under section 128 are Aboriginal people.
Normally, I would have some concerns about the extent of the power conferred on police by section 128 and now proposed to be extended by the terms of this amendment to the bill. However, it is once again only stating the true state of affairs that we face in the Territory in 2003 to acknowledge that Territorians have a serious alcohol abuse problem. The problem is not exclusive to Aboriginal Territorians but it has probably caused the most harm amongst Aboriginal families and communities. In order to effectively counter the destructive force and influence of alcohol throughout our society we need to arm those people who have to work at the coalface of the problem with effective tools.
In the case of the police, it is self evident that they need the power and authority to immediately detain individuals who are so intoxicated that they pose a danger to others and/or themselves. It is not realistic for such detention to be deferred until the individual has been taken before a court and allowed a hearing before a magistrate. What we are looking at now is the fine tuning of existing protective detention arrangements so as to insert into the system a statutory role for doctors, nurses and Aboriginal health workers, at least in relation to continued detention beyond the initial six hour holding period. This is an important and beneficial improvement on the existing system, because what we are dealing with here is not criminals who need to be processed for judicial determination of guilt and possible subsequent sentencing, but rather individuals with a severe health problem that just happens to be impinging on the rest of society.
It is a health problem which is substantially encouraged and maintained by external forces and interests which is something I will be commenting on further in the report to be submitted in the near future by the Substance Abuse Committee.
In the meantime, I confirm my strong support for these amendments to the Police Administration Act. I commend the amendments to the House.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Arafura for their supportive comments.
I will pick up the question from the Leader of the Opposition as stated in his response. The issue of somebody being taken into protective custody – and that is what the police do in these circumstances - if somebody has committed a crime, obviously they are charged. But, in these sorts of circumstances, particularly in the bush – in Darwin and Alice Springs and other centres, we have the Night Patrol which picks people up and takes them to sobering up shelters, but when the Night Patrol is not operating or in remote parts of the Territory where there is no Night Patrol, then the police do, from time to time, pick people up and put them into protective custody because of a significant level of intoxication or affectation from other drug use. They pick people up because they are either a danger to themselves, and/or potentially to other people.
So, the police are acting in this circumstance addressed by the legislation, in terms of a duty of care and taking people into protective custody. My advice is that the circumstances that are going to be affected by this bill are not things that happen on a regular basis, maybe a dozen or so cases like this a year, where people are picked up and taken into protective custody, they sleep it off for six hours. If it happens to be that people are picked up at 11 or 12 o’clock at night, obviously they are not woken up after six hours; they are allowed to sleep through until they wake up.
The question that the Leader of the Opposition posed – would this legislation have protected the individual in this case – the answer is no, because he is misreading the intent of the legislation. The police, after somebody has been in custody for six hours, have to make an assessment as to whether that person is sober. In terms of breathalysing, the police can only compel somebody to blow into a breathalyser if they are behind the wheel of a car. It is a subjective issue in terms of whether that person looks okay, is responding all right, appears not to be intoxicated any more, and then the police have no further powers to hold that person after six hours because they have not committed an offence.
The reason for this legislation is if police believe, after six hours that there is something not quite right with this person, the issue for getting a medical practitioner to come and examine the person is on occasions the alcohol could be masking some other medical condition that this person has that is potentially either dangerous or fatal to them. They have had a collapsed liver or a case of pneumonia or something like that where a person has awoken after a period, whether it be six hours or longer, and the police, in terms of making a subjective assessment, have some concern for the well-being of that individual. They now have, under this legislation, the power and the requirement to arrange a medical assessment of that person to either hold them in custody for an extended period or to refer them to other medical institutions such as a hospital or health clinic.
In terms of the hypothetical that the Leader of the Opposition put: would this legislation necessarily have prevented that person from being released and ultimately being involved in a fatal car accident, the answer to that in this instance is no, it would not, but it is not designed to do that.
At the end of the day, the police have a very difficult job to do making a subjective assessment of whether a person needs to be kept in protective custody for their own safety, or the safety of others, and if after a period of six hours, the police make the assessment that this person is no longer significantly intoxicated to be either a danger to themselves or to others, they will have to release them. But if they do have a concern, any concern at all, that that person is still not able to look after themselves, or are potentially a danger to others, they can now, and they must, seek the advice of an appropriate medical practitioner depending on where this person is in protective custody around the Northern Territory.
So, in terms of the hypothetical that the Leader of the Opposition put, my understanding is that in that type of circumstance it is still a subjective decision that the police make, and that person, if the police believe them to be sober enough that they are no longer a danger to themselves, then they will have to release that person after a six hour period.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
PETROLEUM AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 121)
(Serial 121)
Continued from 28 November 2002.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I say from the outset that the opposition supports this bill which, although it looks complex and goes to some 50-odd clauses, is largely what would be seen as similar to a Statute Law revision bill, in that it does a lot of mopping up with nomenclature and, to the minister’s credit, also some reduction in red tape.
Matters relating to petroleum are more and more becoming international, as we see with our resources to the north going to a variety of arbiters to have things settled. It is therefore immensely important that matters relating to our own Northern Territory domestic Petroleum Act and matters relating to environmental issues can withstand the scrutiny of international courts, arbiters and companies that operate in this environment. Most of the companies that operate in this area are absolute in their commitment to matters environment, safety and otherwise. Most of them have a very strong adherence to the statutes that apply to them. It is therefore important that this act lines up with federal and other initiatives. I assume that is what its broad intent is to do.
The Geodetic Datum of Australia, too, which the minister has talked about, or his predecessor if not him, in relation to other acts is now incorporated into this act. That is a national requirement to make sure that there is a universal benchmark for matters to do with datum. With those few words, the opposition supports the bill.
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale, the opposition spokesperson, for his support for these amendments.
Yes, he is right, essentially it is a series of fairly technical amendments to the legislation. It is part of a series of amendments that I have brought to this parliament over the last few sittings to bring our legislation in the petroleum and offshore areas, although this is not necessarily offshore, into line with the Commonwealth and make it contemporary to cater for the oil and gas developments that we are going to see in the Territory over the coming years.
I pay tribute and say thanks to my department which has put in a huge amount of work in auditing this legislation and bringing this legislation up to date.
As the member for Drysdale also said, parts of the legislation go to removing a bit of red tape which delays some of the provisions for fees until such time as projects are on the books, and also to bring the legislation into line and consistent with our Environmental Offences and Penalties Act. It really is taking time to go through and clear up our legislation, making sure it is consistent with the Commonwealth where it requires to be, and consistent with best practice internationally. We therefore put as few hurdles in place of the major developments that we are going to see in the Territory over the coming years. We are also being totally responsible in having international best practice in regard to environmental management.
Madam Speaker, I thank the opposition for their support.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Standing Orders Committee - Report on
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Standing Orders Committee - Report on
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, pursuant to resolution of the Assembly of 9 October 2002, I table the report on the reference to the Standing Orders Committee by the Legislative Assembly for review and identification of options for enhancement of the Estimates Committee process, February 2003; and submissions received in regard to this reference.
MOTION
Print Paper – Standing Orders Committee
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Print Paper – Standing Orders Committee
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report of the Standing Orders Committee into the Review of the Conduct of the Estimates Committee be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Adopt Report – Standing Orders Committee
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Adopt Report – Standing Orders Committee
Review of Conduct of Estimates Committee
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly adopt the report. As Chair, it is my pleasure to table the report of the Standing Orders Committee Inquiry into the Estimates Committee process.
In chairing the Estimates Committee for the first time in my term of parliament and in government, and dealing with this particular issue, I first of all convey my appreciation to the opposition members on that particular committee and to yourself, Madam Speaker. We worked through some fairly contentious issues, I suppose, in a spirit of really trying to - not only for this parliament but for the people of the Northern Territory - develop our Estimates Committee process here in the Northern Territory. Most of the matters and the issues were worked through, debated very thoroughly and, on all sides, we genuinely were trying to achieve a process that is going to deliver for the parliament and the people of the Northern Territory as open and transparent a scrutiny of government budgets as we possibly can.
Apart from one issue that I will come to later, we did manage to achieve consensus in that review. The committee gratefully acknowledges the constructive contribution of all members, witnesses and officers of the Northern Territory public service who made submissions and, in particular, those officers of the Legislative Assembly and Treasury who conducted a thorough analysis and review of the estimates procedures and provided the results of that review for the committee’s consideration. It is a very genuine thanks to the officers of this parliament, the Hansard people, everybody. The first run-through of the Estimates Committee process was a huge learning curve. The consequence of that went on for many months. The Clerk was saying at our last meeting that the final Hansard transcripts have only just been produced after that lengthy debate.
So, it has been a huge learning process for everyone, and everybody has really participated in the spirit of trying to make this as streamlined a process as possible. Many hours of hard work have gone in and all members of this House appreciate the efforts of the staff of this parliament and Legislative Assembly.
Last year, history was made when the new Labor government introduced an Estimates Committee into the Assembly, something the previous government had refused to do for 26 years. My predecessor, the member for Nhulunbuy, said from the outset that we wanted to establish an Estimates Committee which would be subject to post-event assessment and refinement, and we have done that. We have taken many issues on board and, as I said earlier, a committee process that really was worked through very thoroughly. This we have done and the report outlines some of the refinements which we believe will take the process of scrutiny in the Northern Territory to the next level. I will now turn to some of the key items in the report.
The retention of one estimates committee: of the 13 submissions received by the committee, none favoured having more than one estimates committee. The general assessment was that one was enough, one amount of organised chaos was enough and we really did not want to duplicate that and inflict that process on two committees. There was consensus that we will retain one estimates committee. The committee considered the implications of having two estimates committees meeting simultaneously. While there would have been a saving in time, it would have been necessary to apply additional resources for the production of Hansard, secretariat support and also the fit out of alternative meeting areas. Having considered these matters, the committee unanimously agreed that the one estimates committee model be maintained.
Estimates committee hearings to be conducted outside designated parliamentary sitting days: the majority of submissions expressed concern at the limited time available for conducting estimates committee hearings in September 2002. The recommended option extends hearings of the estimates committee by an extra day and provides for 42.5 hours of public hearings. This period is considered to be adequate to address those concerns and extends the timeframe beyond any time previously allocated, or used for Committee of the Whole consideration of the annual Appropriation Bill. So, a lot of debate last time about the time for the hearings and the committee has determined to allow an additional day for hearings this year.
Allocation for a sitting date for each minister on the provision that the next minister be called on if the preceding minister finishes before his or her allocated time: whilst this proposal was supported by the Leader of the Opposition’s submission and opposition members of the Standing Orders Committee, other submissions indicated that the time proposed should be in the order of four to five hours per minister as opposed to one full day. The preferred option proposed by the government schedules 42.5 hours for public hearings and with the following time allocations:
Madam Speaker, for yourself, two hours;
for the Treasurer, seven hours;
other ministers, four and a half hours; and
Power and Water as a government-owned corporation, two hours.
It is proposed that following the Speaker, the Treasurer will be the first minister appearing with an extended time available for the whole-of-budget scrutiny and explanation and also to answer many of the whole-of-government budget-related questions. The proposal also enables scheduling that will enable members, agencies and the media an opportunity to plan attendance and reduce the dead time that may have been incurred waiting for ministers and officials to appear.
The issue of scheduling and timetabling of ministers is the only recommendation which was not unanimously agreed to by members of the Standing Orders Committee. The issue may be settled in the context of debate on the recommendations of the committee, or alternatively the scheduling of appearances by ministers and the Speaker could be subject to a resolution of the Assembly at the time that the Appropriation Bill is introduced and referred by the committee in May. The issue of scheduling of speakers is the only issue where there was division on the committee.
The other issues to be addressed were: questions may be put as written questions and questions without notice or supplementary questions. The recommended option proposed by the government and agreed to by the committee was that there would be no written questions prior to estimates committee hearings. It is submitted that the questioning process will reflect normal estimates committee arrangements in most other Australian jurisdictions, where the procedures for submitting written questions in advance are not in general use. Members will have the flexibility to ask questions on the day, and further have the capacity to have questions taken on notice by ministers and answered at a later date.
Madam Speaker, a significant move in terms of the history of this parliament. I am very pleased that the opposition and yourself as the Independent member on the committee accepted that position. I really do believe that if other parliaments around Australia and Westminster parliaments around the world can do away with written questions, then we can. We will be saving the public service, a hard working public service, many cumulative thousands of hours of work in preparing answers to questions from the opposition. I am sure that the public service is going to breathe a huge sigh of relief that they are not going to have to go through that process again.
At the end of the day, as our parliamentary system evolves in the Northern Territory, the process of having opposition spokespersons on portfolios standing up and reading a written question and the minister standing up and reading a prepared answer, prepared by public servants, has passed its use-by date. We think, and the committee agrees, that, again, it will be a learning curve for everyone, but with senior public servants and chief executive officers and chief financial officers available, we will be able to have a much more free-flowing process. Questions that are asked should be relevant. The institution in the Northern Territory public sector of hundreds of public servants beavering away for thousands of hours preparing written responses to questions for their minister to stand up and read verbatim will cease. I am sure that with goodwill on all sides, we will have a much more streamlined process this year.
In the event that the recommended option is adopted, there will be no requirement for consideration of other issues relating to written questions, including the timeframe for replies, the reading of questions and answers into Hansard and the processing of generic questions and grouping of written questions. It is going to be a whole lot less work for our public servants, for officers of this Assembly, by moving to this process, and a much more streamlined process should follow.
Another issue addressed was the standing orders relating to relevance of answers by ministers be clearly defined, especially for Estimates Committees. This issue was not responded to at any length in written submissions, however there was some support for this proposal contained in the submission of the Auditor-General. After consideration, the committee decided to recommend that there be no amendment to standing orders or to rules for the operation of the Estimates Committee to more clearly define issues of relevancy. It is considered that this should be a discretion left to members and, in particular, the chairman of the committee.
Other issues addressed were procedures for Questions on Notice and answers. The committee considered this matter at some length and has recommended that the procedures to enable the processing of questions taken on notice at hearings and the provision of additional written information by ministers could be better facilitated with an amendment to the order for the operation of the Estimates Committee process. The proposed procedure provides that the chairman formally notes the question, or that part of the question taken on notice, and seeks any clarification required at that time, and for the text of the questions on notice to be distributed to the relevant minister by the committee secretariat. The secretariat will also coordinate the processing and recording of answers to Questions on Notice and additional information. There really will be a clearly defined process now for questions taken on notice, and those questions will be catalogued and distributed and a time period set for ministers to respond to them.
There was concern from the committee in debate that the doing away of written questions would lead to an extraordinary number of questions being taken on notice. Again, other parliaments around Australia and within the Westminster system do not seem to have too much of a problem with that. Obviously, there will be a percentage of questions that will be taken on notice and, from the government’s point of view, we will be seeking officers and information available such that we can provide answers to the vast majority of questions that will be posed by the opposition. It is certainly something the committee will look at and review after the first session of the Estimates Committee without written questions.
We also looked at the membership of the committee. This issue was raised in a number of submissions. The committee considered that in order to make the public hearings process more effective and efficient, changes to membership arrangements be made as follows: The core membership of the committee is to be the membership of the Public Accounts Committee, and at any one time, participating members of the committee be limited to seven - three government, three opposition and one independent member - with a capacity for substituting members on and off the committee as required during the course of the hearings. This again will streamline the number of people at the table at any one time. We will not have the spectacle of all the members of the opposition ranged opposite, and people will be subbed on and off the bench as matters of their portfolio or constituency arise. It should make for, again, a more edified process and a simpler process. People will be able to get a break and, again, the process should move much more smoothly.
Obviously, if the committee as a whole has to go into deliberative session, then that deliberative session would be called by the chair, and the established members of the committee would convene to address issues or matters in the deliberative session and issues as called by the chair.
The committee also looked at the issue of Government Owned Corporations. Government Owned Corporations is a new item in this jurisdiction. Currently there is only one and that is PowerWater. Logic dictates that the estimates week presents an ideal time for the Government Owned Corporations to be subject to a scrutiny process. This is the practical consideration that all MLAs will be in town and all infrastructures such as Hansard will be set up, so it is a move now that PowerWater will be part of the Estimates Committee process. As such, it has been proposed that the Government Owned Corporations will be examined at the end of the Appropriation/Estimates Committee, and this will likely take place on the Friday. The Government Owned Corporations will be subject to its own standing orders which, for the most part, reflect the standing orders for the appropriation scrutiny but have some minor differences to reflect that the Government Owned Corporation is a business being run on a day to day basis by a board and a CEO. Again, government, in the commitment to the principle of openness and transparency of government, has admitted PowerWater to the process.
Obviously ministers, the shareholding minister, and the minister responsible for the operations of PowerWater will be able to be scrutinised by committee members regarding the financial aspects and operations of PowerWater, and revenue and charges and returns to Treasury. Separate to that, the CEO and officers of PowerWater will be available to the committee for issues of an operational nature to be put to them. It is a significant move, and I am sure that as other Government Owned Corporations come into existence, like the Port Corporation, that too will be part of the process.
In conclusion, I foreshadow that the government will bring this tabling statement on for debate next week. At this time it is also proposed to debate the standing orders which flow from the findings of this report. The Clerk has kindly prepared proposed standing orders to assist members. I table this document for consideration of members and foreshadow that we will be seeking to have the report and these proposed standing orders debated together next week. Madam Speaker, I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
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
Continued from 22 August 2002.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I rise to respond to the Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2002 in relation to remuneration other than basic salary of ministers and members of the Legislative Assembly.
Honourable members will recall my preliminary comments on this report during the August sittings of parliament last year, in which I indicated the government’s support for the determination. This determination has since been superseded by Report and Determination No 2 of 2002. Therefore, I do not really think it is appropriate to speak any further on this.
Madam Speaker, I move that the report be noted.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
MOTION
Note Paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 2 of 2002 – Ministers
and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Note Paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 2 of 2002 – Ministers
and Members of the Legislative Assembly
Continued from 26 November 202.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I have a few points I would like to make about the Determination No 2 of 2002.
My preliminary comments, when this report was tabled during the previous sittings of parliament, indicated the government’s support for the fact that the determination does not recommend substantial changes to members’ entitlements and, in particular, no increase in office holders’ salaries. This financial restraint is consistent with the government’s overall strategy of responsible fiscal management.
The recommended increase to electorate allowances of 2.12% is supported in the context of there having been no real increase to these allowances for six years, given the increased cost incurred by members in servicing their electorates over that time. The amount of the increase reflects the Darwin Consumer Price Index increase over the 12-month period covered by the tribunal’s review.
Consistent with this government’s submissions that travelling allowance should not be able to be used to receive a windfall cash gain when a member is staying with family or friends, the tribunal has reintroduced a flat rate for accommodation in Darwin fixed at $145 per night, regardless of whether a member stays in their own accommodation. The arguments in favour of this approach as set out in the tribunal’s report are supported.
The other matter of significance in the tribunal’s determination relates to members’ motor vehicle allowance. The annual allowance for members who choose to use their own vehicle for electorate purposes rather than be issued with a government vehicle has been increased from $10 000 to $11 500, the first increase for five years. The tribunal notes this allowance remains significantly below the actual cost to government of providing cars and meeting their running costs.
The government accepts the tribunal’s determination in its entirety, and thanks the tribunal for its work and commitment.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, the opposition notes and accepts the report of the Remuneration Tribunal.
One point that needs to be borne in mind is that this separate determination came out of the fact that the Determination No 1 of 2002 was a mess. It was a mess because I believe the government itself interfered with the independence of the tribunal in a way that politicised the process.
Whether we agree or otherwise with some of the allowances that members are paid in this Assembly, the fact is that it has always been an independent tribunal. I believe it is very important that individual members can be satisfied that an independent arbiter is deciding on the conditions. It is very important for us in facing the public and being able to say: ‘These conditions of service essentially are laid down by a independent tribunal without interference by politicians’.
I believe that when the Labor Party came to power they tried to politicise the issue, to demonstrate that somehow they were in such a terrible financial shape that they could use this as a lever to demonstrate that they would not be ‘fat cat’ politicians like those CLP politicians. What happened was not only did you have a mess on your hands, but you also, I believe, seriously undermined the independence of the tribunal. The Chief Minister can stand up here and say that she supports this remuneration determination, and that is fine. I would lay London to a brick though, that if she did not, you would have to go looking for a new tribunal president, because no president could stand for the undermining that happened to a supposedly independent tribunal by the comments that were made in this House.
I am pleased that the situation has been rectified, that the tribunal is asserting its own independence again and that assertion is clearly there in the words of the tribunal in paragraph 9, and that message should be there for the Chief Minister and the government for the future.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I cannot let the Opposition Leader’s comments go without a reply. I find it hard to believe that even the Leader of the Opposition could conjure up that because the government puts in a submission to the tribunal that is arguing one point or another for either a greater or lesser amount of allowances, that that in some way is putting undue pressure and compromising the independence of the tribunal. Or that government does not have an absolute responsibility to the people of the Northern Territory that a report is provided back to the parliament, back to the people of the Northern Territory, that as the government of the day we do not agree with every detail in that report that we do not have an absolute responsibility to either agree or disagree with recommendations in this report.
At the end of the day, it is this parliament that is in control of its own destiny. It is the people of the Northern Territory who elect a government and at the end of the day it is the government’s decision. The tribunal has an independent role in providing advice and recommendations to this parliament. There is nothing in the regulations that establish the tribunal, the legislation that underpins it, that states that this parliament has to blindly accept the recommendations of the tribunal. To suggest that by not picking up on all of the recommendations that we are somehow compromising the independence and the integrity of the tribunal is absolutely astonishing. I totally reject the Opposition Leader’s comments.
I commend the tribunal and the work it does. This government will continue to make decisions, and make decisions based on recommendations from the tribunal, but from time to time we will probably disagree.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I was not going to contribute to this debate, but having heard the member for Wanguri commenting about the independence of the tribunal, it is important that the we do respect the independence of the tribunal. Mr Otto Alder went through great pains to write his first report, No 1 of 2002, which the government tore to shreds. If you ask somebody to be independent, then you take on their advice in the most independent way you possibly can.
The issue was about politicising the remuneration, and that is what this government did. The idea was to allow somebody independent to assess it in the best way and provide members with best facilities available for us to service our electorates. Instead, this government politicised the whole issue and that was why it required the second report of 2002. Otherwise, it would not have happened. That is precisely why the opposition found it so difficult to accept what the government did. That is all I have to say. It is important that government should try to stay away from any independent report it receives.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
MOTION
Note paper – Auditor-General’s Report, November 2002
Note paper – Auditor-General’s Report, November 2002
Continued from 26 November 2002.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, the role of the Auditor-General is an important one in our democratic process, and one that ensures that we have the necessary checks and balances in government accountability. The Auditor-General usually reports to the Assembly each February and August on matters arising from audits conducted by his office in the previous six months. This report was delayed slightly because of the appointment of a new Auditor-General, Mike Blake, who commenced his duties on 1 July last year.
The Auditor-General carries out two types of audits: financial attest and compliance audits; and audits of performance management systems. He uses financial attest and compliance audits to audit the public and other accounts, financial statements prepared by agencies and other government entities. The audits are conducted in accordance with Australian auditing standards.
Through his reports, the Auditor-General seeks to provide recommendations that will improve accountability, identify cost savings and possible efficiencies and generally promote good practice. Before I address observations that relate specifically to the Chief Minister’s department, I would like to comment on the Auditor-General’s observations in relation to the important area of agency compliance audits.
The report makes a general observation that some agencies – particularly those most impacted by the new agency arrangements – are still updating their internal control procedures. He makes mention of deficiency in the specific areas of accounting and property manuals, service level agreements, audit committees, asset registers and internal management reporting frameworks. The last 18 months have heralded significant changes in public sector arrangements and accounting systems. I have no doubt that the management of these changes has required a determined effort from the agencies – I know that it has.
Understandably, it will take some time for all internal control systems to be adjusted and bedded in, but the government’s expectation, which has always been very clear, is that all chief executives must ensure the necessary systems are in place to ensure efficient and effective use of taxpayers’ money. That is a message I would like to reinforce and, now that the revised agency arrangements are cemented in place, we expect the necessary accounting and monitoring systems to be cemented with them.
I now turn to the three observations that relate to the Department of the Chief Minister. Other ministers will be dealing with the Auditor-General’s observations on their own areas. The Auditor-General examined the performance management systems in Risk Management Services. Risk Management Services provides a centralised business consulting, risk management and internal review and audit function to Territory government agencies. Over the last two years, Risk Management Services has been implementing a substantial change program to provide a better audit and risk management service to government agencies. Many of its systems, including its performance management system, have been redeveloped as part of the change process. The advice of the Auditor-General in this area has been most helpful, and his suggestions for improvements are being implemented.
The report also made comment about the operation of Hidden Valley Promotions Pty Ltd. Hidden Valley Promotions is a government owned company established under corporations law. It was formed in 1997 to promote the running of the V8 Supercar event at the Hidden Valley Raceway. The Auditor-General has reported that the cost to government to support the V8 Supercar race in 2001 was in excess of $1m and that the cumulative total of direct and indirect government funding to enable the running of this event from 1998 to 2001 is estimated at more than $13m.
Since its inception in 1997, the V8 Supercar race has grown to become a main event on the Territory’s calendar. The track has been developed into a state of the art motor sport facility and a valuable asset for the broader community. The race track is home to a number of motor sport organisations including TERRA motor cycles, the North Australian Motor Sports Club and the King Cobra Drag Club. The facility is also used by government organisations such as the NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services and the Transport and Infrastructure division for vehicle testing, displays and training activities. Other users include NT businesses which host promotional activities such as new car releases, and one local company, SMART, hires the facility for defensive and 4WD driver training.
Track facilities were expensive to develop and the report indicates that $9.2m has now been spent at the raceway. This is a long-term investment which recognises that the V8 Supercars bring a number of benefits to the Territory in terms of national and international exposure, and a substantial boost in tourism and visitor numbers. As I mentioned last year when I spoke about the event, a 1999 study by the Australian Research Associates indicated that gross expenditure in the community relating to the V8 Supercars was between $1.3m and $2.7m. Even if we consider the lower figure as the most accurate, this still represents a substantial benefit.
Last year, I also mentioned the prospect of Darwin being used as a launch point for expanding the V8 Supercar series into Asia. I am pleased to hear that progress has been made in this area, and in 2004, a race will be held in Shanghai. Detailed plans are still being made, but this development could see the V8 Supercar teams and drivers remaining in Darwin for a longer period, with the associated benefit to businesses. We will also be exploring opportunities to see how Territory businesses might become involved in supporting the Shanghai race.
The Auditor-General correctly notes that the V8 Supercar event is expensive, that is an inescapable characteristic of national motor sport events. However, with that cost, comes a number of long and short term benefits that we shall continue to identify and take advantage of.
The final area of the report I would like to comment on relates to the Major Events Company. Like Hidden Valley Promotions, the Major Events Company is a government owned company established under corporations law. The Major Events Company was established with principal responsibility of attracting major events to the Territory and assisting with their promotion and coordination. I am pleased to report the Auditor-General found that the company expended just under $209 000 on major events across the Territory in 2000-01. That means a large number of Territorians have been able to enjoy activities that may not otherwise have occurred. The range of activities includes the Tennant Creek Go-Karts, the Royal Darwin Show, the Finke Desert Race, Australian Safari, the musical Cats and the New Year’s Eve fireworks. Nearly every major community in the Territory was part of a major event, and that is something we want to continue.
The government expects the Major Events Company to play an important role in attracting and promoting major events in the Territory. I was pleased to announce last December that Andy Bruyn has agreed to join the board of the company and be the chairperson. I am sure his media experience and his network in the entertainment industry will be invaluable and I know certainly, Madam Speaker, his enthusiasm is already tangible.
This government has also set aside $300 000 to promote Territory artists, and I have asked the Major Events Company to look for opportunities to do this and they have already occurred, for example, support for skills training for the musical Fiddler On The Roof that will take place in April at the Darwin Entertainment Centre.
Territorians can look forward to some exciting events over the next 12 months, particularly in this, the 25th anniversary of self-government. There is a youth concert, V8 Supercars, Tattersalls Finke Desert Race, Tennant Creek Go-Kart Grand Prix, the NT Tropical Garden Spectacular, Territory Day and the arrival of the first train.
In closing, I thank our Auditor-General, Mike Blake, for his first report. I understand we are now back on track, with his second report being tabled this month. I can assure Territorians that this government will be paying close attention to the contents of his reports and will continue to view his recommendations and opinions as a vital element in ensuring that we, as a Territory, are efficient, effective and accountable.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I too congratulate our new Auditor-General on his first report. I was particularly pleased to see that one of the first items in that report was an audit of the Procurement Review Board, because it is one of the most important areas we need to address in government at the moment.
The Procurement Review Board has a responsibility to ensure that the procurement policy of government is based on five fundamental principles, and the Auditor-General states them: open and effective competition; value for money; enhancing the capabilities of local business and industry; environmental protection; and ethical behavior and fair dealing.
He found in his audit report that the application of the five principles of procurement is independently assessed by the board, and that goods and services purchased by the NT government have been properly procured. Now, I am not going to take him to task on the word ‘properly’; it may be ‘properly’ in audit terms. But he does go on to say that the board’s role needs to be widened. I say this in a purely bipartisan way. If there are problems with the procurement process in the Northern Territory at the moment, I would be the first to accept that those problems were there in my government as they are now. One of the regrets I had, amongst many, in losing government, was that I did not get a chance to burrow into what was actually happening in procurement in the Northern Territory.
It is one thing for government to set principles of procurement. It is another thing to ensure that those principles are being adhered to in fact, not only in process, and that Territory companies are given every opportunity to optimise their ability to access goods and services that are procured by government.
The fact is, at the moment, that is not happening. It has not been happening for some time; it continues not to happen. One can walk out there any day of the week and talk to businesses which feel that they have been clearly disadvantaged by the procurement process. There is a litany of - albeit anecdotal - information, but certainly allegations of impropriety in some shape or form on the part of some procurement that exists. There is a major problem, I know, with a procurement of government IT services, I believe it was, in one part of the Northern Territory that is at least in front of the Ombudsman. I am sure the minister and the Chief Minister are aware of it.
However, the insidious problem is that there are so many businesses out there which feel they are not treated fairly and equitably in the procurement process - certainly, the debriefing that occurs is not satisfactory. The allegations of favouritism are clearly there. I believe that the government needs to get to the core of exactly how the procurement process is happening, and where there needs to be clear improvements, sort it out. In that context, the recommendations of the Auditor-General to widen the board’s role are excellent, because if you have a board that can ensure that proper procurement is occurring, then we have moved a long way forward.
He states in his report that the board’s functions are ‘defined in legislation’ and do not currently include:
- prescribing courses of action to be taken in case of breaches of procurement policy and legislation by
agencies; and
- involvement in the approval or declining of procurement-related proposals submitted by agencies.
He states:
- The board and the PPF should adopt a more proactive approach to strengthening their role within the
government’s procurement policy. This could entail:
the conduct of side audits on agencies’ procurement processes on an ad hoc basis and reports
to the Under Treasurer and the agencies’ accountable officer on their findings;
questioning agency representatives, rather than taking agency submissions at face value. This
should be done, for instance, in the case of certificates for exemption where the board is aware
of alternative service providers; and
involvement by the PPF in the formulation and enforcement of procurement policies and procedures
employed by the agencies.
He states:
- The widening of functions would enable the board, and the PPF, to operate in a proactive rather than a
reactive manner, and thus enhance compliance for agencies with systems currently in use.
With regards to certificates of exemption, the Auditor-General states:
- The board and PPF do not ensure that all certificates of exemption are followed by a ‘Recommendation to
Accept Tenders’ from the agencies. Contracts awarded, as published in the government Gazette, are not
checked off against the business papers approved by the board. The procurement process is therefore
potentially open to abuse as:
agencies may not contract with the best possible supplier; and
some contracts may go ungazetted and, therefore, not comply with procurement policy
and guidelines.
Certainly, the fact that agencies may not contract with the best possible supplier is the common allegation out there every day of the week. As I say, I do not criticise government in this respect, but I would hope that the government takes these Auditor-General’s comments strongly. I believe he has pointed a clear way forward. There may be better options either by using the board as the instrument, or some other method that could go even further. However, I am particularly pleased to see that the Auditor-General has identified that particular issue.
On a final note, I am pleased to see that the government continues to support the V8 Supercars. As the Chief Minister said, it is an expensive proposition for the Territory, but strongly supported. The Chief Minister alluded very briefly to the type of business case that the government would put forward that we do get value for money. However, the Auditor-General says that at the conclusion of the 2001 audit, which was some time ago now, management advised that an exercise was underway to estimate the benefits to the Northern Territory of holding this event. I would like to see the result of that review. It surely must be available. And in any case, I would certainly hope, and Territorians would certainly hope, that this event is supported through to 2007. The fact that the race was being taken into South East Asia was one of the reasons that helped us extend that contract to 2007. Certainly, the contract not only gives a guarantee to Territorians it will stay to 2007, but it gives a clear strategy to Territorians as to how that race will grow and improve as a feature race, not only for Territorians, but Australians and people who watch it from all countries in the world when it happens in Darwin from 2007 and beyond.
With those comments, I again thank the Auditor-General for his report.
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, like other members, I congratulate our new Auditor-General on his first report. A very important institution in terms of another independent check and balance on the workings of government outside of opposition scrutiny. It is certainly an institution that does give very important information to all ministers on the workings of the agencies for which they have ministerial responsibility.
Going to the issue of procurement, as the new procurement minister in government, I am pleased to be following the Opposition Leader in contributing to debate on this report this evening. It is good to hear the Opposition Leader acknowledge that we do have significant problems with procurement processes within government. As the business minister in the Northern Territory I concur with him. It probably is the single biggest issue that is coming to my attention in all sorts of forums. One only has to look at the reports on the website of the Business Round Table to see that the issue of government procurement is certainly right up there as the issue that our business community and our small business community wants government to address. It is good to hear the Leader of the Opposition state that he wants to try to address this in a bipartisan approach and to acknowledge that we have inherited a system from the previous government, and that for all sorts of reasons that system is not serving the Territory well at this time.
We have commissioned a significant and very intensive review of government procurements. It is very, very complex. The value of government procurements is worth, even outside the capital works and minor new works area, hundreds of millions worth of dollars a year. We have many hundreds of public servants, possibly even thousands of public servants, who have the ability and the authorisation to procure goods and services. That is a huge responsibility for those public servants to ensure that there is an open, competitive, transparent process for the procurement of items and services that government needs to function. It has been a significant issue to come to grips with.
I advise the House, if people did not already know, that the previous government did commission a review of procurement back in 1999. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it was chaired by Bob Truman. It was independent and there were a number of people on that committee representing many of the business associations throughout the Northern Territory. It travelled throughout the Northern Territory and provided a report to government in 1999. In that report, I believe there were around 34 recommendations – do not hold me to that number specifically.
It was a report that was not made public. It was not tabled in this House. Rather than reinvent the wheel, as business minister when this issue was coming up in the first months of government, I spoke to many of the people who were on that committee and obviously accessed the report. I asked what was the starting point for any review. They basically all said: ‘If you would only implement what we recommended back in 1999, we believe that most of the issues would be dealt with. We are facing the same problems and issues with procurement in 2002-03 as we were facing in 1999. The problem is that the report was never implemented’.
When we went through and audited the implementation of the report, essentially they were right. Very few of the recommendations were adopted by government. The minister of the day and the Cabinet of the day adopted all bar three or four of the recommendations and, for whatever reason, even though there was Cabinet and ministerial approval of the vast majority of those recommendations, many of them were never implemented. That is the issue that we are working through now: a strategy for implementation of those recommendations as well as a re-assessment. We have gone to industry and business associations across the Territory. We have tweaked some of those issues. There has been an enormous amount of debate. There will be a Cabinet submission in mid-March dealing with where to from here. I will be making a full statement to this House once Cabinet has considered the report and we have made necessary decisions.
Probably the biggest single issue in relation to government procurement – and given there are hundreds if not one thousand or more public servants who have authorisation for procurement – in any organisation as large as the public sector – 14 000 employees – there is going to be a tiny amount of rorting of the system or potential corruption. I do not think we face an endemic or widespread issue of rorting or corruption of the system. The issue we face is one of training; basically accrediting public servants who have been through an appropriate training program and have a full knowledge and understanding of the policy of government, how the procurement process should work and the principle of not purchasing in every case on cheapest price, but actually considering quality and value of the goods and services being procured over the life of that item or service. It is not straightforward. There are so many different areas of government expenditure that it never will be straightforward. But that is essentially the issue: resourcing, training, accreditation.
The comments and recommendations that have been made by the Auditor-General are being considered as part of the report to government. It is another avenue of information and recommendation to government. I concur with the Leader of the Opposition that it is a significant issue.
The exact numbers I will give to the House when I make a full ministerial statement on this, but something like 80% outside of the capital works area of the volume of procurement in government is at a value of less than $3000, in that range. We are talking about tens of millions of dollars of expenditure that goes out which, under current processes, has no requirement for competitive tender and, for many business, particularly small business, securing a part of that expenditure is a vital part of their business portfolio in terms of cash flow. I have had any number of business people see me essentially complaining that in that area of expenditure, that they know of a single business that gets all of an agency’s expenditure in that area and they cannot get a look in because it is under that competitive tender issue. So, without heaping a whole heap more of administration back on the bureaucracy, these are the types of issues that we are looking at.
I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged that this is a significant issue. I am keen to achieve bipartisan support for any recommendations that we bring to the House, whether legislation or regulations have to be amended as a result of the Cabinet decision. I look forward to opposition support for that. Once we have completed the review, it is coming to Cabinet in March as I said, and a decision is made, I am more than happy to offer a full and thorough briefing to any members of this House because I am sure all members have had complaints about the procurement process.
Madam Speaker, with those comments, I congratulate the Auditor-General on his first report and look forward to a constructive working relationship with him and his office.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Madam Speaker, I also congratulate the Auditor-General on his first report and underscore the importance of the role of the Auditor-General in assisting us in our task of delivering a better outcome for Territorians. In my capacity as shadow spokesman on Education, Employment and Training, I wish to centre my remarks on matters highlighted by the Auditor-General with regards to asset management of our schools. I will not begin to go down the path of trumping this up and saying that this is outrageous and must be addressed, because I do understand that I must moderate what I have to say with understanding how difficult it is to manage the expectations and the needs of each local school community; their repairs and maintenance, with the actual capacity to deliver each of those needs on a global level.
The Auditor-General very rightly points out the need for the proper mechanics to allow the management of the repairs and maintenance budget. That mechanism is critical; the machinery to deliver this so that school communities do not waste their precious energies on fighting against a system not being sure of whether their needs are going to be properly recognised. That system is critical if this government’s rhetoric of making education the highest priority - I do not doubt the sincerity of that - but to translate that into action requires great urgency to construct the appropriate machinery to allow each school community to feel that its specific requirements are being understood and met by the system.
The outsourcing of the repairs and maintenance to DIPE: it is in this change of regime, which is the prerogative of this government to bring about whatever changes it deems in the best interests of managing the Territory’s resources. The Auditor-General’s report clearly points out that there is a significant problem in this respect and I would like to spend a little time reinforcing the importance of this need and the areas that do need attendance. Each school community has a clear understanding of what its own needs are. The energy and the activity of each school community is centred around the council, particularly the parents who do see their need as predominant. The energies of these parents on the parent councils do need to engage very comprehensively with the broader system and have a greater understanding of how the system works. If there is inappropriate machinery in place, it makes it more difficult to actively engage and to harness the energy of our school councils and our school principals. Therefore, I would suggest it is more than appropriate to provide specific in-servicing to our school councils so that they understand the global scheme regarding repairs and maintenance in each of their schools. The absence, on a global scale, of a capacity within DEET to manage this system effectively is an issue of serious concern which, of course, falls upon the shoulders of the minister for education.
I hope the response to this identified problem is not further consulting and the announcement of another review. It has been clearly identified and it needs some action. It should not be a hard problem to identify the direction that needs to be taken. The announcement of a review, or to go on a protracted round of consulting, would simply create the impression to school councils and administrations that, perhaps, something is being done. When the problem is identified, what is needed is a solution, a decision, and an action taken by the government in this respect. I am sure, if government were in opposition, they would demand no less.
To bring people into this with their expectations that have been raised in the community of placing education much higher on the agenda. There is a grave concern about the emerging gap between the identified needs of repairs and maintenance within each school and what is actually being funded. In the 1999-2000 period, works identified amounted to $15.67m. What was actually funded was $14.73m, a gap of $940 000. In human terms, that gap of $940 000 means that school communities have to carry it and hope that in the next round they will be able to make some progress. However, what is of concern as we follow through, is that, in the following year 2000-01, it went from a gap of $940 000 to $2.88m.
When we bring people back into this equation, we are endeavouring to harness the energies of parents and have them involved in partnership relations with the school communities and their hard-working teachers. The endeavours of this government is to address that important concern that we all face, in enhancing the value of our teachers in the community and the work of those hard-working school councils. Having this gap blown out in the year 2000-01 to $2.88m actually speaks volumes, and places a colossal weight upon those who are there to deliver a quality outcome for our young Territorians. This under-girds the imperative that this does not need a review or a round of consultancy. It needs some action to construct the appropriate machinery to manage this unmet expectation within school communities.
It actually gets worse than that, because in the year 2001-02, the Auditor-General has identified the gap - which is deferred maintenance - has now blown out to $5.58m. That is a colossal amount and in a relatively small education system, that weighs very significantly on practically every school within our jurisdiction. Once again, the effect is felt in the classrooms. The effect would be felt by the hard-working parents who are difficult to recruit to take the responsibility in our school communities and to provide that partnership role. That growth in 1999-2000 from $940 000 gap of deferred maintenance to now, 2001-02, to $5.58m is of grave concern. The system does need to be addressed. I will say it again: not with a review; not with consultancy. This is urgent.
I will quote from the Auditor-General’s report:
- As noted above, the system currently in place to manage the repairs and maintenance functions is BAMS
[which is the Building Assets Management System] with guidelines being set in the School Management
Handbook. These do not however represent ‘performance management systems’ …
This is that critical tracking so that we know how we are actually going. If we do not know how we are going we will have an inflation of expectation within the education community, and that expectation will not be met.
- … do not represent ‘performance management systems’ because they do not assist DEET to:
maintenance function;
identify, in its own right, the strategies and outputs intended to deliver the required repairs
and maintenance outcomes and record these in a business plan;
identify how to measure the achievement of the outcomes and outputs and design systems to
capture the repairs and maintenance performance information;
monitor and report the progress of the achievement of the outputs and outcomes;
evaluate the effectiveness of the final outcomes against the intended objectives; and
report internally on the outputs and outcomes and report externally, preferably in the annual report,
on the outcomes together with recommendations for subsequent improvement.
It is important that I note that the Department of Employment, Education and Training has commented on this report of the Auditor-General and does agree that this is an area that does need attention and, of course, under the leadership of the minister responsible, I will be calling upon and looking for this minister’s response to this identified area of concern.
With those words, I congratulate the Auditor-General for his excellent report. I look forward to the next report.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I, too, welcome the first report from our new Auditor-General. It is this competent work that helps us in our work as ministers to track what our agencies are doing and to sort out any issues that the Auditor-General has managed to come across during his evaluation.
Of my agencies, the Department of Corporate and Information Services is identified in some of the findings of this report. I take this opportunity to provide some responses to the House regarding the issues that were identified. Before I get into the findings, I will take a few minutes to comment about DCIS, the Department of Corporate and Information Services. It is fair to say that it is the engine room of government in terms of the flow of transactions, the actual movement of processes around the Northern Territory government system. It is unsung and often undervalued. It is fairly newly born in that it has had a pretty rocky start from when it was created as a support agency to the other agencies of the Northern Territory government.
I commend Sarah Butterworth, as CEO of DCIS, for the way in which she is consolidating the development of this agency. It is an agency that performs around 40 000 transactions a month on behalf of the rest of government. It manages the ITC services to the whole of government, and it is increasingly working on information management within the NT government system. It is a very valuable agency, and I am very proud to be minister for DCIS.
I turn now to the findings of the Auditor-General’s report regarding DCIS. On page 10 we have common issues and trends arising from agency compliance audits. These are a general section of findings that relate to all agencies, but it does identify specific items of updating service level agreements with DCIS; looking at adopting single property and accounting manuals; re-constituting audit committees and actioning internal audit plans; amending and updating assets registers; and adopting revised internal management reporting frameworks.
The Auditor-General is calling attention to these internal procedures. I will give a response on behalf of DCIS beyond the general response that is included in the Auditor-General’s report. In relation to the matters reported, the position of DCIS is as follows:
DCIS has a single accounting and property manual which is maintained on the agency’s Intranet site.
It is currently being updated to reflect the change to accrual accounting. The manual is available to
other agencies to utilise and tailor to suit their individual needs.
new service level agreements were provided to all agencies on 18 October 2002. Some have been
signed and others are under active discussion with agencies.
DCIS is also in the process of undertaking its annual customer survey with agencies and will follow
up on outstanding SLAs during this process.
DCIS has an active audit committee chaired by the CEO which meets on a quarterly basis. The
Auditor-General or his representative attends as an observer at the meetings. Internal audit plans
and audits and external audits are reviewed at each meeting and the implementation of recommendations
monitored.
DCIS maintains for most agencies registers of assets valued in excess of $5000. Asset registers at
30 June 2002 were based on the government’s cash accounting policy in operation at the time. With
the introduction of accrual accounting on 1 July 2002, DCIS has put significant effort into ensuring all
asset registers are current and comply with the Treasurer’s Directions for accrual accounting. This has
included agency stocktakes and review of asset values, and depreciation is now expensed.
DCIS has only had a minimal restructure as part of the restructure of the public service and was readily
able to incorporate the new elements in its management reporting system.
I am satisfied that my agency is progressing these internal procedures in line with the Auditor-General’s findings.
The other, and probably more major, findings regarding DCIS, in the area of outsourcing of ITC as a whole-of-government process, were that:
- the framework for vendor risk assessment and internal audit needs to be improved for all IT contracts
to provide ongoing assurance as to the integrity of vendor service level reporting, vendor contract
compliance, and vendor processes.
Mr Henderson: Another CLP initiative.
Dr TOYNE: My very words, member for Wanguri. Secondly:
- failure by the agency to accurately ascertain the number of units, which were the subject of the tender
process, may have affected tender pricing.
It is fair to say that IT outsourcing has been anything but a smooth and painless process, coming into the Northern Territory system. I can only assume that the previous minister for DCIS under the CLP probably spent the last year and a half in the job asleep in his chair. When we saw the contents of the contracts that we inherited, there was a huge amount of work still to be done on the service level agreements to the degree that they were defined within the contracts. There were many issues that were not tied down in the contracts. There are many areas that we still have to monitor very closely within the carriage of these contracts through the contract periods. It certainly characterised much of the early work I had to do as a minister to get an understanding of the complexities of these arrangements and to try to do as much damage control with the CEO, Sarah Butterworth, to protect the interests of the Northern Territory government, public servants and the Territory public as they are evidenced within these outsourced arrangements.
The audit highlighted in the Auditor-General’s report is the latest of a continued program of audits related to this IT outsourcing area. We absolutely welcome the analysis of the Auditor-General as part of our process of trying to repair and defend our interests within the contract arrangements. Having said that, I think we are making progress with the contracts. The eMAG contract has settled down now to the point where it is rarely spoken about. The contract for the desktop support still has problem areas, and that flares up from time to time, not the least in the Department of the Legislative Assembly in recent times and we have a lot of work to do to bed that down and at least make sure that we get the level of service that the contract is promising.
Looking at the desktop and LAN services contract, the CSC contract, I welcome the arrival of Joe Blignaut, who has been appointed to the management position in the Northern Territory to get stuck into the issues regarding this particular outsourced arrangement and try to sort this out with agencies to the extent that problems still exist. I met with Joe a couple of weeks ago, and was very impressed with his openness about admitting that there were problems. We had earlier meetings where the CSC were just trying to say that all of this is inherent in outsourcing and that government agencies do not really understand what is involved in ITC, but I do not believe that. There are things certainly that public servants throughout our system have to know about such as the hidden costs of ITC, and that some of those become visible when you are in an outsourced arrangement where they can be invisible with an in-house arrangement. An example of that is the amount of staff time that might be being put into maintaining an IT process which is not costed out and not counted as a cost of the uptake and use of that technology.
The confirmation of the agency hardware volumes and associated pricing adjustments is identified as a particular area of concern within the CSC contract. The CSC contract is for desktop support. Clearly, the whole contract was based on some assessment of how many work stations existed within the Northern Territory agencies that were going to be serviced through this contract. The original estimate, which was gained by canvassing each agency in turn and asking them to give the number of computer work stations that they were currently using, was 9890 work stations. This was adjusted by true-up negotiations in July 2002 to a figure of 9200. At the time of our response to the Auditor-General’s November report, final sign-off had not been realised, however, it was expected there would be slight increase on that figure. Sign-off did take place in January 2003, with an agreed volume of 9310 work stations. Clearly, as that figure went up and down, you would expect that it might impact on the total contract cost. But it is not quite that simple in terms of the negotiations we then had with CSC.
In relation to whether the tenders may have been different if the inventory had been more accurate, it is, of course, difficult to guess what would have actually happened if we had have known initially that there were 9310 work stations rather than 9890.
However, all tenderers were bidding on the same data, so it can be assumed that the ranking of tenders would not have changed. The reduced numbers have resulted in some diseconomies of scale and an increased per unit price being negotiated in the true-up process, one year into the contract. A similar outcome would have been expected with unsuccessful tenderers. The upshot of all this is that we have had to top up the amount of money allocated to that outsourced arrangement for a period of three years, until it returns to parity with the original contract estimate.
In relation to the delay of completion of the transition period, since responding to the Auditor-General’s November report, the contractor’s deliverables were met and transition period ended on 24 January 2003. The Auditor-General questions whether a 10% sanction on failure to achieve service level agreement elements is high enough to actually provide a disincentive to not deliver on those SLAs. KPMG reviewed the contract in May 2002 and concluded the service credit cap of 10% of service charges within any one period is reasonable and consistent with industry standards.
With regard to eMAG - the Electronic Messaging and Groupware contract which is with CSM - the Auditor-General notes that DCIS initiated a benchmarking study of this contract in October 2001 to assess the services and costs against industry standards. The study concluded that the contract represented reasonable value for money.
In the area of our Advanced Communication Services contract with Optus, the Auditor-General notes that DCIS is addressing matters raised in the benchmarking and contract management reviews, and does not raise any particular concerns in the report.
As a general finding, a revised audit plan for all outsourcing contracts has been approved by the department’s audit committee in 2002-03 financial year.
Madam Speaker, that gives a detailed response to the House on the areas that the Auditor-General has identified for my agencies. I congratulate the Auditor-General on this, his first report, and welcome him to the life of this parliament.
Mr AH KIT (Community Development): Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. I welcome the report which addresses the areas relevant to my department.
I refer members to page 5 in the major findings, where there is mention made of the Jabiru Town Development Authority. The authority has overall responsibility, under the Jabiru Town Development Act, for the maintenance and development of the town of Jabiru, the issue of subleases of land, and to administer, manage and control the town. A headleasing agreement between the authority and the Commonwealth over the town is due to expire in 2021.
The Auditor-General comments that:
the authority was technically insolvent at 30 June 2001 as it had a deficiency of assets of
approximately $3.4m; and
the authority’s ability to continue as a going concern is dependent on the continuation of the
moratorium over debt and interest payments due to the Northern Territory government.
The Northern Territory government provided loan funds of $8.4m for over-design of services in the town of Jabiru, mainly water supply and sewerage facilities. I remember those headworks being done at that time. The plan was, in those days back in the 1980s, to ensure that there would be enough accommodation to facilitate the new mines that were supposedly going to come on stream – Koongarra and also the Jabiluka mine. These facilities were originally constructed to a capacity that would be large enough to facilitate that expansion to its final estimated population. As we all know, this full expansion has not occurred.
A cost sharing agreement sets out the principles for the allocation between parties for expenditure required for the town development. The participating parties were principally Energy Resources Australia Limited, the Northern Territory government, the Commonwealth government and the authority.
In August 1986 a moratorium, which is still in place, was granted on the authority’s future interest and loan repayments on existing loans. This circumstance for the Jabiru Town Development Authority in regard to outstanding loans and interest payments has been continuing for some years and ongoing moratorium arrangements continue.
The Auditor-General also reports that the authority has delegated its local government functions to the Jabiru Town Council which prepares a separate annual report. The authority’s financial statements for the financial year 2000-01 are required to be submitted for audit by 30 September 2001. This accountability obligation was not met and the financial statements were not received for audit until late April 2002. I am concerned to be advised that the 2001-02 financial statements due by September 2002 were not submitted for audit until January 2003. I am following this up with my department to find out the reasons why this was so and to ensure that the Jabiru Town Development Authority understands their responsibilities.
I take this opportunity to give my support to the critical role of the Auditor-General. Recent corporate collapses in the private sector and increased debate on the importance of sound government structures within the public sector highlight the importance of due processes and sound fiscal management.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I was hoping to hear something a little more comprehensive from the Minister for Community Development in relation to the situation at the Jabiru Town Development Authority. The long and short of it is that the Auditor-General is clearly critical of what is occurring out there. I hope that the minister will confirm to the House at some later date that his department has gotten back to him and he is going to give a clear indication as to what is going to occur with the authority in relation to its future existence and the loan repayments.
I note that the Auditor-General says that under current trends, the Northern Territory government will not realise more than $5.4m of the outstanding $8.8m loan. Consequently, I would presume that the review the minister has ordered will be made public and will be made known to this House. I would certainly hope …
Mr Ah Kit: I will wait for a letter from you giving me some suggestions since it was your government that put this in place.
Mr ELFERINK: I am a little bit surprised – I am not being particularly critical of the minister in terms of his interjections. What I am asking him to do is that he has come in here and said, ‘Look, I have asked the department to give me some opinions and directions in relation to that,’ – that is fine; I do not have a problem with that. The Auditor-General has flagged that there is a problem. I do not have a problem with that. All I am asking the minister to do is when the department gets back to him, if he could just let the House and the people of the Northern Territory know what he is intending to do in relation to the situation as it currently stands.
This is not a criticism. This is not levelled at him or at the Martin government. It is simply a process by which the Auditor-General has made a point. The minister has picked up on the point, quite rightly so, and I am asking the minister to confirm in the future that he will advise this House and the people of the Northern Territory what steps he plans to take in relation to it.
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, the November Auditor-General’s Report refers only to the Menzies School of Health Research under the heading of the minister.
An unqualified audit option was given which was issued on 6 June 2002. I note that auditors have recorded the school has changed its accounting policy for the recognition of grant revenue, and my department will discuss this matter with them insofar as it affects the grant provision by the Department of Health and Community Services.
My department is providing funding to the Menzies School of Health Research this year amounting to $3.292m. The Bansemer Review report recognises the Menzies School as the principal health research institution in the Northern Territory. The report records the mission of the Menzies School is to improve the health of people of Northern and Central Australia and regions to the near north through high quality, multi-disciplinary research and education including a public health training role.
The review report recommends strong partnerships for the Department of Health and Community Services with Menzies, and the need for Menzies to bring strong partnerships with community groups, service providers, other academic institutions and policy makers. The opportunity for the department is to draw upon expertise at Menzies to help put some of the new health service delivery knowledge into practice.
The review has indicated that the department could be well placed to become a national leader in some fields of health service management by building on this linkage. To facilitate the building of productive links, the review report has suggested that more senior joint appointments could be arranged, such as that with Professor Currie who has a three-way appointment with Menzies, NT Clinical School and Royal Darwin Hospital. It is also suggested that creation of a policy unit within the department to facilitate uptake of research and early inclusion into policy making and service delivery planning.
Importantly, the review notes that Menzies may be able to assist the department with the vital evidence of health needs and strategic priorities to guide the department’s allocation of health funding to the greatest good for Territorians.
I also draw to the attention of the House that the Bansemer Report has noted the absence of an internal audit function within the department, and has recommended that it be put in place with a strengthened audit committee. This proposed performance evaluation and audit unit will maintain strong links to the Office of the Auditor-General and to the audit functions coordinated by the Chief Minister’s department.
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, the Auditor-General, in his report tabled in the Assembly in November last year, made reference to the Department of Employment, Education and Training in two areas: Indigenous Education Strategic Initiative Programme (IESIP), and the management of repairs and maintenance in relation to IESIP.
The Auditor-General stated that for the previous financial period ended 31 December 2001, he had been unable to establish what amounts of funds had been spent on each individual performance target in the program. However, he stated that expenditure was related to all IESIP project areas.
The Auditor-General also stated reporting internally of IESIP program progress has improved overall in 2001. Work was undertaken by DEET during 2001-02 to clearly link programmed outcomes with the Indigenous Education Strategic Plan 2000-2004 to evidence expenditure and achievement of targets in 2002.
DEET restructured the ledger early in 2002 to ensure that reporting of expenditure amounts within each performance target was possible. The department also commissioned an independent external audit in October 2002 which was carried out by Ernst and Young. This audit established that the procedures put in place for the period subject to the completion of its recommendations will enable the department to satisfy fully its contractual obligations to the Commonwealth in the area of reporting financial acquittal for IESIP.
In relation to the area of managing R&M, the Auditor-General noted that:
- funding is generally available for the priority areas of ‘health, safety and security’ and ‘retention
of asset integrity’.
He also noted that at present, DEET does not have a performance management system linked to the department’s business plan which adequately monitors the repairs and maintenance function of the department’s schools. The department’s Infrastructure Unit has initiated discussions with the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment with a view to establishing a closer relationship between DIPE’s operational offices, school councils and the unit to consider an appropriate performance management system. DEET has adopted the Northern Territory government philosophy of a total asset management system and, through the Building Asset Management System, effectively centralises the inspection and control of fixed assets within DIPE.
Repairs and maintenance funds are now included in DEET’s budget, rather than the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment’s budget which results in a greater degree of control and responsibility resting with DEET. School councils maintain control of the funds made available for repairs and maintenance and set their own priorities. While funding is limited, the level to which an asset is maintained is, of course, restricted. Generally, funding is only available to address those high priority items, as acknowledged by the Auditor-General.
DEET has addressed the areas referred to by the Auditor-General in his report of November 2002. I will continue to monitor those areas to ensure that work continues to come together. My thanks to the Auditor-General for his report to government.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
MOTION
Note statement - Crime Prevention Initiatives
Note statement - Crime Prevention Initiatives
Continued from 21 August 2002.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise today to speak in total support of the crime prevention statement brought down in this parliament in August last year by my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General. The issue of crime in our community is obviously an issue that is significant, poses many challenges for the broader community, and is an issue that is needful of a considered whole-of-government response to the issue of crime prevention. There is an old saying that prevention is better than cure, and that is certainly the case in terms of so much of the crime that affects our community.
It is obvious that there is always going to be a level of crime in any community. Societies throughout history have yet to determine a solution that provides for a society that is totally crime free. The challenge for all communities, for all governments, is to work with the community to reduce crime as much as any community possibly can. That has to be done with a considered and strategic approach, it has to be resourced and, more importantly, the strategies that are put in place in terms of crime prevention strategies and initiatives have to be measured. They have to be measured, they have to be analysed. The reason for that is, that at the end of the day you want to roll out strategies that work, and you are going to try many things. Some things will work, some things will not work, and obviously if you have a strategy in place that is not delivering results, then you do not want to throw any more resources at that particular issue.
From opposition we understood very well that the issue of crime needed more than just a law and order approach. It needed more than just a policing approach. We really did understand and do a lot of policy work that the community supported, that at the end of the day we had to put a much greater effort and emphasis on crime prevention throughout our community. In April 2000, we released one of our cornerstone policy statements: protection, punishment, and prevention, in terms of crime. I am very proud to be part of this government that is working through and implementing that particular policy that we put to the people and received endorsement and support from the people at the last Territory election.
It is a whole-of-government approach that we are looking at here, not just a law and order approach, not just a policing approach, but a whole-of-government approach. If we contrast that to the policy position of the previous government, when we were one of the few jurisdictions in Australia, in the western world, that did not have a central crime prevention agency and unit. The policy position of the previous government regarding the issue of crime really was focussed on the mandatory sentencing legislation.
As that election got closer and closer in August 2001, the message was more and more refined from the opposition that mandatory sentencing being the way forward, in terms of a safer community, and a reduction in crime. That message was reinforced at every polling booth in the Northern Territory. I am not sure about the bush ones but, certainly, all of the polling booths in the northern suburbs were adorned with CLP posters stating ‘Don’t risk …’ - I forget what the slogans were, but it was along the lines of ‘Don’t risk mandatory sentencing. If Labor gets in they will throw mandatory sentencing out’. So the whole policy position - but I accept many agencies were doing bits and pieces - of the CLP, in terms of safer community, reducing crime, was focussed around mandatory sentencing.
I also recall that at the top of Dick Ward Drive in Nightcliff, and the member for Nightcliff will recall, a massive banner at the top of the roundabout: ‘If you vote for Jane Aagaard you will lose mandatory sentencing. If you vote for Jason Hatton we will keep mandatory sentencing’. That was the policy position of the previous government.
We took to the people of the Northern Territory a comprehensive crime prevention initiative, a comprehensive plan for dealing with drug-related crime. At the end of the day, the CLP could not scare the community. The community was too smart and saw through the fallacy that mandatory sentencing was the solution to the problems of community safety and crime in the Northern Territory. We are moving forward from that; we have repealed mandatory sentencing. Through a number of initiatives that are being put in place, and from the statistics that are on the public record and will continue to be rolled out by government - it is very early days yet - we are starting to see crime trends down in the Northern Territory. We will aggressively pursue that trend with all of the policy arms of government that are available to us.
We have established a Central Crime Prevention Agency. Not only have we have established it in name, we have established it financially with a budget of $790 000 in the last financial year, and in 2002-03 a budget of over $2.3m. This agency is working hard in four key areas of responsibility. They are: to provide policy advice about crime reduction initiatives; evaluate the success or failure of crime prevention strategies independently - a very important point; collect, analyse and publish crime statistics; and coordinate the implementation of a crime prevention strategy across all government agencies. The Minister for Justice provided the first report – I am not sure when, but before Christmas, maybe in September. Another report is to come out in March. We will provide regular statistics on crime throughout the Northern Territory, throughout the life of this government and, re-elected, ongoing.
The community can have a debate on crime prevention, and it is a very important debate. From the government’s point of view, we do not pretend to have all the answers. The community can have a debate about crime in full light of the statistics about exactly what is happening in our community, and we can analyse strategies against those statistics to determine their success or not. There is an old adage that if you do not measure it, you cannot manage it. Those statistics will continue to be made available to the people of the Northern Territory on a regular and ongoing basis as opposed to, under the previous government, once a year statistics being provided through the Police Annual Report, and every year those statistics being remodelled and changed. It was very hard to compare apples with apples from one year to the other.
We can certainly see, since we started publishing those statistics, the ridiculous assertion that the previous government clung onto during their last term of government, that drug-related property crime was minuscule in the Northern Territory. Well, the statistics done do not bear that out. Certainly all of the operations that have been put into place across government at the moment, we did commit to doubling the Drug Squad and we will do that. We are starting to crack down on people who traffic and profit from illicit substances. We are working through those statistics to really hone in, in the Territory, for example, on the links between drugs and property crime.
But they are certainly there. There are so many national and international statistics that have been gathered on this particular point and now that the muzzle has been taken off the police in terms of ‘do not dare mention the links between drugs and property crime’, the police obviously are now free to talk about the linkages and they certainly do. You talk to any police officer, they will tell you about the links between drugs and property crime.
Part of the Office of Crime Prevention Agency is looking at profiling offenders and victims of crime and the main causes of crime need to be better understood. Of course, with police and Justice working very closely together in analysing these statistics it does lead to significant police operations. The new Police Commissioner has implemented the concept and the policy of intelligence-led policing amongst our Police service and it is starting to show some very significant and important results. That intelligence-led policing in a large part comes from the statistics that are gathered by the police from the public of what crime is occurring where and allowing the police to deploy resources, allowing the police to develop strategies, giving them information to allow them to deploy targeted operations to actually crack down particularly on the repeat offenders in crime.
I will put the results on the record from a number of operations from the police utilising this concept of intelligence-led policing and using the data that is being accumulated at the moment:
Operation Ranger was established on 1 July 2002 and utilises intelligence to identify and profile recidivist offenders with a view to arresting or dismantling their criminal business enterprise. The amalgamated unit of 27 police under the banner of Taskforce Ranger operates from the McAulay Centre. The objective is to identify and curtail criminal activities of recidivist offenders. All of the profiling shows that a large amount of the crime in our community is caused by a small number of people. If you take those people out of the community and lock them away where they belong until they come to understand the error of their ways and go on the straight and narrow, you do see significant impacts on property crime.
Under Operation Ranger there was a targeting of five offenders responsible for 26 unlawful entries committed upon business premises in the greater Darwin area around November/December last year. I think we all remember those. Day after day there were newspaper stories about businesses in the Winnellie and Berrimah area suffering extraordinary breaks and enters. The police did a magnificent job and got to the bottom of this. They talk internally about the Fab Four and there was another person, five people, responsible for theft of property valued at $703 000; $289 000 worth of damage to property; and the offenders were arrested and property valued at $100 000 recovered.
Five people in our community, five people in a population in Darwin, Palmerston and the rural area of about 110 000 people, five individuals were causing so much havoc and mayhem, as well as the financial cost to those businesses in the Winnellie and Berrimah area. The trauma for those business operators in their capacity to operate their businesses when so much damage had been done was significant. The police have done a magnificent job in cracking that particular group.
Since Ranger came into being on 1 July 2002, I can advise honourable members that Ranger has led to the arrest of 77 offenders, 19 summonses, one diversion, a total of 98 individual apprehensions, and there have been 322 offences cleared from that target operation based on intelligence-led policing utilising statistics that have been gathered. It was a collaboration with the Crime Prevention team and Justice. It was a significant early success. Those five people have been put out of business and a bit of calm has been restored to those business areas.
We can see that the issue of statistics is so important – not only for community debate, but also to allow the police and government to target operations and strategies to get to the causes of crime. Every three months, the Office of Crime Prevention will release statistics on crimes against the person and property crime. We will be publishing court outcomes for selected types of offences on a quarterly basis – again, something the previous government did not do. When we repealed mandatory sentencing, we introduced legislation to up the ante on offenders who are convicted of aggravated property offences such as home invasion, robbery and serious property damage. We will be publishing those statistics on a quarterly basis. We will not do as the CLP did and refuse to publish those statistics.
Moving away from statistics, the Office of Crime Prevention is establishing regional crime prevention councils across the Northern Territory. It is very important to get the community involved in community responses and initiatives to reduce crime. It is not just a job for the police, although they have a large and important role to play.
The first, and probably the most progressive, of the regional community councils to date has been established in Tennant Creek. The Tennant Creek Youth Initiative and Safe Community Strategy Committee has been meeting since early last year. It was convened through the existing partnership arrangements between ATSIC, Yapakurlangu – I will get that right, Elliot – Regional Council – close?
Dr Toyne: Yapakurlangu.
Mr HENDERSON: Okay, that’s it. And the Tennant Creek Town Council. I am advised by the member for Barkly, who is working very closely with these community groups, that Julalikari Council is doing a great job as well as Anyinginyi Congress in their CDU unit. The member for Barkly is going to talk more about the outcomes in his contribution.
It is a model that has achieved significant results in the Tennant Creek region. The member for Barkly and I are complimentary: the police are doing a fantastic job with that group. Again, the statistics show a significant decrease in crime in Tennant Creek since this grouping of community organisations has come together with police to address the issue of crime at the community level.
This concept and strategy is going to be rolled out across the Northern Territory in all of the major urban centres. The Crime Prevention Unit and my colleague, the Minister for Justice, are working very hard to roll out similar concepts in remote communities.
It is not just a police job; it is not just the job of legislation that we pass in this House. It really is about the community standing up to people who cause mayhem and damage in our community, and working out community strategies to deal with the issues. As far as Tennant Creek goes, significant runs are on the board.
We are also increasing the former NTsafe grants scheme from $250 000 to $400 000 each year. The concept is a pool of money being made available for community groups which are working on regional and local crime prevention strategies to be able to bid for funding for improvements and enhancements to safety schemes in their communities, or for infrastructure. We have nearly doubled the previous commitment of the previous government, and we will be monitoring the application of those grants and assessing the effectiveness of some of the schemes that result from that.
It is a multi-layered strategy that we are looking at. Only today, my colleague, the member for Nhulunbuy, the education minister, announced the first two of the eight school attendance officers that we have committed to in other policy positions that we put to the people of the Northern Territory. I was astounded when I was first elected to this place and campaigning for office, and talking to parents in the northern suburbs and coming to understand that, under the previous government, we did not have school attendance officers. They used to be called truancy officers; I will stick with the new descriptions. But, certainly, I do not think the community was aware that the education department did not have school attendance or truancy officers.
It is quite a simple concept, that if kids are not at school, they are not receiving an education. The fact that they are not receiving an education means that they are going to, throughout the rest of their lives, have ongoing problems with being gainfully employed. That, potentially, is then going to lead to a life of getting into trouble of one cause or another. Education is the cornerstone and the foundation of building people who are going to play positive parts in the community for the rest of their lives. If we have kids out on the streets, which we do in every corner of the Northern Territory - it is not just an issue in the bush, it is certainly an issue in our urban centres - if we do have kids who are not at school then obviously the vast majority of them are going to end up on the wrong side of the tracks.
We are playing our part with a commitment to eight school attendance officers, and we probably will need more. They are going to play their role in getting to those kids and getting to their families and parents, and understanding why they are not at school, and getting these kids into school and off the streets, away from the temptations and the influence of people who are going to get them into criminal activity.
We are also supporting independent groups like the Victims of Crime. We have increased their budget from $30 000 to $50 000 in the budget. Through Victims of Crime NT, victims now have access to funds, particularly in the appalling situations where people have their homes trashed and smashed up, in a house break. There are funds available to get people in there to assist in cleaning the homes and restoring security, locks and security screens, and to get them back on the rails.
The Leader of the Opposition, when we announced this strategy in debate, demeaned this as being a mop squad, that we needed more than a mop squad. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition that it certainly has not been identified as a mop squad by those victims who have received assistance. Of course, we would rather those homes not get broken into in the first place, but it is going to happen, and if it does happen and you need assistance, the assistance is there.
There have been a number of other successful strategies deployed by the Northern Territory Police in terms of intelligence-led policing and targeting officers in areas where there are high numbers of offenders.
As well as Operation Ranger, we had Operation Spitfire running over the Christmas period this year in the Palmerston region. The figures and statistics that I have seen has shown that, compared to last year, there was a significant reduction in crime and break-ins over the Christmas period as a result of that particular strategy. It is certainly a strategy that will be repeated. The whole concept was a higher and more visible police presence - police talking to the kids and understanding what they were up to and moving those kids on if they were up to no good.
I will give some numbers to honourable members: over the period of that operation, from 16 December 2002 to 31 January 2003, 1044 juvenile contacts were made - many of those were repeat contacts; two juvenile diversion written warnings; two juvenile diversion formal cautions; four arrests; four summonses; three referrals to Family and Children’s Services; two stolen motor vehicles recovered; 16 traffic infringement notices issued; and two summary infringement notices issued. A significant amount of police activity, and it is certainly a strategy that the police are looking at for further deployment.
I am sure that as the term of this parliament continues, my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, will continue to bring reports to this parliament on the effectiveness of the crime prevention strategies that this government committed to introduce. We will, hopefully, see - and we recognise - that the whole issue of law and order and crime is going to be an election issue. However, we believe and we are hopeful that we will see that over the term of this parliament, the first term of this government, we will be able to produce statistics for the people of the Northern Territory - independent statistics that have been assessed by independent auditors outside of the cycle of political spin - that will show a reduction in crime, particularly property crime across the Northern Territory.
We know that we are going to live or die, to a large part, on this particular issue. However, we certainly believe that it is good public policy. We are putting the resources in; the initiatives are starting to bite and work. We are seeing in the regions, in Tennant Creek, a significant turnaround, and we are committed to continue to pursue the concept of crime prevention, along with a tough law and order strategy. We are hopeful that we will continue to see success. I am sure that my colleague, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, will continue to bring reports to this parliament for debate.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I hope it is satisfying to some that the government, particularly through its police minister, has such a precise focus on the situation out there at the moment, and that strategies have been put in place to deal effectively with crime in the Northern Territory.
One does not get much confidence when it is the same minister who, less than a month ago, said that he was satisfied that the Police Force was adequately manned and resourced and saw reason, at all, for a review to be conducted into their manning. I would have thought that a government that has been in power for coming up two years, that has put in place the strategies to deal with crime that are being so successful in dealing with crime across the Northern Territory, and is pointing to that success through its statistics, would have some idea about the need of its Police Force. However, the police minister has obviously done a backflip on that particular issue. The reason the backflip has been done on that particular issue is because the simple fact has now become apparent to the government that the police are undermanned, under-resourced and, because of that, are relatively ineffective in implementing the strategies that they want to implement.
In that regard, I would be the first to compliment our Police Commissioner on some of the initiatives that he wants to put in place. There is no doubt that intelligence-led policing is the way to go, but he has to have the resources to do it. It is not much use assembling operation this and operation that, when the stations that you are drawing your people from do not even have basic manning to conduct their day-to-day activities. That is the conundrum the Police Commissioner has been in, and remains in, and will stay in that situation until such time as the review is completed.
But in that context it is very pleasing that at last the government has seen sense and has commissioned a review. I have not seen the terms of reference for this particular review but I hope it is all-encompassing. It would raise additional questions in itself if it is not because for the sum of $400 000 odd for the review, it seems on the face of it to be a wide ranging review. A review that I would hope would look at what are the core responsibilities for police in the Northern Territory, what additional responsibilities have been placed on them not only by this government but by previous government initiatives and requiring them to do more and more. What sort of a load does this whole concept of community policing place on police, how does that compound their efforts against their core activities and how do we need to better resource them?
I would hope that it has been more than the opposition and the police association that has convinced the government that they need a change. I hope it is not just a political decision to try to take some heat off and that they are still blind to the problem. I hope that this Office of Crime Prevention and others are finally getting the message through to the government that there is a critical problem out there that needs to be addressed.
The members of the government in every seat in the Northern Territory may feel satisfied with what is happening out there. All I can say is that you must live in a different world to the one I live in because the world that I live in at Palmerston is not happy. If there is a number one issue since this government came to power, the flag issue in the Northern Territory is law and order. If there is a perception amongst the community out there it is this: that it has gotten worse as this government came to power. You can come out with all your statistics, you can come out with all your strategies: ‘We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that,’ you can come out and say that the CLP only had one strategy and that was mandatory sentencing and you know it is wrong. You can bring back NTsafe and call it the Office of Crime Prevention and then rerun the same programs and throw a few more in there as well. Good on you! But the proof is in the pudding. The proof has to be, you are running up …
Dr Toyne interjecting.
Mr BURKE: He shows the statistic, there it is. Well, you have had one go at that; you have not convinced anyone with those stats, and the other report, if you are true to your own policy, should be out today, justice minister, today or tomorrow. If you are going to produce quarterly reports the last one has clocked up its quarter and it should be out today or tomorrow.
Dr Toyne: About two weeks.
Mr BURKE: When?
Dr Toyne: About two weeks.
Mr BURKE: Oh, two weeks, okay.
Ms Carter: Just after the sittings – how convenient.
Mr BURKE: Yes, that would be right – just after the sittings. But anyway we look forward to seeing that and if you put all your hope in another blue or green, or whatever you call it, stats doc, one that you yourself know is selective – is selective in the sort of crimes it records and reports, extremely selective, and no-one out there is fooled about that fact, I would have thought that a government that is a year and a half, clocking up nearly two years in power would be getting one message coming through from the community. I would have thought that, say, the member for Karama would be one who would be saying, ‘Gee whiz, I am getting some heat out there.’ Karama is a battle zone – and she knows it.
It is a battle zone. I am embarrassed in Palmerston now because I cannot do a damn thing about it. I have to depend on the initiatives of this government, this great strategy that is going to come through. I now have to sit there frustrated because Palmerston people are so fed up with lawlessness in the Northern Territory that it is worrying. It is really worrying. I tell you what, you have to worry in a place the size of Darwin, with a community like Darwin, when the army has to put in special strategies to get their soldiers home safe – god damn. Your own Office of Crime Prevention – I can tell you what they are saying at some of their meetings – there is an unprecedented level of antisocial and itinerant activity in Darwin – an unprecedented level.
What caused that? Has it been an unprecedented wet season or what? That is what your own crime committee is saying. So do not ignore the facts. The facts are this: the facts are that in every seat in the northern suburbs - I cannot speak about Tennant Creek, some of my colleagues have more experience about Tennant Creek. I do know that there is a very proactive policing effort going on down there, and if there have been some successes, I applaud it, because Tennant Creek was in terrible shape. If there are some successes there, good. There is no doubt that the police are doing an enormous job in trying to cope with the problems, with the resources that they have. But you need to recognise the simple fact that holding up that book and saying: ‘Aren’t we doing well?’ does not fool anyone.
The reality is - and I will give you one example; you might want to test it yourself - the Palmerston Regional Business Association has about 300 members. They have just done a survey on crime, on police response, their satisfaction, increases in crime to their business. I tell you what: it would blow your hat off if you see the result of that. They are not happy. They are not happy with the strategies the government has put in place. They are not happy with the response they are getting from police. They are not happy with the fact that it is now more common not to report the crime because the frustrations are such that you may as well just get on with it and say, ‘I have been done over again’. So, when you talk about your statistics and being honest and open to Territorians, get down there and burrow down and find out what the real situation is.
Any member of this parliament who can stand and say, ‘In my electorate, things are better than they were 12 months ago’, I want to talk to him. Right, okay. We have at least one volunteer. We will do our own check now in the member for Johnston’s electorate, and we will find out what the people of your electorate think. We will see …
Dr Burns: Why don’t you get the stats?
Mr BURKE: Oh! I am sure that every mum and dad in your electorate have the stats on their table.
Dr Burns: Why don’t you ask about Foils at Moil? Why don’t you ask about Foils at Moil? You never closed them down!
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr BURKE: Chris Burns is our hero! We have read the latest statistics, and we are doing well. Go and tell it to the marines!
I cannot even walk my dog at night without getting bailed up by people telling me how bad crime is. I can tell you that Palmerston is in a lot better shape than some of the suburbs in the northern suburbs. A lot better shape. I know from the way people talk to me that Territorians know one thing plainly, and if you do not know it and have not accepted it, fine. It just shows how blind you are.
If you cannot accept that in 18 months of government, law and order has gone through the roof in terms of an issue in the Northern Territory, a perception of lawlessness in the community is well and truly there, a perception of police inability to deal with the problem is well and truly there, you are in another world. Stay there. I hope you enjoy it there.
As the member for Wanguri said, the government hopes – ‘hopes’! He went through with all the government’s tremendous success, how well it is doing. He ended up with a little disclaimer when he said, ‘We hope that by the next election we can show people that we have done well’. Eighteen months rolling up to two years into government - you are almost mid-term - you want to get a hurry on. You are a long way behind the eight-ball at the moment.
The Office of Crime Prevention and crime statistics; I look forward to seeing the next lot of crime statistics. I am particularly interested that they will be out in a couple of weeks’ time. We will be examining those figures and having a good look at them. This statement that we are referring to is - what is it now, nearly six months old? It is a statement about what the government is going to do. In terms of crime statistics, there is an undertaking there to publish statistics on the sentences handed down for serious property offenders. What is the qualification? Is it only for serious property offences? Are you only going to talk about sentences that are handed down for some offences? What I would like to know is: what is the success of police from arrest to court? How successful are they?
Dr Toyne: Yes, clear up rates. We will have a look at that, yes.
Mr BURKE: Not only clear up rates. It is when then they get an arrest, and they present that person to the justice system, how successful are they in getting that person actually into a court? What is the result of that court procedure? Many Territorians want to know that, because it is one thing to talk about how well we have done in court, when everyone knows there is plea bargaining going on all over the place. We want to know how the police are being supported by the courts. You have given an undertaking to include that in your justice figures, and we look forward to seeing it.
You talk in this particular statement about policy advice that is being given to government by the Office of Crime Prevention. The minister has now had six months to talk about that, think about it. The Office of Crime Prevention has had long enough to come forward with some of those policies. I would like to know exactly what policy advice is coming from that agency, and whether any of that advice has been implemented. And whether the policy advice from that department has led to any reduction in crime. It may be too early to expect much on the second core area you have, that is, to evaluate the success or failure of crime prevention strategies. But certainly, seeing this statement we are debating now is about six months old, you should be able to say something in your response.
There is a third area which is independently collect, analyse and publish crime statistics. As I said, your first go was a dismal failure. You might be impressed by your own book, but you only had to see the public reaction, and the newspaper reaction, that you fooled no-one, they fell flat on their face. At the end of the day, the success of the government’s strategy is going to be the visible absence of crime. It is not going to be your statistics. It is going to be a feeling of safety in the community.
Dr Toyne: How much did it cost us for you to learn that slogan?
Mr BURKE: And the feeling of, well …
A member: $50?
Dr Toyne: Unfortunately it was more like $50 000.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr BURKE: I will pick up the point. He thinks it is a slogan, and I have explained to you before, it is not only a slogan, it is a tenet of the police force that I studied, and you may not like it, but it is very important. It is a very important message for the government, and that is that police activity is not a measure of success. A measure of success is to see an absence of crime, and so far, on that measure, you have failed miserably.
You talked about the coordination of a crime prevention strategy across all agencies. I would like to see more detail on this. What actual coordination is being achieved and what is the outcome of that coordination? How often has the ministerial committee met, and what has it achieved? How often has the CEO of the committee met with the committee and what has it achieved? It is very important. We hear about these crime prevention committees that are in place. I know that, in Palmerston there is an active crime prevention committee - a committee that feels it is not being supported much by government. And I could add, also, when it comes to partnership agreements with government, they have become a joke, as well. What was an undertaking to provide high level representation from government with council, has now ended up with a catch all of some departmental officers who might be available to go out there in any one day, so that the council themselves are not only frustrated with the partnership agreement, because they know that the government is not interested.
The Crime Prevention Committee is suffering a similar fate. You can sit down and talk all day, in committee, about the problem, but until the government comes forward and gives the resources to try to address these problems, to work with those committees, to recognise the fact that they do need additional funding, particularly if they are to realistically deliver on some of the so-called responsibilities that community oriented policing requires, they will not get anywhere. They will just be another talkfest.
We listen to the tired, old rhetoric that has always been rolled out by this government that mandatory sentencing was the only program that the CLP government had on its agenda. You know that is not true. You know that through NTsafe there were a whole range of programs that were delivered, that have now been rebadged under your Office of Crime Prevention. I can go through them. I have 12 pages here on the kinds of programs that were in place under the previous government. Programs that were both preventative and diversionary to deal with crime, delivered by a whole range of Territory government agencies. All you have done is pick up on it.
However, if your strategy is going to be effective, we want to see the results. So far, all we have seen from this government is, ‘What we are going to do’. All we have seen from the police minister, up until a month ago, was what he was not going to do, and now he is going to do it. What we want to know is when you will do it. If you ever get some success, we will be the first to applaud you.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I congratulate the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General on his crime prevention initiative ministerial statement that was delivered to parliament last year. I have, as you have heard from the Leader of Opposition, quite a challenging electorate, as a member to an area that is largely lower socioeconomic with high density of public housing and a chronic history of crime and youths wandering the streets at night getting themselves into trouble, as well as people from time to time coming into the area, visiting, moving out.
I have the whole mix of challenges that anyone wanting to look at crime prevention could expect in an urban context. I stress the urban context because I believe that many members of this House are actually quite ignorant of the challenges that exist outside Darwin urban centres.
I congratulate the minister, whom I know has been forthright in moving into the areas of neglect of the past - that is, those areas past the Berrimah Line - and ensuring that justice is equally distributed throughout the Territory. I particularly want to take a moment to congratulate the minister for the great efforts that he and the Office of Crime Prevention are making in that area. I also congratulate the member for Barkly whom I know has been working very actively on crime prevention in his area.
The reality is, crime has been in existence since chook was an egg. We are a nation that was founded on the back of crime with convicts; we know our history. For the Leader of the Opposition to pontificate about the only measure of success will be the visible absence of crime is, in fact, an absolute nonsense. The true measure of success will be whether or not citizens feel safe in their homes and their communities, and in going about the functions of their everyday life. I believe that is a challenge that is still there in the Territory, but that this government is meeting, very strongly and very appropriately.
The Office of Crime Prevention has an integral role in ensuring, across all the functions of government and its agencies, that we work collaboratively to put in place as many strategies as we possibly can to prevent the crime in the first place, to deal with the social ills and the environmental causes that create crime. If we are successful at that, and the statistics are starting to show that we are making real inroads in that area, then that will be the measure of success - whether or not I, as a mother, feel comfortable to allow my children to travel from our home to their local school or shop, or whether I, as a woman, feel safe walking my dog at dust or dawn.
Quite frankly, I have lived in cities in Australia and around the world where, many times, as a woman, I did not feel safe enough to do that. Currently in Karama, I do feel just safe enough to take the dogs for a walk. I have a labrador and a Jack Russell. The dogs are not scary, so I do not feel as though the dogs are a safety measure. However, what I am saying about the environment in which I live is that I feel that, at the moment, despite what the Leader of the Opposition had to say about my electorate, it is relatively safe. I say ‘relatively’ because there will never exist a society without crime.
I take my hat off to the Office of Crime Prevention because they have worked very closely with me as a local member, at my request, to equip me with the ability to bring people together. I truly believe that to tackle crime, each of us have to play a role. Every citizen in this great jurisdiction of ours, whether they be an office worker, or a policeman, or a retailer, or a parent, all have a role to play, and that certainly is enshrined in, if you like, Neighbourhood Watch. The success of Neighbourhood Watch is whether or not people are willing to participate and willing to be a part of their community.
The Office of Crime Prevention explained the Crime Prevention Committee model that this government had created. They came to my office. They explained the model and assisted me in putting that model in place in Karama. It was in reaction to need. We had many kids on the street at night. At one stage these kids had rioted at the local Ampol service station, and that was an extraordinarily dangerous situation for the community. The worse scenario is kids rioting at a service station. It was so critical at that point that there was clearly a great need to move, in a collaborative sense, to bring it all together and to apply every measure we possibly could to address the situation. The Office of Crime Prevention has been working with me, with the local retailers, and with the owner of the shopping centre. The police attend our meetings, aldermen are part of the committee as well, and they advise us on strategies that we can employ to tackle crime.
We have done a community safety audit of the local area. We have improved lighting. Darwin City Council have put in improved lighting along Kalymnos Drive, through the lobbying efforts of our committee. Obviously, as the local member, I am fairly central to a lot of the workload of this committee. It is run from my office. We generate a lot of work and I generate a lot of letters, the e-mails required to pull things together and to progress things. The owner of the shopping centre has been terrific in his support. I take the time here to congratulate Peter La Pira. He has put in improved lighting on the shopping centre as a result of the work that we have been doing through the safety audit. We had identified that need. The residents who live adjacent to the shopping centre, the elderly in the area of Kwinana Court are far more at ease with their living situation there.
There is a great reduction in the amount of juveniles hanging around the centre on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. In the past year, you could have driven past and seen upwards of 30 kids just hanging around. That is no longer the case in Karama.
I am not saying that the job is done. I actually believe there is a lot more work to do. That work for us comes in the form of, for example, the government’s initiative of the Youth Beat. In the northern suburbs, as there has been in Palmerston, we will have youth workers on the streets at night to work with juveniles who are at risk, who are exhibiting at risk behaviour, or who are just hanging out. As a teenager who grew up in Darwin, I realise that there isn’t a great deal to do for kids who are under the age of 18 years. At that 15 years and above age, on a Friday and Saturday night you want to go and catch up with your mates. In that sense our government has a few initiatives on the boil at the moment that I hope will come to fruition, which will provide kids with a greater range of activities.
These discussions all occur at the local Karama Crime Prevention Committee level. We are actually planning and mapping out a range of options and a range of local initiatives that we can put in place that are all aimed at preventing crime. For example, the Karama Crime Prevention Committee organised a week of Christmas fun at the local shopping centre. The Malak Primary School Choirs performed in the shopping centre. The Karama School ATSIC Dancers performed there. The Sing Song Signers signed Christmas carols; that was an absolute crowd-stopper and a few people had tears in their eyes. Manunda Terrace Primary had their Jump Rope for Heart team perform at the shopping centre. The Sandfly Indigenous Theatre Group also put on a fantastic performance for us. For the first time in a long time we actually created a sense of community, a sense of pride in the local area, and showed the diverse ethnicity of the area as well.
Some people might wonder, ‘What on earth is this as a link to crime prevention?’, but I can assure you that some of those kids performing in the heart of where they and their families live are some of the kids who have been in trouble with the police and who have been in trouble at school. For the first time they actually felt that they were doing the right thing. They were very proud to have people cheering and clapping them. I have not had trouble from those kids since then. I take my hat off to them that they were willing to set aside the way they had been perceived in the past, and when welcomed and invited in stepped up to the challenge and met it well.
Those are the initiatives that we have implemented in Karama as the crime prevention committee. I could not do it without the support of the Office of Crime Prevention which is central in coordinating and central in providing advice. Before the Martin government came to power, there was no such central coordinating body, so it is a tremendous initiative.
In Malak, we are trying a variety of similar initiatives. We have done a community safety audit of the Malak Shopping Centre. We are negotiating with Darwin City Council to improve the lighting around the centre. We are working very closely with the owner of the shopping centre to improve the physical conditions. I am looking to attract organisations outside government or within government to relocate to the centre to give the centre renewed life, and to give the residents of the surrounding area a feeling of safety when they visit the centre whether it be during the day or during the evening.
There is a whole range of crime prevention initiatives. When I hear from the opposition that crime has just gone off the scale, I have to challenge that. I will stand in this House and say yes, we have crime. Yes, I know we have crime in my electorate, but I actually see less crime this year than I saw two years ago. I feel very proud to be a part of the efforts that I, retailers, concerned citizens of the area and the youth who have responded to the challenges we have presented to them in a positive way, I feel very proud to have been a part of that. I am really delighted that we have a government prepared to try a range of options, and a range of initiatives. I do believe it takes a range of options to get the whole mix that you need for a reduction in crime.
I want to thank the officers of Casuarina Police Station. They have worked tirelessly for us. They have responded. I know they have run a couple of operations both within Karama and Malak. We have had mounted police out there, and we have had police on bicycles doing patrols. We had the first foot patrol in seven years at the Karama Shopping Centre. I know that because the officer came in and introduced himself to me and said there had not been one in seven years, and he was delighted to be back out on the beat. He thought it was fantastic. I have spoken to the police and I know they are continually reorganising the way their resources are applied to improve the amount of community policing that they are doing. I take my hat off to the police ministers that we have had, the current police minister, and to the police themselves for having the desire and willingness to respond to community call. That is, they want community policing; they want to see the police out on the beat. I am a great supporter of that. I think it works.
It has proven to work in other jurisdictions. We are pushing the police back out there now in our direction of policing in government, in our policy. I believe that in time it will have a very real impact and people will feel much safer. I congratulate the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General on his Crime Prevention Initiative statement. It was a terrific statement, and I look forward to future statements.
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Distinguished Visitor
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I advise honourable members of the presence in the Speaker’s Gallery of Ms Dawn Lawrie, a former member of this House, and wish her a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I also extend a very hearty welcome to Ms Lawrie, not only a former member of this House but a former Anti-Discrimination Commissioner. It is good to see her still taking a hearty interest in what happens in the Northern Territory. It is through citizens of Ms Lawrie’s calibre that what goes on in this House is taken notice of and is disseminated to the rest of the community, so I am glad to see her here.
I listened with interest to the member for Karama, and I get a sense that we almost live in two different parts of the world. My perception of crime, feeling safe as I walk down the street, has certainly gone downhill in the last couple of years. I readily accept what the member for Karama says, that you will not cure crime. I do not think that we can simply dismiss the idea of making that a goal. It is a perfectly acceptable goal to try to set for ourselves – let’s eliminate crime.
There was a time in this city, when I was a very young boy, that my father used to leave his car parked around the CBD with the keys swinging in it and the windows open. That was a common habit. I am sure you remember yourself, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, being a long term Territory resident, that there was a time when that would occur. Darwin was essentially a honest place – naively honest. As a kid I remember that if we got home and nobody was home, that was all right, we just walked in because the door was unlocked anyhow. We had locks on the door, but I think it would have been a hell of a thing to find the keys for them at any point. If people visited us and wanted to leave a note, they just walked in and left a note on the dining room table and walked out, or made themselves a coffee in the process depending on how familiar they were with us.
I like the almost innocent naivety of that world. I have very fond memories of the innocent naivety of that world, and I think that is not an outrageous target to set for ourselves, because we know it can be done.
However, we seem to live in a world now where that has gone by-the-by and, of course the time I was referring to was the early 1970s and very late 1960s. That was the year of the social engineer where we saw the rise of social engineering and this is how we are going to fix this problem and that is how we are going to fix that problem, by driving the economy in this direction and driving social policy in that direction. So far, the only thing that I think that we should do as a result of that, what I have learned about it, is that we should nationalise crime. The reason I think that we should nationalise crime is that if we nationalise crime, I am sure it would not pay if the government ran it. I honestly believe that crime would not pay if the government was involved, simply because it is just an unbelievable situation where we have social engineers trying to engineer results. The CLP has also tried some social engineering in the past through various programs, and the CLP – hey, hey – also struggled with the results of what they were doing.
The fact is, that in the era that I refer to, there were some basic ideas around called honesty and integrity, and there was an argument for moral fibre and those sorts of things. I do not think it is wrong to stand up in places like this and argue a moral argument and start saying, well, what about the morality of the people who commit crimes? What about the morality of those parents who allow their children to often run amok in the wee small hours of the morning? I used to run into them all the time when I was a copper, and you would try to get these kids home. You would get them home and the parents, mate, would they care? Not a chance. They would not give a stuff. And you would think to yourself, erk, that was a very, very frustrating thing.
I think that we do not talk often enough about things like responsibility and morality, and those sorts of things in these halls and chambers. It has ceased to be fashionable to worry about things which are morally upright and which bring responsibility back to the people who actually do the crimes and inflict the injuries upon other people.
We tend to see them now as victims, and we hear all the time, oh well, this person was a victim as a result of a bad upbringing. Well, at what point does a person become responsible? At law, in many instances, certainly here in the Northern Territory, and I am not entirely sure it is always reflected in the decisions of the courts, that a person is responsible at the age of 17 years as far as the Juvenile Justice Act is concerned; in the Community Welfare Act, the level of responsibility is 18 years of age; and in the Criminal Code, 10 years of age, except that the prosecution has to demonstrate an understanding of criminality, but 14 years of age is the bottom line where criminal responsibility is assumed.
However, for some reason, we still want to make excuses. I am not saying everybody has had a good life. In fact, I would go so far as to say, that out of 25 members in this Chamber, not one of those 25 members have not been presented at one point or other in their life with some profound challenge - be it a physical challenge, coping with a drug or an alcohol problem, or statistically, there would be people in this Chamber who would have suffered sexual abuse at some point in their life. However, people are amazingly resilient and, when they make a decision to bounce back and say: ‘Damn it! I am not going to take lying down whatever has happened to me. I am going to reach beyond the area that I am normally capable of’, you find that people achieve the most extraordinary things in spite of - not because of but in spite of - the things that happen to them. Then, challenges in life make us who we are.
The metal of ourselves is molded by the challenges that we receive, and some of those challenges are profound. Yet, there are people out there who overcome the most extraordinary challenges. You meet people - quadriplegics, paraplegics - who have every right in the world, you would say, to wallow in self pity, and they say: ‘No, damn it! I am going forward. I am going to make myself a better person’.
Then you run into other people who have many, many advantages and they just sit there and wallow. I was reading another article in the paper, today or yesterday, about Robert Downey Jr. He is soon going to be getting another chance at a new lease of life. But I am going to be quite blunt about it; the guy has had more chances and opportunities than you could poke a big stick at, and he still behaves like a victim. Yet I go to Hermannsburg and meet other people who have really struggled in their lives and still have this great sense of humour, and great sense of family, and they want to get up there and have a go at whatever.
So, there is a time when we must say, as a parliament, as people: ‘Let us look at the moral responsibility of individuals’. We have a court system which is meant to reflect that concept of the moral responsibility of individuals. However, more and more, I now hear intruding into the court systems in their decisions these concepts of social engineering: ‘We accept that the person had a tough life as a child so, as a consequence of that, we are then going to lessen the sentence, or take a more benign approach towards this person’. The member for Karama said, and I agree entirely, that it is appropriate to give support where support is necessary. But when accountability comes along, accountability should be taken into consideration.
That is really what the whole mandatory sentencing argument was about; that is where it originally came from. That was the basis of mandatory sentencing. However, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, he had pages of programs that were available prior to a person ending up in front of the courts. As for the claims of the government where they come in here with statistics, I remember when they released their first set of statistics, trumpeting how terrific they were. At the end of the day, a check of the police annual report showed increases where the government’s statistics were showing decreases. And why was that? Because the statistics were over different reporting periods. That is why you got different results. The old maxim from Benjamin Disraeli still applies today as much as it did when Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Let us now look at what the minister did when he was so proudly announcing all of this stuff six months ago. I am curious by the way, if this report for the House were so important to the minister, why didn’t we debate it fully six months ago? Why are we still standing in the House six months later, in this vitally important debate, talking about – well, trying to finish the debate so we can get it off the Notice Paper? The fact is that he simply wanted to climb up, launch the policy, he did not really care about the debating part, he just wanted the policy.
This has led, however, to a fortunate situation. I will tell you what that fortunate situation is. It then has given me the opportunity, over the past six months, to have a look at some of the ways that their system is working. I thought I would give it a few months lead-up so I have started on late December going through the Northern Territory News to see what the Northern Territory News is reporting in crime. The headline on 20 December is: ‘Doctor’s terror in surgery attack’; a couple threatened in a consulting room, somebody trying to obtain methadone from a doctor’s surgery, by force and menaces. 27 December 2002: ‘Resident traps thief in lounge’, fleeing intruder arrested. ‘Christmas Display Vandalised’, on 30 December in the Northern Territory News: ‘A retired couple is devastated after thieves stole nativity scene exhibits from their front yard Christmas Lights Display’.
I turn to 13 January: ‘Residents living in fear’, ‘Sledge hammer welding youth run rampant’, and ‘A Top End community is gripped by a crime wave’, with an estimated 20 house break-ins and school targeted for vandalism during December. Actually, I am just looking here, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, there is an article underneath, on the same page, which is page 7 on 13 January: ‘A newly wed couple …’ – oh, they lost their wedding photos, apparently, because their camera went missing. And ‘Burglar ignores electric shock’. This is from the paper on 21 January 2003, so it is in that six month period I was referring to and this is an article where a burglar was so focussed on the crime that he wanted to commit that the story says that he ignored an electric shock in an effort to break in to a shop, I believe, in Woolworths. I find that a very curious thing. Could you imagine if somebody showed as much dedication in putting that effort and tenacity into some sort of productive pastime, rather than breaking into a shop? I think that that person would be employed for life, quite frankly.
I also bring the members’ attention to the Northern Territory News of 24 January: ‘Violence brought into city’:
‘Community Violence in Darwin seems to be getting worse with more displaced people and underprivileged
people coming into town’, the Territory’s most senior magistrate said yesterday. ‘Drunks behaving badly is
a serious community concern’, Chief Magistrate Hugh Bradley told the Darwin Magistrates Court. ‘The level
of violence in Darwin is perhaps not as high as Katherine or Alice Springs but the problem seems to be growing’.
The very first role of government is to provide a safe community. Before it delivers health, before it delivers education, before it delivers any other service, the very first role of government is to make our community safe. Yet, the other day I was walking through town, in the space of 100 metres, I had three people come up to me, stop me and ask me for money. And why would that be? It is because we are seeing increasing numbers of itinerants in our towns.
I recall the Director of Licensing copping a hiding not that long ago in Mitchell Street. This is a very senior public servant. The member for Karama said that the idea of a safe community is one where we can have the impression of being safe in our homes. But when we find the Director of Licensing being attacked in Mitchell Street, I do not feel particularly safe in my home as a result of that. On 30 January: ‘Attack victim flees. Woman terrified of living in Alice Springs’. A woman is spending a fortune on getting psychiatric help according to that article. ‘Husband’s machete attack on wife’, was the headline on 31 January. Apparently, this is how he shows affection for his wife.
Dr Toyne: What is the point of all this?
Mr ELFERINK: I will pick up on the interjection. The point of all of this is that your crime program has been up and running for six months. I am not even up to February yet, and we are already starting to see one of the problems that the member for Karama so accurately identified, minister. For the minister’s information, people do not feel safe. The fact is that women are being bashed to death on roads. ‘Victims demand youth crime cops’, is the headline of 4 February. ‘Police shun car break-ins.’ How are we supposed to feel when police shun car break-ins - safe in our homes? ‘Knife wielding man arrested’, on the same page, 5 February 2003. ‘Rugby families bashed by kids’. ‘Man chokes girl on bus’, two headlines, 7 February 2003. ‘Gang breaks teen’s jaw in thrill bashing’ on 11 February. How are we feeling? Are we feeling safe at home in our beds? ‘Woman, 89, mugged’, abused for not having enough cash and then the thief demands banking details in writing, from 14 February, and most recently, in Alice Springs, ‘Teacher attacked in mall’ in the NT News of 18 February.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I recall the minister walking in and doing exactly what I am doing now, and that is dropping a great roll of paper for the cameras during Question Time. Well, minister, mine is bigger than yours. That is the problem that the minister faces. He has tried to pull a stunt. All I am doing is using exactly the same stunt that he pulled and, as a consequence of that, he sits there and shakes his head and says: ‘Oh, no, that’s not right. That’s not right’. Well, frankly, the minister’s little stunt did not work. Crime prevention is not a stunt. It should not be a stunt. It should not be treated as a stunt. If the minister wants people to feel safe in their beds at night, if the minister wants to do something about crime, then I suggest he listens to the Leader of Government Business who said that the idea of Operation Ranger was to lock away criminals. I agree, that is the idea. Let’s lock away some criminals. But what legislative tool exists to force the courts to do that?
Certainly, the police have the power of arrest, but it is up to the courts to lock them away, and that legislative tool has been removed. This hiatus of six months has enabled us to see what the government is achieving. I am unconvinced that they are achieving a great deal at the moment, which is a shame. I take no joy in that. I hope that we get the results we are after, and those are the results identified by the member for Karama: people feeling safe at home at night in their beds. I would love to return to a time where I can leave the keys in my car, swinging in the ignition, because I know nobody will take them.
Mr McADAM (Barkly): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I have sat here for the last 20 minutes and listened to probably the worst presentation in the period that I have been in this parliament.
Dr Lim: Which is not long, actually.
Mr McADAM: You just keep quiet, Mr Lim.
Dr Lim: Not very long, is it?
Mr McADAM: Let’s see how long you stay. You could be out at the next election. You know why? After that display by the member for Macdonnell, you are not likely to win government because he is totally bereft of any ideas. He is not constructive, and we now understand fully why the CLP was never fair dinkum, never honest in terms of dealing with some very serious issues in this community. It is an absolute shame on the member for Macdonnell.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General’s ministerial statement on Crime Prevention Initiatives delivered last year in August. Members may recall that in January 2002, there was a fair amount of media publicity of the high number of property-related offences and the subsequent antisocial behaviour in Tennant Creek. Even as late as last Friday, reference was made of the number of incidents that occurred in Paterson Street in Tennant Creek. I do not want to speak too much about those incidents because they were of a serious nature, and clearly they were of real concern to me and to the rest of the community in Tennant Creek. It is probably not appropriate for me to discuss any further.
I want people to know, particularly people in the opposition, that Tennant Creek is a small place, and the Barkly is a small place in terms of numbers. What occurs in those communities in relation to an outbreak of crimes, or more than one crime, is that it affects everyone. And it is for that reason that the community has the guts and the courage to get together and deal with it. And that is precisely what the CLP never ever did in the past.
Dr Toyne: Shame!
Mr McADAM: More than shame. I refer to the courage of small communities for having the guts to deal with it. To the member for Greatorex, you should be aware that the community met in January 2002 because they were concerned about some of the issues that were happening. They set up a small committee to work towards a safe community strategy. They were inclusive, they incorporated communities outside of Tennant Creek, indigenous communities. That would never have occurred under your government.
In March 2002, the Office of Crime Prevention commenced discussions with the local committee in respect to a broader role. In August of the same year, it was formally agreed that the existing committee would take on the role of a regional crime prevention council under the framework of the Crime Prevention Policy. This committee became known as the Tennant Creek Youth Initiatives and Safe Communities Strategies Committee. It was the first regional crime prevention council in the Northern Territory. Since its inception, the Tennant Creek Youth Initiatives and Safe Communities Strategies Committee has expanded its membership to include all stakeholders, member for Greatorex.
They were very active. They secured $11 000 from ATSIC, and that was for the purpose of employing a project officer to do an audit of local relevant service providers, and to develop draft governance and reporting arrangements for the committee and the subcommittee, as well as conducting background research for the development of a regional community strategy.
This committee has also conducted youth working groups, including consultations with young people, incorporating peers school training and forums for local kids, black and white, to improve youth/police relationships in town. The committee has also secured a further $260 000 from the Commonwealth to provide ongoing funding for a project officer who will assist in implementing the regional plan. A further grant of $30 000 was received from the NT government to assist the committee in consultation with communities outside the immediate Tennant Creek township. The existing NT Police Safe Committee became a subcommittee of the committee I just referred to, and they meet with many local businesses. The local businesses appreciate that because they are part of the community solution. For the first time, they are being involved in it, as opposed to sitting on the side and sniping just as a lot of your mob do.
Whilst I am talking about police, it was pleasing to hear the mention made of the police in Tennant Creek. They really do a great job. It is a difficult job, but they carry it out in a very professional and caring manner. I want to particularly pay tribute to Commander Gary Manison who comes to Tennant Creek on a regular basis and engages the community; Superintendent Edgington, who has recently been appointed to that position and who has done some excellent work at Ali Curung and is now carrying out work at Tennant Creek; and Sergeant Don Garner at Borroloola, who is also very community oriented and takes the time to listen to the community and to develop appropriate strategies.
I would now like to refer to other relevant initiatives within my electorate. I would like to pay tribute to the Ali Curung community and suggest that Ali Curung was one of the first communities in the Northern Territory to develop a law and justice strategy. The involvement of the Ali Curung Council, the police once again, government agencies in Tennant Creek, and very professionally supported by Peter Ryan and Jacki Atoun has demonstrated it to perhaps be a model of best practice. I am sure the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General would agree with that. Ms Marge Limbiari and Ms Gwen Brown, an Aboriginal community police officer, and councillors from Ali Curung have visited other communities such as Lajamanu and Yuendumu, assisting and supporting those communities based on their own experiences at Ali Curung, in developing their own local law and justice strategies.
The community at Borroloola has also established a steering committee made up of local stakeholders and community members, and combined their funding from the Youth on the Loose program, funded by the Territory Health and Community Services, and the juvenile pre-court diversion scheme. This committee is relatively new; they are still putting together their plan of how they will proceed. Again, this is an example of a community getting together, recognising what their problems are and trying to do something about it. Those sorts of communities, not only in Borroloola but right throughout the Territory, should be supported, rather than put up with the sniping, gutter remarks coming from the opposition.
I referred earlier to high levels of crime and antisocial behaviour in Tennant Creek particularly, over that period late 2001 and early 2002 which, as I say, gave rise to our existing committee. I am not a great one for statistics because you can do what you want with them; make whatever argument you wish, push whatever point you want, and score whatever political point you want as well. But I am lucky enough to live in a small community where you can get a feeling of where we are in dealing with these kinds of problems. I just refer to these figures because, in some way, I would like to think that they are indicative of what is going on in my community.
In the September 2001 quarter in Tennant Creek there were 55 recorded offences against the person, opposed to 45 in September 2002. I do not know what, but it is probably a decrease of around about 20%. That is not bad, but it is also a feeling that I have, there has been a decrease. In respect of property offences for the same period, that is September 2001, there were 347 offences reported as opposed to 168 for September 2002; again, a decrease of about 50%. I do not know whether that is true or not, but it is a feeling that I get, there has been this decrease. I look forward to the next set of statistics from the NT quarterly crime and justice statistics people just to see if those same feelings are reflected.
I acknowledge the Justice minister and the Martin government. I likewise welcome the appointment of a third magistrate to service the Barkly and in all sincerity, and this has nothing to do with politics, I really believe that the 6-point plan for attacking crime and the causes of crime is working. I really cannot comment on areas outside of my region, but I can honestly say that they are working. They are working because people care about what goes on in their community. That is the only reason; because they do not sit back and snipe at each other. They work together, they work constructively, and it is a pity the opposition does not learn from that.
It is not an easy task for a community as a whole to address crime. It is not easy. I place on the record the commitment of the people of Borroloola, Ali Curung, Robinson River, Tennant Creek, Canteen Creek, and Epenarra. They are all fair dinkum about working in a partnership with the Martin government and with the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General to address crime and the causes of crime. I emphasise partnership because that is something that the CLP never contemplated. You were more interested in compromising and disenfranchising people as opposed to developing meaningful partnerships.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the debate be adjourned.
Debate adjourned.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Public Bus Transport System
Public Bus Transport System
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Deputy Speaker, the Northern Territory’s transport network, which includes road, rail, air and marine transport, provides foundations upon which the community and the economy depend. Public transport is part of our transport system. Essentially, this comprises two types of services, bus services and the Mandorah ferry, with the buses clearly being the sector that people are most familiar with and the one about which I will speak today.
The Northern Territory government, through the public transport program, has allocated over $18.9m this financial year for a wide range of services. These include public buses in Darwin, Palmerston, the rural area, and in Alice Springs; school buses and other forms of school transport in these centres as well as Batchelor, Jabiru, Katherine, Pine Creek and Nhulunbuy; and additional services and ‘free to the public services’ for special events.
The important role public transport plays in the community is confirmed by the number of passengers carried, the service kilometres covered and the number of community groups and special events that are supported. During the 2001-02 financial year, almost 4.3m passengers travelled on buses across the Territory. Of these, over 2m were NT students. On the Darwin bus network alone, buses travelled almost 3.4m kilometres during that year. Clearly, buses are an important part of many people’s lives. The Territory can be proud of the scale and nature of services provided and the standard of the bus fleet.
Various public transport projects which are currently being undertaken will further improve the level and quality of services provided to the Top End community. In the long term, there are emerging opportunities for development of services and for increasing the importance of public transport in the greater Darwin area.
I will firstly focus on the bus fleet. It is worth noting that on the Darwinbus network, for example, over 60 buses are used each day for public services, and compared with interstate fleets, our vehicles are very modern. Likewise, over 60% of the vehicles used on the Darwinbus public network are accessible ‘low floor’ vehicles, a level which is the envy of the many interstate regions. All three public buses in Alice Springs are ‘low floor’. This investment in accessibility helps put the Territory in a very strong position to continue to comply with the national Disability Discrimination Act’s Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport that was introduced in the federal parliament in October 2002.
At the moment, some 70% of Darwinbus buses are air-conditioned. In the future, as additional buses are brought into public service, or new buses replace old vehicles, the percentage of air-conditioned buses operating in the Territory will continue to increase. Buses operating with a high level of patronage are a very ‘environmentally-friendly’ means of transport compared with private motor vehicles. To improve the environmental performance further, the Darwin Bus Service has been very actively developing an innovative, new, dual fuel option for its older vehicles. To date, five buses have been converted to use an LPG/diesel fuel mix. For three of these buses, the Commonwealth’s greenhouse program has provided a funding contribution. The Darwin Bus Service continues to introduce further refinements of this fuel technology which will, it is hoped, enable other vehicles to meet the Commonwealth’s criteria so that a further five vehicles can be converted. It is a significant achievement that the Territory has become a world leader in developing dual fuel LPG/diesel delivery systems for older passenger buses.
I will now look at bus services. On an average week day during school term, there are over 960 public bus runs plus almost 130 dedicated school runs across the Territory. On the Darwinbus urban and rural public network, there are 25 individual public route services, and there are 21 school services. In Palmerston, there are seven school services and in the Darwin rural area there are 28 school services. The public network is structured with a majority of feeder services to connect suburbs to Casuarina and Palmerston interchanges and the city terminus, as well as trunk services to connect these three centres. This configuration has developed as Darwin and Palmerston grew and as the population of the rural area increased and dispersed. It has served the community well. But because of the changes that have been seen across the greater Darwin area, it is now time to look afresh at all public service routes and timetables.
I will speak more about the review a little later, but first I will discuss school bus services. Numerically, students are a very important client group. They are also a very diverse group with a range of needs which require various and sometimes flexible transport solutions. Most school students travel to and from their schools on public buses or on dedicated school services. These dedicated school services, particularly in the rural and regional areas, play an indispensable role in ensuring equitable access to education for all children, removing some of the disadvantages that they might otherwise face because of where they live. A small number of children, because of their disabilities, are provided with dedicated minibus or taxi services. Managing school bus services is a very important part of the overall public transport program. It is also a very challenging area, as services must respond to a continually changing environment. As my department has principal responsibility for arranging and funding bus services, the few remaining school bus contracts which are administered by the Department of Employment, Education and Training will be transferred to Public Transport.
Free to public bus services: public transport can influence the success of community, sporting or cultural activities through the provision of special and free to the public services. These include free or discount travel on scheduled services for participants at particular events; additional or deviated bus services to specific events such as the New Year’s Eve Starlight Special; and free buses exclusively for community groups to transport their members, such as for members of the RSL and their families on Anzac Day, and senior groups during Seniors Week.
Clearly, bus transport continues to be an essential ingredient in many significant community events, and this year will be no different. Plans are underway to provide transport to athletes, officials and spectators at the Arafura Games in Darwin during May. It is expected that some 5000 athletes and officials will require transport between their accommodation and about 30 sporting venues througout the Darwin region.
Another major event in the Territory’s sporting calendar this year is the V8 Supercar racing in June. Last year, buses transported a record 16 000 people over the weekend. This year, buses will again make it much easier for people to get to the venue, reduce congestion and, most importantly, help prevent drink driving.
Service standards, reliability and passenger satisfaction is achieved through my department working with service providers - the bus contractors - as well as other agencies and customers. To achieve the outcome required has meant that new partnerships are registered and developed between my department, bus companies, unions, security contractors and police. This process enables them to respond quickly to changing needs.
In the area of security, this has meant that security contractors, and when required, the police, can focus upon specific regions, routes and times to minimise risk to passengers, the drivers and other road users. A similar partnership approach has been developed to manage the behaviour of school children on buses. In this case, operators work closely with schools, and through schools with parents, to promote appropriate behaviour and to respond when misbehaviour occurs. Recently, my department also launched a television message developed by and for young Territorians, promoting respect for each other while they are travelling on buses. Some 40 young people were involved in this important message.
Expectation demands change as our community grows and changes. The Territory in general, and the Darwin/Palmerston region in particular, is changing in ways that could not have been foreseen even 10 years ago, presenting new challenges for governments, business and communities. Because of these changes, I announced that a review of public transport routes and timetables in the greater Darwin area will be undertaken by my department starting in January 2003. The review process, and it is important to emphasise that it is of routes and schedules of public bus services, not dedicated school bus services, will take some 18 months. This is to ensure that it achieves the greatest possible outcomes for the community now and set the framework for developments into the future.
The first region to receive attention as part of this review is Palmerston and its connecting trunk services. This will be followed by the rural area, then the northern suburbs of Darwin and, finally, Darwin CBD and surrounding suburbs. It is understood that some people may be impatient for the review to consider bus runs which affect them directly, but it is imperative that this review be conducted in a careful, systematic and staged way. Eighteen months is required so that a broad range of information and views are included and all implications of changes are carefully evaluated.
While it may sometimes seem that small changes to bus runs, or times, can be produced quickly and easily, bus schedules are, in fact, complex interconnected systems. Each element - bus driver, route, and timetable - is linked to all others to enable to whole system to operate efficiently. Changes to any one part can impact on many others. Each change, no matter how simple it may appear, needs careful consideration and considerable planning. The broad approach of the review will be similar across all the regions.
In Palmerston, for example, the various data already held by my department is being analysed. This includes passenger information, such as type of ticket purchased, date and time travel occurred, route information and where the bus was boarded. It also includes the duration of the individual runs. Departmental staff also travel on selected runs to find out where passengers disembark. Together, this information provides quite a comprehensive picture of who is travelling where and at what times. A community consultation and research process is also starting which seeks to gather more qualitative information from current passengers and people who do not use buses often. Discussions have commenced with the Palmerston City Council and some of its committees, as well as other community and industry representatives. Surveys will also be conducted with bus passengers and the broader community. The purpose of these discussions and surveys is to elicit the experience and views of the community about which services around Palmerston meet their needs and to identify areas for improvement.
The formal review commenced in January, however various people from across Darwin, either as individuals or representatives from local organisations, have previously contacted the department and me with requests for change. A few of these requests could be satisfied, however, as many had network-wide or significant cost implications they were held over to become part of the review. One proposal which was implemented was the rural trial service requested by the Palmerston City Council’s senior advisory committee. A new service, route 444, ran for four months during which time passenger demand and travel patterns were recorded. This service ended on 6 February, and the findings will contribute to the review when the review will focus on the rural area.
Following the regional data collection and community consultation processes, options for new routes and timetables will be developed and presented to the local community for comment. Only then will changes to services be introduced. Changes will take into account the feedback received.
While at the end of this process there will be some major improvements to some routes and schedules, I also expect that in many areas, only minor adjustment will be necessary. I also expect that the network will be in a much stronger position to accommodate change to services as demands change and resources become available over the next few years.
As you have heard, over the next couple of years there are a number of major projects in the public transport area that will result in significant improvement for the travelling public. The arrival of the Adelaide to Darwin railway will impact on the public transport system. Then there are the technological developments which are available and those that are on the horizon. For example, geographical position systems, GPSs, are being used by large public transport networks in other jurisdictions, sometimes linked with ticketing or security systems. How this might be introduced into the Territory will need to be carefully considered in the near future.
At a broader level, consideration needs to be given by governments at all levels, industry and the community generally, to further develop the Territory in a way which encourages use of public transport; communities where people have a real choice about transport which meets their individual needs and is also sustainable. This is about raising the importance of public transport within the mix of transport options available, including developing residential, retail and industrial areas around the full range of transport service options, to move away from reliance on private cars.
While the total population and the population density of the greater Darwin area does not compare with that of other capital cities in Australia, we also do not have the problem of congestion, nor the pollution that they suffer. Another critical difference is that we have some time. We have time to debate and decide how Darwin and its surrounds should look in the future and what types of transport system should we develop to serve the community and maintain the quality of life that we value. We, therefore, have time to plan to avoid some of the problems that many of the other great cities now experience. There are some exciting experiments happening overseas and, although many of these may not be relevant to the Territory, they do help us broaden our thinking about passenger transport.
Public transport is a vital part of this vibrant Territory. It contributes significantly to the economic activity of the Territory, and the social fabric of society. It is part of how we work and how we play. Recent changes in where and how people live and work, have meant that services have to be adjusted. The recommendations which will flow from the current review process will redefine services to meet current needs and also set a framework to respond as the Darwin regions develop further. These are, indeed, exciting times for public transport.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, in responding to the ministerial statement I am going to be encouraging all identified stakeholders and individuals to come forward with their practical, and also, hopefully, visionary input into this review.
I congratulate the minister for announcing that, as of January this year, we will be reviewing the public bus routes and timetables for the next 18 months, with outcomes to reflect the change in demographics of the greater Darwin area. Holding a northern suburbs seat, with many constituents reliant on public transport as a means of getting around, I am often dealing with inquiries from constituents about how the bus routes are determined, how the timetabling is determined, and how they, as residents, have an opportunity to put suggestions forward. For a while now, I have been saying: ‘Our government is committed to doing a review, and that will be the best opportunity to make all your suggestions’. I will be doing my upmost to get this advice out to everyone in my electorate, to let them know that a review is underway now, and just how they can provide submissions to that review.
As we all know, students largely rely on public transport to get to and from school. While I note that there is no suggestion in changing the school bus routes, there is an opportunity for students - and particularly our youth - to participate fully in this review. Kids get around on buses, not just to and from school, but to get to their sport and entertainment, to go across town to see their mates, to get down the track to see mates, or come in from the down the track to Darwin. We will be working with the Office of Youth Affairs to ensure that the advice about this review gets up on the Office of Youth Affairs website as well as talking to the minister for education about how this information can reach students through the network and encouraging the new types of e-information routes to engage our youth.
They are core users of our public transport system. They are often, when given the opportunity, very visionary in the suggestions they have to make about what improvements could occur.
I will be talking to senior groups about this review. The seniors are another area of our society who rely on public transport. They are very vocal about what they perceive to be the inadequacies of public transport or some of the annoying aspects of public transport. I had a senior Territorian say to me the other day, ‘Why is it that bus drivers can choose the radio station that is playing over the bus?’ because they find the music on that given day to be particularly offensive to them. They thought that it was inciting the behaviour of people on the bus. I think we will find a broad range of results coming in from this review. I will take the opportunity to look at how public transport has improved in other jurisdictions by contacting colleagues interstate and seeking in my own way, as the member for Karama, to have input into this review.
This is drawn upon experience. I spent 4 years living in Hong Kong. I did not drive a car in those 4 years. I relied solely on public transport. It was a clean, efficient and safe public transport system. I do not propose to say that there are similarities in population bases between Hong Kong and Darwin. Obviously that is absurd. Hong Kong is a city of millions, and greater Darwin is around the 90 000 mark now. What I am saying is that there are lessons to be learned from other public transport systems. I believe that it is part of the role of government to be planning for the future.
I would like to see where we look at in terms of future rail corridors, be they light rail corridors linking the suburbs to Palmerston, to the city, linking people who live in the rural areas of greater Darwin, and broadly looking at the wider transport needs of the entire Territory. If we do not start planning now for 20 years in the future we may find that we are causing problems for future governments if we have not at least ensured that the transport corridors are there and are protected for future development.
I have mentioned this already to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and from the information and the discussion that the minister has had with me, the minister is very visionary in this respect. I know that his views on planning for the future are very strongly held views. I thank the minister for giving us an opportunity and for encouraging the citizens of the Territory to participate in a review that will ultimately provide improved transport in the Territory.
It is an interesting statistic that of the 4.3m users of the buses, 2m are students. I have raised, as the member for Karama again representing people in the lower socio-economic area, this whole issue of should school buses be free or should they continue to attract a fee for student users of school buses if they live within a certain radius of their school. That is something that I will certainly be putting back on the table in respect of this review. It maybe that it is not something that will be considered and it may be something that would be too costly to implement, but it is an issue that I have already raised on behalf of constituents in reference to student users of student bus routes.
I congratulate the minister for recognising that changing population demographics really do require comprehensive reviews of public bus routes from time to time. Some people will criticise and say, ‘Why don’t you just go and change the routes? You know where the demographics have changed’. I say, that would exclude the opportunity for people to have their say and certainly the Martin Labor government is very much a government that is providing opportunities for people to speak their mind and express their needs, and that becomes very much a mix of the considerations within outcomes of such reviews.
I congratulate the previous government. I know it was the former member for Sanderson who was very strong on introducing accessible buses into the Territory and seeing our jurisdiction leading the way. I hope that message comes through strongly in a review, that we continue to require new buses to be accessible buses. Accessibility of buses is there for all our citizens. Accessible buses assist the elderly who may have mobility impairments, they obviously assist people with disabilities, and they assist mothers with prams. I encourage the continued purchase of accessible buses. I know that some people hold a narrow view of who they assist, but through experience, I can say that accessible buses assist a broad range of people in our community and is certainly a way forward.
Obviously, the better our public transport system is, the better people are able to move around and the better impact, I believe, on our ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cars generate. That is why I am very much an advocate of public transport.
I commend this statement to the house. I ask all members to consider getting the information to their constituents. They are the commuters, they are existing or potential users of the bus transport system. I encourage all stakeholders to be forthright and frank in their responses.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I am a little intrigued about this statement which I received last night. It is a most pedestrian, soporific statement. I understand the importance of public bus systems. I understand some of what the minister would like to convey to this parliament and to the people of the Northern Territory. For my own part, though, I am still waiting in a queue to talk about the drug statement. We have just seen the adjournment of a statement relating to criminal behavior in the Northern Territory. While the public bus transport system is an important statement and should be debated, I say that there is much more on this government’s plate than a statement of this type. The government has to look at some of the key issues that are affecting the community, and certainly the drugs statement has been on the Table for six months or so, and I think that that could have been debated before we look at issues such as this which have been afforded greater import and a greater priority.
Given that, there are a few points that should be made. Certainly, Darwin is a very dispersed population. When I took up housing in Wulagi, which was then the remote northern suburbs, the bus service was important to all of us. It was seen as an enormous commuting distance. Likewise with Palmerston. In reality, it is not. In reality, people who can access cars, and many young people here do, do drive to work, and do drive to school. There many cars at Darwin High School belonging to students.
You have to look what has driven it in other places. It is parking in the CBD. It is traffic congestion and the efficiency and cheapness of public transport versus private transport. One of the factors that the minister has to put into this is the advent of parking meters in the city. At the moment, they are an inconvenience but they are cheap. I suggest that there is still not as powerful an economic imperative as there is in other places to opt for public transport on the bus.
The kneeling buses are good, the disability access is something that has been lobbied for by a variety of people and it is great. The economic advantages that come from green options like the LPG/diesel mix are good, and if they are that good, we should convert the whole fleet. The whole fleet should be converted. I do not know why you do it piecemeal if there are dividends to be made from it.
I shall not speak much more than that, other than to say I think it is a pretty important statement. I would not rank it in the top ten issues that confront this government. It is important that it is reviewed. I note the review was announced on 18 September, so the statement is pretty much a re-run of what the minister said in the press release several months ago. The statement pretty much runs to that, with a couple of additions. I note, for instance, in the press release it talks about 57 buses, and the statement adds up to 63, so perhaps we have brought another six buses since September. In any event, yes, there is going to be a review, it was announced in September, the minister is encouraging us to get involved in it, which we could, and there are probably some other issues of greater contemporary relevance in terms of people wanting to really get into the debate. I encourage the government therefore to bring on the drugs and crime debate and to continue that. I would point out – Madam Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the House.
Madam SPEAKER: We do not have a quorum. Ring the bells.
Dr Burns: I think we need to look at standing orders …
Madam SPEAKER: There is not a quorum, so when the state of the House is called …
Dr Burns: I realise that, but I think there has to be a standing order that if someone calls attention to the state of the House they should be compelled to stay.
Madam SPEAKER: A quorum is present. Minister in reply closing debate.
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, yes, it is a very important statement. It might not be in the top ten of the opposition’s statements but the reality is, it is very important for people living in the rural area, in Sanderston, in Palmerston and certainly in Darwin city. I used the buses many times when I was working in Casuarina, and sometimes here in parliament. I can tell you, to get on the bus at 7.30 in the morning, the buses are packed. It does not matter if people have access to motor vehicles. The restrictions imposed by the scarcity of parking, in addition now with the parking meters, you may be prepared to park your car for 30 minutes or an hour, but you cannot park it for a whole day unless you are prepared to pay $5 a day, which is a significant amount of money every week, every month.
I have to admit that I did not use my car when I was growing up in Greece, and until I came to Australia I did not use my car to the extent that I use it now. I did not use my car to go to university. I did not use the car to go shopping for the simple reason there were no parking spaces. Because of the difficulty of using your car in a large city like Athens, there were buses every five minutes, compared here to Darwin where we have a bus every 30 minutes if you are lucky, or every 35 or 40 minutes.
However, we have to look to the future. Ten years ago when I first came to Darwin, I remember driving past Palmerston and I saw the sign, ‘Palmerston, population 7000’ and you now have Palmerston with a population of 24 000. Not all those 24 000 people have cars, or access to cars or want to use cars. Let’s not forget elderly citizens who cannot drive, or do not have the ability to drive, but at the same time, they want to go to places.
One of the things that puzzles me is that the member for Drysdale said it is not a very important statement, yes, public transport is important but it is not that important. The reality is that, during the campaign before the last election, there were many people who asked me why there is no bus directly from Darwin to the Royal Darwin Hospital? ‘Why do we have to go first to Casuarina and then wait for a period of time to get a special bus that goes to Darwin Hospital?’. Many of those people were elderly people who could not stay waiting in the Casuarina Interchange Centre for half an hour or an hour.
It is a very important issue; we have to plan for the future. Bearing in mind the arrival of the railway and all the other opportunities. We have lost about 100 people, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the past year. It is not a significant amount. However, our projections for the next few years are totally different. Our population will increase. There will be further Defence personnel coming to Darwin. Eurocopters will bring people; not only the Defence Forces but also people in the industry who will sell the Eurocopters. There is going to be an increased number of patrol boats based in Darwin – it is a common secret - and also the patrol boat contract requires that there will be a supply and service base in Darwin. The people who come to staff these supply or service bases are not going to be drawn from our local population because we do not have the skills. They are going to come from somewhere else.
In addition with the railway, an increased number of tourists will use the railway. We have a significant number of tourists who come all the way to Alice Springs by train and then unload their cars and drive to Darwin. This number of people will continue to depart for Darwin. There is not much point of actually stopping in Alice Springs and going back. So, we have to now make provision for the future. How are we going to transport these 400 to 500 people who are arriving at the same time in one location? We have to make these provisions.
This is the time to start thinking about the public transport, to make the necessary changes because, if we wait, like other cities did, we will make the same mistake and then it will be very difficult.
At the same time, there is a call for the railway station to be in a particular place and introduce different transport systems. Once again, we have to think very carefully not to repeat the same mistakes as Brisbane and Sydney, where they provided a you-beaut rail link to the airport and found out later that they did not have enough passengers and, as a result, keep losing $1m every year that the government has to subsidise. We want to have a very good, modern fleet, which will provide access to people with disabilities. We want a fleet in which people with disabilities can travel safely. Currently, there is no standard for people with wheelchairs or motorised scooters when they get onto the bus, to have anchorage points to anchor their scooters or wheelchairs safely. We want buses that are not going to pollute the environment.
As I said previously, in discussion in the House, I went to Athens last year and, because of the Athens Olympics and the pressure on the Greek government to reduce the pollution in Athens, they have invested a significant amount of money to purchase 350 buses that actually use pressurised natural gas as fuel. This is the development we have to see in other countries. Why not use the example? We are now talking about geofuel, LPG and diesel, while in other countries now they have moved away from the diesel for various reasons, and because of the pollution problems, direct to LPG. In Athens they use trolley buses. The geography and the roads of the city allows them to do this. Here in Darwin, it is probably inappropriate, so we have to look for a different system of mass transport. We will be looking at modern trams that they utilise in Sydney or in Melbourne.
We should not wait for the next 10 years before we make a decision. We start planning from now, because we have to plan not only the system we are going to utilise, but we have to program it so that it coincides with the development of the new suburbs. As I said before, Palmerston blossomed all of a sudden within 10 years. Now we have seen a significant move of people to Litchfield, out of Palmerston; they are moving further out. Certainly the city of Darwin has nowhere else to grow, so it is going to grow further out from Palmerston. We might see the development of another satellite city. The previous government had a town site at Weddell. We do not know what is going to happen with the future industrial development. Weddell might become a reality and also, the town site of Murrumujuk at Gunn Point. We have to think about it now, to assess the future development of Darwin, Palmerston and the surroundings, and to provide the necessary corridors for the necessary means for bringing these people to town and taking these people back home.
Not only during the weekdays. We should also look at the need for public transport on Christmas Day, Easter and other public holidays. I find it unbelievable that we have dozens of tourists here who wait for a bus on Sunday. The tourists park their car and try to get the bus. If you wait for a bus on Sunday, well, I am afraid that sometimes it is never on Sunday, because the bus never seems to arrive on time, or arrives infrequently on Sunday.
It is important to look at public transport. There is a public transport review. I hope all the members of this House, especially those from the other side, advise their electorates, advise the people who come to their offices, and display information in their offices, because we want every person’s advice, comments, and submissions. If you do not tell us how to improve the service, we cannot improve it. There is not much point complaining afterwards. Here is your invitation, here is your chance, let us know what you want and we will deliver it to you.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
For my first adjournment for the year, Madam Speaker, I would like to wish all the members of the House and the staff of the Assembly, Happy New Year. I have to admit that the first few weeks of the year, and the first few months of the new year, were very, very busy, starting with the celebration of the western New Year.
31 December-1 January was one of the busiest nights of my life, having to attend a large number of New Year’s Eve celebrations, starting with the Chung Wah at their premises in Darwin. The Chief Minister and her partner, and I attended the celebration; a family celebration with a large number of people, and of course a very, merry celebration. Soon we had to move to another celebration, and I moved quickly to the Greek community New Year dance held at the Greek School. More than 300 people celebrated in the traditional Greek way - rather noisy with music and a lot of wine and food. No, they did not smash any plates that night but I have to admit I left early and I do not know what happened after that. The Chief Minister also came to the celebration. It was a great time, and it was nice to meet old friends and acquaintances.
We had to move to the Chinese Timorese New Year celebrations. Once again, we saw friends and we had a great time there. My wife and I, and the Chief Minister and her partner attended. After that we finished at the Kalymnian Hall. No, we went to the Cypriot Hall before that. We had more wine, celebration and traditional Greek sweets and finished at the Kalymnian Hall.
I have to admit that I have never seen the Kalymnian Hall so packed. There was in excess of 1000 people and the Greek band was quite loud as usual. The people seemed to have a great time celebrating. When the president of the Kalymnian Brotherhood, Mr Athanasiou, called us up to wish a Happy New Year, we had a few surprises for him. The first surprise was we gave $8000 to the Kalymnian Brotherhood for the purchase of traditional Greek costumes; that was very well received. Then we had the biggest present: we provided the Kalymnian Brotherhood a fund of $45 000 to renovate the kitchen. The house came down when I announced that the Chief Minister and I intend to visit the island of Kalymnos in September and we invited people from the Kalymnian Brotherhood and the Greek community to come. We finished about one, two, three o’clock. The party was great.
It is one of the things that we have to do as a member of parliament, as a politician, and at the same time as a member of the Darwin community. This is the spirit of Darwin that you can celebrate, without any problems, with the Greeks or the Chinese or the Chinese Timorese or the Cypriots. You feel at home wherever you are.
Following the western New Year celebration, soon afterwards came the Chinese New Year celebration, another Darwin tradition. Once again, we started another round of visits and celebrations and we did not mind at all. We started with the Hakka Association party at the Cypriot Hall; a great celebration. The members for Wanguri and Sanderson, the minister for primary industry, and other members, and I were there. We arrived and there were about 300 people, young and old, and not only Chinese people, people from all walks of life, from all cultural backgrounds in Darwin. As the night progressed, more than 500 people packed the Cypriot Hall. It was a great celebration, it was fantastic. Both sides of politics were present - the member for Greatorex of course, because he is the vice-president of the Chung Wah Society, and the member for Port Darwin, and it was great to be there and celebrate.
Once again, not one celebration, more than one. We had to leave from there and go to the Chinese Timorese Chinese New Year celebration; another great party, another great dance. The week after - Chinese New Year takes more than a week to celebrate – a Hong Kong Business Association dinner at MGM. It was a great party. Many people came from interstate - representatives of the Hong Kong government. They had a great time. It culminated with last week’s celebration with the Chung Wah dinner at the MGM. Once again, many friends from Darwin, Chinese friends, friends from other backgrounds. It is a great Darwin tradition.
Chinese New Year could not be celebrated without the Lion Dance and the Blessing of the Lion. My Office of Ethnic Affairs donated $5000 towards the trip of the Lion troupe to Alice Springs. I believe the trip and the Dancing of the Lion went really well. The lion does not discriminate; he celebrates and blesses every house. My office has supported and will continue to support these cultural activities. I invited the Lion to come to my electorate office in Casuarina and gladly they arrived and blessed my office.
It was a great night and their was great support for the Chung Wah Society. Because of the New Year celebration, I announced, as Minister for Ethnic Affairs, that a grant of $25 000 was given to the Chung Wah Society to bring up a dancing teacher. I have to admit she did a great job when the girls danced the Lotus Dance at the MGM.
Ms Martin: Rosalie - terrific.
Mr VATSKALIS: Terrific. Also the Cantonese Opera are coming here soon. We had an example of that in last year’s Moon Festival celebration. There was a great party in the Main Hall of the Parliament - hundreds of Chinese people. People who told me they had never been invited before to any celebration, and they were very impressed to be invited. The Chief Minister and ministers of this government were there to celebrate Chinese New Year with them. A great night, great support for the Chinese community and I say to you a great Darwin tradition, the Chinese New Year.
School has started including non-government schools. I am not referring to primary or high schools; I am referring to the start of ethnic community schools, and one of them was the Greek School. The member for Nightcliff and I attended the blessing of the starting of the school by Father Joe in the presence of many members of the Greek community together with around 200 children who will attend Greek lessons - some of them with great relief, some of them to their great disgust - every Saturday morning. I say ‘with great disgust’ because some of these kids would love to stay home and watch television or play soccer or other sports rather than go to Greek School. But at the end, when they grow up they will line up their own kids to send them to the Greek School. If you do not believe me, just go and see the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It will teach you a lot of things.
At the same time, we have had the opportunity to announce a grant to the Greek community for $135 000 to repair the roof of the Greek School in Nightcliff, a significant building. The previous government gave it to the Greek community. The Greek community has maintained it in good order. However, at this stage, it was a significant amount of money. They could not raise it and asked our assistance.
Once again, this government will provide assistance to ethnic communities because we want to maintain the cultural diversity of Darwin. Darwin has been the envy of many other cities in Australia because despite all the problems that happen around the world, the bombing of Bali and 11 September, we have managed to stay together and to link our arms and be a united community like they have not seen anywhere else.
Last week I took a trip down to the Douglas Daly region. As usual, I refused to fly in the Wet Season; I prefer to drive. As the minister for transport, I want to see the condition of my roads. So I travelled there because – aren’t I good? - I was invited to attend the Hay Growers’ poster launch that my colleague, the Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries launched. We went to Douglas Daly Research Farm on Wednesday, 12 February 2003. Not only did I want to visit the region and see first hand the development in Douglas Daly, but also gave permits for land clearing. We had eight applications for land clearing. Eight applicants who had land in excess of 30 000 hectares applied for clearing, and my department approved only 7000 under the strictest conditions.
I have to admit that, to my surprise, the land holders actually were quite pleased that we have put limitations on land cleared and imposed these conditions because they said they are not there for the quick buck and then will disappear, they are there to stay to provide income for themselves, their sons and daughters and their grandchildren.
It was a great opportunity to meet the people who actually developed a horticultural industry. It was great to visit people in their homes. We travelled all Thursday morning visiting people. We discussed their problems – at that time it was lack of rain – I don’t think they complain about that any more. What we saw in Douglas Daly is a unique opportunity for the horticultural development of the Territory.
It was very exciting when we met with the president of the Douglas Daly Progress Association and we told him we could provide an extra 53 ha to the Douglas Daly School Association for the establishment of a school in the Fleming town site, something that greatly raised the interest of the ABC Country Hour program that went on air with the headline that: ‘Another Australian town site is closed in the Northern Territory and a new town site is about to be established’. I was very pleased with the response from the people. I was very pleased with the discussion we had with the people there and I was very pleased with the development of the Douglas Daly region. I promised to visit again especially when we are going to announce the opening of new opportunities in that area for horticultural business.
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, my remarks tonight are aimed at the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. That is why I was keen to go next. I asked the minister some time ago if I could have a copy of the Roadside Rest Area Strategy which I believe his Department of Transport and Infrastructure is implementing at the moment. I do so because, like the Chief Minister, I drove south along the highway for my Christmas break. It is always an interesting drive. You meet many people. When you cross the border into South Australia you see a strategy that has been put in place by South Australia for travellers along that road. About every 50km they have a rest area. They have signs that give a subtle message like ‘Drowsy drivers die’ – I don’t know whether that is subtle - or ‘Fatigue is fatal.’ Their rest areas are quite good with shade areas, some of them even have toilets now and some have water tanks, so it is quite good.
When you cross the border from South Australia coming into the Northern Territory, and I am not sure whether the Chief Minister noticed this, and probably I noticed this because we have travelled it a number of times, there is a great distance before you come across the first parking area. The first sign you get to is one for road trains which is 126km from the border. That is fine. I have no problems with that. There is one sign that says parking with a truck, and there is a sign with a caravan with a big red cross, so that is pretty obvious to everyone that this is a truck parking bay and no caravans should go there. But, since November, there have been some new signs appear on these truck parking bays. I found them rather offensive and am wondering what sort of image of the Territory they give to visitors who are travelling along that road for the first time. I will ask the attendant to give one to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and the Minister for Tourism.
It says, ‘Truck parking only. This is a designated rest area for truck drivers. Strictly no camping.’ This almost sounds like a police state we are in, that we have this very rude, aggressive sign. I am just wondering whether the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure approved those words. Did he approve the wording on the sign so that this is what our visitors would first see? Did he ask the Minister for Tourism if this is the image he would like tourists to have when they come into the Northern Territory? Surely, the entrance in to the Northern Territory should be more genteel than that. It is a very aggressive sign: ‘Strictly no camping. This is a designated rest area.’ We all know truck drivers have to have it, but this to me was quite an affront.
They have only been there recently. I am not sure why they are so aggressive. I believe the Truck Drivers’ Association were consulted and I can understand why the truck drivers want to have privacy in the parking bays. However, you might notice in the Territory that if people pull up for the night, someone else will pull up beside them, and someone else will pull up beside them, because there is safety in numbers. That is what they feel. I have never known a truck driver to say to anyone: ‘Move on, this my bay’. But I found that particular sign offensive. I wonder whether the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure consulted the Minister for Tourism about it, and whether he thinks it an appropriate way to give a message. I believe it is a little bit upfront.
However, there is also something a little ironic about these signs, because if you are driving along and you come across a parking bay coming up from the south, the two signs at the exit and the entrance to the parking bay are facing the same way. You see a blank sign so you pull into the parking area, and you come out the other end but, of course, you have your back to it so you do not see it. If that is not comical enough, you go to the next one, and they are both facing south. So, if you are coming from the north you again do not know what the sign says. It is a great engineering feat. I am not sure who is responsible. I did notice in one place they had it right; they had one facing north and one facing south. But it is really a joke, and I would not like my visitors to think that this is the way we speak to visitors.
As part of a strategy also we have a little area just north of Alice Springs called Collyer Creek. It has always had a little rest area, a barbecue area, and a rubbish bin. It has been bulldozed – gone, completely gone. I asked why and they said it was partly that there was rubbish lying around, the people perhaps were spoiling the environment, it was close to town, the Wayside Inn proprietors or the caravan park people did not like having a rest area so close to town. It overlooks Collyer Creek and was always a popular little rest area for locals as well. You could go there with your kids and have a bit of a breather and what have you. I believe it is part of this wayside visitor facility strategy. I would like a copy of that so I can see what is planned. I believe there will be 80 km between rest areas and am wondering whether that is sufficient knowing our vast distances in the Territory, when, in South Australia, they make them a lot closer.
Most of our accidents, as far as I can see, occur with tourists who do not really know how to travel safely on our roads; it is not the locals. I really believe we should be making sure we say to people on the road, ‘Yes, here is a rest area, yes it is comfortable enough for you to stop. Here is a different rest area for trucks; let them park there so they can have their sleep’. However, let us do it in a way that is not intrusive, aggressive and perhaps puts off our visitors. I would appreciate if the minister could get back to me on that.
I also acknowledge tonight Alex Sherrin who was awarded the Regional Local Hero in the Australian of the Year Awards. Alex is a great guy, as people from Alice Springs know. I will read one of the supporting statements that came in for Alex so you will know a little about him. It says:
- Alex is one of the classical quiet achievers. Not many people know him because he is usually working
on some Territory heritage project and making everybody else look good in the process. In the past two
years, he has been the brains and the organisational skill behind the project to honour Bob Darken,
the project known as the Pack Horse Drover, and the recent Last Camel Train from Oodnadatta to Alice Springs.
He is a superb organiser, but his principal skill is in the devolution of power and authority. At the same time,
he covers every last detail, every inch of organisation, and when the event is over everybody feels good.
Most people involved appear to have done all the work and Alex delights in the credit being shared among
people other than himself. The morale on the Last Camel Train had to be seen to be believed. I have known him …
Said this referee:
- … since his days at Wave Hill where he used to organise truly amazing ‘this is your life’ projects around
such renowned Territorians as ‘Gene’ Tunney, Noel Buntine and ‘Buck’ Buchester. Since he has come to live
in the Centre he is constantly on the lookout for projects worth doing.
He and his wife, Jo, are a great team; whatever project Alex organises, Jo, a wonderful primary school
teacher, organises a school kit. Would that there be more such teams. Along the way, he has worked as
a project officer on various Aboriginal settlements where he has constantly devised interesting work
and social projects and has endeared himself to a lot of Aboriginal people who see him as a right sort
of white bloke, one prepared to give them a hand without taking over their lives.
- Alex Sherrin is what we all like to think the Territory is all about. He is intelligent, kind, energetic,
fun-loving, always has time to lend a hand to whatever cause, and is above all, a worker. He is an
admirable family man. My only query…
- …is that he barracks for Collingwood – but we can’t expect everyone to be perfect, can we?
Alex is the most unassuming fellow. We were delighted when he was awarded this Local Hero of the Year in the Australian of the Year Awards. My only question to the Australia Day Council is, why wasn’t he invited to Canberra for the finals? Why wasn’t he there as the Territory representative when we think so highly of him to give him that award? Why didn’t they make sure he was there? Apparently he was not invited and I found that rather disappointing.
The other person I will speak about is Russell Ward, or ‘Bear’ as he is commonly known in Alice Springs and I am sure the member for Stuart knows Bear well from his work with Little Athletics. Bear has been in Alice Springs for some time now and was awarded the Centralian of the Year Award. He retired from full time employment last year due to his own ill-health and physical problems, but he still helps out and cares for many community organisations, especially those involving disabled children. He has previously worked at St Mary’s Family Services and Acacia Hills School working in the area of disabilities support worker with severely disabled children and as a special education support officer. He is well known for his voluntary work and is often called upon to assist with respite work for both the children’s and the adult’s disability programs at St Mary’s.
As he is a very compassionate and patient carer, he is very good at working with autistic and disabled children and children with behavioural difficulties. He spends many hours reading, drawing and talking to the children. Russell has been an active competitor and coaching volunteer in junior athletics, swimming, junior rugby league and rugby union. For many years he has competed in both local competitions and the Masters’ veteran sports. Russell was also the president of the Masters’ swimming club and is a very active member helping organise members for the Masters’ Games as well as assisting children with swimming.
He has a loving and nurturing personality and cares very much for the disabled children who want to participate in sports and who want to be active. He gives his time freely and has been for many years a sponsor for the presentation day of Little Athletics where his presence is always well received especially when he does his sausage sizzle.
One of the people who knows Russell very well wrote this about him:
- He enjoyed remarkable success and acknowledgement as a sportsperson throughout his youth and subsequently
into his retiring days. It is well known that Bear will still run onto the paddock for the DASA Eagles rugby
group when a desperate moment calls, and takes part in track and field and swims daily. Maybe his
personal success and pleasure from sports has provoked Bear into being a supporter and helping with junior
sport knowing that children can achieve if they give it a serious go.
Bear has always been there for children. He certainly is a keen contributor to fund raising for junior teams
running numerous raffles, sausage sizzles, can collection and making personal donations, and where there is
work to be done, a phone call to Bear will secure you a worker for the occasion.
In lighthearted moments as Santa Claus or wearing a bear mask, Bear can be relied upon as a person who
enjoys giving as much as participating in self-esteem building life events. Russell Ward, or Bear as he is
commonly known in Alice Springs is one of those great community contributors that we all love to have.
I know it is meant to be a surprise but how surprised was he when he received phone calls the next morning from friends who were at the Australia Day Ball saying: ‘Where were you, Bear? You won this wonderful award’. Of course, Bear, unfortunately, had not received the invitation because of where he lives. I feel that the Australia Day Council needs to take that one step further and make sure the people who are bestowed with an award receive that invitation and get to the ball so they can proudly accept it on behalf of all those people who believe they deserve it and who have sponsored them.
Ms MARTIN (Fannie Bay): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it is a privilege for me to acknowledge in the Territory’s parliament some of the outstanding Territorians - following on from the member for Braitling’s contribution - who were recognized on this year’s Australia Day Honours List.
The Territory’s highest honour this year went to Jo Gawirrin Gumana AO. Mr Gumana was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for service to the community as a cultural ambassador and religious leader, promoting understanding, sharing and mutual respect. The honour also recognizes Mr Gumana’s contribution to the reconciliation process and to the arts as a significant contributor to Australia’s indigenous artistic heritage. Mr Gumana is an eminent artist of the Gngn clan. His work is predominantly in the media of natural pigments on bark paintings and carved figures, and he is represented in 11 national and state Australian collections including the National Gallery of Australia, and private collections in the United States. He has participated in over 20 exhibitions and awards. He assisted his father, Birrikitji, and Yangarriny in painting the Yirrkala Church panels during the 1960s.
Mr Gumana was ordained as a minister of the Uniting Church in 1991. He has been an active member of many community and cultural organizations including Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Arts; executive member of the National Regional Council of the United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress; chairman and executive member of the Aboriginal Cultural Foundation, and the foundation supports Australia’s tribal cultures under the control of the traditional owners and managers; and also leader and spokesperson of his Dhalwangu people, the Nungburundi group of north east Arnhem Land. With his father, Mr Gumana re-founded Gangan outstation and spiritual homeland for his people during the homeland movements of the 1970s. Mr Gumana travelled overseas with Yolngu dance troupes in 1982 and 1988 as a spokesperson and cultural ambassador. Jo Gumana is an internationally recognised artist and a true leader of his people. I am sure all honourable members will join me in acknowledging his richly deserved Australia Day honour.
Another honour on Australia Day was to Professor David Sulman Carment AM. Professor Carment was made a member of the Order of Australia for service to the community, particularly through the National Trust of Australia as an advocate for the protection of Northern Territory cultural heritage, and to the scholarship and dissemination of knowledge of Territory history.
David Carment has been Dean of the Faculty of Law, Business and Arts since 2001 and Professor of History since 1996. He is Chair of the Northern Territory University Press Committee and is actively involved in numerous academic, historical and cultural boards and committees. Professor Carment is an Honorary Life Member of the National Trust of Australia (NT) and he has published acclaimed works on the Territory’s history and cultural heritage. He received an award for excellence for teaching in the higher education sector, Northern Territory University, in 1999, and was Post-Graduate Supervisor of the year in 1997.
David Carment is passionate about the Northern Territory and is widely respected in the academic and wider community. I am sure all honorable members will join me in acknowledging his achievements.
On a personal level, I have known David for a long time now, and, certainly, his passion for the Territory, his passion for Territory history and heritage has resulted in an enormous contribution to the Territory. I was studying with David at the university in 1995. I was working full-time and studying full-time, plus having a full time family - it was a bit of a trick in the end - and then in June 1995, I won the seat of Fannie Bay. I remember him saying to me - because I said to him: ‘Look, I am going to have to give up the course; I just cannot manage all this’, and he said: ‘Yes, you can’. I said: ‘Something will give, David, probably my family leaving’. I was very sad to give up studying with David because he really is a great lecturer and certainly inspirational. I was impressed, though, that he thought I could manage to do all those things and still survive.
Another awardee last Australia Day was Alfred On. Mr On received a Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the Territory’s Chinese Community. He is one of those quiet achievers who has worked tirelessly over many years for his community. He is a third generation Territorian, born in Katherine in 1933. He married May Moy Lan Fung in Darwin in 1957. May died 30 years later in 1987 after a long illness. Together they raised seven children: Wendy, Kelvin, David, Tammy, Robyn, Dennis and Rodney. Alfred is also the proud grandfather of Nathan, Jasmine, Rebecca, Cassandra, Justine, Brodrick and Isabella.
Mr On’s family has owned the Parap Road Store since 1938. In the early days, the store was known as Charlie On’s, named after Alfred’s father Charlie, and the store is still affectionately known by that name. Mr On has worked hard to promote Chinese language and culture particularly to the younger generation. He was instrumental in raising funds to rebuild the Chinese Temple and hall after Cyclone Tracy, and his ongoing contribution to his community was recognised when he was made a life member of the Chung Wah Society in 1986. He was patron of this society from 1988 to 1996, and has been a committee member for many years.
Even with busy family and work commitments, Alfred On never hesitated in lending a hand whenever his services were required by the Chung Wah Society. His secret sartee mix has been used for many years for the society’s stall at the Royal Darwin Show. He takes part in the many Chinese festivals throughout the year, roasting pigs for the ‘Ching Ming’ ceremony, and a variety of other functions, and also helping during the Chinese New Year festival. He is also patron for the Arafura Dragon Paddlers Club. He is proud of the success and growth of the club, and the contribution it makes towards promoting dragon boating, and hence Chinese culture for the community.
The Chinese community and all Territorians can be very proud of Alfred On. The Medal of the Order of Australia is fitting recognition of his contribution to the Chinese and wider territory community. I am sure honourable members will join me in congratulating and thanking Alfred On.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I had the pleasure of visiting the Museum and Art Gallery of the Territory on 12 February, and was able to spend a large part of the day there, meeting with some of the staff and finding out, in detail, what they did. The director, Anna Malgorzewicz welcomed me and introduced me to her staff. We are, indeed, fortunate to have such an excellent resource as the Museum and Art Gallery at historic Bullocky Point, overlooking Fannie Bay.
At this point I would like to recognise the vision of men, such as Ken Waters and others, who fought so hard for a museum and art gallery for Darwin back in 1965, when the bill for this was first passed. The Museum and Art Gallery is a rare combination of local, national and international collection and research. It was delightful to spend the morning with some of the curatorial staff and discuss their work. The natural sciences curators are involved in a variety of taxonomic and applied research as part of a national and international network. Doctor Richard Willan, for example, whose work with the local shell collecting group is well known, last year was visiting researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Field Museum, Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
Dr Chris Glasby, whose work as a researcher into annelids, or worms, has taken him to the Smithsonian in Washington, where he was a post doctoral fellow, and last year he travelled to Mexico and Paris, where he assisted on collaborative research projects and presented papers. His colleague, Dr Belinda Glasby, is a sponge systematist and currently the project leader of the Bioprospecting project, under contract with Coral Reef Research Foundation and the United States National Cancer Institute. As well as presenting the research of the Museum and Art Gallery to the world, the science curators at the museum are mapping our environment across a variety of specialist areas.
Paul Horner, the curator of terrestrial vertebrates, has surveyed the Territory from the Tanami across to the Arafura Swamp, from Groote Eylandt to Wave Hill, and all areas in between. For 23 years, Paul has worked in the laboratory and in the field, sampling, collecting, photographing and preserving a record of bird and mammal species of the Territory.
Dr Phil Alderslade, the man who tells us when it really is safe to go back in the water, has published widely in the areas of coral sea anemones and jellyfish. He, too, has been at the front of taxonomic research in the area octocorals of the region and elsewhere. Dr Helen Larson has undertaken survey work across the river and water systems of the Territory, mapping systematics and behaviour of gobioid fish, mangrove and coral reef fish. She, together with Dr Dirk Megirian, is also noted for the long-term commitment through the editorial work of the museum journal, The Beagle. Helen told me that she has this wonderful T-shirt which she wore to the Darwin Harbour Advisory Group today. It has on it ‘Fish Worship - Is it Wrong?’. Only someone passionate about fish would wear such a T-shirt - but what a wonderful T-shirt, ‘Fish Worship - Is it Wrong?’.
Dirk Megirian, together with his colleague, Dr Peter Murray, at the Museum of Central Australia, are expanding our areas of knowledge in the areas of vertebrate palaeontology, systematics and paleoecology, uncovering the records of the past written in the fossils and meteorites of stone.
However, the Museum and Art Gallery is more than scientific research; it also supports a program of history and culture, where our place in the region is explored and our heritage preserved. The Museum and Art Gallery supports a regional museum program run by Sue Harlow, who, through a program of travel, workshops, professional advice and an annual grant program of $200 000, assists museums, keeping places and communities in the preservation and presentation of their heritage and collections. Curator Emeritus Rock Art, Dr George Chaloupka, not only has documented and recorded the 40 000 year old living tradition of rock art in the western Arnhem Land area, but has also represented the museum at international conferences and through presentations of papers and books on the subject. His colleague Pina Guilianni ably assists him.
Our place in the region has new meaning in the work of James Bennett, Curator of Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture, himself a talented craftsperson. His curatorial excellence has resulted in workshops, lectures and assistance in museum practice in Indonesia and East Timor. He is currently working on the magnificent Speaking with Cloth exhibition, due to open at the museum in March this year. Paul Clark is the man who looks after the magnificent boat collection. As Curator of Maritime Archaeology, he has worked and researched on shipwreck and sites in such diverse places as China and Arnhem Land.
There are other curators who I was not able to meet on that day in February. Margie West, Curator of Aboriginal Art and Material Culture, was still away completing her Churchill Fellowship tour of museums and keeping places in North America and Europe. Daena Murray, Curator of Visual Art, is currently on long service leave, completing her doctoral studies in Northern Territory visual art.
In addition, the museum is supported by a host of staff who are no less important than the curatorial staff. The conservation area, is under Sue Bassett, with Kim Tough and Sandra Yee; and the history and culture collections management staff is under Christine Tarbett-Buckley with Justine Coulson. The natural science collections management staff, is under Gavin Dally, with Steven Gregg and Suzanne Horner. The exhibitions are managed by Angela Keith, Wendy Wood and Lorna Gravenor and built by the fellows in the workshop. There is a library available for researchers.
The front line staff are the attendants, floor staff and security. These are the people who greet you when you visit, and whose pleasant attitude and pride in their work make any visit to the museum a pleasure. Behind the scenes the cleaners, the taxidermists, the administrative staff and the museum executive also work to make the institution the success it is. It is not possible to list all the wonderful staff who work at the Museum and Art Gallery. I am sure you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, and all my parliamentary colleagues share with me the pride and pleasure we take in this great institution. Again, I praise the vision of the founders and current staff.
Before I close on this topic, I would like to share a small story that highlights for me why the Museum and Art Gallery is such a special place. Just last week I met with an old friend of mine - although I should not call her old - Jean Vickery, to share a cup of tea with her on her 80th birthday. Jean gives a new meaning to being 80. Jean was one of the first to take up residence in the then far-flung suburb of Fannie Bay in the late 1940s. Jean is a true Territorian: humorous, lively and committed to community service. The Museum and Art Gallery, whose record of international research and publication ranks favourably with any comparably sized institution in the world, also holds a donation from Jean, as part of the Territory History Collection. It is a small, blue, plastic milk jug used to hold and pour the milk supplied from a Top End dairy. Unique and precious, this ephemeral object serves to remind us of a way of life that is gone. And this is why the Museum and Art Gallery is a place of pride for all Territorians. Amongst its precious collections of rare taxonomic diversity, artworks from Australia’s greatest, ceramics and cloth from the remnants of the exotic East Indies trade empire, there is also a milk jug from a local Darwin dairy. There is something there for all of us.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to bring to the attention of the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure an area of his responsibility. I am often on my feet in this House complaining about the state of roads in my electorate. Tonight is going to be no exception. Recently I had cause to be on the Plenty Highway. I stopped and spoke to some cattle folk as well as visiting the community of Harts Range. The complaint that was made to me there, and one that I can confirm, is that the Plenty Highway is indeed a road that is in grave need of repair. I am left with the impression that some of the corrugations on that road are so deep not only should they appear on topographical maps, but would probably be able to be seen from space with the naked eye.
There are sections of that road which would have a scene from Lawrence of Arabia easily able to be shot on it because the road simply disappears into dunes and other areas. I now know why they call it the Plenty Highway because it has plenty of holes, it has plenty of ruts, and it has plenty of expense in terms of repairing damage to the vehicles that pass over that road.
As often as we like to get romantic about cattle stations and the cattle industry that lives in the outback, the fact is that these organisations are still businesses with families to feed and those sorts of things. These people need to be able to run these businesses effectively and to be able to make a profit. It is not much good trying to turn cattle off these properties if the road that they have to truck these cattle out on are so poor that shake, rattle and roll does not begin to describe the things that the vehicles and drivers have to go through. The damage bill that comes out of moving that cattle is so large that it no longer makes it worthwhile moving the cattle. I know that I am using a little bit of alliteration to describe the point but I am not far from kidding when I talk about this, simply because I know how poorly that road is looked after.
It is certainly not the only road in my electorate that I raise issues about. The quarterly grading that used to occur on the road to Docker River no longer occurs quarterly. I am sure of that because once again, I was on that road recently. It was also in not very good condition and, on a couple of occasions, I was almost certain that my teeth were going to shake out of my head. I also had to drive through a few sand dunes on that road. There was one occasion where I actually paused at the top of a crest of a sand dune, which was in the way of the road, to make sure that the road actually went down at the other side so heavily affected by sand was that section of the road.
I know that these roads can not be bitumenised immediately. However, I still am a great supporter of those two particular roads becoming part of the great outback highway. I have often said in this House, and continue to say in this House, that that highway should be sealed as a matter of course. The National 1 goes around the country, literally goes around the country, then you have the Stuart Highway which goes from Port Augusta to Darwin, in fact, it ends less than a kilometre down the street from this place. It only makes sense that another road should go from east to west across the country thus completing, in my opinion, the proper road network that this country needs in terms of its primary arteries.
The Northern Territory has gone quite some distance to sealing the Lasseter Highway and the Stuart Highway, and now the bridges are being built, compliments of the federal government, across the Finke, the Palmer and several other rivers so that that can be a road which can be used all the time, all year around, in any sort of weather condition. I hope that the Plenty Highway and that section of the Docker River Road can now been seen as part of our great outback highway system. A commitment should be made to sealing that road so that there is bitumen all the way from the WA border through to the Queensland border through Central Australia.
I pick up on the ‘Hear, hear’ earlier from the minister. I know that he, too, would have to wrestle with Cabinet, extracting money out of Cabinet to get these roads fixed, but I have to say if I was going to pick the choice road to complain about in the Northern Territory at the moment, it would have to be the Plenty Highway. I hope that the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure listens to what I am saying tonight, gets out there, puts some money into one of the contractors out there - maybe even take the opportunity to use one of the graders in the Aboriginal communities along that road and create some work - I do not much care how it happens, but to fix the road and fix it so that we can move goods and produce of the Northern Territory to the market place without the reprehensible amount of money that has to be spent fixing these vehicles being spent by the people who run these businesses.
Dr TOYNE (Stuart): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I want to talk tonight about the Kurduju Committees which have been established in the communities of Ali Curung, Yuendumu and Lajamanu. These are key initiatives in our reforms for justice arrangements within our remote communities and, by reflection, within the urban centres to which people from remote communities commute. We are very encouraged by the achievements to date of this very important initiative.
Ali Curung started this process with an Aboriginal law and justice strategy in 1996, and I am sure the member for Barkly has been involved right through that whole period. The approach was then extended to Lajamanu in 1999 and subsequently to Yuendumu, and very recently to the very troubled community of Willowra in the last 12 months.
The Community Law and Justice Committees, which are the components of the Kurduju, have formal roles to act as an interface with the law and justice system, to contribute to pre-court conferencing, victim/offender conferencing, make recommendations to the courts as requested, assist in the development and management of community diversionary programs, report to local councils on law and justice issues and trends, act as a focal point for community law and justice concerns, facilitate community dispute resolution, coordinate a community response to law and justice issues, and maintain sound relations between the community and law and justice agencies such as the police, Correctional Services and the courts.
They are a very widely-based forum which will allow customary, traditional and community values and priorities to interact with the priorities and values of the various components of the justice system. The community law and justice strategies have been combined in the case of the three communities I have mentioned into the Kurudju Committee. A kurduju is a shield and the Kurduju Committee is meant to create a shield against social dissolution for the people of those communities.
The Kurduju Committees are formed by members who are involved in safe houses, men’s centres, night patrols, the law and justice committees of the individual communities. The current chairperson of Kurduju is Ms Gwen Brown from Ali Curung. The Kurduju Committees are more involved in drawing together the practical experiences of the law and justice committees into a record of the methods that were used, the experiences that came out, what worked, and what did not work.
Formally, the objectives are to involve the remote area law and justice committees in the research and documentation of strategies and programs which are effective for remote area communities to ensure consistency and quality of material and presentations used in the community, regional and national forums; to assist in the development of presentation, workshops, organisational skills with participants; to support the concept that Aboriginal communities are equally responsible along with government for achieving law and justice outcomes in their own communities - an important part of this process is to actively participate in the dissemination of information about successful law and justice strategies; to provide an additional source of information for government agencies about strategies and initiatives that are relevant to remote area communities; and to further encourage the concept of peer modelling amongst Aboriginal communities, which is proving to be an extremely effective tool for communicating with communities wishing to adopt law and justice planning.
You can see that Kurduju is going to take the very local successes of the community law and justice committees and translate them into similar initiatives for other communities, as they are asked to do so. Living amongst Aboriginal people, the very strong guiding principle is that you do not offer until you are asked, you do not intrude on other people’s affairs unless those people want you there, and Kurduju has already been increasingly invited into other community processes by other Aboriginal groups. The quality of the work that they have been doing and the outcomes that they have has been increasingly recognised by other groups. The proof of the worth of that is that they are being actively engaged in other community groupings.
Looking at the major activities that the Kurduju Committee and below that the community law and justice committees are involved in, the key process that is being promoted is Aboriginal dispute resolution. It is a parallel process to the formal processes that exist within the justice system, within our courts and within the police and court processes, which draws on very strong possibilities for relatives and members of extended family of a particular offender, or of two people who have come into dispute, to use those authorities within the family as another way of sorting out that situation.
We are really in a position where our urban communities, through the new mediation centres that we are setting up, can adopt that same approach of a community-based mediation process, or an alternative dispute resolution process, as an alternative to a more formal and advocated court process. The achievements within the community law and justice committees will help us to look at mediation as it will occur in places like Alice Springs, Darwin and Palmerston, as we get the mediation processes going through the centres there.
These communities have been following these methodologies for up to four or five years now. We concede, particularly in trying to intervene with, for example, itinerant people in the urban centres who have come to some grief because of their behaviour, and use this, perhaps, to take a percentage of that problem away from the urban based groups.
If I can quote Marjorie Hayes, speaking to the Yuendumu ladies at a meeting held in Tennant Creek on 23/24 October 2001, describing what it feels like on the ground to attempt to resolve aggressive behaviour conflict within the community. She says:
- The next day the families come over to the Night Patrol going to sort this problem out. The problem is
shared around the community, different people for different problems. We fix the problem so people on
the community know this is right and this is wrong. He will learn, we talk to him in our own way. We don’t
want violence against women. Keep your law alive, keep our law alive.
A very powerful statement by Marj Hayes. It really indicates that, by working through an extended family structure, by being flexible about which people are being brought in to the Aboriginal dispute resolution process, you can have quite an effective influence. The proof of the pudding in these Kurduju communities is that the levels of violence, particularly against women, have been dramatically reduced to the point where orders to prevent men going near the women do not get used anywhere near as much as they did at the start of these initiatives.
What is being done in this depends very strongly on customary law. It is important to quote from the Kurduju Committee Report from December 2001 that I have in front of me here. The report says:
- The demand for formal recognition of customary Aboriginal law is inextricable from the business of the
community law and justice committees. It is important to note that the legal system here described is
not a straightforward revival of customary law, although it certainly incorporates many elements of that
law. Rather, it is an innovative adaptation of the traditional decision-making processes to the modern situation.
It should also be noted that the community meetings take place on carefully selected neutral ground.
That is a very interesting comment in the report, because what it is saying is that Aboriginal people are actively thinking through the place of customary law in the modern situation. They are not simply saying that the traditional arrangements of customary law have to be continued unchanged. That is a very hopeful statement, in that, as the members would know, we currently have an inquiry into customary law. That is very much the approach that they are probably going to have to take to some of these very prickly issues that exist between customary law arrangements and arrangements in the justice system as a whole. It is good to know there are some starting points where Aboriginal people are already starting to look at the possible modifications that could be applied.
The other very important thing that has been a feature of the work of these community law and justice committees is that they do not approach violence against women by just simply working with women. We are often a bit blind to the fact that the men often do not have as many choices, or can be just as much a victim of the situation they are in as the women who are being assaulted. Many assaults on women are by other women, so there has to be flexibility in the way in which both men and women are supported to take them away from that pattern of behaviour.
At Ali Curung, for example, while there is certainly a women’s safe house at Ali Curung as there is at Lajamanu, the Ali Curung Community Law and Justice Committee felt that it was equally important to set up a men’s centre where the self-esteem and consciences of the men could also be worked on through contact with their elders. The men’s centre at Ali Curung has become a very important centre of discourse within the group of men at that community, and very much equally a part of dealing with domestic violence issues against women.
Other areas that are more familiar, that are part of this law and justice agenda, are the Night Patrols. It is interesting that the Night Patrols under Kurduju have identified quite a large range of categories of violence which have been given separate attention: violence within families; domestic violence; grog violence; jealous fighting, often amongst women; feuding between families; yard or influence violence, which is the use of curses and so on; community violence as a whole; and payback violence. There is a whole series of categories that these initiatives are trying to grapple with if they are going to remove or reduce violence in the communities.
The most recent work that the Kurduju Committees have been contributing to is the development of protocols which would guide public servants from our agencies working in those communities. I am very excited, having seen the first draft of these protocols, which are making for the first time some of the aspects of the Aboriginal communities’ social organisation available to public servants, so that they do not barge around communities without knowing what area of community is doing what, such as ceremonial grounds, widow’s areas, young men’s camps and so on.
I very much look forward to seeing the Kurduju Committee present to the Inquiry into Customary Law on these issues. We will get many good practical guidelines out of that exercise, and that is exactly what that inquiry is trying to produce.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I rise to speak about the cost of living in the Territory, in particular central Australia. Of late I have noticed that our cost of living is slowly creeping up. In particular, I talk about our food prices. In the last 18 months of this government, after hearing all the noises that the present Chief Minister made when she was in opposition about the cost of food prices, the cost of petrol, what she was going to do about it if she were in government, what we, the then CLP government, had to do about petrol prices, I have seen nothing from her. I recall 18 months ago, when she got into government, the first thing she did was to get rid of the quarterly food price surveys that were done across the Territory, across all regional centres and across all different shopping centres in each of the regional centres.
You may recall in the last term of government that these food prices were published regularly, so that every Territorian knew where it was cheapest for them to shop, where they could spend their money wisely and make their disposable income spread as far as possible. In the last 18 months that has hardly happened. We have had, I think, three six-monthly ABS figures published that compared the capital city of Darwin with the other capital cities around the country. I recently saw one published food price survey of the regional centres done by Treasury, I think it was in December of last year. In this last 18 months food prices have gone up and the surveys have demonstrated that, but no Territorian could say, ‘Yes, I will shop in this particular shop, because the Treasury food price surveys have told me that this is the cheapest place to go’.
Without that sort of survey conducted and published regularly, shop owners and food retailers will not be compelled to compete with each other. They can put prices as they like. When you walk into a shop to buy your food you have no idea whether the can of baked beans you buy from this particular shop would have been cheaper bought at another shop. It is important for this government, if it is keen to look after Territorians, as it espouses, to demonstrate that it is willing to do the quarterly surveys again and publish those figures.
There have been numerous newspaper articles complaining about food prices. As recently as 3 February there is an article in the NT News - ‘The second most expensive city’. It shows that Darwin is very expensive to live in. If this government does not know it, then I suggest it tell all its minders to go back to the papers and have a good look.
The other thing that the Chief Minister complained about was the high cost of petrol prices. I remember 18 months, two years ago, she was jumping up and down saying we should have a petrol price inquiry, have a look at why these prices had gone so high, who is making the profit and all of that. Since she has been in government, she has been absolutely quiet about it. Not a peep. Not one sound has been made by this Chief Minister. Over the last week, the price of petrol in Darwin has gone over the $1 mark. In Alice Springs, we regularly pay 10 cents more per litre of petrol. Thank God, I say, that we do not have to drive very large distances in either Alice Springs or Darwin and a full tank of petrol would last us a bit longer than if you were living in Adelaide or Sydney or elsewhere down south. But the price of petrol has gone up and what has this government done about it? A big zero.
The Deputy Chief Minister sits in this Chamber - and I recall when we were doing the food price review three years ago he was complaining about power prices. The dissenting report of the Deputy Chief Minister – he was then the Deputy Leader of the Opposition - complained bitterly about power prices in the Northern Territory, that the price of power was the contributor to the high cost of food in the Northern Territory. Well, what have you done about it, I ask the Deputy Chief Minister now? Power prices have increased. What has he done about it? Nothing. The price of power has continued to climb and as a result of that, food prices will go up as well. What have they done about it?
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Dr LIM: Why don’t you do something about it instead of complaining? He complained in opposition and I would have thought that if he was so against it in opposition, once he got in the government he had the power to do something about it, he would have done something about it. But, no. Nothing has been done.
You continue to add on taxes to Territorians: the car tax you put on there, and that is going to go on for quite a few more years yet. Power and water bills have gone up as well. Where is it going? I remember when the Chief Minister was opposition what she said about the Territory food price review committee: ‘I want the prices committee to make a difference.’ Well, we did make a difference. We made very good recommendations to the Territory government of the day and they took up some of our recommendations, recommendations that made a real impact on food prices.
It is a pity that this government has chosen to scrap the lot and has continually ignored the potential savings that Territorians could make to their cost of living in the Territory. I hope that over the next two and a half years this government will see its way to do something about that such as removing some of the taxes that they have imposed over the last 18 months and bringing back some very practical measures that were commenced by the last government, and give Territorians a fair go.
Last week I was very happy to be invited to the launch of the amalgamation, or the cooperative activity, between the Northern Territory University and Centralian College. At the launch of the cooperative action between those two education institutions, Chancellor Nan Giese and Vice Chancellor Ken McKinnon spoke highly about Centralian College and the opportunities that offering NTU courses in Alice Springs would provide for the town. I heartily agree with that.
I remember Centralian College in its very early days as the Community College of Central Australia. That was when I first knew about the TAFE institution. I was told, back in those days, that it started as an Alice Springs campus of the Darwin Community College. From those humble beginnings, it has grown. It has evolved over the years, going from the Alice Springs campus of the Darwin Community College to the Central Australian Community College, and through another name change and relocation from the Anzac High School premises to the new premises at Sadadeen. It was then called the Alice Springs College of TAFE, and then through an amalgamation between the Alice Springs College of TAFE and the Sadadeen Senior College, which provided senior secondary schooling for many years, it became Centralian College.
From about 1994 onwards, Centralian College offered NTU courses in fine arts and business, and with this new cooperative activity, I understand that many other courses will now be offered. This means that Alice Springs people can attain higher education without having to leave their homes. It will mean great savings for Central Australians wanting to study and stay at home with their parents or stay within their own home town. I hope that these courses will provide full time courses right through the full three years undergraduate studies. It would be a pity if students have to leave Alice Springs after, say, their second year to come to Darwin to complete their full Bachelor course.
By offering higher education studies with TAFE, and also with senior secondary schools, it provides a rationalisation of course offerings. It means, within a particular class, students of the different levels can all join in to attend the same lecture, after which they can then move to their own tutorials and be provided with tutorials at the appropriate level of expertise.
It has generated much interest in Alice Springs. Also, with the presence of the Centre for Remote Health and the Desert Knowledge Centre combined together it will provide Alice Springs with a real focus of higher education and research facilities, bringing much expertise to Alice Springs. It will really create a huge focus for Central Australia. Alice Springs right now probably has the highest concentration of university graduates in a community of that size, and by having the NTU significantly present in Alice Springs, combined with the other centres, it will truly create a pool of expertise that will be the envy of many. If the recent convention that took place on Arid Zone Research is any indication, Alice Springs has a very strong future.
I wish the new amalgamation between NTU and Centralian College well. I hope the corporate activity bears good results for Central Australia and also help NTU increase its student numbers so that it can honestly rationalise with the federal government for better funding for the NTU. NTU needs as much support as we can possibly give. If Alice Springs numbers can help boost the student numbers of NTU, so much the better. That way, the NTU can survive much better than it has in the past.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak about a couple of matters that I have a little passion for and interest in. Of course, I will begin with the Aboriginal All Stars game which was held a couple of weeks ago.
The Aboriginal All Stars combination of Aboriginal players from the AFL from all around Australia who played against the famous Carlton Football Club, were kind enough to travel to the Northern Territory and participate in this magnificent event. It has been about nine years since the last event in 1994 when the Aboriginal All Stars played Carlton. Unfortunately, at that time I was studying at the University of Western Australia, so I was not able to attend that game. However, I definitely watched it on TV. I had the delight of watching and broadcasting, actually, the game live across Australia and I will go into that a little further.
I thank Northern Territory government. The government did a fantastic job in providing a magnificent facility in the oval, which is going to guarantee AFL games whether they are Wizard Cups or, hopefully, one day, AFL will be played for four points. The Minister for Sport and Recreation needs to be commended for that. Also ATSIC, of course. ATSIC has done a fantastic job in providing money and support for this idea. I am certainly lobbying all around Australia to get the AFL to come on board. The AFL has taken an interest in this particular type of player produced from Aboriginal people all around Australia. They should be commended as well. AFLNT, of course, did a fantastic job in conjunction with ATSIC organising it. From what I understand, the NT government obviously provided facilities, but the organisation was left to ATSIC and the AFLNT. The CEO, Chris Natt, needs a special mention; he did a great job. Bob Elix, the Chairman of the Board, a long time servant of AFLNT, did a great job, with Mark Crossin, David DeSilva, and Kim Hill representing ATSIC on the board. Michael Barfoot, was one of the unsung heroes there. He is a constituent in my electorate and has been involved in football for 20 years or longer. He is the odd job man there and does everything. Whenever anything is required, he is called upon. He works all sorts of hours and just loves his work - no complaints, gets down to business, and it is all for the benefit of football. He does a magnificent job.
Of course, the players that we had – well, the Northern Territory, there is no doubt about us! 200 000 people live in the Northern Territory and there are 23 players on the AFL list out of around 645 players around Australia. From a population of 23 million we are providing that amount of representation which is a fantastic achievement. None other than Andrew McLeod, a relation of mine, captained the side, an Adelaide Crow two-time premiership player - a player who is vying for the top five best players in Australia every year. He played a magnificent game. His club allowed him to play, so Adelaide Crows must be thanked.
The sad thing for the Carlton Football Club is that many of their players were only allowed to play certain periods of the games by their clubs so, as we all know, the result was a bit one-sided and, basically, by half-time the game was over. Darryl White, vice-captain of the Brisbane Lions, was also vice-captain of the Aboriginal All Stars. Raphael Clarke, was one of two players not on the AFL list to get an opportunity to play. He came straight from NTFL and the mighty St Mary’s Football Club. His brother, Xavier Clarke who plays for St Kilda, also represented the Aboriginal All Stars. There was Matthew Whelan from the Melbourne Demons. I have had a lot to do with Matty Whelan and he is a fantastic young footballer. His father, Kurt Whelan, is heavily involved in the Darwin Football Club. Peter Burgoyne, playing for Port Adelaide, was allowed to travel and play, one of the few Port Adelaide players. Well done to him because he pushed the issue.
Jason Roe, a young fellow who could not play, was drafted this year by Collingwood Football Club but, unfortunately, had a hamstring injury. Corey Ah Chee achieved his second other player not on the AFL list who is a Northern Territory boy playing for Port Adelaide Magpies in the South Australian league. He has been the SANFL state fullback for the last two years, and was able to come up.
Shannon Motlop and Daniel Motlop’s grandmother lives in my electorate, but I have known their father, Eddie Motlop, since I was a child. He is one of my role models. He is one the people who, when I look at people that I want to be like, is probably right up there. He has been a fantastic supporter of all sports in Darwin, rugby league and Aussie rules of course as a player, a coach and a committee person who works tirelessly for the South Darwin Rugby League and the Wanderers Football Club.
Anthony Corrie, from another well known local family, has just been drafted to the Brisbane Lions and is doing a fantastic job.
To help us on the match committee were people I grew up with and I admire - Michael McLean, coach of the Aboriginal All Stars, Mark Motlop, Russell Jefferies, Chris Lewis, Gilbert McAdam - related to the one and only Elliot McAdam of course, his nephew - those players, the stand up characters in the community and men, white, black, green or purple, who should be looked up to as family people and people you should model your life on.
The radio and TV coverage provided by the ABC was fantastic. Ian Butterworth, Peter Atkinson and Corey Kurnoth provided the radio commentary and they did a fantastic job. I was sitting right next to them and I will go into that in a minute. Television commentary was provided by Charlie King and Bill Martin. Charlie King, a well known local identity, did a fantastic job broadcasting that game which was replayed on Channel 53, I think it was Fox, around Australia non-stop for about a week straight. Some of the fabulous quotes that came from that was Denis Pagan saying, ‘Look, fair crack of the sav, it was unfair for us to play a team like this at the start of the year, but we won’t be playing a team like this for the rest of the year’. Ron Barassi said it was the fastest team he has ever seen put on the football field.
The style of football played on that night is the style of football that will take us into the Year 2010. The only example that I can put around the world is the change that the black American athlete put into the national basketball association in the 1950s and 1960s where they brought a style and athleticism which forced people to change the way they viewed the game and the way they played the game. As everyone knows there has been a turnaround now where European players are being drafted again, that is non-black Americans, and they are being drafted because they have same athleticism and the same skills. Last year’s number one draft was a Chinese player who was 7 foot 5 inches. If you ever see him up against the Shaq he is 4 inches taller; he is quite a huge man. The top athlete that we are talking about was produced on that night at the Aboriginal All Stars is the top athlete that people will be looking at right across the AFL. We can only imagine in the year 2010 what football will be like.
Also radio: I was lucky enough with 94.5 8KMB Larrakia Radio and NIRS, which is the National Indigenous Radio Station, which broadcast the game all around the world on the Internet and live across Australia and the Northern Territory. That was done with Bruce Ever and Barry Jenner. They were fantastic to work with, very professional. They do the AFL games live around Australia for the Brisbane Lions and were fantastic. Jack Crosby was on the team, and Dennis Lew Fatt, and station manager, Jurgen, did a fantastic job of support. It was great fun.
It was also great to see past players: Michael Graham, Syd Jackson, Michael Long, Brian Stanislaus, Matthew Ah Matt, Shannon Rusco, Chris Lewis, Michael McLean, Adrian Gilbert, Greg McAdam, Maurice Rioli, and Bill Dempsey. It was great to see those guys being involved in that night. Obviously they deserve the kudos that they received that night with a lap around the oval in a car parade. It was a fantastic night for one and all and I hope to see more and more.
I was privileged enough on Sunday to broadcast the St Mary’s Legends game versus the current team. Many past players played in the St Mary’s team. They are a very proud club; unfortunately, a bit too good for everyone in the 1980s. They have been hurting a little bit now but they have a young team that they hope that can take them to success this year. Past players who played were Chris Long, Noel Long, Stephen, John and Patrick Long, Dennis, Cadgi and Victor Dunn, Cyril Rioli – you know, you put those guys in the team and you have a classic team there. There is no doubt that any one of those players would have had an opportunity to play in the AFL if the AFL was set up the way it is now. Adrian Mosceni was playing that day, Willie Rioli, Rod McPhee, Troy Easton, Kim Hill, Kenny Hill, Brian Stanislaus and, of course, the Golden Greek, Mick Athanasiou. Ted Liddy - I tell you what: Ted Liddy could probably still chuck on the boots and fit into any team now and he is about 40-something. They played against the current team led by Anthony and Iggy Velajo.
It was a tight match in harrowing conditions – rain pouring down everywhere - but about 250 people turned up to watch. Unfortunately, the Legends were robbed by the umpires and they lost by one point but they dominated the game.
We were also able to interview many of the St Mary’s stalwarts and it was fascinating listening to Vic Ludwig. He has been involved in football since the creation of the St Mary’s Football Club and I asked him: ‘Vic, how long have you been president?’ He said: ‘Oh, gee, you have put me on the spot here, 44, 45 years.’ Forty-four or 45 years as president of a football club! That is magnificent. That is unheard of anywhere around Australia. Obviously, he has been very successful. He has won 18 premierships and, as he said, they had already won six before that and so he cannot claim every one of them. He is a hard worker, a tireless worker, and without him I am sure St Mary’s would never have been as successful.
Mrs Cubillo, also a great stalwart of the competition and St Mary’s Football Club with fundraising, bingo, juniors, etcetera. She spoke at length about what she got out of football and she summed up the word that I often use about what Aussie Rules has done for me personally and that is give you an ‘opportunity’, and that opportunity is up to you to take. That is what her delight is: giving young people opportunity.
Bill Roe, another St Mary’s legend who somehow ended up in Perth playing with the great Polly Farmer and won two premierships for the East Perth football club which had not won a football grand final in WA for 23 years. He is a legend in Perth; many people do not realise this. Of course, Darwin was always his home. He came back and it was great talking to him about playing with Polly Farmer, Bill Dempsey, all these great players and the ones that he liked to play with while he was at St Mary’s. He mentioned players that he admired that he played against such as Jimmy Anderson and Don Bonson.
Raphael Clarke, is a young player who is going to go into AFL if he is drafted – whether it is number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10, there are no worries about that. Good luck to him. He is an All-Australian. He is a great kid, he comes from a great family and hopefully he will do just as well as his brother. It was fantastic to listen to Mr Clarke Senior as a parent talking about what it means to be the father of young AFL football stars. A great story came out which I did not know, and that was he kicked the winning point in the 1971 grand final St Mary’s versus Buffaloes as the siren sounded. It was great to hear him relive that story.
I attended the Chung Wah Society Chinese New Year function held at the MGM on 15 February 2003. What a wonderful event. The function organisers did a fantastic job. They celebrated the Year of the Goat – I was born in the Year of the Boar. The Chinese community has always played an important role in the history of the Northern Territory, and played an important role in the development of our unique culture. There was magnificent food, exotic entertainment, and a wonderful night had by one and all. I wish everyone a happy Chinese New Year - I hope I pronounce this properly - Kung Hee Fat Choy.
On a sad note, I briefly mention the passing of Dottie Burgess, mother of Frank and Donald Duggan, grandmother of Timmy Duggan and Mische Duggan. She was a great person. She often played cards at my family’s house. Unfortunately, she is no longer with us.
I would also quickly like to mention the late Len Coles, father of Karen, Tanya, David, Charmaine and Leanne Coles who passed away just recently. I know they are a very close family and wish the best to all of them.
Maxine Sariago, mother of Norm Hoffman, Therese and Lynette and Bruce Hoffman passed away recently. I know it is sad for all of those families, being very tight community families in Darwin, and a long history of relationships in Millner.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I was delighted to be appointed late last year by the Leader of the Opposition to the positions of shadow health minister, shadow minister for Senior Territorians and shadow minister for Arts and Museums. There is no doubting that we do have very real health problems in the Northern Territory. But it is important to remember that it is rare to find a place in the world, let alone in Australia, which does not have real health problems. Too often we are encouraged to preach a mantra of doom and gloom regarding health, quickly forgetting hard won gains.
Such a gain has been in the improvement of life expectancy of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Territorians in the last 15 years. According to last year’s Department of Health and Community Services Annual Report, on page 39, the difference between the two groups reduced from 19.1 to 16.3 years for males, and from 26.1 to 16.7 years for females. The Northern Territory has a proud reputation interstate and overseas for some of our health initiatives such as the Living with Alcohol program, the Domestic and Family Violence program, and the Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture program.
Despite achievements such as these, the Territory still has major health problems to deal with. We are not alone with these problems. If you compare certain population groups, such as Aboriginal Territorians to, say, Aboriginal people from remote areas of New South Wales or Queensland, you would find similar health problems. Contrary to some people’s beliefs, these problems are not caused by particular political parties. Eighteen months ago, when Labor came to government in the Northern Territory, many of those opposite took the opportunity to howl abuse at the previous government, blaming us for everything they perceived wrong in the Northern Territory - the health status of Territorians, staff shortages, lack of financial resources, etcetera. The new Labor government took delight in declaring how they would fix everything. But, lo and behold, what do we see? Nothing has got better and, arguably, a number of things have got worse. We have seen that this week and last week in the recent review of health services.
My point is not that the government should have improved the health status, say, of Aboriginal Territorians, within 18 months. What I do hope is that those opposite with an interest in this important issue acknowledge that improving health outcomes is a complex matter, responsibility for which is not, and cannot, lie solely with a particular party. Certainly, governments have a role to play in researching health problems, then working with the community to develop possible solutions and then, where appropriate, providing resources to assist. However, individuals, as part of the community, also have a major role to play in working to improve health outcomes. The physical, social and economic environment in which a person lives contributes significantly, and governments can only do so much to impact on these issues. People have to make choices, and those choices can impact on their health for many years to come.
For example, in my electorate in the CBD, I have a number of friends who are older men. I have met them since becoming their local member. They all live in Northern Territory Housing units and are on the pension. Some live comfortably and contentedly without major health problems or apparent financial problems, but others are struggling. The ones who are struggling, and I am generalising here, tend to be those who smoke and drink alcohol to excess. They are lovely fellows, but they are addicted to tobacco and alcohol, and they tell me that, at their age, and some of them are only in their early 60s, they cannot or will not change. At a health level, they are addicted to nicotine and alcohol. When they cannot get an adequate supply of these drugs, they suffer. At a social level, they enjoy having a drink and a smoke together, and I believe that little trouble comes of that for them. But at a financial level, they are spending a significant amount of their pension on these legal drugs, money even they admit, they can ill-afford.
This is just one example of a health problem in the Northern Territory. Governments can do so much to address these issues but, in the end, it comes down to the individual who makes choices as to whether or not they behave in a manner detrimental to their health. Our job, as legislators, is to make the choice of living a healthy lifestyle an easier choice. I encourage the Minister for Health and Community Services to work with the community to discover ways the government can continue to help in this area.
However, when people do become sick, often as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle, they need care and treatment. Here in the Territory, we have worked hard to develop a quality healthcare system but, this system is facing some major problems.
Throughout the developed world, community expectation of, and demands on, health systems grow and grow. The cost of providing health care is escalating. With the ageing of our population this trend will be exacerbated. The treatment and care of patient conditions has become more complex. People expect specialists for every discipline to be available to them. Nurses must gain extra qualifications to enable them to practice in particular areas. The health workplace is becoming more stressful; the stress is caused by the heavy workloads as patient acuity increases by the high expectations of staff performance, an increasing lack of staff and the need for some to work significant overtime, by concerns about insurance and other medico-legal matters, by bullying, by violence, often by the patients and families of those being cared for. The list goes on.
The end result is a high turnover of staff, a lack of certain types of health staff, such as nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and specialist medical officers, and a health system approaching crisis. Nowadays, many health services are being provided by non-government organisations. Many of the issues facing more traditional service providers such as hospitals - and to which I have already alluded - are also being faced by the non-government providers. In some cases, due to their limited financial resources, their needs have become extreme. Examples include: recruiting nurses to work in aged care facilities - very had to do due to the fact that they are paid less, for example, than public hospital nurses and aged care facilities are not funded in order to provide a similar level of pay rate; recruiting, training and retaining carers to look after people with disabilities; and paying their ever-increasing insurance premiums. These are just a few of the problems. There is an increasing demand from NGOs on governments to be provided with adequate funds to allow them to do their work properly.
The Minister for Health and Community Services will certainly have her work cut out for her as she tries to come to grips with these problems. I wish her all the best in these difficult times. As the shadow minister for health and community services, my role is to monitor emerging health issues and the government’s response to these; to lobby and, when appropriate, for changes to be made in the government’s actions. Since being appointed shadow I have begun meeting with a wide range of people representing various organisations in an effort to gauge health issues and the government’s performance. I have met with the minister and some of her staff to establish a working relationship, and I thank them for the assistance they have provided thus far.
As I have already mentioned, I am now also the shadow minister for senior Territorians. As patron of the Darwin Pensioner and Senior Citizens Association and, as a result of having a significant proportion of seniors in my electorate of Port Darwin, I was delighted to be appointed to this important role. Seniors are a growing group in the Territory. I can remember when I first came to the Territory in the late 1970s, it was rare to see anyone in the Mall with grey hair, and now I am very pleased to say that it is all the rage.
We all love the Territory and many of us hope to retire here. Until recently, it was rare for anyone to retire in the Territory unless they had no other choice. More and more people are choosing to stay on, and that is great. Seniors contribute much to our community, a sense of continuity with the past, a corporate knowledge, if you like. They are often the backbone of voluntary work, of real value in this community, helping care for others, and contributing to community decision making.
With their growth in number, seniors are also significant contributors to our economy. The importance of this can be seen in the increasing numbers of Territory businesses now seeking to be linked to the ever popular Seniors Card. Our seniors are valued, and as their shadow minister, I will be working with them, to ensure the government does all it can to enhance their time here in the Territory.
Finally, and by no means least, I have been appointed to the position of shadow minister for arts and museums. Given that art was the only subject at school I showed the remotest talent for, I was delighted to be appointed shadow. The Territory has a number of excellent facilities to showcase the arts and to house our history. No-one could doubt this after a visit to the Darwin Museum and Art Gallery of Bullocky Point. I was delighted several weeks ago to be able to visit the Araluen Cultural Precinct and be hosted on a tour, arranged by the minister, a tour conducted by Suzette Watkins. I have to confess it was only the second time I had ever been to the cultural precinct and I have to also confess, even more humbly, I had never actually been to the museum aspect there at the precinct. I was quite taken aback by the standard of the displays there. It really is a fantastic little spot to visit. I would recommend it to any of us, from the non-Alice Springs areas, to get down there and have a look at the precinct. It really was something.
The services provided by museums, galleries and the arts in all its variations add another dimension to our lives. They allow us a facility to learn, to reflect, to wonder, and wherever possible, they should be encouraged.
With regards to the arts, I was delighted to attend a public meeting a few weeks ago, with regards to a new document that has come out which is a discussion paper on new directions for the film, television and news media industries in the Northern Territory. In Darwin, I am guessing, around 40 people attended that meeting, and they were from a diverse range of interests, but what they were all keen to see was this area of film, television and new media really get going here in the Territory.
Currently, this industry is relatively small. It employs about 80 people in the Territory. The number of positions fluctuates as time goes on, and as different workloads come into the Territory. For instance, if a feature film is being shot in the Territory, obviously, the number of people employed in the industry increases, but the Territory has much to offer. We have our fabulous physical environment, our wonderful climate, which, I think, is a particular feature. I could imagine, if I was in the industry and having to shoot, for example, a film, it would be great to know the predictable aspects of our climate will be there to help.
We have a skilled workforce in the area of film, television and new media. We have a multicultural population and sound, modern, infrastructure. There are, of course, some great reasons to encourage this arts industry into the Territory. It was quite labour intensive, with, on average, 37 jobs being created for every million dollars that is spent. There is a flow-on to the tourism in our area, and we would have seen that with Priscilla Queen of the Desert and of course, years and years ago, Crocodile Dundee. I was recently in New Zealand, and that country has just gone berserk on Lord of the Rings and marketing that as a reason to visit New Zealand. It would be a flow-on for the Northern Territory if we were able to develop a very sound television and new media industry.
Obviously, if something is happening in an area, money will flow into the local community, usually in the areas of accommodation and catering. But one of the most interesting things that I learnt at the meeting, and there was a real passion for this, was that by promoting this sort of a program, and assisting with it, the government will develop the intellectual property of Northern Territory. This is a real growth area across the world. I will encourage the government to do all they can in that area.
To conclude, as a shadow, it will be my job to raise issues with the government concerning the arts and museums, and to ensure our current facilities and programs are at the very least maintained, and ideally, enhanced.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise this evening for the purpose of making a correction to comments I made in the debate on the crime prevention initiative statement. I mistakenly said that the Malak Primary Choir performed at the Karama Shopping Centre. I meant to say the Holy Family School Choir. I did invite the Malak Primary choirs - they have a wonderful boys choir, senior choir and junior choir - because I heard them perform at a seniors function I organised. However, they were previously engaged and the Holy Family School Choir and the Ung Kung Choir, as well as the recorder choirs, did a wonderful performance there. So just a correction on that.
Also, I had the pleasure of being the compere of Carols by Candlelight at the amphitheatre of the George Brown Botanic Gardens on Sunday, 15 December with co-host, James Thompson. What a magnificent event. I extend my hearty congratulations to the Christmas In Darwin Association, which are a group of volunteers who work tirelessly throughout the year to organise the Carols by Candlelight for the benefit of the broader Darwin community. They called upon my services at the last minute because the Chief Minister had to attend to selling Territory oil and gas potential overseas and key serious meetings internationally. She, of course, has been a very popular compere over many years for the Carols by Candlelight. I confess to never having compered such an event before but I found the Christmas In Darwin Association were very accommodating in explaining to me …
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker! We have a member in the Chamber without a tie. I believe that that is a breach of protocol.
Members interjecting.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just have some order here? The member for Macdonnell will be aware that there are certain standards required in this House and I would respectfully suggest that you …
Mr ELFERINK: At the moment, I …
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would you please listen? And that you respect those standards. I now ask you to leave the House and either go out and put a tie on, or leave the House permanently.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I was only ducking in for a second, but, look, the moment you can point out the standing order, I will take your counsel.
Mr KIELY: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I think this should be referred to Privileges.
Mr ELFERINK: Oh, get real! Grow up, you guys.
Members interjecting.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please, please can we have some order? Remove yourself.
I am sorry, member for Karama. Please proceed.
Ms LAWRIE: I was saying that the Christmas In Darwin Association Committee are a wonderful group of people who were tremendously helpful to me in my duties as compere of Carols by Candlelight. I thank all the Darwin families who turned out on the evening. Several thousand people were there that night and everyone seemed to be very much in the spirit of the Christmas festivities of the evening. It was a very enjoyable evening from both the stage perspective - we loved looking out and seeing so many thousands of people there with their candles lit, and it was a gorgeous Darwin night - and the feedback I have received from people who were in the crowd who thoroughly enjoyed all the performances.
We have tremendous talent in Darwin and the talent was on show that evening. John Allen, who was a Tamworth country music festival nominee, did quite a lot of the singing throughout the evening, as he is also a key organiser and member of the Christmas In Darwin Association. I take my hat off to John Allen. What a tremendous showman he is. Not only does he have a God-given voice that we all enjoy, he also knows how to liven up the crowd and have a good, fun time, and spread joy and fun and the spirit of Christmas. I congratulate John Allen for his performance and for spreading joy that evening in Darwin.
Also to the very hard-working Dawn Lawrence who is a tremendous organiser. She worked all year on organising the event and on the evening, she was working flat out throughout to make sure it ran smoothly. She was very ably assisted on the evening by stage manager and volunteer Eunice de Ramos. I thank her for her efforts. She kept everyone on stage on time and the evening went very well.
I thank the sponsors, because without sponsors there would be no event. People often say, oh no, not the sponsors, but I actually say it takes a great deal of commitment for sponsors to step up and put their dollars forward. It is indeed with sincere heartfelt thanks that I acknowledge the sponsorship of the Northern Territory government, Casuarina Square, Darwin City Council, Channel 8 Darwin, now Channel 9, TIO, Zip Print, Top End Sounds, Chubb, Colex, Coates Hire and Aussie Signs.
Throughout the evening we showcased quite a lot of talent. Young Jessica Havens is a beautiful young teenager. She said it was her childhood dream to appear on stage at Carols by Candlelight in Darwin, being a local girl. Her dream came true that evening, and we were very lucky to hear the beautiful song that she performed for us. What a gorgeous voice, what a wonderful talent, and I am sure a very bright future.
We had the Sing-Song Signers, who performed several carols there by signing to us, a tremendous group of young girls who were very ably taught by Rachael Crowes, my congratulations go to them. I want to recognise the Darwin City Brass Band. They were fantastic. They really livened up the evening with their wonderful musical accompaniments, and also the Darwin Chorale, what a gorgeous chorale – they have heavenly voices, and congratulations to Nora Lewis who works very hard on making them the very professional chorale that they are.
Other popular people came on and performed for us throughout the evening; we had eight year old Sean Huttons, and his lovely dancers from the Art Sprouts. Sean Huttons came on dressed as a mini-Santa and some people would say he stole the show. What a terrific young man he is and what a very bright future I believe he has.
We also heard from Chris Stavrinos. Chris has a gorgeous voice. I had the pleasure of hearing him sing at Sanderson High School at the ASPA end of year evening, and Chris sang at that evening without any musical accompaniment, and he had a bewitchingly beautiful voice. I have to say, he did not let us down on the night. Carols by Candlelight was all the more blessed by his beautiful performance.
Congratulations to all the people who participated and worked hard throughout the night. The Kiwanis had a sausage sizzle, the Girl Guides were there, and the shaved ice man kept people certainly ticking over. The St John Ambulance volunteers were ever present, and the Northern Territory Police Force ensured that things ran very smoothly for us. It was a gorgeous night. Pradip Kandish was also another performer. He is a wonderful young man who hailed from Sri Lanka, and his parents are very popular people here in our community. I congratulate him on his performance.
Keeping in the spirit of Christmas, I attended the Indonesian Community Christmas function at Holy Family Primary School on Saturday, 21 December. That was an ecumenical function. Obviously, the Indonesian community were there, but there were members of the community from many different faiths who all came together and enjoyed the spirit of Christmas. We had Christians and Catholics mixed in with Indonesian people from other faiths and it was a very wonderful night. I know that the Gawa family, a family whom I honour and respect greatly, were key organisers of this event. My congratulations go out to Alia Gawa and Theresia. Pak Gawa teaches my children Indonesian. I know the community has a great deal of respect for the hard work that the Gawa family put in for and on behalf of the Indonesian community. I look forward to participating in another similar event later this year.
Early in 2003, I had the opportunity to attend the Holy Family Parish Church for the Feast of Santo Nino, a Filipino feast festival honouring children. It was a very formal Catholic Filipino festival. I was very deeply moved by the service from Father Luis. The service was in both English as well as Tagalog. The church was packed. The service was very beautiful. There was a procession as part of the service where the children and women walked forward to the altar with gifts. My daughters loved participating in that ceremony. It is part of the joy of being a multicultural society that our children can witness the wonderful festivities of other cultures. It enhances, very much, living in a community like Darwin to be able to attend these events. I thank the community, particularly Lisa Greenslade for inviting me. I was very humbled and honoured to be there and to participate in the ceremony. The procession went from the church down to the assembly area of Holy Family School where we partook in a traditional Filipino feast and singing and dancing, and presentations of flowers to an altar of sorts that was there. The night was a very lively and enjoyable night.
One of the great pleasures of being a member of parliament and representing the people is to participate in such a manner with the people we represent. The great joy I have is that I represent such an ethnically diverse community. The community of Karama and Malak is always constantly full of surprises and people who are prepared to put in a great deal of effort to bring their own particular ethnic community together in traditional celebrations. I certainly encourage that. I make the resources of my office available to support the efforts of these communities, and will continue to do so.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I spoke last night about my overseas visit. I was reporting on the segment where I was with the NYPD. I will take the opportunity tonight to continue with those remarks.
I was saying that, in the NYPD’s approach to a massive reduction in crime in New York, they based it on three imperatives: one was to solve the problem and not the incidence; secondly, the broken windows theory that was embraced by the NYPD; and thirdly, the CompStat process as an innovative way of managing police resources. This system, essentially, means that authority for decision-making and resources were devolved to the precinct level, as the Precinct Commander was viewed as essential to the management of crime at the local level. Up-to-date crime analysis and proven crime reduction techniques were made available to the Precinct Commander. However, commanders were made accountable for the performance of their precincts in NYPD meetings that became known as CompStat meetings, to ensure that a coherent strategy was being implemented throughout every precinct in the NYPD.
There is no doubt that the CompStat meeting process is a very gruelling process, and commanders who do not meet the expectations on performance are replaced - or certainly were replaced in the early days of the CompStat meetings. More than that, it not only ensures that commanders are adopting the strategy that is put in place right throughout the whole command, it also enables assistance for the Precinct Commanders in the tactics that they are employing. For example, if they are trying to introduce a particular tactic that has been demanded from the higher level, they get the opportunity to talk about the resources that are being made available or not being made available. In terms of the CompStat process, I was briefed by a Lieutenant Eugene Whyte, who was a Deputy Commissioner of Operations and responsible for the preparation of these meetings. Eugene Whyte has been with the CompStat process since its inception. He has attended many hundreds of these meetings and was a very good source of information as to the value of these meetings, and to get an understanding of how they evolved.
They did not actually evolve out of the high-tech intelligence analysis that has now become part of the process. They really evolved out of the demand by Bill Bratten that the strategies that he was putting in place were being implemented right throughout his command. In the early days of the NYPD evolution, there was not a large increase in intelligence and technical resources. The CompStat meetings in themselves became an excellent way of interrogating the work that was being done at precinct level, of understanding how the tactics were being employed and more and more, as the analysis on crime was gathered, they became more precise on the sorts of interrogation and two-way feedback that occurred.
I saw the CompStat process in place in the New South Wales police recently. They adopted it when Commissioner Ryan was police commissioner there. He was very impressed with the way the NYPD did business. He adopted the CompStat process in New South Wales and there is no doubt that the New South Wales police use the intelligence gathering analysis and a large amount of effort put into computer-aided intelligence in order to ensure that the precincts have all the available information at their needs at the precinct level, or the local station level in New South Wales. It also allows the same information to be looked at regularly and updated at the highest level. Every person, essentially, in operations in New South Wales can look any command and see all of the information about that command in their day to day performance, any time they want to dial it up. That is, essentially, the same process that exists in New York.
In that regard, there is a lesson to be learned in terms of the adaptation of this process. It was adopted by New South Wales and it is being used very effectively there. The big difference in New South Wales is that they felt that the process used in New York was far too rigorous. As I said, there is no doubt that, as part of the CompStat process, many commanders were replaced; it was used as a method of weeding out those who were not seen as being capable of leading their precincts through the change that the commissioner wanted. There was a fairly rigorous turnover of precinct commanders till they got the leadership teams in place that they wanted right throughout the NYPD. The CompStat process was essentially the tool that the police commissioner used to achieved that change.
In New South Wales they felt the process was too rigorous, far too gruelling on their commanders - and certainly the CompStat meeting that I attended - and I saw two of their area commanders interrogated there - it was more a counselling session, one would have to say, rather than the NYPD process, which is much tougher.
Mr Stirling: They blame the police for the level of crime.
Mr BURKE: Sorry?
Mr Stirling: They blame the police for the level of crime in New York.
Mr BURKE: Well, there was no doubt that the police themselves decided that they had a problem and they were going to fix it. It depends who you say was to blame.
But in New South Wales, as I said, if you are a precinct commander or local station commander, you get six weeks’ notice that the CompStat process is about to commence. All of the information is made available to the station: these are the sorts of trends we have on your performance; these are the areas where we believe you are doing well; these are the areas we think you are doing badly; this is the proactive effort we reckon is happening in this station; we have questions on these areas as to why you are not performing; and expect to be interrogated on this when you come. You have six weeks’ notice.
In New York they have 24 hours’ notice. That is a pretty tough process when you get 24 hours’ notice that you are going in, and you go through the CompStat process and there is no doubt that those people are pretty pleased when it is over.
Another area I was particular keen to look at was the relationship between the NYPD and the school system. I visited the New York Police Department’s School Safety Division where I was briefed by the NYPD officers and visited a high school in Harlem. One of the interesting things there is, that the police are very much involved in schools. They see that as an essential part of their job. They see the effectiveness of police in uniform as integral to not only the safety of schools but the relationship between law and the police and children.
In fairness though, they do have a greater problem in terms of the literal physical safety of their schools. There has been instances throughout the United States – we have seen them on television here - of shootings at schools. The safety of schools is a concern right throughout the United States, including New York. Part of the effort of police at schools is attending to the physical security of the school and the security of the children whilst they are at school. They do have uniformed, fully qualified police in their School Safety Division. They also have others who are called police officers; they are actually school safety officers of the School Safety Division. They are not fully qualified police officers, they are safety officers, or peace officers. If you look at them, they look exactly like an NYPD policeman except they do not carry a gun, and they carry so much stuff on the hip you would not know if a gun was there, anyway.
One of the things that struck me after a while was that you see so many NYPD cars on the street, but after talking to police, you realise that it is only the white cars with blue stripes that are heavily armed, and full-on patrol cars. All the blue cars with white stripes are degrees of peace officers, all under the NYPD banner. One of the ways they get this omnipresence of police is that they not only integrated a number of divisions, they integrated the Transit Authority into the NYPD, they integrated the people who do traffic infringements into the NYPD and, essentially, everyone you see on the streets, in uniform, although part of the NYPD, many of them are not fully qualified and armed police. But the presence, that omnipresence, is there all the time.
The School Safety Officers, as I said, attend to the safety of the school. They carry out many of the jobs of our school-based constables. There is an extension of that as well. In the school I visited the actual police officer has a responsibility for the equivalent of our Police Junior Rangers; they have a little segment at each of their middle high schools. This individual has a direct responsibility to look after troubled kids in that school, to put them into activities, to ensure that they are basically getting the sort of nurturing and relationship with police that is good.
The truancy program in the school that I visited was run by the police. It was not run by anyone else. In dealing with truants, the School Safety Officers took truants back to the high school. They stayed at the high school with the School Safety Officer, they were counselled by the school principal. Social workers would be involved if they felt the kids had particular problems, and the parents had to come to the schools to pick their kids up. Of course, there was counselling that occurred for the parents as well. They were particularly pleased with the effects they were getting from that program. In a city the size of New York, with the enormous numbers of problems they would have with truancy, it was particularly pleasing for me to talk to those people in large schools. The middle high school that I visited had about 1200 students and many of their schools are much bigger.
I was particularly pleased to hear them talk about individual cases. One School Safety Officer said to me they had one child who never attended school. They picked him up and said: ‘Why don’t you go to school?’. The kid said: ‘My mother’s not interested in me going to school. When I talk to her all she says is “Finish your homework and then you can watch TV”. She is not interested, I am not interested’. So what they did was they went and saw the mother, spoke to the mother, and told the mother about what the child saying - this is the police doing this. The mother said, ‘I can’t read or write’. She had never actually admitted that to the child. So she was not able to express her problem to the child, he was not relating to her. The put the mother - she was a single mum - through a special school program to increase her literacy and numeracy skills. She and the child improved their relationship, and everyone was pleased that the kid was going back to school.
It is one example but, again, pretty impressive for a city the size of New York with all the problems they have, and the focus that this particular School Safety Officer had on one child in his school. I thought that was pretty good.
Whilst I was in the patrol car with them, there was an instance of a fight happening in the school. Three cars were called to the school for that fight. So this School Safety Division is quite effective. It deals with all problems that exist in schools, and it deals with it like that. In the NYPD they have an all-calls response time of less than seven minutes, and they reckon for most calls they can respond in three minutes, and for anything involving an officer it is seconds - and they are pretty proud of that. Mind you, that has to be seen in the context of the size of Lower Manhattan or the New York City area, and the fact that in terms of acreages, there is an enormous number of cars and patrols out there in relationship to the area.
So, if one were to make some observations about the NYPD quickly, firstly, the increase in police numbers has had a direct effect on their ability to deal with the duties and responsibilities that they took in order to clean up crime in New York. They increased the NYPD by 12 000 extra police over the last 10 years, and that has enabled them to not only have new strategies, but also make those strategies work because of the increased manpower, and also to demand power from those commands. If you have the resources provided to you, you have the intelligence provided to you, then you can be held very accountable for your effort. The accountability comes through the CompStat process and the analysis they do of the efforts of that command.
How does that apply to the Northern Territory? The reality is that – and the commissioner would be the first to admit it – most stations in the Northern Territory get through the day, and they get through the day because their ability to do any more than put out their patrols and respond to a day effort takes up all of their resources. It is only when we, I think, put in an enormous amount of additional resources that we will really be able to demand from police the sorts of performance which the public expects. Is the public being too selfish? Is the public expectation too high? It goes back to the perception of law and order and control in society that the police, through their government, are exercising. I reckon that we can blame the NT News and others for emotionalism, but the reality is the perception out there is bad, despite the fact we have an excellent police force.
We are not addressing crime at all levels. We are addressing many crimes based on the resources that we can deploy. It will only be once we, I think, put an enormous amount of more money into the system that police will really be able to make a difference.
Zero tolerance is a term that has been thrown around. There is no doubt that it is criticised for its oppressive nature in dealing with people who are disadvantaged. My information, when I was there, was that the police generally apply zero tolerance fairly sensitively. It is a fact, though, that they are accountable for crimes that are committed. They have to react to the crimes that are committed. They have to have response and they have to deal with that crime. How they actually deal with it does not necessarily mean they frisk and pick up people, but in many respects they use counselling procedures and others, but they certainly deal with it.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, your time has expired.
Mr BURKE: Thank you. I will continue my remarks at a later hour.
Dr BURNS (Johnston): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it is a sad duty for me tonight to rise to speak about Mr John McDonough, who passed away just within the last week. John died at Royal Darwin Hospital on 11 February, aged 87, leaving his wife Anne, fondly known by everyone as Nan, and his sons, Noel and Robert, four grandchildren, including Christian who lives in Darwin, two brand new great-grandchildren, born just four days before John died.
Nan and John also adopted Laurel Leinster into their family, and I say adopted, because Laurel was adopted into the family, I think, as the daughter that Nan and John did not have. She is part of their very close family unit. Laurel lives in Mareeba in Queensland. Nan and John did spend Christmas in 2001 with Laurel and her family. They were very close to Laurel, and it was she who delivered the eulogy at John’s memorial service the other day. I am relying heavily on Laurel’s notes and what she said there, although I will certainly be adding my own personal recollections about John, so thank you, Laurel.
John was born in Cloncurry, Queensland, on 21 April 1915. John had some fantastic stories to tell about his early years when he was growing up in Chillagoe and Mareeba. He started his working life in the late 1920s as a ringer for a short time, then as a baker’s boy. In the 1930s, John started as a salesman with Jack and Newell in Chillagoe, and at this time his skills as a boxer became apparent.
John, in stature, was quite, I suppose, a diminutive man, but as you will see from his record as a fighter, he was a real gentleman. That is the way everyone described him. He was the consummate gentleman. He never drank or smoked his whole life, and as we will see, he actually worked for a tobacco company in Mareeba, that was a corporation that used to be involved in the marketing and curing of tobacco.
John was a real individualist. He became the North Queensland Amateur Champion in both the Fly and Bantam weight divisions, winning bouts in Cairns and Brisbane. He was referred to, in those days, as ‘this classy Chillagoe boy’, and ‘J B McDonough - the best boy of his weight in Australia’. John certainly punched above his weight, and he was someone of great energy and enthusiasm.
In 1941, John met and married Anne, the start of a 62 year love affair. They were a very close couple. My condolences, and I am sure the condolences of this House, go out to Nan and the family. I was proud to host John and Nan’s 60th wedding anniversary in my electorate office in October 2001, where I was able to present them with letters of congratulations from Queen Elizabeth, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the federal Opposition Leader, the Administrator, and the Chief Minister, as well as many other people.
John was called up in 1942 and served with the RAAF. He spent his war years at Lake Boga, building airplanes. He was fantastic at this job as he was able to fit into the smaller places of the planes to do the riveting that most of his mates could not. It was gruelling work, but John was not the type to shirk hard work.
At the end of the war, John, Nan and their elder son, Noel, returned to Chillagoe, and in 1946, Robert was born. John had some fantastic memories of Queensland in the early days. He was a real bushman. His father was a fettler in the railways and they travelled all over Queensland with the railways in some very isolated areas of Queensland. John was a life long supporter of the Labor party, as was his father, and he remembered some great characters. He remembered ‘Red Ted’ Theodore, who was a Queensland premier, and also was Treasurer in the Scullin government. So John had a history of the nitty gritty of Australian politics and Queensland politics during a time of upheaval. He took an active interest in Northern Territory politics also. He was a member of the Casuarina branch. On behalf of the branch, I would like to extend, once again, our condolences to the family.
In the 1950s, the family moved to Mareeba, where John worked for the next 28 years with the North Queensland Tobacco Growers, working as a sales assistant, department head, managed at their head office and, finally, as security manager.
The interesting thing about that is that John had actually constructed a house in Chillagoe, and when he moved to Mareeba, he took the house to bits, bit by bit, and put it on a rail car, had it transported to Mareeba, and then erected it. He had all the parts numbered, and the plan, and the kids helped him. The kids also helped him build a holiday house down on the coast. So John was a real builder but, more importantly, he built a great family. When they were in Mareeba, and subsequently, they had a real interest in the theatre. That was John and Nan’s passion. They had a theatre group in that area and were always putting on plays and recitations. We heard at the service the other day that often their house was a bit bare of furniture because it was all off being used as sets in the play. They were very generous people. Of course, Nan is still very generous. But the stories of the generosity of the family abound, and I know that the family are still very interested in the theatre, and perform regularly in the Territory.
When John retired in 1980, he was the longest serving employee with the association. John and Nan have spent their lives working for others, and together they were the driving force behind many community projects. Some of the things John was involved in and at the highest level were the Mareeba Turf Club, the Girl in a Million Quest, the Tobacco Festival Committee, the Shell Art Show, Mareeba Rodeo Association, Mareeba Rugby League, National Fitness Club and Mareeba State High P&C Association. John served on that for many years after his own boys had completed their schooling, such was his dedication to the community.
John was also engaged as a country reporter for the ABC radio station 4QY and the Cairns Post. He, together with Nan, established play reading groups, conducted rehearsals for major productions for the Mareeba Repertory Society and established a theatre in Mareeba. In 1980, John and Nan left Mareeba, moving first to St Huberts Island on the Hawkesbury River, and then in 1992 moving to Darwin. I certainly believe that that was Darwin’s gain.
In Darwin, John now in his late 70s and Nan set about entertaining at the Chan Retirement Village, Tracy Lodge and the Salvation Army Home; John as the MC and Nan as the leader of a small party of entertainers. John involved himself with Neighbourhood Watch in the Moil area where they lived, the University of the Third Age, the Friends of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra and other organisations. It was my pleasure, along with my wife, to accompany John and Nan to a number of these functions and they were certainly music lovers. John loved music and Nan continues to love music, and they are very well thought of within the Friends of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra.
John always called into the electorate office in Moil on his way to buying a paper every day and it was always great to have a chat with him. John always had an interesting story and was always up on the news of the day and together with Nan they attended many performances of the DSO and a few functions in my electorate office. They also loved film. John McDonough was a gentle soul, full of humour and patience and above all his love for Nan shone through. He is going to be very sorely missed in the Moil area.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016