2004-02-26
Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the Speaker’s Gallery of His Honour, Mr Ted Egan AM, Administrator of the Northern Territory, accompanied by Mr Frank Leverett, the Official Secretary. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House today of the recipients of the 2004 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women. This is the third year that the Study Award has been made to women enrolled in vocational and tertiary programs in the Territory. It is an award valued at $20 000, each year, of which $14 000 is made available to a woman to undertake a tertiary study program, and $6000 for a vocational study program. The 2004 award has been widely promoted throughout the Territory and by closing date, at the end of last year, 35 applications had been received. Seven were for the vocational award, and 28 for the tertiary.
The selection panel that met to assess the applications, on my behalf, comprised Professor Helen Garnett, Vice-Chancellor of Charles Darwin University; Veronica Arbon, Executive Director of Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education; and Don Zoellner, Pro Vice-Chancellor of TAFE and Regional Operations at Charles Darwin University.
Applications were received from a wide range of women; amongst them were young school leavers, women running small businesses and women returning to study after long periods away from formal education. Many applicants shared their plans for using their skills to work for their community.
Although smaller than in previous years, the field of candidates was of a generally high standard. As the first three applicants for the tertiary award were close to equally ranked, the panel recommended that the merit of the second and third applicants on the short-list should be acknowledged. Annette Wilson and Paola Ciarla were highly commended by the panel for their applications.
Annette is an indigenous Territory woman who, as a senior project officer with a Commonwealth department, is working with non-government organisations and people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Annette is in the final year of a Bachelor of Laws at Charles Darwin University and on completion of articles is keen to work in policy development. Annette is particularly interested in how the law affects women and children, especially when legislation may place women at a disadvantage.
Paola Ciarla is a young, second generation Territorian with a strong record of service to the community. She was 2002 Young Territorian of the Year and was awarded the Centenary Medal last year. Paola will commence studying for a Bachelor of Business this year. She intends to use her qualification and experience to promote women in leadership through mentoring and encouraging programs.
These women had impressive applications and I congratulate them and wish them all the best with their studies.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker and honourable members, it is now my very pleasant duty to advise this House of the recipients of the 2004 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women.
Wendy Butterworth is the recipient of the Vocational Award, with which she will study for the Diploma of Training and Assessment Systems at Charles Darwin University. Wendy manages the network of training centres in eastern Arnhem Land Aboriginal communities and in the regional centre of Nhulunbuy. Over the past four years, Wendy has been instrumental in developing excellent facilities, including information technology resources, in all of the centres in the network. She is committed to ensuring that all of her clients in each of the training centres can develop the understanding and competencies to use the information and communication equipment available. Wendy is keen to gain skills to develop information and communication technology training appropriate to a range of diverse groups.
Sarah Debney is the recipient of the Tertiary Award and will study for a Bachelor of Business at Charles Darwin University. Currently living in Palmerston, Sarah was born and raised in the Territory and comes from a strong rural background. From her outback childhood, early schooling through the Alice Springs School of the Air, and subsequent life experiences, Sarah is passionate about a future living and working in the rural industry. Sarah intends to use her qualification to develop strategies to enhance employment for young Territorians, especially Aboriginal youths in regional Territory.
Madam Speaker, I invite all members to join me in congratulating Wendy and Sarah and wishing them success in their studies and in their future endeavours.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for her statement. Along with her, I congratulate the two applicants who were short-listed. I also join with the Chief Minister in congratulating Wendy Butterworth and Sarah Debney. I am sure both of those women will succeed and go on to bigger and better things.
I, not surprisingly, will use this opportunity, as I have done so on many occasions, to refer to the Chief Minister’s appalling performance in the area of women’s policy. In fact, I am surprised the Chief Minister has even kept up this award. She has done little else in the area of women’s policy. I have said before, and I will say it again, that this Chief Minister is the worst Minister for Women’s Policy the Territory has ever seen, and we are all very surprised at that. I would have thought, as, indeed, many other Territory women would have thought, that as the Chief Minister is a woman, we might have been able to see some good outcomes. Personally, I was hoping for that but I have given up all of hope.
This is a Chief Minister who knows nothing and has cared little about the women’s information centre in Alice Springs. When asked about it in estimates, she did not even know what it was. This is a Chief Minister who, when she was Treasurer, presided over a truckload of budget documents that referred to the word ‘women’ eight times and then, when examining budget estimates, essentially said, ‘Well, women and men should be all lumped in together’. Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chief Minister. To your shame, you maintain this line and to the embarrassment, I might say, of those around you.
I was delighted when you appointed the member for Arafura not only as Minister for Family and Community Services but as minister assisting you in the area of women’s policy, because, by God, she will do better than you have ever done in this area. So, member for Arafura, come out with some good ideas and strut your stuff, because your boss has not!
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is not an edifying experience to hear the member for Araluen. It is never an edifying experience to hear the member for Araluen talking garbage. She does it quite often. In this context, because she has a vision that is peculiarly the member for Araluen’s vision about what women in the Territory want to see supported and enhanced, if it does not fit that agenda, everyone else is wrong.
We are used to the rantings and ravings of the member for Araluen. In a way, I take them as a compliment because I can stand here on behalf of Territory women and say that on the issues that really affect them, we are moving ahead. We are moving this Territory ahead. In education, health, housing and building our economy, Territory women are saying: ‘Yes, go for it’. I do not know who the member for Araluen is actually representing.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to give the House an update on the new principal club for Territory racing. Earlier this month, members of the Darwin Turf Club unanimously voted in favour of establishing a new principal racing club for the Territory. That vote signalled a new era in Territory horse racing aimed at moving the industry forward and strengthening it into the future.
The Territory will now have a more representative body to oversee its interests at both Territory and national level. Previously, the Darwin Turf Club had principal club status in the Territory and did a great job. However, since becoming minister, various sections of the racing industry expressed concerns to me that they lacked representation on that principal club. In response to those concerns, government, in September last year, circulated a discussion paper to industry parties proposing a new representative structure for the principal club.
We received 28 submissions in response to the discussion paper. Most were largely supportive of the concept, but there was concern that it may be too costly or would add another layer of bureaucracy to our relatively small racing industry. Government listened to those concerns and consulted further. The decision was made to establish the principal club within the Darwin Turf Club’s existing constitution, keeping both costs and red tape to a minimum. It also made it easier for the new principal club to be accepted by the Australian Racing Board. As a result of the favourable vote by Darwin Turf Club members to this concept, the Darwin Turf Club constitution will be changed accordingly.
The new principal club racing committee will be made up of an independent chair, three Darwin Turf Club members, two Alice Springs Turf Club members and one country club representative. Expressions of interest are currently being sought for position of chairperson and the country club representative. The Darwin and Alice Turf clubs will have the task of choosing their own representatives.
As part of the consultation process, it was clear that jockeys and trainers wanted a greater say in industry business. Australian Racing Board protocols preclude licensed people such as jockeys and trainers from being members of a principal club. However, jockeys and trainers’ business will be a standing agenda item for principal club committee meetings, which will give them the opportunity to raise concerns or have a direct say on any direction the industry may be taking.
While the principal club will operate under the Darwin Turf Club constitution, its activities and deliberations will be quarantined from the day-to-day operations of the DTC. Both the Darwin Turf Club and Alice Springs Turf Club will continue to be responsible for the daily operations of their respective clubs. The principal club will be responsible for controlling, supervising, regulating and promoting horse racing throughout the Territory as well as developing and implementing policies for the enhancement of the industry. It will also represent the Northern Territory at the national level.
I look forward to receiving submissions for the positions of chairperson and country club representative. I have every confidence that we will find Territorians with the expertise to carry out this important task.
I want to put on the record the great job the Darwin Turf Club has done to date as the principal racing club for the Northern Territory. The club’s advice, support and cooperation throughout the consultation phase was extremely helpful and helped to get this across the line. I also thank all of those industry representatives and interested parties who provide valuable input to the process. Thanks also to members opposite who supported the proposal, maintaining the traditional bipartisan support for racing we have always enjoyed in this House.
It is an exciting time for Territory horse racing. By working together and setting our sights high, we have a real opportunity to further build on an industry that plays such an important role in the Territory’s social and economic life.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement. I trust with this new representative structure that the sport of horse racing will be the winner and it will raise the profile of racing in the Northern Territory and allow it to make a far greater contribution to the offerings in tourism, particularly as we look forward to opening up our market in tourism. I can see increased potential as we enhance our offerings, particularly with this new representative structure.
I look forward with great interest to see the next stage of this, who will actually be heading up this new structure. Of course, in the spirit of bipartisanship, we wish you all the best. We know that the structure that you have announced today is the result of a process that was put into effect about five years ago. It is good to see that the process has continued. We welcome the statement and look forward to the next exciting episode when we have the announcement of who will be heading up this new structure.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his supportive comments. There has been some media speculation in the Northern Territory News about who the chairman may be. I do not know at this stage what nominations have been received. They do not close until tomorrow so any speculation on that score is entirely premature. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his support.
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, I rise today to report on another element of our Building Healthier Communities five year framework - our commitment to renew the emphasis on sexually transmissible infections and HIV/AIDS through early intervention, prevention and treatment.
In the framework, we signalled our determination to ensure our health system responds to the changing needs of Territorians and to any identified gaps in services. To this end, we will renew our emphasis on combating HIV/AIDS and sexually transmissible infections, not only by committing considerable additional resources in to these areas, but also by ensuring those dollars are applied to the best effect.
The challenges are well known. The Northern Territory currently has the highest per capita rates of bacterial sexually transmitted infections in Australia, with a much higher burden endured by indigenous people in remote communities. Work done by Professor Frank Bowden in the Northern Territory in the 1990s showed that the big problem contributing to the high rates of STIs amongst indigenous people in the Northern Territory is their relative lack of access to effective primary health care. These high rates also contribute to high numbers of complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infections in new born babies. It is well known that the presence of other STIs increases the risk of transmission of HIV. It is clearly an area we must address.
The role of primary health care agencies in addressing STI/HIV is crucial, and they require sufficient resources and public health advice and support to take on this task. However, addressing highly infectious and mobile diseases such as STIs and HIV requires a broad collaborative approach, with close partnerships between different sectors and different regions between public health agencies and primary health care services.
I am pleased to remind the House that we have already allocated an extra $2m to the STI/HIV program area in 2004-05, which increases to $2.5m per year after that. The Commonwealth government has also recently agreed to contribute an extra $400 000 a year recurrent funding to the NT for STI/HIV programs. We welcome this support and look forward to continued cooperation with the Commonwealth in this and other areas.
To ensure these resources are applied in ways that will achieve the best outcomes for Territorians, the Department of Health and Community Services will conduct a wide-ranging review of STI and HIV programs with the participation of all relevant government and non-government agencies. The review will assess the current state of programs based on evidence of effectiveness and best practice; identify barriers to and key factors associated with success; provide key strategic recommendations for a comprehensive STI/HIV strategy for the Northern Territory; and advise on the most effective use of current and future funds.
In conducting the review, DHCS also aims to forge new bonds of partnership between different sectors. If we can learn the lessons of successful programs and apply them in partnership between different sectors, there is a very real potential to reduce the high rates of STIs and combat the onset of HIV in our jurisdiction. Our Building Healthier Communities five year framework and significant funding commitments signal our determine to do just that.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I certainly welcome the minister’s report this morning. Sexually transmitted infections are a growing problem here in the Northern Territory. In fact, in the age group 15 to 19 year olds, the Australian average is 92 cases per 100 000 people. Here in the Northern Territory the current rate of gonorrhoea, is 10 times the national average for that age group for 15 to 19 year olds, at 922 cases per 100 000 people, and growing. It is a very serious problem.
One of the outcomes of sexually transmitted infections, as members would be aware, is infertility. In young people, and particularly young women, you can imagine the tragedy that this causes for them. I welcome this increase funding into this area. I have had concerns in the past and they continue, with the rate of sexually transmitted infections in children under the age of 15 years. Last year there was a significant amount of public debate on the situation that for children age 0 to 15 years, there were just under 200 cases of infection here in the Northern Territory. A lot of concern was expressed by people about that. Hopefully something is going to be done, particularly to encourage health professionals to do something to report those cases to the authorities, so that where there are concerns of sexual abuse that something is being done about it.
I am pleased to hear the minister’s report. The review that is being organised is something that needs to be done obviously on urgency. We do need to develop a program that is going to address this incredibly serious problem in the Northern Territory.
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, I certainly welcome the spirit of the opposition’s reply and I look forward to working collaboratively on this issue. It is far too important to kick around as a political football. We have to use every resource and every input that we can from this House and the agencies that have responsibility. I take on board your reminder about those young age STIs; that is something that my colleague, the minister for community services, will also be very interested in, as I am as Justice Minister and Attorney-General. We need to look at that problem from all those different aspects.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I rise to inform the House about a very important issue concerning the amendment to the Fisheries Act 1988. The Fisheries Act was proclaimed in 1988, and has been amended on a number of occasions, in an attempt to provide greater administrative flexibility for commercial and recreational fishing, as well as aquaculture. Significant changes were made in 1995, in seeking to recognise the roles of the Northern Territory and the Commonwealth in managing fisheries. More recently, the Commonwealth government has implemented an additional layer of legislation for our export fisheries. Consequently, the Fisheries Act 1988 has become cumbersome and confusing for both industry and government alike. The Aquatic Resource User Group Forum formed by this government, brings together all major users of aquatic resources in one forum has recommended that a Fisheries Act be reviewed.
Stakeholders now seek a more holistic framework for the management of fisheries and aquatic resources in the Northern Territory. This group identified areas such as indigenous development, management flexibility, environmental impact, and holistic fisheries management as specific areas which the current Fisheries Act does not adequately cover.
The existing Fisheries Act is principally a licensing framework, with little provision for an ecosystem approach to the management of aquatic resources and the wider environment. The introduction of the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and a national ecological sustainability development framework for Australian fisheries means that the Northern Territory now requires a more comprehensive approach in dealing with environmental, social and economic issues, what is generally termed the triple bottom line.
To meet the requirements of the new Commonwealth legislation, and wider community expectations, the harvest of aquatic resources by all stakeholders must be done in a manner that is equitable and ensures the long term sustainability of the targeted species and the rest of the ecosystem. The existing Fisheries Act fails to make adequate provision for such a management approach.
There is an increasing expectation by all users of aquatic resources in the Northern Territory, that people fishing illegally be appropriately punished when caught. This government has increased penalties for serious offences, including the ability to ban persistent offenders from the industry. Key stakeholder groups including the Amateur Fishermens Association of the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory Seafood Council and land councils wish to consider further penalties if these changes prove to be ineffective.
The proposed terms of reference for the review are to investigate the current and proposed amendments, as required, in at least the areas of integrated management of fish resources; compliance; ecologically sustainable development principles; Commonwealth legislation linkages, including extra certification; indigenous fishing issues, and wider legislation linkages. This government will establish a steering committee to provide advice during the consultation process, with this steering committee to identify any issues of concern raised and propose options for addressing those concerns. The steering committee will also be responsible for collating and considering all submissions, and preparing a final report for consideration by government.
My department will have an added role of balancing competing interests in this forum. It is proposed that the steering committee would consist of representatives of the Northern Territory government, the commercial fishing industry, the recreational fishing industry, the fishing tourism industry, indigenous fishing interests and environmental interests. It is considered that the formation of a steering committee with broad representation, such as that proposed, will be strongly supported by key fisher lobby groups such as AFANT, the Northern Territory Seafood Council and land councils. A full review is expected to take approximately 18 months to complete and will engage all aquatic users. The first 12 months of this process will be mostly consultation with the last six months dedicated to preparing a report with recommendations for Cabinet’s consideration.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome the news of this very important review, and certainly a very important industry in the Northern Territory whether you consider it from a commercial sense or a recreational sense. We all know how important the management of our fisheries is, and no more so than the stakeholders that the minister has mentioned. Like all things, acts need to be reviewed constantly. It is a work in progress as we move through time and we need to do these reviews. I look forward to contributing in any way possible and seeing the report. Hopefully it will be made available for some sort comment prior to changes to the current act coming into this House. There will be many issues that can be raised within that review; certainly the minister has mentioned where they are heading with it. I am sure many other issues will come up as the review takes place over the next 18 months.
In terms of management plans, I would like to see the government, as I have been calling for since three ministers ago - you are the fourth minister now in the last two and half years - and I note that AFANT is now calling for, the Seafood Council is now calling for, and that is some sort of management strategy of the barramundi fishery to give some certainty into that area of the fishery. We know there are large investments, both commercial and recreational, and the income is very important to the Northern Territory. We have to give certainty now in that area. I would like to see you develop, and I know the aquatic user groups have been talking about it, a strategy for the next 10 years in that fishery area. Certainly, you have some advice from me on that in terms of a submission to the first or the second minister but, anyway, you’ve got it.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his support. He is quite right; we have to review the act especially in view of the federal legislation. Recently, we have had news that the northern prawn fishery is in some trouble. We have to make sure that we maintain our resources and, quite rightly so, both amateur groups and commercial fishermen require tougher penalties.
I foreshadow that I have asked the department to start preparing a five year plan for fisheries, with a 10 year outlook. I assure the House that it is going to be an open and transparent process. I welcome any submission from the public of the Territory and certainly any submission from the other side of the House.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004 (Serial 206) passing through all stages at this sittings.
Motion agreed to.
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, as members will be aware, during the November sittings, I moved that the Assembly take note of the Remuneration Tribunal Report No 1 of 2003. At that time, I put on the record the government’s views about the report and its findings, so my remarks today will be brief.
As I indicated during the November sittings, the Tribunal’s report concludes an open and inclusive process in which all members of this House and the Territory public are invited to make submissions to the tribunal about members’ remuneration. This process, as we know, occurs on an annual basis. I believe this is an important process in which, following advertisements in the main Territory newspapers, any member of the Territory community with an interest in these matters can contribute to the review.
Mr Alder’s tribunal received written submissions from yourself, Madam Speaker, the member for Nelson, the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, the CLP Opposition, and the Leader of Government Business on behalf of government. The tribunal took evidence in Darwin in person. While no individual members of the public made submissions, it is nonetheless important that they had the opportunity to do so.
As I indicated in November, Mr Alder has continued his recent work in making structural changes to the format of the determination to increase clarity and simplicity in relation to members’ entitlements. This is important to do, not only for the benefit of members and officials, but also for increased transparency and accountability generally. The report of 2003 continues this clarification process without fundamentally changing the scope of members’ entitlements. Clarifications of uncertainties and anomalies in previous determinations have been addressed, particularly in relation to travel, with more logical arrangements to the structure of the determination being recommended.
An increase in flexibility and the use of trips by the opposition where the number of trips can be pooled and used by shadow ministers collectively has been recommended with no additional cost to taxpayers. Increases to electoral allowance and office holders’ salaries at the CPI rate of approximately 1.8% is recommended, while the tribunal highlights that office holders’ remuneration and electoral allowances have not been substantially increased for some time. Mr Alder reports the real value of electorate allowances is declining and the balance that must be struck by the tribunal is one of ensuring members have the appropriate level of resources to properly service their constituencies while appropriately considering the cost to taxpayers. As I indicated in November, changes to the postage rates and new communication arrangements for mobile phones and Internet services, which includes the removal of the mobile phone allowance for members, are recommended by the tribunal. In summary, the overall effect of the recommended changes, including the application of the CPI, will mean no change in the rate of electorate allowances payable to urban members and very little change in the rate paid to regional members.
Madam Speaker, thanks go to tribunal chair, Otto Alder, for his work. I know members will have carefully considered this report.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I join the Chief Minister in thanking Mr Otto Alder, the chair of the tribunal, for his great work. He has been a very independent chair. I was disappointed two years ago when he came down with a report that the Chief Minister decided to reject. If we have an independent tribunal, then we should allow Mr Alder to be totally independent and accept his advice without stirring the pot by knocking it back.
I like the way Mr Alder has aggregated all electoral expenses together to allow simplicity of the matter - that is a good way to go - including all the communications facilities that members need to do their work well. One of the matters that Mr Alder commented on was the use of light rail for members’ travel. I look forward to perhaps using that as an opportunity to travel from Alice Springs to Darwin, and returning home, on The Ghan for sittings.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of points on the Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination. As you know, last year, you could travel by car as part of your interstate entitlement. One of the new rules, you might say, under the Remuneration Tribunal Report is that you cannot. That is a bit sad because, in my case, I did continue to travel by car. A car does give you the flexibility to stop to see people, and not have to say, ‘Well, excuse me, I have to go, the plane is going’. You had a chance to meet other people. You had the flexibility, if you were to do your job correctly, that you could not do with plane travel. I hope that area will be looked at.
I gather there has been some informal discussion on this issue with the tribunal. I encourage members of parliament to perhaps put some suggestions to the tribunal. I know the tribunal is concerned that using a vehicle as part of your interstate entitlement could be a bottomless pit, so to say, which would far exceed your entitlement if you were flying. I understand that. However, I am sure there are ways around that, such as capping the level which you can claim. There may be other ways you can do it. Certainly, I do not believe that it should be excluded from your interstate entitlement. It is a concern the tribunal had, and it is probably just a matter of us sitting down and discussing the issue, putting some controls on it, and we could probably come back with a sensible arrangement.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions, albeit very brief, to the determination from the Remuneration Tribunal. Overall, I believe the tribunal, chaired by Otto Alder, has delivered a balanced determination which continues to simplify and clarify members’ entitlements. Every member of this House, and Territorians generally, had an opportunity to contribute to the review’s work, and government thanks the tribunal for that work. Issues, such as the one raised by the member for Nelson, need to go back to the next Remuneration Determination and those things will be dealt with appropriately.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome this piece of legislation today. I welcome it as the minister’s first piece of legislation to pass through this House, and congratulations.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr BALDWIN: Albeit, this is a very simple piece of amendment legislation that deals only with administrative arrangements under the agreements that we have with the Commonwealth, and every state has with the Commonwealth, to keep corresponding legislation in every state on the National Environment Protection Council. This is an amendment to our Northern Territory act, to discuss a number of issues.
The National Environment Protection Council is a very important Commonwealth body, charged with implementing environment protection measures right across Australia that we all have to comply with. One that was mentioned the other day, not so long ago in the paper, was the National Pollutant Inventory. It did not give us a good rap sheet, from what I read of it. Anyway, we are a part of that and it is good that we have to look at those issues and report on them.
I am not going to waste the minister’s time to get onto her feet for her first time to pass a piece of legislation. This deals with just administrative arrangements that have been agreed to and as I said, have to be implemented across every state and territory to comply with the agreements that we have made in the past with Commonwealth to do with Environment Protection Council. I certainly welcome the minister and her new piece of amending legislation.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Environment and Heritage): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Daly for his support. It is my first piece of legislation and I am glad it is a simple one and we are putting it through.
Just to wrap up, it is often said that environment issues do not know boundaries. Our rivers flow between states and our greenhouse gas emissions affect climate on a global scale. We need national and international cooperation. Governments have responded by establishing forums for resolving environmental issues in a constructive and cooperative manner. The National Environment Protection Council is one such forum. It is important that the Territory plays it part. We have much to learn and much to share. This bill is about the Territory fulfilling its national responsibility as a member of the National Environment Protection Council. The making of national environment protection measures by the council leads to consistent, efficient and effective approaches to managing air, land and water quality across Australia. This bill streamlines the making of minor amendments to these national measures, without sacrificing the community’s right to have input.
Madam Speaker I move that the bill be now read a second time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Environment and Heritage)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to, bill read a third time.
Continued from 17 February 2004.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I rise to deliver the opposition’s response in relation to this bill. Before we go into the actual bill itself, it is worth visiting the circumstances that bring us here. And the circumstances that bring us here is the former bill is going to be repealed in its entirety as a result of the passage of this bill should it pass here today.
The bill in its entirety was examined at length and, in the opinion of some, even tortured at length during the introduction the last time. During that process numerous shortcomings of the operation of this bill were pointed out to the government by members of this House. The government steadfastly and rock solidly refused to take on amendments, refused to accept any of the arguments, dismissed those arguments as nitpicking, and as a consequence, pushed through a bill, which in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, minister, would have been considered to be extremely brave. Courageous indeed, minister.
What we have now is the government coming back into this House and saying: ‘Oops. We need you guys to repeal that act, the one that you warned us about at length, and we want you to bring in this new act.’ I have to say that I actually had a begrudging admiration, not so much for the standards that the bill introduced when the original Swimming Pool Fencing Act was passed in this House, because I did not agree with the standards that were being applied, but I did have a begrudging admiration for a Chief Minister who had the courage to stand up and say, ‘This is going to be my line in the sand. This is the standard that I think should apply in the Northern Territory for the protection of children.’ She did so unashamedly, in an unabashed fashion, and said that the former processes were not effective in protecting children and she was going to bring that protection to the people of the Northern Territory, and that child safety was paramount.
You have to admire that sort of courage. She was aware of criticism at that time and soldiered on. Subsequent to that time, however, the criticisms of the operation of that piece of legislation and the criticisms which were dismissed originally as nitpicking have gained momentum to the point of being a crescendo in the community. We have found neighbours having disputes with neighbours; pool fencing inspectors being pedantic by virtue of the fact that they had almost no room to move in terms of their discretionary powers; pools which were already complying with old council laws not being compliant; and, in many instances, people very, very unhappy with the level of intrusion that the government had applied to them in their homes. Certainly, much of that pain was felt in the northern suburbs of Darwin. That is why we are in the position that we are in now.
The government has said: ‘Oops, we have made a mistake so we are going to come back to the parliament of the Northern Territory and ask that parliament to revisit the old Swimming Pool Fencing Act, totally dispose of it, and introduce a new Swimming Pool Safety Act which will …’, in the argument of the government, ‘… satisfy community expectations’. The Chief Minister, upon introducing the Swimming Pool Fencing Act, was not particularly concerned about the community expectations in terms of what that act would do in the way that it affected other people. The Chief Minister was particularly concerned about child safety, and said so repeatedly and time and time again. Even in the introduction of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act, which was a very rigorous and hard act to live up to, there is an acknowledgement which is implied, and the acknowledgement is this: that child safety is still something that has to be found in terms of a balance with the rest of the community. If we were truly concerned that child safety was paramount above all else, then we would have banned swimming pools, and we would change society in all sorts of different ways to accommodate children, such as arguing that speed limits should be 10 km/h across the whole of the Northern Territory – those sorts of things.
There always has to be a balance between competing needs in the community. The Chief Minister said that balance, in terms of the original Swimming Pool Fencing Act, must favour child safety so heavily that there was only one standard to apply and that was the Australian Standard. So we will let you have a swimming pool, we will let you have your spa pools, but we are going to apply a standard because child safety is so fundamentally important. I admired the courage of that move. I thought the standard, at the time, was too high. Since that time, the government has realised the level of imposition that that act actually applied to the community. From the much lauded and heralded child safety swimming pool legislation, we have now moved to a position where the government seems to be more interested in its own preservation than child safety issues.
I will give you an example. We long remember documents and stuff coming from government where the Chief Minister placed her face on the front of this and said she was going to be charging forward, and this was going to be her great achievement and a great thing for the Northern Territory. We see them quite regularly. Last night in a letter box at my flat here in town, appeared a flyer from the Northern Territory government, we all get them, we get so many of them, saying that the Martin Labor government was going to spend $75m on increased policing resources, and the Martin Labor government was doing this, and the Martin Labor government was doing that, and we see the picture of the police minister on the flyer – that is the standard fare. I have some reservations about the Martin Labor government being put out as a matter of party political purposes on brochures. However, the flyer that we see now in relation to simplified swimming pool laws does not refer to the Martin Labor government, does not mention the Chief Minister at all, and if I look at the photograph on the back where the minister’s face would be, I am led to believe that the minister is now a five year old boy with a inflatable dolphin.
The government has come into this Chamber and asked us to change these laws on urgency. The minister had to pass an extra motion that he did not cover the last time to make sure it goes through on urgency. We, on this side of the House, are very sensitive about the intrusion that the Swimming Pool Fencing Act has applied to people in the Northern Territory, and the government has said, ‘We are sorry for the mistake we made’. I hope that the government approaches this debate with the humility that is supposed to come along with the apology for getting something wrong. They have admitted quite publicly that they have got it wrong.
So, what now? What are we being asked to do? We are being asked to rush through a piece of legislation, bearing in mind that we were asked to rush through legislation the last time. Last time, because of the urgency and the way that we pushed these things through, we were in this Chamber again amending the act within a few months to rush through more legislation. The original legislation went through the proper processes as tightly as it possibly could, then amendments came on urgency, and now we find ourselves debating on urgency a new act. How do we know that we are not going to make a mistake again? Frankly, we don’t.
I do sense the government’s need for urgency on this issue is important to them because it is important to Territorians, and I, too, am sensitive to that pressure. I will not be resisting too many aspects of this bill, but I do hope that the government approaches this debate with the humility that is required for somebody getting something wrong.
Let us turn to the act itself. What is the act going to do? In the past, you had to get your pool up to a certain standard, the Australian Standard. You needed an inspector to come around and give you an approved certificate to say that the pool met a certain standard. If you did not, you could not sell your house, you could not lease your property. That is how important it has been; that has been a source of huge problems. What has the government done now, in this new legislation? They have said any pool that was built before 1 January 2003, an older pool, has to meet a community standard. That community standard, in the bill before us today, is a rather ethereal creature. I turn members’ attention to clause 11 of the bill, which deals with the community safety standard, which is, and I quote:
That is the test that the court will have, if a matter ever ends up in court, to apply whether or not a particular standard was of a reasonable standard. It is a fairly difficult thing to achieve.
When you sell you home and you have a pool that predates 1 January 2003, under these proposals you have to fill out a form that says, ‘I believe my pool reaches the community safety standard’. The authority will issue a tick and flick sheet of some sort, which you sit next to your pool and say tick, tick, tick, I meet those standards, and then you fill out a form saying I believe my pool meets the community safety standard. If it does not, you can still sell your house. The person purchasing the house can fill out a form that says, ‘I know that it does not reach the community safety standard, but I can get around to fixing it’.
This is where I start to have some concerns. The effect of this is that when the tragedy occurs, and it will occur even with the best pool fencing in the world, people are going to be saying, ‘Who is responsible?’, and they will be going back to these signed pieces of paper and they will ask, ‘Who are we going to sue?. You signed this form and you signed that form, and you said it was okay. And the government put out the tick and flick sheet so maybe we can sue them’. But, no. Under this new proposed piece of legislation, not only will the government find itself being civilly immune from any prosecution or litigation that will be brought against it, but also, which is a new addition to the legislation, criminally immune to any prosecution brought against it.
What the government is effectively saying to the people of the Northern Territory is, if you own a swimming pool, we will have a piece of legislation which nominally is supposed to look after standards, but when the trouble starts in relation to an unfortunate and tragic child death, or some other litigation arising out of a problem with pools, it is going to be neighbour against neighbour. The standard the government is now asking to apply will, in essence, be lower than any standards since the time of self-government. It will be lower than the standard which was so bitterly criticised by this Labor government that the CLP used to apply. The CLP used to say it is up to councils to know what is appropriate for its own area. This government is now saying, I am washing my hands of all liability in relation to this, so much so that, in clause 3(3) of this bill says:
I am concerned, and I have not had it properly explained to me yet, and I have certainly raised the concern with the minister’s staff, that where a pool advisor, acting under his powers of this act, acting in good faith, engages in some conduct which may, through the provisions of foresight in the Criminal Code lead to a criminal prosecution, is immune because this act says that where there is an inconsistency between this act and any other act in the Northern Territory, this act shall prevail. That is the level of protection that this government is seeking.
The only place you can turn to as a court when dealing with a matter of prosecution against a pool inspector is, was the pool inspector acting in good faith? Not the issues of foresight raised by the Criminal Code; not the issues of intent raised by the Criminal Code; not the defence provisions and all of the common law that surrounds those. This act has supremacy. That is a concerning thing, the way that this particular clause, clause 3(3) and clause 47 of the proposed bill marry up. Now there is nothing too unusual about the immunity provisions of clause 47, however I am uncertain that there is something normal about the operation of clause 47 in tandem with the operation of clause 3. I would be concerned if the operation of the Criminal Code was somehow nullified by the operation of this bill. I ask the minister to give us a detailed explanation, and we will be exploring it more in the committee stages.
There is another issue that has been raised with me today, and it is a reasonable one. It is the issue of the liability of councils themselves. The Palmerston City Council has quite correctly pointed out that the legislation only addresses fences which are maintained by the council. The council is concerned that they could carry a liability, should they be served with a notice, of any adjoining land to a yard with a pool. So, where the council maintains parks and similar sorts of properties, and there is a park on the other side of the pool, the council has an immunity in looking after the fence, but no immunity in terms of what happens in the park, and access from the park in to the backyard pool.
There are some 2200 residential properties which abut controlled access roads in the Palmerston area and indeed, I can understand their concerns. The government seems to think that it can be immune from criminal and civil liability, but will offer no effective liability to town councils. I invite the minister to make some observations about that as well.
The other process which I am deeply concerned about in relation to this piece of legislation is the decision to remove the independent arbiter from the appeals process under the existing legislation. I think it is important to read a letter into the Parliamentary Record from Mr David Loadman, a magistrate in the Northern Territory and also chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal, because he makes some very important points and I believe that all members need to be aware of them:
Mr Loadman then goes on:
It was signed David Loadman, 17 February 2004.
Madam Speaker, that is probably the most extraordinary criticism I have ever seen from a tribunal chair of a government policy. We have to remember that the government has pushed this through, announcing a review in December, holding a review in January, having the final report of that review come down in January so they can bring this bill before the House today. To ignore such criticism the government does so at its peril! Those criticisms should ring through this Chamber, through the department, and through the minds of the government, loud and clear. Not only are they going to be disposing of the appeals process in its entirety, certainly the independent appeals process, the review process which is proposed by the minister, will be subject to the same limitations that the former appeals tribunal was limited to - which means that they can walk into issues such as the issuing of a certificate, or the issuing of some sort of paperwork under the legislation, but they will not be able to look into other issues such as design and, more importantly, compensation payments.
This then brings us to the nub of the appeals process. The government has promised to compensate pool owners who have been affected by this legislation, like me - I have to declare an interest - who have been forced to build pool fences when their property used to be compliant under old by-laws of councils. I am concerned that those amounts of compensation will become the subject of criticism. Even if the government goes all the way to repaying all the money that people have spent to bring their pools up to standard, they won’t go far enough because people will have other concerns.
Some of those concerns will surround issues like the loss of amenity, which is a very subjective problem. The loss of amenity in my backyard because my whole house, for argument’s sake, was built around my swimming pool. I had to put in a fence and when I put in this fence, speaking metaphorically, I had a completely different effect in my backyard. It now makes it more difficult for me to sell my house because people come and inspect my backyard and they suddenly discover that there is a pool fence which is architecturally inconsistent with the rest of the backyard. The government has promised to pay for the construction of the pool fence. What the government has not promised to pay for is the loss of amenity, and the loss of value of the premises when a pool fence is constructed, which affects the sale value of the house. It is subjective. When the government makes a decision that says we are going to pay you this much in compensation only, and nothing more, what is actually going to happen is that the government is going to say, ‘Full stop!’ There is no appellant process available whatsoever.
Even within the terms of the review committee proposed by this legislation, that review committee will not be able to revisit those decisions by the authority. The authority may well be a single person; in fact, I believe the authority is a single person at the moment. The authority makes the decision; they are the final arbiter. Can I appeal to a court? No, I cannot. Why? Because this legislation says only points of law are appealable to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, nothing else is. The decision of the authority is final. Can I appeal to an independent arbiter? No, I cannot. Why can’t I appeal to an independent arbiter? Because there isn’t one, and even if there was one under the former act, its appeal powers are so limited that to call it a body ultimately being capable of reviewing decisions at all, was to pretend otherwise and was deliberately misleading.
The government is asking us to believe that it is approaching this process with a sense of humility, we are sorry, we got it wrong. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. That is what they are saying, and yet they then propose to come into this Chamber and say, ‘We are sorry, we got it wrong, we know we are not perfect, we are here to repeal that whole act which has caused us so much grief and bring in this new act. But, we are not prepared to allow any review of the decisions we make under this act’. That is an inconsistent approach for a body politic that is claiming humility and saying that they are sorry. It is an approach that is much more consistent with a government that is deeply concerned about looking after its own interests and making sure that it is not the subject of criticism.
I place the government on notice now that they are going to have real problems with this. If they think the pain of the pool fencing legislation that they have inflicted is going to go away as a result of this, they are wrong. I can tell you now, I can see it: in the future there will be news headlines that quite clearly say, ‘I am unsatisfied with my compensation package from the government’.
Surely, in the interests of good government in the Northern Territory there should be an independent review process with an independent arbiter attached to something like the Lands and Mining Tribunal. Surely, the government could not contemplate making its administrative decisions so final and in that way a fait accompli that they are beyond examination. That is what this bill requires of us today.
The government must allow for amendments that I have circulated, not only to establish an independent review tribunal, but one that is capable of examining any area under the swimming pool fencing legislation to the point where they can overturn a decision of the authority and issue a new order. If this government was truly humble about its mistake in the first instance, a mistake for which it had already said it is sorry, then surely they should acknowledge the need for a completely independent arbitrary body that can sit down, examine the decisions of the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority and rescue Territorians who feel like they have been otherwise trapped by the operation of the legislation. I urge the government to approach this amendment with the intent to allow an independent arbiter to look at and examine the decisions of the authority.
This is an authority that, rightly or wrongly, has received enormous criticism. Its operation and the way that it has applied its legislation in the Northern Territory has drawn criticism, as has the government. The government acknowledges that because they are worried about calling Pool Safety Inspectors ‘inspectors’; they want to change the name to Pool Safety Advisors. They will have all the same powers to get a warrant and all those sorts of things, that remains completely unchanged, but they want to play the semantic game. Fine, they will become Pool Safety Advisors. Surely their decisions and the decisions of the authority under legislation that has been so roundly criticised from so many quarters must be capable of independent review. To say that we are the final arbiter is unthinkable.
That brings me to the policing powers of the authority. The minister, in his second reading speech, said the reason that we are going to change the name from inspectors to advisors is that we want people to know that it is going to be a softer, more advisory role that the Pool Fencing Authority will have. That is true because they will have much lower standards to police. However, their powers will remain unchanged. The minister advises us that those powers will not be used. We just want them in the act. They appear in other acts so they should be in this act. Okay, I accept that the minister will not direct Pool Fencing Advisors to police issues very stridently.
However, I will paint a picture which will cause the government some grief: now that you have set the circumstances, now that you have set neighbour against neighbour, people will ring the Pool Fencing Authority and make complaints about the neighbour’s pool. We have no registrar of pools left; that has gone under this new legislation; there is no way of creating a registrar of all pools. The Pool Fencing Authority receives a complaint. What to do? It is an authority, it has a duty to inspect. So it knocks on the door of the person who owns the pool about which the complaint has been made, and the person slams the door in their face and says, ‘Get nicked. I am not letting you in here’. What does that pool advisor do then? Does he then go back to the neighbour who made the complaint and say, ‘Sorry, they slammed the door in my face. I can do nothing else’? How do you think that neighbour will feel, abandoned by the pool fencing advisors? No, the pool fencing advisor is going to have to take further steps. He will write letters, make phone calls, encourage, plead, stick things in the letterbox, nail things to the door, knock on the door and have it slammed in his face again. Eventually, he is still getting no satisfaction from the neighbour, cannot look at the pool, does not know anything about what the pool looks like, does not know if it is a real risk or anything else like that.
Ultimately, there has to be some sort of further action that this pool fencing advisor can take. That further action is captured in the powers, which are exactly the same powers that the pool fencing advisors had in the first instance. The standard that they police is much lower now, but the powers that they have remain completely and utterly unchanged. These include powers of forced entry under a search warrant, with such reasonable force as they see necessary to engage into that forced entry.
We have been through this debate as to where that sort of thing takes us, but it does concern me that you now have an inspectorial power, which is still an inspectorial power, covered by a total criminal and civil liability to such a degree that, where it is inconsistent with another act in the Northern Territory, the powers under this act are the superior powers. This is, on the face of it, a messy piece of legislation, nobbled together in a hurry by a government who is trying desperately to work itself out of a corner that it finds itself in. We as an opposition are now in an incredibly difficult position. To not allow this act to pass will cause pain and further irritation to the community, because it means the old act will keep operating. To do so would be to dash the expectations of many Territorians who have been caught up in a badly thought out and badly policed act in the last 12 months. To do so would run the risk of once again having this House passing a piece of legislation which will cause grief, pain and trouble in the community when they suddenly find out that the promises that are made in this document cannot be lived up to or will not be lived up to, and they find that they have no independent appeals process.
One of the greatest shortcomings of this legislation is that it is not capable of an appellant process. If we make a mistake in this House, by having an appellant process in place, there will be an opportunity for that appellant body to bring some rules of equity into the processes involved. There will be a possibility for that appellant body to bring some succour to the people who are affected by this legislation.
It is the position of the opposition that we will support this legislation, with the amendment creating a fully independent appeals tribunal which can look into any aspect of the operation of the legislation, as well as make decisions that overturn the decisions of the Pool Fencing Authority. This bill is a product of a government under pressure. This bill is a product of a government trying desperately to fix the pain it has caused by its own rashness earlier in this process. This bill is a product of a government which needs to try to remove, between now and the next Territory election, much of the pain it has inflicted. It knows it has caused great ructions in the community. That is why this bill is before this House on urgency.
Nothing would prevent this government from applying a moratorium between now and this process being properly examined. They have rushed the introduction of the bill in the first instance, they have rushed the amendments last year, they have rushed the operation of the legislation, the operation of the committee reviewing the operation for the bill, and they have now rushed this legislation for this House. I am concerned with the lack of time that we have had to examine this bill, which hit the table last Tuesday, that there may be still traps in it that I have not even seen. This bill will be the subject of great examination during the committee stages of the debate. I urge the government to consider the appellant problems, as well as the problems of some of the local town councils, and introduce amendments which reflect its professed humility before coming into this Chamber.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, brought into the House by my colleague, the member for Arnhem. Firstly, I want to talk about our motivation for consulting on, and subsequently reviewing, the earlier pool fencing legislation.
Soon after we came to government in August 2001, our government took the hard decision to protect our most vulnerable and younger citizens. The reasons behind making this decision have been around for a while. In fact, they were put very well in this House as early as 23 November 1994 by the opposition. The then recently elected member for Greatorex, a former member of the Alice Springs Town Council stated to this parliament, and I quote:
That was the position of the member for Greatorex in this House on 23 November 1994. However, what action did the then government take on this issue? The answer is nothing. In fact, the former government had swimming pool fencing legislation on its books back in 1998 as evidenced by the Department of Local Government Annual Report 1998-99: Directions for 1999-2000: Legislative Change - introduced and implement new legislation relating to swimming pool fencing. So it was the policy of the then government of the day, albeit six years after the member for Greatorex made that statement in this parliament for the then government of the day to introduce standardised pool fencing across the Northern Territory.
However, history shows that for whatever reason, they ducked the issue and did not have the fortitude to bring the legislation into this parliament that they knew they had to do. They knew children were drowning in the Northern Territory at an unacceptable rate. Members on their side had a commitment to ensuring standardised pool fencing across the Northern Territory; their own Department of Local Government had committed to legislative change, and for whatever reason, the previous government was too gutless to introduce the legislation.
The opposition now has some nerve to criticise this government for putting the welfare of children first and taking the hard decisions, that they lost in government, never had the intestinal fortitude or the political courage to take, even though the member for Greatorex and other members on their side knew they had to. When the opposition was in government they said that councils should have carriage of this. This was despite the clamouring of local government and councils around the Northern Territory, for the then government of the day to act and provide leadership on the issue.
Mr Elferink: You’re rewriting history now.
Mr HENDERSON: In response to a 1999 inquest - it is not rewriting history. These are documented facts that are on the public record. The fact that you want to deny history is neither here nor there.
In response to a 1999 inquest into another tragedy of a child drowning, the Darwin City Council said, and I quote:
The government of the day did nothing. This was despite knowing about the problem.
In 1994, the former member for Katherine discussed pool safety during a ministerial statement on child safety in the Northern Territory. The Hansard record shows that he said at the time, and I quote:
That was, again, the public record recorded in the Hansard in 1994, around the same time that the member for Greatorex made his comments. So, the hypocrisy of members opposite now, in their position on this issue, is absolutely astounding and nothing short of blatant politicking for politicking’s sake.
This government has acknowledged by introducing this bill, and repealing the previous legislation, that we did get it wrong. The intent was right, the application was wrong. All of us here, as local members, have received significant representation from members of our electorates in regard to the application of the law as it stands. Even the residents who are most angry about the application of the laws as they stand - certainly the ones I have spoken to, my constituents - could understand the rationale behind government legislation. It was the application of that legislation and the impact that it had in regards to the application of Australian Standards retrospectively that has caused the problem. We acknowledge that. We acknowledge that by the repeal and by the introduction of this new commonsense approach to the issue. The fact is that we are trying to do everything that we can, in partnership with our community, to reduce the incidence of child drownings in the Northern Territory, unlike the previous government who acknowledged the problem, but did nothing because they did not have the political courage to act.
I believe that any system of regulation, such as pool fencing, which impacts on people’s lifestyle requires a high level of community support to be effective, and that is what we were not achieving. We did not have community support for the legislation as it stood. The government has listened and the government is responding because enforcing laws on our community which does not support them, is not going to get us there.
We did not get it right the first time round. We are sorry for the frustrations we have caused pool owners over the last year, and we are fixing that today. The current framework was clearly seen by the community to be inflexible and, as a result, did not gain the required level of support to be fully effective. Government has responded to these community concerns by replacing the existing legislation with new, simplified pool laws. It is important to note that government’s intention remains the same – to make backyard pools and spas safer for young children.
An issue under the old legislation that has been brought to the government’s attention is the potential for pool fencing compliance obligations to hold up property settlements and prevent people from leasing their properties. That is why, in discussions with the Real Estate Institute, the Real Estate Institute is supportive of this new legislation. The government today is debating new, simplified legislation. Properties requiring compliance certificates for sale or lease are prioritised and inspectors go to great lengths to ensure that, wherever possible and practicable, these requirements are accommodated.
Pool owners have a responsibility to ensure they have an effective and appropriate barrier surrounding their pool. All pool owners have been encouraged to upgrade their pool barriers to the appropriate standard. Those who have not done so and who require major works to achieve compliance with the appropriate standard may have their property settlement held up. This has happened to some pool owners under the old legislation. The new, simplified rules will make this process quicker for existing pool owners. It includes provisional compliance certificates, declaration of proposed compliance and temporary compliance certificates. What this means is that the purchaser and vendor can reach an agreement at the point of sale that might see the purchaser take on responsibility for upgrading the safety of a pool. This is a sensible and commonsense provision. Pool fencing compliance is now simply part of the conveyancing process that needs to be considered early by the vendor as would pest, termite, Building Board inspections, engineering inspections, etcetera.
Mrs Sue Shearer, the CEO of the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, has come out in strong support for the range of amendments to the act. I quote Mrs Shearer as follows:
So, there is strong support from the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory.
In relation to self declaration, members of the community will have the capacity to interpret and understand the Community Safety Standard guidelines. The guidelines are not the standard; they are merely there to assist the community in interpreting the actual standard as defined in clause 11 of the bill, that being:
This is the nub of it. We have gone from retrospective, prescriptive Australian standards to a commonsense approach, which means that members of our community will be able to determine in a practicable and reasonable way the standard of the pool fencing so a child can not gain unsupervised access to the swimming pool.
I will give a practical example of the problems that we were facing. A constituent of mine, and also a very good friend, called me around to his home after the pool inspectors had been. He had a pool fence that had been erected some 10 or 12 years ago by Aquarius Pools and Spas, a very well respected Darwin company. The bars on his fence were 10.5cm apart. There was no way a child could have got through that barrier. But the legislation said Australian Standards, and Australian Standards are 10cm. So, my constituent was faced with a big problem: he had to replace his fence at extraordinary cost for the sake of 0.5cm.
There is no doubt that this is impracticable, unreasonable and certainly would no more prevent a child from entering and drowning in that pool than the barrier that he had already in place. He will not have to do that now. This bill will ensure that his fence is now meeting the community standard and a child is no more likely to drown in his pool today than it would have been if he had been forced to comply with the Australian Standards and construct bars that were 10cm apart as opposed to 10.5cm apart. That particular constituent is a pretty happy person as a result of this new bill, and children are still safe in our community.
To repeat the principle: the Community Safety Standard is that the barrier must be effective in preventing a child up to five years old from gaining unsupervised access to the pool. It is a practical and sensible solution to upgrade the safety of pre-existing pools. Guidelines have been developed to assist the community in understanding how to achieve this, but these are just that: guidelines. The technical detail included in the guidelines is necessary to assist people in understanding what constitutes a safe barrier. The Community Safety Standard recognises that individuals have the right to make a judgement regarding the safety level of their pool barrier. Obligation free advice will be available from pool safety advisors to assist pool owners in understanding the requirements of the Community Safety Standard.
A comprehensive public education and awareness campaign will also assist pool owners, and the community in general, in understanding why the particular numbers and measurements are a necessary part of the standards. For example, take the recommendation that any gaps or spaces in a barrier should not exceed 100 mm. Again, that is the example that I just gave. Pool owners choosing to upgrade to this standard will be making an informed decision about whether they are willing to assume a level of responsibility for their pool barrier, in accordance with the guidelines and guiding principles.
A pool owner’s liability will not change under the new legislation. Individual circumstances under common law will always dictate liability. Pool owners choosing to self-declare under the Community Safety Standards should only be concerned about liability if they do not tell the truth on their declarations. Pool owners who act in good faith will not have their liability affected. Ultimately, neither the new Community Safety Standard nor the declarations will alter a pool owner’s liability. People have always been responsible for their own backyards. This legislation acknowledges and accepts that.
The cost of this legislation is reasonable. People in the Territory enjoy a unique lifestyle. Unlike down south, many people in Darwin have pools and spas. We need them in the heat and, in the Top End at least, we have beaches we often cannot swim in. The grants scheme, as described by my colleague, is the best way of getting people to upgrade the safety of their pools, sooner rather than later. The costs involved are of a benefit to the whole community as water safety is everybody’s responsibility. The education and awareness campaign will ensure that everyone understands water safety. All stakeholders during the review process asked for an ongoing education and awareness campaign. Good public education campaigns do work, Madam Speaker.
I support the changes in this bill that remove the need for the new Community Safety Standard and the modified Australian Standard to check over the neighbour’s fence before giving a pool the tick as safe. Again, one of the major problems with the old legislation was the impact that obstacles and foliage - trees, sheds, pool pumps, whatever - on the neighbour’s side of the fence, the impact that that had on the declaration and determination of the height of the fence under the Australian Standard.
I understand that the majority of the problems have emerged when neighbours were asked to make modifications to their property to ensure the owner of the backyard pool or spa could comply or, conversely, if the neighbour was not prepared to make modifications, the impact on the owner of the pool or spa to increase the height of the barrier to counteract the issue on the neighbour’s side of the fence - a very real problem. It is very sensible that neighbouring properties will no longer affect the compliance of a backyard pool or spa fence. Pool owners can only be responsible for their own backyard. It is the responsibility of neighbours to make sure that their children and those children in their care are safe.
The review found that there is overwhelming community support for safer pools, however, people also want to protect the amenity of their backyard. Government has struck a balance between people’s individual right to do what they like in their yard, and the community responsibility for ensuring the safety of young children. Under the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act people with existing pools only need to upgrade to the new Community Safety Standard at the point of sale or the change of tenancy. They can choose to upgrade to the modified Australian Standard if they want to. This gives people the opportunity to make a decision regarding the safety of their pools. It is a careful balance and there is a generous grant scheme to assist pool owners to make that decision.
I emphasise that the Swimming Pool Safety Bill will not affect the responsibility of neighbours. The liability of a neighbour, acting in good faith, who believes the barrier they have is effective, will not be affected. However, we are well aware that people will want to learn about what is and what is not a safe barrier and a community education and awareness campaign will address this.
Pool Safety Advisors will be available to all members of the community, including neighbours of pool owners, to provide individual advice. Any neighbour who is concerned about the safety of a fence they share with a neighbour who has a pool, can ask an advisor to visit. We live in a community and part of living in a community is having neighbours. Neighbours will impact on each other, potentially in numerous ways: loud music, barking dogs, yelling kids and dangerous fences. We need to aware of, and look after, each other. Neighbourhood Watch is an example of a positive community impact. The new simplified pool laws reduce the impact on neighbours of their next door neighbour’s pool. This is a good result. Neighbours can now make their own judgments on the safety of their backyards without worrying about the impact their decision will have on their neighbour’s ability to comply with the appropriate standard or their ability to sell or rent their home.
Under the swimming pool safety bill, if the pool owner decides to use a shared boundary fence as the pool fence, they will advise their neighbour. Accordingly, the neighbour will receive a letter notifying them that a pool is next door and that the boundary fence is part of the pool barrier. The neighbour will be informed that this barrier could provide access to the swimming pool. The Swimming Pool Safety Authority will provide form letters for pool owners to use. This letter to the neighbour will be a great improvement on the former practice as it increases awareness amongst neighbours of pool safety issues. If a neighbour is concerned about the pool next door, they are able to get free advice from the Pool Safety Advisory Unit for their own property. If they consider that the pool next door is a dangerous pool, then they can also get advice and resolve the issue.
What we have here is a genuine attempt on behalf of government. A government that has listened to concerns of the community, a government which is determined to improve pool safety in the Northern Territory, to try to minimise to the maximum extent possible the tragedy of pool drownings in the Northern Territory, a statistic that really did blight the Northern Territory holding the record of having the highest incidence of child drownings in Australia by a long way, and recognition by our government that we have a responsibility to the youngest and most vulnerable people in our community.
We accept that the application of the laws caused significant problems given that Australia Standards were mandated and applied retrospectively. We have acknowledged that by repeal of the old bill, the introduction of this bill, the new Community Safety Standards, a grant scheme, and an education package to assist people to bring their pools up to the Community Safety Standard. I point that out, in stark contrast, to the previous government which had acknowledged in 1994, in this House, that the situation that we had in the Northern Territory then was unacceptable; that children were drowning in pools across the Northern Territory unnecessarily, and through the processes of government, determined back in 1999-2000 that they would introduce legislation, but for whatever reason, they never got around to doing it.
Madam Speaker, we have the courage to try to do something because children are the most important asset in our community. We acknowledge that we got our first attempt wrong. However, we are confident that this legislation will be accepted by the broader community as a genuine attempt to ensure that as much as possible children do not have unsupervised access to swimming pools in the Northern Territory, and the tragedy of children drowning can be minimised where ever possible. I urge all members of this House to support this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Madam Speaker, I do not intend to go to the details of the legislation because there are a couple of issues and potential problems with the legislation that have been raised by my colleague, the shadow minister. I am sure they will be addressed in the committee stages, including one that has been raised separately with me that I am sure also will be addressed and that is the issue regarding the liability or otherwise of councils whose land borders private dwellings. The wording of the bill, in its current form, does not give them the indemnity that they are looking for.
The reason I do not intend to address the legislation itself is because, frankly, it is not worth it. I have never seen such hypocrisy ever in this House in the way the government can now talk about community support for this legislation. There is no doubt there will be community support for this legislation; the community attitude has not changed. The community attitude has been that the primary responsibility for safety of backyard pools lies with the owner. If anything, the responsibility above that, is to give the owner some sort of certainty as to their legitimacy or otherwise in the standards that they have put in place. That has been provided in the past by local government with the by-laws that they have enacted in their own jurisdictions.
In the case of Palmerston, where I have my experience, the by-laws that are in place, I believe, worked well and were supported by the community. It is some surprise to me to read in the second reading speech that, in the opinion of the government, Palmerston City Council was doing almost nothing to enforce their own by-laws. I know that, from a number of examples, even in my own street, people have been taken to court by Palmerston City Council for not meeting the by-laws that they have in place with regards to pool fencing. Palmerston City Council has never stepped back, ever, enforcing it right through the legal process, if they had to, to get compliance.
The real issue here is the issue of this Labor government. The member for Wanguri never ceases to amaze me as a individual. He can make utterances in this House that are really trolling about as low depths as any politician can troll. He is not backward in putting a political spin on comments, either to an individual politician or to a previous government to suit his own purpose. Whilst outside of this House I find him a likeable and agreeable sort of a chap, I never cease to be surprised by the depths some of his comments and press releases can go to. We had an example the other day, in fact, Madam Speaker, where you acted quickly and decisively to have those comments expunged from the Hansard record. He is not backward in quickly putting out a press release commenting on whether the opposition is present in this House or not, and the hypocrisy of that is just simply amazing.
Everyone in this House knows the duties that politicians have, on either side of the House, and anyone who has been in this House, including the member for Wanguri, when the Labor Party were in opposition would be the first to say there are good reasons why politicians are not in this House. There are not good reasons when politicians are down at the MGM Casino and spend more time at the Casino during parliamentary sittings than they do in this Chamber – something the CLP could have made much of if we had decided to follow that sort of route. The Labor Party does not have any standard that they can set in terms of their own track record in this area.
The important thing to remember, though, is that in government you have all the resources of the public service, and for some of the members of this House who have never seen it otherwise, enjoy it while it lasts, because once you are in opposition you will realise that you do not have all this information there at a moment’s notice. You have to do a lot of research on your own, and you do not have the advisors to help you, and that takes an enormous amount of work. It should be understood clearly by government, that if they want a responsible opposition, those opposition members need to get out of this Chamber and do their research and access information as happens from time to time during parliament.
Nikita Khrushchev once said: ‘Politicians are the same the world over. They always promise to build a bridge even if there’s no river’. That is an interesting comment to dwell on today, because what we are really dealing with in this legislation is the Labor Party deciding there was a river and they were going to build a bridge. It was not just the Labor Party; it was Clare Martin. The river was that toddler drownings were so serious that she was going to build a bridge, and the bridge was to enact pool fencing legislation that would meet a far higher standard than had ever been in place in the Northern Territory in the past.
Let’s get something straight: pools that have not been built do not drown kids. That is the first thing. So the issue was not new pools and the standards around those new pools. The standard that the Chief Minister was addressing was the poor standards that currently existed on existing pools in the Northern Territory and she acted to address that issue. The shadow minister has gone through the process of that legislation being enacted and where we have ended up today. I have one simple question that I think every Territorian knows full well, even though they will support this legislation: if the Chief Minister’s actions at the time were designed to protect toddlers, what is she doing now for toddlers? Every member of the Labor Party should sit down and ask themselves that question because you are a bunch of bloody hypocrites.
Madam SPEAKER: Uh-uh! Withdraw that.
Mr BURKE: I withdraw ‘bloody’, Madam Speaker. I thought it was fairly common terminology in Australia, but you are a bunch of hypocrites, you really are.
If you come in here and say existing pools are substandard in their safety requirements with fences, and you are going to enact legislation and take the responsibility to ensure that government has legislation and powers in place to ensure that toddlers are protected with this new legislation, where are you now? You cannot stand there and say you have a good standard of pool fencing in the Northern Territory. You cannot criticise local government and say, ‘Oh, surprise, surprise. Eighty per cent of Darwin’s by-laws were not being adhered to. Forty or 50% of Palmerston’s by-laws were not being adhered to. But guess what we have done to protect toddlers? We are going to make sure that no one is looking because we are going to bring in a check list, and you as the owner can say, “I have a pool. No one is ever going to check this pool, but here is my checklist that gets me through the barrier”. I can go tick, tick, tick and sign the form and send it in if I want to’. You call that the new Community Safety Standard and protecting children. What hypocrisy!
If we are going to be the highly paid politicians that we are, and that people know we are, and they like to get some bang for their buck, let’s give them something. The end result of this is a total back flip by the government. It is a shame on the Chief Minister, and it is typical of her. She is covered in all the glory when the big statements are made. This is my legislation, Clare Martin’s face is everywhere, I’m protecting children, I’m acting where the CLP didn’t do it in the past. Where is she now? Gone! Where is Clare Martin’s leadership? Sorry, Madam Speaker. Where is the Chief Minister’s leadership on this issue now? Gone! It is an absolute disgrace.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: Anyone who reads through the second reading…
Members interjecting.
Mr Ah Kit: Didn’t you mob take your tablets this morning?
Mr BURKE: ‘Didn’t you take your tablets this morning?’ – this really does go to the fact that we all have our faults, as the minister said today when he was disorganised for a motion. We all have our faults and weaknesses, but can’t we have some sense of integrity sometimes? If not for ourselves, but for children. I stand here now unashamedly, and say to you the issue of child drowning was a supervisory problem. If you look at those drownings, you will see it was a supervisory problem. We looked at it.
But if you are going to do something, stand by your principles. The principles of this Labor government were that the existing standards of pool fencing, particularly in the northern suburbs, that is where you focussed most of your effort, and that is why you jumped too, because of the feedback you were getting, particularly in the northern suburbs, was sub-standard. Council by-laws were no good. Existing standards of fencing out there were no good, children were vulnerable and you were going to do something about it.
The end result, after doing what the Labor Party always does, is that when it comes to principle or politics, you pick the politics any time and you throw the principles straight out the window.
Ms Lawrie: You don’t even know principles.
Mr BURKE: The member for Mouseland or whatever over there says, ‘You don’t even know what principles are’. Well, we can talk about that any time.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member for Brennan knows that we have to refer to each other by our electorates. He is insulting again.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, member for Karama. Withdraw that, member for Brennan.
Mr BURKE: The very temporary member for Karama.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr BURKE: If the member for Karama had any principles, she would do what her mother did and become an Independent because this Labor Party has no principles. It has no principles. Maybe you will become an Independent. You reckon you are interested in the welfare of children’s safety. You were so proud of the fencing legislation …
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member’s comments should be directed to the Chair, not across the Chamber.
Madam SPEAKER: Speak to me, member for Brennan.
Mr BURKE: Yes, Madam Speaker. In fact, I would rather, Madam Speaker, for you are far more attractive. Maturely attractive.
Madam SPEAKER: Be careful!
Mr BURKE: When it comes to principles, the principles have been thrown out the window. How can any member of the Labor Party, really, even though this legislation will have popular support, reconcile with yourself that on one day, the existence of pools in the northern suburbs and Palmerston under council by-laws is insufficient and you have to act and bring in higher standards, and the next day you introduce legislation and say the standards are out the window?
The Community Safety Standard is a joke. Call it what you like. It does not have to be registered. It is self-certifying. Under a regime where you are already saying, from the information that you have, that even with councils trying to implement these sorts of by-laws in the past, you could only get 40% compliance or 80% compliance, so your aim to get greater compliance has been thrown clean out the window.
Your only interest now is to get this thing out of the way to ensure it does not become an issue for you any more. The legislation will achieve that, but in terms of your principles and the aims and objectives of increasing toddler safety in the Northern Territory, there is one little, quiet element out there that you left right behind on this whole thing, and that is children’s safety. It was the children’s safety principle that you said you would fix and it is the children of the Northern Territory under your principles, not mine, that you have now abandoned with this legislation.
Debate suspended.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, it is nice to see His Honour the Administrator, Mr Ted Egan, back in the Speaker’s Gallery.
Members: Hear, hear!
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, also present in the Gallery is Warrant Officer Poo Yong Tan RSM from the Singapore School of Armour on exchange with the 1st Armoured Regiment, accompanied by Sergeant Scruton. On behalf of the honourable members, I extend to you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Continued from earlier this day.
Mrs AAGAARD (Nightcliff): Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Swimming Pool Safety Bill. This is important legislation. It balances the safety of our children with a workable regime to ensure suitable fencing for our swimming pools.
The Territory has one of the highest rates of swimming pool ownership, which is not very surprising given the climate, and we also have a very sad history of drownings, with the highest drowning rate in the nation. My electorate of Nightcliff has a high proportion of swimming pools and, like most members in this House, I have had representations from constituents on the swimming pool legislation. Without exception, the people who have contacted me have said that they wanted our children properly cared for around swimming pools, but they were concerned about the legislation relating to pools that were established prior to January 2003.
I congratulate the minister for bringing forward this bill. It shows real leadership in recognising that while the government was trying to protect our children, something was lost in the translation and Territorians found themselves faced with laws that were not workable.
This new legislation is a practical and workable solution to a complex situation. Some of the key changes to the legislation include modifications so that a neighbouring property will not affect a pool or spa’s compliance. For pre-existing pools and spas, that is those installed prior to January 2003, a new minimum safety standard will be introduced known as the Community Safety Standard. This standard will require effective barriers to be in place, without the inflexibility of the current system.
There have been speakers such as the member for Macdonnell who have suggested that the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will reduce the standards required for pool fencing. Under the proposed act, pool owners will not be able to reduce the standards of their existing pool fence. Similarly, any pools that are at the Australian standards will not be able to reduce the standard of their pool.
The swimming pool safety bill also has a new provision for dangerous pools. This provision will ensure that those pools that are currently dangerous will have to improve the standard of their pool fence. Similarly, perimeter fencing only will no longer be permitted. The legislation is about improving the standard of pools that are really dangerous to small children, while encouraging other pool owners to improve their pool fence to meet the modified Australian Standard.
One of the concerns which has been raised is in regards to how the standards will be enforced. The same major trigger points for compliance will exist: pools will have to meet the required standards at property sale and change of lease. In addition to these triggers, there will be a dangerous pools provision that was not present under the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. This provision will allow the Swimming Pool Safety Authority the power to require pool owners to improve the standard of their pool. Also, a natural audit process is available through property transfer or lease. There is also a provision under the act to give the authority power to enforce the standard by ordering the works and applying penalties where a pool owner has made a false declaration.
There has been some suggestion that pool safety advisors will be sneaking around backyards. Pool safety advisors will not be sneaking around backyards. There are provisions under the bill that determine how and under what circumstances a pool safety advisor can visit a property. However, in order to ensure accountable administration of public funds, declarations will need to be audited. This is what all Territorians would expect in relation to the use of public funds.
The government has also included a new Safe Pool Grant to assist Territorians to safely secure their pre-existing pool or spa. The government will contribute 75% of the cost of upgrading to a maximum of $3000 for the new Community Safety Standard, or $4000 for the modified Australian Standard. These grants will be available until December 2007. No other jurisdiction offers this financial assistance to upgrade pool safety. Similarly, owners of pre-existing pools who have already upgraded their fences under the current system will be eligible to apply for a Safe Pool Grant. Existing loans will be converted to grants, and loan amounts already paid will be refunded in line with the new grant scheme. The importance of these grants is that it encourages people to protect their pools sooner rather than later.
It is also good to know that there will continue to be ongoing water safety campaigns, as part of the Five Point Water Safety Plan. Young children need to be supervised when they are anywhere near water, whether it is a swimming pool or a spa, or near the sea, or in fact near buckets of water. As a parent, I know that I taught my children to swim at a very young age. It is very important always to supervise your children, so the Five Point Water Safety Plan is something which all of us in this House would consider very important.
These are important laws that will make the safety of our children paramount, but will ensure a workable system. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I will make a few short comments on the new bill. I understand why the government wants to bring the bill forward quickly, as it obviously wants to fix some of the problems associated with the original bill. From the other side of the coin, the community needed more time to see what this bill was about. The government called for comments. A report was written up, and from that report we have the legislation here before us today. I believe that legislation needed to have time to be tested in the community. Two weeks really is not a great length of time. I did get a briefing from the government, and I appreciate that. However, as you know, once parliament sits it is a fairly rushed time, and to get your head around this act while we are dealing with other matters, makes it fairly difficult and it does not give you much time to run it past other people in your electorate.
Be that as it may, I appreciate the government has tried to do something about a bill that, when it was first introduced, I remarked that this bill was going to start up a mini-department of swimming pool fence attendants. That is exactly what it has done. To some extent, the words I spoke in parliament at the time this was introduced have come back; the government has taken those matters into consideration, probably not because I said them, probably because eventually someone said that there was a better way around it. The idea of not having to have your swimming pool registered until the point of sale, or when it is leased, was exactly the issue I was trying to get at. You could have done this a lot more diplomatically rather than with a fairly bureaucratic sledgehammer. That is part of the reason that the government has got itself into this problem.
The member for Brennan mentioned this issue, and other people have spoken to me about it, and it is an area that I believe should have been given more consideration. Regarding the community safety standards, I gather from reading the guidelines that the owner of a pool is able to self-declare that they meet the community safety standards. That might be all very well and it may pass the responsibility back to the owner - and most of us agree that a fair bit of the issue of safety and swimming pools is about the responsibility of the owner of the pool, and parents to have responsibility for their children – but I am not sure that when someone signs off on a community safety standard fence that they know what they are signing off. Does the neighbour know what has been signed off? How can government absolve itself of all responsibility once those people have signed the form?
I say that from the government’s perspective, because the government has said no inspection is required. You can get some advice, which is very good, but there is no enforcement of the community safety standard guidelines. You can sign a piece of paper stating, ‘I believe my fence is capable of being a safe and secure pool barrier’. If there is a hole in the fence that the owner did not see – or they might have seen but did not realise that it would be big enough for a child to get through – or the neighbour did not keep the maintenance up on their fence – he might have even run the lawnmower along it and slashed it and made a hole in it by accident – or if the neighbour left something up against the fence one day while he was doing some cleaning, how much of the responsibility is now going to be handed back to those people if a child drowns in the pool?
I am unsure where this community safety standard fence concept is going to lead us. I agree with the member for Brennan that, to some extent by having this here, you have actually lowered the standards from those the councils had. Whether this is very similar to a council is not the issue; the council would have inspected it to make sure it came up to those safety guidelines. We are now putting the onus back onto the owner to say, ‘Yes, I believe that fence is adequate’. This new set of guidelines - this new concept – needs to be thought through a little more. I will be interested in the minister’s response as to whose responsibility is what, especially if, sadly, a child has drowned in a pool that has been signed off as a suitable, safe and secure barrier.
It is good that the government has continued with the grant scheme – probably better than the loan scheme. It is good because it basically encourages people who do not want to go down that path, or are a bit hesitant because of cash flow or whatever, the incentive to upgrade their pool fence. I was going to ask whether ‘upgrade’ in this case means money set aside to build a new pool fence, because there are a number of people in the rural area, under the 1.8 hectare maximum block size, who never had a pool fence. I am interested to see whether an ‘upgrade’ means the ability to use that money to actually start building a fence.
The other side of the new grant scheme that concerns me is how much paperwork will now be commenced with reimbursing some of those people who had a loan under the old scheme, and could now rightly say, ‘You have now changed the rules and are giving out grants. I would like to have the grant so I do not have to keep paying my loan’. I would be interested to know how much paperwork and bureaucracy that change is going initiate and how easy or difficult it will be to track all that down.
With regard to the Palmerston City Council amendment, I note that the government has given us some amendments today which appear to change the issue that Palmerston City Council brought forward about the maintenance of a fence where one side is council land and the other side is private. From what I read of the new amendments, that will be fixed up at the committee stage.
Lastly, it is just a pity that sometimes we did not look at the act, and you might say, ‘Oh, well, you are talking in retrospect or hindsight’, but I just don’t think we sat down and thought about this well enough in the first place. I mentioned even the option of the fences being part of the Building Code. I say again, I still think it should be part of the Building Code. It is probably too late now, but we all know if you want to build a fence one metre high in the cyclone area, you require an Engineering Certificate. Why fences for swimming pools could not have been part of the Building Advisory Services or the private certifiers, I do not know. They could have done the job, they could have been given the list of guidelines and away they could have gone.
It is good to see that government has come back with some changes. Some of them are certainly sensible. The idea of allowing the purchaser of a house to now put up the fence, instead of necessarily the seller, will save a fair bit of mucking about, and also in some cases where someone who is selling their house does not really want to see their landscaping destroyed with a new fence. At least they are well and truly gone and the new purchaser will have to deal with that. That certainly was an issue for many people who had well established gardens around their pool. They were certainly upset that they would be required to put a fence through all the work they had done over the years.
In general, I support what is going on, but I do have some serious concerns about the new community safety standard fence. That has a lot of grey areas around it. I would like an explanation or clarification of the legality of signing off and stating that the fence fits within these guidelines that have been handed out, and what the consequences would be if perhaps I was not quite as careful checking something out that was on this list, and there is a tragedy in the pool.
With that, I will be interested to hear the rest of the debate and also at the committee stage.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, it is said that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. That is what we have before us. When this issue first came to this parliament there were things that were said in debate to government that they did not listen to. Again, we have them not listening. They were told they were moving too quickly. They were told they were not being inclusive, particularly of specialist, knowledgeable bodies such as councils which have been doing this work for some time, and they still are not involving specialist, knowledgeable bodies.
So we are off on another path where we are hurriedly going to try to fix something and we do not know what it is. We know it starts with being sorry, so what we are trying to fix is a muck up. The government commenced this by saying, ‘We have made such an absolute botch of this that we are sorry’. So let’s make the assumption what they are fixing up will fix up all that damage that they have caused. Let’s also be honest enough to say damage was caused. You do not say sorry if you did not cause offence to people. So, stage 1, big muck up, caused offence, caused problems, caused chaos. Stage 2, we will fix it up. Well, I do not think it will, because you are still not listening. You are still going too quickly, and you are still playing some of these emotional cards that really should not come into this debate.
It is good that the government has commenced this debate with apologising, because that goes some way, you would think, to admitting that what we have been trying to say was not that we are not caring about tragedy and childhood death, we are not saying that this should be a total hands-off issue for government, we are saying you could do this in a smarter way and be less intrusive about people’s backyards.
The urgency is a very serious matter. If you go to Standing Order 179, Madam Speaker, it is headed ‘Urgent Bills; and I will read it:
There is the potential for more hardship by ramming through legislation that is flawed, poor in its intent and which is, in any event, almost a pendulum effect where you have gone from one extreme to another. There is still good, solid ground that could be signed off by virtually this whole parliament in the middle. There is still ground to be defined in the middle. You tell us why it is urgent. You tell us why there is hardship being caused in this one month. You tell us why you are being urgent again and rushing something through that will again cause us a problem.
Thanks for the apology. What it does is puts to bed this myth that we are acting for trite, emotional, political or other reasons.
When you start talking about compensation, there are three areas I would like the minister to touch on exactly because in trying to get some detail here, the opposition was unable to do so in Question Time. I will give you three case scenarios and I want to know, yes or no, do they come in.
Scenario 1: gentleman with a spa who, because he had a small apartment, which he let out, he was almost incapable of fencing it off. He came to the decision that he would remove the spa, which he did. He cut it up, it was in pieces, he rang the pool people because he could not tenant this flat. One would hope that that would be part of the compensation, the fact that it could not be tenanted because he had this offending spa. Then he faced the problem that he had to be on-site to let the inspector in to inspect the dismantled, broken down spa. He said, ‘It is outside. You can see it. You will see that it is dismantled to the extent that it cannot be put back together’. ‘No, no, no. We need access your house in case you have one inside, so we want to inspect the whole thing’. At about this stage he went right off. The point is that he now has an asset worth less because of this government’s legislation. What really galls him is that he dismantled this spa on the Saturday before the announcement that he did not have to. He wants to know: ‘My asset that was worth X plus a spa is now just worth X, and I want to know if I can claim it to reinstall the spa. I want to know if that period when I could not let it is claimable’. That is case one.
Scenario 2: these are acquaintances of mine in Palmerston. They, too, faced the proposition under which they could not let their place for some time. They were faced with a fencing bill of some $2000 or the removal of the spa for $2000 and really tossed up. In the end, they were half-way through their fencing and remediation action when this situation changed. That place has been untenanted and has cost this family with young children a substantial amount of money.
Scenario 3: this is a very interesting one because it involves a deceased estate where they sought to transfer the property, which did not have a pool. They had to fill in some declaration to say, ‘We certify this does not have a pool’. It is interesting now that these declarations have great sway with government. You can sign something and say, ‘Yes, it is tickety-boo’. But not long ago, you had to sign something saying, ‘I hereby swear to the government that I do not have a pool’. This gentleman was overseas at the time and sought to do so by statutory declaration. They said, ‘No, no, no, it can’t be done like that. You have to have a real estate person or someone …’ – it took some months. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that they had anticipated selling the property and using the capital to move in elsewhere and some undertakings had been made about purchase, and I think even some bridging finance had been arranged.
When you talk about, ‘Oh, it’s a fence’ and ‘someone built a fence and they didn’t have to’, there is more than that. You have intruded on people’s lives. You have stopped them letting property, which is their asset. You have made them downgrade their asset. You have forgone rent, you have all the trauma that goes with it. I know another case where they came around and said, ‘Look, this fence is climbable. If you put perspex over the front of it, you should be right’. So a big sheet of perspex went up. We had those high winds and the whole fence is cracked. So, that fence, which had stood for 15 years or so before, is now damaged because of this foolhardy pool legislation.
We want to see how this compensation works. The government has to remember that most of the people who have complied thus far have left. Most of the people were selling their places, they are now somewhere else, so it is quite a complex matter to gather together all of these receipts and documents, and diary notes and rent books, and put the case to government. But that is what is in front of us, and I guess that is why it is going to cost us $21m, because the debacle is probably as foolish as the rest of it. The urgency is a problem therefore, the compensation is an issue.
I now move to the issue of who is responsible. We all know it is going to be the land holder. Right? So it is going to be someone filling in a form saying I think it roughly complies, sorry, approximately is the word – it approximately applies. We had a front page, with a very jovial David Coles, with his fingers thus far apart. For Hansard I will say it is 10 mm. He is quite happy, he is saying, ‘Yes we knocked this bloke back because of that much, ha ha’. Well, people do not think that is funny. I reckon it is a really gutsy effort for him to be photographed doing that. What we are now saying is you have gone from a child could die if this fence is this far out, that was the call. And I will tell you why the call was made. When I queried this with people, they said, ‘Look, the problem you have is, if it is out by that much, the Coroner can say it is non-compliant’. The whole fence is non-compliant because it is out by that much. Because of the rigidity of it, we have to say it is either in or it is out.
What we have moved to now is there is enough slop in the system to say, ‘1.2, 1.6, yes, it is about right. A kid this fat is not going to get through’. You have a big problem on your hands, because you have gone from such - and there is photographic evidence – a strict system with absolutely no latitude, to a system with so much latitude that I believe you have some big problems in terms of what is compliant and what is not. There is no register for a start, so you do not even know who has pools. You have no idea who has pools out there. There is no register.
Mr Ah Kit: It is good to see that you are against all of this.
Mr DUNHAM: No. I will pick up that interjection – it is good to see that you are against all of this. Now, we are against all of this situation. The government has decided they are all against situation (a). They are now putting to us situation (b) and saying we have to sign up. Well, we are not signing up for sloppy legislation, mate. This place has a duty to inspect bills that come before it. Normally, they sit here for two sittings. Normally, we are able to go back to our constituents with your legislation and show it. What we have here is a two week abbreviated consultation over Christmas, gammon consultation and you know it.
Next we have a report that comes out of – no, I have not seen that report either. The report is supposed to inform us that the legislation is in accord with the report. Those links have yet to be demonstrated. We have yet to see the public consultation led inexorably to a report that reflected that, led inexorably to a piece of legislation that reflected the report. Those links have to be drawn. If they cannot be drawn, then you either have consulted and have not listened, and I note the Darwin City Council was not on your list, by the way. They are the very people I would have gone to first. The major inspector of pools for years and years has been the Darwin City Council. They should have been involved in this from day one. I have a pool. When it was inspected by the Darwin City Council, it was knocked back three times. On three occasions they knocked it back. I thought they were pretty petty things, in every case. One was a rock that came 10 mm above where the bottom rung of the fence was. I thought, well, that is an exercise in pedantry, but okay, let us have a go. I had fully, totally complied, and it exists as a compliant fence to this day. Interestingly, under this legislation, and the previous legislation, I did not need a fence. Notwithstanding I am in suburbia and have hundreds of kids living within a kilometre of my place, I did not need a fence, because I was on 2 hectares.
The minister said in a news article, ‘We are going to force Australian Standards, and it is uniformly applied to every Territorian’. That is wrong and wrong. They were not Australian Standards as we know - as we know chain mesh fencing was below the Australian Standard - and they did not apply to many Territorians who lived out of our major centres. Therefore, unless you are actually going to have that parcel of legislative intent held true, you are actually telling fibs.
Now we have another go at this thing and it is a giant mess. We have walked into people’s backyards - and all of us have been to barbecues – and, I assume, also the pool inspectors - where people get there little drill out, put it on reverse, and pull out the four Tec screws, and lift the panels out and put up against the back fence so that their pergola and outdoor area is the same as it was. We all know a gate can be propped open, a fence can become climbable with objects held against it. Therefore, it is not a catch all to say, ‘I have a fence that met Australian Standards when the pool inspector came around here on 7 July 2003’, because on 8 July it might not be. On the same day it might not be.
You have to have a policy that talks about preventing mortality and morbidity to children. That is your policy, and it is a policy that comes out of child accident prevention, immunisation, and the rest of it. You then you have to look at catchments - clusters of unfortunate cases where children have died who should not have - preventable deaths. In there you will find drowning. You have to then move to the next stage and say, ‘Is pool fencing a big issue?’ There are some claimants out there who will say, ‘It is the biggest issue’. Perhaps it is. That is the series of connections you have to make.
When the minister came out with his water wise and swimming safe and stuff, that is where we should have been. We should have talking about educating kids in school, CPR, the capacity for alarms in pools, and pool fencing in that suite of things. However, to divert so much attention to a one-fix solution is naivety in the extreme. It is as naive as the Chief Minister parading in here on her white horse as the knight in shining armour who is going to save every small child from drowning. It is a foolish notion. Probably the word ‘courageous’ has been used. It probably was courageous because, if she had really in her heart to hearts believed that a one-fix solution was all that was necessary, and that is what she did - I commend her for it. Stupid, but I commend her for it, because we all know that, if you look at the profile of drownings - including, a lot of adult drownings, I have to tell you, in places that are still unfenced - the issue is not that easy. If you want to say to Territorians, ‘It is your responsibility; you are the ones who are being lax. You have blood on your hands, therefore I am going to regulate and jam you on this thing’, that is where this debate started. It is a stupid debate.
Let us start by saying there is a shared responsibility. However, parental responsibility and individual responsibility sits up the top, and let us start there, and work our way down and see what part pool fencing plays - and it will play a part. Therefore, before you get up and say, ‘We would have all the pool fences pulled down’ – we would not, but we would not be so foolish to believe it is the only solution that you parade out. We would not be so stupid as to come in here and bang our chest, and say, ‘This is matter of such great import that it transcends anything you or anyone else might say. I am just going to go and do it’.
Having loftily transcended all of what she called irrelevant patter and rhetoric in this place, she now has an immense problem – it is an immense problem. That is: this ain’t gonna fix it. You have described what you want to do: you want to stop child drownings. You now have phase two of a bill in this parliament and it hurts me to say it, but it must be said: this bill will not do that, because that is the world, that is what we are faced with.
I am sadly being a realist. I do not want to see kids die either. I do not want to see kids drown. As I said, I have the capacity to remove my fence and would not do so. There are many of us in society who shoulder that responsibility, but they do not want to shoulder is singly. They do not want to say, ‘I do not have kids, I believe my pool fence is sufficient. I have incorporated it into my house design so I have that amenity’ - which the government has taken off them. There is an assessment of risk that could have been made here, and that is that this is not as a risky situation, for instances, as that.
I have also mentioned in this parliament that, if you drive down the main drive in to Fairway Waters you go past quite large tracts of water that have quite substantial drop-offs to them that I would consider to be fairly dangerous. The only ones that are fenced are the ones with the dinky little pools on the other side. So if you do not have a pool, you have unfettered access to the water; if you do you have something that will keep a Bengal tiger in.
This is not clever thinking. It was going to be Australian Standards; well it was not. It was going to apply to everybody; but it does not. It really is for swimming pools; but it is not. You can have a pool at this hotel across the road here at the Cavanagh. No problem. No fence. You can have bodies of water all around. The biggest drowning hazard in this place, as I have said before in this parliament, is the wharf. You have a trip hazard about that high. You have tides at 7 m rushing out so you have a very turbid water situation. You have a visibility problem on some occasions and we encourage young families and kids down there and sell grog there. If you really wanted to do a risk analysis, have a look folks. But don’t take my words to say Dunham says let’s put an 8 ft fence around Stokes Hill. I am saying that there is a balance and you would hope that the people who take small children would recognise that risk; you would hope they would see the risk for what it is; you would hope that that parental responsibility would have such a primacy in this whole argument about protecting children that you would not have to worry about a government intervention that said, ‘Sorry, we are going to fence it off and not let anybody in there’.
That is where you have to get to, minister. You have to tell us all about compensation and whether my constituents fit. You have to tell us what hardship would have been caused in the month, this month now between February and March, and in doing that, you are also giving a calibration to how much hardship has occurred before it. You have to tell us whether this will fix what the Chief Minister set out to do and that is the total elimination of childhood drownings. You have to tell us why the absolute accuracy depicted by David Coles on the front page of the paper with his fingers, the absolute accuracy is now a latitude that you can measure in footsteps. That would seem to be a fairly wide policy parameter, minister, and you have to tell us what that is all about. You have more than say sorry. If you say sorry, it is rhetoric. If you say sorry and I will fix it up, that is more pragmatic. And if you say sorry, there is $21m therefore I am out of here, really that is just an exit.
So what you have done is said, ‘What do we have pay to get out of this muck up, this flying muck up that Jack’s got us into? I know, let’s say we will put some money on the table, hand out $21m and let’s say it is up to the individual owner, and we are out of here’. So all we have is $21m, an apology and dust. That is all we have; the dust from the horses; the white knights who galloped in to save everybody. The white knights are now galloping over the horizon having left their $21m bucks on the table and a dear-sir-I’m-sorry note. That is all we have and this bill is something that has not put this to bed.
I was offended, and I did draw the attention of parliament to the minister’s language when he talked about this, and that is always going to be a problem. If you use the safety of children as a hostage in this debate I will find it a matter of great offence. If you say in this debate that somehow we are uncaring of our small children or their safety, I say to you that that very charge could be levelled at you with what you are doing here. I will not level it because I think that is the very debate that has taken us to this crazy, emotional interference of people’s backyard, erosion of their amenity, erosion of their lifestyle and the anger that we have seen in this place.
Some of that debate has been taking place out there with people pointing other people in the chest and talking about their capacity to care for children. Well, I do not think that should be injected in to it. Let’s focus on the broad intent and that is to ameliorate mortality and morbidity for Territory kids. Let’s start there. I do not care if the debate goes in to immunisation. I do not care if it goes in to schooling and modifying behaviours and risk taking behaviours. I do not care if it goes there. But just to pick one segment out and just to pick one solution out is how we got to this problem in the first place.
When this government keeps talking about whole-of-government this, holistic that, the approach across the thing that we heard in the health statements the other day, this is an example of how you do it. You just pick one switch, you switch it on with all the spot lights on you and all the fanfare and say, ‘Look! We’ve fixed it up. This was a big problem, and the Martin government fixed it up. We had the gumption to fix it up’. That is a trite debate because it is harder than that, and we all appreciate that it is harder than that; we know it is not a one switch problem. But you painted it like that, and you are stuck with it.
I hope you are able to make those contributions, minister. You could start by giving us the reason for this urgency and you could describe that hardship in some degree. Once you do that, multiply it by the number of months that this has been in place, and that is the pain you have caused out there.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I would like to open my contribution to the debate with the second paragraph of the minister’s second reading speech, in which he said:
That is why we have legislated to protect our youngest and most vulnerable. So, I do not give a hoot about the member for Drysdale saying, ‘Don’t bring that into the debate. Don’t bring that in.’ That is what started this debate in the first place, member for Drysdale. You cannot turn your back on it. Do not try to say it is irrelevant to this whole debate because it is not; it is what brought it on in the first place. The debate about pool safety has been going on in the Territory for at least 10 years, if not longer, when it has been actively pursued. What brought us to the point of pool safety legislation was that the swimming pool legislation in place by local councils was not good enough to stop this drowning rate.
In some areas, some councils might have had better legislation than others and we are not denying that. However, there was a call from the community for unified legislation regarding pool fencing. That is what got us here. We went into a consultative phase with councils, and we can all remember the headlines of the Lord Mayor of Darwin and the Chief Minister up on the 5th floor meeting and the Lord Mayor coming out and being all aggressive and anti the government’s position. We can all remember that, but that was the catalyst for this legislation on in the first place. So let us not say that the drowning rate of our children in our community is irrelevant to this debate and is purely emotive, and is a complete and utter fallacy. It is not, never was and never will be. It needs to be taken into consideration.
The driver for pool safety legislation is our concern for our children. Fencing is only one component of the government’s pool safety strategy, and it is not being driven by the insurance liability argument. We are not saying, ‘Put up a fence and that will reduce your liability for a child drowning in your pool or for an accident happening in your place’. Home liability is still there. You are still responsible and it would not matter what you have in your yard, whether you have a pool or not, anyone who comes into your yard and hurts themselves may hold you liable. Then you argue the case about whether your yard or your home is safe and what you have done to make it a safe environment or whether you have been neglectful.
This whole argument about liability is all rather spurious. It is up to the individual homeowner. Your home contents insurance has something like $20m liability coverage in there. For anyone who has had the prospect of someone who has visited their place injure themselves and then gone into litigation, you will know what it is all about. It has nothing to do with pool fencing, or falling into the water and whether you had a barrier. It is all about the safety of the place. The whole argument that pool fencing is being designed so that if you have it, you will not be liable and if you have somehow breached it, then you are more liable - well, it is a case by case basis.
Twelve months ago when we started this debate, I said, ‘Six years ago I was campaigning and unified pool fencing was a huge issue in the community’. Well, it is seven years now and it is still a huge issue; it has not backtracked one bit. There has been a lot of …
Ms Carney: In that case you have had seven years to get it right..
Mr KIELY: You buy cane toads, don’t you?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: You are so full of venom, it is the only way I thought you would ever get it. You are so full of venom, member for wherever you come from.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, just get on with your debate!
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, the whole issue of this legislation, what we are trying to do now, and to bring in a community standard, is because of representations made by community members to various people, to the pool inspectors, to the Pool Fencing Authority, and to local MLAs. I will give an idea of some of the issues that I have had to deal with in my electorate, people coming to me with issues regarding pool fencing. They have come into my office, they have approached me as the local MLA, not as the Labor Party MLA, but as the MLA for Sanderson, with issues.
There was a family living in Malak who had their pool inspected and it was found to be non-compliant. The reason for non-compliance was because the outside barrier fence, which was high enough, had an Austar communications box on the outside. They contacted the council and said, ‘Look, this is over your’ – this is the neighbour’s argument, sort of thing, ‘This is over there. Can you do anything?’ The council said, ‘No, we don’t want to know about that. That is an Austar issue’. They contacted Austar and Austar did not want to know anything about it, ‘No, that is a council issue’. They were in limbo. They came to me and I worked with them. We contacted the pool fencing people. They went out and inspected the pool. The solution was to erect a perspex barrier over the segment of the fence where the box was close to it. They said, ‘This seems fairly ridiculous, fairly pedantic’. I tended to agree with them. That was the legislation, it is an Australian Standard, it had to be there. A solution could be found which did not bring on hardship. It affected the aesthetics of the fence but they went with it. They were not happy about it. I made representations for them and that is how it was addressed.
There was another family. These people had ...
Ms Carney: You might have written this yourself, you know. I think it could be one of those. They are few and far between.
Mr KIELY: It is like a kid who missed out on its birthday party, isn’t it?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: There was another family who came to me. They had a block work fence and were told that it did not comply, and that they would have to cover that block work fence. Why? Because the gaps in the bricks were 110 mm not 100 mm. They thought this was unfair and I too thought it was a bit hard. So we contacted the Pool Fencing Authority and I believe that problem was sorted out to their satisfaction. Hang on! No, that one was not. That one is still sitting there in abeyance.
There was another one – and people might remember this – the chap in Tennison Circuit. It was in the NT News actually, and I think it was on local television. He was doing his block because he had had three visits; each time he had been upgrading his fence, and on the last one, he was pinged for having a small pipe running through the brickwork. He phoned up my office. I came down and said, ‘Yes, this does seem unreasonable’. No way could a kid get any purchase really on there but, because of the Australian Standard, it was deemed to be failing. The Pool Fencing Authority got involved in that and it was passed, because in the act there was that discretion, and it was passed.
I will read this letter that I wrote to the minister, because I had fielded a number of phone calls.
Mr Elferink: Are you plagiarising yourself, now?
Mr KIELY: You are a fool.
I wrote to the minister on 8 October 2003:
communications pillars located on the street side of properties whose owners have been advised
that their pools do not comply due to the proximity of the structure.
The owners of pools do not have any influence over their neighbours’ properties and they are having
their pools listed as non-compliant through no fault of the owners.
neighbouring structures that have been in place for many years on the fence line and are the cause for
pools on the adjoining property being deemed non-compliant.
the existing separation fencing/wall failing certification because it is one or two centimetres outside
the ASA specifications.
Ms Carney: Will you table that letter?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr KIELY: … to rectify these faults …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, we have a point of order.
Ms CARNEY: The member is quoting extensively from a letter that he claims he wrote. In the circumstances, I ask that he table that letter so that those of us who may or may not have doubts as to whether the member wrote that letter can be satisfied that he did.
Madam SPEAKER: He can table it, but he can also read it out. Member for Sanderson, would you table the letter?
Mr KIELY: I would be happy to table the letter.
Leave granted.
Well, that is what we have done. That is what we did on 8 October. These issues were brought to the minister’s attention on 8 October. I knew there was a review on. He flagged it in his initial speech. He also brought it up in August, I think it was. He said there was a review going to take place. Bingo! My contribution; I brought out these points.
We heard the member for Drysdale and others from the opposition go on about all these people who have come to them with all these different cases. They have come to me too, and I am not denying it is out there. They have come to me and I have made representations and looked for solutions. Do you know how many representations have been made by the opposition on constituents’ behalf? One - one representation! They come in here and they tell us about huge community concern. They go on about it. They are concerned, they are really worried. Look what is happening in the community. One! One of them made a representation – I made four or five. I have written to the minister and contributed to the whole review. Right?
Mr Burke: Oh, good on you!
Mr KIELY: Well, no, if you are good enough to stand here and say it is all failing, get in there and fix it! Get in there and fix it! Because you will not, will you? You will not! Let us say that I have noticed that there has been a concerted campaign to undermine this legislation. Not because it is bad legislation, but for the politics of it. I believe that it has been politicised right out of the room! It is for their own personal gain; the CLP’s personal gain. They do not have one skerrick of community concern. They are not interested in fixing the problem; they are just interested in wrecking, wrecking, wrecking …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: That is their whole attitude to this debate. You can see from the antics of the member for Araluen with the petulance, pettiness and the screaming distractions that she offers, as to their attitude to this whole debate.
We have really good commentators. I believe it was the Sunday Forum of 8 February. That was a pretty worthwhile article which got into the nub of trying to fix up pool fencing. No, I do not think so. That was an incredibly destructive article, not intended at all to rectify the situation or to help people in distress with their fencing. On 3 February we have, ‘Council declares war over pool fences’:
Mr Adamson said the council had been met by an overwhelming negative response to the laws. ‘One of the
most common things I hear from people is that they almost feel like they are treated like a criminal’.
How many aldermen have phoned me up and said, ‘Listen, I have a ratepayer down the road here who has a real problem’? None. Never had one representation from an alderman. Come on, let’s see you lot stand up over there and tell me how many aldermen have phoned you up and said, ‘This is a shocking disgrace. This person down at this address needs your help’?
A member: Seventy-seven.
Mr KIELY: Seventy-seven. And how many did you put in? You must be the bloke who put in one? Seventy-seven and we have one. Seventy-seven complaints he has had, aldermen phoning him up. He has just said it, Madam Speaker, 77; we have one on our record. That is the sort of wrecking behaviour. That is it. What about this one here from the council, this open letter? I will table this open letter from the council from the NT News of 3 February. I won’t read it out because I know that it offends the ears of the member for Araluen, but let me say that the things that …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I have no idea what the member for Sanderson is talking about. He has made …
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr KIELY: I will table this because …
Madam SPEAKER: Would you seek leave to table it?
Mr KIELY: I seek leave to table this.
Leave granted.
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, the call that the council is making has been answered by this legislation, so the council and the NT government are one on this legislation. So I expect a fair bit of support now from the Lord Mayor and the rest of the aldermen. I am sure that they will contact me should they have any issues. Let’s go to some more wrecking sort of behaviours that appear through the pages of the paper from the opposition. This one is titled, ‘Loop hole claim in pool fence law’ and this is on 10 February. This is about the infamous press release that the Leader of the Opposition put in regarding Alderman Fraser being a Labor mate and getting preferential treatment. I have the transcript of Alderman Fraser talking to Mr Daryl Manzie on his radio show and it is quite interesting. This is how low can you go sort of stuff. The member of the opposition ripped off this …
A member interjecting.
Mr KIELY: He was a skerrick to getting sued, so he backed out of it real quick. But Alderman Fraser said that, talking about the Leader of the Opposition:
This behaviour by the Leader of the Opposition is exactly the behaviour that the member for Drysdale condemned in his adjournment debate. Do you remember a few nights ago? Exactly the same. The member for Drysdale is dead opposed to what you did. Now, you lot ought to get together and start getting your act and your whole parliamentary behaviour, because your standards are in conflict with each other. Here you are, sending out libellous press releases all for cheap political gains, dragging innocent people into it. The member for Drysdale does appreciate it, no one else around here does, but you seem to wallow in that sort of behaviour. That is fairly appalling. All to get a cheap point off the back of good intentioned legislation. That is the level to which this opposition is swooping in order to try and sink this legislation.
The member for Drysdale in his contribution, and it is all in Hansard, will be remembered. They will have a look at that and they will actually see it for the cheap political tricks that he is trying to pull off because none of what he said holds water. It was complete and utter nonsense, it will not hold the fabric of time.
There was also the interview. The Leader for the Opposition has a go at Alderman Fraser, he backtracked pretty quickly, but then we had a further interview by Daryl Manzie with David Coles, who was recently attacked in this House. They are pretty good at having a go at public servants when they are not around, and they are good at having a go at people who have unfortunately passed on.
That shot before from the member for Brennan about the late Lord Mayor George Brown, who cannot defend himself - he had words attributed, acts attributed – he has attributed words to a bloke who has passed on. I tell you what: I have seen some low acts in this place, but that one was pretty rich. I hope people remember that: attributing actions to someone who cannot answer back. How pathetic.
Anyway, I won’t go into the Daryl Manzie show it too much, it was all about the process that Alderman Fraser went through to get provisional exemption for his pool so the house could be sold. In my contribution last year to this debate, I spoke at great length about selling of my house …
Ms Carney: You always speak at great length; it’s just that you say so little!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Araluen.
Ms CARNEY: I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I really am.
Mr KIELY: I do not expect anything else from her, Madam Speaker. She has been trying to bait me. You see, she thinks I will rise and bite like a big barramundi but, really, she is a silly, foolish little girl who really does not deserve any attention whatsoever. But I tell you what: if you are going to throw jibes at me like a man, member for Araluen, at least do it like a gentleman.
What I said in my contribution then was that I moved into my house on the understanding that my pool was up to council standard. When it was inspected, it was found not to comply with the council standard. That is what we faced with this legislation that we introduced. We worked on an assumption – wrongly, as it happens - that the council and all their pools were up to certain standards. They were not. Eighty per cent or so were not up to standard. People getting caught out, government got caught out, and that is what really what we started to deal with. We had an Australia Standard and a lot of the Darwin registered pools did not comply with the anticipated rate.
Mr Wood: On gates.
Mr KIELY: Yes, there are a whole range of reasons. People were getting pinged for all sorts of different reasons. From people losing out and having multiple inspections, and from this concerted campaign waged by the CLP opposition to undermine good social legislation aimed at protecting our young, a whole range of urban myths were developed.
Let me put some of these urban myths to bed. Urban myth 1: the system is overly bureaucratic. Some poor pool owners have had to endure as many as nine inspections by the pool officers. The average number of visits to achieve compliance during the first year of operation was three. The maximum number of visits for any one property has been six, and this has only occurred due to incomplete work, work not completed in accordance with the instructions, or restricting inspectors’ access to the property.
Urban myth 2: nobody in the community is happy with the legislation. Whilst there may have been a lot of noise in the media concerning pool fencing war stories, it is interesting to note that there was not a single formal appeal against decisions made by the authority during the first 12 months.
Mr Elferink: That is because they couldn’t, you idiot! That is the problem with this legislation.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, I ask for your protection.
Madam SPEAKER: Withdraw, member for Macdonnell. We have said we will not make personal remarks.
Mr ELFERINK: Withdrawn, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr KIELY: This indicates that people are accepting of the need for fencing standards and that it is simply the technical detail of the Australian Standards that the community has struggled with. We are sorry for the frustrations that have been caused to pool owners last year.
Mr Dunham: Good! Another apology.
Mr KIELY: Not to you, member for Drysdale. You flit in and out. Your shirt’s hanging out, it’s like Giddy, Giddy Gout, isn’t it, really?
It is worthy to note that there are now in excess of 4000 pools that meet the Australian Standard.
Urban myth 3: many pool owners were compliant with the former council by-laws, and now you impose a higher standard on them. This hardly seems fair. What guarantee did they have that these standards won’t change in a couple of years? Well, of the properties inspected in the last 12 months, more than 80% of the pools in the Darwin area and more than 50% of the pools in the Palmerston area were found to not comply with the standards previously in place in those areas.
This was a fundamental error made by government when they assumed responsibility for pool fencing standards, that a reasonable foundation had been established by the standards previously enforced by the councils. This lulled those pool owners into a false sense of security, believing that they were compliant. If this fundamental assumption had been correct, then the move to the Australian Standard would not have been very onerous at all.
The fourth urban myth I would like to dispel is that the legislation is so unpopular and difficult to understand pool owners will only be upgrading when they absolutely have to, for example, at the time of sale or lease of the property. This has proven not to be the case over the last 12 months. For example, 50% of applications for compliance were from owner occupiers, 30% were triggered as a result of leasing and 20% were triggered as a result of sale. These figures demonstrate that the majority of applications for compliance came from those pool owners with no immediate compulsion to take any action.
In addition, clause 35 of the new act includes a provision to allow the authority to order immediate works for pools that pose an immediate danger to children, for example, a pool which is unfenced and which adjoins a public place. These pools are generally brought to the authority’s attention through concerned neighbours, or are sighted by inspectors when carrying out other inspections under the act. I have worked in the compliance area before. I have been a compliance officer, and I have managed a compliance unit, and I know the hard work that people who work in this do. They deal with legislation, they stick to the letter of the legislation and that is all they can do. These people have had a really tough job and they have had no support in the first place. They have had no support whatsoever from the CLP opposition. All they have been doing is undermining the work that they do.
These men and women go out to barbecues, and into the social work place. The continual attacks that the CLP mounts on them is so demoralising, so hard hitting. These people have been doing their job as compliance officers and following the legislation that is put in front of them. We realise that, we appreciate that, we have never, ever once had a go at these pool officers. As a matter of fact, we have stood by them, shoulder to shoulder, and we support them all the way. And I want this made quite well known to them. I appreciate all the work they have done, this, making them pool safety advisers, is a far better way to go.
The community standard that we are bringing in will meet community expectations. The member for Wanguri is right. The law came in, people were not accepting of the way it was, the rigidity of it, the compliance officers had nowhere to go because of that. We flagged when the legislation came in that it was under review. I submitted to the review. I represented my constituents’ views. Quite a number of the issues that I picked up on my constituents told me about; I fed into the review process and they have been acted upon.
I was not mealy-mouthed, weaseley, trying to make capital over poor misfortunes of the people around the suburbs. You, on the other hand, member for Drysdale, it was not you who made any representations for those three or four people who found themselves in hardship – not you. You were happy enough to get there and engineer and derail and leave these people out to dry for your own political gain. That is what it is about, their own political gain. Well, I am not about that, I am about looking after my constituents.
I commend the minister for his work, I commend the Pool Fencing Authority, they have done a wonderful job and I look forward to this legislation being passed.
Ms CARNEY: Madam Speaker, the member said that he would table a letter to which he referred. I am not sure whether he has.
Madam SPEAKER: I think he has, hasn’t he?
Mr KIELY: Certainly.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, just for the sake of the public record I believe that it is important to us as legislators to reflect on what we are actually doing here, and to reflect back to the time when we initially debated this legislation, or the legislation which will be improved upon, according to the arguments of members opposite, and to reflect on the whole process.
What we have just witnessed is the evidence of the capture of this debate politically, where one side will hold on to their position and assert that the other side are the enemy because they do not understand and do not appreciate our position. We are captured in this ridiculous argument when, in fact, any reasonable person looking at the previous debate a year ago, would have seen that there were sensible challenges made by those who were given the responsibility of weighing up legislation. There were reasonable, sensible challenges made and they were soundly resisted because the political position that was held by those proposing the legislation would be exposed by conceding that they could possibly be flawed: ‘This is our creation and we want to own this spot’. This position that was sought to be owned by the then reasonably newly-elected Labor Party was one that they naively believed would be a very strong position for them to take politically.
The concept of comprehensively demonstrating care and concern for children, and having that connection to that primary resonance within the community that we all care for children and we are very concerned about safety - to be able to tap into that and capture that sentiment with legislation for a solution is acceptable and understandable. However, in your keenness to capture this place - this political capital - your ears were closed to the debate in the Chamber, just as we have had a demonstration of a misunderstanding of what is really meant to occur when we are discussing legislation. I put to the member for Sanderson that the proposals that will be put, in amendments, in the next round of this debate have some merit and they should be countenanced - they should be considered. It is not about you and it is not about us - your argument versus our argument - it is about getting this legislation right so that we do not have to go back and fix it up; so you do not have the embarrassing situation where you have to apologise.
The focus has now been distracted from the children and that piece of political capital that you once wanted to hold and possess and own. Now it is: ‘How can we get ourselves out of this and find a place where we can stand where the community has forgotten to some degree that we have caused a certain amount of angst and concern in the community?’ That now is your problem.
I would advise you that, by considering amendments that will be argued from this side of the House, you could well end up in a much better position, because there are some deficiencies in the legislation as proposed. You will not be compromising your political position because you are in government, and that is fine. However, in being in government, you have a responsibility to listen to the opposition too. You are not going to lose too much if you listen to the opposition. In fact, I will let you in on a secret: if you listen and take it on board, you will actually increase your respect within the community. We have all seen that there has been this review and you can spin it that the minister always said it was going to be reviewed. However, you just tapped into the community and you knew there was immense pain that was being experienced by the community. You knew that and, you would be fools to pretend otherwise. You knew that to be the case; you have done your polling, the feedback is coming in. You are a bit embarrassed about the position you once held. Now you have to find a solution.
The new simplified pool rules are an attempt to repair your position. It says, quite plainly, in the second paragraph:
We all know that. Anyone with kids, anyone in our community, wants to increase the safety of children. It goes on:
We simply were standing back to watch because you had ventured in courageously to territory that we warned you in the debate, if you go back and have a good read of it, both eyes open, just read it, you will see that there were, in the midst of all the rubbish debate that goes on in terms of, ‘My legislation’s better than yours’ and ‘We’re better than you’, and all that sort of rot. In the midst of that there was actually sensible debate and there were the warning bells contained within.
If you had actually listened and slowed down - as the review tells you - slow it down, you are here to advance and prosper the true welfare of all Territorians. There is the temptation to get in there and advance and prosper your own political interests, but get in there and just do the job properly. Sadly, you had that opportunity and missed it. It is now, whatever way you spin it, going to cost us significantly, as a community - $21m is a figure that has been put on it; ‘We were always going to spend that anyway’. I suspect not. I suspect it is going to be considerably more cost, not just financial.
Now we move to stage 2, the repair job, covered with a lovely, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry’, and now we move on. ‘Let’s quickly fix this problem because’ - I can smell the finish line here – ‘it is the coming election and, my goodness, we have to get this thing sorted out pretty quickly’, say the number crunchers and the strategists. ‘We have to get this sorted out pretty quickly because we do not want the memory of this debacle in the minds of the electorate around election time, so let’s fix it really quickly. When everyone is at the Christmas drinks and celebrating the end of a good year, quickly announce a review’, people are saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ A quick review. Out comes the review, the recommendations of the review, whacko, we have new legislation. Once again, the opposition is saying, ‘Slow down. There are some things you need to consider’. We actually want you to fix it. Of course, there is the gamesmanship in here, want to trip you up, make you look a bit silly just as you are constantly working overtime to make us look a bit silly. ‘Let’s get on with the real job. It’s about children’. No-one denies the heart of this is getting it right for the children, so our community has some sense of order and how to approach such an issue.
There are issues that are going to be raised in debate further on but I urge you, members of government, to listen. You had an opportunity last night to listen to some recommendations that should have been taken on board. You did not do so; you were deaf to such arguments in last night’s debate on electoral reform. Tonight there will be other recommendations put forward, amendments and arguments put to you. I just ask you to please listen. You will not lose too much if you take some of these considerations on board, particularly when it comes to the capacity for members of the community to make adequate calls for adjudication in difficult times; dispute resolution built into this legislation.
I urge members to rise above the nonsense that goes on in here in regards to our legislation. Fantastic now and we are a bit sorry about what happened last time - there is a bill for $21m – but, ‘Let us get on now because we have to get this fixed up because there is an election not too far away. We have to get this sorted out so that we look as good as possible and so people don’t remember this’. So, ‘Quick, quick, quick. Let’s get through this and then we will all live happily ever after’. The electorate is far more sophisticated. They are listening. They have been hurt and they will not recover too quickly. I reckon the best way for them to recover and for you to gain a bit of position here is to take on board the arguments that will be presented in the committee stages.
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, in my closing debate, I thank honourable members for their contributions. It is clear to all, I am sure, that there is no joy for the government in making the changes that have been made. We developed legislation that was based on an assumption about the situation that was proved wrong. We confronted a serious problem and we have moved to fix it. It has not been an easy thing to do, but it had to be done.
The point that must be stressed is that the aims of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act and the Swimming Pool Safety Bill are the same. The aim of both the current legislation and the proposed legislation is to give those who care for children that bit of time they need to move to stop their toddlers drowning in backyard pools. The difference now is that the strategy is one that takes much better account of the reality of the situation that we are dealing with. There will now be a much stronger focus on education, awareness and encouragement than on enforcement. There will be a lot more stress on giving information so that they can make their own judgments about the way they deal with their pools and the children who are their responsibility.
It is important, I believe, to note that this new legislation draws a clear line. For existing pools, those installed prior to January 2003, there will be a standard that takes into account that the pools are already well and truly in the ground. Often some sort of barrier is in existence and the pool is integrated into the way people live. We want the barriers to meet the principle of the Australian Standards, but we are not insisting on them meeting the detailed technical standards that support this principle. To do so means that we make people upset the amenity of their living areas, often to meet a relatively minor element of the variety of requirements that go together to make a pool safe.
For those pools constructed since 1 January 2003, the line in the sand is drawn. In these cases, owners know that they need to comply with the modified Australian Standard. The owners have made the arrangements and will make their arrangements in the future in full knowledge of the requirements of the law. The system that will now apply will ensure that all pools constructed from now on fully meet the modified Australian Standard.
There have been comments made that suggest that it will be difficult for the ordinary person to make an assessment of compliance with the Community Safety Standard. The Community Safety Standard is quite clear. It is set out in one section of the bill, clause 11. This will provide that the barrier must be designed, sited, constructed and maintained in a way that prevents, to the extent that it is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances, a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. The words of the clause as it stands are not as clear as they could be. An amendment will be moved in committee to address this. I am also sure that many pool owners will have no problem going into their backyard and making that judgment. They know their patch. They know whether or not they have children in their yard and whether those children have been able to get into the pool unsupervised.
Most pool owners are not irresponsible. No-one wants to find a body in their pool, particularly the body of a child. The clause gives pool owners some assistance in making the assessment in its further requirement that perimeter boundaries only will not be sufficient. The capacity is also created for the prescription by regulation of guidelines to assist in the assessment of compliance with the Community Safety Standard.
A document has already been published that indicates our intentions in the development of these regulations. It is our intention to provide in these guidelines some key areas that should receive the attention of pool owners making a declaration. We will be asking them to focus primarily on gates, doors and gaps in the fence. Most children under five who die in pools, or get into serious trouble, enter through a gate, door, or a gap in the fence. Many people do not appreciate that a toddler will go through a gap of 150 mm as quick as a flash. Some can get through gaps of 120 mm. A guideline that says there should be no gaps larger than 100 mm starts to make a lot more sense when these things are understood.
The education and awareness campaign will focus on such matters. We will be spending a lot of time and effort in the community trying to ensure that people are aware of the ways they could slow kids down, and the reasons for some of the standards that they should consider in making their judgments. Where a person is having difficulty making an assessment of their compliance with the Community Safety Standard, they will be able to call on the assistance of an expert in pool safety. Pool Safety Advisors will be able to discuss, not just the technical specifications that might sensibly be applied, they will also be able to talk about why those specifications have been identified. So, if a person is making a judgment about whether to make a declaration of compliance about a pool fence, they will be able to do so with some knowledge of the basis for a standard. As I said, they will know that the average three-year-old can get through a gap of 150 mm, or that the average one-year-old will get their head stuck in a gap of 120 mm.
The Community Safety Standard is not precise; that is precisely the point. There is a clear principle and some guidelines for assessment, along with the ability to obtain advice. The bottom line is that it is a matter for the owner to make their own best judgment. Pool owners who are not comfortable doing this always have the option of going to the modified Australian Standard. If they do this, there is additional money available.
As has been noted by the member for Macdonnell, a change has been made in the bill as against the current act to remove an avenue of appeal from the Review Committee to an Appeals Tribunal. The member for Macdonnell has indicated that an amendment will be moved to reinstate the Lands and Mining Tribunal as the Appeals Tribunal in the bill and to expand its powers. The opportunity was also taken to read into the record a letter sent to MLAs by the Chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal. I will come back to this in a moment.
First, let me make it quite clear that the need for appropriate mechanisms for appeal against decisions of the authority made pursuant to the act was recognised in the previous legislation and continues to be recognised in this bill. In the previous legislation, all decisions that could affect a member of the public made by the authority pursuant to the act were subject to appeal to the Review Committee. These included all decisions of the authority in relation to the issue of registrations, compliance certificates and orders pursuant to the act.
The point has been made publicly on a number of occasions that there have been no appeals heard by the Review Committee against decisions of the authority. Some have made the point that there was little that could actually be appealed against. To a very great degree, this results from the prescriptive nature of the current act. There has been very little room for inspectors, or the authority, to move. There has therefore been very little room in which to argue and very little room for appeal. This has been a source of frustration for many people and this frustration has been made clear to us all.
Under the previous act, the Review Committee had the power to review all decisions of the authority made pursuant to the act. This policy continues under the new act. The Review Committee is an independent body with statutory powers to hear any appeal against a decision of the authority de novo, that is, from the beginning. Thus, the review committee must deal with their decision as if it is the authority and exercising the authority’s powers. The Review Committee is comprised of three people, appointed pursuant to the act. The people currently appointed are independent of the department and the authority. The Review Committee is currently comprised of a person who has been a very senior bureaucrat in both the Commonwealth and Northern Territory government; a senior representative of the real estate industry; and a person who has, for many years, headed up an influential community organisation, the Royal Life Saving Society NT.
If there are queries raised about the independence of the Review Committee, I would suggest that honourable members reflect for a moment on the current membership. Bob Beadman, chair of the Review Committee, is a man known to both sides of this House. All of us who have known him for many years know how hard it was to get him to do something he did not want to do when he worked for the previous government. Just imagine how hard it would be to get him to do something he did not want to do now that he is well and truly outside government. Sue Parry and Sue Shearer are people of real standing in the community. Any suggestion that they would not act independently and properly as a review committee should, I believe, be dismissed out of hand.
The Review Committee arrangements appear capable of working effectively. To some extent, it is unfortunate that they have not yet been tested. There have been two people out of over 13 000 decisions that have been made by the authority over the last year, who have sought to lodge appeals. In one case, the concern was about the amount of money paid in a grant. In the other, the appeal was against a decision that the authority had not yet made. The suggestion that the Lands and Mining Tribunal should be reinstated and have wider powers owes a considerable amount to the letter that was circulated last week by the chairman …
Mr Elferink: No, it does not, actually.
Mr AH KIT: … of that tribunal. While this is a matter that should appropriately be dealt with at another time - given that the member for Macdonnell has opened the matter up - I must say that I find the entry of a magistrate into a debate on public policy surprising, to say the least. I wonder what the member for Macdonnell thinks and understands about the separation of powers. It seems to me that it is at least questionable whether a magistrate should appropriately involve himself in the policy debate about a law which he is called upon to adjudicate. It may also be a matter that the public servant named in the magistrate’s correspondence wishes to consider. For the sake of the record, I table other material provided by the magistrate in question on the subject at hand.
It has been suggested that there should be an appeal against decisions about the amount of grant funds provided. The argument here is, essentially, the amount assessed by the authority, as the amount of the grant or loan will dictate the siting, style or type of fencing to be constructed, and thus will have a major impact on the amenity of the person’s backyard. This proposition is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the financial assistance arrangements that have been in place, or that are proposed to be established. First, and most importantly, this is not – I repeat – this is not and never has been about compensation. Grants are provided to assist people, not to compensate them. Under the early registration incentive scheme that was approved under the act, this scheme provided for the provision of a grant of up to a third of the minimum amount required to upgrade a barrier to the Australian Standards, up to a maximum of a third of $5000. An additional two-thirds of the amount up to a maximum of $5000 has been made available as a loan.
No decisions were made by the authority, or an inspector, about where a fence should be, what it should be constructed of, or what style it should be. It has simply been a matter of determining what is the minimum that needs to be done, and what that would cost. All decisions about the construction of the fence, its siting, style and materials, have always been decisions for the pool owner. There will now be even less involvement of the authority. Under the new system grants will be available to owners on the production of documentary evidence of the amount spent to upgrade a barrier. Grants to owners will be made of up to $3000 to upgrade to the Community Safety Standard, and up to $4000 to upgrade to the modified Australian Standard, subject in both cases to a co-payment of 25% of the total amount. Thus the authority will not be involved in anyway at all at looking at minimal levels of barriers required.
It would be quite ridiculous to suggest that should be an appeal against the amount of a grant that should be approved. This is a grant to provide assistance; such grants are no different to grants that are provided to a range of organisations by government. While it would no doubt be nice for local councils, communities and sporting organisations to have the capacity to appeal to the courts about the size of the grant they receive, this is not an appropriate decision for the courts.
Provision was made in the previous act for an avenue of appeal from the Review Committee to an appeals tribunal, in this case the Lands and Mining Tribunal. This course was taken because it seemed that it maybe useful for people dissatisfied with the decisions of both the authority and the Review Committee to have a further avenue of appeal. This process is no longer considered necessary given the avenues available for appeal and review of decisions that are available. In considering this issue it needs first to be noted that the authority will not be making decisions about registration or compliance of existing pools with the Community Safety Standard. Declarations under this standard are to be made by pool owners; the overwhelming bulk of areas from which appeals might emanate, is therefore removed. The authority will still have power to make decisions about compliance with the modified Australian Standards.
All of these decisions are subject to appeal to the Review Committee. The Review Committee will have the capacity and expertise to make such decisions with knowledge of the basis of the standards that are being applied and the capacity to balance the needs of owners against the requirement that effective barriers be in place. If a person is dissatisfied with the decision of the review committee they would have all of the rights of any individual to appeal to the courts for review of the administrative decision.
This in fact is a little different from the avenue of appeal provided under the current act to the Lands and Mining Tribunal. If a person is dissatisfied with the operation of the authority in some other way they have normal access to the service of the Ombudsman, and if they need information they can obtain it under the Information Act. Continued use of the Lands and Mining Tribunal as an appeals tribunal is considered superfluous in adding an extra layer that would provide little real value in the review of appeal process.
There has been comment about the cost of this new system. Some high estimates have been put forward. I will not go on about this subject. There are other occasions where we can debate the detail of money expended and budgeted. Suffice to say that we have made provision for expenditure on the delivery of the safe pool grant system. Appropriate allocations will be made to my department’s budget allocation to allow it to meet all expected requirements. It is of course very difficult to be too precise. The key driver of compliance for existing pools will continue to be the sale, or tenancy, of property. About 15% of property is turned over in a year. In addition, there are about 1000 new pools installed in an average year. Not all will seek a grant and many will seek somewhat less than the maximum. The question of cost becomes a lot easier to answer when we consider that there are about 100 families each year that have a major scare concerning a baby in a pool. If it costs, say, $5m per year in grants and that saves one, if not 100 babies, is that too much? I put the question.
One of the things that is being done in this bill and has not been tried often before, if at all, relates to shared fences with neighbours. As I am sure every member of this House knows this is one of the most vexed questions that is faced. The typical response in swimming pool fencing legislation is to place all liability on the pool owner. If they can get their neighbour to make sure that their side of the fence is okay and that it does not have any climbing points that can provide a ladder, then that is fine. If they cannot get the neighbours’ cooperation and keep it, then the only option for most pool owners has been to go for isolation fencing.
The bill takes a different view. In the bill we are saying that a person is responsible for their own backyard. If you have a pool you should have an effective barrier. If your next door neighbour has a pool, then it is your responsibility to make sure that kids do not climb your fence to get in to it. This is no different, as far as I can see, from a situation where the next door neighbour has a dog that could bite a small child. It is up to us all, as carers of children, to make sure they do not escape into areas that can cause them damage.
We will be requiring that neighbours be informed where a shared fence is used as a boundary. You might describe this as a form of enforced courtesy. It ensures that when a pool goes in or when a declaration of compliance is made, the neighbour is told about it. This will not be an onerous provision. We are not suggesting that people go to great lengths to track owners; simply, they put a letter in a proper form in their letter box. Thus a neighbour is put on notice that there is pool next door and that the barrier is the shared fence. If a neighbour wants information about what they should do, they will be able to seek information from a Pool Safety Advisor. None of this would appear to change the situation that currently applies under the law in relation to the relative liability of a pool owner or the neighbour.
Some questions have been raised about whether local government councils would be exempt from liability to maintain barriers they share with residents. While there are provisions in the bill already, the Palmerston City Council approached me during the last few days to indicate that there are still concerns. We agreed with the points that they made, and an amendment will be moved in committee to take on this point.
The member for Macdonnell made some points about the liability of officers and the government. He appears to be inferring that there is something devious and underhand afoot. The format of clause 47 is now the standard ‘no personal liability’ provision in new legislation. The addition of the reference to criminal liability is simply to expressly state what was always implied in relation to persons referred to in provisions drafted in similar words to those in the current section 47 of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. A person referred to in the current section 47, that is a person exercising a power or performing a function under the act in good faith, would never be guilty of an offence. This is because of the application of sections 23, 24 and 26 of the Criminal Code in relation to authorisation. I shall read these out if necessary.
Clause 47 in the bill, as mentioned previously, is now the standard provision used in new legislation instead of various provisions similar in nature to the current section 47 of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. The addition of ‘purported exercise and/or performance’ is just to cover the situation where a person is not exercising and/or performing the power and/or function correctly, but genuinely believes he or she is doing it correctly. The purported exercise will still be pursuant to authority lawfully granted, which is referred to in section 26(1)(d) of the Criminal Code by the Swimming Pool Safety Act.
To sum up in this regard, all clause 47 does is to clearly state the law as it exists in relation to employees of the government who may make an error while carrying out their duties under the Swimming Pool Safety Act in good faith.
On the matter of clause 3(3) and its connection with clause 47 and the Criminal Code, it is not 100% clear what the issue is. By the application of clause 3(3) of the bill, clause 47 would prevail if there happened to be something to the contrary in another act. For example, section 47 of the Swimming Pool Safety Act would prevail over a provision in the Criminal Code stating the following:
In relation to civil liability, if, for instance, a swimming pool safety advisor, in good faith, gives the wrong advice about a fence, that is, he or she makes a mistake in giving the advice and a child drowns in the pool, clause 47(2) will protect the advisor from personal responsibility. It will not protect the Territory from liability if a court finds the advisor’s mistake caused or contributed to the death of the child, see clause 47(3). The Territory will then be liable to pay damages in relation to that death. If there happens to be a provision in another act that says something different, then clause 47 of the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will prevail.
I will give one last example. There is an act called the Personal Injuries (Liabilities and Damages) Act which modifies the common law in relation to liabilities and damages relating to personal injuries caused by negligence. Clause 47 of the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will prevail over any future provision in that act which states that a government employee must be held personally liable for injury or death caused by the employee’s negligence when performing a duty or exercising a power in good faith.
Under common law, the employer of a person is held vicariously responsible for the person’s negligence when acting within the scope of his or her employment. It is extremely difficult to imagine any statutory provision being enacted to change that legal principle. To sum it up, it is very hard to imagine any circumstances when there would be a provision in another act that would provide for anything different in relation to a person mentioned in that clause who was acting in good faith.
In conclusion, I once again thank members for their contribution. We have had members opposite complain about our government not handling this properly from the beginning. We have had a situation where our Chief Minister said that the current legislation did not deliver on the intent. We certainly had the best of intentions, those intentions and the instructions were given to the Parliamentary drafters around about the middle of the year 2002. We introduced the legislation last year. I have always said that there would be a review. We have had that review, albeit some people are not happy with the timeframe of that review. However, we have to ensure - and I will respond to a couple of the concerns pointed out by some of the members opposite - that we alleviate the hardship that was being caused. There is uncertainty out there for vendors and leaseholders.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Minister for Local Government be granted an extension of time pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Thank you, member for Macdonnell. I want to finish off by saying that if there is a problem, then we have to fix it, and the quicker we fix the problem, the better. You may not necessarily agree with that, and for political reasons you may want us to drag this on. We have had people out there who have been up in arms. We have noticed that; we have taken that on board. It is not embarrassing for us to come out and say: ‘We got it wrong and we are going to fix it’. A government that can do that and take that in their stride, and deliver and provide the best results is, I believe, going to be much more respected in the community than being seen as supposedly doing the biggest backflip of a government in the country.
I am comfortable - and members of this side of the House no doubt - that this is good legislation; it is going to fix up a lot of the problems. We have been very fortunate that we have not had a drowning. We are not looking forward to the day that we do. We certainly hope that we continue on into the near future without having any toddlers drowning at all in backyard pools or spas. We do not have a crystal ball to gaze into, and it is likely to happen. If we can buy that extra time for parents to save those toddlers by bringing about the introduction of new legislation that has more common sense and flexibility to it, then that is the intent of this bill before us. I look forward to members’ contributions and discussion as we move through the committee stages.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: The committee has before it the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004 (Serial 206) together with Schedule of Amendments No 76 circulated by the Minister for Local Government, and Schedule of Amendments No 78 circulated by the member for Macdonnell.
Clauses 1 to 10:
Mr ELFERINK: You can take them together, but I am going to make a few comments when you are ready.
Mr CHAIRMAN: You probably need to make the comments now, member for Macdonnell.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I start by thanking the minister for answering the questions I put to him today. He knew that the question was coming; it was in relation to clause 3(3). He knew the question was coming because I made it clear during the briefings that I wanted to raise the issue. I thank him for taking the time out to find out. It was just a point of clarity as I made clear during the debate today, and the briefing at the time. I was unsure of the effect of how clause 3(3) would affect the liabilities carried under clause 47 in reference to the rest of the operations of law in the Northern Territory. I place on record my thanks to the minister in relation to it.
It saddens me a little that the minister thought that it was meant to be some sort of attack and responded by referring to my questions, suggesting that they were ridiculous. I do not believe that they were but, at the end of the day, he did take the time out to find out for me, and I appreciate it.
In terms of the clauses mentioned, there is a difference between this act and the act which will be repealed. I would like to ask a couple of quick questions in relation to it. Swimming pool barrier, which in the new act is clause 7, Swimming Pool Barriers. In the old act it used to be Swimming Pool Barrier in the Definitions. There is a very clear differentiation between the two that I do wish to ask the minister about. In the bill it states in clause 7(3) that ‘a swimming pool barrier does not include a fence, wall or structure that consists, or part of which consists, solely of a hedge or vegetation.’ In the old legislation it states ‘but does not include a fence consisting of a hedge or vegetation’. I would like the minister to elaborate as to why he is seeking to change that definition?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, this clause is similar to the current act. There is the one addition that I think the member for Macdonnell has picked on. Barriers can include walls or buildings and spa pool lids, but does not include hedges and vegetation. The inclusion of the capacity to prescribe structures to be barriers is designed to allow the law to quickly respond to technological and design changes. The principle is established by the bill and the regulations will provide the necessary detail.
Mr ELFERINK: The reason I harp on the definition is because it does change the nature of what is going on. During the briefing I was basically told that this was the ‘bougainvillea’ effect and I certainly appreciate that in the Top End, the presence of bougainvillea around a pool fence would probably keep most kids away. Speaking from personal experience as a kid in the tropics, I know bougainvillea. However, in Central Australia, and this is one of the reasons that local councils are often best left with these sorts of things, there are plants like grape vines, which are very common around pools, which can easily be scaled by kids. I just invite the minister’s observations in relation to grape vines on pool fences.
Mr AH KIT: We are just looking for a bit of flexibility to ensure that – just looking at an example – if we have a bougainvillea up against a barrier which is entwined with some hedge, then we see that as being a problem for kids to get over, even though they may be able to get a foothold on the lower part of the hedge if they start to get up the bougainvillea with the thorns that we understand bougainvillea bushes have, then it is going to be a pretty scratched up child by the time they get up to and over the fence. So, if you have on the one hand another example of a grape vine in Alice Springs, and we know how they are put into the ground and have wires stringing across, they can obtain a foothold in that. We just want to be sure that we have the ability to be able to differentiate between those and pass judgement on what is dangerous and what is not in terms of the hedge situation.
Clauses 1 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.1. This amendment was identified following further consideration by Parliamentary Counsel and it is necessary to achieve proper grammatical structure and greater clarity. This amendment does not change the intended meaning of this clause.
Mr ELFERINK: While we are on clause 11, Mr Chairman, the clause deals with the new Community Safety Standard. I believe that there is a tick and flick sheet effectively out in circulation which a person can use as a guide. Does the minister have a copy of that with him, and if so, could he table it please?
Mr AH KIT: Sorry, what is that?
Mr ELFERINK: A tick and flick sheet – a check sheet that you can use as a guide. It is my understanding that there is one in circulation.
Mr AH KIT: We do not have that ready as yet, member for Macdonnell, but as soon as we have, certainly I would be happy to get one across to you.
Mr ELFERINK: That is obviously my misunderstanding. Is there a set of guidelines of some description as to what a Community Safety Standard is?
Mr AH KIT: I went into that a little in the closing debate in the second reading. I have some draft guidelines here and I really do not want to hand you those until we have finalised them, and then you can have a look at them. It will be appropriate of me as the minister to give you a set of draft guidelines that have not been finalised and accepted as yet.
We are working them up. I suppose you can go back to the second reading and you can see some of the intentions of what we are going to be looking at. It really would not be appropriate for me to hand you a copy at this stage.
Mr ELFERINK: It is my understanding that these guidelines have already been circulated – at LGANT, I think it was. I could be corrected on that, but I believe there is a set of guidelines in circulation somewhere from the department. I could be wrong, but that is certainly my understanding.
The other thing I wish to raise, and this is far more important, is that the government is seeking, after making a big mistake with the original body of legislation, for us to pass legislation so that the government can take a bit of heat off themselves in relation to how pool fencing operated. What concerns me is that in the haste of coming into this Chamber and saying, ‘Look, we need you to pass this legislation so we can continue to govern this issue more appropriately for people in Northern Territory’, we are being asked, effectively, to pass a standard which is no more complex in description than ‘a design that is constructed and sited and maintained in a way that is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances’.
I know that your amendment touches on it, but it certainly does not get us any closer. In fact, here is your amendment:
People are going to be standing next to their pool fence with a set of guidelines in their hands - if you look at Queensland, their guidelines are 27 pages long - and they are going to be saying, ‘What is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances?’. It is going to be very difficult for the average punter to be able to figure out, quite frankly. I urge the minister to try to give at least give me, as a legislator in the Northern Territory, some comfort that I am passing legislation that is ultimately going to make some sense for the person who has to use that legislation to decide what is ‘practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances’.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, I went through this stuff and touched on it not long ago. Let me go back to it. I said there have been comments made that suggest it will be difficult for the ordinary person to make an assessment of the compliance with the Community Safety Standard. The Community Safety Standard is quite clear. It is set out in one clause of the bill, and that is what we are discussing now, clause 11. This will provide that the barrier must be designed, sited, constructed and maintained in a way to the extent that it is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances to prevent a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. I also said that the words of the clause as it stands are not as clear as they could be, and an amendment will be moved, and I have moved that amendment.
The intent and the drafting instructions have been given to the parliamentary draftsmen and, God bless their souls, I believe they do a pretty good job. The previous legislation and the intentions that we had, and the instructions we provided – they delivered on it. We take full responsibility for it not being accepted out there in the community, and what we are doing now is to bring about changes. The parliamentary draftsmen have come back and had a second look at clause 11, and these are the words that I have moved to correct that. I can accept what you are saying in regards to what is in the bill, and whether you accept or not my amendment to clause 11, but I have moved, and I will continue to argue that this amendment, as drafted by the parliamentary draftsmen, who are much more experienced at this than you and I, are the appropriate words.
Mr ELFERINK: The minister misunderstands my intention. I have no intention of standing in the way of this amendment. I think it is a good amendment. My problem is that I am a member of this parliament, and if the minister comes in and moves an amendment, it is up to me, before I send this particular legislation out for consumption, bearing in mind the hash that the former legislation was, which was rushed through, and that is what we are doing here, we cannot forget that we are rushing this through on urgency, the hash that that was, that I want to make sure that I am not contributing to recreating that hash and that mess.
By the way minister, I have just had placed into my hands the guidelines. Apparently they were out, and for your information I would like to table the guidelines for you minister, if I may, Mr Chairman.
Leave granted.
Mr ELFERINK: It is clear that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing in relation to these guidelines. Apparently, this was released, as I understand it, with a press release on 12 February from the Chief Minister’s office. This is part of the problem with rushing these things through, is that the minister who has carriage of this legislation is asking me as a legislator in the Northern Territory to pass legislation saying, ‘Look, I am not happy with guidelines yet. We have to let people know exactly what we are doing’, when the guidelines have actually found their way into circulation through the Chief Minister’s office.
That is the level of organisation that we are seeing represented here.
Mr Ah Kit interjecting.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, the minister is getting a little bit defensive about this, and well may he, Mr Chairman, because it shows you that when these things are an absolute mash and being pushed through and everybody is getting a little bit defensive, and I am sorry about this, and we are going to go and fix that, and everybody is ducking for cover when political fights break out, especially inside government, you have ministers and chief ministers gazumping each other and releasing documentation, and it starts to look pretty poor.
I have to ask myself, in light of the fact that you guys have come in here on urgency asking for this stuff to be fixed up, you are coming in here with a bunch of amendments, that the parliamentary draftsmen are so hard pushed that they had to fix up things that they had originally written because they did not have enough time to check it, because the time between the completion of the departmental review and the time that this bill hit the floor in the House was so condensed that even our very smart and clever but hard pushed parliamentary draftsmen had to come in with new amendments, we have guidelines hitting different places at different times. We have ministers unaware what their chief ministers are doing. It starts to look a bit messy.
I am not trying to be difficult, but it is very frustrating that I am being asked as a legislator, and I carry a fairly sacred responsibility to make sure I get this right, to do this on a wing and a prayer. I understand the urgency out there in the community, because the community is hurting as a result of the last botched job this parliament threw out as a piece of legislation - stuff that we on this side of the House warned you about, ‘There are problems in this – there are going to be real problems with this’. The response was, ‘You are nitpicking, you are nitpicking, you are nitpicking. You are being trivial; you are over-exaggerating the problems’. Now you come back and say, ‘We are sorry, we stuffed it up’, and I am being asked to push it through on urgency again. As a legislator, that causes me some concern. Therefore, I will accept these guidelines which were released by the Chief Minister in answer to my question. I place them on the table so the minister knows what is going on in his own department. Mr Chairman, I suggest that we just get on with this. You did not like that, did you?
Mr AH KIT: I pick up on the comment you made ‘on urgency again’. I do not think we took this through on urgency …
Mr Elferink: You are passing …
Mr AH KIT: Sorry.
Dr Lim: Go on, finish off what you are saying.
Mr Burke: It is in this session of parliament. It has not sat 30 days.
Mr Elferink: You were passing a motion this morning saying that you had to push this through on urgency.
Mr AH KIT: Well, you are saying ‘on urgency again’ now, as if we did it the first time when we introduced the legislation back in 2002. Member for Macdonnell, I do not have any problem with you wanting, as with any other legislator here, to question what we are doing. I have said what the intent is. We can go through this and discuss the amendments that you have put up. I am quite happy to do that. I just …
Mr Elferink: That is big of you.
Mr AH KIT: If you are making a scene on the regulations, the draft guidelines, that is all they are, they went out as a draft. I do not have any problem with the councils having a look at them and LGANT circulating them.
Mr Elferink: You were not going to give them to me two minutes ago.
Mr AH KIT: But they were draft. They are still a draft; I have not accepted …
Mr Elferink: You were not going to give them to me, I had to give them to you. You are a goose!
Mr AH KIT: While we are doing this, we are preparing the paper and we are consulting. There is nothing wrong with that; governments do it all the time. Over the 26 years that you people were in power, you did similar things. You do not wait to get it right through and then start the production of all the pamphlets you need and all the public awareness that you have to do.
Mr Dunham: Yes, you do, you know.
Mr AH KIT: ‘Yes, you do’. Well, you come and tell me how many examples in the past 26 years before we won government, of how many occasions you did it. I will throw that challenge out to you, member for Drysdale. These are drafts, as I said. They have not come back to me. We have not signed off on them yet, but we are preparing it and we are consulting.
Mr Elferink: But they are out there. They are in here.
Mr AH KIT: They are out there and they should be out there.
Mr Elferink: Well why wouldn’t you give them to me?
Mr AH KIT: It is no secret. I am quite happy you have a copy over there. If the council – whether Darwin City Council or Palmerston or whoever gave it to you – that is fine. They are on the web site. We had the member for Drysdale say, ‘Well, you have to link all this stuff up; you have to make the connections’. Have you gone to the web site? Have you seen all the stuff there? No! No, you want us to present it here tonight because you are lazy.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr AH KIT: If it is the wish of the opposition that they do not support the bill, then that is fine; I can accept that. There is a sense of urgency out there with people who are in the process of wanting to sell or buy houses, flats or units. It is our intention that this legislation comes into place on - I think it is 12 March. The longer you hold it up the less certainty out there, especially in the real estate industry.
Mr Dunham: Rubbish. Do not blame us for your poor legislation.
Mr AH KIT: I am not going to take any notice of the member for Drysdale. We should move on, Mr Chairman.
Mr DUNHAM: Minister, I refer to the document you launched, Water Safety Plan 2003-04, which has some key priority areas, one of them being standards for legislation compliance. In the area of standards, you undertook to review current Northern Territory legislation in accordance with national standards and best practice. Can you tell me if these Community Safety Standards are either national standards or best practice?
Mr ELFERINK: That is a very important question and one that deserves an answer. To see the minister sit there and refuse to get up and answer it, I think that there should be some real responses.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, a bit rude of the people on the other side. Many times I have sat in opposition waiting for members to seek advice from hard working, dedicated public servants and now it seems you have a change of heart when you sit on that side of the Chamber.
The Australian safety standards - the modified standards – I have just received advice that we are near the top in that regard. We understand that the Community Safety Standard is a lesser standard, but that is something that we as a government have decided to introduce because on the one hand, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You are saying to us politically, this is good if the government does not do anything about this, and on the other hand, you are saying that we are going too far. I don’t think you have ...
Mr Dunham: That wasn’t my question.
Mr AH KIT: I have answered your question.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I seek leave to table a copy of the Northern Territory Water Safety Plan 2003-2006.
Leave granted.
Mr DUNHAM: I will put it again to the minister that it has key component areas most of which would be signed off by this opposition. But in the key priority area 3, Standards, Legislation and Compliance, the minister undertakes to do a review with the timeframe of December 2004. I have two questions for him now.
First, why was this review – this report is circa – it is only a couple of months old. So the first question I have is, why two or three months ago was a December 2004 timeline appropriate for a review to ensure that it was in accordance with national standards and best practice, and why do we now have a review that has been abbreviated? And in the minister’s own words, it was as a result of our lobbying that he has brought in a standard which is less than his ambition in this document of a national standard and best practice.
So, two questions minister: why have you abandoned the December 2004 timeline and why have you abandoned your ambition of national standards and best practice?
A member interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Behave yourself. Mr Chairman, you have the water safety advisory document there that you have just tabled. Do you understand that we are talking about the Water Safety Advisory Bill? That is a separate document to what we are discussing here.
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Listen, you asked the question. Let me answer.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Let the minister finish.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, you are addressing the water safety advisory strategy. That has a different agenda. I do not walk away from that agenda, but you are confusing it with what we are doing here. We are talking about repealing tonight the swimming pool fencing legislation and introducing – well, have you been out for some more dinner have you?
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Minister, you made a statement earlier too when I said order. Could you just withdraw that statement because it has an inference that we do not want to start up tonight. Could you withdraw that statement?
Mr AH KIT: Yes, I withdraw, Mr Chairman.
All I can say to the member for Drysdale is that he is, I believe, confused with the water safety advisory group’s strategy. That is separate to the legislation and the bill that we are discussing now.
Mr DUNHAM: I refer again to the water safety plan and ask the minister that if this is a separate document and nothing to do with the legislation we bring forward here, what will this committee bring forward in the way of legislation that is in any way different, in any way within their competence, to the legislation we have before us now? Or is there only one piece of legislation?
Mr HENDERSON: I seek a ruling, Mr Chairman. Quite clearly, we are in the committee stage of the bill that we have before us, the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004. That is what we are debating here in committee. We are not debating the swimming management plan or water safety plan or whatever it is from which the honourable member is quoting. May I ask you to request of the member that he keeps his questions relevant to the legislation that this committee is debating?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, we are dealing with clause 11 here. Could you explain what you are getting at in relation to this clause 11?
Mr DUNHAM: I would love to, Mr Chairman. Clause 11 is to be put through probably by tonight and it deals with a safety standard. The minister has told us that it is as the result of a review. In another document, which the minister has launched, he also talks about legislation and a review. It is my assumption that the review and the legislation in here are exactly the same as what has turned out here because I do not believe that this group here has the capacity to make legislation. The minister has, and I think that is what we have before us.
So, in the first place, he has a document that refers to a review, which now has come forward by almost a year, and he has legislation in here that should be in accordance with, and I quote: ‘national standards and best practice’. My question is: is the Community Safety Standard national standard and best practice? It is pretty simple. There is only one legislature that can do this, and that is us. This ‘legislation’ word in this document refers to this stuff. Your ambitions in this document refer to the bills that are in front of us. Is it national standard and best practice, the Community Safety Standard?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will allow the question, but let’s keep an eye on repetition.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I have announced and it is common knowledge that we have established the Water Safety Advisory Council. We have a body that works and has put out the document that the member has tabled. However, we are debating the bill. There is no problem with the Water Safety Advisory Council getting together and saying, ‘Minister, you have this current legislation’, or ‘Minister, you have new legislation now through’.
They will continue, and I expect them to continue, to do what they need to do to implement the water safety lessons through the advisory group, to consult, etcetera. Now, it may that they come to be at a later date and say, ‘Minister, we believe we should have separate legislation’. Then we as a government would need to consider that. But whilst they keep this in mind and they have been established as an offshoot, we are here discussing the Swimming Pool Safety Bill. That is what it is before us. I think the member for Drysdale is deliberately trying to get us to go off on a tangent.
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, I thought it was relevant. I do note that the key agencies listed in that same matrix are DCDSCA and that is an acronym for the Department of Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs, so you have a lead role in this, minister, whatever you might say about the committee.
Mr Ah Kit: And I admitted it.
Mr DUNHAM: In his foreword to this document, the minister states, and I quote:
Minister, do you believe that the Community Safety Standard provides the safest possible standard?
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Chairman. I refer the honourable member to Standing Order 114. This is repetitive questioning. I urge the member to let debate on this clause go through and debate the detail of other clauses rather than revisiting the same question over and over again.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, speaking to the point of order, my point of order is questions seeking information; it is not bills. If you want to use Standing Order 114, I would suggest that you read it because it says:
This question has not been fully answered. Minister, is this the ...
Mr AH KIT: Yes, yes. Community Safety Standard, yes, it is.
Mr DUNHAM: It is. The community safety standard is the highest possible standard. Thank you.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The point of order is not accepted as Standing Order 114 relates to Question Time.
Mr Dunham: Read your standing orders, Paul, it gets much easier, mate.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Chairman! We have had it before in this House, referring to a member by name. It has been consistently carried on by the member for Greatorex.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Thank you, member for Sanderson. Just to remind members, please use the correct title when addressing people.
Mr BURKE: Mr Chairman, with the regard to the new Community Safety Standard, for the benefit of my constituents in Palmerston, will this new Community Safety Standard provide the same standard that existed under the Palmerston by-laws which existed prior to this legislation?
Mr Dunham: It will be higher according to his last answer. Higher standards.
Mr AH KIT: I will read out the words again about clause 11 which I read earlier, because we have moved around the place a bit. The Community Safety Standard is a new statement of principle. It requires that a pool barrier be designed, constructed, sited and maintained as practicable and reasonable in the circumstances, to prevent a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. The only absolute requirement of the Community Safety Standard is that perimeter fencing alone is not sufficient. There is the capacity to prescribe guidelines to assist in the assessment of compliance of the Community Safety Standard.
The intent of these provisions is to provide a standard that pool owners will be able to apply themselves to their own situations. The regulations will prescribe guidelines that will provide fencing heights and materials along with requirements for latches and related matters. These guidelines will assist pool owners and others in assessing whether a barrier meets this standard.
Mr BURKE: The minister has not answered the question. For example, in Palmerston we did not have perimeter fencing, we had separation fencing and it was to modified Australian Standards. From my understanding of the modified Australian Standards that are being brought into place under this legislation, it adheres to the standards that existed under the Palmerston by-laws prior to this new legislation. My question is this: under your community standard that you have now brought in, is there a difference between that community standard and the previous Palmerston by-laws that existed, which I would describe as the modified Australian Standard?
Mr AH KIT: No, Mr Chairman. As I understand it, the modified Australian Standard is higher than what was in place at Palmerston. The Community Safety Standard is very similar to what is in place with the Palmerston City Council and the details are slightly different.
Mr BURKE: Therefore, under your legislation, you have indicated that half of Palmerston did not comply with the by-laws that were in place, so can you tell me how, under your legislation, you are going to achieve compliance by 40% of Palmerston people who did not comply in the past?
Mr AH KIT: We are going to be offering grants. We are saying, ‘Here is an opportunity, up until the year 2007, to take that opportunity to make an application to receive your compliance certificate, to come forward and have your pool fence put in, to get it up to the Community Safety Standard or the modified Australian Standard, and present receipts to the department, where you will be eligible to obtain reimbursement for the work that is done, given that you are also going to be able to provide 25% of those costs, whether it is $3000 or $4000’.
We found, through the Swimming Pool Fencing Unit, that 50% of the pools at Palmerston did not comply. The Community Safety Standards will pick up many of those, because we go to that situation where they were a couple of centimetres too short., whether there were self-closing latches, etcetera. That is the information we have and believe that, by offering this grant - and it is a generous grant from government and is something that people opposite were jumping up and down about - we will encourage people to upgrade their fencing situation so that either they can bring them to the Australian Standard if they so desire, or to the modified Australian Standard, or to the Community Safety Standard.
Mr BURKE: Would you accept then, minister, that there would be a number of people in Palmerston who would not take advantage of your incentives, generous though they might be, and would simply seek compliance through a compliance certificate? You will have no way of knowing, one way or the other, whether they complied with the by-laws and standards that were in place in the past.
Mr AH KIT: There would be a standard, ordered process put in place. One thing this bill does is not allow people to allow what they currently have to deteriorate in any way. To give an example of that: if there was a situation where somebody put a fence around a pool or spa on a block of land, and that block of land is below the 1.8 hectare, then that person would have to seek the Swimming Pool Safety Authority’s permission to downgrade, or to take away that fence. One of the major intentions of the bill is to ensure that new pools comply with the modified Australian Standard. Owners of pools that have been put in place since have a responsibilities to keep those standards at the same levels.
Dr LIM: In the same vein, may I ask minister how he feels that the Community Safety Standards, as outlined in this bill, matches the Alice Springs Town Council by-laws which were passed many years ago? In fact, it was the first town council in the Territory to have swimming pool fencing regulations. How do they match up with these ones here?
Mr AH KIT: The Community Safety Standard and the Australian modified standard is much higher and much better than those put in place by the Alice Springs Town Council. I note your comments, and credit to you in 1994 after you were elected, that you had concerns about swimming pool fencing. However, my advice is that there has not been any formulation of proper pool fencing policy with the Alice Spring Town Council, and it was more or less done in an ad hoc manner.
Dr LIM: I disagree with that, minister. I believe that the Alice Springs Town Council has continued to re-evaluate its swimming pool fencing by-laws. In fact, just prior to your legislation 12 months ago, they had upgraded their by-laws. They have continued to improve them since its passage in 1980. I have been observing the procedure in the last several minutes that you have been responding to the questions from this side of the House. You did it exactly did the same way you did 12 months ago, where you had to have the Chief Minister come here to defend you and try to defend the legislation that you were trying to bring about last time. I need to get on record that, as Minister for Local Government with responsibility for this bill, you should be really more across it.
The issue about safety standards is that you are not allowing the people who already have their pools adequately fenced to get by. What are you going to do with them? For people who have been in Alice Springs for the last 20 years with pool fences that are more than adequate there has not been a problem. Your problem has been in Darwin, not in Alice Springs. Now the people in Alice Springs are going to be captured by this ridiculous piece of legislation.
Mr AH KIT: It is not a ridiculous piece of legislation. Look, I am fine. If the CLP wishes to vote against it, go for it, and people out there in the community can be told about it.
A member interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: No, hang on. You have had your say, let me have mine. You asked a question. The people of Alice Springs now have an opportunity to ring a 1800 number. We will advertise that and we welcome people across the Territory, especially in the other townships of Katherine, Tennant Creek, etcetera, it they choose to ring the 1800 number to talk to the pool safety advisors and get some advice on where they are at - there are no names, no pack drill, no addresses - find out where they are at in terms of this bill, if it becomes legislation and take advantage of the opportunity we are offering in terms of the grant so that they can rest easy and not spend more than 25% of their pocket money in ensuring that their pool has an appropriate fence that either meets the Community Safety Standard or the Australian modified standard.
But for you to have a shot at me at not being across it, I think is a bit rich. I have been a minister over the two and a half years, which is a lot longer than you were – something like nine months. You sat in the government there and you are one of the longest serving members, and you participated, no doubt, in your parliamentary wing deliberations, and after saying what you said in 1994 - you said you supported in 1997-98, 1998-99 legislative change for the introduction and implementation of new legislation relating to swimming pool fencing. You did that on two occasions.
We hear today the former Chief Minister say well, here we go – George Brown. We listened to George, God rest his soul. Poor old George. The government was held up by one bloke saying go away, this is our area. Unbelievable! You had responsibilities. You chose not to go down that path. You found it too hard. You made the decision. You have people sitting on councils providing advice.
They gave the report. They put it up on a couple of occasions and you did nothing with it. Now, we came in here, we said we got it wrong; we are going to get it right. We are having a go at getting it right. It would be my recommendation to our caucus that we hand it back over when the city councils, the municipalities, are ready …
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: … are ready and willing it back.
A member: When did you last talk to the councils?
Mr AH KIT: You would not listen to them. They wrote to you and said, Let’s work together and get something going’. You said, ‘Go away. Too much humbug. This will make us politically unpopular. We want to win at the next election. Don’t be silly. You know us, we make all these false promises all the time. You know, we are an arrogant government’. Okay. We are tackling it. We are not going to walk away from it. How many times did you say sorry?
A member: Never.
Mr AH KIT: How many times did you apologise?
A member: Never.
Mr AH KIT: That’s why you are sitting over there and we are sitting here. We have said sorry, let’s move on. Let’s fix it up. Let’s get it right.
Dr LIM: Mr Chairman, I am happy for the minister to verbal me and quote me from 1994 and 1996. I am very proud that I was instrumental in getting swimming pool fencing by-laws in Alice Springs Town Council and local government did it very well in Alice Springs and Palmerston. It was because of your Chief Minister’s political promise that you are going to bring in legislation for everybody that precipitated all that badly cobbled legislation some 12 months ago. We told you it was badly cobbled together and would cause problems. We spent five hours in this Chamber 12 months ago debating the legislation and we kept trying to warn you about the problems you would face.
Did you listen? No, you did not. Not only didn’t you listen, at times when I asked you questions, you could not answer them. You had to get the Chief Minister to defend you. This is the problem. Today, we have the same exercise. You have lowered the standards and now you will place responsibility on to pool owners. You have to do it the right way. This is not the right process to go through, and it is no good telling us that we did not talk to councils. We did talk to councils; we gave them the authority to maintain and manage the pool fencing legislation they had.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I might remind members that we have had a fair bit of latitude, but we are trying to stick to clause 11, which is the Community Safety Standards. We are getting into history and other matters now, one side against the other’s version of history. We need to keep this focussed. Does anyone have any comments on this clause?
Mr AH KIT: I thank members for their contributions.
Mr DUNHAM: I do have a comment. It is an area of confusion. When I asked the minister if his intention was still to establish best practice water safety standards and guidelines, he said, without standing, ‘Yes, yes.’ I want to make sure that is on the record.
Later, in answer to a question, he said that grants could be provided and, although Hansard cannot pick it up, he used his hand to indicate the modified Australian Standard and community standard …
Mr Ah Kit: No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t.
Mr DUNHAM: … in an hierarchical fashion. All I want to know is whether the community standard does establish best practice water safety standards and guidelines? I would like that very clearly on the Parliamentary Record.
Mr AH KIT: The Community Safety Standards, I said, yes, is the standard that we are introducing in this bill.
Mr Dunham: I know that.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, and that is what we are happy with, and we believe that it is about the best that we can provide. At this stage, we have the Australian Standards up there with all those technicalities, we have the Australian modified standard, which is there …
Mr Dunham: Right, indicating with your hand, lower.
Mr AH KIT: … and we have the Community Safety Standard.
Mr Dunham: Right down the bottom.
Mr AH KIT: Now, if you are against the Community Safety Standard, put that on record so we can send it out to all Territorians, all these people who have a couple of centimetres here and there.
Mr Chairman, we have laboured on this some time. It is clause 11. I thank members for their contributions, but I have moved the amendment.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 12 to 27, by leave, taken together.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, just give me a second.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr ELFERINK: We are in the process of rushing this through, going through blocks of clauses together – I am trying actually, believe it or not, to be fairly helpful. I do want to drill down certain aspects. I would ask members indulgence if I may be able to take a moment to go through reams of paper that this stuff generates and raise issues as they come. If I do not get up at the appropriate time, I miss out on my opportunity. If I miss out on my opportunity, I have failed in my obligation to voters of the Northern Territory.
Mr Dunham: I have a question, John.
Mr Elferink: If you want to jump quickly.
Mr DUNHAM: I draw the minister’s attention to clause 13, Financial assistance to assist in compliance with safety standards. I am well aware that there is a schedule for the physical works to upgrade for safety standards, and I ask about financial assistance for other matters in terms of compensation for those who have already upgraded, and indeed, upgraded to a level above that which is now required by the act; and also for those people who have suffered financially in other areas of detriment. If you could just elaborate on what that is?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I covered that I my second reading speech. Member for Drysdale, this is not about compensation. This is a grant. I will read into the debate in regards to clause 13: the intention is to allow the authorisation of schemes that would encourage compliance with the Community Safety Standard, or the modified Australian Standard for pre-existing pools. It is intended that new Safe Pool Grants will be available to assist pool owners with existing pools to upgrade to the Community Safety Standard, the modified Australian Standard, or the non-standard safety provision. An amount of up to $3000 will be available to provide for upgrading to the Community Safety Standard, and $4000 for upgrading to the modified Australian Standard. A co-payment by the owner of 25% will be required in each case.
Mr DUNHAM: I am aware of that, but if somebody meets the standard by removing their pool at their cost, is that compensable?
Mr AH KIT: If somebody what?
Mr DUNHAM: If somebody meets the standard by removing the offending pool, at a reasonable cost with fencing, will they be compensated for having that hazard removed to comply with Australian Standard?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, no, this is not about compensation. If people believe that they have a claim for compensation, then certainly I would ask them to contact the Pool Safety Authority. I reiterated in my second reading speech in closing debate, and I will repeat, first and most importantly, this is not, and never has been, about compensation.
Mr ELFERINK: The minister is quite right. He did say that. He said no compensation. What the flyer tells us, and what the minister has told us, is that – ‘What about if I have already upgraded my fence?’ ‘Dot point, owners of pre-existing pools and spas who have upgraded their fence under the current system …’, being the one in operation right now, ‘… will be eligible for a Safe Pool Grant. There is no compensation package attached to this’.
Now, the question I have for the minister is that, when somebody writes to you and asks you for compensation, and you say yes or no, and that person is not happy with that reply, your process of review, as outlined in the bill, is that reviewable by your review committee?
Mr AH KIT: Let me respond once again. There will be opportunities for people in that particular situation. I am not agreeing, and nor am I comfortable with you using the word compensation.
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Hang on. Hear me out. If people are seeking reimbursement since 1 January 2003 and have receipts, then they are more than welcome to approach the authority to seek reimbursement. If we start talking about compensation, we get into the situation that the member for Drysdale is talking about, then we end up all over the shop. This is about saying, ‘Okay, we got it wrong. You people …
Mr Dunham: You are already over the shop. You have already said sorry. All we are asking you to do is fix it up.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, keep this in line!
Mr AH KIT: I am more organised in my brain than what you will ever be. I say to the member for Macdonnell, this is not about compensation, but if people have spent money on a pool, and taken some opportunity in regards to the grants that were available as of 1 January 2003 then, yes, come along with those receipts, talk to our people and seek reimbursement.
Mr ELFERINK: I go to you and I say to you, ‘Minister, please look at this package. I would like reimbursement’, and you say, ‘Here is my answer’, and I am not happy with your answer. Is there any way under your proposed review process that I can have that decision reviewed? Again, same question.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, decisions about financial assistance are decisions for government, not an appeals tribunal. I did mention in my second reading speech closing debate …
Mr Elferink: The answer is no.
Mr AH KIT: Hang on.
Mr Elferink: Well, the answer is no.
Mr AH KIT: You heard me. If people are not happy there are other measures they can take. If they are seeking information they can go to the Information Commissioner. If they are seeking other avenues, then they have every opportunity to approach the Ombudsman. I made that clear.
Mr Elferink: You did not.
Mr AH KIT: I did - in the second reading speech.
Mr ELFERINK: Okay. Mr Chairman, I am not going to labour the point. Both the minister and I know that the answer to the question that I put to him is that there is no review at all - under this act or under the old act - in relation to a decision taken by, ultimately, the minister or his department in relation to grant decisions. I will place on the record, reading clearly from the correspondence that the minister has now tabled between himself and the chairman of the appellant body under the current act, Mr David Loadman, how bitterly disappointed Mr Loadman was with this particular appeals process.
I remind members of this particular passage out of a letter that he sent:
Clauses 12 to 27 agreed to.
Clause 28:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.2. This amendment is required due to a recent amendment to the Law Reform (Gender Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Act 2003. This amendment applies equally to either this bill or the old Swimming Pool Fencing Act. This amendment is necessary to bring this bill into line with other existing legislation in the Territory in treating de facto partners in the same way as spouses.
Mr ELFERINK: The opposition places on the record its support for the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 28, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 29:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.3 which ensures that landlord’s obligations remain the same under this bill as they were under the old act. Specifically, this amendment obliges a landlord to ensure that, at the time of entering into a lease, the swimming pool is still in the condition it was when certified or modified.
And Mr Chairman, I further move amendment 76.4 which is necessary to correct a typographical error and ensure consistent use of terminology throughout the bill. The clause should refer to a swimming pool rather than premises.
Mr ELFERINK: I place on record the opposition’s support for these amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 30 to 35, by leave, taken together.
Mr DUNHAM: I think that we have to be very clear with the wording of this. It refers to ‘substantially the same condition’. What we are actually talking about is that they have the same effect of prohibition or exclusion of children. Most people in the Top End, their swimming pool fence or barrier will change remarkably over the years and that will be aesthetics, painting and various other things, so I think that it has …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, what clause are you referring to?
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I am talking to clause 31 at the moment. There is an obligation that the pools have to be kept in substantially the same condition, the barrier. I would have thought that the ambition really is the exclusion of children and that can be continued and as plants grow and whatever, obviously that is going to change. It is further complicated, I believe, by that onus being on the owner, at clause 35, to ensure the swimming pool does not constitute a danger to a child. It is entirely possible that a modification by a tenant or other, such as taking down a barrier, putting a bike against a pool, will have the effect of thwarting its barrier.
If you go to clause 35 the onus is immediately on the owner. I would have thought that there are some difficulties here in first, the changes to the pool barriers are going to occur anyway; and second, changes that actually do allow for access by children and whether that is by the occupier and then includes the owner under clause 35. I would like the minister just to run through this circumstance here where pools are modified. I would have thought that we are not talking about modification in aesthetics or any other way, we are talking about modification to make sure it achieves its prime purpose of exclusion and then how the owner is enjoined in clause 35, as being liable.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I will try to be constructive in trying to understand the question from the member for Drysdale. What we are talking about here is that the structural integrity of the barrier is to be maintained between tenancies, and modifications, as long as they comply with the new community standard or modified Australian standards would still be allowed. As long as the structural integrity of the barrier is maintained then that is all that the owner is required to do. Issues like leaving a bike against the fence or what have you have nothing to do with the structural integrity of the barrier. As long as the owner ensures that between tenancies, or at the sale of the property, the barrier itself meets the standards as defined by the Community Safety Standard, the modified Australian standard, then the fence is still okay.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, no. Under clause 35(1):
It is evident from the earlier one that the barrier could be modified. So, if someone takes down a panel on a pool, the onus is actually on the owner the way I read that, to comply, and he may well be unaware.
Mr HENDERSON: Again, I do not know if I am tired or having a bad hair day, but if the owner was to take out a panel on the fence and that is a permanent …
Mr DUNHAM: No, somebody. The tenant, the occupier.
Mr HENDERSON: Somebody, anybody. Yes, if anybody was to take that, then obviously the integrity of the barrier is not maintained. I do not know where the member is going with this. Clause 35 clause places an obligation on existing pool owners to ensure that their pool does not pose an immediate danger to children, and if it does, requires the pool owner to take action to remedy this immediately rather than relying on the trigger points of sale or lease of the property. The intention is to provide the authority with the power to act in relation to dangerous pools without having to wait for the trigger. This is designed to prevent very unsafe pools from remaining in their current state for extended periods of time.
Mr DUNHAM: I know that is its purpose. I know that is how it has been described. All I am saying is if there is a barrier around a pool and it is modified by someone else, the way I read that is: the owner of premises … must ensure there is a barrier at the premises that prevents a child from gaining unsupervised access. What I am saying is that the owner may well have erected a barrier that has been modified. This puts the onus on him to ensure there is a barrier.
Mr HENDERSON: The owner is required to maintain the integrity of the certification. It is as simple as that. If we are looking at any sort of tenancy arrangement, obviously the tenant would be made aware of that condition and in any landlord/tenant relationship, there are obligations on both sides. It is for the owner to ensure the integrity of the barrier at all times.
Mr DUNHAM: So, in the event of a calamity, all landlords in the Northern Territory with swimming pools should ensure there is a clause in the lease that brings the attention of the occupier to the need to have the barrier maintained at all times, and to ensure that clause 34 is actually invoked if there is a problem?
I know what you are trying to say. What I am saying is that if there is a drowning of a child in a pool, the owner, according to this bill, is going to be the one fronting the coronial. If the modifications have been made by the occupier, your bill says the occupier is to tell the owner if there is a problem with the pool. What I am saying is that if the occupier somehow amends the pool barrier - you have said ‘alters the pool barrier in some way’ - I would assume that if that is not in a tenancy agreement, it puts the owner at substantial risk.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, it would be sensible for the landlord to ensure that there is a clause in the lease, and I am sure that the Real Estate Institute, which supports this bill, would advise the inclusion of clauses in leases to ensure that the tenant does not wilfully at any time tamper with or diminish the structural integrity of the barrier in the same way that in any lease, there would be clauses to void the tenancy or impose liability on the tenant for tampering with other fixtures or fittings or damaging the premises. I imagine it would be a standard clause in a lease.
Clauses 30 to 35 agreed to
Clause 36 read.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment amendments 76.5. The original intention of this clause was to remove any responsibility councils may have for maintaining fences abutting council land that are used as part of a pool barrier. The amendment is necessary to make it clear that council does not have any responsibility to maintain the swimming pool barrier or to maintain the land adjoining that barrier. This amendment was put forward by the Palmerston City Council.
Mr ELFERINK: And supported, Mr Chairman.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.6. The inclusion of the words, ‘or to maintain the land to assist such compliance’ is needed to ensure there is not a gap in the application of the provision. Whilst council would maintain their property up to the fence line or barrier, this provision does not oblige them to ensure the barrier’s safety for not removing, for example, a pile of leaves, grass or dirt that may affect the barrier. It is ultimately the owner’s responsibility to ensure the barrier remains safe.
Mr ELFERINK: While we are talking about offences, I have no problem with the amendment as proposed, however, I do want to extract from the minister something that I am certain he will confirm for me. The minister is well aware of my bug bear about the abuse of regulatory offences, and I just want it on the record that offences under this legislation are not to be dealt with as regulatory offences, but will be dealt with as simple or summary offences.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, we can confirm that.
Mr ELFERKINK: Thank you. I just wanted it on the record, thank you.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 36, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 37 to 50:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I am not going to harp on about the powers of the new advisors, which are exactly the same as the powers of the old inspectors – word for word. They have simply cut and pasted, and a few section numbers fixed up from one piece of legislation to the next. Those powers of inspectors always find their way into these sorts of inspectorial pieces of legislation. We can call them pool advisors, we can call them hamsters if we like, but at the end of the day, the powers remain the same. They exist for a purpose, to be exercised at such point in time when the other avenues available to pool safety advisors are no longer open to them.
Those are the normal avenues of polite enquiry – telephones, doorknocks, letters – those sorts of things. I think it is nave to come to a Chamber and suggest that we want you as a parliament to authorise these powers for our pool safety advisors, but we are never going to use them – they have never been used, but we just want them there. That does not make much sense. Of course you want them. You want them for the purposes of taking on a policing role. These pool safety advisors/inspectors/pool police, when they are in their policing mode, may come to a point where they do need to exercise these powers. That is why we put them into the legislation.
It is difficult to know, however, under the new Community Safety Standard, exactly what these powers are going to be used for, but I will give you one example. Where you have a situation where there is a complaint, and a pool safety advisor, acting on that complaint, tries to see the person who the complaint is about, knocks on the door, it is slammed in their face, all other inquiries fail. That pool safety advisor has a problem and the problem is this: I either walk away from the complaint, shrug my shoulders and say it is all too hard; or I take some further steps to go and inspect the pool in question, especially if you have a complainant who is quite passionate about protecting their children perhaps. It is a bit trite to argue that we are not ever going to use those powers, but give them to us anyway.
At the end of the day, if you have offences that need to be investigated, the investigating body needs powers, otherwise you are creating a nonsensical situation. I am not going to object to the powers. I believe the minister when he says that the intent is that they will never really be used. However, we have to be a little straightforward about the reasons that we give these powers.
Turning my attention to section 47 …
Mr AH KIT: Could I just comment on that, just briefly.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Mr Chairman. There is a stranger in the House, under Standing Order 249.
A member: Oh, get out of it.
Ms Lawrie: There is not.
Mr DUNHAM: You have two boxes. If you need more advisors, get another one.
Ms Lawrie: Get a life!
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: All I wanted to say is that we have very hard-working public servants right across the Territory. These pool safety advisors – currently, inspectors - are no different. Hopefully, they will be advisors after this legislation receives assent. We have people who read meters who are public servants. We have health inspectors. We may have a situation where somebody has gone away and kids are jumping into the yard, without their parents’ knowledge, and swimming in somebody’s pool. We may have yards that have pools not being utilised as such, but are collecting water and are safety hazards for kids. We have to some element of trust in our public servants. That is not the ‘pool police’ thing and the ‘Nazi inspectors’ and all that sort of stuff that we heard the last time we debated this; it is a commonsense power of entry that we believe should be there.
Mr DUNHAM: A couple of points. First, the element of trust in public servants: the member for Nelson mentioned last time that there are public servants with inspectorial functions of this type. He pointed out, in terms of efficiency, that perhaps these people could be delegated - for instance, building inspectors or others - to undertake some of these functions. The first point is: have you gone back to that suggestion that was put the last time this was developed; that there are other public servants delegated who are quite capable of doing work of this type?
The other issue, really, is that this is spin doctoring, taking away the word ‘inspector’ and turning it to ‘advisor’. We are not here to inspect any more, we are here to advise. Whether or not you want us to advise you or not, we can come into your premises and we can get all sorts of stuff - get search warrants. That is pretty significant advisory powers. I believe that the word is inappropriately used. Stay with ‘inspectors’. If they are inspectors, call them inspectors. They are certainly not advisors with power of that type.
Question one: have you looked at other arms of the public service to be able to do it, and do it better? Question two: why have you used an inappropriate word in an attempt to make it sound like they are not inspectors? Question 3: under clause 47, Protection from liability, these inspectors – sorry, advisors:
I am interested in that word ‘purported’. If you are on the premises and you have said that you are in there to look at the pool and that you are delegated and all the rest of it, the word ‘purported’ would seem to me that there is some capacity for them to argue that case. I would have thought that it has it absolutely cut and dried. They have the search warrant, they have been to the JP or whatever, the thing is fully documented and filed. I do not think you need the word ‘purported’ in there.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, it is a standard provision. I explained that earlier, and I also gave, I thought, a good description of it in my closing debate second reading speech. Without appearing to be nasty, we went through this earlier, but you were not in the Chamber and participated …
Mr Dunham: Are you satisfied with the word ‘purported’?
Mr AH KIT: We went through the stuff and I explained that, and you may have seen it on the television and not understood it properly.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Mr Chairman. He knows he cannot reflect on whether members are in the Chamber or not.
Mr Stirling: He is just trying to help you.
Mr Kiely: Well, you were not here.
Mr DUNHAM: He was not here when we were talking a little while ago; he went out the back. He is the minister carrying this. He has not been in …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: … in parliament; he has been sitting out the back having whatever. The fact that you were not here is not that relevant to my three questions. Is ‘purported’ an acceptable word?
Mr AH KIT: Yes.
Mr Dunham: Yes. What?
Mr AH KIT: Yes, it is an acceptable word. What were the other two things you were saying? You had a problem with the word purported?
Mr Dunham: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: You had a problem with whether we could give the role to other bureaucrats that carry out similar roles?
Mr Dunham: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: No, I have not been down that path, but I would like to think that those officers who work for other portfolio areas in other departments obviously have their work cut out for them – or they would not be employed in a full-time capacity carrying out those functions that their CEOs have established for them. So there obviously is a need for that. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say to the swimming pool fencing inspectors, who they are until this legislation is passed, that you can all resign today because tomorrow we are looking for swimming pool safety advisors …
Mr Dunham: Why not? You are changing other stuff.
Mr AH KIT: No, hang on. You asked a question, I am answering you. … and then tomorrow we just go out and recruit another 20-odd swimming pool safety advisors to make you happy. These people are public servants. These people have carried out the letter of the law in regards to the legislation that is currently in place. Tomorrow they will be safety advisors and they will be in an advisory capacity. In the past, and I said it again in my second reading speech closing debate, that we are moving away under this legislation from the inspectorial role to an advisory capacity.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I rise with my same concern. If I look at the old legislation for clause 47 – I was going to raise this earlier but obviously the member for Drysdale and I have one mind. If you look at the old section 47 it read:
The new clause 47 reads:
(c) pool safety adviser.
Now ‘purported’ is a word that I am a little bit concerned about. I cannot find a definition for it inside the act. ‘Purport’ appears in the Macquarie Dictionary meaning to profess or claim, to convey to the mind as the meaning of thing intended, expressed or impliedly.
Now, if I walk up to a door and say, ‘I am pool inspector and I am here to inspect your pool’. I am exercising my power under this act. I have no liability. I turn out to do something entirely different which I have no power to do but because I have purported either expressly or impliedly to be there for a function of power, as to purported to be acting in good faith, exercising a function or power that I have under that act, it concerns me that if I do something else entirely because I have purported to do it, suggested, implied, said that I was going to do it, I would have a defence from civil or criminal liability. That really is pushing the edge of what is acceptable. I want the minister to be clear about this, that ‘purported’ does not mean what it means in the dictionary.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I gave a detailed response in regards to clause 47(3) at the end of my closing debate. I thought the member for Macdonnell understood that. I can only say, once again, that these are the words that have been offered up as the right words by Parliamentary Counsel. You have your dictionary and they have their experience. All I can say is that I believe that I will have to back the draftsman in this case. They are the wordsmiths. We can argue about words such as that, but I do not see where that is going to get us because we will end up agreeing to disagree.
Mr ELFERINK: With all due respect to the parliamentary draftsman, because this stuff was pushed upon them with such haste, you have had to come in here with a whole list of amendments because of drafting errors. That is no reflection on them; they are human. The day that they walk around with a big S on their chests and leap tall buildings, I will expect bigger things from them.
At the end of the day, you come in here with a list of things that they have identified and realise need to be fixed. That means that there is no guarantee that other things are not going to slip through. I have a concern about ‘purportedly’ acting in good faith. It is something I want on the record because I do not think it should be there. The courts will ultimately be the ones that have to interpret it if this thing goes leg-up. We should be assisting the courts as much as we can by being clear, and ‘purportedly acting in good faith’ is not very helpful.
Clauses 37 to 50 agreed to.
New Part:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I am not going to dwell on this endlessly. I move amendment 78.1. The amendment is fairly clear. It attempts to establish an independent tribunal which can investigate any matter that it so desires in relation to a decision pursuant to this bill. It should be able to review, call evidence and require the appearance of parties. It is very similar to the independent review body’s power under the Firearms Act. I suggest to the minister that this is probably the most contentious legislation that has been operating in the Northern Territory for the last two years. It has caused much grief.
One of the sources of that grief is that decisions of the Pool Fencing Authority have upset lots of people. As the member for Drysdale pointed out, the appearance of the head of the department on the front page of the paper demonstrating some of the problems with the act, the tight window for which people in the department had for moving within their discretionary powers, is one of the reasons we are here today and it is one of the issues we raised when the act was introduced. The reason that we are here today is to fix some of those problems.
I did pick up, and I hope I heard it correctly, the minister saying that the processes of judicial review were still available to people, but let us be careful about judicial review and what it is. A decision under this act is only appealable to the Supreme Court, on the advice that I have received, and only on a point of law. Issues such as the amount of a grant, or a compensation package should the minister choose to go down that path, were not appealable under the old system. The correspondence that the minister placed on the Table between himself and Mr Loadman clearly indicates that the existing appellant body, the Lands and Mining Tribunal, Mr Loadman, who clearly states he has had a personal experience with the appeals process, has come to the point of frustration where he uses words to describe the process as ‘lamentable in the extreme’, ‘bloody-mindedness’ and similar expressions. You would have to say there is a man who, from inside an appeals process, is feeling fairly desperate about the way that his appeals body can deal with matters.
He made no attempt to hide that he wanted to send one of his own experiences through the appeals process in this correspondence, but it made clear that the appeals process, in the estimation of the person who headed up the appeals process, himself thought the whole thing was a sham. Added to that, I pick up on the comments made by the minister about the separation of powers, a judicial officer working inside an administrative authority or administrative appeals tribunal is not sitting as a judicial officer as a general rule, and their decisions are not considered to be judicial. However, if we are going to take on the issue of the appeals process and say that you can have a judicial review, all that a judicial review will achieve is that the decision is sent back to the authority that made the decision, to make the decision again.
The authority can turn around and make exactly the same decision. The tests for those sorts of things are unreasonableness, no evidence, other limitations to administrative decision-making. Those are the things that will make a court say to an authority, ‘You will have to make a decision again’. They cannot remake the decision, they cannot make the decision on behalf of the authority. How tightly do the courts place their restrictions on themselves in terms of telling authorities what to do? You can go to the cases on this stuff, and I went through this at length during the firearms debate, but I remind members of the Associated Provincial Picture Houses and Wednesbury Corporation, where an authority decided to effectively ban all 15-year-olds from going to a cinema. It was found that the authority did not act unreasonably, and there is much case law on that particular issue, but it shows you how tightly the courts approached the judicial review process.
So what do we need? Well, we will turn to the Firearms Act, and that act gives us a really good indicator. An independent body, established as a tribunal to revisit the decisions of the Commissioner of Police. There is a representative of the Commissioner of Police on the independent body, but that is the only interference that goes there. It is all independent. It is actually headed up, I believe, by a magistrate. This piece of legislation, I remind members, has been contentious. How contentious? It has government apologising, saying, ‘I’m sorry, we completely stuffed this up’. But what we are going to do is, we are going to come into Parliament and we are going to say we are sorry and pretend to be humble, when in actual fact what we are going to do is remove the very body that polices us, which is the independent arbiter.
This legislation, as I have said to members, is legislation that has the capacity to have errors built into it. Why? Because we are rushing it. We are pushing it through on urgency, and we have already seen some of the problems that have occurred. We have the Chief Minister releasing information to the public that the minister will not release to me here in the House. So what can I do, and what can we do as parliamentarians, to at least build a failsafe into the process? And the failsafe system is that you keep an independent body and you empower it to do all sorts of things. You empower it to call witnesses, you empower it to revisit decisions, you empower it to hold an inquiry and, most importantly, you empower it to look at every aspect of the operation of the legislation, and you empower it to remake the decision in the cold, hard, light of day without the thing being pushed through.
The reason the old review body did not have any appeals go before it is because it had no power; it was a paper tiger. It could not be appealed to, and that was why the Chairman of the Lands and Mining Tribunal was frustrated with it. No appeals went to it because none could. I am suggesting that we should make it an appellant body.
The minister has already indicated he cannot support this. That is fine; that is his business. I would urge members, for the sake of the way this legislation operates, to support this amendment. I invite comments from the minister and other members in relation to the importance of the operation of an independent new tribunal. The structure of it is very similar to what came out of the Firearms Act, specifically at my request. It does have the power to remake a decision of the authority. Considering the way we are being asked to push things through, it is an eminently sensible body to oversee what has been very troubling legislation, so far, in the Northern Territory.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I set out in my response to the second reading debate a detailed response to the proposal being put by the member for Macdonnell. I will not go through that material again. The government does not see the need for two appeal mechanisms that do, essentially, the same thing. This is quite simply a way of wasting the time of all concerned for little, if any, value to anyone. The concept that there should be an appeal available against the level of assistance grant provided, is simply a nonsense and misses the essential point that these grants will be provided from now on purely on the basis of evidence provided by the pool owner. The levels will be set in the scheme as approved. They are very generous and there is really no scope for an appeal. The amendment will not be supported.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, then I invite one comment from the minister and the comment is this: when it comes to an issue of judicial review, do you support the concept of legitimate expectation operating?
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is …
Mr Dunham: Are you refusing to answer?
Ms Lawrie: He does not have to answer. He has answered and answered and answered.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I was expecting some advice from the minister. I will ask the question again: does the minister anticipate the operation of the concept of legitimate expectation under the normal processes of judicial review?
Mr AH KIT: I have explained - and I will just do this briefly, Mr Chairman. I have explained in the second reading debate. I just explained once again. We do not believe that there is a need to have two appeal mechanisms. What this bill has been able to do - and we have had 13 000 - I mentioned in the second reading debate and in my closing debate here today – 13 000 with just two appeals. One was over a grant; and the other one, a decision was not even made by the authority. You are fighting tooth and nail to have a situation where we keep …
Mr Dunham: He is fighting for fairness. Do you understand the concept of fairness?
Mr AH KIT: Don’t you talk to me about fairness.
Mr Dunham: Do you understand about fairness?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: You are not qualified.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr AH KIT: The question being put to me by the member for Macdonnell has nothing to do with this issue. There is no legitimate expectation here, no acquisition of property involved.
Mr ELFERINK: He finally got a note shoved in his hand, and he knows that he has to stand up and say no. However, I bet he does not have a clue why he has to say no to that question. I will advise the minister as to why he had to say no to that question. The answer to that question is that:
I am quoting from Administrative Law, Douglas and Jones, in Australia:
However, that has since been revisited in the courts in Australia. I am just trying to put my finger on it, because what legitimate expectation is, is a principle of law which suggests that if I go through certain processes, like I am the holder of a driver’s licence and I do nothing to offend the possession of that driver’s licence, that I should have a legitimate expectation that that driver’s licence be renewed, and I do not have to go through a rigmarole of having to put up with an arbitrary decision by an authority, to say we are not going to give you a driver’s licence. Pooh, pooh – don’t want it.
So by denying legitimate expectation as a way to deal with judicial review of administrative decisions, what basically the minister is telling us, is that if you jump through all the hoops, he can still say no and you still have no right to judicial review. So, the suggestion that he has stated in the second reading speech that we have a right to judicial review, is actually a limited right of judicial review. How limited is it? Limited enough that the courts will only send a decision back for remaking for no other reason than for unreasonableness or something extreme. The courts have read that down so tightly that basically, even judicial review has now been struck down by you, minister.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, my point is a little different, but I am of the same view. It is not good enough for the minister to stand in here and say sorry – we mucked it up and so we apologise. The onus is to fix it up and the fix, minister, is to do with the stuff we are talking about. It is to do with people coming to you with their claims and if they are unsatisfied with that process, given that they are coming back to the very party that caused them the grief in the first place, there should be some open, transparent, independent, arms’ length capacity to have that reviewed. Okay, you are saying they will not have much work. Good. Let’s put it in place. The two cases that did go to tribunal, I am sure were glad that such a beast existed. All we are asking is that that capacity for review of your administrative decisions be put into this parliament and into this act. You muck it up, you fix it up.
Mr AH KIT: I have said that the amendment will not be supported, but I just pose this question …
Mr Elferink: So much for a humble apology.
Mr AH KIT: Well …
Mr Elferink: Well, that is the attitude you should have. You are apologising.
Mr AH KIT: You are saying the review committee is no good? That is what I am hearing.
Mr Elferink: I am saying it is inappropriate in the circumstances.
Mr Dunham: To be sorry, you have to show contrition. You have to show contrition.
Mr AH KIT: Oh, my hand is on my heart – I am sorry. Have you ever said sorry much in your life? When I said to you the other day that you must have been a horrible child, you said yes. Nothing is wrong with the word sorry. People on that side of the House should practise saying sorry a bit more because you never did it when you were in government. We have done it. I am not going to support this amendment. I said today, and I tabled the correspondence from David Loadman, the Chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal …
Mr Elferink: Yes. It makes some very interesting reading.
Mr AH KIT: Now, I do not want to dwell on that. I can say that the decision that was made and how the review was conducted, the findings of the review, and how we moved that with our intentions and instructions to the Parliamentary Counsel, there is no need for a Lands and Mining Tribunal. I accept that. Regardless of whether the magistrate had a problem with his pool or not, it is neither here nor there.
You have a situation where you are asking me to include something that we do not need. We do not need two. I have faith in Bob Beadman, with his experience. I have faith in Sue Shearer and I have faith in Sue Parry; one is from the Real Estate Institute, the other one is from Royal Life Saving and they have been around the Territory for quite some time. If people have a situation where they believe that the review panel has not treated them kindly, then they have an opportunity to approach me by way of correspondence and, more importantly, they have an opportunity to approach the Ombudsman. The flexibility and workability that is now provided in this bill will not allow for many situations to arise where people will want to go to a Lands and Mining Tribunal.
The other point I add is that the Lands and Mining Tribunal is not written into every item of legislation that has passed through this Chamber. You are arguing for something on principle that you believe should be there and I believe should not. At this stage, we should agree to disagree.
Mr ELFERINK: It is a fairly fundamental thing to agree to disagree. I am not going to labour the point to death. I have made my point; I made it during the second reading debate. However, I will finish with this observation: it is all too cute for a government to walk into a place and say, ‘We’re sorry. We have mucked up. We forced this through the last time. We forced an amendment though. That didn’t save us. We are now coming back to fix the whole thing up, but in the process of saying that we are contrite, we know this is a contentious thing that has caused a lot of grief in the community, but we are not going to allow appeals’.
Even the powers of Mr Beadman et al - for whom I have no problem putting my respect on the record, so much so that I doubt very much that he will act ultra vires - the appeals process through the committee is clearly limited. The minister has demonstrated where Mr Beadman et al are not going to be allowed to make decisions on the operation of this legislation. The minister is still the over-riding authority and hires and fires people for the committee, and he may do so when he sees fit.
I wanted to see something independent because of the contentious nature of this legislation. The minister has clearly indicated that he does not care for that. I say that the contrition they have expressed is merely a mask to deal with a political problem they have, which is the next election. In that case, they have demonstrated to me and Territorians that their reasons for changing this legislation was not to enhance or improve child safety, but is purely political and for that reason, child safety is now expendable for this government’s political desires.
Proposed New Part negatived.
Clauses 51 to 58, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
New clause 59:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.7. These consequential amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act should have been included in the bill. These two provisions prevent landlords from entering into tenancy agreements unless section 40, No residential lease of small premises with swimming pool unless swimming pool registered and enclosed, of the current act was complied with and also made section 40 a term of all tenancy agreements.
It is considered appropriate to omit these two provisions from this bill as they are made redundant by the operation of amended clause 29(1).
Proposed new clause agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Proposed New Schedule 1:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I request we put this to the voices. It makes no sense in the absence of my amendment 78.1.
Proposed New Schedule 1 negatived.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I will be brief. As a result of the examination of the bill, which is now going to almost certainly pass into law, what has become clear is that there are no compensation packages going to be available unless the minister says okay, and no appeal to that decision, even through his own review committee. Compensation for pools that have been removed - zip. Compensation for personal time lost for compliance - zip. Compensation for bridging finance losses for the deals that have fallen through in the past – zip. Compensation for downgraded assets as a result of pool fencing being placed in inappropriate places – zip. Compensation for poor advice received from pool authorities – zip. And compensation for lost amenity – zip. Nothing.
And that is part of the sham of this legislation; it was designed particularly to make the government not responsible. Any issues of note in terms of payments and those sorts of things now rest with the minister. The little bit that is hanging out there for everybody to enjoy is that I might be able to get a grant if I took some steps to put a pool fence in, but if I dug my pool up - forget it! That is interesting because the lady on the Channel 8 News tonight had dug out her pool because she could not get it to comply. She thinks she is going to get some money for that, and she is not. Not unless the minister personally intervenes. Not unless the minister actually gets involved, steps out and does the right thing by her. And if he does the right thing by her, then he is going to have to do the right thing for every Territorian who ripped out a pool or a spa as a consequence of this legislation.
What has become quite clear through this process tonight is that the minister now has the hands of final arbitration. He is the pool god of the Northern Territory, and only he is going to make those sorts of decisions. If they think that they have gotten through their pool problems now, I believe that they have a big surprise coming. Once again, like the first time, they have been warned.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I table the Public Accounts Committee Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report and seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, at the request of, and on behalf of, the Chairman of the Standing Orders Committee, Mr Henderson, I table the Third Report of the Standing Orders Committee including Draft Members’ Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards, and draft amendments to the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be adopted.
On 20 June 2002, the Chief Minister tabled the two draft documents which were referred to the Standing Orders Committee for inquiry and report back to the Assembly. The tabling of the draft document was proceeded in March 2002 when the Speaker, Hon Loraine Braham MLA, wrote to the Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that the Standing Orders Committee consider a reference on a code of conduct for members and, as a starting point for this consideration, forwarded a copy of the draft code of conduct which had been tabled in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly by the Premier, Hon Geoff Gallop MLA.
In conducting its inquiry, the committee has held 11 meetings at which the reference was discussed in detail. Advice of the reference and copies of the documents tabled by the Chief Minister were posted on the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly web site, together with an invitation to provide written submissions. The Presiding Officers and Clerks of all Australian parliaments, the Northern Territory Auditor-General, the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, and the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission received formal advice of the reference and were invited to provide a written submission.
Written submissions were received from Mr Gerry Wood MLA, member for Nelson; the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Standing Ethics Committee; and Mr Mike Blake, the Northern Territory Auditor-General. An informal submission was received from the Queensland Legislative Assembly Members’ Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee. In the course of its inquiry, the committee met with Mr Howard Whitton, the consultant involved in drafting amendments to the act and the draft code of conduct and ethical standards. That meeting was held on 3 September 2002, and discussions covered a wide range of issues that had been raised during meetings of the committee. I was very pleased to attend that particular meeting. I found it very productive.
Mr Whitton provided additional information in respect of proposed amendments to the act and, in particular, various issues of spouse and family reporting requirements, reporting of the value of real estate, shares and other holdings, and provisions in other Australian and overseas jurisdictions. Discussions also included the recommendations contained in the submission from the Auditor-General, which were to the effect that it would be more appropriate that the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly retain the role of Registrar of the register of members’ interests, and that the Auditor-General should have a role in respect of making inquiries, reaching findings of facts, and providing reports to the Assembly in accordance with the requirements of procedural fairness in respect to any alleged breaches of the requirements of the proposed new code and act.
The committee also benefited significantly from a meeting with the members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Standing Ethics Committee. In 2002, that committee completed a review of the code of conduct first adopted in the New South Wales parliament in 1998 and, through the chairman, Mr John Price MP, expressed interest in a comprehensive range of matters covered in the draft Northern Territory code. In late 2002, members of the New South Wales committee undertook a study tour which included the Northern Territory, and a meeting was arranged with the Standing Orders Committee in November of that year. The meeting was most informative and beneficial to members of the committee in its consideration of the matters contained in the reference. In addition to the meeting with the New South Wales committee, the committee also considered and discussed a range of documents prepared in relation to the draft code of conduct and ethnical standards.
In preparing this report, the committee reviewed those codes used by other parliaments and, in reaching a conclusion in respect of the appropriate form of the code, the committee determined that it was not practical to have a code that was simply a compendium or statement of highly detailed regulatory provisions which prescribe every aspect of a member’s parliamentary and private life. Rather, the committee agreed that the code should contain a statement of essential principles to provide guidance to members in fulfilling their duties, functions and obligations as members of the Assembly.
The amendments made by the committee to the draft code as proposed in the document tabled by the Chief Minister adhere to those fundamental objectives and include the range of principles and specific standards that were set out in that draft including four major principles established by the code: integrity, accountability, responsibility and public interest. The draft code also contains a commentary which explains the major reasons and objectives which underpin each of these principles.
Major principles and standards included in the code are: firstly, the honest exercise of the duties and responsibilities of a member uninfluenced by conflicts of interest; secondly, appropriate declaration of personal interest; thirdly, the requirement for members to act honestly in official dealings and to correct misleading or incorrect information given by them; fourthly, the restriction of certain forms of private capacity employment for one year after ceasing to be a member; fifthly, the prohibition of taking improper personal advantage of a privileged position; sixthly, a provision for members to accept official gifts in accordance with natural custom, but not to seek or encourage any form of gift or benefit; and lastly, the requirement that members shall not hold or continue to hold in their own capacity or through a third party, a contract or business, arrange for the provision of services to government to bodies.
The code also requires that members should contribute to good government by seeking to advance the public interest based on honest reasonable and properly informed judgement about the common good of the people of the Northern Territory.
The proposed amendments to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act in large part reflects the draft bill as tabled by the Chief Minister with the proposed amendments described above to the effect that the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly should retain the role of Registrar of Members’ Interests. The new act will significantly strengthen the requirements for annual registration and ad hoc declaration of members’ interests and provide for the annual publication of details of the members’ register as a parliamentary paper.
The new act will also provide that claims of breaches of the requirements would be the subject of an independent investigation by the Auditor-General, an officer of the Legislative Assembly. The Auditor-General will investigate such claim breaches. However, the Auditor-General’s role will be limited to making inquiries, reaching findings of facts and providing a report to the Assembly in accordance with the requirements of procedural fairness. The committee is particularly grateful for the cooperation given by the Auditor-General, Mr Mike Blake, to the consideration of its reference.
As indicated in the tabling statement by the Chief Minister, the report notes that there will be a requirement for the code of conduct and ethnical standards to be supported by a new Legislative Assembly Members’ Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards Act which will give force of law to those provisions which require enactment and which will create offences and penalties. In particular, in relation to prohibition or restricted conduct arising after a member has left public office and for certain forms of employment in the public sector, the use of privileged information by a former member and the holding of contracts or business arrangements for the provision of services to government bodies.
However, the committee notes that such provisions would need to take into account the provisions of existing Territory and Commonwealth legislation, standing orders and other administrative instruments which may directly affect the implementation of such legislation. I advise honourable members that I propose to seek leave to continue my remarks and that following consideration of the draft code and the proposed act by members, that the resumption of the debate on the motion that the Assembly adopt the recommendation contained in the report, be conducted during the March Sittings.
Following the adoption of the report, it is anticipated that the required complementary legislation to give full effect to the code will be presented and debated later this year. This will provide adequate time for a familiarisation and education program for members in respect of the new code and act. Madam Speaker, in line with the provisions of the new electoral legislation, it is proposed that this material be made available for all future candidates for election to this Assembly.
In conclusion, I thank all members of the committee who contributed to the conduct of a most thorough and responsible consideration of the reference given to it by the Assembly. I record my appreciation of the bipartisan approach taken by all members in reaching a unanimous and consensus-based final draft code and proposed act.
Madam Speaker, I would particularly like to make mention of the former chair, the member for Nhulunbuy for his efforts, and to Mike Reed, former member for Katherine, who made some very good and thoughtful suggestions. He was very constructive. I thank you, Madam Speaker, and the Clerk. The Clerk has researched long and hard throughout Australia and given considered advice on many of the ideas and proposals. This has been a major piece of work. It is a landmark in the Assembly and will move us forward in confronting the ethical issues that do or potentially face members. I have commended those who made submissions to the committee, including Mr Mike Blake, the Auditor-General, the member for Nelson and the New South Wales committee that visited us.
Madam Speaker, I commend the report to the House and seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
Ms MARTIN (Tourism): Madam Speaker, I provide a ministerial statement to inform the House of various activities being undertaken by government in support of our tourism industry and, in particular, about how we are going to spend the $27.5m over the next three years that was allocated to tourism late last year.
As February is Tourism Month in the Northern Territory, it is timely that I make this statement during these sittings. Tourism is one of the industries fundamental to the Territory economy; it is our single largest employer and our second largest revenue earner after mining.
NT Tourist Commission estimates for 2000 show that for 2002-03, direct visitor expenditure in the Territory was $1.079bn. The industry directly provided 7927 jobs for Territorians and another 6307 jobs indirectly, 15% of our workforce.
As members know, our industry has suffered some setbacks over the past few years. International tourism numbers fell off dramatically following the 11 September attacks and, co-incidentally, the Ansett Airlines collapse that threw the domestic travel sector into a state of confusion. If that was not bad enough, those landmark events were followed by terrorist bombings in Bali and Jakarta, the invasion of Iraq and, finally, the SARS epidemic, all of which had devastating effects on international tourism.
Territory tourism is highly reliant on global long-haul tourism and was hard hit by these events. We saw a 10% decline in international holiday visitors over the two years from 2000-01 to 2002-03. Numbers notably decreased from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, and they represent the Territory’s biggest source market, down 30 000 holiday visitors or 19%. Holiday visitation from the Asian market, heavily impacted by SARS and the Bali bombings, was down 15 000 holiday visitors or a staggering 79%.
However, I am pleased to report tonight that indications show the inbound tourism market has begun to turn around. Based on figures derived from the Tourism Forecasting Council, a 4% growth in holiday visitor numbers is anticipated this financial year. For a host of reasons, confidence in the Territory industry is high, and one important reason for that confidence is because the Territory government has acted decisively.
In recognition of the importance of the tourism industry to the economic well-being of the Territory, last October my government announced a $27.5m injection over three years to the NT Tourist Commission. This announcement was made on the back of a strong business case from the Commission, and it funded a raft of initiatives designed to provide increased benefits to all Territorians.
Based on marketing and infrastructure development figures, it is anticipated that this funding will increase visitor expenditure in the Territory by $218m over three years, and provide 950 new tourism jobs. We see that $27.5m expenditure as a three year investment into the long term future of the industry to keep the Territory moving ahead.
In the first year, 2003-04, a total of $7.5m has been allocated to an implementation plan, updated and monitored regularly by the Tourist Commission executive and the board. Of that initial $7.5m, $3.8m is earmarked to the vital area of marketing communications. That allocation will include a $1.5m branding campaign, which includes the ‘Never, Never Leave You’ television advertising campaign, now showing in all major Australian capital cities on channels 9, 7, 10 and SBS. Print media advertising will appear in all major metropolitan newspapers, popular magazines, such as Who Weekly, Outback, Australian Geographic, along with commercial radio and internet advertising. The allocation includes marketing the Darwin and Alice Springs Virgin Blue services. Already, the Alice Springs campaign has attracted an extra 1000 passengers during the traditionally slow summer period. The additional travel was worth nearly $500 000 to air and land operators.
The Territory industry, and particularly many of the smaller tour operators, have experienced a direct impact, with some operators reporting they have received in excess of 200 bookings since the campaign commenced on 7 December. A retail travel agents familiarisation program, which concludes at the end of March, has attracted a total of 975 agents to the Territory. This program presents an opportunity for retail agents to see the Territory in their own time. It exposes key agents to what the NT has to offer, which will provide flow-on effects in greater sales to airlines, all Territory wholesalers and tourism operators. In total, this initiative has resulted in an incremental 1756 passengers booked to the Territory, providing an estimated $903 000 in new business for Territory tourism businesses.
A new marketing strategy is being explored within Kakadu National Park. Unlike our predecessors, who saw federal control of Kakadu National Park as a confrontational states’ rights issue, my government has been working hard over the past several years to strengthen relationships between Territory and federal authorities. That includes finalising arrangements for formal Territory government representation on the management boards of both parks, something park traditional owners objected to when the previous government was in office. We have written to the federal Minister for Parks, placing a formal proposal on the table for a joint marketing campaign for Kakadu National Park. This would include highlighting the cultural elements of the park. We are also discussing with Kakadu Park management the possible employment of a tourism focused position based within the park management structure.
The two other prongs of our approach include working to assist with tourism development priorities in Kakadu, and greater involvement of Parks Australia North staff in the Territory tourism industry. Implementation of the Parks and Reserves Framework for the Future Bill will ensure that the strong, vibrant indigenous culture of the Territory is reflected in our Territory parks system. It will give traditional owners opportunities to actively participate in the overall park management of their land, and an opportunity for them to decide how their culture is presented to visitors.
Joint management arrangements between Aboriginal people and the Parks and Wildlife Service will become the norm in our parks, like it is in federally operated parks, together with the employment of Aboriginal people in a range of roles within the parks system. This provides prospects for long term positive benefits for indigenous people in the more remote areas of the Territory, and that is something this government sees as a major priority.
Sports event marketing has been initiated and events have already begun. The Tourist Commission has made a commitment to support the promotion of upcoming national sporting events that are taking place in the Territory. The aim is to encourage sports fans to visit and support their team, and increase the awareness of the Northern Territory as a holiday destination for the target market. The commission launched a tactical print campaign in Western Australian newspapers in January and February to promote the National Basketball League and the Australian Football League games in Darwin. The commission is negotiating with the Western Bulldogs to undertake promotional support of the AFL round 20 game between the Bulldogs and Port Adelaide. Promotional activity will be focussed primarily towards the Western Bulldogs, as they have made a three-year commitment to playing in the Northern Territory. Discussions will also be undertaken with Port Adelaide.
The Destination Marketing team is in the process of implementing a campaign strategy for the Australia versus Sri Lanka test match to be held here in Darwin in July. The campaign is likely to include advertising in Sri Lankan community newspapers around Australia, supported by editorial produced by media/public relations. The initial $3.8m allocation includes $100 000 in funding for Tourism Month during February and March 2004. The campaign includes local television advertising on Channel 9 and Imparja aimed at showing Territorians the type of advertising shown in southern capitals. $100 000 is allocated to a photo and video shoot to be held in Katherine in March as part of a major upgrade of the commission’s image library system used by media across Australia and internationally.
A new campaign aimed at attracting self-drive visitors from around the country begins in March. Motoring magazines in each state will focus on theme drives such as Nature’s Way, the Explorer Highway and Pioneer’s Path.
The Territory Tourist Commission, the Western Australian Tourist Commission and the South Australian Tourist Commission have joined forces to work on a marketing project called Project Outback targeting the backpacker market. An allocation of $18 000 will ensure that more than 60 000 copies of a guide called Real Adventures for Real Travellers will be published, and stuck on the cover of the popular TNT Backpacker magazine. A further 40 000 copies will be distributed to Internet cafs and youth hostels. The aim of the guide is to divert backpackers from the eastern states by encouraging them to take the Explorer Highway from Darwin to Adelaide, cross the Nullarbor to Perth, or to head along the West Coast Road between Perth and Darwin. Extra funding of $38 000 has financed a second print run of Backpack the Outback brochures. Aimed at international backpackers, they will be distributed internationally in youth hostels and travel agencies. A new e-newsletter for the backpacker market was launched last month. Last year, the commission conducted an Avant Card postcard campaign with electronic distribution of more than 40 000 post cards. Of those who replied, 77% wanted more information on the Territory. To capitalise on the new contacts, we established a database that will continue to be updated from further competition campaigns and trade shows.
On the high end of the market, the 5 Star Experiences marketing campaign will be initiated interstate; a total of $150 000 for marketing upmarket tourist excursions such as Bullo River Station, Brookes Australian Tours, Alice Springs Holidays and Bond Springs Outback Retreat.
More marketing for fishing will be undertaken promoting recreational fishing tourism. In the next few months, the Territory can expect visits from television fishing personalities Rex Hunt and Andrew Ettinghausen, and also reporters from Fishing World and Modern Fishing magazines, all experiencing and reporting on Territory fishing tourism product. An allocation of $15 000 has been made to upgrade the ‘Fish the Territory’ website and a Territory fishing map is currently being developed by NT News fishing writer, Matt Flynn at a cost of $20 000.
In order to ensure nature-based tourism product is available, not just for today but well into the future, constant attention must be paid to sustainability. In this context, government’s work on protecting key natural resources such as our fishing stocks has vital implications. Fishing is an important part of the Territory lifestyle, something this government wants to support and promote locally, nationally and globally. Following consultations with all regional stakeholders, we closed the McArthur River to commercial barramundi fishing in 2002. We have also made a commitment to take the same action in regards to Adelaide River. Anyone who does not regard fishing as a high tourism priority does so at their peril. Current research shows 10% of our interstate and international holiday visitors undertake fishing as part of their Northern Territory visit.
We are working with key partners to explore opportunities to exploit this unique facet of a Territory holiday. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Tourist Commission has embarked on an NT exclusive fishing program with Angling Direct Holidays, a new niche tour operator. As part of a cooperative marketing strategy between Angling Direct Holidays and the Tourist Commission, Northern Gateway, the only active NT-based inbound tour operator, managed a familiarisation trip last December. Site inspections of various tourism operators were conducted, and feedback from Angling Direct is that the trip far exceeded all their expectations. Angling Direct and Northern Gateway are now finalising the ground context prior to a March 2004 launch of the NT program.
Of the initial $7.5m, an allocation of $2.4m has been earmarked for market development introducing a host of new initiatives. An allocation of $500 000 was made towards developing cooperative advertising programs with 10 national and 19 Territory-based partners. Both television and media advertising are currently being produced on a cost sharing basis. International marketing initiatives will see $500 000 allocated to a wide range of programs. As part of that initiative the commission is improving its infrastructure for trade shows and expos at a cost of $90 000. The international tourism websites are being redeveloped and updated at a cost of $80 000 with maintenance of $30 000. They are also being translated into languages other than English with image upgrades.
A ‘Mega-Famil’ will see 30 German travel agents brought to the Territory on a familiarisation excursion with half touring the Top End and the other half touring Central Australia. They then will return to Germany and sell the Territory to their customers.
The commission is also supporting four Territory operators including Gecko Canoeing and Cape Don Experience to take part in an American workshop. At a cost of $30 000 it aims to fast track their entry into the difficult US market. American travellers are not travelling internationally since 11 September and this workshop allows Australian product to be promoted to retail travel agents in the US encouraging more Americans to travel to Australia and the Territory.
The commission’s UK office is working with Travel Active, a Dutch tour operator, to promote the Territory as an ideal tourist destination for working holidays, travel and study. This is part of an effort to establish wider culture relationships between the Netherlands and the Northern Territory.
The ‘Travel Active Get Down Under Tour 2004’ promotes opportunities to ‘Work, Travel, Study and Play in Australia’. During January and February 2004, Travel Active visited all the major schools, polytechnics and universities in Holland providing information on Australia and the Territory. It is anticipated that 5000 young people will be exposed to the Territory at this series of one-day events.
Access into and within the Territory is a key factor restraining Australian tourism growth. Additional aviation access, particularly direct international aviation links to Darwin, remains a key priority for government. However, we have had some important wins over the past year. I acknowledge the work of my predecessor as tourism minister, Dr Burns, in this area. Critical achievements during the past year have included Royal Brunei Airlines’ introduction of third weekly service to Darwin last October with good connections to our key source markets in Europe and United Kingdom; two Japanese charter programs to Alice Springs, one in August and the second in November last year; and we have a charter program with Silk Air from Singapore this February and two flights landing in Darwin this week. In a very important move Australian Airlines will commence operations into Darwin from 6 May. Complementing Qantas’ existing services this brings to five the number of flights from Singapore into the Territory and provides a much needed improvement in air access from the key markets from the United Kingdom and Germany.
The Tourist Commission and the NT Aviation Committee have been working hard to improve domestic aviation capacity. I am pleased to report to the House that the number of seats into Darwin and Alice Springs now exceeds the situation prior to the Ansett collapse. West Australian airline Skywest will begin operations to Darwin in April. The new Perth/Broome/Darwin service will begin with two flights a week building to three in May and possibly more in the near future. Key priorities for this year are to work with airlines to improve scheduling wherever possible.
We are continuing to follow a number of leads with a variety of international carriers including presenting and receiving business cases for expansion of networks. Our aviation development director, Peter Roberts, a joint appointment between the Territory government and NT Airports, returned from a trip to Asia last week during which he met with executive representatives of a number of major airlines. I will also be meeting with key airline executives during my trip to China in April.
In December last year, the then Minister for Tourism announced the appointment of a part-time tourism marketing representative for Singapore. This appointment, funded by my government’s $27.5m injection into the Tourism Commission, is a strategic move to increase point-to-point travel from Asia to Darwin improving the profitability and long-term sustainability of air linkages.
A customer relationship marketing project is being developed for the NT Convention Bureau at a cost of $100 000. It will build and maintain relationships with past and potential clients. A website redevelopment for the NT Convention Bureau is also underway and a new CD-ROM will be distributed in coming months to encourage potential conference organisers to come to the Territory.
An allocation of $90 000 has been made to initiate an Ambassadors Program that will identify prominent Territorians who are leaders in their industry or endeavour to promote the Territory and help win more business, tourism and investment. An allocation of $200 000 has been made to finance strategic tourism research. This will include an extensive project to understand what types of people are interested in the Territory, what they want from a Territory holiday and what form of advertising would best attract them. This segmentation research project is the latest stage in an ongoing effort. A system of campaign tracking research has commenced with Roy Morgan Research to measure the success of recent campaigns.
An allocation of $1.3m has been earmarked for tourism development, working with operators to improve their product and support new product. Identification and development of a system of prioritising destinations throughout the Territory is an initiative aimed at understanding key projects. The program is designed to create and nurture tomorrow’s tourism destinations and overcome challenges at existing icons. For example, as Uluru reaches its carrying capacity, the program will support such ‘mature’ destinations to continuous ongoing renewal. An initial list of over 70 destinations identified has reduced the number to seven mature, 17 developing and 12 emerging destinations, representing the next three years’ activity.
Priority projects for the Tourist Commission are outlined in the NT Tourism Strategic Plan 2003-07, which was developed in consultation with the tourism industry and the Territory community. This strategic plan sets the framework for strategic development of our tourism industry. An update of the plan was released earlier this month, and regular annual updates will ensure it remains a living document.
The plan outlines two major building blocks for future Territory tourism, firstly, nature-based tourism. Environmental experiences continue to grow in popularity around the world and have been the backbone of our industry for many years. NT Travel Monitor figures support that premise. They are drawn from three distinct surveys:
AC Neilson, the television survey agency, carries out a telephone occupancy service surveying commercial accommodation;
they also survey Territorians at home about the number of friends and relatives that visit each year;
another survey questionnaire is left in commercial accommodation and filled out by visitors.
These combined surveys show that last year, 61% of all interstate and international holiday visitors who came to the Territory were motivated to travel here in order to experience the bush.
A range of projects has been identified for immediate action through the Destination Development Strategy and support is being offered to our partners. The government provides strategic development and assistance services to businesses and industry sectors throughout the Territory through the Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development. Local tourism businesses are able to utilise these services to enhance their capacity, business performance, profitability and market penetration. Territory business owners can choose from a range of programs to improve individual performance and play a vital role in advancing regional economic development, employment and wealth creation capabilities for the Territory.
DBIRD administers a key support program for tourism operators, the Trade Support Scheme, which co-exists with and complements the Tourist Commission’s International Marketing Support Scheme. These two programs provide financial assistance to operators in accessing export markets and are key examples of how this government helps business getting on with doing business. Most tourism operators based in the Territory are also small businesses. My government recognises that the administrative burden on small businesses can be an impediment to getting on with business. We are committed to assisting tourism operators through a variety of mechanisms.
The other key building block outlined in the NT Tourism Strategic Plan is cultural tourism. This involves connecting visitors with the people who live or have lived in an area and the ritual, lifestyle and activities of these people. Although cultural tourism in the Territory is closely associated with tourism focussing on indigenous culture, it also includes the history of Asian and European settlement and pivotal events such as the attacks on Darwin during World War II.
The Territory’s indigenous connections have formed the basis for a number of successful tourism businesses, including some which are leading the way for indigenous tourism in Australia. One well known example is Anangu Tours near Uluru which, just this month, entered the Hall of Fame at the National Tourism Awards held in Perth. Other new indigenous product is still emerging right across the Territory. Important partnerships are being established to help support and sustain indigenous product, like in Central Australia where Aboriginal-owned tourism operator Desert Tracks is enhancing its business knowledge in a partnership with Discovery Eco Tours.
The commission is supporting the development of important indigenous product, such as through the Tiwi Islands Tourism Strategy, while also encouraging businesses to share their expertise. For example, the commission funded two Tiwi Island board members to travel to Tennant Creek to experience the Nyikka Nyunyu Arts and Cultural Centre. The Tourist Commission also recently sponsored 11 indigenous operators to attend the Better Country, Better Business conference in Perth.
The government’s objectives for indigenous tourism are outlined in the NT Indigenous Tourism Strategy, which is due to be considered by Cabinet shortly. The new strategy seeks to broaden the development of the Territory industry beyond its core tourism focus of the earlier 1996 strategy. Its purpose is to provide a framework for the Tourist Commission and the Indigenous Tourism Reference Group, a committee comprising of representatives from indigenous organisations, government departments and tourism industry representatives. The NT Indigenous Tourism Strategy is based on research and an extensive consultation process involving indigenous tourism stakeholders, the Territory tourism industry, government departments and indigenous communities.
The NT Indigenous Arts Strategy, Building Strong Arts Business is designed to complement principles of social and economic development and, through linking with the NT Tourism Strategic Plan 2003-07, has an essential role to play in indigenous economic development.
The Tourist Commission has increased its emphasis on indigenous elements in tourism marketing, whilst at the same time supporting export opportunities for local Territory artists. As an example, from 17 May to 15 June last year, the ‘Living in Dreaming’ Australian Aboriginal Arts Exhibition was held at the prestigious DIHA Earth Wisdom Centre in Takayama, a major city midway between Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. The exhibition included art works from Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands, Kimberley region, and the Western and Central Desert areas. Our Tourist Commission representatives in Japan supported the staging of the exhibition by assisting with promotional flyers, background information and by arranging a didgeridoo concert. Indigenous culture and the Northern Territory are inseparable.
A comprehensive review of the Territory’s self-drive strategy, which includes development of the theme drives, has been completed and the next step will be to develop a plan for the future.
That is a comprehensive review of how the initial $7.5m of the $27.5m allocation is being used. A further $10m is allocated in 2004-05 and is to be used for similar projects: $7.5m to marketing development and $2.5m to tourism development. Another $10m is allocated in the year 2005-06.
But the Territory’s government tourism plan does not end with this injection. It goes much further, crossing into a range of associated portfolios. The success of a tourist destination relies on a combination of factors as well as the appeal of its attraction. Raising the standard of quality of infrastructure supporting tourism in the Territory is a key focus for government.
One such development is the Darwin City Waterfront Project. In December 2003, my government announced three short-listed consortia for the $600m Darwin City Waterfront redevelopment project. Community consultation workshops have been held with a number of community groups, including the tourism industry, and a business and tourism reference group has been established. The development will include a convention and exhibition centre, open spaces, commercial and residential areas, and should make a significant contribution to leisure and business tourism, as well as providing a precinct that attracts local people. Work should start on the waterfront redevelopment next year, with the convention and exhibition centre due to be operational in 2007.
Another important infrastructure project is set for Central Australia. Construction of stage 1 of the upgrade and sealing of the Mereenie Loop Road from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon is anticipated to commence in May this year. Other major road developments throughout the Territory which will improve access to tourist destinations include: construction of the Finke River Bridge which is currently in progress, due for completion in May this year; the duplication alignment for the Stuart Highway and the Cox Peninsula intersection, away from the World War II Strauss Airstrip is due to commence in June this year; selected community upgrading and sealing of the Tanami Road is currently in progress and is due for completion in March 2004, with further work to commence in April; sealing of the Cox Peninsula Road is to be extended to Belyuen, which is expected also to commence in April of this year; the South Alligator bridge on the Arnhem Highway will be lengthened with expected completion in July this year; and the Point Stuart and Fogg Bay Roads will be upgraded and sealed, commencing in April and May this year respectively.
The tourism infrastructure task force is currently developing a priority list of tourism infrastructure projects for government consideration and inclusion into the capital works program.
Obviously, the arrival of the first Ghan travelling from Adelaide to Darwin has provided a boost to the Territory’s tourism, the likes of which few could have foreseen. The extension of The Ghan from Alice Springs to Darwin offers great opportunities for Territory tourism operators to develop new market opportunities and products, and to overcome issues such as seasonality. Various holiday packages have been developed by Trainways - Great Southern Railway holiday division - incorporating a variety of product offerings such as flights, accommodation, visit to attractions and national parks, and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the passenger and motor rail service are spread across a variety of tourism sectors and regions. Territory Discoveries has also issued a dedicated rail holidays program.
The Tourist Commission estimates that The Ghan will result in an incremental 16 000 tourists to Darwin per year. This translates into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure; $27m of tourism expenditure will support around an additional 200 tourism jobs. We are increasing our level of commitment to the retail travel trade with initiatives such as the NT Muster being held in March and themed for the arrival of The Ghan, Inbound to the Outback, to be held in Katherine in May this year.
The outlook for our tourism industry this year is bright. Tourism Commission forecasts for the 2003-04 financial year are for a 4% growth in total holiday visitors, with good growth in international holiday visitors expected. Forecasts for 2004-05 are even more positive, with 10% growth in holiday visitors anticipated. The recovery in international tourism, combined with new initiatives this government in undertaking as a result of our increased investment in our tourism industry, means we can all look forward to a prosperous tourism season this year.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of this statement.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I welcome the additional $7.5m that the Northern Territory government has committed to the tourism industry over the next year, with a further $20m over subsequent years. Additional assistance to an industry that has taken a beating in the past couple of years is essential to revitalise and stimulate the marketplace. In no small way, international crises have contributed mainly to the lean time that tourism operators have unfortunately experienced, not only in the Territory but nationally through terrorism, the collapse of Ansett, SARS and international conflict.
I also welcome the attention of the federal government’s recognition towards the industry. Minister Joe Hockey has introduced an extra $235m to develop new strategies by introducing the most significant reforms to the tourism industry in over 35 years. In November, the Tourism White Paper was launched, which has introduced broad structural reform to the tourism industry in an attempt to address the changes that have occurred over the past couple of years, and to assist the industry throughout Australia.
This statement begins with the Chief Minister stating, and I quote:
This is not a new revelation. The CLP has known for years how fundamental tourism is to the Northern Territory economy. The Chief Minister must surely regret her government’s short-sightedness by cutting funding to the Northern Territory Tourist Commission in 2001. That followed in 2002 with the closure of the Darling Harbour Holiday Centre in the summer season when 60% of international visitors who come to the Territory enter Australia through Sydney. This unstructured market usually stays on the east coast for a couple of months before they head to the Territory for the Dry Season. The decision to close the centre at that high peak entry time was foolish and ill thought out. Despite evidence of dramatic decline in international holiday visitors from 2001, your government effectively took our product off the shelf. Chief Minister, you have used in your statement the only word to describe the decline in numbers – staggering. It is quite obvious that this Labor government did not realise the importance of tourism to the economy back then.
It has taken a full two years and four Tourism Ministers to listen to the 16 000 affected by this industry in the Territory. That is actually what I call a bad case of slow learning. In addition to that, the Chief Minister says in her statement that, and I quote:
Now, the word ‘decisively’, must be a misprint as the actions of this government towards tourism have been far from decisive, unless the meaning of the word has changed.
The previous shadow minister for Tourism has called on the government at least 18 times over the past two years to address what has been an ailing industry. I know from my personal involvement on the executive of the Katherine Region Tourist Association, on the Katherine Chamber of Commerce, as alderman of Katherine Town Council, and my tourism operation, that tourism was sinking further into crisis. So it is a relief to see the government has finally pulled its head out of the sand.
The Chief Minister also refers to indicated growth figures of 4% for inbound tourism and it is very important to have these figures to target the market accurately for a maximum dollar outcome. The interesting aspect of this statement is that the Chief Minister used the figures derived from the Tourism Forecasting Council. The Chief Minister two weeks ago announced that her government would not be contributing $200 000 to the Australian Bureau of Tourism Research to provide vital forecast figures to the Northern Territory for the next 12 months. The Bureau of Tourism Research, which this government no longer funds, provides the technical advice to the Tourism Forecasting Council, whose figures the Chief Minister was happy to use in this statement.
Tourism research is important in recognising changing trends in the market and addressing those changes in line with the demands. A perfect example of this is that a part-time tourism marketing representative has been appointed to Singapore in December. A previous representative in Singapore was withdrawn when the market changed several years ago and now, with ever changing trends, we see one being reappointed. The Bureau of Tourism Research identifies these changes in the market place.
I welcome some of the points that are in the Chief Minister’s tourism statement that have come about due to the injection of this additional funding, and some of them are: the customer relationship marketing project for the Territory Convention Centre. It is very important to maximise the use of that facility; I welcome the ambassadors’ program. There are many Territory proud people whom we should encourage to assist in promoting the Territory further, for further development and that will of course, assist the industry; I also encourage the campaign tracking research. It has long been a concern of mine that we cannot be certain with each publication that we pay a lot of money for, that we are reaching the right target market; I always welcome tourism development. While $1.3m has been allocated, I would like to see more assistance to helping operators to improve their product and to support new product. Some present product is very, very tired and needs to be upgraded to meet the needs of the tourist numbers we are expecting to see to come to the Territory in the future.
While the Chief Minister says she supports new product, her previous Minister for Tourism did not. When the opportunity for him to support a unique new product last year - when it was there - he showed that he had no vision of his own and no vision for the industry by scoffing at the very idea. As a matter of fact, at least two ministers in the government displayed that they had no vision at all by the derogatory and condescending remarks that were made in reference to this opportunity. We had the opportunity to develop a wildlife safari park with several species of unique and endangered animals near Katherine. We had identified the ideal location just two kilometres from the edge of Katherine, had expert safari animal management skills, expert veterinary skills and incredible support from the Katherine community, so well you might you snigger. This development would have been a valuable tourist attraction for our Ghan visitors, who would have had ample time to enjoy these magnificent animals in the four-hour stopover that they have in Katherine.
Members interjecting.
Mrs MILLER: Are you going to laugh about the excitement that was in the general Katherine community about the possibility of having these unique animals on their door step?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, you are interrupting the speaker.
Mrs MILLER: So you laugh at being able to assist them in their care and concern about getting a new development in Katherine, which was very genuine, so I suggest you do not laugh at Katherine. I cannot tell you how many people contacted me in full support of this venture. They realised the economic value to Katherine of having this wildlife safari park and shared the same vision as me.
Let me give you some benefits that this one development would have brought to Katherine: installation of 50km of fencing; supply of materials for that fencing and agricultural supplies that would have been ongoing; supply of the animal feed, which is ongoing; veterinary assistance; not to mention the significant tourism benefit from Ghan passengers. In addition, the drive market would have been encouraged to stay one more night in Katherine. That benefits accommodation as well as the supply and service industries in Katherine. It is not to be sniggered at; it just needs a bit of vision.
Another initiative that I welcome in the Chief Minister’s statement is the Indigenous Tourism Strategy. This will assist in developing what is a very important component of the tourism industry, and, well you might laugh, they could have been employed in the safari park. The majority of tourists, especially international visitors, wish to experience indigenous tourism.
I support the four NT tour operators who will be taken to America for the American workshop. I am always especially pleased to see someone from Katherine acknowledged, and I would like to mention Gecko Canoeing. They are a niche eco-tourism operation, which is accredited and was recognised at the Brolga Awards in 2003 for their outstanding contribution to tourism in their category. The support to attend this workshop gives their business every opportunity to achieve its maximum potential, and I know they appreciate the support.
The Chief Minister stated that the Tourism Infrastructure Task Force is currently developing a priority list of tourism infrastructure development. The Territory needs five star safari accommodation in Kakadu and Nitmiluk to cater for the high end of the market. This style of accommodation is in demand in these iconic locations and should be considered sooner rather than later.
Also missing from the list was upgrading the Maude Creek Bridge on Gorge Road, Katherine, to above flood level. Maude Creek Bridge is impassable for approximately 14 days during the Wet Season, which prevents access to Nitmiluk Park. Some people take the risk of boating across the fast-flowing expanse of water to visit the gorge and then undertake the return trip. It is quite dangerous and would be avoidable if Maude Creek Bridge was raised. There are tourism dollars missed when the river is up because we are unable to take our Ghan visitors to the gorge, and we have already experienced on such unfortunate day.
Another market segment that the Northern Territory needs to address is that of the four wheel drive traveller. We have the opportunity to set up amazing four wheel drive tracks which will give the four wheel drive traveller a great adventure without destroying our environment. I would like to see a track from Edith Farms, near Katherine, though to Litchfield Park via the Douglas Daly opened. In addition, the most amazing track would be from Nitmiluk Park through to Arnhem Land and connecting up at Jabiru. Imagine the fabulous scenery on both of these tracks.
Tourism is an easy industry to talk up, and industry operators are usually very optimistic, but the past couple of years the industry has been in the wilderness. With the federal government’s white paper and additional funding of $235m, in addition to the $27.5m that the Northern Territory government is contributing, the industry can finally dust off its covers and get back into business.
Following the announcement of the additional funding to the Tourist Commission last October, for which the industry breathed a huge sigh of relief, the Northern Territory Tourist Commission CEO, Maree Tetlow, and the Chairman of the Tourist Commission board, Richard Ryan, visited Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs late last year to involve and advise industry on how the additional $27.5m funding over three years is going to be allocated. Industry appreciated this consultation, and the commitment of ongoing consultation, and endorsed the plans the Tourist Commission put forward.
The Chief Minister mentions in her statement a new marketing strategy for Kakadu National Park. I welcome any improvements to our fabulous world heritage park, and additional marketing that dispels the ‘Kakapoo’ and ‘Kakadon’t’ myth that I find very offensive to say the least. One of the biggest disappointments for tourists to Kakadu is the lack of access to two of the most sought after areas in the park, and that is Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. When they are at their most spectacular, they are inaccessible to the public. Until we can overcome this access problem, visitors to Kakadu are still going to pass on Kakapoo and Kakadon’t. I encourage that the access restrictions to Jim Jim and Twin Falls be addressed sooner rather than later.
February is traditionally set down in the tourist industry as Tourism Month. It signifies the beginning of the consumer shows held in each state - caravan and camping, four wheel drive, fishing and backpacker, at which the Northern Territory is very well represented by Tourist Commission staff, in addition to Regional Tourist Association representatives, who do an excellent job promoting the Territory. The retail industry is also targeted at this time of the year, which has in the past been considered the low season. I say ‘in the past’ because with the arrival of The Ghan each week, and a steady arrival of cruise ships throughout the year, and with the additional marketing funding, we have a reasonable expectation that the low season will not ever be quite so low again.
With the combined funding increases from the federal and the Northern Territory governments, and the new strategies being developed, the arrival of The Ghan, additional airline charters and cruise ship visitations, I look forward to a much brighter future for tourism in the Territory.
Mr McADAM (Barkly): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the Chief Minister and the Minister for Tourism’s ministerial statement. The Chief Minister has already outlined the benefits of tourism to our economy and our social fabric within the Territory, and there can be no doubting that the opportunities are bountiful, and with hard work and a single-minded commitment much will be achieved. This is very much indicative of the fact that the Chief Minister has now chosen to take on this very important portfolio.
I would like to focus on the Barkly and provide information in respect to our recent tourism conference convened in Tennant Creek titled ‘Thinking Tourism – Tourism is Everybody’s Business’. The conference was organised jointly by Maria Purvis from the Northern Territory Tourist Commission; Michael Dougall the Chief Minister’s CEO in Tennant Creek - Michael is also very much instrumental in respect of the Barkly Blueprint; Mr Bob Torrilla, the president of the Tennant Creek Regional Tourist Association; Ms Bev Kozlowski, manager of the same organisation; Mr Peter Davenport from DBIRD, and Gayle Dougall from my electorate office; as well as Esther Pearce from CDSCA and, Nigel Povey from ATSIS, as of a few months ago.
The conference occurred over three days and challenged people associated within the tourism industry to collaborate and explore the current performance of regional tourism in the Barkly; to identify positive trends in our performance and delivery; to have a look or, indeed, to investigate, future options in delivery tourism within the region; and to develop specific strategies to aggressively drive tourism opportunities in the Barkly. The conference was facilitated by Mr Michael Winlaw of Networks Consulting Pty Ltd and Mr Anthony Ellis from the Tourism Commission. I pay tribute to both of these gentlemen who did an excellent job. It was very professional and inclusive. They were able to embrace all participants. To those two people, thank you very much.
I also acknowledge Mr Peter McConnell who travelled across from Halls Creek. Peter is the manager of the Halls Creek Visitor Centre, and he provided a very entertaining and appropriate speech because Tennant Creek, in a way, is a little like Halls Creek in tourism development. I also thank Mr Dick Estens and Ms Kathy Duncan from Moree, and Maree Tetlow, the Managing Director of the NT Tourist Commission.
The theme or the strategy was based on the five Es, being:
The three days were thought-provoking and challenging on occasions and, I must say, brutally honest with some of our retailers copping fair criticism from participants who tested their tourism acumen in various ways. We now have a draft Barkly Tourism Strategy effective for the period 2004 through to 2006. One of the more important initiatives is a proposal to change the name of the Tennant Creek Regional Tourist Association to the Barkly Regional Tourism and Marketing Association, incorporating membership from communities and stakeholders within the Barkly such as indigenous representation, representation from Borroloola, Elliott, pastoralists, tourism operators and businesses. The message that arose from that was that, for many of the people, the bottom line behind this new body is you have to be committed to tourism.
We also envisage advertising for a CEO to drive the new entity, someone with expert administrative management and marketing expertise. It is expected that the existing tourist visitor centre will be incorporated as part of the Battery Hill Mining Centre and a new visitor centre will be located within Nyikka Nyunyu. There are also plans to upgrade visitor centres in Borroloola and Elliott and another new initiative, which is certainly worth pursuing on behalf of this new body, is to try to engage road houses as part of tourism visitor centres as well.
I also take this opportunity to thank and express my appreciation on behalf of people in the Barkly to Bob Torrilla, Bev Kozlowski, Roddy Calvert, and Nigel Skelton for their wonderful work that they are doing in promoting tourism throughout our region. I would particularly thank Bob Torrilla, who owns the Safari Lodge Motel in Tennant Creek, along with his wife, Tess, and family for his commitment to the industry. Most people will know Bob and very clearly, Bob is a straight talking, straight shooting person. His heart is in the Barkly and his contribution and commitment to the Barkly is unquestioned. So, Bob thank you very much and I sincerely hope that you will continue to play an ongoing and important role in regards to the new organisation.
Most people will be aware that the Barkly, or indeed Tennant Creek, and for that matter Borroloola, are very much reliant on the self-drive market, or self-drive visitors. It is interesting to note that certainly for the period 2001-02, self-drive numbers increased by 11% in the Northern Territory, although they remained below the peak experience in 1998-99, and 1999-2000, and part of the reasons are very obvious in respect to 11 September, SARS and a many other considerations. The interstate drive market during this period, as I say, increased by 8% to reach 251 000 visitors. The international drive market recovered after a poor year in 2001-02 to reach 61 000 visitors. The important thing to note here is that the international drive market is growing a lot more quickly than the interstate market.
As I mentioned previously, we are very much reliant on the self-drive market and I acknowledge Anthony Ellis in respect to this information. Anthony has actually identified different categories in respect to the self-drive market. I would just like to mention three, because very clearly some of the others are not relevant. But certainly, the Packaged Culture Tour which I have repackaged as a packaged culture drive tourism group and it is interesting, these people are over 65, under 24, and usually travel in a group, normally on a bus, spending about 4.9 days. They are motivated by icons like the Ayres Rocks and the Kakadus, and of course our indigenous culture. They stay in hotels and motels and they stay in hostels. They are involved in indigenous culture, as mentioned previously, and heritage activities. Certainly, the Barkly will never be able to compete in respect to some of these icons, but nonetheless, it gives us real opportunity in terms of being able to tack on to those people who are passing through Tennant Creek, and particularly, with a longer term vision in regards to some of the new destinations for tourism, there is a real opportunity in certainly securing larger numbers of this particular group.
The other group is what Mr Tony Ellis describes as the Outback Escapers. These people apparently stay 7.7 days, of whom 50% will return and in excess of one-third will return within two years. Ninety five per cent of this group will arrive by road, half in four-wheel drives and, obviously, towing caravans. Interestingly enough, a majority of people come from Victoria and New South Wales. They visit Central Australia, remote locations, and about 64% of these people stay in caravan parks. They do not really like taking tours; there top five activities are bush walking, wildlife, four-wheel driving and, again, Aboriginal culture and art. I hope it becomes clearer about how the Barkly can attract more of these visitors later in my speech.
There is another group that Anthony Ellis described as the Active Explorers. These people are normally 45 and over, travelling in pairs who stay in the Territory for around 9.2 days. They come to explore and are not motivated by indigenous experiences. Ninety seven percent arrive by road and, of those, 72% tow caravans and two-thirds are in four-wheel drives. Eighty six per cent stay in caravan parks. They are very active, doing almost everything, especially half- and full-day tours. They rarely stay overnight; they prefer to camp out and they particularly like going to parks and driving along remote bush roads. Obviously this is another group of tourists that the Barkly Regional Tourism and Marketing Association can target in the future.
What do people want when they come into the Territory? They want convenience of access. As I mentioned earlier, the majority are towing caravans and they require easy parking; access to normal shopping; good caravan parks; comprehensive visitor services and useful information that highlights local tourist attractions. They also require quality facilities such as toilets, rest areas, rubbish bins and sewerage points.
Another thing they require is to feel safe and secure when they visit places. Obviously, in some parts of the Northern Territory, that can be a problem so the challenge remains for many of the smaller communities and towns to work on some of these issues in respect of antisocial behaviour and making visitors feel safe and welcome.
Most of these people require half- and full-day tours, as I mentioned. They like to get off the beaten track, focus on wildlife, heritage, nature and, to a lesser extent, indigenous culture. They do not book in advance; they basically jump in their Toyotas and drive around the countryside.
The most important thing, of all the groups I have mentioned, is that they require good service and tourism operators and people in the industry to be professional and to treat them in a certain manner. If that happens, they are going to come back. These are the sorts of people that we in the Barkly are trying to attract, certainly to grab the numbers in terms of that group.
The other area I would like to talk about briefly, and I spoke about this yesterday in the ministerial statement on the AustralAsia Railway, The Ghan will obviously offer opportunities in the Barkly. There will be some capacity to attract backpackers and to attract this group via the train. It is very much in its early days. It was only the other day that I was able to secure from Great Southern Rail their sector fares between Tennant Creek/Alice Springs, Tennant Creek/Katherine, Tennant Creek/Darwin, and Tennant Creek/Adelaide. There was a little bit of marketing I believe we do have the capacity to attract these people off The Ghan.
As I mentioned yesterday, Coober Pedy is doing it at this point in time that I am aware of. Coober Pedy has opals and what is described as the Painted Plains, which I not visited although I have been to Coober Pedy. Again, it gives a challenge to people in Tennant Creek, Borroloola and the Barkly to have a look at what is occurring in other regions and, where appropriate, take best practice, work on it and obviously grow the tourist industry.
The Barkly has the potential to be a world class tourist destination. Already we have the Battery Hill Mining Centre, Nyikka Nyunyu, the beautiful Davenport Ranges to the south, King Ash Bay at Borroloola in the gulf region – the second largest recreational fishing area outside the Northern Territory. There is a lot of potential in that area, particularly if we can provide infrastructure such as boat ramps and other facilities for tourists. I have a great degree of confidence in that area.
The other area people will be aware of is the Devils Marbles to the south of Tennant Creek. Devils Marbles is packaged normally as a one-off destination, but you could incorporate it as part of a package which could include places like Borroloola, and most certainly the Davenport Ranges, which is further to the south.
Australia’s best cattle country, the Barkly Tablelands, contains many of the best pastoral properties, such as Brunette Downs, Newcastle Waters and Kurundi Station. Kurundi is not actually in the Barkly Tablelands, it is to the south. Many of these properties are looking to get into the tourism industry. I know that people from the Benmarra Station, which is in the gulf region are looking at developing a small tourism operation, accessing tourists who come in from the Doomadgee or the Queensland area, and also up the Calvert Hill road. Essentially, it is the experience of working and living on a cattle station. June and Ernie Holt are also wanting to have a look at the Barkly Stock Route and the Rankine Road, because that was the thoroughfare in respect of cattle travelling from Western Australia into Queensland back in the 1940s and 1950s, and indeed, much earlier than that. There are many sites along there which are of significance and which portray the history and heritage of the cattle industry, the pastoral industry and many of the old drovers. That is worth looking at, and something that I do hope the new tourist association will look at.
The other place I know will come into fruition very shortly, and members may have heard me talked about this before, and that is Longreach.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Barkly, your time has expired.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, I move that an extension of time be granted to allow my colleague to complete his remarks, pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Mr McADAM: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. One of the areas I have just mentioned is Longreach, which is 20 km to the west of Elliott. Many people know it as Lake Woods. It is not Lake Woods, it never was Lake Woods. That will remain Longreach. That has a lot of potential as a wild life, bird life sanctuary. I know that Anthony Ellis and others from the NT Tourist Commission are talking to people from Newcastle Waters Station, also to the Gurungu Council, the traditional owners, the Elliott Local Government Council, and I am confident that that destination will be on the map in the near future.
An area that I have referred to previously, but is certainly worth mentioning again, is the Nicholson area which includes indigenous homelands, Murun Murula and Wangalinji, and that incorporates the Great Wall of China. This particular part of the Barkly is a magnificent place, a beautiful piece of country. It contains mountain ranges, plateaux, rivers, creeks, rock holes; is rich in indigenous heritage, art and culture, and wild life. I honestly believe that this area has the potential to rival Australia’s best wilderness destinations once it is developed.
In conclusion - my voice is about to go - I express my appreciation to minister Burns and, of course, minister Henderson, the previous Tourism Ministers, particularly minister Henderson who had the foresight and vision to allocate $30 000 to the Barkly to develop the strategy. I honestly believe we will see some results come out of that. With the Chief Minister, Minister for Tourism, I would like to think - and we all know - that tourism is in very good hands. You will have the support of the tourism industry and the people of the Northern Territory, and we wish you all the very best.
I would like to conclude my remarks in respect to the opposition shadow minister for tourism, Fay Miller. I wish you well in your deliberations and, obviously, there will be times when you will be required to be critical, and that is your right. However, I believe you will find that, in the majority of the cases, your responsibility will be to ensure that you grow the tourism industry in the Northern Territory. I know that you will do that in partnership with the Chief Minister, the Minister for Tourism. Again, I wish you well. I commend the Minister for Tourism’s statement.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, before addressing the statement I compliment the member for Barkly for his contribution. I thought it was great - I really did. This is a local member who has stood up to tell it how he sees it in his area; to advocate for tourism in his area; and to advocate for the people in the industry whom he represents. I thought his statement came up with some fabulous ideas. Clearly, he is passionate about this matter and I commend him for it. I wish that the member for Barkly had been one of the four tourism ministers over the last two-and-half-years because - who knows? - some things might have been done a long time ago.
One hesitates, on this side of politics, to borrow lines from Labor leaders, not to mention Labor Prime Ministers, but when I read this statement I could not help but think of Paul Keating’s famous words in whatever year it was - the election victory - when he said, ‘This is the sweetest victory of all’. For me, this Chief Minister’s statement is. Why is that? It is because, for the last two-and-half-years I, before the new member for Katherine was elected, have been saying to government, ‘You must do something’. All members of this House know how robust I have been on behalf of the Territory’s tourism industry. So, when I saw the Chief Minister’s statement I regarded it, I suppose, with the usual scepticism that an opposition member would. I thought oh, it’s another statement, but there is some great stuff in this statement.
At long last, we see a government, and I don’t think anyone in the House will take exception to this, but we see the government getting off its bum. We see the government pulling its finger out and getting on with it. This statement should have been delivered two-and-a-half years ago. The fact that it was not, is to the government’s eternal shame. Not just to the Chief Minister’s eternal shame, but to four Tourism Ministers. The member for Nhulunbuy was the first one. Then we went over to the member for Wanguri, who had a lot of other ministries at the time and we started to call him Part Time Paul. Thankfully he was sacked. Then it went to the member for Johnston and he rattled around for a bit. In fact, he rattled around a lot. No-one took him seriously then and hopefully no-one takes him seriously now. However, he was in the right place at the right time when, after two-and-a-bit years of sniping from the opposition, the government said, ‘Oh, tourism really is important isn’t it? Tourism really does employ directly and indirectly 16 000 Territorians. Tourism really is worth between $1m and $2m to the Territory economy’.
So, I am delighted with the statement. I do not agree with absolutely everything in it, but there is some great stuff.
I remember getting my first briefing from the former Head of the Tourist Commission, Tony Mayall, who has since left us, and I reckon I had that briefing in about September 2001 as the new shadow minister keenly going around trying to absorb all of the information – trying to get into the swing of things. I was a lawyer in private practice in Alice Springs, knew very little about tourism, and thought that I would go and speak to people. I spoke with Tony Mayall in September 2001 and made the comment that I did not think tourism was, in terms of playing politics, not an especially political portfolio and that I was looking forward to working with him and working with government, and it was a good meeting.
But, things went down hill from there because what I saw through my own eyes and after speaking to many people involved in the tourism industry up and down the track – what I saw was government inaction. I saw a government in denial. They were so obsessed with their social policy reforms that they had forgotten about small business and employment. Now they talk about job plans and all sorts of employment, but in those early stages they did not. I suppose in hindsight you would say they were inexperienced and perhaps what I would like to think, less in hindsight, that they would have done things differently. It is noteworthy that the member for Arnhem said this afternoon, when he was caught short in terms of giving a notice, ‘Well, we are all not perfect. We all make mistakes’, and the government did make mistakes. I note with interest that the government and the Chief Minister, on occasion, are big enough to say sorry. To say the ‘s’ word. They have said sorry about all sorts of things and very recently – as recently as today, sorry about swimming pool fencing legislation.
Well, I would have thought that the Chief Minister and her three former Tourism Ministers would have said, ‘Sorry, we got it wrong. We were in denial, we had our mind on other things’. They did not even have the ball to drop. They were useless. Every so often ministers would stand up and say we think tourism is really important and they would quote the figures and they would deliver a statement and they would hand it around to people, but the people in the industry twigged. They twigged that the government was not actually doing anything and I don’t think people in the industry will forget it. One person to whom I spoke, and it stuck in my mind, was a woman in Alice Springs. She rang me in tears because her business was going broke. I remember doing a radio interview with the very violent Mr Fred McCue and he was amazed that I became upset when I had a woman who was crying almost hysterically, telling me that her business was going broke. And the very violent Mr McCue was aghast …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I do not think it is appropriate that the member reflects on a person, not a member of this Chamber and has no defence to allegations of that nature. They should be withdrawn.
Ms CARNEY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, we speak regularly about people who are not in this Chamber. Whilst Mr McCue is now a government advisor, at that time he was a radio journalist. I suggest to you that it is not inappropriate to refer to Mr McCue as ‘violent’; I am not necessarily referring to recent events. Some people, of course, can be violent over the phone and in their conversation.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I do not think that it does this parliament any good at all to be casting absolutely unfounded allegations on a member of the public. Regardless of for whom he works, he is a member of the public who has no right of reply in this parliament It is an unfounded allegation and it does not do the reputation of this parliament any good to smear members of the public who have no defence. I would ask the honourable member to reflect on her comments and urge her to withdraw.
Ms CARNEY: I would ask, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, that you obtain advice on that point. I know that there is one representative at the Table. I do ask that you obtain advice in relation to that point of order.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, I ask you at this late hour to refrain from reflecting unnecessarily on public citizens.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. It is always good to know when you are hitting the right button, and that was a good one.
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I would ask the member to withdraw those comments about a member of the public. She will either choose to withdraw them or not. If she chooses not to, it is on her own head.
Ms CARNEY: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, you made a ruling and that was that I reflect …
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen…
Ms CARNEY: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I reflected and pressed on regardless.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, I will take some advice on this matter as it has not ceased. Member for Araluen, I have taken advice. There is no point of order but, again, I would ask you at this late hour to refrain from reflecting on public citizens.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. It is interesting that the Chief Minister, in her statement, on page 2 of a 28 or 30 page statement, referred to the decline in – I withdraw that and say the appalling figures in relation to tourism over the last two-and-a-bit years since world events took their toll. This is the first time we have seen, to my recollection, the government admit these figures. It is extraordinary. I remember time after time being in this Chamber and reciting the very figures that are contained in this statement, and minister after minister saying, ‘Member for Araluen, you are talking the industry down’. We were talking the truth. I remember, in the face of these appalling figures, some information that came to me that, when the minister, who was the member for Wanguri, was in Katherine, he told the tourism representatives that the industry was going gangbusters and we took him to task in the Chamber. Well, how interesting things become as time goes on. Now we see the government finally admitting how bad things really were.
It is fair to say that I did not need to prepare for this statement extensively. I needed to look at my press releases, the press releases I have issued over a long period of time. When the government announced the injection of funds into the tourism industry, in a press release dated 23 October 2003, we put a footnote on that press release, and it said as follows: Since October 2002, the CLP has issued 28 press releases relating to the crisis affecting the Territory’s tourism industry and calling on government to increase funding. You will be relieved to know, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I do not propose to go through all of my press releases. However having perused and reviewed them, it is important for me to at least highlight some of them, and highlight some of them I will.
One release, dated 27 June 2002, talks about the minister, the member for Wanguri, finally making the admission that tourism operators are doing it real tough. So, after a long period of denial he slipped, he said yes, we recognise that they are doing it tough. In another press release, or I should say our comments were not just restricted to press releases, we mentioned matters in this Chamber, we talked about them in various locations in the Northern Territory, and in particular we spoke to members of the tourism industry, indeed, we got much of our information from the people on the ground.
We were aware that, on 13 June, in the previous six months the Territory had lost a number of key flights to Darwin. There were four Qantas flights out of Singapore. Singapore Airlines had withdrawn direct flights to Darwin. Malaysia had withdrawn many of its international routes, including the Kuala Lumpur/Darwin route, which meant important links to Darwin had been massively reduced. At that time, I called on government to do something creative to promote growth in the number of airlines flying to the Territory. I also made the comment that the Territory was falling behind the pack.
By press release dated 12 February 2002, and I reckon members on that side have completely forgotten about this one, I issued a press release commenting on the loss of the safari event. Ring a bell anybody? Remember the safari event? That event was worth $4m to the Territory economy and gave the Territory enormous exposure, both internationally and Australia-wide. This government did not have the courage to go in and bid for it.
By press release dated 27 February 2002, I wrote: ‘The warning signs were ignored last month when figures showing that 35 000 fewer passengers flew in and out of the Territory in December’, that is December 2001. Did that prompt any action? I think not.
By press release dated 25 January 2002, I said: ‘Forward bookings for this year indicate the local tourism industry could be in diabolical trouble if the current trend continues’. Did we see any action from government? No, we did not.
Out of all of the press releases, the one dated 28 November 2001 is the best one, I believe. I ask members to cast their minds back to November 2001, they had not been in government for very long, but I would suggest that even Blind Freddy could see that with the demise of Ansett and the events of 11 September, things were going to be tough for an economy that relies so heavily on tourism. We are a tourism Territory and I come from a tourism town. Do I have an interest in this? Too right I do!
In any event, back to the press release. The press release says: ‘Chief Minister fails tourism industry’. Has there been a change in the Chief Minister? I do not believe there has. I wish there was, but there has not been. The same Chief Minister who failed the tourism industry then is now the Minister for Tourism. Remember the mini-budget. I said and I quote:
I also said and I quote:
Further in the press release - and this is a good one - I say:
This is the same person who is now the Minister for Tourism. I know you have a fairly thick skin in politics, but this is a joke. This is ‘good news Clare’ going around saying, ‘Oh, sorry. Sorry about the last couple of years. Sorry, I have ignored everything everyone has said, but we have finally relented. We have finally spoken to Labor Premiers, we have seen what has happened in other parts of Australia. Everyone else is coming up with some dough, maybe we should as well’.
I do not think members of the industry will forget the scant regard ‘the boss’ has had over the last two-and-something years for tourism in the Northern Territory. Ministers - all four of them - can come into this House and say, ‘We really care,’ and, no doubt, the Chief Minister will go around to all of the tourism functions that I now do not need to go to, and she will stroke people up and say, ‘I care. I care about the tourism industry’. At last, $27m - at last. It is always, I suppose, satisfying to say - although you should not dwell on it because, arguably, it is not good for the soul - but it is always satisfying to say, ‘I told you so! I told you so!’ We all told you so. Members of the CLP told you so. Members of the industry told you so. I am delighted that, at long last, the Chief Minister has found the money that we always knew she had, to come up with the sort of money we were talking about.
Therefore, I am genuinely delighted. I take this opportunity in the very short time left open to me to congratulate the people at the Northern Territory Tourist Commission. They have been doing it very tough indeed. It has been problem area. I congratulate Maree Tetlow in particular. She has her detractors but, on balance, she is widely respected in the industry and she has hung on and hung on and, to her great credit, she also, I understand, has been asking for a sign of faith. I am delighted that the government, the Chief Minister, has finally seen fit to deliver. The only sadness I guess is (a) it took two years to get there, and (b) unlike the swimming pool fencing legislation, she has failed to say sorry.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I enjoyed the member for Barkly’s speech. The member for Barkly always gives a well thought out discussion on every subject I have ever heard him speak on in this House. I admire the gentleman, to be honest, because he speaks from the heart, and he speaks on many subjects with quite a bit of wisdom.
The other reason I am talking about him today is because of what I feel may be missing in this statement - and it is not necessarily a criticism, but it is something I have spoken before about - and that is, although this document talks about the big picture tourism in the Northern Territory, I still like to promote the little picture tourism, the micro-tourism industry in the Territory. For me a lot of that is about promoting tourism for Territorians. Just thinking of that, that does not sound a bad sort of slogan, but I do think there are opportunities there for more promotion of tourism amongst ourselves.
Just getting back to the member for Barkly, last year I took a little trip down the track. I stayed at Elliott, Renner Springs and Banka Banka. I did that because I wanted a little bit of peace and quiet but I also wanted to enjoy what I call the real part of the Territory, and it was beautiful. You had a bit of time to sit down, literally, under a tree near a water hole and read a book. It made you proud actually to be a Territorian, because when you go back to the big cities, you say, this is not the place to live. Even Darwin for me sometimes gets a bit too crowded. I had a great time down there and I wrote a little bit in my local newsletter about that trip I did. You would be amazed at how many people have read that and stopped in at Banka Banka. It is an overnight stop with some hot showers and toilets, friendly people, and it is a great little place.
There is a lot of work we can do on local tourism and a lot of that emphasis could be put around school holiday times. You have your one week coming up soon around Easter, and you have your four weeks in the middle of the year and one week further on in September. So there are opportunities there perhaps to promote those times, especially when the main tourism season has dropped off. So, thank you, member for Barkly, you always speak well.
Members: Hear! Hear!
Mr WOOD: Another area that I believe we could look at in local tourism is a place near me and that is Coolalinga. You might say ‘So what, it is a shopping centre’ but it actually has, I believe, opportunities to be similar to some of the places you get in Cairns. Not in Cairns itself, but the relationship between Cairns and the Atherton. A lot of people go up to the Atherton because they have craft shops and there is a bit of country feeling. You move out of the city and up into the country. Admittedly they have a nice climate to go up to, it is a bit cooler in that part of the world. But a place like Coolalinga has the opportunity to become a crafty town. Crafty town? A place where people can sell their crafts. The Stuart Highway goes right through the middle of it. It is close to Palmerston and Darwin. I am hoping to put a proposal to government to look at a plan to do up Coolalinga.
I know that Katherine received some money a few years ago to do up a main street plan. Coolalinga is one of those places where we could certainly do that. Anyone who comes into Coolalinga sees sandwich boards and pipelines. The approaches to that area are not really flash, to say the least, and it is one of those places I think that tourists would like to stop at. It has a little bit of what I call a country shopping feeling because you have shops with verandas that you can walk up and down. It is not a big air-conditioned mall-type shopping centre that you get in the city. There is an opportunity for the government to look at spending some money on developing Coolalinga as a tourist area.
I have spoken also about the railway and I know the member for Wanguri says it is not government’s job to be getting involved in railways. Well, they used to be in buses and they were into rail in some parts of Australia. It is not a mortal sin to be involved in public transport any more.
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, no, I am not one of those who believe privatisation is the be all and end all, but it could be …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, it could be one of your favourite topics, one of these, what do you call them? The PPP, the public private partnerships. You buy the locomotive and the rest of us can buy the passenger section! I still think it is worth considering. You might think it is silly but I think there is an opportunity there that I would the government to seriously look at. Even if you just do a feasibility study. How much it costs, what sort of numbers of people you think you can move between say here and Katherine. What opportunities during the year could we use it for, for special events. It might sound to some people a bit off the planet, but I think it is worth a look. The number of people who have spoken to me, phoned me, who think it is a good idea indicates that it has popular backing, not that popular backing always amounts to dollars, but there is enough backing there to at least look at it.
The other part of the local tourism industry, and I mentioned this before, is Litchfield Shire. Here I have to confess that I have not quite managed to send the e-mails I meant to send to the Tourist Commission about the local lagoons and World War II airstrips. I will get around to it one day. I think the member for Wanguri was minister for Tourism when I promised to do that. Eventually, we will show you, on the web, the highlights of Litchfield Shire. Sorry?
Mr Henderson: I have been out there. My brother-in-law lives out there.
Mr WOOD: It is good local tourism and the Litchfield Shire has lots of potential: wetlands, World War II sites and coffee shops and restaurants to go with that so that people do not have to go down the track for a long distance to enjoy a day out.
The other area is indigenous tourism. It is an area that is talked about a lot, but I always wonder about the numbers. How many indigenous people do we really have working in tourism? A lot of times they are indigenous ventures, but they are not always indigenous people running the ventures. I have heard it before, and I might be behind the times here, but you sometimes hear of people saying, ‘I went out to Kakadu – or I went out somewhere - on a so-called cultural tour and there were non-indigenous people driving the bus and giving the talks’.
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: Tiwi Tours, for sure, yes, I agree; Tiwi Tours does employ indigenous people, but there are areas where it does not happen. It is something we have to work harder on to make sure that there is a greater number of indigenous people in those businesses, especially as we are in their country. So if we are talking about employment, that is the place to go.
The Chief Minister mentioned major improvements for access for tourists. One of the things that has gone off the boil again is the Victoria River Bridge. As you know, it has been under water again recently.
Ms Martin: Federal government.
Mr WOOD: I realise that, but we can keep lobbying.
Ms Martin: We are, don’t you worry.
Mr WOOD: Thank you. I am not worried. We also have Bradshaw Station with this great new bridge, and if the Victoria River Bridge goes under water, you cannot get to Bradshaw, so it makes a lot of sense to look at that. Then I might see my daughter home for Christmas from Kununurra, but that is a minor point. I am not sure that you are going to spend a few million dollars to get my daughter home from Kununurra for Christmas.
Talking of roads, they are the key for a lot of our tourism. People are certainly travelling by road today. I was returning from my trip – the one I am not supposed to mention because it was about that word I am not allowed to use: cotton – and I was coming via South Queensland and I was going to go from Boolia to Harts Range on the Plenty Highway. I rang the police at Harts Range and asked whether it was okay to bring a Falcon ute along the Plenty Highway, and he said, ‘Don’t do it. You will wear out all your tyres because it is rocky in places, there is heaps of bull dust on the road and it is as rough as all blazes in patches’. Then he added, ‘It rained up near the border with Queensland and you will probably get bogged’. That is not great encouragement to use a road.
I realise that we are dealing with roads that are very long. The Plenty is about 560km of road, but there is an opportunity for tourism, for people who live along that road to develop tourism. It is a short cut to Alice Springs from Mt Isa or Southern Queensland if you are coming through that way.
We have to put more work into upgrading our roads. I know the government says we are losing $20m in road funding because a fair bit of the Northern Territory does not fall under local government. I could say, ‘Put it under local government and you might get some funds for the roads’. The only problem is that some other parts of local government might get less money then, but the reason we are losing it is simply because parts of the Northern Territory are not incorporated. The key to expand our tourist industry, and the member for Barkly mentioned some of the work on the cattle stations where they want to expand on the use of their cattle stations for tourism, well, if you cannot get there you are not going to get many people to come and see it.
I welcome the Chief Minister’s statement on tourism, but I do believe that the one thing that has been left out and it is an area that I think we should give some consideration to is local tourism and the micro-economy that you build up around that local tourism.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I am pleased tonight to support the Chief Minister on a great statement, an exciting statement in regards to how the government, with the Tourist Commission and the tourism industry, is going to now get out and promote the Northern Territory to the world as a result of the biggest single injection of funding into our Tourist Commission that they have ever had.
I start by batting back again some of ill-informed comments of members opposite, and the line - really the member for Araluen’s nose must be growing longer by the minute with the untruths she tells - that we cut funding to the Tourist Commission. We absolutely did not. We have had this debate over and over again, and even before the additional $27.5m, we had provided extra funding for domestic and international marketing over the previous two years. Our capacity to fund the Tourist Commission is essentially determined by the overall government budget position. The member for Araluen still refuses to recognise, in the shrill contributions that she makes to these debates, that when we did come to government, we inherited a budget that was in absolute crisis as a result of the deceit and the absolute reckless abandon which the previous government had to Territory finances and to Territory budgets. Again I will …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! The member for Wanguri is attributing motives and, in fact, is attempting to allude that the CLP government had been deceitful. We never were and I do not believe that that is appropriate.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is the point of order?
Dr LIM: That he should withdraw that.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: On what grounds?
Dr LIM: On using improper language and attributing to the CLP what we never did.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that that can be debated through the normal process.
Dr LIM: Then it should be.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, the rules of the debate in this House in terms of reflecting untruths go to individual members of parliament. The comments that I was making was that the previous government as a whole had deceived the Northern Territory in terms of the true nature of the budget position that we inherited …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! There he goes again.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: He is speaking to the point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: … not an individual member.
Dr LIM: Well, I draw your attention specifically to Standing Order no 62, that of using offensive or unbecoming words against any member of the House, and I do not think that is right.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, the previous government deceiving Territorians is not aimed at any individual member of the House but the previous government of the day.
Dr LIM: Well, I can say the Labor Party is doing the same thing, eh? Being very deceitful to Territorians.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think there is point of order. When it comes to you using that type of language, I would consider it perhaps inappropriate to be addressed to an individual, but as it is being addressed to a party and this is a place of debate, both sides can have their point of view heard, and I say there is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not dwell on the point, but I was trying to point out that the framework of the budget we inherited, the point was prosecuted and completed through the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the state of the budget. There have been numerous documents tabled in this House, including one from a former CEO of the Health Department that very squarely showed the deceit of the previous government in the budget leading up to the last Northern Territory election. When we came to government eight weeks after the election budget papers were produced from this House projecting a deficit for the 2000-01 financial year of $4m, within one day of being in government. The Under Treasurer of the day knocked on the Chief Minister’s door saying that budget position, in fact, was not projected to be minus $4m, but around minus $120m, and it came out at minus $126m.
Yes, we would have liked to have spent more money on tourism, but the fact was that the Northern Territory was going down the path towards, certainly, a very precarious budget position: a $3bn nett debt inherited courtesy of the reckless expenditure of CLP governments for many, many years. In that climate, it was very hard to find a significant increase for any government agency. The reality of the Tourist Commission budget - if you want to look back on it - is that the budget had been going backwards from around 1997. We need to put those issues into context. Certainly there were increases, both in the mini-budget and the 2002-03 budget.
This government’s financial stewardship and budget management has allowed us to put this additional $27.5m into tourism. The industry recognises that and the industry, in spite of the churlish comments from the member for Araluen, is very excited about this increase in funding and we have every confidence in the Tourist Commission and the minister to ensure that it is spent to maximum benefit.
The member for Katherine talked about the decision to close the Territory facility at Darling Harbour. That was a decision I had taken, and it was on advice from the Tourist Commission at the time. There was an appalling return on investment coming from that facility. Anybody who has been to Darling Harbour – a great initiative when the Olympics were on and Darling Harbour was awash with international tourists, but post-Olympics, that end of Darling Harbour was essentially derelict. There was hardly anybody at that end of Darling Harbour, and on the figures that were presented to me - given the extraordinary amount of money that we were paying for rental there – essentially, that facility ended up little more than a retail outlet with a few touch screens and some products being booked from there. However, the return on investment was absolutely appalling. There was no business case to sustain that facility and all of the money we saved went into the marketing efforts that gave us a much better return on investments. The business case was there: it was a good idea at the time during the Olympics, but post the Olympics, it certainly was not paying its keep.
We put substantial amounts of extra money into the domestic drive market post-11 September and the Ansett collapse, and that kept us afloat. It was the drive market that really kept us going right through those dark times, and a large part of that was generated from additional money that went into the domestic market that this government put in.
Our commitment to the tourism industry is not just in relation to the $27.5m. There is $100m committed by this government to build a convention centre here in Darwin. That is going to be a magnificent asset for our tourism community in the Northern Territory, and to the economy in general. Of that convention centre, an addition $600m to $700m will be leveraged for a world class precinct at the old Darwin Wharf. It is an absolute sign of confidence, faith and commitment to our tourism industry by investing that money.
The commitment by the government to seal the Mereenie Loop Road was not recognised by previous speakers, but is something that the tourism industry in Central Australia has called for, for many years. We have committed to sealing the Mereenie Loop Road, and expect to see significant private sector investment to follow suit.
The federal funding that the shadow minister spoke of – I got on very well with Joe Hockey. As soon as he became Tourism Minister, I boarded a plane and met him in his North Sydney offices. The $235m that the federal government has put in, when you compare dollar for dollar per capita, the $27.5m that the Territory has put in about ten times the amount the Commonwealth has put in into tourism marketing. Certainly, the people in the tourism industry I have spoken to, yes, it has been a good investment but it was not what they were expecting given all the work that the industry put into to the famed White Paper. $235m, yes, is a fair amount of money but when you look at per capita investment that the Territory government has put in, it is way ahead of what the federal government has put in to tourism marketing.
We made a commitment, an election promise, to support Virgin Blue into the market place and a very wise investment of $2m. We secured Virgin just before Ansett went bankrupt and Virgin Blue and the expenditure of that money was bagged by the previous member for Katherine who said it was a total waste of money. The member for Araluen, as a shadow spokesperson, bagged Virgin and the expenditure of that money, and the member for Drysdale stated famously in this House that they had a shoddy fleet. So, the support from the opposition for Virgin Blue into the Territory market place was certainly anything other than edifying. Many people in the industry were certainly were bemused by the opposition’s lack of support initially for Virgin Blue into the Territory market place.
We also supported the initiative proposed to me by Darwin Airport in terms of co-funding the position of an aviation development director. Peter Roberts, who is well known to the people in the tourism industry, is now on board to work with the industry, government and the airports to put together business cases that we could submit to airlines to try to attract them to the Northern Territory or back to the Northern Territory. That was some of the wisest money we have ever spent because, at the end of the day, airlines will make a decision to come to this market place if they believe that they can make a quid, if they believe they can make a profit. And by working with the industry to put a fully worked out business case to those airlines when the reality is for most of our international airlines Darwin is a long way away from anywhere, and Alice Springs is even further, it is not the first place they look to in terms of expanding their services. However, people are knocking on the doors and walking in with a fully fledged business case to show that this can work and make a decent return. I believe we are starting to see a return on that investment. I congratulate Peter Roberts on doing a magnificent job.
The member for Araluen is well linked to the Alice Springs Town Council. I was glad to see our Speaker in debate the other night speak with astonishment and I was astonished. I did not have time to mention in the debates on the railway statement Alice Springs Town Council’s total failure to support The Ghan on its first passenger run through the Northern Territory. Katherine Town Council, Tennant Creek, Darwin, everybody up and down the track welcomed The Ghan with open arms and cheered it on. And for the life of me why the Alice Springs Town Council could not support The Ghan into Alice Springs, I have no idea. One can only wonder about the politics that the council was playing. But a tribute to the Mayor of Alice Springs, Fran Kilgariff, who in spite of the lack of support from her colleagues came to the reception that was held.
I can say that the attitude of the Alice Springs Town Council was noted very clearly by Serco, Great Southern Rail. They were very disappointed at the lack of support, bemused by the lack of support. Everywhere throughout Australia, throughout the world, people were cheering with accolades the advent of this service. The lack of support from Alice Springs Town Council was noted. Very disappointed in that and I have my suspicions as to the politics being played. If they are correct it was very petty and certainly stands the CLP in no good stead at all.
I did talk to Great Southern Rail about the member for Nelson’s suggestion about the passenger service. At the end of the day, it is pleasing to see that The Ghan is providing sector fares on the service, I forget the numbers, but Red Kangaroo passes can be purchased between Darwin and Alice Springs. However, as explained to me, and it makes perfect sense, they are selling the journey Adelaide to Darwin, and if they can sell those seats on to people, and there is something like $22m worth of seats already booked with people prepared to pay for the entire journey, selling short sectors and then having empty seats between various destinations just is not commercial. I am sure as this service evolves that if the business case can stack up, somebody is going to meet that market share. Certainly, you can get those sector fares between Darwin and Alice Springs and I am absolutely certain there will be many Territorians who will take the opportunity to ride The Ghan between Darwin and Alice Springs.
My Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development is certainly doing everything it can to support the tourism industry. Under our Business Upskills program, the department facilitates the delivery of training and mentoring to firms operating in the tourism sector. I will cite one example here that I am really pleased about: Didgeri Air Art Tours is a unique Northern Territory business with nothing else quite like it operating in Australia. It offers flight tours to the art communities of the NT and access for national and international buyers of Aboriginal art to meet artists and view their work in communities. Last year, the business owner, Ms Helen Read, came to DBIRD seeking some assistance for her business. At that time, Ms Read was struggling and I quote:
After consultation with a DBIRD Client Manager, a business growth program was selected and Ms Read applied for and received approval to undertake a business improvement program. After several months of hard work with her consultant, Ms Read successfully completed her planning project. The process has enable Ms Read to address a number of issues relating to her business. The benefits being, and I quote:
implementing policies such as credit management and discount policies.
a Quality Management policy, and implementing the documentation of systems and procedures.
it assisted me to acquire financial management and management accounting skills, thereby being
able to implement financial management controls.
When asked if the program was worthwhile, Ms Read replied:
This is the type of business that we want to see thrive as a result of the increased tourist numbers resulting from our recent funding initiative, and we believe that the work DBIRD is doing under the business growth program, will play a significant part in creating sustainable businesses in tourism.
Another aspect of DBIRD’s support for the tourism sector is under our Industry Development Grants Scheme. We are committing to the Yothu Yindi Foundation for the training of indigenous guides who then lead and support tourist excursions that occur each year as part of the Garma Festival.
My department also plays and active role in the work of the Aviation Committee, as I mentioned before. Our Trade Support Scheme is currently being considered by no less than 15 Territory companies from throughout the Territory to help them to develop market opportunities overseas. The list of firms for which TSS has been approved includes firms as diverse as Travel North in Katherine, Territory Rent a Car in Darwin and a business called Outback Quad Adventures. Ms Ethel Cuttle is the principal of this firm, which is based in Alice Springs, and I am pleased to note that Ms Cuttle and her team are in New Zealand as I speak on a marketing trip she says she would not have undertaken without TSS support. I note that in tourism industry development, there is close collaboration between my department and the Tourist Commission. Together, their efforts are delivering tangible benefits to firms seeking to open up new tourism markets and operations.
The Asian Relations Group within my department is active in the promotion of sports tourism arising from the Arafura Games. We look forward to a very successful tourism business surrounding the 2005 games, which, as members know, will be held in Darwin in May next year. My department is also planning a Business in Sport program as part of the games.
During a visit to Bali last month, I met the governor and we discussed the growth of tourism linkages between Darwin and Bali arising from the forthcoming yacht race, which I was pleased to see in Monday’s NT News has been confirmed for July this year. This is good news, but it is just another part of the work undertaken by my department to promote tourism trade.
In a recent statement on trade outcomes, I alluded to a seafood industry initiative which my department is supporting and which is proven to be very successful in the United States right now. It is the ‘Taste Down Under’ promotion, which highlights not only Territory seafood, but the Territory experience, directly appealing to the potential tourism market in the United States. Not only is our export market in locally-farmed barramundi to the United States market passing the $2m mark, which is great, but it is also playing a part in generating tourism to the Northern Territory. As a result of our Taste Down Under initiative, His Excellency, Michael Thawley, the Australian Ambassador to the United States, hosted a dinner last week in Washington DC for 29 US State Governors where our Territory seafood took pride of place on the table. This kind of exposure is great for trade, great for tourism, and I commend the efforts of my department in supporting this initiative.
Tourism is everybody’s business. It is a great business with great people in the industry. I wholeheartedly support the Tourism Minister’s statement.
Ms MARTIN (Tourism): Mr Deputy Speaker, I say thank you for the support around this House for this tourism statement. Some of that was a bit begrudging, but I suppose that is the nature of opposition. I was amused by the member for Araluen, who does not often have a lot of good things to say about government, but held up the statement and said, ‘This is great; it is just two-and-a-half years too late’. The former Tourism Minister, the Minister for Business and Industry, has gone through some of the arguments presented by the member for Araluen. It is good to come into this House and be accurate, rather than just create circumstances to fit your arguments. Generally, I thank everyone for their contribution to this statement.
Tourism is a very important industry for the Territory. As I stated earlier, 15% of our workforce is involved, either directly or indirectly, with tourism. In the last two-and-a-half years, because of the impact in the Territory on tourism because of international events, the numbers in our workforce have declined. We are all heartened by the prospects for this year, we are looking at good jobs growth in the tourist industry, and certainly, the $27.5m over the three years going towards marketing will see that jobs growth. And just in what has been happening this February with The Ghan and its extraordinary success, both nationally and internationally in attracting passengers, unexpectedly, but that has been fantastic. We were so focussed on a freight train that we had not actually thought about the potential of a passenger train. Great Southern Rail did, though.
We have seen this February the impact that cruise ships can have, and with the Star Princess on Saturday, the estimate of probably just under $1m into the Darwin economy from that ship being berthed for less than a day, eight hours, in Darwin. That is the flow-on for our community from the growth in cruise ships, and we have worked hard at that.
You do not want to be thin-skinned in politics, but it is relatively offensive when members opposite say, ‘You have done nothing and now you put money in’. Do the members opposite think the growth in cruise ship numbers is just something that floats down from heaven and it is not because hard work has been done there? The hard yards have been done. We are getting that airline growth back. The market, particularly the domestic market, is now back to those pre-September 2001 levels and we are starting to see a growth in the international market. Do members opposite think that happens because we sit here and wish for it to happen? It is good that the member for Wanguri paid tribute to the work of Aviation Development Manager, Peter Roberts, for the work that he has done in conjunction with government. It is very important; those hard yards have to be done. And the fact that, during 2002, when the international market contracted in terms of tourism, we saw a growth in our drive market because we redirected our tourism marketing focus to the south-eastern states. Destinations like Tennant Creek and Katherine were having some of their best low season years because of the pick up in the drive market.
A lot of hard yards have been done in very difficult circumstances. I am proud of the work done by this government in tourism. We have, at a very appropriate time, increased those marketing dollars so that we can take advantage of the pick up. You could say, why didn’t you do it two years ago? The money would not have been well targeted; the time was not there to do it. This is the time to do it. We are going to get the bang for our bucks - taxpayers’ dollars that we are not spending lightly. I really went through a whole lot of detail, down to the couple of tens of thousands, of how this money is going to be spent and on what, and with what benefit. We are not taking it lightly and the timing has been very important. I am delighted, talking to Centralian tour operators, and those from the Top End - they are sensing a turnaround. They are sensing that we have seen the worst of the tough times.
You always have to keep your fingers crossed about international events. Two-and-half-years ago, 50% of our tourism market used to come from international - I think it was 49% if you want to be exact. Now it is 40%. It has really declined. What has happened in the world has hit our market. We have picked up with domestic. That is terrific, but we want to pick up on that international market. We will continue to do that. Therefore, these additional funds are well targeted. It has been done with support of the tourism industry; we are working closely with them. I congratulate the Board of the Tourist Commission for their support and guidance. They are doing a terrific job. I am confident that we will see a much better 2004. If you talk to the Central Australian operators, they say, ‘2004 will be better’. We are saying, ‘2005 will be better again’.
You can sense the optimism in the tourism market here in Darwin. There is a lot of work to do, and one of the benefits - and I hate to say that having Chief Minister as a Tourism Minister necessarily means benefits because I have had hard-working Tourism Ministers, however, one of the things that Chief Ministers do coordinate is across government activity. When you are talking about building tourism, what you are talking about is not just the Tourist Commission. You are also talking about the kind of infrastructure we need to be targeting to build our tourism market. How do we link in with sport? In the statement, I talked about the new relationship between the Tourist Commission and what is happening in sport, particularly with those national events. What is happening in the arts and the link between the arts events that are happening, particularly with the indigenous arts strategy? We know one of the biggest reasons tourists come here is cultural tourism. Therefore, we need to build those links between what is happening in the arts with our festivals, as well as the very attractive indigenous arts sector, and bring that in with tourism. Also, not forgetting that there is a role with DEET. We have to have training happening in the tourism market. It is happening. We can build it, particularly when we are talking about indigenous training in more remote areas.
This is about tourism having a whole-of-government approach. From the lucky position that I have, that makes it possible. We are not just talking about the Tourist Commission, we are talking about what is happening in infrastructure, community development through sport and arts, and in training through DEET. All those are being brought together very importantly, not only to build our existing products and refresh those existing products, but to establish new product in our tourism market, and also going into new markets. That is the marketing effort into the United States, into areas that we have not been before. Those opportunities are there.
It is an exciting time. The benefits for tourism are not just with the tourism operators, they are right through our economy. To sit down on Stokes Hill Wharf on Saturday night with my family and some friends and have fish and chips with the hundreds of people who were there to watch the Star Princess leave, was terrific. Everyone was so impressed first of all with the size of the boat - it is a big monster, with the best part of 4000 on it. To watch it leave and to have that sense from the Darwinians there on Stokes Hill Wharf waving it goodbye and cheering it – and I want to pay particular tribute to the woman who threw the streamers, with the wind blowing towards us. She got a cheer from the crowd as she was picking all the streamers off her - it was lovely.
There was such a level of enthusiasm. In talking to people, they said it was terrific for our economy. They were watching the minibuses, the taxis and the coaches leave and the passengers walking around our city. I saw them at Casuarina on Saturday afternoon. Funny how you can pick a cruise ship passenger at 50 m in Casuarina on a Saturday afternoon! It was terrific. There was a real sense of enthusiasm that this cruise market was going to make a difference. The importance of the difference it is going to make is that it is in our low season. To have a month like February, which is Tourism Month, being such a strong month for tourism, not only in Darwin, but also in the Centre, is very heartening for what I hope I will get bipartisan support for. It is going to be a much better year in 2004 for tourism.
Members: Hear, hear!
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising adjourn until Tuesday 30 March 2004 at 10 am or at such other time and/or date as may be set by Madam Speaker pursuant to sessional order.
Motion agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Ms MARTIN (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I won’t be too long tonight. I think my voice will probably collapse.
Tonight, I wish to offer my congratulations and we had them from the Deputy Chief Minister to the week, to a very special young lady who has made the Territory proud. Jessica Mauboy’s recent successful performances in Tamworth have thrilled all of us who know her and have observed her growing talent, especially her family, her school teachers and music school staff.
Having won the local Telstra ‘Road to Tamworth’ talent quest in December, Jessica had the opportunity to travel to the Tamworth Country Music Festival to compete in the National Road to Tamworth competition, a component of the festival designed to showcase and promote the talents of up and coming young singers from all over Australia. She and her parents, along with her singing teacher, the wonderful Judy Weepers, left Darwin on 17 January to allow time to prepare her for her big performance on Monday night.
As we know, Jessica wowed all the judges and the whole audience with the powerful musicality of her voice, and the maturity of her performance, and she took out top place in the competition. She won recording contract, the opportunity for a videoed performance with a selected country music star, a Telstra mobile phone with $1000 credit – the dream of every 14-year-old! - and a scholarship to an intensive two week course at the Tamworth Country Music College in January next year. But more than this, she won a nation load of fans, the serious attention of the country music industry and surprised admiration from many for what can come from our Northern Territory.
During the week in Tamworth, Jessica and Judy Weepers worked hard on seven new songs for her to perform at various concerts and events in the festival. All of these were rehearsed only once with the versatile guitarist, Bob Howe, who accompanied her. In Darwin, Jessica normally performs with commercially recorded backing CDs so for her it was a challenge to learn the work with other artists. Her performances included a guest spot on the Adam Brand show where she received a standing ovation; an appearance at Jimmy Hayes’ Digger’s Big Breakfast, regarded as a special honour; an appearance for interview on Reggie Prasad’s Worldwide Internet show and a half-hour segment in both concerts by visiting Canadian country star, Terri Clark. All Jessica’s audiences were bowled over by her talent.
Needless to say, Jessica’s success is due to her own intuitive musicianship and sheer vocal skill. However, she would not have achieved this milestone without the support and practical help from a number of key people throughout her young life, including ultimately the minister for Education whose personal interest and release of NT DEET resources made Jessica’s journey to Tamworth possible. Education Department teachers, most especially Judy Weepers of the Music School, have played a major role in Jessica’s musical development since her early years at school. Children might have all the talent in the world, but without the right people to nurture and develop it, to inspire the child and provide performing opportunities which instil confidence, the world would never hear that talent.
Jessica’s performing opportunities have mostly come within the context of school choirs at Wulagi Primary School, all trained by Judy Weepers, from junior through intermediate to senior choir which participates in The Beat each year. When Jessica’s ability began to stand out she was afforded solo opportunities at The Beat and The Beat Award Concert. Since Jessica has been attending high school, Judy Weepers has continued to provide weekly tuition after school, purchasing CDs and sheet music from which she has guided Jessica’s repertoire selection. She has also overseen a program of public performances for community and charity functions in which many Darwin people have ‘discovered’ Jessica’s emerging talents for themselves.
The principal and staff at Wulagi Primary School have always given Jessica much support, as have those more recently at Sanderson High School whose initiative it was to involve minister Stirling’s interest in the need for funding assistance to Jessica’s family in their Tamworth quest. And, of course, Jessica has been nurtured by the support of her mum, Theresa, and dad, Freddie. Jessica’s extended families and friends have been invaluable to her success.
The acclaim which Jessica won in Tamworth has been well reported. We can now acclaim those who helped to get her there. Even if Jessica does not become a big ‘star’, and we are sure she will, the investment made in her has already paid dividends in the form of her own development and self-worth and in the pleasure that she brings to others.
On Tuesday morning, I attended the Somerville Community Services Pancake Day breakfast launch. I was pleased to be asked to be the guest speaker at this event as it allowed me the opportunity to personally thank the wonderful staff and supporters of Somerville Services for the dedication they show at benefiting those in need in our Territory community.
Somerville Community Services, as you are aware, is an excellent provider of community-based services to young people with high level disabilities, as well as other counselling, financial counselling and limited accommodation services for young people and families in times of crisis. Somerville Homes came in to existence in 1966. The homes were named in honour of Margaret Somerville MBE who helped evacuate 95 children from Croker Island to Sydney in 1942, and who returned to Croker Island with the children after the war and continued as a housemother and caregiver until 1965. Although Somerville is an agency of the Uniting Church in Australia, they are only operational in the Territory.
With five divisions and a staff of over 150, Somerville brings together the labours, skills and enthusiasm of its employees and volunteers to give practical expression to the Christian humanitarian ideal of a caring and sharing society.
Somerville’s board of directors is chaired by Daphne Read. No stranger to those of us in this room, Daphne has had a profound influence on the development of many young Territorians over many years. Over breakfast I was honoured to hear Daphne recount her experiences post-Cyclone Tracy where her husband, John, was responsible for putting the roof on the old Darwin Primary School building at Frogs Hollow where they actually lived as their house had been destroyed during the cyclone, and how they stayed when many did not to ensure that there was a school open and operational for the start of the school year. Through her roles in education, and in this particular instance as someone who has seen Somerville develop over 30-odd years of her active involvement, Daphne continues to make a major contribution to our community.
Somerville’s Chief Executive Officer, Vicki O’Halloran is a leader in the disability sector across the Territory. Vicky chairs ACROD, the peak body for disability services, and has played a key role in the developing strength of the non-government disability sector. It was my pleasure to acknowledge publicly the high esteem in which Vicki is held, and as acknowledged by our government, for the contribution she has made to the disability sector.
I also took this opportunity to refer attendees at this breakfast to the fact that minister Toyne and minister Scrymgour launched last week the government’s Framework for Healthier Community Services for the next five years. Our vision, Building Healthier Communities, reflects our commitment to community health. We know that we in the Territory need to have a sophisticated conversation about how we can reform all of our services so we work together more effectively for disadvantaged Territorians and their families. Our government is committed to making real the priority areas stated in our vision and the way ahead is partly through active engagement and involvement with our non-government partners, organisations who are actively and successfully working to provide much needed services such as Somerville.
Finally tonight, I would like to acknowledge a successful local business, one located in my electorate of Fannie Bay: Arafura Catering. The business is owned by Roger and Sharon Pearson who live and work in the electorate. Their company, Arafura Catering, is in the Parap shops and has been operating since July 1999. Arafura Catering supplies catering and hospitality equipment both to the hospitality industry and with the growing retail trade of those of us who like to drop in, whether to buy a professional carving knife to compliment our kitchens or just look to see the latest gadget.
Roger and Sharon’s business has increased three-fold over a four year period. Roger reports that he is going better than they ever expected and now they feel they have probably outgrown their existing premises. How have they managed to be so successful through periods when the hospitality and tourism, their primary client base, have felt the pinch? A simple answer, and role model for all businesses, by responding to the local market. They give good service, in fact, they give excellent service and have taken the time to know the industry. In fact most of their 10 staff have come from the hospitality industry. Roger is experienced as a previous owner and operator of successful restaurants.
Arafura Catering supplies specialised, professional equipment, all highly technical; even his ovens have computers. To reflect and respond to the needs of their clients, Roger and Sharon have established a service department to provide specialised service for the repair and maintenance of the equipment they supply. To run a highly specialised service unit such as this the company has had to send staff interstate to get the necessary skills and training to be able to provide this service in the Top End. Roger and Sharon have moulded their company to fit the Territory. They do business from Gove to Broome, and Alice to Dili, covering over 1.4 million square kilometres. Their commitment to the Territory and to their staff now sees one of Roger’s employees currently being supported to become multi-skilled by training as an electrician to supplement his gas fitter qualifications, following which he will do his pilot’s course. This will enable them to be a ‘one man show’ and provide an all round service to the rest of the Territory.
Recently, Roger has been working with other Territory companies such as CTM and Baxters in the outfitting of the Qantas Club. Roger and Sharon Pearson should be proud of their business they’ve created. Their commitment to the Territory, to their staff and to their customers is inspiring.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, this morning I put a question to the Minister for Employment, Education and Training in the terms of the issue of autistic child and I am not certain whether the negotiations between the parent, and the school, and the department has occurred today. I understood it was to be today but have not heard any results from that. But the minister said he was working very hard in his response this morning in driving the department to address issues on provision of services to disabled students.
I would like to go in to some detail as to what the problem is and hope that the minister addresses it fairly quickly. It has been now nearly three weeks since school started and this young boy is obviously going to encounter some difficulties in school. I will read some excerpts from the letter that she wrote to the minister. Her son who is autistic goes to a primary school in the Top End and would attend school for approximately 32 hours a week. Unfortunately, he has only been allocated 15 hours a week, which works out to be about three hours a day, with an inclusion support assistant. You are looking at an autistic child in class for 2 hours a day and half the day he is not being managed by an inclusion support assistant.
I am not certain whether the minister understands what an autistic child is, but looking after an autistic child is a full-time job, and if the child is in school and we have this inclusion policy, then we need to have somebody in school looking after this child full-time. The paediatricians have supported the application from the school that the child needs full-time support. Other psychologists have assessed the child and also supported the request for full-time support in the school. Unfortunately, the parent has not been able to get the services because the school does not have the money to spare to employ a full-time ISA each day to support the child at school.
In the letter written by the lady she said she spoke to Rob Picton of the minister’s office, who then referred the parent to Philip Jones, who then suggested that the son receive at least 25 hours a week. Well, not quite the full 32 hours a week, but close enough to achieving full-time support while he is in school. But that increase of 25 hours was only for the first four weeks of school which is coming to an end. His ISA hours will then be back down to 15 hours a week again.
Just to try and demonstrate the need for a full-time ISA, when the child is under stress at school he actually runs away. The school that he attends does not have a fence right around the boundary so potentially this child can be exposed to danger on the roads, in the car park, and anywhere else. His limited social skills also produces many problems like getting dressed, going to the toilet, running out in the rain, especially right now in this weather. So it is extremely difficult for the child to do well at school. Autistic children have a very short attention span. They tend to be easily distracted and unless you have a full-time ISA there with the child, trying to refocus the child to things that he has learning, the child just gets further and further behind in his education.
If there were no full-time ISA - suppose they only come for the three hours and then leave - the child is still in the classroom with the teacher. What happens then when the child plays up? The teacher cannot abandon the rest of the class to pacify this child. So something must be done. It is important for the minister to get on to it as quickly as he can. The lady wrote down some examples of what may happen, but I do not think that I need to read any of that all, apart from understanding that it is a child with a very short attention span, with poor social skills, requiring full time support. It is important for the Department of Education and the minister to understand that. Perhaps the minister for community services could look into what the department can do to assist if the Department of Education alone cannot provide those services.
Let’s not complain about the school, let me hasten to add. The parent is very pleased with the school and the support provided for her son. It is the issue of getting enough hours funded for the ISA at that school to look after her son. Hopefully, something will happen this week, or no later than next week, so that care can be extended to this child and ensure that he then gets the education that he surely deserves in our school system.
The minister said he was very concerned about the neglect for disabled children, that he was driving the department very hard to address it. Well, if he were, why then do we have not only this issue of not getting sufficient ISA support in schools for children with disabilities, but we are also now hearing and getting correspondence from people claiming that transport services for students with special needs will no longer be provided by the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment for the kids to get to school and to return home, and when they are at school to go to an event, a school sponsored event such as going to swimming classes or whatever. The department has taken that away also. So what is happening? Are they cutting back? If they are taking the money away from the department, why are they doing it? The minister was so adamant this morning that he was pushing the department to put more resources in. Well, if they are, something is happening here. Is the department doing something against a minister’s wishes?
The new restrictions that are being imposed in Alice Springs for children with disabilities will prevent students from participating in activities such as excursions, school sports, work experience, work placement and even socialisation programs. We all know that we have an inclusion policy to ensure that the children with disabilities attend mainstream schools so that at least they have good interaction with other children, and when they have outside school activities these children can also participate in them.
The new arrangements are not a viable alternative for either the students or the schools. How are the schools going to find the transport mechanism to get the kids to these events? Schools do not have the proper vehicles that may be required, such as those to carry wheelchairs for instance, they therefore have to hire those services in from private enterprise which means money and who is going to pay for that? The school council? It is a government policy, an inclusion policy, so it is beholden on government to now provide the funding to ensure that those schools which have children with disabilities have sufficient funding to purchase those services.
The new arrangements, and I quote from this letter:
And that is the point. Isn’t it hard enough for a parent to have a child with disability? That they have to now prove that it is extra hard? It is an oxymoron request by the department to say to a parent, ‘You have a disabled child and he/she needs to go to school, but now you have to prove to us how difficult it is for you’. What? Take the child into a car and demonstrate to the department? Something is wrong with the system and I am not sure what it is, whether the minister took his eye off the ball. I had a lot of regard for the member for Nhulunbuy. I thought being a school teacher himself he would be very much on the ball with regards to matters education.
Students and their coordinators were notified of the change in arrangements, if I can call it that, at the very end of the school year last year. The schools had one week to get applications in to try to get some sort of funding for the new arrangements. Now, you know what the end of the school year is like. Everybody is busy, everybody is flat out, teachers are marking report cards for their students and they really do not have the time to try to look after the paperwork that the department gave them only one week to prepare. And if the school does not prepare that paperwork, again the school misses out and then ultimately the students miss out.
Somehow the minister needs to look at this closely. I mean he yelled at me and said it was the CLP’s fault, but I do not know what the CLP’s fault was. We did not cut back. For some reason over the last few months that has happened, all these changes have occurred very suddenly, and right at the beginning of this year when things started to happen and now parents and students and their schools are all being disadvantaged.
As far as I understand, the inclusion policy is to ensure that children all get in to mainstream education, are taught in schools alongside their peers ensuring that they get the best all-round education they possibly can. Education also means physical activities, activities outside the school - whether they be day excursions or whatever - and this is where it is important that transport at least be made available freely and also, where ISAs are concerned, that these students actually get good support by adequately funded ISAs so that they can have somebody with them for most of the day. And where autistic children are concerned, it should be for the whole of the day. You cannot have it for part of the day because it does not work. With some children with physical disabilities that might be a lot easier, but with kids with autism it is definitely an issue that government has to look at again and ensure that adequate funding is provided to these students and have full-time ISAs for the time that they are at school.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise this evening in adjournment to table a report. I undertook a study tour to Queensland in December and I made a public commitment that I would come back and table a report in the House. With it, I intend to table some very interesting documents from Queensland. Details in my report goes to programs called Urban Renewal and Community Renewal that are occurring in Queensland. Certainly, the Territory government is about to roll-out massive spending for urban renewal. The report just goes to EPA, housing, correctional services, law and order, disability, education, transport and planning for growth and water path infrastructure. I seek leave to table the report on my Queensland study tour in December.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE: Thank you. Finally, I want to add my words of congratulations to Jessica Mauboy the very young, talented Sanderson High School student. She is an absolute credit to the community, she has an incredible future ahead of her and I encourage all members of this House to support her at every available opportunity.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight having given notice to the Minister for Lands and Planning that I was going to raise this issue. I place my thanks on the record for him organising the briefing that I received from the department today in relation to the issue. The matter that I raise tonight is the Northern Territory’s longest running land rights battle which dates back to 1979.
I was in my formative years at high school when this battle started and I think that dinosaurs still roamed the earth. I am not going to engage in a history of this particular land rights claim because there is only 15 minutes available to me and I am sure that honourable members would not want to put up with a lecture which would take much more than15 minutes to simply explain this. However, as time has passed the situation has become reduced basically to one of a compensatory nature to the owners of 11 blocks which exist on Centre Island in the Sir Edward Pellew Group off the coast of Borroloola.
The former minister, Mr Vatskalis, has received a letter from a Sean Finlay, a resident of Alice Springs. The argy bargy between the parties, and this is no reflection on the government whatsoever who is running as much as a mediating role as being one of the parties to this, but the argy bargy between the parties has come to a point where it would not take a great deal of will from the government at all to be able to resolve it once and for all.
If the opportunity to resolve it, which is just about there at the moment, could be taken by this minister, then I urge him to do so. I do wish to point out some of the issues that were written by Mr Sean Finlay, one of the concerned block holders, to the honourable Kon Vatskalis MLA, but it would be now more effectively addressed to Dr Chris Burns the current minister.
The letter, I should read into Hansard, as follows:
splitting hairs and the Department of Lands appears to be without the authority to bring this matter to a
satisfactory conclusion.
This was dated on 10 September 2003 and, it is true, that this is a problem that was inherited from the previous government. It has been very difficult for them because they truly have been innocent parties in the sense that they legitimately purchased their blocks, or the leases on those blocks many, many moons ago and realistically speaking now the argy bargy has been reduced to nothing more than a compensation fight. They are currently 15% apart in terms of the compensation fight. I would be horrified to see an opportunity to resolve this once and for all for the sake of both the land rights claimants and the lease holders, and realistically speaking, I know that the minister would have to go back to the Treasurer to ask for some sort of assistance to help this matter. I know that the minister cannot just with the flick of a wrist sign a cheque and sort it out once and forever.
However, I would urge this government to say finally that we have reached the point where enough is enough, this has now been a battle that has effectively gone on since 1979 so we are talking 25 years, fully a quarter of a century. It is a matter of dollars. I know that this government wants to resolve these sorts of issues through negotiated settlement and I agree. I think that this is precisely the sort of issue that should be resolved through a negotiated settlement because at the end of the day, if the government fails at this juncture to come to a settlement, it ends up back in the courts in one shape, form, or another, and it is going to continue costing taxpayers much more in every likelihood than the difference in the two positions on the compensation package.
I urge the minister to turn his careful attention to this. I know that he is aware of the issue because he and I have spoken about it prior to today. I certainly do not want to win any political points on the issue. I simply want to see Territorians have a land dispute resolved once and for all and for the sake of the harmony of the people who live out there. I am fully aware that the people on the ground do not seem to have an issue so much as the issue at departmental and land council level, and I know why it has happened. I am not critical at anybody as a result of why they got to the point, but realistically speaking the issue is resolvable and is resolvable really if this government just exerts a small amount of will. If they chose to do so, I will be the first to congratulate them.
Mrs AAGAARD (Nightcliff): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on the Nightcliff Primary School. Nightcliff Primary School continues to provide excellence in education. This is evidenced by the outstanding results in the 2003 MAP testing, the multi-level assessment testing for Years 3, 5 and 7. MAP testing is a series of national assessments in reading and numeracy. At this stage, national results are benchmarked for Years 3 and 5 but there has not been agreement on the benchmarking of Year 7 results and so those are excluded for the moment.
Nightcliff Primary School results are very impressive and are, as the Acting School Principal, Brian Bennett, says in the latest school newsletter, ‘… an objective measure of the excellence which we strive for, not just in terms of these two areas of learning but across the entire operation of our school’. Each year since 2000, the first year of assessment, there has been a significant increase in benchmarks at Nightcliff Primary School. In the year 2000, Year 3 students tested in numeracy saw 78% achieving the benchmark. In 2003 it is 99%. Similarly for Year 3 students in reading, in the year 2000, 68% achieved the benchmark and now it is 93%. For Year 5 students the results are similarly excellent with numeracy results in 2000 reaching 87% and 93% in 2003. For reading in 2000, the result was 88% reaching the benchmark. It is now 96%.
These results indicate the dedication and hard work of students, teachers and parents, and is a real credit to the school community. It is no wonder that Nightcliff Primary School is seen as one of the most desirable schools in the Darwin area. I take this opportunity to thank the Acting Principal, Mr Brian Bennett, for his work at the school for the past two terms. As he advised the primary school council at the time of taking up his appointment, he will be returning to the Moil Primary School next term. During his time at the school he has gained the respect of teachers, parents and students alike, and I wish him all the best when he returns to Moil Primary School.
I also take this opportunity to thank the outgoing school council. Like all school councils in the Northern Territory, the Nightcliff Primary School Council will be holding its AGM next month and as such a new school council will be elected. The current council, of which I am a member, is chaired very ably by Ms Lindy Coats. Other members are Chris Baldwin, Louise McCall, Alex Knowler, Murray Fuller, Annie Villaseche, Marian Bryce, Jessie Johnston, Siobhan Loosmoor and Jann Brown. I am hopeful that some of the current members will be willing to volunteer for a further term and thank them for their contribution to all our children.
The workings of school require the cooperation and mutual respect and work of parents and teachers for the benefit of our children. I have had children at the Nightcliff Primary School since 1995 and my youngest child is still at the school. I can only say that during my time of involvement with the school, I have continued to be impressed by the enthusiasm of parents, teachers and students and I look forward to a continued association with the school both as a parent and as the member for Nightcliff.
I also rise tonight to speak on the Nightcliff High School. The Nightcliff High School has seen significant changes over the past year. Last year, with the support of the school principal, Mr Paul Atkinson and the Nightcliff High School Council, the school was totally reviewed and many changes were foreshadowed and this year we can see the fruits of that review.
Probably the biggest change this year is the increase in student numbers at the school. It appears for the first time for many years the enrolment numbers have increased in all years and especially in the Year 8 program where student numbers are 114 students, which is up from 90 last year. It is particularly heartening to see so many students who have come from Nightcliff Primary School. Many of these students would previously have chosen to study at Darwin High rather than attend their local high school.
The new program for Year 8 students called Innov8 is proving a real attraction for young people and the feedback I have received from parents of students and students themselves, including my own son who is in Year 8 at the school, is that the program is both interesting and innovative. The newly refurbished Innov8 area looks wonderful and provides open and airy spaces in which the students can work on a range of different projects and is starting to look more ‘personalised’ with students work, equipment and technology. IT and other facilities are up and running and state of the art. I had the pleasure of visiting the Innov8 area with the principal and it was wonderful to see the young people working so harmoniously in this area and also to meet many of the teachers working in this new program: Keith Moylan, the Assistant Principal; Susan Martin; Martin Clarke; Veronica Ross; Kerry Regan; and Don Butcher. I was also pleased that the Nightcliff High School was recently granted $8431 for school equipment from the Northern Territory government. I understand the school intends to purchase some new furniture for the Year 8 program.
The Northern Territory School of Music also started at the Nightcliff High this year in specially renovated quarters and many Nightcliff students have taken the opportunity to become involved in the music program. I congratulate the music teachers ably lead by Nora Lewis. I understand the music school is looking to have a choral program and will be developing a weekly vocal ensemble within the school and there is a possibility of running a combined high schools choir which would run after school one day a week, a wonderful opportunity for young people.
Nightcliff High has a very active school council and I would like to recognise the members of that council, particularly as some members will stand down at the next school council’s annual general meeting. It is also my pleasure to be a member of this council and I thank Michael Murray who able chairs the council, Caitlyn Antella, John Wagner, Hans Raets, Joseph Aberdeen, Bill Bean, Rosemary Campbell, Peter Bidgood, Amanda Rann, Monicka Lee, John Tate, Martin Breukers, Bronwyn Schulte, Tammy Coyne, Dianne Bishop, Graham Chadwick, Alistair Scott, Keith Moylan, Maria Louison and Maria Rizidis for their dedication to the students and school community of Nightcliff High School.
I also rise tonight to inform the House of a function I hosted at the Greek Orthodox School in Rapid Creek on Friday, 13 February. It was my pleasure to host a function for the Nightcliff Branch of the Labor Party with special guest being the National President of the Australian Labor Party, the honourable Dr Carmen Lawrence, the party’s first popularly elected president. Dr Lawrence spoke on education in Australia and articulated a vision for education under a federal Labor government. Her presence at the function was greatly appreciated and I thank her for taking the time to visit Darwin.
It was a wonderful evening with around 200 guests who enjoyed a feast of a buffet supplied by Magnum caterers, an excellent local caterer who has recently taken over the catering at the Ski Club. I also thank my parliamentary colleagues, Syd Stirling, Chris Burns and Kon Vatskalis, for attending.
I thank the sponsors for the evening, George, Allan and Colin, who provided special gifts which were auctioned and raffled; very generous people. I also thank from my branch all those people who worked hard to put the fantastic night together, especially Chris and Carole, and Helen and Sally, Sally making a great auctioneer. Thanks also to Tony, Carmel and Daniel who worked on the bar all night, and Jack and Sandra who helped with the clean-up.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to acknowledge a couple of people who are leaving the department. The first one I would to acknowledge is Sue Korner who is retiring next month after 32 years in the public service. The member for Stuart and other members from Central Australia will know Sue well, after all she has lived in Alice Springs for 40 years. It is my understanding that Sue has worked in many areas of the public service including the Department of Works in the 1970s, the Department of Community Development in the 1980s and in the health and community services arena for more than 20 yeas. More recently, under the new structure of the Department of Health and Community Services, Sue has held the newly developed position of Central Australian Coordinator.
Sue Korner has many career achievements behind her. These include the establishment of Mount Gillen Ante-natal House, the establishment of the Public Health Branch, the establishment of a joint mental health and alcohol and other drugs dual diagnosis clinic Alice Springs. She was involved in the remodelling of mental health services in Central Australia to include community mental health services; extended hours in a forensic service; and the redevelopment of community health infrastructure which included an improved community dental services facility, allied health therapy and treatment areas. There are many more career achievements for Sue and I have not covered them here. Sue has made an invaluable contribution to Territorians as well as her colleagues who have appreciated her guidance and depth of experience.
Sue’s heart is close to the Central Australian community and I understand she is staying in Alice Springs when she retires next month. I am sure that she will enjoy spending time with her husband and two sons. I wish Sue all the best in her retirement and hope she will continue to be active in the Central Australian community in a voluntary capacity.
Gloria Markey is a valued member of staff who unfortunately is leaving the Department of Health and Community Services after 24 years of dedicated service. I understand that Gloria and her family are moving to Western Australia and her last day with the department is next Friday, 5 March. During her time with the department, Gloria has personally contributed to a list of impressive achievements that have included developing and coordinating the department’s component of the Community Harmony Strategy; overseeing the development and implementation of important policies and program initiatives in critical areas of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, kava and petrol misuse; coordinating the significant the community education and sponsorship components of the highly acclaimed Living with Alcohol Program; developing and implementing the Territory’s first Tobacco Act 1992, as well as overseeing activities of the Tobacco Action Project; coordinating the department’s service provision activities for the purchase of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs services from the non-government sector; and contributing to the development of the Aboriginal Family Violence Community Action Project, as well as the women’s health policy and strategy development.
It is always sad to lose long valued members of staff. I take this opportunity to personally thank Gloria for her significant contribution to the department and to the health and wellbeing of all Territorians. I wish Gloria and her family all the best in their move to Western Australia.
I know that the member for Nightcliff would also like to wish both Gloria and Sue well in their retirement.
Before I wrap up, I would also like to adjourn on two special people. They might think that I have overlooked them. I would like to mention Pat Hancock and Liz McFarlane for their patience, their advice, their guidance, and to Liz for being a great nutritionist, feeding the hungry hordes. One of the things that I had to let go, which I was totally committed to, was the select committee on substance abuse. I really enjoyed my time with both past and present members of the committee. I am sure that the new chair will enjoy having Liz on every trip. All the trips when we went out bush and the various areas we visited were always very enjoyable. I totally enjoyed them and certainly want to put on record my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to both Pat and Liz for their support in that time. Often members of parliament get all the praise and thanks for a lot of the work that is done and sometimes we can tend to over look the real people who do much of the work and the pulling together of a lot of those things. I am sure that the new chair will find both of these ladies highly professional and very supportive.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw your attention to the presence in the Speaker’s Gallery of His Honour, Mr Ted Egan AM, Administrator of the Northern Territory, accompanied by Mr Frank Leverett, the Official Secretary. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend a warm welcome to our visitors.
Members: Hear, hear!
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women 2004
Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women 2004
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House today of the recipients of the 2004 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women. This is the third year that the Study Award has been made to women enrolled in vocational and tertiary programs in the Territory. It is an award valued at $20 000, each year, of which $14 000 is made available to a woman to undertake a tertiary study program, and $6000 for a vocational study program. The 2004 award has been widely promoted throughout the Territory and by closing date, at the end of last year, 35 applications had been received. Seven were for the vocational award, and 28 for the tertiary.
The selection panel that met to assess the applications, on my behalf, comprised Professor Helen Garnett, Vice-Chancellor of Charles Darwin University; Veronica Arbon, Executive Director of Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education; and Don Zoellner, Pro Vice-Chancellor of TAFE and Regional Operations at Charles Darwin University.
Applications were received from a wide range of women; amongst them were young school leavers, women running small businesses and women returning to study after long periods away from formal education. Many applicants shared their plans for using their skills to work for their community.
Although smaller than in previous years, the field of candidates was of a generally high standard. As the first three applicants for the tertiary award were close to equally ranked, the panel recommended that the merit of the second and third applicants on the short-list should be acknowledged. Annette Wilson and Paola Ciarla were highly commended by the panel for their applications.
Annette is an indigenous Territory woman who, as a senior project officer with a Commonwealth department, is working with non-government organisations and people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Annette is in the final year of a Bachelor of Laws at Charles Darwin University and on completion of articles is keen to work in policy development. Annette is particularly interested in how the law affects women and children, especially when legislation may place women at a disadvantage.
Paola Ciarla is a young, second generation Territorian with a strong record of service to the community. She was 2002 Young Territorian of the Year and was awarded the Centenary Medal last year. Paola will commence studying for a Bachelor of Business this year. She intends to use her qualification and experience to promote women in leadership through mentoring and encouraging programs.
These women had impressive applications and I congratulate them and wish them all the best with their studies.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker and honourable members, it is now my very pleasant duty to advise this House of the recipients of the 2004 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women.
Wendy Butterworth is the recipient of the Vocational Award, with which she will study for the Diploma of Training and Assessment Systems at Charles Darwin University. Wendy manages the network of training centres in eastern Arnhem Land Aboriginal communities and in the regional centre of Nhulunbuy. Over the past four years, Wendy has been instrumental in developing excellent facilities, including information technology resources, in all of the centres in the network. She is committed to ensuring that all of her clients in each of the training centres can develop the understanding and competencies to use the information and communication equipment available. Wendy is keen to gain skills to develop information and communication technology training appropriate to a range of diverse groups.
Sarah Debney is the recipient of the Tertiary Award and will study for a Bachelor of Business at Charles Darwin University. Currently living in Palmerston, Sarah was born and raised in the Territory and comes from a strong rural background. From her outback childhood, early schooling through the Alice Springs School of the Air, and subsequent life experiences, Sarah is passionate about a future living and working in the rural industry. Sarah intends to use her qualification to develop strategies to enhance employment for young Territorians, especially Aboriginal youths in regional Territory.
Madam Speaker, I invite all members to join me in congratulating Wendy and Sarah and wishing them success in their studies and in their future endeavours.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for her statement. Along with her, I congratulate the two applicants who were short-listed. I also join with the Chief Minister in congratulating Wendy Butterworth and Sarah Debney. I am sure both of those women will succeed and go on to bigger and better things.
I, not surprisingly, will use this opportunity, as I have done so on many occasions, to refer to the Chief Minister’s appalling performance in the area of women’s policy. In fact, I am surprised the Chief Minister has even kept up this award. She has done little else in the area of women’s policy. I have said before, and I will say it again, that this Chief Minister is the worst Minister for Women’s Policy the Territory has ever seen, and we are all very surprised at that. I would have thought, as, indeed, many other Territory women would have thought, that as the Chief Minister is a woman, we might have been able to see some good outcomes. Personally, I was hoping for that but I have given up all of hope.
This is a Chief Minister who knows nothing and has cared little about the women’s information centre in Alice Springs. When asked about it in estimates, she did not even know what it was. This is a Chief Minister who, when she was Treasurer, presided over a truckload of budget documents that referred to the word ‘women’ eight times and then, when examining budget estimates, essentially said, ‘Well, women and men should be all lumped in together’. Wrong, wrong, wrong, Chief Minister. To your shame, you maintain this line and to the embarrassment, I might say, of those around you.
I was delighted when you appointed the member for Arafura not only as Minister for Family and Community Services but as minister assisting you in the area of women’s policy, because, by God, she will do better than you have ever done in this area. So, member for Arafura, come out with some good ideas and strut your stuff, because your boss has not!
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is not an edifying experience to hear the member for Araluen. It is never an edifying experience to hear the member for Araluen talking garbage. She does it quite often. In this context, because she has a vision that is peculiarly the member for Araluen’s vision about what women in the Territory want to see supported and enhanced, if it does not fit that agenda, everyone else is wrong.
We are used to the rantings and ravings of the member for Araluen. In a way, I take them as a compliment because I can stand here on behalf of Territory women and say that on the issues that really affect them, we are moving ahead. We are moving this Territory ahead. In education, health, housing and building our economy, Territory women are saying: ‘Yes, go for it’. I do not know who the member for Araluen is actually representing.
Principal Club – Northern Territory Thoroughbred Racing
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to give the House an update on the new principal club for Territory racing. Earlier this month, members of the Darwin Turf Club unanimously voted in favour of establishing a new principal racing club for the Territory. That vote signalled a new era in Territory horse racing aimed at moving the industry forward and strengthening it into the future.
The Territory will now have a more representative body to oversee its interests at both Territory and national level. Previously, the Darwin Turf Club had principal club status in the Territory and did a great job. However, since becoming minister, various sections of the racing industry expressed concerns to me that they lacked representation on that principal club. In response to those concerns, government, in September last year, circulated a discussion paper to industry parties proposing a new representative structure for the principal club.
We received 28 submissions in response to the discussion paper. Most were largely supportive of the concept, but there was concern that it may be too costly or would add another layer of bureaucracy to our relatively small racing industry. Government listened to those concerns and consulted further. The decision was made to establish the principal club within the Darwin Turf Club’s existing constitution, keeping both costs and red tape to a minimum. It also made it easier for the new principal club to be accepted by the Australian Racing Board. As a result of the favourable vote by Darwin Turf Club members to this concept, the Darwin Turf Club constitution will be changed accordingly.
The new principal club racing committee will be made up of an independent chair, three Darwin Turf Club members, two Alice Springs Turf Club members and one country club representative. Expressions of interest are currently being sought for position of chairperson and the country club representative. The Darwin and Alice Turf clubs will have the task of choosing their own representatives.
As part of the consultation process, it was clear that jockeys and trainers wanted a greater say in industry business. Australian Racing Board protocols preclude licensed people such as jockeys and trainers from being members of a principal club. However, jockeys and trainers’ business will be a standing agenda item for principal club committee meetings, which will give them the opportunity to raise concerns or have a direct say on any direction the industry may be taking.
While the principal club will operate under the Darwin Turf Club constitution, its activities and deliberations will be quarantined from the day-to-day operations of the DTC. Both the Darwin Turf Club and Alice Springs Turf Club will continue to be responsible for the daily operations of their respective clubs. The principal club will be responsible for controlling, supervising, regulating and promoting horse racing throughout the Territory as well as developing and implementing policies for the enhancement of the industry. It will also represent the Northern Territory at the national level.
I look forward to receiving submissions for the positions of chairperson and country club representative. I have every confidence that we will find Territorians with the expertise to carry out this important task.
I want to put on the record the great job the Darwin Turf Club has done to date as the principal racing club for the Northern Territory. The club’s advice, support and cooperation throughout the consultation phase was extremely helpful and helped to get this across the line. I also thank all of those industry representatives and interested parties who provide valuable input to the process. Thanks also to members opposite who supported the proposal, maintaining the traditional bipartisan support for racing we have always enjoyed in this House.
It is an exciting time for Territory horse racing. By working together and setting our sights high, we have a real opportunity to further build on an industry that plays such an important role in the Territory’s social and economic life.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I welcome the minister’s statement. I trust with this new representative structure that the sport of horse racing will be the winner and it will raise the profile of racing in the Northern Territory and allow it to make a far greater contribution to the offerings in tourism, particularly as we look forward to opening up our market in tourism. I can see increased potential as we enhance our offerings, particularly with this new representative structure.
I look forward with great interest to see the next stage of this, who will actually be heading up this new structure. Of course, in the spirit of bipartisanship, we wish you all the best. We know that the structure that you have announced today is the result of a process that was put into effect about five years ago. It is good to see that the process has continued. We welcome the statement and look forward to the next exciting episode when we have the announcement of who will be heading up this new structure.
Mr STIRLING (Racing, Gaming and Licensing): Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his supportive comments. There has been some media speculation in the Northern Territory News about who the chairman may be. I do not know at this stage what nominations have been received. They do not close until tomorrow so any speculation on that score is entirely premature. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his support.
Sexually Transmitted Infection and HIV/AIDS - Government Policy
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, I rise today to report on another element of our Building Healthier Communities five year framework - our commitment to renew the emphasis on sexually transmissible infections and HIV/AIDS through early intervention, prevention and treatment.
In the framework, we signalled our determination to ensure our health system responds to the changing needs of Territorians and to any identified gaps in services. To this end, we will renew our emphasis on combating HIV/AIDS and sexually transmissible infections, not only by committing considerable additional resources in to these areas, but also by ensuring those dollars are applied to the best effect.
The challenges are well known. The Northern Territory currently has the highest per capita rates of bacterial sexually transmitted infections in Australia, with a much higher burden endured by indigenous people in remote communities. Work done by Professor Frank Bowden in the Northern Territory in the 1990s showed that the big problem contributing to the high rates of STIs amongst indigenous people in the Northern Territory is their relative lack of access to effective primary health care. These high rates also contribute to high numbers of complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infections in new born babies. It is well known that the presence of other STIs increases the risk of transmission of HIV. It is clearly an area we must address.
The role of primary health care agencies in addressing STI/HIV is crucial, and they require sufficient resources and public health advice and support to take on this task. However, addressing highly infectious and mobile diseases such as STIs and HIV requires a broad collaborative approach, with close partnerships between different sectors and different regions between public health agencies and primary health care services.
I am pleased to remind the House that we have already allocated an extra $2m to the STI/HIV program area in 2004-05, which increases to $2.5m per year after that. The Commonwealth government has also recently agreed to contribute an extra $400 000 a year recurrent funding to the NT for STI/HIV programs. We welcome this support and look forward to continued cooperation with the Commonwealth in this and other areas.
To ensure these resources are applied in ways that will achieve the best outcomes for Territorians, the Department of Health and Community Services will conduct a wide-ranging review of STI and HIV programs with the participation of all relevant government and non-government agencies. The review will assess the current state of programs based on evidence of effectiveness and best practice; identify barriers to and key factors associated with success; provide key strategic recommendations for a comprehensive STI/HIV strategy for the Northern Territory; and advise on the most effective use of current and future funds.
In conducting the review, DHCS also aims to forge new bonds of partnership between different sectors. If we can learn the lessons of successful programs and apply them in partnership between different sectors, there is a very real potential to reduce the high rates of STIs and combat the onset of HIV in our jurisdiction. Our Building Healthier Communities five year framework and significant funding commitments signal our determine to do just that.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I certainly welcome the minister’s report this morning. Sexually transmitted infections are a growing problem here in the Northern Territory. In fact, in the age group 15 to 19 year olds, the Australian average is 92 cases per 100 000 people. Here in the Northern Territory the current rate of gonorrhoea, is 10 times the national average for that age group for 15 to 19 year olds, at 922 cases per 100 000 people, and growing. It is a very serious problem.
One of the outcomes of sexually transmitted infections, as members would be aware, is infertility. In young people, and particularly young women, you can imagine the tragedy that this causes for them. I welcome this increase funding into this area. I have had concerns in the past and they continue, with the rate of sexually transmitted infections in children under the age of 15 years. Last year there was a significant amount of public debate on the situation that for children age 0 to 15 years, there were just under 200 cases of infection here in the Northern Territory. A lot of concern was expressed by people about that. Hopefully something is going to be done, particularly to encourage health professionals to do something to report those cases to the authorities, so that where there are concerns of sexual abuse that something is being done about it.
I am pleased to hear the minister’s report. The review that is being organised is something that needs to be done obviously on urgency. We do need to develop a program that is going to address this incredibly serious problem in the Northern Territory.
Dr TOYNE (Health): Madam Speaker, I certainly welcome the spirit of the opposition’s reply and I look forward to working collaboratively on this issue. It is far too important to kick around as a political football. We have to use every resource and every input that we can from this House and the agencies that have responsibility. I take on board your reminder about those young age STIs; that is something that my colleague, the minister for community services, will also be very interested in, as I am as Justice Minister and Attorney-General. We need to look at that problem from all those different aspects.
Fisheries Act 1988 - Amendment
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I rise to inform the House about a very important issue concerning the amendment to the Fisheries Act 1988. The Fisheries Act was proclaimed in 1988, and has been amended on a number of occasions, in an attempt to provide greater administrative flexibility for commercial and recreational fishing, as well as aquaculture. Significant changes were made in 1995, in seeking to recognise the roles of the Northern Territory and the Commonwealth in managing fisheries. More recently, the Commonwealth government has implemented an additional layer of legislation for our export fisheries. Consequently, the Fisheries Act 1988 has become cumbersome and confusing for both industry and government alike. The Aquatic Resource User Group Forum formed by this government, brings together all major users of aquatic resources in one forum has recommended that a Fisheries Act be reviewed.
Stakeholders now seek a more holistic framework for the management of fisheries and aquatic resources in the Northern Territory. This group identified areas such as indigenous development, management flexibility, environmental impact, and holistic fisheries management as specific areas which the current Fisheries Act does not adequately cover.
The existing Fisheries Act is principally a licensing framework, with little provision for an ecosystem approach to the management of aquatic resources and the wider environment. The introduction of the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and a national ecological sustainability development framework for Australian fisheries means that the Northern Territory now requires a more comprehensive approach in dealing with environmental, social and economic issues, what is generally termed the triple bottom line.
To meet the requirements of the new Commonwealth legislation, and wider community expectations, the harvest of aquatic resources by all stakeholders must be done in a manner that is equitable and ensures the long term sustainability of the targeted species and the rest of the ecosystem. The existing Fisheries Act fails to make adequate provision for such a management approach.
There is an increasing expectation by all users of aquatic resources in the Northern Territory, that people fishing illegally be appropriately punished when caught. This government has increased penalties for serious offences, including the ability to ban persistent offenders from the industry. Key stakeholder groups including the Amateur Fishermens Association of the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory Seafood Council and land councils wish to consider further penalties if these changes prove to be ineffective.
The proposed terms of reference for the review are to investigate the current and proposed amendments, as required, in at least the areas of integrated management of fish resources; compliance; ecologically sustainable development principles; Commonwealth legislation linkages, including extra certification; indigenous fishing issues, and wider legislation linkages. This government will establish a steering committee to provide advice during the consultation process, with this steering committee to identify any issues of concern raised and propose options for addressing those concerns. The steering committee will also be responsible for collating and considering all submissions, and preparing a final report for consideration by government.
My department will have an added role of balancing competing interests in this forum. It is proposed that the steering committee would consist of representatives of the Northern Territory government, the commercial fishing industry, the recreational fishing industry, the fishing tourism industry, indigenous fishing interests and environmental interests. It is considered that the formation of a steering committee with broad representation, such as that proposed, will be strongly supported by key fisher lobby groups such as AFANT, the Northern Territory Seafood Council and land councils. A full review is expected to take approximately 18 months to complete and will engage all aquatic users. The first 12 months of this process will be mostly consultation with the last six months dedicated to preparing a report with recommendations for Cabinet’s consideration.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome the news of this very important review, and certainly a very important industry in the Northern Territory whether you consider it from a commercial sense or a recreational sense. We all know how important the management of our fisheries is, and no more so than the stakeholders that the minister has mentioned. Like all things, acts need to be reviewed constantly. It is a work in progress as we move through time and we need to do these reviews. I look forward to contributing in any way possible and seeing the report. Hopefully it will be made available for some sort comment prior to changes to the current act coming into this House. There will be many issues that can be raised within that review; certainly the minister has mentioned where they are heading with it. I am sure many other issues will come up as the review takes place over the next 18 months.
In terms of management plans, I would like to see the government, as I have been calling for since three ministers ago - you are the fourth minister now in the last two and half years - and I note that AFANT is now calling for, the Seafood Council is now calling for, and that is some sort of management strategy of the barramundi fishery to give some certainty into that area of the fishery. We know there are large investments, both commercial and recreational, and the income is very important to the Northern Territory. We have to give certainty now in that area. I would like to see you develop, and I know the aquatic user groups have been talking about it, a strategy for the next 10 years in that fishery area. Certainly, you have some advice from me on that in terms of a submission to the first or the second minister but, anyway, you’ve got it.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his support. He is quite right; we have to review the act especially in view of the federal legislation. Recently, we have had news that the northern prawn fishery is in some trouble. We have to make sure that we maintain our resources and, quite rightly so, both amateur groups and commercial fishermen require tougher penalties.
I foreshadow that I have asked the department to start preparing a five year plan for fisheries, with a 10 year outlook. I assure the House that it is going to be an open and transparent process. I welcome any submission from the public of the Territory and certainly any submission from the other side of the House.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS
Pass Bill through all Stages
Pass Bill through all Stages
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004 (Serial 206) passing through all stages at this sittings.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2003
Note Paper - Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination No 1 of 2003
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, as members will be aware, during the November sittings, I moved that the Assembly take note of the Remuneration Tribunal Report No 1 of 2003. At that time, I put on the record the government’s views about the report and its findings, so my remarks today will be brief.
As I indicated during the November sittings, the Tribunal’s report concludes an open and inclusive process in which all members of this House and the Territory public are invited to make submissions to the tribunal about members’ remuneration. This process, as we know, occurs on an annual basis. I believe this is an important process in which, following advertisements in the main Territory newspapers, any member of the Territory community with an interest in these matters can contribute to the review.
Mr Alder’s tribunal received written submissions from yourself, Madam Speaker, the member for Nelson, the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, the CLP Opposition, and the Leader of Government Business on behalf of government. The tribunal took evidence in Darwin in person. While no individual members of the public made submissions, it is nonetheless important that they had the opportunity to do so.
As I indicated in November, Mr Alder has continued his recent work in making structural changes to the format of the determination to increase clarity and simplicity in relation to members’ entitlements. This is important to do, not only for the benefit of members and officials, but also for increased transparency and accountability generally. The report of 2003 continues this clarification process without fundamentally changing the scope of members’ entitlements. Clarifications of uncertainties and anomalies in previous determinations have been addressed, particularly in relation to travel, with more logical arrangements to the structure of the determination being recommended.
An increase in flexibility and the use of trips by the opposition where the number of trips can be pooled and used by shadow ministers collectively has been recommended with no additional cost to taxpayers. Increases to electoral allowance and office holders’ salaries at the CPI rate of approximately 1.8% is recommended, while the tribunal highlights that office holders’ remuneration and electoral allowances have not been substantially increased for some time. Mr Alder reports the real value of electorate allowances is declining and the balance that must be struck by the tribunal is one of ensuring members have the appropriate level of resources to properly service their constituencies while appropriately considering the cost to taxpayers. As I indicated in November, changes to the postage rates and new communication arrangements for mobile phones and Internet services, which includes the removal of the mobile phone allowance for members, are recommended by the tribunal. In summary, the overall effect of the recommended changes, including the application of the CPI, will mean no change in the rate of electorate allowances payable to urban members and very little change in the rate paid to regional members.
Madam Speaker, thanks go to tribunal chair, Otto Alder, for his work. I know members will have carefully considered this report.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I join the Chief Minister in thanking Mr Otto Alder, the chair of the tribunal, for his great work. He has been a very independent chair. I was disappointed two years ago when he came down with a report that the Chief Minister decided to reject. If we have an independent tribunal, then we should allow Mr Alder to be totally independent and accept his advice without stirring the pot by knocking it back.
I like the way Mr Alder has aggregated all electoral expenses together to allow simplicity of the matter - that is a good way to go - including all the communications facilities that members need to do their work well. One of the matters that Mr Alder commented on was the use of light rail for members’ travel. I look forward to perhaps using that as an opportunity to travel from Alice Springs to Darwin, and returning home, on The Ghan for sittings.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to make a couple of points on the Remuneration Tribunal Report and Determination. As you know, last year, you could travel by car as part of your interstate entitlement. One of the new rules, you might say, under the Remuneration Tribunal Report is that you cannot. That is a bit sad because, in my case, I did continue to travel by car. A car does give you the flexibility to stop to see people, and not have to say, ‘Well, excuse me, I have to go, the plane is going’. You had a chance to meet other people. You had the flexibility, if you were to do your job correctly, that you could not do with plane travel. I hope that area will be looked at.
I gather there has been some informal discussion on this issue with the tribunal. I encourage members of parliament to perhaps put some suggestions to the tribunal. I know the tribunal is concerned that using a vehicle as part of your interstate entitlement could be a bottomless pit, so to say, which would far exceed your entitlement if you were flying. I understand that. However, I am sure there are ways around that, such as capping the level which you can claim. There may be other ways you can do it. Certainly, I do not believe that it should be excluded from your interstate entitlement. It is a concern the tribunal had, and it is probably just a matter of us sitting down and discussing the issue, putting some controls on it, and we could probably come back with a sensible arrangement.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions, albeit very brief, to the determination from the Remuneration Tribunal. Overall, I believe the tribunal, chaired by Otto Alder, has delivered a balanced determination which continues to simplify and clarify members’ entitlements. Every member of this House, and Territorians generally, had an opportunity to contribute to the review’s work, and government thanks the tribunal for that work. Issues, such as the one raised by the member for Nelson, need to go back to the next Remuneration Determination and those things will be dealt with appropriately.
Motion agreed to; report noted.
NATIONAL ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION COUNCIL (NORTHERN TERRITORY)
AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 198)
AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 198)
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome this piece of legislation today. I welcome it as the minister’s first piece of legislation to pass through this House, and congratulations.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr BALDWIN: Albeit, this is a very simple piece of amendment legislation that deals only with administrative arrangements under the agreements that we have with the Commonwealth, and every state has with the Commonwealth, to keep corresponding legislation in every state on the National Environment Protection Council. This is an amendment to our Northern Territory act, to discuss a number of issues.
The National Environment Protection Council is a very important Commonwealth body, charged with implementing environment protection measures right across Australia that we all have to comply with. One that was mentioned the other day, not so long ago in the paper, was the National Pollutant Inventory. It did not give us a good rap sheet, from what I read of it. Anyway, we are a part of that and it is good that we have to look at those issues and report on them.
I am not going to waste the minister’s time to get onto her feet for her first time to pass a piece of legislation. This deals with just administrative arrangements that have been agreed to and as I said, have to be implemented across every state and territory to comply with the agreements that we have made in the past with Commonwealth to do with Environment Protection Council. I certainly welcome the minister and her new piece of amending legislation.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Environment and Heritage): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Daly for his support. It is my first piece of legislation and I am glad it is a simple one and we are putting it through.
Just to wrap up, it is often said that environment issues do not know boundaries. Our rivers flow between states and our greenhouse gas emissions affect climate on a global scale. We need national and international cooperation. Governments have responded by establishing forums for resolving environmental issues in a constructive and cooperative manner. The National Environment Protection Council is one such forum. It is important that the Territory plays it part. We have much to learn and much to share. This bill is about the Territory fulfilling its national responsibility as a member of the National Environment Protection Council. The making of national environment protection measures by the council leads to consistent, efficient and effective approaches to managing air, land and water quality across Australia. This bill streamlines the making of minor amendments to these national measures, without sacrificing the community’s right to have input.
Madam Speaker I move that the bill be now read a second time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Environment and Heritage)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to, bill read a third time.
SWIMMING POOL SAFETY BILL
(Serial 206)
(Serial 206)
Continued from 17 February 2004.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I rise to deliver the opposition’s response in relation to this bill. Before we go into the actual bill itself, it is worth visiting the circumstances that bring us here. And the circumstances that bring us here is the former bill is going to be repealed in its entirety as a result of the passage of this bill should it pass here today.
The bill in its entirety was examined at length and, in the opinion of some, even tortured at length during the introduction the last time. During that process numerous shortcomings of the operation of this bill were pointed out to the government by members of this House. The government steadfastly and rock solidly refused to take on amendments, refused to accept any of the arguments, dismissed those arguments as nitpicking, and as a consequence, pushed through a bill, which in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, minister, would have been considered to be extremely brave. Courageous indeed, minister.
What we have now is the government coming back into this House and saying: ‘Oops. We need you guys to repeal that act, the one that you warned us about at length, and we want you to bring in this new act.’ I have to say that I actually had a begrudging admiration, not so much for the standards that the bill introduced when the original Swimming Pool Fencing Act was passed in this House, because I did not agree with the standards that were being applied, but I did have a begrudging admiration for a Chief Minister who had the courage to stand up and say, ‘This is going to be my line in the sand. This is the standard that I think should apply in the Northern Territory for the protection of children.’ She did so unashamedly, in an unabashed fashion, and said that the former processes were not effective in protecting children and she was going to bring that protection to the people of the Northern Territory, and that child safety was paramount.
You have to admire that sort of courage. She was aware of criticism at that time and soldiered on. Subsequent to that time, however, the criticisms of the operation of that piece of legislation and the criticisms which were dismissed originally as nitpicking have gained momentum to the point of being a crescendo in the community. We have found neighbours having disputes with neighbours; pool fencing inspectors being pedantic by virtue of the fact that they had almost no room to move in terms of their discretionary powers; pools which were already complying with old council laws not being compliant; and, in many instances, people very, very unhappy with the level of intrusion that the government had applied to them in their homes. Certainly, much of that pain was felt in the northern suburbs of Darwin. That is why we are in the position that we are in now.
The government has said: ‘Oops, we have made a mistake so we are going to come back to the parliament of the Northern Territory and ask that parliament to revisit the old Swimming Pool Fencing Act, totally dispose of it, and introduce a new Swimming Pool Safety Act which will …’, in the argument of the government, ‘… satisfy community expectations’. The Chief Minister, upon introducing the Swimming Pool Fencing Act, was not particularly concerned about the community expectations in terms of what that act would do in the way that it affected other people. The Chief Minister was particularly concerned about child safety, and said so repeatedly and time and time again. Even in the introduction of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act, which was a very rigorous and hard act to live up to, there is an acknowledgement which is implied, and the acknowledgement is this: that child safety is still something that has to be found in terms of a balance with the rest of the community. If we were truly concerned that child safety was paramount above all else, then we would have banned swimming pools, and we would change society in all sorts of different ways to accommodate children, such as arguing that speed limits should be 10 km/h across the whole of the Northern Territory – those sorts of things.
There always has to be a balance between competing needs in the community. The Chief Minister said that balance, in terms of the original Swimming Pool Fencing Act, must favour child safety so heavily that there was only one standard to apply and that was the Australian Standard. So we will let you have a swimming pool, we will let you have your spa pools, but we are going to apply a standard because child safety is so fundamentally important. I admired the courage of that move. I thought the standard, at the time, was too high. Since that time, the government has realised the level of imposition that that act actually applied to the community. From the much lauded and heralded child safety swimming pool legislation, we have now moved to a position where the government seems to be more interested in its own preservation than child safety issues.
I will give you an example. We long remember documents and stuff coming from government where the Chief Minister placed her face on the front of this and said she was going to be charging forward, and this was going to be her great achievement and a great thing for the Northern Territory. We see them quite regularly. Last night in a letter box at my flat here in town, appeared a flyer from the Northern Territory government, we all get them, we get so many of them, saying that the Martin Labor government was going to spend $75m on increased policing resources, and the Martin Labor government was doing this, and the Martin Labor government was doing that, and we see the picture of the police minister on the flyer – that is the standard fare. I have some reservations about the Martin Labor government being put out as a matter of party political purposes on brochures. However, the flyer that we see now in relation to simplified swimming pool laws does not refer to the Martin Labor government, does not mention the Chief Minister at all, and if I look at the photograph on the back where the minister’s face would be, I am led to believe that the minister is now a five year old boy with a inflatable dolphin.
The government has come into this Chamber and asked us to change these laws on urgency. The minister had to pass an extra motion that he did not cover the last time to make sure it goes through on urgency. We, on this side of the House, are very sensitive about the intrusion that the Swimming Pool Fencing Act has applied to people in the Northern Territory, and the government has said, ‘We are sorry for the mistake we made’. I hope that the government approaches this debate with the humility that is supposed to come along with the apology for getting something wrong. They have admitted quite publicly that they have got it wrong.
So, what now? What are we being asked to do? We are being asked to rush through a piece of legislation, bearing in mind that we were asked to rush through legislation the last time. Last time, because of the urgency and the way that we pushed these things through, we were in this Chamber again amending the act within a few months to rush through more legislation. The original legislation went through the proper processes as tightly as it possibly could, then amendments came on urgency, and now we find ourselves debating on urgency a new act. How do we know that we are not going to make a mistake again? Frankly, we don’t.
I do sense the government’s need for urgency on this issue is important to them because it is important to Territorians, and I, too, am sensitive to that pressure. I will not be resisting too many aspects of this bill, but I do hope that the government approaches this debate with the humility that is required for somebody getting something wrong.
Let us turn to the act itself. What is the act going to do? In the past, you had to get your pool up to a certain standard, the Australian Standard. You needed an inspector to come around and give you an approved certificate to say that the pool met a certain standard. If you did not, you could not sell your house, you could not lease your property. That is how important it has been; that has been a source of huge problems. What has the government done now, in this new legislation? They have said any pool that was built before 1 January 2003, an older pool, has to meet a community standard. That community standard, in the bill before us today, is a rather ethereal creature. I turn members’ attention to clause 11 of the bill, which deals with the community safety standard, which is, and I quote:
- … practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances …
That is the test that the court will have, if a matter ever ends up in court, to apply whether or not a particular standard was of a reasonable standard. It is a fairly difficult thing to achieve.
When you sell you home and you have a pool that predates 1 January 2003, under these proposals you have to fill out a form that says, ‘I believe my pool reaches the community safety standard’. The authority will issue a tick and flick sheet of some sort, which you sit next to your pool and say tick, tick, tick, I meet those standards, and then you fill out a form saying I believe my pool meets the community safety standard. If it does not, you can still sell your house. The person purchasing the house can fill out a form that says, ‘I know that it does not reach the community safety standard, but I can get around to fixing it’.
This is where I start to have some concerns. The effect of this is that when the tragedy occurs, and it will occur even with the best pool fencing in the world, people are going to be saying, ‘Who is responsible?’, and they will be going back to these signed pieces of paper and they will ask, ‘Who are we going to sue?. You signed this form and you signed that form, and you said it was okay. And the government put out the tick and flick sheet so maybe we can sue them’. But, no. Under this new proposed piece of legislation, not only will the government find itself being civilly immune from any prosecution or litigation that will be brought against it, but also, which is a new addition to the legislation, criminally immune to any prosecution brought against it.
What the government is effectively saying to the people of the Northern Territory is, if you own a swimming pool, we will have a piece of legislation which nominally is supposed to look after standards, but when the trouble starts in relation to an unfortunate and tragic child death, or some other litigation arising out of a problem with pools, it is going to be neighbour against neighbour. The standard the government is now asking to apply will, in essence, be lower than any standards since the time of self-government. It will be lower than the standard which was so bitterly criticised by this Labor government that the CLP used to apply. The CLP used to say it is up to councils to know what is appropriate for its own area. This government is now saying, I am washing my hands of all liability in relation to this, so much so that, in clause 3(3) of this bill says:
- If there is an inconsistency between this act and another act, this act prevails to the extent of the inconsistency.
I am concerned, and I have not had it properly explained to me yet, and I have certainly raised the concern with the minister’s staff, that where a pool advisor, acting under his powers of this act, acting in good faith, engages in some conduct which may, through the provisions of foresight in the Criminal Code lead to a criminal prosecution, is immune because this act says that where there is an inconsistency between this act and any other act in the Northern Territory, this act shall prevail. That is the level of protection that this government is seeking.
The only place you can turn to as a court when dealing with a matter of prosecution against a pool inspector is, was the pool inspector acting in good faith? Not the issues of foresight raised by the Criminal Code; not the issues of intent raised by the Criminal Code; not the defence provisions and all of the common law that surrounds those. This act has supremacy. That is a concerning thing, the way that this particular clause, clause 3(3) and clause 47 of the proposed bill marry up. Now there is nothing too unusual about the immunity provisions of clause 47, however I am uncertain that there is something normal about the operation of clause 47 in tandem with the operation of clause 3. I would be concerned if the operation of the Criminal Code was somehow nullified by the operation of this bill. I ask the minister to give us a detailed explanation, and we will be exploring it more in the committee stages.
There is another issue that has been raised with me today, and it is a reasonable one. It is the issue of the liability of councils themselves. The Palmerston City Council has quite correctly pointed out that the legislation only addresses fences which are maintained by the council. The council is concerned that they could carry a liability, should they be served with a notice, of any adjoining land to a yard with a pool. So, where the council maintains parks and similar sorts of properties, and there is a park on the other side of the pool, the council has an immunity in looking after the fence, but no immunity in terms of what happens in the park, and access from the park in to the backyard pool.
There are some 2200 residential properties which abut controlled access roads in the Palmerston area and indeed, I can understand their concerns. The government seems to think that it can be immune from criminal and civil liability, but will offer no effective liability to town councils. I invite the minister to make some observations about that as well.
The other process which I am deeply concerned about in relation to this piece of legislation is the decision to remove the independent arbiter from the appeals process under the existing legislation. I think it is important to read a letter into the Parliamentary Record from Mr David Loadman, a magistrate in the Northern Territory and also chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal, because he makes some very important points and I believe that all members need to be aware of them:
- To: All members of the Legislative Assembly Re: Proposed changes to swimming pool fencing legislation.
- The Lands and Mining Tribunal was the appeal body under the Swimming Pool Fencing Act, an act soon to be the
subject of a new bill.
- As the appeal body, the Tribunal expressed its concern to the authority and the minister regarding the existing
legislation and the fallacious appeal process available to the public. It was obvious to the Tribunal that no
decisions of the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority regarding specific issues, eg design and location of the
pool, size of the grant and loan, construction of the fence, ultimately were capable of being reviewed or appealed
at all. To pretend otherwise was and is deliberately misleading.
- By letter of 22 January 2004, the Minister for Local Government wrote to the Tribunal, inviting the Tribunal’s
views and promising contact from a senior departmental officer ‘in the near future to facilitate this’. No
such contact occurred and on 12 February 2004 the Tribunal was advised that the review had been concluded
without this Tribunal’s input.
- On 16 February 2004, a facsimile received from David Coles, Executive Director of Local Government and
Regional Development, states as follows …
- ‘It is not intended the Lands and Mining Tribunal will have a role to play in the new act. The process for review
of decisions of the authority under the current act has not produced a single appeal even to the review committee
and having a further appeal mechanism is considered unnecessary.’
Mr Loadman then goes on:
- To say that there was no appeal produced even to the review committee is simply to ignore logic, as any meaningful
decision of the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority was not capable of being reviewed, it also follows that it was
incapable of ever being the subject of an appeal. To make the statement is risible.
I put to you that it is precisely the point that high handed authorities such as the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority
ought to have their decisions capable of being reviewed and/or appealed against and that appeal conducted
by an independent tribunal. In the absence of a meaningful appeal or review process, the public is at the mercy
of a pedantic interpretation and application of the law by tunnel-visioned pool inspectors supported by the authority.
It was signed David Loadman, 17 February 2004.
Madam Speaker, that is probably the most extraordinary criticism I have ever seen from a tribunal chair of a government policy. We have to remember that the government has pushed this through, announcing a review in December, holding a review in January, having the final report of that review come down in January so they can bring this bill before the House today. To ignore such criticism the government does so at its peril! Those criticisms should ring through this Chamber, through the department, and through the minds of the government, loud and clear. Not only are they going to be disposing of the appeals process in its entirety, certainly the independent appeals process, the review process which is proposed by the minister, will be subject to the same limitations that the former appeals tribunal was limited to - which means that they can walk into issues such as the issuing of a certificate, or the issuing of some sort of paperwork under the legislation, but they will not be able to look into other issues such as design and, more importantly, compensation payments.
This then brings us to the nub of the appeals process. The government has promised to compensate pool owners who have been affected by this legislation, like me - I have to declare an interest - who have been forced to build pool fences when their property used to be compliant under old by-laws of councils. I am concerned that those amounts of compensation will become the subject of criticism. Even if the government goes all the way to repaying all the money that people have spent to bring their pools up to standard, they won’t go far enough because people will have other concerns.
Some of those concerns will surround issues like the loss of amenity, which is a very subjective problem. The loss of amenity in my backyard because my whole house, for argument’s sake, was built around my swimming pool. I had to put in a fence and when I put in this fence, speaking metaphorically, I had a completely different effect in my backyard. It now makes it more difficult for me to sell my house because people come and inspect my backyard and they suddenly discover that there is a pool fence which is architecturally inconsistent with the rest of the backyard. The government has promised to pay for the construction of the pool fence. What the government has not promised to pay for is the loss of amenity, and the loss of value of the premises when a pool fence is constructed, which affects the sale value of the house. It is subjective. When the government makes a decision that says we are going to pay you this much in compensation only, and nothing more, what is actually going to happen is that the government is going to say, ‘Full stop!’ There is no appellant process available whatsoever.
Even within the terms of the review committee proposed by this legislation, that review committee will not be able to revisit those decisions by the authority. The authority may well be a single person; in fact, I believe the authority is a single person at the moment. The authority makes the decision; they are the final arbiter. Can I appeal to a court? No, I cannot. Why? Because this legislation says only points of law are appealable to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, nothing else is. The decision of the authority is final. Can I appeal to an independent arbiter? No, I cannot. Why can’t I appeal to an independent arbiter? Because there isn’t one, and even if there was one under the former act, its appeal powers are so limited that to call it a body ultimately being capable of reviewing decisions at all, was to pretend otherwise and was deliberately misleading.
The government is asking us to believe that it is approaching this process with a sense of humility, we are sorry, we got it wrong. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. That is what they are saying, and yet they then propose to come into this Chamber and say, ‘We are sorry, we got it wrong, we know we are not perfect, we are here to repeal that whole act which has caused us so much grief and bring in this new act. But, we are not prepared to allow any review of the decisions we make under this act’. That is an inconsistent approach for a body politic that is claiming humility and saying that they are sorry. It is an approach that is much more consistent with a government that is deeply concerned about looking after its own interests and making sure that it is not the subject of criticism.
I place the government on notice now that they are going to have real problems with this. If they think the pain of the pool fencing legislation that they have inflicted is going to go away as a result of this, they are wrong. I can tell you now, I can see it: in the future there will be news headlines that quite clearly say, ‘I am unsatisfied with my compensation package from the government’.
Surely, in the interests of good government in the Northern Territory there should be an independent review process with an independent arbiter attached to something like the Lands and Mining Tribunal. Surely, the government could not contemplate making its administrative decisions so final and in that way a fait accompli that they are beyond examination. That is what this bill requires of us today.
The government must allow for amendments that I have circulated, not only to establish an independent review tribunal, but one that is capable of examining any area under the swimming pool fencing legislation to the point where they can overturn a decision of the authority and issue a new order. If this government was truly humble about its mistake in the first instance, a mistake for which it had already said it is sorry, then surely they should acknowledge the need for a completely independent arbitrary body that can sit down, examine the decisions of the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority and rescue Territorians who feel like they have been otherwise trapped by the operation of the legislation. I urge the government to approach this amendment with the intent to allow an independent arbiter to look at and examine the decisions of the authority.
This is an authority that, rightly or wrongly, has received enormous criticism. Its operation and the way that it has applied its legislation in the Northern Territory has drawn criticism, as has the government. The government acknowledges that because they are worried about calling Pool Safety Inspectors ‘inspectors’; they want to change the name to Pool Safety Advisors. They will have all the same powers to get a warrant and all those sorts of things, that remains completely unchanged, but they want to play the semantic game. Fine, they will become Pool Safety Advisors. Surely their decisions and the decisions of the authority under legislation that has been so roundly criticised from so many quarters must be capable of independent review. To say that we are the final arbiter is unthinkable.
That brings me to the policing powers of the authority. The minister, in his second reading speech, said the reason that we are going to change the name from inspectors to advisors is that we want people to know that it is going to be a softer, more advisory role that the Pool Fencing Authority will have. That is true because they will have much lower standards to police. However, their powers will remain unchanged. The minister advises us that those powers will not be used. We just want them in the act. They appear in other acts so they should be in this act. Okay, I accept that the minister will not direct Pool Fencing Advisors to police issues very stridently.
However, I will paint a picture which will cause the government some grief: now that you have set the circumstances, now that you have set neighbour against neighbour, people will ring the Pool Fencing Authority and make complaints about the neighbour’s pool. We have no registrar of pools left; that has gone under this new legislation; there is no way of creating a registrar of all pools. The Pool Fencing Authority receives a complaint. What to do? It is an authority, it has a duty to inspect. So it knocks on the door of the person who owns the pool about which the complaint has been made, and the person slams the door in their face and says, ‘Get nicked. I am not letting you in here’. What does that pool advisor do then? Does he then go back to the neighbour who made the complaint and say, ‘Sorry, they slammed the door in my face. I can do nothing else’? How do you think that neighbour will feel, abandoned by the pool fencing advisors? No, the pool fencing advisor is going to have to take further steps. He will write letters, make phone calls, encourage, plead, stick things in the letterbox, nail things to the door, knock on the door and have it slammed in his face again. Eventually, he is still getting no satisfaction from the neighbour, cannot look at the pool, does not know anything about what the pool looks like, does not know if it is a real risk or anything else like that.
Ultimately, there has to be some sort of further action that this pool fencing advisor can take. That further action is captured in the powers, which are exactly the same powers that the pool fencing advisors had in the first instance. The standard that they police is much lower now, but the powers that they have remain completely and utterly unchanged. These include powers of forced entry under a search warrant, with such reasonable force as they see necessary to engage into that forced entry.
We have been through this debate as to where that sort of thing takes us, but it does concern me that you now have an inspectorial power, which is still an inspectorial power, covered by a total criminal and civil liability to such a degree that, where it is inconsistent with another act in the Northern Territory, the powers under this act are the superior powers. This is, on the face of it, a messy piece of legislation, nobbled together in a hurry by a government who is trying desperately to work itself out of a corner that it finds itself in. We as an opposition are now in an incredibly difficult position. To not allow this act to pass will cause pain and further irritation to the community, because it means the old act will keep operating. To do so would be to dash the expectations of many Territorians who have been caught up in a badly thought out and badly policed act in the last 12 months. To do so would run the risk of once again having this House passing a piece of legislation which will cause grief, pain and trouble in the community when they suddenly find out that the promises that are made in this document cannot be lived up to or will not be lived up to, and they find that they have no independent appeals process.
One of the greatest shortcomings of this legislation is that it is not capable of an appellant process. If we make a mistake in this House, by having an appellant process in place, there will be an opportunity for that appellant body to bring some rules of equity into the processes involved. There will be a possibility for that appellant body to bring some succour to the people who are affected by this legislation.
It is the position of the opposition that we will support this legislation, with the amendment creating a fully independent appeals tribunal which can look into any aspect of the operation of the legislation, as well as make decisions that overturn the decisions of the Pool Fencing Authority. This bill is a product of a government under pressure. This bill is a product of a government trying desperately to fix the pain it has caused by its own rashness earlier in this process. This bill is a product of a government which needs to try to remove, between now and the next Territory election, much of the pain it has inflicted. It knows it has caused great ructions in the community. That is why this bill is before this House on urgency.
Nothing would prevent this government from applying a moratorium between now and this process being properly examined. They have rushed the introduction of the bill in the first instance, they have rushed the amendments last year, they have rushed the operation of the legislation, the operation of the committee reviewing the operation for the bill, and they have now rushed this legislation for this House. I am concerned with the lack of time that we have had to examine this bill, which hit the table last Tuesday, that there may be still traps in it that I have not even seen. This bill will be the subject of great examination during the committee stages of the debate. I urge the government to consider the appellant problems, as well as the problems of some of the local town councils, and introduce amendments which reflect its professed humility before coming into this Chamber.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, brought into the House by my colleague, the member for Arnhem. Firstly, I want to talk about our motivation for consulting on, and subsequently reviewing, the earlier pool fencing legislation.
Soon after we came to government in August 2001, our government took the hard decision to protect our most vulnerable and younger citizens. The reasons behind making this decision have been around for a while. In fact, they were put very well in this House as early as 23 November 1994 by the opposition. The then recently elected member for Greatorex, a former member of the Alice Springs Town Council stated to this parliament, and I quote:
- In relation to pool fencing, there is an Australian Standard which local councils can use to frame their by-laws.
Why there are such diverse by-laws in relation to pool fencing is beyond me … My concern is that by-laws
are not standardised and that some councils are not policing their by-laws stringently enough. There is no point
at all in enacting by-laws if they are not policed.
That was the position of the member for Greatorex in this House on 23 November 1994. However, what action did the then government take on this issue? The answer is nothing. In fact, the former government had swimming pool fencing legislation on its books back in 1998 as evidenced by the Department of Local Government Annual Report 1998-99: Directions for 1999-2000: Legislative Change - introduced and implement new legislation relating to swimming pool fencing. So it was the policy of the then government of the day, albeit six years after the member for Greatorex made that statement in this parliament for the then government of the day to introduce standardised pool fencing across the Northern Territory.
However, history shows that for whatever reason, they ducked the issue and did not have the fortitude to bring the legislation into this parliament that they knew they had to do. They knew children were drowning in the Northern Territory at an unacceptable rate. Members on their side had a commitment to ensuring standardised pool fencing across the Northern Territory; their own Department of Local Government had committed to legislative change, and for whatever reason, the previous government was too gutless to introduce the legislation.
The opposition now has some nerve to criticise this government for putting the welfare of children first and taking the hard decisions, that they lost in government, never had the intestinal fortitude or the political courage to take, even though the member for Greatorex and other members on their side knew they had to. When the opposition was in government they said that councils should have carriage of this. This was despite the clamouring of local government and councils around the Northern Territory, for the then government of the day to act and provide leadership on the issue.
Mr Elferink: You’re rewriting history now.
Mr HENDERSON: In response to a 1999 inquest - it is not rewriting history. These are documented facts that are on the public record. The fact that you want to deny history is neither here nor there.
In response to a 1999 inquest into another tragedy of a child drowning, the Darwin City Council said, and I quote:
- The Northern Territory government has repeatedly declined to require pool fencing standards to be included in the
Building Code, or to play a role in the regulation of the fencing of private swimming pools, despite approaches from
both the community at large and the Northern Territory Local Government Association.
The government of the day did nothing. This was despite knowing about the problem.
In 1994, the former member for Katherine discussed pool safety during a ministerial statement on child safety in the Northern Territory. The Hansard record shows that he said at the time, and I quote:
- The incidence of pool accidents is an issue of major concern to the Northern Territory government … Pool owners
should be encouraged to take all possible steps to prevent children dying in their pools … Kidsafe encourages pool
owners to surround their pool with isolation or separation fencing and a self-closing gate that meets Australian
Standards.
That was, again, the public record recorded in the Hansard in 1994, around the same time that the member for Greatorex made his comments. So, the hypocrisy of members opposite now, in their position on this issue, is absolutely astounding and nothing short of blatant politicking for politicking’s sake.
This government has acknowledged by introducing this bill, and repealing the previous legislation, that we did get it wrong. The intent was right, the application was wrong. All of us here, as local members, have received significant representation from members of our electorates in regard to the application of the law as it stands. Even the residents who are most angry about the application of the laws as they stand - certainly the ones I have spoken to, my constituents - could understand the rationale behind government legislation. It was the application of that legislation and the impact that it had in regards to the application of Australian Standards retrospectively that has caused the problem. We acknowledge that. We acknowledge that by the repeal and by the introduction of this new commonsense approach to the issue. The fact is that we are trying to do everything that we can, in partnership with our community, to reduce the incidence of child drownings in the Northern Territory, unlike the previous government who acknowledged the problem, but did nothing because they did not have the political courage to act.
I believe that any system of regulation, such as pool fencing, which impacts on people’s lifestyle requires a high level of community support to be effective, and that is what we were not achieving. We did not have community support for the legislation as it stood. The government has listened and the government is responding because enforcing laws on our community which does not support them, is not going to get us there.
We did not get it right the first time round. We are sorry for the frustrations we have caused pool owners over the last year, and we are fixing that today. The current framework was clearly seen by the community to be inflexible and, as a result, did not gain the required level of support to be fully effective. Government has responded to these community concerns by replacing the existing legislation with new, simplified pool laws. It is important to note that government’s intention remains the same – to make backyard pools and spas safer for young children.
An issue under the old legislation that has been brought to the government’s attention is the potential for pool fencing compliance obligations to hold up property settlements and prevent people from leasing their properties. That is why, in discussions with the Real Estate Institute, the Real Estate Institute is supportive of this new legislation. The government today is debating new, simplified legislation. Properties requiring compliance certificates for sale or lease are prioritised and inspectors go to great lengths to ensure that, wherever possible and practicable, these requirements are accommodated.
Pool owners have a responsibility to ensure they have an effective and appropriate barrier surrounding their pool. All pool owners have been encouraged to upgrade their pool barriers to the appropriate standard. Those who have not done so and who require major works to achieve compliance with the appropriate standard may have their property settlement held up. This has happened to some pool owners under the old legislation. The new, simplified rules will make this process quicker for existing pool owners. It includes provisional compliance certificates, declaration of proposed compliance and temporary compliance certificates. What this means is that the purchaser and vendor can reach an agreement at the point of sale that might see the purchaser take on responsibility for upgrading the safety of a pool. This is a sensible and commonsense provision. Pool fencing compliance is now simply part of the conveyancing process that needs to be considered early by the vendor as would pest, termite, Building Board inspections, engineering inspections, etcetera.
Mrs Sue Shearer, the CEO of the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, has come out in strong support for the range of amendments to the act. I quote Mrs Shearer as follows:
- We are pleased that commonsense prevailed and reasoning prevailed. If a purchaser and a vendor want to do a
deal and say, ‘Well, no, I do not like the pool, but I will fix it, I will take on that responsibility’, it is about
putting responsibility back where it belongs and that is on the individual, making people responsible for their
own actions, for their own yard, and that is what it is all about, really.
So, there is strong support from the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory.
In relation to self declaration, members of the community will have the capacity to interpret and understand the Community Safety Standard guidelines. The guidelines are not the standard; they are merely there to assist the community in interpreting the actual standard as defined in clause 11 of the bill, that being:
- (a) the swimming pool barrier must be of a design that is, and constructed, sited and maintained in a way that
is, practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances, to prevent a child from gaining unsupervised
access to the swimming pool;
This is the nub of it. We have gone from retrospective, prescriptive Australian standards to a commonsense approach, which means that members of our community will be able to determine in a practicable and reasonable way the standard of the pool fencing so a child can not gain unsupervised access to the swimming pool.
I will give a practical example of the problems that we were facing. A constituent of mine, and also a very good friend, called me around to his home after the pool inspectors had been. He had a pool fence that had been erected some 10 or 12 years ago by Aquarius Pools and Spas, a very well respected Darwin company. The bars on his fence were 10.5cm apart. There was no way a child could have got through that barrier. But the legislation said Australian Standards, and Australian Standards are 10cm. So, my constituent was faced with a big problem: he had to replace his fence at extraordinary cost for the sake of 0.5cm.
There is no doubt that this is impracticable, unreasonable and certainly would no more prevent a child from entering and drowning in that pool than the barrier that he had already in place. He will not have to do that now. This bill will ensure that his fence is now meeting the community standard and a child is no more likely to drown in his pool today than it would have been if he had been forced to comply with the Australian Standards and construct bars that were 10cm apart as opposed to 10.5cm apart. That particular constituent is a pretty happy person as a result of this new bill, and children are still safe in our community.
To repeat the principle: the Community Safety Standard is that the barrier must be effective in preventing a child up to five years old from gaining unsupervised access to the pool. It is a practical and sensible solution to upgrade the safety of pre-existing pools. Guidelines have been developed to assist the community in understanding how to achieve this, but these are just that: guidelines. The technical detail included in the guidelines is necessary to assist people in understanding what constitutes a safe barrier. The Community Safety Standard recognises that individuals have the right to make a judgement regarding the safety level of their pool barrier. Obligation free advice will be available from pool safety advisors to assist pool owners in understanding the requirements of the Community Safety Standard.
A comprehensive public education and awareness campaign will also assist pool owners, and the community in general, in understanding why the particular numbers and measurements are a necessary part of the standards. For example, take the recommendation that any gaps or spaces in a barrier should not exceed 100 mm. Again, that is the example that I just gave. Pool owners choosing to upgrade to this standard will be making an informed decision about whether they are willing to assume a level of responsibility for their pool barrier, in accordance with the guidelines and guiding principles.
A pool owner’s liability will not change under the new legislation. Individual circumstances under common law will always dictate liability. Pool owners choosing to self-declare under the Community Safety Standards should only be concerned about liability if they do not tell the truth on their declarations. Pool owners who act in good faith will not have their liability affected. Ultimately, neither the new Community Safety Standard nor the declarations will alter a pool owner’s liability. People have always been responsible for their own backyards. This legislation acknowledges and accepts that.
The cost of this legislation is reasonable. People in the Territory enjoy a unique lifestyle. Unlike down south, many people in Darwin have pools and spas. We need them in the heat and, in the Top End at least, we have beaches we often cannot swim in. The grants scheme, as described by my colleague, is the best way of getting people to upgrade the safety of their pools, sooner rather than later. The costs involved are of a benefit to the whole community as water safety is everybody’s responsibility. The education and awareness campaign will ensure that everyone understands water safety. All stakeholders during the review process asked for an ongoing education and awareness campaign. Good public education campaigns do work, Madam Speaker.
I support the changes in this bill that remove the need for the new Community Safety Standard and the modified Australian Standard to check over the neighbour’s fence before giving a pool the tick as safe. Again, one of the major problems with the old legislation was the impact that obstacles and foliage - trees, sheds, pool pumps, whatever - on the neighbour’s side of the fence, the impact that that had on the declaration and determination of the height of the fence under the Australian Standard.
I understand that the majority of the problems have emerged when neighbours were asked to make modifications to their property to ensure the owner of the backyard pool or spa could comply or, conversely, if the neighbour was not prepared to make modifications, the impact on the owner of the pool or spa to increase the height of the barrier to counteract the issue on the neighbour’s side of the fence - a very real problem. It is very sensible that neighbouring properties will no longer affect the compliance of a backyard pool or spa fence. Pool owners can only be responsible for their own backyard. It is the responsibility of neighbours to make sure that their children and those children in their care are safe.
The review found that there is overwhelming community support for safer pools, however, people also want to protect the amenity of their backyard. Government has struck a balance between people’s individual right to do what they like in their yard, and the community responsibility for ensuring the safety of young children. Under the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act people with existing pools only need to upgrade to the new Community Safety Standard at the point of sale or the change of tenancy. They can choose to upgrade to the modified Australian Standard if they want to. This gives people the opportunity to make a decision regarding the safety of their pools. It is a careful balance and there is a generous grant scheme to assist pool owners to make that decision.
I emphasise that the Swimming Pool Safety Bill will not affect the responsibility of neighbours. The liability of a neighbour, acting in good faith, who believes the barrier they have is effective, will not be affected. However, we are well aware that people will want to learn about what is and what is not a safe barrier and a community education and awareness campaign will address this.
Pool Safety Advisors will be available to all members of the community, including neighbours of pool owners, to provide individual advice. Any neighbour who is concerned about the safety of a fence they share with a neighbour who has a pool, can ask an advisor to visit. We live in a community and part of living in a community is having neighbours. Neighbours will impact on each other, potentially in numerous ways: loud music, barking dogs, yelling kids and dangerous fences. We need to aware of, and look after, each other. Neighbourhood Watch is an example of a positive community impact. The new simplified pool laws reduce the impact on neighbours of their next door neighbour’s pool. This is a good result. Neighbours can now make their own judgments on the safety of their backyards without worrying about the impact their decision will have on their neighbour’s ability to comply with the appropriate standard or their ability to sell or rent their home.
Under the swimming pool safety bill, if the pool owner decides to use a shared boundary fence as the pool fence, they will advise their neighbour. Accordingly, the neighbour will receive a letter notifying them that a pool is next door and that the boundary fence is part of the pool barrier. The neighbour will be informed that this barrier could provide access to the swimming pool. The Swimming Pool Safety Authority will provide form letters for pool owners to use. This letter to the neighbour will be a great improvement on the former practice as it increases awareness amongst neighbours of pool safety issues. If a neighbour is concerned about the pool next door, they are able to get free advice from the Pool Safety Advisory Unit for their own property. If they consider that the pool next door is a dangerous pool, then they can also get advice and resolve the issue.
What we have here is a genuine attempt on behalf of government. A government that has listened to concerns of the community, a government which is determined to improve pool safety in the Northern Territory, to try to minimise to the maximum extent possible the tragedy of pool drownings in the Northern Territory, a statistic that really did blight the Northern Territory holding the record of having the highest incidence of child drownings in Australia by a long way, and recognition by our government that we have a responsibility to the youngest and most vulnerable people in our community.
We accept that the application of the laws caused significant problems given that Australia Standards were mandated and applied retrospectively. We have acknowledged that by repeal of the old bill, the introduction of this bill, the new Community Safety Standards, a grant scheme, and an education package to assist people to bring their pools up to the Community Safety Standard. I point that out, in stark contrast, to the previous government which had acknowledged in 1994, in this House, that the situation that we had in the Northern Territory then was unacceptable; that children were drowning in pools across the Northern Territory unnecessarily, and through the processes of government, determined back in 1999-2000 that they would introduce legislation, but for whatever reason, they never got around to doing it.
Madam Speaker, we have the courage to try to do something because children are the most important asset in our community. We acknowledge that we got our first attempt wrong. However, we are confident that this legislation will be accepted by the broader community as a genuine attempt to ensure that as much as possible children do not have unsupervised access to swimming pools in the Northern Territory, and the tragedy of children drowning can be minimised where ever possible. I urge all members of this House to support this legislation. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Madam Speaker, I do not intend to go to the details of the legislation because there are a couple of issues and potential problems with the legislation that have been raised by my colleague, the shadow minister. I am sure they will be addressed in the committee stages, including one that has been raised separately with me that I am sure also will be addressed and that is the issue regarding the liability or otherwise of councils whose land borders private dwellings. The wording of the bill, in its current form, does not give them the indemnity that they are looking for.
The reason I do not intend to address the legislation itself is because, frankly, it is not worth it. I have never seen such hypocrisy ever in this House in the way the government can now talk about community support for this legislation. There is no doubt there will be community support for this legislation; the community attitude has not changed. The community attitude has been that the primary responsibility for safety of backyard pools lies with the owner. If anything, the responsibility above that, is to give the owner some sort of certainty as to their legitimacy or otherwise in the standards that they have put in place. That has been provided in the past by local government with the by-laws that they have enacted in their own jurisdictions.
In the case of Palmerston, where I have my experience, the by-laws that are in place, I believe, worked well and were supported by the community. It is some surprise to me to read in the second reading speech that, in the opinion of the government, Palmerston City Council was doing almost nothing to enforce their own by-laws. I know that, from a number of examples, even in my own street, people have been taken to court by Palmerston City Council for not meeting the by-laws that they have in place with regards to pool fencing. Palmerston City Council has never stepped back, ever, enforcing it right through the legal process, if they had to, to get compliance.
The real issue here is the issue of this Labor government. The member for Wanguri never ceases to amaze me as a individual. He can make utterances in this House that are really trolling about as low depths as any politician can troll. He is not backward in putting a political spin on comments, either to an individual politician or to a previous government to suit his own purpose. Whilst outside of this House I find him a likeable and agreeable sort of a chap, I never cease to be surprised by the depths some of his comments and press releases can go to. We had an example the other day, in fact, Madam Speaker, where you acted quickly and decisively to have those comments expunged from the Hansard record. He is not backward in quickly putting out a press release commenting on whether the opposition is present in this House or not, and the hypocrisy of that is just simply amazing.
Everyone in this House knows the duties that politicians have, on either side of the House, and anyone who has been in this House, including the member for Wanguri, when the Labor Party were in opposition would be the first to say there are good reasons why politicians are not in this House. There are not good reasons when politicians are down at the MGM Casino and spend more time at the Casino during parliamentary sittings than they do in this Chamber – something the CLP could have made much of if we had decided to follow that sort of route. The Labor Party does not have any standard that they can set in terms of their own track record in this area.
The important thing to remember, though, is that in government you have all the resources of the public service, and for some of the members of this House who have never seen it otherwise, enjoy it while it lasts, because once you are in opposition you will realise that you do not have all this information there at a moment’s notice. You have to do a lot of research on your own, and you do not have the advisors to help you, and that takes an enormous amount of work. It should be understood clearly by government, that if they want a responsible opposition, those opposition members need to get out of this Chamber and do their research and access information as happens from time to time during parliament.
Nikita Khrushchev once said: ‘Politicians are the same the world over. They always promise to build a bridge even if there’s no river’. That is an interesting comment to dwell on today, because what we are really dealing with in this legislation is the Labor Party deciding there was a river and they were going to build a bridge. It was not just the Labor Party; it was Clare Martin. The river was that toddler drownings were so serious that she was going to build a bridge, and the bridge was to enact pool fencing legislation that would meet a far higher standard than had ever been in place in the Northern Territory in the past.
Let’s get something straight: pools that have not been built do not drown kids. That is the first thing. So the issue was not new pools and the standards around those new pools. The standard that the Chief Minister was addressing was the poor standards that currently existed on existing pools in the Northern Territory and she acted to address that issue. The shadow minister has gone through the process of that legislation being enacted and where we have ended up today. I have one simple question that I think every Territorian knows full well, even though they will support this legislation: if the Chief Minister’s actions at the time were designed to protect toddlers, what is she doing now for toddlers? Every member of the Labor Party should sit down and ask themselves that question because you are a bunch of bloody hypocrites.
Madam SPEAKER: Uh-uh! Withdraw that.
Mr BURKE: I withdraw ‘bloody’, Madam Speaker. I thought it was fairly common terminology in Australia, but you are a bunch of hypocrites, you really are.
If you come in here and say existing pools are substandard in their safety requirements with fences, and you are going to enact legislation and take the responsibility to ensure that government has legislation and powers in place to ensure that toddlers are protected with this new legislation, where are you now? You cannot stand there and say you have a good standard of pool fencing in the Northern Territory. You cannot criticise local government and say, ‘Oh, surprise, surprise. Eighty per cent of Darwin’s by-laws were not being adhered to. Forty or 50% of Palmerston’s by-laws were not being adhered to. But guess what we have done to protect toddlers? We are going to make sure that no one is looking because we are going to bring in a check list, and you as the owner can say, “I have a pool. No one is ever going to check this pool, but here is my checklist that gets me through the barrier”. I can go tick, tick, tick and sign the form and send it in if I want to’. You call that the new Community Safety Standard and protecting children. What hypocrisy!
If we are going to be the highly paid politicians that we are, and that people know we are, and they like to get some bang for their buck, let’s give them something. The end result of this is a total back flip by the government. It is a shame on the Chief Minister, and it is typical of her. She is covered in all the glory when the big statements are made. This is my legislation, Clare Martin’s face is everywhere, I’m protecting children, I’m acting where the CLP didn’t do it in the past. Where is she now? Gone! Where is Clare Martin’s leadership? Sorry, Madam Speaker. Where is the Chief Minister’s leadership on this issue now? Gone! It is an absolute disgrace.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: Anyone who reads through the second reading…
Members interjecting.
Mr Ah Kit: Didn’t you mob take your tablets this morning?
Mr BURKE: ‘Didn’t you take your tablets this morning?’ – this really does go to the fact that we all have our faults, as the minister said today when he was disorganised for a motion. We all have our faults and weaknesses, but can’t we have some sense of integrity sometimes? If not for ourselves, but for children. I stand here now unashamedly, and say to you the issue of child drowning was a supervisory problem. If you look at those drownings, you will see it was a supervisory problem. We looked at it.
- Members interjecting.
But if you are going to do something, stand by your principles. The principles of this Labor government were that the existing standards of pool fencing, particularly in the northern suburbs, that is where you focussed most of your effort, and that is why you jumped too, because of the feedback you were getting, particularly in the northern suburbs, was sub-standard. Council by-laws were no good. Existing standards of fencing out there were no good, children were vulnerable and you were going to do something about it.
The end result, after doing what the Labor Party always does, is that when it comes to principle or politics, you pick the politics any time and you throw the principles straight out the window.
Ms Lawrie: You don’t even know principles.
Mr BURKE: The member for Mouseland or whatever over there says, ‘You don’t even know what principles are’. Well, we can talk about that any time.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member for Brennan knows that we have to refer to each other by our electorates. He is insulting again.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, member for Karama. Withdraw that, member for Brennan.
Mr BURKE: The very temporary member for Karama.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr BURKE: If the member for Karama had any principles, she would do what her mother did and become an Independent because this Labor Party has no principles. It has no principles. Maybe you will become an Independent. You reckon you are interested in the welfare of children’s safety. You were so proud of the fencing legislation …
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member’s comments should be directed to the Chair, not across the Chamber.
Madam SPEAKER: Speak to me, member for Brennan.
Mr BURKE: Yes, Madam Speaker. In fact, I would rather, Madam Speaker, for you are far more attractive. Maturely attractive.
Madam SPEAKER: Be careful!
Mr BURKE: When it comes to principles, the principles have been thrown out the window. How can any member of the Labor Party, really, even though this legislation will have popular support, reconcile with yourself that on one day, the existence of pools in the northern suburbs and Palmerston under council by-laws is insufficient and you have to act and bring in higher standards, and the next day you introduce legislation and say the standards are out the window?
The Community Safety Standard is a joke. Call it what you like. It does not have to be registered. It is self-certifying. Under a regime where you are already saying, from the information that you have, that even with councils trying to implement these sorts of by-laws in the past, you could only get 40% compliance or 80% compliance, so your aim to get greater compliance has been thrown clean out the window.
Your only interest now is to get this thing out of the way to ensure it does not become an issue for you any more. The legislation will achieve that, but in terms of your principles and the aims and objectives of increasing toddler safety in the Northern Territory, there is one little, quiet element out there that you left right behind on this whole thing, and that is children’s safety. It was the children’s safety principle that you said you would fix and it is the children of the Northern Territory under your principles, not mine, that you have now abandoned with this legislation.
Debate suspended.
DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, it is nice to see His Honour the Administrator, Mr Ted Egan, back in the Speaker’s Gallery.
Members: Hear, hear!
VISITOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, also present in the Gallery is Warrant Officer Poo Yong Tan RSM from the Singapore School of Armour on exchange with the 1st Armoured Regiment, accompanied by Sergeant Scruton. On behalf of the honourable members, I extend to you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
SWIMMING POOL SAFETY BILL
(Serial 206)
(Serial 206)
Continued from earlier this day.
Mrs AAGAARD (Nightcliff): Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Swimming Pool Safety Bill. This is important legislation. It balances the safety of our children with a workable regime to ensure suitable fencing for our swimming pools.
The Territory has one of the highest rates of swimming pool ownership, which is not very surprising given the climate, and we also have a very sad history of drownings, with the highest drowning rate in the nation. My electorate of Nightcliff has a high proportion of swimming pools and, like most members in this House, I have had representations from constituents on the swimming pool legislation. Without exception, the people who have contacted me have said that they wanted our children properly cared for around swimming pools, but they were concerned about the legislation relating to pools that were established prior to January 2003.
I congratulate the minister for bringing forward this bill. It shows real leadership in recognising that while the government was trying to protect our children, something was lost in the translation and Territorians found themselves faced with laws that were not workable.
This new legislation is a practical and workable solution to a complex situation. Some of the key changes to the legislation include modifications so that a neighbouring property will not affect a pool or spa’s compliance. For pre-existing pools and spas, that is those installed prior to January 2003, a new minimum safety standard will be introduced known as the Community Safety Standard. This standard will require effective barriers to be in place, without the inflexibility of the current system.
There have been speakers such as the member for Macdonnell who have suggested that the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will reduce the standards required for pool fencing. Under the proposed act, pool owners will not be able to reduce the standards of their existing pool fence. Similarly, any pools that are at the Australian standards will not be able to reduce the standard of their pool.
The swimming pool safety bill also has a new provision for dangerous pools. This provision will ensure that those pools that are currently dangerous will have to improve the standard of their pool fence. Similarly, perimeter fencing only will no longer be permitted. The legislation is about improving the standard of pools that are really dangerous to small children, while encouraging other pool owners to improve their pool fence to meet the modified Australian Standard.
One of the concerns which has been raised is in regards to how the standards will be enforced. The same major trigger points for compliance will exist: pools will have to meet the required standards at property sale and change of lease. In addition to these triggers, there will be a dangerous pools provision that was not present under the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. This provision will allow the Swimming Pool Safety Authority the power to require pool owners to improve the standard of their pool. Also, a natural audit process is available through property transfer or lease. There is also a provision under the act to give the authority power to enforce the standard by ordering the works and applying penalties where a pool owner has made a false declaration.
There has been some suggestion that pool safety advisors will be sneaking around backyards. Pool safety advisors will not be sneaking around backyards. There are provisions under the bill that determine how and under what circumstances a pool safety advisor can visit a property. However, in order to ensure accountable administration of public funds, declarations will need to be audited. This is what all Territorians would expect in relation to the use of public funds.
The government has also included a new Safe Pool Grant to assist Territorians to safely secure their pre-existing pool or spa. The government will contribute 75% of the cost of upgrading to a maximum of $3000 for the new Community Safety Standard, or $4000 for the modified Australian Standard. These grants will be available until December 2007. No other jurisdiction offers this financial assistance to upgrade pool safety. Similarly, owners of pre-existing pools who have already upgraded their fences under the current system will be eligible to apply for a Safe Pool Grant. Existing loans will be converted to grants, and loan amounts already paid will be refunded in line with the new grant scheme. The importance of these grants is that it encourages people to protect their pools sooner rather than later.
It is also good to know that there will continue to be ongoing water safety campaigns, as part of the Five Point Water Safety Plan. Young children need to be supervised when they are anywhere near water, whether it is a swimming pool or a spa, or near the sea, or in fact near buckets of water. As a parent, I know that I taught my children to swim at a very young age. It is very important always to supervise your children, so the Five Point Water Safety Plan is something which all of us in this House would consider very important.
These are important laws that will make the safety of our children paramount, but will ensure a workable system. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I will make a few short comments on the new bill. I understand why the government wants to bring the bill forward quickly, as it obviously wants to fix some of the problems associated with the original bill. From the other side of the coin, the community needed more time to see what this bill was about. The government called for comments. A report was written up, and from that report we have the legislation here before us today. I believe that legislation needed to have time to be tested in the community. Two weeks really is not a great length of time. I did get a briefing from the government, and I appreciate that. However, as you know, once parliament sits it is a fairly rushed time, and to get your head around this act while we are dealing with other matters, makes it fairly difficult and it does not give you much time to run it past other people in your electorate.
Be that as it may, I appreciate the government has tried to do something about a bill that, when it was first introduced, I remarked that this bill was going to start up a mini-department of swimming pool fence attendants. That is exactly what it has done. To some extent, the words I spoke in parliament at the time this was introduced have come back; the government has taken those matters into consideration, probably not because I said them, probably because eventually someone said that there was a better way around it. The idea of not having to have your swimming pool registered until the point of sale, or when it is leased, was exactly the issue I was trying to get at. You could have done this a lot more diplomatically rather than with a fairly bureaucratic sledgehammer. That is part of the reason that the government has got itself into this problem.
The member for Brennan mentioned this issue, and other people have spoken to me about it, and it is an area that I believe should have been given more consideration. Regarding the community safety standards, I gather from reading the guidelines that the owner of a pool is able to self-declare that they meet the community safety standards. That might be all very well and it may pass the responsibility back to the owner - and most of us agree that a fair bit of the issue of safety and swimming pools is about the responsibility of the owner of the pool, and parents to have responsibility for their children – but I am not sure that when someone signs off on a community safety standard fence that they know what they are signing off. Does the neighbour know what has been signed off? How can government absolve itself of all responsibility once those people have signed the form?
I say that from the government’s perspective, because the government has said no inspection is required. You can get some advice, which is very good, but there is no enforcement of the community safety standard guidelines. You can sign a piece of paper stating, ‘I believe my fence is capable of being a safe and secure pool barrier’. If there is a hole in the fence that the owner did not see – or they might have seen but did not realise that it would be big enough for a child to get through – or the neighbour did not keep the maintenance up on their fence – he might have even run the lawnmower along it and slashed it and made a hole in it by accident – or if the neighbour left something up against the fence one day while he was doing some cleaning, how much of the responsibility is now going to be handed back to those people if a child drowns in the pool?
I am unsure where this community safety standard fence concept is going to lead us. I agree with the member for Brennan that, to some extent by having this here, you have actually lowered the standards from those the councils had. Whether this is very similar to a council is not the issue; the council would have inspected it to make sure it came up to those safety guidelines. We are now putting the onus back onto the owner to say, ‘Yes, I believe that fence is adequate’. This new set of guidelines - this new concept – needs to be thought through a little more. I will be interested in the minister’s response as to whose responsibility is what, especially if, sadly, a child has drowned in a pool that has been signed off as a suitable, safe and secure barrier.
It is good that the government has continued with the grant scheme – probably better than the loan scheme. It is good because it basically encourages people who do not want to go down that path, or are a bit hesitant because of cash flow or whatever, the incentive to upgrade their pool fence. I was going to ask whether ‘upgrade’ in this case means money set aside to build a new pool fence, because there are a number of people in the rural area, under the 1.8 hectare maximum block size, who never had a pool fence. I am interested to see whether an ‘upgrade’ means the ability to use that money to actually start building a fence.
The other side of the new grant scheme that concerns me is how much paperwork will now be commenced with reimbursing some of those people who had a loan under the old scheme, and could now rightly say, ‘You have now changed the rules and are giving out grants. I would like to have the grant so I do not have to keep paying my loan’. I would be interested to know how much paperwork and bureaucracy that change is going initiate and how easy or difficult it will be to track all that down.
With regard to the Palmerston City Council amendment, I note that the government has given us some amendments today which appear to change the issue that Palmerston City Council brought forward about the maintenance of a fence where one side is council land and the other side is private. From what I read of the new amendments, that will be fixed up at the committee stage.
Lastly, it is just a pity that sometimes we did not look at the act, and you might say, ‘Oh, well, you are talking in retrospect or hindsight’, but I just don’t think we sat down and thought about this well enough in the first place. I mentioned even the option of the fences being part of the Building Code. I say again, I still think it should be part of the Building Code. It is probably too late now, but we all know if you want to build a fence one metre high in the cyclone area, you require an Engineering Certificate. Why fences for swimming pools could not have been part of the Building Advisory Services or the private certifiers, I do not know. They could have done the job, they could have been given the list of guidelines and away they could have gone.
It is good to see that government has come back with some changes. Some of them are certainly sensible. The idea of allowing the purchaser of a house to now put up the fence, instead of necessarily the seller, will save a fair bit of mucking about, and also in some cases where someone who is selling their house does not really want to see their landscaping destroyed with a new fence. At least they are well and truly gone and the new purchaser will have to deal with that. That certainly was an issue for many people who had well established gardens around their pool. They were certainly upset that they would be required to put a fence through all the work they had done over the years.
In general, I support what is going on, but I do have some serious concerns about the new community safety standard fence. That has a lot of grey areas around it. I would like an explanation or clarification of the legality of signing off and stating that the fence fits within these guidelines that have been handed out, and what the consequences would be if perhaps I was not quite as careful checking something out that was on this list, and there is a tragedy in the pool.
With that, I will be interested to hear the rest of the debate and also at the committee stage.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, it is said that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. That is what we have before us. When this issue first came to this parliament there were things that were said in debate to government that they did not listen to. Again, we have them not listening. They were told they were moving too quickly. They were told they were not being inclusive, particularly of specialist, knowledgeable bodies such as councils which have been doing this work for some time, and they still are not involving specialist, knowledgeable bodies.
So we are off on another path where we are hurriedly going to try to fix something and we do not know what it is. We know it starts with being sorry, so what we are trying to fix is a muck up. The government commenced this by saying, ‘We have made such an absolute botch of this that we are sorry’. So let’s make the assumption what they are fixing up will fix up all that damage that they have caused. Let’s also be honest enough to say damage was caused. You do not say sorry if you did not cause offence to people. So, stage 1, big muck up, caused offence, caused problems, caused chaos. Stage 2, we will fix it up. Well, I do not think it will, because you are still not listening. You are still going too quickly, and you are still playing some of these emotional cards that really should not come into this debate.
It is good that the government has commenced this debate with apologising, because that goes some way, you would think, to admitting that what we have been trying to say was not that we are not caring about tragedy and childhood death, we are not saying that this should be a total hands-off issue for government, we are saying you could do this in a smarter way and be less intrusive about people’s backyards.
The urgency is a very serious matter. If you go to Standing Order 179, Madam Speaker, it is headed ‘Urgent Bills; and I will read it:
- The Speaker may, on the application of the Chief Minister, or a minister acting on his behalf, declare a bill to be
an urgent bill if he is satisfied that the delay of one month provided by Standing Order 178 could result in
hardship being caused.
There is the potential for more hardship by ramming through legislation that is flawed, poor in its intent and which is, in any event, almost a pendulum effect where you have gone from one extreme to another. There is still good, solid ground that could be signed off by virtually this whole parliament in the middle. There is still ground to be defined in the middle. You tell us why it is urgent. You tell us why there is hardship being caused in this one month. You tell us why you are being urgent again and rushing something through that will again cause us a problem.
Thanks for the apology. What it does is puts to bed this myth that we are acting for trite, emotional, political or other reasons.
When you start talking about compensation, there are three areas I would like the minister to touch on exactly because in trying to get some detail here, the opposition was unable to do so in Question Time. I will give you three case scenarios and I want to know, yes or no, do they come in.
Scenario 1: gentleman with a spa who, because he had a small apartment, which he let out, he was almost incapable of fencing it off. He came to the decision that he would remove the spa, which he did. He cut it up, it was in pieces, he rang the pool people because he could not tenant this flat. One would hope that that would be part of the compensation, the fact that it could not be tenanted because he had this offending spa. Then he faced the problem that he had to be on-site to let the inspector in to inspect the dismantled, broken down spa. He said, ‘It is outside. You can see it. You will see that it is dismantled to the extent that it cannot be put back together’. ‘No, no, no. We need access your house in case you have one inside, so we want to inspect the whole thing’. At about this stage he went right off. The point is that he now has an asset worth less because of this government’s legislation. What really galls him is that he dismantled this spa on the Saturday before the announcement that he did not have to. He wants to know: ‘My asset that was worth X plus a spa is now just worth X, and I want to know if I can claim it to reinstall the spa. I want to know if that period when I could not let it is claimable’. That is case one.
Scenario 2: these are acquaintances of mine in Palmerston. They, too, faced the proposition under which they could not let their place for some time. They were faced with a fencing bill of some $2000 or the removal of the spa for $2000 and really tossed up. In the end, they were half-way through their fencing and remediation action when this situation changed. That place has been untenanted and has cost this family with young children a substantial amount of money.
Scenario 3: this is a very interesting one because it involves a deceased estate where they sought to transfer the property, which did not have a pool. They had to fill in some declaration to say, ‘We certify this does not have a pool’. It is interesting now that these declarations have great sway with government. You can sign something and say, ‘Yes, it is tickety-boo’. But not long ago, you had to sign something saying, ‘I hereby swear to the government that I do not have a pool’. This gentleman was overseas at the time and sought to do so by statutory declaration. They said, ‘No, no, no, it can’t be done like that. You have to have a real estate person or someone …’ – it took some months. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that they had anticipated selling the property and using the capital to move in elsewhere and some undertakings had been made about purchase, and I think even some bridging finance had been arranged.
When you talk about, ‘Oh, it’s a fence’ and ‘someone built a fence and they didn’t have to’, there is more than that. You have intruded on people’s lives. You have stopped them letting property, which is their asset. You have made them downgrade their asset. You have forgone rent, you have all the trauma that goes with it. I know another case where they came around and said, ‘Look, this fence is climbable. If you put perspex over the front of it, you should be right’. So a big sheet of perspex went up. We had those high winds and the whole fence is cracked. So, that fence, which had stood for 15 years or so before, is now damaged because of this foolhardy pool legislation.
We want to see how this compensation works. The government has to remember that most of the people who have complied thus far have left. Most of the people were selling their places, they are now somewhere else, so it is quite a complex matter to gather together all of these receipts and documents, and diary notes and rent books, and put the case to government. But that is what is in front of us, and I guess that is why it is going to cost us $21m, because the debacle is probably as foolish as the rest of it. The urgency is a problem therefore, the compensation is an issue.
I now move to the issue of who is responsible. We all know it is going to be the land holder. Right? So it is going to be someone filling in a form saying I think it roughly complies, sorry, approximately is the word – it approximately applies. We had a front page, with a very jovial David Coles, with his fingers thus far apart. For Hansard I will say it is 10 mm. He is quite happy, he is saying, ‘Yes we knocked this bloke back because of that much, ha ha’. Well, people do not think that is funny. I reckon it is a really gutsy effort for him to be photographed doing that. What we are now saying is you have gone from a child could die if this fence is this far out, that was the call. And I will tell you why the call was made. When I queried this with people, they said, ‘Look, the problem you have is, if it is out by that much, the Coroner can say it is non-compliant’. The whole fence is non-compliant because it is out by that much. Because of the rigidity of it, we have to say it is either in or it is out.
What we have moved to now is there is enough slop in the system to say, ‘1.2, 1.6, yes, it is about right. A kid this fat is not going to get through’. You have a big problem on your hands, because you have gone from such - and there is photographic evidence – a strict system with absolutely no latitude, to a system with so much latitude that I believe you have some big problems in terms of what is compliant and what is not. There is no register for a start, so you do not even know who has pools. You have no idea who has pools out there. There is no register.
Mr Ah Kit: It is good to see that you are against all of this.
Mr DUNHAM: No. I will pick up that interjection – it is good to see that you are against all of this. Now, we are against all of this situation. The government has decided they are all against situation (a). They are now putting to us situation (b) and saying we have to sign up. Well, we are not signing up for sloppy legislation, mate. This place has a duty to inspect bills that come before it. Normally, they sit here for two sittings. Normally, we are able to go back to our constituents with your legislation and show it. What we have here is a two week abbreviated consultation over Christmas, gammon consultation and you know it.
Next we have a report that comes out of – no, I have not seen that report either. The report is supposed to inform us that the legislation is in accord with the report. Those links have yet to be demonstrated. We have yet to see the public consultation led inexorably to a report that reflected that, led inexorably to a piece of legislation that reflected the report. Those links have to be drawn. If they cannot be drawn, then you either have consulted and have not listened, and I note the Darwin City Council was not on your list, by the way. They are the very people I would have gone to first. The major inspector of pools for years and years has been the Darwin City Council. They should have been involved in this from day one. I have a pool. When it was inspected by the Darwin City Council, it was knocked back three times. On three occasions they knocked it back. I thought they were pretty petty things, in every case. One was a rock that came 10 mm above where the bottom rung of the fence was. I thought, well, that is an exercise in pedantry, but okay, let us have a go. I had fully, totally complied, and it exists as a compliant fence to this day. Interestingly, under this legislation, and the previous legislation, I did not need a fence. Notwithstanding I am in suburbia and have hundreds of kids living within a kilometre of my place, I did not need a fence, because I was on 2 hectares.
The minister said in a news article, ‘We are going to force Australian Standards, and it is uniformly applied to every Territorian’. That is wrong and wrong. They were not Australian Standards as we know - as we know chain mesh fencing was below the Australian Standard - and they did not apply to many Territorians who lived out of our major centres. Therefore, unless you are actually going to have that parcel of legislative intent held true, you are actually telling fibs.
Now we have another go at this thing and it is a giant mess. We have walked into people’s backyards - and all of us have been to barbecues – and, I assume, also the pool inspectors - where people get there little drill out, put it on reverse, and pull out the four Tec screws, and lift the panels out and put up against the back fence so that their pergola and outdoor area is the same as it was. We all know a gate can be propped open, a fence can become climbable with objects held against it. Therefore, it is not a catch all to say, ‘I have a fence that met Australian Standards when the pool inspector came around here on 7 July 2003’, because on 8 July it might not be. On the same day it might not be.
You have to have a policy that talks about preventing mortality and morbidity to children. That is your policy, and it is a policy that comes out of child accident prevention, immunisation, and the rest of it. You then you have to look at catchments - clusters of unfortunate cases where children have died who should not have - preventable deaths. In there you will find drowning. You have to then move to the next stage and say, ‘Is pool fencing a big issue?’ There are some claimants out there who will say, ‘It is the biggest issue’. Perhaps it is. That is the series of connections you have to make.
When the minister came out with his water wise and swimming safe and stuff, that is where we should have been. We should have talking about educating kids in school, CPR, the capacity for alarms in pools, and pool fencing in that suite of things. However, to divert so much attention to a one-fix solution is naivety in the extreme. It is as naive as the Chief Minister parading in here on her white horse as the knight in shining armour who is going to save every small child from drowning. It is a foolish notion. Probably the word ‘courageous’ has been used. It probably was courageous because, if she had really in her heart to hearts believed that a one-fix solution was all that was necessary, and that is what she did - I commend her for it. Stupid, but I commend her for it, because we all know that, if you look at the profile of drownings - including, a lot of adult drownings, I have to tell you, in places that are still unfenced - the issue is not that easy. If you want to say to Territorians, ‘It is your responsibility; you are the ones who are being lax. You have blood on your hands, therefore I am going to regulate and jam you on this thing’, that is where this debate started. It is a stupid debate.
Let us start by saying there is a shared responsibility. However, parental responsibility and individual responsibility sits up the top, and let us start there, and work our way down and see what part pool fencing plays - and it will play a part. Therefore, before you get up and say, ‘We would have all the pool fences pulled down’ – we would not, but we would not be so foolish to believe it is the only solution that you parade out. We would not be so stupid as to come in here and bang our chest, and say, ‘This is matter of such great import that it transcends anything you or anyone else might say. I am just going to go and do it’.
Having loftily transcended all of what she called irrelevant patter and rhetoric in this place, she now has an immense problem – it is an immense problem. That is: this ain’t gonna fix it. You have described what you want to do: you want to stop child drownings. You now have phase two of a bill in this parliament and it hurts me to say it, but it must be said: this bill will not do that, because that is the world, that is what we are faced with.
I am sadly being a realist. I do not want to see kids die either. I do not want to see kids drown. As I said, I have the capacity to remove my fence and would not do so. There are many of us in society who shoulder that responsibility, but they do not want to shoulder is singly. They do not want to say, ‘I do not have kids, I believe my pool fence is sufficient. I have incorporated it into my house design so I have that amenity’ - which the government has taken off them. There is an assessment of risk that could have been made here, and that is that this is not as a risky situation, for instances, as that.
I have also mentioned in this parliament that, if you drive down the main drive in to Fairway Waters you go past quite large tracts of water that have quite substantial drop-offs to them that I would consider to be fairly dangerous. The only ones that are fenced are the ones with the dinky little pools on the other side. So if you do not have a pool, you have unfettered access to the water; if you do you have something that will keep a Bengal tiger in.
This is not clever thinking. It was going to be Australian Standards; well it was not. It was going to apply to everybody; but it does not. It really is for swimming pools; but it is not. You can have a pool at this hotel across the road here at the Cavanagh. No problem. No fence. You can have bodies of water all around. The biggest drowning hazard in this place, as I have said before in this parliament, is the wharf. You have a trip hazard about that high. You have tides at 7 m rushing out so you have a very turbid water situation. You have a visibility problem on some occasions and we encourage young families and kids down there and sell grog there. If you really wanted to do a risk analysis, have a look folks. But don’t take my words to say Dunham says let’s put an 8 ft fence around Stokes Hill. I am saying that there is a balance and you would hope that the people who take small children would recognise that risk; you would hope they would see the risk for what it is; you would hope that that parental responsibility would have such a primacy in this whole argument about protecting children that you would not have to worry about a government intervention that said, ‘Sorry, we are going to fence it off and not let anybody in there’.
That is where you have to get to, minister. You have to tell us all about compensation and whether my constituents fit. You have to tell us what hardship would have been caused in the month, this month now between February and March, and in doing that, you are also giving a calibration to how much hardship has occurred before it. You have to tell us whether this will fix what the Chief Minister set out to do and that is the total elimination of childhood drownings. You have to tell us why the absolute accuracy depicted by David Coles on the front page of the paper with his fingers, the absolute accuracy is now a latitude that you can measure in footsteps. That would seem to be a fairly wide policy parameter, minister, and you have to tell us what that is all about. You have more than say sorry. If you say sorry, it is rhetoric. If you say sorry and I will fix it up, that is more pragmatic. And if you say sorry, there is $21m therefore I am out of here, really that is just an exit.
So what you have done is said, ‘What do we have pay to get out of this muck up, this flying muck up that Jack’s got us into? I know, let’s say we will put some money on the table, hand out $21m and let’s say it is up to the individual owner, and we are out of here’. So all we have is $21m, an apology and dust. That is all we have; the dust from the horses; the white knights who galloped in to save everybody. The white knights are now galloping over the horizon having left their $21m bucks on the table and a dear-sir-I’m-sorry note. That is all we have and this bill is something that has not put this to bed.
I was offended, and I did draw the attention of parliament to the minister’s language when he talked about this, and that is always going to be a problem. If you use the safety of children as a hostage in this debate I will find it a matter of great offence. If you say in this debate that somehow we are uncaring of our small children or their safety, I say to you that that very charge could be levelled at you with what you are doing here. I will not level it because I think that is the very debate that has taken us to this crazy, emotional interference of people’s backyard, erosion of their amenity, erosion of their lifestyle and the anger that we have seen in this place.
Some of that debate has been taking place out there with people pointing other people in the chest and talking about their capacity to care for children. Well, I do not think that should be injected in to it. Let’s focus on the broad intent and that is to ameliorate mortality and morbidity for Territory kids. Let’s start there. I do not care if the debate goes in to immunisation. I do not care if it goes in to schooling and modifying behaviours and risk taking behaviours. I do not care if it goes there. But just to pick one segment out and just to pick one solution out is how we got to this problem in the first place.
When this government keeps talking about whole-of-government this, holistic that, the approach across the thing that we heard in the health statements the other day, this is an example of how you do it. You just pick one switch, you switch it on with all the spot lights on you and all the fanfare and say, ‘Look! We’ve fixed it up. This was a big problem, and the Martin government fixed it up. We had the gumption to fix it up’. That is a trite debate because it is harder than that, and we all appreciate that it is harder than that; we know it is not a one switch problem. But you painted it like that, and you are stuck with it.
I hope you are able to make those contributions, minister. You could start by giving us the reason for this urgency and you could describe that hardship in some degree. Once you do that, multiply it by the number of months that this has been in place, and that is the pain you have caused out there.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I would like to open my contribution to the debate with the second paragraph of the minister’s second reading speech, in which he said:
- The Northern Territory has the highest drowning rate in the nation. In the last 10 years, over 100 Territory
families have experienced the trauma of a desperate rush to get health care for a child who made it into the
backyard pool.
That is why we have legislated to protect our youngest and most vulnerable. So, I do not give a hoot about the member for Drysdale saying, ‘Don’t bring that into the debate. Don’t bring that in.’ That is what started this debate in the first place, member for Drysdale. You cannot turn your back on it. Do not try to say it is irrelevant to this whole debate because it is not; it is what brought it on in the first place. The debate about pool safety has been going on in the Territory for at least 10 years, if not longer, when it has been actively pursued. What brought us to the point of pool safety legislation was that the swimming pool legislation in place by local councils was not good enough to stop this drowning rate.
In some areas, some councils might have had better legislation than others and we are not denying that. However, there was a call from the community for unified legislation regarding pool fencing. That is what got us here. We went into a consultative phase with councils, and we can all remember the headlines of the Lord Mayor of Darwin and the Chief Minister up on the 5th floor meeting and the Lord Mayor coming out and being all aggressive and anti the government’s position. We can all remember that, but that was the catalyst for this legislation on in the first place. So let us not say that the drowning rate of our children in our community is irrelevant to this debate and is purely emotive, and is a complete and utter fallacy. It is not, never was and never will be. It needs to be taken into consideration.
The driver for pool safety legislation is our concern for our children. Fencing is only one component of the government’s pool safety strategy, and it is not being driven by the insurance liability argument. We are not saying, ‘Put up a fence and that will reduce your liability for a child drowning in your pool or for an accident happening in your place’. Home liability is still there. You are still responsible and it would not matter what you have in your yard, whether you have a pool or not, anyone who comes into your yard and hurts themselves may hold you liable. Then you argue the case about whether your yard or your home is safe and what you have done to make it a safe environment or whether you have been neglectful.
This whole argument about liability is all rather spurious. It is up to the individual homeowner. Your home contents insurance has something like $20m liability coverage in there. For anyone who has had the prospect of someone who has visited their place injure themselves and then gone into litigation, you will know what it is all about. It has nothing to do with pool fencing, or falling into the water and whether you had a barrier. It is all about the safety of the place. The whole argument that pool fencing is being designed so that if you have it, you will not be liable and if you have somehow breached it, then you are more liable - well, it is a case by case basis.
Twelve months ago when we started this debate, I said, ‘Six years ago I was campaigning and unified pool fencing was a huge issue in the community’. Well, it is seven years now and it is still a huge issue; it has not backtracked one bit. There has been a lot of …
Ms Carney: In that case you have had seven years to get it right..
Mr KIELY: You buy cane toads, don’t you?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: You are so full of venom, it is the only way I thought you would ever get it. You are so full of venom, member for wherever you come from.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, just get on with your debate!
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, the whole issue of this legislation, what we are trying to do now, and to bring in a community standard, is because of representations made by community members to various people, to the pool inspectors, to the Pool Fencing Authority, and to local MLAs. I will give an idea of some of the issues that I have had to deal with in my electorate, people coming to me with issues regarding pool fencing. They have come into my office, they have approached me as the local MLA, not as the Labor Party MLA, but as the MLA for Sanderson, with issues.
There was a family living in Malak who had their pool inspected and it was found to be non-compliant. The reason for non-compliance was because the outside barrier fence, which was high enough, had an Austar communications box on the outside. They contacted the council and said, ‘Look, this is over your’ – this is the neighbour’s argument, sort of thing, ‘This is over there. Can you do anything?’ The council said, ‘No, we don’t want to know about that. That is an Austar issue’. They contacted Austar and Austar did not want to know anything about it, ‘No, that is a council issue’. They were in limbo. They came to me and I worked with them. We contacted the pool fencing people. They went out and inspected the pool. The solution was to erect a perspex barrier over the segment of the fence where the box was close to it. They said, ‘This seems fairly ridiculous, fairly pedantic’. I tended to agree with them. That was the legislation, it is an Australian Standard, it had to be there. A solution could be found which did not bring on hardship. It affected the aesthetics of the fence but they went with it. They were not happy about it. I made representations for them and that is how it was addressed.
There was another family. These people had ...
Ms Carney: You might have written this yourself, you know. I think it could be one of those. They are few and far between.
Mr KIELY: It is like a kid who missed out on its birthday party, isn’t it?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: There was another family who came to me. They had a block work fence and were told that it did not comply, and that they would have to cover that block work fence. Why? Because the gaps in the bricks were 110 mm not 100 mm. They thought this was unfair and I too thought it was a bit hard. So we contacted the Pool Fencing Authority and I believe that problem was sorted out to their satisfaction. Hang on! No, that one was not. That one is still sitting there in abeyance.
There was another one – and people might remember this – the chap in Tennison Circuit. It was in the NT News actually, and I think it was on local television. He was doing his block because he had had three visits; each time he had been upgrading his fence, and on the last one, he was pinged for having a small pipe running through the brickwork. He phoned up my office. I came down and said, ‘Yes, this does seem unreasonable’. No way could a kid get any purchase really on there but, because of the Australian Standard, it was deemed to be failing. The Pool Fencing Authority got involved in that and it was passed, because in the act there was that discretion, and it was passed.
I will read this letter that I wrote to the minister, because I had fielded a number of phone calls.
Mr Elferink: Are you plagiarising yourself, now?
Mr KIELY: You are a fool.
I wrote to the minister on 8 October 2003:
- I am writing to you following an increased frequency in constituent concerns and complaints in regard to
pool fencing legislation. A number of complaints have focussed on
communications pillars located on the street side of properties whose owners have been advised
that their pools do not comply due to the proximity of the structure.
The owners of pools do not have any influence over their neighbours’ properties and they are having
their pools listed as non-compliant through no fault of the owners.
neighbouring structures that have been in place for many years on the fence line and are the cause for
pools on the adjoining property being deemed non-compliant.
the existing separation fencing/wall failing certification because it is one or two centimetres outside
the ASA specifications.
- While the above problems affect the registration of existing pools, the presence of these types of impediments also
have an influence on the siting of new pools in individual property owner’s yards. An Anula family has approached
me because it is being forced into siting their pool in a less than satisfying location in the yard due to neighbouring
existing structures which, because of their proximity to the adjoining fence line, would preclude registration.
I have brought a number of these complaints to the pool authority’s attention and they have reinspected the
affected sites. However, in all cases, the same response has been forthcoming, with the end result being the pool
remains to be deemed unregisterable unless remedial works are undertaken by the pool owner (who has no control
over the environment outside of their own property line).
I understand the spirit of the legislation is to provide a barrier between backyard suburban pools and young children
who are not aware of the dangers of water. However, I do question the proposition that a child under five may
knowingly, or unknowingly, walk along a suburban street, climb onto an Austar communications box and use this
to scale a fence which they then have to drop over to get into the water and remain undetected. Similarly, I consider
it highly improbable that a child at this stage of their development would scale a tree, balance along a branch and
drop two metres into a body of water without being detected.
I also need to bring to your attention the situation whereby people who have had their pool inspected by the
authority and been given 90 days notice to rectify any deficiencies …
Ms Carney: Will you table that letter?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
- Mr KIELY: … Due to the number of notices issued, and the resultant workload placed on local contractors …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr KIELY: … to rectify these faults …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, we have a point of order.
Ms CARNEY: The member is quoting extensively from a letter that he claims he wrote. In the circumstances, I ask that he table that letter so that those of us who may or may not have doubts as to whether the member wrote that letter can be satisfied that he did.
Madam SPEAKER: He can table it, but he can also read it out. Member for Sanderson, would you table the letter?
Mr KIELY: I would be happy to table the letter.
Leave granted.
- Mr KIELY: … I am sure that if an extension is provided to those who have been issued a 90 day notification, lets
say to at least some period of time following the presentation of the findings of the foreshadowed review into
pool fence legislation, this issue may see the satisfactory resolution. As well, I ask that you take the above
examples of community concerns into account and seek a solution that reasonably allows the community to comply
with the intended spirit of the law.
- Let me conclude by saying I fully support pool fencing legislation and I stand by my contributions to the debate
when this legislation was being introduced into parliament. I do, however, believe good government requires we
continually listen to our community and, when required, review our laws to make them more effective.
Well, that is what we have done. That is what we did on 8 October. These issues were brought to the minister’s attention on 8 October. I knew there was a review on. He flagged it in his initial speech. He also brought it up in August, I think it was. He said there was a review going to take place. Bingo! My contribution; I brought out these points.
We heard the member for Drysdale and others from the opposition go on about all these people who have come to them with all these different cases. They have come to me too, and I am not denying it is out there. They have come to me and I have made representations and looked for solutions. Do you know how many representations have been made by the opposition on constituents’ behalf? One - one representation! They come in here and they tell us about huge community concern. They go on about it. They are concerned, they are really worried. Look what is happening in the community. One! One of them made a representation – I made four or five. I have written to the minister and contributed to the whole review. Right?
Mr Burke: Oh, good on you!
Mr KIELY: Well, no, if you are good enough to stand here and say it is all failing, get in there and fix it! Get in there and fix it! Because you will not, will you? You will not! Let us say that I have noticed that there has been a concerted campaign to undermine this legislation. Not because it is bad legislation, but for the politics of it. I believe that it has been politicised right out of the room! It is for their own personal gain; the CLP’s personal gain. They do not have one skerrick of community concern. They are not interested in fixing the problem; they are just interested in wrecking, wrecking, wrecking …
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr KIELY: That is their whole attitude to this debate. You can see from the antics of the member for Araluen with the petulance, pettiness and the screaming distractions that she offers, as to their attitude to this whole debate.
We have really good commentators. I believe it was the Sunday Forum of 8 February. That was a pretty worthwhile article which got into the nub of trying to fix up pool fencing. No, I do not think so. That was an incredibly destructive article, not intended at all to rectify the situation or to help people in distress with their fencing. On 3 February we have, ‘Council declares war over pool fences’:
Mr Adamson said the council had been met by an overwhelming negative response to the laws. ‘One of the
most common things I hear from people is that they almost feel like they are treated like a criminal’.
How many aldermen have phoned me up and said, ‘Listen, I have a ratepayer down the road here who has a real problem’? None. Never had one representation from an alderman. Come on, let’s see you lot stand up over there and tell me how many aldermen have phoned you up and said, ‘This is a shocking disgrace. This person down at this address needs your help’?
A member: Seventy-seven.
Mr KIELY: Seventy-seven. And how many did you put in? You must be the bloke who put in one? Seventy-seven and we have one. Seventy-seven complaints he has had, aldermen phoning him up. He has just said it, Madam Speaker, 77; we have one on our record. That is the sort of wrecking behaviour. That is it. What about this one here from the council, this open letter? I will table this open letter from the council from the NT News of 3 February. I won’t read it out because I know that it offends the ears of the member for Araluen, but let me say that the things that …
Ms CARNEY: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I have no idea what the member for Sanderson is talking about. He has made …
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr KIELY: I will table this because …
Madam SPEAKER: Would you seek leave to table it?
Mr KIELY: I seek leave to table this.
Leave granted.
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, the call that the council is making has been answered by this legislation, so the council and the NT government are one on this legislation. So I expect a fair bit of support now from the Lord Mayor and the rest of the aldermen. I am sure that they will contact me should they have any issues. Let’s go to some more wrecking sort of behaviours that appear through the pages of the paper from the opposition. This one is titled, ‘Loop hole claim in pool fence law’ and this is on 10 February. This is about the infamous press release that the Leader of the Opposition put in regarding Alderman Fraser being a Labor mate and getting preferential treatment. I have the transcript of Alderman Fraser talking to Mr Daryl Manzie on his radio show and it is quite interesting. This is how low can you go sort of stuff. The member of the opposition ripped off this …
A member interjecting.
Mr KIELY: He was a skerrick to getting sued, so he backed out of it real quick. But Alderman Fraser said that, talking about the Leader of the Opposition:
- ‘He could have done that. Now the problem is, Daryl, when they attack someone like myself …’
- ‘… it’s fine. I’m tough and brave and all that sort of stuff, I put my name up front. But my wife doesn’t, Daryl.
She doesn’t do that. She’s not a public figure. And the other people who were humbugged yesterday are the
couple who were totally innocent when they bought that house. They had media ring them up, media prowling
around the Drysdale Street property wanting to take photographs of their pool. Now, not my pool, right. The
people said, ‘Well they’re doing it …’ etcetera.
This behaviour by the Leader of the Opposition is exactly the behaviour that the member for Drysdale condemned in his adjournment debate. Do you remember a few nights ago? Exactly the same. The member for Drysdale is dead opposed to what you did. Now, you lot ought to get together and start getting your act and your whole parliamentary behaviour, because your standards are in conflict with each other. Here you are, sending out libellous press releases all for cheap political gains, dragging innocent people into it. The member for Drysdale does appreciate it, no one else around here does, but you seem to wallow in that sort of behaviour. That is fairly appalling. All to get a cheap point off the back of good intentioned legislation. That is the level to which this opposition is swooping in order to try and sink this legislation.
The member for Drysdale in his contribution, and it is all in Hansard, will be remembered. They will have a look at that and they will actually see it for the cheap political tricks that he is trying to pull off because none of what he said holds water. It was complete and utter nonsense, it will not hold the fabric of time.
There was also the interview. The Leader for the Opposition has a go at Alderman Fraser, he backtracked pretty quickly, but then we had a further interview by Daryl Manzie with David Coles, who was recently attacked in this House. They are pretty good at having a go at public servants when they are not around, and they are good at having a go at people who have unfortunately passed on.
That shot before from the member for Brennan about the late Lord Mayor George Brown, who cannot defend himself - he had words attributed, acts attributed – he has attributed words to a bloke who has passed on. I tell you what: I have seen some low acts in this place, but that one was pretty rich. I hope people remember that: attributing actions to someone who cannot answer back. How pathetic.
Anyway, I won’t go into the Daryl Manzie show it too much, it was all about the process that Alderman Fraser went through to get provisional exemption for his pool so the house could be sold. In my contribution last year to this debate, I spoke at great length about selling of my house …
Ms Carney: You always speak at great length; it’s just that you say so little!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, member for Araluen.
Ms CARNEY: I am sorry, Madam Speaker. I really am.
Mr KIELY: I do not expect anything else from her, Madam Speaker. She has been trying to bait me. You see, she thinks I will rise and bite like a big barramundi but, really, she is a silly, foolish little girl who really does not deserve any attention whatsoever. But I tell you what: if you are going to throw jibes at me like a man, member for Araluen, at least do it like a gentleman.
What I said in my contribution then was that I moved into my house on the understanding that my pool was up to council standard. When it was inspected, it was found not to comply with the council standard. That is what we faced with this legislation that we introduced. We worked on an assumption – wrongly, as it happens - that the council and all their pools were up to certain standards. They were not. Eighty per cent or so were not up to standard. People getting caught out, government got caught out, and that is what really what we started to deal with. We had an Australia Standard and a lot of the Darwin registered pools did not comply with the anticipated rate.
Mr Wood: On gates.
Mr KIELY: Yes, there are a whole range of reasons. People were getting pinged for all sorts of different reasons. From people losing out and having multiple inspections, and from this concerted campaign waged by the CLP opposition to undermine good social legislation aimed at protecting our young, a whole range of urban myths were developed.
Let me put some of these urban myths to bed. Urban myth 1: the system is overly bureaucratic. Some poor pool owners have had to endure as many as nine inspections by the pool officers. The average number of visits to achieve compliance during the first year of operation was three. The maximum number of visits for any one property has been six, and this has only occurred due to incomplete work, work not completed in accordance with the instructions, or restricting inspectors’ access to the property.
Urban myth 2: nobody in the community is happy with the legislation. Whilst there may have been a lot of noise in the media concerning pool fencing war stories, it is interesting to note that there was not a single formal appeal against decisions made by the authority during the first 12 months.
Mr Elferink: That is because they couldn’t, you idiot! That is the problem with this legislation.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, I ask for your protection.
Madam SPEAKER: Withdraw, member for Macdonnell. We have said we will not make personal remarks.
Mr ELFERINK: Withdrawn, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr KIELY: This indicates that people are accepting of the need for fencing standards and that it is simply the technical detail of the Australian Standards that the community has struggled with. We are sorry for the frustrations that have been caused to pool owners last year.
Mr Dunham: Good! Another apology.
Mr KIELY: Not to you, member for Drysdale. You flit in and out. Your shirt’s hanging out, it’s like Giddy, Giddy Gout, isn’t it, really?
It is worthy to note that there are now in excess of 4000 pools that meet the Australian Standard.
Urban myth 3: many pool owners were compliant with the former council by-laws, and now you impose a higher standard on them. This hardly seems fair. What guarantee did they have that these standards won’t change in a couple of years? Well, of the properties inspected in the last 12 months, more than 80% of the pools in the Darwin area and more than 50% of the pools in the Palmerston area were found to not comply with the standards previously in place in those areas.
This was a fundamental error made by government when they assumed responsibility for pool fencing standards, that a reasonable foundation had been established by the standards previously enforced by the councils. This lulled those pool owners into a false sense of security, believing that they were compliant. If this fundamental assumption had been correct, then the move to the Australian Standard would not have been very onerous at all.
The fourth urban myth I would like to dispel is that the legislation is so unpopular and difficult to understand pool owners will only be upgrading when they absolutely have to, for example, at the time of sale or lease of the property. This has proven not to be the case over the last 12 months. For example, 50% of applications for compliance were from owner occupiers, 30% were triggered as a result of leasing and 20% were triggered as a result of sale. These figures demonstrate that the majority of applications for compliance came from those pool owners with no immediate compulsion to take any action.
In addition, clause 35 of the new act includes a provision to allow the authority to order immediate works for pools that pose an immediate danger to children, for example, a pool which is unfenced and which adjoins a public place. These pools are generally brought to the authority’s attention through concerned neighbours, or are sighted by inspectors when carrying out other inspections under the act. I have worked in the compliance area before. I have been a compliance officer, and I have managed a compliance unit, and I know the hard work that people who work in this do. They deal with legislation, they stick to the letter of the legislation and that is all they can do. These people have had a really tough job and they have had no support in the first place. They have had no support whatsoever from the CLP opposition. All they have been doing is undermining the work that they do.
These men and women go out to barbecues, and into the social work place. The continual attacks that the CLP mounts on them is so demoralising, so hard hitting. These people have been doing their job as compliance officers and following the legislation that is put in front of them. We realise that, we appreciate that, we have never, ever once had a go at these pool officers. As a matter of fact, we have stood by them, shoulder to shoulder, and we support them all the way. And I want this made quite well known to them. I appreciate all the work they have done, this, making them pool safety advisers, is a far better way to go.
The community standard that we are bringing in will meet community expectations. The member for Wanguri is right. The law came in, people were not accepting of the way it was, the rigidity of it, the compliance officers had nowhere to go because of that. We flagged when the legislation came in that it was under review. I submitted to the review. I represented my constituents’ views. Quite a number of the issues that I picked up on my constituents told me about; I fed into the review process and they have been acted upon.
I was not mealy-mouthed, weaseley, trying to make capital over poor misfortunes of the people around the suburbs. You, on the other hand, member for Drysdale, it was not you who made any representations for those three or four people who found themselves in hardship – not you. You were happy enough to get there and engineer and derail and leave these people out to dry for your own political gain. That is what it is about, their own political gain. Well, I am not about that, I am about looking after my constituents.
I commend the minister for his work, I commend the Pool Fencing Authority, they have done a wonderful job and I look forward to this legislation being passed.
Ms CARNEY: Madam Speaker, the member said that he would table a letter to which he referred. I am not sure whether he has.
Madam SPEAKER: I think he has, hasn’t he?
Mr KIELY: Certainly.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, just for the sake of the public record I believe that it is important to us as legislators to reflect on what we are actually doing here, and to reflect back to the time when we initially debated this legislation, or the legislation which will be improved upon, according to the arguments of members opposite, and to reflect on the whole process.
What we have just witnessed is the evidence of the capture of this debate politically, where one side will hold on to their position and assert that the other side are the enemy because they do not understand and do not appreciate our position. We are captured in this ridiculous argument when, in fact, any reasonable person looking at the previous debate a year ago, would have seen that there were sensible challenges made by those who were given the responsibility of weighing up legislation. There were reasonable, sensible challenges made and they were soundly resisted because the political position that was held by those proposing the legislation would be exposed by conceding that they could possibly be flawed: ‘This is our creation and we want to own this spot’. This position that was sought to be owned by the then reasonably newly-elected Labor Party was one that they naively believed would be a very strong position for them to take politically.
The concept of comprehensively demonstrating care and concern for children, and having that connection to that primary resonance within the community that we all care for children and we are very concerned about safety - to be able to tap into that and capture that sentiment with legislation for a solution is acceptable and understandable. However, in your keenness to capture this place - this political capital - your ears were closed to the debate in the Chamber, just as we have had a demonstration of a misunderstanding of what is really meant to occur when we are discussing legislation. I put to the member for Sanderson that the proposals that will be put, in amendments, in the next round of this debate have some merit and they should be countenanced - they should be considered. It is not about you and it is not about us - your argument versus our argument - it is about getting this legislation right so that we do not have to go back and fix it up; so you do not have the embarrassing situation where you have to apologise.
The focus has now been distracted from the children and that piece of political capital that you once wanted to hold and possess and own. Now it is: ‘How can we get ourselves out of this and find a place where we can stand where the community has forgotten to some degree that we have caused a certain amount of angst and concern in the community?’ That now is your problem.
I would advise you that, by considering amendments that will be argued from this side of the House, you could well end up in a much better position, because there are some deficiencies in the legislation as proposed. You will not be compromising your political position because you are in government, and that is fine. However, in being in government, you have a responsibility to listen to the opposition too. You are not going to lose too much if you listen to the opposition. In fact, I will let you in on a secret: if you listen and take it on board, you will actually increase your respect within the community. We have all seen that there has been this review and you can spin it that the minister always said it was going to be reviewed. However, you just tapped into the community and you knew there was immense pain that was being experienced by the community. You knew that and, you would be fools to pretend otherwise. You knew that to be the case; you have done your polling, the feedback is coming in. You are a bit embarrassed about the position you once held. Now you have to find a solution.
The new simplified pool rules are an attempt to repair your position. It says, quite plainly, in the second paragraph:
- The review found there is overwhelming support for increased safety for kids around pools.
We all know that. Anyone with kids, anyone in our community, wants to increase the safety of children. It goes on:
- However, the implementation of Australian Standards on pre-existing pools and spas has been more difficult
and more complex than could have been anticipated.
We simply were standing back to watch because you had ventured in courageously to territory that we warned you in the debate, if you go back and have a good read of it, both eyes open, just read it, you will see that there were, in the midst of all the rubbish debate that goes on in terms of, ‘My legislation’s better than yours’ and ‘We’re better than you’, and all that sort of rot. In the midst of that there was actually sensible debate and there were the warning bells contained within.
If you had actually listened and slowed down - as the review tells you - slow it down, you are here to advance and prosper the true welfare of all Territorians. There is the temptation to get in there and advance and prosper your own political interests, but get in there and just do the job properly. Sadly, you had that opportunity and missed it. It is now, whatever way you spin it, going to cost us significantly, as a community - $21m is a figure that has been put on it; ‘We were always going to spend that anyway’. I suspect not. I suspect it is going to be considerably more cost, not just financial.
Now we move to stage 2, the repair job, covered with a lovely, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry’, and now we move on. ‘Let’s quickly fix this problem because’ - I can smell the finish line here – ‘it is the coming election and, my goodness, we have to get this thing sorted out pretty quickly’, say the number crunchers and the strategists. ‘We have to get this sorted out pretty quickly because we do not want the memory of this debacle in the minds of the electorate around election time, so let’s fix it really quickly. When everyone is at the Christmas drinks and celebrating the end of a good year, quickly announce a review’, people are saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ A quick review. Out comes the review, the recommendations of the review, whacko, we have new legislation. Once again, the opposition is saying, ‘Slow down. There are some things you need to consider’. We actually want you to fix it. Of course, there is the gamesmanship in here, want to trip you up, make you look a bit silly just as you are constantly working overtime to make us look a bit silly. ‘Let’s get on with the real job. It’s about children’. No-one denies the heart of this is getting it right for the children, so our community has some sense of order and how to approach such an issue.
There are issues that are going to be raised in debate further on but I urge you, members of government, to listen. You had an opportunity last night to listen to some recommendations that should have been taken on board. You did not do so; you were deaf to such arguments in last night’s debate on electoral reform. Tonight there will be other recommendations put forward, amendments and arguments put to you. I just ask you to please listen. You will not lose too much if you take some of these considerations on board, particularly when it comes to the capacity for members of the community to make adequate calls for adjudication in difficult times; dispute resolution built into this legislation.
I urge members to rise above the nonsense that goes on in here in regards to our legislation. Fantastic now and we are a bit sorry about what happened last time - there is a bill for $21m – but, ‘Let us get on now because we have to get this fixed up because there is an election not too far away. We have to get this sorted out so that we look as good as possible and so people don’t remember this’. So, ‘Quick, quick, quick. Let’s get through this and then we will all live happily ever after’. The electorate is far more sophisticated. They are listening. They have been hurt and they will not recover too quickly. I reckon the best way for them to recover and for you to gain a bit of position here is to take on board the arguments that will be presented in the committee stages.
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, in my closing debate, I thank honourable members for their contributions. It is clear to all, I am sure, that there is no joy for the government in making the changes that have been made. We developed legislation that was based on an assumption about the situation that was proved wrong. We confronted a serious problem and we have moved to fix it. It has not been an easy thing to do, but it had to be done.
The point that must be stressed is that the aims of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act and the Swimming Pool Safety Bill are the same. The aim of both the current legislation and the proposed legislation is to give those who care for children that bit of time they need to move to stop their toddlers drowning in backyard pools. The difference now is that the strategy is one that takes much better account of the reality of the situation that we are dealing with. There will now be a much stronger focus on education, awareness and encouragement than on enforcement. There will be a lot more stress on giving information so that they can make their own judgments about the way they deal with their pools and the children who are their responsibility.
It is important, I believe, to note that this new legislation draws a clear line. For existing pools, those installed prior to January 2003, there will be a standard that takes into account that the pools are already well and truly in the ground. Often some sort of barrier is in existence and the pool is integrated into the way people live. We want the barriers to meet the principle of the Australian Standards, but we are not insisting on them meeting the detailed technical standards that support this principle. To do so means that we make people upset the amenity of their living areas, often to meet a relatively minor element of the variety of requirements that go together to make a pool safe.
For those pools constructed since 1 January 2003, the line in the sand is drawn. In these cases, owners know that they need to comply with the modified Australian Standard. The owners have made the arrangements and will make their arrangements in the future in full knowledge of the requirements of the law. The system that will now apply will ensure that all pools constructed from now on fully meet the modified Australian Standard.
There have been comments made that suggest that it will be difficult for the ordinary person to make an assessment of compliance with the Community Safety Standard. The Community Safety Standard is quite clear. It is set out in one section of the bill, clause 11. This will provide that the barrier must be designed, sited, constructed and maintained in a way that prevents, to the extent that it is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances, a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. The words of the clause as it stands are not as clear as they could be. An amendment will be moved in committee to address this. I am also sure that many pool owners will have no problem going into their backyard and making that judgment. They know their patch. They know whether or not they have children in their yard and whether those children have been able to get into the pool unsupervised.
Most pool owners are not irresponsible. No-one wants to find a body in their pool, particularly the body of a child. The clause gives pool owners some assistance in making the assessment in its further requirement that perimeter boundaries only will not be sufficient. The capacity is also created for the prescription by regulation of guidelines to assist in the assessment of compliance with the Community Safety Standard.
A document has already been published that indicates our intentions in the development of these regulations. It is our intention to provide in these guidelines some key areas that should receive the attention of pool owners making a declaration. We will be asking them to focus primarily on gates, doors and gaps in the fence. Most children under five who die in pools, or get into serious trouble, enter through a gate, door, or a gap in the fence. Many people do not appreciate that a toddler will go through a gap of 150 mm as quick as a flash. Some can get through gaps of 120 mm. A guideline that says there should be no gaps larger than 100 mm starts to make a lot more sense when these things are understood.
The education and awareness campaign will focus on such matters. We will be spending a lot of time and effort in the community trying to ensure that people are aware of the ways they could slow kids down, and the reasons for some of the standards that they should consider in making their judgments. Where a person is having difficulty making an assessment of their compliance with the Community Safety Standard, they will be able to call on the assistance of an expert in pool safety. Pool Safety Advisors will be able to discuss, not just the technical specifications that might sensibly be applied, they will also be able to talk about why those specifications have been identified. So, if a person is making a judgment about whether to make a declaration of compliance about a pool fence, they will be able to do so with some knowledge of the basis for a standard. As I said, they will know that the average three-year-old can get through a gap of 150 mm, or that the average one-year-old will get their head stuck in a gap of 120 mm.
The Community Safety Standard is not precise; that is precisely the point. There is a clear principle and some guidelines for assessment, along with the ability to obtain advice. The bottom line is that it is a matter for the owner to make their own best judgment. Pool owners who are not comfortable doing this always have the option of going to the modified Australian Standard. If they do this, there is additional money available.
As has been noted by the member for Macdonnell, a change has been made in the bill as against the current act to remove an avenue of appeal from the Review Committee to an Appeals Tribunal. The member for Macdonnell has indicated that an amendment will be moved to reinstate the Lands and Mining Tribunal as the Appeals Tribunal in the bill and to expand its powers. The opportunity was also taken to read into the record a letter sent to MLAs by the Chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal. I will come back to this in a moment.
First, let me make it quite clear that the need for appropriate mechanisms for appeal against decisions of the authority made pursuant to the act was recognised in the previous legislation and continues to be recognised in this bill. In the previous legislation, all decisions that could affect a member of the public made by the authority pursuant to the act were subject to appeal to the Review Committee. These included all decisions of the authority in relation to the issue of registrations, compliance certificates and orders pursuant to the act.
The point has been made publicly on a number of occasions that there have been no appeals heard by the Review Committee against decisions of the authority. Some have made the point that there was little that could actually be appealed against. To a very great degree, this results from the prescriptive nature of the current act. There has been very little room for inspectors, or the authority, to move. There has therefore been very little room in which to argue and very little room for appeal. This has been a source of frustration for many people and this frustration has been made clear to us all.
Under the previous act, the Review Committee had the power to review all decisions of the authority made pursuant to the act. This policy continues under the new act. The Review Committee is an independent body with statutory powers to hear any appeal against a decision of the authority de novo, that is, from the beginning. Thus, the review committee must deal with their decision as if it is the authority and exercising the authority’s powers. The Review Committee is comprised of three people, appointed pursuant to the act. The people currently appointed are independent of the department and the authority. The Review Committee is currently comprised of a person who has been a very senior bureaucrat in both the Commonwealth and Northern Territory government; a senior representative of the real estate industry; and a person who has, for many years, headed up an influential community organisation, the Royal Life Saving Society NT.
If there are queries raised about the independence of the Review Committee, I would suggest that honourable members reflect for a moment on the current membership. Bob Beadman, chair of the Review Committee, is a man known to both sides of this House. All of us who have known him for many years know how hard it was to get him to do something he did not want to do when he worked for the previous government. Just imagine how hard it would be to get him to do something he did not want to do now that he is well and truly outside government. Sue Parry and Sue Shearer are people of real standing in the community. Any suggestion that they would not act independently and properly as a review committee should, I believe, be dismissed out of hand.
The Review Committee arrangements appear capable of working effectively. To some extent, it is unfortunate that they have not yet been tested. There have been two people out of over 13 000 decisions that have been made by the authority over the last year, who have sought to lodge appeals. In one case, the concern was about the amount of money paid in a grant. In the other, the appeal was against a decision that the authority had not yet made. The suggestion that the Lands and Mining Tribunal should be reinstated and have wider powers owes a considerable amount to the letter that was circulated last week by the chairman …
Mr Elferink: No, it does not, actually.
Mr AH KIT: … of that tribunal. While this is a matter that should appropriately be dealt with at another time - given that the member for Macdonnell has opened the matter up - I must say that I find the entry of a magistrate into a debate on public policy surprising, to say the least. I wonder what the member for Macdonnell thinks and understands about the separation of powers. It seems to me that it is at least questionable whether a magistrate should appropriately involve himself in the policy debate about a law which he is called upon to adjudicate. It may also be a matter that the public servant named in the magistrate’s correspondence wishes to consider. For the sake of the record, I table other material provided by the magistrate in question on the subject at hand.
It has been suggested that there should be an appeal against decisions about the amount of grant funds provided. The argument here is, essentially, the amount assessed by the authority, as the amount of the grant or loan will dictate the siting, style or type of fencing to be constructed, and thus will have a major impact on the amenity of the person’s backyard. This proposition is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the financial assistance arrangements that have been in place, or that are proposed to be established. First, and most importantly, this is not – I repeat – this is not and never has been about compensation. Grants are provided to assist people, not to compensate them. Under the early registration incentive scheme that was approved under the act, this scheme provided for the provision of a grant of up to a third of the minimum amount required to upgrade a barrier to the Australian Standards, up to a maximum of a third of $5000. An additional two-thirds of the amount up to a maximum of $5000 has been made available as a loan.
No decisions were made by the authority, or an inspector, about where a fence should be, what it should be constructed of, or what style it should be. It has simply been a matter of determining what is the minimum that needs to be done, and what that would cost. All decisions about the construction of the fence, its siting, style and materials, have always been decisions for the pool owner. There will now be even less involvement of the authority. Under the new system grants will be available to owners on the production of documentary evidence of the amount spent to upgrade a barrier. Grants to owners will be made of up to $3000 to upgrade to the Community Safety Standard, and up to $4000 to upgrade to the modified Australian Standard, subject in both cases to a co-payment of 25% of the total amount. Thus the authority will not be involved in anyway at all at looking at minimal levels of barriers required.
It would be quite ridiculous to suggest that should be an appeal against the amount of a grant that should be approved. This is a grant to provide assistance; such grants are no different to grants that are provided to a range of organisations by government. While it would no doubt be nice for local councils, communities and sporting organisations to have the capacity to appeal to the courts about the size of the grant they receive, this is not an appropriate decision for the courts.
Provision was made in the previous act for an avenue of appeal from the Review Committee to an appeals tribunal, in this case the Lands and Mining Tribunal. This course was taken because it seemed that it maybe useful for people dissatisfied with the decisions of both the authority and the Review Committee to have a further avenue of appeal. This process is no longer considered necessary given the avenues available for appeal and review of decisions that are available. In considering this issue it needs first to be noted that the authority will not be making decisions about registration or compliance of existing pools with the Community Safety Standard. Declarations under this standard are to be made by pool owners; the overwhelming bulk of areas from which appeals might emanate, is therefore removed. The authority will still have power to make decisions about compliance with the modified Australian Standards.
All of these decisions are subject to appeal to the Review Committee. The Review Committee will have the capacity and expertise to make such decisions with knowledge of the basis of the standards that are being applied and the capacity to balance the needs of owners against the requirement that effective barriers be in place. If a person is dissatisfied with the decision of the review committee they would have all of the rights of any individual to appeal to the courts for review of the administrative decision.
This in fact is a little different from the avenue of appeal provided under the current act to the Lands and Mining Tribunal. If a person is dissatisfied with the operation of the authority in some other way they have normal access to the service of the Ombudsman, and if they need information they can obtain it under the Information Act. Continued use of the Lands and Mining Tribunal as an appeals tribunal is considered superfluous in adding an extra layer that would provide little real value in the review of appeal process.
There has been comment about the cost of this new system. Some high estimates have been put forward. I will not go on about this subject. There are other occasions where we can debate the detail of money expended and budgeted. Suffice to say that we have made provision for expenditure on the delivery of the safe pool grant system. Appropriate allocations will be made to my department’s budget allocation to allow it to meet all expected requirements. It is of course very difficult to be too precise. The key driver of compliance for existing pools will continue to be the sale, or tenancy, of property. About 15% of property is turned over in a year. In addition, there are about 1000 new pools installed in an average year. Not all will seek a grant and many will seek somewhat less than the maximum. The question of cost becomes a lot easier to answer when we consider that there are about 100 families each year that have a major scare concerning a baby in a pool. If it costs, say, $5m per year in grants and that saves one, if not 100 babies, is that too much? I put the question.
One of the things that is being done in this bill and has not been tried often before, if at all, relates to shared fences with neighbours. As I am sure every member of this House knows this is one of the most vexed questions that is faced. The typical response in swimming pool fencing legislation is to place all liability on the pool owner. If they can get their neighbour to make sure that their side of the fence is okay and that it does not have any climbing points that can provide a ladder, then that is fine. If they cannot get the neighbours’ cooperation and keep it, then the only option for most pool owners has been to go for isolation fencing.
The bill takes a different view. In the bill we are saying that a person is responsible for their own backyard. If you have a pool you should have an effective barrier. If your next door neighbour has a pool, then it is your responsibility to make sure that kids do not climb your fence to get in to it. This is no different, as far as I can see, from a situation where the next door neighbour has a dog that could bite a small child. It is up to us all, as carers of children, to make sure they do not escape into areas that can cause them damage.
We will be requiring that neighbours be informed where a shared fence is used as a boundary. You might describe this as a form of enforced courtesy. It ensures that when a pool goes in or when a declaration of compliance is made, the neighbour is told about it. This will not be an onerous provision. We are not suggesting that people go to great lengths to track owners; simply, they put a letter in a proper form in their letter box. Thus a neighbour is put on notice that there is pool next door and that the barrier is the shared fence. If a neighbour wants information about what they should do, they will be able to seek information from a Pool Safety Advisor. None of this would appear to change the situation that currently applies under the law in relation to the relative liability of a pool owner or the neighbour.
Some questions have been raised about whether local government councils would be exempt from liability to maintain barriers they share with residents. While there are provisions in the bill already, the Palmerston City Council approached me during the last few days to indicate that there are still concerns. We agreed with the points that they made, and an amendment will be moved in committee to take on this point.
The member for Macdonnell made some points about the liability of officers and the government. He appears to be inferring that there is something devious and underhand afoot. The format of clause 47 is now the standard ‘no personal liability’ provision in new legislation. The addition of the reference to criminal liability is simply to expressly state what was always implied in relation to persons referred to in provisions drafted in similar words to those in the current section 47 of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. A person referred to in the current section 47, that is a person exercising a power or performing a function under the act in good faith, would never be guilty of an offence. This is because of the application of sections 23, 24 and 26 of the Criminal Code in relation to authorisation. I shall read these out if necessary.
Clause 47 in the bill, as mentioned previously, is now the standard provision used in new legislation instead of various provisions similar in nature to the current section 47 of the Swimming Pool Fencing Act. The addition of ‘purported exercise and/or performance’ is just to cover the situation where a person is not exercising and/or performing the power and/or function correctly, but genuinely believes he or she is doing it correctly. The purported exercise will still be pursuant to authority lawfully granted, which is referred to in section 26(1)(d) of the Criminal Code by the Swimming Pool Safety Act.
To sum up in this regard, all clause 47 does is to clearly state the law as it exists in relation to employees of the government who may make an error while carrying out their duties under the Swimming Pool Safety Act in good faith.
On the matter of clause 3(3) and its connection with clause 47 and the Criminal Code, it is not 100% clear what the issue is. By the application of clause 3(3) of the bill, clause 47 would prevail if there happened to be something to the contrary in another act. For example, section 47 of the Swimming Pool Safety Act would prevail over a provision in the Criminal Code stating the following:
- A person appointed as a Swimming Pool Safety Adviser under the Swimming Pool Safety Act is guilty of an offence
if he or she gives the wrong advice about a swimming pool barrier, despite that advice being given in good faith
during the exercise, or purported exercise, of a power or the performance or purported performance of a function
under that act.
In relation to civil liability, if, for instance, a swimming pool safety advisor, in good faith, gives the wrong advice about a fence, that is, he or she makes a mistake in giving the advice and a child drowns in the pool, clause 47(2) will protect the advisor from personal responsibility. It will not protect the Territory from liability if a court finds the advisor’s mistake caused or contributed to the death of the child, see clause 47(3). The Territory will then be liable to pay damages in relation to that death. If there happens to be a provision in another act that says something different, then clause 47 of the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will prevail.
I will give one last example. There is an act called the Personal Injuries (Liabilities and Damages) Act which modifies the common law in relation to liabilities and damages relating to personal injuries caused by negligence. Clause 47 of the proposed Swimming Pool Safety Act will prevail over any future provision in that act which states that a government employee must be held personally liable for injury or death caused by the employee’s negligence when performing a duty or exercising a power in good faith.
Under common law, the employer of a person is held vicariously responsible for the person’s negligence when acting within the scope of his or her employment. It is extremely difficult to imagine any statutory provision being enacted to change that legal principle. To sum it up, it is very hard to imagine any circumstances when there would be a provision in another act that would provide for anything different in relation to a person mentioned in that clause who was acting in good faith.
In conclusion, I once again thank members for their contribution. We have had members opposite complain about our government not handling this properly from the beginning. We have had a situation where our Chief Minister said that the current legislation did not deliver on the intent. We certainly had the best of intentions, those intentions and the instructions were given to the Parliamentary drafters around about the middle of the year 2002. We introduced the legislation last year. I have always said that there would be a review. We have had that review, albeit some people are not happy with the timeframe of that review. However, we have to ensure - and I will respond to a couple of the concerns pointed out by some of the members opposite - that we alleviate the hardship that was being caused. There is uncertainty out there for vendors and leaseholders.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Minister for Local Government be granted an extension of time pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Thank you, member for Macdonnell. I want to finish off by saying that if there is a problem, then we have to fix it, and the quicker we fix the problem, the better. You may not necessarily agree with that, and for political reasons you may want us to drag this on. We have had people out there who have been up in arms. We have noticed that; we have taken that on board. It is not embarrassing for us to come out and say: ‘We got it wrong and we are going to fix it’. A government that can do that and take that in their stride, and deliver and provide the best results is, I believe, going to be much more respected in the community than being seen as supposedly doing the biggest backflip of a government in the country.
I am comfortable - and members of this side of the House no doubt - that this is good legislation; it is going to fix up a lot of the problems. We have been very fortunate that we have not had a drowning. We are not looking forward to the day that we do. We certainly hope that we continue on into the near future without having any toddlers drowning at all in backyard pools or spas. We do not have a crystal ball to gaze into, and it is likely to happen. If we can buy that extra time for parents to save those toddlers by bringing about the introduction of new legislation that has more common sense and flexibility to it, then that is the intent of this bill before us. I look forward to members’ contributions and discussion as we move through the committee stages.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: The committee has before it the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004 (Serial 206) together with Schedule of Amendments No 76 circulated by the Minister for Local Government, and Schedule of Amendments No 78 circulated by the member for Macdonnell.
Clauses 1 to 10:
Mr ELFERINK: You can take them together, but I am going to make a few comments when you are ready.
Mr CHAIRMAN: You probably need to make the comments now, member for Macdonnell.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I start by thanking the minister for answering the questions I put to him today. He knew that the question was coming; it was in relation to clause 3(3). He knew the question was coming because I made it clear during the briefings that I wanted to raise the issue. I thank him for taking the time out to find out. It was just a point of clarity as I made clear during the debate today, and the briefing at the time. I was unsure of the effect of how clause 3(3) would affect the liabilities carried under clause 47 in reference to the rest of the operations of law in the Northern Territory. I place on record my thanks to the minister in relation to it.
It saddens me a little that the minister thought that it was meant to be some sort of attack and responded by referring to my questions, suggesting that they were ridiculous. I do not believe that they were but, at the end of the day, he did take the time out to find out for me, and I appreciate it.
In terms of the clauses mentioned, there is a difference between this act and the act which will be repealed. I would like to ask a couple of quick questions in relation to it. Swimming pool barrier, which in the new act is clause 7, Swimming Pool Barriers. In the old act it used to be Swimming Pool Barrier in the Definitions. There is a very clear differentiation between the two that I do wish to ask the minister about. In the bill it states in clause 7(3) that ‘a swimming pool barrier does not include a fence, wall or structure that consists, or part of which consists, solely of a hedge or vegetation.’ In the old legislation it states ‘but does not include a fence consisting of a hedge or vegetation’. I would like the minister to elaborate as to why he is seeking to change that definition?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, this clause is similar to the current act. There is the one addition that I think the member for Macdonnell has picked on. Barriers can include walls or buildings and spa pool lids, but does not include hedges and vegetation. The inclusion of the capacity to prescribe structures to be barriers is designed to allow the law to quickly respond to technological and design changes. The principle is established by the bill and the regulations will provide the necessary detail.
Mr ELFERINK: The reason I harp on the definition is because it does change the nature of what is going on. During the briefing I was basically told that this was the ‘bougainvillea’ effect and I certainly appreciate that in the Top End, the presence of bougainvillea around a pool fence would probably keep most kids away. Speaking from personal experience as a kid in the tropics, I know bougainvillea. However, in Central Australia, and this is one of the reasons that local councils are often best left with these sorts of things, there are plants like grape vines, which are very common around pools, which can easily be scaled by kids. I just invite the minister’s observations in relation to grape vines on pool fences.
Mr AH KIT: We are just looking for a bit of flexibility to ensure that – just looking at an example – if we have a bougainvillea up against a barrier which is entwined with some hedge, then we see that as being a problem for kids to get over, even though they may be able to get a foothold on the lower part of the hedge if they start to get up the bougainvillea with the thorns that we understand bougainvillea bushes have, then it is going to be a pretty scratched up child by the time they get up to and over the fence. So, if you have on the one hand another example of a grape vine in Alice Springs, and we know how they are put into the ground and have wires stringing across, they can obtain a foothold in that. We just want to be sure that we have the ability to be able to differentiate between those and pass judgement on what is dangerous and what is not in terms of the hedge situation.
Clauses 1 to 10 agreed to.
Clause 11:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.1. This amendment was identified following further consideration by Parliamentary Counsel and it is necessary to achieve proper grammatical structure and greater clarity. This amendment does not change the intended meaning of this clause.
Mr ELFERINK: While we are on clause 11, Mr Chairman, the clause deals with the new Community Safety Standard. I believe that there is a tick and flick sheet effectively out in circulation which a person can use as a guide. Does the minister have a copy of that with him, and if so, could he table it please?
Mr AH KIT: Sorry, what is that?
Mr ELFERINK: A tick and flick sheet – a check sheet that you can use as a guide. It is my understanding that there is one in circulation.
Mr AH KIT: We do not have that ready as yet, member for Macdonnell, but as soon as we have, certainly I would be happy to get one across to you.
Mr ELFERINK: That is obviously my misunderstanding. Is there a set of guidelines of some description as to what a Community Safety Standard is?
Mr AH KIT: I went into that a little in the closing debate in the second reading. I have some draft guidelines here and I really do not want to hand you those until we have finalised them, and then you can have a look at them. It will be appropriate of me as the minister to give you a set of draft guidelines that have not been finalised and accepted as yet.
We are working them up. I suppose you can go back to the second reading and you can see some of the intentions of what we are going to be looking at. It really would not be appropriate for me to hand you a copy at this stage.
Mr ELFERINK: It is my understanding that these guidelines have already been circulated – at LGANT, I think it was. I could be corrected on that, but I believe there is a set of guidelines in circulation somewhere from the department. I could be wrong, but that is certainly my understanding.
The other thing I wish to raise, and this is far more important, is that the government is seeking, after making a big mistake with the original body of legislation, for us to pass legislation so that the government can take a bit of heat off themselves in relation to how pool fencing operated. What concerns me is that in the haste of coming into this Chamber and saying, ‘Look, we need you to pass this legislation so we can continue to govern this issue more appropriately for people in Northern Territory’, we are being asked, effectively, to pass a standard which is no more complex in description than ‘a design that is constructed and sited and maintained in a way that is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances’.
I know that your amendment touches on it, but it certainly does not get us any closer. In fact, here is your amendment:
- …of a design that is constructed, sited and maintained in a way that is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances …
People are going to be standing next to their pool fence with a set of guidelines in their hands - if you look at Queensland, their guidelines are 27 pages long - and they are going to be saying, ‘What is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances?’. It is going to be very difficult for the average punter to be able to figure out, quite frankly. I urge the minister to try to give at least give me, as a legislator in the Northern Territory, some comfort that I am passing legislation that is ultimately going to make some sense for the person who has to use that legislation to decide what is ‘practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances’.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, I went through this stuff and touched on it not long ago. Let me go back to it. I said there have been comments made that suggest it will be difficult for the ordinary person to make an assessment of the compliance with the Community Safety Standard. The Community Safety Standard is quite clear. It is set out in one clause of the bill, and that is what we are discussing now, clause 11. This will provide that the barrier must be designed, sited, constructed and maintained in a way to the extent that it is practicable and reasonable in all the circumstances to prevent a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. I also said that the words of the clause as it stands are not as clear as they could be, and an amendment will be moved, and I have moved that amendment.
The intent and the drafting instructions have been given to the parliamentary draftsmen and, God bless their souls, I believe they do a pretty good job. The previous legislation and the intentions that we had, and the instructions we provided – they delivered on it. We take full responsibility for it not being accepted out there in the community, and what we are doing now is to bring about changes. The parliamentary draftsmen have come back and had a second look at clause 11, and these are the words that I have moved to correct that. I can accept what you are saying in regards to what is in the bill, and whether you accept or not my amendment to clause 11, but I have moved, and I will continue to argue that this amendment, as drafted by the parliamentary draftsmen, who are much more experienced at this than you and I, are the appropriate words.
Mr ELFERINK: The minister misunderstands my intention. I have no intention of standing in the way of this amendment. I think it is a good amendment. My problem is that I am a member of this parliament, and if the minister comes in and moves an amendment, it is up to me, before I send this particular legislation out for consumption, bearing in mind the hash that the former legislation was, which was rushed through, and that is what we are doing here, we cannot forget that we are rushing this through on urgency, the hash that that was, that I want to make sure that I am not contributing to recreating that hash and that mess.
By the way minister, I have just had placed into my hands the guidelines. Apparently they were out, and for your information I would like to table the guidelines for you minister, if I may, Mr Chairman.
Leave granted.
Mr ELFERINK: It is clear that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing in relation to these guidelines. Apparently, this was released, as I understand it, with a press release on 12 February from the Chief Minister’s office. This is part of the problem with rushing these things through, is that the minister who has carriage of this legislation is asking me as a legislator in the Northern Territory to pass legislation saying, ‘Look, I am not happy with guidelines yet. We have to let people know exactly what we are doing’, when the guidelines have actually found their way into circulation through the Chief Minister’s office.
That is the level of organisation that we are seeing represented here.
Mr Ah Kit interjecting.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, the minister is getting a little bit defensive about this, and well may he, Mr Chairman, because it shows you that when these things are an absolute mash and being pushed through and everybody is getting a little bit defensive, and I am sorry about this, and we are going to go and fix that, and everybody is ducking for cover when political fights break out, especially inside government, you have ministers and chief ministers gazumping each other and releasing documentation, and it starts to look pretty poor.
I have to ask myself, in light of the fact that you guys have come in here on urgency asking for this stuff to be fixed up, you are coming in here with a bunch of amendments, that the parliamentary draftsmen are so hard pushed that they had to fix up things that they had originally written because they did not have enough time to check it, because the time between the completion of the departmental review and the time that this bill hit the floor in the House was so condensed that even our very smart and clever but hard pushed parliamentary draftsmen had to come in with new amendments, we have guidelines hitting different places at different times. We have ministers unaware what their chief ministers are doing. It starts to look a bit messy.
I am not trying to be difficult, but it is very frustrating that I am being asked as a legislator, and I carry a fairly sacred responsibility to make sure I get this right, to do this on a wing and a prayer. I understand the urgency out there in the community, because the community is hurting as a result of the last botched job this parliament threw out as a piece of legislation - stuff that we on this side of the House warned you about, ‘There are problems in this – there are going to be real problems with this’. The response was, ‘You are nitpicking, you are nitpicking, you are nitpicking. You are being trivial; you are over-exaggerating the problems’. Now you come back and say, ‘We are sorry, we stuffed it up’, and I am being asked to push it through on urgency again. As a legislator, that causes me some concern. Therefore, I will accept these guidelines which were released by the Chief Minister in answer to my question. I place them on the table so the minister knows what is going on in his own department. Mr Chairman, I suggest that we just get on with this. You did not like that, did you?
Mr AH KIT: I pick up on the comment you made ‘on urgency again’. I do not think we took this through on urgency …
Mr Elferink: You are passing …
Mr AH KIT: Sorry.
Dr Lim: Go on, finish off what you are saying.
Mr Burke: It is in this session of parliament. It has not sat 30 days.
Mr Elferink: You were passing a motion this morning saying that you had to push this through on urgency.
Mr AH KIT: Well, you are saying ‘on urgency again’ now, as if we did it the first time when we introduced the legislation back in 2002. Member for Macdonnell, I do not have any problem with you wanting, as with any other legislator here, to question what we are doing. I have said what the intent is. We can go through this and discuss the amendments that you have put up. I am quite happy to do that. I just …
Mr Elferink: That is big of you.
Mr AH KIT: If you are making a scene on the regulations, the draft guidelines, that is all they are, they went out as a draft. I do not have any problem with the councils having a look at them and LGANT circulating them.
Mr Elferink: You were not going to give them to me two minutes ago.
Mr AH KIT: But they were draft. They are still a draft; I have not accepted …
Mr Elferink: You were not going to give them to me, I had to give them to you. You are a goose!
Mr AH KIT: While we are doing this, we are preparing the paper and we are consulting. There is nothing wrong with that; governments do it all the time. Over the 26 years that you people were in power, you did similar things. You do not wait to get it right through and then start the production of all the pamphlets you need and all the public awareness that you have to do.
Mr Dunham: Yes, you do, you know.
Mr AH KIT: ‘Yes, you do’. Well, you come and tell me how many examples in the past 26 years before we won government, of how many occasions you did it. I will throw that challenge out to you, member for Drysdale. These are drafts, as I said. They have not come back to me. We have not signed off on them yet, but we are preparing it and we are consulting.
Mr Elferink: But they are out there. They are in here.
Mr AH KIT: They are out there and they should be out there.
Mr Elferink: Well why wouldn’t you give them to me?
Mr AH KIT: It is no secret. I am quite happy you have a copy over there. If the council – whether Darwin City Council or Palmerston or whoever gave it to you – that is fine. They are on the web site. We had the member for Drysdale say, ‘Well, you have to link all this stuff up; you have to make the connections’. Have you gone to the web site? Have you seen all the stuff there? No! No, you want us to present it here tonight because you are lazy.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr AH KIT: If it is the wish of the opposition that they do not support the bill, then that is fine; I can accept that. There is a sense of urgency out there with people who are in the process of wanting to sell or buy houses, flats or units. It is our intention that this legislation comes into place on - I think it is 12 March. The longer you hold it up the less certainty out there, especially in the real estate industry.
Mr Dunham: Rubbish. Do not blame us for your poor legislation.
Mr AH KIT: I am not going to take any notice of the member for Drysdale. We should move on, Mr Chairman.
Mr DUNHAM: Minister, I refer to the document you launched, Water Safety Plan 2003-04, which has some key priority areas, one of them being standards for legislation compliance. In the area of standards, you undertook to review current Northern Territory legislation in accordance with national standards and best practice. Can you tell me if these Community Safety Standards are either national standards or best practice?
Mr ELFERINK: That is a very important question and one that deserves an answer. To see the minister sit there and refuse to get up and answer it, I think that there should be some real responses.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, a bit rude of the people on the other side. Many times I have sat in opposition waiting for members to seek advice from hard working, dedicated public servants and now it seems you have a change of heart when you sit on that side of the Chamber.
The Australian safety standards - the modified standards – I have just received advice that we are near the top in that regard. We understand that the Community Safety Standard is a lesser standard, but that is something that we as a government have decided to introduce because on the one hand, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You are saying to us politically, this is good if the government does not do anything about this, and on the other hand, you are saying that we are going too far. I don’t think you have ...
Mr Dunham: That wasn’t my question.
Mr AH KIT: I have answered your question.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I seek leave to table a copy of the Northern Territory Water Safety Plan 2003-2006.
Leave granted.
Mr DUNHAM: I will put it again to the minister that it has key component areas most of which would be signed off by this opposition. But in the key priority area 3, Standards, Legislation and Compliance, the minister undertakes to do a review with the timeframe of December 2004. I have two questions for him now.
First, why was this review – this report is circa – it is only a couple of months old. So the first question I have is, why two or three months ago was a December 2004 timeline appropriate for a review to ensure that it was in accordance with national standards and best practice, and why do we now have a review that has been abbreviated? And in the minister’s own words, it was as a result of our lobbying that he has brought in a standard which is less than his ambition in this document of a national standard and best practice.
So, two questions minister: why have you abandoned the December 2004 timeline and why have you abandoned your ambition of national standards and best practice?
A member interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Behave yourself. Mr Chairman, you have the water safety advisory document there that you have just tabled. Do you understand that we are talking about the Water Safety Advisory Bill? That is a separate document to what we are discussing here.
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Listen, you asked the question. Let me answer.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Let the minister finish.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, you are addressing the water safety advisory strategy. That has a different agenda. I do not walk away from that agenda, but you are confusing it with what we are doing here. We are talking about repealing tonight the swimming pool fencing legislation and introducing – well, have you been out for some more dinner have you?
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Minister, you made a statement earlier too when I said order. Could you just withdraw that statement because it has an inference that we do not want to start up tonight. Could you withdraw that statement?
Mr AH KIT: Yes, I withdraw, Mr Chairman.
All I can say to the member for Drysdale is that he is, I believe, confused with the water safety advisory group’s strategy. That is separate to the legislation and the bill that we are discussing now.
Mr DUNHAM: I refer again to the water safety plan and ask the minister that if this is a separate document and nothing to do with the legislation we bring forward here, what will this committee bring forward in the way of legislation that is in any way different, in any way within their competence, to the legislation we have before us now? Or is there only one piece of legislation?
Mr HENDERSON: I seek a ruling, Mr Chairman. Quite clearly, we are in the committee stage of the bill that we have before us, the Swimming Pool Safety Bill 2004. That is what we are debating here in committee. We are not debating the swimming management plan or water safety plan or whatever it is from which the honourable member is quoting. May I ask you to request of the member that he keeps his questions relevant to the legislation that this committee is debating?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, we are dealing with clause 11 here. Could you explain what you are getting at in relation to this clause 11?
Mr DUNHAM: I would love to, Mr Chairman. Clause 11 is to be put through probably by tonight and it deals with a safety standard. The minister has told us that it is as the result of a review. In another document, which the minister has launched, he also talks about legislation and a review. It is my assumption that the review and the legislation in here are exactly the same as what has turned out here because I do not believe that this group here has the capacity to make legislation. The minister has, and I think that is what we have before us.
So, in the first place, he has a document that refers to a review, which now has come forward by almost a year, and he has legislation in here that should be in accordance with, and I quote: ‘national standards and best practice’. My question is: is the Community Safety Standard national standard and best practice? It is pretty simple. There is only one legislature that can do this, and that is us. This ‘legislation’ word in this document refers to this stuff. Your ambitions in this document refer to the bills that are in front of us. Is it national standard and best practice, the Community Safety Standard?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will allow the question, but let’s keep an eye on repetition.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I have announced and it is common knowledge that we have established the Water Safety Advisory Council. We have a body that works and has put out the document that the member has tabled. However, we are debating the bill. There is no problem with the Water Safety Advisory Council getting together and saying, ‘Minister, you have this current legislation’, or ‘Minister, you have new legislation now through’.
They will continue, and I expect them to continue, to do what they need to do to implement the water safety lessons through the advisory group, to consult, etcetera. Now, it may that they come to be at a later date and say, ‘Minister, we believe we should have separate legislation’. Then we as a government would need to consider that. But whilst they keep this in mind and they have been established as an offshoot, we are here discussing the Swimming Pool Safety Bill. That is what it is before us. I think the member for Drysdale is deliberately trying to get us to go off on a tangent.
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, I thought it was relevant. I do note that the key agencies listed in that same matrix are DCDSCA and that is an acronym for the Department of Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs, so you have a lead role in this, minister, whatever you might say about the committee.
Mr Ah Kit: And I admitted it.
Mr DUNHAM: In his foreword to this document, the minister states, and I quote:
- The Northern Territory government is committed to providing the safest possible environment for Territorians
around water.
Minister, do you believe that the Community Safety Standard provides the safest possible standard?
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Chairman. I refer the honourable member to Standing Order 114. This is repetitive questioning. I urge the member to let debate on this clause go through and debate the detail of other clauses rather than revisiting the same question over and over again.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, speaking to the point of order, my point of order is questions seeking information; it is not bills. If you want to use Standing Order 114, I would suggest that you read it because it says:
- A question fully answered cannot be renewed.
This question has not been fully answered. Minister, is this the ...
Mr AH KIT: Yes, yes. Community Safety Standard, yes, it is.
Mr DUNHAM: It is. The community safety standard is the highest possible standard. Thank you.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The point of order is not accepted as Standing Order 114 relates to Question Time.
Mr Dunham: Read your standing orders, Paul, it gets much easier, mate.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Chairman! We have had it before in this House, referring to a member by name. It has been consistently carried on by the member for Greatorex.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Thank you, member for Sanderson. Just to remind members, please use the correct title when addressing people.
Mr BURKE: Mr Chairman, with the regard to the new Community Safety Standard, for the benefit of my constituents in Palmerston, will this new Community Safety Standard provide the same standard that existed under the Palmerston by-laws which existed prior to this legislation?
Mr Dunham: It will be higher according to his last answer. Higher standards.
Mr AH KIT: I will read out the words again about clause 11 which I read earlier, because we have moved around the place a bit. The Community Safety Standard is a new statement of principle. It requires that a pool barrier be designed, constructed, sited and maintained as practicable and reasonable in the circumstances, to prevent a child from gaining unsupervised access to a pool. The only absolute requirement of the Community Safety Standard is that perimeter fencing alone is not sufficient. There is the capacity to prescribe guidelines to assist in the assessment of compliance of the Community Safety Standard.
The intent of these provisions is to provide a standard that pool owners will be able to apply themselves to their own situations. The regulations will prescribe guidelines that will provide fencing heights and materials along with requirements for latches and related matters. These guidelines will assist pool owners and others in assessing whether a barrier meets this standard.
Mr BURKE: The minister has not answered the question. For example, in Palmerston we did not have perimeter fencing, we had separation fencing and it was to modified Australian Standards. From my understanding of the modified Australian Standards that are being brought into place under this legislation, it adheres to the standards that existed under the Palmerston by-laws prior to this new legislation. My question is this: under your community standard that you have now brought in, is there a difference between that community standard and the previous Palmerston by-laws that existed, which I would describe as the modified Australian Standard?
Mr AH KIT: No, Mr Chairman. As I understand it, the modified Australian Standard is higher than what was in place at Palmerston. The Community Safety Standard is very similar to what is in place with the Palmerston City Council and the details are slightly different.
Mr BURKE: Therefore, under your legislation, you have indicated that half of Palmerston did not comply with the by-laws that were in place, so can you tell me how, under your legislation, you are going to achieve compliance by 40% of Palmerston people who did not comply in the past?
Mr AH KIT: We are going to be offering grants. We are saying, ‘Here is an opportunity, up until the year 2007, to take that opportunity to make an application to receive your compliance certificate, to come forward and have your pool fence put in, to get it up to the Community Safety Standard or the modified Australian Standard, and present receipts to the department, where you will be eligible to obtain reimbursement for the work that is done, given that you are also going to be able to provide 25% of those costs, whether it is $3000 or $4000’.
We found, through the Swimming Pool Fencing Unit, that 50% of the pools at Palmerston did not comply. The Community Safety Standards will pick up many of those, because we go to that situation where they were a couple of centimetres too short., whether there were self-closing latches, etcetera. That is the information we have and believe that, by offering this grant - and it is a generous grant from government and is something that people opposite were jumping up and down about - we will encourage people to upgrade their fencing situation so that either they can bring them to the Australian Standard if they so desire, or to the modified Australian Standard, or to the Community Safety Standard.
Mr BURKE: Would you accept then, minister, that there would be a number of people in Palmerston who would not take advantage of your incentives, generous though they might be, and would simply seek compliance through a compliance certificate? You will have no way of knowing, one way or the other, whether they complied with the by-laws and standards that were in place in the past.
Mr AH KIT: There would be a standard, ordered process put in place. One thing this bill does is not allow people to allow what they currently have to deteriorate in any way. To give an example of that: if there was a situation where somebody put a fence around a pool or spa on a block of land, and that block of land is below the 1.8 hectare, then that person would have to seek the Swimming Pool Safety Authority’s permission to downgrade, or to take away that fence. One of the major intentions of the bill is to ensure that new pools comply with the modified Australian Standard. Owners of pools that have been put in place since have a responsibilities to keep those standards at the same levels.
Dr LIM: In the same vein, may I ask minister how he feels that the Community Safety Standards, as outlined in this bill, matches the Alice Springs Town Council by-laws which were passed many years ago? In fact, it was the first town council in the Territory to have swimming pool fencing regulations. How do they match up with these ones here?
Mr AH KIT: The Community Safety Standard and the Australian modified standard is much higher and much better than those put in place by the Alice Springs Town Council. I note your comments, and credit to you in 1994 after you were elected, that you had concerns about swimming pool fencing. However, my advice is that there has not been any formulation of proper pool fencing policy with the Alice Spring Town Council, and it was more or less done in an ad hoc manner.
Dr LIM: I disagree with that, minister. I believe that the Alice Springs Town Council has continued to re-evaluate its swimming pool fencing by-laws. In fact, just prior to your legislation 12 months ago, they had upgraded their by-laws. They have continued to improve them since its passage in 1980. I have been observing the procedure in the last several minutes that you have been responding to the questions from this side of the House. You did it exactly did the same way you did 12 months ago, where you had to have the Chief Minister come here to defend you and try to defend the legislation that you were trying to bring about last time. I need to get on record that, as Minister for Local Government with responsibility for this bill, you should be really more across it.
The issue about safety standards is that you are not allowing the people who already have their pools adequately fenced to get by. What are you going to do with them? For people who have been in Alice Springs for the last 20 years with pool fences that are more than adequate there has not been a problem. Your problem has been in Darwin, not in Alice Springs. Now the people in Alice Springs are going to be captured by this ridiculous piece of legislation.
Mr AH KIT: It is not a ridiculous piece of legislation. Look, I am fine. If the CLP wishes to vote against it, go for it, and people out there in the community can be told about it.
A member interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: No, hang on. You have had your say, let me have mine. You asked a question. The people of Alice Springs now have an opportunity to ring a 1800 number. We will advertise that and we welcome people across the Territory, especially in the other townships of Katherine, Tennant Creek, etcetera, it they choose to ring the 1800 number to talk to the pool safety advisors and get some advice on where they are at - there are no names, no pack drill, no addresses - find out where they are at in terms of this bill, if it becomes legislation and take advantage of the opportunity we are offering in terms of the grant so that they can rest easy and not spend more than 25% of their pocket money in ensuring that their pool has an appropriate fence that either meets the Community Safety Standard or the Australian modified standard.
But for you to have a shot at me at not being across it, I think is a bit rich. I have been a minister over the two and a half years, which is a lot longer than you were – something like nine months. You sat in the government there and you are one of the longest serving members, and you participated, no doubt, in your parliamentary wing deliberations, and after saying what you said in 1994 - you said you supported in 1997-98, 1998-99 legislative change for the introduction and implementation of new legislation relating to swimming pool fencing. You did that on two occasions.
We hear today the former Chief Minister say well, here we go – George Brown. We listened to George, God rest his soul. Poor old George. The government was held up by one bloke saying go away, this is our area. Unbelievable! You had responsibilities. You chose not to go down that path. You found it too hard. You made the decision. You have people sitting on councils providing advice.
They gave the report. They put it up on a couple of occasions and you did nothing with it. Now, we came in here, we said we got it wrong; we are going to get it right. We are having a go at getting it right. It would be my recommendation to our caucus that we hand it back over when the city councils, the municipalities, are ready …
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: … are ready and willing it back.
A member: When did you last talk to the councils?
Mr AH KIT: You would not listen to them. They wrote to you and said, Let’s work together and get something going’. You said, ‘Go away. Too much humbug. This will make us politically unpopular. We want to win at the next election. Don’t be silly. You know us, we make all these false promises all the time. You know, we are an arrogant government’. Okay. We are tackling it. We are not going to walk away from it. How many times did you say sorry?
A member: Never.
Mr AH KIT: How many times did you apologise?
A member: Never.
Mr AH KIT: That’s why you are sitting over there and we are sitting here. We have said sorry, let’s move on. Let’s fix it up. Let’s get it right.
Dr LIM: Mr Chairman, I am happy for the minister to verbal me and quote me from 1994 and 1996. I am very proud that I was instrumental in getting swimming pool fencing by-laws in Alice Springs Town Council and local government did it very well in Alice Springs and Palmerston. It was because of your Chief Minister’s political promise that you are going to bring in legislation for everybody that precipitated all that badly cobbled legislation some 12 months ago. We told you it was badly cobbled together and would cause problems. We spent five hours in this Chamber 12 months ago debating the legislation and we kept trying to warn you about the problems you would face.
Did you listen? No, you did not. Not only didn’t you listen, at times when I asked you questions, you could not answer them. You had to get the Chief Minister to defend you. This is the problem. Today, we have the same exercise. You have lowered the standards and now you will place responsibility on to pool owners. You have to do it the right way. This is not the right process to go through, and it is no good telling us that we did not talk to councils. We did talk to councils; we gave them the authority to maintain and manage the pool fencing legislation they had.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I might remind members that we have had a fair bit of latitude, but we are trying to stick to clause 11, which is the Community Safety Standards. We are getting into history and other matters now, one side against the other’s version of history. We need to keep this focussed. Does anyone have any comments on this clause?
Mr AH KIT: I thank members for their contributions.
Mr DUNHAM: I do have a comment. It is an area of confusion. When I asked the minister if his intention was still to establish best practice water safety standards and guidelines, he said, without standing, ‘Yes, yes.’ I want to make sure that is on the record.
Later, in answer to a question, he said that grants could be provided and, although Hansard cannot pick it up, he used his hand to indicate the modified Australian Standard and community standard …
Mr Ah Kit: No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t.
Mr DUNHAM: … in an hierarchical fashion. All I want to know is whether the community standard does establish best practice water safety standards and guidelines? I would like that very clearly on the Parliamentary Record.
Mr AH KIT: The Community Safety Standards, I said, yes, is the standard that we are introducing in this bill.
Mr Dunham: I know that.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, and that is what we are happy with, and we believe that it is about the best that we can provide. At this stage, we have the Australian Standards up there with all those technicalities, we have the Australian modified standard, which is there …
Mr Dunham: Right, indicating with your hand, lower.
Mr AH KIT: … and we have the Community Safety Standard.
Mr Dunham: Right down the bottom.
Mr AH KIT: Now, if you are against the Community Safety Standard, put that on record so we can send it out to all Territorians, all these people who have a couple of centimetres here and there.
Mr Chairman, we have laboured on this some time. It is clause 11. I thank members for their contributions, but I have moved the amendment.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 12 to 27, by leave, taken together.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, just give me a second.
Members interjecting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr ELFERINK: We are in the process of rushing this through, going through blocks of clauses together – I am trying actually, believe it or not, to be fairly helpful. I do want to drill down certain aspects. I would ask members indulgence if I may be able to take a moment to go through reams of paper that this stuff generates and raise issues as they come. If I do not get up at the appropriate time, I miss out on my opportunity. If I miss out on my opportunity, I have failed in my obligation to voters of the Northern Territory.
Mr Dunham: I have a question, John.
Mr Elferink: If you want to jump quickly.
Mr DUNHAM: I draw the minister’s attention to clause 13, Financial assistance to assist in compliance with safety standards. I am well aware that there is a schedule for the physical works to upgrade for safety standards, and I ask about financial assistance for other matters in terms of compensation for those who have already upgraded, and indeed, upgraded to a level above that which is now required by the act; and also for those people who have suffered financially in other areas of detriment. If you could just elaborate on what that is?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I covered that I my second reading speech. Member for Drysdale, this is not about compensation. This is a grant. I will read into the debate in regards to clause 13: the intention is to allow the authorisation of schemes that would encourage compliance with the Community Safety Standard, or the modified Australian Standard for pre-existing pools. It is intended that new Safe Pool Grants will be available to assist pool owners with existing pools to upgrade to the Community Safety Standard, the modified Australian Standard, or the non-standard safety provision. An amount of up to $3000 will be available to provide for upgrading to the Community Safety Standard, and $4000 for upgrading to the modified Australian Standard. A co-payment by the owner of 25% will be required in each case.
Mr DUNHAM: I am aware of that, but if somebody meets the standard by removing their pool at their cost, is that compensable?
Mr AH KIT: If somebody what?
Mr DUNHAM: If somebody meets the standard by removing the offending pool, at a reasonable cost with fencing, will they be compensated for having that hazard removed to comply with Australian Standard?
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, no, this is not about compensation. If people believe that they have a claim for compensation, then certainly I would ask them to contact the Pool Safety Authority. I reiterated in my second reading speech in closing debate, and I will repeat, first and most importantly, this is not, and never has been, about compensation.
Mr ELFERINK: The minister is quite right. He did say that. He said no compensation. What the flyer tells us, and what the minister has told us, is that – ‘What about if I have already upgraded my fence?’ ‘Dot point, owners of pre-existing pools and spas who have upgraded their fence under the current system …’, being the one in operation right now, ‘… will be eligible for a Safe Pool Grant. There is no compensation package attached to this’.
Now, the question I have for the minister is that, when somebody writes to you and asks you for compensation, and you say yes or no, and that person is not happy with that reply, your process of review, as outlined in the bill, is that reviewable by your review committee?
Mr AH KIT: Let me respond once again. There will be opportunities for people in that particular situation. I am not agreeing, and nor am I comfortable with you using the word compensation.
Members interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: Hang on. Hear me out. If people are seeking reimbursement since 1 January 2003 and have receipts, then they are more than welcome to approach the authority to seek reimbursement. If we start talking about compensation, we get into the situation that the member for Drysdale is talking about, then we end up all over the shop. This is about saying, ‘Okay, we got it wrong. You people …
Mr Dunham: You are already over the shop. You have already said sorry. All we are asking you to do is fix it up.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, keep this in line!
Mr AH KIT: I am more organised in my brain than what you will ever be. I say to the member for Macdonnell, this is not about compensation, but if people have spent money on a pool, and taken some opportunity in regards to the grants that were available as of 1 January 2003 then, yes, come along with those receipts, talk to our people and seek reimbursement.
Mr ELFERINK: I go to you and I say to you, ‘Minister, please look at this package. I would like reimbursement’, and you say, ‘Here is my answer’, and I am not happy with your answer. Is there any way under your proposed review process that I can have that decision reviewed? Again, same question.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, decisions about financial assistance are decisions for government, not an appeals tribunal. I did mention in my second reading speech closing debate …
Mr Elferink: The answer is no.
Mr AH KIT: Hang on.
Mr Elferink: Well, the answer is no.
Mr AH KIT: You heard me. If people are not happy there are other measures they can take. If they are seeking information they can go to the Information Commissioner. If they are seeking other avenues, then they have every opportunity to approach the Ombudsman. I made that clear.
Mr Elferink: You did not.
Mr AH KIT: I did - in the second reading speech.
Mr ELFERINK: Okay. Mr Chairman, I am not going to labour the point. Both the minister and I know that the answer to the question that I put to him is that there is no review at all - under this act or under the old act - in relation to a decision taken by, ultimately, the minister or his department in relation to grant decisions. I will place on the record, reading clearly from the correspondence that the minister has now tabled between himself and the chairman of the appellant body under the current act, Mr David Loadman, how bitterly disappointed Mr Loadman was with this particular appeals process.
I remind members of this particular passage out of a letter that he sent:
- It was obvious to the Tribunal that no decisions of the Swimming Pool Fencing Authority regarding specific
issues eg design and location of the pool, size of the grant and loan, construction of the fence, ultimately
were capable of being … appealed at all. To pretend otherwise was and is deliberately misleading.
Clauses 12 to 27 agreed to.
Clause 28:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.2. This amendment is required due to a recent amendment to the Law Reform (Gender Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Act 2003. This amendment applies equally to either this bill or the old Swimming Pool Fencing Act. This amendment is necessary to bring this bill into line with other existing legislation in the Territory in treating de facto partners in the same way as spouses.
Mr ELFERINK: The opposition places on the record its support for the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 28, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 29:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.3 which ensures that landlord’s obligations remain the same under this bill as they were under the old act. Specifically, this amendment obliges a landlord to ensure that, at the time of entering into a lease, the swimming pool is still in the condition it was when certified or modified.
And Mr Chairman, I further move amendment 76.4 which is necessary to correct a typographical error and ensure consistent use of terminology throughout the bill. The clause should refer to a swimming pool rather than premises.
Mr ELFERINK: I place on record the opposition’s support for these amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 30 to 35, by leave, taken together.
Mr DUNHAM: I think that we have to be very clear with the wording of this. It refers to ‘substantially the same condition’. What we are actually talking about is that they have the same effect of prohibition or exclusion of children. Most people in the Top End, their swimming pool fence or barrier will change remarkably over the years and that will be aesthetics, painting and various other things, so I think that it has …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, what clause are you referring to?
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I am talking to clause 31 at the moment. There is an obligation that the pools have to be kept in substantially the same condition, the barrier. I would have thought that the ambition really is the exclusion of children and that can be continued and as plants grow and whatever, obviously that is going to change. It is further complicated, I believe, by that onus being on the owner, at clause 35, to ensure the swimming pool does not constitute a danger to a child. It is entirely possible that a modification by a tenant or other, such as taking down a barrier, putting a bike against a pool, will have the effect of thwarting its barrier.
If you go to clause 35 the onus is immediately on the owner. I would have thought that there are some difficulties here in first, the changes to the pool barriers are going to occur anyway; and second, changes that actually do allow for access by children and whether that is by the occupier and then includes the owner under clause 35. I would like the minister just to run through this circumstance here where pools are modified. I would have thought that we are not talking about modification in aesthetics or any other way, we are talking about modification to make sure it achieves its prime purpose of exclusion and then how the owner is enjoined in clause 35, as being liable.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I will try to be constructive in trying to understand the question from the member for Drysdale. What we are talking about here is that the structural integrity of the barrier is to be maintained between tenancies, and modifications, as long as they comply with the new community standard or modified Australian standards would still be allowed. As long as the structural integrity of the barrier is maintained then that is all that the owner is required to do. Issues like leaving a bike against the fence or what have you have nothing to do with the structural integrity of the barrier. As long as the owner ensures that between tenancies, or at the sale of the property, the barrier itself meets the standards as defined by the Community Safety Standard, the modified Australian standard, then the fence is still okay.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, no. Under clause 35(1):
- The owner of premises at which there is a swimming pool that is not certified or notified must, if the premises
adjoin a public place, ensure there is a barrier … that prevents a child from gaining unsupervised access …
It is evident from the earlier one that the barrier could be modified. So, if someone takes down a panel on a pool, the onus is actually on the owner the way I read that, to comply, and he may well be unaware.
Mr HENDERSON: Again, I do not know if I am tired or having a bad hair day, but if the owner was to take out a panel on the fence and that is a permanent …
Mr DUNHAM: No, somebody. The tenant, the occupier.
Mr HENDERSON: Somebody, anybody. Yes, if anybody was to take that, then obviously the integrity of the barrier is not maintained. I do not know where the member is going with this. Clause 35 clause places an obligation on existing pool owners to ensure that their pool does not pose an immediate danger to children, and if it does, requires the pool owner to take action to remedy this immediately rather than relying on the trigger points of sale or lease of the property. The intention is to provide the authority with the power to act in relation to dangerous pools without having to wait for the trigger. This is designed to prevent very unsafe pools from remaining in their current state for extended periods of time.
Mr DUNHAM: I know that is its purpose. I know that is how it has been described. All I am saying is if there is a barrier around a pool and it is modified by someone else, the way I read that is: the owner of premises … must ensure there is a barrier at the premises that prevents a child from gaining unsupervised access. What I am saying is that the owner may well have erected a barrier that has been modified. This puts the onus on him to ensure there is a barrier.
Mr HENDERSON: The owner is required to maintain the integrity of the certification. It is as simple as that. If we are looking at any sort of tenancy arrangement, obviously the tenant would be made aware of that condition and in any landlord/tenant relationship, there are obligations on both sides. It is for the owner to ensure the integrity of the barrier at all times.
Mr DUNHAM: So, in the event of a calamity, all landlords in the Northern Territory with swimming pools should ensure there is a clause in the lease that brings the attention of the occupier to the need to have the barrier maintained at all times, and to ensure that clause 34 is actually invoked if there is a problem?
I know what you are trying to say. What I am saying is that if there is a drowning of a child in a pool, the owner, according to this bill, is going to be the one fronting the coronial. If the modifications have been made by the occupier, your bill says the occupier is to tell the owner if there is a problem with the pool. What I am saying is that if the occupier somehow amends the pool barrier - you have said ‘alters the pool barrier in some way’ - I would assume that if that is not in a tenancy agreement, it puts the owner at substantial risk.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, it would be sensible for the landlord to ensure that there is a clause in the lease, and I am sure that the Real Estate Institute, which supports this bill, would advise the inclusion of clauses in leases to ensure that the tenant does not wilfully at any time tamper with or diminish the structural integrity of the barrier in the same way that in any lease, there would be clauses to void the tenancy or impose liability on the tenant for tampering with other fixtures or fittings or damaging the premises. I imagine it would be a standard clause in a lease.
Clauses 30 to 35 agreed to
Clause 36 read.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment amendments 76.5. The original intention of this clause was to remove any responsibility councils may have for maintaining fences abutting council land that are used as part of a pool barrier. The amendment is necessary to make it clear that council does not have any responsibility to maintain the swimming pool barrier or to maintain the land adjoining that barrier. This amendment was put forward by the Palmerston City Council.
Mr ELFERINK: And supported, Mr Chairman.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.6. The inclusion of the words, ‘or to maintain the land to assist such compliance’ is needed to ensure there is not a gap in the application of the provision. Whilst council would maintain their property up to the fence line or barrier, this provision does not oblige them to ensure the barrier’s safety for not removing, for example, a pile of leaves, grass or dirt that may affect the barrier. It is ultimately the owner’s responsibility to ensure the barrier remains safe.
Mr ELFERINK: While we are talking about offences, I have no problem with the amendment as proposed, however, I do want to extract from the minister something that I am certain he will confirm for me. The minister is well aware of my bug bear about the abuse of regulatory offences, and I just want it on the record that offences under this legislation are not to be dealt with as regulatory offences, but will be dealt with as simple or summary offences.
Mr AH KIT: Yes, we can confirm that.
Mr ELFERKINK: Thank you. I just wanted it on the record, thank you.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 36, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 37 to 50:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I am not going to harp on about the powers of the new advisors, which are exactly the same as the powers of the old inspectors – word for word. They have simply cut and pasted, and a few section numbers fixed up from one piece of legislation to the next. Those powers of inspectors always find their way into these sorts of inspectorial pieces of legislation. We can call them pool advisors, we can call them hamsters if we like, but at the end of the day, the powers remain the same. They exist for a purpose, to be exercised at such point in time when the other avenues available to pool safety advisors are no longer open to them.
Those are the normal avenues of polite enquiry – telephones, doorknocks, letters – those sorts of things. I think it is nave to come to a Chamber and suggest that we want you as a parliament to authorise these powers for our pool safety advisors, but we are never going to use them – they have never been used, but we just want them there. That does not make much sense. Of course you want them. You want them for the purposes of taking on a policing role. These pool safety advisors/inspectors/pool police, when they are in their policing mode, may come to a point where they do need to exercise these powers. That is why we put them into the legislation.
It is difficult to know, however, under the new Community Safety Standard, exactly what these powers are going to be used for, but I will give you one example. Where you have a situation where there is a complaint, and a pool safety advisor, acting on that complaint, tries to see the person who the complaint is about, knocks on the door, it is slammed in their face, all other inquiries fail. That pool safety advisor has a problem and the problem is this: I either walk away from the complaint, shrug my shoulders and say it is all too hard; or I take some further steps to go and inspect the pool in question, especially if you have a complainant who is quite passionate about protecting their children perhaps. It is a bit trite to argue that we are not ever going to use those powers, but give them to us anyway.
At the end of the day, if you have offences that need to be investigated, the investigating body needs powers, otherwise you are creating a nonsensical situation. I am not going to object to the powers. I believe the minister when he says that the intent is that they will never really be used. However, we have to be a little straightforward about the reasons that we give these powers.
Turning my attention to section 47 …
Mr AH KIT: Could I just comment on that, just briefly.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Mr Chairman. There is a stranger in the House, under Standing Order 249.
A member: Oh, get out of it.
Ms Lawrie: There is not.
Mr DUNHAM: You have two boxes. If you need more advisors, get another one.
Ms Lawrie: Get a life!
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: All I wanted to say is that we have very hard-working public servants right across the Territory. These pool safety advisors – currently, inspectors - are no different. Hopefully, they will be advisors after this legislation receives assent. We have people who read meters who are public servants. We have health inspectors. We may have a situation where somebody has gone away and kids are jumping into the yard, without their parents’ knowledge, and swimming in somebody’s pool. We may have yards that have pools not being utilised as such, but are collecting water and are safety hazards for kids. We have to some element of trust in our public servants. That is not the ‘pool police’ thing and the ‘Nazi inspectors’ and all that sort of stuff that we heard the last time we debated this; it is a commonsense power of entry that we believe should be there.
Mr DUNHAM: A couple of points. First, the element of trust in public servants: the member for Nelson mentioned last time that there are public servants with inspectorial functions of this type. He pointed out, in terms of efficiency, that perhaps these people could be delegated - for instance, building inspectors or others - to undertake some of these functions. The first point is: have you gone back to that suggestion that was put the last time this was developed; that there are other public servants delegated who are quite capable of doing work of this type?
The other issue, really, is that this is spin doctoring, taking away the word ‘inspector’ and turning it to ‘advisor’. We are not here to inspect any more, we are here to advise. Whether or not you want us to advise you or not, we can come into your premises and we can get all sorts of stuff - get search warrants. That is pretty significant advisory powers. I believe that the word is inappropriately used. Stay with ‘inspectors’. If they are inspectors, call them inspectors. They are certainly not advisors with power of that type.
Question one: have you looked at other arms of the public service to be able to do it, and do it better? Question two: why have you used an inappropriate word in an attempt to make it sound like they are not inspectors? Question 3: under clause 47, Protection from liability, these inspectors – sorry, advisors:
- (2) The person is not civilly or criminally liable for an act done or omitted to be done by the person in
good faith … or purported performance of a function …
I am interested in that word ‘purported’. If you are on the premises and you have said that you are in there to look at the pool and that you are delegated and all the rest of it, the word ‘purported’ would seem to me that there is some capacity for them to argue that case. I would have thought that it has it absolutely cut and dried. They have the search warrant, they have been to the JP or whatever, the thing is fully documented and filed. I do not think you need the word ‘purported’ in there.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, it is a standard provision. I explained that earlier, and I also gave, I thought, a good description of it in my closing debate second reading speech. Without appearing to be nasty, we went through this earlier, but you were not in the Chamber and participated …
Mr Dunham: Are you satisfied with the word ‘purported’?
Mr AH KIT: We went through the stuff and I explained that, and you may have seen it on the television and not understood it properly.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Mr Chairman. He knows he cannot reflect on whether members are in the Chamber or not.
Mr Stirling: He is just trying to help you.
Mr Kiely: Well, you were not here.
Mr DUNHAM: He was not here when we were talking a little while ago; he went out the back. He is the minister carrying this. He has not been in …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: … in parliament; he has been sitting out the back having whatever. The fact that you were not here is not that relevant to my three questions. Is ‘purported’ an acceptable word?
Mr AH KIT: Yes.
Mr Dunham: Yes. What?
Mr AH KIT: Yes, it is an acceptable word. What were the other two things you were saying? You had a problem with the word purported?
Mr Dunham: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: You had a problem with whether we could give the role to other bureaucrats that carry out similar roles?
Mr Dunham: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: No, I have not been down that path, but I would like to think that those officers who work for other portfolio areas in other departments obviously have their work cut out for them – or they would not be employed in a full-time capacity carrying out those functions that their CEOs have established for them. So there obviously is a need for that. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say to the swimming pool fencing inspectors, who they are until this legislation is passed, that you can all resign today because tomorrow we are looking for swimming pool safety advisors …
Mr Dunham: Why not? You are changing other stuff.
Mr AH KIT: No, hang on. You asked a question, I am answering you. … and then tomorrow we just go out and recruit another 20-odd swimming pool safety advisors to make you happy. These people are public servants. These people have carried out the letter of the law in regards to the legislation that is currently in place. Tomorrow they will be safety advisors and they will be in an advisory capacity. In the past, and I said it again in my second reading speech closing debate, that we are moving away under this legislation from the inspectorial role to an advisory capacity.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I rise with my same concern. If I look at the old legislation for clause 47 – I was going to raise this earlier but obviously the member for Drysdale and I have one mind. If you look at the old section 47 it read:
- Civil proceedings do not lie against a person in relation to the exercise by him or her of a power, or the performance
by him or her of a function, under this act or the Regulations in good faith
The new clause 47 reads:
- (1) This section applies to a person who is or has been –
(c) pool safety adviser.
- (2) The person is not civilly or criminally liable for an act … or omitted to be done by the person in
good faith in the exercise or purported exercise of a power …
Now ‘purported’ is a word that I am a little bit concerned about. I cannot find a definition for it inside the act. ‘Purport’ appears in the Macquarie Dictionary meaning to profess or claim, to convey to the mind as the meaning of thing intended, expressed or impliedly.
Now, if I walk up to a door and say, ‘I am pool inspector and I am here to inspect your pool’. I am exercising my power under this act. I have no liability. I turn out to do something entirely different which I have no power to do but because I have purported either expressly or impliedly to be there for a function of power, as to purported to be acting in good faith, exercising a function or power that I have under that act, it concerns me that if I do something else entirely because I have purported to do it, suggested, implied, said that I was going to do it, I would have a defence from civil or criminal liability. That really is pushing the edge of what is acceptable. I want the minister to be clear about this, that ‘purported’ does not mean what it means in the dictionary.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I gave a detailed response in regards to clause 47(3) at the end of my closing debate. I thought the member for Macdonnell understood that. I can only say, once again, that these are the words that have been offered up as the right words by Parliamentary Counsel. You have your dictionary and they have their experience. All I can say is that I believe that I will have to back the draftsman in this case. They are the wordsmiths. We can argue about words such as that, but I do not see where that is going to get us because we will end up agreeing to disagree.
Mr ELFERINK: With all due respect to the parliamentary draftsman, because this stuff was pushed upon them with such haste, you have had to come in here with a whole list of amendments because of drafting errors. That is no reflection on them; they are human. The day that they walk around with a big S on their chests and leap tall buildings, I will expect bigger things from them.
At the end of the day, you come in here with a list of things that they have identified and realise need to be fixed. That means that there is no guarantee that other things are not going to slip through. I have a concern about ‘purportedly’ acting in good faith. It is something I want on the record because I do not think it should be there. The courts will ultimately be the ones that have to interpret it if this thing goes leg-up. We should be assisting the courts as much as we can by being clear, and ‘purportedly acting in good faith’ is not very helpful.
Clauses 37 to 50 agreed to.
New Part:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I am not going to dwell on this endlessly. I move amendment 78.1. The amendment is fairly clear. It attempts to establish an independent tribunal which can investigate any matter that it so desires in relation to a decision pursuant to this bill. It should be able to review, call evidence and require the appearance of parties. It is very similar to the independent review body’s power under the Firearms Act. I suggest to the minister that this is probably the most contentious legislation that has been operating in the Northern Territory for the last two years. It has caused much grief.
One of the sources of that grief is that decisions of the Pool Fencing Authority have upset lots of people. As the member for Drysdale pointed out, the appearance of the head of the department on the front page of the paper demonstrating some of the problems with the act, the tight window for which people in the department had for moving within their discretionary powers, is one of the reasons we are here today and it is one of the issues we raised when the act was introduced. The reason that we are here today is to fix some of those problems.
I did pick up, and I hope I heard it correctly, the minister saying that the processes of judicial review were still available to people, but let us be careful about judicial review and what it is. A decision under this act is only appealable to the Supreme Court, on the advice that I have received, and only on a point of law. Issues such as the amount of a grant, or a compensation package should the minister choose to go down that path, were not appealable under the old system. The correspondence that the minister placed on the Table between himself and Mr Loadman clearly indicates that the existing appellant body, the Lands and Mining Tribunal, Mr Loadman, who clearly states he has had a personal experience with the appeals process, has come to the point of frustration where he uses words to describe the process as ‘lamentable in the extreme’, ‘bloody-mindedness’ and similar expressions. You would have to say there is a man who, from inside an appeals process, is feeling fairly desperate about the way that his appeals body can deal with matters.
He made no attempt to hide that he wanted to send one of his own experiences through the appeals process in this correspondence, but it made clear that the appeals process, in the estimation of the person who headed up the appeals process, himself thought the whole thing was a sham. Added to that, I pick up on the comments made by the minister about the separation of powers, a judicial officer working inside an administrative authority or administrative appeals tribunal is not sitting as a judicial officer as a general rule, and their decisions are not considered to be judicial. However, if we are going to take on the issue of the appeals process and say that you can have a judicial review, all that a judicial review will achieve is that the decision is sent back to the authority that made the decision, to make the decision again.
The authority can turn around and make exactly the same decision. The tests for those sorts of things are unreasonableness, no evidence, other limitations to administrative decision-making. Those are the things that will make a court say to an authority, ‘You will have to make a decision again’. They cannot remake the decision, they cannot make the decision on behalf of the authority. How tightly do the courts place their restrictions on themselves in terms of telling authorities what to do? You can go to the cases on this stuff, and I went through this at length during the firearms debate, but I remind members of the Associated Provincial Picture Houses and Wednesbury Corporation, where an authority decided to effectively ban all 15-year-olds from going to a cinema. It was found that the authority did not act unreasonably, and there is much case law on that particular issue, but it shows you how tightly the courts approached the judicial review process.
So what do we need? Well, we will turn to the Firearms Act, and that act gives us a really good indicator. An independent body, established as a tribunal to revisit the decisions of the Commissioner of Police. There is a representative of the Commissioner of Police on the independent body, but that is the only interference that goes there. It is all independent. It is actually headed up, I believe, by a magistrate. This piece of legislation, I remind members, has been contentious. How contentious? It has government apologising, saying, ‘I’m sorry, we completely stuffed this up’. But what we are going to do is, we are going to come into Parliament and we are going to say we are sorry and pretend to be humble, when in actual fact what we are going to do is remove the very body that polices us, which is the independent arbiter.
This legislation, as I have said to members, is legislation that has the capacity to have errors built into it. Why? Because we are rushing it. We are pushing it through on urgency, and we have already seen some of the problems that have occurred. We have the Chief Minister releasing information to the public that the minister will not release to me here in the House. So what can I do, and what can we do as parliamentarians, to at least build a failsafe into the process? And the failsafe system is that you keep an independent body and you empower it to do all sorts of things. You empower it to call witnesses, you empower it to revisit decisions, you empower it to hold an inquiry and, most importantly, you empower it to look at every aspect of the operation of the legislation, and you empower it to remake the decision in the cold, hard, light of day without the thing being pushed through.
The reason the old review body did not have any appeals go before it is because it had no power; it was a paper tiger. It could not be appealed to, and that was why the Chairman of the Lands and Mining Tribunal was frustrated with it. No appeals went to it because none could. I am suggesting that we should make it an appellant body.
The minister has already indicated he cannot support this. That is fine; that is his business. I would urge members, for the sake of the way this legislation operates, to support this amendment. I invite comments from the minister and other members in relation to the importance of the operation of an independent new tribunal. The structure of it is very similar to what came out of the Firearms Act, specifically at my request. It does have the power to remake a decision of the authority. Considering the way we are being asked to push things through, it is an eminently sensible body to oversee what has been very troubling legislation, so far, in the Northern Territory.
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I set out in my response to the second reading debate a detailed response to the proposal being put by the member for Macdonnell. I will not go through that material again. The government does not see the need for two appeal mechanisms that do, essentially, the same thing. This is quite simply a way of wasting the time of all concerned for little, if any, value to anyone. The concept that there should be an appeal available against the level of assistance grant provided, is simply a nonsense and misses the essential point that these grants will be provided from now on purely on the basis of evidence provided by the pool owner. The levels will be set in the scheme as approved. They are very generous and there is really no scope for an appeal. The amendment will not be supported.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, then I invite one comment from the minister and the comment is this: when it comes to an issue of judicial review, do you support the concept of legitimate expectation operating?
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is …
Mr Dunham: Are you refusing to answer?
Ms Lawrie: He does not have to answer. He has answered and answered and answered.
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I was expecting some advice from the minister. I will ask the question again: does the minister anticipate the operation of the concept of legitimate expectation under the normal processes of judicial review?
Mr AH KIT: I have explained - and I will just do this briefly, Mr Chairman. I have explained in the second reading debate. I just explained once again. We do not believe that there is a need to have two appeal mechanisms. What this bill has been able to do - and we have had 13 000 - I mentioned in the second reading debate and in my closing debate here today – 13 000 with just two appeals. One was over a grant; and the other one, a decision was not even made by the authority. You are fighting tooth and nail to have a situation where we keep …
Mr Dunham: He is fighting for fairness. Do you understand the concept of fairness?
Mr AH KIT: Don’t you talk to me about fairness.
Mr Dunham: Do you understand about fairness?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr AH KIT: You are not qualified.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr AH KIT: The question being put to me by the member for Macdonnell has nothing to do with this issue. There is no legitimate expectation here, no acquisition of property involved.
Mr ELFERINK: He finally got a note shoved in his hand, and he knows that he has to stand up and say no. However, I bet he does not have a clue why he has to say no to that question. I will advise the minister as to why he had to say no to that question. The answer to that question is that:
- The notion of ‘legitimate expectation’ …
I am quoting from Administrative Law, Douglas and Jones, in Australia:
- … is of uncertain connotation, and, in my opinion, may be misleading if it be treated as a criterion for
determining the application or content of the principles of natural justice. [In Salemi (No 2) at 404
Barwick CJ said:] “I am bound to say that I appreciate its literary quality better than I perceive its
precise meaning and the perimeter of its application … I cannot attribute any other meaning in the
language of a lawyer to the word ‘legitimate’ than a meaning which expresses the concept of
entitlement or recognition by law. So understood, the expression probably adds little, if anything,
to the concept of a right”.
However, that has since been revisited in the courts in Australia. I am just trying to put my finger on it, because what legitimate expectation is, is a principle of law which suggests that if I go through certain processes, like I am the holder of a driver’s licence and I do nothing to offend the possession of that driver’s licence, that I should have a legitimate expectation that that driver’s licence be renewed, and I do not have to go through a rigmarole of having to put up with an arbitrary decision by an authority, to say we are not going to give you a driver’s licence. Pooh, pooh – don’t want it.
So by denying legitimate expectation as a way to deal with judicial review of administrative decisions, what basically the minister is telling us, is that if you jump through all the hoops, he can still say no and you still have no right to judicial review. So, the suggestion that he has stated in the second reading speech that we have a right to judicial review, is actually a limited right of judicial review. How limited is it? Limited enough that the courts will only send a decision back for remaking for no other reason than for unreasonableness or something extreme. The courts have read that down so tightly that basically, even judicial review has now been struck down by you, minister.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, my point is a little different, but I am of the same view. It is not good enough for the minister to stand in here and say sorry – we mucked it up and so we apologise. The onus is to fix it up and the fix, minister, is to do with the stuff we are talking about. It is to do with people coming to you with their claims and if they are unsatisfied with that process, given that they are coming back to the very party that caused them the grief in the first place, there should be some open, transparent, independent, arms’ length capacity to have that reviewed. Okay, you are saying they will not have much work. Good. Let’s put it in place. The two cases that did go to tribunal, I am sure were glad that such a beast existed. All we are asking is that that capacity for review of your administrative decisions be put into this parliament and into this act. You muck it up, you fix it up.
Mr AH KIT: I have said that the amendment will not be supported, but I just pose this question …
Mr Elferink: So much for a humble apology.
Mr AH KIT: Well …
Mr Elferink: Well, that is the attitude you should have. You are apologising.
Mr AH KIT: You are saying the review committee is no good? That is what I am hearing.
Mr Elferink: I am saying it is inappropriate in the circumstances.
Mr Dunham: To be sorry, you have to show contrition. You have to show contrition.
Mr AH KIT: Oh, my hand is on my heart – I am sorry. Have you ever said sorry much in your life? When I said to you the other day that you must have been a horrible child, you said yes. Nothing is wrong with the word sorry. People on that side of the House should practise saying sorry a bit more because you never did it when you were in government. We have done it. I am not going to support this amendment. I said today, and I tabled the correspondence from David Loadman, the Chair of the Lands and Mining Tribunal …
Mr Elferink: Yes. It makes some very interesting reading.
Mr AH KIT: Now, I do not want to dwell on that. I can say that the decision that was made and how the review was conducted, the findings of the review, and how we moved that with our intentions and instructions to the Parliamentary Counsel, there is no need for a Lands and Mining Tribunal. I accept that. Regardless of whether the magistrate had a problem with his pool or not, it is neither here nor there.
You have a situation where you are asking me to include something that we do not need. We do not need two. I have faith in Bob Beadman, with his experience. I have faith in Sue Shearer and I have faith in Sue Parry; one is from the Real Estate Institute, the other one is from Royal Life Saving and they have been around the Territory for quite some time. If people have a situation where they believe that the review panel has not treated them kindly, then they have an opportunity to approach me by way of correspondence and, more importantly, they have an opportunity to approach the Ombudsman. The flexibility and workability that is now provided in this bill will not allow for many situations to arise where people will want to go to a Lands and Mining Tribunal.
The other point I add is that the Lands and Mining Tribunal is not written into every item of legislation that has passed through this Chamber. You are arguing for something on principle that you believe should be there and I believe should not. At this stage, we should agree to disagree.
Mr ELFERINK: It is a fairly fundamental thing to agree to disagree. I am not going to labour the point to death. I have made my point; I made it during the second reading debate. However, I will finish with this observation: it is all too cute for a government to walk into a place and say, ‘We’re sorry. We have mucked up. We forced this through the last time. We forced an amendment though. That didn’t save us. We are now coming back to fix the whole thing up, but in the process of saying that we are contrite, we know this is a contentious thing that has caused a lot of grief in the community, but we are not going to allow appeals’.
Even the powers of Mr Beadman et al - for whom I have no problem putting my respect on the record, so much so that I doubt very much that he will act ultra vires - the appeals process through the committee is clearly limited. The minister has demonstrated where Mr Beadman et al are not going to be allowed to make decisions on the operation of this legislation. The minister is still the over-riding authority and hires and fires people for the committee, and he may do so when he sees fit.
I wanted to see something independent because of the contentious nature of this legislation. The minister has clearly indicated that he does not care for that. I say that the contrition they have expressed is merely a mask to deal with a political problem they have, which is the next election. In that case, they have demonstrated to me and Territorians that their reasons for changing this legislation was not to enhance or improve child safety, but is purely political and for that reason, child safety is now expendable for this government’s political desires.
Proposed New Part negatived.
Clauses 51 to 58, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
New clause 59:
Mr AH KIT: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 76.7. These consequential amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act should have been included in the bill. These two provisions prevent landlords from entering into tenancy agreements unless section 40, No residential lease of small premises with swimming pool unless swimming pool registered and enclosed, of the current act was complied with and also made section 40 a term of all tenancy agreements.
It is considered appropriate to omit these two provisions from this bill as they are made redundant by the operation of amended clause 29(1).
Proposed new clause agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Proposed New Schedule 1:
Mr ELFERINK: Mr Chairman, I request we put this to the voices. It makes no sense in the absence of my amendment 78.1.
Proposed New Schedule 1 negatived.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Mr AH KIT (Local Government): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I will be brief. As a result of the examination of the bill, which is now going to almost certainly pass into law, what has become clear is that there are no compensation packages going to be available unless the minister says okay, and no appeal to that decision, even through his own review committee. Compensation for pools that have been removed - zip. Compensation for personal time lost for compliance - zip. Compensation for bridging finance losses for the deals that have fallen through in the past – zip. Compensation for downgraded assets as a result of pool fencing being placed in inappropriate places – zip. Compensation for poor advice received from pool authorities – zip. And compensation for lost amenity – zip. Nothing.
And that is part of the sham of this legislation; it was designed particularly to make the government not responsible. Any issues of note in terms of payments and those sorts of things now rest with the minister. The little bit that is hanging out there for everybody to enjoy is that I might be able to get a grant if I took some steps to put a pool fence in, but if I dug my pool up - forget it! That is interesting because the lady on the Channel 8 News tonight had dug out her pool because she could not get it to comply. She thinks she is going to get some money for that, and she is not. Not unless the minister personally intervenes. Not unless the minister actually gets involved, steps out and does the right thing by her. And if he does the right thing by her, then he is going to have to do the right thing for every Territorian who ripped out a pool or a spa as a consequence of this legislation.
What has become quite clear through this process tonight is that the minister now has the hands of final arbitration. He is the pool god of the Northern Territory, and only he is going to make those sorts of decisions. If they think that they have gotten through their pool problems now, I believe that they have a big surprise coming. Once again, like the first time, they have been warned.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Public Accounts Committee Report on
Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs – Report No 42, February 2004
Public Accounts Committee Report on
Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs – Report No 42, February 2004
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I table the Public Accounts Committee Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs.
MOTION
Print Paper - Public Accounts Committee
Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs –
Report No 42, February 2004
Print Paper - Public Accounts Committee
Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs –
Report No 42, February 2004
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Paper - Public Accounts Committee
Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs
Report No 42, February 2004
Note Paper - Public Accounts Committee
Report on Termination Payments to CEOs and ECOs
Report No 42, February 2004
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report and seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
TABLED PAPER
Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the draft amendments of the
Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act – Third Report
Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the draft amendments of the
Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act – Third Report
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, at the request of, and on behalf of, the Chairman of the Standing Orders Committee, Mr Henderson, I table the Third Report of the Standing Orders Committee including Draft Members’ Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards, and draft amendments to the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act.
MOTION
Print Paper - Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the draft amendments of
the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interest) Act – Third Report
Print Paper - Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the draft amendments of
the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interest) Act – Third Report
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Adopt Paper – Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the Draft Amendments of
the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interest) Act – Third Report
Adopt Paper – Standing Orders Committee Report on the Draft Members’
Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and the Draft Amendments of
the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interest) Act – Third Report
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be adopted.
On 20 June 2002, the Chief Minister tabled the two draft documents which were referred to the Standing Orders Committee for inquiry and report back to the Assembly. The tabling of the draft document was proceeded in March 2002 when the Speaker, Hon Loraine Braham MLA, wrote to the Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition suggesting that the Standing Orders Committee consider a reference on a code of conduct for members and, as a starting point for this consideration, forwarded a copy of the draft code of conduct which had been tabled in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly by the Premier, Hon Geoff Gallop MLA.
In conducting its inquiry, the committee has held 11 meetings at which the reference was discussed in detail. Advice of the reference and copies of the documents tabled by the Chief Minister were posted on the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly web site, together with an invitation to provide written submissions. The Presiding Officers and Clerks of all Australian parliaments, the Northern Territory Auditor-General, the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, and the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission received formal advice of the reference and were invited to provide a written submission.
Written submissions were received from Mr Gerry Wood MLA, member for Nelson; the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Standing Ethics Committee; and Mr Mike Blake, the Northern Territory Auditor-General. An informal submission was received from the Queensland Legislative Assembly Members’ Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee. In the course of its inquiry, the committee met with Mr Howard Whitton, the consultant involved in drafting amendments to the act and the draft code of conduct and ethical standards. That meeting was held on 3 September 2002, and discussions covered a wide range of issues that had been raised during meetings of the committee. I was very pleased to attend that particular meeting. I found it very productive.
Mr Whitton provided additional information in respect of proposed amendments to the act and, in particular, various issues of spouse and family reporting requirements, reporting of the value of real estate, shares and other holdings, and provisions in other Australian and overseas jurisdictions. Discussions also included the recommendations contained in the submission from the Auditor-General, which were to the effect that it would be more appropriate that the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly retain the role of Registrar of the register of members’ interests, and that the Auditor-General should have a role in respect of making inquiries, reaching findings of facts, and providing reports to the Assembly in accordance with the requirements of procedural fairness in respect to any alleged breaches of the requirements of the proposed new code and act.
The committee also benefited significantly from a meeting with the members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Standing Ethics Committee. In 2002, that committee completed a review of the code of conduct first adopted in the New South Wales parliament in 1998 and, through the chairman, Mr John Price MP, expressed interest in a comprehensive range of matters covered in the draft Northern Territory code. In late 2002, members of the New South Wales committee undertook a study tour which included the Northern Territory, and a meeting was arranged with the Standing Orders Committee in November of that year. The meeting was most informative and beneficial to members of the committee in its consideration of the matters contained in the reference. In addition to the meeting with the New South Wales committee, the committee also considered and discussed a range of documents prepared in relation to the draft code of conduct and ethnical standards.
In preparing this report, the committee reviewed those codes used by other parliaments and, in reaching a conclusion in respect of the appropriate form of the code, the committee determined that it was not practical to have a code that was simply a compendium or statement of highly detailed regulatory provisions which prescribe every aspect of a member’s parliamentary and private life. Rather, the committee agreed that the code should contain a statement of essential principles to provide guidance to members in fulfilling their duties, functions and obligations as members of the Assembly.
The amendments made by the committee to the draft code as proposed in the document tabled by the Chief Minister adhere to those fundamental objectives and include the range of principles and specific standards that were set out in that draft including four major principles established by the code: integrity, accountability, responsibility and public interest. The draft code also contains a commentary which explains the major reasons and objectives which underpin each of these principles.
Major principles and standards included in the code are: firstly, the honest exercise of the duties and responsibilities of a member uninfluenced by conflicts of interest; secondly, appropriate declaration of personal interest; thirdly, the requirement for members to act honestly in official dealings and to correct misleading or incorrect information given by them; fourthly, the restriction of certain forms of private capacity employment for one year after ceasing to be a member; fifthly, the prohibition of taking improper personal advantage of a privileged position; sixthly, a provision for members to accept official gifts in accordance with natural custom, but not to seek or encourage any form of gift or benefit; and lastly, the requirement that members shall not hold or continue to hold in their own capacity or through a third party, a contract or business, arrange for the provision of services to government to bodies.
The code also requires that members should contribute to good government by seeking to advance the public interest based on honest reasonable and properly informed judgement about the common good of the people of the Northern Territory.
The proposed amendments to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act in large part reflects the draft bill as tabled by the Chief Minister with the proposed amendments described above to the effect that the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly should retain the role of Registrar of Members’ Interests. The new act will significantly strengthen the requirements for annual registration and ad hoc declaration of members’ interests and provide for the annual publication of details of the members’ register as a parliamentary paper.
The new act will also provide that claims of breaches of the requirements would be the subject of an independent investigation by the Auditor-General, an officer of the Legislative Assembly. The Auditor-General will investigate such claim breaches. However, the Auditor-General’s role will be limited to making inquiries, reaching findings of facts and providing a report to the Assembly in accordance with the requirements of procedural fairness. The committee is particularly grateful for the cooperation given by the Auditor-General, Mr Mike Blake, to the consideration of its reference.
As indicated in the tabling statement by the Chief Minister, the report notes that there will be a requirement for the code of conduct and ethnical standards to be supported by a new Legislative Assembly Members’ Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards Act which will give force of law to those provisions which require enactment and which will create offences and penalties. In particular, in relation to prohibition or restricted conduct arising after a member has left public office and for certain forms of employment in the public sector, the use of privileged information by a former member and the holding of contracts or business arrangements for the provision of services to government bodies.
However, the committee notes that such provisions would need to take into account the provisions of existing Territory and Commonwealth legislation, standing orders and other administrative instruments which may directly affect the implementation of such legislation. I advise honourable members that I propose to seek leave to continue my remarks and that following consideration of the draft code and the proposed act by members, that the resumption of the debate on the motion that the Assembly adopt the recommendation contained in the report, be conducted during the March Sittings.
Following the adoption of the report, it is anticipated that the required complementary legislation to give full effect to the code will be presented and debated later this year. This will provide adequate time for a familiarisation and education program for members in respect of the new code and act. Madam Speaker, in line with the provisions of the new electoral legislation, it is proposed that this material be made available for all future candidates for election to this Assembly.
In conclusion, I thank all members of the committee who contributed to the conduct of a most thorough and responsible consideration of the reference given to it by the Assembly. I record my appreciation of the bipartisan approach taken by all members in reaching a unanimous and consensus-based final draft code and proposed act.
Madam Speaker, I would particularly like to make mention of the former chair, the member for Nhulunbuy for his efforts, and to Mike Reed, former member for Katherine, who made some very good and thoughtful suggestions. He was very constructive. I thank you, Madam Speaker, and the Clerk. The Clerk has researched long and hard throughout Australia and given considered advice on many of the ideas and proposals. This has been a major piece of work. It is a landmark in the Assembly and will move us forward in confronting the ethical issues that do or potentially face members. I have commended those who made submissions to the committee, including Mr Mike Blake, the Auditor-General, the member for Nelson and the New South Wales committee that visited us.
Madam Speaker, I commend the report to the House and seek leave to continue my remarks at a later date.
Leave granted.
Debate adjourned.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Tourism Activities
Tourism Activities
Ms MARTIN (Tourism): Madam Speaker, I provide a ministerial statement to inform the House of various activities being undertaken by government in support of our tourism industry and, in particular, about how we are going to spend the $27.5m over the next three years that was allocated to tourism late last year.
As February is Tourism Month in the Northern Territory, it is timely that I make this statement during these sittings. Tourism is one of the industries fundamental to the Territory economy; it is our single largest employer and our second largest revenue earner after mining.
NT Tourist Commission estimates for 2000 show that for 2002-03, direct visitor expenditure in the Territory was $1.079bn. The industry directly provided 7927 jobs for Territorians and another 6307 jobs indirectly, 15% of our workforce.
As members know, our industry has suffered some setbacks over the past few years. International tourism numbers fell off dramatically following the 11 September attacks and, co-incidentally, the Ansett Airlines collapse that threw the domestic travel sector into a state of confusion. If that was not bad enough, those landmark events were followed by terrorist bombings in Bali and Jakarta, the invasion of Iraq and, finally, the SARS epidemic, all of which had devastating effects on international tourism.
Territory tourism is highly reliant on global long-haul tourism and was hard hit by these events. We saw a 10% decline in international holiday visitors over the two years from 2000-01 to 2002-03. Numbers notably decreased from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia, and they represent the Territory’s biggest source market, down 30 000 holiday visitors or 19%. Holiday visitation from the Asian market, heavily impacted by SARS and the Bali bombings, was down 15 000 holiday visitors or a staggering 79%.
However, I am pleased to report tonight that indications show the inbound tourism market has begun to turn around. Based on figures derived from the Tourism Forecasting Council, a 4% growth in holiday visitor numbers is anticipated this financial year. For a host of reasons, confidence in the Territory industry is high, and one important reason for that confidence is because the Territory government has acted decisively.
In recognition of the importance of the tourism industry to the economic well-being of the Territory, last October my government announced a $27.5m injection over three years to the NT Tourist Commission. This announcement was made on the back of a strong business case from the Commission, and it funded a raft of initiatives designed to provide increased benefits to all Territorians.
Based on marketing and infrastructure development figures, it is anticipated that this funding will increase visitor expenditure in the Territory by $218m over three years, and provide 950 new tourism jobs. We see that $27.5m expenditure as a three year investment into the long term future of the industry to keep the Territory moving ahead.
In the first year, 2003-04, a total of $7.5m has been allocated to an implementation plan, updated and monitored regularly by the Tourist Commission executive and the board. Of that initial $7.5m, $3.8m is earmarked to the vital area of marketing communications. That allocation will include a $1.5m branding campaign, which includes the ‘Never, Never Leave You’ television advertising campaign, now showing in all major Australian capital cities on channels 9, 7, 10 and SBS. Print media advertising will appear in all major metropolitan newspapers, popular magazines, such as Who Weekly, Outback, Australian Geographic, along with commercial radio and internet advertising. The allocation includes marketing the Darwin and Alice Springs Virgin Blue services. Already, the Alice Springs campaign has attracted an extra 1000 passengers during the traditionally slow summer period. The additional travel was worth nearly $500 000 to air and land operators.
The Territory industry, and particularly many of the smaller tour operators, have experienced a direct impact, with some operators reporting they have received in excess of 200 bookings since the campaign commenced on 7 December. A retail travel agents familiarisation program, which concludes at the end of March, has attracted a total of 975 agents to the Territory. This program presents an opportunity for retail agents to see the Territory in their own time. It exposes key agents to what the NT has to offer, which will provide flow-on effects in greater sales to airlines, all Territory wholesalers and tourism operators. In total, this initiative has resulted in an incremental 1756 passengers booked to the Territory, providing an estimated $903 000 in new business for Territory tourism businesses.
A new marketing strategy is being explored within Kakadu National Park. Unlike our predecessors, who saw federal control of Kakadu National Park as a confrontational states’ rights issue, my government has been working hard over the past several years to strengthen relationships between Territory and federal authorities. That includes finalising arrangements for formal Territory government representation on the management boards of both parks, something park traditional owners objected to when the previous government was in office. We have written to the federal Minister for Parks, placing a formal proposal on the table for a joint marketing campaign for Kakadu National Park. This would include highlighting the cultural elements of the park. We are also discussing with Kakadu Park management the possible employment of a tourism focused position based within the park management structure.
The two other prongs of our approach include working to assist with tourism development priorities in Kakadu, and greater involvement of Parks Australia North staff in the Territory tourism industry. Implementation of the Parks and Reserves Framework for the Future Bill will ensure that the strong, vibrant indigenous culture of the Territory is reflected in our Territory parks system. It will give traditional owners opportunities to actively participate in the overall park management of their land, and an opportunity for them to decide how their culture is presented to visitors.
Joint management arrangements between Aboriginal people and the Parks and Wildlife Service will become the norm in our parks, like it is in federally operated parks, together with the employment of Aboriginal people in a range of roles within the parks system. This provides prospects for long term positive benefits for indigenous people in the more remote areas of the Territory, and that is something this government sees as a major priority.
Sports event marketing has been initiated and events have already begun. The Tourist Commission has made a commitment to support the promotion of upcoming national sporting events that are taking place in the Territory. The aim is to encourage sports fans to visit and support their team, and increase the awareness of the Northern Territory as a holiday destination for the target market. The commission launched a tactical print campaign in Western Australian newspapers in January and February to promote the National Basketball League and the Australian Football League games in Darwin. The commission is negotiating with the Western Bulldogs to undertake promotional support of the AFL round 20 game between the Bulldogs and Port Adelaide. Promotional activity will be focussed primarily towards the Western Bulldogs, as they have made a three-year commitment to playing in the Northern Territory. Discussions will also be undertaken with Port Adelaide.
The Destination Marketing team is in the process of implementing a campaign strategy for the Australia versus Sri Lanka test match to be held here in Darwin in July. The campaign is likely to include advertising in Sri Lankan community newspapers around Australia, supported by editorial produced by media/public relations. The initial $3.8m allocation includes $100 000 in funding for Tourism Month during February and March 2004. The campaign includes local television advertising on Channel 9 and Imparja aimed at showing Territorians the type of advertising shown in southern capitals. $100 000 is allocated to a photo and video shoot to be held in Katherine in March as part of a major upgrade of the commission’s image library system used by media across Australia and internationally.
A new campaign aimed at attracting self-drive visitors from around the country begins in March. Motoring magazines in each state will focus on theme drives such as Nature’s Way, the Explorer Highway and Pioneer’s Path.
The Territory Tourist Commission, the Western Australian Tourist Commission and the South Australian Tourist Commission have joined forces to work on a marketing project called Project Outback targeting the backpacker market. An allocation of $18 000 will ensure that more than 60 000 copies of a guide called Real Adventures for Real Travellers will be published, and stuck on the cover of the popular TNT Backpacker magazine. A further 40 000 copies will be distributed to Internet cafs and youth hostels. The aim of the guide is to divert backpackers from the eastern states by encouraging them to take the Explorer Highway from Darwin to Adelaide, cross the Nullarbor to Perth, or to head along the West Coast Road between Perth and Darwin. Extra funding of $38 000 has financed a second print run of Backpack the Outback brochures. Aimed at international backpackers, they will be distributed internationally in youth hostels and travel agencies. A new e-newsletter for the backpacker market was launched last month. Last year, the commission conducted an Avant Card postcard campaign with electronic distribution of more than 40 000 post cards. Of those who replied, 77% wanted more information on the Territory. To capitalise on the new contacts, we established a database that will continue to be updated from further competition campaigns and trade shows.
On the high end of the market, the 5 Star Experiences marketing campaign will be initiated interstate; a total of $150 000 for marketing upmarket tourist excursions such as Bullo River Station, Brookes Australian Tours, Alice Springs Holidays and Bond Springs Outback Retreat.
More marketing for fishing will be undertaken promoting recreational fishing tourism. In the next few months, the Territory can expect visits from television fishing personalities Rex Hunt and Andrew Ettinghausen, and also reporters from Fishing World and Modern Fishing magazines, all experiencing and reporting on Territory fishing tourism product. An allocation of $15 000 has been made to upgrade the ‘Fish the Territory’ website and a Territory fishing map is currently being developed by NT News fishing writer, Matt Flynn at a cost of $20 000.
In order to ensure nature-based tourism product is available, not just for today but well into the future, constant attention must be paid to sustainability. In this context, government’s work on protecting key natural resources such as our fishing stocks has vital implications. Fishing is an important part of the Territory lifestyle, something this government wants to support and promote locally, nationally and globally. Following consultations with all regional stakeholders, we closed the McArthur River to commercial barramundi fishing in 2002. We have also made a commitment to take the same action in regards to Adelaide River. Anyone who does not regard fishing as a high tourism priority does so at their peril. Current research shows 10% of our interstate and international holiday visitors undertake fishing as part of their Northern Territory visit.
We are working with key partners to explore opportunities to exploit this unique facet of a Territory holiday. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Tourist Commission has embarked on an NT exclusive fishing program with Angling Direct Holidays, a new niche tour operator. As part of a cooperative marketing strategy between Angling Direct Holidays and the Tourist Commission, Northern Gateway, the only active NT-based inbound tour operator, managed a familiarisation trip last December. Site inspections of various tourism operators were conducted, and feedback from Angling Direct is that the trip far exceeded all their expectations. Angling Direct and Northern Gateway are now finalising the ground context prior to a March 2004 launch of the NT program.
Of the initial $7.5m, an allocation of $2.4m has been earmarked for market development introducing a host of new initiatives. An allocation of $500 000 was made towards developing cooperative advertising programs with 10 national and 19 Territory-based partners. Both television and media advertising are currently being produced on a cost sharing basis. International marketing initiatives will see $500 000 allocated to a wide range of programs. As part of that initiative the commission is improving its infrastructure for trade shows and expos at a cost of $90 000. The international tourism websites are being redeveloped and updated at a cost of $80 000 with maintenance of $30 000. They are also being translated into languages other than English with image upgrades.
A ‘Mega-Famil’ will see 30 German travel agents brought to the Territory on a familiarisation excursion with half touring the Top End and the other half touring Central Australia. They then will return to Germany and sell the Territory to their customers.
The commission is also supporting four Territory operators including Gecko Canoeing and Cape Don Experience to take part in an American workshop. At a cost of $30 000 it aims to fast track their entry into the difficult US market. American travellers are not travelling internationally since 11 September and this workshop allows Australian product to be promoted to retail travel agents in the US encouraging more Americans to travel to Australia and the Territory.
The commission’s UK office is working with Travel Active, a Dutch tour operator, to promote the Territory as an ideal tourist destination for working holidays, travel and study. This is part of an effort to establish wider culture relationships between the Netherlands and the Northern Territory.
The ‘Travel Active Get Down Under Tour 2004’ promotes opportunities to ‘Work, Travel, Study and Play in Australia’. During January and February 2004, Travel Active visited all the major schools, polytechnics and universities in Holland providing information on Australia and the Territory. It is anticipated that 5000 young people will be exposed to the Territory at this series of one-day events.
Access into and within the Territory is a key factor restraining Australian tourism growth. Additional aviation access, particularly direct international aviation links to Darwin, remains a key priority for government. However, we have had some important wins over the past year. I acknowledge the work of my predecessor as tourism minister, Dr Burns, in this area. Critical achievements during the past year have included Royal Brunei Airlines’ introduction of third weekly service to Darwin last October with good connections to our key source markets in Europe and United Kingdom; two Japanese charter programs to Alice Springs, one in August and the second in November last year; and we have a charter program with Silk Air from Singapore this February and two flights landing in Darwin this week. In a very important move Australian Airlines will commence operations into Darwin from 6 May. Complementing Qantas’ existing services this brings to five the number of flights from Singapore into the Territory and provides a much needed improvement in air access from the key markets from the United Kingdom and Germany.
The Tourist Commission and the NT Aviation Committee have been working hard to improve domestic aviation capacity. I am pleased to report to the House that the number of seats into Darwin and Alice Springs now exceeds the situation prior to the Ansett collapse. West Australian airline Skywest will begin operations to Darwin in April. The new Perth/Broome/Darwin service will begin with two flights a week building to three in May and possibly more in the near future. Key priorities for this year are to work with airlines to improve scheduling wherever possible.
We are continuing to follow a number of leads with a variety of international carriers including presenting and receiving business cases for expansion of networks. Our aviation development director, Peter Roberts, a joint appointment between the Territory government and NT Airports, returned from a trip to Asia last week during which he met with executive representatives of a number of major airlines. I will also be meeting with key airline executives during my trip to China in April.
In December last year, the then Minister for Tourism announced the appointment of a part-time tourism marketing representative for Singapore. This appointment, funded by my government’s $27.5m injection into the Tourism Commission, is a strategic move to increase point-to-point travel from Asia to Darwin improving the profitability and long-term sustainability of air linkages.
A customer relationship marketing project is being developed for the NT Convention Bureau at a cost of $100 000. It will build and maintain relationships with past and potential clients. A website redevelopment for the NT Convention Bureau is also underway and a new CD-ROM will be distributed in coming months to encourage potential conference organisers to come to the Territory.
An allocation of $90 000 has been made to initiate an Ambassadors Program that will identify prominent Territorians who are leaders in their industry or endeavour to promote the Territory and help win more business, tourism and investment. An allocation of $200 000 has been made to finance strategic tourism research. This will include an extensive project to understand what types of people are interested in the Territory, what they want from a Territory holiday and what form of advertising would best attract them. This segmentation research project is the latest stage in an ongoing effort. A system of campaign tracking research has commenced with Roy Morgan Research to measure the success of recent campaigns.
An allocation of $1.3m has been earmarked for tourism development, working with operators to improve their product and support new product. Identification and development of a system of prioritising destinations throughout the Territory is an initiative aimed at understanding key projects. The program is designed to create and nurture tomorrow’s tourism destinations and overcome challenges at existing icons. For example, as Uluru reaches its carrying capacity, the program will support such ‘mature’ destinations to continuous ongoing renewal. An initial list of over 70 destinations identified has reduced the number to seven mature, 17 developing and 12 emerging destinations, representing the next three years’ activity.
Priority projects for the Tourist Commission are outlined in the NT Tourism Strategic Plan 2003-07, which was developed in consultation with the tourism industry and the Territory community. This strategic plan sets the framework for strategic development of our tourism industry. An update of the plan was released earlier this month, and regular annual updates will ensure it remains a living document.
The plan outlines two major building blocks for future Territory tourism, firstly, nature-based tourism. Environmental experiences continue to grow in popularity around the world and have been the backbone of our industry for many years. NT Travel Monitor figures support that premise. They are drawn from three distinct surveys:
AC Neilson, the television survey agency, carries out a telephone occupancy service surveying commercial accommodation;
they also survey Territorians at home about the number of friends and relatives that visit each year;
another survey questionnaire is left in commercial accommodation and filled out by visitors.
These combined surveys show that last year, 61% of all interstate and international holiday visitors who came to the Territory were motivated to travel here in order to experience the bush.
A range of projects has been identified for immediate action through the Destination Development Strategy and support is being offered to our partners. The government provides strategic development and assistance services to businesses and industry sectors throughout the Territory through the Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development. Local tourism businesses are able to utilise these services to enhance their capacity, business performance, profitability and market penetration. Territory business owners can choose from a range of programs to improve individual performance and play a vital role in advancing regional economic development, employment and wealth creation capabilities for the Territory.
DBIRD administers a key support program for tourism operators, the Trade Support Scheme, which co-exists with and complements the Tourist Commission’s International Marketing Support Scheme. These two programs provide financial assistance to operators in accessing export markets and are key examples of how this government helps business getting on with doing business. Most tourism operators based in the Territory are also small businesses. My government recognises that the administrative burden on small businesses can be an impediment to getting on with business. We are committed to assisting tourism operators through a variety of mechanisms.
The other key building block outlined in the NT Tourism Strategic Plan is cultural tourism. This involves connecting visitors with the people who live or have lived in an area and the ritual, lifestyle and activities of these people. Although cultural tourism in the Territory is closely associated with tourism focussing on indigenous culture, it also includes the history of Asian and European settlement and pivotal events such as the attacks on Darwin during World War II.
The Territory’s indigenous connections have formed the basis for a number of successful tourism businesses, including some which are leading the way for indigenous tourism in Australia. One well known example is Anangu Tours near Uluru which, just this month, entered the Hall of Fame at the National Tourism Awards held in Perth. Other new indigenous product is still emerging right across the Territory. Important partnerships are being established to help support and sustain indigenous product, like in Central Australia where Aboriginal-owned tourism operator Desert Tracks is enhancing its business knowledge in a partnership with Discovery Eco Tours.
The commission is supporting the development of important indigenous product, such as through the Tiwi Islands Tourism Strategy, while also encouraging businesses to share their expertise. For example, the commission funded two Tiwi Island board members to travel to Tennant Creek to experience the Nyikka Nyunyu Arts and Cultural Centre. The Tourist Commission also recently sponsored 11 indigenous operators to attend the Better Country, Better Business conference in Perth.
The government’s objectives for indigenous tourism are outlined in the NT Indigenous Tourism Strategy, which is due to be considered by Cabinet shortly. The new strategy seeks to broaden the development of the Territory industry beyond its core tourism focus of the earlier 1996 strategy. Its purpose is to provide a framework for the Tourist Commission and the Indigenous Tourism Reference Group, a committee comprising of representatives from indigenous organisations, government departments and tourism industry representatives. The NT Indigenous Tourism Strategy is based on research and an extensive consultation process involving indigenous tourism stakeholders, the Territory tourism industry, government departments and indigenous communities.
The NT Indigenous Arts Strategy, Building Strong Arts Business is designed to complement principles of social and economic development and, through linking with the NT Tourism Strategic Plan 2003-07, has an essential role to play in indigenous economic development.
The Tourist Commission has increased its emphasis on indigenous elements in tourism marketing, whilst at the same time supporting export opportunities for local Territory artists. As an example, from 17 May to 15 June last year, the ‘Living in Dreaming’ Australian Aboriginal Arts Exhibition was held at the prestigious DIHA Earth Wisdom Centre in Takayama, a major city midway between Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. The exhibition included art works from Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands, Kimberley region, and the Western and Central Desert areas. Our Tourist Commission representatives in Japan supported the staging of the exhibition by assisting with promotional flyers, background information and by arranging a didgeridoo concert. Indigenous culture and the Northern Territory are inseparable.
A comprehensive review of the Territory’s self-drive strategy, which includes development of the theme drives, has been completed and the next step will be to develop a plan for the future.
That is a comprehensive review of how the initial $7.5m of the $27.5m allocation is being used. A further $10m is allocated in 2004-05 and is to be used for similar projects: $7.5m to marketing development and $2.5m to tourism development. Another $10m is allocated in the year 2005-06.
But the Territory’s government tourism plan does not end with this injection. It goes much further, crossing into a range of associated portfolios. The success of a tourist destination relies on a combination of factors as well as the appeal of its attraction. Raising the standard of quality of infrastructure supporting tourism in the Territory is a key focus for government.
One such development is the Darwin City Waterfront Project. In December 2003, my government announced three short-listed consortia for the $600m Darwin City Waterfront redevelopment project. Community consultation workshops have been held with a number of community groups, including the tourism industry, and a business and tourism reference group has been established. The development will include a convention and exhibition centre, open spaces, commercial and residential areas, and should make a significant contribution to leisure and business tourism, as well as providing a precinct that attracts local people. Work should start on the waterfront redevelopment next year, with the convention and exhibition centre due to be operational in 2007.
Another important infrastructure project is set for Central Australia. Construction of stage 1 of the upgrade and sealing of the Mereenie Loop Road from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon is anticipated to commence in May this year. Other major road developments throughout the Territory which will improve access to tourist destinations include: construction of the Finke River Bridge which is currently in progress, due for completion in May this year; the duplication alignment for the Stuart Highway and the Cox Peninsula intersection, away from the World War II Strauss Airstrip is due to commence in June this year; selected community upgrading and sealing of the Tanami Road is currently in progress and is due for completion in March 2004, with further work to commence in April; sealing of the Cox Peninsula Road is to be extended to Belyuen, which is expected also to commence in April of this year; the South Alligator bridge on the Arnhem Highway will be lengthened with expected completion in July this year; and the Point Stuart and Fogg Bay Roads will be upgraded and sealed, commencing in April and May this year respectively.
The tourism infrastructure task force is currently developing a priority list of tourism infrastructure projects for government consideration and inclusion into the capital works program.
Obviously, the arrival of the first Ghan travelling from Adelaide to Darwin has provided a boost to the Territory’s tourism, the likes of which few could have foreseen. The extension of The Ghan from Alice Springs to Darwin offers great opportunities for Territory tourism operators to develop new market opportunities and products, and to overcome issues such as seasonality. Various holiday packages have been developed by Trainways - Great Southern Railway holiday division - incorporating a variety of product offerings such as flights, accommodation, visit to attractions and national parks, and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the passenger and motor rail service are spread across a variety of tourism sectors and regions. Territory Discoveries has also issued a dedicated rail holidays program.
The Tourist Commission estimates that The Ghan will result in an incremental 16 000 tourists to Darwin per year. This translates into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure; $27m of tourism expenditure will support around an additional 200 tourism jobs. We are increasing our level of commitment to the retail travel trade with initiatives such as the NT Muster being held in March and themed for the arrival of The Ghan, Inbound to the Outback, to be held in Katherine in May this year.
The outlook for our tourism industry this year is bright. Tourism Commission forecasts for the 2003-04 financial year are for a 4% growth in total holiday visitors, with good growth in international holiday visitors expected. Forecasts for 2004-05 are even more positive, with 10% growth in holiday visitors anticipated. The recovery in international tourism, combined with new initiatives this government in undertaking as a result of our increased investment in our tourism industry, means we can all look forward to a prosperous tourism season this year.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of this statement.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I welcome the additional $7.5m that the Northern Territory government has committed to the tourism industry over the next year, with a further $20m over subsequent years. Additional assistance to an industry that has taken a beating in the past couple of years is essential to revitalise and stimulate the marketplace. In no small way, international crises have contributed mainly to the lean time that tourism operators have unfortunately experienced, not only in the Territory but nationally through terrorism, the collapse of Ansett, SARS and international conflict.
I also welcome the attention of the federal government’s recognition towards the industry. Minister Joe Hockey has introduced an extra $235m to develop new strategies by introducing the most significant reforms to the tourism industry in over 35 years. In November, the Tourism White Paper was launched, which has introduced broad structural reform to the tourism industry in an attempt to address the changes that have occurred over the past couple of years, and to assist the industry throughout Australia.
This statement begins with the Chief Minister stating, and I quote:
- Tourism is one of the industries fundamental to the Territory economy: it is our single largest employer
and our second largest revenue earner …
This is not a new revelation. The CLP has known for years how fundamental tourism is to the Northern Territory economy. The Chief Minister must surely regret her government’s short-sightedness by cutting funding to the Northern Territory Tourist Commission in 2001. That followed in 2002 with the closure of the Darling Harbour Holiday Centre in the summer season when 60% of international visitors who come to the Territory enter Australia through Sydney. This unstructured market usually stays on the east coast for a couple of months before they head to the Territory for the Dry Season. The decision to close the centre at that high peak entry time was foolish and ill thought out. Despite evidence of dramatic decline in international holiday visitors from 2001, your government effectively took our product off the shelf. Chief Minister, you have used in your statement the only word to describe the decline in numbers – staggering. It is quite obvious that this Labor government did not realise the importance of tourism to the economy back then.
It has taken a full two years and four Tourism Ministers to listen to the 16 000 affected by this industry in the Territory. That is actually what I call a bad case of slow learning. In addition to that, the Chief Minister says in her statement that, and I quote:
… confidence in the Territory is high and one important reason for that confidence is because the Territory
government has acted decisively.
Now, the word ‘decisively’, must be a misprint as the actions of this government towards tourism have been far from decisive, unless the meaning of the word has changed.
The previous shadow minister for Tourism has called on the government at least 18 times over the past two years to address what has been an ailing industry. I know from my personal involvement on the executive of the Katherine Region Tourist Association, on the Katherine Chamber of Commerce, as alderman of Katherine Town Council, and my tourism operation, that tourism was sinking further into crisis. So it is a relief to see the government has finally pulled its head out of the sand.
The Chief Minister also refers to indicated growth figures of 4% for inbound tourism and it is very important to have these figures to target the market accurately for a maximum dollar outcome. The interesting aspect of this statement is that the Chief Minister used the figures derived from the Tourism Forecasting Council. The Chief Minister two weeks ago announced that her government would not be contributing $200 000 to the Australian Bureau of Tourism Research to provide vital forecast figures to the Northern Territory for the next 12 months. The Bureau of Tourism Research, which this government no longer funds, provides the technical advice to the Tourism Forecasting Council, whose figures the Chief Minister was happy to use in this statement.
Tourism research is important in recognising changing trends in the market and addressing those changes in line with the demands. A perfect example of this is that a part-time tourism marketing representative has been appointed to Singapore in December. A previous representative in Singapore was withdrawn when the market changed several years ago and now, with ever changing trends, we see one being reappointed. The Bureau of Tourism Research identifies these changes in the market place.
I welcome some of the points that are in the Chief Minister’s tourism statement that have come about due to the injection of this additional funding, and some of them are: the customer relationship marketing project for the Territory Convention Centre. It is very important to maximise the use of that facility; I welcome the ambassadors’ program. There are many Territory proud people whom we should encourage to assist in promoting the Territory further, for further development and that will of course, assist the industry; I also encourage the campaign tracking research. It has long been a concern of mine that we cannot be certain with each publication that we pay a lot of money for, that we are reaching the right target market; I always welcome tourism development. While $1.3m has been allocated, I would like to see more assistance to helping operators to improve their product and to support new product. Some present product is very, very tired and needs to be upgraded to meet the needs of the tourist numbers we are expecting to see to come to the Territory in the future.
While the Chief Minister says she supports new product, her previous Minister for Tourism did not. When the opportunity for him to support a unique new product last year - when it was there - he showed that he had no vision of his own and no vision for the industry by scoffing at the very idea. As a matter of fact, at least two ministers in the government displayed that they had no vision at all by the derogatory and condescending remarks that were made in reference to this opportunity. We had the opportunity to develop a wildlife safari park with several species of unique and endangered animals near Katherine. We had identified the ideal location just two kilometres from the edge of Katherine, had expert safari animal management skills, expert veterinary skills and incredible support from the Katherine community, so well you might you snigger. This development would have been a valuable tourist attraction for our Ghan visitors, who would have had ample time to enjoy these magnificent animals in the four-hour stopover that they have in Katherine.
Members interjecting.
Mrs MILLER: Are you going to laugh about the excitement that was in the general Katherine community about the possibility of having these unique animals on their door step?
Ms Carney interjecting.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, you are interrupting the speaker.
Mrs MILLER: So you laugh at being able to assist them in their care and concern about getting a new development in Katherine, which was very genuine, so I suggest you do not laugh at Katherine. I cannot tell you how many people contacted me in full support of this venture. They realised the economic value to Katherine of having this wildlife safari park and shared the same vision as me.
Let me give you some benefits that this one development would have brought to Katherine: installation of 50km of fencing; supply of materials for that fencing and agricultural supplies that would have been ongoing; supply of the animal feed, which is ongoing; veterinary assistance; not to mention the significant tourism benefit from Ghan passengers. In addition, the drive market would have been encouraged to stay one more night in Katherine. That benefits accommodation as well as the supply and service industries in Katherine. It is not to be sniggered at; it just needs a bit of vision.
Another initiative that I welcome in the Chief Minister’s statement is the Indigenous Tourism Strategy. This will assist in developing what is a very important component of the tourism industry, and, well you might laugh, they could have been employed in the safari park. The majority of tourists, especially international visitors, wish to experience indigenous tourism.
I support the four NT tour operators who will be taken to America for the American workshop. I am always especially pleased to see someone from Katherine acknowledged, and I would like to mention Gecko Canoeing. They are a niche eco-tourism operation, which is accredited and was recognised at the Brolga Awards in 2003 for their outstanding contribution to tourism in their category. The support to attend this workshop gives their business every opportunity to achieve its maximum potential, and I know they appreciate the support.
The Chief Minister stated that the Tourism Infrastructure Task Force is currently developing a priority list of tourism infrastructure development. The Territory needs five star safari accommodation in Kakadu and Nitmiluk to cater for the high end of the market. This style of accommodation is in demand in these iconic locations and should be considered sooner rather than later.
Also missing from the list was upgrading the Maude Creek Bridge on Gorge Road, Katherine, to above flood level. Maude Creek Bridge is impassable for approximately 14 days during the Wet Season, which prevents access to Nitmiluk Park. Some people take the risk of boating across the fast-flowing expanse of water to visit the gorge and then undertake the return trip. It is quite dangerous and would be avoidable if Maude Creek Bridge was raised. There are tourism dollars missed when the river is up because we are unable to take our Ghan visitors to the gorge, and we have already experienced on such unfortunate day.
Another market segment that the Northern Territory needs to address is that of the four wheel drive traveller. We have the opportunity to set up amazing four wheel drive tracks which will give the four wheel drive traveller a great adventure without destroying our environment. I would like to see a track from Edith Farms, near Katherine, though to Litchfield Park via the Douglas Daly opened. In addition, the most amazing track would be from Nitmiluk Park through to Arnhem Land and connecting up at Jabiru. Imagine the fabulous scenery on both of these tracks.
Tourism is an easy industry to talk up, and industry operators are usually very optimistic, but the past couple of years the industry has been in the wilderness. With the federal government’s white paper and additional funding of $235m, in addition to the $27.5m that the Northern Territory government is contributing, the industry can finally dust off its covers and get back into business.
Following the announcement of the additional funding to the Tourist Commission last October, for which the industry breathed a huge sigh of relief, the Northern Territory Tourist Commission CEO, Maree Tetlow, and the Chairman of the Tourist Commission board, Richard Ryan, visited Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs late last year to involve and advise industry on how the additional $27.5m funding over three years is going to be allocated. Industry appreciated this consultation, and the commitment of ongoing consultation, and endorsed the plans the Tourist Commission put forward.
The Chief Minister mentions in her statement a new marketing strategy for Kakadu National Park. I welcome any improvements to our fabulous world heritage park, and additional marketing that dispels the ‘Kakapoo’ and ‘Kakadon’t’ myth that I find very offensive to say the least. One of the biggest disappointments for tourists to Kakadu is the lack of access to two of the most sought after areas in the park, and that is Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. When they are at their most spectacular, they are inaccessible to the public. Until we can overcome this access problem, visitors to Kakadu are still going to pass on Kakapoo and Kakadon’t. I encourage that the access restrictions to Jim Jim and Twin Falls be addressed sooner rather than later.
February is traditionally set down in the tourist industry as Tourism Month. It signifies the beginning of the consumer shows held in each state - caravan and camping, four wheel drive, fishing and backpacker, at which the Northern Territory is very well represented by Tourist Commission staff, in addition to Regional Tourist Association representatives, who do an excellent job promoting the Territory. The retail industry is also targeted at this time of the year, which has in the past been considered the low season. I say ‘in the past’ because with the arrival of The Ghan each week, and a steady arrival of cruise ships throughout the year, and with the additional marketing funding, we have a reasonable expectation that the low season will not ever be quite so low again.
With the combined funding increases from the federal and the Northern Territory governments, and the new strategies being developed, the arrival of The Ghan, additional airline charters and cruise ship visitations, I look forward to a much brighter future for tourism in the Territory.
Mr McADAM (Barkly): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the Chief Minister and the Minister for Tourism’s ministerial statement. The Chief Minister has already outlined the benefits of tourism to our economy and our social fabric within the Territory, and there can be no doubting that the opportunities are bountiful, and with hard work and a single-minded commitment much will be achieved. This is very much indicative of the fact that the Chief Minister has now chosen to take on this very important portfolio.
I would like to focus on the Barkly and provide information in respect to our recent tourism conference convened in Tennant Creek titled ‘Thinking Tourism – Tourism is Everybody’s Business’. The conference was organised jointly by Maria Purvis from the Northern Territory Tourist Commission; Michael Dougall the Chief Minister’s CEO in Tennant Creek - Michael is also very much instrumental in respect of the Barkly Blueprint; Mr Bob Torrilla, the president of the Tennant Creek Regional Tourist Association; Ms Bev Kozlowski, manager of the same organisation; Mr Peter Davenport from DBIRD, and Gayle Dougall from my electorate office; as well as Esther Pearce from CDSCA and, Nigel Povey from ATSIS, as of a few months ago.
The conference occurred over three days and challenged people associated within the tourism industry to collaborate and explore the current performance of regional tourism in the Barkly; to identify positive trends in our performance and delivery; to have a look or, indeed, to investigate, future options in delivery tourism within the region; and to develop specific strategies to aggressively drive tourism opportunities in the Barkly. The conference was facilitated by Mr Michael Winlaw of Networks Consulting Pty Ltd and Mr Anthony Ellis from the Tourism Commission. I pay tribute to both of these gentlemen who did an excellent job. It was very professional and inclusive. They were able to embrace all participants. To those two people, thank you very much.
I also acknowledge Mr Peter McConnell who travelled across from Halls Creek. Peter is the manager of the Halls Creek Visitor Centre, and he provided a very entertaining and appropriate speech because Tennant Creek, in a way, is a little like Halls Creek in tourism development. I also thank Mr Dick Estens and Ms Kathy Duncan from Moree, and Maree Tetlow, the Managing Director of the NT Tourist Commission.
The theme or the strategy was based on the five Es, being:
- (1) entice - essentially, that is attracting people to the region and I guess another term for it may well be marketing;
- (2) enter – and that is to ensure that the facilities that are available in the region are of an excellent quality;
- (3) engage – in other words, for tourist operators and the community to treat tourists well and to engage them in
real experience;
- (4) expand – and that is basic for tourists to be well aware of all tourism destinations and attractions, with the
aim of people visiting the Barkly to spend an extra day; and, of course,
- (5) exit – and that essentially applies to receiving feedback from tourists and visitors, both positive and negative,
and responding accordingly.
The three days were thought-provoking and challenging on occasions and, I must say, brutally honest with some of our retailers copping fair criticism from participants who tested their tourism acumen in various ways. We now have a draft Barkly Tourism Strategy effective for the period 2004 through to 2006. One of the more important initiatives is a proposal to change the name of the Tennant Creek Regional Tourist Association to the Barkly Regional Tourism and Marketing Association, incorporating membership from communities and stakeholders within the Barkly such as indigenous representation, representation from Borroloola, Elliott, pastoralists, tourism operators and businesses. The message that arose from that was that, for many of the people, the bottom line behind this new body is you have to be committed to tourism.
We also envisage advertising for a CEO to drive the new entity, someone with expert administrative management and marketing expertise. It is expected that the existing tourist visitor centre will be incorporated as part of the Battery Hill Mining Centre and a new visitor centre will be located within Nyikka Nyunyu. There are also plans to upgrade visitor centres in Borroloola and Elliott and another new initiative, which is certainly worth pursuing on behalf of this new body, is to try to engage road houses as part of tourism visitor centres as well.
I also take this opportunity to thank and express my appreciation on behalf of people in the Barkly to Bob Torrilla, Bev Kozlowski, Roddy Calvert, and Nigel Skelton for their wonderful work that they are doing in promoting tourism throughout our region. I would particularly thank Bob Torrilla, who owns the Safari Lodge Motel in Tennant Creek, along with his wife, Tess, and family for his commitment to the industry. Most people will know Bob and very clearly, Bob is a straight talking, straight shooting person. His heart is in the Barkly and his contribution and commitment to the Barkly is unquestioned. So, Bob thank you very much and I sincerely hope that you will continue to play an ongoing and important role in regards to the new organisation.
Most people will be aware that the Barkly, or indeed Tennant Creek, and for that matter Borroloola, are very much reliant on the self-drive market, or self-drive visitors. It is interesting to note that certainly for the period 2001-02, self-drive numbers increased by 11% in the Northern Territory, although they remained below the peak experience in 1998-99, and 1999-2000, and part of the reasons are very obvious in respect to 11 September, SARS and a many other considerations. The interstate drive market during this period, as I say, increased by 8% to reach 251 000 visitors. The international drive market recovered after a poor year in 2001-02 to reach 61 000 visitors. The important thing to note here is that the international drive market is growing a lot more quickly than the interstate market.
As I mentioned previously, we are very much reliant on the self-drive market and I acknowledge Anthony Ellis in respect to this information. Anthony has actually identified different categories in respect to the self-drive market. I would just like to mention three, because very clearly some of the others are not relevant. But certainly, the Packaged Culture Tour which I have repackaged as a packaged culture drive tourism group and it is interesting, these people are over 65, under 24, and usually travel in a group, normally on a bus, spending about 4.9 days. They are motivated by icons like the Ayres Rocks and the Kakadus, and of course our indigenous culture. They stay in hotels and motels and they stay in hostels. They are involved in indigenous culture, as mentioned previously, and heritage activities. Certainly, the Barkly will never be able to compete in respect to some of these icons, but nonetheless, it gives us real opportunity in terms of being able to tack on to those people who are passing through Tennant Creek, and particularly, with a longer term vision in regards to some of the new destinations for tourism, there is a real opportunity in certainly securing larger numbers of this particular group.
The other group is what Mr Tony Ellis describes as the Outback Escapers. These people apparently stay 7.7 days, of whom 50% will return and in excess of one-third will return within two years. Ninety five per cent of this group will arrive by road, half in four-wheel drives and, obviously, towing caravans. Interestingly enough, a majority of people come from Victoria and New South Wales. They visit Central Australia, remote locations, and about 64% of these people stay in caravan parks. They do not really like taking tours; there top five activities are bush walking, wildlife, four-wheel driving and, again, Aboriginal culture and art. I hope it becomes clearer about how the Barkly can attract more of these visitors later in my speech.
There is another group that Anthony Ellis described as the Active Explorers. These people are normally 45 and over, travelling in pairs who stay in the Territory for around 9.2 days. They come to explore and are not motivated by indigenous experiences. Ninety seven percent arrive by road and, of those, 72% tow caravans and two-thirds are in four-wheel drives. Eighty six per cent stay in caravan parks. They are very active, doing almost everything, especially half- and full-day tours. They rarely stay overnight; they prefer to camp out and they particularly like going to parks and driving along remote bush roads. Obviously this is another group of tourists that the Barkly Regional Tourism and Marketing Association can target in the future.
What do people want when they come into the Territory? They want convenience of access. As I mentioned earlier, the majority are towing caravans and they require easy parking; access to normal shopping; good caravan parks; comprehensive visitor services and useful information that highlights local tourist attractions. They also require quality facilities such as toilets, rest areas, rubbish bins and sewerage points.
Another thing they require is to feel safe and secure when they visit places. Obviously, in some parts of the Northern Territory, that can be a problem so the challenge remains for many of the smaller communities and towns to work on some of these issues in respect of antisocial behaviour and making visitors feel safe and welcome.
Most of these people require half- and full-day tours, as I mentioned. They like to get off the beaten track, focus on wildlife, heritage, nature and, to a lesser extent, indigenous culture. They do not book in advance; they basically jump in their Toyotas and drive around the countryside.
The most important thing, of all the groups I have mentioned, is that they require good service and tourism operators and people in the industry to be professional and to treat them in a certain manner. If that happens, they are going to come back. These are the sorts of people that we in the Barkly are trying to attract, certainly to grab the numbers in terms of that group.
The other area I would like to talk about briefly, and I spoke about this yesterday in the ministerial statement on the AustralAsia Railway, The Ghan will obviously offer opportunities in the Barkly. There will be some capacity to attract backpackers and to attract this group via the train. It is very much in its early days. It was only the other day that I was able to secure from Great Southern Rail their sector fares between Tennant Creek/Alice Springs, Tennant Creek/Katherine, Tennant Creek/Darwin, and Tennant Creek/Adelaide. There was a little bit of marketing I believe we do have the capacity to attract these people off The Ghan.
As I mentioned yesterday, Coober Pedy is doing it at this point in time that I am aware of. Coober Pedy has opals and what is described as the Painted Plains, which I not visited although I have been to Coober Pedy. Again, it gives a challenge to people in Tennant Creek, Borroloola and the Barkly to have a look at what is occurring in other regions and, where appropriate, take best practice, work on it and obviously grow the tourist industry.
The Barkly has the potential to be a world class tourist destination. Already we have the Battery Hill Mining Centre, Nyikka Nyunyu, the beautiful Davenport Ranges to the south, King Ash Bay at Borroloola in the gulf region – the second largest recreational fishing area outside the Northern Territory. There is a lot of potential in that area, particularly if we can provide infrastructure such as boat ramps and other facilities for tourists. I have a great degree of confidence in that area.
The other area people will be aware of is the Devils Marbles to the south of Tennant Creek. Devils Marbles is packaged normally as a one-off destination, but you could incorporate it as part of a package which could include places like Borroloola, and most certainly the Davenport Ranges, which is further to the south.
Australia’s best cattle country, the Barkly Tablelands, contains many of the best pastoral properties, such as Brunette Downs, Newcastle Waters and Kurundi Station. Kurundi is not actually in the Barkly Tablelands, it is to the south. Many of these properties are looking to get into the tourism industry. I know that people from the Benmarra Station, which is in the gulf region are looking at developing a small tourism operation, accessing tourists who come in from the Doomadgee or the Queensland area, and also up the Calvert Hill road. Essentially, it is the experience of working and living on a cattle station. June and Ernie Holt are also wanting to have a look at the Barkly Stock Route and the Rankine Road, because that was the thoroughfare in respect of cattle travelling from Western Australia into Queensland back in the 1940s and 1950s, and indeed, much earlier than that. There are many sites along there which are of significance and which portray the history and heritage of the cattle industry, the pastoral industry and many of the old drovers. That is worth looking at, and something that I do hope the new tourist association will look at.
The other place I know will come into fruition very shortly, and members may have heard me talked about this before, and that is Longreach.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Barkly, your time has expired.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, I move that an extension of time be granted to allow my colleague to complete his remarks, pursuant to Standing Order 77.
Motion agreed to.
Mr McADAM: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. One of the areas I have just mentioned is Longreach, which is 20 km to the west of Elliott. Many people know it as Lake Woods. It is not Lake Woods, it never was Lake Woods. That will remain Longreach. That has a lot of potential as a wild life, bird life sanctuary. I know that Anthony Ellis and others from the NT Tourist Commission are talking to people from Newcastle Waters Station, also to the Gurungu Council, the traditional owners, the Elliott Local Government Council, and I am confident that that destination will be on the map in the near future.
An area that I have referred to previously, but is certainly worth mentioning again, is the Nicholson area which includes indigenous homelands, Murun Murula and Wangalinji, and that incorporates the Great Wall of China. This particular part of the Barkly is a magnificent place, a beautiful piece of country. It contains mountain ranges, plateaux, rivers, creeks, rock holes; is rich in indigenous heritage, art and culture, and wild life. I honestly believe that this area has the potential to rival Australia’s best wilderness destinations once it is developed.
In conclusion - my voice is about to go - I express my appreciation to minister Burns and, of course, minister Henderson, the previous Tourism Ministers, particularly minister Henderson who had the foresight and vision to allocate $30 000 to the Barkly to develop the strategy. I honestly believe we will see some results come out of that. With the Chief Minister, Minister for Tourism, I would like to think - and we all know - that tourism is in very good hands. You will have the support of the tourism industry and the people of the Northern Territory, and we wish you all the very best.
I would like to conclude my remarks in respect to the opposition shadow minister for tourism, Fay Miller. I wish you well in your deliberations and, obviously, there will be times when you will be required to be critical, and that is your right. However, I believe you will find that, in the majority of the cases, your responsibility will be to ensure that you grow the tourism industry in the Northern Territory. I know that you will do that in partnership with the Chief Minister, the Minister for Tourism. Again, I wish you well. I commend the Minister for Tourism’s statement.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, before addressing the statement I compliment the member for Barkly for his contribution. I thought it was great - I really did. This is a local member who has stood up to tell it how he sees it in his area; to advocate for tourism in his area; and to advocate for the people in the industry whom he represents. I thought his statement came up with some fabulous ideas. Clearly, he is passionate about this matter and I commend him for it. I wish that the member for Barkly had been one of the four tourism ministers over the last two-and-half-years because - who knows? - some things might have been done a long time ago.
One hesitates, on this side of politics, to borrow lines from Labor leaders, not to mention Labor Prime Ministers, but when I read this statement I could not help but think of Paul Keating’s famous words in whatever year it was - the election victory - when he said, ‘This is the sweetest victory of all’. For me, this Chief Minister’s statement is. Why is that? It is because, for the last two-and-half-years I, before the new member for Katherine was elected, have been saying to government, ‘You must do something’. All members of this House know how robust I have been on behalf of the Territory’s tourism industry. So, when I saw the Chief Minister’s statement I regarded it, I suppose, with the usual scepticism that an opposition member would. I thought oh, it’s another statement, but there is some great stuff in this statement.
At long last, we see a government, and I don’t think anyone in the House will take exception to this, but we see the government getting off its bum. We see the government pulling its finger out and getting on with it. This statement should have been delivered two-and-a-half years ago. The fact that it was not, is to the government’s eternal shame. Not just to the Chief Minister’s eternal shame, but to four Tourism Ministers. The member for Nhulunbuy was the first one. Then we went over to the member for Wanguri, who had a lot of other ministries at the time and we started to call him Part Time Paul. Thankfully he was sacked. Then it went to the member for Johnston and he rattled around for a bit. In fact, he rattled around a lot. No-one took him seriously then and hopefully no-one takes him seriously now. However, he was in the right place at the right time when, after two-and-a-bit years of sniping from the opposition, the government said, ‘Oh, tourism really is important isn’t it? Tourism really does employ directly and indirectly 16 000 Territorians. Tourism really is worth between $1m and $2m to the Territory economy’.
So, I am delighted with the statement. I do not agree with absolutely everything in it, but there is some great stuff.
I remember getting my first briefing from the former Head of the Tourist Commission, Tony Mayall, who has since left us, and I reckon I had that briefing in about September 2001 as the new shadow minister keenly going around trying to absorb all of the information – trying to get into the swing of things. I was a lawyer in private practice in Alice Springs, knew very little about tourism, and thought that I would go and speak to people. I spoke with Tony Mayall in September 2001 and made the comment that I did not think tourism was, in terms of playing politics, not an especially political portfolio and that I was looking forward to working with him and working with government, and it was a good meeting.
But, things went down hill from there because what I saw through my own eyes and after speaking to many people involved in the tourism industry up and down the track – what I saw was government inaction. I saw a government in denial. They were so obsessed with their social policy reforms that they had forgotten about small business and employment. Now they talk about job plans and all sorts of employment, but in those early stages they did not. I suppose in hindsight you would say they were inexperienced and perhaps what I would like to think, less in hindsight, that they would have done things differently. It is noteworthy that the member for Arnhem said this afternoon, when he was caught short in terms of giving a notice, ‘Well, we are all not perfect. We all make mistakes’, and the government did make mistakes. I note with interest that the government and the Chief Minister, on occasion, are big enough to say sorry. To say the ‘s’ word. They have said sorry about all sorts of things and very recently – as recently as today, sorry about swimming pool fencing legislation.
Well, I would have thought that the Chief Minister and her three former Tourism Ministers would have said, ‘Sorry, we got it wrong. We were in denial, we had our mind on other things’. They did not even have the ball to drop. They were useless. Every so often ministers would stand up and say we think tourism is really important and they would quote the figures and they would deliver a statement and they would hand it around to people, but the people in the industry twigged. They twigged that the government was not actually doing anything and I don’t think people in the industry will forget it. One person to whom I spoke, and it stuck in my mind, was a woman in Alice Springs. She rang me in tears because her business was going broke. I remember doing a radio interview with the very violent Mr Fred McCue and he was amazed that I became upset when I had a woman who was crying almost hysterically, telling me that her business was going broke. And the very violent Mr McCue was aghast …
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I do not think it is appropriate that the member reflects on a person, not a member of this Chamber and has no defence to allegations of that nature. They should be withdrawn.
Ms CARNEY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, we speak regularly about people who are not in this Chamber. Whilst Mr McCue is now a government advisor, at that time he was a radio journalist. I suggest to you that it is not inappropriate to refer to Mr McCue as ‘violent’; I am not necessarily referring to recent events. Some people, of course, can be violent over the phone and in their conversation.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I do not think that it does this parliament any good at all to be casting absolutely unfounded allegations on a member of the public. Regardless of for whom he works, he is a member of the public who has no right of reply in this parliament It is an unfounded allegation and it does not do the reputation of this parliament any good to smear members of the public who have no defence. I would ask the honourable member to reflect on her comments and urge her to withdraw.
Ms CARNEY: I would ask, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, that you obtain advice on that point. I know that there is one representative at the Table. I do ask that you obtain advice in relation to that point of order.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, I ask you at this late hour to refrain from reflecting unnecessarily on public citizens.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. It is always good to know when you are hitting the right button, and that was a good one.
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I would ask the member to withdraw those comments about a member of the public. She will either choose to withdraw them or not. If she chooses not to, it is on her own head.
Ms CARNEY: Speaking to that point of order, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, you made a ruling and that was that I reflect …
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen…
Ms CARNEY: Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I reflected and pressed on regardless.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, I will take some advice on this matter as it has not ceased. Member for Araluen, I have taken advice. There is no point of order but, again, I would ask you at this late hour to refrain from reflecting on public citizens.
Ms CARNEY: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. It is interesting that the Chief Minister, in her statement, on page 2 of a 28 or 30 page statement, referred to the decline in – I withdraw that and say the appalling figures in relation to tourism over the last two-and-a-bit years since world events took their toll. This is the first time we have seen, to my recollection, the government admit these figures. It is extraordinary. I remember time after time being in this Chamber and reciting the very figures that are contained in this statement, and minister after minister saying, ‘Member for Araluen, you are talking the industry down’. We were talking the truth. I remember, in the face of these appalling figures, some information that came to me that, when the minister, who was the member for Wanguri, was in Katherine, he told the tourism representatives that the industry was going gangbusters and we took him to task in the Chamber. Well, how interesting things become as time goes on. Now we see the government finally admitting how bad things really were.
It is fair to say that I did not need to prepare for this statement extensively. I needed to look at my press releases, the press releases I have issued over a long period of time. When the government announced the injection of funds into the tourism industry, in a press release dated 23 October 2003, we put a footnote on that press release, and it said as follows: Since October 2002, the CLP has issued 28 press releases relating to the crisis affecting the Territory’s tourism industry and calling on government to increase funding. You will be relieved to know, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I do not propose to go through all of my press releases. However having perused and reviewed them, it is important for me to at least highlight some of them, and highlight some of them I will.
One release, dated 27 June 2002, talks about the minister, the member for Wanguri, finally making the admission that tourism operators are doing it real tough. So, after a long period of denial he slipped, he said yes, we recognise that they are doing it tough. In another press release, or I should say our comments were not just restricted to press releases, we mentioned matters in this Chamber, we talked about them in various locations in the Northern Territory, and in particular we spoke to members of the tourism industry, indeed, we got much of our information from the people on the ground.
We were aware that, on 13 June, in the previous six months the Territory had lost a number of key flights to Darwin. There were four Qantas flights out of Singapore. Singapore Airlines had withdrawn direct flights to Darwin. Malaysia had withdrawn many of its international routes, including the Kuala Lumpur/Darwin route, which meant important links to Darwin had been massively reduced. At that time, I called on government to do something creative to promote growth in the number of airlines flying to the Territory. I also made the comment that the Territory was falling behind the pack.
By press release dated 12 February 2002, and I reckon members on that side have completely forgotten about this one, I issued a press release commenting on the loss of the safari event. Ring a bell anybody? Remember the safari event? That event was worth $4m to the Territory economy and gave the Territory enormous exposure, both internationally and Australia-wide. This government did not have the courage to go in and bid for it.
By press release dated 27 February 2002, I wrote: ‘The warning signs were ignored last month when figures showing that 35 000 fewer passengers flew in and out of the Territory in December’, that is December 2001. Did that prompt any action? I think not.
By press release dated 25 January 2002, I said: ‘Forward bookings for this year indicate the local tourism industry could be in diabolical trouble if the current trend continues’. Did we see any action from government? No, we did not.
Out of all of the press releases, the one dated 28 November 2001 is the best one, I believe. I ask members to cast their minds back to November 2001, they had not been in government for very long, but I would suggest that even Blind Freddy could see that with the demise of Ansett and the events of 11 September, things were going to be tough for an economy that relies so heavily on tourism. We are a tourism Territory and I come from a tourism town. Do I have an interest in this? Too right I do!
In any event, back to the press release. The press release says: ‘Chief Minister fails tourism industry’. Has there been a change in the Chief Minister? I do not believe there has. I wish there was, but there has not been. The same Chief Minister who failed the tourism industry then is now the Minister for Tourism. Remember the mini-budget. I said and I quote:
- … that the Chief Minister should have increased funding to the Northern Territory Tourist Commission rather
than cut it in her mini-budget.
I also said and I quote:
- The industry from Central Australia to the Top End is hurting and, rather than do anything meaningful to
help the industry, the Chief Minister takes valuable funding from it.
Further in the press release - and this is a good one - I say:
- The Chief Minister has shown scant regard for the tourism industry and of the problems it has had to endure.
This is the same person who is now the Minister for Tourism. I know you have a fairly thick skin in politics, but this is a joke. This is ‘good news Clare’ going around saying, ‘Oh, sorry. Sorry about the last couple of years. Sorry, I have ignored everything everyone has said, but we have finally relented. We have finally spoken to Labor Premiers, we have seen what has happened in other parts of Australia. Everyone else is coming up with some dough, maybe we should as well’.
I do not think members of the industry will forget the scant regard ‘the boss’ has had over the last two-and-something years for tourism in the Northern Territory. Ministers - all four of them - can come into this House and say, ‘We really care,’ and, no doubt, the Chief Minister will go around to all of the tourism functions that I now do not need to go to, and she will stroke people up and say, ‘I care. I care about the tourism industry’. At last, $27m - at last. It is always, I suppose, satisfying to say - although you should not dwell on it because, arguably, it is not good for the soul - but it is always satisfying to say, ‘I told you so! I told you so!’ We all told you so. Members of the CLP told you so. Members of the industry told you so. I am delighted that, at long last, the Chief Minister has found the money that we always knew she had, to come up with the sort of money we were talking about.
Therefore, I am genuinely delighted. I take this opportunity in the very short time left open to me to congratulate the people at the Northern Territory Tourist Commission. They have been doing it very tough indeed. It has been problem area. I congratulate Maree Tetlow in particular. She has her detractors but, on balance, she is widely respected in the industry and she has hung on and hung on and, to her great credit, she also, I understand, has been asking for a sign of faith. I am delighted that the government, the Chief Minister, has finally seen fit to deliver. The only sadness I guess is (a) it took two years to get there, and (b) unlike the swimming pool fencing legislation, she has failed to say sorry.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I enjoyed the member for Barkly’s speech. The member for Barkly always gives a well thought out discussion on every subject I have ever heard him speak on in this House. I admire the gentleman, to be honest, because he speaks from the heart, and he speaks on many subjects with quite a bit of wisdom.
The other reason I am talking about him today is because of what I feel may be missing in this statement - and it is not necessarily a criticism, but it is something I have spoken before about - and that is, although this document talks about the big picture tourism in the Northern Territory, I still like to promote the little picture tourism, the micro-tourism industry in the Territory. For me a lot of that is about promoting tourism for Territorians. Just thinking of that, that does not sound a bad sort of slogan, but I do think there are opportunities there for more promotion of tourism amongst ourselves.
Just getting back to the member for Barkly, last year I took a little trip down the track. I stayed at Elliott, Renner Springs and Banka Banka. I did that because I wanted a little bit of peace and quiet but I also wanted to enjoy what I call the real part of the Territory, and it was beautiful. You had a bit of time to sit down, literally, under a tree near a water hole and read a book. It made you proud actually to be a Territorian, because when you go back to the big cities, you say, this is not the place to live. Even Darwin for me sometimes gets a bit too crowded. I had a great time down there and I wrote a little bit in my local newsletter about that trip I did. You would be amazed at how many people have read that and stopped in at Banka Banka. It is an overnight stop with some hot showers and toilets, friendly people, and it is a great little place.
There is a lot of work we can do on local tourism and a lot of that emphasis could be put around school holiday times. You have your one week coming up soon around Easter, and you have your four weeks in the middle of the year and one week further on in September. So there are opportunities there perhaps to promote those times, especially when the main tourism season has dropped off. So, thank you, member for Barkly, you always speak well.
Members: Hear! Hear!
Mr WOOD: Another area that I believe we could look at in local tourism is a place near me and that is Coolalinga. You might say ‘So what, it is a shopping centre’ but it actually has, I believe, opportunities to be similar to some of the places you get in Cairns. Not in Cairns itself, but the relationship between Cairns and the Atherton. A lot of people go up to the Atherton because they have craft shops and there is a bit of country feeling. You move out of the city and up into the country. Admittedly they have a nice climate to go up to, it is a bit cooler in that part of the world. But a place like Coolalinga has the opportunity to become a crafty town. Crafty town? A place where people can sell their crafts. The Stuart Highway goes right through the middle of it. It is close to Palmerston and Darwin. I am hoping to put a proposal to government to look at a plan to do up Coolalinga.
I know that Katherine received some money a few years ago to do up a main street plan. Coolalinga is one of those places where we could certainly do that. Anyone who comes into Coolalinga sees sandwich boards and pipelines. The approaches to that area are not really flash, to say the least, and it is one of those places I think that tourists would like to stop at. It has a little bit of what I call a country shopping feeling because you have shops with verandas that you can walk up and down. It is not a big air-conditioned mall-type shopping centre that you get in the city. There is an opportunity for the government to look at spending some money on developing Coolalinga as a tourist area.
I have spoken also about the railway and I know the member for Wanguri says it is not government’s job to be getting involved in railways. Well, they used to be in buses and they were into rail in some parts of Australia. It is not a mortal sin to be involved in public transport any more.
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, no, I am not one of those who believe privatisation is the be all and end all, but it could be …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, it could be one of your favourite topics, one of these, what do you call them? The PPP, the public private partnerships. You buy the locomotive and the rest of us can buy the passenger section! I still think it is worth considering. You might think it is silly but I think there is an opportunity there that I would the government to seriously look at. Even if you just do a feasibility study. How much it costs, what sort of numbers of people you think you can move between say here and Katherine. What opportunities during the year could we use it for, for special events. It might sound to some people a bit off the planet, but I think it is worth a look. The number of people who have spoken to me, phoned me, who think it is a good idea indicates that it has popular backing, not that popular backing always amounts to dollars, but there is enough backing there to at least look at it.
The other part of the local tourism industry, and I mentioned this before, is Litchfield Shire. Here I have to confess that I have not quite managed to send the e-mails I meant to send to the Tourist Commission about the local lagoons and World War II airstrips. I will get around to it one day. I think the member for Wanguri was minister for Tourism when I promised to do that. Eventually, we will show you, on the web, the highlights of Litchfield Shire. Sorry?
Mr Henderson: I have been out there. My brother-in-law lives out there.
Mr WOOD: It is good local tourism and the Litchfield Shire has lots of potential: wetlands, World War II sites and coffee shops and restaurants to go with that so that people do not have to go down the track for a long distance to enjoy a day out.
The other area is indigenous tourism. It is an area that is talked about a lot, but I always wonder about the numbers. How many indigenous people do we really have working in tourism? A lot of times they are indigenous ventures, but they are not always indigenous people running the ventures. I have heard it before, and I might be behind the times here, but you sometimes hear of people saying, ‘I went out to Kakadu – or I went out somewhere - on a so-called cultural tour and there were non-indigenous people driving the bus and giving the talks’.
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: Tiwi Tours, for sure, yes, I agree; Tiwi Tours does employ indigenous people, but there are areas where it does not happen. It is something we have to work harder on to make sure that there is a greater number of indigenous people in those businesses, especially as we are in their country. So if we are talking about employment, that is the place to go.
The Chief Minister mentioned major improvements for access for tourists. One of the things that has gone off the boil again is the Victoria River Bridge. As you know, it has been under water again recently.
Ms Martin: Federal government.
Mr WOOD: I realise that, but we can keep lobbying.
Ms Martin: We are, don’t you worry.
Mr WOOD: Thank you. I am not worried. We also have Bradshaw Station with this great new bridge, and if the Victoria River Bridge goes under water, you cannot get to Bradshaw, so it makes a lot of sense to look at that. Then I might see my daughter home for Christmas from Kununurra, but that is a minor point. I am not sure that you are going to spend a few million dollars to get my daughter home from Kununurra for Christmas.
Talking of roads, they are the key for a lot of our tourism. People are certainly travelling by road today. I was returning from my trip – the one I am not supposed to mention because it was about that word I am not allowed to use: cotton – and I was coming via South Queensland and I was going to go from Boolia to Harts Range on the Plenty Highway. I rang the police at Harts Range and asked whether it was okay to bring a Falcon ute along the Plenty Highway, and he said, ‘Don’t do it. You will wear out all your tyres because it is rocky in places, there is heaps of bull dust on the road and it is as rough as all blazes in patches’. Then he added, ‘It rained up near the border with Queensland and you will probably get bogged’. That is not great encouragement to use a road.
I realise that we are dealing with roads that are very long. The Plenty is about 560km of road, but there is an opportunity for tourism, for people who live along that road to develop tourism. It is a short cut to Alice Springs from Mt Isa or Southern Queensland if you are coming through that way.
We have to put more work into upgrading our roads. I know the government says we are losing $20m in road funding because a fair bit of the Northern Territory does not fall under local government. I could say, ‘Put it under local government and you might get some funds for the roads’. The only problem is that some other parts of local government might get less money then, but the reason we are losing it is simply because parts of the Northern Territory are not incorporated. The key to expand our tourist industry, and the member for Barkly mentioned some of the work on the cattle stations where they want to expand on the use of their cattle stations for tourism, well, if you cannot get there you are not going to get many people to come and see it.
I welcome the Chief Minister’s statement on tourism, but I do believe that the one thing that has been left out and it is an area that I think we should give some consideration to is local tourism and the micro-economy that you build up around that local tourism.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I am pleased tonight to support the Chief Minister on a great statement, an exciting statement in regards to how the government, with the Tourist Commission and the tourism industry, is going to now get out and promote the Northern Territory to the world as a result of the biggest single injection of funding into our Tourist Commission that they have ever had.
I start by batting back again some of ill-informed comments of members opposite, and the line - really the member for Araluen’s nose must be growing longer by the minute with the untruths she tells - that we cut funding to the Tourist Commission. We absolutely did not. We have had this debate over and over again, and even before the additional $27.5m, we had provided extra funding for domestic and international marketing over the previous two years. Our capacity to fund the Tourist Commission is essentially determined by the overall government budget position. The member for Araluen still refuses to recognise, in the shrill contributions that she makes to these debates, that when we did come to government, we inherited a budget that was in absolute crisis as a result of the deceit and the absolute reckless abandon which the previous government had to Territory finances and to Territory budgets. Again I will …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! The member for Wanguri is attributing motives and, in fact, is attempting to allude that the CLP government had been deceitful. We never were and I do not believe that that is appropriate.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is the point of order?
Dr LIM: That he should withdraw that.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: On what grounds?
Dr LIM: On using improper language and attributing to the CLP what we never did.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that that can be debated through the normal process.
Dr LIM: Then it should be.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, the rules of the debate in this House in terms of reflecting untruths go to individual members of parliament. The comments that I was making was that the previous government as a whole had deceived the Northern Territory in terms of the true nature of the budget position that we inherited …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! There he goes again.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: He is speaking to the point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: … not an individual member.
Dr LIM: Well, I draw your attention specifically to Standing Order no 62, that of using offensive or unbecoming words against any member of the House, and I do not think that is right.
Mr HENDERSON: Speaking to the point of order, the previous government deceiving Territorians is not aimed at any individual member of the House but the previous government of the day.
Dr LIM: Well, I can say the Labor Party is doing the same thing, eh? Being very deceitful to Territorians.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think there is point of order. When it comes to you using that type of language, I would consider it perhaps inappropriate to be addressed to an individual, but as it is being addressed to a party and this is a place of debate, both sides can have their point of view heard, and I say there is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not dwell on the point, but I was trying to point out that the framework of the budget we inherited, the point was prosecuted and completed through the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into the state of the budget. There have been numerous documents tabled in this House, including one from a former CEO of the Health Department that very squarely showed the deceit of the previous government in the budget leading up to the last Northern Territory election. When we came to government eight weeks after the election budget papers were produced from this House projecting a deficit for the 2000-01 financial year of $4m, within one day of being in government. The Under Treasurer of the day knocked on the Chief Minister’s door saying that budget position, in fact, was not projected to be minus $4m, but around minus $120m, and it came out at minus $126m.
Yes, we would have liked to have spent more money on tourism, but the fact was that the Northern Territory was going down the path towards, certainly, a very precarious budget position: a $3bn nett debt inherited courtesy of the reckless expenditure of CLP governments for many, many years. In that climate, it was very hard to find a significant increase for any government agency. The reality of the Tourist Commission budget - if you want to look back on it - is that the budget had been going backwards from around 1997. We need to put those issues into context. Certainly there were increases, both in the mini-budget and the 2002-03 budget.
This government’s financial stewardship and budget management has allowed us to put this additional $27.5m into tourism. The industry recognises that and the industry, in spite of the churlish comments from the member for Araluen, is very excited about this increase in funding and we have every confidence in the Tourist Commission and the minister to ensure that it is spent to maximum benefit.
The member for Katherine talked about the decision to close the Territory facility at Darling Harbour. That was a decision I had taken, and it was on advice from the Tourist Commission at the time. There was an appalling return on investment coming from that facility. Anybody who has been to Darling Harbour – a great initiative when the Olympics were on and Darling Harbour was awash with international tourists, but post-Olympics, that end of Darling Harbour was essentially derelict. There was hardly anybody at that end of Darling Harbour, and on the figures that were presented to me - given the extraordinary amount of money that we were paying for rental there – essentially, that facility ended up little more than a retail outlet with a few touch screens and some products being booked from there. However, the return on investment was absolutely appalling. There was no business case to sustain that facility and all of the money we saved went into the marketing efforts that gave us a much better return on investments. The business case was there: it was a good idea at the time during the Olympics, but post the Olympics, it certainly was not paying its keep.
We put substantial amounts of extra money into the domestic drive market post-11 September and the Ansett collapse, and that kept us afloat. It was the drive market that really kept us going right through those dark times, and a large part of that was generated from additional money that went into the domestic market that this government put in.
Our commitment to the tourism industry is not just in relation to the $27.5m. There is $100m committed by this government to build a convention centre here in Darwin. That is going to be a magnificent asset for our tourism community in the Northern Territory, and to the economy in general. Of that convention centre, an addition $600m to $700m will be leveraged for a world class precinct at the old Darwin Wharf. It is an absolute sign of confidence, faith and commitment to our tourism industry by investing that money.
The commitment by the government to seal the Mereenie Loop Road was not recognised by previous speakers, but is something that the tourism industry in Central Australia has called for, for many years. We have committed to sealing the Mereenie Loop Road, and expect to see significant private sector investment to follow suit.
The federal funding that the shadow minister spoke of – I got on very well with Joe Hockey. As soon as he became Tourism Minister, I boarded a plane and met him in his North Sydney offices. The $235m that the federal government has put in, when you compare dollar for dollar per capita, the $27.5m that the Territory has put in about ten times the amount the Commonwealth has put in into tourism marketing. Certainly, the people in the tourism industry I have spoken to, yes, it has been a good investment but it was not what they were expecting given all the work that the industry put into to the famed White Paper. $235m, yes, is a fair amount of money but when you look at per capita investment that the Territory government has put in, it is way ahead of what the federal government has put in to tourism marketing.
We made a commitment, an election promise, to support Virgin Blue into the market place and a very wise investment of $2m. We secured Virgin just before Ansett went bankrupt and Virgin Blue and the expenditure of that money was bagged by the previous member for Katherine who said it was a total waste of money. The member for Araluen, as a shadow spokesperson, bagged Virgin and the expenditure of that money, and the member for Drysdale stated famously in this House that they had a shoddy fleet. So, the support from the opposition for Virgin Blue into the Territory market place was certainly anything other than edifying. Many people in the industry were certainly were bemused by the opposition’s lack of support initially for Virgin Blue into the Territory market place.
We also supported the initiative proposed to me by Darwin Airport in terms of co-funding the position of an aviation development director. Peter Roberts, who is well known to the people in the tourism industry, is now on board to work with the industry, government and the airports to put together business cases that we could submit to airlines to try to attract them to the Northern Territory or back to the Northern Territory. That was some of the wisest money we have ever spent because, at the end of the day, airlines will make a decision to come to this market place if they believe that they can make a quid, if they believe they can make a profit. And by working with the industry to put a fully worked out business case to those airlines when the reality is for most of our international airlines Darwin is a long way away from anywhere, and Alice Springs is even further, it is not the first place they look to in terms of expanding their services. However, people are knocking on the doors and walking in with a fully fledged business case to show that this can work and make a decent return. I believe we are starting to see a return on that investment. I congratulate Peter Roberts on doing a magnificent job.
The member for Araluen is well linked to the Alice Springs Town Council. I was glad to see our Speaker in debate the other night speak with astonishment and I was astonished. I did not have time to mention in the debates on the railway statement Alice Springs Town Council’s total failure to support The Ghan on its first passenger run through the Northern Territory. Katherine Town Council, Tennant Creek, Darwin, everybody up and down the track welcomed The Ghan with open arms and cheered it on. And for the life of me why the Alice Springs Town Council could not support The Ghan into Alice Springs, I have no idea. One can only wonder about the politics that the council was playing. But a tribute to the Mayor of Alice Springs, Fran Kilgariff, who in spite of the lack of support from her colleagues came to the reception that was held.
I can say that the attitude of the Alice Springs Town Council was noted very clearly by Serco, Great Southern Rail. They were very disappointed at the lack of support, bemused by the lack of support. Everywhere throughout Australia, throughout the world, people were cheering with accolades the advent of this service. The lack of support from Alice Springs Town Council was noted. Very disappointed in that and I have my suspicions as to the politics being played. If they are correct it was very petty and certainly stands the CLP in no good stead at all.
I did talk to Great Southern Rail about the member for Nelson’s suggestion about the passenger service. At the end of the day, it is pleasing to see that The Ghan is providing sector fares on the service, I forget the numbers, but Red Kangaroo passes can be purchased between Darwin and Alice Springs. However, as explained to me, and it makes perfect sense, they are selling the journey Adelaide to Darwin, and if they can sell those seats on to people, and there is something like $22m worth of seats already booked with people prepared to pay for the entire journey, selling short sectors and then having empty seats between various destinations just is not commercial. I am sure as this service evolves that if the business case can stack up, somebody is going to meet that market share. Certainly, you can get those sector fares between Darwin and Alice Springs and I am absolutely certain there will be many Territorians who will take the opportunity to ride The Ghan between Darwin and Alice Springs.
My Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development is certainly doing everything it can to support the tourism industry. Under our Business Upskills program, the department facilitates the delivery of training and mentoring to firms operating in the tourism sector. I will cite one example here that I am really pleased about: Didgeri Air Art Tours is a unique Northern Territory business with nothing else quite like it operating in Australia. It offers flight tours to the art communities of the NT and access for national and international buyers of Aboriginal art to meet artists and view their work in communities. Last year, the business owner, Ms Helen Read, came to DBIRD seeking some assistance for her business. At that time, Ms Read was struggling and I quote:
- I didn’t at the time know what help I needed or what was possible, only that there was a kaleidoscope of jobs to be
done and daunting aims to achieve. My business was taking off, and I wanted it to continue in the same safe and
professional manner as it has over the past 10 years, but with increased turnover.
After consultation with a DBIRD Client Manager, a business growth program was selected and Ms Read applied for and received approval to undertake a business improvement program. After several months of hard work with her consultant, Ms Read successfully completed her planning project. The process has enable Ms Read to address a number of issues relating to her business. The benefits being, and I quote:
implementing policies such as credit management and discount policies.
a Quality Management policy, and implementing the documentation of systems and procedures.
it assisted me to acquire financial management and management accounting skills, thereby being
able to implement financial management controls.
When asked if the program was worthwhile, Ms Read replied:
- Absolutely. It will take a little while to action all the points I need to work on in my business … but with this business
plan, the myriad of colours and movement I was staring at down the kaleidoscope have become neat little gems in lines
that can be seen and controlled clearly.
This is the type of business that we want to see thrive as a result of the increased tourist numbers resulting from our recent funding initiative, and we believe that the work DBIRD is doing under the business growth program, will play a significant part in creating sustainable businesses in tourism.
Another aspect of DBIRD’s support for the tourism sector is under our Industry Development Grants Scheme. We are committing to the Yothu Yindi Foundation for the training of indigenous guides who then lead and support tourist excursions that occur each year as part of the Garma Festival.
My department also plays and active role in the work of the Aviation Committee, as I mentioned before. Our Trade Support Scheme is currently being considered by no less than 15 Territory companies from throughout the Territory to help them to develop market opportunities overseas. The list of firms for which TSS has been approved includes firms as diverse as Travel North in Katherine, Territory Rent a Car in Darwin and a business called Outback Quad Adventures. Ms Ethel Cuttle is the principal of this firm, which is based in Alice Springs, and I am pleased to note that Ms Cuttle and her team are in New Zealand as I speak on a marketing trip she says she would not have undertaken without TSS support. I note that in tourism industry development, there is close collaboration between my department and the Tourist Commission. Together, their efforts are delivering tangible benefits to firms seeking to open up new tourism markets and operations.
The Asian Relations Group within my department is active in the promotion of sports tourism arising from the Arafura Games. We look forward to a very successful tourism business surrounding the 2005 games, which, as members know, will be held in Darwin in May next year. My department is also planning a Business in Sport program as part of the games.
During a visit to Bali last month, I met the governor and we discussed the growth of tourism linkages between Darwin and Bali arising from the forthcoming yacht race, which I was pleased to see in Monday’s NT News has been confirmed for July this year. This is good news, but it is just another part of the work undertaken by my department to promote tourism trade.
In a recent statement on trade outcomes, I alluded to a seafood industry initiative which my department is supporting and which is proven to be very successful in the United States right now. It is the ‘Taste Down Under’ promotion, which highlights not only Territory seafood, but the Territory experience, directly appealing to the potential tourism market in the United States. Not only is our export market in locally-farmed barramundi to the United States market passing the $2m mark, which is great, but it is also playing a part in generating tourism to the Northern Territory. As a result of our Taste Down Under initiative, His Excellency, Michael Thawley, the Australian Ambassador to the United States, hosted a dinner last week in Washington DC for 29 US State Governors where our Territory seafood took pride of place on the table. This kind of exposure is great for trade, great for tourism, and I commend the efforts of my department in supporting this initiative.
Tourism is everybody’s business. It is a great business with great people in the industry. I wholeheartedly support the Tourism Minister’s statement.
Ms MARTIN (Tourism): Mr Deputy Speaker, I say thank you for the support around this House for this tourism statement. Some of that was a bit begrudging, but I suppose that is the nature of opposition. I was amused by the member for Araluen, who does not often have a lot of good things to say about government, but held up the statement and said, ‘This is great; it is just two-and-a-half years too late’. The former Tourism Minister, the Minister for Business and Industry, has gone through some of the arguments presented by the member for Araluen. It is good to come into this House and be accurate, rather than just create circumstances to fit your arguments. Generally, I thank everyone for their contribution to this statement.
Tourism is a very important industry for the Territory. As I stated earlier, 15% of our workforce is involved, either directly or indirectly, with tourism. In the last two-and-a-half years, because of the impact in the Territory on tourism because of international events, the numbers in our workforce have declined. We are all heartened by the prospects for this year, we are looking at good jobs growth in the tourist industry, and certainly, the $27.5m over the three years going towards marketing will see that jobs growth. And just in what has been happening this February with The Ghan and its extraordinary success, both nationally and internationally in attracting passengers, unexpectedly, but that has been fantastic. We were so focussed on a freight train that we had not actually thought about the potential of a passenger train. Great Southern Rail did, though.
We have seen this February the impact that cruise ships can have, and with the Star Princess on Saturday, the estimate of probably just under $1m into the Darwin economy from that ship being berthed for less than a day, eight hours, in Darwin. That is the flow-on for our community from the growth in cruise ships, and we have worked hard at that.
You do not want to be thin-skinned in politics, but it is relatively offensive when members opposite say, ‘You have done nothing and now you put money in’. Do the members opposite think the growth in cruise ship numbers is just something that floats down from heaven and it is not because hard work has been done there? The hard yards have been done. We are getting that airline growth back. The market, particularly the domestic market, is now back to those pre-September 2001 levels and we are starting to see a growth in the international market. Do members opposite think that happens because we sit here and wish for it to happen? It is good that the member for Wanguri paid tribute to the work of Aviation Development Manager, Peter Roberts, for the work that he has done in conjunction with government. It is very important; those hard yards have to be done. And the fact that, during 2002, when the international market contracted in terms of tourism, we saw a growth in our drive market because we redirected our tourism marketing focus to the south-eastern states. Destinations like Tennant Creek and Katherine were having some of their best low season years because of the pick up in the drive market.
A lot of hard yards have been done in very difficult circumstances. I am proud of the work done by this government in tourism. We have, at a very appropriate time, increased those marketing dollars so that we can take advantage of the pick up. You could say, why didn’t you do it two years ago? The money would not have been well targeted; the time was not there to do it. This is the time to do it. We are going to get the bang for our bucks - taxpayers’ dollars that we are not spending lightly. I really went through a whole lot of detail, down to the couple of tens of thousands, of how this money is going to be spent and on what, and with what benefit. We are not taking it lightly and the timing has been very important. I am delighted, talking to Centralian tour operators, and those from the Top End - they are sensing a turnaround. They are sensing that we have seen the worst of the tough times.
You always have to keep your fingers crossed about international events. Two-and-half-years ago, 50% of our tourism market used to come from international - I think it was 49% if you want to be exact. Now it is 40%. It has really declined. What has happened in the world has hit our market. We have picked up with domestic. That is terrific, but we want to pick up on that international market. We will continue to do that. Therefore, these additional funds are well targeted. It has been done with support of the tourism industry; we are working closely with them. I congratulate the Board of the Tourist Commission for their support and guidance. They are doing a terrific job. I am confident that we will see a much better 2004. If you talk to the Central Australian operators, they say, ‘2004 will be better’. We are saying, ‘2005 will be better again’.
You can sense the optimism in the tourism market here in Darwin. There is a lot of work to do, and one of the benefits - and I hate to say that having Chief Minister as a Tourism Minister necessarily means benefits because I have had hard-working Tourism Ministers, however, one of the things that Chief Ministers do coordinate is across government activity. When you are talking about building tourism, what you are talking about is not just the Tourist Commission. You are also talking about the kind of infrastructure we need to be targeting to build our tourism market. How do we link in with sport? In the statement, I talked about the new relationship between the Tourist Commission and what is happening in sport, particularly with those national events. What is happening in the arts and the link between the arts events that are happening, particularly with the indigenous arts strategy? We know one of the biggest reasons tourists come here is cultural tourism. Therefore, we need to build those links between what is happening in the arts with our festivals, as well as the very attractive indigenous arts sector, and bring that in with tourism. Also, not forgetting that there is a role with DEET. We have to have training happening in the tourism market. It is happening. We can build it, particularly when we are talking about indigenous training in more remote areas.
This is about tourism having a whole-of-government approach. From the lucky position that I have, that makes it possible. We are not just talking about the Tourist Commission, we are talking about what is happening in infrastructure, community development through sport and arts, and in training through DEET. All those are being brought together very importantly, not only to build our existing products and refresh those existing products, but to establish new product in our tourism market, and also going into new markets. That is the marketing effort into the United States, into areas that we have not been before. Those opportunities are there.
It is an exciting time. The benefits for tourism are not just with the tourism operators, they are right through our economy. To sit down on Stokes Hill Wharf on Saturday night with my family and some friends and have fish and chips with the hundreds of people who were there to watch the Star Princess leave, was terrific. Everyone was so impressed first of all with the size of the boat - it is a big monster, with the best part of 4000 on it. To watch it leave and to have that sense from the Darwinians there on Stokes Hill Wharf waving it goodbye and cheering it – and I want to pay particular tribute to the woman who threw the streamers, with the wind blowing towards us. She got a cheer from the crowd as she was picking all the streamers off her - it was lovely.
There was such a level of enthusiasm. In talking to people, they said it was terrific for our economy. They were watching the minibuses, the taxis and the coaches leave and the passengers walking around our city. I saw them at Casuarina on Saturday afternoon. Funny how you can pick a cruise ship passenger at 50 m in Casuarina on a Saturday afternoon! It was terrific. There was a real sense of enthusiasm that this cruise market was going to make a difference. The importance of the difference it is going to make is that it is in our low season. To have a month like February, which is Tourism Month, being such a strong month for tourism, not only in Darwin, but also in the Centre, is very heartening for what I hope I will get bipartisan support for. It is going to be a much better year in 2004 for tourism.
Members: Hear, hear!
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising adjourn until Tuesday 30 March 2004 at 10 am or at such other time and/or date as may be set by Madam Speaker pursuant to sessional order.
Motion agreed to.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Ms MARTIN (Fannie Bay): Mr Deputy Speaker, I won’t be too long tonight. I think my voice will probably collapse.
Tonight, I wish to offer my congratulations and we had them from the Deputy Chief Minister to the week, to a very special young lady who has made the Territory proud. Jessica Mauboy’s recent successful performances in Tamworth have thrilled all of us who know her and have observed her growing talent, especially her family, her school teachers and music school staff.
Having won the local Telstra ‘Road to Tamworth’ talent quest in December, Jessica had the opportunity to travel to the Tamworth Country Music Festival to compete in the National Road to Tamworth competition, a component of the festival designed to showcase and promote the talents of up and coming young singers from all over Australia. She and her parents, along with her singing teacher, the wonderful Judy Weepers, left Darwin on 17 January to allow time to prepare her for her big performance on Monday night.
As we know, Jessica wowed all the judges and the whole audience with the powerful musicality of her voice, and the maturity of her performance, and she took out top place in the competition. She won recording contract, the opportunity for a videoed performance with a selected country music star, a Telstra mobile phone with $1000 credit – the dream of every 14-year-old! - and a scholarship to an intensive two week course at the Tamworth Country Music College in January next year. But more than this, she won a nation load of fans, the serious attention of the country music industry and surprised admiration from many for what can come from our Northern Territory.
During the week in Tamworth, Jessica and Judy Weepers worked hard on seven new songs for her to perform at various concerts and events in the festival. All of these were rehearsed only once with the versatile guitarist, Bob Howe, who accompanied her. In Darwin, Jessica normally performs with commercially recorded backing CDs so for her it was a challenge to learn the work with other artists. Her performances included a guest spot on the Adam Brand show where she received a standing ovation; an appearance at Jimmy Hayes’ Digger’s Big Breakfast, regarded as a special honour; an appearance for interview on Reggie Prasad’s Worldwide Internet show and a half-hour segment in both concerts by visiting Canadian country star, Terri Clark. All Jessica’s audiences were bowled over by her talent.
Needless to say, Jessica’s success is due to her own intuitive musicianship and sheer vocal skill. However, she would not have achieved this milestone without the support and practical help from a number of key people throughout her young life, including ultimately the minister for Education whose personal interest and release of NT DEET resources made Jessica’s journey to Tamworth possible. Education Department teachers, most especially Judy Weepers of the Music School, have played a major role in Jessica’s musical development since her early years at school. Children might have all the talent in the world, but without the right people to nurture and develop it, to inspire the child and provide performing opportunities which instil confidence, the world would never hear that talent.
Jessica’s performing opportunities have mostly come within the context of school choirs at Wulagi Primary School, all trained by Judy Weepers, from junior through intermediate to senior choir which participates in The Beat each year. When Jessica’s ability began to stand out she was afforded solo opportunities at The Beat and The Beat Award Concert. Since Jessica has been attending high school, Judy Weepers has continued to provide weekly tuition after school, purchasing CDs and sheet music from which she has guided Jessica’s repertoire selection. She has also overseen a program of public performances for community and charity functions in which many Darwin people have ‘discovered’ Jessica’s emerging talents for themselves.
The principal and staff at Wulagi Primary School have always given Jessica much support, as have those more recently at Sanderson High School whose initiative it was to involve minister Stirling’s interest in the need for funding assistance to Jessica’s family in their Tamworth quest. And, of course, Jessica has been nurtured by the support of her mum, Theresa, and dad, Freddie. Jessica’s extended families and friends have been invaluable to her success.
The acclaim which Jessica won in Tamworth has been well reported. We can now acclaim those who helped to get her there. Even if Jessica does not become a big ‘star’, and we are sure she will, the investment made in her has already paid dividends in the form of her own development and self-worth and in the pleasure that she brings to others.
On Tuesday morning, I attended the Somerville Community Services Pancake Day breakfast launch. I was pleased to be asked to be the guest speaker at this event as it allowed me the opportunity to personally thank the wonderful staff and supporters of Somerville Services for the dedication they show at benefiting those in need in our Territory community.
Somerville Community Services, as you are aware, is an excellent provider of community-based services to young people with high level disabilities, as well as other counselling, financial counselling and limited accommodation services for young people and families in times of crisis. Somerville Homes came in to existence in 1966. The homes were named in honour of Margaret Somerville MBE who helped evacuate 95 children from Croker Island to Sydney in 1942, and who returned to Croker Island with the children after the war and continued as a housemother and caregiver until 1965. Although Somerville is an agency of the Uniting Church in Australia, they are only operational in the Territory.
With five divisions and a staff of over 150, Somerville brings together the labours, skills and enthusiasm of its employees and volunteers to give practical expression to the Christian humanitarian ideal of a caring and sharing society.
Somerville’s board of directors is chaired by Daphne Read. No stranger to those of us in this room, Daphne has had a profound influence on the development of many young Territorians over many years. Over breakfast I was honoured to hear Daphne recount her experiences post-Cyclone Tracy where her husband, John, was responsible for putting the roof on the old Darwin Primary School building at Frogs Hollow where they actually lived as their house had been destroyed during the cyclone, and how they stayed when many did not to ensure that there was a school open and operational for the start of the school year. Through her roles in education, and in this particular instance as someone who has seen Somerville develop over 30-odd years of her active involvement, Daphne continues to make a major contribution to our community.
Somerville’s Chief Executive Officer, Vicki O’Halloran is a leader in the disability sector across the Territory. Vicky chairs ACROD, the peak body for disability services, and has played a key role in the developing strength of the non-government disability sector. It was my pleasure to acknowledge publicly the high esteem in which Vicki is held, and as acknowledged by our government, for the contribution she has made to the disability sector.
I also took this opportunity to refer attendees at this breakfast to the fact that minister Toyne and minister Scrymgour launched last week the government’s Framework for Healthier Community Services for the next five years. Our vision, Building Healthier Communities, reflects our commitment to community health. We know that we in the Territory need to have a sophisticated conversation about how we can reform all of our services so we work together more effectively for disadvantaged Territorians and their families. Our government is committed to making real the priority areas stated in our vision and the way ahead is partly through active engagement and involvement with our non-government partners, organisations who are actively and successfully working to provide much needed services such as Somerville.
Finally tonight, I would like to acknowledge a successful local business, one located in my electorate of Fannie Bay: Arafura Catering. The business is owned by Roger and Sharon Pearson who live and work in the electorate. Their company, Arafura Catering, is in the Parap shops and has been operating since July 1999. Arafura Catering supplies catering and hospitality equipment both to the hospitality industry and with the growing retail trade of those of us who like to drop in, whether to buy a professional carving knife to compliment our kitchens or just look to see the latest gadget.
Roger and Sharon’s business has increased three-fold over a four year period. Roger reports that he is going better than they ever expected and now they feel they have probably outgrown their existing premises. How have they managed to be so successful through periods when the hospitality and tourism, their primary client base, have felt the pinch? A simple answer, and role model for all businesses, by responding to the local market. They give good service, in fact, they give excellent service and have taken the time to know the industry. In fact most of their 10 staff have come from the hospitality industry. Roger is experienced as a previous owner and operator of successful restaurants.
Arafura Catering supplies specialised, professional equipment, all highly technical; even his ovens have computers. To reflect and respond to the needs of their clients, Roger and Sharon have established a service department to provide specialised service for the repair and maintenance of the equipment they supply. To run a highly specialised service unit such as this the company has had to send staff interstate to get the necessary skills and training to be able to provide this service in the Top End. Roger and Sharon have moulded their company to fit the Territory. They do business from Gove to Broome, and Alice to Dili, covering over 1.4 million square kilometres. Their commitment to the Territory and to their staff now sees one of Roger’s employees currently being supported to become multi-skilled by training as an electrician to supplement his gas fitter qualifications, following which he will do his pilot’s course. This will enable them to be a ‘one man show’ and provide an all round service to the rest of the Territory.
Recently, Roger has been working with other Territory companies such as CTM and Baxters in the outfitting of the Qantas Club. Roger and Sharon Pearson should be proud of their business they’ve created. Their commitment to the Territory, to their staff and to their customers is inspiring.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, this morning I put a question to the Minister for Employment, Education and Training in the terms of the issue of autistic child and I am not certain whether the negotiations between the parent, and the school, and the department has occurred today. I understood it was to be today but have not heard any results from that. But the minister said he was working very hard in his response this morning in driving the department to address issues on provision of services to disabled students.
I would like to go in to some detail as to what the problem is and hope that the minister addresses it fairly quickly. It has been now nearly three weeks since school started and this young boy is obviously going to encounter some difficulties in school. I will read some excerpts from the letter that she wrote to the minister. Her son who is autistic goes to a primary school in the Top End and would attend school for approximately 32 hours a week. Unfortunately, he has only been allocated 15 hours a week, which works out to be about three hours a day, with an inclusion support assistant. You are looking at an autistic child in class for 2 hours a day and half the day he is not being managed by an inclusion support assistant.
I am not certain whether the minister understands what an autistic child is, but looking after an autistic child is a full-time job, and if the child is in school and we have this inclusion policy, then we need to have somebody in school looking after this child full-time. The paediatricians have supported the application from the school that the child needs full-time support. Other psychologists have assessed the child and also supported the request for full-time support in the school. Unfortunately, the parent has not been able to get the services because the school does not have the money to spare to employ a full-time ISA each day to support the child at school.
In the letter written by the lady she said she spoke to Rob Picton of the minister’s office, who then referred the parent to Philip Jones, who then suggested that the son receive at least 25 hours a week. Well, not quite the full 32 hours a week, but close enough to achieving full-time support while he is in school. But that increase of 25 hours was only for the first four weeks of school which is coming to an end. His ISA hours will then be back down to 15 hours a week again.
Just to try and demonstrate the need for a full-time ISA, when the child is under stress at school he actually runs away. The school that he attends does not have a fence right around the boundary so potentially this child can be exposed to danger on the roads, in the car park, and anywhere else. His limited social skills also produces many problems like getting dressed, going to the toilet, running out in the rain, especially right now in this weather. So it is extremely difficult for the child to do well at school. Autistic children have a very short attention span. They tend to be easily distracted and unless you have a full-time ISA there with the child, trying to refocus the child to things that he has learning, the child just gets further and further behind in his education.
If there were no full-time ISA - suppose they only come for the three hours and then leave - the child is still in the classroom with the teacher. What happens then when the child plays up? The teacher cannot abandon the rest of the class to pacify this child. So something must be done. It is important for the minister to get on to it as quickly as he can. The lady wrote down some examples of what may happen, but I do not think that I need to read any of that all, apart from understanding that it is a child with a very short attention span, with poor social skills, requiring full time support. It is important for the Department of Education and the minister to understand that. Perhaps the minister for community services could look into what the department can do to assist if the Department of Education alone cannot provide those services.
Let’s not complain about the school, let me hasten to add. The parent is very pleased with the school and the support provided for her son. It is the issue of getting enough hours funded for the ISA at that school to look after her son. Hopefully, something will happen this week, or no later than next week, so that care can be extended to this child and ensure that he then gets the education that he surely deserves in our school system.
The minister said he was very concerned about the neglect for disabled children, that he was driving the department very hard to address it. Well, if he were, why then do we have not only this issue of not getting sufficient ISA support in schools for children with disabilities, but we are also now hearing and getting correspondence from people claiming that transport services for students with special needs will no longer be provided by the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment for the kids to get to school and to return home, and when they are at school to go to an event, a school sponsored event such as going to swimming classes or whatever. The department has taken that away also. So what is happening? Are they cutting back? If they are taking the money away from the department, why are they doing it? The minister was so adamant this morning that he was pushing the department to put more resources in. Well, if they are, something is happening here. Is the department doing something against a minister’s wishes?
The new restrictions that are being imposed in Alice Springs for children with disabilities will prevent students from participating in activities such as excursions, school sports, work experience, work placement and even socialisation programs. We all know that we have an inclusion policy to ensure that the children with disabilities attend mainstream schools so that at least they have good interaction with other children, and when they have outside school activities these children can also participate in them.
The new arrangements are not a viable alternative for either the students or the schools. How are the schools going to find the transport mechanism to get the kids to these events? Schools do not have the proper vehicles that may be required, such as those to carry wheelchairs for instance, they therefore have to hire those services in from private enterprise which means money and who is going to pay for that? The school council? It is a government policy, an inclusion policy, so it is beholden on government to now provide the funding to ensure that those schools which have children with disabilities have sufficient funding to purchase those services.
The new arrangements, and I quote from this letter:
- The new arrangements state that students currently being transported to and from school will continue to be
transported. According to the new arrangement though, any parent will have to demonstrate hardship in
getting their children to and from school. How is this hardship to be determined?
And that is the point. Isn’t it hard enough for a parent to have a child with disability? That they have to now prove that it is extra hard? It is an oxymoron request by the department to say to a parent, ‘You have a disabled child and he/she needs to go to school, but now you have to prove to us how difficult it is for you’. What? Take the child into a car and demonstrate to the department? Something is wrong with the system and I am not sure what it is, whether the minister took his eye off the ball. I had a lot of regard for the member for Nhulunbuy. I thought being a school teacher himself he would be very much on the ball with regards to matters education.
Students and their coordinators were notified of the change in arrangements, if I can call it that, at the very end of the school year last year. The schools had one week to get applications in to try to get some sort of funding for the new arrangements. Now, you know what the end of the school year is like. Everybody is busy, everybody is flat out, teachers are marking report cards for their students and they really do not have the time to try to look after the paperwork that the department gave them only one week to prepare. And if the school does not prepare that paperwork, again the school misses out and then ultimately the students miss out.
Somehow the minister needs to look at this closely. I mean he yelled at me and said it was the CLP’s fault, but I do not know what the CLP’s fault was. We did not cut back. For some reason over the last few months that has happened, all these changes have occurred very suddenly, and right at the beginning of this year when things started to happen and now parents and students and their schools are all being disadvantaged.
As far as I understand, the inclusion policy is to ensure that children all get in to mainstream education, are taught in schools alongside their peers ensuring that they get the best all-round education they possibly can. Education also means physical activities, activities outside the school - whether they be day excursions or whatever - and this is where it is important that transport at least be made available freely and also, where ISAs are concerned, that these students actually get good support by adequately funded ISAs so that they can have somebody with them for most of the day. And where autistic children are concerned, it should be for the whole of the day. You cannot have it for part of the day because it does not work. With some children with physical disabilities that might be a lot easier, but with kids with autism it is definitely an issue that government has to look at again and ensure that adequate funding is provided to these students and have full-time ISAs for the time that they are at school.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise this evening in adjournment to table a report. I undertook a study tour to Queensland in December and I made a public commitment that I would come back and table a report in the House. With it, I intend to table some very interesting documents from Queensland. Details in my report goes to programs called Urban Renewal and Community Renewal that are occurring in Queensland. Certainly, the Territory government is about to roll-out massive spending for urban renewal. The report just goes to EPA, housing, correctional services, law and order, disability, education, transport and planning for growth and water path infrastructure. I seek leave to table the report on my Queensland study tour in December.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE: Thank you. Finally, I want to add my words of congratulations to Jessica Mauboy the very young, talented Sanderson High School student. She is an absolute credit to the community, she has an incredible future ahead of her and I encourage all members of this House to support her at every available opportunity.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight having given notice to the Minister for Lands and Planning that I was going to raise this issue. I place my thanks on the record for him organising the briefing that I received from the department today in relation to the issue. The matter that I raise tonight is the Northern Territory’s longest running land rights battle which dates back to 1979.
I was in my formative years at high school when this battle started and I think that dinosaurs still roamed the earth. I am not going to engage in a history of this particular land rights claim because there is only 15 minutes available to me and I am sure that honourable members would not want to put up with a lecture which would take much more than15 minutes to simply explain this. However, as time has passed the situation has become reduced basically to one of a compensatory nature to the owners of 11 blocks which exist on Centre Island in the Sir Edward Pellew Group off the coast of Borroloola.
The former minister, Mr Vatskalis, has received a letter from a Sean Finlay, a resident of Alice Springs. The argy bargy between the parties, and this is no reflection on the government whatsoever who is running as much as a mediating role as being one of the parties to this, but the argy bargy between the parties has come to a point where it would not take a great deal of will from the government at all to be able to resolve it once and for all.
If the opportunity to resolve it, which is just about there at the moment, could be taken by this minister, then I urge him to do so. I do wish to point out some of the issues that were written by Mr Sean Finlay, one of the concerned block holders, to the honourable Kon Vatskalis MLA, but it would be now more effectively addressed to Dr Chris Burns the current minister.
The letter, I should read into Hansard, as follows:
- Dear Kon
Following our conversation at Alice Springs’ show on Friday, 4 July 2003 regarding the on-going issues of leases
on Camp B Centre Island and your request to contact you personally with regard to our particular concerns. The
following is a list of salient issues that we feel should be addressed prior to any definitive resolution being reached.
A brief outline of the situation is as follows:
1 the Northern Territory government has negotiated a term lease of 25 years on our behalf with the land claimants.
2 the Northern Territory government has approached the lease holders with a view to offer financial
compensation on diminished lease.
3. the compensation offer was based on a valuation carried out by the Valuer-General’s Office in 2001. The offer
was 60% of that valuation.
Our concerns are thus:
1 we reluctantly agreed with Graham Newhouse of the Department of Lands to accept a 25 year lease conditional
on fair compensation by the Northern Territory government with a view to resolving the issue expediently.
Our initial proposal was a 50 year lease with a reduced compensation.
2. our proposal of a 75% compensation of an undated valuation to be determined in lieu of our current lease in
perpetuity, in our view was fair and equitable under the circumstances.
splitting hairs and the Department of Lands appears to be without the authority to bring this matter to a
satisfactory conclusion.
It must be remembered that we entered into this issue as innocent, compliant parties and we feel that we are more
than accommodating in our effort reaching a fair conclusion. Bear in mind that the issues in question were inherited
from the previous government and we feel that we have been used in the fight against the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
We would be pleased to meet with you or your representative at a convenient time and we are aware that there is a
community cabinet on 22- 23 September 2003. In anticipation of your consideration for fair resolution to this problem.
This was dated on 10 September 2003 and, it is true, that this is a problem that was inherited from the previous government. It has been very difficult for them because they truly have been innocent parties in the sense that they legitimately purchased their blocks, or the leases on those blocks many, many moons ago and realistically speaking now the argy bargy has been reduced to nothing more than a compensation fight. They are currently 15% apart in terms of the compensation fight. I would be horrified to see an opportunity to resolve this once and for all for the sake of both the land rights claimants and the lease holders, and realistically speaking, I know that the minister would have to go back to the Treasurer to ask for some sort of assistance to help this matter. I know that the minister cannot just with the flick of a wrist sign a cheque and sort it out once and forever.
However, I would urge this government to say finally that we have reached the point where enough is enough, this has now been a battle that has effectively gone on since 1979 so we are talking 25 years, fully a quarter of a century. It is a matter of dollars. I know that this government wants to resolve these sorts of issues through negotiated settlement and I agree. I think that this is precisely the sort of issue that should be resolved through a negotiated settlement because at the end of the day, if the government fails at this juncture to come to a settlement, it ends up back in the courts in one shape, form, or another, and it is going to continue costing taxpayers much more in every likelihood than the difference in the two positions on the compensation package.
I urge the minister to turn his careful attention to this. I know that he is aware of the issue because he and I have spoken about it prior to today. I certainly do not want to win any political points on the issue. I simply want to see Territorians have a land dispute resolved once and for all and for the sake of the harmony of the people who live out there. I am fully aware that the people on the ground do not seem to have an issue so much as the issue at departmental and land council level, and I know why it has happened. I am not critical at anybody as a result of why they got to the point, but realistically speaking the issue is resolvable and is resolvable really if this government just exerts a small amount of will. If they chose to do so, I will be the first to congratulate them.
Mrs AAGAARD (Nightcliff): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on the Nightcliff Primary School. Nightcliff Primary School continues to provide excellence in education. This is evidenced by the outstanding results in the 2003 MAP testing, the multi-level assessment testing for Years 3, 5 and 7. MAP testing is a series of national assessments in reading and numeracy. At this stage, national results are benchmarked for Years 3 and 5 but there has not been agreement on the benchmarking of Year 7 results and so those are excluded for the moment.
Nightcliff Primary School results are very impressive and are, as the Acting School Principal, Brian Bennett, says in the latest school newsletter, ‘… an objective measure of the excellence which we strive for, not just in terms of these two areas of learning but across the entire operation of our school’. Each year since 2000, the first year of assessment, there has been a significant increase in benchmarks at Nightcliff Primary School. In the year 2000, Year 3 students tested in numeracy saw 78% achieving the benchmark. In 2003 it is 99%. Similarly for Year 3 students in reading, in the year 2000, 68% achieved the benchmark and now it is 93%. For Year 5 students the results are similarly excellent with numeracy results in 2000 reaching 87% and 93% in 2003. For reading in 2000, the result was 88% reaching the benchmark. It is now 96%.
These results indicate the dedication and hard work of students, teachers and parents, and is a real credit to the school community. It is no wonder that Nightcliff Primary School is seen as one of the most desirable schools in the Darwin area. I take this opportunity to thank the Acting Principal, Mr Brian Bennett, for his work at the school for the past two terms. As he advised the primary school council at the time of taking up his appointment, he will be returning to the Moil Primary School next term. During his time at the school he has gained the respect of teachers, parents and students alike, and I wish him all the best when he returns to Moil Primary School.
I also take this opportunity to thank the outgoing school council. Like all school councils in the Northern Territory, the Nightcliff Primary School Council will be holding its AGM next month and as such a new school council will be elected. The current council, of which I am a member, is chaired very ably by Ms Lindy Coats. Other members are Chris Baldwin, Louise McCall, Alex Knowler, Murray Fuller, Annie Villaseche, Marian Bryce, Jessie Johnston, Siobhan Loosmoor and Jann Brown. I am hopeful that some of the current members will be willing to volunteer for a further term and thank them for their contribution to all our children.
The workings of school require the cooperation and mutual respect and work of parents and teachers for the benefit of our children. I have had children at the Nightcliff Primary School since 1995 and my youngest child is still at the school. I can only say that during my time of involvement with the school, I have continued to be impressed by the enthusiasm of parents, teachers and students and I look forward to a continued association with the school both as a parent and as the member for Nightcliff.
I also rise tonight to speak on the Nightcliff High School. The Nightcliff High School has seen significant changes over the past year. Last year, with the support of the school principal, Mr Paul Atkinson and the Nightcliff High School Council, the school was totally reviewed and many changes were foreshadowed and this year we can see the fruits of that review.
Probably the biggest change this year is the increase in student numbers at the school. It appears for the first time for many years the enrolment numbers have increased in all years and especially in the Year 8 program where student numbers are 114 students, which is up from 90 last year. It is particularly heartening to see so many students who have come from Nightcliff Primary School. Many of these students would previously have chosen to study at Darwin High rather than attend their local high school.
The new program for Year 8 students called Innov8 is proving a real attraction for young people and the feedback I have received from parents of students and students themselves, including my own son who is in Year 8 at the school, is that the program is both interesting and innovative. The newly refurbished Innov8 area looks wonderful and provides open and airy spaces in which the students can work on a range of different projects and is starting to look more ‘personalised’ with students work, equipment and technology. IT and other facilities are up and running and state of the art. I had the pleasure of visiting the Innov8 area with the principal and it was wonderful to see the young people working so harmoniously in this area and also to meet many of the teachers working in this new program: Keith Moylan, the Assistant Principal; Susan Martin; Martin Clarke; Veronica Ross; Kerry Regan; and Don Butcher. I was also pleased that the Nightcliff High School was recently granted $8431 for school equipment from the Northern Territory government. I understand the school intends to purchase some new furniture for the Year 8 program.
The Northern Territory School of Music also started at the Nightcliff High this year in specially renovated quarters and many Nightcliff students have taken the opportunity to become involved in the music program. I congratulate the music teachers ably lead by Nora Lewis. I understand the music school is looking to have a choral program and will be developing a weekly vocal ensemble within the school and there is a possibility of running a combined high schools choir which would run after school one day a week, a wonderful opportunity for young people.
Nightcliff High has a very active school council and I would like to recognise the members of that council, particularly as some members will stand down at the next school council’s annual general meeting. It is also my pleasure to be a member of this council and I thank Michael Murray who able chairs the council, Caitlyn Antella, John Wagner, Hans Raets, Joseph Aberdeen, Bill Bean, Rosemary Campbell, Peter Bidgood, Amanda Rann, Monicka Lee, John Tate, Martin Breukers, Bronwyn Schulte, Tammy Coyne, Dianne Bishop, Graham Chadwick, Alistair Scott, Keith Moylan, Maria Louison and Maria Rizidis for their dedication to the students and school community of Nightcliff High School.
I also rise tonight to inform the House of a function I hosted at the Greek Orthodox School in Rapid Creek on Friday, 13 February. It was my pleasure to host a function for the Nightcliff Branch of the Labor Party with special guest being the National President of the Australian Labor Party, the honourable Dr Carmen Lawrence, the party’s first popularly elected president. Dr Lawrence spoke on education in Australia and articulated a vision for education under a federal Labor government. Her presence at the function was greatly appreciated and I thank her for taking the time to visit Darwin.
It was a wonderful evening with around 200 guests who enjoyed a feast of a buffet supplied by Magnum caterers, an excellent local caterer who has recently taken over the catering at the Ski Club. I also thank my parliamentary colleagues, Syd Stirling, Chris Burns and Kon Vatskalis, for attending.
I thank the sponsors for the evening, George, Allan and Colin, who provided special gifts which were auctioned and raffled; very generous people. I also thank from my branch all those people who worked hard to put the fantastic night together, especially Chris and Carole, and Helen and Sally, Sally making a great auctioneer. Thanks also to Tony, Carmel and Daniel who worked on the bar all night, and Jack and Sandra who helped with the clean-up.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to acknowledge a couple of people who are leaving the department. The first one I would to acknowledge is Sue Korner who is retiring next month after 32 years in the public service. The member for Stuart and other members from Central Australia will know Sue well, after all she has lived in Alice Springs for 40 years. It is my understanding that Sue has worked in many areas of the public service including the Department of Works in the 1970s, the Department of Community Development in the 1980s and in the health and community services arena for more than 20 yeas. More recently, under the new structure of the Department of Health and Community Services, Sue has held the newly developed position of Central Australian Coordinator.
Sue Korner has many career achievements behind her. These include the establishment of Mount Gillen Ante-natal House, the establishment of the Public Health Branch, the establishment of a joint mental health and alcohol and other drugs dual diagnosis clinic Alice Springs. She was involved in the remodelling of mental health services in Central Australia to include community mental health services; extended hours in a forensic service; and the redevelopment of community health infrastructure which included an improved community dental services facility, allied health therapy and treatment areas. There are many more career achievements for Sue and I have not covered them here. Sue has made an invaluable contribution to Territorians as well as her colleagues who have appreciated her guidance and depth of experience.
Sue’s heart is close to the Central Australian community and I understand she is staying in Alice Springs when she retires next month. I am sure that she will enjoy spending time with her husband and two sons. I wish Sue all the best in her retirement and hope she will continue to be active in the Central Australian community in a voluntary capacity.
Gloria Markey is a valued member of staff who unfortunately is leaving the Department of Health and Community Services after 24 years of dedicated service. I understand that Gloria and her family are moving to Western Australia and her last day with the department is next Friday, 5 March. During her time with the department, Gloria has personally contributed to a list of impressive achievements that have included developing and coordinating the department’s component of the Community Harmony Strategy; overseeing the development and implementation of important policies and program initiatives in critical areas of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, kava and petrol misuse; coordinating the significant the community education and sponsorship components of the highly acclaimed Living with Alcohol Program; developing and implementing the Territory’s first Tobacco Act 1992, as well as overseeing activities of the Tobacco Action Project; coordinating the department’s service provision activities for the purchase of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs services from the non-government sector; and contributing to the development of the Aboriginal Family Violence Community Action Project, as well as the women’s health policy and strategy development.
It is always sad to lose long valued members of staff. I take this opportunity to personally thank Gloria for her significant contribution to the department and to the health and wellbeing of all Territorians. I wish Gloria and her family all the best in their move to Western Australia.
I know that the member for Nightcliff would also like to wish both Gloria and Sue well in their retirement.
Before I wrap up, I would also like to adjourn on two special people. They might think that I have overlooked them. I would like to mention Pat Hancock and Liz McFarlane for their patience, their advice, their guidance, and to Liz for being a great nutritionist, feeding the hungry hordes. One of the things that I had to let go, which I was totally committed to, was the select committee on substance abuse. I really enjoyed my time with both past and present members of the committee. I am sure that the new chair will enjoy having Liz on every trip. All the trips when we went out bush and the various areas we visited were always very enjoyable. I totally enjoyed them and certainly want to put on record my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to both Pat and Liz for their support in that time. Often members of parliament get all the praise and thanks for a lot of the work that is done and sometimes we can tend to over look the real people who do much of the work and the pulling together of a lot of those things. I am sure that the new chair will find both of these ladies highly professional and very supportive.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016