2004-05-18
Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, pursuant to the provision of Standing Order 12, I hereby revoke all previous warrants nominating members to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees, and nominate the following members to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees when requested so to do by the Chairman of Committees: Mrs Aagaard MLA, Mr Bonson MLA, Mr Kiely MLA, Ms Lawrie MLA, Mr Maley MLA, Mr McAdam MLA, and Mrs Miller MLA.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I advise honourable members that the revised opposition shadow portfolio responsibilities are as follows:
Member for Blain: Leader of the Opposition; Treasury; Racing, Gaming and Licensing; Territory Development;
Railway; Asian Relations and Trade; and Sport and Recreation.
Member for Greatorex: Deputy Leader of the Opposition; Chairman, Policy Development Committee;
Education, Employment and Training; Corporate and Information Services; Communications; Ethnic Affairs; and Central Australia.
Member for Port Darwin: Leader of Opposition Business; Whip; Health and Community Services; Senior Territorians;
and Arts and Museums.
Member for Daly: Primary Industry and Fisheries; Environment and Heritage; and Parks and Wildlife.
Member for Brennan: Transport and Infrastructure; Defence Support; and Lands and Planning.
Member for Araluen: Attorney-General and Justice and Women’s Policy.
Member for Drysdale: Business, Industry and Resource Development and Essential Services.
Member for Macdonnell: Police, Fire and Emergency Services; Local Government; Indigenous Affairs;
Community Development; and Regional Development.
Member for Katherine: Tourism; Housing; and Youth.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have received from His Honour the Administrator Messages No 19 and 20, notifying assent to bills passed in the February and March/April 2004 sittings.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the routine of business of the Assembly be rearranged or suspended if a question or debate is before the Chair, so as to permit the Treasurer to deliver the Budget 2004-05 at 11 am this day.
Motion agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have given permission for various media to broadcast live, or rebroadcast with sound and vision, the presentation of the budget and the Treasurer’s speech; for 8TOP FM radio to broadcast live the presentation of the budget and the Treasurer’s speech; and for the Northern Territory News to take photographs.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I present a petition from 254 petitioners praying that fresh water is available to residents and members of the public in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven area. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read:
To the Speaker and members of the Legislative Assembly, the petition of residents of the Dundee and
Bynoe Haven area of the Northern Territory draw to the attention of the House the lack of fresh water
and basic infrastructure facilities in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven regions. Your petitioners will therefore
humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly undertake the following remedial action:
1. conduct an urgent review to see what options are available so that fresh water is available to
residents and members of the public in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven area; and
2. after consulting the local residents, move to implement the preferred option to elevate fresh water
shortage in the area.
The CLERK: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 100A, I inform honourable members that responses to Petition Nos 49, 50, 52, 54 and 55 have been received and circulated to honourable members. The text of the responses will be included in the Hansard record.
Petition No 49
Locomotive named after Mr Steve Irwin
Date presented: 26 November 2003
Presented by: Ms Carter
Referred to: Minister for AustralAsia Railway
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 6 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The Northern Territory government is proud of the fact that, after more than a century, the long-held
dream of linking Darwin by rail with the mainland capital cities became a reality. The arrival of the
first freight train into Darwin on 17 January 2004 and, two weeks later, the arrival of The Ghan as
the first passenger train to run from Adelaide to Darwin, signalled the start of great opportunities
for the Territory.
Whilst the locomotive ‘Steve Irwin’ has been used in some promotional activities by Great Southern
Rail, there are many different locomotives used in conjunction with The Ghan in the Territory.
Great Southern Railway reports that ticket sales for The Ghan have now topped $20m, and it should be
noted that the ‘Steve Irwin campaign’ resulted in millions of dollars worth of advance ticket sales before
the first train even pulled out of Adelaide.
The new service will provide a steady stream of new passengers into Darwin year round, assisting the tourism
industry to overcome seasonal constraints by providing a base level of tourists during the Wet Season.
It is estimated that The Ghan will result in an extra 30 000 tourists per year in the Northern Territory, which
translates into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure.
This will support around 200 additional tourism jobs and have a ‘flow-on’ effect of wider benefits for the Territory.
Great Southern Railway’s holiday division has developed various holiday packages incorporating a variety of
products such as flights, accommodation, visitor attractions and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the railway
are widely spread across all tourism sectors and regions.
The success of The Ghan will be measured not by the name of one of its locomotives, but rather by ticket sales,
increased domestic and international tourism and the creation of new employment and business opportunities
for the Territory.
Petition No 50
Gender Law Reform Bill
Date presented: 26 November 2003
Presented by: Dr Toyne
Referred to: Minister for Justice and Attorney-General
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 5 April 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
This petition appears to call for the government to remove from the parliament the Law Reform (Gender,
Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003.
The purpose of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 is to reform the law
of the Territory to remove or modify legal distinctions based on a person’s gender, sexuality or de facto
relationship with another person. By doing this, the bill provides greater protection and equality to all
Territorians. The bill also includes a package of reforms developed to strengthen laws protecting
children from sexual abuse.
The petition also states the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 should not
be returned to parliament without further consultation.
In May 2003, the Darwin Community Legal Centre released a paper which contained a number of proposals
for law reform with a common goal – equality for all Territorians regardless of gender, sexuality or marital
status. A large proportion of the reforms were based on the Darwin Community Legal Centre’s submission.
The Darwin Community Legal Centre consulted with a wide range of individuals and community groups. It
should be noted that not all of the Darwin Community Legal Centre’s recommendations were accepted as part
of the reforms as it was felt necessary to take into account additional community views. The decision to
exclude some recommendations was taken as part of the process of balancing the divergent views of Territorians.
Consultation with various groups in the community commenced in August 2003 and continued after the introduction
of the legislation in October 2003. This resulted in the development of further amendments that were debated in
the November 2003 sittings of parliament. The government has attempted to balance the variety of views and
interests represented in our community, and I am satisfied that these reforms will ensure a greater level of equality
before the law for all Territorians.
Petition No 52
Locomotive named after Mr Steve Irwin
Date presented: 18 February 2004
Presented by: Mrs Miller
Referred to: Minister for AustralAsia Railway
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 6 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The Northern Territory government is proud of the fact that, after more than a century, the long-held dream of
linking Darwin by rail with the mainland capital cities became a reality. The arrival of the first freight train into
Darwin on 17 January 2004 and, two weeks later, the arrival of The Ghan as the first passenger train to run from
Adelaide to Darwin, signalled the start of great opportunities for the Territory.
Whilst the locomotive ‘Steve Irwin’ has been used in some promotional activities by Great Southern Rail, there
are many different locomotives used in conjunction with The Ghan in the Territory.
Great Southern Railway reports that ticket sales for The Ghan have now topped $20m, and it should be noted that
the ‘Steve Irwin campaign’ resulted in millions of dollars worth of advance ticket sales before the first train even
pulled out of Adelaide.
The new service will provide a steady stream of new passengers into Darwin year round, assisting the tourism
industry to overcome seasonal constraints by providing a base level of tourists during the Wet Season.
It is estimated that The Ghan will result in an extra 30 000 tourists per year in the Northern Territory, which translates
into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure. This will
support around 200 additional tourism jobs and have a ‘flow-on’ effect of wider benefits for the Territory.
Great Southern Railway’s holiday division has developed various holiday packages incorporating a variety of
products such as flights, accommodation, visitor attractions and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the railway
are widely spread across all tourism sectors and regions.
The success of The Ghan will be measured not by the name of one of its locomotives, but rather by ticket sales,
increased domestic and international tourism and the creation of new employment and business opportunities
for the Territory.
Petition No 54
Redevelopment of Keith Lawrie units in Alice Springs
Date presented: 1 April 2004
Presented by: Ms Carney
Referred to: Minister for Housing
Date response due: 25 August 2004
Date response received: 5 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The petitioners have indicated that the existing tenants have been directly or indirectly responsible for the
breakdown of law and order at the complex and in nearby areas and, as such, have requested that they not
be allowed to reside at the redeveloped complex.
Historically, mainly relatives, visitors and itinerants at the complex have caused the breakdown of law and order.
The most recent incidents involving youth petrol sniffing activities appears to be related to the vacant units at the
complex. While these incidents are indirectly associated with tenants at the complex it is difficult to identify
responsibility when many of the incidents occur within the common areas/grounds.
The redevelopment will incorporate the great majority of the common areas into the units’ yard, minimising open
spaces at the complex and limiting it to the car park. The utilisation of fencing to separate the complex into four
areas may assist by eliminating pedestrian traffic and to limit access points to the units. These redevelopment
strategies to assist in the management of the complex are likely to provide the same level of success whether the
current tenants remain or new waitlisted applicants are housed.
My department is currently undertaking repairs and maintenance to some of the vacant flats at the Keith Lawrie
complex. Allocation of these units will be made to applicants from the public housing waiting list. Although current
tenants have been provided with the option of remaining in the complex after redevelopment, some tenants have
requested relocation to alternative accommodation. My department is in the process of identifying suitable
dwelling for them.
The current rate of turnover in the units suggests that not all current tenants will still be residing at the Keith
Lawrie flat complex after the renovations. It is also likely that a majority will move on within the year.
Petition No 55
Funding arrangements for Croc Festival
Date presented: 31 March 2004
Presented by: Mrs Miller
Referred to: Minister for Employment, Education and Training
Date response due: 24 August 2004
Date response received: 14 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
This petition outlines the concerns of petitioners in relation to government not funding the 2004 Croc Festival,
and a perceived lack of commitment by government to funding community events.
Government is aware of the importance of supporting community events, particularly those that are important
to the indigenous people and youth of the Territory. To this end, government has recently committed $350 000
towards Territory-run community events and festivals.
In response to government not funding the Katherine 2004 Croc Festival, it is important to note that government
is strongly committed to improving education outcomes of indigenous students in the areas of literacy, numeracy
and health, and organisers of the events such as the Croc Festival to secure sponsorship funding. The Territory
government is only one of a number of sponsors approached to assist with funding and, while government will
not be supporting the event this year, there are other avenues that the organisers can pursue.
The Croc Festival will be produced in Katherine as planned in 2004 without funding from the Northern
Territory government. The event organisers have advised there will be no compromise to the quality of the production.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to inform the House that tomorrow, 19 May, I will be flying to Dili, then by helicopter to the offshore production platforms on the Bayu-Undan field to participate in celebrations marking the commencement of commercial liquids production. The Bayu-Undan field is located approximately 500 km, north-west of here in the joint petroleum development area. It is a world-class gas condensate fuel, with reserves of 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 400 million barrels of condensate and liquidified petroleum gas. The Bayu-Undan development project has two phases. The first, the liquid stripping gas recycle phase, is now complete and entering commercial production. The cost of this phase of the fuel development has been $US1.9bn.
Assets on the field for production and take off include three platforms: the well head platform, the drilling, production and processing platform, and the compression utilities and quarters platform. Gas and condensate is produced via 16 wells, and stripped liquids are stored on board the floating storage and off-take vessel, Liberdade, before transferred to commercial crewed LPG tankers.
Construction on the project commenced in 2001, with drilling starting in May the following year. The first commercial production of liquids took place on 10 February this year, and the first tanker loaded from the offshore facilities sailed away on 30 March. Production will ramp up to a maximum of 115 000 barrels per day by the third quarter of this year.
This is a great event for Timor Leste. As one of its closest neighbours, the Northern Territory congratulates Timor Leste and the Bayu-Undan joint venture, on bringing this world-class project to commercial fruition. The tax revenues will provide a much needed cash flow for the Timor Leste economy.
The Assembly is well aware that the next phase of the Bayu-Undan project, the so-called gas export phase, is now in progress. Phase 2 will include the 540 km pipeline, and the LNG plant now under construction at Wickham Point. The combined capital cost of the pipeline and the Darwin LNG plant is estimated at $US1.5bn. Phase 2 was approved by the Bayu-Undan joint venture on the 15 June last year, and the construction of the LNG plant commenced two weeks later. The first commercial LNG production is expected in the first half of 2006. The LNG storage tank, now under construction, will be the largest above ground LNG storage in the world, holding a massive 188 000 m.
Laying of the 26 inch pipeline is expected to start in Darwin Harbour during July, and construction should be finished by the end of 2004. Honourable members will be aware that trenching for the pipeline in the vicinity of Wickham Point is already under way, with such activity clearly visible from the upper levels of this building.
Completion of the pipeline and the LNG plant will see the emergence of Darwin as Australia’s second international gas hub. It will also bring benefits to Timor Leste through exporting gas revenues from the Bayu-Undan field and through securing liquids production, which would otherwise be reduced under a production regime of liquid stripping and gas re-injection. Bayu-Undan Phase 2, including the LNG plant, will herald the start of a major resource and energy industry, the potential of which my government intends to maximise for the benefit of all Territorians.
Madam Speaker, the marking of the first production of condensate from the Bayu-Undan field is an important event for the Territory and for Timor Leste, and certainly something to celebrate for the Bayu-Undan joint venturers.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, it is fortunate that the Chief Minister is able to attend this event, as I understand it was scheduled for last Wednesday. I was fully prepared to go, but, unfortunately, you will be missing out on the reply to your budget.
Ms Martin: Out of our hands.
Mr MILLS: I wish you well on that trip. I do understand that the core of this is the ultimate delivery of gas in the Northern Territory and the stimulation of the domestic economy in Australia and in the Northern Territory particularly.
There are two issues of concern on which I seek a response from government. One is the genuine addressing of the skill shortages that are inherent in Australia and, particularly, the Northern Territory. Advice that I have received in recent times indicates that is one of the greatest concerns of the development of the potential of gas here, not only in the Northern Territory, but Australia. There are serious skills shortages about which I need to see more than platitudes and outline of programs to address such problems, which are systemic and very deep. I expect the Chief Minister to give us genuine assurance that this serious issue is being attended to.
The other issue is the activity that is already taking place here in the Northern Territory. There is an increasing number of reports coming through that the level of procurement is not being directed to local contractors. The number of Queensland plates that are circulating around the operation are cause for concern. I need clarification, as many contractors do, that this is not an indication that the efforts of those who are attending to the construction phase of bringing gas onshore here are not, in the view of many contractors, is putting due attention to procuring locally.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to say a few words on gas in general. I am interested in the government’s position on the boundary discussions regarding other gas fields in Northern Australia. It would be interesting to see where they are coming from regarding the sharing of resources between Timor and Australia and the situation with the boundary.
As regards gas coming onshore, I make the point that some people argue that the development in the middle of the harbour, or the increase in industrial development, will be based on the LNG plant. It is obvious, to people who know what is going on, that gas comes in and LNG goes out. The argument about wider industrial development in the middle of the harbour I do not think holds any water.
Finally, it is a bit disappointing that the Chief Minister cannot be here for the opposition’s reply to the budget. That is an important day for parliament and it is a bit disappointing that it is not happening.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I pick up the point made by the member for Nelson. As the Opposition Leader indicated, initially the date was 12 May. It was changed, out of our hands, to 19 May.
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, it would be a very sad occasion for the Northern Territory that we did not have one person from this parliament at such an important occasion for the Territory’s future. I did not choose the date, but I will be there representing the Territory and our aspirations about our future economic development, as part of these important celebrations, as I said, for the Bayu-Undan joint venturers, the emerging nation of Timor Leste and for the Northern Territory. That is a simple matter of fact. You cannot be in two places at once.
Dealing very briefly with what are the skill shortages …
Mr Burke: Yes, you should be here.
Mr Dunham: You do not want to hear the truth.
Ms MARTIN: I beg your pardon?
Mr Dunham: You do not want to listen, do you? You do not want to hear the truth.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: I beg your pardon! You do not want to hear the truth about what the date that the Bayu-Undan …
Mr Burke: Well, some of us are responsible enough to realise where our priorities are: budget.
Ms MARTIN: … condensate is actually happening. It happens to be the 19 May.
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired, Chief Minister.
Ms MARTIN: Let me say Jobs Plan, Jobs Plan, Jobs Plan …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
East Timor Independence Anniversary
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, in my previous report this morning I had the opportunity to congratulate Timor Leste and the Bayu-Undan joint venturer on the commencement of commercial liquids production from the Bayu-Undan field. Celebration of this milestone coincides with the second anniversary of the most significant event in the history of Timor Leste and that, of course, is the independence of the country proclaimed on 20 May 2002.
Two years ago, it was my great honour to represent the people and government of the Northern Territory when independence was officially proclaimed. It was powerful and moving occasion - the birth of a new nation in the presence of the community of nations.
The government of Timor Leste faces many challenges in developing social and economic infrastructure vital to the wellbeing of its people. In the longer term, royalties from gas will underpin East Timorese development. There will continue to be ongoing support from the world donor community, who are committed to a strong, independent and viable Timor Leste.
Honourable members will recall the pledge of this Assembly on 16 May 2002 to support the East Timorese in the development of their new nation. This government is committed to a strong, mutual relationship based on strong cultural links and economic development.
I am pleased to advise the Assembly that there has been ongoing interaction between the two governments following Timor Leste’s independence. Relevant areas of activity include: civilian policing, environmental management, aquaculture, agriculture, and animal health. We have provided $114 000 over three years to the Charles Darwin University to fund the Northern Territory-Timor Leste Friendship Scholarships. The scholarships will be advertised in newspapers in Timor Leste and will commence at CDU in the first semester of 2005.
There are many areas of potential cooperation and interaction to the mutual benefit of the Territory and Timor Leste. It is the considered view of my government that the time is right to put the relationship between the two governments on a more formal footing. I have written to Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri about the Northern Territory and Timor Leste consolidating that relationship. A draft concept outline of a memorandum of understanding between the Territory and Timor Leste has been prepared with a view to further development of an MOU by officials and signature by both governments, should that be agreed upon.
Potential items for incorporation in the MOU include exchanges of knowledge and training, and interaction in some of the following areas:
cultural and sporting exchanges;
the provision of VET courses on the ground and via satellite technology; nurturing the links which
are already there between the CDU and the National University of Timor Leste;
the NT Police Force hosting members of the Dili Police Force for purpose designed training or standard
courses conducted by the Territory;
assisting with the development of disease surveillance programs, and training East Timorese practitioners
in Darwin and Dili;
the practical training of engineers and other technical specialists in Darwin and Dili;
training in land management techniques – surveying and mapping;
the training and development of Timor Leste’s sportsmen and women and sports administrators;
fisheries management training;
support and encouragement of interaction and dialogue between the Territory and Timor Leste private
sectors, which has been happening now for many years;
the development of programs and training in environmental management;
the development of extension training programs in agriculture;
supervised data gathering for airborne geophysical surveys; and
training in animal health and related disciplines.
None of this, as yet, is set in concrete although, as I indicated, in some areas this is already and has been happening for a number of years. There will be need for an ongoing dialogue between the two governments to flesh out any agreed areas of formal cooperation. In the meantime, the ongoing contact between our government, businesses and citizens will continue.
I would be pleased to report back to the Assembly if agreement can be reached between the two governments on the content of the proposed MOU.
Timor Leste and the Northern Territory are bound together by geography and climate. Above all, we are bound together by our people and our history. I am sure I speak on behalf of all Territorians in congratulating the people and the government of Timor Leste on the second anniversary of independence.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, it is my honour from the opposition also to congratulate the people of Timor Leste on their second anniversary – a most significant event, and one that has a deep register in our country, and for those Australian troops and commandos who served in World War II, particularly from Gull Force who were protected by the people of East Timor in their fight against Japanese forces.
The announcement of the MOU is welcomed, and I would like to see regular reports of its development made to the House so that we can see the progress of the development of an MOU.
Another aspect of the relationship between East Timor and the Northern Territory is the position of West Timor. In my visit to West Timor, there was emerging dialogue between the Governors of West Timor and East Timor with a view to strengthening the relationship between west and east, and linking the Northern Territory into a dialogue so that we have a strengthened position in the region. That is a proposition that should be approached in good faith and allowed to be developed, particularly in light of the negotiations that are currently under way - and I believe are at a final stage with Merparti Airlines and Airnorth - that the possibility of a tri-nation and a tri-capital city air route between Dili, Kupang and Darwin has a lot of potential in strengthening our profile in the region, giving the Northern Territory greater access to two developing regions, as well as playing a part in strengthening the relationship between West and East Timor. This is something that has benefit for all of us, particularly giving us genuine connection to the economic fortunes of those immediately to our north.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Speaker, petrol sniffing and substance abuse is a tragic problem in the Northern Territory. In my previous life in the remote health sector, then as the chair of the substance abuse committee and now, as the Minister for Family and Community Services, I have witnessed the harmful effects of substance abuse too often to mention. In the Northern Territory, substance abuse is perhaps the biggest barrier to achieving outcomes in health, education and community safety. It is a problem that has been ignored for too long. After years of neglect, the Martin Labor government came into power determined to do something about it.
Upon taking government, we immediately constituted the Select Committee on Substance Abuse in the Community. On 22 March 2003, acting in my then capacity as chair of the select committee, I submitted a foreword to the committee’s interim report. Included in that foreword I said:
When it comes to petrol sniffing, it is clear that … intervention is going to require some legislative reform ...
In light of this, we made tackling substance abuse one of the six key priorities in Building Healthier Communities, our framework to providing the best in health and community services. In Building Healthier Communities a key action item was to explore options of legislative reform to combat petrol sniffing. Building Healthier Communities was launched earlier this year. The announcement that we were going to institute legislative reform to combat petrol sniffing has promoted much debate. It is debate that we welcome.
There has been so much debate, in fact, that the opposition has decided that petrol sniffing was a problem that they could no longer afford to sweep under the carpet. The government welcomes the opposition’s first foray into dealing with petrol sniffing.
We will be creating a new Volatile Substance Misuse Prevention Act. Such an act will address issues such as the seizure of substances being abused and the apprehension, without arrest, of substance abusers, and the capacity of a court to order a course of treatment.
The opposition has a history in relation to dealing with youth problems: they legislate to lock them away from society. This is an area where we differ; we do not wish to criminalise petrol sniffing. Making petrol sniffers criminals helps no one and serves no purpose. However, I should make it clear that criminal activity undertaken while under the influence of petrol sniffing will continue to be addressed as just that – criminal activity - and dealt with accordingly. Our Drug Courts are already proactive in dealing with drug-related crime, and we will deal with petrol sniffing-related crime with a similar tough approach.
In addition to legislative reform, the government will provide and fund the support services required to help people leave petrol sniffing behind. Building Healthier Communities outlines that we will fund communities and community organisations to deal with outbreaks of petrol sniffing through a variety of diversionary activities which provide healthy alternatives for young people. Let’s face it - some kids start sniffing petrol simply because they do not have anything else to do.
Although I have said that we welcome the opposition entering this debate, this is another area where we differ. The media release they issued to announce their policy does not include the word ‘prevention’. It mentions nothing about addressing the causes of petrol sniffing. Indeed, their five-point plan is about dealing with petrol sniffing after it has occurred. Not one of the points addresses the cause of petrol sniffing; not one of the points seeks to prevent it.
The government is making the legislative changes, and we are developing partnerships with Aboriginal communities and organisations and helping them move towards community control. We have developed our Building Healthier Communities policy. We are implementing it and resourcing support programs. Dealing with this problem will not just help those affected; it will help the whole of the Northern Territory. The Martin Labor government is about getting on with the job of tackling substance abuse.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I am incredibly disappointed to hear the member for Arafura’s tone during this discussion here this morning. I believe this is an issue that should be dealt with in a bipartisan manner. I believe your comments have been unnecessarily provocative. Given the history that the member for Arafura and I have together in discussing issues like this and being on a certain committee, I am very disappointed to hear these terms being used.
If you look across Australia at Aboriginal communities in remote areas, you can pick out many jurisdictions that are currently governed by Labor governments - and I point to South Australia in particular with the problems there in the Pit Lands. To use this as a political football, I say shame on you because it does not ...
Members interjecting.
Ms CARTER: ... matter which political party is in government, petrol sniffing is a problem across the board in many Aboriginal communities. I am pledging from the CLP to work in a bipartisan manner on this issue. I am disappointed to hear your tone.
With regards to the legality or illegality of petrol sniffing, I will be very interested to see how the Martin Labor government comes to terms with the fact that Aboriginal women are seen giving their children - their babies in arms - access to petrol fumes in order to calm them down. It will be great to see how you cope with that sort of issue which is seen more and more in our urban communities as well as our remote communities. We have children walking down the malls in our urban communities with petrol. What are you going to do about that, if it is not illegal? How are you going to deal with that? The police do not know how to deal with it …
Members interjecting.
Ms CARTER: You know, member for Arafura, as well as I do, that when we have been out bush in a particular remote community, that a desperate plea was put to us by the Aboriginal people there to make petrol sniffing illegal so that the police can step in and do something about it. Our aim is rehabilitation; that is the key role that we will be pursuing ...
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
Ms CARTER: … criminal activity will be ...
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I am also disappointed, hearing some of the debate here, that this issue is becoming political rather than bipartisan. I believe it is too important an issue to go down that path, and there have been statements on both sides which have tended to make it political.
We need to calmly look at the issue. We ought to look at issues relating to other acts which might serve our purposes. We should also look at the approaches in other states – Queensland, especially - in relation to this issue. Anyone who was at the Australasian Drug Strategy meeting would have heard some of those strategies. I believe we have to look at some of the broader issues like employment, and I have said a number of times here that the CDEP program must be changed to create full employment in some of these communities.
The issue about whether petrol sniffing should be illegal or not is worthy of debate. Again, people who visited the CAYLISS talk that we had on the last day would have heard that the communities are divided about whether it should be legal. Some of the rural communities certainly believe that it should be made illegal, and some of the urban communities think it should not be.
It is an issue worthy of debate, but it should be done without the politics because it is too important. If we cannot do this rationally in the belief that we need to do something to save these young people from this terrible scourge of both petrol sniffing and substance abuse, we are not worthy of being politicians.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I will pick up on the member for Port Darwin who rambled on about a bipartisan approach. We welcome - and I did go on radio saying that, finally, we welcome the bipartisan approach and the head-coming-out-of-the-sand approach on this whole thing.
Members interjecting.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: It is not about politics. You are the one who has made the political issue out of this. It is too important; these children are dying, communities are suffering because of it.
We are doing something about it. We are not playing the political game that you people have done when you have gone out there. There have been 30 years of neglect. This is not a new issue; it is an issue that has been talked about time and time again in this parliament and nothing has been done.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I inform the House of the outcomes of the most comprehensive review of Correctional Services ever to take place in the Northern Territory. $26.5m has been committed by our government over four years to reform the professional work of prison officers and to drive down re-offending rates in our community.
In late 2003, I commissioned international experts Dr Ole Ingstrup and Paul Crookall to review Northern Territory prisons. All 71 recommendations of their review, A Path to Good Corrections, have been accepted by this government, and the funding commitments we have made represent the most significant interjection of resources into our prisons for many years.
Implementation of those recommendations will build on the government’s $75m Building Our Police Force plan, which will see 200 extra police on the streets by the end of 2006. This investment will enable us to turn our prisons and prison officers into a second crime fighting force, building on the front line law enforcement work of our police.
The major focus of these prison reforms will be to fight crime by reducing re-offending by up to 50% with targeted work and education programs, sex offender and other specialist programs. Implementation of our other recommendations will see:
security tightened by improving the readiness of prison officers and other staff to respond to a crisis;
management streamlined and top level accountability increased with a new Director of Corrections
being recruited;
working conditions and occupational health and safety improved by increasing the number of prison
officers on roster, and measures to reduce excessive amounts of overtime;
additional safety equipment, including portable alarms, will also be purchased;
the prison work force developed through increased training, professional support and a clear career
path; and
acknowledgement of indigenous imprisonment rates with a new position of Deputy Director, Indigenous
Affairs and Programs.
A clear result of the start of Building Our Police Force has been a rise in the number of prisoners in Northern Territory gaols. To tackle this and, as part of responding to the review recommendations, we are building a new 100-bed, $8m low security area at Darwin Prison.
A Review Implementation Committee, with representation from prison officer associations, the unions, the Department of Justice, the Commissioner of Public Employment and the Treasury will oversee implementation, with four association members taken off-line during the initial period to work with the committee.
We are embarking on a major, long-term change process which, over the next four years, will see total reform in our prisons and the way they run. Change is never easy and, no doubt, there will be differences of opinion about the right way forward during the implementation period from time to time. However, I am confident the implementation team will be able to work through these in a productive way and move our Territory prisons ahead.
Madam Speaker, this government is making a major investment in our prisons. We are actively involving our Corrections system and prison officers in the fight against crime by targeting offenders and working to prevent re-offending. Through implementing the recommendations of the review report, this government is continuing to attack the causes of crime and build safer Territory communities.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report and say, in essence: what garbage!
How can the minister possibly come into this Chamber and go on with the drivel he did when he knows - and he knows I know - that there are ongoing difficulties with prison officers. There has been meeting after meeting after meeting. A number of matters – well, you can shake your head, Mr Attorney-General. I will be very happy to send the members of the association what you have said in here today. If anyone should be castigated and ashamed of what they have done, it is you.
It is very interesting, isn’t it, and Territorians were not oblivious to this: on the one day there was a review of the prisons’ Mr Attorney-General said: ‘We accept all of them’. The very next day, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training accepted a review and then said: ‘We will consult’. Why on earth would you consult on education matters and not consult in relation to justice issues?
It is noteworthy also that the union representing many of the police officers issued what could only be described as a scathing media release, and I will quote from parts of it:
The unanimous verdict is that the review has failed to address the issues which were first raised by
officers last year when staffing levels and mismanagement led to an unacceptable number of lock-downs.
The media release went on:
The review has not recommended an increase in staffing levels either at Darwin or Alice Springs facilities.
It goes on:
It became clear some time ago that the review was merely an excuse for government and the Department
of Justice to implement prison reforms.
Some of which included a dumbing down of expertise so that if some people have a criminal record, they, the criminals, can guard other criminals.
This report is a sham, and I would be delighted if the minister could confirm in reply whether a certificate of exemption was granted to the review team and, if so, why?
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, such an important review, when the minister has stated that there will be major long-term changes and investment, surely is worthy of a ministerial statement.
This is such an important issue. I have only touched on one small recommendation, and that was the possibility of opening up Gunn Point Prison Farm, which related to recommendation 66. However, I am sure there are many other recommendations that should be debated. Correctional Services is an important part of our community. As the minister said, we have record numbers in prison. The reasons they are in prison and the way we deal with those people are important issues that should be debated.
I have been on record a number of times saying that we should be looking at low security prisons similar to Wildman River, and not only there, but near some of our other communities such as Tennant Creek and Katherine, so that we look at alternative ways of dealing with people.
I ask the minister to make a major statement on this review so that we can have a full and wholesome debate about it.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, it has never been my policy to deny debate in this House; members know that.
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: I have some very bad news for the doomsayers over there: a mass meeting of prison officers yesterday not only reached agreement on staffing levels at Berrimah and in Alice Springs, but have indicated that they are now prepared to move into the review implementation process.
For those of us who are trying to build a coherent policy and apply it within our Corrections system, that is very good news. We can now start to work, initially in Alice Springs, to bring about these changes to the prisons.
I will ask the opposition to do two things: one is to desist from opportunist politics on this because this issue is of critical importance to the future of our community in the Northern Territory. We need to impact on the 80% rates of re-offending that we see through our courts day on day. I ask the opposition what their policy is?
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly adopt the terms of reference, as distributed to honourable members, for (a) the Estimates Committee; and (b) the Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee.
After the budget last year was worked through by all members of this parliament who participated in the Estimates Committee process, the consensus view that was reached by all honourable members was that the process was an improvement on the first year’s run of the Estimates Committee process, and the process served the people of the Northern Territory through this parliament in scrutiny of the budget very well.
The Standing Orders Committee. over the last 10 months or so, has worked through a process of seeking input and comment from members of the public, departments, and the media in regards to how they felt the Estimates Committee process last year actually worked. We received a number of submissions, and we worked our way through those submissions during the course of the year in a pretty constructive way. Submissions were received from the Ombudsman for the Northern Territory; Madam Speaker, yourself as member for Braitling; the Department of Employment, Education and Training; Department of Justice; Department of Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs; Department of Business Industry and Resource Development; Police, Fire and Emergency Services; and the Department of Chief Minister. Essentially, all copies of those submissions are available through the Table Office. There was, essentially, consensus that the committee structure served the public through this parliament very well.
In October, a paper summarising submissions was received by the committee and, along with members’ comments during the Appropriation Bill of last year, we worked through quite a number of issues. Moving to some of those, the general observations from submissions to the committee was that the proceedings went well; the process resulted in a much smoother and effective process. One of the submissions talked about a highly desirable process, and another one about a highly positive contribution to our democratic institutions. Therefore, the general observations …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: It is interesting that the member for Greatorex laughs, because he has a history of contributing through the committee process in, I have to say, a productive way. As we saw when we brought back another committee report into the Assembly during the last sittings regarding the Code of Conduct where the committee worked through a number of issues, and there was no dissenting report to that submission that came through. I thought, as chairman of the committee - and I am sure members on our side did - that we had unanimous support for the committee’s report …
Dr Lim: You had lots of dissent from the committee. Lots of dissent!
Mr HENDERSON: … that actually came to the House, which had no dissenting report from any member on that committee, let alone the opposition as a whole. We come into the House …
Ms Carter: To debate things.
Mr HENDERSON: … to debate the committee’s report …
Dr Lim: And this is where we debate things.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, order!
Mr HENDERSON: … and, all of a sudden, we find the member for Greatorex has done a backflip. He is too gutless in committee to put forward a position …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! This is an abuse of the system, to assume that the behaviour of the member in committee is something that he can attack in parliament. He also knows that if the member’s behaviour is offensive in committee, standing orders apply. Get on with the show.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, I was picking up on interjections where, from the tone of the interjections, it looks as though - and I will lay money on it - that there is going to be dissenting and critical comments on the committee’s report. I urge the member for Greatorex, when participating in the committee process, if you are critical of the report that comes to the House, then put a dissenting report in. Do not be lazy in work on the committee. If you have a dissenting opinion to the committee’s report, attach a dissenting report to the papers that come back to the parliament. The committee process is all about trying to work in a bipartisan way to improve the processes of this parliament. If members on that committee feel that they cannot raise issues or put in a dissenting report, I encourage them to do so because, when a report comes to this parliament that does not have a dissenting report attached to it, then one would safely assume that all members of that committee, on the whole, support the content of the submission before the parliament. It will be interesting to see the member for Greatorex’s contribution because the report that is before us, as circulated, does not contain any dissenting comments.
The general observations from submissions received was that the proceedings went well. One of the issues raised by Madam Speaker was that sufficient time needs to be allowed for Independent members of this parliament to ask questions. Talking that issue through, Madam Speaker, the committee resolved that, really, that is an issue for the chair of the committee. Regarding the smooth running of the committee, discussion held that Independent members of this parliament should really, minister by minister, indicate just prior to ministers coming to the committee table, the output groups that they wish to question ministers on. I have an undertaking from the chair of the committee that adequate time will be granted to Independents to ask questions where they have flagged output groups that they are particularly interested in, and the Independent member on the committee accepted that provision. It is something that we will keep a close eye on this year because every member of that committee is entitled to time to question ministers.
One of the submissions noted that, in 2003, there was a move to questions about education, employment and work safe outcomes, rather than purely how much was spent by a particular agency. That is a significant improvement, where the questioning is via output groups and what the outputs are that the agency is seeking to achieve for the appropriation of public monies. Much questioning actually went to performance and achievements last year, which is really where the Estimates Committee is heading, and that was acknowledged as being a good contribution by the relevant agency concerned.
We debated the merits or otherwise of going back to written questions. Last year was the first year where we adopted the same process that every other parliament that has an Estimates Committee in Australia adopts, where there are no written questions. There was a fair amount of debate about the merits or otherwise of reintroducing the concept of written questions, where a couple of agencies made comments that they could support a percentage of written questions that would be tied to key areas. There is certainly no view of going back to a carte blanche reintroduction of written questions and the thousands of hours spent by public servants responding to written questions.
Essentially, the committee determined that we would continue this year supporting the current position of not accepting written questions prior to the hearings. If ministers, agency staff, or CEOs are unable to answer a question there and then certainly, from government’s point of view, we will ensure as much as possible that those answers come back to the committee whilst the minister is there, if possible. However, if not, it is our aim as government - and I believe we did pretty well last year - that 90% or 100% would be the target of those questions that are taken on notice coming back to the committee prior to the committee concluding. Last year, there was probably only a dozen questions that came back to the parliament as questions on notice that were failed to be answered during their particular hearing of the committee. The committee did determine that we would not be introducing written questions again. The system worked well last year and there is no reason to assume that it will not work well this year.
The committee determined that the opportunity for detailed questions to be placed on notice is adequate and appropriate, and to retain the provision for ministers to take questions on notice and to bring those back to the committee and, if not able to do so to the committee, back to the parliament as soon as possible, given the work that may need to be required to get very detailed answers to detailed questions back.
The terms of reference have been circulated. They were amended as per the last meeting of the committee some couple of months ago. As I said earlier in my comments, there was no dissenting report or any significant opposition to those terms of reference as circulated to honourable members. I believe that the public sector is getting used to the process and, given the submissions that came in from the larger key agencies, they are very supportive of the current process. The opportunity for public servants to go into the detail of various programs is to be supported in terms of getting the details of those programs onto the public record.
We are not breaking new ground here. We have introduced an Estimates Committee process to which we are committed as part of our good governance plan that we put to the people of the Northern Territory before the last election …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: This Estimates Committee process is serving the people of the Northern Territory well. It is supported by agencies as per their submissions. There was not a single submission that opposed the current process of Estimates Committee hearings or requested a throwback to the old days of how we used to do this in the parliament. It is about reforming this parliament. It is about bringing us into line with contemporary parliamentary processes that are accepted across Australia. If members opposite want to go back in time to some sort of dinosaur process that served them well, they can get up and argue for it. It is a pity they did not argue for it in committee, if that is their position.
I would like to thank all members of the committee who worked in a very constructive and bipartisan way in reviewing last year’s estimates process. I thank everyone who made submissions, and the CEOs of government agencies who took the time to put detailed submissions into the parliament. I am sure all honourable members are looking forward to the Estimates Committee process this year.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, I foreshadow that I will stop you at 11 am for the budget delivery. Do you understand?
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Certainly, Madam Speaker. The Labor caucus obviously sits around and chants their mantra: open, honest and transparent …
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: You make a mockery of such a mantra yet again. You have created a mechanism whereby you have focussed your single attention on the creation of a perception that you have created this opportunity for the loyal opposition to scrutinise the budget, which contains the appropriation of funds to develop the Northern Territory.
You have created the impression that you have a whole new system in place. The core element of that new mechanism called estimates, is that we, in opposition, have the opportunity to scrutinise in detail aspects of appropriation. You create the impression that, prior to your arrival on the scene - the new great and glorious days in the Northern Territory - there was no such adequate mechanism for the scrutiny of budget appropriation of the Territory’s Treasury funds to stimulate the Northern Territory and cause it to move forward. In fact, there was such an opportunity and, at that time, there was the opportunity to pursue a line of questioning until the question had been exhausted.
Currently, there is a limit on the amount of time that a shadow minister has the opportunity to pursue a question. There is a restriction on the amount of time, and that allows for a curtailing of adequate scrutiny. It is quite clear that all you are satisfied in is to create an impression and the impression is more important than the substance or the reality.
The honourable member has the audacity to speak of his good governance position. That is a joke, and I wish that people in the gallery would have a look at what the Martin Labor government proposed would be their position with regards to good governance when they came to office.
When it comes to asking questions, the opposition has the opportunity to ask questions. However, in order to maintain the impression that there is some great way of scrutinising the budget which, in fact, is just a sham and a perception, we, therefore, have limited opportunities to get detailed information. We then fall upon, for recourse, freedom of information; a wonderful new creation of the Martin Labor government.
We had to seek information, at considerable cost, concerning details of what information was supplied to ministers who are carrying their ministerial responsibility on behalf of Territorians. Our shadow ministers are seeking information so that we can discharge our duties adequately. It was at great expense to opposition - many of thousands of dollars - to have released to us that information that was made available to ministers - on behalf of Territorian, I might add. What did we receive for that expenditure? We received documents such as this: blacked-out sections, practically useless. Again and again, we have folders filled with blacked-out bits of information, where there is no opportunity to adequately scrutinise. Look at that! This is freedom of information from the Martin Labor government, who only want to create an impression. These folders are full of such submissions that we have received at considerable cost, which provide no information whatsoever. Freedom of information is just a sham. Open, honest and transparent government - what nonsense! Look at this - any page.
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: There was a time, when you were in opposition, you were able to scrutinise to the end of the question; until the question was satisfied. We have shadow ministers who can prepare, but not submit, written questions. They prepared 160 questions, and were only able to ask 40 of those questions. You obstruct the process by filibustering and resisting the opportunity to call upon public servants who are sitting there, so we can have open, honest, and genuinely transparent government. It is an absolute mockery. You will do anything; you will do what it takes to win government, and to create the impression and the perception is your sole objective.
It is the point of view of opposition that, in order to make genuine use of the estimates process, we will be submitting written questions so that we can have adequate response time. We need the information so that we can discharge our duties in opposition by scrutinising the activities of the Martin Labor government, and put an end to the energies of the Martin Labor government to create a perception and do little in regard to substance and genuine accountability to the Northern Territory community.
It is the responsibility of the opposition to be able to scrutinise, and all we are scrutinising at this point, is a proposed terms of reference. What we are talking about is the larger scheme of things: your creation of a perception, your creation of a body, your hoodwinking of Territorians, gagging them and not allowing opposition to have genuine access to information, under the guise of another piece of legislation regarding freedom of information, which is a mockery. All you want to do is pump up the perception; create the idea that you have done great and wonderful things.
In fact, the system we have in place now is far more inferior than the system that we had in place before, simply because we could exhaust the question. Were the shadow ministers asked: ‘Are there any further questions?’ No, we never got to that position. We have a shadow minister who was only able to ask 40 questions; there were another 160 to go. Now we are going to bring in greater activity from Independent members, when we have shadow ministers, on behalf of every Territorian, carrying responsibility for education, Treasury, and other key aspects of responsibility for the Northern Territory community, who are having their time diminished so that an Independent can ask questions of a whole of issues.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, do you wish to continue your remarks later.
Mr MILLS: I will continue my remarks at a later stage.
Debate suspended.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of the Under Treasurer, Jennifer Prince, and members of the Treasury staff. On behalf of the Chamber, I give you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
MESSAGE FROM ADMINISTRATOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I lay on the table Message No 21, recommending to the Legislative Assembly a bill for an act authorising the issuing and expending of the public monies of the Territory in respect to the year 30 June 2004.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be read a second time, and I table the 2004-05 Appropriation Bill and related budget papers.
Budget 2004 keeps the Territory moving ahead. This budget delivers less tax, more jobs and a great lifestyle. It is pro-business, pro-jobs, and pro-growth. It delivers record tax cuts and the highest ever cash spend on infrastructure and jobs. This budget builds on the Territory’s great lifestyle, at the same time delivering record health, education and police budgets. Budget 2004 tax reforms by the Martin Labor government are the most significant ever delivered by any Territory government; they will stimulate economic growth and keep the Territory moving ahead.
Budget 2004 provides record tax cuts worth $6.7m in 2004-05, rising to over $16m in 2005-06. The payroll tax threshold will increase to $1m over the next 14 months. From 1 July 2004, the threshold will increase from its current $600 000 to $800 000. From 1 July 2005, locally-based Territory businesses with a payroll of less than $1m will be exempt from payroll tax. This will make the Territory’s payroll tax amongst the lowest for small business in Australia - 162 businesses will not pay payroll tax from 1 July 2005, and 83 of those will be exempt from 1 July 2004. Of these 162 businesses, 127 are locally-based Territory businesses. Over 1400 businesses will be better off, the biggest winners being locally-based Territory businesses with an average saving of $20 500 per year. This gives business a greater capacity to grow and expand; it means more jobs, more production - a great result for the Territory.
The government will abolish the HIH levy immediately. This will save, for over 6600 private sector employers, $2.7m each year. From 1 July 2005, the Territory will also abolish debits tax, saving Territory business and the community $6.2m per year.
These are record tax cuts. The Territory will have the lowest taxes for small business anywhere in Australia. For a business with about 20 staff, recurrent taxes will be reduced to approximately $6830 per year, from 1 July 2004. This compares with $31 940 in New South Wales, $32 144 in Victoria, and $11 444 in Western Australia. Territory small business will pay less recurrent tax than interstate counterparts and will enjoy the most competitive business environment in Australia.
Tax cuts are not the only stimulus that Budget 2004 provides. This budget provides the highest ever spending on infrastructure: $441m will be spent on capital works, minor new works and repairs and maintenance. This will sustain around 4000 jobs in the construction industry and, indirectly, underwrite thousands more in support industry. In Budget 2004, the government’s record infrastructure program is targeted at tourism, roads and strategic development projects.
Tourism will receive an infrastructure boost of more than $60m over the next three years. This excludes expenditure on the waterfront. Combined with the additional $27.5m announced by the government late last year, tourism will be the focus of around $90m of additional expenditure. Over 950 jobs are anticipated to flow directly from the $27.5m injection, most of these in small business. Even more jobs will directly result from the investment in tourism infrastructure.
Roads are another big winner in the infrastructure budget. Funds will be directed at roads that lift economic growth and generate jobs. In 2004-05, roads to capital works total $70m including the Mereenie and Litchfield loops. In addition, expenditure on roads maintenance has been increased in 2003-04 and will be further increased in 2004-05 to almost $30m.
The third element of the government’s infrastructure program is strategic development projects. Funds totalling $52m will be spent on the East Arm Port completing the AustralAsia trade route, the Desert Knowledge Precinct, the Darwin waterfront, and other strategic development projects.
This government is proud of the Territory’s great lifestyle - the best in Australia. Budget 2004 will make it better. With more support for sporting and community events, arts and culture, enjoying our parks and fishing. This year, the budget will support the strongest ever program of major events in the Territory’s history. The good news does not stop there. The government continues to provide record budgets in the key areas of health, education and police. In 2004-05, there is a record health budget of $635.4m, an increase of $23.7m. The education budget is a record $540.6m, an increase of $13.2m when one-off items are removed from 2003-04. The police budget, another record, $172.4m, is up $8.6m. The Martin government’s commitment to a healthier Territory, better educational outcomes and safer communities is well and truly reinforced by Budget 2004.
I turn now to the Territory economy. The onshore economy continued to strengthen in 2003-04, with state final demand increasing by an estimated 4.4%; a good result. Investment was boosted by the start of construction of the LNG plant, and private consumption maintained solid growth. However, a greater than expected fall in offshore oil production means the Territory growth state product is estimated to increase by 0.3% in 2003-04. Population growth in 2003-04 is positive, though lower than we would like. Departures have remained constant, but arrivals are lower than average. Employment growth started to pick up late in 2003-04. The latest figures show the level of unemployment has dropped each month for the past 11 months.
Dwelling investment and property markets continue to strengthen. Darwin’s annual inflation rate is estimated at 1.5%, below the national rate of 1.8%. Treasury forecasts GST growth to strengthen to 5.8% in 2004-05. The major influence has been strong employment growth, increased construction and tourism-related activity, and population growth.
Production from Bayu-Undan is expected to more than offset falling oil production from Laminaria/Corallina. Engineering work for Bayu-Undan Stage 2 will be the key driver of Territory investment in 2004-05. With capital investment of around $2.8m, the Bayu-Undan Stage 2 LNG plant and pipeline is the largest project ever undertaken in the Northern Territory. It will take almost three years to complete, and will employ around 1200 people at its peak.
Employment is forecast to increase by 2.9% in 2004-05, supported by construction of the LNG plant, increased residential and non-residential building and a strengthening tourism sector. Further Defence development will also contribute to growth in 2004-05. Annual inflation in Darwin is forecast to increase to 2.2%.
I now move to the fiscal projections in the budget. When we were finalising the Territory budget just a week ago, 2003-04 was on target for a $2m deficit consistent with the mid-year report. The Commonwealth budget handed down last Tuesday included an increase in national GST collections, of which the Territory receives $36m in 2003-04 and $28m in 2004-05. The additional GST revenue means a surplus of $34m for 2003-04. Spending has increased by $73m during 2003-04. Operating payments have increased by $60m, with major boosts in the priority areas of tourism, police, jobs and training, corrections, justice and child protection.
Grants from the Commonwealth are up by $115m, $23m of this is new and expanded specific purpose payments, which carry related expenditure obligations. GST grants have increased by $92m. Territory tax receipts have increased by $8m. The significant variations are an additional $14m in stamp duty receipts due to increased economic activity and large, one-off transactions, offset by a reduction in payroll tax of $9m due, in part, to waivers and refunds.
A number of commitments have been bought forward to 2003-04. These include: $2m to relocate the Palmerston Magpies to the Palmerston Campus of the Charles Darwin University; $500 000 to the Katherine Town Council for improved sporting facilities, a promise we made to the people of Katherine during the by-election and one we have delivered on immediately; $3m to Charles Darwin University consisting of $500 000 to assist with the merger with Centralian College and $2.5m to match Commonwealth funding for a new higher education facility in Central Australia; $3.8m to extend electricity to Dundee Beach; $4m for indigenous essential services; and $1m for research grants recommended by the Territory’s new Research and Development Council. This is a new and exciting policy direction by the Martin government aimed at supporting Territory innovation.
Sound financial management over the past two-and-a-half years and improved GST revenue has resulted in the Territory making good progress in achieving the fiscal targets established in the 2001 mini-budget . Three challenges arose during 2003-04 leading to a revision of the fiscal strategy. First, the government made a decision to provide additional support and stimulus for economic growth, both by increasing spending and by further reducing taxes in the 2004-05 budget. Second, the Commonwealth Grants Commission 2004 review resulted in a $48m reduction in the Territory’s GST revenue; the largest reduction to any state or territory. Third, the government decided to boost spending in priority service areas of police, health, tourism, education, jobs and training and correctional services.
This government continues to increase spending in key areas long neglected by our predecessors. As a result of the government’s response to these challenges, the targets for the 2004-05 Budget and forward estimates have been revised. The general government deficit is projected to plateau in 2005-06, and then improve in line with the government’s commitment to achieving a balanced budget.
I turn to the projections for the 2004-05 Budget. As seen in recent years, the volatility in GST revenue can significantly affect the Territory’s outcome. The general government sector is expected to be in balance in 2004-05 because of additional GST revenue. It is expected the budget will return to a deficit of $16m in 2005-06, based on current GST projections.
In 2004-05, general government operating receipts are unchanged from 2003-04. Territory tax receipts are estimated to increase slightly by $2m, reflecting increased economic activity, offset by the tax cuts within this budget. Other receipts, predominantly dividends, are to fall by $6m in 2004-05. Commonwealth grants, the Territory’s major revenue source, will increase by just $4m because of the reduction in the Territory’s relativity. GST revenues would normally increase by at least $50m. Operating payments are estimated to increase by $51m, reflecting the effect of expended programs. Interest payments are expected to decline by $14m in 2004-05 as a result of lower interest rates achieved through refinancing. Public sector infrastructure spending is a record $441m in 2004-05. Lower general government sector capital payments are offset by increased spending in housing and port-related infrastructure.
I turn now to the detail of the budget initiatives. Budget 2004 delivers less tax, more jobs and a great lifestyle. Budget initiatives are focussed on the priority areas of business - particularly small business - creating jobs, enhancing our lifestyle, safer communities, better educational outcomes and a healthier community.
We have listened to business, and this is a pro-business budget. Record tax cuts will act as a major stimulus for business activity which will impact across all business sectors. Small business, medium business and larger business all reap a benefit from these initiatives.
Earlier in this speech, I outlined the impact of the tax cuts in this budget on small business and the comparison of interstate competitors. Now let me provide details of the impact on a medium size business. For a business with around 40 staff and a payroll of $1.6m, the effect of this budget will be to reduce recurrent tax to $48 320 from 1 July 2005. This will be a tax reduction of $29 000 compared to their tax bill today. I will repeat that: as a result of this government’s tax initiatives, a medium size business with 40 staff will be saving $29 000 each year from 1 July 2005, a drop from $77 348 to $48 320 – an outstanding result for business. These changes will also make the Territory the lowest taxing jurisdiction for medium sized business. Compare this with the same size business in New South Wales. Their recurrent tax bill is $104 615, a difference of over $56 300. It is $110 835 in Victoria, and $53 945 in the ACT. Territory business will be in the best competitive position against their interstate counterparts ever.
The removal of the HIH levy adds to the business savings from this budget. Small business with around 20 staff will save, on average, $800 per annum from this measure. Business with around 40 staff will save around $1600 per annum. Overall, the HIH levy liability has gone from the original estimate of $50m to around $22m. The government will now absorb the full cost of outstanding claims left after the collapse of HIH.
In addition to record tax cuts, the government will also improve its administrative processes. An independent taxation and mineral royalty administrative appeals tribunal will be established. This will provide taxpayers with an inexpensive alternative to appeal decisions of a tax or royalty assessment.
The Martin Labor government will also reform the public liability insurance requirement for businesses supplying to government. The current requirement of $10m for public liability insurance will be reduced to $500 000 for the supply and delivery of goods off the shelf and for items with a manufacturer’s warranty.
As of 1 July 2004, the government implements its policy of mandatory payment of undisputed accounts within 30 days. Businesses that have not been paid on time will be able to apply for interest penalty payments.
To further stimulate business, the government is directing significant resources into tourism infrastructure, including: $38m to seal the Mereenie Loop Road over the next three years; $15m to seal the Litchfield loop road over the next three years; $2.5m for a new cruise ship terminal at Fort Hill Wharf; $500 000 for headworks for the Katherine Cultural Precinct; $1.1m for Gregory and Limmen National Parks; $1m to upgrade visitor facilities in Territory parks; $280 000 for the Battery Hill facility in Tennant Creek; and $390 000 to upgrade the Territory Wildlife Park and Alice Springs Desert Park.
With this expenditure, tourism will receive an additional $90m over the next couple of years, an acknowledgment by this government of the importance of tourism to our economy. Tourism impacts across all business, from small to large.
Roads funding is focussed on those strategic roads that will boost economic growth and development. This include: a further $1m towards sealing the Tanami Road; almost $30m on national highways and roads of national importance; $4.8m on Stage 1 to improve access to Borroloola; and $1m will be spent on the beef roads, Dorisvale, Oolloo, Fleming and Cadell. Almost $30m will be spent on repairs and maintenance of Territory roads, a $4m increase since the 2003-04 budget.
Funds for strategic development projects include $25m at East Arm Port, including $5.7m to complete Stage 2A; $10.3m for oil pipelines and associated equipment for bulk fuel liquids to enable the removal of oil tanks from Stuart Park; $7m for a bulk loading facility and $2m for a new incinerator.
The Desert Knowledge Precinct in Alice Springs will be constructed at a cost of almost $30m over two to three years. This will have a significant impact on the construction industry in Alice Springs. It will also impact on the long-term future of the town’s economy, as we focus on the smart economy, providing Australia and the rest of world with our desert knowledge and innovation.
$8m is allocated for the Darwin city waterfront. This project will change the face of Darwin. It will provide our capital city with a signature. This project will provide significant stimulus to the construction industry and, in the long term, add enormously to Darwin’s appeal.
$1.53m is provided for indigenous economic development strategies; the on-line Territory Business Channel will be expanded at a cost of $800 000 over two years; the business and skilled migration strategy will be implemented at a cost of $350 000; and Making It In the Territory, the Territory’s manufacturing industry strategy, will be implemented in 2004-05 in partnership with industry and unions.
Creating jobs and providing training to Territorians is a key commitment of this government. We believe that we must get training right for the future of the Territory. The government has placed a great emphasis on jobs since we took office in August 2001. Last November, I announced the first ever Jobs Plan - more than $160m focussed on training over the next three years. Under the Jobs Plan, the government will train, prepare and support up to 7000 apprentices and trainees over three years. During 2004-05, about 2400 apprentices and trainees will be employed across 180 discrete qualifications in 16 industry sectors, with $11.75m provided for training purposes. To date, this government has lifted the number of trainees and apprentices by 30% but, more importantly, we have focussed effort on meeting the needs of the Territory work force now and into the future.
The government will build on the Jobs Plan by allocating $38m to registered training organisations to deliver a broad range of vocational education and training programs and courses in both urban and remote settings; $12.39m to support and train apprentices and trainees across the Territory; $1.2m over the next three years for prevocational training programs which aim to better prepare Territorians for apprenticeships and traineeships; a further $830 000 to a total of $1.58m in 2004-05 for the introduction of the new labor market programs; $980 000 per annum over the next three years for an additional 200 public sector trainees; $390 000 to Footprints Forward to assist indigenous youth in Alice Springs; and $1m ongoing for the remote work force development strategy.
Education is another key priority of the Martin Labor government. This year, a record education budget includes $256.3m for early childhood and primary education in government schools; $125.2m for government secondary schools; and $72m for assistance for non-government schools. This year, we will meet our commitment to employ 100 additional teachers. We will also continue the student bursary scheme, alternative education provision, and the employment of eight school attendance officers. These have been very successful Labor government initiatives, and will cost an additional $3.5m in 2004-05.
$1.25m has been approved to expand the accelerated literacy program from the current trials in Lighthouse schools. The results of this program are outstanding. Young students are learning at the rate of 1.75 years for each year. They are catching up with their classmates, and improving their chances of a full and meaningful future.
Funding of $1.2m in 2004-05, rising to $2.56m ongoing, will continue the Aboriginal Islander Education Workers program after withdrawal of Commonwealth funding.
Information technology infrastructure in schools will be improved with an extra $2m. A further $250 000 is provided for increasing band width by 15%. $5m will be spent over the next four years to provide every classroom teacher in government schools with a laptop computer.
$750 000 is provided in 2004-05 to replace and upgrade domestic furniture in remote teacher housing. This follows $1m provided for this purpose in February.
Increased funding of $500 000 is provided to upgrade capital equipment in government schools and community education centres and, again, supplements the additional $1m provided in February this year.
A new $300 000 school grants program will commence in 2004-05 for government schools in need. Financial assistance to non-government schools under the capital assistance and interest subsidy scheme increases by $500 000.
This year, around $64m is programmed for new and ongoing capital works, minor new works and repairs and maintenance including $1m each for Stage 1 redevelopments at Nakara and Alawa Primary Schools; $2m for Stage 3 of the Remote School Upgrade Program; $220 000 for a disabled access lift at Casuarina Secondary College; $250 000 to complete the airconditioning upgrade at Gillen Primary School; and ongoing works at Darwin High, Parap Primary and a number of bush schools including secondary facilities and Kalkarindji, Minyerri, and an upgrade at Maningrida. There is an enormous backlog of work to be done on our schools across the Territory. We have committed, and will continue to commit, significant funds to address this backlog.
Community safety is an issue of importance to Territorians and to this government. We have taken a whole-of-government approach that is delivering results. We have put our money where our mouth is on this issue. Again, this year, crime prevention and community safety receives a major boost in the budget. The O’Sullivan Report continues to roll out in 2004-05. A further $6.7m has been provided, increasing to a total of $27.9m ongoing by 2006-07. A further $200 000 in 2004-05 and 2005-06 is provided to support the recruitment of Territorians into the police force. $1m over three years has been approved to build on the Northern Territory’s counter-terrorism capability. A total of $2.9m in 2004-05, and $2.6m ongoing, has been allocated for patrol boat replacement and other equipment.
Additional funding of $560 000 is included, to a total of $1.49m ongoing, to meet the government’s commitment to employ an extra 16 fire officers. $210 000 will establish a new Arnhem Land fire control region, and an additional $260 000 is provided for Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades.
$2.7m will be allocated to continue the success so far of the community harmony strategy addressing itinerancy and antisocial behaviour. Funding of $3.06m will be provided in 2004-05 to implement the recommendations of the review of adult custodial services, including rehabilitation programs and staffing. The Office of Court Administration will receive an additional $1.3m to meet increased demand, with a further $110 000 for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Significant capital projects for community safety include $8m for a new low security section at the Darwin gaol; $1m for a police post at Numbulwar; and $680 000 to upgrade police cells at Batchelor, Maranboy and Ti Tree.
Again, this is a record health budget. Health funding will receive a further boost in the 2004-05 budget, as it has in every budget introduced by the Martin government. The budget of $635.4m is an increase of $23.7m and includes: $357.9m for acute care services; $109m for community health services; $80.8m for aged, disability and mental health services; $44.8m for family and children’s services; a further $2.6m for improved mental health services; additional recurrent funding of $2m for an expanded intensive care high dependency unit at the Alice Springs hospital; and $2m will expand the HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program. Last year, the government announced that funding for child protection services over the next five years will increase by 10% per annum. The increase in Budget 2004 is $1.8m. $1.2m extra is provided for expanded disability services. Dental health programs will receive an additional $600 000. Significant health capital projects for 2004-05 include: $2.5m for the Darwin birthing centre; $1.5m for a new health centre at Kalkarindji, $900 000 for Stage 2 community-based renal facilities; and fire safety upgrades costing $900 000 at Alice Springs Hospital and $750 000 at Tennant Creek Hospital.
Territorians enjoy a great lifestyle. This budget will make it even better. This year, the government will support the most extensive program of major community and sporting events the Territory has ever seen - events as diverse as international cricket and the International Guitar Festival. From arts festivals to Aussie rules, Territorians will have a feast of national and international quality events at their fingertips. Budget 2004 provides over $6m in support to major events. The Territory’s great lifestyle is supported by a $19m budget for sport; $32m for arts, museums and libraries; over $90m for parks, the environment and heritage; and $142m for housing. $300 000 is provided for the BassintheGrass concerts to be staged annually in Darwin and Alice Springs. These concerts were spectacular successes when the Martin government introduced them last year.
Ethnic community groups will be able to access a new $500 000 capital facilities grants program. This is the second major ethnic grants program introduced by this government.
$270 000 is provided in each of the next two years to stage AFL matches in Darwin and Alice Springs, and fund camps for players and coaches in the Territory. Grants to sports organisations will be increased by $500 000 to a total of $5.58m in 2004-05.
There will be an additional $350 000 per annum to support the Festival of Darwin, the Alice Springs Desert Song, the Garma Festival, and the International Guitar Festival.
Budget 2004 provides $2.7m to stage the Masters Games in Alice Springs later this year, and the Arafura Games in Darwin next year.
$370 000 in 2004-05 and $120 000 ongoing has been provided for the first ever Darwin Harbour Management Plan. To continue our commitment to the environment, a $200 000 Environment Protection Grant Program has been established to provide funding to community-based environmental organisations. $330 000 per anum for three years will fund the government’s litter abatement strategy.
Significant capital projects to enhance the Territory lifestyle include: $1m to upgrade the Hidden Valley Raceway; $2.3m for headworks for the Palmerston recreation centre and Katherine Cultural Precinct; $500 000 for headworks for the home of Territory soccer at Marrara; $1.7m as the last stage of a $5m upgrade of Traeger Park, $3m for the urban enhancement and heritage program; $3m for the continuation of undergrounding of powerlines in Darwin; $500 000 to improve access and facilities for recreational fishing; $160 000 for AFANT; and $10 000 in small grants to fishing associations.
Housing amenity plays an important role in our lifestyle. The 2004-05 budget includes: $5.4m for the new seniors village at Kurringal site; $2.3m for security screens for public housing; $4.3m for community renewal of urban public housing; $1.8m for short-term accommodation projects as part of the Community Harmony Program; and $1m for new public housing in Alice Springs.
Building Stronger Territory Regions receives continued emphasis in the 2004-05 budget. $360 000 will be provided to the Chief Minister’s Priority Task Force Program, initially at Wadeye. Funding of $220 000 in 2004-05 has been approved for a regional coordinator at Groote Eylandt. In both of these communities, the need to coordinate the delivery of services by Commonwealth and Territory governments and to invest in their future development is evident. The work being done in these programs will provide both immediate and long-term benefits for the Territory community as a whole.
Significant capital projects for regional housing include $3m for land servicing in remote communities, and $22.6m for construction and upgrade of government employee housing in regional and remote areas.
Budget 2004 keeps the Territory moving ahead. It delivers record tax cuts, the highest ever cash spend on infrastructure, and it supports our lifestyle: less tax, more jobs, great lifestyle. It provides business with the most competitive environment in Australia, and positions us well to expand and grow. More jobs for Territorians will result from both our tax reform and the infrastructure spending. We have focussed on supporting sport, major events, fishing and the great Territory lifestyle.
Budget 2004 continues to provide record funding for the key priorities of education and training, health and police. I am proud to place before you Budget 2004.
Debate adjourned.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I advise you of the presence in the Gallery of Year 10 and 11 legal studies students from St John’s College, accompanied by their teacher, Mr Stephen Meara. On behalf of honourable members, I extend you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
STATEMENT BY SPEAKER
Information Technology Problems
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I do not know whether I am stating the obvious, but you are probably aware that, at the moment, we are experiencing problems with the file print server. This is being addressed as a matter of urgency by CSC. During the luncheon suspension, the system was closed down and the processor replaced. The system will also be closed down tomorrow morning between 6 am and 8 am to replace the memory card. Please be aware that, although the system is running at the moment, it is unstable and may close down at any time.
I will notify you of any further developments. Hansard can still record what we are saying, but just be aware if you are relying on your computer at the moment, it may go down at any time.
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I continue my reply by saying that we do not support this motion, and believe that the estimates process, as it has been presented to this parliament and the opposition, provides little opportunity for real analysis and is curtailed by the lack of time. Therefore, it is this opposition’s position that we oppose this motion.
Madam SPEAKER: Any further speakers on this motion? Member for Brennan?
Mr BURKE: No, Madam Speaker.
Dr Lim: There are no speakers from the other side? Good God!
Members interjecting.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak to this motion, obviously, given I am a member of the committee. I take this opportunity to respond to some of the comments the minister made earlier this morning when he was speaking to the report. Let me remind the minister, in the first instance, that this piece of paper was not presented to the committee - never was! You were the chairman of the committee and you cannot even remember the process. You cannot remember the process, and you are the Chair of the Standing Order Committee. What sort of …
Mr Henderson: It was circulated months ago, with amendments - minor amendments that you supported in the committee.
Dr LIM: … understanding of the process have you? The amendments were never supported. I argued with you, time and time again. Do not just sit there now with a smirk on your face, the supercilious bloody …
Madam SPEAKER: Uh, uh!
Dr LIM: Excuse my language, Madam Speaker. I withdraw ...
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The member for Greatorex, three foot nothing …
Madam SPEAKER: All right. Now let us …
Dr LIM: I withdraw. But that supercilious smile on your face …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! Just relax. Let us get back to the debate.
Dr LIM: You dare to sit there and pretend that you did this in a fair and democratic way …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! We must have a new cameraman. We have finished Question Time and I assume you have stopped recording. You will not use that footage you have just taken.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, member for Greatorex. I cannot believe that we go through this with cameramen so many times. Surely, when Question Time is over they know to cease, and I am glad you did.
Dr LIM: Well, I hope the clock is stopped, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it will be. Do not worry.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, this paper was presented to this Chamber on the last day of the last sittings on 1 April – All Fools Day, mind you. The minister then comes and says: ‘Well, we have this motion, with this procedure for estimates and we will go with it’. Well, this time the House does not agree with your process - your very flawed process; a process that shows that he has no regard for parliamentary process whatsoever. He spoke about a dissenting report and that I did not submit one. Well, how could you submit a dissenting report when this report never showed in the committee? We were all there. We talked about the lack of time that this process allowed the opposition and Independent members to interrogate the budget ...
Dr Burns: You did not do your job in the committee. I was there.
Dr LIM: The member for Johnston has just reflected that I am lying as I speak. Well, I suggest to him that he now withdraws that statement because he was on that the committee and he full well heard me arguing against these recommendations.
Members interjecting.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, speaking to the point of order, I did not accuse the member for Greatorex of lying. I simply accused him of not doing his job.
Dr LIM: And what job were you doing?
There are, obviously, a lot of problems with this report. Let me refer the minister the section on Sitting Times. In item 18 it says:
Unless otherwise ordered by the committee the committee shall sit during the following periods:
(a) on Tuesday 22 June 2004 it commences at 8:30 am and adjourns at 11 pm;
(b) on Wednesday 23 June 2004 it commences at 8.30 am and adjourns at 11 pm;
(c) on Thursday 24 June 2004 it commences at 8.30 am and adjourns at 11 pm; and
(d) the committee may suspend the hearings from time to time.
I distinctly remember at the committee discussions that Friday morning was included in the estimates process. Where is that clause? It is not there. That is the way you presented the paper into this Chamber and you have changed it as we agreed in the committee.
We proposed in the committee that we will have 42 hours for estimates hearing this year. Add those figures up, minister, if you can add. I can lend you my calculator if you like. It adds up in the three days you will have 43 hours - that is three times 14 equals 43 hours. Take an hour off for lunch each day and an hour off for dinner each day - two hours less each day makes six hours, and that makes it 37 hours. That is a true process, a fair process? We agreed to 42 hours. Where have the other six hours or five hours gone? Where are they?
This is something that we cannot support because you have bastardised the process.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I do not think that ‘bastardised’ is appropriate language ...
Dr Lim: It is perfectly good …
Madam SPEAKER: It really is not parliamentary.
Mr HENDERSON: I am not overly sensitive, but other people who read Hansard might be.
Madam SPEAKER: Withdraw it and rephrase it, member for Greatorex.
Dr LIM: He has corrupted the process then, Madam Speaker. Corrupted the process, absolutely.
A member: That is very unkind.
Dr LIM: Well, maybe that is, but I will tell you what: it is commonly used in Queen’s English through my people.
A member interjecting.
Dr LIM: Well, there is the member for Millner caught saying ‘bull’ in this Chamber. I was not able to use ‘bloody’ and he used ‘bull’.
Members interjecting.
Mr BONSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I did not catch what the member for Greatorex has accused me of saying.
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not think you used the term you suggested he used at all.
Members interjecting.
Dr LIM: Now, let me now come to section ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Could you give my colleague some protection. The interjections are continuous and they are defamatory …
Madam SPEAKER: They are, they are.
Mr DUNHAM: … and, in cases, I would even suggest, racist.
Ms LAWRIE: Speaking to the point of order.
Madam SPEAKER: I do not think …
Dr Lim: Order the clock to be stopped for the time being, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER I do not think that comment was necessary, member for Drysdale. There has been a lot of provocation coming from the member for Greatorex and, if he gets a reaction, that usually happens. However, I will ask members of government to give the member for Greatorex a fair go.
Dr LIM: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I now come to section D, Hearing Procedure, Item 23. I read from the paper:
Unless the committee otherwise determines the minister (or Speaker) may make an opening statement
lasting up to five minutes, which may be extended with leave of the committee.
We have four-and-a-half hours per minister, a little more with the Treasurer. If the minister cannot make an introductory comment in five minutes, I suggest to you that the minister should not be making any commentary at all. We have very little time and the minister cannot have unfettered, unrestricted extensions of time to make an introductory statement. That in my mind is not appropriate. Five minutes should be the absolute time limit, and no further.
Then we come to the issue of written questions. We spoke about it at length in the committee. We debated it last year after the estimates week, and there were many comments made in the Chamber immediately after the Estimates Committee met. Member of the opposition complained that written questions were not allowed, and that it would have provided the opportunity for the opposition to obtain detailed information from the ministers.
We again debated that matter in committee. However, with the committee, obviously, in favour of the government members in terms of numbers, there was very little that the opposition could do apart from voicing our objection to the way this has gone.
We were concerned last year that, during estimates, many of the ministers were prepared to filibuster and, at times, read verbatim from written reports provided for them by the public service. It would have assisted the estimates process last year had those reports provided by the public service not been read out verbatim by the ministers, but actually tabled for the opposition to consider in greater detail at a later time. But, no, that was not to be.
Written questions are not going to be allowed in this process this year; questions will have to be asked from the floor and, if ministers are not able to answer the questions or refuse to answer the question on the spot because the media is on them, they will take it on notice. That, to me, again, is a corruption of an open and accountable process in which the estimates can be interrogated by the opposition in great detail for the benefit of all Territorians.
This government lauds itself saying they are here for open and accountable government, absolutely transparent, yet all they have done so far has been to lock up the process so tightly that not very many people can scrutinise what the government has been doing for the last three years.
When we sought information through FOI legislation, and all we got was a load of blank pages. At one stage, I considered asking a question under FOI and, on further consideration, I felt that there was no point because, after spending a lot of money, we were not going to get anywhere.
I believe the four-and-a-half hours per minister is inadequate. We spoke about that at great length in the committee. Using last year’s experience as an example, some ministers, because of the multiple portfolios they carry, could only be questioned on a particular portfolio for less than an hour each. That is inadequate if you want to interrogate a budget at any length. When other members are allowed to question the minister as well, the shadow minister has to forgo many of the questions that they prepared.
Last year, I recall that the member for Port Darwin, the shadow minister for health, had something like 120 questions to ask of the health minister, and was only able to ask 40 questions because of the time constraint imposed upon the opposition. I respect the right of every other MLA and Independent members to ask questions of the minister also but, at the end of the day, the estimates process is to allow the opposition to interrogate the government at great length to try and determine for Territorians where this government is attempting to spend the Territory budget.
Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that this government has come along with a report such as this, without due consideration by the committee. I saw the minister just now conferring with the Clerk, obviously to clarify his memory for him. He cannot remember. It is a pity that a senior minister of the government who chairs this committee cannot remember the process that he used. I suggest to you that the process was badly done. It is now here in front of us for business, for discussion and debate now. There is nothing much I can do about it. However, I will say this to you: I cannot support it because I believe it is very, very flawed.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Madam Speaker, I want to make a few comments about the Estimates Committee process because it is an important process. I would have thought that this Labor government which prides itself on open, honest and accountable government, would take advantage of the estimates process to strut their stuff, essentially.
If everything that the government is doing is open to interrogation and as transparent as they say, and if the ministers are as capable of handling their portfolios as they would want us to believe, I would have thought that any minister would see it as an opportunity, frankly, to get in front of this sort of audience - particularly with the media there - to promote their stuff. Certainly, one observation that came through from the Estimates Committee process last year was, I believe, a continuing development of frustration on the part of public servants who sat there, albeit for a limited time because each minister only had four-and-a-half hours. They there with a great deal of frustration because the minister was not capable of enunciating the programs and efforts that were being done in their particular portfolios to the standard that many of the public servants would have wanted. The ministers were not across the detail themselves, preferred to filibuster or talk around the subject, or move onto other subjects. That is fine but, at the end of the day, we are after information and after a process that does give value for money for the taxpayer, and provides, I believe, an image of this parliament conducting itself in a professional way.
We can agree or disagree on the process that was in place in the past, but one thing about the process that was in place in the past under a CLP government, was that the opposition could ask any number of questions that they wanted to ask. They could prepare any amount of questions and we would put the public service to the effort, whether they liked it or not - and sometimes they did not like some of the questions because they were not all that relevant. However, the public service went to the effort of preparing the answers so that, when the minister stood in front of the parliament, the opposition could ask them any question they liked, using a basis of prepared questions and, if they wanted to stray from those prepared questions, leverage off some of the answers that were given - as the Chief Minister herself was quite good at doing. There were also others. Mr Bailey and Mr Bell used to use answers to leverage and create more answers. They used to do it and we answered willingly. There was a situation where ministers were on their feet for more than 11 hours, often not aided by some of our own colleagues who used to extend the process in the belief that they were helping.
The minister himself, or herself, only had one or two public servants to assist them in that interrogation. That put a fair amount of pressure on the minister to be able to be across the questions that were being asked, to get the answers, and also to be able to respond to the impromptu or unprepared questions that came from those answers. Where there were questions that were taken on notice, they were answered in due course - some not as speedy as others.
As one of the members mentioned in this parliament today, the sequence of questioning to each minister ended with: ‘Are there any further questions of the minister?’ That was the end of the process. It was not: ‘We have now hit four hours, you must stop’. It was: ‘Have all questions on the floor of this House to this minister, on this subject portfolio, been exhausted?’ That was when the minister was free to go.
We now have a situation where we had prepared and impromptu questions in front of a Public Accounts Committee in the fist process, which did not work for a whole range of reasons. Last Estimates Committee, we moved to a situation where there were no questions on notice and, frankly, some ministers in that environment performed remarkably different to others. It is very easy to pick the ministers who are across their portfolios in some shape or form as against those ministers who are not. Frankly, leading the charge on the incompetent ministers, I believe, is the Chief Minister, who is incredibly difficult to get information from and, when there is a pointed question, flicks it straight to the public servant to answer. Other ministers prefer not to involve the public servants at all. A case in point was the former minister for health, who was surrounded, I believe, by about 20 or 30-odd public servants who were covering any possible facet of her portfolio, and never referred to any of them for information at any time, and also provided no information of any substance in the time that she was in the chair.
The government may parade that as the best estimate system that we have come up with; a system that everyone is happy with. The reality is the opposite is the case. The procedure of a shadow minister questioning is continually frustrated by the fact that they are in output by output areas, and then constrained by an overall time constraint of four-and-a-half or four hours per minister. That time cannot be accumulated by the opposition. For example, if they decide that they will be efficient in the time that they use on one particular minister, they cannot use that extra time in order to question other ministers. It may be that we feel that the Health Minister would require more than four-and-a-half hours but, under the current system that is not provided; it is four-and-a-half hours per minister.
I would have thought that one case in point would be the Minister for Central Australia, who is going to take questions on the Attorney-General’s portfolio, the Justice portfolio, the Corrections portfolio and the Health portfolio ...
Dr Lim: And Central Australia.
Mr BURKE: And Central Australia. I can tell you when I was health minister, on one occasion as health minister and Attorney-General alone, I stood in this Chamber for the best part of 13 hours straight, taking questions from the opposition on those portfolio areas.
However, now we have a situation where a maximum of four-and-a-half hours total is allowed the opposition to ask those questions. It is totally inadequate. If the government believes that four-and-a-half maximum per minister is sufficient, I implore the Leader of Government Business to instruct the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that the overall time of three days which we have all agreed to, should be allowed to be accumulative; that is, leave it to the opposition to decide that over that three-hour period, if we can create efficiencies in the time with one minister, that should be a time that is allowed to be extended to other ministers. Therefore, at least we get the questioning of the ministerial portfolios in total over a period of the hours that have been agreed to in this Assembly. If that accommodation is allowed, then we would be satisfied that we are given a reasonable run.
The other thing that really needs to be sorted out is that, if it is output by output areas by a shadow minister, as soon as the shadow minister says: ‘I have no more questions from that output area’, it allows the Independents and other members of the Public Accounts Committee and the government to ask whatever questions that they want. You could say to all members of this House they are all entitled to ask as many questions as they like. That is illogical when there is only four-and-a-half hours in total provided to the opposition to question the government. I believe that the other members of that particular committee - members of parliament other than shadow ministers and Independents - should be allowed to ask their questions when it comes to the area of any questions that cover all portfolio areas. Then they can move through and ask all of their questions. But up until that point, it should be the shadow minister who is given free leeway to ask questions of the minister. That way you would create greater efficiencies and also the shadow minister would get greater satisfaction from being allowed the time that he needs to ask those questions.
I advise my minister whose portfolios that I shadow now, that I intend to prepare and provide written questions to him, and submit them prior to the Estimates Committee sitting. That is not for any other reason than that we have to be able to get the information. The reason why that is essential is that, when we tried to get information through the FOI process and that information was blanked out, the No 1 reason why information was not provided under FOI was because of the section under FOI that said:
The deleted items refer to information in the form of an anticipated question and possible answer prepared
by a senior officer for the minister in the course of the deliberative process.
That is why most of it was stopped.
However, if you think about it, the public servants want to provide that information. You and I know the information that is there for the minister - for your eyes only, for your further information - is not part of the body of the document and they prepare that separately. You can hold that back as you like. However, the public servants provide the information in answer to those prepared questions fully, to their capability. I reckon that they expect that information to be put out into the public domain. They do not expect that not even a page is turned in many of those folio documents and it is walked off with the minister,. You cannot ask these questions at a later point, have the question taken on notice, or seek this information through FOI because most of the information that the minister has at that Estimates Committee will be in this form and will not be forthcoming to the shadow minister.
You, minister, should and could anticipate that this question will be asked and this is your answer to that question. You, minister, might be asked in this area, so if we try to get that information later, that falls into the ambit of a personal opinion of a public servant and, therefore, we are not getting it. The whole estimates process, I believe, is flawed in that regard.
Therefore, I intend to prepare all of my questions for the Estimates Committee. I intend to submit those questions to the minister prior to the Estimates Committee sitting. I expect to be given the opportunity to ask those questions. It is up to me to decide which questions I want to ask. I expect the information to be provided to me at that Estimates Committee based on those written questions, and to ask any other questions I might wish to ask providing I can do it in the time that is allowed. If the government does not do that, it simply says to everyone that they have something to hide. Surely, with the whole of the capacity of the public service, the government and the ministers must be confident to say: ‘Right, there is the question, prepare the answer and let us have it ready to be tabled in the parliament if need be’. Everyone is better off for it: we do not spend a lot of time in this parliament, either here or in the Estimates Committee, dealing with inaccuracies; the taxpayer is better served; and the process of parliament, I believe, is far more professional than it is at the moment.
I accept the fact that the Leader of the Opposition says there has been a Standing Orders Committee that has looked at this process and decided that nothing has been changed: ‘If you wanted to say something you should have made a submission to the committee’. However, apart from being dogmatic and head-in-the-sand, where does that really get us? What we should be doing is saying: ‘This costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of time - it is three days of the parliamentary process, or three-and-a-half days. It is very important information’. Perhaps we in opposition might be sitting in that position ourselves one day - maybe sooner than you think - and we will be wanting to get that information in a more fulsome fashion.
I can tell you that, when it comes to written questions, it is totally illogical that the shadow minister should not be allowed to put forward written questions prior to the Estimates Committee sitting, and not be allowed to have those questions that have been provided in advance answered by the minister at the particular estimates process.
I do not want to do any more than make a plea to the government to make some minor adjustments. We will accept the total quantum amount of time that has been provided to the Estimates Committee. We have no option, in any case, except to work within the rules that the government sets. However, if the government is truly being honest, open, transparent and accountable, it should allow the opposition to decide how it manages the total amount of time against all of the nine ministers. Remember, we have one more now than we had last year to deal with. Also, it should allow questions provided to the minister prior to the Estimates Committee sittings so that both are in a position to know that, if those questions are asked, the information will be fully and readily available. With those two main points, Madam Speaker, I would hope the government would take those points on notice and accommodate our request.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I am surprised there are no members of the opposition speaking on this matter – government, sorry ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, you are our opposition.
The first thing to look at is the fact that there seems to be a flawed process here in that, whilst the government could have brought on this motion at any time to move that we adopt the terms of reference attached, they have chosen to do so by way of a referral to the Standing Orders Committee, and the only member for the government to speak has chosen to attack my colleague, the member for Greatorex, on how he has contributed to that committee.
For the benefit of members, I will read Standing Order 277:
The Chairman shall read to the committee, at a meeting convened for the purpose, the whole of his draft
report which may at once be considered, but, if requested by any Member, it shall be printed and
circulated amongst the committee and a subsequent day fixed for its consideration. Unless
otherwise ordered by the committee, in considering the report, the Chairman shall read it
paragraph by paragraph, proposing the question to the committee at the end of each paragraph
“that it do stand part of the report”. A Member objecting to any portion of the report shall move his
amendment at the time the paragraph he wishes to amend is under consideration. A Member or Members
may require a protest or dissent to be added to the report.
That, of course, is kept in records, which Standing Order 269 tells us:
A record shall be kept in the Minutes of Proceedings of a committee of the names of Members attending each
meeting, and of every motion or amendment moved, together with the name of the mover thereof; and the
Chairman shall record the names of the Members voting in any division, distinguishing on which side of
the question they respectively vote.
I am disappointed to hear this afternoon that that did not happen. It would appear that a committee has been used - and abused, I would suggest - by government in an attempt to dress this up as some sort of bipartisan thing so you could come here and feign shock and horror that it did not have universal acclaim in this House. There is more and more of this arrogant behaviour, where things are sent to committee in a guise of pretending that we are consulting, listening, obtaining another viewpoint but, at the end of the day, it is rammed through this House, often without members of that committee - in this case government members of that committee - even contributing to the debate. They have yet to speak to it.
I suggest that what we have here is an exercise in arrogance where the government has already made up its mind, it already has a notice on the Notice Paper, it intends to move it as quickly as possible and use its numbers to get this through. That is not in the best interests of this parliament, nor is it in the best interests of seeking information and, dare I say, seeking the truth about issues. Really, if you go to the integrity, honesty, transparency and all those lovely words, that should be the pursuit of this government: it should be the pursuit of integrity and transparency, dare I say.
They have to go back to some of these gammon referrals to committees where they bring it in here, criticise my colleague for something he had every right to be quite upset about, I would have said, given that the report was not considered in the manner required by standing orders. I do not attend those meetings but, from what I have heard, there is certainly a flaw in that this sat on the paper and then was accelerated into this Chamber where it can now be passed. There are some matters of arrogance there that the minister should consider.
He then talked about how, if a committee comes up with something and if you come in here and have a different point of view, that it is a backflip. Interestingly, I was on a committee that looked at how we might structure this thing and we went to Tasmania to look at their committee system. We had bipartisan support - tri-partisan support if you throw the Independent in - and we came back to this parliament and said: ‘Look! Here is a structure you could adopt’. We did not adopt anything like that structure. The minister stood and said: ‘What is wrong with you? This is in place all around Australia and the CLP do not want it here’. Well, it is not in place all around Australia and it is vastly deficient from what was in place in this parliament before when we sat as a Committee of the Whole. It is vastly different from what we recommended from Tasmania, and it is vastly different from the backflip when his committee members came back and endorsed a government position in their toadying willingness.
It is a bit trite for this minister to come in here and say: ‘We have consulted, this is a replica of what happens elsewhere. If you sign off in committee, you cannot say anything different here. The process in committee was robust’. All of those things are not true. It was not a robust process in committee. There is the capacity for members to …
Mr Kiely: You were not there.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, let us see it then, because we have two differing points of view. As I said, there are two questions here in standing orders. We can ask whether the records under 269 were kept and whether the records under 277, where this was gone through clause by clause, indeed occurred. If I am wrong, I am quite happy to apologise, but it would appear that there is a difference of opinion between at least two members of that committee.
So far, we have had the Leader of Government Business tell us it replicates whatever happens elsewhere - wrong!; that it is better than what happened before – wrong!; that if you discuss this in committee, you cannot come in here with a different point of view – wrong!; that this report is a fair and accurate representation for consideration of that committee – wrong! Therefore, it is not a good start, minister.
Now we get down to the actual business of it, and I follow from where my colleague, the member for Brennan, left off. I was in the unhappy position of seeing a room full of very intelligent people - many of whom I know and many of whom have specific tertiary qualifications that take up to a decade to obtain - sitting in a room in their tens. I suggest, in the case of health, there were over 30 people sitting in that room and, as I said, you were probably looking at 300 years of tertiary education there. There were volumes of papers in front of the minister and an incapacity to get answers.
I believe that there should be a question in here. You could put it either after your item 27, or you could put it in section E, Questions Taken on Notice at Hearings and Additional Information. I will read it out just in case you consider it:
If a question is able to be answered using the knowledge of advisors or written prepared briefs, it shall
be given at the hearing and not taken on notice.
Why would you do that? The reason you would do that is because we saw the minister on many occasions - the health minister again - flicking through wads of paper that could have provided an answer, and choosing to take it on notice. We knew, the advisors knew, the minister knew, the answer was readily available in front of her and she chose not to use it. That was further demonstrated by the fact that we wrote and then got the answer. It is a pretty silly thing to have all that reservoir of skill and knowledge and brief sitting in the room, and a contrary minister saying: ‘Yep, no, maybe, no, I am not going to tell you’, because I do not think that is in the best interests of what we are trying to achieve. If you want to bring advisors along - and I suggest you do - and they are knowledgeable in certain areas, and you want to bring briefs along - and I suggest you do - and you have a written alert from a member from the opposition saying: ‘These are the general areas I would like to discuss,’ we should discuss them. We should get the answer. I do not think that there is anything crazy about that notion. For us to have to go away for another month or so, get FOI approvals as to the answer that was evident and on the table in front of the minister in any event, is pretty stupid.
I also think the time allocation is a bit silly. My colleague, the member for Brennan, carried the portfolios of Attorney-General and Health, and I recall that question and answer session. They are very difficult areas in which to obtain a lot of information. That has been evident from some of the data that is provided and some of the disputes between various commentators as to what the actual case is. I would suggest that to have four-and-a-half hours for Attorney-General and Health is way too short. Health by itself is $600m, so if you look at the size of the budget, it should be afforded some relativity to the size of its task. The complexity of the Justice portfolio would also suggest that there is some need to have further time to discuss that. Just to run a ruler over it and say: ‘Well, there will be about the same amount of questions for each minister’, I do not think has been the case historically, and it will not be the case in the future.
These are matters where I believe there should be much more time given and that the minister should not be shy about doing it. I would suggest that, if it causes government members pain to provide that information, they should stop using the words ‘transparency’ and ‘integrity’ and just revert back to arrogance. That is pretty much the case of what we have in here.
This is an appallingly arrogant exercise of government using its muscle to decide what it is we will do, and how we will do it here. We dragged them kicking and screaming just to get issues like the government owned corporations on there. You might remember - I have never seen such behaviour - where they said: ‘Sorry, we are not going to tolerate any questions in this area’. There is a massive amount - hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, albeit in a government owned corporation - and we have the minister saying: ‘Okay, we might do it’. Well, we dragged you kicking and screaming to it.
I ask the minister to comment on my motion in his reply. Madam Speaker, I seek to move and amendment to the motion of government business No 1, standing in the name of Mr Henderson, to remove that the Assembly adopt terms of reference. I suggest that an insert be put in there under Standing Order Committee report, item 27 …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! As Leader of Government Business, I am quite happy to accommodate and debate this amendment. However, it should be written down and circulated to all members.
Madam SPEAKER: Could you just perhaps explain …
Mr DUNHAM: Given that this was only put on our table this morning, it is written down and I am quite happy to have it circulated …
Madam SPEAKER: Would you explain to us exactly what you are doing, member for Drysdale.
Mr DUNHAM: I am debating a motion in which I seek to amend a portion of it by inserting the words …
Madam SPEAKER: Amend the what – the motion?
Mr DUNHAM: The motion.
Madam SPEAKER: The motion.
Mr DUNHAM: The motion that is before us is that we adopt the report …
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, so you amend it …
Mr DUNHAM: I am seeking to amend that to say that we adopt the report amended by the insertion of the sentence under item 27.
Madam SPEAKER: And that amendment is?
Mr DUNHAM: That amendment is:
If the question is able to be answered using the knowledge of advisors or written prepared briefs, it shall
be given at the hearing and not taken on notice.
I cannot see why anybody would object to that. If the answer is readily available in the room, why defer it? It could probably sit under item 27, and prior to Questions Taken on Notice.
Madam SPEAKER: We have an amendment to the motion. Are you wishing to speak further, member for Drysdale?
Mr DUNHAM: No, I am quite happy to leave it.
Ms Carter: I wish to speak, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: We have that amendment distributed. Member for Port Darwin, you are speaking to the amendment now. Remember, keep to the amendment.
Ms Carter: Sorry, no.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, are you speaking to the amendment?
Mr WOOD: I have a question on the amendment, Madam Speaker. Before we speak to it, can I speak?
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it is very difficult that it was not circulated earlier.
A member: Where is it?
Mr Dunham: It is pretty simple. If just says that if they have the answer in the room, in their heads, or in a brief …
Mr Henderson: You have had a month to put this down.
Mr Dunham: I have had a month? A month to read this?
Mr Henderson: It was tabled last month.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, if I could, I will speak to what I have heard. I have no problems supporting that motion. I would be interested in hearing the government’s viewpoint on it but, if it makes it a requirement that ministers to answer and not to not answer, I would prefer that they did answer. If that clarifies that situation, when the information is there, I would certainly support it, because there is nothing worse than going to an Estimates Committee – and I recall last year actually asking for some figures on the cost of the amalgamation of the three or four councils on the Tiwi Islands, as I wanted a comparison of how much it cost to run them before they were amalgamated and how much it cost to get them amalgamated. That question’s answer, at the time, was not forthcoming.
If this amendment could require the minister to answer the question – especially as his advisors will be with him – and help towards that, then I would support that amendment.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, do you wish to continue your remarks?
Mr WOOD: Yes, I was just reading this and making sure what I was talking to is what is written here. It appears to be. I would be interested to hear the government’s perspective on it, but from what I read here, that would be better for those involved in the Estimates Committee to make sure that we did actually guarantee, if it is obvious that the answer is there, that we can hear the answer during the Estimates Committee.
Madam SPEAKER: Right. We have an amendment before the Chair. Leader of Government Business, do you wish to speak to the amendment?
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, yes, I will speak to the amendment to advise the House that government will not be accepting this amendment, for a very simple reason. The proposal that is being put forward requires an element of judgment and who is going to independently be able to assess, either way, whether the information being sought is there in the knowledge of advisors, or a written prepared brief. The committee itself is not going to know what is in those written prepared briefs - with all due respect to the member for Drysdale and for the committee itself - to understand what the currency of the current knowledge or information of the individual public servants in the room is, and the detail that they may have on the particular question.
It is a very presumptive-type motion in regard to somebody would have to be called on in the event that there was a dispute about whether the information existed in the room or not. I am not sure how you would be able to prove for or against the question that the information was present.
The whole issue with the Estimates Committee process, and having public servants there to be able to answer in detail areas of programs - obviously ministers deal with policy, but individual public servants have the expertise in terms of programs - is to free up and provide more information. Certainly, in the times I have been in and observed the committee, public servants are not constrained in any way in regards to answering questions and providing detailed advice.
Therefore, on this particular amendment, I cannot see that it could be implemented with any degree of objectivity. The committee would not have the knowledge as to what was contained or otherwise in the briefs of the ministers, or officials at the table, or have the capacity or knowledge to understand what information individual public servants may have at hand within their memory banks.
I have do not have the numbers in front of me, but I believe at the end of the Estimates Committee process last year, after 46 hours worth of debate in the end by the time we came back in here, there were about a dozen questions that could not be answered during that time frame. Those answers were sent to opposition members very quickly after the parliamentary sittings concluded. I certainly believe - and this side of the House believes - that was not only appropriate, but pretty good practice. Therefore, the government will not be supporting this amendment.
Amendment negatived.
Madam SPEAKER: Now we have the original motion. Member for Port Darwin, you wish to speak?
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, over the last few years with Labor in government, I have become increasingly disappointed with ‘open and accountable’ being the nature of this apparent government. One of the things that has been a lynchpin on their failure to be accountable has been the estimates process, and the arrogance with which they hold the opposition. It is our job to scrutinise this budget and to look for what has gone on during the previous year and to be able to report back to Territorians on this government’s performance The way that this Estimates Committee system has been set up and continues to be doctored to prevent us to be able to do our job properly is hugely disappointing.
Now, of course, we have the ban on written questions. The first year that the Labor Party was in government, we were able to provide our questions in writing and have them responded to before we actually went into the committee, and I thought it was pretty reasonable. I found the written answers very useful, from which we could move into another area or move into even deeper analysis of how performance was going. It is very disappointing to lose the right to put in written questions. Basically, what happens now is, when we turn up to an estimates hearing as shadow ministers, we really just have to hope for the best that the minister is going to be prepared or capable of answering our questions.
In the area of health specifically, a lot of information which I require is quite detailed statistical information. For example, it might have to do with staffing numbers and workloads. Ministers are capable of saying: ‘Oh well, I am not quite sure about that’ whereas, if they had responded to a written question we would get it immediately and it would be of use.
However, of course, as all members of this House know, my big beef with this Estimates Committee system is the time limit that is placed upon me as a shadow minister. Last year, when I was questioning the Minister for Health and Community Services, she was very good at filibustering, and she knew full well that I was watching that clock. Constantly, the minister insisted on reading out lengthy, verbose answers and frustrating those of us who had questions, when we knew what was going on. I felt that what was happening was a real sham.
In the area of the Health and Community Services, the questioning process was divided into six discrete areas, and we were to exhaust our questions in one area before we were entitled to move on to the next. For example, if the Independent members wanted to ask questions in a particular area - say acute services which is hospital services - they had to follow me. I know they became very frustrated when they realised that I was going to take most of the time, which, of course, I had to because of the limited time that I had.
Very frustratingly, at the end of the session is a section which is, basically, an open section in the area of health in which a whole lot of very important and interesting issues can be covered. Of course, by the time we got to that area, we virtually had no time left at all. Therefore, in lots of important areas that should have been covered - that we had a responsibility on behalf of Territorians to cover - we were stymied from the very beginning because there was no opportunity to ask those questions.
I am also the shadow for Seniors, and Arts and Museums. I mention Arts and Museums in particular, because the Chief Minister is responsible for that area. Arts and Museums sits right at the tail end of her ministerial responsibilities. It was terribly disappointing at the time, because the staff from Arts and Museums had made the effort to come to the Estimates Committee. I am sure they were well on top of their portfolio concerns, and well ready to brief the Chief Minister on the issues. Of course, there was zero time to cover Arts and Museums. I felt really sad for those public servants, whom I know are very capable and were ready to provide answers and support the Chief Minister on the questions which should have been asked on behalf of Territorians on this issue of Arts and Museums - an area I notice has been cut in this budget. I hope we have time to ask some important questions this year with regards to that area.
Of course, I was sharing the Chief Minister’s four hours with a whole lot of other shadow ministers, and I got what I got, which was nothing at the end. This time round, for this estimates process, I have to share the four-hour period with the new Health Minister. His portfolio of Health covers the incredibly important area of hospitals. This is the largest spending area in the Territory budget but, during my four hours, I have to share that time with the shadows who cover areas such as Central Australia, Justice and Attorney-General; and all of those areas are very important. Therefore, there is a fair chance that to cover the area of health - one of the largest budget areas in the Territory budget - I might be lucky to get two hours. This is going to be a major problem. Yet, on other hand, because the portfolio has been split into Health and then hived off to Community Services, it will be interesting to see whether this means now that Health, a large financial area, will have a small amount of time allocated to it for the quizzing through the estimates process, whereas in Community Services - which I do acknowledge is an important area but does not have such as large budget allocation - does this mean that I might, for example, have three-and-a-half hours to question the Minister for Community Services, and might only get an hour or so if I am lucky with the Minister for Health? To me, this is an anomaly and it should be rectified.
When we go to the estimates process, we are told to write to the minister or put things on notice if we do not get our questions asked. That is the way to get the leftovers answered. As members know, I had over 120 questions last year ready to ask and, due to the time constraints, I think I got about 40 of them asked at the time, when you add in the filibustering skills of the then minister. So I did write and put these questions on notice, and here we have this week’s Question Paper dated 7 October provided by the Legislative Assembly, and in is a range of questions that I put on notice seven months ago. I will read the first one, which is with regards to elective surgery waiting lists. The question is:
For the year 2001-02, would you detail the waiting lists for elective surgery in all five Territory
hospitals on a monthly basis?
That was asked seven months ago and, needless to say, it sits there with no effort being made by the minister or the department to answer a range of questions, which I was told to do this way because of the new open and accountable system provided by the Martin Labor government.
In closing, I am going to submit a number of my questions in writing to the ministers to whom I have to put my questions in the hope that they will be prepared for the estimates hearing and able to provide the answers to these questions on behalf of Territorians. I will also take the liberty of asking verbal questions as I choose fit during the limited time that I have available. Once again, this system has proved to me that the open and accountable Martin Labor government is nothing but a farce.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I contribute to what we on this side of the House are calling a debate, but which those on the other side are saying very little about, except through the Leader of Government Business. We on this side of the House do take seriously the responsibility that has been given to us as local members and shadow ministers to ask questions about the budget. It is part of the democratic process, although you would not know it from the conduct of the government.
We appreciate that the Estimates Committee was something that Labor wanted to bring in, and so be it. However, there are some quite reasonable objections that we have. The member for Port Darwin spoke of her experience last year. Mine was not much better. I had to deal with the Tourism minister, who every member of this House knows, is a man who takes up a lot of space. He just talks and talks and talks. He loves the sound of his voice, and in estimates we, not surprisingly, were all running behind time, so we were watching the clock. At that time, the tourism industry was in absolute crisis, the government having provided no assistance whatsoever in the preceding two years, before government finally woke up and heeded our and industry’s call to pump some money into tourism. There were some very good, legitimate questions that we wanted to ask in relation to tourism, the same area that the Chief Minister stood up here today and said how important it was, and fell short of declaring her undying love for the industry and members of it.
My experience as the then shadow minister for Tourism last year was not a satisfying one. The minister filibustered in the way that he tends to. Notionally, we had about four hours to spend; we were behind time. When we took into account questions being asked by members of the committee and dorothy dixers by Labor members - why they could not just ask some of their colleagues in a lift I do not know, but there you go. We had the incessant questioning by the member for Nelson that just went on and on and on, and was not far behind the minister, as he was one member of 25 of the Northern Territory Assembly. I have not sought the details, but gee wiz, I reckon he would have taken up a disproportionate amount of time. The shadow minister was unable to fully question in the way that she was entitled to do.
It is a bizarre situation where you have a government that says open accountable and all that stuff, calls themselves a bunch of democrats, has waited 26 years to get into government, and then does a complete turn around by saying, essentially: ‘No, we do not want anyone to ask questions’. It really is a sign of the despots they are becoming, because they just cannot stand being questioned by us or by anybody. They fail to appreciate that the Estimates Committee that this government established lends itself to members - shadow ministers in particular - asking questions and noting their responsibility to do so. It just beggars belief that members of the Northern Territory Branch of the Australian Labor Party are prepared to sit by and watch as their senior ministers tell even those on the backbench: ‘Do not worry about it, sport, we are going to do it this way’. Maybe members of the Labor backbench said: ‘Oh, but we thought when we signed up, we were going to sign up to an open, honest and accountable government’. The senior ministers must have presumably said: ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that, because you just behave in the way we want you to. You just keep your mouth shout. Don’t you worry’.
Mr Henderson: In your mind, in your mind.
Ms CARNEY: Well, members of the CLP opposition will not be silenced by the Leader of Government Business, or anybody else for that matter. We restate our objections to the limited amount of time: the reality based on two previous Estimates Committee hearings where we were running against the clock. We restate our objections regarding the filibustering that goes on by ministers, some of whom have gold medal winning performances which – perhaps I should go and get a gold medal and give it to the member for Johnston because my hunch is that he will continue to go on and on during this Estimates Committee hearing, more than he has before. I sympathise with the member for Brennan, because getting an answer from the member for Johnston is like pulling teeth. That was evidenced in Question Time today. How he sleeps, I do not know.
Along with my colleagues, I will be providing written questions. I would have thought that that is a great idea. It gives public servants a chance to get some information together …
Member interjecting.
Ms CARNEY: Members of the government may well yawn. I will tell the people I know - some of whom are friends who live in Karama - that the member for Karama thinks all of this is a joke. Well, we do not think it is a joke and neither do her constituents …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member for Araluen is indicating that I made some gesture which indicated this is a joke. I have not.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. If you think you have been misquoted you can make it by way of personal explanation.
Ms Lawrie: She can be as deceptive and deceiving and as low as she continues to be, I guess.
Ms CARNEY: It is a sign of her sensitivity. I suspect that Labor members on the backbench are a bit embarrassed by this. You signed up for something …
Dr Burns: Not half as embarrassed as you mob are through your antics. What a mess!
Ms CARNEY: … and you thought your mob was a bunch of good blokes. You would probably be upset if they turned out not to be. That is probably one of the reasons she is upset.
I do not know what it is not reasonable to provide written questions. It seems to me to be a very commonsense proposition. However, we do not know because members of that side over there have not even bothered to get off their seats to tell us what objections they have. We are only left with the Leader of Government Business, who is a bit prone to telling a yarn at the best of times. There is an absence of explanation …
Mr Ah Kit: Your mob had 27 years to straighten this out.
Ms CARNEY: Well, you can talk about 27 years. I was not here, but what I do know is that all questions were exhausted. Madam Speaker has been a member of this Assembly for some time, and I am sure that she will attest that ministers, at times, went halfway through the night. Surely, that is better to exhaust all of the questions to be asked on behalf of Territorians, than two hours or four hours?
In my case, I have a considerable portfolio of Attorney-General and Justice. I must share that with the member for Port Darwin who needs to deal with the member for Stuart as the Minister for Health. That leaves me, on a fairly logical calculation, of about 2 hours 15 minutes. I know we will be running behind time. I know there will be questions from Labor members and committee members. At best, I predict that I will have an hour’s worth of questions to ask the bloke who is in charge of - under today’s budget - a budget of $118m or thereabouts.
The members on the other side say that they are committed to concepts of social justice and a whole range of other things, all under the Department of Justice and, yet, their hypocrisy is such that they will not even let us ask questions. Well, I will be asking questions; I will put them in writing. I hope that I will get more than an hour. However, I reckon I will be pretty surprised if I got more than an hour. I might say that the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General is one of the better performers in estimates, because he is a bloke who not always, but on many occasions, can actually come up with a straight answer to a straight question. He leaves the rest of you lot for dead. So, at least in the hour or so I will have, I do have an honest expectation that the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General will be able to answer my questions.
I have restated the nature of not only my objections but the objections of my colleagues. I should say that all of us are local members, notwithstanding the responsibilities we have as shadow ministers, which are obviously considerable. My electorate is Araluen. There are a couple of things in this budget that affect the people whom I represent …
Mr Henderson: Gillen School?
Ms CARNEY: Absolutely, Gillen School.
The effect of this system means that I am precluded from pursuing questions about my electorate. That is not the system that you lot wanted at the beginning - it just is not. Now you have backed yourselves into a corner and you have become absolutely entrenched and you have said: ‘Well, if the CLP is saying it, it cannot possibly be right’. Well, it is right, and the tide will turn one day and you will be in opposition again and we will be government again, and you see how you feel with one or two hours of questions for a swag of budget books close to a foot thick. It is just bizarre. How do you look people in the eye?
Madam Speaker, with those comments I will conclude and wait with interest to see what the Leader of Government Business has to say in reply.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, you have already spoken to …
A member: No, he spoke to the amendment, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: I guess I will give you leave to speak to the motion now.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, it is a bit bizarre, because you and I both know Independents have to fight for their existence sometimes. I have heard people arguing the case for the importance of parties in this debate. Much as I understand that that is the system we have to live with, I have no doubt there are many people out there who support the idea that there should be some more Independents in this parliament, and it is good that we do have Independents.
Regardless of what the member for Araluen was trying to say about the number of questions I asked, she obviously does not realise that I am a member of the PAC and the Estimates Committee, and the way the hearings are organised I am entitled to ask questions as a member of that committee - not necessarily as an Independent. That is the basis on which I asked questions last year. That should be made clear.
If we are going to have a debate about who is going to have the time to speak, I believe that a shadow minister should have adequate time because they have an important role. At the same time, I do not think that should be at the risk of pushing Independents to one side. For instance, if we had five Independents on this side of parliament, where would they go as well? The system that worked well in Hobart is a system I still support, and one I discussed in the debate on 27 February 2003; that we should have the nine hours per minister. Then you would not have to have this argument about whether Independents should have time to speak or how much time shadow ministers should have to speak, because they would have time. That is one of the reasons we went to Hobart.
One could ask: ‘Are committees just window dressing and, when they come back the decision has been made while they were away, or do they actually do something?’ You would have to query our trip to Tasmania where we saw a system that worked. You have to remember there are two Houses of Parliament in Tasmania, and both subjected the ministers to nine hours of questioning. In some cases, they did not use the whole nine hours, but that time was there for the questioning of each minister.
When you consider that, according to the Appropriation Act, we have 19 departments and, as has been said before, some are big and some are small. I would say that the Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, for instance, has a huge portfolio covering many areas that affect the lives of the people in the Northern Territory, that need to be fully questioned so that we can give answers back to our constituents. As the member for Araluen said, we are also members representing our electorates, not just the parties,- which is not in my case. Therefore, we need to be asking questions on their behalf.
If one is to argue that the shadow ministers should have more time then, Madam Speaker, we could split these 19 in half and you could go minister for 10 of these portfolios, and I will do the other nine. That way we would get a fair bit of time ourselves, but I can see that would not get much support. However, I believe there should be more time. I do not think there is anything wrong with this parliament sitting and giving adequate questioning period for each minister. It was done in Tasmania.
One of the criticisms of parliament is that we do not sit for long enough and, even though this is not regarded as sitting time, people would appreciate that if we spend time questioning ministers, that would be time well spent.
I have proposed an amendment, Madam Speaker. However, before I speak on that amendment, I raised the question in the debate about written questions. This came up when I was commenting on the Tasmanian trip. I have no problems with written questions being given to the minister. All I want to be assured of, is that the questions were read out so they could be put into Hansard and the answers read out. My argument is that you cannot just give these questions to the minister who provides an answer, and it ends up on a piece of paper that the public do not see. These are public hearings.
It is important that the parliament this evening supports the admission of written questions before the public Estimates Committee sits. There should be a requirement, of course, that those questions be read out and there be a public answer. Otherwise, what is the point of the public turning up for questions they have neither seen nor heard until they go and dig up Hansard some months later?
I have proposed an amendment to item 27. It is a simple amendment. Members of the opposition have, basically, said they would like to do it, anyway. I really do not think it would do any harm. In fact, it will shorten the time because the minister knows the question is coming - there is the question, there is the answer - instead of having to defer to someone who will provide the answer. In some cases, this would make the process quicker and we will have more questions answered.
Madam Speaker, I move an amendment to insert a new item 27A as follows:
That written questions can be given in advance and submitted to the minister prior to the
Estimates Committee meeting, and the minister makes every effort to answer these questions
at the committee hearings.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, you are speaking to the amendment?
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I am speaking to the amendment. I support the amendment, not only because it is a good amendment, but simply because it is common sense. I invite members to play this scenario out in their heads in light of the history of how this parliament has operated before. Never in the history of this parliament, until the rise of the Labor government, have members had to fight for time to speak to ministers. That is a very important and essential element.
Yes, there were times that the budget committee hearings used to go until 2 am or 3 am or even later in this Chamber, but never did anybody have to fight for time. Any member, whether they are member of the Estimates Committee or not, could stand in this place and ask a question of the minister on any issue within that minister’s budgetary area. Yet, I hear justification coming from Independents and CLP members as to why they should have a slice of the pie.
In the interests of open and accountable government - bearing in mind that the Estimates Committee was flagged by the Labor Party when they were in the opposition in their good governance document regarding open, honest and accountable government. What we have now is an environment in which we have members fighting for ministerial time. That has to have a flag raised on it initially, because it clearly demonstrates that access to a minister is more limited now than it was.
I remember the first Estimates Committee process we went through. I was left with a clear impression that it was the bureaucratic equivalent of trench warfare. If I remember the state of the room at the end of the Estimates Committee process, there was paper everywhere and, in some instances, mounted some several feet on some people’s desks - files and binders provided to all members. There were any number of those binders stacked up in front of people causing, sometimes, difficultly to see members. That had to be rectified.
Casting members’ minds back - for those of us who have been here for more than just this term - the Labor Party, when in opposition, used to make great play of the fact that they would have some 2000 or 2500 questions to examine the budget. They would pile folders up in front of the media and they would say: ‘These are all the questions that we are going to have’.
A member: Good questions.
Mr ELFERINK: And they were. Often they were good questions and sometimes they were not. I recall a member who is now a government minister asking about funding on a particular facility in his electorate that did not exist. These things happen, because that was a product of generic questioning. However, the effect of it was that that member even had the opportunity at 2.30 am to ask that question, because it was an open system - much more open than the system we have now.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I thought that the member for Macdonnell was speaking to the amendment, which is very specific about written questions, and he has not touched on the point of written questions, yet he has been going for 10 minutes.
Mr Elferink: I am constructing an argument you putz, sit down.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, order. Yes, member for Macdonnell, I did ask you were you speaking to the amendment. Please keep your remarks to the amendment, which is about written questions being given in advance and submitted to the committee.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, Madam Speaker, I will stick to that area specifically. What I was talking about was written questions. The Labor Party used to come in and have written questions - reams of them - and for a good cause because, when they came into this place, it was quite obvious that if they came in with some of those questions, they could not have hoped to obtain answers from those questions unless those questions had been given on notice. Some of those questions were very detailed and required a great deal of analysis by the minister and the department. The department was able, as a matter of courtesy, provide a fulsome answer to the question that was given. That was a protocol that had developed unofficially over time. You placed your question on notice, otherwise the minister stood there and said: ‘I cannot tell you the answer to that, I will have to get back to you’.
Whether the government accepts or not that we are going to write questions and send them to them, the fact of the matter is that the government is going to pretty much have to accept them anyhow, because if you play the scenario out in your mind’s eye, this is what happens. I write certain questions about my portfolio areas and send them to the two ministers that I shadow, and the ministers say: ‘All right, I will put them in the rubbish bin, or I will file them in the desk drawer’, or send them back to me unanswered. Then I will have to stand up in front of the media and say: ‘Well, I have given these questions to the minister, I am sure that he will be capable of answering them in the committee stage’. At the point we then get to the committee stage, I ask the question of the minister, and the minister says: ‘Oh, I will have to take that on notice, I will get back to you’. Well, that strikes me as being perilously close to high farce.
I support this amendment, but what I would suggest to the minister and the Leader of Government Business is simply that there is no way he can logically or sensibly not accept questions on notice. That is effectively what these are. These are going to be questions on notice, if they come in the form of a letter, or sit on a notice paper, or whatever. However, for him to then stand up in the committee stages and say: ‘Oh we have no notice of this question, I will have to get back to you’, will make the minister and the government look churlish. At the end of the day, the whole thing will look rather silly. If the minister wants to go down that path, I am happy to accommodate him. I will tell you why I am happy to accommodate him. If I have my questions written out, and I have them ready for the media and other people, including the departments, and I have given them to the minister two weeks in advance of the Estimates Committee, who is going to look like a Wally when he turns around and says: ‘I am going to have to get back to you’?
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of Government Business, are you speaking to the amendment and closing debate also?
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Speaking to the amendment and closing debate also, Madam Speaker.
Speaking to the amendment first, government will not be accepting this amendment from the member for Nelson, essentially because we have been down this path before. We did have a process that was unique within the Westminster democratic system in Australia, where all questions were required to be placed in prior to the Committee of the Whole meeting. We had, across government - and all of us here have public servants in our electorates, and we also have public servants as friends - the bureaucracy off spending thousands of accumulated hours putting detailed responses to questions. At the end of the day, the vast majority of those answers - okay they saw the light of day, but to what great effect?
If you look at the discussions and submissions from the departments to the committee, the vast majority of them did not want to go back to those days. I advise all members that, if they do put questions in on notice, they will be answered. Certainly, some take longer to answer than others, but a commitment from me, as Leader of Government Business. is that they will be answered. I signed off on a whole pile of them just a few weeks ago that the member for Macdonnell wrote and put on notice regarding specific funding and commitments to various communities in his electorate via the police. Again, at great expense to the police in time and effort, but the member for Macdonnell got his answers. The wording in …
Mr Elferink: That is what I mean. I rest my case.
Mr HENDERSON: Well, I have had no correspondence from the member for Macdonnell indicating that he was unhappy with the answers that the police spent many hours compiling to give him. I assume in the absence of any comment otherwise, he was happy with the answers that he received.
Mr Elferink: I was. Thank you.
Mr HENDERSON: So the system does work. You can put questions in on notice and they will be answered.
We now have the position in our Estimates Committee, as opposed to in the past where you had public servants sitting in the advisors boxes here who could not speak – they were gagged – that there is now an opportunity for senior public servants who have responsibility for programs and budgets to speak directly to the committee. It is a system that is in place everywhere else; it works well. The public service certainly does not support going back to written questions. Therefore, if you want to move back to that way, the public service does not support it, and the government will not be supporting the amendments.
In closing the debate on this motion to establish the Estimates Committee and the Government Owned Corporations Committee to scrutinise the budget, I wonder what has happened in ...
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, before you do close, could we just have vote on the amendment? The question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Amendment negatived.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, we had the Estimates Committee process last year …
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! This is a matter of clarification. Is he closing the debate?
Mr HENDERSON: Closing the debate.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, on the original motion.
Mr Elferink: Oh, all right. I just wanted to make some more observations in relation to the motion itself.
Mr HENDERSON: You have already done it.
Mr Elferink: I have spoken to the amendment, sorry.
Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry. I have given the nod to the minister to close the debate.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. We had Estimates Committee last year - 45 hours, I think it was. We came back into the parliament to debate the committee’s report for another two or three hours. The general tone of that debate - I do not have the Parliamentary Record in front of me - was pretty good regarding members opposite thinking that, on the whole, the committee had done a pretty good job. They had the answers that they wanted. There were 12 or so questions that were outstanding that had been taken on notice, but answers had not been received in time for the committee’s deliberations. I am sure if we go back and read the Parliamentary Record, there was certainly none of the debate that has occurred today in regard to the total opposition of the Estimates Committee process as it currently stands because, essentially, the motion that is before us today, with a few amendments, is very similar in time frame of the process last year.
What has happened since that debate last year is that there has been a change of leadership. It is, obviously, that there is a problem with the leadership of the parliamentary wing of the CLP, where we have members participating in committee on debate supporting the way the committee is going, the process internally within the committee, the outcomes, and the motion that we have before us here. Then – whoops - this gets onto the Notice Paper and the new Leader of the Opposition looks and says: ‘What on earth are you clowns doing on that committee supporting this when my position is to totally oppose the Estimates Committee process as it stands’ - for whatever reason. Then we have the unedifying process of the member for Greatorex being straightened up by his leader, saying: ‘Look I do not care what you say in the committee, but when you come in here, you toe my line’. This all about the Leader of the Opposition trying to flex his muscles on a day when we have brought down a very good budget that has been applauded by the business community here in the Northern Territory.
In regards to the comments by the member for Greatorex that there was intense disagreement on the timings - that we had chopped back timings - I have here with me, via the Clerk, draft minutes of the last committee meeting. Without reading through those draft minutes word for word, it goes to the time frames for the committee to sit and the last sentence here in the draft minutes – now, if the member for Greatorex wants to dispute these minutes at the committee hearing, he can; I acknowledge they are only draft:
Discussion ensued on the time frame for consideration of this proposal. It was agreed that the proposed
amended times be adopted.
There was no debate. There was no position by the opposition in committee that these new times were totally inadequate; that they were not good. It just goes to show how incompetent the member for Greatorex is and why he needs to be straightened up by his own leader, because there are two parts to this motion. One is on the Estimates Committee, the other is on Government Owned Corporations. In terms of the Government Owned Corporations, Sitting Times in section C, Item 15 says:
The committee shall sit on Friday, 25 June 2004 for two hours from 9 am until 11 am.
There has been no cutback in time. The time is the same as what we allocated last year. There have been no cuts to time.
The member for Greatorex does not even remember that we did allocate, on Friday, two hours to Government Owned Corporations, and then we all come back into this parliament to debate the Committee of the Whole. There was no objection within the last meeting. For the member for Greatorex now to swan in here, because he has been straightened up by the Leader of the Opposition, there is obviously no discussion of what is the parliamentary wing’s position on these things in committees. We saw participation in committees in terms of the code of conduct. Again, we saw a big backflip when the Leader of the Opposition straightened the members up. Leader of the Opposition, you need to send your members into these committees with the wing view, not straighten them up when they come out of it having failed to do their job in the committee. There have been only minor amendments, and they were agreed to within the committee. If the member for Greatorex wants to dispute the records of the minutes, we will have that debate in the next meeting.
There was also a lot of debate about exhausting the questions and we could stand here until ‘Are there any other questions to be put to the minister?’ Yes, that did occur. I will take on board comments from members opposite that some ministers had greater recollection of detail than others. That is always going to be the case. When the CLP was in government on this side of the House, that some ministers performed better and gave greater levels of detail that others. However, there were many occasions when ministers would sit saying: ‘I have answered the question’, and that was it. They would sit, say: ‘I have answered the question and there will be no more information forthcoming’. So this feigned outrage that, somehow under the Estimates Committee process, we are stifling debate and the opportunity to extract information from ministers is absolute bunkum.
The reality is now the opportunity is there to gain far more detailed information from senior public servants who have a lot of detail regarding the programs that they are administering and, through the minister, questions directly of them. I am unaware - and there has been no allegation in this House - that any public servant has failed to give the information requested.
I remind honourable members that there are plenty of opportunities to seek information in regards to the government’s budget. It is not constrained to one opportunity only in regards to the Estimates Committee process. There are a number of forums for members to pursue with regard to getting information from government. Obviously, there are questions without notice on the 33 days a year that we do sit. We have a great record, a 50% increase in the number of questions that are taken and answered in this House without notice. We have questions on notice and, may I say, some shadow ministers work harder at this than others. We have the current Written Question Paper before us. I have made a quick tally here. The member for Port Darwin, the shadow Health minister, has 13 questions on notice here. The member for Macdonnell - whatever we think of the member for Macdonnell, he works hard - has 12 questions on notice. Even the departing member for Goyder has three questions on notice. He still has his rant against the LNG plant that sits bang in the middle of his electorate, and we will keep that there for posterity …
Mr BALDWIN: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I ask that the member provide some full information and tell us how many of the 13 health questions have been answered in the last seven months.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr Baldwin: I will tell him the answer: zero.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, the point I was making is that there are questions on notice. If I recall the way the opposition used to treat questions on notice, the former member for Wanguri had questions on notice for about seven years - not seven months, but seven years. He retired without his questions being answered. He never did have his questions answered. He waited seven years, and he is still waiting.
Some of these questions are pretty complicated and, in the health department, it is going to take a lot of work to pull these records out. For example:
For 2001-02, detail waiting lists for elective surgery in all of five Territory hospitals on a monthly basis.
That is going back three years, and it is going to take a lot of work for the agency that is trying to deliver health services and elective surgery …
Dr Burns: A lot of costs, too.
Mr HENDERSON: And costs. … to drag up the information that is three years old. We will get it there. I do not know why we want to know information that is three years old now, but it is the type of thing that we will do. Certainly, as Leader of Government Business - and my colleagues can attest to this - I am on to them in regards to questions. If questions are on this Written Question Paper for an extended period of time, a note goes around from my office saying: ‘Hurry up and get the answer back to the minister’.
We have questions without notice, questions on notice, and we have opportunities for briefings. Again, some members are better than others, but the number of briefings that have been requested by shadow ministers on detailed points of agency programs is absolutely minimal.
Ms CARTER: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I was given one hour, I was told …
Madam SPEAKER: What is your point of order? That is not a point of order.
Ms Carter: For the record.
Mr HENDERSON: There are plenty of opportunities, and briefings can go on for hours if they want them to, and certainly there are opportunities for follow up. Letters! You can write to the minister and say: ‘I am seeking some information on x, y and z’. The number of letters we have received have dwindled to an absolute minimum.
It is a lazy opposition, that is grandstanding on this issue. After the committee last year, they were happy with it. During the committee process, they were happy with it. The Leader of the Opposition is in a bit of trouble on budget day and says: ‘I need to create a diversion and we will get into the Estimates Committee’. It will not work.
We can see that the system is working better than the system did before, and I urge members that if there are questions that you do not have an opportunity to ask, there is no parliament anywhere in the Westminster system that has totally unlimited end-to-end time and hours to exhaust questions, so put them on notice and they will be answered.
In regards to the freedom of information process, all I can say to members opposite is whatever system we have adopted - and there are good reasons for certain areas not to be disclosed - it is a much better system than they had, because they had no freedom of information. If you did not get the answer from the minister in the chair and he sat down, that was it. There was no capacity whatsoever to go through an independent process to try and seek access to information. Whatever has been blanked out, I would say there is probably 200% of information that was provided that never saw the light of day because their conspiracy theories about what might have been in those papers were never met in terms of anything that could be potentially damaging for government.
The member for Araluen again went on a trip down memory lane about tourism. I have asked my colleague who was Tourism minister at the time how many questions on notice, how many briefings were requested, and letters to the ministers he received during that period. Answer: zero. The opposition is just totally lazy. They did the job via media release, not trying to get to the bottom of the truth of the issues. Did it by press release and made a pretty big goose of herself during the process.
Madam Speaker, what we have had her is an Estimates Committee which was a commitment from government of good governance. We have been through it a couple of times now. We have had a committee look at it, that came back to this House with an agreed position in terms of the Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations process for this year, with some minor amendments. These positions were agreed to by the committee as a whole. There was no dissent to that agreement. The Leader of the Opposition has straightened up the member for Greatorex and told him to lift his game in terms of work on committees and come in to the House to oppose this motion. Well, the motion is here, and it is supported by government.
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! We ask for some guidance on this. The paper that was tabled by the minister is, in fact, not a paper from the committee. I ask you for guidance as to how we refer to this piece of paper, which is really something which came from the minister, not from the committee.
Madam SPEAKER: The motion is, if I am reading this right, Clerk, and you might advise me, is the motion that they adopt the terms of reference as distributed, and that is what you have in front of you. That is the paper. So, the question is …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am still seeking your clarification. The minister, in his debate, continues to refer to this paper as one that came from the committee. I believe that that is incorrect and he has misled the House on this matter, and I suggest that he be corrected.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! He can only accuse me of misleading the House by way of substantive motion and I ask him to withdraw.
Dr Lim: I am not accusing, I am asking for clarification.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, it is my understanding, as a member of that committee that this is the report that we have been discussing for some time, and this is the report that we agreed should be presented to the parliament. As a member of the committee, that is my understanding.
Dr LIM: This was the report that was discussed at the committee.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, we discussed a report and, if you may recall, there are a number of slight amendments to that report that were agreed to at that last committee meeting. It was then agreed that that report, with those amendments, be given to the parliament. That is my understanding.
Dr LIM: Then, Madam Speaker, I again seek clarification. I suggest that then the government or the committee needs to table the report that we discussed, because all I saw were letters and a summary of letters from the department agencies.
Madam SPEAKER: As I am advised by the Clerk, if you recall, the committee had to review the procedures for the Estimates Committee that was followed last year. We went through the terms of reference for the previous Estimates Committee. These were the amendments that the committee agreed upon that should be presented to the parliament. We started from those original terms of reference from the Estimates Committee last year. We asked for submissions. We received submissions from a number of people, you may recall. We went through those submissions and the recommendations, and this is now what we are recommending to the parliament: that they adopt these terms of reference from the committee.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, speaking again to the point of order, thank you for your explanation. Perhaps I just need to have them clear in my mind. Did we ever discuss this report, or did we not? We discussed the substance of this report – yes, I agree with you. We discussed the substance of this report, but we never saw this report.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you are misunderstanding. We were reviewing the original terms of reference that were used for the Estimates Committee last year. When we did that Estimates Committee, the Standing Orders Committee was commissioned to actually review that. We went forward and obtained submissions, and now we have the recommendations that came out of that committee, which is the amended terms of reference from the original. I cannot be much clearer than that ...
Mr Henderson: With minor amendment that you agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: We will not go into that.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, obviously, I am not …
Ma dam SPEAKER: I think you have misunderstood.
Dr LIM: … understanding the situation clearly enough for my mind. I agree that we did discuss the terms of reference from last year. We had several meetings where issues were discussed. I agree with that also …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Let him finish this.
Dr LIM: However, at the end of the day, this report was never sighted by the committee at any time until it was left at our desk on the 1 April 2004. By that stage, there was really nothing we could do as a committee because we did not have another committee meeting …
Madam SPEAKER: But, member for Greatorex, the committee had already discussed this. The committee had already recommended that this go to the parliament. That is what the committee said. The question is …
Members interjecting..
Dr LIM: Well, I think my point is made …
Madam SPEAKER: No, member for Greatorex, I have said it enough times: this is what the committee recommended. If you read this, it states:
… the Assembly adopt the terms of references as distributed to members for the Estimates
and Government Owned Corporation Scrutiny Committee.
This came about as a result of the process of the last Estimates Committee. The Standing Orders Committee was commissioned to actually review it, and this is the final document. The question is the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to; report adopted.
Continued from 1 April 2004.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, we are talking, of course, about the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Bill, which brings into regulation the use of chemical products and fertilisers and stockfeed. This is a very comprehensive bill covering all manner of things regarding those products: who may use them, how they controlled and how they are applied in the case of fertilisers and chemicals.
I say at the beginning that we do not have a philosophical problem with the way the bill is constructed. I have looked through it and, as I said; it is very comprehensive. Obviously, the issue is going to be in regulations: how you are going to regulate some of the things that are described in this bill. It will be interesting to have a look at that when you get around to doing it. It picks up, of course, fertilisers and stockfeed that have not had controls in the past and is, predominantly as far as I can see, regulating the manufacture or the importation of those goods - which is a good thing - to ensure that our products are of a quality that will not provide an adverse effect to either humans, animals or, indeed, the environment. It is something that is probably long overdue.
I have a few issues, and some of it is just clarification. I would like the minister to clarify the non-veterinary use of registered veterinary chemical products. I know, at the moment in some cases in the cattle industry, pastoralists administer veterinary products; for instance, if there is botulism in their cattle they inject them for that. I assume that will be allowed to continue as long as they follow the prescribed use by written instructions from the veterinarian. However, I would just like the minister to clarify on that issue that, for those types products the owner, manager or, indeed, the operators can apply those products to animals where a vet is not required to do the application.
There is a whole range of provisions there for vets, most of which, I assume and believe, they are undertaking now in their practice, particularly in being able to trace any regimes applied to animals and, certainly, in instructions that they may provide to land-holders. The use of anabolic steroids has been ramped up - a great thing. Poor old vets get blamed for a lot of things from time to time, but the anabolic steroids issue is one that they can do without. I see there is provision in there for them to take a lot more care in that area, which is a good thing.
Some of the parts of the bill, particularly with regard to chemical products - making sure chemicals are applied in relation to the labelling that is on the chemical drums and so forth - is something that I assume is in practice. When I was a farmer I used to always read the labels. However, I notice here that a person must, on each occasion before using a registered chemical product, read the instructions on the NRA approved label, otherwise there is a penalty. It goes without saying, but it is a bit onerous to actually write it into a bill. However, I guess from a parliamentary drafting point of view, you have to write it in because, if you leave it out, somebody will use it as an excuse. I just thought it was a little over the top to actually have to put it in the bill that we are making it a legal requirement to read a label. I suppose that is where society has got to, I am afraid.
The other area of interest that I wanted to raise was in relation to spraying of chemicals - and I am going all over the place so you can pick it up as you go. With regard to the ground spraying business licence, I would like the minister to give me a few words on how onerous it will be in the licensing regime for ground spraying application, for not only the business licensee but also for the people employed by that business. I assume it will come into the regulations because that is what it says in the bill: ‘A class of ground spraying application licence to be prescribed by the regulations’. He would have some idea, I assume, of what it is going to involve. I assume that applies to - it says a professional ground spraying applicator. How does that go for cross-farm type where somebody might get the neighbour next door to do some spraying in exchange for them doing something else - a reciprocal deal, no money changes hands? Can that be carried on, or are we talking about those people also having to be regulated and licensed under this bill? It is something that happens in farming communities where, for instance, somebody next door might buy the big spraying equipment to use on their own property and, rather than me buying it next door, I will come to an arrangement with the neighbour to do my spraying or, indeed, have one of his people come over and do the spraying and I will do something in return for that - not in cash terms but in exchange of services. You might like to clarify that.
The other thing I would like some clarification on is that there are some businesses in the Northern Territory that operate aircraft for spraying. One is based up the road from me in Katherine. I see here that:
If the Chemical Coordinator believes on reasonable grounds that a machine or other equipment or an
aircraft being used to carry out agricultural chemical spraying is defective, the Chemicals Coordinator
may give the person apparently in charge of the machine, equipment or aircraft, a written direction not
to operate the machine, equipment or aircraft until –
(a) specified repairs have been made to the machine, equipment or aircraft …
I wonder how that is going to work regarding the actual aircraft and its requirement under CASA rules and aviation regulations, to be at an accredited state or condition of maintenance, and whether this is trying to override that.
I imagine what is trying to be achieved there, is if there is some faulty equipment on the aircraft related to the spraying part of it. However, the way it reads to me is that the Chemical Coordinator can ground the aircraft if he or she reasonably believes that the aircraft is defective. You might find yourself getting into an arguable point there with regards to aircraft maintenance. That is worthy of some clarification, I believe.
The powers of entry, I thought, were very generous for this sort of thing. I can understand that the Chemicals Coordinator, or whoever it may be who wants to enter to investigate and so on, will use a great deal of common sense. The powers of entry are enormous in regard to this bill. They can enter premises either with or without the consent, except for residential premises. The Chemical Advisor can enter the premises and do all sorts of things like break open and search fixtures and fittings, furniture, furnishings or boxes, packages, containers, inspect or examine premises or substances, take photos, films, audios, seize all sorts of things, and it goes on and on and on. I would have thought there had to be fair justification - in fact, a few barriers to jump to find justification - to going to those lengths before entry was permitted. I seek your comments on that, Minister, but it is a bit onerous that on suspicion alone, one can move to that type of entry power.
The other thing I note here is that you have, under clause 103, the establishment of advisory committees. Your bill says:
The Minister may establish one or more Advisory Committees to inquire into …
I would have thought that, if you wanted continuous feedback - and I assume you are going to establish this advisory committee, or one of these advisory committees that has this membership involved - it should have been mandatory that an advisory committee was set up to ensure the monitoring of this bill and the provisions into the future, the establishment of regulations, the monitoring of those regulations, and the industry feedback. That it would have been considered to be mandatory to have an advisory committee, so the minister may or may not establish one or more advisory committees, is something that could have been beefed up. It was not something that needed to have an amendment, but I am sure the minister will, in due course, set up an advisory committee. It should have been a mandatory thing to make sure feedback and the ongoing monitoring was something that will always happen.
There are a few areas that you might like to give me some feedback on. I have checked with various parts of the industry who have had a look at this. They are of the same attitude; that it is something that needs to be done. It is something that is being done on a national scale. It is probably a good thing that we do that, to bring it in line with the processes and procedures that happen nationally under the Agvet Code,. However, as usual and, as always, people like to have assurance that things of this nature do not get too onerous for the individual or the business concerned. Whilst I believe licensing in the areas that have been mentioned throughout this bill is a good thing, it will all come down to how those licensing arrangements are conducted, and how onerous it can be to those business people - whether they be vets, spray applicators and so on.
Madam Speaker, I will conclude my comments there and the minister might like to include some of those issues I have raised in reply.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a few comments on the bill as well. I thank the minister for the briefing. It was my own fault that I was a little late, that we probably did not have more time to go through some of the issues.
One of the issues that I have been concerned about for a while, especially in the Litchfield Shire, is the issue of spraying. I have spoken to WorkSafe, who have also explained that there is legislation that covers spraying as well. When I looked at that, I thought there is a whole series of different parts of this bill and, if you add in the Work Health Act or the Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulations, it makes you wonder whether we should be combining, perhaps, some of these into one lump. It starts off, when dealing with spraying, with Part 2, under General Duties:
13. Duty to ensure harm does not result from the use of chemical products, fertilisers or stockfoods.
A person who uses a chemical product, fertiliser or stockfood must take all measures that are
reasonable and practical to ensure the use does not result in harm to –
(a) the health of the general public;
(b) the health of an animal;
(c) the environment; or
(d) domestic or export trade and agricultural produce.
The only comment I make there is that, perhaps where one cannot prove that the health of the general public is at risk, one could say the amenity of the public can be not the best. With the smell of the substance floating around at 6 pm just as you are having tea, it may be arguable whether the chemical is poisonous, but it certainly would not be arguable that it is a very uncomfortable environment to be having your evening meal in.
Then there is Part 5 clause 56, which deals with the spraying of agricultural chemical products, where a person must not carry out agricultural spraying that injuriously affects plants or stock outside the target area, or land outside the target area etcetera. Clauses 49 and 74 deal with the use of S7 poisons. Under those clauses, you can restrict the use of that poison. You can also instigate a code of practice under clause 128. We have all those four possibilities and then, on top of that, there is the Work Health (Occupational Health and Safety) Regulations, I think in sections 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, and also section 55, Airborne contaminants. I am wondering whether there needs to be a bringing together of some of those regulations. Maybe, of course, some of those airborne contaminants do not fit in with agricultural and veterinary chemicals.
However, my concern is that, even though we have all these particular pieces of legislation, a lot of people in my area are not opposed to spraying; they just simply like to be told if someone is going to spray. Until there is a code of conduct or a set of regulations which say - unless there is an emergency, of course - you must tell your neighbour and people within a certain area within six hours, 10 hours, 12 hours that you are going to spray, then you are still going to continue to have these issues arise, mainly in the small two hectare block areas.
I admit that commercial horticulture in general, especially tree crops, is something that will eventually just disappear in those areas, simply because of the commercial reality: people are not going to be able to make money out of that sort of business. There are also changes to the Planning Act which now says that commercial horticulture is a consent use and, in fact, that will make it harder for people. I know about these things from personal use of chemicals, because I was a licensed herbicide or weed sprayer until I got this job here. If you go back a few years, you will find me on the second page of the Litchfield Times because I forgot to tell my neighbour that I was spraying. I was actually spraying Mr John Maley’s property, which I had been spraying for years, so I knew all the neighbours bar one. It was the one I had not told that I got into trouble with. I understand I should have done the right thing and gone over and said I was spraying. I just presumed it would be okay and I soon got a complaint.
It is something that needs to be looked at. As the member for Daly said about having advisory committees, maybe there needs to be one set up. There was nearly a code of conduct for spraying put together a number of years ago, when the environment committee and the Northern Territory Horticultural Association and other interested people held meetings at Bees Creek Primary School. I must admit I was under the impression that a code of conduct had been put together, but I was informed at the briefing that it did not quite get to the stage of being put down on paper. I certainly think it would help, not only people in the community but also the Northern Territory Horticultural Association, if they needed to handed out something to people. Even if it was not regulated, it would at least be something that could be given to people - sometimes people who do not understand English and are not sure what the problem is, but their neighbour has been jumping up and down and they cannot understand what they are talking about. That is something we could advance from this legislation and make a positive approach to helping harmony in the community.
I do not think the issue of spraying is quite as bad as it used to be, because there were a lot more mango plantations that were being sprayed regularly about 10 years ago. However, there are still some issues, and sometimes those issues revolve around Asian vegetables. You might say as mangoes have gone out, Asian vegetables have increased in their acreage. Just a couple of other issues, and I will probably do a little like the member for Daly and go back and forward. I also looked at Division 2 about having somebody read the labels, and I thought that is going to be difficult to police. However, it has to be in there and so be it. It just seems to be a piece of legislation that really cannot be enforced.
Clause 17 says:
Registered chemical products to be kept in suitable containers labelled with NRA approved labels.
What I would like to ask is: who is making sure that the chemical company is providing a container that is suitable for the product? Many people would have been spraying many years ago with 245T, which was a common spray used - it is certainly not on the market any more – and it would rust out the container. Starane is still on the market and is normally sold in a five litre tin which will rust out. I believe that the onus should be on the chemical company to make sure the container that it puts the chemical in will not rust and, of course, will not explode, which is another issue when some of the chemicals react with the container,
Also, the containers should be designed in a way which will minimise any harm that could be caused by the pouring of the chemical and, especially, with splashing. As you know, you cannot let air into a 20 litre drum of Roundup; it will not pour out, it will just splash out. In clause 17(4)(e) it says:
enables all or any part of the product to be removed or discharged in such a way with, the exercise
of no more than reasonable care, the product cannot –
(i) harm any person; or
(ii) have an unintended effect that is harmful to the environment.
If we are going to have that in the legislation I certainly think it would be good to have an audit of the type of containers. We work in a hot climate; people have gloves on. If you pick up a 20 litre container of Roundup when it is full and try to pour that into a jug, (1) you do not want it to splash, and (2) you do not want to drop it. They do not have grips on the bottom; they have a handle at the top. There could be a lot more work done on making the shape of containers far easier for people to handle.
Mr Dunham: A tap. A bung and a tap.
Mr WOOD: Yes, but they do not come that way. That may be possible too. Of course, when you are pouring some chemicals you are actually mixing quite an amount of chemical, you are not putting a small amount. If you have an 800 litre spray tank you may be required to put about, at a guess, probably about eight litres of Roundup into that. You do not want to be sitting there all day waiting for a tap; you want to pour it in quickly, get it into the tank, mix it and get on with your work. I believe that is an area that the government could look at. I realise on our own the Northern Territory probably could not change the world, but you would go to meetings of ministers on these issues and it may be worth looking at.
The other area, which is probably a bit of a favourite of mine, is the disposal of the containers. It talks about that in this section. It talks about the reuse of containers and that is an area that should be looked at Australia-wide. The containers that Roundup is kept in are extremely strong containers; they have a lid that can be put back on. If they could be recycled, sent back to the manufacturer, relabelled and reused for the same product, that would be a good idea. They are certainly a nuisance for landfill. I know we have drum muster, and I know that Mr Peter Murphy is the Drum Muster Coordinator in the Territory. He saw me at Freds Pass Show and he said he thinks he has things working. I will believe it when I see it, because drum muster in outback areas of Australia is a very difficult thing to administer, especially when you have to have people on-site to inspect drums as they come into a landfill site. In very sparsely populated areas where you cannot have someone always at a tip, that makes that very difficult. If containers could be reused - and I have said many times before that there could have been a deposit placed on those containers - most containers could have come back to a particular site, the deposit would have been paid, and the chemical container would have been sent back the manufacturer whose responsibility then would be for either the reuse or the recycling of that container.
At present, a drum muster scheme is a scheme that relies on everybody but the industry. The grower pays for the levy. The councils, who are supposed to get some money from that levy, are the ones that are supposed to sort out how to store and transport the containers. Recycling chemical containers is too much based on the user and not the producer of the chemicals.
Going back to the use of S7 poisons - and I have raised this issue before in parliament - the use of some S7 poisons by air-blast machines in built-up areas like the RL1 areas of Howard Springs and Humpty Doo should be banned. You are dealing with extremely poisonous chemicals sprayed into the air, and there is no way you can contain that chemical from drifting into someone’s place. We are talking about sprays like Lannate, Endosulphan and Supercide. They are chemicals that are normally used for mangoes where, perhaps, some insect pest has got out of hand or somebody has not kept to a program to maintain control over insect pests or fungi or whatever. They are generally one-stop chemicals and that is probably the reason they are S7s.
I am not advocating that their use is banned, but, minister, you have the power in certain areas to restrict them. There is a health risk, especially where blocks of mangoes or other trees are surrounded by residential land and this chemical is being used. Maybe there needs to be a requirement that, if people are spraying, they are required to tell people what they are using. That has been an issue that causes a lot of people to become very upset. They go down and say: ‘Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us what you are spraying?’, and the person spraying will not say. It is only fair if the neighbour at least be told what is spraying. For instance, they might be told they are spraying Carboral and they might say: ‘That is not so bad. It is a bit smelly, but we will stay at home’. Whereas, if they were told it was Supercide, I would certainly be packing up the kids, the dogs and the cats and going somewhere else while they are spraying. That is an issue that needs looking at.
On the issue of the powers of the chemical advisors, I must admit that I believe they are over the top. There may be cases where you need this power for dangerous chemicals. We are not talking about dangerous chemicals, but you might get to the point where it will be nitrate of ammonia. I would hate to see someone barge in because they wanted to check out whether your five litres of Rogor was correctly labelled, and they were able to use all the powers under clause 95. It seems an awful lot of power for an act that deals with veterinary and agricultural chemicals, and maybe swimming pool chemicals.
As the member for Daly said, those powers include: inspect or examine a premises or a substance or thing found in or on the premises, break open and search fixtures and fittings, take measurements or conduct tests related to, take photographs, film and audio, take and remove from the premises samples for analysis, if the premises are a vehicle subject to clause 96(c), seize the vehicle, etcetera. There is nothing there to prescribe that the advisor needs a warrant. That is an awfully powerful piece of legislation. Normally, I do not think even the police would have that sort of power - I do not know.
Mr Baldwin: The fertiliser squad.
Mr WOOD: Called the ‘pooh police’, I presume.
I am interested to know why the legislation has to be that strong. Why don’t they have to convince someone of the need for a warrant and say: ‘We need a warrant because we believe this person is selling contaminated fertiliser’ or whatever?
There is a lot of immunity for the person who barges in. Under clause 98 it says:
For the administration or enforcement of this Act in relation to an animal or food-producing species,
in addition to the other powers under this Act, a chemical advisor has the powers of an inspector of
stock set out in section 42 of the Stock Diseases Act.
I probably just read the wrong section of the act, but I know there are certainly - I beg your pardon, it should have been clause 108. I cannot read my own writing. This is regards to legal immunity:
(1) The section applies to a person who has been –
(a) a Chemicals Coordinator;
(b) a chemical advisor;
(c) a person assisting a chemical advisor …; or
(d) a member of an Advisory Committee.
(2) The person is not civilly or criminally liable for an act done or admitted to be done by the person in
good faith in the exercise or purported exercise of a power, or the performance or purported performance
of a function, under this Act …
Etcetera. However, when you see what they can do, they are certainly immune from a lot of things. You might not have your house left by the time they have been through it.
Mr Baldwin: No, they can only go there by consent.
Mr WOOD: Oh? Yes, but all they need is a card to say they are coming, and they are in. Those powers are perhaps a little over the top. As the member for Daly did, I am moving round a bit here. The last thing I had asked at the briefing, and I am not sure whether, from memory, we got a definitive answer, concerned the section on contaminated fertilisers, which is right down the back somewhere. There is a section which talks about cadmium, mercury, and some other substances. I cannot find it at the moment, but it relates to fertilisers having those substances within them. What I was asking: does compost come under the definition of fertiliser? Because, when you look at the definition of fertiliser, which is under clause 7:
(1) A fertiliser is a substance that is manufactured, represented, supplied to or used as a means of directly or indirectly –
(a) fertilising the soil;
(b) supplying nutrients to plants; or
(c) conditioning the soil by altering the chemical, physical or biological composition of the soil.
If fertilisers have to be checked for those particular substances - which I wish I could find. I do not know whether the minister can help me there and tell me what that section is on those substances not allowed in the fertiliser. No, I cannot find it. Anyway, all I was trying to find out was: when you are dealing with commercial composts, are they defined as fertilisers under this definition of fertilisers under clause 7, because you do not know where all the materials used in that compost are going to come from? For instance, at Shoal Bay, they now have a composting process. Who is to say that some of the materials - for instance, it could be timber - have come from either a site where there has been contamination, or have been contaminated simply for the sake of say, termite prevention, and they are chopped up and mulched into compost. Is there a requirement, for instance, to have some testing of those piles of compost to make sure that they are not carrying some of those substances that are not permitted in fertilisers? That is simply trying to find out whether they would be required to be regulated.
Otherwise, minister, I believe the bill is good. We certainly need to keep an eye on the spraying issue. It is an issue that does not go away. I spoke to the Northern Territory Horticultural Association; they had a look at this about 12 months ago. I believe they did not have any major problems with it. I also spoke to the Northern Territory Nursery Association and they did not have any great problems with it as well. If they did, I presume that those issues were taken note of before you drew up this legislation. I have not had any feedback from them about this existing legislation. The industry is certainly supporting it, and I support it as well.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I thank members for their support. Yes, it is a very important bill. It deals not only with fertiliser, but also with the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. The reality in the world we live today, is the next time a country will try to stop imports from another country. Instead of imposing tariffs or subsidies, it will simply try to apply very strict regulations with regard to pesticide or fertiliser content, or the presence of some of the trace metals in fruit, vegetables and animals.
The use of veterinary chemicals by non-veterinarians is described very well in clauses 25 and 26. It is still allowed if it is done according to instructions, not only of the label, but with a vet. For the anabolic steroids, clause 42 describes how they can be used, and where and how, and the same with chemicals in clause 48.
I can understand what you said, member for Daly, about what is written on the labels, but the reality is that not everybody reads the label. I have my own experience where people actually used pesticide without reading the label because they just bought Dursban. They thought it was the same as the product they bought five or six years ago. In five or six years, the application rate or even the strength of a chemical can change, so it would not be a defence in a court case that they did not read the label. It is an obligation for everybody who uses any chemical, or agricultural or vet product, to read the label and strictly comply with the instructions on the label.
With regard to the spray, clause 56 describes about spray and who can do it. The reality is your neighbour can have the equipment and may be able to spray his own or your own produce. Are you going to risk asking your neighbour to come and do your own farm? What about your duty of care? What is his liability? What is your liability? If, by any chance, something ...
Mr Baldwin: It happens.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well yes, but if something goes wrong and your produce is contaminated and you cannot sell it, first of all you would be liable yourself for the contaminated product and, secondly, you would be able to trace it all the way back to the neighbour who did it. That comes back to duty of care. I would be reluctant to spray somebody else’s property if I am not a licensed spray operator, and I would not do it because, in the end, I might face a huge legal bill and be liable to pay for all the produce you cannot sell. It is very difficult. I have seen many times people doing favours and stuffing it up, big time.
Mr Baldwin: But they are not regarded as professional, that was my question.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well, they are not regarded as professional, no. It has to be by a professional. No.
Mr Baldwin: So, therefore, they do not have to be licensed.
Mr VATSKALIS: He cannot do it. He has to be licensed and the legislation clearly describes who can do it, what he can do, and how he can be licensed. That applies …
Mr Baldwin: But if they are not professional, they do not have to licensed?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr VATSKALIS: On their own premises or their own property.
Mr Baldwin: It does not say that.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We are not in committee stage.
Mr VATSKALIS: The same thing applies with the aerial equipment. The Chemicals Coordinator is not qualified to assess an aircraft …
Mr Baldwin: Like I said, it is a bit onerous.
Mr VATSKALIS: … he is only qualified to assess the chemical equipment. Therefore, he can stop the pilot flying and spraying. If the airplane is defective, he cannot tell him not to fly but, if he believes the airplane is defective, he can notify the appropriate authorities, and the appropriate authority can come and check the aircraft. The chemical coordinator can only check the equipment that the pilot will use to spray to administer the spray.
No, it is not onerous, actually. As a matter of fact, it is very similar to what the Health Act says. It is exactly the same in the Health Act, under which I operated. I had the power to enter any premises at any reasonable time without a warrant. I had the power to seize, photograph, investigate, interview, destroy, or render as harmless. That might seem very strong but, at the same time, you have to remember we are dealing here with situations which have the ability to poison or contaminate a significant number of people if somebody does not do their job properly. Sometimes, we actually had to have the power to enter premises because we investigated an outbreak of a contamination incident, or people had been for poisoned. Luckily, here in Australia, we do not have these kinds of incidents but, very often in third world countries, we hear of people at a wedding being killed because, instead of sugar, they used something that looked like sugar, but was actually a pesticide.
In Australia, we had incidents where we had to go back and trace, in the manufacturing plant, what material, equipment and what they used, to try and find out what caused the poisoning, or the incident. Therefore, it might seem onerous, but the reality is a professional who enters premises, will enter a premise for a specific purpose. He is not going to commit an act or an offence that contravenes the act and for which he will be liable. The indemnity only applies to things that he does in the course of his duty, and also administering the legislation. If somebody goes into a house to apply this legislation and nicks a DVD, there is no indemnity for that; he is liable for the offence of which he is guilty.
The other thing that was brought up by the member for Nelson - and I agree with him - is that we have an amending piece of legislation that we see other legislation overlapping. For example, you mentioned spraying under Work Health. Unfortunately, work health legislation applies only to workplace incidents, or people who are working on something. If you are a spray operator and you do not provide protective equipment to your staff and your staff is contaminated, the Work Health Act will apply in this case, not this legislation. If you are a spray operator and you do not spray properly according to the legislation, or use a non-approved chemical, then this new act will apply in that instance. If you are a spray operator and you contaminate by spray drift, and you did not take the necessary precautions and you contaminated property or material, or poisoned people, then the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act will apply. In some cases, the Health Act may apply. You have three or four pieces of legislation that seems to apply to a particular case. However, when you sit down and analyse the case, then you find out that in certain areas, locations, and incidents, a different piece of legislation applies.
I agree with the member for Nelson regarding containers; it is not the Territory’s issue, it is a national issue. Containers have to comply with national standards and the same for labels. Most of the containers now comply with national standards. The design is not perfect. The people who design the containers are not farmers. People who design them have to build them quickly, easily, cheaply and work out how they can be stacked together so that they do not fall. They do not think about the farmer who needs to get hold of the handle to empty it. They do not think about how they can minimise splashing. At the same time, to their credit, when using chemicals they have to wear protective equipment and clothing, but that does not mean you can do anything you like with the containers. I will raise the issue of the design of the containers in a national forum. If we can specify a design that will minimise splashing or make it easier to handle and be suitable for use in the farm environment, rather than a container that is hard to transport or to fill a machine.
The drum muster is a very good initiative. I worked with people in the Western Australian outback near Port Hedland, and we had this service for some farmers. We had it for some cattlemen and, with the help of the town council there, we announced that people should bring their drums to the town. Some people had to drive 100 km but they still did it because it was the only way to dispose of their drums. If the drums were not properly rinsed, cleaned and disposed of, they could contaminate the soil. In turn, that contaminated the animals, and when they go for slaughter to be exported, somebody would trace it and send the whole consignment back. It needs to be thought out better. Peter Murphy is working on that, and I offer my assistance to Peter at any time through my department and my personal experience. I am very happy he is persisting with this one because it is a very important issue.
There is no such thing as a non-dangerous pesticide or chemical. All of them need to be used with care. You can contaminate yourself and other people.
As for notification, yes, you are required to notify your neighbours but, at the same time, I am aware that you cannot say you are going spray in eight hours, because in eight hours time the weather conditions may not be suitable for you to spray. You have to spray when the weather conditions are good. At the same time, with knowledge improving, we have found out that droplets of a very small size are administered by machinery. Unfortunately, these droplets can travel long distances because of the wind. When I used fogging machine with a high volume of very fine droplets - a treatment we had for mosquitoes - the first time we used that without notification we had everybody up in arms; not because it was a dangerous chemical, but because it smelled awful.
Yes, I understand about amenities, but how do you actually define amenities? The amenity of the neighbour is the smell. The amenity of family is that the bloody thing kills everything, and that is what they want. It is very difficult, and here we have a problem because of the old planning issues when you have a rural residential area next to a farmer. Of course, there is going to be conflict because the interface is not there. A typical example is the Berry Springs School. I am very well aware of what is happening there. To his credit, the operators are trying to resolve the issues. They have planted trees as a barrier and are trying to fog or spray when the school is not operating - and you still get some complaints. I understand that.
This is a very good bill and I am very impressed. It is very thorough and important. It controls the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals and controls fertiliser. Yes, the fertiliser you buy from Shoal Bay is, under this definition, a fertiliser. That is where the duty of care of the council lies: they must have someone supervise what goes into this fertiliser. If it is only palm fronds and trees; that is fine. What happens if somebody goes and dumps some of the green logs that have been treated with arsenic? That will contaminate the whole of the fertiliser which, in turn, will contaminate the soil and, in turn, will contaminate some of the fruit and vegetables that will grow.
One of the things I have an issue with is the labels. All of the labels are written in English, in a country where most of the people working in the horticultural industry producing vegetables and fruits come mainly from non-English speaking countries. As an example, here in Darwin, we have Thai, Vietnamese, Greeks and Chinese. Most of them are not well educated in their own language, never mind English. These people will be struggling to understand the highly technical content of the labels. This is what I have asked the department to have extension officers who speaks the language of all these people, or to produce standard instructions in different languages on how to use chemicals, pesticides, and how to do a dilution. How many of these ethnic people know how to properly dilute a chemical? How many of them know what a millilitre is, or a litre or anything else? Somebody can show them and they can keep doing what they have done before, but they can make mistakes if the new chemical they buy is a higher strength than the one they used before.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend this bill to the Assembly.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries)(by leave): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
FISHERIES AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 216)
Continued from 1 April 2004.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Deputy Speaker, this will not take long. We have no issues with this bill. It is a bill that has been brought about through a review under National Competition Policy.
The minister, in his second reading speech, said it has to be completed and implemented immediately to comply with the conditions of the principles of National Competition Policy. It deals with a range of things that are not of great importance, although I do not want to diminish the content of the bill.
It deals with fairness and equity to aquatic resources by all user and stakeholder groups, which is an important issue and this bill picks up on that, and is the objects clause within the amendment bill. There are a number of other things that even deal with such things as minimum freezer sizes for holding fish by resellers.
The real issue is what has been promised by the minister in the sittings before last; that is, the review of fisheries legislation, something he said at the time would be conducted over the next 18 months. That sounds like a long period to me, particularly in light of the fact that it is about all this government has left of its duty to Territorians. There are a lot of issues on the agenda for fisheries, whether it is commercial or recreational fishing. I would like to see that process sped up so that we can get our teeth into a total review of the Fisheries Act as soon as possible. The outcome of that review is what I am talking about, obviously. That will come back once it has been out there in the public, one would assume, for some hefty debate within this Chamber.
On that review, I could not let it go past that one of the things that is under review currently is the closure of the rivers, particularly the Adelaide River. We are still waiting for an announcement. The commercial people are waiting for an announcement; the recreational people are waiting for an announcement. Your own aquatic resource users group have dealt with all the principles of the closure of two commercial barramundi fishermen from Adelaide River. They have no issue. The only issue everybody has, minister, is with you, because you are not articulating your position ,,,
Dr Burns interjecting.
Mr BALDWIN: And the minister before you. I grant you that you are the fourth fisheries minister, but this is a promise that you made nearly three years ago - one that can be implemented without any problem whatsoever. You have one commercial fisherman who is operating in that area and wants to be relocated - not a drama. He wants to shift his efforts elsewhere. You have five or six commercial barramundi licensees who have put their hand up for a buy-back - a fantastic opportunity, minister, to reduce the commercial effort of barramundi fishing in the Northern Territory, and one that is not mentioned in your budget whatsoever.
There is no money that I can find in your budget. Please, if it is in there, tell me, because I cannot find it. In fact, what I find is a slashed budget for fisheries. It is an opportunity that is missing from your budget that you have not taken up, and I assume that, at some time, getting closer to an election, it will be a great announcement. Well, people will see through that, minister. They have been calling on you - your own aquatic user group has been calling on you; AFANT have been calling on you; the barramundi commercial fisheries people who are licensees have put up their hands to say: ‘Okay, here it is’. So, now, make the announcement - put your money where your mouth is – on Adelaide River. There is no drama to close that. You have done all the work. Your aquatic user group have done all the work for you. You are the fourth minister, you can make a hero out of yourself. You could do it tomorrow. In fact, when you reply to the budget - and I guess that will be Friday - I expect to hear that announcement - two of them: closure of the Adelaide River and the removal of commercial effort from the barramundi fishery. What a fantastic announcement for Territorians. You, minister, would be a hero. But I bet you cannot bring yourself to do it.
Dr Burns: How much do you want to bet?
Mr BALDWIN: Oh, you want to take a bet? I love taking bets. Picking up on the interjection, Mr Deputy Speaker ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, we are not licensed bookmakers here.
Mr BALDWIN: Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not presume to be a licensed bookmaker but, if my colleague on the other side wants to have a bet, any day, you name the price and you name - I am talking Friday for the announcement. Let us see your money and I will take your bet, because the last time that he had a bet with me, he said: ‘Don’t ever let me bet with you again because you are a crook and a rogue’. Well, here he goes now - here he goes. You better put your money on the table too on Friday: about $4m, or whatever you have, to buy out the commercial effort and close the Adelaide River. I am waiting to hear from you, minister. Certainly recreational and commercial fishermen have been waiting patiently through three ministers previous to you - now, four ministers, now nearly three years since the promise - for some action. So get on with it!
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the members for their support. It is an important bill because it actually addresses a lot of the issues that were identified by the Fisheries Act under the National Competition Policy review. Quite rightly, it even removes some provisions like the medium freezer size, and the licence also makes the provisional licence system open and transparent.
As for the other issues you brought up, the Fisheries Act review process has already started. An officer starts work tomorrow on 19 May, and he will work closely with the industry and other parties to consult with the industry. It will take about six months for drafting. However, the 18-month period we are putting on the table is the maximum length it will take to do this review and produce the draft. If it is earlier, all the better, it is the best. That is what the stakeholders asked for and that is my response.
As for other issues, we are commencing a barramundi fisheries review. We have already started the process and we want to finalise it as soon as practicably possible. I do not know if you took a bet with my colleague, the member for Johnston, but as for the Adelaide River closure, we had to do some negotiation. It took some time to finalise the sensitive negotiations, but my recommendation is ‘stay tuned this week’.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries)(by leave): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will say a few words whilst you regain your seat, because I know that you will want to speak on this particular piece of legislation. At the outset, I congratulate you for bringing forward this initiative which the government has, like most things they do, copied and brought forward as their own legislation. It is obviously an issue that has arisen in other states of Australia. Queensland has already brought forward legislation to address this particular issue of the unsafe and irresponsible use of motor vehicles, particularly in the area of street racing. Everyone realises the damage to public safety that can occur; it is becoming an increasing problem. The CLP agrees that we need to address this in some shape or form, and the legislation that the government has brought forward in response to the initiative by the member for Nelson certainly seems to be appropriate in addressing the issues that he raised, and in providing for some method of trying to control this particular activity.
I note that, for the first conviction, an infringement notice is issued and that takes the place of a court order. Then there is various ramping up in the scale of punitive efforts by the courts for subsequent offences, leading to a vehicle, in fact, being impounded. All the costs of the administration of the impounding of that vehicle, including its subsequent disposal and sale, if necessary, are borne by the offender. In this respect, it does seem overly punitive in the end result. However, I am comforted by the information I have received from the member for Nelson that, where this legislation has occurred in other states of Australia, on the data that has been provided, normally a particular individual’s breach of the law tends to extend only to the first or second offences and then, for whatever reason, they do not come before the courts - or if any do, there is very little data on it - for subsequent convictions. Obviously, the ultimate sanction that a vehicle will be impounded and subsequently sold, and the cost borne by the offender, needs to be seen in the context that this cost could be borne by parents who, in many respects, would be totally uninvolved in any way with the particular offence. Therefore, in that regard, whilst the provision is there in the legislation, I hope that that aspect of the legislation is only used for recalcitrant offenders in the context of them being punished for what are entirely their own actions.
One of the problems with providing police with this new legislation in law is that, like many things, it is too easy to feel that, because the legislation has been enacted, the problem is for the police then to deal with. One of the things that the police themselves continually complain about is that society’s response to many societal problems is simply to enact a law and, therefore, it becomes a police problem to deal with. If the activity continues, all of a sudden the police themselves then get blamed as to why it is continuing.
In the case of hooning legislation, whilst I agree with the legislation and the fact that there should be some punitive result in law, we need to take all of these things into their proper context; that is, that the police only have the ability to deal with these sorts of activities in a very limited way, frankly, and that is when they become aware of the activity and when they are in a position to penalise someone for conducting themselves. However, it does not mean that they are going to stop hooning by young people per se. Certainly, this legislation should not be seen as attempting to do that.
One of the things that bothers me is that, if you look at many television shows nowadays, and even in other areas of activities, it is encouraged. One of the shows that I probably should not admit that I watch with my 15-year-old son - and he should not be watching it either according to his mother - is Pizza Live. It is a disgraceful show at times but I try to keep in touch with the things that amuse my son, and worry as a father at the same time. But Pizza Live last night had an excerpt where he was conducting burn-outs in his car as he was going from one place to another, to the roar and applause of the live audience who were in that particular live segment of the show. I say that in the context that, on the one hand you have with legislation police efforts trying to control this sort of thing and, on the other hand, we have a whole area of society – however you may wish to describe it - in effect encouraging it through television shows, and suggesting to young people that this sort of activity should be done by people who are ‘in’, who are ‘with it’ and, therefore, it is a good thing and if you do not involve yourself in this sort of activity, somehow you are not ‘with it’.
The reality is that we need - as I am sure the member for Nelson and others would agree - to emphasise the safety aspects of hooning and of a car travelling at irresponsible speeds in suburban streets at night; educate people to the fact that, on the data, most of the accidents that occur are through one individual hooning and one innocent family or individual backing out of their driveway and coming into contact with the car that is conducting that activity. The real issue here is a public safety education campaign to try to educate young people that it is irresponsible, dangerous, it can kill other innocent people including themselves, it is not ‘with it’, it is quite wrong and they should not do it. The legislation and the police effort, of course, is ancillary to that.
The legislation is straightforward. The details of the bill are also straightforward and were explained in second reading speech. I understand that the initiative of the member for Nelson has been taken up by the government, and the opposition supports legislation.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I speak on the Traffic Act Amendment Bill 2003 on behalf of Millner constituents, in particular seniors and parents who have quite often spoken to me about this important issue. I make the point that it will be useful to the Millner electorate, the wider Darwin area and the Northern Territory, in that this bill aims to amend the Traffic Act and associated regulations to deal with antisocial driving behaviour exhibited by some in our community - those we generally refer to as hoons. While relatively small in number, these drivers create a huge nuisance in our community and, in some cases, are a danger to themselves and others. The type of behaviour that we particularly want to put a stop to include burnouts, illegal street racing, and mindless creation of excessive noise and road damage.
Sectors of the community have been calling for action to be taken on these activities for some time, and it has taken the Labor government to actually do something about it. Similar to other jurisdictions that have legislated to stop these activities, the bill we are debating today contains some tough provisions to really put the brakes on these offences. Penalties include hefty fines and the impoundment of vehicles, with final penalty of forfeiture of vehicles for those who are proven repeat offenders. Police will be able to issue infringement notices for repeat offences, and cars will be progressively impounded for longer periods until, after four offences, the car can be confiscated for good. For these guys, their cars are very important assets, and the total forfeiture of these vehicles will provide a serious disincentive to their antisocial behaviour.
There will be provisions in the new framework to allow those whose cars have been used without permission - for example parents and employers - to apply to the courts for the return of these vehicles, as police will notify the registered owner of a vehicle that has been used for these types of activities. I imagine that parents will be pretty annoyed to discover that their cars have been used in this manner. It is dangerous, can damage or even destroy cars, and the drivers become identified as antisocial.
The amendments being debated today will result in the establishment of a new part of the Traffic Act for the enforcement of antisocial driving behaviour and vehicle use, which prescribes offences in the Traffic Act and regulations to address antisocial driving behaviour including organising, promoting, participating and attending street racing, driving in a reckless manner such as doing burnouts. and offences for damaging or causing ruts to form on the road or in public places such as parks and nature strips.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this has been an issue in our community for a number of years and has been talked about by many members of this House. I am pleased to say that the current minister in this Labor government has decided to act upon it and I commend the bill to this House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, with all due respect to the member for Millner - he is a great bloke, he barracks for Hawthorn - I disagree that the initiative for this act came from the Labor Party, because I introduced it into parliament in February 2003. We are now in May 2004, and it has taken a long time for the Labor Party to initiate their own legislation. However, I welcome the legislation and I am very pleased that the Labor Party has introduced it.
I would like to comment on what the member for Brennan said. I always listen to the member for Brennan’s contributions because there are some wise things in there. One is about kids. As a 54-year-old grandfather, it is easy to say that kids are making noise or speeding around the place. I certainly understand that kids like to drive cars fast. If they want to do that on their own block or out on a bit of Crown land somewhere away from a road, I do not really have a problem. The issue really is when it is done where it can cause danger to the public. It is not appropriate behaviour and we need to pass legislation that disallows it.
We also have to look at the positive side of things. The police have drag racing competitions at Hidden Valley where they encourage young people who like to drive fast cars to do exactly that in a safe environment.
Even though we are introducing legislation that says this is dangerous and we are making it illegal, on the other hand we need to have some programs which will allow kids to let a bit of steam off, for those kids who want to drive fast cars. After all, we are coming up to the V8 Supercars this weekend. Go and have a look at the number of kids who cheer on our racing drivers doing a big donut, with smoke pouring everywhere. It is a popular pastime, but it has to be in its right place.
I received a letter form the Darwin Junior Street Stocks Incorporated. They teach kids how to put cars together, but they also teach them team work and discipline because of the rules and regulations that are followed in motor sport. Therefore, they are encouraging them into motor sport, but in the right way. People of the Darwin Junior Street Stocks Incorporated should be congratulated. Also, if anyone has been to the Taminmin High School, they have a VET program there where they get old cars and do them up. At the V8 Supercars last year, even though they did not race them because the drivers were not licensed to race at that stage, they had built two racing cars, which were only little Datsuns - the usual sort of car that is used for hooning around. The kids have learnt a trade and, at the same time, have had a bit of fun, but all in a controlled manner where they are learning to enjoy their sport, but to do it in a responsible manner. That is really what this is about. Although we are bringing in this sort of legislation, we should do just as much on the other side to encourage young people to take up motor racing, but to do it in the right place.
I sadly remember the case - and I publicly commented on it - of two people who drag-raced past BP Palms a couple of years ago – one of them had their lights off. Sadly, the driver of one car was killed. A girl in the other car was killed and one girl is injured for the rest of her life, and there was some punishment meted out to the driver. That was a case of drag-racing down the main highway at night. It just shows you that what they thought was a bit of fun turned out to be tragic. It was probably lucky that there were not more people killed because one of the vehicles caught fire. While there is the fun side of having a fast car, there is also the dangerous side.
One of the matters that differs from my original bill that I introduced was that the government has added an infringement notice period on the first offence. You will get the old yellow ticket, and Mum and Dad will find out if you were using their car to do donuts or S’s down the main street, that you were doing something they did not know about. That is a good move because, even though legislation in other states does allow for that to be looked at by the magistrate, this probably takes it out of the court and gives a chance for the family, you might say, to work out the issues. Therefore, the person who is misusing Mum and Dad’s car at least, you would hope, gets a warning from Mum and Dad not to do it again. After that, of course, you can get a 48-hour impoundment, then up to a three month impoundment and, for a fourth offence, you can actually get your car seized. My legislation did not have in it that you could have your car seized permanently; this legislation does. My feeling is that you probably do not need to have that. I quote from a Queensland Parliament speech made by a Mr Johnson Gregory, National Party, on 28 October 2003 in relation to their legislation:
In a briefing that we had yesterday on the road hoon legislation, I spoke with the minister’s advisors.
They told me that, to date, 875 vehicles had been confiscated since the hooning legislation was put in
place.
Then he says:
I find it very hard to believe that seven of them are repeat offenders. I wonder what they have up top.
Obviously, once people have tasted the enforcement of this legislation, the majority do not come back for it again because, after all, you only have seven repeat offenders. I would doubt that there will be very many people who would go for a third offence because, in the case of Queensland, you would lose your car. In our case, you would lose it for up to three months. That is why perhaps you did not really need the forfeiture section of the law. However, it is there and we will see how it goes. One thing in the act which is good, is that it will be reviewed after five years, and this sort of legislation does need reviewing.
The other issue, minister, that you might be able to explain is that one of the reasons, I gather, for the hold-up in this legislation is that the police had some issues regarding impoundment of vehicles. When I introduced my legislation, I did speak to the Police Association about the legislation. They were happy to see this legislation proposed. The minister said there were some difficulties with impoundment. I would like to hear whether those issues have been overcome. What happens in the case of say, the police at Avon Downs or Kalkarindji, when they need to impound the vehicle? Do they have a place to impound that vehicle? What happens in rural areas where you may not have the same sort of facilities as we have in Darwin, where you might have a tow truck and you can pick up a vehicle and tow it in and put it away in a lock-up for a while? I believe that a vehicle does not have to be impounded in police premises, it can be impounded in a second-hand car dealer or a tow truck driver’s yard. It will be interesting to see what the problem was there, minister, and whether it has been fully sorted out.
I would like to say in summing up that I support the legislation; it is long overdue. I spent quite a bit of time in local government in the Litchfield Shire and, for as long as I was on the local government council, the issue of hooning was a perennial issue that was raised many times, especially with those people who had gravel roads. I know there are not many gravel roads in Darwin. As I said before, when the road was graded, people went ‘Ah!’, for a little time without corrugations. The word got out like there was a secret code that spread throughout the rural area that there was a nice, shiny graded road there that they could do S’s and donuts on. It would last for a half a day and that would be about the most you would have had your road graded for - after that it was chewed up. Certainly, people on some of our rural roads would appreciate a halt to that type of behaviour.
Finally, minister, I let you know that, when I find out the correct procedures I will withdraw my bill, which basically covers exactly the same thing. I thank the government and the members of the opposition for their support. It is an important bill. As I said, if we can balance this bill with trying to put in positive things for kids, that makes legislation a lot more holistic than just bringing in legislation that says: ‘No’. You need to also introduce programs that say: ‘Yes, in the right place, no in the wrong place’.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to see this piece of legislation here tonight, and will certainly be supporting it as it goes through. I would like to congratulate the member for Nelson for his initiative some time ago in bringing this idea into the House, and the government for doing the right things by Territorians and creating this legislation which we will pass here. As the member for Port Darwin, as you can imagine, I also share the concerns of the community with regards to hoons and what they do for law-abiding citizens. In the areas of Smith and Mitchell Streets, in particular, it causes major problems for my residents, particularly with sleep disruptions. I certainly hope that the police will be able to take action now to educate, in a such a subtle way, our hoons.
Minister, when you speak to us now in closing on this matter, I wonder if you could address a couple of areas. I would be interested to know whether or not this legislation will be used with the issue of rat racing, which is speeding hoons going through city streets on a circuit which they are familiar with, and they time it to compete against each other to try and be the winner and the fastest driver. Gothenburg Crescent in Stuart Park is a favourite street for the hoons. Will rat racing be the sort of thing that will be addressed by this legislation and, if it is, could you give us a scenario of how it will operate in practice with regard to the police? Are they actually going to be clocking speeds, or is there some other criteria which they use to decide whether or not somebody gets into trouble under this legislation?
A second point that you could address is the issue of noise emanating from cars, often like this, be it from exhaust pipes - and I have heard some shocking exhausts around the Mitchell Street precinct of late. They obviously had something done to them because they are quite modern little cars. They probably have done something to modify them so that their exhaust systems are incredibly loud. Also, could you comment on whether or not anything has been done to address the noise from the amplified music from these sorts of cars. That would be very welcome, of course.
I would again like to congratulate the member for Nelson and the government to bringing forward this legislation.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to continue this bill through parliament. It was originally introduced by my colleague, the member for Casuarina. It is something that has certainly caused a lot of interest. It is good to see general support for the bill through the parliament, both from the opposition benches and from the Independent member for Nelson who made it very plain that he moved the bill to begin with, and the issue has been taken up by government.
However, I just remind the member for Nelson that what precipitated his action was a bit of a dare from Fred McCue on ABC radio. That was in some of the papers that I received. You were talking about hooning behaviour and I think Fred might have even dared you: ‘Why don’t you take this bill to parliament?’ I suppose you have to give credit where credit is due. Credit to the member for Nelson, but I suppose Fred McCue might also take some kudos. I can see the member for Nelson thinking about this, and I will try and fish out the transcripts. It is all there, I have done a bit of a study on it, member for Nelson.
However, the bill is here. It has taken some time, and that is because the government has been very intent on trying to get this right because it is a balance. I believe your original bill had immediate forfeiture of a vehicle on the spot, as it does in Queensland. As a government, we were keen to have the sanction of the person having their vehicle taken away for 48 hours on the second offence but, at the same time, allowing people to have an opportunity through a court process if they so desired, to prove their innocence. That is an important cornerstone of what we have to do.
Implicit in the bill is an undertaking that we will review it in the next 12 months. Therefore, if there needs to be some changes there, we will certainly make them and we will take that issue on board.
I will run through the contributions made by the various members. The member for Brennan talked about ramping the offences up a scale: for the first offence, someone gets a traffic infringement notice; on the second offence, they will get another traffic infringement notice but the sanction will be that, basically, they will have their car impounded for 48 hours; on the third offence it is three months; and then on the fourth offence the car would be forfeited completely. However, as the members for Brennan and Nelson said, the Queensland experience has been that, after the second and possibly the third offence, people do not keep on going down that particular path. These cars are the pride and joy of the hooners or hoons and these hooning vehicles are very valued. Losing that vehicle is not only a disadvantage in not having a car, but it also takes their pride and joy away from them. That is the sanction.
The member for Brennan also talked about the possible forfeiture of the vehicle being overly punitive. That is the last resort and, once again, the Queensland experience has been that not many people have gone down that particular path. The member for Brennan - and I think also the member for Nelson - also talked about parents being an innocent party in some of these hooning activities. One of the aspects that I put my attention to in this bill was to put in, as an administrative process, a letter that would be sent out to not only the person who was behind the wheel of the vehicle, but also the owner of the vehicle saying something like: ‘On 27 May this vehicle was involved in this behaviour’. Basically, parents, if they are the owners of the vehicle, would receive a letter setting out what would happen with subsequent offences.
As both the members for Brennan and Nelson said, this is something that can be worked out within the family, so to speak. I did not want parents knocking on my door saying: ‘This is your legislation. I knew nothing about what young Johnny was doing and next thing I know, I am landed in court and having the family vehicle taken away for 48 hours. We live way out in the sticks somewhere. I need it to get to work at 6 am and there are no buses where I live’. It is not as if the owners of the car will not have some sort of warning about what is going on and, hopefully, straighten it out themselves.
The member for Brennan said that, sometimes, if legislation does not work out, basically there is a blame on police. The public does sometimes very unfairly blame police. If something is happening in the neighbourhood they question why the police are not doing something about it. That is true, but the public has to inform the police of what is going on. Most people recognise the fantastic, difficult and sometimes unpleasant work that police do. I know that the police are going to get right behind this legislation because it addresses a problem that police have raised with government. As I said, we will have a review of this legislation in 12 months. We promise that up-front. If there are elements of it that need to be adjusted, we are a government that listens, is flexible and will take on board any concerns and move with them.
The member for Millner flagged the problem in his electorate with hooning and hooning behaviour. We have all had people knocking on our door or ringing us up saying: ‘Someone down the road is doing wheelies at the intersection. They are screeching down and leaving wobble marks on the road and what are you going to do about it?’ This legislation gives us some teeth to address some of those behaviours. Police can investigate these complaints and can certainly go and knock on someone’s door and say: ‘We have had a complaint about this. We have had reports that you are doing x, y and z and we will be looking very carefully at it. Are you aware of the sanctions? If you are booked a second time, you will lose your car’, and so on. It is a deterrent and, hopefully, is going to decrease the number of wheel marks at the street corners that we have all seen.
The member for Nelson talked about engaging young people and the whole range of projects within our community to engage young people in more productive behaviours and activities: getting them involved in fixing and building the cars and maybe even going down to Hidden Valley with the police - a few members here would have seen the police vehicle; it is pretty flash - and challenging the police for a lap or two. That is all positive behaviour. We are trying to involve people in an alternative; trying to engage them, if they are interested in racing vehicles and all the rest of it, in more productive behaviour.
The member for Nelson also mentioned the infringement notice. The administrative process that I talked about, hopefully, addresses that issue.
He also mentioned what he felt was the slow process of this bill through the House. I can assure the member for Nelson that, as a government and a Cabinet, we need to look very carefully at legislation that comes before us, take advice, hear views, and get a perspective on things. I have already mentioned one issue that I had about a letter to the owner of the vehicle letting them know that there was a problem. The police originally brought up operational concerns about flagging TINES - traffic infringement notices - and the compatibility with their computer system.
The issue of the fact that someone might be able to go through the court system and prolong the time when their car would be confiscated or impounded, was a message that I took on board. However, as I said before, as a government we felt there needed to be a balance between the confiscation of the vehicle for 48 hours in the first instance, then three months, and then, I guess, the people having the car taken off them permanently, with people’s rights to go to court and argue their innocence before a court. They were the balancing concerns, and it was something that, as government, we thought about very carefully. The member for Nelson might think there were inordinate delays here but, as government, we have to test things, think about things, get advice and, in the end, balance up all those aspects.
The member for Nelson also asked what is going to happen in the rural or remote areas in relation to the legislation. The information that I have is that it is predominately an urban problem. There is probably this behaviour going on in other areas. However, the advice that I have received is that, if someone’s vehicle is to be confiscated, there will be a court order and the police will confiscate that vehicle, As was outlined earlier - it may have been by the member for Brennan - the costs of confiscating that vehicle and putting it somewhere safe would be met by the hoon - the hooning party, let us say. I hope that answers the member for Nelson’s questions.
I welcome the contribution by the member for Port Darwin. She asked a number of pertinent questions. The main one that she asked about was in regard to what she says is rat racing. It is something that I would have to confess I have never been involved in. I have heard of rat running, where people try and beat traffic lights by going back ways, but I have not heard of this rat racing. There are definitions within the act about what constitutes hooning behaviour, and I will just read that …
Mr Dunham: The Treasurer showed us today.
Dr BURNS: What is that?
Mr Dunham: The Treasurer showed us today. Hooning behaviour; dragging around and showing off.
Dr BURNS: All right. In the draft act it talks about speed trials and races. Clause 8(1)(a) talks about a person not organising or promoting an event on a public road or a public place unless it is authorised. It talks about a whole range of aspects that I do not think would be authorised, so that any person organising or participating in such things would be contravening this particular act. There are other things that constitute hooning behaviour, such as burnouts, damaging the surface of a road or a public place - this is where people pour oil and other things on the road to try and get speed to try and increase the burnout smoke that comes off the tyres. There are certain specified offences in here, including this racing aspect, which are illegal and will be penalised under this act.
Apart from that, if people are speeding, the police have a whole range of other sanctions that they can use elsewhere in the Traffic Act to book those people if they are speeding or driving dangerously. This hooning behaviour is specified, but that does not stop police from pinning them for other offences.
The member for Port Darwin asked about noise emanation. It is not part of this particular legislation. I flagged that I am prepared to keep looking at this issue. It is an issue that keeps arising. People complain about the boom boxes, in particular, within cars. It is a bit of a ‘mooning’ offence. When you have hear one of these things go past your house, all your glasses have rattled in the special cut glass cupboard and, by the time you go out there the vehicle has gone. I am prepared to look at what happens in other states and consider that. A number of people have complained to me on this particular issue.
In terms of exhaust, I believe that there is probably existing sanctions within the Traffic Act for noisy exhausts. However, if the member for Port Darwin wants me to, I will correspond formally with her and let her know about that.
That is about all I have to say in relation to what other members have contributed to this debate, except to say that I appreciate the support that has been given on all sides. I have one amendment and we will move into committee stage.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: The committee has before it the Traffic Amendment Bill No 3 (Serial 200), together with a schedule of amendment No 70 circulated by the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Dr Burns.
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
Dr BURNS: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 70.1. The reason for this amendment is that, within this particular bill, the same offence attracts different levels of penalties with repeated offences; that is, with the first offence a traffic infringement notice is issued, with the second offence there is another traffic infringement notice that is issued but the car can be impounded for 48 hours. Similarly, with the third offence, it is three months and, with the fourth offence it can be forfeited. This is the reason why section 53(5) is being inserted so it recognises that, with subsequent offences, there are different levels of penalties.
Amendment agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Bill reported with an amendment; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 16 October 2003.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Mr Deputy Speaker, this has been a most disappointing report. It is quite a thick report for those members who have had it tabled on their desk back in October. I would suspect that it would be a rare member of parliament who actually has it on their table now. It really goes to show how this whole business was being conducted. I can recall, when this was developed as a term of reference for the environment committee, saying that it is my suspicion the report will say it is inevitable that cane toads will advance on Darwin and other northern wetland areas. There might be some measures to ameliorate and educate the public, but the inevitability was there. Sadly, I also made some allusions that it could have been, basically, just a ‘make work’ scheme for the environment committee so they would go and do something that had a fairly predictable outcome, instead of looking at some of the major environmental issues in this place - and I would put weeds right up the top of that.
We have a massive environmental problem in this place with weeds. We have significant problems still with feral animals, of which one is bufo marinus, the cane toad. However, there are other pests in this place that are feral animals, and we have significant problems with saltwater intrusion into the Mary River area. Therefore, there are lots of issues. There are issues relating to the Alligator River’s province that has come up in this House. I would have thought that cane toads was media worthy, noisy, causes great angst amongst the population in Darwin and still does, and it was used pretty much to send us, as a committee, not so much on a fool’s errand, but to keep us busy thinking we were actually going to achieve something.
My comments now in continuation might seem a bit different in theme to those in October. In October, I still had some sense that the government would actually do something in accord with the recommendations we put. That is, obviously, a foolish hope because it would appear that the government is really not interested in our report. The things that we talked about that we thought were urgent, were talked about in advance of the report being table in this place. We took it to the chair, for instance, before estimates - so we were going back a year already - and said that matters relating to an exclusion barrier on the Cobourg Peninsula should be considered and put in the budget. It is to her great shame that the chair gave us a wink and a nod and said: ‘Yes, that has been taken care of’. We then turned up at estimates and quizzed the minister who said: ‘No, I am not putting any money in for that’. We had also put various things regarding the education of the public in there. There had been a few things. Freds Pass Show had a thing on cane toads but, really, we have not advanced.
If you look at the stuff that was put out under a previous government, and how good and adaptable that was, and also the scientific work that was done - and it was enormous – and how good that was, you would see that this government has paid lip service to this problem. There was a whispering campaign that we would drop the ball on cane toads, that if only we had done something early we could have stopped it. There were some defamatory observations made about Dr. Bill Freeland, a man whom this parliament should hold in great admiration for the work he did in this area. At the same time, this mob who thought we could pull it up along the whole length of the Queensland border, could not bring themselves to look at a couple of kilometres of exclusion fencing on a peninsula.
I despair to some extent. There are immense issues of environmental consequence out there that we are not looking at, that we should be. The inevitable conclusion on cane toads we could have written on the back of cigarette packs three years ago. Sending us into the bush on various consultative jaunts did not achieve a lot other than education of some of the members. Yes, we have cane toads and yes, they are a problem that we are going to have to live with, and no, we are not even going to have a go at fencing the Cobourg Peninsula. I would have thought the risk was worth taking. My colleague, the member for Nelson, and I talked and drew a little sketches of how you would design it. We knew full well that the word ‘marinus’ in bufo marinus’s name meant that he was tolerant to salt water. We get the minister patronisingly and gratuitously standing up and giving us a little lecture about how these things are called marinus because they can swim in salt water.
If he read my contribution to this debate back in October, or even been in the parliament when it occurred, he would have known they were among the things we discussed. We thought it was worth a shot and that the risk was worth taking. There are a number of other issues that we could look at - exclusion of that precinct - where we could probably keep out some of the noxious weeds and other things, and cane toads was just a means to get there. But, no. That is an opportunity lost. I suspect cane toads are prevalent right through the Top End now. They are notorious hitchhikers and they would be everywhere. We are very proud of our fishing exploits, with people travelling into the bush and going fishing, and they come back with swags and boats and other paraphernalia, and we know that that is pretty much how they got into the Roper area from Borroloola.
It is with some disappointment that I have to be so negative about this. It is quite a substantial report, and it is good for kids doing study. It is the sort of stuff you could put on your book shelf and give people out of curiosity or interest. It is a great report to flick through and find some of the eminent work that has been done by people like Dr Freeland.
In terms of its recommendations, it was a pretty extravagant and wasteful exercise because, at the end of it, our recommendations for educational material - that we adapt some of the material that was pretty good and in use, for instance, in places like Jabiru where we visited – and that we attempt to exclude them from certain areas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
This parliament owes an apology to Dr Bill Freeland because he did an immense amount of work and, as a jurisdiction, the Territory did an immense amount of work.
As the maps of distribution will show - for those who have actually opened it up and had a read - the cane toad will be in every state in Australia - no doubt! Maybe Tasmania might keep them out, but they will be in every state in Australia. We had expert advice that it has probably occurred now. They are into South Australia and Western Australia by now, I would have thought. Apart from that little gap called Bass Strait, they are now an Australian pest.
It is a bit sad and tragic that the Labor government attempted to exploit what they thought was a failure on the part of the previous government to their own political advance by saying: ‘Aha! Cane toads, a gift from the CLP’.
Sadly, lots and lots was done previously. The discussion about magic bullets and adaption of DNA and various natural devices to control the cane toad are all good and well, but you have to remember that this thing was brought in as a natural control and containment device in the first place. The last thing you want to do is go from problem A - bring in the cane toad to control little pests in the cane fields - to problem B - bring in some disease of some type that takes out native animals. I would be very cautious about grabbing solutions out of the air if I was this government. Even the translocation of native animals to islands off our Top End has immense problems. The report does show you that the sign-off from the Commonwealth was not available when that translocation occurred, so there are some problems taking quolls to an environment where they were not found previously. They are a very robust animal themselves and quite a cunning and ferocious eater. Some of the quick-fix, front-page solutions should be thought out carefully. If people had done that back in 1938 or whenever, we would not have the problem now. However, they did not, and we do.
So let us get down to it. Cane toads - we have put it behind, the government did not want to hear. In the last three days on various Notice Papers I have had, this has gone from No 9 to 5, which was to be tomorrow, to today at No 4. It has at least got onto the paper so we can at least talk about it. Let us get past this. The report is done; it will sit on the shelf for curious students. The recommendations will not be adopted by government, so let us get on with life and look at this committee putting something into place other than to now look at an EPA - which is an election commitment - and run us on a political agenda.
We should focus environmental - pragmatically environmental - and we should look at some of the big problems we are facing out there. There is a swag of work. It is good work, and I believe you will get bipartisan approval out of a lot of it. It would enhance the bona fides and credibility of this parliament if we did that sort of stuff. I do not apologise for my negativity in this resumption of debate because, as a committee, we have been used in a most unparliamentary way by this referral. For those who want to contribute to this debate - good, I hope the report has helped to educate you. However, let us look to the future, and at what the next report of our sessional committee might be, and hope that it comes up with recommendations that are so convincing to government that at least they adopt them.
Dr BURNS (Parks and Wildlife): Mr Deputy Speaker, the government has examined the report by the Sessional Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development which, as everyone knows, is about issues associated with the progressive entry into the Northern Territory of cane toads. I believe the report provides a comprehensive review of the likely effect the expanding presence of cane toads will have on the environment of the Northern Territory, and suggests ways of managing the impacts of the toads.
The government recognises that cane toads threaten the way Territorians currently enjoy the environment. The arrival of cane toads in the major population centres of Palmerston and Darwin will mean that most Territorians will share the nuisance experienced by the citizens of Borroloola for a decade, Katherine and further down the track within the last couple of years, and by Queenslanders for over 50 years. It also means that all of us in the Top End will have to regularly deal with a creature that looks unpleasant and is poisonous.
The report finds that, although there has been extensive research on cane toads, there is still no effective way of controlling their spread, and no way of stopping toad populations from influencing the environment. Nonetheless, I believe the measures that the government has adopted and funded provide ways of ameliorating or mitigating the effects of cane toads in some areas and circumstances. Also, as I will outline, this government is putting money towards research. I believe we have become a focus for renewed activity at a national level to address issues related to the cane toad. That is something that the member for Drysdale has chosen to ignore, or he is not listening. Maybe if he listens now, he might just find out a bit more of where things have progressed.
The report finds that, although there has been extensive research on cane toads, there is research in train, both in CSIRO and other places around Australia, looking at different ways of biological controls of the cane toads, including viral agents and other agents which will stop the process of metamorphosis, and that could have a profound effect on the cane toad. The report also highlights the need to collaborate with the Commonwealth and other states afflicted with this problem to develop biological controls. The government agrees with most of the report’s findings, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain how the government is implementing the committee’s findings and recommendations.
The Territory government is providing $100 000 per year for each of the next three years to fund biological control research in partnership with the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. That is $100 000 more than the member for Drysdale, when they were in government - it is $100 000 more for that. I did not hear him flagging any of the money that they had invested into research when they were in government and sat on their hands in relation to this particular problem. If the Commonwealth and other states combine resources, I believe we can achieve a very substantial biological control research program. It is my firm belief that any real chance of controlling the cane toad invasion must involve the support and cooperation of other jurisdictions. Cane toads were once seen as a Queensland problem. They have now become a national problem, potentially affecting all mainland jurisdictions. That scenario involves climate change, and we know that these toads are very resilient and very adaptive.
One of the report’s key recommendations was to have the cane toad reclassified from a pest to a menace or threatening process under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. I raised this matter at the recent National Resources Management Ministerial Council in Adelaide and successfully - I will repeat again - successfully proposed to state and federal ministers a national approach to dealing with the issue of cane toads. At that meeting, the council resolved that the national standing committee on vertebrate pests will review the current threat posed by cane toads, review the state of research in the development of tools to abate the threat, identify gaps in the processes and assess, very importantly, the costs and benefits of options for priority action at a national level.
Therefore, here is an effort by this government initiated originally by my predecessor, the member for Casuarina, and taken up by me with some zest, gusto and success, about getting Commonwealth recognition and approach to this particular problem. I believe that this will bear fruit. This is in stark contrast to the approach of the previous government. How many ministerial conferences did they attend on this issue? The member for Drysdale talked about, once again in his conspiracy theory fashion, some whispering campaign against Mr Bill Freeland. There has been no whispering campaign against Mr Freeland. No one has ever accused Mr Freeland of anything. What we are accusing the previous government of is not acting in a cogent way to try and get a national approach on this problem long before the cane toads ever came into the Northern Territory. They can wave their hands and try and divert some sort of attention on to Mr Freeland. It is all to do with the previous government and their lack of action.
A member interjecting.
Dr BURNS: It is really laughable because, in an interview on Friday, 22 November 2002, the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition - this must have been part of his deputy leadership bid. I quote from the interview on ABC radio in Alice Springs, Friday, 22 November 2002. It is titled ‘Cane Toads Hop in with Labor’:
Cane Toads Hop in with Labor …
This is the brilliance of the member for Greatorex trying to assert that, with the change of government, suddenly cane toads started hopping into the Northern Territory. How ridiculous - how absolutely preposterous. I will quote from the genius of the member for Greatorex. He also cited the spread of cane toads into the Territory but refused to acknowledge that the cane toads were a problem while the CLP government was in power. I quote:
We did not have them because it was not a Territory problem at this stage, and it was never considered that
they would come this far this quickly. The incursions have only occurred in the last 12 to 18 months, and I
believe that a parliamentary committee could have at least looked at it in greater detail; and being a
bipartisan committee, would have come in with some recommendations.
Then the reporter mentioned at the end of this particular tirade by the member for Greatorex that she was dodging cane toads in the camp site in Borroloola at least five or six years previous to 2002.
So much for the member for Greatorex and his leadership bid - lovely photo of him - but just far from the truth, trying to assert that cane toads had come in with the Labor government. It is the Labor government that gave the terms of reference to the committee. It is the Labor government that has put substantial funding - at least $180 000 over the next three years - to address this issue. None of those resources were ever applied by the previous government. They were unable to get a national approach or consensus about approaching the cane toad problem.
It is a victory for this government, and for my colleague, the member for Casuarina, who first started moving on this about a year ago. I was happy to work on the very good work of the member for Casuarina and I commend him for it.
I believe that the positive response of the council members - I am talking at the federal, state and territory level - showed that there was now a greater understanding at a national level at the threat posed by cane toads which had previously been seen as primarily a Queensland problem. I was pleased with the unanimous support - it was unanimous support for this proposal - and particularly that of Western Australia which will probably be the next state to face an invasion of the cane toad. They are very pleased with the Territory raising this issue at a national level and they commended us for it. The federal environment minister, Dr Kemp, was also highly positive about the proposal and congratulated the Territory on our initiative.
Unlike previous CLP governments who sat on this matter for many years, the Martin Labor government has now taken a lead nationally on this issue and shown that we are committed to dealing seriously with the issue of cane toads, and are prepared to raise the matter with our state and federal counterparts. I will continue to do so.
The government is also committing $80 000 to support the development and testing of prototype traps that could reduce environmental pressure caused by cane toads. The traps, which have not been scientifically tested in the past, may provide a positive solution for individuals wishing to keep their own backyards free of these troublesome pests. There are a number of these traps out there, and there are a number in development, but they have never been properly evaluated. I believe this money is an investment, and a lot of Territorians will grab hold of these traps and try to take measures to keep their backyards free of cane toads.
In addition, I have a wonderful project undertaken by some classes at Moil Primary School about keeping environments within the precinct of the Moil Primary School and the Moil Preschool free of cane toads. I commend those students and their teacher on this particular project. People are getting out and doing things and we will be supporting that.
The government has also approved the Northern Territory hosting a national conference on cane toads to facilitate the cooperation, and attract funding that I have already mentioned, between government agencies and research institutions in tackling this national pest.
The Parks and Wildlife Service has developed a comprehensive Action Plan to deal with the threat of cane toads. We have already mentioned what the plan covers: the national coordination, the monitoring of the spread, the research into the impacts on biodiversity, investigational support for the development of short- and long-term control methods, conservation actions for species most at threat from the toad, and education to assist people to live with the presence of the toad.
I was honoured to launch one of these education programs at the museum probably a month or two ago. It is very comprehensive; it helps people to identify non-toads, or should we say frogs. Most people find frogs very beautiful animals. They are very essential to our environment and, to some degree, a barometer of our environment. We are moving on the education issues and we are tackling them head-on. There has also been a range of material that has been printed that I have given out in my electorate and at the Rapid Creek Markets. There is a lot of interest in education; what people can do themselves in relation to this pest.
We are also looking at Aboriginal people to manage their important faunas and implement quarantine procedures on their islands. Most members would be aware that there has been some funding put towards the Tiwi Islands for their barge landing there to help stop the spread of cane toads on those beautiful islands. Basically, not all the islands are beyond the natural reach of the toads, but there are a substantial number that are. There are selected islands that will be kept cane toad-free through a funded quarantine program, and also the Island Ark program where threatened species are moved on to these offshore islands. It was my pleasure to go to the English Company Islands - it must have been about a year ago - and take part in the release of northern quolls on that island. The member for Karama was there; it was a fantastic day. I spent a lot of time with Terry Yumbulul, the traditional owner for those particular areas. In contrast to what the member for Drysdale has said, the Aboriginal people on those islands are right behind this project of the release of the quoll. They know that it is a very special project and they are very pleased to host the Island Ark project. We are all aware that the northern quoll is at some risk of extinction, so this government is taking action, through the Island Ark program, to preserve them. Until controls on the cane toad can be implemented, they will be safe and sound on these islands.
I have already mentioned some of the quarantine and surveillance issues in preventing their spread to these islands. There is some education of interpretive material in Aboriginal languages in that area. I have already mentioned the Tiwi Land Council’s effort to keep their barge landing free. They have received a $100 000 grant from the Natural Heritage Trust, and I am sure they will use that to great effect.
There are ongoing projects being conducted by Parks and Wildlife, Charles Darwin University, interstate academics, and Parks Australia North investigating the biological impacts of the toad. There is interstate and Territory research involved in finding out about the impacts of the toad and their spread.
Having said that, we also believe it will have relatively little impact on tourism in the Northern Territory. In Queensland, which has the toads, it has not really affected their tourism industry. However, all of us would not like to see cane toads competing with our natural flora and fauna, and I am sure our visitors also feel that way.
We have consulted with PowerWater about securing our drinking water supply and making sure that cane toads do not contaminate our water supply in those areas that may be susceptible.
I mentioned the Island Ark project.
The recommendation that the member for Drysdale said we should have implemented was the cane toad-proof fence across the neck of the Cobourg Peninsula. Cabinet and government looked at this and considered it very carefully, and respected the recommendation of the committee, and also spoke with the landowners in that area who were keen to see this fence across the Cobourg Peninsula. However, as the member for Drysdale foreshadowed, and through our own experience of what we have found out at Borroloola, these cane toads can swim around in salt water. When there is inundation and fences are knocked down, they can swim through fences on the mainland. When bushfires come and there may be posts that fall down and knock sections of the fence down, they are able to hop through. The other aspect is that to preclude the little toadlets from moving through the barrier, the consistency of the fence would have to be just a few millimetres thick. You could not do it with, say, chicken wire fencing; it would actually have to be a lot finer than that.
There were some logistic issues in relation to erecting a cane toad-proof fence. It was said we should give it a go, but it would involve several million dollars of both capital and recurrent expenditure. At the end of the day, priorities are always about trying to balance competing interests. This was a very serious recommendation made by the committee but we had to look at the use of government funds for public resources and, with the state of infrastructure that we were left by the previous government, we really need to be spending up on infrastructure, which we have been doing on roads and houses and infrastructure spend throughout the Territory, which the Treasurer announced today. The decision was that we would not go with the cane toad-proof fence.
A school-based education kit has been developed on cane toads. This kit will address the toad’s environmental impact risk and habitats and what the community can do to mitigate against their spread.
Another recommendation of the report was that community groups be encouraged to adopt a waterway. The government believed that such efforts may be able to provide some local and short-term control of cane toads in urban areas, but may have limited effect in isolated areas where the impact of the cane toads on biodiversity are likely to be the greatest.
In relation to the recommendation in the report regarding the need for cooperation and collaboration, the effect on our lifestyle and the potential threat to biodiversity is a high priority for this government. Therefore, the Parks and Wildlife Service will be conducting research into the effects of cane toads on biodiversity, and providing assistance with other projects.
As I said in my introduction, the arrival of cane toads in the major population centres of the Territory, including Katherine, Palmerston and Darwin, means the majority of Top Enders will experience a nuisance suffered by many rural residents over the last decade. Unfortunately, cane toads are a fact of life in Queensland, northern New South Wales and, in the foreseeable future, they may expend their range into Western Australia. The programs developed and funded by the government will give the Territory the best chance of minimising the risk of irreversible environmental damage as a community adjusting to the reality of living with this pest until an effective biological control is developed.
In conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker, I support that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, he nearly had me convinced. The minister, for a change, got animated. I thought for a minute he had had a charisma transplant. He was standing up and he was getting animated about ‘we are leading the nation’ he said. Very good dramatics. However, what he said at the end convinced me that what the CLP did was exactly the right thing. What you said at the end, minister, bears out what has been said all the way through the whole cane toad debate in the Northern Territory from whenever it started many years ago. All you have said you are doing, as a government, is how to live with the impact of cane toads. When it came to the crunch about how government could spend some money to actually stop the cane toads, what did we hear? We heard - I wrote some of the words down somewhere.
This was on the issue of the Cobourg fence: it involved several million dollars in capital expenditure and several million more in recurrent funding that would be needed; government has to balance the competing interests of Territory needs and the use of government funds; we have to consider very carefully. Well, that is where you bombed out, minister, because you had a chance, on the recommendation of the report that is before parliament today, to actually do something to try and stop the cane toads. What did you do? What did government do? What did Labor do? Bailed out - absolutely bailed out! A committee made up of a majority of Labor members, endorsed the recommendation to say: ‘Let us create an island, an inland island. Let us build a fence. We do not know whether it will work, but we think it is worth a go’.
The government considered it very carefully in Cabinet, you said: very carefully, competing interests, lots of money. And what did you do? You said ‘Nah, not worth the money, so let us not go there’. What happened previous to that? Well, I will tell you what happened. You talk about the $100 000 you are spending - huge amounts of money. If you were committed - what do we have in the budget? We have $200 000 in 2004-05, and $110 000 ongoing to counter the effects of the spread of cane toads in the Territory. Out of a budget of how big, minister? Well, leave me alone! $200 000, what a joke. If you were committed you would have millions in there. Do you know who you could give it to?
I tell you, if you have read the report, I asked the question of CSIRO on a teleconference - and the chairman will back this up. What would happen regarding your research if you had extra millions of dollars to find a biological solution? Would it shorten the time frame? ‘Yes it would …’ was the answer ‘… without doubt’. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, go and give them a couple of million dollars a year and you will have a biological solution, if it works, in a shorter time frame than currently.
Dr Burns: It is a national problem.
Mr BALDWIN: Oh yes, we can talk about national. I like the way you fob all this off. You follow the recommendations of the task force, because you know why? The task force was struggling to come up with anything definite. It was the education program, all about combating the impact and living with cane toads. That is what the report should be called: ‘How to live with cane toads and minimise the impact’. What are you going to do? You are going to throw a couple of bucks at trialling some traps. Good thing, but that is living with cane toads. You are going to talk about education: how you can fence off your property to minimise the impact and save the frogs within your own area.
If you were serious, minister, the cane toad exclusion fence on the Cobourg Peninsula would have been a major component of the budget that was delivered today. But what did we get? Waffle words!
You stand up in here and say: ‘CLP never spent any money. At least we can put $100 000 into bloody developing traps’. Well, leave me alone! We spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on researching this, which is borne out by the report which was conducted by an eminent scientist called Dr Bill Freeland. And the staff of Parks and Wildlife at hearings told us - Madam Chairman, you will remember - of the great work that was done - hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The conclusion that we came to at the end of the day was: it looks like we are going to have to live with cane toads until we can find a solution that is probably a biological solution. That is CSIRO.
Do you know where Dr Bill Freeland is now? He lives here in the Northern Territory, of course. He will never leave it, he loves it, let alone that you sacked him. You sacked him, you mob. Do you know what he is doing? He is doing the impact study on cane toads for the Western Australian government. How do you like that? You had better ring up your Labor colleagues over in Western Australia and say: ‘Whoa, hang on, we sacked this bloke. We do not think he has the right qualifications’ ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr BALDWIN: You sacked him. The Deputy Chief Minister of the Labor government sacked him because you had …
Mr Stirling: That is what you did. You black banned everybody you ever sacked, you grub!
Mr BALDWIN: You sacked him. You personally sacked him. You, Deputy Chief Minister, called him in and you sacked him.
Members interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Yes, we can have less of the yelling.
Ms LAWRIE: The member for Daly knows he should be addressing his remarks to the Chair. He is out of control.
Mr BALDWIN: Madam Speaker, they were addressed through you.
Madam SPEAKER: Well, do not shout at me please.
Mr BALDWIN: No, I won’t. I am only shouting to overcome the interjections from the rude member for Nhulunbuy.
For the minister to come in here and waffle on about the great things he has done and what little the CLP has done is just absolute nonsense.
Dr Burns: We got it on the national agenda.
Mr BALDWIN: ‘We got it on the national agenda’. Yes, okay. Good on you. What has been the outcome? What has been the outcome?
Ms Lawrie: National task force.
Mr BALDWIN: National task force? Okay. Tell me where the cane toads are. They are in Humpty Doo, that is where they are. They are in Humpty Doo. When you have an opportunity to put a fence up at Cobourg Peninsula, what do you do? You take consideration of all of the other impacts on the financial situation of the Labor government. What enormous rot! The one chance you had to prove yourself - the one chance. You come in here and say the CLP should have stopped the cane toads, should have built a big fence, should have dug a big trench. Okay. You had a chance to build a little fence, some millions of dollars in capital expenditure, some other monies in recurrent funding to maintain it. What did you do? You are a vacant space, that is what you are. You cannot make a decision when it comes to it. And why? Because you thought it would not be feasible. Well, hello! Sounds like history repeating itself to me. What are we getting in the budget? We are getting $200 000 to talk about having a look at some traps and all that sort of thing, and we get Island Ark which is a good thing – it is a good thing – because you have to do things to ameliorate the impact of living with cane toads.
We are stuck with them, the same way as New South Wales, Queensland and the top end of South Australia is now stuck with them, and the same way that Western Australia, by the end of this year more than likely - if not sooner - is also going to be stuck with them until a biological solution can be found. If you want to come in here prancing about how good you are, put a couple of millions dollars per annum on the table to the CSIRO, because the report and the evidence will show you that, if they can get more money into research, you will shorten up the time to find a solution for this problem. But no, no, no, not even a couple of million for a fence.
The result of a report could have been predicted at the start. There have been some recommendations about some national coordination, which is a good thing. I am not denying that. It is everybody’s problem at the end of the day. The Territory should not have to wear it. That has been said over and over, over the last couple of decades that I can remember, having lived here for four-and-a-half decades or more: the importance of a communication strategy so that Territorians understand the effects of cane toads and, more importantly, how to live with them because they are going to have to, and getting the designation of the cane toad changed in the national interest. Okay, that is good. However, at the end of the day, cane toads will be everywhere, except perhaps Alice Springs because they do not really like that cold weather. They certainly will be in Darwin in a very short period and they are already in the outer rural environs now.
It was a good experience to put on record all of the evidence that came before the committee. No one that I can recall - and I stand to be corrected - could actually come up with a solution that would work today. Of all the scientists and the frog experts - and we have had some great people who have studied frogs all their lives, overseas people, CSIRO, you name it, we had them - none of them had a solution today. It is no different from the situation we were in two decades ago. No one had a solution, but much research was done - all of the former work that had been done was recognised by the committee,. In fact, the Northern Territory jurisdiction is probably the most well educated in terms of the research that has been done. There is always a need for more and, certainly, there will be a lot more research in the future as we move towards finding some sort of solution to this introduced species.
We are no closer today than we were 20 years ago. I look forward to research bodies like CSIRO coming up with a solution which will take many years, not only to find, but then also to test so it does not cross-infect species. In the meantime, we will live with cane toads and have to ameliorate the impact in whatever way we can. $200 000 this year ain’t worth a jot, if that is all this government is going to put into it out of their interest in providing for big-noting themselves about their concern about cane toads and that it is all the CLP’s fault. What a load of rubbish, Madam Speaker.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to address a couple of issues in respect of the report.
First, I will mention that Parks and Wildlife at the Freds Pass Show did a great job. Their display on cane toads was excellent. If they left the large cane toad in the back of a ute and had its lights shine it up when you put the brakes on, what a cane toad looks like would certainly get around town quickly. It was quite a large statue, or papier mache version of the toad; it was quite catching. They had a good display of all the different life stages of the toad. There is a problem with recognising native frogs and the cane toads at the young stage. I must admit it is pretty hard when a cane toad is young to distinguish it from native frogs.
On that side of things, the government is doing a good job and needs to continue. It also, I hope, is warning people of the dangers of pets and cane toads. As a lot has been said about whether dogs and other pets will die or not, people need some factual material on that matter. We have heard that you can wash the dog’s mouth out but, if you live on a rural block and you are in town working, you might come home and find that the dog is dead. Factual information on those issues is required, especially for people who have dogs like Jack Russells that will sniff out and bite anything that moves. That is the sort of information that pet owners would like to see.
I was interested to see that the government has put some money into traps. The issue of traps, especially for home gardens, is something worth looking at. I hope those studies are ongoing, and they also look at traps that can be used on rural blocks as well, not just urban blocks. During our travels, we heard about different types of traps - anything from trenches, to holes with plastic linings full of water, to lights to attract the frogs, to attractants, and to pheromones as a possible way of attracting frogs into a trap. We need to investigate all that sort of science and put money into it. That is important. It may not help in the big picture, but it certainly may help control toads in the local area. We heard about one park where there was a ranger who was able to control those toads for all the time he was there. Of course, as soon as that person went, if you did not have someone that keen, things changed. That is all stuff the government should continue to look at and spend money on.
My concern is really about the fence. It is a crying shame that the government could not build this fence. When we went out to Kakadu, I remember people saying: ‘Let us build a fence’. They were not people asking for a million dollars. You know what their idea of a fence was? We get some second hand corrugated iron, the grader to run a V-line straight along the row where the fence would go, put the corrugated iron back in the trench, and then run the grader along and push the soil up. That is not a million dollar job. That is people living in the bush who know that these things would cost a lot of money and who come up with an idea which would cost bugger all. And we have not taken any notice of it.
What we have done is applied the old bureaucrat method: ‘Well, we need a fence there. It will be stainless steel. It will have to be 6 mm gauge and the posts will have to be galvanised to this size’, etcetera. ‘We will have to get a study, we will have to get an independent report, we will have to get this and this and this’ and, by that time, we have spent a million dollars.
However, here are people who live in the area, who came to our committee and said: ‘Why don’t you have a go at this? You could do it cheaply. We can try it’. That is what we should have done: tried it. It would not have cost a fortune, and the good thing about it is we could have had some of the traps along that fence line to see if they work. It would not just be a fence; they were talking about trenches, traps, a station next to the grid where you entered the park …
Mr Dunham: A vehicle wash-down bay.
Mr WOOD: Yes, and you could have employed someone doing that job. We should not forget that we are talking about one of our own national parks. We can argue about Kakadu. Kakadu is a huge park run by the Commonwealth. But here is our own national park. Surely we have enough proud in that park to say: ‘let us our darndest to protect our own national park’, a park that people prize. It is a park which has limited admissions to and there are good reasons for that. There is part of the park that people pay a lot of money to go to, at the Seven Spirits resort. It is a park that has a long heritage, not only Aboriginal but also European were involved in settlements in the Cobourg Peninsula. It is an extremely important national park from the Territory perspective. Isn’t it beholden on our government to do its darndest to try and protect one of our great assets? Surely it would not have cost that much, considering the budget today says that the Commonwealth gave us another $34m of GST revenue, which created a surplus. Well, surely a bit of that money would have been well worth spent on having a go.
I know that our bufos marinus is supposed to float in salt water. We do not know whether it swam to those islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria near Borroloola. What was stated at the meetings we had was that they went out on freshwater when there was a flood, so they got so far in water that they could survive in and they were able to get to those islands without much difficulty, because the floodwaters from the McArthur River went very close. I am not sure that is deadly accurate but, if you are saying they got out there because they swam through miles of salt water, well, that is not the impression I got from the people who live in that area. We are basing our thoughts or our objections to this fence working on what happened over there and, therefore, the same thing would happen on the Cobourg Peninsula. I do not think we have definite proof that would occur.
However, again, even if they could get around the fence this time, if we had a series of traps, we have rangers working in that national park, and that is what you have rangers for. This is not the only feral animal that occur in parks - there would be rabbits, foxes, dingos, whatever. You would have some people working to control feral pests. I believe that, if you had a program where some of the ranger’s job was to check traps and try to keep an eye out for any movements of cane toads, that would be part of the strategy of the fence.
Also, besides just looking at this from the Territory perspective, I would have thought this fence could have been used as a scientific trial for, perhaps, areas in Western Australia that may be looking at ways of protecting some similar geographical features, like the Cobourg Peninsula, if there are some. They would be able to learn from what we did. By putting up a fence, we could have used it as a trial for other places in Australia, or the Territory, as a scientific experiment to see whether we could keep cane toads out. Perhaps we could have asked for money from other states like Western Australia, or the Commonwealth, to help fund this fence, especially when we are saying that we are trying to protect a national park. Again, we could have tried the fence such as the one that was recommended to us by some of the locals at Jabiru. Basically, that was that they were looking at second-hand corrugated iron put into a trench. We know that the cane toads cannot jump over a certain height. There certainly could have been secondary barriers to that fence as well.
I am disappointed, because, as a bipartisan committee, we all agree on most things. It was one of our recommendations. There was not any dissenting report on this issue. It is interesting to note that people out bush must think the Berrimah Line exists because, when you go to a meeting, people who are ordinary folk say: ‘Will you give us a try? This is your last chance to protect it’. There was John Christopherson and another gentleman from Jabiru, who have both worked in that area for a long time, who said they thought it was a great idea, and we have rejected it. I feel really sorry for them because they came up with a practical idea. They did not have enough money to do it themselves and the government had an opportunity to do the right thing and give it a try. If it had failed well, fair enough. You can say: ‘Well, it is obviously not going to work; they do swim around the ends, and climb the fence. We cannot keep them out by vehicles, but we gave it a go’. You would have to give it a proper go and run it for one, two or three years on a trial basis. At least we could say we tried.
Our Cobourg Peninsula park is worth that effort. I believe we forget and have lost a bit of loyalty for our parks here. This park now, basically, will be riddled with cane toads. Is that really what we want to tell people? It would make it such a great tourist attraction if it was a park on the mainland that was free of cane toads. Wouldn’t that, in itself, be a great attraction for people? They might still be able to see sand goannas in numerous numbers. Therefore, I believe we should have spent that money, and it might have been money that we would get back in tourism simply because we have one of the few places in the Top End on the mainland that would be cane toad free.
On the other issue, it is good that the government is spending money. The Commonwealth is putting money into quarantining some of our islands. Certainly, that is going to be, from now on, an ongoing issue. We cannot say we will fund that for one or two years. That sort of program is going to require funding pretty well forever and a day until, hopefully, we get some biological control. I hope the government will continue that type of funding because it certainly is necessary.
However, keeping the islands quarantined is not an excuse for trying to keep parts of the mainland quarantined, because the flora and fauna on our islands is definitely not the same, necessarily. It might similar, but it is not the same as on the mainland. There are no kangaroos, for instance, on Bathurst or Melville Islands. From memory, I do not think you even see the large sand goanna. A large goanna on Bathurst Island, where people got excited for lunch, was about this long. A large sand goanna at Daly River was about this long. That is the difference; there are different flora and fauna on those islands. Just protecting those islands will not mean that you are necessarily protecting all the flora and fauna of the Northern Territory.
Madam Speaker, I would like to finish off by saying the government, in some areas, is doing a good job on the advertising, and on doing some experimental work. However, that is relatively easy; there is no big gamble there. You are not going to lose too many friends with a few ads on TV, some nice pamphlets, and people dressed up in uniforms at the show handing out pamphlets and giving out information.
However, when it came to the crunch, and we had to deal with an issue which is not about vote catching because the two or three people out there who wanted a fence are probably not going to be the end of the world to the government when it comes to an election, we let them down. We let the Territory down protecting one of our parks; at least in saying this park is worth us giving it a try. We have not done that for the people in the area: the traditional owners, the visitors and the other local people who live and work out there. I am afraid that is very disappointing and will come back to haunt the Labor Party when it is looking for votes, when people say: ‘Well, you did not do anything about the cane toads on Cobourg Peninsula, why should be support you anymore?’
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I place on the record my comments and observations in relation to the report by the Sessional Committee on Environmental and Sustainable Development. As a local bloke, born and bred in the Northern Territory, I have not really had any real exposure to cane toads, or the effect that cane toads have on the environment. My first experience when it was discussed was when I was on the AFANT committee. A fellow who was unknown to me then but, obviously, was well known to the CLP government and many public servants, Dr Bill Freeland, came along and gave a very detailed lecture about the effect of cane toads, their life cycles, and what we can expect to do. He talked about the enormous amount of scientific work which had occurred at the Commonwealth, and also at the state and territory level, and about living with cane toads, minimising their impact and also that, ultimately, there would have to be some sort of biological control. It seemed absolutely no doubt that this fellow was a hard-working public servant. There was an enormous amount of work that had been done. His conclusions were considered - and it turns out now in retrospect - very accurate.
I then was fortunate and privileged enough to come to this place as the member for Goyder. One of the very first things that occurred, was there was an expectation created by the Labor government that this new committee was going to deal with this issue, and that the previous CLP government had failed to act. You have heard my colleagues outline some of the chronology of Dr Freeland; he was effectively given the sack and, one of the reasons for that was the fact that the cane toad issue, apparently, had not been dealt with properly, as well as some other reasons, I understand.
In any event, this has unfolded. The Labor government created the expectation that, for the first time, Territorians, through their government, were going to tackle this issue front on. They were going to deal with it. Therefore, to the cost to the taxpayer of tens of thousands of dollars, I suspect; a bipartisan committee was formed. That committee re-examined the scientific evidence which was already in place, spoke to numerous people, travelled to various locations in the Territory and, as the member for Nelson said, spoke to people on the ground in communities who had already felt the wrath of cane toads.
A number of recommendations were made and one of them was the construction of a barrier, a fence, in one of our very precious parks. There was certainly an expectation that this committee, dominated by government members, would have some weight. It was an expectation that this committee, dominated by government members, would be given serious consideration by the government. There was certainly a bit of a wink and a nod, a bit of a whispering campaign, that at least we are going to get this fence up; we are doing something. Well, it turns out that, despite the fact that the committee effectively said the risk was worth taking with the construction of this fence and that we should try to protect the park and listen to locals, the government of the day and this particular minister, the member for Johnston, has rejected that very sensible proposal, and has refused to take the risk.
This is a classic example of the Martin Labor government, after coming into power, trying to exploit a natural disaster, and this perception that the CLP had done nothing. They formed a committee, really for political ends. It now looks like they have wasted an enormous amount of taxpayers’ funds on gathering this information and then making a recommendation which they did not act upon. Unlike pool fencing and the pool police which they created, this natural disaster was not their creation, but they certainly created the expectation that they were going to deal with it. They have not dealt with it, and that is where I am really pointing the blame. They created the expectation; they have abused the trust which Territory people placed in them when they said publicly that they were going to deal with this issue.
I am not going to go over what the member for Daly said, but he is absolutely right when he picked up on the comments by the minister that we are only going to pour a couple of hundred thousand dollars into this issue, when the minister knows full well that, if more money was committed to the research and the development for biological solutions to the issue, then that would significantly shorten the process which we are going to have to go through now, until we find a solution. There were some references to press releases by colleagues from this side of the House.
The Labor government is now trying to assert that there is really nothing we can do. It is ironic that, in the first term of the Labor government, not only do we get pool police but we get cane toads in Darwin.
It is not about if and when. I can say that cane toads are here. Humpty Doo is certainly part of the greater Darwin region. I was at the pub last Thursday - not drinking but in an official capacity, calling in to talk to constituents - and a cane toad was presented to me in a Melbourne Bitter beer carton. They had named it Clare, and asked me to come and present that to parliament. I said I would not do that because I am not sure whether travelling the 30 km from Humpty Doo to here would present some sort of quarantine difficulty. However, in any event, the cane toad was presented to me. I am not able to physically present it to parliament, but I can say it is there. People are aware of it, and local Territorians have not forgotten that there is something ironic here: the Labor government is in power, the cane toads have come to Darwin. They created the expectation that they are going to deal with the problem and they have not. It just goes to show that you cannot fool Territorians. You cannot abuse the trust they place in you.
Members interjecting.
Mr MALEY: That is a different kettle of fish, Len.
Madam Speaker, I endorse the recommendations of the committee. To say that the Labor government has taken a lead on the issue by placing it on the national agenda is really treating people like fools. The member for Daly accurately summarised and articulated the view of the opposition. It is a tragedy that the cane toads are here; that this government created the expectation that they were going to deal with the problem. It is a triple tragedy that, given one new initiative - being this fence in one of our parks - the Labor government has rejected that sensible bipartisan recommendation.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I wonder if members here are familiar with the phrase cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance was described by some luminary some years ago as the psychological acceptance of a situation, thus making that situation possible - not doing enough to do anything about it. Indeed, the term was used some years ago in this parliament. Indeed, the speaker who was talking about it on that occasion said, interestingly enough, and I will quote:
The most serious danger with cane toads seems to be our psychological acceptance of them. The attitude is
that the toads are coming and there is nothing that can be done. This is what experts call ‘cognitive dissonance’.
It is a psychological weakness.
The government of the day was accused of cognitive dissonance, and the issue was bought up by people who were very concerned about the matter of cane toads in our community. It was pointed out, when this person was talking about cane toads, that we had one of the foremost experts in the world. In fact, the person who was doing the talking in relation our foremost expert in the world, quoted him and I quote:
A paper written in 1985 by WJ Freeland of the then Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory outlines the potential impact the toad could have on the Top End. I seek leave to table a copy ...
It was very good that the member tabled the copy. During the continuation of the argument put forward by this person, he continued to rely on evidence that he had to make his point. Again, I quote from that person, who said:
Our advice from Professor Michael Tyler, the pre-eminent expert on amphibians in Australia, is that this
research would only cost in the order of $30 000.
$30 000 could be spent and the cane toad problem in the Northern Territory would be solved. Such was the suggestion of the member making these comments.
Interestingly, as far as I am aware in relation to this debate, that person has remained utterly silent. However, more so than that, that person has not only remained utterly silent, but let us look at the track record of this government in relation to the $30 000 fix that would have fixed cane toads. That person, of course, is now the Leader of Government Business, one Paul Henderson. On that occasion, he saw fit, on a matter of such importance, to suspend the business of this parliament to bring an issue forward to discuss the CLP government’s response to cane toads. He said that all we had to do was reach into the coffers, spend $30 000, listen to what Mr Freeland and Mr Tyler had to say, and ‘you could have an answer to your cane toad problem today’. He was supported by the now Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Peter Toyne, who basically said exactly the same thing.
I am curious as to why the now Leader of Government Business, and the Minister for Justice, are suffering from a ‘psychological weakness’, because not one person from that side of the House has pointed out this matter of public importance, which was raised in this House on 10 August 1999. I am curious to see if the committee have turned its attention to it, because I certainly have not noticed it. It is typical of the way politics is being played, and continues to be played, around this issue. It was a nice little way to get a nice political hit on the CLP government at the time but, when challenged with the cane toad problem now before government, not only is it too hard, but what did they do with Mr Freeland, the most pre-eminent expert on cane toads in the world? Shot him, or did the public service equivalent thereof: ‘Dear Mr Freeland, come into the office, we have some bad news for you’ - bang, you are dead, get out and have a nice life.
If that is their idea of cane toad control, shooting the messenger is not the way to do it because, at the end of the day, we heard the member for Nelson pointing out in this Chamber that the Cobourg Peninsula is about to be overrun; it is all too hard to fix. Where is the $30 000 answer? And does this little political game that they have played help the flora and fauna of the Northern Territory? Helped them to get into government perhaps; it was certainly an issue they liked to run. However, at the end of the day, what has happened is that we have a new government which has simply set out to deceive Territorians and which, by the admission of its own Leader of Government Business, suffers from a ‘psychological weakness’ in relation to this issue - and several others I would suggest. As far as I am concerned, they have engaged in what I would consider to be some of the most hypocritical behaviour that I have ever seen from a government anywhere, in their silence on this issue. The Minister for Justice and Attorney-General and the Leader of Government Business should be in here telling us what they are going to do with their $30 000 fix, and how it is going to make the world of difference. They should be telling us that they are going to support all of the suggestions that they have made in relation to this matter of public importance four-and-a-half years ago.
The Leader of Government Business, at that time, also suggested that all that we would have to do was:
… lobby the federal government to reinstate funding to CSIRO to continue the search for a biological
control agent. CSIRO came close to finding an iridio virus to kill toad tadpoles. As quoted previously,
CSIRO is confident that any future funding for cane toad research will be effective and rewarding.
Could the minister kindly come into this House and tell us exactly what federal government lobbying they have done? If they are intending to do any more federal government lobbying, I am certain that I, and all or any one of my colleagues, would be more than happy to help lobby the federal government so that this iridio virus to kill cane toad tadpoles may be discovered, thus solving the problem of cane toads in the Northern Territory. I am sure that all 25 members of this House would applaud this government if they chose to do it. However, I am curious to see if they can table any evidence during this debate as to whether or not they have actually done what they said they would do when they were in opposition.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, in closing the debate, I want to commence by thanking all members who have contributed to the debate. In particular, I want to thank the members of the committee. As we heard in the debate, it was a bipartisan committee spending considerable months investigating the incursion of cane toads into the Territory, receiving a significant number of submissions from scientists, members of the community and interested people. I previously thanked all those people who contributed to this inquiry.
It is disappointing to hear the contribution in the Chamber this evening from the members opposite, with the notable exception for the member for Nelson whose contribution I thought was very constructive and useful. Members opposite seemed to harp on the departure of a public servant. That, quite frankly, did not have any bearing on the inquiry; it was not an aspect of the inquiry. The public servant in question contributed to the inquiry in both written and lengthy oral submission, coming before the inquiry twice.
The scientists who did appear - both national and based here in the Northern Territory - all said the one thing: they clearly thanked this Assembly for holding the inquiry. They said that, if nothing else is achieved from this inquiry, it is providing focus on the issue of cane toads - focus that the scientific community believed needed to occur at the time in regards to cane toads. We heard that across all submissions from scientists and, yet, there are members opposite who, in this Chamber tonight, have chosen to completely ignore the clarion call that came from the scientific community during that inquiry which was very much ‘Thank you, this inquiry needed to occur’. They did differ, from time to time, on whether enough research had been done previously. They did say that there needed to be a collaborative effort nationally if there was going to be any success in combating cane toads. The scientists agreed on the fact that the Territory alone could not combat cane toads. They all put submissions to us that there needs to be a national collaborative effort, because the most promising research occurring at the moment is national research being undertaken by CSIRO.
There were other submissions regarding potential research projects, and anyone who put forward any of those research submissions also agreed on one thing: there needed to be a national approach. The result of this inquiry and of the recommendations that have come before the parliament, as we have heard the minister announce in the Chamber tonight, is there is now going to be a national collaborative approach that has been agreed to and signed off by the Natural Resources Ministerial Council. Members opposite may want to denigrate that outcome but, in fact, that outcome holds the greatest hope that Territorians have that, in our lifetime, cane toads will be conquered. Funding from the Territory alone would never have been sufficient to combat cane toads. Scientist after scientist spelled that out in their submissions. Therefore, it is really a critical breakthrough that we have heard announced in the Chamber tonight that the Natural Resources Ministerial Council has signed off on a national task force; that they are going to nationally have a look at a Threat Abatement Plan. Significant scientific contributions to the inquiry stated that we needed that national Threat Abatement Plan; that that would comprehensively go the farthest to tackling the issues of cane toad.
That has been delivered, I believe, as a direct consequence of the inquiry that this Assembly charged that Environment and Sustainable Development Committee to undertake. That is no small feat. We have firmly placed cane toads on the national agenda. We are getting collaboration from the Commonwealth and the other states, all signed up to a ministerial council. I note that the member for Macdonnell laughs that off, but no other government in the Territory has managed to do that. It was the Martin Labor government that has delivered a national collaborative approach. A Threat Abatement Plan will, indeed, provide exactly what all the scientists have said in their submissions to our committee: we needed remedial action in accordance with obligations under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The Threat Abatement Plan will provide a nation-wide approach for research, management and any other actions necessary to reduce the impact of what will be a listed key threatening process.
I congratulate the minister for the funding that has gone into the public awareness campaign that many of us have been witnessing over the past few months. Again, it is no coincidence that the public awareness campaign commenced and increased following the recommendations tabled by the committee in this parliament. The campaign, we have heard, has included a multimedia public awareness campaign. We have heard the member for Nelson talk about the Freds Pass Show display. n Those of us who spend the Dry Season doing the Territory show circuit will see that display at other Territory shows. Indeed, the school-based education kit that has been developed on cane toads is absolutely essential. Many of us are getting feedback from schoolchildren throughout our electorates. They have a burning desire to combat cane toads. Schools are setting up their own little biodiversity regions. There have been environmental awards provided to schools. A preschool in Palmerston has received such an award for their frog enclosure, and they are doing some great frog breeding at that particular preschool.
The focus that our inquiry brought on cane toads has really resulted in a lot of people saying: ‘We are now informed about where they are, about where they will progress to, and what we individually, each of us, can do to combat cane toads’. People are starting to look at fencing around their properties. They are looking at where they have their water contained, and they are certainly aware of the concerns regarding their domestic pets. There has been talk back information from vets talking about flushing out animals’ mouths. There really is a much higher community awareness of cane toads - their incursion, what their habits are and what can be done to combat them - now than two years ago, before this inquiry took place and before the recommendations were tabled here in parliament.
For the member for Goyder to describe it as a waste of taxpayers’ money, I believe, is to his eternal shame. He should go out and listen to the children in his schools. They do not believe it is a waste of money. They believe that every cent that can be spent on awareness of cane toads and how to combat them is money well spent. The member for Goyder is completely out of touch with his own constituency. I have to say our public hearing in the rural area was a very lively public hearing. There was a great deal of interest in the issue, and I commend the residents of the rural area who attended in far greater numbers than in some other areas of the Territory, to really thrash about ideas about what could be done. They went there on the basis of really not having any information about cane toads, and the exchange at that public hearing was so worthwhile. As a committee, we were able to impart a lot of information on the spot about cane toads, and hear some of the ideas that they had - very worthy ideas - which were included in the report and which are now being actioned by government.
I take great offence at another insinuation in a statement made by the ignorant member for Goyder. He said that there was a wink and a nod and a whispering campaign in terms of getting the fence up at Cobourg. I do not know who he was talking about, because it was certainly no member of government. I am the Chair of the committee. I attended all meetings, I participated in all discussions, and I was not aware of any winks and nods. The member for Goyder was not participating in the process, so I really think his deception in the Chamber here tonight is despicable.
The issue of the Cobourg fence was very much a bipartisan recommendation of the committee. It is a great shame that we are not having a go - as the member for Nelson describes it - in constructing that fence. I know that that decision has not been made lightly by government and has been made after many months of considered discussion and debate on that subject of the fence. It was made very much on the back of the recommendations of their own expert public servants. Sometimes in government, you err on relying on expert advice rather than your own ideas and hopes and ambitions. That is where that fell in terms of the advice.
Mr Elferink interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: The member for MacDonnell might sneer about it, but it terms of having a go, I am so proud of the bipartisan committee for having a go on all of its recommendations. That should not be denigrated by members of this House. It is despicable to play the political football that I have witnessed in here tonight.
Regarding the accusations flippantly made in the Chamber tonight, I have to say that members should go back over Hansard and read the information provided by the minister in the Chamber tonight in terms of the government’s response to the cane toad report. There is $400 000 of new money - not money to be found in the department responsible, Parks and Wildlife - has been committed to combating cane toads. That money is being wisely used; $80 000 directly into testing a prototype of traps because, consistently throughout the inquiry, we heard traps are worth testing. Parks and Wildlife considered that advice and that recommendation and have taken it up. Government is funding that. $80 000 is almost triple the amount that the member for Macdonnell cited of $30 000.
Further to that, the $100 000 each year for three years is money that the Territory has put on the table to all the other jurisdictions in Australia. Anyone who has operated at a senior level of government knows that if you want to pursue something at a national level, a national agenda and national collaboration, you can only do that if you bring money to the table. The Territory has put money on the national table for combating cane toads, and I commend the member for Johnston for securing a deal out of the other jurisdictions in Australia - the states and the Commonwealth - of having a national collaborative approach, having a national task force and creating a Threat Abatement Plan. Dollars will flow.
All the scientists we heard from throughout the inquiry said: ‘If you can get it on the national agenda, get a national Threat Abatement Plan, get it as a pest and a threatening process, it will attract the dollars at the Commonwealth level. A body of work will naturally occur, funded, at the Commonwealth and state levels’. That has been secured at the Natural Resources Ministerial Council - no small feat when you look at all the other issues jurisdictions are combating in natural resource issues. We had an environment where many people had thought in the past there was little we could do to get cane toads considered, and the Territory inquiry has turned that around to the view that together, nationally, collaboratively, there is actually a series of things we can do. That is what that inquiry has managed to achieve.
I commend the department, particularly Parks and Wildlife staff, for the ongoing research that they are doing that fit with the recommendations of the committee. The Island Ark program is fantastic. I attended the Tiwi Barge Services display of the wash-down facilities. Keeping cane toads off the islands is very much a key recommendation, and that recommendation has been implemented by both the Commonwealth and the Territory governments. Again, I say that work has been done because of the outcome of our inquiry. Talking to the traditional owners, they are delighted with the assistance they have been given. New signage has gone up, and there is information in language as well as the critical wash-down facilities for the Tiwi Barge Services.
I know the member for Drysdale continues to bag and denigrate the quoll relocation program. That shows his ignorance about the program. I have spoken to traditional owners, those mainland traditional owners who have totems of the quoll and are the protectors of the quoll. They are very excited about the prospect of the quoll surviving because of the relocation program to the islands.
I went over to the islands and spoke to the traditional owners of the area. They were thrilled to be asked to participate in the program. It has meant rangers being placed on the islands monitoring the quolls, and assessing whether or not there is any impact on species on the islands. The results have all come back to be very positive. The quolls have settled in well; they are thriving on the island and there is no negative impact on other species. The traditional owners have felt that they have been doing some very meaningful work under the pay of a joint Commonwealth/Territory government program. There is job spin-off there for the indigenous rangers and the work they have been doing. However, critically, we have saved a species. Fundamentally, from all the advice the inquiry received, the quoll species was facing extinction. The member for Drysdale in this Chamber has denigrated the efforts that both the Commonwealth and the Territory government went to, to save a species. I find that very sad indeed.
The outcomes are: we have a comprehensive public awareness campaign; we have managed to focus attention on the pest of the cane toad; we have a national collaborative approach, of both the Threat Abatement Plan being created, and a national task force, which is exactly what the recommendations said we needed to do. The Territory has put the money on the table nationally - not an insignificant amount of money. $400 000 is not an insignificant amount of money; it is a lot of money. Each of us, as local members, know how hard we go out and fight for the dollar for projects. In a very competitive environment, $400 000 is a significant commitment by the Territory government, and I commend the minister and his Cabinet colleagues who were part of the Cabinet process to put these dollars on the table so that we can bring in the partnerships of the other jurisdictions and the Commonwealth to combat cane toads.
I commend Parks and Wildlife. They have responded to the cane toad inquiry and its recommendations comprehensively. There is now a significant Action Plan at the Territory level. Parks and Wildlife have done a lot of work to bring this comprehensive Action Plan together. Again, I refer members to the minister’s speech on this debate in Hansard. Look at the plan, which covers the national coordination of research and management actions: monitoring the spread of the cane toads; further research of the impacts on biodiversity; investigation and support for the development of short- and long-term control methods; conservation actions for the species most at threat from the toad; education to assist people to live with the presence of toads; education and quarantine measures to minimise the chance of toads being transported to the island in what they call the Island Ark Program; and increasing the capacity of indigenous owners of the islands to manage their important faunas and implement quarantine procedures.
All of this work together will mean that we are making inroads into doing what we can as a jurisdiction to combat what we do know, as a result of the inquiry, is a threatening process and a pest of national significance. What we do know and have heard now in the Chamber this evening is on the national agenda, does have a national task force now applied to it, and will, as a consequence, receive funding that was needed for research into this pest.
CSIRO have found a way to make cane toads infertile. There is a huge breakthrough in biological research. They need more dollars to increase their chances and speed up the process in finding the vector, the agent, to carry that through the species without harming the amphibians. I believe that the Threat Abatement Plan at the national level, backed up by the Territory’s Action Plan, will go a long way to getting those dollars that the committee recognise is needed, into CSIRO.
I end by thanking the many Territorians who expressed their concerns about the cane toad incursion into the Territory. I thank the many scientists who continue to work on this problem; the many staff of Parks and Wildlife, who spend hours doing the research in our parks on it; and my parliamentary colleagues for the bipartisan way in which our committee was able to work. I look forward to a continued bipartisan approach in our endeavours as a committee. I thank the members of this Assembly for giving us the opportunity to put the spotlight fairly, firmly and squarely on the pest of cane toads in the Territory.
Motion agreed to; paper noted.
Continued from 30 March 2004.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, the Auditor-General reports to the Legislative Assembly twice each year on matters arising from audits conducted by his office in the previous six months. The latest report of the Auditor-General was tabled in the Assembly on 30 March this year.
The audits conducted and reported by the Auditor-General provide parliament with an independent opinion on findings about financial information, internal controls, and performance management systems of the Territory public sector. As well as appraising existing practices, the Auditor-General makes recommendations for improvement. Through his regular reports, all members of this parliament are better placed to appraise the performance of public sector administration.
There was sadness in this House as Auditor-General, Mike Blake, presented his last report to us. We certainly wish him well in Tasmania.
As well as reporting to the Legislative Assembly, the Auditor-General brings these matters to the attention of agency chief executives for their consideration and action, as necessary. I am pleased to note in his latest report, the Auditor-General commends agencies for the positive approach taken in what was a major initiative; that is, the preparation of accrual based financial statements. However, the move to accrual accounting also highlighted the need for improvements in certain areas of accounting such as reconciliations, managing assets and accounting for liabilities. The report raised two whole-of-government issues; these were the need to introduce formal monitoring and reporting arrangements into the government’s information technology government frameworks, and update the NT government’s security policy and procedures and the NT government’s access policy and procedures to incorporate stronger links to the NT government information private principles.
Other areas highlighted by the Auditor-General concerned identifying operating costs associated with new capital works, reducing the number of system administrators and support staff having access to process electronic payments, reviewing delegations and improving controls associated with payments made outside the normal accounts payable system, and reviewing the location used to store the forensic group’s back-up data.
The report raised two whole-of-government issues which are being addressed by the Department of Corporate and Information Services. These were the need to introduce formal monitoring and reporting arrangements in the government’s information technology government’s frameworks, and update the government’s security policy and procedures, as I mentioned before.
I was pleased to see that, within my own portfolio area, the Auditor-General noted that the Northern Territory Major Events Company financial statements received an unqualified report. In addition, the report noted that the company had significantly increased its nett asset position as a result of the transfer of assets and liabilities from Hidden Valley Promotions Pty Ltd, although the company will continue to be dependent on the Northern Territory government for ongoing funding.
In addition, the Auditor-General found the Northern Territory Electoral Office’s privacy policy to be highly congruent with the information privacy principles, and that sufficient controls are operating over the election management system to control access to personal data.
The report makes positive comments about the Department of the Chief Minister’s privacy policy and acknowledges that the department is also finalising guidelines that will provide more detailed information for staff.
Madam Speaker, I gave an undertaking to deliver open and accountable government to Territorians. The independent opinion of the Auditor-General is an important aspect of this commitment. His reports and recommendations are viewed most seriously, and given appropriate consideration by all ministers and chief executives. Certainly, that is the approach that we, across government, have taken to this March report of the Auditor-General.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, from opposition, we also note the departure of Mike Blake to Tasmania, and genuinely appreciate the level of dedication and going that extra mile that he demonstrated in his duties as Auditor-General.
I was waiting to hear in the Chief Minister’s comments what mechanisms have been put in place to replace Mike Blake. There has been no information provided to opposition with regard to what methods have been put in place to seek the permanent replacement of Mike Blake, and that is something that might be long overdue.
The role of the Auditor-General, of course, as the Chief Minister states, is a particularly important position. The reports of audit to the parliament are of great interest, and perhaps greater interest to opposition. To report on the report, as the Chief Minister has done, highlighting areas of concern that have been raised by the Auditor-General, is just one part of this whole exercise. It is a trap the Labor Party falls into, if you have the system in place, that the process can be all ticked off as it has worked very well. However, the process is meant to lead you somewhere. Therefore, if you have had areas of concern highlighted, I am more interested in hearing what has been done about those areas of concerns highlighted. That is where I would go through in my report and just point out some of the areas that have been highlighted by the Auditor-General.
I guess ministers responsible would be able to provide an account, perhaps - not tonight but in times to come - of what has actually been done to rectify the areas that have concerned the Auditor-General. That is where we get that sense of movement and real focus in what an Auditor-General would report to this parliament. It is not like, ‘He is a jolly good fellow, that is an interesting report and he has indicated a couple of areas that are of concern, and so that is a great report’. Let us see what we are going to do about those areas of concern. That is what I am particularly focused on, and we need to have response from the ministers, reporting to the House on what is actually happening in these areas.
For example, DCIS - and it was touched on, I would have to say lightly, by the Chief Minister. The Auditor-General highlighted two areas of concern. One was that further preventative controls were identified as being needed to minimise risk associated with transactions; that is, problems identified with the electronic banking and payment system. The Auditor-General identifies this as an issue and recognises that there are a number of appropriate controls in place, and it is highlighted that more could be put in place. Have they been put in place, and what moves are on foot to work on this area that has been identified by the Auditor-General? The Auditor-General said these should include a reduction in the number of users that have access to the payments system and a reduction of the level of payments that can be made without further scrutiny. Another area of concern in DCIS is payments of up to $99m can currently be made on the strength of payment requests that are not original documentation; something that he draws attention to. I would presume the minister would be onto that in a flash and will grant us assurance that that level of security is now provided.
Moving to Tourist Commission, he identified a couple of areas and said numerous changes were made to the financial statements presented for audit and, as a result of the audit, so much so that the financial statements were not finalised until the end of October. Possibly no drama, but I am sure we will hear the minister give a response and reassure us that all is in order. Another area is the nature in the volume of the accounting errors noted by the Auditor-General suggests that the commission has not been receiving accurate financial information on a monthly basis. The minister, I am sure, will reassure us that that has now been addressed. The Auditor-General commented that these issues may be a result of the commission choosing not to maintain the role of a financial controller, and suggested that they should consider appointing one. Has that position been filled?
The Auditor-General identified problems in the Housing Business Services and highlighted three issues. The first is that the housing business services’ budget and business strategies are only sustainable for a period. The second issue is that Housing Business Services is generating insufficient profits to cover annual interest payments of in excess of $25m. I am sure the minister will inform the House of what has been put in place to strengthen the profit return in Housing Business Services. Third, debtors increased by 13.7% to $4.4m at 30 June 2003 reflecting inadequacies in debtors collection processes - a vital role running an operation such as, in this case, Housing Business Services. It does appear that there is a problem, and a significant one, I would say.
The Auditor-General has recommended that Housing Business Services should review its re-evaluation processes and procedures to ensure complete compliance with the relevant Australian Accounting Standards. The minister responsible, I am sure, will advise the House of what has been put in place with regards the Auditor-General’s concerns about Housing Business Services.
The Auditor-General went on to identify some issues with Government Printing Office. A key issue that was identified was that, in the opinion Auditor-General, management of the Government Printing Office had not satisfied the virtual certainty test prescribed by the Australian Accountancy Standards and, consequently, the deferred tax asset should not have been recognised in the Statement of Financial Position. What this means is that, when a business is making a loss, any future income tax benefit that results from this loss should not be brought to account unless realisation of the benefit is virtually certain. This means that the loss being posted by the Government Printing Office is $166 000 less that it should have been. I look forward to the relevant minister advising the House in due course of what mechanism has been put in place to address that issue.
The Auditor-General moves on to identify issues with regards to the Northern Territory Government Public Authority Employees Superannuation Fund. A key issue that was identified is one of concern to every public servant. The five-year average return of the fund is 3.8%, compared to a five-year average of CPI of 3.1%. The fund’s real return of approximately 0.6% is less than the fund’s investment objective, which is to exceed the consumer price index by at least 3% over a five-year period. A real return of 0.6% is a poor result by any measure, but it is well below the benchmark of 3%. Therefore, employees’ superannuation funds are not making the returns that they could elsewhere. I am sure the minister responsible will reassure all those who have their future tied up in that superannuation fund, as they strengthen that superannuation fund, so that we can have a future to bank on.
I have taken just a selection of issues that have been highlighted by the Auditor-General, and the last one I wish to look at tonight is problems identified at TIO. The key issue identified was as a consequence of the loss for the year 2002-03, the total liabilities of TIO, excluding the MACA scheme, exceeded total assets by $1.02m. As at 30 June 2003, TIO did not meet its solvency requirements. Problems and losses have primarily risen from losses incurred in MACA.
At that time, I understand that the government responded. In times past, government has topped up this scheme but, in recent times they have, rather than dig into their own pocket - the pocket of the Martin Labor government - chosen to reach into the pockets of Territorians and increase the cost of registering a motor vehicle by 6% to top up this scheme. When you have $35m in addition that was not included in the Treasurer’s report, owing to it being announced at a time when the budget papers were at the printer, I am sure you could have relieved the load on many Territory families by absorbing the cost of registering a motor vehicle.
Once again, I say thank you to Mike Blake for the service that he has provided to this parliament, to the Northern Territory. I wish he and his wife all the very best in Tasmania, as do members on this side of the House. It is remiss of the Chief Minister to come in here and make similar comments with regards to Mike Blake, but fail to inform the House of what is in place to replace the Auditor-General. In fact, as Leader of the Opposition, I am unaware of any advice from the Chief Minister as regards the interim measures that have been put in place with regard to the current office of the Auditor-General. I have been informed informally, but formally not to my knowledge. It is very important that, posthaste, we have advice as to what the steps are that will be taken to fill this most important of positions.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to clear up some of the items in the Auditor-General’s report relating to my portfolio areas, along with action taken by my agencies to correct any deficiencies that the Auditor-General has been able to identify.
In relation to the Department of Health and Community Services, the end-of-year reviews of agency accounting processes were identified as a problem by the Auditor-General. Errors were identified while testing the costing procedures used for pharmacy inventories. One high value item selected for testing was found to be understated in the inventory system by $61 476. This error was found to have been the result of a process used to value stock that had been received free of charge from a supplier. In this particular instance, the high value stock had been resupplied free of charge due to problems with the original products supplied. With accrual accounting, errors of this type become more important and, thanks to the testing undertaken by the Auditor-General, improved inventory procedures have been implemented to correctly value stock received free of charge.
In relation to the $37.7m redevelopment of Accident and Emergency at the Royal Darwin Hospital, the Auditor-General was rightly critical of the original submission to the then government in 1999 for not including the cost of ongoing operational expenses, estimated to be $4m a year, needed to effectively operate the new emergency department. The Auditor-General also questioned the failure to achieve a 3% savings on the hospital’s operational budget on which the original decision was promised. These planning problems, as identified by the Auditor-General, resulted in the necessity for additional funds to be sourced from this government. The department has accepted the findings of the Auditor-General, and has acknowledged the risks associated with complex multi-stage projects, and the fact that they need to be more clearly defined in future submissions.
Regarding information technology controls over privacy of data, the Auditor-General reported that the department’s information privacy code of conduct was closely aligned with the NT government policy on privacy, as set up out in the Information Act. However, opportunities were identified for improvement. Recommendations made by the Auditor-General have been adopted by the department to improve its management of information systems containing sensitive information. This has included bringing together into a formalised plan all of the projects and initiatives that were being carried out to ensure compliance with the information privacy principles.
Additionally, a number of strategies to further enhance compliance have been implemented, including: enhancements to the department’s data warehouse; the development of checklists for approving new systems; completion of an information survey; provision of fact sheets and staff education about information privacy principles; and improvements to network security through more rigorous user authentification.
Looking now to my Department of Justice, the only issue identified in the report referred to accountable officers’ trust accounts - the AOTA - within the Corrections division. The Auditor-General identified three AOTA accounts not reconciled to the government accounting system, or GAS, at 30 June 2003. The Auditor-General noted that the prisoner canteen trading operations being recorded through AOTA accounts was causing reconciliation difficulties, and was possibly making it difficult to distinguish between monies of the prisoners and those of the canteen. A review has been completed of the AOTA accounts within the Corrections Division, and an Action Plan has been implemented that will be completed by 30 June 2004. The Action Plan will result in a rationalisation of the AOTA accounts, all Corrections AOTAs being reconciled on a monthly basis, and prisoner canteen trading operations being removed from the AOTA structure. By 30 June 2004, monies held on behalf of prisoners will be clearly identifiable, and all monies held in trust will be correctly reconciled and accounted for.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I also wish to add to the debate on the Auditor-General’s 2004 March report to the Legislative Assembly with information relating to the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment.
On page 14, it is pleasing to see that the Auditor-General is, once again, commenting favourably on the management and implementation of the change from cash to accrual accounting while, at the same time, improving the timeliness of reporting. I will give an overview of what I believe largely comprises the Auditor-General’s report. As the Leader of the Opposition says, he does point to a number of issues that need to be addressed.
However, honestly, there is nothing in this Auditor-General’s report that even roughly parallels some of the words that were used by the Auditor-General’s reports when I first came into this parliament, when I was on the Public Accounts Committee. At that time, we had, I thought, quite scandalous reports on the way in which nearly $150m of Conditions of Service Trust was used to artificially show a surplus by the former CLP government, with the Treasurer, the former member for Katherine, pillaging hollow logs - $150m to show a $1m surplus. There were comments about lack of transparency in capital works expenditure and revotes. I commented a little about that in Question Time today.
Whilst this report is a very solid report, in no way do I believe it reflects badly overall regarding government and government expenditure. There are issues, yes, but particularly in my area, they are issues relating to technical treatment of the public account. We will certainly take the messages given by the Auditor-General and address those issues. However, I digress, and I will try and keep what I have to say this evening short.
The Auditor-General has favourably commented on the management and implementation of the change from cash to accrual - a very big job, and I need to complement all agencies. It is a big job. There will continue to be some issues. We knew when we started the process into accrual accounting that there would be some issues, particularly the identification of assets, that it would take some time to settle. However, in terms of our public accounts, we are at a stage now where, overall, we are comparing apples with apples.
The Auditor-General, however, has identified several areas that require improvement. On pages 14 and 15 that relate to my Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, the Auditor-General has commented on unreconciled differences in the asset registers. Reconciliations throughout the year between work in progress and capitalisations are affected by timing; that is, the reports from one system, the AIS asset information system, are not available before the second system, the GAS, or government accounting system, closes for end-of-month processing. The financial services of the department is working with the infrastructure group to improve the timeliness of capitalising completed works, so that issue is being addressed by the department.
On page 15, the Auditor-General commented on unreconciled differences, and apparent inaccuracies in some of the information retained on the land asset information system at the end of June 2003. The former land information system, LAIS, was replaced with a new system, ILIS, on 1 July 2003. Additional resources have been applied within the department to reconcile the former land information system and the government accounting system.
On page 16, the Auditor-General has commented on an item of motor vehicle registry fees that were collected in 2002, but retained in the clearing account in the 2002-03 financial year. The department advises that this oversight is now being directly addressed by conducting a monthly analysis of account balances.
On page 21, the Auditor-General has commented on the impact that the Construction Division’s management fees have on the accounting treatment of asset values. The Construction Division levies fees in accordance with accounting standards and Treasurer’s Directions. The elimination of fees between arms of government is a matter of Treasury consideration when consolidating financial transactions for the Treasurer’s Annual Financial Statement. The department is liaising with Treasury in regard to the Auditor-General’s comments.
On page 25 and 26, the Auditor-General has also commented on the timeliness for financial reporting requirements. The signed accounts for Cobourg and Nitmiluk Park Boards were not submitted until six weeks after the due date. Acknowledging that the signed accounts were not submitted within the time lines, it also needs to be acknowledged that the Cobourg and Nitmiluk boards’ reports were more than three months ahead of the previous year’s signing date. However, obviously, there is still room for improvement and it is unacceptable for the lateness of these reports, and the department will be paying greater attention to the timeliness of those reports.
Difficulties such as the need for other entities to complete their financial reports before all data is available and the timing of board meetings to approve and sign financial statements, are factors affecting the sign-off dates. These are being addressed. On page 26, the Territory Wildlife financial reports were delayed in 2002-03 due to revaluation and reconciliation at that end of fixed assets.
On page 57, the Auditor-General’s comments in relation to Port Corporation mainly relate to the need to write-down the value of port assets in the light of projected income streams. The government accepts that the large investment in port infrastructure is a strategic investment for the Territory’s future. Large outlays in strategic infrastructure are required to develop the Territory’s transport hub capabilities.
Madam Speaker, in summary, most of the comments by the Auditor-General have been addressed. There are some outstanding. The department has given assurances to work with different entities, including Treasury, to work through those issues. I appreciate the comments and the hard work of the Auditor-General in his report, and commend it to the House.
Motion agreed to; paper noted.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I would like to comment about a project that is very special to me – the Alawa Primary School farm. It was an initiative of a teacher at Alawa School, Mr Danial Kelly, who decided to establish a farm in the school grounds and teach the children about farm life: how people can recycle produce in a farm, and mix science with real farm life. The beginning was very humble with a few animals that were brought by the students. It was a very popular project and, as a result, schools in Darwin are now queuing to visit the farm.
One thing that I noticed when I visited was that everything was really homemade such as the small fence to keep the animals in. However, I doubt very much if they would be able to keep the dogs or the vandals out. I was really worried about it because the last thing we want to see is the children coming back to school on Monday morning and finding the animals that they cared for with their necks cut or dead. Therefore, together with the principal, Miss Sharon Reeves, we discussed the issue and an application was lodged by the school to the Department of Education for special funding. I am very pleased to say that $14 000 was provided to the school for the erection of a 300 m x 1.8 m tall fence.
The farm has generated a lot of interest with the children. The children spend at least an hour every day there as a lesson and they care for the animals. It also generates interest with the community. The teacher who designed and established the farm, Mr Danial Kelly, is now assisted by teachers Mr Wes Campbell and Mr David Ammenhauser. During the weekend, Ms Carol Jelfs and her daughter Misha, who is a student at the school, look after the animals, so the animals are always fed and looked after.
Other supporters are Roula and Matthew Boubaris. Their children went to Alawa School, and now they are about 20 years old. However, Matthew Boubaris works for a concrete company and has persuaded his employer to donate slabs and concrete mix to establish a shed at the farm.
The farm has a few goats donated from Taminmin High School, guinea fowl, peacocks, a goose, ducks and a little piglet donated by Darwin Piggery - the runt of the litter. The kids look after it and, when it grows up, it is replaced by another young one.
It is a very exciting experiment. You should see the smiles on the faces of the children when they go to the farm to look after these animals. Congratulations to all involved at Alawa school, especially Danial Kelly, for their fantastic initiative.
I would like to congratulate some of the talented young sport stars from Dripstone High School who have been selected to represent the Northern Territory in different sports. Sisters Simone and Candice Liddy and Stacey Luck represented the Northern Territory in Team Attitude X at the Under-18 National Hockey Championships in Darwin last month; James Goodworth, a young Aboriginal boy, was selected to tour California with the Queensland Expo Under-16 baseball team; and Jane Robinson won the Katherine Open singles and doubles tennis titles earlier this month. Well done to all the students.
Well done to Dripstone High School for coming fifth in the secondary school football carnival recently. Congratulations to Rys Higgins, Travis Thorne, Jarrod Motlop, Marlon Motlop, Michael Gugliotta and Lance O’Connor for being selected in the Under-16 Northern Territory squad.
A special thank you to Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor and all the staff from Casuarina Police Station. In the last few months, we have seen an increase in the activity of the police for addressing issues in Casuarina immediately. They talk to the people in the streets and the neighbourhood, and respond to their calls. The Casuarina Police Station now has an extra 25 police officers, and Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor has established a bike patrol and foot patrol. Now we have four people patrolling the Casuarina area riding their bikes. Senior Sergeant Taylor also brought the mounted police to Casuarina Coastal Reserve. The comments I heard about this initiative were excellent.
In addition to that, every time I get any information about a problem in the area from constituents when I doorknock, I notify the police in Casuarina and their reaction is instant. The Senior Sergeant himself or his people will visit people and discuss the problem with them. Recently, in response to one of these meetings, there was a speed camera in Brinkin Terrace and Ellengowan Drive and they nabbed a few drivers who were speeding in the area, to the amusement and pleasure of the people living in the area. Well done, police in Casuarina, and congratulations to Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor.
In Casuarina, we work very closely with the Darwin City Council. I have established a small group to deal with safety issues in the Casuarina Shopping precinct. We have regular meetings with Casuarina Shopping Square management, the Casuarina Village management, and the people who have businesses in the area to discuss itinerants and other safety issues. Within the four months that the group has been established, working together with the police and the community, we have seen a significant reduction in the activity of itinerants in the area. At the first meeting we had, there were about 20 people complaining about various issues. At the last meeting we had, the only people who turned up were Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor and me. Everybody else was quite pleased. I expect if things go bad again, we will have more people attending meetings.
Congratulations go to my constituents from the Cambodian Australian Association. The association is now able to offer Cambodian dance and language classes at the Karama Primary School every Friday. They have employed a young lady who teaches dance and language, and they have a significant number of young children learning Cambodian language, and children of Australian and Cambodian backgrounds learning Cambodian dances. This was able to be established with a $19 000 grant under the Culture and Linguistic Awards that the government provided to the association. I am very pleased to support ethnic groups, because I can see they are striving to pass their culture and language to the younger generation, and also to the general community.
I was very pleased to attend the International Food Fair at the Buddhist Centre on 18 April. It was a fantastic afternoon. There were many stalls with international food, mainly from South-East Asia. There were a significant number of people present at that event. The Leader of the Opposition visited the centre for a small period of time, and I believe the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was also present. I have to tell you that, not only do you enjoy the food, but also the atmosphere and visiting the temple. Seeing the way people worship their deity in the area is very significant. I suppose it is very significant for every ethnic group to carry with them the tradition, the religion, and to be able to establish in a location a temple or a hall that resembles those in the country of origin, and carry on their traditional religion. I can understand that very well. Many people who come from South-East Asia or other countries have very strong family links, and the culture and religion are very well interconnected. They celebrate both their culture and religion here.
I was also very pleased to be at the opening of the community hall at the centre on Sunday, 2 May. My colleague, the member for Wanguri, and I were present, and we were very pleased to participate in the opening ceremony of the recently completed community hall. The work on the community hall was completed after this Martin Labor government gave a grant of $200 000, in line with one of its major election promises. The quality of the finished hall was excellent, and I would like to congratulate the Buddhist Society for a job well done. They have created a facility that is available for use by anybody in the community, irrespective if they come from South-East Asia or are Buddhist or not. It is available for different functions, events, and the Buddhist Society is pleased to provide this facility to the community in Darwin and, generally, in the Territory. Once again, I would like to congratulate them for their initiatives. The International Food Fair, which is a regular event now, is in the calendar of Darwin, and I want to see the community hall get bigger and better.
I will continue to support the Buddhist Society, and any other society in Darwin which strives to actually pass this information to us, to the general community, and pass elements of their culture to our community. After all, we live in a multicultural society, and we pride ourselves on the fact we have one of the more multicultural societies in Australia. If we really want to find out about our neighbours, our friends, the people who live next door or down the road from us who come from another culture, the best way for us is to share their celebrations and culture with them - not only with food, but also the intimate parts of their culture. Certainly, the attendance and celebration of the Buddhist Hall is one part of their culture.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I keep a promise to a friend of mine, a fellow by the name of Tim Thompson, who I have known for many years. He is a fellow I regard with great respect. The promise I want to keep is a privilege, but a sad one.
Tim’s partner, Barry Standing, died recently. Barry was a great Territorian; a well respected member in the Territory community and tourism industry. I am privileged to read into Hansard as much as I can of a eulogy in five parts. I will seek leave at the end of my comments to have the rest of the eulogy of five parts incorporated into the Hansard record. One of the people who gave the eulogy is Gary Cartwright, former member for VRD in this Chamber. It is interesting that Gary, once again, will find himself on the Parliamentary Record in the tradition of parliamentarians.
I start with the eulogy given by Chris Uren. Part two was given by Rex Leverington. Part three was delivered by Tim Thompson himself. Part four was by Gary Cartwright, and part five by the Reverend Jeremy Greaves. It reads:
A few years ago we came home to find a ‘calling card’ left by Barry and Tim. No note. How did we know it
was from them? It was a bottle of Grange. Nothing was ever subtle with you two was it?
We have come together today to pay tribute to a unique person. Someone who was part of lives for too short
a time.
To help us all understand a little more about the person, it is important we talk about and celebrate those times
we had with Baz and the place he made in our lives.
Everyone here shared part of their life with Barry. He often kept those parts separated and isolated, and I do not
think there is anyone here who could profess to knowing and understanding all that made up the man.
In fact, it was only this week that we learned with certainty his true age. Despite insisting he was only 58, the crafty
bastard was really 62. Here are Tim and I celebrating publicly and loudly our half centuries just one month earlier,
and Barry had quietly notched up his 60th – typical.
What I will try to give you is a brief picture of Barry’s early years, which will help you to understand what made
Barry the person he was.
Barry Thomas Cowles, as he was christened, was abandoned by his mother as a baby - born in Carlton during the war
and left at the local police station. While handing him over, his mother refused to sign adoption papers.
He spent the first seven years as a ward of the state at an orphanage in Melbourne. He was placed at various times
and, subsequently, rejected by five foster families before finally being taken in by Jack and Edna Standing.
As my mother, who was present at the time, remarked - here was this isolated, fragile kid with sunken eyes, crooked face,
big ears, and sitting on his haunches, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs, while the bigger kids played around him.
He was too sad a child to leave behind. Jack was not so sure, but June and Edna insisted. So Barry became part of
the Standing family: Jack and Edna as mother and father, June and Boyd as sister and brother.
However, what Jack and Edna had taken on was no angel. This was a child not even with rudimentary table manners,
who could neither read nor write, was prone to nightmares, night sweats and bedwetting while, at the same time,
suffering from the after-effects of tuberculosis. The orphanage had labelled him as uncontrollable.
One can only image the trauma that had left him in the state he was: a child who would cringe and jerk back if you approached him. Edna persevered, eventually getting him into Mentone State School. When they sent him home
as unteachable and uncontrollable, she marched him straight back, pointing out that he was a ward of the state and
they were a state school and they had to sort it out.
Barry’s education was a trial for all concerned. Never one to endear himself with fellow students, he was someone
who did not take stick from anyone. In one case, having been picked on by the neighbour’s kids, Barry marched
home, grabbed Boyd’s .303, and proceeded to bail up his protagonists with the threat that if they hassled him any
more, he would shoot the lot of them. I do not if this was a tactic he used in later years, but it would not surprise
me, as it worked the first time.
During these early years, the Standing family was well connected in the racing industry, and Barry found himself
mixing with prominent trainers, jockeys and owners. These included the likes of Williamson, Purtell, Hall, Meenan,
Sellers, Walters and Hoysted.
Parties would be on the cards just about every Saturday at Jack and Linda Bond’s property Mayfield, and the family
would mix with a variety of well-heeled and influential people. Barry also experienced first-hand the doping and race
fixing which was endemic in the industry in those days.
While his social skills were developing and improving, it was not all a bed of roses. At one of the Saturday nights soirees,
a particularly odious and spoilt child, Jeffrey Foden, who was detested by all and sundry, burst into the gathering of
parents screaming his lungs out and sporting an absolute belter of a black eye. Needless to say, Barry had let Jeff
know exactly what he had thought of him. Whilst publicly being criticised and condemned for his behaviour,
unofficially Barry had earned the respect and appreciation of all present - even being regarded as a bit of a hero for
finally doing what they all wanted to do for some time. Never backward in coming forward, was our Baz.
At school, periods of stability were intermixed with an occasional outburst. Probably the most notorious of these was
being the lit rolls of newspaper pushed through the night cart hatch at the school toilets, causing mass evacuation
amidst screams of rage and pain. Again, that nearly got him expelled. Again, Edna held firm.
Life was never what you would call normal with Jack and Edna. While she worked tirelessly to bring some respectability, schooling and normality to Barry’s life, his relationship with Jack was most succinctly described as an abuse of trust,
which Barry’s placed with him as a parent. To some extent, the horrors of the orphanage had followed him to his
adopted home.
June and Boyd had both married and left home, and Edna’s marriage to Jack finally broke down. Things then got tough
for both her and Barry. Edna returned to work while Barry was forced to collect beer bottles and sell newspapers just
to earn enough to eat. But, like every challenge before and since, they both battled through.
During his whole time at school Barry focussed on one goal and that was his desire to be a plumber. Finally the Education
Department and Barry called a truce with them giving him grades sufficient to leave school and commence his
plumbing apprenticeship.
As well as his career, there was also a strange desire to master the saxophone. He was as successful at that as I was with
the violin. We never did get the opportunity to play a duet for saxophone and violin - which was probably just as well for
the sanity of family and neighbours.
At the age of 21, Edna finally took the opportunity of having Barry adopted, enabling him formally to take the name
of Standing.
So his years as an apprentice and plumber began. With Barry being as far right wing as Genghis Khan now joining one
of the most left wing trades in Australia, it was not long before the Plumbers Union blacklisted him, a badge he wore
with pride for the rest of his life.
Early in his apprenticeship, Barry sustained a serious injury to his eye in a car accident. Suffering from a torn retina
and glass fragments in one eye, an injury at the time that should have meant certain blindness, Edna secured the services
of a Professor Crock who saved Barry’s sight, albeit reduced by about 40%, a legacy that he carried through with him for
the rest of his life. I remember Baz sitting adjacent to the TV, his head swathed in bandages, not being able to look or
focus on anything, stoically suffering in silence. While this was just another battle for Barry to overcome, eventually he
was given a substantial compensation payout, which gave him enough money to start out on his own.
Barry was now an educated, well-groomed individual who had gained financial independence. Along with a growing awareness of his sexuality, which Edna had trouble coming to grips with, Barry took the opportunity of his new
found independence and moved on to the next stage of his life. This is when the businessman in Barry began to
flourish. Barry put his funds into a rundown, single fronted house in South Yarra. This he did up in his spare time and,
once completed, sold it at a healthy profit - note no capital gains tax!
Reinvesting in bigger and better properties, he eventually invested in a block of flats. Not only was this a serious
investment, it entailed even more hard work, but also serious greasing of official wheels. This combination of
smart speculation, hard work and smoothing of the ‘official processes’ is a blend that stayed with Barry for the rest
of his life. It also led to the Ripponlea opportunity where Barry, Tim, and Tim’s mother, Phyllis got together,
forming the formidable triumvirate that delivered the success they subsequently enjoyed.
For those in his adopted family who grew up with him, it certainly was not the end. While not always the easiest
person to find, Barry was often the catalyst for us to trek to new parts of the continent to catch up with him, today
being no exception. He was the reason we drove to Katherine taking in the Alice and all parts along the way. In
return, I at least got him a flight with Neil Armstrong. Not the same one, but he was an American and he flew.
I know Rex and Tim will fill in the details of his life as an adult, but what I will remember is a visit 20 years ago that
Carmen and I made to Main Hotel in Bairnsdale. While Barry met us when we arrived, he quickly excused himself to
sort out a few problems in the main bar. He returned 10 minutes later with a bit of blood on his mouth. Through what
best can be described his trademark pursed lips and cheeky half grin/half snarl, he said: ‘I mustn’t have been
paying attention as I let him get in the first punch’. That was not unusual for Baz and nothing more was said. No
complaint and no whingeing. The problem had been sorted out in Barry’s inimitable fashion and life moved on.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I know I am going to run out of time. I seek leave to have the rest of this eulogy, in five parts, incorporated into the Hansard record.
Leave granted.
Part 2 - Rex Leverington.
Barry and Tim met on 23 December 1974, the day before Cyclone Tracy - I don’t know whether I should read anything
into that. They met at the Woolshed Bar in the basement of the Australia Hotel, Collins Street, Melbourne.
They were introduced by a mutual friend, David Williams, who at the time, Tim was sharing a flat with in North
Melbourne. Some years prior, David had also shared a flat with Barry. After a short while at the bar, David
noticed Barry and introduced them. The chemistry began – and was heightened when they left the venue and Tim
discovered Barry had a Mercedes Benz.
Life together began at 20 Myrtle Street, Ripponlea, an old two-storey terrace that was in need of much TLC. After two
years of renovations they sold it for a handsome profit.
Some funny things happened in that house, like a few days before settlement when salt damp came screaming through
the wallpaper in the music room. Much to Barry’s disgust, Tim turned up the heat and it vanished - well at least until
after settlement. Barry always followed the rule book to a tee, where Tim was always trying to get him to cut corners
for expediency – but no such luck.
During that time, the boys had a small plumbers business, with the plumber’s assistant, Tim, being in constant conflict
with the master plumber, being Barry.
Around 1976, they bought a small farm at Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula; another wreck of a house that
needed renovating. They named the property ‘Kirkliston’ after the Camac family farm at Balhannah where Tim
spent many happy weekends as a young adult. To this day, that name is still part of their group of companies.
First priority was a swimming pool and, up to Barry’s usual high standards, it was built like the great wall of China.
One of the more humorous happenings was in relation to the swimming pool and the ducted heating. They were so proud
of two achievements, because no one really had a swimming pool and ducted heating – unless they were a member of
the Myer family. Mind you, there were no walls or ceilings in the living room, but they had these two comforts. However,
Tim had commenced wallpapering the bedrooms - ever so chic in the 1970s. One weekend they went to Melbourne and
it poured buckets and buckets of rain. So the pool overflowed into the heating ducts and, as they had left the
heating running, it caused a hell of a lot of steam. On their arrival home, they walked into a steam bath, and walls
denuded of the fabulous paper. Needless to say, this began their lifelong dislike of swimming pools and wallpaper.
Barry was a keen vegetable gardener, with raised beds, string lined, straight planting, and all the trimmings. They also
had a herd of seven steers, enough to pay the rates, or so they thought. Barry’s cabbages and brussels sprouts had
grown to be magnificent specimens – his pride and joy. They had another weekend away and, when they arrived
home, nothing was left of the treasured vegetables but sticks. The cattle were sent to the knackery next day, dashing
Tim and Barry’s hopes of ever being cattle barons and market gardeners. That was the only time Tim has seen
Barry extremely angry, apart from when he was telling him what to do which, of course, as you all know, was often.
In late 1978, they sold Kirkliston, and so began in early 1979 their hospitality life.
They purchased the lease of the Main Hotel, Bairnsdale. The landlady’s name was Maria Vogt – a difficult, demanding
but brilliant businesswoman, who taught them so much. She insisted that they religiously allocate 8% of the daily takings
to a bag under the bed and, being so intimidated by her, they conformed with barely restrained enthusiasm.
Barry and Tim were amongst the first two single men to obtain a hotelkeeper’s licence in Victoria; it was the norm for it
to be granted to a husband and wife team. Prejudice was still in its heyday and Barry found this to be of some concern
when someone commented on two men running a hotel. He used to get quite upset, whereas Tim would confront the
person with the quip ‘Shall we see you in court?’ That soon diffused the situation. People’s attitude to someone who
seemed to be a bit different was disturbing in those days. Thankfully, today things have changed for the better,
however minute that may be.
1981 - Britannia Hotel, Norwood, for almost a year. This was their first freehold pub. This is where they met
Vern Hembrow and Robert Semmens, who were responsible for their financial wellbeing and long night sessions
devoted to anything but business. Vern, to this day, is the boy’s financial advisor.
After the Britannia, it was an around Australia trip where they met Paul Kennon in Darwin, who ignited their interest
in the Northern Territory.
Upon arrival back in Melbourne, they purchased the freehold of the Court House Hotel in North Melbourne. The
clientele were mostly Italian and Maltese. Leo’s Corner was famous for its Thursday night nosh-ups with wonderful
plates of antipasto. Leo, of course, was a senior member of the Mafia who, with a slight glance, could fix a situation
before it got out of hand. Barry and Tim’s dad, Max, would often be invited to sleazy bullet-ridden speak-easy’s in
Lygon Street for a few drinks and a lot of laughs. Max was always referred to as Mr Max and Tim’s mother was
Mrs Phyllis, and were held in high regard by the clientele. Barry was one of their closest confidants – someone they
fully trusted.
In 1984, Tim’s mother passed away and the wake at the hotel was very moving. They had never seen so many grown
men cry.
After that, the spark went out at North Melbourne, and they sold up and went for another drive around Australia,
ending up in the Northern Territory.
Their next hotel was the Austral in Colac. This was their most difficult hotel, where clients’ use of alcohol and drugs
did not mix. On one occasion, Barry had a broken pot glass thrust into his face. It rained nine months of the year,
and dripped off the trees for another three. They decided to move on after 18 months.
Dick and Adrian Brewer, along with Jeff and Janet McKay, were their close friends with whom many a beverage
was consumed.
A house was purchased on the River Mitchell at Bairnsdale, and then they set off again to the Territory.
The Riverview Caravan Park, Katherine, was purchased in 1988. This was a huge business, with the busiest night
seeing 700 people crammed into the park. They sold everything from postage stamps to liquor, fuel, takeaway
food, hardware, toys, fishing gear and condoms – you name it, they had it. Barry had it stockpiled to the ceiling,
caressing the cobwebs.
This began their love affair with the Territory and the purchase of commercial property, putting to shame the
recession we were told we had to have.
After seven years, they sold out and went to Toorak in Victoria, where they froze their little butts off. So they took
off for Queensland and Sanctuary Cove, where Barry had his boat and all the things he loved.
Five years down the track, they decided they were too young to retire so, after a discussion with Gary Cartwright,
they decided to look at the Bluestone Motor Inn in Tennant Creek, a 65-bedder with restaurant. Two years in a row
they won the award for the best mid-range accommodation in the Northern Territory.
Great friendships were struck with Nashy the electrician, who used to heave a great sigh every time the phone call came
from the Bluestone for a job that needed to be done yesterday: ‘Quote, Nashy. Nashy, job urgent, get here quick’.
He used to say to Tim: ‘Yes, your eminence’.
There was also Bob Torilla, their competitor at the Safari Lodge, who they had to twist his arm to imbibe a glass of
red wine.
Barry and Tim had the pleasure of hosting the presentation to Kay Rose of an Order of Australia. Keith and Kay Rose
were very special people to Tim and Barry.
Chef Damien and chief bottle-washer, Kay - who, by the way, is now honorary slave to Jackson the Dashy – were their
right hands in the running of the Bluestone Motor Inn.
Tennant Creek was one of their career highlights, and there were many occasions of just plain fun, but hard work.
Tim was once asked why he drove a four-wheel drive vehicle when he never went outside of the town. ‘Simple’, he
said, ‘It mounts the curbs nicely when I’m pissed’.
Sadly, this was also the beginning of a long decline in Barry’s health. The Bluestone was sold the week after Tim’s
50th birthday, which Barry missed out on due to his ongoing treatment. The mayor commented that the 50th celebration
was like the Tennant Creek of old.
After Barry’s rehab at Memorial Hospital in Adelaide under the watchful and caring eyes of Margy Rymill, they went to
Jeff’s in Queensland where the other army of Dashys had been looked after. That was a major part of why they went
back to the Sunshine State.
Soon after arriving, Barry told Tim he must continue to work and, as a result, it’s the East West Motor Inn in Ceduna.
A couple of funny quips from Barry. Tim had, over the last 12 months, been washing, drying and dressing Barry.
On one occasion, just weeks ago, the drying bit about the nether regions was taking place. Barry gave that suppressed
smile, and said to Tim: ‘If you are not careful, I will have you charged with rape’.
Just a few days before his death, he beckoned to Dawn and said: ‘Do not tell Boyd this, but I’m an Aborigine’, and
then winked.
In closing, Tim and Barry had a wonderful 30 years together, had lots of fun, and met some wonderful people, the
like of whom are here today to pay tribute to Barry.
Part 3 – Tim.
Judy Kraeche wrote to me after Dad’s passing and said: ‘Tim, you are now the older generation’. Now that my old
mate has gone, what am I supposed to be this time? Could it be the ancient generation?
There is no text book of life that can tell me how I should feel. I guess emptiness is the closest I can get.
I must thank these people:
The Bishop of Willochra, Bishop Garry, and Rev Jeremy Greaves from Ceduna Anglican Parish. What a lifesaver
he has been, and very forgiving after Christmas Eve Mass.
Boyd, Dawn and June. What can I say? You know how I feel.
Lee-Anne and Trudy, for making the boy purr a few days before his death.
Jim and Cheryl for just being there.
Director of Ceremonies, Rex Leverington.
John Brazil and staff of Berry’s for their professionalism.
Thank you to the management and staff of the Franklin Harbour Hotel.
Thank you to Geoff and Kay for bringing the babies down.
Thank you all for being here to say goodbye to a very special person.
Barry was not a demonstrative person. He was the sort of person who did not show his emotions publicly. However,
there is something I think needs to be said publicly, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. It’s a quote from
Roger Whittaker’s song, The Last Farewell:
For you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than the spoken word can tell.
Barry’s life has been a difficult, exhausting and challenging one in the latter part of his life. He has suffered
incredible deprivation and ill health, but had overcome that to remain a passionate, caring human being, leaving
a legacy of friendship to all who knew him.
He was Sylvia’s ‘Daffodil Boy’. Can you imagine conservative Barry sitting in the main street of Ceduna wearing
a bright yellow wig to help raise money for the Ceduna Room at the Anti-Cancer Council’s Greenhill Lodge?
He was able to mix with paupers and princes, and knew how life worked. Nothing was insurmountable. He never
lost the touch of common humanity. As he progressed through life, he just remained the same. Barry Standing was
Barry Standing - love him or leave him. He did not discriminate. The colour of a person’s skin meant nothing, but
behaviour did, and that is how I feel.
In Katherine just before winter, Barry would buy blankets in bulk for the Western Desert communities of
Kalkarindji, Daguragu and Lajamanu, add on a small margin and sell to the people. This would help them to have
a warm winter without being ripped off. He was always particular that no one was deliberately taken for a ride.
I would often disagree with the size of his margins. He would just shrug his shoulders and ignore me.
Whatever life presented to him just seemed to me as: ‘Oh well, what next?’. It was hard to fathom him out – he was
so deep, like a bottomless waterhole.
Only last Saturday did I learn that Barry had a long-kept secret. Barry had only ever had an extract of a Birth
Certificate which stated that he was born on 4/1/46. His excuse for that was he was a ward of the state. I guess
I had no reason to question that after what he hade been through as a child. Just before his death, I wrote to Births,
Deaths and Marriages in Victoria for a copy of his original certificate, thinking maybe there could be such a piece
of paper. Sure enough, there was. His date of birth was 4/1/42. He is still 58 to me.
Chris, who gave Part 1 of his life story, said to me on Sunday that Barry probably told bits of his life to a number of
people, never quite telling it all to any one person. It’s no wonder June, Barry’s sister, said to me a few weeks ago:
‘He would not just simply give up. He fought life’s incredible battle until the last gasp of life’.
Boyd, Barry’s brother, spoke with an old friend of Barry’s, Paul Venus, last week and he told him that Barry was
determined to show something for his life’s work. I think he has done that well. His success in business is known,
but it was his success in being able to communicate with his fellow man that I think you will all agree is his legacy.
He could easily have earned the nickname of ‘Have a Chat’. He liked a little talk.
At about 2 pm on 5 February, I mentioned to Barry that I was going to have a cup of tea with Jim and Cheryl and
Helen and Phillip across the road from the Wakefield Hospital. I leant over him and gave him a kiss on the
forehead and whispered to him that I loved him, and that I would be back in a short while.
Twenty minutes later, I received a call from Nurse Tim at the hospital to say that Barry had passed away. I was
most distraught. My dear friend, Jim, said: ‘He went while you were not there so as to spare you the pain of seeing
him go’. I now believe that to be true. Typical Barry; he had the last say. God bless Boyd and Dawn for being with
Barry and holding his hands during the last breath of his life.
We are not subjects of each other, but we owe each other love, kindness and respect.
God bless my Bounce-Back Boy, Barry Thomas Standing. May he rest in peace.
Part 4 – Gary Cartwright.
Barry Standing – what a wonderful man, and I feel privileged to have known Baz as a great mate.
Barry was a proud man and a very private man. I do not know anything about his earlier days – he never spoke
about where he grew up.
I first met Barry and Tim in Darwin in mid-1988. At the time, I was working at Kalkarindji, a remote Aboriginal
community 480 km south-west of Katherine. I was in Darwin, negotiating on behalf of the Daguragu Council to
purchase a service station, general store and small caravan park for the Gurindji people at Kalkarindji. I was staying
at the Atrium in Darwin. It was a Friday night, and I came down from my room to find Paul Kennon at the bar talking
to two men. I went over and was introduced to Barry and Tim. From there a great friendship developed.
I spent many a great night with Barry and Tim at Riverview Caravan Park/Service Station. Unbeknown to me, Tim and
Barry had also expressed interest in purchasing the business at Kalkarindji. Once they learnt that I was bidding for
the business on behalf of an Aboriginal community, the dropped their bid, to allow an Aboriginal community to own
an enterprise and generate their own money.
It quickly became obvious that Barry and Tim were incredible business people. Neither had tertiary qualifications, but
they had learnt how to successfully operate businesses through life’s experiences. They complemented each other in
many ways.
They knew what properties were worth. They put money into and further developed the business, further established
the grounds, looked after the staff and provided an excellent service to clients. They then knew when to sell.
Barry, to me, was the quiet achiever, very practical and everything had to be done properly. He was very hospitable
and very generous with friends. Barry was the steadying influence in the relationship; always looking at ways to save
money but never taking shortcuts. Barry was the one who spent most of the day outdoors being the plumber,
carpenter, rubbish collector, slashing lawns and, generally, the maintenance person.
Barry was also the businessman, watching every dollar, following the stock market, always prepared to give good
sound advice if needed. Barry appeared to be, in many ways, the boss in the relationship between Tim and Barry.
I will give an example. Tim wanted to upgrade the kitchen area of the takeaway at Riverview Caravan Park. Barry
could not see the urgent need to upgrade and saw other things with higher priority. Tim managed to talk Barry
into going south for a couple of weeks. While Barry was away, Tim organised contractors to come in and upgrade
the kitchen area to the tune of $25 00. When Barry returned, he was furious, stating that it was a waste of money
and he could have completed the work cheaper and better. I stayed clear of the place for a few days.
Another example was that Tim wanted to buy a Mercedes Benz. Barry kept saying they would buy one later. When
Barry was away, Tim purchased a Mercedes Benz in Darwin; drove around until Barry was expected back. Tim then
left the car with a close friend in Darwin. A few months later, Barry found out that Tim had purchased a Mercedes
Benz without his approval and had left it with friends in Darwin. Tim was ordered to get rid of it. Barry instructed
everyone working in the Riverview Service Station area not to fuel the vehicle up and, if they did, Tim was to pay
cash for all fuel for the Mercedes Benz. World War III was declared. Tim performed and stated to staff, with
great drama, that as he was half-owner in Riverview, he could fuel up the Mercedes Benz any time and put half the
cost of the fuel onto the account and he would pay the balance in cash. The Mercedes Benz was sold soon after.
Everyone who knew them felt more at ease.
Barry was a favourite with the Gurindji people from Kalkarindji and the Warlpiri people from Lajamanu. When the
Warlpiri people came into Katherine, there was usually a lot of trouble and most people stayed away from the football
and Kirby’s and Crossway Hotels. Not Baz – he got on with everyone, even those Aboriginal people who came into town
to play football or just for shopping. Baz would go and watch them play, cheering them on and spending lots of time
talking with them. He would often provide cool drinks and iced water for the players. Everyone held him in high
regard. Barry did small things, like purchasing blankets and other items for them, and then sold the blankets
with no mark-up for himself. If someone was broken down, he would help them into town at no charge.
There was another quality I admired about Barry – he had a high tolerance level. I don’t think I ever saw Baz lose his
cool; nothing seemed impossible. His pain tolerance was also extremely high. We saw this through his difficult last
couple of years. Barry just battled on. I went to Sydney while Barry was in Prince of Wales Private, about 18 months
ago. Both Tim and I seriously did not think Barry would get out of hospital. Barry managed to get out of hospital and
did a range of exercises to try and make himself strong again. One of the things he did was go for walks around Ceduna
but, unlike most people, Barry walked backwards, claiming that when you walked backwards you used extra muscles.
Many people driving past would stop and ask Barry if he was okay. He would reply: ‘Yes, I am fine’, and continue
walking backwards.
Another incident that happened while Tim and Barry were at Riverview Caravan Park demonstrates Barry’s high
tolerance levels. I had just arrived from Timber Creek and had called into Riverview for a quick coffee. I was standing
in the reception area talking to Tim, when Barry raced in with a bad injury to his leg. He had been doing some
plumbing work and some metal had pierced his leg. The cut was deep and nasty and blood was spurting out.
Tim immediately ordered Barry out of the reception area stating that he did not want blood all over the reception
area floor. Barry asked Tim to take him to the Katherine Hospital. Tim said that he could not take him to the
hospital because he did not want blood all over the carpet in the vehicle. I quickly wrapped a towel around Barry’s
leg, got him into my Land Cruiser and rushed him to the hospital. Barry, Tim and I laughed about this incident for
many months
All in all, Baz was a pretty special man. Barry was a good businessman. Barry knew what hard work was. He was a
caring person. He was a very tolerant person. He was always positive and, most of all, he thought the world of Tim.
While in Prince of Wales Private, Sydney, when Barry was down and out, he told me he was worrying about Tim and
how Tim would manage if he lost his battle.
I would like to end this brief speech by saying that Barry was, in Pitjantjatjara terms, a Wati Pulka, which means Barry
was a powerful, wise, strong man.
I was saddened to hear that Barry had passed away. His loss is painful, but somehow, this is the cost of living. In a
very real sense, Barry will be in my heart forever. His presence, in my life, will never die.
Gary Cartwright
21/2/2004
Cowell SA
Part 5 – Rev Jeremy Greaves
Over the past year or so I have come to know Tim and Barry quite well. I’ve heard some of the stories of their lives
together over the past 30 years (probably only those deemed suitable for a vicar to hear). I’ve heard about Barry’s
stoic and dignified struggle with illness in more recent times, and I’ve heard something of the hopes and dreams
Tim and Barry had for the future.
Today, it seems that those hopes and dreams lie in tatters. And even 2000 years of Christian tradition seems
pretty inadequate as we gather here today to mourn the death of someone who died too young after such a difficult
struggle. And I feel a bit of a fraud standing before you. It can all seem inadequate to address the questions and
the doubts; it can seem inadequate to even begin to offer some comfort in the face of Barry’s death.
It would be so much easier for me to stand here, and for all of you, if there was some neat formula, some set of magic
words that would make all of this go away. Unfortunately, our tradition doesn’t give us any such thing and it might
seem that we are left alone with our pain and despair.
The issue of faith for me, at least, is the willingness to dare to believe that behind this world, even in the midst of
unspeakable suffering or grief, there is a hidden and all-embracing love – a love which doesn’t seek value, but
rather creates. If this is so, then God has set a value on Barry’s life, and on our own, that nothing can destroy,
not even death
At times such as this, it takes some daring to believe that. And sometimes we may have to allow others to do the
believing for us. That’s one of the supportive responsibilities of any community. That’s why, at a time like this,
we need to be together as friends and family, to touch one another in some way – it might be for a hug, a smile;
it might be with tears or an embrace; it might be with a word spoken; or a silent prayer offered.
The one phrase that is said more often in the scriptures than any other is ‘Do not fear’. That is, do not be afraid, do
not be anxious. It is something that we all need to hear: that we do not have to be anxious about Barry, for we
place our trust in the promise that he is safe in the arms of God. Trusting this allows us to enter today, tomorrow,
and the next day, with courage and with hope.
So, in the end, we are left alone with each other and with a God who never leaves us. God is with us and we have every
right to be angry with God; we have every right to demand of God, like Martha did of Jesus: ‘Why did you let this
happen? If you were there, maybe things would have been different …’. And we can go on and on asking those
questions; we can go on and on being angry with the world and with God. And these feeling are okay and
normal – God knows. God is big enough to take anything we can hurl God’s way – but eventually, we must find
a way forward.
Probably that sense of loss which we feel today will never go away. Maybe over time it will get a little easier to live
with and the tears might not come so often but, most likely, there will now always be a feeling that something is missing.
And that is not something to be afraid of because, every time those feelings come, it is an opportunity to remember.
Those times, particularly birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries, are times to remember all those things for which
you remember Barry most.
The challenge for each one of us gathered here today is to ensure that nothing good from Barry’s life is ever lost;
that we keep alive the things that were important to him in his life. As we go from this place, it will take everyone
here different lengths of time to discover the real impact of Barry’s death but, if we are to be sure that his life was
worth something, we should take with us a part of what his life meant to us – reflect the love that Barry had in
your own relationships, remember his care when you care for your families or for your friends, remember his
passion, remember all those things that made him great. In this way, despite pain which you may all be feeling today,
there is a way forward.
Dr TOYNE (Stuart): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I feel bound to address tonight the issues raised by the member for Greatorex last week in a press release entitled ‘Health Minister must explain why elective surgery is cancelled once again in Alice Springs’. In this media release, the member for Greatorex alleges not only that elective surgery has been cancelled in Alice Springs Hospital but that this is due to a lack of staff which, in turn, is due to the fact that this government has created new nursing positions but not filled them. These are serious issues on the face of it and it is, therefore, disappointing to find that the media release from the member for Greatorex is full of misinformation, misunderstandings and just plain errors. I can only conclude that the honourable member is either malicious, consciously attempting to deceive the Territory public, or incompetent.
In order to put the record straight, I would like to address the points one by one.
First, the member for Greatorex alleges that Alice Springs Hospital has cancelled elective surgery yet again. Wrong! In recent weeks, no elective surgery has been cancelled at all. Due to the normal operations of any hospital, it is occasionally necessary to reschedule elective surgery to allow more urgent surgery to be performed. However, in recent weeks, only two patients have had their elective surgery for minor conditions rescheduled. In neither of these cases was the surgery rescheduled because of lack of staff. In both cases, it was related to higher priority surgery being undertaken. This, in fact, is a very good record and one I congratulate the staff of Alice Springs Hospital on achieving.
Second, the member for Greatorex alleges that it is not unusual to see 15 patients waiting in emergency each morning for admission to a bed in Alice Springs Hospital. Wrong again! Here are the facts taken from the hospital records from 7:30 am each morning: over the months of February, March and April, there were no occasions at all where there were 15 people or more in the Emergency Department awaiting admission to a ward bed. This is not my opinion; these are the facts provided by the staff of Alice Springs Hospital.
Third, the member for Greatorex states:
As for the recently promised $2m for the Alice Springs Hospital ICU and other services, hospital
management has been advised not to implement any procedures to recruit staff until very late in
the year, as the money will not be available.
Absolutely wrong! Hospital management have not been advised to defer recruitment of staff. In fact, they have been directed to commence recruitment of staff as quickly as possible. Sufficient money is available to fast-track recruitment. Advertisements for specialist doctors and nurses will be published in the national press. Complex medical equipment is being purchased. It is expected that sufficient staff will be available to commence operation in November 2004, with the full staff in place by March 2005.
He is not doing very well so far - not doing very well at all.
Fourth, the member for Greatorex alleges the reasons for these non-existent cancellations of elective surgery is because this government is failing to deliver on our promise to provide 75 new hospital nurses in our first term. He also alleges this government is creating positions and leaving them vacant, and to quote him:
… government is playing bluff with the health of Territorians, announcing initiatives that it has no intention
to undertake.
Wrong, yet again! As of the last sittings in March, we created 38 new hospital nurse positions, and I am very pleased tonight to be able to say that on previously announced initiatives, by 14 May, we have created 48 new nurse positions across the Territory. I wonder how many of those 48 positions have we filled? I table this list: 46 of them have been filled and have incumbents. So much for the claptrap of creating positions and not filling them. This includes 30 positions in Royal Darwin Hospital, five at Katherine District Hospital, eight at Alice Springs Hospital, two at the Gove District Hospital and three at Tennant Creek Hospital. Of these 48 positions - I repeat - 96% or 46 of them are currently filled.
That does not include 25 new positions into ICU High Dependency in Alice Springs and 27 positions announced today in the budget in ED at Royal Darwin Hospital. We are doing pretty well and I believe we will get over 100 nurses in hospital-based positions before the end of this turn, well above the promised level that we took to the last election.
Of the ones not occupied, the member for Greatorex should be aware that recruitment activity is under way to fill these positions. On the member for Greatorex’s allegations that we are creating these positions but not filling them, I simply say this: the money is there, the positions are filled, our commitment to the health of Territorians is on track.
There we have it. One media release; four allegations that go to the heart of the challenges that face our public hospitals; and the member for Greatorex gets every single one of them wrong. These are matters of great importance to the public and, may I say, issues this government is addressing after years of neglect from successive CLP governments. These are issues upon which the public has a right to be informed, and about which I am more than happy to enter into debate. However, that debate must be based on the facts, and not on the kind of wild, inaccurate and just plain wrong accusations we see from the member for Greatorex.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, to conclude, the member for Greatorex made one final accusation. He alleged that I want to retire from the Martin Labor government. Guess what? Wrong again!
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I report to the House on my recent trip to Uganda as a member of the CPA Executive Committee. I have to admit my perceptions of Uganda changed dramatically after my visit. I did have an impression that I probably gained from the media but, in fact, I came away with a very positive attitude towards Uganda.
It is such a small country. It is about a sixth of the size of the Northern Territory, but it has 22 million people. I guess if you think of Alice Springs to the border having 22 million people, you can image how highly populated it is. But it only has one capital city, which is Kampala.
I was impressed with the parliament that I visited there. It has 305 members, 46% of whom are actually women. There is a strong movement in Uganda to make sure women are included in decision-making roles. There were 240 representatives of different constituencies, but there were also 56 women representatives from different districts, 10 people’s Defence Force representatives, five youth representatives, five representatives of people with disabilities and five representatives of workers, or perhaps what we would call the unions. Therefore, the whole spread of the parliament was not just based on one constituency per member. It also had a representation right across the board of community. I was most impressed at the way they operated.
They do not have a multi-party system in the way that we do. There are, obviously, factions within the parliament, but there is a Prime Minister, and no Leader of the Opposition. They work on the basis that, whenever a bill is put forward to them, they vote on it depending whether it is considered to be good for the country or their people. It is called the movement system. It is quite inclusive - certainly non-partisan and non-sectarian - and it brings people of different opinions and identities to work together to develop their country.
Winston Churchill called it ‘the pearl of Africa’, and I guess I can understand why those people – the missionaries and the colonists - really were taken with the beauty of the country there. It has such wealth in the way it can grow things. Everywhere you go - the verges, the lanes, anywhere - you see food growing. Therefore, the people there are not starving people of Africa. They have an extremely healthy diet, in fact. However, unemployment is high and there are no welfare payments. You can understand that the level of standard of living in our eyes is quite low but, in their eyes, they are becoming an economic and social model for the rest of Africa. They have done such good things.
President Museveni opened our conference, and he gave a very strong speech about what had happened since the colonisation. He, basically, said that colonisation had stagmented the development of the African countries, and that the Africans themselves were partly to blame for this because they were not strong enough to stand up for themselves. Certainly they felt, when they reached independence, that the country was left rather illiterate with little education services and a country that was dependent on the export of raw materials. He also spoke strongly of the dark years of the Idi Amin regime, and how that had put the country back even further after the colonists had left.
However, he did point out some of the values of having the British there. One was the benefit of having an English language. I have brought along some newspapers that people might like to read, because it is always good to get what is on the newspapers when you go to a different country.
A member: Any crocodiles?
Mrs BRAHAM: There were none on the front page!
I went to a beautiful national park, and I had to admit I was so impressed with the pristine conditions. The British did leave them this beautiful national park which they have cared for, and they have introduced a system where the royalties from going into that park actually go back to the villages and employ the rangers. There were 400 rangers in this particular park I went to. Because the people in the villages get the benefit from these royalties, they tend not to damage their park; they are not poaching. The elephants, crocodiles and other animals are actually on the increase. It was very refreshing to go into an area along the Nile. I did feel privileged. I rang my daughter and said: ‘I am standing on the banks of the Nile watching the hippopotamus having a bath’. It was really quite beautiful to see. You have to give them credit that they have done this. There are some very wonderful resorts that you could go to as a tourist and stay. I do not think we hear very much about it. Their tourist trade seems to be from Europe - Germany, France and other countries.
The newspapers are very interesting, in that you get a glimpse of things that happen on the ground. This was Museveni, the President whose helicopter broke down when he was due to go to the King’s birthday party, so he went on the back of a scooter. When you look in here, they also did a very nice spread of all the CPA delegations that went there. There are lots of interesting articles in that one. This one, in particular, is called ‘Straight Talk’. This is an article aimed at the young teenagers in Uganda, which talks about a man or a boy having sex with girl who is aged less than 18 years, which is called defilement. I thought what a strong word ‘defilement’ is, compared to what we say, ‘rape and sexual assault’, which we tend to get very blas about. That is such a strong word. ‘Defilement’ is a crime, and this article is aimed at young people, saying: ‘Do you know anyone this has happened to? Tell us your story. Straight talkers speak out on defilement’. It also shows that they have a Straight Talk radio show that is run by teenagers. That is an interesting article.
They believe that is the way they have combated much of the AIDS epidemic. The president actually received a Commonwealth award a couple of years ago because of his work in curtailing AIDS. It has actually dropped from 18.5% in 1993 to 6.5% at the end of 2001. The values that they are promoting to control AIDS I found interesting because, if we went out to our teenagers in our society and said this, they would probably laugh at us: that it was fidelity, awareness, abstinence and the use of condoms. Although it is a very strong Catholic country - a very strong Christian country - even the Catholic Church condoned the use of condoms. By that simple way of taking on values and promoting it, and letting young people know all about it, they have controlled AIDS in a way that is a model for the rest of Africa. That is certainly something that they can be very proud of.
I love this headline: ‘Jobless man wins lotto’. This jobless man won 51 million shillings. Their currency is all in shillings. They do not have any other denominations, so it is sometimes hard to get your mind around the noughts on the end of anything. One of the hotels had gardeners working. They were obviously labourers at the bottom end of the scale, and they earn 200 000 shillings a month - which seems enormous but, in actual fact, is not very much in our terms because one of our dollars would be the equivalent of 1500 shillings. For mathematicians in the room, perhaps you can work out how much they actually earned. It is based very heavily on manual labour. The President basically said: ‘We do not want aid in Uganda, we want training. Do not send us a truck, send us a person to fix it and to show us how to do it. And we want access to markets for our raw materials such as the developed countries. We need that access to the market so we can actually promote our economy’. Uganda is considered to be quite a strong country in economic development.
The meeting that I attended also was very interesting in the fact that I thought of the member for Greatorex when they had did this one. They formed an information and communications technology working group. Everywhere you go, it is interesting to see the different technology used in different parliaments. I went into their Parliament House and their Hansard area and looked at their system. Then I went upstairs to our Hansard people here and saw the difference, and how much more advanced, I guess, we are here, because they still do use the tapes, even though they do it very efficiently and very well.
We also discussed at length the election of the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Women’s Parliamentarians Group. You would have thought, by now, that people would have accepted the fact that we need to promote more women in parliament. However, here we were in this executive meeting, having this long, strong debate from some of the male members, about why we should even have this group, and why they should be discriminated - not against, but for - by including them on the executive committee. Might I add, I did contribute quite strongly to that debate, and we certainly got through that the Chairperson of the Women’s Parliamentary Group in future will be a member of the executive of the CPA.
The member for Drysdale had been to London recently, and I was pleased to note that he gave a report to parliament about his trip to London. I was also pleased to meet one of the members who had met with the member for Drysdale in England. In the future, we will be hosting a delegation from England here in the Northern Territory, which will be great to see. I am also pleased to see that the member for Greatorex is attending the Malaysian seminar representing us, and that is important too. I have said continually to members in this House that it is good to be involved in the CPA. It is an experience and an eye-opener whenever you go. I look forward to having representation also at Canada later in the year.
I have a number of books, as well as papers, on my office table for anyone who might like to borrow these, to get information on it. This is the parliamentary information booklet which they produced, bringing people up-to-date on what is happening in their parliament: Uganda on the Move. That is their Parliament House which was a donation from the British on their independence. It has a number of articles, some of them quite controversial as well, and there is a wildlife spectrum inside. Members, you are very welcome to borrow these if you would like to catch up on what was going on in Uganda.
Again, I urge all members, whenever they can and where possible, to be part of the CPA. We have a good reputation on the CPA as a small country that has contributed a lot, and has been host to many delegations and to the Small Countries’ Conference. We can only add to that reputation by making sure we participate in a positive way.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak about the young man in Alice Springs whom I met at the Northern Territory School Board of Studies Awards held at the Desert Park several months ago. This young man’s name is Paul Jannick Casseeram. Paul is a young man who has just finished his Year 12 studies in Alice Springs at St Philip’s College last year. In doing so, he did very well in his examinations.
Let me give you an idea of how well he did by giving you the results of his Stage 1 and Stage 2 subjects. In the year 2002 for Stage 1, first of all, he was assessed by NTCE for the subjects he had studied previously when he lived overseas. He was granted a satisfactory achievement result for a Block Stage 1 assessment. For chemistry he received 15 points; English - these are all Stage 1 subjects - 17 points; French, 19 points; Mathematics, 15 points; Specialist Mathematics, 17 points; and Physics, 17 points. Last year, for the Stage 2 examinations, in Chemistry he received 17 points, which was classified as an A grade pass; for English communications, he received 14 points, a B grade pass; for French, he received 20 out of 20 points, again an A grade pass; Mathematical Studies, 18 points; Physics, 18 points; and Specialist Mathematics 18 points, all A grade passes. You can see for yourself, Paul did remarkably well at the NTCE examinations and he was ranked ninth in the top 20 Year 12 students of the Northern Territory for 2003.
I was at the Northern Territory School Board of Studies Awards where he received an award for a perfect score in French. I had a chance to speak to the young man and his family. His father’s name is Manfred. I discovered that Manfred is a pathology technician who was recruited from South Africa to work in the Alice Springs Hospital in the Pathology Department. He had been in Alice Springs for some two years; had come across from South Africa, initially on his own, to commence the job and to set up home before he brought his family across. After some three months living in Alice Springs and working there, he did bring his family across to live in Alice Springs and St Philip’s College is where Paul - and his young brother who now also goes there - went to school in Alice. The mother came, along with the children, and so they are now live in Alice Springs as a family in a home that they are purchasing.
Manfred Casseeram saw me subsequent to the awards ceremony, saying that young Paul, who rated ninth out of the top 20 Year 12 students in the Northern Territory last year, was refused a government scholarship. The reason that he was given for being unsuccessful in his application for a scholarship - considering that he was the ninth top student in the Territory - was that the competition for such scholarships was intense and that a large number were received for this year. There was no reason given for his failure to receive the scholarship.
On hearing that from Manfred Casseeram, I wrote to the minister to plead on behalf of young Paul. I thought he was a high achiever in academic achievement and he should be awarded a scholarship. He had every expectation to receive a Northern Territory government scholarship, as he was the ninth top student in the Territory. The letter I received from the minister, dated 4 May, was very disappointing. He thanked me for the letter regarding Paul Jannick Casseeram, and I will quote from the second paragraph:
I am advised that Paul’s application was unsuccessful on the basis that he did not meet the residency
criteria. Paul acknowledged this in the letter accompanying his application.
Let me just talk a little about the residency criteria. I understand that residency criteria for Northern Territory students applying for scholarships from the government is that they have to live in the Territory for two years. This is a family whose father came over two years ago to work in a job that he was specifically recruited for from South Africa. It is understandable that he would have come on his own to ensure that the circumstances he was going to meet in the Northern Territory would suit his family.
Therefore, he came first, he took on a job and set up home, and then brought his family across once he had settled. This is a family which has made Alice Springs their home. The whole family now lives here, the children go to our local schools and they are very high achievers. Chief Minister was recently quoted as saying: ‘You can live in the Territory for five minutes and if you live in the Northern Territory you are a Territorian’. I tell you the Casseerams are Territorians. They have lived here long enough to qualify. This young man has done very well to qualify for a scholarship from the Northern Territory government. I say to the minister that it is not good enough that you knock this young fellow back just because he happens to have lived in the Territory for a couple of months short of the two year residency criteria that is required.
Let me also tell the minister for education that I know that, up to the end of March, only nine scholarships were awarded out of the normal 10 scholarships awarded annually for high achieving students in the Northern Territory. I ask myself: why? Why did the department only award nine scholarships instead of the normal 10? Perhaps the department is holding off on the 10th scholarship just in case the minister decided that Paul Casseeram deserves one, and will instruct the department to award him the scholarship.
It is important for the minister to get across this issue. This is a young man who deserves every support that this government can give him. Territorians want to see our young children achieve to their maximum potential possible. This is a young man who shows, definitely, that he can achieve, and achieve well. To score five As out of six subjects is a remarkable performance for any young man, and I doubt that anyone in this Chamber would have achieved as many as he has.
Therefore, minister, I say to you that it is important to reconsider this young man’s application for a Northern Territory government scholarship. The family is currently undergoing a degree of financial hardship to ensure Paul continues his higher education interstate. He has chosen to do a course. I cannot recall what it is called at the moment, but it is not available at the Northern Territory University so he is studying interstate. I vaguely recall that it may be the ACT where he is studying at the moment. I say to the minister again: I believe it is important to reconsider quickly. It is now into the second term, or the first semester of his first year of university. They are still struggling with only the family’s financial resources. If we can get the scholarship awarded to this young man, it will make a big difference for the family but, in particular, for this young man who would then have the peace of mind to be able to pursue his studies without having to worry about where his next dollar is going to come from for his boarding fees, study fees, books and his living away from home allowance.
I spoke to the minister last week after I received his letter, and explained in very strong terms that I thought his decision was wrong. He promised me that he was going to have his department reconsider the application. It has, perhaps, gone beyond a departmental decision now. The minister himself has to become involved in this decision, and the sooner he gets involved in it and gets across it, he can make the decision and, in doing so, will ensure that this young man gets the scholarship that he deserves.
I am sure that Manfred Casseeram would be very happy to talk to the minister at any time. It is easy enough to find him at the Alice Springs Hospital Pathology Department, and find out what his intentions are regarding a long-term stay in the Northern Territory. They have said to me that they are Territorians; their youngest son is going to St Philip’s College at the moment. I believe this year he is in Year 12. Perhaps there is another scholarship coming again at the end of this year because, surely this time, the younger son would have qualified for his two years Territory residency criterion.
Therefore, minister, please look positively towards this application. He deserves every help he can possibly get. Awarding the 10th scholarship that has been on hold by the department would cost the government no extra; it is just the 10th scholarship that is awarded each year. You will make this young man a very happy man and give him all the encouragement he can possibly get to return to the Territory to work with his qualifications.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I am not sure I can get all this in tonight, but I will try. Otherwise, it will be in two parts.
I would like to put on record details about the visit of two people, Judi and Payden Green, who are the niece and grand-niece of Captain L Strauss, who is the person whom the Strauss Airstrip is named after. As people would remember, it is the airstrip which was the subject of some debate as to whether we should have a duplicated version of the Stuart Highway go right through the middle of. I will not go into the details of how these people were contacted and decided to come to Australia, except to say that they did decide that they would come out and see where their uncle spent his last days and died.
I was privileged to chaperone these people. I should say at the start that it has been one of the most enjoyable times of my life. These people were the most friendly people you would ever want to meet. They were just ordinary folk like ourselves. They come from a small town called Marysville in Ohio. They live on a farm just outside that town, and they both teach at Marysville High School. Judi, who is the niece of Strauss, teaches children at that school you might call ‘difficult’ children, who do not want to come to school. Payden also teaches at that school. She is also an athlete, and I gather she runs half marathons. It is a bit further than I prefer to run.
They were originally meant to arrive in Darwin on 24 April, which was a Saturday. As you might have known, Anzac weekend was a long weekend. They were supposed to arrive at 1.15 pm on Saturday and we had an itinerary planned for that afternoon because, as they were only here until the Wednesday, we were going to literally have a fairly tight itinerary. However, unfortunately, their plane was cancelled in Columbus, Ohio, due to a faulty wing. Of course, this made life a bit difficult, as they were supposed to get a connection with Qantas at Chicago. They then caught an Air New Zealand flight, which meant that they arrived at 12.30 am on Sunday 25th, which was Anzac Day.
I went out to the airport to meet them. Luckily, they had sent me a nice photograph of themselves before they came, so they were easy enough to recognise. After we had said our hellos, they informed me that they had arrived with no baggage whatsoever. They were two Americans who had basically come from the other side of the world, never been to Australia in their life, and were only wearing the clothes that they came in.
There was not much we could do about that, so we sent them off to the Atrium that night and I picked them up the next morning at 8 o’clock. In the meantime, I had been to the Anzac Day memorial service at the Humpty Doo Golf Club and, luckily, I met one of the councillors from the Litchfield Shire Council, Ethel Bourke, and told her of the predicament of the Greens who had arrived without any spare clothes. Thankfully, Ethel Bourke is about the same size as Judi Green and she bundled up a great selection of clothes and I raced those back into the Atrium. I know Judi Green was very appreciative of being able to dress in something better than what she had been wearing for the last couple of days on an aeroplane.
We travelled down to the Humpty Doo Village Green where the 10 am Anzac Day ceremony was to take place. For those who do not know, Payden, which is a strange name, is the maiden name of Payden’s grandmother and that is where the name comes from. Judi and Payden laid two wreaths on Anzac Day in memory of their uncle. After that, they had a great time meeting people, especially the locals - plenty cups of coffee and biscuits - and people were extremely friendly towards them. One gentleman, whose name escapes me, actually had a commemorative book for a reunion of the squadron that Captain Al Strauss had flown with, and he was quite delighted to be able to present that to the family. I should say that this day was the beginning of many days where there was not only plenty of happiness, there also plenty of tears . That started off when they laid the wreaths at the Anzac memorial in Humpty Doo. They were certainly welcomed by the people in Humpty Doo. If you did not know and, if the Greens did not have an accent, you would have thought they were part of the Humpty Doo set, because they fitted in perfectly well.
We had to then leave the Humpty Doo Village Green and travel to the Strauss Airstrip. I had, fortunately, gone out the previous morning with a mop and bucket - trying to hide before too much of the traffic saw me - and gave the big sign a bit of a scrub. It had a few years of smog and oil all over it, so we gave it a bit of a clean-up. They went out there - this is their first time of course, they had only just arrived in Darwin late that morning - and they were met by a photographer from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age who had taken their photographs as they spent some time walking down the airstrip. I suppose that was one of the times I realised how important it was that we had kept that strip, regardless of the bits and pieces that have changed on it. Here we saw the family of the person the strip was named after walking down that strip. I do not know what would have gone through their mind when that happened. I think, again, there were a few more tears.
We finished doing that, and then raced off to the SCG, the Strauss cricket ground. It was already packed with quite a large number of people. The Army was there with their tent set up. We had the American and Australian flags up on the new flagpoles that one of the members of the Southern Districts Cricket Club, Jeff Akers, had kindly donated and erected. We had a plaque in memory of Captain Strauss covered with the Ohio and Northern Territory flags. Of course, they did not know anything about this at the time. They must have been a bit bewildered; to get off a plane and turn up at this little bush cricket pitch in the middle of nowhere must have been a bit of a shock. We then asked everyone to gather around the flagpoles and then asked Judi and Payden to remove the flags from the plaque. I tell you, you could not hear a pin drop when that happened, and there were certainly lots of tears. It was a wonderful occasion.
We then asked them to deliver caps to both cricket teams. The two cricket teams are the Southern Districts Cricket Team in disguise, which was formerly called the Litchfield President’s XI - although Mary Walshe is the captain and I am about the 14th man - and the Army. The Greens then handed out caps with Captain Strauss’ name and a copy of the wings that he wore as a pilot. We gave out blue caps to the Litchfield President’s XI and khaki caps to the Army.
Then we asked everyone to stand to attention and Noelene Trinne, who is a singer I know from the Darwin Chorale - if you are ever in at B B’s Espresso caf in Casuarina, you will find her there, because she owns the caf along with her husband - sang the American National Anthem. She practiced it for weeks before without any music. It is not an easy anthem to sing at the best of times, and for her to stand up there and sing that national anthem perfectly without music was a great effort.
Then, of course, the Administrator was there. He led the rest of us in the Australian National Anthem and I can tell you, it was sung with a fair bit of gusto there. After that, Payden tossed the coin and, I must confess, I do not know whether the Greens had a clue what was going on when we told them that this was going to be a cricket match. I believe they learnt as the day went on.
We had the normal cricket match that we have there every Anzac Day. There was plenty of bribery and corruption. In fact, there was $1200 raised just out of bribery. Bribery, in this case, is where, if you are out, someone pays you to stay in, or then someone then pays you to go out again or, if they do not want you to bowl as they did in my case, because I had 27 hit off one over, they pay you not to bowl anymore - which Mary Walshe did. We raised quite a bit of money that way.
In the meantime, the Greens were literally inundated with people coming to say hello and find out where they came from. It was a pretty hot day, and I know that Judi likes Midstrength and Payden likes a Light Ice. They were very appreciative of some cold drinks on that day, especially if you have just come from Marysville, Ohio, where I think the top temperature would be pushing to be above 10 C. We then took them all home; they were pretty exhausted.
I thank the Darwin Parachute Club. One of their representatives rang me late on Saturday night and asked whether we would like them to literally drop in. I said that would be great so, halfway through the cricket match, down came these four parachutists with red, white and blue streamers. I suppose those three colours can represent both countries because there are exactly the same colours in both flags. I know Judi and Payden were overwhelmed that these parachutists would make the effort to drop in just because they had arrived from America. Anyway, that night I dropped them back at the Atrium and, I can tell you, they were pretty well exhausted.
The next day, Bob Alford, who people might know is involved with the Heritage Advisory Council and has been a great supporter and one of those people who has put the Aviation Museum together. I did not realise he is a great painter. If you go to the Aviation Museum, you will see some of his paintings, and they are quite good. He is a walking encyclopaedia when it comes to World War II heritage. I said to him that if you every die, we have just got to somehow retain the hard drive because he has just got so much in there, you would not want to lose it. He took them down, and I followed them, to Adelaide River. I did not know that is where Strauss and his squadron took off from. There is an airstrip just south of Adelaide River, past the Mt Bundy turn-off, which is not named. It is just a paddock. They actually used a grass airstrip because Strauss arrived in March 1942 and, while he was there, they were building what is now the Strauss Airstrip, which was formally called the 27 Mile. He never actually used the Strauss Airstrip. He took off from the airstrip at Adelaide River and his last flight was made from there. When his squadron moved to the 27 Mile, they renamed that the Strauss Airstrip.
Bob Alford took them down there and showed them where the planes used to take off, and then he took them closer to the corner of the Mt Bundy turnoff and the Arnhem Highway. There are two railway lines in there, which you would not know were there. They were branch lines off the main railway line from Adelaide River. One went to cattle yards and the other went to a hospital. Just near the hospital branch line are the remains of a small kitchen. That was the mess where these pilots had their dinner. You would not know it was there because there is gamba grass and mission grass there. It took Bob quite a while to find it. Again, it was an emotional time for the family, to find some place where they could relate to their uncle. I did not know anything about that as well, and it was a great occasion. I have plenty more to say. I will continue in the adjournment debate tomorrow or the next day, and I will make sure it is all recorded.
Mr AH KIT (Arnhem): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, this evening I remark on one of the great things about the Territory and the people who live here: their spirit of generosity and care for one another. Last week, I was privileged to join members of the licensed club community in their launch of the clubs’ Smile For a Child project, which they are holding in conjunction with the Starlight Foundation. The idea of the project is for the licensed clubs of the Territory to join together to raise $32 000 to buy four interactive entertainment centres to go into each of the public hospitals in the Territory.
None of us like being in hospital, and there are few things sadder than to see a young kid stuck in hospital, especially for a long time. They are lonely, and often scared. Often they might be in pain. Many times they are apart from their families and friends.
The interactive entertainment centres are quite wonderful. They can be wheeled up to kids’ beds and give access to kids with DVD movies, video games and a host of other activities. As Starlight Foundation member, Julie Monaghan, said the other day: ‘It is something that can transport kids far from their worries and cares for, perhaps, hours at a time’.
It is great to see how Clubs NT have taken this project on. At the launch was the national ambassador for the Starlight Foundation, the great one and only cricketer, Alan Border, the Queensland President, Damien Massingham, the State Manager of the Starlight Foundation in Queensland, Julie Monaghan, and Andrew Hay, the President of Clubs NT.
It is no surprise to me that clubs and, in particular sporting clubs, right across the Territory have banded together to support this great initiative. There are over 80 clubs in the Northern Territory, and it is little known among the general public what an important element the clubs are in our daily lives. One hundred thousand people are members of clubs, and they employ around 700 full-time equivalent people. In addition, clubs, both great and small, depend on enormous levels of volunteers. They are a vital part and an important contributor to the community. A number of clubs are doing it tough, and you would not be surprised if the last thing on their minds would be to go out and support other causes. However, they do it, and they do it willingly. It is the clubs and their memberships which are the real heroes in this worthy cause.
Fundraising is not new to Territory clubs. In any given year, clubs in the Northern Territory donate $3.5m to the community. That is a measure of generosity that is a tribute to the clubs and their membership. Most clubs are involved in fundraising activities throughout the year and, through this campaign, these skills will be used to raise funds for the fantastic interactive entertainment centres for the children in our hospitals. Clubs around the Territory will be staging fundraising events from now until October, ranging from the sale of clubs’ Smile For a Child merchandise, to sausage sizzles, dinners, raffles and golf days - whatever they can come up with. I am confident that, through the hard work and dedication of clubs throughout the Territory, Clubs NT will reach its fundraising target and, hopefully, more.
It was lovely to see people like Frank Dalton from the Katherine Country Club, and Kevin Johns from the Katherine Club, not to mention Geoff Woods from the Alyangula Recreation Club, here in Darwin lending their support.
I congratulate all the clubs in the Territory for their commitment to this worthy cause and wish all clubs and the Starlight Children’s Foundation all the very best in their fundraising efforts.
I would also like to thank Alan Border for lending his wholehearted support for this campaign. Alan was a champion in the sports arena and, all of us would agree, he is also a champion for the community.
In the first night of their fundraising, Clubs NT last Friday night at the Sailing Club, raised $15 000, so they are nearly halfway there already. My colleague, the member for Nhulunbuy, kicked in $500 on that night, and I was more than happy to match him the next morning. If any other members of this Chamber here tonight, or in the near future, are prepared to throw in a few dollars, my office will put you in touch with the right people at Clubs NT.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, all of us at one time or another are touched by the plight of a kid in a hospital, so I congratulate, once more, the Starlight Foundation and the Clubs NT for their wonderful initiative in this area.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk in this Chamber about a young man from Katherine who is a shining example of what the youth of today can achieve by contributing to, and participating in, their community. I talk of Max Morris who has just turned 18 years of age.
Max’s life story begins with a twist of tragedy when his father, Paul Morris, was accidentally killed in a vehicle accident before Max was born. Max’s mum, Julie, returned from interstate to her home town of Katherine to give birth to Max in the hospital where she had spent many years as a nursing sister. Max’s first few months were spent living with his mum at his grandparent’s place until they moved together into historic O’Keefe House, where his mother helped clean and renovate the building for the Katherine Historical Society.
Max attended Katherine South Preschool, the feeder to Katherine South Primary School. During his years there, Max won many Green Ant Awards, typical of the schools’ system to foster and encourage those who demonstrated academic and sporting abilities, including high spirits. Max won his first community awards at age six. It was perhaps the simple hand-typed letter from Jackie Baxter of the then Territory Anti-Litter Campaign that was the catalyst to his future endeavours and leader among youth that he is today.
In Max’s last year of primary, he transferred to Toowoomba Grammar School on the Darling Downs in Queensland, where he spent the next five years under the care of Hugh Rose as his tutor. It was Hugh’s prospectus that had such an emotional impact on Julie, and confirmed her decision to give Max not only the education she had worked hard to provide, but the influence from a family of men that she knew that he needed to become the man she knew that he would, and a man like his own Dad. His father, Paul William Morris, was himself a young leader and member of the Young Lions in the Katherine community when he lived there as a youth.
Max returned to Katherine to complete his Year 12, and immediately became involved in the Katherine Youth Group. Since then, he has been an active leader among his peers, and has achieved a considerable amount in the short time since he returned in 2002. I was really impressed with Max’s compering of the Katherine High School graduation night 2003, which he handled with confidence and professionalism. It was the first time that I had witnessed his ability in front of a large group of people.
Max has achieved quite a bit in his 18 years. Some of the things that have happened in the last couple of years include that he has received sail training, Office of Youth Affairs, 2003, with the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure; certificate of attainment in Take the Lead Conference, Office of Youth Affairs 2003; he won the Youth, Sport and Cultural grant, Katherine Town Council 2003; he was the Parmalat Youth Leader’s Camp Leader 2003; Katherine representative 2002, 2003 and 2004 for National Youth Week; he was the 2004 semi-finalist in the Youth Leadership in the Northern Territory Young Achievers Award; he was the Community Service Young Citizen of the Year for Katherine Australia Day Award 2004; and the Charles Darwin University Outstanding Leadership Award 2003. One of his wonderful latest attributes is writer of ‘What’s Crackin’ Max?’ It is a bi-monthly column for youth in the Katherine Times, which he has been writing since February 2003.
Max is also involved in the Katherine Youth Group as vice-president 2003 and 2004; the Katherine skate park subcommittee as chairman 2003 and 2004; vice-chairman of the Chief Minister’s Round Table of Young Territorians 2004; vice-chairman of the Katherine Region Harmony Group Youth Working Party 2003-04; vice-chair of the Katherine Youth Group Executive Committee 2004; Katherine representative on the NT Youth Affairs Network 2003-04; and National Youth Week representative 2002, 2003 and 2004. His sporting achievements go on and on.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have been watching this young man develop into a great leader through his involvement with Katherine youth, and it gives me great heart for the future. Max would be the first to acknowledge the love and support he has received from his mother, Julie, who faced many challenges as a single supporting mum. Her encouragement and unfailing support has assisted Max to become the great young leader he is today. The future looks great and is well deserved for Max Morris.
I would also like now to refer to what is happening with the 2004 Croc Festival in Katherine. During the last sittings of this Assembly when I asked in Question Time why the Martin Labor government was not supporting the Croc Festival for this year, the minister for education went to great lengths to deride the Croc Festival organisers, and to attempt to persuade the rest of the members in this House of how the decision was made. The remarks by the Chief Minister and the minister for education were offensive to the organisers, not only nationally, but also to the organising committee in Katherine. It is not only me who finds it extremely interesting that all the decisions that were made by this government, were only made after the festivals had been held in both Labor seats of Nhulunbuy and Barkly. Following the last sittings, which the festival organisers followed closely, they advised me that they were going to acknowledge the support of all the staff and students who have worked so hard to this point, and that they were committed to produce the festival in Katherine come what may.
Due to the lack of support from the Northern Territory government, the event will be running at a loss. Even though there will be a shortfall, events will be reconstructed and reallocated, but the overall event will not be compromised. I met with Andrew Douglas and Kathy from the National Croc Fest organising committee yesterday morning prior to them leaving for Katherine to continue the planning with the organising committee, and they are very excited and enthusiastic about this year’s festival. I thank them wholeheartedly for not giving up on this festival, which is an important ongoing educational experience for the regional and remote students of not only throughout the Territory, but from the Kimberley, who will be attending. I look forward to bringing the positive feedback to this Chamber following the festival.
I would also like to follow on from the member for Macdonnell’s adjournment tonight in paying respect in this Chamber to the late Barry Standing. I first met Barry in Katherine in 1990 when he and his partner, Tim, were the owner/managers of the Riverview Caravan Park and my husband, Mike, and I had just arrived in Katherine. Over the years, I was in touch with Barry and his partner, Tim, especially through tourism activities. The last time I saw them both physically was when I stayed at the Bluestone Motor Inn in Tennant Creek, which they had purchased, while attending a tourism conference. It was obvious on this occasion that Barry was very ill, but he was still rushing around waiting on tables and doing whatever needed to be done - forever putting the customer needs first.
Barry and Tim eventually moved to Ceduna, South Australia – ironically, the town where I was born - and purchased the East West Motel. It was to be last tourism venture that Barry was to be involved in before he succumbed to his illness. The last time I spoke to Barry was in Ceduna. Barry and Tim together contributed significantly to the tourism industry and to the community wherever they went, and were held in the highest esteem. I thank Barry for his valued contribution to tourism, and may he rest in peace.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I advise the House on three events that I have attended in the last few weeks in my electorate.
The first was the official opening of the Mitchell Centre in Darwin. Members will remember all the dramas that have gone on with the businesses that occurred on the blocks of land. The site is the corner of Knuckey and Mitchell Streets in the CBD and consists of two blocks of land, one owned by the Randazzo family and the other owned by the Uniting Church. The church still holds the lease for that land. Now that there is a substantial building on their block of land, they are being paid for that lease.
It was great attending the ceremony in the Mitchell Centre as we all reflected, for example, on the history of the block. Members will recall all the dramas with regard to the old Uniting Church on the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey Streets. Many of us have a history with that building that used to be on that block. I know that years ago the building used to have the then Yamaha motorcycle distributorship and Kawasaki. I purchased a Yamaha there many years ago, and I remember the joy of riding out on my big 650 Yamaha into Knuckey Street, and then spending a few years going back to those buildings for the regular services that were required.
Eventually, a couple of the buildings that were there were moved away to other blocks of land in Darwin and down the track, and we were left with the original church building and were able to watch, with some despair, as it deteriorated over the years. It was a very wise decision, I believe, of the CLP government to move the old church from its site on Knuckey Street to the Botanic Gardens because, for the last few years, itinerants had been living in the old church. I used to live opposite it in the Le Grande building. I remember one night the fire engines came at about midnight, amidst great excitement. We thought the old church was going to burn down but, no, it was just that the itinerants had set a fire out the back and the firefighters were able to put it out.
Eventually, a decision was made to move the old Uniting Church to the Botanic Gardens, and some fantastic work was done over that. Members will recall that the church was a prefabricated building, built by the Simpson company, now famous for its washing machines, in their factory in South Australia many years ago, and shipped up here to the Northern Territory as a church. It was unique architecturally, in that it was, basically, a kit home from the olden days. When it was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens, great care was taken to either salvage the original product, or replace damaged building parts with replicas that were very similar to what had been there.
Only one or two walls - in fact, I think it is only one original walls - still exists in that building because it was in such poor condition. That wall actually has bullet holes in it from World War II, which makes it interesting for people to have a look at. The people undertaking the move of the church and the work on it from an historical point of view, were able to test the timbers of the floor scientifically and identify exactly where the wood came from in Tasmania. Therefore, the new floor had been sourced from the same forest area to ensure that it is very true to the original.
I can assure members it looks nothing like the floor it replaced, because it was absolutely black from dirt and oil that had soaked into it, thanks to its days as the motorbike repair business that used to be there. Perhaps it was some oil from one of my bikes that was in there.
It was a fantastic effort from the previous government to move the church down to the Botanic Gardens, which then freed up the Uniting Church’s block of land for redevelopment. A number of parties then got together over a couple of years and development what is now a great building in Darwin - the Mitchell Centre.
One of the most interesting speeches given on that night was a short speech provided by George Woodward, who is a Reverend, who is actually the head of the Uniting Church Synod in the Northern Territory. George told a story about how the Uniting Church had held a meeting of its major stakeholders a couple of years ago to talk about whether or not they would sell or lease the land. Some Aboriginal people involved with the church were part of that meeting, and they apparently gave the advice to the Uniting Church when they said: ‘We want to keep the turtle and collect the eggs’. I thought that was a very wise way at looking at how you can own land and gather the eggs - gather the lease payments - for the years to come. That is now what has happened, and the money that the lease pays to the Uniting Church is then used for the good works that they do here in the Northern Territory.
I would like to congratulate all the parties that have come together for the development of the Mitchell Centre in Darwin, particularly the Uniting Church and the Randazzo family. I know that members of the Randazzo family - particularly Joe, Tony, Carlo and Paulo and their wonderful supporting women - have really put their hearts into this building. Now we can all enjoy it. As a local resident, I belong to the gym that is there. I try desperately to get there at least once a week and, on the way home, do my shopping at Coles. It is a fabulous resource for all of us, and I know it is going to be a very important part of Darwin for many years to come.
I have also had the pleasure, in the last week or so - in fact, it was last Thursday night - to attend a magnificent performance at the Mitchell Centre, showing its diversity in what it can provide to the community, of the Tracks Dance production Fast … accelerate into the future. The program ran for four sessions. Three of them were originally scheduled and sold out very quickly, and the fourth was an extra session put on on Sunday night to try and appease the clamouring hordes of Darwin who found themselves having been a bit too slow in getting their tickets, and finding that the show had been sold out.
Tracks Dance Company is now developing a reputation. If you want to go and see something that they are putting on, you had better be quick, because they have done some fantastic stuff. I remember last year, I attended once called Rivers of Fire at the Wharf Precinct. One of the things Tracks are able to do is pick some amazing sites for their productions. The one at the wharf was really something. It was set in one of the old storage sheds - a huge shed - and the lighting and the whole effects of the performance really were breathtaking.
This happened again on Thursday night at the Mitchell Centre with the program Fast …accelerate into the future. And fast it was; it was absolutely exhausting to watch. How those young people remembered everything that they had to do, let alone keep up the energy for it, really took your breath away. The program, essentially, was young people providing an extraordinary interpretation of their impressions of how they perceive this world, and the costumes were great, as I knew they would be. I am so jealous that I am not 17 years old nowadays, because the clothes that young people are wearing now are really fantastic. A lot of the styles, particularly the gothic, came out in this production, and I do love the gothic look - not that I could ever get away with it. The costumes were great and the direction was spectacular.
The logistics of organising a group of people to move in the way that they did and interact with each other is an absolute achievement. My special congratulations go to David McMicken, Tim Newth and Julia Quinn who were the direction and concept team. They have done a great job in coming up with this idea and pulling it all together. Another special mention are to the core dancers, who were Erwin Fenis, Marko Taopo, Jessica Rosewarne, Justine Clarke, Byron Low, Tara Robertson and Ruttiya Suansri. We often see these young people in productions around Darwin and they really were, once again, fabulous. I know that many of them have been working, either in ballet or other forms of dance, since they were young children, and you can tell by watching what they are doing. Others, particularly the rap dancers have, obviously, got the bug during their teenage years and really applied themselves. Their movements are really extraordinary.
Naturally, of course, I also congratulate all the other people involved in the production and the performance - and there were lots of them. They did a fantastic job. They really did Darwin and the Northern Territory proud. I really think that this group could stand and hold its head up high, when compared to other groups anywhere in Australia. They really are something and I thoroughly recommend to members that, if you ever do have the opportunity to go to a Tracks production, do yourselves a favour, because it really will take your breath away.
Finally, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to mention to members that I had the pleasure last Friday night of being the MC - and it was an honour - at a reception held here in Parliament House in the gardens at the back of the building. It was hosted by Dragons Abreast, of which I am the patron, and Breast Cancer Voice, for which Nerys Evans, the Administrator’s partner, is their new patron. It was a special night which was really designed to provide a big thank you to the supporters of Breast Cancer Voice and Dragons Abreast - there are many wonderful supporters of this group - and also to acknowledge the achievements of a number of people who have been involved, particularly with Dragons Abreast, over the last few years.
Special guests on the night included our leader, Terry Mills, the Deputy Chief Minister, Syd Stirling, and the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Mr Jack Ah Kit. It was wonderful to see those fellows there supporting the breast cancer girls.
I would just like to make a special mention of two of the people who received special acknowledgment on the night. The first is Alan Culbertson, who is the Northern Territory’s Sports Ambassador of the Year and also the coach of Dragons Abreast. I am sure members are aware that Dragons Abreast is a group that has only been running for about four or five years here in the Northern Territory, but they have been so successful that they really have spearheaded around Australia the dragon boat racing and work for women who have survived breast cancer. Now there are dragon boat teams for breast cancer survivors in every state and territory in Australia, including Tasmania, and that has been a marvellous achievement of Dragons Abreast as a group. Alan Culbertson has been a spearhead person in that, in providing support and encouragement to the women, and now they compete nationally and internationally. It has just been a marvellous inspiration to all of us who have been involved with the group to see how the group has developed and what they have achieved.
In recognition of that achievement, Michelle Hanton received the 2003 Avon National Spirit of Achievement. This was an Australian award presented by Avon, and it was a marvellous achievement from Michelle. She won $15 000 which she very duly, quickly and, typically unselfishly, donated back to Dragons Abreast. I would like to add my sincere congratulations to Michelle. Everybody who is involved in breast cancer work and Dragons Abreast knows of the extraordinary work done, and the inspiration that Michelle is to all of us and the love that we hold for her. I hope it keeps her going for many years to come.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak of a great community event that I had the pleasure of attending; Brass at Browns on 5 May 2004. The particular concert was actually a participating event of 25 years of self-government, and was partly funded by the Territory government as part of those celebrations.
I have been involved on the periphery of the Darwin City Brass Band for some years now. I have helped them out with some of their smaller funding issues when they have come looking for a grant, and also supported them in their submission to the National Volunteers Awards. I have been invited along to a number of their Christmas functions, as well as a number of the public performances that they put on around the place, particularly at the Botanical Gardens, and also at their training sessions at their club rooms.
Some people might not know that the Darwin City Brass Band - which is, might I say, very well supported by the Darwin City Council - comes from a long tradition of brass bands. The first band in Darwin began in 1895 in what was then Palmerston. They actually went to the public for subscriptions and raised 30 to send to England to get a set of instruments, so it was a fair time back.
The Darwin City Brass Band does have a great history and tradition of being part of the community. In 1915, the Darwin town band led the way down to Stokes Hill Wharf to farewell the first Territory volunteers sailing away to World War I. The Darwin town band proudly led parades and played in the gardens in the 1920s and 1930s. After a bit of a hiatus, it reformed in the 1950s after World War II because, as you can imagine, a lot of people were moved out around that time. As well as the people who came back not long after the 1950s and played with the band, Terry Hine, joined the band in 1960 and he is still there. Also, over that period when the band reformed in the 1980s, he came back and he is still playing.
It is a wonderful brass band that Darwin has. I thoroughly enjoy their music. On the night at Browns Mart, it was a sell-out. The people were packed in to the rafters. Every member of council I think, bar one, was there, so that is the esteem that the council holds for the brass band. They were all there, particularly Alderman Cec Black who was instrumental in helping get the band going again in the 1980s. He was acknowledged for his time and efforts. That was great to see, that people could remember and acknowledge Cec’s efforts from all that time ago.
The concert that they put on was fairly comprehensive performance. It was broken up into two sessions. In session one, we had Waltzing Matilda; and Choral and Rockout; the popular tunes, the evergreen Over the Rainbow and Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue; Lazy Trumpeter; Royal Fireworks Suite; and Love Changes Everything. You can see they covered quite a range. Then they had a short intermission. In session two the junior band members played a march. That was followed by the Cornet Carillon; Breezing Down Broadway; Can’t Take My Eyes Off You - another popular song, or evergreen I suppose you would describe it; One Moment in Time; and Concierto de Aranjuez, which really shows the scope.
The Darwin City Brass Band was also very fortunate, and welcoming, to have some guest artists playing with them. Of particular note was John Kellaway from Newcastle. John is very well known in music circles, particularly as a trumpeter. John is Head of Brass, Lecturer in Trumpet, at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. John performed in a number of places, and he gives master classes in Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine and America. You can see that the brass band were very well supported by him. He performed a couple of solos. I remember seeing John last year at the Supreme Court building when the DSO performed there, and he stood up and gave a couple of solo performances; he is marvellous to listen to. HE works with the band, and the band, particularly the conductor, ‘Robbo’ Roberts, are very welcoming to him. They are glad to have him there, because he gets in and goes away on a camp with the band, and works with everyone on the instruments. They all value the work he does.
Also assisting with the performances was John Allan. Everyone in the House knows John Allan. He is very well known for his work with Carols by Candlelight. Citizen Sanderson, let me say, was there. He was MC’ing as well as singing quite a number of songs. At the end of the show, he sang with Sand Williams, another well-known Territorian. Sand’s song A special kind of magic is a song about the Territory; an ode to the Territory. She sang it beautifully, ably assisted by Doug Loft. They contributed greatly and were very well supported. The Darwin City Brass Band was very happy to have them assisting on the night, and it was great seeing Sand there. Sand and John Allan also sang that good old favourite, We are Australian, which had the crowd going. It was fabulous.
A band is made up of many parts, and it is important that we get on the record who these people are who help with this band, because it is going a lot of places and they deserve particular recognition.
The Musical Director is Ron ‘Robbo’ Roberts. He and his sister had a tragedy in the family with their brother in Townsville, and my condolences go to them. They were able to look after the family business, and such was their commitment to the band they were able to rush back here to Darwin to be able to participate in the concert. My condolences to their families, but thanks for all the work that you did.
The Deputy Bandmaster is Frank Roberts; soprano cornet, Michael Scott; solo cornet, Tim Jacobs, Michael Scott, Ken Panitz; repiano cornet, Bill Buckley; second cornet, Maria Hasewski, Emily Duckett; third cornet, Ruth Sheridan, Authur Zois, Kathy Murdoch; flugelhorn, Lucy Murdoch, Kim Burdon; solo tenor horn, Elaine Farnham; first tenor horn, Glenys Murdoch; second tenor horn, Jeremy Liew; first baritone, Deby Murdoch; second baritone, Frances McIntyre; euphonium, Noel Cornwill, Paul Fisk; first trombone, Tony Beale; second trombone, Jack Duckett, Anthony Liew; bass trombone, Iris Beale; E flat bass, Frank Roberts, Terry Hine; B flat bass, Dr Ron Roberts; Percussion, Leigh Radford; and their Librarian who helps out a lot is Coral Roberts.
Their junior players were there, as I said, and they were Harry Beale, Kieren Gordon, Grace Lee, Paul Lee, Samuel Lee, Bethany Murdoch, and they were great.
The band just does not all turn up and operate as an individual unit. It does need a committee, and they are great. I have done a bit of work with Iris Beale who is the President, as I said, in helping support a couple of submissions that they have made for funding. The Vice President is Terry Hine; the Secretary is Elaine Farnham, who is Robbo’s sister. They do a great job there - what a commitment from that family. The Treasurer is Dr Ron Roberts; the Public Officer is Tim Jacobs; and the committee members are Bill Buckley, Tim Jacobs, Coral Roberts and Frank Roberts.
All in all, it is more or less a family. I am glad to know this family and get there and see how they go about there business. They have a lot of support from the community and, in particular, and as I have said, the Darwin City Council is right behind them, and that is great to see. The Australian Army Band gets behind them. Palm Photographics, Len, he helps out a bit, along with Mrs Coral Roberts, Mrs Sarah Wellington. They have connections with the National Australia Bank, which certainly helps out wherever it can.
As I said, I helped with a submission. They were putting in for a grant from the National Volunteers Awards, which is sponsored by the National Bank. I said this in the submission:
The Darwin City Brass Band is constituted by many members of the community from all walks of life. It is a band
that I could best describe as egalitarian in its composition and accessibility. The band has a proud history of being
invited to play at community events ranging from sombre gatherings such as the Anzac Day March to celebrity events
such as the Christmas Carols in the city mall.
This latter example of their willingness to entertain is exceptional, when taking into account this particular
performance generally commences at first light during the peak of the Wet Season here in north Australia.
That is the commitment of these volunteers and it is simply fabulous.
The concert was also attended by the Administrator and his partner, so that also can be taken as a mark of the high regard that this band is held in.
At the end of the concernt, I was outside talking to Robbo and John Allan and a couple of other members of the band, and I was saying that it is a shame that we do not have any rotundas around this city, because these are where brass bands are generally played - or used to play - in the large cities in the botanical gardens. He said: ‘Oh yes, that is a bit of a shame’. Then I was thinking about the Rapid Creek foreshore, between Brinkin as you go over the bridge. There is actually that shelter put up by the Department of Environment, or Parks and Wildlife, which explains the Rapid Creek habitat, which is virtually a rotunda. I thought, what a great place for a concert by the brass band in the Dry. I can see them playing in there, with the crowd sitting out on their deck chairs, with their picnic campers, just taking it in on a Sunday evening, or maybe a Friday evening. Something like that will take a little to stage or put on. I will certainly be approaching them with the idea of putting on something there for the community. I will offer them all the support I possibly can in helping that happen.
Once again, I would like to acknowledge the Darwin City Brass Band, and the work that the Darwin City Council has done to help maintain it. I look forward to a long and prosperous future for the Darwin City Brass Band because of the work they do.
Dr BURNS (Johnston): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I talk about the electorate of Johnston and some of the great events that I have attended over the last month or so.
On Monday 22 March, Years 4, 5and 6 students from Wagaman Primary School visited Parliament House. We had a great time sitting in the Chamber debating the topic of homework, and whether students should or should not have homework. It was great to see the young students and the teachers get really involved in that debate. The class was accompanied by their teacher, Margaret McPherson, who is doing a great job with a fantastic class of intelligent and enthusiastic students.
Wagaman Primary School hosted their School Harmony and Make a Difference Day on 26 March, and I was proud to officially open those celebrations. This was an evening event with an Aussie barbecue and great Malaysian food which was enjoyed by all those who attended. There were a lot of in-class activity where parents were taught by the children. Parents, including myself, learnt such skills as writing their names in Japanese character, Papua New Guinea weaving, Greek dancing and playing the angklung - which is a Balinese instrument made out of bamboo, of which different sizes make a different tone. A group of people can combine and make music, and that is exactly what we did. The morning preschool performed Everyone is Clever to a great round of applause, and there were other parts of the concert performed by Transition, Year 3and 4, and Year 6 and 7.
On 27 March, I went along with others to the Greek National Day celebrations at the Nightcliff Greek School. It was great to see all the classes from Transition to Year 7. They performed a wide range of poems, dancing, singing and other art forms. This year differed from other years, in that the onus was on the students to communicate the importance of the Greek National Day following research into its meaning. The performance was both in Greek and in English, and congratulations for the fantastic show must go not only to the students, but to their teachers, the principal, the school committee and the Greek community and parents. Everyone there really enjoyed it. The new format for the performance has proved to be very successful and, based on feedback from the wider community, the school aims to continue to improve this particular celebration every year. I know that I look forward to it, along with other members.
Later on that evening of 27 March, I attended the celebrations of the National Day of Pakistan at the Coconut Grove Seniors Hall. The President of the Pakistan Association, Mr Ishfaq Haider, was there and I was shown great hospitality by the Pakistani community. We played a few games and quizzes, and there was music and everyone from all ages had a fantastic time. I certainly enjoyed attending the Pakistan National Day.
On 2 and 3 April, I was actually in Armidale in New South Wales. I was invited by the university there to give the graduation address, and I was very honoured to do that. There were several hundred students who were graduating on that day and several thousand people in attendance. I certainly promoted the Territory and encouraged a lot of those graduates - nursing students amongst them, and people involved in horticulture and agriculture, and a whole range of scientific disciplines - of the opportunities here in the Northern Territory. I thank the university for the invitation to address the graduation ceremony, for meeting all of the costs associated with travel and accommodation, and also for their hospitality. It was a great event.
On 23 April, I met with the Blind Bowlers Association, along with the member for Nightcliff, just before they departed for the Australian National Championships in Perth. The team again excelled at the championships, with the most exciting result that Dave Byars was selected for the Australian team to play at the World Blind Bowls Championships next year in Johannesburg. Dave will be fundraising over the next year, and I know all members will be supporting Dave and the Blind Bowlers. Whilst in Perth, Dave won a silver medal in the B2 singles and, together with Dennis Wormald, his old partner, won the B2 pairs gold. I have spoken before about Vel McDonald, a relatively new hand to the game, who she has achieved so much over the past few years. Dave and Vel won a silver in the mixed B2 pairs.
On 24, 25 and 26 April, it was great to attend the Barra Nationals on the Daly River at the Banyan Farm. There was a great crowd there. We had Channel 7 crossing live with their breakfast program showcasing the event. There is a great spirit there. It is hosted by the Palmerston Game Fishing Club and they promote it. Government also assists with their funding, and I am very proud to be part of the support for that particular event and the Palmerston Game Fishing Club. It was fantastic. The Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries and I went out and caught a couple of fish, and he released a few. I did not catch as many as him, so the couple of nice sized fish that I caught, I have to say that I took home. We have already eaten one and one is still in the freezer. That was pretty good. I must compliment the 2004 committee from the Palmerston Game Fishing Club - Paul Williams, Stephen Shenfield and Anthony Stafford, together with the venue coordinator Allan Lording – who did a brilliant job of ensuring the 45-odd teams of local, mixed and interstaters wanted for nothing over the week’s competition. There was superb prizes, incredible menus, class competitors, plenty of fish and a great spirit there. Next year, the nationals celebrate their 10th anniversary and I hope to be there. Certainly, the member for Casuarina and I have already started planning that we should go along there. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, if you are available too, you should come along as well.
On May 7, it was my pleasure to attend the Jingili Primary School Mother’s Day breakfast. There is lots of parental involvement in making this a great thank you to mothers, and was also extremely profitable. $1138 was raised. Great helpers on the day were stalwarts Jill and Peter Sommerville, together with their sons Allan and Sam, Libby and James Hoppo, Julie Donald, Robyn Levick, Carmen Kitchen, Sharon McKenzie, Karen William, Keith Carver, Mandy Pearson, Peter Ramsay, Marg Wooley, Leigh Lockley, Elaine Hellyer, Susan and Michael Taylor, Nicola Ward, Wendy Russell-Reed and Kathryn Watson. That is a fantastic group. The stall on the day was capably managed by Glenda Sutardy, Tracy McCoy, Dianne Moore, Narelle Rosas and Jo Grace. I know the Anstey family are also great supporters there and Kelly Anstey, she is doing a great job on the school council at Jingili.
Later on that day, it was my pleasure to host Mrs Kathleen Lawrence, who is a constituent of mine, a great lady who does a lot of work for St Vincent de Paul. Her nephew, Mr Robert McKnight, was out from Ireland and I showed them over Parliament House. We had a couple of drinks and a lot of laughs. Irish people have a great spirit about them, and it was an honour to conduct Kathleen and her nephew around Parliament House.
Later on, I attended the 20th Darwin Rose of Tralee Pageant at the city council office. Last year was a great winner, someone from the McNeill family - that was Jess McNeill. She was the 2003 NT Rose of Tralee. This year, there are six entrants: Catherine Turner who works at the Legislative Assembly; Karen Hurley; Courtney O’Hare; Brigitte Haynes; Belinda Green and Sinead Vincent. It is part of a development process for the girls. They get up in public and are able to speak and perform, whether it is singing or reciting poetry. There is a great camaraderie amongst the girls who are competing. It is not a beauty contest, although they are all very beautiful girls. It is all about personality and helping the community. It is a great event. I commend those girls and I am sure they will do very well in the Rose of Tralee.
On 8 May, I attended the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory Industry Awards for Excellence. I was sitting with Sue Shearer who, of course is the executive officer. The new president is David Loy and it was my pleasure to meet the national president, Kareena Ballard. There was a great spirit that night. The message I got from the real estate industry loud and clear, is that they have had a fantastic year last year; they are looking forward to a fantastic year next year. Basically, rental properties are in demand. They do not believe the population is dwindling; they think the population is actually expanding. There is a heavy demand for rental properties and, of course, they are doing very well in terms of residential sales as well. That was a great message.
On 13 May, along with the member for Port Darwin, I was invited to the Tracks Dance production Fast … accelerate into a future, which was held at the Mitchell Centre on the rooftop car park. There was so much energy in that performance from those young people. If energy could be bottled, I would like some. It was fast and furious all night: great choreography, great music, great feeling, and great narrative in the stories that they were telling about being adolescents and growing up. It is really a great activity for young people. It was truly exhilarating; professional in performance, with a lot of energy and power. The artistic directors, David McMicken and Tim Newth, as well as Julia Quinn, are to be commended; they do such great work with those young people. It is just great to see the mixture of young people who are performing there from all different walks of life in our community, with different talents that were all added in there. It was a truly magical result. The Tracks Dance production unit is a great thing.
On 15 May, I attended the Australian Hotels Association awards for excellence, where there was a special award for the current president, Mr Mick Burns, who has contributed a lot to the Australian Hotels Association, which is a very important industry sector in the Northern Territory. It was very well attended by people, both from the Territory and interstate, and there was a great spirit there.
Later that evening, I went along to the Kalymnian Hall. Thanks to Leo Athanasiou, the president who hosted us there, and also Con Hnaris who took me around and introduced me to a lot of people. We were all there to listen to the renowned Greek singers, Dimitris Kontolazos and Mando and Band, and it was great music. I had to bail out about 1 am, but I am sure it went on for a long time and everyone was enjoying themselves.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I recently donated Quiet Achiever Awards to the three schools in my electorate so that those students who work away quietly and consistently could also be recognised. Recipients of these awards at the end of last terms were: Wagaman Primary School – Adam Turner and Jacqui Graetz; Moil Primary School – Zoe Martin and Michaela Da Costa; Jingili Primary School - Khia Emslie-O’Brien and Brinley Leso.
Other achievers at Moil include Claire O’Bryan, Kailyn O’Bryan, Amy Mansell and Kiana Fiorenza selected to go to Alice Springs for the City Cluster Basketball team; Kiah Fejo who travelled to Alice Springs earlier this month to play netball; and Jarryn Zyka selected to play basketball in the City Cluster Boys team.
Another achiever at Wagaman was Liam MacLachlan for making the Northern Suburbs Cluster Basketball team to travel to Alice Springs at the end of this month.
In closing, the Johnston electorate is a fantastic one, of which I am very proud to be the local member. There is so much going on, I love it. There is never enough time for my adjournment debates, but I have actually managed it this evening.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
WARRANT
Deputy Chairmen of Committees
Deputy Chairmen of Committees
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, pursuant to the provision of Standing Order 12, I hereby revoke all previous warrants nominating members to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees, and nominate the following members to act as Deputy Chairmen of Committees when requested so to do by the Chairman of Committees: Mrs Aagaard MLA, Mr Bonson MLA, Mr Kiely MLA, Ms Lawrie MLA, Mr Maley MLA, Mr McAdam MLA, and Mrs Miller MLA.
OPPOSITION ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I advise honourable members that the revised opposition shadow portfolio responsibilities are as follows:
Member for Blain: Leader of the Opposition; Treasury; Racing, Gaming and Licensing; Territory Development;
Railway; Asian Relations and Trade; and Sport and Recreation.
Member for Greatorex: Deputy Leader of the Opposition; Chairman, Policy Development Committee;
Education, Employment and Training; Corporate and Information Services; Communications; Ethnic Affairs; and Central Australia.
Member for Port Darwin: Leader of Opposition Business; Whip; Health and Community Services; Senior Territorians;
and Arts and Museums.
Member for Daly: Primary Industry and Fisheries; Environment and Heritage; and Parks and Wildlife.
Member for Brennan: Transport and Infrastructure; Defence Support; and Lands and Planning.
Member for Araluen: Attorney-General and Justice and Women’s Policy.
Member for Drysdale: Business, Industry and Resource Development and Essential Services.
Member for Macdonnell: Police, Fire and Emergency Services; Local Government; Indigenous Affairs;
Community Development; and Regional Development.
Member for Katherine: Tourism; Housing; and Youth.
MESSAGES FROM ADMINISTRATOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have received from His Honour the Administrator Messages No 19 and 20, notifying assent to bills passed in the February and March/April 2004 sittings.
ROUTINE OF BUSINESS
Budget 2004-05
Budget 2004-05
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the routine of business of the Assembly be rearranged or suspended if a question or debate is before the Chair, so as to permit the Treasurer to deliver the Budget 2004-05 at 11 am this day.
Motion agreed to.
MEDIA ARRANGEMENTS
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have given permission for various media to broadcast live, or rebroadcast with sound and vision, the presentation of the budget and the Treasurer’s speech; for 8TOP FM radio to broadcast live the presentation of the budget and the Treasurer’s speech; and for the Northern Territory News to take photographs.
PETITION
Dundee and Bynoe Haven –
Provision of Fresh Water and Basic Infrastructure Facilities
Dundee and Bynoe Haven –
Provision of Fresh Water and Basic Infrastructure Facilities
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I present a petition from 254 petitioners praying that fresh water is available to residents and members of the public in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven area. The petition bears the Clerk’s certificate that it conforms with the requirements of standing orders. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read:
To the Speaker and members of the Legislative Assembly, the petition of residents of the Dundee and
Bynoe Haven area of the Northern Territory draw to the attention of the House the lack of fresh water
and basic infrastructure facilities in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven regions. Your petitioners will therefore
humbly pray that the Legislative Assembly undertake the following remedial action:
1. conduct an urgent review to see what options are available so that fresh water is available to
residents and members of the public in the Dundee and Bynoe Haven area; and
2. after consulting the local residents, move to implement the preferred option to elevate fresh water
shortage in the area.
RESPONSE TO PETITIONS
The CLERK: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 100A, I inform honourable members that responses to Petition Nos 49, 50, 52, 54 and 55 have been received and circulated to honourable members. The text of the responses will be included in the Hansard record.
Petition No 49
Locomotive named after Mr Steve Irwin
Date presented: 26 November 2003
Presented by: Ms Carter
Referred to: Minister for AustralAsia Railway
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 6 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The Northern Territory government is proud of the fact that, after more than a century, the long-held
dream of linking Darwin by rail with the mainland capital cities became a reality. The arrival of the
first freight train into Darwin on 17 January 2004 and, two weeks later, the arrival of The Ghan as
the first passenger train to run from Adelaide to Darwin, signalled the start of great opportunities
for the Territory.
Whilst the locomotive ‘Steve Irwin’ has been used in some promotional activities by Great Southern
Rail, there are many different locomotives used in conjunction with The Ghan in the Territory.
Great Southern Railway reports that ticket sales for The Ghan have now topped $20m, and it should be
noted that the ‘Steve Irwin campaign’ resulted in millions of dollars worth of advance ticket sales before
the first train even pulled out of Adelaide.
The new service will provide a steady stream of new passengers into Darwin year round, assisting the tourism
industry to overcome seasonal constraints by providing a base level of tourists during the Wet Season.
It is estimated that The Ghan will result in an extra 30 000 tourists per year in the Northern Territory, which
translates into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure.
This will support around 200 additional tourism jobs and have a ‘flow-on’ effect of wider benefits for the Territory.
Great Southern Railway’s holiday division has developed various holiday packages incorporating a variety of
products such as flights, accommodation, visitor attractions and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the railway
are widely spread across all tourism sectors and regions.
The success of The Ghan will be measured not by the name of one of its locomotives, but rather by ticket sales,
increased domestic and international tourism and the creation of new employment and business opportunities
for the Territory.
Petition No 50
Gender Law Reform Bill
Date presented: 26 November 2003
Presented by: Dr Toyne
Referred to: Minister for Justice and Attorney-General
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 5 April 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
This petition appears to call for the government to remove from the parliament the Law Reform (Gender,
Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003.
The purpose of the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 is to reform the law
of the Territory to remove or modify legal distinctions based on a person’s gender, sexuality or de facto
relationship with another person. By doing this, the bill provides greater protection and equality to all
Territorians. The bill also includes a package of reforms developed to strengthen laws protecting
children from sexual abuse.
The petition also states the Law Reform (Gender, Sexuality and De Facto Relationships) Bill 2003 should not
be returned to parliament without further consultation.
In May 2003, the Darwin Community Legal Centre released a paper which contained a number of proposals
for law reform with a common goal – equality for all Territorians regardless of gender, sexuality or marital
status. A large proportion of the reforms were based on the Darwin Community Legal Centre’s submission.
The Darwin Community Legal Centre consulted with a wide range of individuals and community groups. It
should be noted that not all of the Darwin Community Legal Centre’s recommendations were accepted as part
of the reforms as it was felt necessary to take into account additional community views. The decision to
exclude some recommendations was taken as part of the process of balancing the divergent views of Territorians.
Consultation with various groups in the community commenced in August 2003 and continued after the introduction
of the legislation in October 2003. This resulted in the development of further amendments that were debated in
the November 2003 sittings of parliament. The government has attempted to balance the variety of views and
interests represented in our community, and I am satisfied that these reforms will ensure a greater level of equality
before the law for all Territorians.
Petition No 52
Locomotive named after Mr Steve Irwin
Date presented: 18 February 2004
Presented by: Mrs Miller
Referred to: Minister for AustralAsia Railway
Date response due: 19 May 2004
Date response received: 6 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The Northern Territory government is proud of the fact that, after more than a century, the long-held dream of
linking Darwin by rail with the mainland capital cities became a reality. The arrival of the first freight train into
Darwin on 17 January 2004 and, two weeks later, the arrival of The Ghan as the first passenger train to run from
Adelaide to Darwin, signalled the start of great opportunities for the Territory.
Whilst the locomotive ‘Steve Irwin’ has been used in some promotional activities by Great Southern Rail, there
are many different locomotives used in conjunction with The Ghan in the Territory.
Great Southern Railway reports that ticket sales for The Ghan have now topped $20m, and it should be noted that
the ‘Steve Irwin campaign’ resulted in millions of dollars worth of advance ticket sales before the first train even
pulled out of Adelaide.
The new service will provide a steady stream of new passengers into Darwin year round, assisting the tourism
industry to overcome seasonal constraints by providing a base level of tourists during the Wet Season.
It is estimated that The Ghan will result in an extra 30 000 tourists per year in the Northern Territory, which translates
into a direct and ongoing injection of $27m per annum into the Territory in direct visitor expenditure. This will
support around 200 additional tourism jobs and have a ‘flow-on’ effect of wider benefits for the Territory.
Great Southern Railway’s holiday division has developed various holiday packages incorporating a variety of
products such as flights, accommodation, visitor attractions and tours, ensuring that the benefits of the railway
are widely spread across all tourism sectors and regions.
The success of The Ghan will be measured not by the name of one of its locomotives, but rather by ticket sales,
increased domestic and international tourism and the creation of new employment and business opportunities
for the Territory.
Petition No 54
Redevelopment of Keith Lawrie units in Alice Springs
Date presented: 1 April 2004
Presented by: Ms Carney
Referred to: Minister for Housing
Date response due: 25 August 2004
Date response received: 5 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
The petitioners have indicated that the existing tenants have been directly or indirectly responsible for the
breakdown of law and order at the complex and in nearby areas and, as such, have requested that they not
be allowed to reside at the redeveloped complex.
Historically, mainly relatives, visitors and itinerants at the complex have caused the breakdown of law and order.
The most recent incidents involving youth petrol sniffing activities appears to be related to the vacant units at the
complex. While these incidents are indirectly associated with tenants at the complex it is difficult to identify
responsibility when many of the incidents occur within the common areas/grounds.
The redevelopment will incorporate the great majority of the common areas into the units’ yard, minimising open
spaces at the complex and limiting it to the car park. The utilisation of fencing to separate the complex into four
areas may assist by eliminating pedestrian traffic and to limit access points to the units. These redevelopment
strategies to assist in the management of the complex are likely to provide the same level of success whether the
current tenants remain or new waitlisted applicants are housed.
My department is currently undertaking repairs and maintenance to some of the vacant flats at the Keith Lawrie
complex. Allocation of these units will be made to applicants from the public housing waiting list. Although current
tenants have been provided with the option of remaining in the complex after redevelopment, some tenants have
requested relocation to alternative accommodation. My department is in the process of identifying suitable
dwelling for them.
The current rate of turnover in the units suggests that not all current tenants will still be residing at the Keith
Lawrie flat complex after the renovations. It is also likely that a majority will move on within the year.
Petition No 55
Funding arrangements for Croc Festival
Date presented: 31 March 2004
Presented by: Mrs Miller
Referred to: Minister for Employment, Education and Training
Date response due: 24 August 2004
Date response received: 14 May 2004
Date response presented: 18 May 2004
Response:
This petition outlines the concerns of petitioners in relation to government not funding the 2004 Croc Festival,
and a perceived lack of commitment by government to funding community events.
Government is aware of the importance of supporting community events, particularly those that are important
to the indigenous people and youth of the Territory. To this end, government has recently committed $350 000
towards Territory-run community events and festivals.
In response to government not funding the Katherine 2004 Croc Festival, it is important to note that government
is strongly committed to improving education outcomes of indigenous students in the areas of literacy, numeracy
and health, and organisers of the events such as the Croc Festival to secure sponsorship funding. The Territory
government is only one of a number of sponsors approached to assist with funding and, while government will
not be supporting the event this year, there are other avenues that the organisers can pursue.
The Croc Festival will be produced in Katherine as planned in 2004 without funding from the Northern
Territory government. The event organisers have advised there will be no compromise to the quality of the production.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Bayu-Undan – Commencement of Operations
Bayu-Undan – Commencement of Operations
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to inform the House that tomorrow, 19 May, I will be flying to Dili, then by helicopter to the offshore production platforms on the Bayu-Undan field to participate in celebrations marking the commencement of commercial liquids production. The Bayu-Undan field is located approximately 500 km, north-west of here in the joint petroleum development area. It is a world-class gas condensate fuel, with reserves of 3.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 400 million barrels of condensate and liquidified petroleum gas. The Bayu-Undan development project has two phases. The first, the liquid stripping gas recycle phase, is now complete and entering commercial production. The cost of this phase of the fuel development has been $US1.9bn.
Assets on the field for production and take off include three platforms: the well head platform, the drilling, production and processing platform, and the compression utilities and quarters platform. Gas and condensate is produced via 16 wells, and stripped liquids are stored on board the floating storage and off-take vessel, Liberdade, before transferred to commercial crewed LPG tankers.
Construction on the project commenced in 2001, with drilling starting in May the following year. The first commercial production of liquids took place on 10 February this year, and the first tanker loaded from the offshore facilities sailed away on 30 March. Production will ramp up to a maximum of 115 000 barrels per day by the third quarter of this year.
This is a great event for Timor Leste. As one of its closest neighbours, the Northern Territory congratulates Timor Leste and the Bayu-Undan joint venture, on bringing this world-class project to commercial fruition. The tax revenues will provide a much needed cash flow for the Timor Leste economy.
The Assembly is well aware that the next phase of the Bayu-Undan project, the so-called gas export phase, is now in progress. Phase 2 will include the 540 km pipeline, and the LNG plant now under construction at Wickham Point. The combined capital cost of the pipeline and the Darwin LNG plant is estimated at $US1.5bn. Phase 2 was approved by the Bayu-Undan joint venture on the 15 June last year, and the construction of the LNG plant commenced two weeks later. The first commercial LNG production is expected in the first half of 2006. The LNG storage tank, now under construction, will be the largest above ground LNG storage in the world, holding a massive 188 000 m.
Laying of the 26 inch pipeline is expected to start in Darwin Harbour during July, and construction should be finished by the end of 2004. Honourable members will be aware that trenching for the pipeline in the vicinity of Wickham Point is already under way, with such activity clearly visible from the upper levels of this building.
Completion of the pipeline and the LNG plant will see the emergence of Darwin as Australia’s second international gas hub. It will also bring benefits to Timor Leste through exporting gas revenues from the Bayu-Undan field and through securing liquids production, which would otherwise be reduced under a production regime of liquid stripping and gas re-injection. Bayu-Undan Phase 2, including the LNG plant, will herald the start of a major resource and energy industry, the potential of which my government intends to maximise for the benefit of all Territorians.
Madam Speaker, the marking of the first production of condensate from the Bayu-Undan field is an important event for the Territory and for Timor Leste, and certainly something to celebrate for the Bayu-Undan joint venturers.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, it is fortunate that the Chief Minister is able to attend this event, as I understand it was scheduled for last Wednesday. I was fully prepared to go, but, unfortunately, you will be missing out on the reply to your budget.
Ms Martin: Out of our hands.
Mr MILLS: I wish you well on that trip. I do understand that the core of this is the ultimate delivery of gas in the Northern Territory and the stimulation of the domestic economy in Australia and in the Northern Territory particularly.
There are two issues of concern on which I seek a response from government. One is the genuine addressing of the skill shortages that are inherent in Australia and, particularly, the Northern Territory. Advice that I have received in recent times indicates that is one of the greatest concerns of the development of the potential of gas here, not only in the Northern Territory, but Australia. There are serious skills shortages about which I need to see more than platitudes and outline of programs to address such problems, which are systemic and very deep. I expect the Chief Minister to give us genuine assurance that this serious issue is being attended to.
The other issue is the activity that is already taking place here in the Northern Territory. There is an increasing number of reports coming through that the level of procurement is not being directed to local contractors. The number of Queensland plates that are circulating around the operation are cause for concern. I need clarification, as many contractors do, that this is not an indication that the efforts of those who are attending to the construction phase of bringing gas onshore here are not, in the view of many contractors, is putting due attention to procuring locally.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to say a few words on gas in general. I am interested in the government’s position on the boundary discussions regarding other gas fields in Northern Australia. It would be interesting to see where they are coming from regarding the sharing of resources between Timor and Australia and the situation with the boundary.
As regards gas coming onshore, I make the point that some people argue that the development in the middle of the harbour, or the increase in industrial development, will be based on the LNG plant. It is obvious, to people who know what is going on, that gas comes in and LNG goes out. The argument about wider industrial development in the middle of the harbour I do not think holds any water.
Finally, it is a bit disappointing that the Chief Minister cannot be here for the opposition’s reply to the budget. That is an important day for parliament and it is a bit disappointing that it is not happening.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I pick up the point made by the member for Nelson. As the Opposition Leader indicated, initially the date was 12 May. It was changed, out of our hands, to 19 May.
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, it would be a very sad occasion for the Northern Territory that we did not have one person from this parliament at such an important occasion for the Territory’s future. I did not choose the date, but I will be there representing the Territory and our aspirations about our future economic development, as part of these important celebrations, as I said, for the Bayu-Undan joint venturers, the emerging nation of Timor Leste and for the Northern Territory. That is a simple matter of fact. You cannot be in two places at once.
Dealing very briefly with what are the skill shortages …
Mr Burke: Yes, you should be here.
Mr Dunham: You do not want to hear the truth.
Ms MARTIN: I beg your pardon?
Mr Dunham: You do not want to listen, do you? You do not want to hear the truth.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: I beg your pardon! You do not want to hear the truth about what the date that the Bayu-Undan …
Mr Burke: Well, some of us are responsible enough to realise where our priorities are: budget.
Ms MARTIN: … condensate is actually happening. It happens to be the 19 May.
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired, Chief Minister.
Ms MARTIN: Let me say Jobs Plan, Jobs Plan, Jobs Plan …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
East Timor Independence Anniversary
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, in my previous report this morning I had the opportunity to congratulate Timor Leste and the Bayu-Undan joint venturer on the commencement of commercial liquids production from the Bayu-Undan field. Celebration of this milestone coincides with the second anniversary of the most significant event in the history of Timor Leste and that, of course, is the independence of the country proclaimed on 20 May 2002.
Two years ago, it was my great honour to represent the people and government of the Northern Territory when independence was officially proclaimed. It was powerful and moving occasion - the birth of a new nation in the presence of the community of nations.
The government of Timor Leste faces many challenges in developing social and economic infrastructure vital to the wellbeing of its people. In the longer term, royalties from gas will underpin East Timorese development. There will continue to be ongoing support from the world donor community, who are committed to a strong, independent and viable Timor Leste.
Honourable members will recall the pledge of this Assembly on 16 May 2002 to support the East Timorese in the development of their new nation. This government is committed to a strong, mutual relationship based on strong cultural links and economic development.
I am pleased to advise the Assembly that there has been ongoing interaction between the two governments following Timor Leste’s independence. Relevant areas of activity include: civilian policing, environmental management, aquaculture, agriculture, and animal health. We have provided $114 000 over three years to the Charles Darwin University to fund the Northern Territory-Timor Leste Friendship Scholarships. The scholarships will be advertised in newspapers in Timor Leste and will commence at CDU in the first semester of 2005.
There are many areas of potential cooperation and interaction to the mutual benefit of the Territory and Timor Leste. It is the considered view of my government that the time is right to put the relationship between the two governments on a more formal footing. I have written to Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri about the Northern Territory and Timor Leste consolidating that relationship. A draft concept outline of a memorandum of understanding between the Territory and Timor Leste has been prepared with a view to further development of an MOU by officials and signature by both governments, should that be agreed upon.
Potential items for incorporation in the MOU include exchanges of knowledge and training, and interaction in some of the following areas:
cultural and sporting exchanges;
the provision of VET courses on the ground and via satellite technology; nurturing the links which
are already there between the CDU and the National University of Timor Leste;
the NT Police Force hosting members of the Dili Police Force for purpose designed training or standard
courses conducted by the Territory;
assisting with the development of disease surveillance programs, and training East Timorese practitioners
in Darwin and Dili;
the practical training of engineers and other technical specialists in Darwin and Dili;
training in land management techniques – surveying and mapping;
the training and development of Timor Leste’s sportsmen and women and sports administrators;
fisheries management training;
support and encouragement of interaction and dialogue between the Territory and Timor Leste private
sectors, which has been happening now for many years;
the development of programs and training in environmental management;
the development of extension training programs in agriculture;
supervised data gathering for airborne geophysical surveys; and
training in animal health and related disciplines.
None of this, as yet, is set in concrete although, as I indicated, in some areas this is already and has been happening for a number of years. There will be need for an ongoing dialogue between the two governments to flesh out any agreed areas of formal cooperation. In the meantime, the ongoing contact between our government, businesses and citizens will continue.
I would be pleased to report back to the Assembly if agreement can be reached between the two governments on the content of the proposed MOU.
Timor Leste and the Northern Territory are bound together by geography and climate. Above all, we are bound together by our people and our history. I am sure I speak on behalf of all Territorians in congratulating the people and the government of Timor Leste on the second anniversary of independence.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, it is my honour from the opposition also to congratulate the people of Timor Leste on their second anniversary – a most significant event, and one that has a deep register in our country, and for those Australian troops and commandos who served in World War II, particularly from Gull Force who were protected by the people of East Timor in their fight against Japanese forces.
The announcement of the MOU is welcomed, and I would like to see regular reports of its development made to the House so that we can see the progress of the development of an MOU.
Another aspect of the relationship between East Timor and the Northern Territory is the position of West Timor. In my visit to West Timor, there was emerging dialogue between the Governors of West Timor and East Timor with a view to strengthening the relationship between west and east, and linking the Northern Territory into a dialogue so that we have a strengthened position in the region. That is a proposition that should be approached in good faith and allowed to be developed, particularly in light of the negotiations that are currently under way - and I believe are at a final stage with Merparti Airlines and Airnorth - that the possibility of a tri-nation and a tri-capital city air route between Dili, Kupang and Darwin has a lot of potential in strengthening our profile in the region, giving the Northern Territory greater access to two developing regions, as well as playing a part in strengthening the relationship between West and East Timor. This is something that has benefit for all of us, particularly giving us genuine connection to the economic fortunes of those immediately to our north.
Petrol Sniffing and Substance Abuse
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Speaker, petrol sniffing and substance abuse is a tragic problem in the Northern Territory. In my previous life in the remote health sector, then as the chair of the substance abuse committee and now, as the Minister for Family and Community Services, I have witnessed the harmful effects of substance abuse too often to mention. In the Northern Territory, substance abuse is perhaps the biggest barrier to achieving outcomes in health, education and community safety. It is a problem that has been ignored for too long. After years of neglect, the Martin Labor government came into power determined to do something about it.
Upon taking government, we immediately constituted the Select Committee on Substance Abuse in the Community. On 22 March 2003, acting in my then capacity as chair of the select committee, I submitted a foreword to the committee’s interim report. Included in that foreword I said:
When it comes to petrol sniffing, it is clear that … intervention is going to require some legislative reform ...
In light of this, we made tackling substance abuse one of the six key priorities in Building Healthier Communities, our framework to providing the best in health and community services. In Building Healthier Communities a key action item was to explore options of legislative reform to combat petrol sniffing. Building Healthier Communities was launched earlier this year. The announcement that we were going to institute legislative reform to combat petrol sniffing has promoted much debate. It is debate that we welcome.
There has been so much debate, in fact, that the opposition has decided that petrol sniffing was a problem that they could no longer afford to sweep under the carpet. The government welcomes the opposition’s first foray into dealing with petrol sniffing.
We will be creating a new Volatile Substance Misuse Prevention Act. Such an act will address issues such as the seizure of substances being abused and the apprehension, without arrest, of substance abusers, and the capacity of a court to order a course of treatment.
The opposition has a history in relation to dealing with youth problems: they legislate to lock them away from society. This is an area where we differ; we do not wish to criminalise petrol sniffing. Making petrol sniffers criminals helps no one and serves no purpose. However, I should make it clear that criminal activity undertaken while under the influence of petrol sniffing will continue to be addressed as just that – criminal activity - and dealt with accordingly. Our Drug Courts are already proactive in dealing with drug-related crime, and we will deal with petrol sniffing-related crime with a similar tough approach.
In addition to legislative reform, the government will provide and fund the support services required to help people leave petrol sniffing behind. Building Healthier Communities outlines that we will fund communities and community organisations to deal with outbreaks of petrol sniffing through a variety of diversionary activities which provide healthy alternatives for young people. Let’s face it - some kids start sniffing petrol simply because they do not have anything else to do.
Although I have said that we welcome the opposition entering this debate, this is another area where we differ. The media release they issued to announce their policy does not include the word ‘prevention’. It mentions nothing about addressing the causes of petrol sniffing. Indeed, their five-point plan is about dealing with petrol sniffing after it has occurred. Not one of the points addresses the cause of petrol sniffing; not one of the points seeks to prevent it.
The government is making the legislative changes, and we are developing partnerships with Aboriginal communities and organisations and helping them move towards community control. We have developed our Building Healthier Communities policy. We are implementing it and resourcing support programs. Dealing with this problem will not just help those affected; it will help the whole of the Northern Territory. The Martin Labor government is about getting on with the job of tackling substance abuse.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I am incredibly disappointed to hear the member for Arafura’s tone during this discussion here this morning. I believe this is an issue that should be dealt with in a bipartisan manner. I believe your comments have been unnecessarily provocative. Given the history that the member for Arafura and I have together in discussing issues like this and being on a certain committee, I am very disappointed to hear these terms being used.
If you look across Australia at Aboriginal communities in remote areas, you can pick out many jurisdictions that are currently governed by Labor governments - and I point to South Australia in particular with the problems there in the Pit Lands. To use this as a political football, I say shame on you because it does not ...
Members interjecting.
Ms CARTER: ... matter which political party is in government, petrol sniffing is a problem across the board in many Aboriginal communities. I am pledging from the CLP to work in a bipartisan manner on this issue. I am disappointed to hear your tone.
With regards to the legality or illegality of petrol sniffing, I will be very interested to see how the Martin Labor government comes to terms with the fact that Aboriginal women are seen giving their children - their babies in arms - access to petrol fumes in order to calm them down. It will be great to see how you cope with that sort of issue which is seen more and more in our urban communities as well as our remote communities. We have children walking down the malls in our urban communities with petrol. What are you going to do about that, if it is not illegal? How are you going to deal with that? The police do not know how to deal with it …
Members interjecting.
Ms CARTER: You know, member for Arafura, as well as I do, that when we have been out bush in a particular remote community, that a desperate plea was put to us by the Aboriginal people there to make petrol sniffing illegal so that the police can step in and do something about it. Our aim is rehabilitation; that is the key role that we will be pursuing ...
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
Ms CARTER: … criminal activity will be ...
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I am also disappointed, hearing some of the debate here, that this issue is becoming political rather than bipartisan. I believe it is too important an issue to go down that path, and there have been statements on both sides which have tended to make it political.
We need to calmly look at the issue. We ought to look at issues relating to other acts which might serve our purposes. We should also look at the approaches in other states – Queensland, especially - in relation to this issue. Anyone who was at the Australasian Drug Strategy meeting would have heard some of those strategies. I believe we have to look at some of the broader issues like employment, and I have said a number of times here that the CDEP program must be changed to create full employment in some of these communities.
The issue about whether petrol sniffing should be illegal or not is worthy of debate. Again, people who visited the CAYLISS talk that we had on the last day would have heard that the communities are divided about whether it should be legal. Some of the rural communities certainly believe that it should be made illegal, and some of the urban communities think it should not be.
It is an issue worthy of debate, but it should be done without the politics because it is too important. If we cannot do this rationally in the belief that we need to do something to save these young people from this terrible scourge of both petrol sniffing and substance abuse, we are not worthy of being politicians.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Speaker, I will pick up on the member for Port Darwin who rambled on about a bipartisan approach. We welcome - and I did go on radio saying that, finally, we welcome the bipartisan approach and the head-coming-out-of-the-sand approach on this whole thing.
Members interjecting.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: It is not about politics. You are the one who has made the political issue out of this. It is too important; these children are dying, communities are suffering because of it.
We are doing something about it. We are not playing the political game that you people have done when you have gone out there. There have been 30 years of neglect. This is not a new issue; it is an issue that has been talked about time and time again in this parliament and nothing has been done.
Correctional Services Review
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I inform the House of the outcomes of the most comprehensive review of Correctional Services ever to take place in the Northern Territory. $26.5m has been committed by our government over four years to reform the professional work of prison officers and to drive down re-offending rates in our community.
In late 2003, I commissioned international experts Dr Ole Ingstrup and Paul Crookall to review Northern Territory prisons. All 71 recommendations of their review, A Path to Good Corrections, have been accepted by this government, and the funding commitments we have made represent the most significant interjection of resources into our prisons for many years.
Implementation of those recommendations will build on the government’s $75m Building Our Police Force plan, which will see 200 extra police on the streets by the end of 2006. This investment will enable us to turn our prisons and prison officers into a second crime fighting force, building on the front line law enforcement work of our police.
The major focus of these prison reforms will be to fight crime by reducing re-offending by up to 50% with targeted work and education programs, sex offender and other specialist programs. Implementation of our other recommendations will see:
security tightened by improving the readiness of prison officers and other staff to respond to a crisis;
management streamlined and top level accountability increased with a new Director of Corrections
being recruited;
working conditions and occupational health and safety improved by increasing the number of prison
officers on roster, and measures to reduce excessive amounts of overtime;
additional safety equipment, including portable alarms, will also be purchased;
the prison work force developed through increased training, professional support and a clear career
path; and
acknowledgement of indigenous imprisonment rates with a new position of Deputy Director, Indigenous
Affairs and Programs.
A clear result of the start of Building Our Police Force has been a rise in the number of prisoners in Northern Territory gaols. To tackle this and, as part of responding to the review recommendations, we are building a new 100-bed, $8m low security area at Darwin Prison.
A Review Implementation Committee, with representation from prison officer associations, the unions, the Department of Justice, the Commissioner of Public Employment and the Treasury will oversee implementation, with four association members taken off-line during the initial period to work with the committee.
We are embarking on a major, long-term change process which, over the next four years, will see total reform in our prisons and the way they run. Change is never easy and, no doubt, there will be differences of opinion about the right way forward during the implementation period from time to time. However, I am confident the implementation team will be able to work through these in a productive way and move our Territory prisons ahead.
Madam Speaker, this government is making a major investment in our prisons. We are actively involving our Corrections system and prison officers in the fight against crime by targeting offenders and working to prevent re-offending. Through implementing the recommendations of the review report, this government is continuing to attack the causes of crime and build safer Territory communities.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report and say, in essence: what garbage!
How can the minister possibly come into this Chamber and go on with the drivel he did when he knows - and he knows I know - that there are ongoing difficulties with prison officers. There has been meeting after meeting after meeting. A number of matters – well, you can shake your head, Mr Attorney-General. I will be very happy to send the members of the association what you have said in here today. If anyone should be castigated and ashamed of what they have done, it is you.
It is very interesting, isn’t it, and Territorians were not oblivious to this: on the one day there was a review of the prisons’ Mr Attorney-General said: ‘We accept all of them’. The very next day, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training accepted a review and then said: ‘We will consult’. Why on earth would you consult on education matters and not consult in relation to justice issues?
It is noteworthy also that the union representing many of the police officers issued what could only be described as a scathing media release, and I will quote from parts of it:
The unanimous verdict is that the review has failed to address the issues which were first raised by
officers last year when staffing levels and mismanagement led to an unacceptable number of lock-downs.
The media release went on:
The review has not recommended an increase in staffing levels either at Darwin or Alice Springs facilities.
It goes on:
It became clear some time ago that the review was merely an excuse for government and the Department
of Justice to implement prison reforms.
Some of which included a dumbing down of expertise so that if some people have a criminal record, they, the criminals, can guard other criminals.
This report is a sham, and I would be delighted if the minister could confirm in reply whether a certificate of exemption was granted to the review team and, if so, why?
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, such an important review, when the minister has stated that there will be major long-term changes and investment, surely is worthy of a ministerial statement.
This is such an important issue. I have only touched on one small recommendation, and that was the possibility of opening up Gunn Point Prison Farm, which related to recommendation 66. However, I am sure there are many other recommendations that should be debated. Correctional Services is an important part of our community. As the minister said, we have record numbers in prison. The reasons they are in prison and the way we deal with those people are important issues that should be debated.
I have been on record a number of times saying that we should be looking at low security prisons similar to Wildman River, and not only there, but near some of our other communities such as Tennant Creek and Katherine, so that we look at alternative ways of dealing with people.
I ask the minister to make a major statement on this review so that we can have a full and wholesome debate about it.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, it has never been my policy to deny debate in this House; members know that.
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: I have some very bad news for the doomsayers over there: a mass meeting of prison officers yesterday not only reached agreement on staffing levels at Berrimah and in Alice Springs, but have indicated that they are now prepared to move into the review implementation process.
For those of us who are trying to build a coherent policy and apply it within our Corrections system, that is very good news. We can now start to work, initially in Alice Springs, to bring about these changes to the prisons.
I will ask the opposition to do two things: one is to desist from opportunist politics on this because this issue is of critical importance to the future of our community in the Northern Territory. We need to impact on the 80% rates of re-offending that we see through our courts day on day. I ask the opposition what their policy is?
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
MOTION
Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee –
Adoption of Terms of Reference
Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee –
Adoption of Terms of Reference
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly adopt the terms of reference, as distributed to honourable members, for (a) the Estimates Committee; and (b) the Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee.
After the budget last year was worked through by all members of this parliament who participated in the Estimates Committee process, the consensus view that was reached by all honourable members was that the process was an improvement on the first year’s run of the Estimates Committee process, and the process served the people of the Northern Territory through this parliament in scrutiny of the budget very well.
The Standing Orders Committee. over the last 10 months or so, has worked through a process of seeking input and comment from members of the public, departments, and the media in regards to how they felt the Estimates Committee process last year actually worked. We received a number of submissions, and we worked our way through those submissions during the course of the year in a pretty constructive way. Submissions were received from the Ombudsman for the Northern Territory; Madam Speaker, yourself as member for Braitling; the Department of Employment, Education and Training; Department of Justice; Department of Community Development, Sport and Cultural Affairs; Department of Business Industry and Resource Development; Police, Fire and Emergency Services; and the Department of Chief Minister. Essentially, all copies of those submissions are available through the Table Office. There was, essentially, consensus that the committee structure served the public through this parliament very well.
In October, a paper summarising submissions was received by the committee and, along with members’ comments during the Appropriation Bill of last year, we worked through quite a number of issues. Moving to some of those, the general observations from submissions to the committee was that the proceedings went well; the process resulted in a much smoother and effective process. One of the submissions talked about a highly desirable process, and another one about a highly positive contribution to our democratic institutions. Therefore, the general observations …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: It is interesting that the member for Greatorex laughs, because he has a history of contributing through the committee process in, I have to say, a productive way. As we saw when we brought back another committee report into the Assembly during the last sittings regarding the Code of Conduct where the committee worked through a number of issues, and there was no dissenting report to that submission that came through. I thought, as chairman of the committee - and I am sure members on our side did - that we had unanimous support for the committee’s report …
Dr Lim: You had lots of dissent from the committee. Lots of dissent!
Mr HENDERSON: … that actually came to the House, which had no dissenting report from any member on that committee, let alone the opposition as a whole. We come into the House …
Ms Carter: To debate things.
Mr HENDERSON: … to debate the committee’s report …
Dr Lim: And this is where we debate things.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, order!
Mr HENDERSON: … and, all of a sudden, we find the member for Greatorex has done a backflip. He is too gutless in committee to put forward a position …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! This is an abuse of the system, to assume that the behaviour of the member in committee is something that he can attack in parliament. He also knows that if the member’s behaviour is offensive in committee, standing orders apply. Get on with the show.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, I was picking up on interjections where, from the tone of the interjections, it looks as though - and I will lay money on it - that there is going to be dissenting and critical comments on the committee’s report. I urge the member for Greatorex, when participating in the committee process, if you are critical of the report that comes to the House, then put a dissenting report in. Do not be lazy in work on the committee. If you have a dissenting opinion to the committee’s report, attach a dissenting report to the papers that come back to the parliament. The committee process is all about trying to work in a bipartisan way to improve the processes of this parliament. If members on that committee feel that they cannot raise issues or put in a dissenting report, I encourage them to do so because, when a report comes to this parliament that does not have a dissenting report attached to it, then one would safely assume that all members of that committee, on the whole, support the content of the submission before the parliament. It will be interesting to see the member for Greatorex’s contribution because the report that is before us, as circulated, does not contain any dissenting comments.
The general observations from submissions received was that the proceedings went well. One of the issues raised by Madam Speaker was that sufficient time needs to be allowed for Independent members of this parliament to ask questions. Talking that issue through, Madam Speaker, the committee resolved that, really, that is an issue for the chair of the committee. Regarding the smooth running of the committee, discussion held that Independent members of this parliament should really, minister by minister, indicate just prior to ministers coming to the committee table, the output groups that they wish to question ministers on. I have an undertaking from the chair of the committee that adequate time will be granted to Independents to ask questions where they have flagged output groups that they are particularly interested in, and the Independent member on the committee accepted that provision. It is something that we will keep a close eye on this year because every member of that committee is entitled to time to question ministers.
One of the submissions noted that, in 2003, there was a move to questions about education, employment and work safe outcomes, rather than purely how much was spent by a particular agency. That is a significant improvement, where the questioning is via output groups and what the outputs are that the agency is seeking to achieve for the appropriation of public monies. Much questioning actually went to performance and achievements last year, which is really where the Estimates Committee is heading, and that was acknowledged as being a good contribution by the relevant agency concerned.
We debated the merits or otherwise of going back to written questions. Last year was the first year where we adopted the same process that every other parliament that has an Estimates Committee in Australia adopts, where there are no written questions. There was a fair amount of debate about the merits or otherwise of reintroducing the concept of written questions, where a couple of agencies made comments that they could support a percentage of written questions that would be tied to key areas. There is certainly no view of going back to a carte blanche reintroduction of written questions and the thousands of hours spent by public servants responding to written questions.
Essentially, the committee determined that we would continue this year supporting the current position of not accepting written questions prior to the hearings. If ministers, agency staff, or CEOs are unable to answer a question there and then certainly, from government’s point of view, we will ensure as much as possible that those answers come back to the committee whilst the minister is there, if possible. However, if not, it is our aim as government - and I believe we did pretty well last year - that 90% or 100% would be the target of those questions that are taken on notice coming back to the committee prior to the committee concluding. Last year, there was probably only a dozen questions that came back to the parliament as questions on notice that were failed to be answered during their particular hearing of the committee. The committee did determine that we would not be introducing written questions again. The system worked well last year and there is no reason to assume that it will not work well this year.
The committee determined that the opportunity for detailed questions to be placed on notice is adequate and appropriate, and to retain the provision for ministers to take questions on notice and to bring those back to the committee and, if not able to do so to the committee, back to the parliament as soon as possible, given the work that may need to be required to get very detailed answers to detailed questions back.
The terms of reference have been circulated. They were amended as per the last meeting of the committee some couple of months ago. As I said earlier in my comments, there was no dissenting report or any significant opposition to those terms of reference as circulated to honourable members. I believe that the public sector is getting used to the process and, given the submissions that came in from the larger key agencies, they are very supportive of the current process. The opportunity for public servants to go into the detail of various programs is to be supported in terms of getting the details of those programs onto the public record.
We are not breaking new ground here. We have introduced an Estimates Committee process to which we are committed as part of our good governance plan that we put to the people of the Northern Territory before the last election …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: This Estimates Committee process is serving the people of the Northern Territory well. It is supported by agencies as per their submissions. There was not a single submission that opposed the current process of Estimates Committee hearings or requested a throwback to the old days of how we used to do this in the parliament. It is about reforming this parliament. It is about bringing us into line with contemporary parliamentary processes that are accepted across Australia. If members opposite want to go back in time to some sort of dinosaur process that served them well, they can get up and argue for it. It is a pity they did not argue for it in committee, if that is their position.
I would like to thank all members of the committee who worked in a very constructive and bipartisan way in reviewing last year’s estimates process. I thank everyone who made submissions, and the CEOs of government agencies who took the time to put detailed submissions into the parliament. I am sure all honourable members are looking forward to the Estimates Committee process this year.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, I foreshadow that I will stop you at 11 am for the budget delivery. Do you understand?
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Certainly, Madam Speaker. The Labor caucus obviously sits around and chants their mantra: open, honest and transparent …
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: You make a mockery of such a mantra yet again. You have created a mechanism whereby you have focussed your single attention on the creation of a perception that you have created this opportunity for the loyal opposition to scrutinise the budget, which contains the appropriation of funds to develop the Northern Territory.
You have created the impression that you have a whole new system in place. The core element of that new mechanism called estimates, is that we, in opposition, have the opportunity to scrutinise in detail aspects of appropriation. You create the impression that, prior to your arrival on the scene - the new great and glorious days in the Northern Territory - there was no such adequate mechanism for the scrutiny of budget appropriation of the Territory’s Treasury funds to stimulate the Northern Territory and cause it to move forward. In fact, there was such an opportunity and, at that time, there was the opportunity to pursue a line of questioning until the question had been exhausted.
Currently, there is a limit on the amount of time that a shadow minister has the opportunity to pursue a question. There is a restriction on the amount of time, and that allows for a curtailing of adequate scrutiny. It is quite clear that all you are satisfied in is to create an impression and the impression is more important than the substance or the reality.
The honourable member has the audacity to speak of his good governance position. That is a joke, and I wish that people in the gallery would have a look at what the Martin Labor government proposed would be their position with regards to good governance when they came to office.
When it comes to asking questions, the opposition has the opportunity to ask questions. However, in order to maintain the impression that there is some great way of scrutinising the budget which, in fact, is just a sham and a perception, we, therefore, have limited opportunities to get detailed information. We then fall upon, for recourse, freedom of information; a wonderful new creation of the Martin Labor government.
We had to seek information, at considerable cost, concerning details of what information was supplied to ministers who are carrying their ministerial responsibility on behalf of Territorians. Our shadow ministers are seeking information so that we can discharge our duties adequately. It was at great expense to opposition - many of thousands of dollars - to have released to us that information that was made available to ministers - on behalf of Territorian, I might add. What did we receive for that expenditure? We received documents such as this: blacked-out sections, practically useless. Again and again, we have folders filled with blacked-out bits of information, where there is no opportunity to adequately scrutinise. Look at that! This is freedom of information from the Martin Labor government, who only want to create an impression. These folders are full of such submissions that we have received at considerable cost, which provide no information whatsoever. Freedom of information is just a sham. Open, honest and transparent government - what nonsense! Look at this - any page.
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: There was a time, when you were in opposition, you were able to scrutinise to the end of the question; until the question was satisfied. We have shadow ministers who can prepare, but not submit, written questions. They prepared 160 questions, and were only able to ask 40 of those questions. You obstruct the process by filibustering and resisting the opportunity to call upon public servants who are sitting there, so we can have open, honest, and genuinely transparent government. It is an absolute mockery. You will do anything; you will do what it takes to win government, and to create the impression and the perception is your sole objective.
It is the point of view of opposition that, in order to make genuine use of the estimates process, we will be submitting written questions so that we can have adequate response time. We need the information so that we can discharge our duties in opposition by scrutinising the activities of the Martin Labor government, and put an end to the energies of the Martin Labor government to create a perception and do little in regard to substance and genuine accountability to the Northern Territory community.
It is the responsibility of the opposition to be able to scrutinise, and all we are scrutinising at this point, is a proposed terms of reference. What we are talking about is the larger scheme of things: your creation of a perception, your creation of a body, your hoodwinking of Territorians, gagging them and not allowing opposition to have genuine access to information, under the guise of another piece of legislation regarding freedom of information, which is a mockery. All you want to do is pump up the perception; create the idea that you have done great and wonderful things.
In fact, the system we have in place now is far more inferior than the system that we had in place before, simply because we could exhaust the question. Were the shadow ministers asked: ‘Are there any further questions?’ No, we never got to that position. We have a shadow minister who was only able to ask 40 questions; there were another 160 to go. Now we are going to bring in greater activity from Independent members, when we have shadow ministers, on behalf of every Territorian, carrying responsibility for education, Treasury, and other key aspects of responsibility for the Northern Territory community, who are having their time diminished so that an Independent can ask questions of a whole of issues.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, do you wish to continue your remarks later.
Mr MILLS: I will continue my remarks at a later stage.
Debate suspended.
VISITORS
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of the Under Treasurer, Jennifer Prince, and members of the Treasury staff. On behalf of the Chamber, I give you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
MESSAGE FROM ADMINISTRATOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I lay on the table Message No 21, recommending to the Legislative Assembly a bill for an act authorising the issuing and expending of the public monies of the Territory in respect to the year 30 June 2004.
APPROPRIATION BILL 2004-05
(Serial 234)
(Serial 234)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be read a second time, and I table the 2004-05 Appropriation Bill and related budget papers.
Budget 2004 keeps the Territory moving ahead. This budget delivers less tax, more jobs and a great lifestyle. It is pro-business, pro-jobs, and pro-growth. It delivers record tax cuts and the highest ever cash spend on infrastructure and jobs. This budget builds on the Territory’s great lifestyle, at the same time delivering record health, education and police budgets. Budget 2004 tax reforms by the Martin Labor government are the most significant ever delivered by any Territory government; they will stimulate economic growth and keep the Territory moving ahead.
Budget 2004 provides record tax cuts worth $6.7m in 2004-05, rising to over $16m in 2005-06. The payroll tax threshold will increase to $1m over the next 14 months. From 1 July 2004, the threshold will increase from its current $600 000 to $800 000. From 1 July 2005, locally-based Territory businesses with a payroll of less than $1m will be exempt from payroll tax. This will make the Territory’s payroll tax amongst the lowest for small business in Australia - 162 businesses will not pay payroll tax from 1 July 2005, and 83 of those will be exempt from 1 July 2004. Of these 162 businesses, 127 are locally-based Territory businesses. Over 1400 businesses will be better off, the biggest winners being locally-based Territory businesses with an average saving of $20 500 per year. This gives business a greater capacity to grow and expand; it means more jobs, more production - a great result for the Territory.
The government will abolish the HIH levy immediately. This will save, for over 6600 private sector employers, $2.7m each year. From 1 July 2005, the Territory will also abolish debits tax, saving Territory business and the community $6.2m per year.
These are record tax cuts. The Territory will have the lowest taxes for small business anywhere in Australia. For a business with about 20 staff, recurrent taxes will be reduced to approximately $6830 per year, from 1 July 2004. This compares with $31 940 in New South Wales, $32 144 in Victoria, and $11 444 in Western Australia. Territory small business will pay less recurrent tax than interstate counterparts and will enjoy the most competitive business environment in Australia.
Tax cuts are not the only stimulus that Budget 2004 provides. This budget provides the highest ever spending on infrastructure: $441m will be spent on capital works, minor new works and repairs and maintenance. This will sustain around 4000 jobs in the construction industry and, indirectly, underwrite thousands more in support industry. In Budget 2004, the government’s record infrastructure program is targeted at tourism, roads and strategic development projects.
Tourism will receive an infrastructure boost of more than $60m over the next three years. This excludes expenditure on the waterfront. Combined with the additional $27.5m announced by the government late last year, tourism will be the focus of around $90m of additional expenditure. Over 950 jobs are anticipated to flow directly from the $27.5m injection, most of these in small business. Even more jobs will directly result from the investment in tourism infrastructure.
Roads are another big winner in the infrastructure budget. Funds will be directed at roads that lift economic growth and generate jobs. In 2004-05, roads to capital works total $70m including the Mereenie and Litchfield loops. In addition, expenditure on roads maintenance has been increased in 2003-04 and will be further increased in 2004-05 to almost $30m.
The third element of the government’s infrastructure program is strategic development projects. Funds totalling $52m will be spent on the East Arm Port completing the AustralAsia trade route, the Desert Knowledge Precinct, the Darwin waterfront, and other strategic development projects.
This government is proud of the Territory’s great lifestyle - the best in Australia. Budget 2004 will make it better. With more support for sporting and community events, arts and culture, enjoying our parks and fishing. This year, the budget will support the strongest ever program of major events in the Territory’s history. The good news does not stop there. The government continues to provide record budgets in the key areas of health, education and police. In 2004-05, there is a record health budget of $635.4m, an increase of $23.7m. The education budget is a record $540.6m, an increase of $13.2m when one-off items are removed from 2003-04. The police budget, another record, $172.4m, is up $8.6m. The Martin government’s commitment to a healthier Territory, better educational outcomes and safer communities is well and truly reinforced by Budget 2004.
I turn now to the Territory economy. The onshore economy continued to strengthen in 2003-04, with state final demand increasing by an estimated 4.4%; a good result. Investment was boosted by the start of construction of the LNG plant, and private consumption maintained solid growth. However, a greater than expected fall in offshore oil production means the Territory growth state product is estimated to increase by 0.3% in 2003-04. Population growth in 2003-04 is positive, though lower than we would like. Departures have remained constant, but arrivals are lower than average. Employment growth started to pick up late in 2003-04. The latest figures show the level of unemployment has dropped each month for the past 11 months.
Dwelling investment and property markets continue to strengthen. Darwin’s annual inflation rate is estimated at 1.5%, below the national rate of 1.8%. Treasury forecasts GST growth to strengthen to 5.8% in 2004-05. The major influence has been strong employment growth, increased construction and tourism-related activity, and population growth.
Production from Bayu-Undan is expected to more than offset falling oil production from Laminaria/Corallina. Engineering work for Bayu-Undan Stage 2 will be the key driver of Territory investment in 2004-05. With capital investment of around $2.8m, the Bayu-Undan Stage 2 LNG plant and pipeline is the largest project ever undertaken in the Northern Territory. It will take almost three years to complete, and will employ around 1200 people at its peak.
Employment is forecast to increase by 2.9% in 2004-05, supported by construction of the LNG plant, increased residential and non-residential building and a strengthening tourism sector. Further Defence development will also contribute to growth in 2004-05. Annual inflation in Darwin is forecast to increase to 2.2%.
I now move to the fiscal projections in the budget. When we were finalising the Territory budget just a week ago, 2003-04 was on target for a $2m deficit consistent with the mid-year report. The Commonwealth budget handed down last Tuesday included an increase in national GST collections, of which the Territory receives $36m in 2003-04 and $28m in 2004-05. The additional GST revenue means a surplus of $34m for 2003-04. Spending has increased by $73m during 2003-04. Operating payments have increased by $60m, with major boosts in the priority areas of tourism, police, jobs and training, corrections, justice and child protection.
Grants from the Commonwealth are up by $115m, $23m of this is new and expanded specific purpose payments, which carry related expenditure obligations. GST grants have increased by $92m. Territory tax receipts have increased by $8m. The significant variations are an additional $14m in stamp duty receipts due to increased economic activity and large, one-off transactions, offset by a reduction in payroll tax of $9m due, in part, to waivers and refunds.
A number of commitments have been bought forward to 2003-04. These include: $2m to relocate the Palmerston Magpies to the Palmerston Campus of the Charles Darwin University; $500 000 to the Katherine Town Council for improved sporting facilities, a promise we made to the people of Katherine during the by-election and one we have delivered on immediately; $3m to Charles Darwin University consisting of $500 000 to assist with the merger with Centralian College and $2.5m to match Commonwealth funding for a new higher education facility in Central Australia; $3.8m to extend electricity to Dundee Beach; $4m for indigenous essential services; and $1m for research grants recommended by the Territory’s new Research and Development Council. This is a new and exciting policy direction by the Martin government aimed at supporting Territory innovation.
Sound financial management over the past two-and-a-half years and improved GST revenue has resulted in the Territory making good progress in achieving the fiscal targets established in the 2001 mini-budget . Three challenges arose during 2003-04 leading to a revision of the fiscal strategy. First, the government made a decision to provide additional support and stimulus for economic growth, both by increasing spending and by further reducing taxes in the 2004-05 budget. Second, the Commonwealth Grants Commission 2004 review resulted in a $48m reduction in the Territory’s GST revenue; the largest reduction to any state or territory. Third, the government decided to boost spending in priority service areas of police, health, tourism, education, jobs and training and correctional services.
This government continues to increase spending in key areas long neglected by our predecessors. As a result of the government’s response to these challenges, the targets for the 2004-05 Budget and forward estimates have been revised. The general government deficit is projected to plateau in 2005-06, and then improve in line with the government’s commitment to achieving a balanced budget.
I turn to the projections for the 2004-05 Budget. As seen in recent years, the volatility in GST revenue can significantly affect the Territory’s outcome. The general government sector is expected to be in balance in 2004-05 because of additional GST revenue. It is expected the budget will return to a deficit of $16m in 2005-06, based on current GST projections.
In 2004-05, general government operating receipts are unchanged from 2003-04. Territory tax receipts are estimated to increase slightly by $2m, reflecting increased economic activity, offset by the tax cuts within this budget. Other receipts, predominantly dividends, are to fall by $6m in 2004-05. Commonwealth grants, the Territory’s major revenue source, will increase by just $4m because of the reduction in the Territory’s relativity. GST revenues would normally increase by at least $50m. Operating payments are estimated to increase by $51m, reflecting the effect of expended programs. Interest payments are expected to decline by $14m in 2004-05 as a result of lower interest rates achieved through refinancing. Public sector infrastructure spending is a record $441m in 2004-05. Lower general government sector capital payments are offset by increased spending in housing and port-related infrastructure.
I turn now to the detail of the budget initiatives. Budget 2004 delivers less tax, more jobs and a great lifestyle. Budget initiatives are focussed on the priority areas of business - particularly small business - creating jobs, enhancing our lifestyle, safer communities, better educational outcomes and a healthier community.
We have listened to business, and this is a pro-business budget. Record tax cuts will act as a major stimulus for business activity which will impact across all business sectors. Small business, medium business and larger business all reap a benefit from these initiatives.
Earlier in this speech, I outlined the impact of the tax cuts in this budget on small business and the comparison of interstate competitors. Now let me provide details of the impact on a medium size business. For a business with around 40 staff and a payroll of $1.6m, the effect of this budget will be to reduce recurrent tax to $48 320 from 1 July 2005. This will be a tax reduction of $29 000 compared to their tax bill today. I will repeat that: as a result of this government’s tax initiatives, a medium size business with 40 staff will be saving $29 000 each year from 1 July 2005, a drop from $77 348 to $48 320 – an outstanding result for business. These changes will also make the Territory the lowest taxing jurisdiction for medium sized business. Compare this with the same size business in New South Wales. Their recurrent tax bill is $104 615, a difference of over $56 300. It is $110 835 in Victoria, and $53 945 in the ACT. Territory business will be in the best competitive position against their interstate counterparts ever.
The removal of the HIH levy adds to the business savings from this budget. Small business with around 20 staff will save, on average, $800 per annum from this measure. Business with around 40 staff will save around $1600 per annum. Overall, the HIH levy liability has gone from the original estimate of $50m to around $22m. The government will now absorb the full cost of outstanding claims left after the collapse of HIH.
In addition to record tax cuts, the government will also improve its administrative processes. An independent taxation and mineral royalty administrative appeals tribunal will be established. This will provide taxpayers with an inexpensive alternative to appeal decisions of a tax or royalty assessment.
The Martin Labor government will also reform the public liability insurance requirement for businesses supplying to government. The current requirement of $10m for public liability insurance will be reduced to $500 000 for the supply and delivery of goods off the shelf and for items with a manufacturer’s warranty.
As of 1 July 2004, the government implements its policy of mandatory payment of undisputed accounts within 30 days. Businesses that have not been paid on time will be able to apply for interest penalty payments.
To further stimulate business, the government is directing significant resources into tourism infrastructure, including: $38m to seal the Mereenie Loop Road over the next three years; $15m to seal the Litchfield loop road over the next three years; $2.5m for a new cruise ship terminal at Fort Hill Wharf; $500 000 for headworks for the Katherine Cultural Precinct; $1.1m for Gregory and Limmen National Parks; $1m to upgrade visitor facilities in Territory parks; $280 000 for the Battery Hill facility in Tennant Creek; and $390 000 to upgrade the Territory Wildlife Park and Alice Springs Desert Park.
With this expenditure, tourism will receive an additional $90m over the next couple of years, an acknowledgment by this government of the importance of tourism to our economy. Tourism impacts across all business, from small to large.
Roads funding is focussed on those strategic roads that will boost economic growth and development. This include: a further $1m towards sealing the Tanami Road; almost $30m on national highways and roads of national importance; $4.8m on Stage 1 to improve access to Borroloola; and $1m will be spent on the beef roads, Dorisvale, Oolloo, Fleming and Cadell. Almost $30m will be spent on repairs and maintenance of Territory roads, a $4m increase since the 2003-04 budget.
Funds for strategic development projects include $25m at East Arm Port, including $5.7m to complete Stage 2A; $10.3m for oil pipelines and associated equipment for bulk fuel liquids to enable the removal of oil tanks from Stuart Park; $7m for a bulk loading facility and $2m for a new incinerator.
The Desert Knowledge Precinct in Alice Springs will be constructed at a cost of almost $30m over two to three years. This will have a significant impact on the construction industry in Alice Springs. It will also impact on the long-term future of the town’s economy, as we focus on the smart economy, providing Australia and the rest of world with our desert knowledge and innovation.
$8m is allocated for the Darwin city waterfront. This project will change the face of Darwin. It will provide our capital city with a signature. This project will provide significant stimulus to the construction industry and, in the long term, add enormously to Darwin’s appeal.
$1.53m is provided for indigenous economic development strategies; the on-line Territory Business Channel will be expanded at a cost of $800 000 over two years; the business and skilled migration strategy will be implemented at a cost of $350 000; and Making It In the Territory, the Territory’s manufacturing industry strategy, will be implemented in 2004-05 in partnership with industry and unions.
Creating jobs and providing training to Territorians is a key commitment of this government. We believe that we must get training right for the future of the Territory. The government has placed a great emphasis on jobs since we took office in August 2001. Last November, I announced the first ever Jobs Plan - more than $160m focussed on training over the next three years. Under the Jobs Plan, the government will train, prepare and support up to 7000 apprentices and trainees over three years. During 2004-05, about 2400 apprentices and trainees will be employed across 180 discrete qualifications in 16 industry sectors, with $11.75m provided for training purposes. To date, this government has lifted the number of trainees and apprentices by 30% but, more importantly, we have focussed effort on meeting the needs of the Territory work force now and into the future.
The government will build on the Jobs Plan by allocating $38m to registered training organisations to deliver a broad range of vocational education and training programs and courses in both urban and remote settings; $12.39m to support and train apprentices and trainees across the Territory; $1.2m over the next three years for prevocational training programs which aim to better prepare Territorians for apprenticeships and traineeships; a further $830 000 to a total of $1.58m in 2004-05 for the introduction of the new labor market programs; $980 000 per annum over the next three years for an additional 200 public sector trainees; $390 000 to Footprints Forward to assist indigenous youth in Alice Springs; and $1m ongoing for the remote work force development strategy.
Education is another key priority of the Martin Labor government. This year, a record education budget includes $256.3m for early childhood and primary education in government schools; $125.2m for government secondary schools; and $72m for assistance for non-government schools. This year, we will meet our commitment to employ 100 additional teachers. We will also continue the student bursary scheme, alternative education provision, and the employment of eight school attendance officers. These have been very successful Labor government initiatives, and will cost an additional $3.5m in 2004-05.
$1.25m has been approved to expand the accelerated literacy program from the current trials in Lighthouse schools. The results of this program are outstanding. Young students are learning at the rate of 1.75 years for each year. They are catching up with their classmates, and improving their chances of a full and meaningful future.
Funding of $1.2m in 2004-05, rising to $2.56m ongoing, will continue the Aboriginal Islander Education Workers program after withdrawal of Commonwealth funding.
Information technology infrastructure in schools will be improved with an extra $2m. A further $250 000 is provided for increasing band width by 15%. $5m will be spent over the next four years to provide every classroom teacher in government schools with a laptop computer.
$750 000 is provided in 2004-05 to replace and upgrade domestic furniture in remote teacher housing. This follows $1m provided for this purpose in February.
Increased funding of $500 000 is provided to upgrade capital equipment in government schools and community education centres and, again, supplements the additional $1m provided in February this year.
A new $300 000 school grants program will commence in 2004-05 for government schools in need. Financial assistance to non-government schools under the capital assistance and interest subsidy scheme increases by $500 000.
This year, around $64m is programmed for new and ongoing capital works, minor new works and repairs and maintenance including $1m each for Stage 1 redevelopments at Nakara and Alawa Primary Schools; $2m for Stage 3 of the Remote School Upgrade Program; $220 000 for a disabled access lift at Casuarina Secondary College; $250 000 to complete the airconditioning upgrade at Gillen Primary School; and ongoing works at Darwin High, Parap Primary and a number of bush schools including secondary facilities and Kalkarindji, Minyerri, and an upgrade at Maningrida. There is an enormous backlog of work to be done on our schools across the Territory. We have committed, and will continue to commit, significant funds to address this backlog.
Community safety is an issue of importance to Territorians and to this government. We have taken a whole-of-government approach that is delivering results. We have put our money where our mouth is on this issue. Again, this year, crime prevention and community safety receives a major boost in the budget. The O’Sullivan Report continues to roll out in 2004-05. A further $6.7m has been provided, increasing to a total of $27.9m ongoing by 2006-07. A further $200 000 in 2004-05 and 2005-06 is provided to support the recruitment of Territorians into the police force. $1m over three years has been approved to build on the Northern Territory’s counter-terrorism capability. A total of $2.9m in 2004-05, and $2.6m ongoing, has been allocated for patrol boat replacement and other equipment.
Additional funding of $560 000 is included, to a total of $1.49m ongoing, to meet the government’s commitment to employ an extra 16 fire officers. $210 000 will establish a new Arnhem Land fire control region, and an additional $260 000 is provided for Volunteer Bush Fire Brigades.
$2.7m will be allocated to continue the success so far of the community harmony strategy addressing itinerancy and antisocial behaviour. Funding of $3.06m will be provided in 2004-05 to implement the recommendations of the review of adult custodial services, including rehabilitation programs and staffing. The Office of Court Administration will receive an additional $1.3m to meet increased demand, with a further $110 000 for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Significant capital projects for community safety include $8m for a new low security section at the Darwin gaol; $1m for a police post at Numbulwar; and $680 000 to upgrade police cells at Batchelor, Maranboy and Ti Tree.
Again, this is a record health budget. Health funding will receive a further boost in the 2004-05 budget, as it has in every budget introduced by the Martin government. The budget of $635.4m is an increase of $23.7m and includes: $357.9m for acute care services; $109m for community health services; $80.8m for aged, disability and mental health services; $44.8m for family and children’s services; a further $2.6m for improved mental health services; additional recurrent funding of $2m for an expanded intensive care high dependency unit at the Alice Springs hospital; and $2m will expand the HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program. Last year, the government announced that funding for child protection services over the next five years will increase by 10% per annum. The increase in Budget 2004 is $1.8m. $1.2m extra is provided for expanded disability services. Dental health programs will receive an additional $600 000. Significant health capital projects for 2004-05 include: $2.5m for the Darwin birthing centre; $1.5m for a new health centre at Kalkarindji, $900 000 for Stage 2 community-based renal facilities; and fire safety upgrades costing $900 000 at Alice Springs Hospital and $750 000 at Tennant Creek Hospital.
Territorians enjoy a great lifestyle. This budget will make it even better. This year, the government will support the most extensive program of major community and sporting events the Territory has ever seen - events as diverse as international cricket and the International Guitar Festival. From arts festivals to Aussie rules, Territorians will have a feast of national and international quality events at their fingertips. Budget 2004 provides over $6m in support to major events. The Territory’s great lifestyle is supported by a $19m budget for sport; $32m for arts, museums and libraries; over $90m for parks, the environment and heritage; and $142m for housing. $300 000 is provided for the BassintheGrass concerts to be staged annually in Darwin and Alice Springs. These concerts were spectacular successes when the Martin government introduced them last year.
Ethnic community groups will be able to access a new $500 000 capital facilities grants program. This is the second major ethnic grants program introduced by this government.
$270 000 is provided in each of the next two years to stage AFL matches in Darwin and Alice Springs, and fund camps for players and coaches in the Territory. Grants to sports organisations will be increased by $500 000 to a total of $5.58m in 2004-05.
There will be an additional $350 000 per annum to support the Festival of Darwin, the Alice Springs Desert Song, the Garma Festival, and the International Guitar Festival.
Budget 2004 provides $2.7m to stage the Masters Games in Alice Springs later this year, and the Arafura Games in Darwin next year.
$370 000 in 2004-05 and $120 000 ongoing has been provided for the first ever Darwin Harbour Management Plan. To continue our commitment to the environment, a $200 000 Environment Protection Grant Program has been established to provide funding to community-based environmental organisations. $330 000 per anum for three years will fund the government’s litter abatement strategy.
Significant capital projects to enhance the Territory lifestyle include: $1m to upgrade the Hidden Valley Raceway; $2.3m for headworks for the Palmerston recreation centre and Katherine Cultural Precinct; $500 000 for headworks for the home of Territory soccer at Marrara; $1.7m as the last stage of a $5m upgrade of Traeger Park, $3m for the urban enhancement and heritage program; $3m for the continuation of undergrounding of powerlines in Darwin; $500 000 to improve access and facilities for recreational fishing; $160 000 for AFANT; and $10 000 in small grants to fishing associations.
Housing amenity plays an important role in our lifestyle. The 2004-05 budget includes: $5.4m for the new seniors village at Kurringal site; $2.3m for security screens for public housing; $4.3m for community renewal of urban public housing; $1.8m for short-term accommodation projects as part of the Community Harmony Program; and $1m for new public housing in Alice Springs.
Building Stronger Territory Regions receives continued emphasis in the 2004-05 budget. $360 000 will be provided to the Chief Minister’s Priority Task Force Program, initially at Wadeye. Funding of $220 000 in 2004-05 has been approved for a regional coordinator at Groote Eylandt. In both of these communities, the need to coordinate the delivery of services by Commonwealth and Territory governments and to invest in their future development is evident. The work being done in these programs will provide both immediate and long-term benefits for the Territory community as a whole.
Significant capital projects for regional housing include $3m for land servicing in remote communities, and $22.6m for construction and upgrade of government employee housing in regional and remote areas.
Budget 2004 keeps the Territory moving ahead. It delivers record tax cuts, the highest ever cash spend on infrastructure, and it supports our lifestyle: less tax, more jobs, great lifestyle. It provides business with the most competitive environment in Australia, and positions us well to expand and grow. More jobs for Territorians will result from both our tax reform and the infrastructure spending. We have focussed on supporting sport, major events, fishing and the great Territory lifestyle.
Budget 2004 continues to provide record funding for the key priorities of education and training, health and police. I am proud to place before you Budget 2004.
Debate adjourned.
VISITORS
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I advise you of the presence in the Gallery of Year 10 and 11 legal studies students from St John’s College, accompanied by their teacher, Mr Stephen Meara. On behalf of honourable members, I extend you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
STATEMENT BY SPEAKER
Information Technology Problems
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I do not know whether I am stating the obvious, but you are probably aware that, at the moment, we are experiencing problems with the file print server. This is being addressed as a matter of urgency by CSC. During the luncheon suspension, the system was closed down and the processor replaced. The system will also be closed down tomorrow morning between 6 am and 8 am to replace the memory card. Please be aware that, although the system is running at the moment, it is unstable and may close down at any time.
I will notify you of any further developments. Hansard can still record what we are saying, but just be aware if you are relying on your computer at the moment, it may go down at any time.
MOTION
Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee –
Adoption of Terms of Reference
Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations Scrutiny Committee –
Adoption of Terms of Reference
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I continue my reply by saying that we do not support this motion, and believe that the estimates process, as it has been presented to this parliament and the opposition, provides little opportunity for real analysis and is curtailed by the lack of time. Therefore, it is this opposition’s position that we oppose this motion.
Madam SPEAKER: Any further speakers on this motion? Member for Brennan?
Mr BURKE: No, Madam Speaker.
Dr Lim: There are no speakers from the other side? Good God!
Members interjecting.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak to this motion, obviously, given I am a member of the committee. I take this opportunity to respond to some of the comments the minister made earlier this morning when he was speaking to the report. Let me remind the minister, in the first instance, that this piece of paper was not presented to the committee - never was! You were the chairman of the committee and you cannot even remember the process. You cannot remember the process, and you are the Chair of the Standing Order Committee. What sort of …
Mr Henderson: It was circulated months ago, with amendments - minor amendments that you supported in the committee.
Dr LIM: … understanding of the process have you? The amendments were never supported. I argued with you, time and time again. Do not just sit there now with a smirk on your face, the supercilious bloody …
Madam SPEAKER: Uh, uh!
Dr LIM: Excuse my language, Madam Speaker. I withdraw ...
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The member for Greatorex, three foot nothing …
Madam SPEAKER: All right. Now let us …
Dr LIM: I withdraw. But that supercilious smile on your face …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! Just relax. Let us get back to the debate.
Dr LIM: You dare to sit there and pretend that you did this in a fair and democratic way …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! We must have a new cameraman. We have finished Question Time and I assume you have stopped recording. You will not use that footage you have just taken.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, member for Greatorex. I cannot believe that we go through this with cameramen so many times. Surely, when Question Time is over they know to cease, and I am glad you did.
Dr LIM: Well, I hope the clock is stopped, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it will be. Do not worry.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, this paper was presented to this Chamber on the last day of the last sittings on 1 April – All Fools Day, mind you. The minister then comes and says: ‘Well, we have this motion, with this procedure for estimates and we will go with it’. Well, this time the House does not agree with your process - your very flawed process; a process that shows that he has no regard for parliamentary process whatsoever. He spoke about a dissenting report and that I did not submit one. Well, how could you submit a dissenting report when this report never showed in the committee? We were all there. We talked about the lack of time that this process allowed the opposition and Independent members to interrogate the budget ...
Dr Burns: You did not do your job in the committee. I was there.
Dr LIM: The member for Johnston has just reflected that I am lying as I speak. Well, I suggest to him that he now withdraws that statement because he was on that the committee and he full well heard me arguing against these recommendations.
Members interjecting.
Dr BURNS: Madam Speaker, speaking to the point of order, I did not accuse the member for Greatorex of lying. I simply accused him of not doing his job.
Dr LIM: And what job were you doing?
There are, obviously, a lot of problems with this report. Let me refer the minister the section on Sitting Times. In item 18 it says:
Unless otherwise ordered by the committee the committee shall sit during the following periods:
(a) on Tuesday 22 June 2004 it commences at 8:30 am and adjourns at 11 pm;
(b) on Wednesday 23 June 2004 it commences at 8.30 am and adjourns at 11 pm;
(c) on Thursday 24 June 2004 it commences at 8.30 am and adjourns at 11 pm; and
(d) the committee may suspend the hearings from time to time.
I distinctly remember at the committee discussions that Friday morning was included in the estimates process. Where is that clause? It is not there. That is the way you presented the paper into this Chamber and you have changed it as we agreed in the committee.
We proposed in the committee that we will have 42 hours for estimates hearing this year. Add those figures up, minister, if you can add. I can lend you my calculator if you like. It adds up in the three days you will have 43 hours - that is three times 14 equals 43 hours. Take an hour off for lunch each day and an hour off for dinner each day - two hours less each day makes six hours, and that makes it 37 hours. That is a true process, a fair process? We agreed to 42 hours. Where have the other six hours or five hours gone? Where are they?
This is something that we cannot support because you have bastardised the process.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I do not think that ‘bastardised’ is appropriate language ...
Dr Lim: It is perfectly good …
Madam SPEAKER: It really is not parliamentary.
Mr HENDERSON: I am not overly sensitive, but other people who read Hansard might be.
Madam SPEAKER: Withdraw it and rephrase it, member for Greatorex.
Dr LIM: He has corrupted the process then, Madam Speaker. Corrupted the process, absolutely.
A member: That is very unkind.
Dr LIM: Well, maybe that is, but I will tell you what: it is commonly used in Queen’s English through my people.
A member interjecting.
Dr LIM: Well, there is the member for Millner caught saying ‘bull’ in this Chamber. I was not able to use ‘bloody’ and he used ‘bull’.
Members interjecting.
Mr BONSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I did not catch what the member for Greatorex has accused me of saying.
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not think you used the term you suggested he used at all.
Members interjecting.
Dr LIM: Now, let me now come to section ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Could you give my colleague some protection. The interjections are continuous and they are defamatory …
Madam SPEAKER: They are, they are.
Mr DUNHAM: … and, in cases, I would even suggest, racist.
Ms LAWRIE: Speaking to the point of order.
Madam SPEAKER: I do not think …
Dr Lim: Order the clock to be stopped for the time being, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER I do not think that comment was necessary, member for Drysdale. There has been a lot of provocation coming from the member for Greatorex and, if he gets a reaction, that usually happens. However, I will ask members of government to give the member for Greatorex a fair go.
Dr LIM: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I now come to section D, Hearing Procedure, Item 23. I read from the paper:
Unless the committee otherwise determines the minister (or Speaker) may make an opening statement
lasting up to five minutes, which may be extended with leave of the committee.
We have four-and-a-half hours per minister, a little more with the Treasurer. If the minister cannot make an introductory comment in five minutes, I suggest to you that the minister should not be making any commentary at all. We have very little time and the minister cannot have unfettered, unrestricted extensions of time to make an introductory statement. That in my mind is not appropriate. Five minutes should be the absolute time limit, and no further.
Then we come to the issue of written questions. We spoke about it at length in the committee. We debated it last year after the estimates week, and there were many comments made in the Chamber immediately after the Estimates Committee met. Member of the opposition complained that written questions were not allowed, and that it would have provided the opportunity for the opposition to obtain detailed information from the ministers.
We again debated that matter in committee. However, with the committee, obviously, in favour of the government members in terms of numbers, there was very little that the opposition could do apart from voicing our objection to the way this has gone.
We were concerned last year that, during estimates, many of the ministers were prepared to filibuster and, at times, read verbatim from written reports provided for them by the public service. It would have assisted the estimates process last year had those reports provided by the public service not been read out verbatim by the ministers, but actually tabled for the opposition to consider in greater detail at a later time. But, no, that was not to be.
Written questions are not going to be allowed in this process this year; questions will have to be asked from the floor and, if ministers are not able to answer the questions or refuse to answer the question on the spot because the media is on them, they will take it on notice. That, to me, again, is a corruption of an open and accountable process in which the estimates can be interrogated by the opposition in great detail for the benefit of all Territorians.
This government lauds itself saying they are here for open and accountable government, absolutely transparent, yet all they have done so far has been to lock up the process so tightly that not very many people can scrutinise what the government has been doing for the last three years.
When we sought information through FOI legislation, and all we got was a load of blank pages. At one stage, I considered asking a question under FOI and, on further consideration, I felt that there was no point because, after spending a lot of money, we were not going to get anywhere.
I believe the four-and-a-half hours per minister is inadequate. We spoke about that at great length in the committee. Using last year’s experience as an example, some ministers, because of the multiple portfolios they carry, could only be questioned on a particular portfolio for less than an hour each. That is inadequate if you want to interrogate a budget at any length. When other members are allowed to question the minister as well, the shadow minister has to forgo many of the questions that they prepared.
Last year, I recall that the member for Port Darwin, the shadow minister for health, had something like 120 questions to ask of the health minister, and was only able to ask 40 questions because of the time constraint imposed upon the opposition. I respect the right of every other MLA and Independent members to ask questions of the minister also but, at the end of the day, the estimates process is to allow the opposition to interrogate the government at great length to try and determine for Territorians where this government is attempting to spend the Territory budget.
Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that this government has come along with a report such as this, without due consideration by the committee. I saw the minister just now conferring with the Clerk, obviously to clarify his memory for him. He cannot remember. It is a pity that a senior minister of the government who chairs this committee cannot remember the process that he used. I suggest to you that the process was badly done. It is now here in front of us for business, for discussion and debate now. There is nothing much I can do about it. However, I will say this to you: I cannot support it because I believe it is very, very flawed.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Madam Speaker, I want to make a few comments about the Estimates Committee process because it is an important process. I would have thought that this Labor government which prides itself on open, honest and accountable government, would take advantage of the estimates process to strut their stuff, essentially.
If everything that the government is doing is open to interrogation and as transparent as they say, and if the ministers are as capable of handling their portfolios as they would want us to believe, I would have thought that any minister would see it as an opportunity, frankly, to get in front of this sort of audience - particularly with the media there - to promote their stuff. Certainly, one observation that came through from the Estimates Committee process last year was, I believe, a continuing development of frustration on the part of public servants who sat there, albeit for a limited time because each minister only had four-and-a-half hours. They there with a great deal of frustration because the minister was not capable of enunciating the programs and efforts that were being done in their particular portfolios to the standard that many of the public servants would have wanted. The ministers were not across the detail themselves, preferred to filibuster or talk around the subject, or move onto other subjects. That is fine but, at the end of the day, we are after information and after a process that does give value for money for the taxpayer, and provides, I believe, an image of this parliament conducting itself in a professional way.
We can agree or disagree on the process that was in place in the past, but one thing about the process that was in place in the past under a CLP government, was that the opposition could ask any number of questions that they wanted to ask. They could prepare any amount of questions and we would put the public service to the effort, whether they liked it or not - and sometimes they did not like some of the questions because they were not all that relevant. However, the public service went to the effort of preparing the answers so that, when the minister stood in front of the parliament, the opposition could ask them any question they liked, using a basis of prepared questions and, if they wanted to stray from those prepared questions, leverage off some of the answers that were given - as the Chief Minister herself was quite good at doing. There were also others. Mr Bailey and Mr Bell used to use answers to leverage and create more answers. They used to do it and we answered willingly. There was a situation where ministers were on their feet for more than 11 hours, often not aided by some of our own colleagues who used to extend the process in the belief that they were helping.
The minister himself, or herself, only had one or two public servants to assist them in that interrogation. That put a fair amount of pressure on the minister to be able to be across the questions that were being asked, to get the answers, and also to be able to respond to the impromptu or unprepared questions that came from those answers. Where there were questions that were taken on notice, they were answered in due course - some not as speedy as others.
As one of the members mentioned in this parliament today, the sequence of questioning to each minister ended with: ‘Are there any further questions of the minister?’ That was the end of the process. It was not: ‘We have now hit four hours, you must stop’. It was: ‘Have all questions on the floor of this House to this minister, on this subject portfolio, been exhausted?’ That was when the minister was free to go.
We now have a situation where we had prepared and impromptu questions in front of a Public Accounts Committee in the fist process, which did not work for a whole range of reasons. Last Estimates Committee, we moved to a situation where there were no questions on notice and, frankly, some ministers in that environment performed remarkably different to others. It is very easy to pick the ministers who are across their portfolios in some shape or form as against those ministers who are not. Frankly, leading the charge on the incompetent ministers, I believe, is the Chief Minister, who is incredibly difficult to get information from and, when there is a pointed question, flicks it straight to the public servant to answer. Other ministers prefer not to involve the public servants at all. A case in point was the former minister for health, who was surrounded, I believe, by about 20 or 30-odd public servants who were covering any possible facet of her portfolio, and never referred to any of them for information at any time, and also provided no information of any substance in the time that she was in the chair.
The government may parade that as the best estimate system that we have come up with; a system that everyone is happy with. The reality is the opposite is the case. The procedure of a shadow minister questioning is continually frustrated by the fact that they are in output by output areas, and then constrained by an overall time constraint of four-and-a-half or four hours per minister. That time cannot be accumulated by the opposition. For example, if they decide that they will be efficient in the time that they use on one particular minister, they cannot use that extra time in order to question other ministers. It may be that we feel that the Health Minister would require more than four-and-a-half hours but, under the current system that is not provided; it is four-and-a-half hours per minister.
I would have thought that one case in point would be the Minister for Central Australia, who is going to take questions on the Attorney-General’s portfolio, the Justice portfolio, the Corrections portfolio and the Health portfolio ...
Dr Lim: And Central Australia.
Mr BURKE: And Central Australia. I can tell you when I was health minister, on one occasion as health minister and Attorney-General alone, I stood in this Chamber for the best part of 13 hours straight, taking questions from the opposition on those portfolio areas.
However, now we have a situation where a maximum of four-and-a-half hours total is allowed the opposition to ask those questions. It is totally inadequate. If the government believes that four-and-a-half maximum per minister is sufficient, I implore the Leader of Government Business to instruct the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that the overall time of three days which we have all agreed to, should be allowed to be accumulative; that is, leave it to the opposition to decide that over that three-hour period, if we can create efficiencies in the time with one minister, that should be a time that is allowed to be extended to other ministers. Therefore, at least we get the questioning of the ministerial portfolios in total over a period of the hours that have been agreed to in this Assembly. If that accommodation is allowed, then we would be satisfied that we are given a reasonable run.
The other thing that really needs to be sorted out is that, if it is output by output areas by a shadow minister, as soon as the shadow minister says: ‘I have no more questions from that output area’, it allows the Independents and other members of the Public Accounts Committee and the government to ask whatever questions that they want. You could say to all members of this House they are all entitled to ask as many questions as they like. That is illogical when there is only four-and-a-half hours in total provided to the opposition to question the government. I believe that the other members of that particular committee - members of parliament other than shadow ministers and Independents - should be allowed to ask their questions when it comes to the area of any questions that cover all portfolio areas. Then they can move through and ask all of their questions. But up until that point, it should be the shadow minister who is given free leeway to ask questions of the minister. That way you would create greater efficiencies and also the shadow minister would get greater satisfaction from being allowed the time that he needs to ask those questions.
I advise my minister whose portfolios that I shadow now, that I intend to prepare and provide written questions to him, and submit them prior to the Estimates Committee sitting. That is not for any other reason than that we have to be able to get the information. The reason why that is essential is that, when we tried to get information through the FOI process and that information was blanked out, the No 1 reason why information was not provided under FOI was because of the section under FOI that said:
The deleted items refer to information in the form of an anticipated question and possible answer prepared
by a senior officer for the minister in the course of the deliberative process.
That is why most of it was stopped.
However, if you think about it, the public servants want to provide that information. You and I know the information that is there for the minister - for your eyes only, for your further information - is not part of the body of the document and they prepare that separately. You can hold that back as you like. However, the public servants provide the information in answer to those prepared questions fully, to their capability. I reckon that they expect that information to be put out into the public domain. They do not expect that not even a page is turned in many of those folio documents and it is walked off with the minister,. You cannot ask these questions at a later point, have the question taken on notice, or seek this information through FOI because most of the information that the minister has at that Estimates Committee will be in this form and will not be forthcoming to the shadow minister.
You, minister, should and could anticipate that this question will be asked and this is your answer to that question. You, minister, might be asked in this area, so if we try to get that information later, that falls into the ambit of a personal opinion of a public servant and, therefore, we are not getting it. The whole estimates process, I believe, is flawed in that regard.
Therefore, I intend to prepare all of my questions for the Estimates Committee. I intend to submit those questions to the minister prior to the Estimates Committee sitting. I expect to be given the opportunity to ask those questions. It is up to me to decide which questions I want to ask. I expect the information to be provided to me at that Estimates Committee based on those written questions, and to ask any other questions I might wish to ask providing I can do it in the time that is allowed. If the government does not do that, it simply says to everyone that they have something to hide. Surely, with the whole of the capacity of the public service, the government and the ministers must be confident to say: ‘Right, there is the question, prepare the answer and let us have it ready to be tabled in the parliament if need be’. Everyone is better off for it: we do not spend a lot of time in this parliament, either here or in the Estimates Committee, dealing with inaccuracies; the taxpayer is better served; and the process of parliament, I believe, is far more professional than it is at the moment.
I accept the fact that the Leader of the Opposition says there has been a Standing Orders Committee that has looked at this process and decided that nothing has been changed: ‘If you wanted to say something you should have made a submission to the committee’. However, apart from being dogmatic and head-in-the-sand, where does that really get us? What we should be doing is saying: ‘This costs a lot of money. It takes a lot of time - it is three days of the parliamentary process, or three-and-a-half days. It is very important information’. Perhaps we in opposition might be sitting in that position ourselves one day - maybe sooner than you think - and we will be wanting to get that information in a more fulsome fashion.
I can tell you that, when it comes to written questions, it is totally illogical that the shadow minister should not be allowed to put forward written questions prior to the Estimates Committee sitting, and not be allowed to have those questions that have been provided in advance answered by the minister at the particular estimates process.
I do not want to do any more than make a plea to the government to make some minor adjustments. We will accept the total quantum amount of time that has been provided to the Estimates Committee. We have no option, in any case, except to work within the rules that the government sets. However, if the government is truly being honest, open, transparent and accountable, it should allow the opposition to decide how it manages the total amount of time against all of the nine ministers. Remember, we have one more now than we had last year to deal with. Also, it should allow questions provided to the minister prior to the Estimates Committee sittings so that both are in a position to know that, if those questions are asked, the information will be fully and readily available. With those two main points, Madam Speaker, I would hope the government would take those points on notice and accommodate our request.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I am surprised there are no members of the opposition speaking on this matter – government, sorry ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, you are our opposition.
The first thing to look at is the fact that there seems to be a flawed process here in that, whilst the government could have brought on this motion at any time to move that we adopt the terms of reference attached, they have chosen to do so by way of a referral to the Standing Orders Committee, and the only member for the government to speak has chosen to attack my colleague, the member for Greatorex, on how he has contributed to that committee.
For the benefit of members, I will read Standing Order 277:
The Chairman shall read to the committee, at a meeting convened for the purpose, the whole of his draft
report which may at once be considered, but, if requested by any Member, it shall be printed and
circulated amongst the committee and a subsequent day fixed for its consideration. Unless
otherwise ordered by the committee, in considering the report, the Chairman shall read it
paragraph by paragraph, proposing the question to the committee at the end of each paragraph
“that it do stand part of the report”. A Member objecting to any portion of the report shall move his
amendment at the time the paragraph he wishes to amend is under consideration. A Member or Members
may require a protest or dissent to be added to the report.
That, of course, is kept in records, which Standing Order 269 tells us:
A record shall be kept in the Minutes of Proceedings of a committee of the names of Members attending each
meeting, and of every motion or amendment moved, together with the name of the mover thereof; and the
Chairman shall record the names of the Members voting in any division, distinguishing on which side of
the question they respectively vote.
I am disappointed to hear this afternoon that that did not happen. It would appear that a committee has been used - and abused, I would suggest - by government in an attempt to dress this up as some sort of bipartisan thing so you could come here and feign shock and horror that it did not have universal acclaim in this House. There is more and more of this arrogant behaviour, where things are sent to committee in a guise of pretending that we are consulting, listening, obtaining another viewpoint but, at the end of the day, it is rammed through this House, often without members of that committee - in this case government members of that committee - even contributing to the debate. They have yet to speak to it.
I suggest that what we have here is an exercise in arrogance where the government has already made up its mind, it already has a notice on the Notice Paper, it intends to move it as quickly as possible and use its numbers to get this through. That is not in the best interests of this parliament, nor is it in the best interests of seeking information and, dare I say, seeking the truth about issues. Really, if you go to the integrity, honesty, transparency and all those lovely words, that should be the pursuit of this government: it should be the pursuit of integrity and transparency, dare I say.
They have to go back to some of these gammon referrals to committees where they bring it in here, criticise my colleague for something he had every right to be quite upset about, I would have said, given that the report was not considered in the manner required by standing orders. I do not attend those meetings but, from what I have heard, there is certainly a flaw in that this sat on the paper and then was accelerated into this Chamber where it can now be passed. There are some matters of arrogance there that the minister should consider.
He then talked about how, if a committee comes up with something and if you come in here and have a different point of view, that it is a backflip. Interestingly, I was on a committee that looked at how we might structure this thing and we went to Tasmania to look at their committee system. We had bipartisan support - tri-partisan support if you throw the Independent in - and we came back to this parliament and said: ‘Look! Here is a structure you could adopt’. We did not adopt anything like that structure. The minister stood and said: ‘What is wrong with you? This is in place all around Australia and the CLP do not want it here’. Well, it is not in place all around Australia and it is vastly deficient from what was in place in this parliament before when we sat as a Committee of the Whole. It is vastly different from what we recommended from Tasmania, and it is vastly different from the backflip when his committee members came back and endorsed a government position in their toadying willingness.
It is a bit trite for this minister to come in here and say: ‘We have consulted, this is a replica of what happens elsewhere. If you sign off in committee, you cannot say anything different here. The process in committee was robust’. All of those things are not true. It was not a robust process in committee. There is the capacity for members to …
Mr Kiely: You were not there.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, let us see it then, because we have two differing points of view. As I said, there are two questions here in standing orders. We can ask whether the records under 269 were kept and whether the records under 277, where this was gone through clause by clause, indeed occurred. If I am wrong, I am quite happy to apologise, but it would appear that there is a difference of opinion between at least two members of that committee.
So far, we have had the Leader of Government Business tell us it replicates whatever happens elsewhere - wrong!; that it is better than what happened before – wrong!; that if you discuss this in committee, you cannot come in here with a different point of view – wrong!; that this report is a fair and accurate representation for consideration of that committee – wrong! Therefore, it is not a good start, minister.
Now we get down to the actual business of it, and I follow from where my colleague, the member for Brennan, left off. I was in the unhappy position of seeing a room full of very intelligent people - many of whom I know and many of whom have specific tertiary qualifications that take up to a decade to obtain - sitting in a room in their tens. I suggest, in the case of health, there were over 30 people sitting in that room and, as I said, you were probably looking at 300 years of tertiary education there. There were volumes of papers in front of the minister and an incapacity to get answers.
I believe that there should be a question in here. You could put it either after your item 27, or you could put it in section E, Questions Taken on Notice at Hearings and Additional Information. I will read it out just in case you consider it:
If a question is able to be answered using the knowledge of advisors or written prepared briefs, it shall
be given at the hearing and not taken on notice.
Why would you do that? The reason you would do that is because we saw the minister on many occasions - the health minister again - flicking through wads of paper that could have provided an answer, and choosing to take it on notice. We knew, the advisors knew, the minister knew, the answer was readily available in front of her and she chose not to use it. That was further demonstrated by the fact that we wrote and then got the answer. It is a pretty silly thing to have all that reservoir of skill and knowledge and brief sitting in the room, and a contrary minister saying: ‘Yep, no, maybe, no, I am not going to tell you’, because I do not think that is in the best interests of what we are trying to achieve. If you want to bring advisors along - and I suggest you do - and they are knowledgeable in certain areas, and you want to bring briefs along - and I suggest you do - and you have a written alert from a member from the opposition saying: ‘These are the general areas I would like to discuss,’ we should discuss them. We should get the answer. I do not think that there is anything crazy about that notion. For us to have to go away for another month or so, get FOI approvals as to the answer that was evident and on the table in front of the minister in any event, is pretty stupid.
I also think the time allocation is a bit silly. My colleague, the member for Brennan, carried the portfolios of Attorney-General and Health, and I recall that question and answer session. They are very difficult areas in which to obtain a lot of information. That has been evident from some of the data that is provided and some of the disputes between various commentators as to what the actual case is. I would suggest that to have four-and-a-half hours for Attorney-General and Health is way too short. Health by itself is $600m, so if you look at the size of the budget, it should be afforded some relativity to the size of its task. The complexity of the Justice portfolio would also suggest that there is some need to have further time to discuss that. Just to run a ruler over it and say: ‘Well, there will be about the same amount of questions for each minister’, I do not think has been the case historically, and it will not be the case in the future.
These are matters where I believe there should be much more time given and that the minister should not be shy about doing it. I would suggest that, if it causes government members pain to provide that information, they should stop using the words ‘transparency’ and ‘integrity’ and just revert back to arrogance. That is pretty much the case of what we have in here.
This is an appallingly arrogant exercise of government using its muscle to decide what it is we will do, and how we will do it here. We dragged them kicking and screaming just to get issues like the government owned corporations on there. You might remember - I have never seen such behaviour - where they said: ‘Sorry, we are not going to tolerate any questions in this area’. There is a massive amount - hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, albeit in a government owned corporation - and we have the minister saying: ‘Okay, we might do it’. Well, we dragged you kicking and screaming to it.
I ask the minister to comment on my motion in his reply. Madam Speaker, I seek to move and amendment to the motion of government business No 1, standing in the name of Mr Henderson, to remove that the Assembly adopt terms of reference. I suggest that an insert be put in there under Standing Order Committee report, item 27 …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! As Leader of Government Business, I am quite happy to accommodate and debate this amendment. However, it should be written down and circulated to all members.
Madam SPEAKER: Could you just perhaps explain …
Mr DUNHAM: Given that this was only put on our table this morning, it is written down and I am quite happy to have it circulated …
Madam SPEAKER: Would you explain to us exactly what you are doing, member for Drysdale.
Mr DUNHAM: I am debating a motion in which I seek to amend a portion of it by inserting the words …
Madam SPEAKER: Amend the what – the motion?
Mr DUNHAM: The motion.
Madam SPEAKER: The motion.
Mr DUNHAM: The motion that is before us is that we adopt the report …
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, so you amend it …
Mr DUNHAM: I am seeking to amend that to say that we adopt the report amended by the insertion of the sentence under item 27.
Madam SPEAKER: And that amendment is?
Mr DUNHAM: That amendment is:
If the question is able to be answered using the knowledge of advisors or written prepared briefs, it shall
be given at the hearing and not taken on notice.
I cannot see why anybody would object to that. If the answer is readily available in the room, why defer it? It could probably sit under item 27, and prior to Questions Taken on Notice.
Madam SPEAKER: We have an amendment to the motion. Are you wishing to speak further, member for Drysdale?
Mr DUNHAM: No, I am quite happy to leave it.
Ms Carter: I wish to speak, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: We have that amendment distributed. Member for Port Darwin, you are speaking to the amendment now. Remember, keep to the amendment.
Ms Carter: Sorry, no.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, are you speaking to the amendment?
Mr WOOD: I have a question on the amendment, Madam Speaker. Before we speak to it, can I speak?
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it is very difficult that it was not circulated earlier.
A member: Where is it?
Mr Dunham: It is pretty simple. If just says that if they have the answer in the room, in their heads, or in a brief …
Mr Henderson: You have had a month to put this down.
Mr Dunham: I have had a month? A month to read this?
Mr Henderson: It was tabled last month.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, if I could, I will speak to what I have heard. I have no problems supporting that motion. I would be interested in hearing the government’s viewpoint on it but, if it makes it a requirement that ministers to answer and not to not answer, I would prefer that they did answer. If that clarifies that situation, when the information is there, I would certainly support it, because there is nothing worse than going to an Estimates Committee – and I recall last year actually asking for some figures on the cost of the amalgamation of the three or four councils on the Tiwi Islands, as I wanted a comparison of how much it cost to run them before they were amalgamated and how much it cost to get them amalgamated. That question’s answer, at the time, was not forthcoming.
If this amendment could require the minister to answer the question – especially as his advisors will be with him – and help towards that, then I would support that amendment.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, do you wish to continue your remarks?
Mr WOOD: Yes, I was just reading this and making sure what I was talking to is what is written here. It appears to be. I would be interested to hear the government’s perspective on it, but from what I read here, that would be better for those involved in the Estimates Committee to make sure that we did actually guarantee, if it is obvious that the answer is there, that we can hear the answer during the Estimates Committee.
Madam SPEAKER: Right. We have an amendment before the Chair. Leader of Government Business, do you wish to speak to the amendment?
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, yes, I will speak to the amendment to advise the House that government will not be accepting this amendment, for a very simple reason. The proposal that is being put forward requires an element of judgment and who is going to independently be able to assess, either way, whether the information being sought is there in the knowledge of advisors, or a written prepared brief. The committee itself is not going to know what is in those written prepared briefs - with all due respect to the member for Drysdale and for the committee itself - to understand what the currency of the current knowledge or information of the individual public servants in the room is, and the detail that they may have on the particular question.
It is a very presumptive-type motion in regard to somebody would have to be called on in the event that there was a dispute about whether the information existed in the room or not. I am not sure how you would be able to prove for or against the question that the information was present.
The whole issue with the Estimates Committee process, and having public servants there to be able to answer in detail areas of programs - obviously ministers deal with policy, but individual public servants have the expertise in terms of programs - is to free up and provide more information. Certainly, in the times I have been in and observed the committee, public servants are not constrained in any way in regards to answering questions and providing detailed advice.
Therefore, on this particular amendment, I cannot see that it could be implemented with any degree of objectivity. The committee would not have the knowledge as to what was contained or otherwise in the briefs of the ministers, or officials at the table, or have the capacity or knowledge to understand what information individual public servants may have at hand within their memory banks.
I have do not have the numbers in front of me, but I believe at the end of the Estimates Committee process last year, after 46 hours worth of debate in the end by the time we came back in here, there were about a dozen questions that could not be answered during that time frame. Those answers were sent to opposition members very quickly after the parliamentary sittings concluded. I certainly believe - and this side of the House believes - that was not only appropriate, but pretty good practice. Therefore, the government will not be supporting this amendment.
Amendment negatived.
Madam SPEAKER: Now we have the original motion. Member for Port Darwin, you wish to speak?
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, over the last few years with Labor in government, I have become increasingly disappointed with ‘open and accountable’ being the nature of this apparent government. One of the things that has been a lynchpin on their failure to be accountable has been the estimates process, and the arrogance with which they hold the opposition. It is our job to scrutinise this budget and to look for what has gone on during the previous year and to be able to report back to Territorians on this government’s performance The way that this Estimates Committee system has been set up and continues to be doctored to prevent us to be able to do our job properly is hugely disappointing.
Now, of course, we have the ban on written questions. The first year that the Labor Party was in government, we were able to provide our questions in writing and have them responded to before we actually went into the committee, and I thought it was pretty reasonable. I found the written answers very useful, from which we could move into another area or move into even deeper analysis of how performance was going. It is very disappointing to lose the right to put in written questions. Basically, what happens now is, when we turn up to an estimates hearing as shadow ministers, we really just have to hope for the best that the minister is going to be prepared or capable of answering our questions.
In the area of health specifically, a lot of information which I require is quite detailed statistical information. For example, it might have to do with staffing numbers and workloads. Ministers are capable of saying: ‘Oh well, I am not quite sure about that’ whereas, if they had responded to a written question we would get it immediately and it would be of use.
However, of course, as all members of this House know, my big beef with this Estimates Committee system is the time limit that is placed upon me as a shadow minister. Last year, when I was questioning the Minister for Health and Community Services, she was very good at filibustering, and she knew full well that I was watching that clock. Constantly, the minister insisted on reading out lengthy, verbose answers and frustrating those of us who had questions, when we knew what was going on. I felt that what was happening was a real sham.
In the area of the Health and Community Services, the questioning process was divided into six discrete areas, and we were to exhaust our questions in one area before we were entitled to move on to the next. For example, if the Independent members wanted to ask questions in a particular area - say acute services which is hospital services - they had to follow me. I know they became very frustrated when they realised that I was going to take most of the time, which, of course, I had to because of the limited time that I had.
Very frustratingly, at the end of the session is a section which is, basically, an open section in the area of health in which a whole lot of very important and interesting issues can be covered. Of course, by the time we got to that area, we virtually had no time left at all. Therefore, in lots of important areas that should have been covered - that we had a responsibility on behalf of Territorians to cover - we were stymied from the very beginning because there was no opportunity to ask those questions.
I am also the shadow for Seniors, and Arts and Museums. I mention Arts and Museums in particular, because the Chief Minister is responsible for that area. Arts and Museums sits right at the tail end of her ministerial responsibilities. It was terribly disappointing at the time, because the staff from Arts and Museums had made the effort to come to the Estimates Committee. I am sure they were well on top of their portfolio concerns, and well ready to brief the Chief Minister on the issues. Of course, there was zero time to cover Arts and Museums. I felt really sad for those public servants, whom I know are very capable and were ready to provide answers and support the Chief Minister on the questions which should have been asked on behalf of Territorians on this issue of Arts and Museums - an area I notice has been cut in this budget. I hope we have time to ask some important questions this year with regards to that area.
Of course, I was sharing the Chief Minister’s four hours with a whole lot of other shadow ministers, and I got what I got, which was nothing at the end. This time round, for this estimates process, I have to share the four-hour period with the new Health Minister. His portfolio of Health covers the incredibly important area of hospitals. This is the largest spending area in the Territory budget but, during my four hours, I have to share that time with the shadows who cover areas such as Central Australia, Justice and Attorney-General; and all of those areas are very important. Therefore, there is a fair chance that to cover the area of health - one of the largest budget areas in the Territory budget - I might be lucky to get two hours. This is going to be a major problem. Yet, on other hand, because the portfolio has been split into Health and then hived off to Community Services, it will be interesting to see whether this means now that Health, a large financial area, will have a small amount of time allocated to it for the quizzing through the estimates process, whereas in Community Services - which I do acknowledge is an important area but does not have such as large budget allocation - does this mean that I might, for example, have three-and-a-half hours to question the Minister for Community Services, and might only get an hour or so if I am lucky with the Minister for Health? To me, this is an anomaly and it should be rectified.
When we go to the estimates process, we are told to write to the minister or put things on notice if we do not get our questions asked. That is the way to get the leftovers answered. As members know, I had over 120 questions last year ready to ask and, due to the time constraints, I think I got about 40 of them asked at the time, when you add in the filibustering skills of the then minister. So I did write and put these questions on notice, and here we have this week’s Question Paper dated 7 October provided by the Legislative Assembly, and in is a range of questions that I put on notice seven months ago. I will read the first one, which is with regards to elective surgery waiting lists. The question is:
For the year 2001-02, would you detail the waiting lists for elective surgery in all five Territory
hospitals on a monthly basis?
That was asked seven months ago and, needless to say, it sits there with no effort being made by the minister or the department to answer a range of questions, which I was told to do this way because of the new open and accountable system provided by the Martin Labor government.
In closing, I am going to submit a number of my questions in writing to the ministers to whom I have to put my questions in the hope that they will be prepared for the estimates hearing and able to provide the answers to these questions on behalf of Territorians. I will also take the liberty of asking verbal questions as I choose fit during the limited time that I have available. Once again, this system has proved to me that the open and accountable Martin Labor government is nothing but a farce.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I contribute to what we on this side of the House are calling a debate, but which those on the other side are saying very little about, except through the Leader of Government Business. We on this side of the House do take seriously the responsibility that has been given to us as local members and shadow ministers to ask questions about the budget. It is part of the democratic process, although you would not know it from the conduct of the government.
We appreciate that the Estimates Committee was something that Labor wanted to bring in, and so be it. However, there are some quite reasonable objections that we have. The member for Port Darwin spoke of her experience last year. Mine was not much better. I had to deal with the Tourism minister, who every member of this House knows, is a man who takes up a lot of space. He just talks and talks and talks. He loves the sound of his voice, and in estimates we, not surprisingly, were all running behind time, so we were watching the clock. At that time, the tourism industry was in absolute crisis, the government having provided no assistance whatsoever in the preceding two years, before government finally woke up and heeded our and industry’s call to pump some money into tourism. There were some very good, legitimate questions that we wanted to ask in relation to tourism, the same area that the Chief Minister stood up here today and said how important it was, and fell short of declaring her undying love for the industry and members of it.
My experience as the then shadow minister for Tourism last year was not a satisfying one. The minister filibustered in the way that he tends to. Notionally, we had about four hours to spend; we were behind time. When we took into account questions being asked by members of the committee and dorothy dixers by Labor members - why they could not just ask some of their colleagues in a lift I do not know, but there you go. We had the incessant questioning by the member for Nelson that just went on and on and on, and was not far behind the minister, as he was one member of 25 of the Northern Territory Assembly. I have not sought the details, but gee wiz, I reckon he would have taken up a disproportionate amount of time. The shadow minister was unable to fully question in the way that she was entitled to do.
It is a bizarre situation where you have a government that says open accountable and all that stuff, calls themselves a bunch of democrats, has waited 26 years to get into government, and then does a complete turn around by saying, essentially: ‘No, we do not want anyone to ask questions’. It really is a sign of the despots they are becoming, because they just cannot stand being questioned by us or by anybody. They fail to appreciate that the Estimates Committee that this government established lends itself to members - shadow ministers in particular - asking questions and noting their responsibility to do so. It just beggars belief that members of the Northern Territory Branch of the Australian Labor Party are prepared to sit by and watch as their senior ministers tell even those on the backbench: ‘Do not worry about it, sport, we are going to do it this way’. Maybe members of the Labor backbench said: ‘Oh, but we thought when we signed up, we were going to sign up to an open, honest and accountable government’. The senior ministers must have presumably said: ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that, because you just behave in the way we want you to. You just keep your mouth shout. Don’t you worry’.
Mr Henderson: In your mind, in your mind.
Ms CARNEY: Well, members of the CLP opposition will not be silenced by the Leader of Government Business, or anybody else for that matter. We restate our objections to the limited amount of time: the reality based on two previous Estimates Committee hearings where we were running against the clock. We restate our objections regarding the filibustering that goes on by ministers, some of whom have gold medal winning performances which – perhaps I should go and get a gold medal and give it to the member for Johnston because my hunch is that he will continue to go on and on during this Estimates Committee hearing, more than he has before. I sympathise with the member for Brennan, because getting an answer from the member for Johnston is like pulling teeth. That was evidenced in Question Time today. How he sleeps, I do not know.
Along with my colleagues, I will be providing written questions. I would have thought that that is a great idea. It gives public servants a chance to get some information together …
Member interjecting.
Ms CARNEY: Members of the government may well yawn. I will tell the people I know - some of whom are friends who live in Karama - that the member for Karama thinks all of this is a joke. Well, we do not think it is a joke and neither do her constituents …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. The member for Araluen is indicating that I made some gesture which indicated this is a joke. I have not.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. If you think you have been misquoted you can make it by way of personal explanation.
Ms Lawrie: She can be as deceptive and deceiving and as low as she continues to be, I guess.
Ms CARNEY: It is a sign of her sensitivity. I suspect that Labor members on the backbench are a bit embarrassed by this. You signed up for something …
Dr Burns: Not half as embarrassed as you mob are through your antics. What a mess!
Ms CARNEY: … and you thought your mob was a bunch of good blokes. You would probably be upset if they turned out not to be. That is probably one of the reasons she is upset.
I do not know what it is not reasonable to provide written questions. It seems to me to be a very commonsense proposition. However, we do not know because members of that side over there have not even bothered to get off their seats to tell us what objections they have. We are only left with the Leader of Government Business, who is a bit prone to telling a yarn at the best of times. There is an absence of explanation …
Mr Ah Kit: Your mob had 27 years to straighten this out.
Ms CARNEY: Well, you can talk about 27 years. I was not here, but what I do know is that all questions were exhausted. Madam Speaker has been a member of this Assembly for some time, and I am sure that she will attest that ministers, at times, went halfway through the night. Surely, that is better to exhaust all of the questions to be asked on behalf of Territorians, than two hours or four hours?
In my case, I have a considerable portfolio of Attorney-General and Justice. I must share that with the member for Port Darwin who needs to deal with the member for Stuart as the Minister for Health. That leaves me, on a fairly logical calculation, of about 2 hours 15 minutes. I know we will be running behind time. I know there will be questions from Labor members and committee members. At best, I predict that I will have an hour’s worth of questions to ask the bloke who is in charge of - under today’s budget - a budget of $118m or thereabouts.
The members on the other side say that they are committed to concepts of social justice and a whole range of other things, all under the Department of Justice and, yet, their hypocrisy is such that they will not even let us ask questions. Well, I will be asking questions; I will put them in writing. I hope that I will get more than an hour. However, I reckon I will be pretty surprised if I got more than an hour. I might say that the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General is one of the better performers in estimates, because he is a bloke who not always, but on many occasions, can actually come up with a straight answer to a straight question. He leaves the rest of you lot for dead. So, at least in the hour or so I will have, I do have an honest expectation that the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General will be able to answer my questions.
I have restated the nature of not only my objections but the objections of my colleagues. I should say that all of us are local members, notwithstanding the responsibilities we have as shadow ministers, which are obviously considerable. My electorate is Araluen. There are a couple of things in this budget that affect the people whom I represent …
Mr Henderson: Gillen School?
Ms CARNEY: Absolutely, Gillen School.
The effect of this system means that I am precluded from pursuing questions about my electorate. That is not the system that you lot wanted at the beginning - it just is not. Now you have backed yourselves into a corner and you have become absolutely entrenched and you have said: ‘Well, if the CLP is saying it, it cannot possibly be right’. Well, it is right, and the tide will turn one day and you will be in opposition again and we will be government again, and you see how you feel with one or two hours of questions for a swag of budget books close to a foot thick. It is just bizarre. How do you look people in the eye?
Madam Speaker, with those comments I will conclude and wait with interest to see what the Leader of Government Business has to say in reply.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nelson, you have already spoken to …
A member: No, he spoke to the amendment, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: I guess I will give you leave to speak to the motion now.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, it is a bit bizarre, because you and I both know Independents have to fight for their existence sometimes. I have heard people arguing the case for the importance of parties in this debate. Much as I understand that that is the system we have to live with, I have no doubt there are many people out there who support the idea that there should be some more Independents in this parliament, and it is good that we do have Independents.
Regardless of what the member for Araluen was trying to say about the number of questions I asked, she obviously does not realise that I am a member of the PAC and the Estimates Committee, and the way the hearings are organised I am entitled to ask questions as a member of that committee - not necessarily as an Independent. That is the basis on which I asked questions last year. That should be made clear.
If we are going to have a debate about who is going to have the time to speak, I believe that a shadow minister should have adequate time because they have an important role. At the same time, I do not think that should be at the risk of pushing Independents to one side. For instance, if we had five Independents on this side of parliament, where would they go as well? The system that worked well in Hobart is a system I still support, and one I discussed in the debate on 27 February 2003; that we should have the nine hours per minister. Then you would not have to have this argument about whether Independents should have time to speak or how much time shadow ministers should have to speak, because they would have time. That is one of the reasons we went to Hobart.
One could ask: ‘Are committees just window dressing and, when they come back the decision has been made while they were away, or do they actually do something?’ You would have to query our trip to Tasmania where we saw a system that worked. You have to remember there are two Houses of Parliament in Tasmania, and both subjected the ministers to nine hours of questioning. In some cases, they did not use the whole nine hours, but that time was there for the questioning of each minister.
When you consider that, according to the Appropriation Act, we have 19 departments and, as has been said before, some are big and some are small. I would say that the Minister for Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, for instance, has a huge portfolio covering many areas that affect the lives of the people in the Northern Territory, that need to be fully questioned so that we can give answers back to our constituents. As the member for Araluen said, we are also members representing our electorates, not just the parties,- which is not in my case. Therefore, we need to be asking questions on their behalf.
If one is to argue that the shadow ministers should have more time then, Madam Speaker, we could split these 19 in half and you could go minister for 10 of these portfolios, and I will do the other nine. That way we would get a fair bit of time ourselves, but I can see that would not get much support. However, I believe there should be more time. I do not think there is anything wrong with this parliament sitting and giving adequate questioning period for each minister. It was done in Tasmania.
One of the criticisms of parliament is that we do not sit for long enough and, even though this is not regarded as sitting time, people would appreciate that if we spend time questioning ministers, that would be time well spent.
I have proposed an amendment, Madam Speaker. However, before I speak on that amendment, I raised the question in the debate about written questions. This came up when I was commenting on the Tasmanian trip. I have no problems with written questions being given to the minister. All I want to be assured of, is that the questions were read out so they could be put into Hansard and the answers read out. My argument is that you cannot just give these questions to the minister who provides an answer, and it ends up on a piece of paper that the public do not see. These are public hearings.
It is important that the parliament this evening supports the admission of written questions before the public Estimates Committee sits. There should be a requirement, of course, that those questions be read out and there be a public answer. Otherwise, what is the point of the public turning up for questions they have neither seen nor heard until they go and dig up Hansard some months later?
I have proposed an amendment to item 27. It is a simple amendment. Members of the opposition have, basically, said they would like to do it, anyway. I really do not think it would do any harm. In fact, it will shorten the time because the minister knows the question is coming - there is the question, there is the answer - instead of having to defer to someone who will provide the answer. In some cases, this would make the process quicker and we will have more questions answered.
Madam Speaker, I move an amendment to insert a new item 27A as follows:
That written questions can be given in advance and submitted to the minister prior to the
Estimates Committee meeting, and the minister makes every effort to answer these questions
at the committee hearings.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, you are speaking to the amendment?
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I am speaking to the amendment. I support the amendment, not only because it is a good amendment, but simply because it is common sense. I invite members to play this scenario out in their heads in light of the history of how this parliament has operated before. Never in the history of this parliament, until the rise of the Labor government, have members had to fight for time to speak to ministers. That is a very important and essential element.
Yes, there were times that the budget committee hearings used to go until 2 am or 3 am or even later in this Chamber, but never did anybody have to fight for time. Any member, whether they are member of the Estimates Committee or not, could stand in this place and ask a question of the minister on any issue within that minister’s budgetary area. Yet, I hear justification coming from Independents and CLP members as to why they should have a slice of the pie.
In the interests of open and accountable government - bearing in mind that the Estimates Committee was flagged by the Labor Party when they were in the opposition in their good governance document regarding open, honest and accountable government. What we have now is an environment in which we have members fighting for ministerial time. That has to have a flag raised on it initially, because it clearly demonstrates that access to a minister is more limited now than it was.
I remember the first Estimates Committee process we went through. I was left with a clear impression that it was the bureaucratic equivalent of trench warfare. If I remember the state of the room at the end of the Estimates Committee process, there was paper everywhere and, in some instances, mounted some several feet on some people’s desks - files and binders provided to all members. There were any number of those binders stacked up in front of people causing, sometimes, difficultly to see members. That had to be rectified.
Casting members’ minds back - for those of us who have been here for more than just this term - the Labor Party, when in opposition, used to make great play of the fact that they would have some 2000 or 2500 questions to examine the budget. They would pile folders up in front of the media and they would say: ‘These are all the questions that we are going to have’.
A member: Good questions.
Mr ELFERINK: And they were. Often they were good questions and sometimes they were not. I recall a member who is now a government minister asking about funding on a particular facility in his electorate that did not exist. These things happen, because that was a product of generic questioning. However, the effect of it was that that member even had the opportunity at 2.30 am to ask that question, because it was an open system - much more open than the system we have now.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I thought that the member for Macdonnell was speaking to the amendment, which is very specific about written questions, and he has not touched on the point of written questions, yet he has been going for 10 minutes.
Mr Elferink: I am constructing an argument you putz, sit down.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Macdonnell, order. Yes, member for Macdonnell, I did ask you were you speaking to the amendment. Please keep your remarks to the amendment, which is about written questions being given in advance and submitted to the committee.
Mr ELFERINK: Well, Madam Speaker, I will stick to that area specifically. What I was talking about was written questions. The Labor Party used to come in and have written questions - reams of them - and for a good cause because, when they came into this place, it was quite obvious that if they came in with some of those questions, they could not have hoped to obtain answers from those questions unless those questions had been given on notice. Some of those questions were very detailed and required a great deal of analysis by the minister and the department. The department was able, as a matter of courtesy, provide a fulsome answer to the question that was given. That was a protocol that had developed unofficially over time. You placed your question on notice, otherwise the minister stood there and said: ‘I cannot tell you the answer to that, I will have to get back to you’.
Whether the government accepts or not that we are going to write questions and send them to them, the fact of the matter is that the government is going to pretty much have to accept them anyhow, because if you play the scenario out in your mind’s eye, this is what happens. I write certain questions about my portfolio areas and send them to the two ministers that I shadow, and the ministers say: ‘All right, I will put them in the rubbish bin, or I will file them in the desk drawer’, or send them back to me unanswered. Then I will have to stand up in front of the media and say: ‘Well, I have given these questions to the minister, I am sure that he will be capable of answering them in the committee stage’. At the point we then get to the committee stage, I ask the question of the minister, and the minister says: ‘Oh, I will have to take that on notice, I will get back to you’. Well, that strikes me as being perilously close to high farce.
I support this amendment, but what I would suggest to the minister and the Leader of Government Business is simply that there is no way he can logically or sensibly not accept questions on notice. That is effectively what these are. These are going to be questions on notice, if they come in the form of a letter, or sit on a notice paper, or whatever. However, for him to then stand up in the committee stages and say: ‘Oh we have no notice of this question, I will have to get back to you’, will make the minister and the government look churlish. At the end of the day, the whole thing will look rather silly. If the minister wants to go down that path, I am happy to accommodate him. I will tell you why I am happy to accommodate him. If I have my questions written out, and I have them ready for the media and other people, including the departments, and I have given them to the minister two weeks in advance of the Estimates Committee, who is going to look like a Wally when he turns around and says: ‘I am going to have to get back to you’?
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of Government Business, are you speaking to the amendment and closing debate also?
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Speaking to the amendment and closing debate also, Madam Speaker.
Speaking to the amendment first, government will not be accepting this amendment from the member for Nelson, essentially because we have been down this path before. We did have a process that was unique within the Westminster democratic system in Australia, where all questions were required to be placed in prior to the Committee of the Whole meeting. We had, across government - and all of us here have public servants in our electorates, and we also have public servants as friends - the bureaucracy off spending thousands of accumulated hours putting detailed responses to questions. At the end of the day, the vast majority of those answers - okay they saw the light of day, but to what great effect?
If you look at the discussions and submissions from the departments to the committee, the vast majority of them did not want to go back to those days. I advise all members that, if they do put questions in on notice, they will be answered. Certainly, some take longer to answer than others, but a commitment from me, as Leader of Government Business. is that they will be answered. I signed off on a whole pile of them just a few weeks ago that the member for Macdonnell wrote and put on notice regarding specific funding and commitments to various communities in his electorate via the police. Again, at great expense to the police in time and effort, but the member for Macdonnell got his answers. The wording in …
Mr Elferink: That is what I mean. I rest my case.
Mr HENDERSON: Well, I have had no correspondence from the member for Macdonnell indicating that he was unhappy with the answers that the police spent many hours compiling to give him. I assume in the absence of any comment otherwise, he was happy with the answers that he received.
Mr Elferink: I was. Thank you.
Mr HENDERSON: So the system does work. You can put questions in on notice and they will be answered.
We now have the position in our Estimates Committee, as opposed to in the past where you had public servants sitting in the advisors boxes here who could not speak – they were gagged – that there is now an opportunity for senior public servants who have responsibility for programs and budgets to speak directly to the committee. It is a system that is in place everywhere else; it works well. The public service certainly does not support going back to written questions. Therefore, if you want to move back to that way, the public service does not support it, and the government will not be supporting the amendments.
In closing the debate on this motion to establish the Estimates Committee and the Government Owned Corporations Committee to scrutinise the budget, I wonder what has happened in ...
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, before you do close, could we just have vote on the amendment? The question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Amendment negatived.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, we had the Estimates Committee process last year …
Mr ELFERINK: A point of order, Madam Speaker! This is a matter of clarification. Is he closing the debate?
Mr HENDERSON: Closing the debate.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, on the original motion.
Mr Elferink: Oh, all right. I just wanted to make some more observations in relation to the motion itself.
Mr HENDERSON: You have already done it.
Mr Elferink: I have spoken to the amendment, sorry.
Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry. I have given the nod to the minister to close the debate.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. We had Estimates Committee last year - 45 hours, I think it was. We came back into the parliament to debate the committee’s report for another two or three hours. The general tone of that debate - I do not have the Parliamentary Record in front of me - was pretty good regarding members opposite thinking that, on the whole, the committee had done a pretty good job. They had the answers that they wanted. There were 12 or so questions that were outstanding that had been taken on notice, but answers had not been received in time for the committee’s deliberations. I am sure if we go back and read the Parliamentary Record, there was certainly none of the debate that has occurred today in regard to the total opposition of the Estimates Committee process as it currently stands because, essentially, the motion that is before us today, with a few amendments, is very similar in time frame of the process last year.
What has happened since that debate last year is that there has been a change of leadership. It is, obviously, that there is a problem with the leadership of the parliamentary wing of the CLP, where we have members participating in committee on debate supporting the way the committee is going, the process internally within the committee, the outcomes, and the motion that we have before us here. Then – whoops - this gets onto the Notice Paper and the new Leader of the Opposition looks and says: ‘What on earth are you clowns doing on that committee supporting this when my position is to totally oppose the Estimates Committee process as it stands’ - for whatever reason. Then we have the unedifying process of the member for Greatorex being straightened up by his leader, saying: ‘Look I do not care what you say in the committee, but when you come in here, you toe my line’. This all about the Leader of the Opposition trying to flex his muscles on a day when we have brought down a very good budget that has been applauded by the business community here in the Northern Territory.
In regards to the comments by the member for Greatorex that there was intense disagreement on the timings - that we had chopped back timings - I have here with me, via the Clerk, draft minutes of the last committee meeting. Without reading through those draft minutes word for word, it goes to the time frames for the committee to sit and the last sentence here in the draft minutes – now, if the member for Greatorex wants to dispute these minutes at the committee hearing, he can; I acknowledge they are only draft:
Discussion ensued on the time frame for consideration of this proposal. It was agreed that the proposed
amended times be adopted.
There was no debate. There was no position by the opposition in committee that these new times were totally inadequate; that they were not good. It just goes to show how incompetent the member for Greatorex is and why he needs to be straightened up by his own leader, because there are two parts to this motion. One is on the Estimates Committee, the other is on Government Owned Corporations. In terms of the Government Owned Corporations, Sitting Times in section C, Item 15 says:
The committee shall sit on Friday, 25 June 2004 for two hours from 9 am until 11 am.
There has been no cutback in time. The time is the same as what we allocated last year. There have been no cuts to time.
The member for Greatorex does not even remember that we did allocate, on Friday, two hours to Government Owned Corporations, and then we all come back into this parliament to debate the Committee of the Whole. There was no objection within the last meeting. For the member for Greatorex now to swan in here, because he has been straightened up by the Leader of the Opposition, there is obviously no discussion of what is the parliamentary wing’s position on these things in committees. We saw participation in committees in terms of the code of conduct. Again, we saw a big backflip when the Leader of the Opposition straightened the members up. Leader of the Opposition, you need to send your members into these committees with the wing view, not straighten them up when they come out of it having failed to do their job in the committee. There have been only minor amendments, and they were agreed to within the committee. If the member for Greatorex wants to dispute the records of the minutes, we will have that debate in the next meeting.
There was also a lot of debate about exhausting the questions and we could stand here until ‘Are there any other questions to be put to the minister?’ Yes, that did occur. I will take on board comments from members opposite that some ministers had greater recollection of detail than others. That is always going to be the case. When the CLP was in government on this side of the House, that some ministers performed better and gave greater levels of detail that others. However, there were many occasions when ministers would sit saying: ‘I have answered the question’, and that was it. They would sit, say: ‘I have answered the question and there will be no more information forthcoming’. So this feigned outrage that, somehow under the Estimates Committee process, we are stifling debate and the opportunity to extract information from ministers is absolute bunkum.
The reality is now the opportunity is there to gain far more detailed information from senior public servants who have a lot of detail regarding the programs that they are administering and, through the minister, questions directly of them. I am unaware - and there has been no allegation in this House - that any public servant has failed to give the information requested.
I remind honourable members that there are plenty of opportunities to seek information in regards to the government’s budget. It is not constrained to one opportunity only in regards to the Estimates Committee process. There are a number of forums for members to pursue with regard to getting information from government. Obviously, there are questions without notice on the 33 days a year that we do sit. We have a great record, a 50% increase in the number of questions that are taken and answered in this House without notice. We have questions on notice and, may I say, some shadow ministers work harder at this than others. We have the current Written Question Paper before us. I have made a quick tally here. The member for Port Darwin, the shadow Health minister, has 13 questions on notice here. The member for Macdonnell - whatever we think of the member for Macdonnell, he works hard - has 12 questions on notice. Even the departing member for Goyder has three questions on notice. He still has his rant against the LNG plant that sits bang in the middle of his electorate, and we will keep that there for posterity …
Mr BALDWIN: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I ask that the member provide some full information and tell us how many of the 13 health questions have been answered in the last seven months.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr Baldwin: I will tell him the answer: zero.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, the point I was making is that there are questions on notice. If I recall the way the opposition used to treat questions on notice, the former member for Wanguri had questions on notice for about seven years - not seven months, but seven years. He retired without his questions being answered. He never did have his questions answered. He waited seven years, and he is still waiting.
Some of these questions are pretty complicated and, in the health department, it is going to take a lot of work to pull these records out. For example:
For 2001-02, detail waiting lists for elective surgery in all of five Territory hospitals on a monthly basis.
That is going back three years, and it is going to take a lot of work for the agency that is trying to deliver health services and elective surgery …
Dr Burns: A lot of costs, too.
Mr HENDERSON: And costs. … to drag up the information that is three years old. We will get it there. I do not know why we want to know information that is three years old now, but it is the type of thing that we will do. Certainly, as Leader of Government Business - and my colleagues can attest to this - I am on to them in regards to questions. If questions are on this Written Question Paper for an extended period of time, a note goes around from my office saying: ‘Hurry up and get the answer back to the minister’.
We have questions without notice, questions on notice, and we have opportunities for briefings. Again, some members are better than others, but the number of briefings that have been requested by shadow ministers on detailed points of agency programs is absolutely minimal.
Ms CARTER: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I was given one hour, I was told …
Madam SPEAKER: What is your point of order? That is not a point of order.
Ms Carter: For the record.
Mr HENDERSON: There are plenty of opportunities, and briefings can go on for hours if they want them to, and certainly there are opportunities for follow up. Letters! You can write to the minister and say: ‘I am seeking some information on x, y and z’. The number of letters we have received have dwindled to an absolute minimum.
It is a lazy opposition, that is grandstanding on this issue. After the committee last year, they were happy with it. During the committee process, they were happy with it. The Leader of the Opposition is in a bit of trouble on budget day and says: ‘I need to create a diversion and we will get into the Estimates Committee’. It will not work.
We can see that the system is working better than the system did before, and I urge members that if there are questions that you do not have an opportunity to ask, there is no parliament anywhere in the Westminster system that has totally unlimited end-to-end time and hours to exhaust questions, so put them on notice and they will be answered.
In regards to the freedom of information process, all I can say to members opposite is whatever system we have adopted - and there are good reasons for certain areas not to be disclosed - it is a much better system than they had, because they had no freedom of information. If you did not get the answer from the minister in the chair and he sat down, that was it. There was no capacity whatsoever to go through an independent process to try and seek access to information. Whatever has been blanked out, I would say there is probably 200% of information that was provided that never saw the light of day because their conspiracy theories about what might have been in those papers were never met in terms of anything that could be potentially damaging for government.
The member for Araluen again went on a trip down memory lane about tourism. I have asked my colleague who was Tourism minister at the time how many questions on notice, how many briefings were requested, and letters to the ministers he received during that period. Answer: zero. The opposition is just totally lazy. They did the job via media release, not trying to get to the bottom of the truth of the issues. Did it by press release and made a pretty big goose of herself during the process.
Madam Speaker, what we have had her is an Estimates Committee which was a commitment from government of good governance. We have been through it a couple of times now. We have had a committee look at it, that came back to this House with an agreed position in terms of the Estimates Committee and Government Owned Corporations process for this year, with some minor amendments. These positions were agreed to by the committee as a whole. There was no dissent to that agreement. The Leader of the Opposition has straightened up the member for Greatorex and told him to lift his game in terms of work on committees and come in to the House to oppose this motion. Well, the motion is here, and it is supported by government.
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! We ask for some guidance on this. The paper that was tabled by the minister is, in fact, not a paper from the committee. I ask you for guidance as to how we refer to this piece of paper, which is really something which came from the minister, not from the committee.
Madam SPEAKER: The motion is, if I am reading this right, Clerk, and you might advise me, is the motion that they adopt the terms of reference as distributed, and that is what you have in front of you. That is the paper. So, the question is …
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am still seeking your clarification. The minister, in his debate, continues to refer to this paper as one that came from the committee. I believe that that is incorrect and he has misled the House on this matter, and I suggest that he be corrected.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! He can only accuse me of misleading the House by way of substantive motion and I ask him to withdraw.
Dr Lim: I am not accusing, I am asking for clarification.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, it is my understanding, as a member of that committee that this is the report that we have been discussing for some time, and this is the report that we agreed should be presented to the parliament. As a member of the committee, that is my understanding.
Dr LIM: This was the report that was discussed at the committee.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, we discussed a report and, if you may recall, there are a number of slight amendments to that report that were agreed to at that last committee meeting. It was then agreed that that report, with those amendments, be given to the parliament. That is my understanding.
Dr LIM: Then, Madam Speaker, I again seek clarification. I suggest that then the government or the committee needs to table the report that we discussed, because all I saw were letters and a summary of letters from the department agencies.
Madam SPEAKER: As I am advised by the Clerk, if you recall, the committee had to review the procedures for the Estimates Committee that was followed last year. We went through the terms of reference for the previous Estimates Committee. These were the amendments that the committee agreed upon that should be presented to the parliament. We started from those original terms of reference from the Estimates Committee last year. We asked for submissions. We received submissions from a number of people, you may recall. We went through those submissions and the recommendations, and this is now what we are recommending to the parliament: that they adopt these terms of reference from the committee.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, speaking again to the point of order, thank you for your explanation. Perhaps I just need to have them clear in my mind. Did we ever discuss this report, or did we not? We discussed the substance of this report – yes, I agree with you. We discussed the substance of this report, but we never saw this report.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, you are misunderstanding. We were reviewing the original terms of reference that were used for the Estimates Committee last year. When we did that Estimates Committee, the Standing Orders Committee was commissioned to actually review that. We went forward and obtained submissions, and now we have the recommendations that came out of that committee, which is the amended terms of reference from the original. I cannot be much clearer than that ...
Mr Henderson: With minor amendment that you agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: We will not go into that.
Dr LIM: Madam Speaker, obviously, I am not …
Ma dam SPEAKER: I think you have misunderstood.
Dr LIM: … understanding the situation clearly enough for my mind. I agree that we did discuss the terms of reference from last year. We had several meetings where issues were discussed. I agree with that also …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Let him finish this.
Dr LIM: However, at the end of the day, this report was never sighted by the committee at any time until it was left at our desk on the 1 April 2004. By that stage, there was really nothing we could do as a committee because we did not have another committee meeting …
Madam SPEAKER: But, member for Greatorex, the committee had already discussed this. The committee had already recommended that this go to the parliament. That is what the committee said. The question is …
Members interjecting..
Dr LIM: Well, I think my point is made …
Madam SPEAKER: No, member for Greatorex, I have said it enough times: this is what the committee recommended. If you read this, it states:
… the Assembly adopt the terms of references as distributed to members for the Estimates
and Government Owned Corporation Scrutiny Committee.
This came about as a result of the process of the last Estimates Committee. The Standing Orders Committee was commissioned to actually review it, and this is the final document. The question is the report be adopted.
Motion agreed to; report adopted.
AGRICULTURAL AND VETERINARY CHEMICALS (CONTROL OF USE) BILL
(Serial 219)
(Serial 219)
Continued from 1 April 2004.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, we are talking, of course, about the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Control of Use) Bill, which brings into regulation the use of chemical products and fertilisers and stockfeed. This is a very comprehensive bill covering all manner of things regarding those products: who may use them, how they controlled and how they are applied in the case of fertilisers and chemicals.
I say at the beginning that we do not have a philosophical problem with the way the bill is constructed. I have looked through it and, as I said; it is very comprehensive. Obviously, the issue is going to be in regulations: how you are going to regulate some of the things that are described in this bill. It will be interesting to have a look at that when you get around to doing it. It picks up, of course, fertilisers and stockfeed that have not had controls in the past and is, predominantly as far as I can see, regulating the manufacture or the importation of those goods - which is a good thing - to ensure that our products are of a quality that will not provide an adverse effect to either humans, animals or, indeed, the environment. It is something that is probably long overdue.
I have a few issues, and some of it is just clarification. I would like the minister to clarify the non-veterinary use of registered veterinary chemical products. I know, at the moment in some cases in the cattle industry, pastoralists administer veterinary products; for instance, if there is botulism in their cattle they inject them for that. I assume that will be allowed to continue as long as they follow the prescribed use by written instructions from the veterinarian. However, I would just like the minister to clarify on that issue that, for those types products the owner, manager or, indeed, the operators can apply those products to animals where a vet is not required to do the application.
There is a whole range of provisions there for vets, most of which, I assume and believe, they are undertaking now in their practice, particularly in being able to trace any regimes applied to animals and, certainly, in instructions that they may provide to land-holders. The use of anabolic steroids has been ramped up - a great thing. Poor old vets get blamed for a lot of things from time to time, but the anabolic steroids issue is one that they can do without. I see there is provision in there for them to take a lot more care in that area, which is a good thing.
Some of the parts of the bill, particularly with regard to chemical products - making sure chemicals are applied in relation to the labelling that is on the chemical drums and so forth - is something that I assume is in practice. When I was a farmer I used to always read the labels. However, I notice here that a person must, on each occasion before using a registered chemical product, read the instructions on the NRA approved label, otherwise there is a penalty. It goes without saying, but it is a bit onerous to actually write it into a bill. However, I guess from a parliamentary drafting point of view, you have to write it in because, if you leave it out, somebody will use it as an excuse. I just thought it was a little over the top to actually have to put it in the bill that we are making it a legal requirement to read a label. I suppose that is where society has got to, I am afraid.
The other area of interest that I wanted to raise was in relation to spraying of chemicals - and I am going all over the place so you can pick it up as you go. With regard to the ground spraying business licence, I would like the minister to give me a few words on how onerous it will be in the licensing regime for ground spraying application, for not only the business licensee but also for the people employed by that business. I assume it will come into the regulations because that is what it says in the bill: ‘A class of ground spraying application licence to be prescribed by the regulations’. He would have some idea, I assume, of what it is going to involve. I assume that applies to - it says a professional ground spraying applicator. How does that go for cross-farm type where somebody might get the neighbour next door to do some spraying in exchange for them doing something else - a reciprocal deal, no money changes hands? Can that be carried on, or are we talking about those people also having to be regulated and licensed under this bill? It is something that happens in farming communities where, for instance, somebody next door might buy the big spraying equipment to use on their own property and, rather than me buying it next door, I will come to an arrangement with the neighbour to do my spraying or, indeed, have one of his people come over and do the spraying and I will do something in return for that - not in cash terms but in exchange of services. You might like to clarify that.
The other thing I would like some clarification on is that there are some businesses in the Northern Territory that operate aircraft for spraying. One is based up the road from me in Katherine. I see here that:
If the Chemical Coordinator believes on reasonable grounds that a machine or other equipment or an
aircraft being used to carry out agricultural chemical spraying is defective, the Chemicals Coordinator
may give the person apparently in charge of the machine, equipment or aircraft, a written direction not
to operate the machine, equipment or aircraft until –
(a) specified repairs have been made to the machine, equipment or aircraft …
I wonder how that is going to work regarding the actual aircraft and its requirement under CASA rules and aviation regulations, to be at an accredited state or condition of maintenance, and whether this is trying to override that.
I imagine what is trying to be achieved there, is if there is some faulty equipment on the aircraft related to the spraying part of it. However, the way it reads to me is that the Chemical Coordinator can ground the aircraft if he or she reasonably believes that the aircraft is defective. You might find yourself getting into an arguable point there with regards to aircraft maintenance. That is worthy of some clarification, I believe.
The powers of entry, I thought, were very generous for this sort of thing. I can understand that the Chemicals Coordinator, or whoever it may be who wants to enter to investigate and so on, will use a great deal of common sense. The powers of entry are enormous in regard to this bill. They can enter premises either with or without the consent, except for residential premises. The Chemical Advisor can enter the premises and do all sorts of things like break open and search fixtures and fittings, furniture, furnishings or boxes, packages, containers, inspect or examine premises or substances, take photos, films, audios, seize all sorts of things, and it goes on and on and on. I would have thought there had to be fair justification - in fact, a few barriers to jump to find justification - to going to those lengths before entry was permitted. I seek your comments on that, Minister, but it is a bit onerous that on suspicion alone, one can move to that type of entry power.
The other thing I note here is that you have, under clause 103, the establishment of advisory committees. Your bill says:
The Minister may establish one or more Advisory Committees to inquire into …
I would have thought that, if you wanted continuous feedback - and I assume you are going to establish this advisory committee, or one of these advisory committees that has this membership involved - it should have been mandatory that an advisory committee was set up to ensure the monitoring of this bill and the provisions into the future, the establishment of regulations, the monitoring of those regulations, and the industry feedback. That it would have been considered to be mandatory to have an advisory committee, so the minister may or may not establish one or more advisory committees, is something that could have been beefed up. It was not something that needed to have an amendment, but I am sure the minister will, in due course, set up an advisory committee. It should have been a mandatory thing to make sure feedback and the ongoing monitoring was something that will always happen.
There are a few areas that you might like to give me some feedback on. I have checked with various parts of the industry who have had a look at this. They are of the same attitude; that it is something that needs to be done. It is something that is being done on a national scale. It is probably a good thing that we do that, to bring it in line with the processes and procedures that happen nationally under the Agvet Code,. However, as usual and, as always, people like to have assurance that things of this nature do not get too onerous for the individual or the business concerned. Whilst I believe licensing in the areas that have been mentioned throughout this bill is a good thing, it will all come down to how those licensing arrangements are conducted, and how onerous it can be to those business people - whether they be vets, spray applicators and so on.
Madam Speaker, I will conclude my comments there and the minister might like to include some of those issues I have raised in reply.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a few comments on the bill as well. I thank the minister for the briefing. It was my own fault that I was a little late, that we probably did not have more time to go through some of the issues.
One of the issues that I have been concerned about for a while, especially in the Litchfield Shire, is the issue of spraying. I have spoken to WorkSafe, who have also explained that there is legislation that covers spraying as well. When I looked at that, I thought there is a whole series of different parts of this bill and, if you add in the Work Health Act or the Occupational Health and Safety Act and regulations, it makes you wonder whether we should be combining, perhaps, some of these into one lump. It starts off, when dealing with spraying, with Part 2, under General Duties:
13. Duty to ensure harm does not result from the use of chemical products, fertilisers or stockfoods.
A person who uses a chemical product, fertiliser or stockfood must take all measures that are
reasonable and practical to ensure the use does not result in harm to –
(a) the health of the general public;
(b) the health of an animal;
(c) the environment; or
(d) domestic or export trade and agricultural produce.
The only comment I make there is that, perhaps where one cannot prove that the health of the general public is at risk, one could say the amenity of the public can be not the best. With the smell of the substance floating around at 6 pm just as you are having tea, it may be arguable whether the chemical is poisonous, but it certainly would not be arguable that it is a very uncomfortable environment to be having your evening meal in.
Then there is Part 5 clause 56, which deals with the spraying of agricultural chemical products, where a person must not carry out agricultural spraying that injuriously affects plants or stock outside the target area, or land outside the target area etcetera. Clauses 49 and 74 deal with the use of S7 poisons. Under those clauses, you can restrict the use of that poison. You can also instigate a code of practice under clause 128. We have all those four possibilities and then, on top of that, there is the Work Health (Occupational Health and Safety) Regulations, I think in sections 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, and also section 55, Airborne contaminants. I am wondering whether there needs to be a bringing together of some of those regulations. Maybe, of course, some of those airborne contaminants do not fit in with agricultural and veterinary chemicals.
However, my concern is that, even though we have all these particular pieces of legislation, a lot of people in my area are not opposed to spraying; they just simply like to be told if someone is going to spray. Until there is a code of conduct or a set of regulations which say - unless there is an emergency, of course - you must tell your neighbour and people within a certain area within six hours, 10 hours, 12 hours that you are going to spray, then you are still going to continue to have these issues arise, mainly in the small two hectare block areas.
I admit that commercial horticulture in general, especially tree crops, is something that will eventually just disappear in those areas, simply because of the commercial reality: people are not going to be able to make money out of that sort of business. There are also changes to the Planning Act which now says that commercial horticulture is a consent use and, in fact, that will make it harder for people. I know about these things from personal use of chemicals, because I was a licensed herbicide or weed sprayer until I got this job here. If you go back a few years, you will find me on the second page of the Litchfield Times because I forgot to tell my neighbour that I was spraying. I was actually spraying Mr John Maley’s property, which I had been spraying for years, so I knew all the neighbours bar one. It was the one I had not told that I got into trouble with. I understand I should have done the right thing and gone over and said I was spraying. I just presumed it would be okay and I soon got a complaint.
It is something that needs to be looked at. As the member for Daly said about having advisory committees, maybe there needs to be one set up. There was nearly a code of conduct for spraying put together a number of years ago, when the environment committee and the Northern Territory Horticultural Association and other interested people held meetings at Bees Creek Primary School. I must admit I was under the impression that a code of conduct had been put together, but I was informed at the briefing that it did not quite get to the stage of being put down on paper. I certainly think it would help, not only people in the community but also the Northern Territory Horticultural Association, if they needed to handed out something to people. Even if it was not regulated, it would at least be something that could be given to people - sometimes people who do not understand English and are not sure what the problem is, but their neighbour has been jumping up and down and they cannot understand what they are talking about. That is something we could advance from this legislation and make a positive approach to helping harmony in the community.
I do not think the issue of spraying is quite as bad as it used to be, because there were a lot more mango plantations that were being sprayed regularly about 10 years ago. However, there are still some issues, and sometimes those issues revolve around Asian vegetables. You might say as mangoes have gone out, Asian vegetables have increased in their acreage. Just a couple of other issues, and I will probably do a little like the member for Daly and go back and forward. I also looked at Division 2 about having somebody read the labels, and I thought that is going to be difficult to police. However, it has to be in there and so be it. It just seems to be a piece of legislation that really cannot be enforced.
Clause 17 says:
Registered chemical products to be kept in suitable containers labelled with NRA approved labels.
What I would like to ask is: who is making sure that the chemical company is providing a container that is suitable for the product? Many people would have been spraying many years ago with 245T, which was a common spray used - it is certainly not on the market any more – and it would rust out the container. Starane is still on the market and is normally sold in a five litre tin which will rust out. I believe that the onus should be on the chemical company to make sure the container that it puts the chemical in will not rust and, of course, will not explode, which is another issue when some of the chemicals react with the container,
Also, the containers should be designed in a way which will minimise any harm that could be caused by the pouring of the chemical and, especially, with splashing. As you know, you cannot let air into a 20 litre drum of Roundup; it will not pour out, it will just splash out. In clause 17(4)(e) it says:
enables all or any part of the product to be removed or discharged in such a way with, the exercise
of no more than reasonable care, the product cannot –
(i) harm any person; or
(ii) have an unintended effect that is harmful to the environment.
If we are going to have that in the legislation I certainly think it would be good to have an audit of the type of containers. We work in a hot climate; people have gloves on. If you pick up a 20 litre container of Roundup when it is full and try to pour that into a jug, (1) you do not want it to splash, and (2) you do not want to drop it. They do not have grips on the bottom; they have a handle at the top. There could be a lot more work done on making the shape of containers far easier for people to handle.
Mr Dunham: A tap. A bung and a tap.
Mr WOOD: Yes, but they do not come that way. That may be possible too. Of course, when you are pouring some chemicals you are actually mixing quite an amount of chemical, you are not putting a small amount. If you have an 800 litre spray tank you may be required to put about, at a guess, probably about eight litres of Roundup into that. You do not want to be sitting there all day waiting for a tap; you want to pour it in quickly, get it into the tank, mix it and get on with your work. I believe that is an area that the government could look at. I realise on our own the Northern Territory probably could not change the world, but you would go to meetings of ministers on these issues and it may be worth looking at.
The other area, which is probably a bit of a favourite of mine, is the disposal of the containers. It talks about that in this section. It talks about the reuse of containers and that is an area that should be looked at Australia-wide. The containers that Roundup is kept in are extremely strong containers; they have a lid that can be put back on. If they could be recycled, sent back to the manufacturer, relabelled and reused for the same product, that would be a good idea. They are certainly a nuisance for landfill. I know we have drum muster, and I know that Mr Peter Murphy is the Drum Muster Coordinator in the Territory. He saw me at Freds Pass Show and he said he thinks he has things working. I will believe it when I see it, because drum muster in outback areas of Australia is a very difficult thing to administer, especially when you have to have people on-site to inspect drums as they come into a landfill site. In very sparsely populated areas where you cannot have someone always at a tip, that makes that very difficult. If containers could be reused - and I have said many times before that there could have been a deposit placed on those containers - most containers could have come back to a particular site, the deposit would have been paid, and the chemical container would have been sent back the manufacturer whose responsibility then would be for either the reuse or the recycling of that container.
At present, a drum muster scheme is a scheme that relies on everybody but the industry. The grower pays for the levy. The councils, who are supposed to get some money from that levy, are the ones that are supposed to sort out how to store and transport the containers. Recycling chemical containers is too much based on the user and not the producer of the chemicals.
Going back to the use of S7 poisons - and I have raised this issue before in parliament - the use of some S7 poisons by air-blast machines in built-up areas like the RL1 areas of Howard Springs and Humpty Doo should be banned. You are dealing with extremely poisonous chemicals sprayed into the air, and there is no way you can contain that chemical from drifting into someone’s place. We are talking about sprays like Lannate, Endosulphan and Supercide. They are chemicals that are normally used for mangoes where, perhaps, some insect pest has got out of hand or somebody has not kept to a program to maintain control over insect pests or fungi or whatever. They are generally one-stop chemicals and that is probably the reason they are S7s.
I am not advocating that their use is banned, but, minister, you have the power in certain areas to restrict them. There is a health risk, especially where blocks of mangoes or other trees are surrounded by residential land and this chemical is being used. Maybe there needs to be a requirement that, if people are spraying, they are required to tell people what they are using. That has been an issue that causes a lot of people to become very upset. They go down and say: ‘Excuse me, sir. Can you tell us what you are spraying?’, and the person spraying will not say. It is only fair if the neighbour at least be told what is spraying. For instance, they might be told they are spraying Carboral and they might say: ‘That is not so bad. It is a bit smelly, but we will stay at home’. Whereas, if they were told it was Supercide, I would certainly be packing up the kids, the dogs and the cats and going somewhere else while they are spraying. That is an issue that needs looking at.
On the issue of the powers of the chemical advisors, I must admit that I believe they are over the top. There may be cases where you need this power for dangerous chemicals. We are not talking about dangerous chemicals, but you might get to the point where it will be nitrate of ammonia. I would hate to see someone barge in because they wanted to check out whether your five litres of Rogor was correctly labelled, and they were able to use all the powers under clause 95. It seems an awful lot of power for an act that deals with veterinary and agricultural chemicals, and maybe swimming pool chemicals.
As the member for Daly said, those powers include: inspect or examine a premises or a substance or thing found in or on the premises, break open and search fixtures and fittings, take measurements or conduct tests related to, take photographs, film and audio, take and remove from the premises samples for analysis, if the premises are a vehicle subject to clause 96(c), seize the vehicle, etcetera. There is nothing there to prescribe that the advisor needs a warrant. That is an awfully powerful piece of legislation. Normally, I do not think even the police would have that sort of power - I do not know.
Mr Baldwin: The fertiliser squad.
Mr WOOD: Called the ‘pooh police’, I presume.
I am interested to know why the legislation has to be that strong. Why don’t they have to convince someone of the need for a warrant and say: ‘We need a warrant because we believe this person is selling contaminated fertiliser’ or whatever?
There is a lot of immunity for the person who barges in. Under clause 98 it says:
For the administration or enforcement of this Act in relation to an animal or food-producing species,
in addition to the other powers under this Act, a chemical advisor has the powers of an inspector of
stock set out in section 42 of the Stock Diseases Act.
I probably just read the wrong section of the act, but I know there are certainly - I beg your pardon, it should have been clause 108. I cannot read my own writing. This is regards to legal immunity:
(1) The section applies to a person who has been –
(a) a Chemicals Coordinator;
(b) a chemical advisor;
(c) a person assisting a chemical advisor …; or
(d) a member of an Advisory Committee.
(2) The person is not civilly or criminally liable for an act done or admitted to be done by the person in
good faith in the exercise or purported exercise of a power, or the performance or purported performance
of a function, under this Act …
Etcetera. However, when you see what they can do, they are certainly immune from a lot of things. You might not have your house left by the time they have been through it.
Mr Baldwin: No, they can only go there by consent.
Mr WOOD: Oh? Yes, but all they need is a card to say they are coming, and they are in. Those powers are perhaps a little over the top. As the member for Daly did, I am moving round a bit here. The last thing I had asked at the briefing, and I am not sure whether, from memory, we got a definitive answer, concerned the section on contaminated fertilisers, which is right down the back somewhere. There is a section which talks about cadmium, mercury, and some other substances. I cannot find it at the moment, but it relates to fertilisers having those substances within them. What I was asking: does compost come under the definition of fertiliser? Because, when you look at the definition of fertiliser, which is under clause 7:
(1) A fertiliser is a substance that is manufactured, represented, supplied to or used as a means of directly or indirectly –
(a) fertilising the soil;
(b) supplying nutrients to plants; or
(c) conditioning the soil by altering the chemical, physical or biological composition of the soil.
If fertilisers have to be checked for those particular substances - which I wish I could find. I do not know whether the minister can help me there and tell me what that section is on those substances not allowed in the fertiliser. No, I cannot find it. Anyway, all I was trying to find out was: when you are dealing with commercial composts, are they defined as fertilisers under this definition of fertilisers under clause 7, because you do not know where all the materials used in that compost are going to come from? For instance, at Shoal Bay, they now have a composting process. Who is to say that some of the materials - for instance, it could be timber - have come from either a site where there has been contamination, or have been contaminated simply for the sake of say, termite prevention, and they are chopped up and mulched into compost. Is there a requirement, for instance, to have some testing of those piles of compost to make sure that they are not carrying some of those substances that are not permitted in fertilisers? That is simply trying to find out whether they would be required to be regulated.
Otherwise, minister, I believe the bill is good. We certainly need to keep an eye on the spraying issue. It is an issue that does not go away. I spoke to the Northern Territory Horticultural Association; they had a look at this about 12 months ago. I believe they did not have any major problems with it. I also spoke to the Northern Territory Nursery Association and they did not have any great problems with it as well. If they did, I presume that those issues were taken note of before you drew up this legislation. I have not had any feedback from them about this existing legislation. The industry is certainly supporting it, and I support it as well.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I thank members for their support. Yes, it is a very important bill. It deals not only with fertiliser, but also with the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. The reality in the world we live today, is the next time a country will try to stop imports from another country. Instead of imposing tariffs or subsidies, it will simply try to apply very strict regulations with regard to pesticide or fertiliser content, or the presence of some of the trace metals in fruit, vegetables and animals.
The use of veterinary chemicals by non-veterinarians is described very well in clauses 25 and 26. It is still allowed if it is done according to instructions, not only of the label, but with a vet. For the anabolic steroids, clause 42 describes how they can be used, and where and how, and the same with chemicals in clause 48.
I can understand what you said, member for Daly, about what is written on the labels, but the reality is that not everybody reads the label. I have my own experience where people actually used pesticide without reading the label because they just bought Dursban. They thought it was the same as the product they bought five or six years ago. In five or six years, the application rate or even the strength of a chemical can change, so it would not be a defence in a court case that they did not read the label. It is an obligation for everybody who uses any chemical, or agricultural or vet product, to read the label and strictly comply with the instructions on the label.
With regard to the spray, clause 56 describes about spray and who can do it. The reality is your neighbour can have the equipment and may be able to spray his own or your own produce. Are you going to risk asking your neighbour to come and do your own farm? What about your duty of care? What is his liability? What is your liability? If, by any chance, something ...
Mr Baldwin: It happens.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well yes, but if something goes wrong and your produce is contaminated and you cannot sell it, first of all you would be liable yourself for the contaminated product and, secondly, you would be able to trace it all the way back to the neighbour who did it. That comes back to duty of care. I would be reluctant to spray somebody else’s property if I am not a licensed spray operator, and I would not do it because, in the end, I might face a huge legal bill and be liable to pay for all the produce you cannot sell. It is very difficult. I have seen many times people doing favours and stuffing it up, big time.
Mr Baldwin: But they are not regarded as professional, that was my question.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well, they are not regarded as professional, no. It has to be by a professional. No.
Mr Baldwin: So, therefore, they do not have to be licensed.
Mr VATSKALIS: He cannot do it. He has to be licensed and the legislation clearly describes who can do it, what he can do, and how he can be licensed. That applies …
Mr Baldwin: But if they are not professional, they do not have to licensed?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr VATSKALIS: On their own premises or their own property.
Mr Baldwin: It does not say that.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We are not in committee stage.
Mr VATSKALIS: The same thing applies with the aerial equipment. The Chemicals Coordinator is not qualified to assess an aircraft …
Mr Baldwin: Like I said, it is a bit onerous.
Mr VATSKALIS: … he is only qualified to assess the chemical equipment. Therefore, he can stop the pilot flying and spraying. If the airplane is defective, he cannot tell him not to fly but, if he believes the airplane is defective, he can notify the appropriate authorities, and the appropriate authority can come and check the aircraft. The chemical coordinator can only check the equipment that the pilot will use to spray to administer the spray.
No, it is not onerous, actually. As a matter of fact, it is very similar to what the Health Act says. It is exactly the same in the Health Act, under which I operated. I had the power to enter any premises at any reasonable time without a warrant. I had the power to seize, photograph, investigate, interview, destroy, or render as harmless. That might seem very strong but, at the same time, you have to remember we are dealing here with situations which have the ability to poison or contaminate a significant number of people if somebody does not do their job properly. Sometimes, we actually had to have the power to enter premises because we investigated an outbreak of a contamination incident, or people had been for poisoned. Luckily, here in Australia, we do not have these kinds of incidents but, very often in third world countries, we hear of people at a wedding being killed because, instead of sugar, they used something that looked like sugar, but was actually a pesticide.
In Australia, we had incidents where we had to go back and trace, in the manufacturing plant, what material, equipment and what they used, to try and find out what caused the poisoning, or the incident. Therefore, it might seem onerous, but the reality is a professional who enters premises, will enter a premise for a specific purpose. He is not going to commit an act or an offence that contravenes the act and for which he will be liable. The indemnity only applies to things that he does in the course of his duty, and also administering the legislation. If somebody goes into a house to apply this legislation and nicks a DVD, there is no indemnity for that; he is liable for the offence of which he is guilty.
The other thing that was brought up by the member for Nelson - and I agree with him - is that we have an amending piece of legislation that we see other legislation overlapping. For example, you mentioned spraying under Work Health. Unfortunately, work health legislation applies only to workplace incidents, or people who are working on something. If you are a spray operator and you do not provide protective equipment to your staff and your staff is contaminated, the Work Health Act will apply in this case, not this legislation. If you are a spray operator and you do not spray properly according to the legislation, or use a non-approved chemical, then this new act will apply in that instance. If you are a spray operator and you contaminate by spray drift, and you did not take the necessary precautions and you contaminated property or material, or poisoned people, then the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act will apply. In some cases, the Health Act may apply. You have three or four pieces of legislation that seems to apply to a particular case. However, when you sit down and analyse the case, then you find out that in certain areas, locations, and incidents, a different piece of legislation applies.
I agree with the member for Nelson regarding containers; it is not the Territory’s issue, it is a national issue. Containers have to comply with national standards and the same for labels. Most of the containers now comply with national standards. The design is not perfect. The people who design the containers are not farmers. People who design them have to build them quickly, easily, cheaply and work out how they can be stacked together so that they do not fall. They do not think about the farmer who needs to get hold of the handle to empty it. They do not think about how they can minimise splashing. At the same time, to their credit, when using chemicals they have to wear protective equipment and clothing, but that does not mean you can do anything you like with the containers. I will raise the issue of the design of the containers in a national forum. If we can specify a design that will minimise splashing or make it easier to handle and be suitable for use in the farm environment, rather than a container that is hard to transport or to fill a machine.
The drum muster is a very good initiative. I worked with people in the Western Australian outback near Port Hedland, and we had this service for some farmers. We had it for some cattlemen and, with the help of the town council there, we announced that people should bring their drums to the town. Some people had to drive 100 km but they still did it because it was the only way to dispose of their drums. If the drums were not properly rinsed, cleaned and disposed of, they could contaminate the soil. In turn, that contaminated the animals, and when they go for slaughter to be exported, somebody would trace it and send the whole consignment back. It needs to be thought out better. Peter Murphy is working on that, and I offer my assistance to Peter at any time through my department and my personal experience. I am very happy he is persisting with this one because it is a very important issue.
There is no such thing as a non-dangerous pesticide or chemical. All of them need to be used with care. You can contaminate yourself and other people.
As for notification, yes, you are required to notify your neighbours but, at the same time, I am aware that you cannot say you are going spray in eight hours, because in eight hours time the weather conditions may not be suitable for you to spray. You have to spray when the weather conditions are good. At the same time, with knowledge improving, we have found out that droplets of a very small size are administered by machinery. Unfortunately, these droplets can travel long distances because of the wind. When I used fogging machine with a high volume of very fine droplets - a treatment we had for mosquitoes - the first time we used that without notification we had everybody up in arms; not because it was a dangerous chemical, but because it smelled awful.
Yes, I understand about amenities, but how do you actually define amenities? The amenity of the neighbour is the smell. The amenity of family is that the bloody thing kills everything, and that is what they want. It is very difficult, and here we have a problem because of the old planning issues when you have a rural residential area next to a farmer. Of course, there is going to be conflict because the interface is not there. A typical example is the Berry Springs School. I am very well aware of what is happening there. To his credit, the operators are trying to resolve the issues. They have planted trees as a barrier and are trying to fog or spray when the school is not operating - and you still get some complaints. I understand that.
This is a very good bill and I am very impressed. It is very thorough and important. It controls the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals and controls fertiliser. Yes, the fertiliser you buy from Shoal Bay is, under this definition, a fertiliser. That is where the duty of care of the council lies: they must have someone supervise what goes into this fertiliser. If it is only palm fronds and trees; that is fine. What happens if somebody goes and dumps some of the green logs that have been treated with arsenic? That will contaminate the whole of the fertiliser which, in turn, will contaminate the soil and, in turn, will contaminate some of the fruit and vegetables that will grow.
One of the things I have an issue with is the labels. All of the labels are written in English, in a country where most of the people working in the horticultural industry producing vegetables and fruits come mainly from non-English speaking countries. As an example, here in Darwin, we have Thai, Vietnamese, Greeks and Chinese. Most of them are not well educated in their own language, never mind English. These people will be struggling to understand the highly technical content of the labels. This is what I have asked the department to have extension officers who speaks the language of all these people, or to produce standard instructions in different languages on how to use chemicals, pesticides, and how to do a dilution. How many of these ethnic people know how to properly dilute a chemical? How many of them know what a millilitre is, or a litre or anything else? Somebody can show them and they can keep doing what they have done before, but they can make mistakes if the new chemical they buy is a higher strength than the one they used before.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend this bill to the Assembly.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries)(by leave): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
FISHERIES AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 216)
Continued from 1 April 2004.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Deputy Speaker, this will not take long. We have no issues with this bill. It is a bill that has been brought about through a review under National Competition Policy.
The minister, in his second reading speech, said it has to be completed and implemented immediately to comply with the conditions of the principles of National Competition Policy. It deals with a range of things that are not of great importance, although I do not want to diminish the content of the bill.
It deals with fairness and equity to aquatic resources by all user and stakeholder groups, which is an important issue and this bill picks up on that, and is the objects clause within the amendment bill. There are a number of other things that even deal with such things as minimum freezer sizes for holding fish by resellers.
The real issue is what has been promised by the minister in the sittings before last; that is, the review of fisheries legislation, something he said at the time would be conducted over the next 18 months. That sounds like a long period to me, particularly in light of the fact that it is about all this government has left of its duty to Territorians. There are a lot of issues on the agenda for fisheries, whether it is commercial or recreational fishing. I would like to see that process sped up so that we can get our teeth into a total review of the Fisheries Act as soon as possible. The outcome of that review is what I am talking about, obviously. That will come back once it has been out there in the public, one would assume, for some hefty debate within this Chamber.
On that review, I could not let it go past that one of the things that is under review currently is the closure of the rivers, particularly the Adelaide River. We are still waiting for an announcement. The commercial people are waiting for an announcement; the recreational people are waiting for an announcement. Your own aquatic resource users group have dealt with all the principles of the closure of two commercial barramundi fishermen from Adelaide River. They have no issue. The only issue everybody has, minister, is with you, because you are not articulating your position ,,,
Dr Burns interjecting.
Mr BALDWIN: And the minister before you. I grant you that you are the fourth fisheries minister, but this is a promise that you made nearly three years ago - one that can be implemented without any problem whatsoever. You have one commercial fisherman who is operating in that area and wants to be relocated - not a drama. He wants to shift his efforts elsewhere. You have five or six commercial barramundi licensees who have put their hand up for a buy-back - a fantastic opportunity, minister, to reduce the commercial effort of barramundi fishing in the Northern Territory, and one that is not mentioned in your budget whatsoever.
There is no money that I can find in your budget. Please, if it is in there, tell me, because I cannot find it. In fact, what I find is a slashed budget for fisheries. It is an opportunity that is missing from your budget that you have not taken up, and I assume that, at some time, getting closer to an election, it will be a great announcement. Well, people will see through that, minister. They have been calling on you - your own aquatic user group has been calling on you; AFANT have been calling on you; the barramundi commercial fisheries people who are licensees have put up their hands to say: ‘Okay, here it is’. So, now, make the announcement - put your money where your mouth is – on Adelaide River. There is no drama to close that. You have done all the work. Your aquatic user group have done all the work for you. You are the fourth minister, you can make a hero out of yourself. You could do it tomorrow. In fact, when you reply to the budget - and I guess that will be Friday - I expect to hear that announcement - two of them: closure of the Adelaide River and the removal of commercial effort from the barramundi fishery. What a fantastic announcement for Territorians. You, minister, would be a hero. But I bet you cannot bring yourself to do it.
Dr Burns: How much do you want to bet?
Mr BALDWIN: Oh, you want to take a bet? I love taking bets. Picking up on the interjection, Mr Deputy Speaker ...
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, we are not licensed bookmakers here.
Mr BALDWIN: Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not presume to be a licensed bookmaker but, if my colleague on the other side wants to have a bet, any day, you name the price and you name - I am talking Friday for the announcement. Let us see your money and I will take your bet, because the last time that he had a bet with me, he said: ‘Don’t ever let me bet with you again because you are a crook and a rogue’. Well, here he goes now - here he goes. You better put your money on the table too on Friday: about $4m, or whatever you have, to buy out the commercial effort and close the Adelaide River. I am waiting to hear from you, minister. Certainly recreational and commercial fishermen have been waiting patiently through three ministers previous to you - now, four ministers, now nearly three years since the promise - for some action. So get on with it!
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the members for their support. It is an important bill because it actually addresses a lot of the issues that were identified by the Fisheries Act under the National Competition Policy review. Quite rightly, it even removes some provisions like the medium freezer size, and the licence also makes the provisional licence system open and transparent.
As for the other issues you brought up, the Fisheries Act review process has already started. An officer starts work tomorrow on 19 May, and he will work closely with the industry and other parties to consult with the industry. It will take about six months for drafting. However, the 18-month period we are putting on the table is the maximum length it will take to do this review and produce the draft. If it is earlier, all the better, it is the best. That is what the stakeholders asked for and that is my response.
As for other issues, we are commencing a barramundi fisheries review. We have already started the process and we want to finalise it as soon as practicably possible. I do not know if you took a bet with my colleague, the member for Johnston, but as for the Adelaide River closure, we had to do some negotiation. It took some time to finalise the sensitive negotiations, but my recommendation is ‘stay tuned this week’.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries)(by leave): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TRAFFIC AMENDMENT BILL (No 3)
(Serial 200)
(Serial 200)
Continued from 26 November 2003.
Mr BURKE (Brennan): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will say a few words whilst you regain your seat, because I know that you will want to speak on this particular piece of legislation. At the outset, I congratulate you for bringing forward this initiative which the government has, like most things they do, copied and brought forward as their own legislation. It is obviously an issue that has arisen in other states of Australia. Queensland has already brought forward legislation to address this particular issue of the unsafe and irresponsible use of motor vehicles, particularly in the area of street racing. Everyone realises the damage to public safety that can occur; it is becoming an increasing problem. The CLP agrees that we need to address this in some shape or form, and the legislation that the government has brought forward in response to the initiative by the member for Nelson certainly seems to be appropriate in addressing the issues that he raised, and in providing for some method of trying to control this particular activity.
I note that, for the first conviction, an infringement notice is issued and that takes the place of a court order. Then there is various ramping up in the scale of punitive efforts by the courts for subsequent offences, leading to a vehicle, in fact, being impounded. All the costs of the administration of the impounding of that vehicle, including its subsequent disposal and sale, if necessary, are borne by the offender. In this respect, it does seem overly punitive in the end result. However, I am comforted by the information I have received from the member for Nelson that, where this legislation has occurred in other states of Australia, on the data that has been provided, normally a particular individual’s breach of the law tends to extend only to the first or second offences and then, for whatever reason, they do not come before the courts - or if any do, there is very little data on it - for subsequent convictions. Obviously, the ultimate sanction that a vehicle will be impounded and subsequently sold, and the cost borne by the offender, needs to be seen in the context that this cost could be borne by parents who, in many respects, would be totally uninvolved in any way with the particular offence. Therefore, in that regard, whilst the provision is there in the legislation, I hope that that aspect of the legislation is only used for recalcitrant offenders in the context of them being punished for what are entirely their own actions.
One of the problems with providing police with this new legislation in law is that, like many things, it is too easy to feel that, because the legislation has been enacted, the problem is for the police then to deal with. One of the things that the police themselves continually complain about is that society’s response to many societal problems is simply to enact a law and, therefore, it becomes a police problem to deal with. If the activity continues, all of a sudden the police themselves then get blamed as to why it is continuing.
In the case of hooning legislation, whilst I agree with the legislation and the fact that there should be some punitive result in law, we need to take all of these things into their proper context; that is, that the police only have the ability to deal with these sorts of activities in a very limited way, frankly, and that is when they become aware of the activity and when they are in a position to penalise someone for conducting themselves. However, it does not mean that they are going to stop hooning by young people per se. Certainly, this legislation should not be seen as attempting to do that.
One of the things that bothers me is that, if you look at many television shows nowadays, and even in other areas of activities, it is encouraged. One of the shows that I probably should not admit that I watch with my 15-year-old son - and he should not be watching it either according to his mother - is Pizza Live. It is a disgraceful show at times but I try to keep in touch with the things that amuse my son, and worry as a father at the same time. But Pizza Live last night had an excerpt where he was conducting burn-outs in his car as he was going from one place to another, to the roar and applause of the live audience who were in that particular live segment of the show. I say that in the context that, on the one hand you have with legislation police efforts trying to control this sort of thing and, on the other hand, we have a whole area of society – however you may wish to describe it - in effect encouraging it through television shows, and suggesting to young people that this sort of activity should be done by people who are ‘in’, who are ‘with it’ and, therefore, it is a good thing and if you do not involve yourself in this sort of activity, somehow you are not ‘with it’.
The reality is that we need - as I am sure the member for Nelson and others would agree - to emphasise the safety aspects of hooning and of a car travelling at irresponsible speeds in suburban streets at night; educate people to the fact that, on the data, most of the accidents that occur are through one individual hooning and one innocent family or individual backing out of their driveway and coming into contact with the car that is conducting that activity. The real issue here is a public safety education campaign to try to educate young people that it is irresponsible, dangerous, it can kill other innocent people including themselves, it is not ‘with it’, it is quite wrong and they should not do it. The legislation and the police effort, of course, is ancillary to that.
The legislation is straightforward. The details of the bill are also straightforward and were explained in second reading speech. I understand that the initiative of the member for Nelson has been taken up by the government, and the opposition supports legislation.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I speak on the Traffic Act Amendment Bill 2003 on behalf of Millner constituents, in particular seniors and parents who have quite often spoken to me about this important issue. I make the point that it will be useful to the Millner electorate, the wider Darwin area and the Northern Territory, in that this bill aims to amend the Traffic Act and associated regulations to deal with antisocial driving behaviour exhibited by some in our community - those we generally refer to as hoons. While relatively small in number, these drivers create a huge nuisance in our community and, in some cases, are a danger to themselves and others. The type of behaviour that we particularly want to put a stop to include burnouts, illegal street racing, and mindless creation of excessive noise and road damage.
Sectors of the community have been calling for action to be taken on these activities for some time, and it has taken the Labor government to actually do something about it. Similar to other jurisdictions that have legislated to stop these activities, the bill we are debating today contains some tough provisions to really put the brakes on these offences. Penalties include hefty fines and the impoundment of vehicles, with final penalty of forfeiture of vehicles for those who are proven repeat offenders. Police will be able to issue infringement notices for repeat offences, and cars will be progressively impounded for longer periods until, after four offences, the car can be confiscated for good. For these guys, their cars are very important assets, and the total forfeiture of these vehicles will provide a serious disincentive to their antisocial behaviour.
There will be provisions in the new framework to allow those whose cars have been used without permission - for example parents and employers - to apply to the courts for the return of these vehicles, as police will notify the registered owner of a vehicle that has been used for these types of activities. I imagine that parents will be pretty annoyed to discover that their cars have been used in this manner. It is dangerous, can damage or even destroy cars, and the drivers become identified as antisocial.
The amendments being debated today will result in the establishment of a new part of the Traffic Act for the enforcement of antisocial driving behaviour and vehicle use, which prescribes offences in the Traffic Act and regulations to address antisocial driving behaviour including organising, promoting, participating and attending street racing, driving in a reckless manner such as doing burnouts. and offences for damaging or causing ruts to form on the road or in public places such as parks and nature strips.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this has been an issue in our community for a number of years and has been talked about by many members of this House. I am pleased to say that the current minister in this Labor government has decided to act upon it and I commend the bill to this House.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, with all due respect to the member for Millner - he is a great bloke, he barracks for Hawthorn - I disagree that the initiative for this act came from the Labor Party, because I introduced it into parliament in February 2003. We are now in May 2004, and it has taken a long time for the Labor Party to initiate their own legislation. However, I welcome the legislation and I am very pleased that the Labor Party has introduced it.
I would like to comment on what the member for Brennan said. I always listen to the member for Brennan’s contributions because there are some wise things in there. One is about kids. As a 54-year-old grandfather, it is easy to say that kids are making noise or speeding around the place. I certainly understand that kids like to drive cars fast. If they want to do that on their own block or out on a bit of Crown land somewhere away from a road, I do not really have a problem. The issue really is when it is done where it can cause danger to the public. It is not appropriate behaviour and we need to pass legislation that disallows it.
We also have to look at the positive side of things. The police have drag racing competitions at Hidden Valley where they encourage young people who like to drive fast cars to do exactly that in a safe environment.
Even though we are introducing legislation that says this is dangerous and we are making it illegal, on the other hand we need to have some programs which will allow kids to let a bit of steam off, for those kids who want to drive fast cars. After all, we are coming up to the V8 Supercars this weekend. Go and have a look at the number of kids who cheer on our racing drivers doing a big donut, with smoke pouring everywhere. It is a popular pastime, but it has to be in its right place.
I received a letter form the Darwin Junior Street Stocks Incorporated. They teach kids how to put cars together, but they also teach them team work and discipline because of the rules and regulations that are followed in motor sport. Therefore, they are encouraging them into motor sport, but in the right way. People of the Darwin Junior Street Stocks Incorporated should be congratulated. Also, if anyone has been to the Taminmin High School, they have a VET program there where they get old cars and do them up. At the V8 Supercars last year, even though they did not race them because the drivers were not licensed to race at that stage, they had built two racing cars, which were only little Datsuns - the usual sort of car that is used for hooning around. The kids have learnt a trade and, at the same time, have had a bit of fun, but all in a controlled manner where they are learning to enjoy their sport, but to do it in a responsible manner. That is really what this is about. Although we are bringing in this sort of legislation, we should do just as much on the other side to encourage young people to take up motor racing, but to do it in the right place.
I sadly remember the case - and I publicly commented on it - of two people who drag-raced past BP Palms a couple of years ago – one of them had their lights off. Sadly, the driver of one car was killed. A girl in the other car was killed and one girl is injured for the rest of her life, and there was some punishment meted out to the driver. That was a case of drag-racing down the main highway at night. It just shows you that what they thought was a bit of fun turned out to be tragic. It was probably lucky that there were not more people killed because one of the vehicles caught fire. While there is the fun side of having a fast car, there is also the dangerous side.
One of the matters that differs from my original bill that I introduced was that the government has added an infringement notice period on the first offence. You will get the old yellow ticket, and Mum and Dad will find out if you were using their car to do donuts or S’s down the main street, that you were doing something they did not know about. That is a good move because, even though legislation in other states does allow for that to be looked at by the magistrate, this probably takes it out of the court and gives a chance for the family, you might say, to work out the issues. Therefore, the person who is misusing Mum and Dad’s car at least, you would hope, gets a warning from Mum and Dad not to do it again. After that, of course, you can get a 48-hour impoundment, then up to a three month impoundment and, for a fourth offence, you can actually get your car seized. My legislation did not have in it that you could have your car seized permanently; this legislation does. My feeling is that you probably do not need to have that. I quote from a Queensland Parliament speech made by a Mr Johnson Gregory, National Party, on 28 October 2003 in relation to their legislation:
In a briefing that we had yesterday on the road hoon legislation, I spoke with the minister’s advisors.
They told me that, to date, 875 vehicles had been confiscated since the hooning legislation was put in
place.
Then he says:
I find it very hard to believe that seven of them are repeat offenders. I wonder what they have up top.
Obviously, once people have tasted the enforcement of this legislation, the majority do not come back for it again because, after all, you only have seven repeat offenders. I would doubt that there will be very many people who would go for a third offence because, in the case of Queensland, you would lose your car. In our case, you would lose it for up to three months. That is why perhaps you did not really need the forfeiture section of the law. However, it is there and we will see how it goes. One thing in the act which is good, is that it will be reviewed after five years, and this sort of legislation does need reviewing.
The other issue, minister, that you might be able to explain is that one of the reasons, I gather, for the hold-up in this legislation is that the police had some issues regarding impoundment of vehicles. When I introduced my legislation, I did speak to the Police Association about the legislation. They were happy to see this legislation proposed. The minister said there were some difficulties with impoundment. I would like to hear whether those issues have been overcome. What happens in the case of say, the police at Avon Downs or Kalkarindji, when they need to impound the vehicle? Do they have a place to impound that vehicle? What happens in rural areas where you may not have the same sort of facilities as we have in Darwin, where you might have a tow truck and you can pick up a vehicle and tow it in and put it away in a lock-up for a while? I believe that a vehicle does not have to be impounded in police premises, it can be impounded in a second-hand car dealer or a tow truck driver’s yard. It will be interesting to see what the problem was there, minister, and whether it has been fully sorted out.
I would like to say in summing up that I support the legislation; it is long overdue. I spent quite a bit of time in local government in the Litchfield Shire and, for as long as I was on the local government council, the issue of hooning was a perennial issue that was raised many times, especially with those people who had gravel roads. I know there are not many gravel roads in Darwin. As I said before, when the road was graded, people went ‘Ah!’, for a little time without corrugations. The word got out like there was a secret code that spread throughout the rural area that there was a nice, shiny graded road there that they could do S’s and donuts on. It would last for a half a day and that would be about the most you would have had your road graded for - after that it was chewed up. Certainly, people on some of our rural roads would appreciate a halt to that type of behaviour.
Finally, minister, I let you know that, when I find out the correct procedures I will withdraw my bill, which basically covers exactly the same thing. I thank the government and the members of the opposition for their support. It is an important bill. As I said, if we can balance this bill with trying to put in positive things for kids, that makes legislation a lot more holistic than just bringing in legislation that says: ‘No’. You need to also introduce programs that say: ‘Yes, in the right place, no in the wrong place’.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to see this piece of legislation here tonight, and will certainly be supporting it as it goes through. I would like to congratulate the member for Nelson for his initiative some time ago in bringing this idea into the House, and the government for doing the right things by Territorians and creating this legislation which we will pass here. As the member for Port Darwin, as you can imagine, I also share the concerns of the community with regards to hoons and what they do for law-abiding citizens. In the areas of Smith and Mitchell Streets, in particular, it causes major problems for my residents, particularly with sleep disruptions. I certainly hope that the police will be able to take action now to educate, in a such a subtle way, our hoons.
Minister, when you speak to us now in closing on this matter, I wonder if you could address a couple of areas. I would be interested to know whether or not this legislation will be used with the issue of rat racing, which is speeding hoons going through city streets on a circuit which they are familiar with, and they time it to compete against each other to try and be the winner and the fastest driver. Gothenburg Crescent in Stuart Park is a favourite street for the hoons. Will rat racing be the sort of thing that will be addressed by this legislation and, if it is, could you give us a scenario of how it will operate in practice with regard to the police? Are they actually going to be clocking speeds, or is there some other criteria which they use to decide whether or not somebody gets into trouble under this legislation?
A second point that you could address is the issue of noise emanating from cars, often like this, be it from exhaust pipes - and I have heard some shocking exhausts around the Mitchell Street precinct of late. They obviously had something done to them because they are quite modern little cars. They probably have done something to modify them so that their exhaust systems are incredibly loud. Also, could you comment on whether or not anything has been done to address the noise from the amplified music from these sorts of cars. That would be very welcome, of course.
I would again like to congratulate the member for Nelson and the government to bringing forward this legislation.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to continue this bill through parliament. It was originally introduced by my colleague, the member for Casuarina. It is something that has certainly caused a lot of interest. It is good to see general support for the bill through the parliament, both from the opposition benches and from the Independent member for Nelson who made it very plain that he moved the bill to begin with, and the issue has been taken up by government.
However, I just remind the member for Nelson that what precipitated his action was a bit of a dare from Fred McCue on ABC radio. That was in some of the papers that I received. You were talking about hooning behaviour and I think Fred might have even dared you: ‘Why don’t you take this bill to parliament?’ I suppose you have to give credit where credit is due. Credit to the member for Nelson, but I suppose Fred McCue might also take some kudos. I can see the member for Nelson thinking about this, and I will try and fish out the transcripts. It is all there, I have done a bit of a study on it, member for Nelson.
However, the bill is here. It has taken some time, and that is because the government has been very intent on trying to get this right because it is a balance. I believe your original bill had immediate forfeiture of a vehicle on the spot, as it does in Queensland. As a government, we were keen to have the sanction of the person having their vehicle taken away for 48 hours on the second offence but, at the same time, allowing people to have an opportunity through a court process if they so desired, to prove their innocence. That is an important cornerstone of what we have to do.
Implicit in the bill is an undertaking that we will review it in the next 12 months. Therefore, if there needs to be some changes there, we will certainly make them and we will take that issue on board.
I will run through the contributions made by the various members. The member for Brennan talked about ramping the offences up a scale: for the first offence, someone gets a traffic infringement notice; on the second offence, they will get another traffic infringement notice but the sanction will be that, basically, they will have their car impounded for 48 hours; on the third offence it is three months; and then on the fourth offence the car would be forfeited completely. However, as the members for Brennan and Nelson said, the Queensland experience has been that, after the second and possibly the third offence, people do not keep on going down that particular path. These cars are the pride and joy of the hooners or hoons and these hooning vehicles are very valued. Losing that vehicle is not only a disadvantage in not having a car, but it also takes their pride and joy away from them. That is the sanction.
The member for Brennan also talked about the possible forfeiture of the vehicle being overly punitive. That is the last resort and, once again, the Queensland experience has been that not many people have gone down that particular path. The member for Brennan - and I think also the member for Nelson - also talked about parents being an innocent party in some of these hooning activities. One of the aspects that I put my attention to in this bill was to put in, as an administrative process, a letter that would be sent out to not only the person who was behind the wheel of the vehicle, but also the owner of the vehicle saying something like: ‘On 27 May this vehicle was involved in this behaviour’. Basically, parents, if they are the owners of the vehicle, would receive a letter setting out what would happen with subsequent offences.
As both the members for Brennan and Nelson said, this is something that can be worked out within the family, so to speak. I did not want parents knocking on my door saying: ‘This is your legislation. I knew nothing about what young Johnny was doing and next thing I know, I am landed in court and having the family vehicle taken away for 48 hours. We live way out in the sticks somewhere. I need it to get to work at 6 am and there are no buses where I live’. It is not as if the owners of the car will not have some sort of warning about what is going on and, hopefully, straighten it out themselves.
The member for Brennan said that, sometimes, if legislation does not work out, basically there is a blame on police. The public does sometimes very unfairly blame police. If something is happening in the neighbourhood they question why the police are not doing something about it. That is true, but the public has to inform the police of what is going on. Most people recognise the fantastic, difficult and sometimes unpleasant work that police do. I know that the police are going to get right behind this legislation because it addresses a problem that police have raised with government. As I said, we will have a review of this legislation in 12 months. We promise that up-front. If there are elements of it that need to be adjusted, we are a government that listens, is flexible and will take on board any concerns and move with them.
The member for Millner flagged the problem in his electorate with hooning and hooning behaviour. We have all had people knocking on our door or ringing us up saying: ‘Someone down the road is doing wheelies at the intersection. They are screeching down and leaving wobble marks on the road and what are you going to do about it?’ This legislation gives us some teeth to address some of those behaviours. Police can investigate these complaints and can certainly go and knock on someone’s door and say: ‘We have had a complaint about this. We have had reports that you are doing x, y and z and we will be looking very carefully at it. Are you aware of the sanctions? If you are booked a second time, you will lose your car’, and so on. It is a deterrent and, hopefully, is going to decrease the number of wheel marks at the street corners that we have all seen.
The member for Nelson talked about engaging young people and the whole range of projects within our community to engage young people in more productive behaviours and activities: getting them involved in fixing and building the cars and maybe even going down to Hidden Valley with the police - a few members here would have seen the police vehicle; it is pretty flash - and challenging the police for a lap or two. That is all positive behaviour. We are trying to involve people in an alternative; trying to engage them, if they are interested in racing vehicles and all the rest of it, in more productive behaviour.
The member for Nelson also mentioned the infringement notice. The administrative process that I talked about, hopefully, addresses that issue.
He also mentioned what he felt was the slow process of this bill through the House. I can assure the member for Nelson that, as a government and a Cabinet, we need to look very carefully at legislation that comes before us, take advice, hear views, and get a perspective on things. I have already mentioned one issue that I had about a letter to the owner of the vehicle letting them know that there was a problem. The police originally brought up operational concerns about flagging TINES - traffic infringement notices - and the compatibility with their computer system.
The issue of the fact that someone might be able to go through the court system and prolong the time when their car would be confiscated or impounded, was a message that I took on board. However, as I said before, as a government we felt there needed to be a balance between the confiscation of the vehicle for 48 hours in the first instance, then three months, and then, I guess, the people having the car taken off them permanently, with people’s rights to go to court and argue their innocence before a court. They were the balancing concerns, and it was something that, as government, we thought about very carefully. The member for Nelson might think there were inordinate delays here but, as government, we have to test things, think about things, get advice and, in the end, balance up all those aspects.
The member for Nelson also asked what is going to happen in the rural or remote areas in relation to the legislation. The information that I have is that it is predominately an urban problem. There is probably this behaviour going on in other areas. However, the advice that I have received is that, if someone’s vehicle is to be confiscated, there will be a court order and the police will confiscate that vehicle, As was outlined earlier - it may have been by the member for Brennan - the costs of confiscating that vehicle and putting it somewhere safe would be met by the hoon - the hooning party, let us say. I hope that answers the member for Nelson’s questions.
I welcome the contribution by the member for Port Darwin. She asked a number of pertinent questions. The main one that she asked about was in regard to what she says is rat racing. It is something that I would have to confess I have never been involved in. I have heard of rat running, where people try and beat traffic lights by going back ways, but I have not heard of this rat racing. There are definitions within the act about what constitutes hooning behaviour, and I will just read that …
Mr Dunham: The Treasurer showed us today.
Dr BURNS: What is that?
Mr Dunham: The Treasurer showed us today. Hooning behaviour; dragging around and showing off.
Dr BURNS: All right. In the draft act it talks about speed trials and races. Clause 8(1)(a) talks about a person not organising or promoting an event on a public road or a public place unless it is authorised. It talks about a whole range of aspects that I do not think would be authorised, so that any person organising or participating in such things would be contravening this particular act. There are other things that constitute hooning behaviour, such as burnouts, damaging the surface of a road or a public place - this is where people pour oil and other things on the road to try and get speed to try and increase the burnout smoke that comes off the tyres. There are certain specified offences in here, including this racing aspect, which are illegal and will be penalised under this act.
Apart from that, if people are speeding, the police have a whole range of other sanctions that they can use elsewhere in the Traffic Act to book those people if they are speeding or driving dangerously. This hooning behaviour is specified, but that does not stop police from pinning them for other offences.
The member for Port Darwin asked about noise emanation. It is not part of this particular legislation. I flagged that I am prepared to keep looking at this issue. It is an issue that keeps arising. People complain about the boom boxes, in particular, within cars. It is a bit of a ‘mooning’ offence. When you have hear one of these things go past your house, all your glasses have rattled in the special cut glass cupboard and, by the time you go out there the vehicle has gone. I am prepared to look at what happens in other states and consider that. A number of people have complained to me on this particular issue.
In terms of exhaust, I believe that there is probably existing sanctions within the Traffic Act for noisy exhausts. However, if the member for Port Darwin wants me to, I will correspond formally with her and let her know about that.
That is about all I have to say in relation to what other members have contributed to this debate, except to say that I appreciate the support that has been given on all sides. I have one amendment and we will move into committee stage.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: The committee has before it the Traffic Amendment Bill No 3 (Serial 200), together with a schedule of amendment No 70 circulated by the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Dr Burns.
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
Dr BURNS: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 70.1. The reason for this amendment is that, within this particular bill, the same offence attracts different levels of penalties with repeated offences; that is, with the first offence a traffic infringement notice is issued, with the second offence there is another traffic infringement notice that is issued but the car can be impounded for 48 hours. Similarly, with the third offence, it is three months and, with the fourth offence it can be forfeited. This is the reason why section 53(5) is being inserted so it recognises that, with subsequent offences, there are different levels of penalties.
Amendment agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Bill reported with an amendment; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
MOTION
Note Paper– Sessional Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development Report –
Issues associated with the progressive entry into the Northern Territory of cane toads
Note Paper– Sessional Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development Report –
Issues associated with the progressive entry into the Northern Territory of cane toads
Continued from 16 October 2003.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Mr Deputy Speaker, this has been a most disappointing report. It is quite a thick report for those members who have had it tabled on their desk back in October. I would suspect that it would be a rare member of parliament who actually has it on their table now. It really goes to show how this whole business was being conducted. I can recall, when this was developed as a term of reference for the environment committee, saying that it is my suspicion the report will say it is inevitable that cane toads will advance on Darwin and other northern wetland areas. There might be some measures to ameliorate and educate the public, but the inevitability was there. Sadly, I also made some allusions that it could have been, basically, just a ‘make work’ scheme for the environment committee so they would go and do something that had a fairly predictable outcome, instead of looking at some of the major environmental issues in this place - and I would put weeds right up the top of that.
We have a massive environmental problem in this place with weeds. We have significant problems still with feral animals, of which one is bufo marinus, the cane toad. However, there are other pests in this place that are feral animals, and we have significant problems with saltwater intrusion into the Mary River area. Therefore, there are lots of issues. There are issues relating to the Alligator River’s province that has come up in this House. I would have thought that cane toads was media worthy, noisy, causes great angst amongst the population in Darwin and still does, and it was used pretty much to send us, as a committee, not so much on a fool’s errand, but to keep us busy thinking we were actually going to achieve something.
My comments now in continuation might seem a bit different in theme to those in October. In October, I still had some sense that the government would actually do something in accord with the recommendations we put. That is, obviously, a foolish hope because it would appear that the government is really not interested in our report. The things that we talked about that we thought were urgent, were talked about in advance of the report being table in this place. We took it to the chair, for instance, before estimates - so we were going back a year already - and said that matters relating to an exclusion barrier on the Cobourg Peninsula should be considered and put in the budget. It is to her great shame that the chair gave us a wink and a nod and said: ‘Yes, that has been taken care of’. We then turned up at estimates and quizzed the minister who said: ‘No, I am not putting any money in for that’. We had also put various things regarding the education of the public in there. There had been a few things. Freds Pass Show had a thing on cane toads but, really, we have not advanced.
If you look at the stuff that was put out under a previous government, and how good and adaptable that was, and also the scientific work that was done - and it was enormous – and how good that was, you would see that this government has paid lip service to this problem. There was a whispering campaign that we would drop the ball on cane toads, that if only we had done something early we could have stopped it. There were some defamatory observations made about Dr. Bill Freeland, a man whom this parliament should hold in great admiration for the work he did in this area. At the same time, this mob who thought we could pull it up along the whole length of the Queensland border, could not bring themselves to look at a couple of kilometres of exclusion fencing on a peninsula.
I despair to some extent. There are immense issues of environmental consequence out there that we are not looking at, that we should be. The inevitable conclusion on cane toads we could have written on the back of cigarette packs three years ago. Sending us into the bush on various consultative jaunts did not achieve a lot other than education of some of the members. Yes, we have cane toads and yes, they are a problem that we are going to have to live with, and no, we are not even going to have a go at fencing the Cobourg Peninsula. I would have thought the risk was worth taking. My colleague, the member for Nelson, and I talked and drew a little sketches of how you would design it. We knew full well that the word ‘marinus’ in bufo marinus’s name meant that he was tolerant to salt water. We get the minister patronisingly and gratuitously standing up and giving us a little lecture about how these things are called marinus because they can swim in salt water.
If he read my contribution to this debate back in October, or even been in the parliament when it occurred, he would have known they were among the things we discussed. We thought it was worth a shot and that the risk was worth taking. There are a number of other issues that we could look at - exclusion of that precinct - where we could probably keep out some of the noxious weeds and other things, and cane toads was just a means to get there. But, no. That is an opportunity lost. I suspect cane toads are prevalent right through the Top End now. They are notorious hitchhikers and they would be everywhere. We are very proud of our fishing exploits, with people travelling into the bush and going fishing, and they come back with swags and boats and other paraphernalia, and we know that that is pretty much how they got into the Roper area from Borroloola.
It is with some disappointment that I have to be so negative about this. It is quite a substantial report, and it is good for kids doing study. It is the sort of stuff you could put on your book shelf and give people out of curiosity or interest. It is a great report to flick through and find some of the eminent work that has been done by people like Dr Freeland.
In terms of its recommendations, it was a pretty extravagant and wasteful exercise because, at the end of it, our recommendations for educational material - that we adapt some of the material that was pretty good and in use, for instance, in places like Jabiru where we visited – and that we attempt to exclude them from certain areas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
This parliament owes an apology to Dr Bill Freeland because he did an immense amount of work and, as a jurisdiction, the Territory did an immense amount of work.
As the maps of distribution will show - for those who have actually opened it up and had a read - the cane toad will be in every state in Australia - no doubt! Maybe Tasmania might keep them out, but they will be in every state in Australia. We had expert advice that it has probably occurred now. They are into South Australia and Western Australia by now, I would have thought. Apart from that little gap called Bass Strait, they are now an Australian pest.
It is a bit sad and tragic that the Labor government attempted to exploit what they thought was a failure on the part of the previous government to their own political advance by saying: ‘Aha! Cane toads, a gift from the CLP’.
Sadly, lots and lots was done previously. The discussion about magic bullets and adaption of DNA and various natural devices to control the cane toad are all good and well, but you have to remember that this thing was brought in as a natural control and containment device in the first place. The last thing you want to do is go from problem A - bring in the cane toad to control little pests in the cane fields - to problem B - bring in some disease of some type that takes out native animals. I would be very cautious about grabbing solutions out of the air if I was this government. Even the translocation of native animals to islands off our Top End has immense problems. The report does show you that the sign-off from the Commonwealth was not available when that translocation occurred, so there are some problems taking quolls to an environment where they were not found previously. They are a very robust animal themselves and quite a cunning and ferocious eater. Some of the quick-fix, front-page solutions should be thought out carefully. If people had done that back in 1938 or whenever, we would not have the problem now. However, they did not, and we do.
So let us get down to it. Cane toads - we have put it behind, the government did not want to hear. In the last three days on various Notice Papers I have had, this has gone from No 9 to 5, which was to be tomorrow, to today at No 4. It has at least got onto the paper so we can at least talk about it. Let us get past this. The report is done; it will sit on the shelf for curious students. The recommendations will not be adopted by government, so let us get on with life and look at this committee putting something into place other than to now look at an EPA - which is an election commitment - and run us on a political agenda.
We should focus environmental - pragmatically environmental - and we should look at some of the big problems we are facing out there. There is a swag of work. It is good work, and I believe you will get bipartisan approval out of a lot of it. It would enhance the bona fides and credibility of this parliament if we did that sort of stuff. I do not apologise for my negativity in this resumption of debate because, as a committee, we have been used in a most unparliamentary way by this referral. For those who want to contribute to this debate - good, I hope the report has helped to educate you. However, let us look to the future, and at what the next report of our sessional committee might be, and hope that it comes up with recommendations that are so convincing to government that at least they adopt them.
Dr BURNS (Parks and Wildlife): Mr Deputy Speaker, the government has examined the report by the Sessional Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development which, as everyone knows, is about issues associated with the progressive entry into the Northern Territory of cane toads. I believe the report provides a comprehensive review of the likely effect the expanding presence of cane toads will have on the environment of the Northern Territory, and suggests ways of managing the impacts of the toads.
The government recognises that cane toads threaten the way Territorians currently enjoy the environment. The arrival of cane toads in the major population centres of Palmerston and Darwin will mean that most Territorians will share the nuisance experienced by the citizens of Borroloola for a decade, Katherine and further down the track within the last couple of years, and by Queenslanders for over 50 years. It also means that all of us in the Top End will have to regularly deal with a creature that looks unpleasant and is poisonous.
The report finds that, although there has been extensive research on cane toads, there is still no effective way of controlling their spread, and no way of stopping toad populations from influencing the environment. Nonetheless, I believe the measures that the government has adopted and funded provide ways of ameliorating or mitigating the effects of cane toads in some areas and circumstances. Also, as I will outline, this government is putting money towards research. I believe we have become a focus for renewed activity at a national level to address issues related to the cane toad. That is something that the member for Drysdale has chosen to ignore, or he is not listening. Maybe if he listens now, he might just find out a bit more of where things have progressed.
The report finds that, although there has been extensive research on cane toads, there is research in train, both in CSIRO and other places around Australia, looking at different ways of biological controls of the cane toads, including viral agents and other agents which will stop the process of metamorphosis, and that could have a profound effect on the cane toad. The report also highlights the need to collaborate with the Commonwealth and other states afflicted with this problem to develop biological controls. The government agrees with most of the report’s findings, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain how the government is implementing the committee’s findings and recommendations.
The Territory government is providing $100 000 per year for each of the next three years to fund biological control research in partnership with the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. That is $100 000 more than the member for Drysdale, when they were in government - it is $100 000 more for that. I did not hear him flagging any of the money that they had invested into research when they were in government and sat on their hands in relation to this particular problem. If the Commonwealth and other states combine resources, I believe we can achieve a very substantial biological control research program. It is my firm belief that any real chance of controlling the cane toad invasion must involve the support and cooperation of other jurisdictions. Cane toads were once seen as a Queensland problem. They have now become a national problem, potentially affecting all mainland jurisdictions. That scenario involves climate change, and we know that these toads are very resilient and very adaptive.
One of the report’s key recommendations was to have the cane toad reclassified from a pest to a menace or threatening process under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. I raised this matter at the recent National Resources Management Ministerial Council in Adelaide and successfully - I will repeat again - successfully proposed to state and federal ministers a national approach to dealing with the issue of cane toads. At that meeting, the council resolved that the national standing committee on vertebrate pests will review the current threat posed by cane toads, review the state of research in the development of tools to abate the threat, identify gaps in the processes and assess, very importantly, the costs and benefits of options for priority action at a national level.
Therefore, here is an effort by this government initiated originally by my predecessor, the member for Casuarina, and taken up by me with some zest, gusto and success, about getting Commonwealth recognition and approach to this particular problem. I believe that this will bear fruit. This is in stark contrast to the approach of the previous government. How many ministerial conferences did they attend on this issue? The member for Drysdale talked about, once again in his conspiracy theory fashion, some whispering campaign against Mr Bill Freeland. There has been no whispering campaign against Mr Freeland. No one has ever accused Mr Freeland of anything. What we are accusing the previous government of is not acting in a cogent way to try and get a national approach on this problem long before the cane toads ever came into the Northern Territory. They can wave their hands and try and divert some sort of attention on to Mr Freeland. It is all to do with the previous government and their lack of action.
A member interjecting.
Dr BURNS: It is really laughable because, in an interview on Friday, 22 November 2002, the now Deputy Leader of the Opposition - this must have been part of his deputy leadership bid. I quote from the interview on ABC radio in Alice Springs, Friday, 22 November 2002. It is titled ‘Cane Toads Hop in with Labor’:
Cane Toads Hop in with Labor …
This is the brilliance of the member for Greatorex trying to assert that, with the change of government, suddenly cane toads started hopping into the Northern Territory. How ridiculous - how absolutely preposterous. I will quote from the genius of the member for Greatorex. He also cited the spread of cane toads into the Territory but refused to acknowledge that the cane toads were a problem while the CLP government was in power. I quote:
We did not have them because it was not a Territory problem at this stage, and it was never considered that
they would come this far this quickly. The incursions have only occurred in the last 12 to 18 months, and I
believe that a parliamentary committee could have at least looked at it in greater detail; and being a
bipartisan committee, would have come in with some recommendations.
Then the reporter mentioned at the end of this particular tirade by the member for Greatorex that she was dodging cane toads in the camp site in Borroloola at least five or six years previous to 2002.
So much for the member for Greatorex and his leadership bid - lovely photo of him - but just far from the truth, trying to assert that cane toads had come in with the Labor government. It is the Labor government that gave the terms of reference to the committee. It is the Labor government that has put substantial funding - at least $180 000 over the next three years - to address this issue. None of those resources were ever applied by the previous government. They were unable to get a national approach or consensus about approaching the cane toad problem.
It is a victory for this government, and for my colleague, the member for Casuarina, who first started moving on this about a year ago. I was happy to work on the very good work of the member for Casuarina and I commend him for it.
I believe that the positive response of the council members - I am talking at the federal, state and territory level - showed that there was now a greater understanding at a national level at the threat posed by cane toads which had previously been seen as primarily a Queensland problem. I was pleased with the unanimous support - it was unanimous support for this proposal - and particularly that of Western Australia which will probably be the next state to face an invasion of the cane toad. They are very pleased with the Territory raising this issue at a national level and they commended us for it. The federal environment minister, Dr Kemp, was also highly positive about the proposal and congratulated the Territory on our initiative.
Unlike previous CLP governments who sat on this matter for many years, the Martin Labor government has now taken a lead nationally on this issue and shown that we are committed to dealing seriously with the issue of cane toads, and are prepared to raise the matter with our state and federal counterparts. I will continue to do so.
The government is also committing $80 000 to support the development and testing of prototype traps that could reduce environmental pressure caused by cane toads. The traps, which have not been scientifically tested in the past, may provide a positive solution for individuals wishing to keep their own backyards free of these troublesome pests. There are a number of these traps out there, and there are a number in development, but they have never been properly evaluated. I believe this money is an investment, and a lot of Territorians will grab hold of these traps and try to take measures to keep their backyards free of cane toads.
In addition, I have a wonderful project undertaken by some classes at Moil Primary School about keeping environments within the precinct of the Moil Primary School and the Moil Preschool free of cane toads. I commend those students and their teacher on this particular project. People are getting out and doing things and we will be supporting that.
The government has also approved the Northern Territory hosting a national conference on cane toads to facilitate the cooperation, and attract funding that I have already mentioned, between government agencies and research institutions in tackling this national pest.
The Parks and Wildlife Service has developed a comprehensive Action Plan to deal with the threat of cane toads. We have already mentioned what the plan covers: the national coordination, the monitoring of the spread, the research into the impacts on biodiversity, investigational support for the development of short- and long-term control methods, conservation actions for species most at threat from the toad, and education to assist people to live with the presence of the toad.
I was honoured to launch one of these education programs at the museum probably a month or two ago. It is very comprehensive; it helps people to identify non-toads, or should we say frogs. Most people find frogs very beautiful animals. They are very essential to our environment and, to some degree, a barometer of our environment. We are moving on the education issues and we are tackling them head-on. There has also been a range of material that has been printed that I have given out in my electorate and at the Rapid Creek Markets. There is a lot of interest in education; what people can do themselves in relation to this pest.
We are also looking at Aboriginal people to manage their important faunas and implement quarantine procedures on their islands. Most members would be aware that there has been some funding put towards the Tiwi Islands for their barge landing there to help stop the spread of cane toads on those beautiful islands. Basically, not all the islands are beyond the natural reach of the toads, but there are a substantial number that are. There are selected islands that will be kept cane toad-free through a funded quarantine program, and also the Island Ark program where threatened species are moved on to these offshore islands. It was my pleasure to go to the English Company Islands - it must have been about a year ago - and take part in the release of northern quolls on that island. The member for Karama was there; it was a fantastic day. I spent a lot of time with Terry Yumbulul, the traditional owner for those particular areas. In contrast to what the member for Drysdale has said, the Aboriginal people on those islands are right behind this project of the release of the quoll. They know that it is a very special project and they are very pleased to host the Island Ark project. We are all aware that the northern quoll is at some risk of extinction, so this government is taking action, through the Island Ark program, to preserve them. Until controls on the cane toad can be implemented, they will be safe and sound on these islands.
I have already mentioned some of the quarantine and surveillance issues in preventing their spread to these islands. There is some education of interpretive material in Aboriginal languages in that area. I have already mentioned the Tiwi Land Council’s effort to keep their barge landing free. They have received a $100 000 grant from the Natural Heritage Trust, and I am sure they will use that to great effect.
There are ongoing projects being conducted by Parks and Wildlife, Charles Darwin University, interstate academics, and Parks Australia North investigating the biological impacts of the toad. There is interstate and Territory research involved in finding out about the impacts of the toad and their spread.
Having said that, we also believe it will have relatively little impact on tourism in the Northern Territory. In Queensland, which has the toads, it has not really affected their tourism industry. However, all of us would not like to see cane toads competing with our natural flora and fauna, and I am sure our visitors also feel that way.
We have consulted with PowerWater about securing our drinking water supply and making sure that cane toads do not contaminate our water supply in those areas that may be susceptible.
I mentioned the Island Ark project.
The recommendation that the member for Drysdale said we should have implemented was the cane toad-proof fence across the neck of the Cobourg Peninsula. Cabinet and government looked at this and considered it very carefully, and respected the recommendation of the committee, and also spoke with the landowners in that area who were keen to see this fence across the Cobourg Peninsula. However, as the member for Drysdale foreshadowed, and through our own experience of what we have found out at Borroloola, these cane toads can swim around in salt water. When there is inundation and fences are knocked down, they can swim through fences on the mainland. When bushfires come and there may be posts that fall down and knock sections of the fence down, they are able to hop through. The other aspect is that to preclude the little toadlets from moving through the barrier, the consistency of the fence would have to be just a few millimetres thick. You could not do it with, say, chicken wire fencing; it would actually have to be a lot finer than that.
There were some logistic issues in relation to erecting a cane toad-proof fence. It was said we should give it a go, but it would involve several million dollars of both capital and recurrent expenditure. At the end of the day, priorities are always about trying to balance competing interests. This was a very serious recommendation made by the committee but we had to look at the use of government funds for public resources and, with the state of infrastructure that we were left by the previous government, we really need to be spending up on infrastructure, which we have been doing on roads and houses and infrastructure spend throughout the Territory, which the Treasurer announced today. The decision was that we would not go with the cane toad-proof fence.
A school-based education kit has been developed on cane toads. This kit will address the toad’s environmental impact risk and habitats and what the community can do to mitigate against their spread.
Another recommendation of the report was that community groups be encouraged to adopt a waterway. The government believed that such efforts may be able to provide some local and short-term control of cane toads in urban areas, but may have limited effect in isolated areas where the impact of the cane toads on biodiversity are likely to be the greatest.
In relation to the recommendation in the report regarding the need for cooperation and collaboration, the effect on our lifestyle and the potential threat to biodiversity is a high priority for this government. Therefore, the Parks and Wildlife Service will be conducting research into the effects of cane toads on biodiversity, and providing assistance with other projects.
As I said in my introduction, the arrival of cane toads in the major population centres of the Territory, including Katherine, Palmerston and Darwin, means the majority of Top Enders will experience a nuisance suffered by many rural residents over the last decade. Unfortunately, cane toads are a fact of life in Queensland, northern New South Wales and, in the foreseeable future, they may expend their range into Western Australia. The programs developed and funded by the government will give the Territory the best chance of minimising the risk of irreversible environmental damage as a community adjusting to the reality of living with this pest until an effective biological control is developed.
In conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker, I support that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, he nearly had me convinced. The minister, for a change, got animated. I thought for a minute he had had a charisma transplant. He was standing up and he was getting animated about ‘we are leading the nation’ he said. Very good dramatics. However, what he said at the end convinced me that what the CLP did was exactly the right thing. What you said at the end, minister, bears out what has been said all the way through the whole cane toad debate in the Northern Territory from whenever it started many years ago. All you have said you are doing, as a government, is how to live with the impact of cane toads. When it came to the crunch about how government could spend some money to actually stop the cane toads, what did we hear? We heard - I wrote some of the words down somewhere.
This was on the issue of the Cobourg fence: it involved several million dollars in capital expenditure and several million more in recurrent funding that would be needed; government has to balance the competing interests of Territory needs and the use of government funds; we have to consider very carefully. Well, that is where you bombed out, minister, because you had a chance, on the recommendation of the report that is before parliament today, to actually do something to try and stop the cane toads. What did you do? What did government do? What did Labor do? Bailed out - absolutely bailed out! A committee made up of a majority of Labor members, endorsed the recommendation to say: ‘Let us create an island, an inland island. Let us build a fence. We do not know whether it will work, but we think it is worth a go’.
The government considered it very carefully in Cabinet, you said: very carefully, competing interests, lots of money. And what did you do? You said ‘Nah, not worth the money, so let us not go there’. What happened previous to that? Well, I will tell you what happened. You talk about the $100 000 you are spending - huge amounts of money. If you were committed - what do we have in the budget? We have $200 000 in 2004-05, and $110 000 ongoing to counter the effects of the spread of cane toads in the Territory. Out of a budget of how big, minister? Well, leave me alone! $200 000, what a joke. If you were committed you would have millions in there. Do you know who you could give it to?
I tell you, if you have read the report, I asked the question of CSIRO on a teleconference - and the chairman will back this up. What would happen regarding your research if you had extra millions of dollars to find a biological solution? Would it shorten the time frame? ‘Yes it would …’ was the answer ‘… without doubt’. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, go and give them a couple of million dollars a year and you will have a biological solution, if it works, in a shorter time frame than currently.
Dr Burns: It is a national problem.
Mr BALDWIN: Oh yes, we can talk about national. I like the way you fob all this off. You follow the recommendations of the task force, because you know why? The task force was struggling to come up with anything definite. It was the education program, all about combating the impact and living with cane toads. That is what the report should be called: ‘How to live with cane toads and minimise the impact’. What are you going to do? You are going to throw a couple of bucks at trialling some traps. Good thing, but that is living with cane toads. You are going to talk about education: how you can fence off your property to minimise the impact and save the frogs within your own area.
If you were serious, minister, the cane toad exclusion fence on the Cobourg Peninsula would have been a major component of the budget that was delivered today. But what did we get? Waffle words!
You stand up in here and say: ‘CLP never spent any money. At least we can put $100 000 into bloody developing traps’. Well, leave me alone! We spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on researching this, which is borne out by the report which was conducted by an eminent scientist called Dr Bill Freeland. And the staff of Parks and Wildlife at hearings told us - Madam Chairman, you will remember - of the great work that was done - hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. The conclusion that we came to at the end of the day was: it looks like we are going to have to live with cane toads until we can find a solution that is probably a biological solution. That is CSIRO.
Do you know where Dr Bill Freeland is now? He lives here in the Northern Territory, of course. He will never leave it, he loves it, let alone that you sacked him. You sacked him, you mob. Do you know what he is doing? He is doing the impact study on cane toads for the Western Australian government. How do you like that? You had better ring up your Labor colleagues over in Western Australia and say: ‘Whoa, hang on, we sacked this bloke. We do not think he has the right qualifications’ ...
Mr Stirling interjecting.
Mr BALDWIN: You sacked him. The Deputy Chief Minister of the Labor government sacked him because you had …
Mr Stirling: That is what you did. You black banned everybody you ever sacked, you grub!
Mr BALDWIN: You sacked him. You personally sacked him. You, Deputy Chief Minister, called him in and you sacked him.
Members interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Yes, we can have less of the yelling.
Ms LAWRIE: The member for Daly knows he should be addressing his remarks to the Chair. He is out of control.
Mr BALDWIN: Madam Speaker, they were addressed through you.
Madam SPEAKER: Well, do not shout at me please.
Mr BALDWIN: No, I won’t. I am only shouting to overcome the interjections from the rude member for Nhulunbuy.
For the minister to come in here and waffle on about the great things he has done and what little the CLP has done is just absolute nonsense.
Dr Burns: We got it on the national agenda.
Mr BALDWIN: ‘We got it on the national agenda’. Yes, okay. Good on you. What has been the outcome? What has been the outcome?
Ms Lawrie: National task force.
Mr BALDWIN: National task force? Okay. Tell me where the cane toads are. They are in Humpty Doo, that is where they are. They are in Humpty Doo. When you have an opportunity to put a fence up at Cobourg Peninsula, what do you do? You take consideration of all of the other impacts on the financial situation of the Labor government. What enormous rot! The one chance you had to prove yourself - the one chance. You come in here and say the CLP should have stopped the cane toads, should have built a big fence, should have dug a big trench. Okay. You had a chance to build a little fence, some millions of dollars in capital expenditure, some other monies in recurrent funding to maintain it. What did you do? You are a vacant space, that is what you are. You cannot make a decision when it comes to it. And why? Because you thought it would not be feasible. Well, hello! Sounds like history repeating itself to me. What are we getting in the budget? We are getting $200 000 to talk about having a look at some traps and all that sort of thing, and we get Island Ark which is a good thing – it is a good thing – because you have to do things to ameliorate the impact of living with cane toads.
We are stuck with them, the same way as New South Wales, Queensland and the top end of South Australia is now stuck with them, and the same way that Western Australia, by the end of this year more than likely - if not sooner - is also going to be stuck with them until a biological solution can be found. If you want to come in here prancing about how good you are, put a couple of millions dollars per annum on the table to the CSIRO, because the report and the evidence will show you that, if they can get more money into research, you will shorten up the time to find a solution for this problem. But no, no, no, not even a couple of million for a fence.
The result of a report could have been predicted at the start. There have been some recommendations about some national coordination, which is a good thing. I am not denying that. It is everybody’s problem at the end of the day. The Territory should not have to wear it. That has been said over and over, over the last couple of decades that I can remember, having lived here for four-and-a-half decades or more: the importance of a communication strategy so that Territorians understand the effects of cane toads and, more importantly, how to live with them because they are going to have to, and getting the designation of the cane toad changed in the national interest. Okay, that is good. However, at the end of the day, cane toads will be everywhere, except perhaps Alice Springs because they do not really like that cold weather. They certainly will be in Darwin in a very short period and they are already in the outer rural environs now.
It was a good experience to put on record all of the evidence that came before the committee. No one that I can recall - and I stand to be corrected - could actually come up with a solution that would work today. Of all the scientists and the frog experts - and we have had some great people who have studied frogs all their lives, overseas people, CSIRO, you name it, we had them - none of them had a solution today. It is no different from the situation we were in two decades ago. No one had a solution, but much research was done - all of the former work that had been done was recognised by the committee,. In fact, the Northern Territory jurisdiction is probably the most well educated in terms of the research that has been done. There is always a need for more and, certainly, there will be a lot more research in the future as we move towards finding some sort of solution to this introduced species.
We are no closer today than we were 20 years ago. I look forward to research bodies like CSIRO coming up with a solution which will take many years, not only to find, but then also to test so it does not cross-infect species. In the meantime, we will live with cane toads and have to ameliorate the impact in whatever way we can. $200 000 this year ain’t worth a jot, if that is all this government is going to put into it out of their interest in providing for big-noting themselves about their concern about cane toads and that it is all the CLP’s fault. What a load of rubbish, Madam Speaker.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to address a couple of issues in respect of the report.
First, I will mention that Parks and Wildlife at the Freds Pass Show did a great job. Their display on cane toads was excellent. If they left the large cane toad in the back of a ute and had its lights shine it up when you put the brakes on, what a cane toad looks like would certainly get around town quickly. It was quite a large statue, or papier mache version of the toad; it was quite catching. They had a good display of all the different life stages of the toad. There is a problem with recognising native frogs and the cane toads at the young stage. I must admit it is pretty hard when a cane toad is young to distinguish it from native frogs.
On that side of things, the government is doing a good job and needs to continue. It also, I hope, is warning people of the dangers of pets and cane toads. As a lot has been said about whether dogs and other pets will die or not, people need some factual material on that matter. We have heard that you can wash the dog’s mouth out but, if you live on a rural block and you are in town working, you might come home and find that the dog is dead. Factual information on those issues is required, especially for people who have dogs like Jack Russells that will sniff out and bite anything that moves. That is the sort of information that pet owners would like to see.
I was interested to see that the government has put some money into traps. The issue of traps, especially for home gardens, is something worth looking at. I hope those studies are ongoing, and they also look at traps that can be used on rural blocks as well, not just urban blocks. During our travels, we heard about different types of traps - anything from trenches, to holes with plastic linings full of water, to lights to attract the frogs, to attractants, and to pheromones as a possible way of attracting frogs into a trap. We need to investigate all that sort of science and put money into it. That is important. It may not help in the big picture, but it certainly may help control toads in the local area. We heard about one park where there was a ranger who was able to control those toads for all the time he was there. Of course, as soon as that person went, if you did not have someone that keen, things changed. That is all stuff the government should continue to look at and spend money on.
My concern is really about the fence. It is a crying shame that the government could not build this fence. When we went out to Kakadu, I remember people saying: ‘Let us build a fence’. They were not people asking for a million dollars. You know what their idea of a fence was? We get some second hand corrugated iron, the grader to run a V-line straight along the row where the fence would go, put the corrugated iron back in the trench, and then run the grader along and push the soil up. That is not a million dollar job. That is people living in the bush who know that these things would cost a lot of money and who come up with an idea which would cost bugger all. And we have not taken any notice of it.
What we have done is applied the old bureaucrat method: ‘Well, we need a fence there. It will be stainless steel. It will have to be 6 mm gauge and the posts will have to be galvanised to this size’, etcetera. ‘We will have to get a study, we will have to get an independent report, we will have to get this and this and this’ and, by that time, we have spent a million dollars.
However, here are people who live in the area, who came to our committee and said: ‘Why don’t you have a go at this? You could do it cheaply. We can try it’. That is what we should have done: tried it. It would not have cost a fortune, and the good thing about it is we could have had some of the traps along that fence line to see if they work. It would not just be a fence; they were talking about trenches, traps, a station next to the grid where you entered the park …
Mr Dunham: A vehicle wash-down bay.
Mr WOOD: Yes, and you could have employed someone doing that job. We should not forget that we are talking about one of our own national parks. We can argue about Kakadu. Kakadu is a huge park run by the Commonwealth. But here is our own national park. Surely we have enough proud in that park to say: ‘let us our darndest to protect our own national park’, a park that people prize. It is a park which has limited admissions to and there are good reasons for that. There is part of the park that people pay a lot of money to go to, at the Seven Spirits resort. It is a park that has a long heritage, not only Aboriginal but also European were involved in settlements in the Cobourg Peninsula. It is an extremely important national park from the Territory perspective. Isn’t it beholden on our government to do its darndest to try and protect one of our great assets? Surely it would not have cost that much, considering the budget today says that the Commonwealth gave us another $34m of GST revenue, which created a surplus. Well, surely a bit of that money would have been well worth spent on having a go.
I know that our bufos marinus is supposed to float in salt water. We do not know whether it swam to those islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria near Borroloola. What was stated at the meetings we had was that they went out on freshwater when there was a flood, so they got so far in water that they could survive in and they were able to get to those islands without much difficulty, because the floodwaters from the McArthur River went very close. I am not sure that is deadly accurate but, if you are saying they got out there because they swam through miles of salt water, well, that is not the impression I got from the people who live in that area. We are basing our thoughts or our objections to this fence working on what happened over there and, therefore, the same thing would happen on the Cobourg Peninsula. I do not think we have definite proof that would occur.
However, again, even if they could get around the fence this time, if we had a series of traps, we have rangers working in that national park, and that is what you have rangers for. This is not the only feral animal that occur in parks - there would be rabbits, foxes, dingos, whatever. You would have some people working to control feral pests. I believe that, if you had a program where some of the ranger’s job was to check traps and try to keep an eye out for any movements of cane toads, that would be part of the strategy of the fence.
Also, besides just looking at this from the Territory perspective, I would have thought this fence could have been used as a scientific trial for, perhaps, areas in Western Australia that may be looking at ways of protecting some similar geographical features, like the Cobourg Peninsula, if there are some. They would be able to learn from what we did. By putting up a fence, we could have used it as a trial for other places in Australia, or the Territory, as a scientific experiment to see whether we could keep cane toads out. Perhaps we could have asked for money from other states like Western Australia, or the Commonwealth, to help fund this fence, especially when we are saying that we are trying to protect a national park. Again, we could have tried the fence such as the one that was recommended to us by some of the locals at Jabiru. Basically, that was that they were looking at second-hand corrugated iron put into a trench. We know that the cane toads cannot jump over a certain height. There certainly could have been secondary barriers to that fence as well.
I am disappointed, because, as a bipartisan committee, we all agree on most things. It was one of our recommendations. There was not any dissenting report on this issue. It is interesting to note that people out bush must think the Berrimah Line exists because, when you go to a meeting, people who are ordinary folk say: ‘Will you give us a try? This is your last chance to protect it’. There was John Christopherson and another gentleman from Jabiru, who have both worked in that area for a long time, who said they thought it was a great idea, and we have rejected it. I feel really sorry for them because they came up with a practical idea. They did not have enough money to do it themselves and the government had an opportunity to do the right thing and give it a try. If it had failed well, fair enough. You can say: ‘Well, it is obviously not going to work; they do swim around the ends, and climb the fence. We cannot keep them out by vehicles, but we gave it a go’. You would have to give it a proper go and run it for one, two or three years on a trial basis. At least we could say we tried.
Our Cobourg Peninsula park is worth that effort. I believe we forget and have lost a bit of loyalty for our parks here. This park now, basically, will be riddled with cane toads. Is that really what we want to tell people? It would make it such a great tourist attraction if it was a park on the mainland that was free of cane toads. Wouldn’t that, in itself, be a great attraction for people? They might still be able to see sand goannas in numerous numbers. Therefore, I believe we should have spent that money, and it might have been money that we would get back in tourism simply because we have one of the few places in the Top End on the mainland that would be cane toad free.
On the other issue, it is good that the government is spending money. The Commonwealth is putting money into quarantining some of our islands. Certainly, that is going to be, from now on, an ongoing issue. We cannot say we will fund that for one or two years. That sort of program is going to require funding pretty well forever and a day until, hopefully, we get some biological control. I hope the government will continue that type of funding because it certainly is necessary.
However, keeping the islands quarantined is not an excuse for trying to keep parts of the mainland quarantined, because the flora and fauna on our islands is definitely not the same, necessarily. It might similar, but it is not the same as on the mainland. There are no kangaroos, for instance, on Bathurst or Melville Islands. From memory, I do not think you even see the large sand goanna. A large goanna on Bathurst Island, where people got excited for lunch, was about this long. A large sand goanna at Daly River was about this long. That is the difference; there are different flora and fauna on those islands. Just protecting those islands will not mean that you are necessarily protecting all the flora and fauna of the Northern Territory.
Madam Speaker, I would like to finish off by saying the government, in some areas, is doing a good job on the advertising, and on doing some experimental work. However, that is relatively easy; there is no big gamble there. You are not going to lose too many friends with a few ads on TV, some nice pamphlets, and people dressed up in uniforms at the show handing out pamphlets and giving out information.
However, when it came to the crunch, and we had to deal with an issue which is not about vote catching because the two or three people out there who wanted a fence are probably not going to be the end of the world to the government when it comes to an election, we let them down. We let the Territory down protecting one of our parks; at least in saying this park is worth us giving it a try. We have not done that for the people in the area: the traditional owners, the visitors and the other local people who live and work out there. I am afraid that is very disappointing and will come back to haunt the Labor Party when it is looking for votes, when people say: ‘Well, you did not do anything about the cane toads on Cobourg Peninsula, why should be support you anymore?’
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I place on the record my comments and observations in relation to the report by the Sessional Committee on Environmental and Sustainable Development. As a local bloke, born and bred in the Northern Territory, I have not really had any real exposure to cane toads, or the effect that cane toads have on the environment. My first experience when it was discussed was when I was on the AFANT committee. A fellow who was unknown to me then but, obviously, was well known to the CLP government and many public servants, Dr Bill Freeland, came along and gave a very detailed lecture about the effect of cane toads, their life cycles, and what we can expect to do. He talked about the enormous amount of scientific work which had occurred at the Commonwealth, and also at the state and territory level, and about living with cane toads, minimising their impact and also that, ultimately, there would have to be some sort of biological control. It seemed absolutely no doubt that this fellow was a hard-working public servant. There was an enormous amount of work that had been done. His conclusions were considered - and it turns out now in retrospect - very accurate.
I then was fortunate and privileged enough to come to this place as the member for Goyder. One of the very first things that occurred, was there was an expectation created by the Labor government that this new committee was going to deal with this issue, and that the previous CLP government had failed to act. You have heard my colleagues outline some of the chronology of Dr Freeland; he was effectively given the sack and, one of the reasons for that was the fact that the cane toad issue, apparently, had not been dealt with properly, as well as some other reasons, I understand.
In any event, this has unfolded. The Labor government created the expectation that, for the first time, Territorians, through their government, were going to tackle this issue front on. They were going to deal with it. Therefore, to the cost to the taxpayer of tens of thousands of dollars, I suspect; a bipartisan committee was formed. That committee re-examined the scientific evidence which was already in place, spoke to numerous people, travelled to various locations in the Territory and, as the member for Nelson said, spoke to people on the ground in communities who had already felt the wrath of cane toads.
A number of recommendations were made and one of them was the construction of a barrier, a fence, in one of our very precious parks. There was certainly an expectation that this committee, dominated by government members, would have some weight. It was an expectation that this committee, dominated by government members, would be given serious consideration by the government. There was certainly a bit of a wink and a nod, a bit of a whispering campaign, that at least we are going to get this fence up; we are doing something. Well, it turns out that, despite the fact that the committee effectively said the risk was worth taking with the construction of this fence and that we should try to protect the park and listen to locals, the government of the day and this particular minister, the member for Johnston, has rejected that very sensible proposal, and has refused to take the risk.
This is a classic example of the Martin Labor government, after coming into power, trying to exploit a natural disaster, and this perception that the CLP had done nothing. They formed a committee, really for political ends. It now looks like they have wasted an enormous amount of taxpayers’ funds on gathering this information and then making a recommendation which they did not act upon. Unlike pool fencing and the pool police which they created, this natural disaster was not their creation, but they certainly created the expectation that they were going to deal with it. They have not dealt with it, and that is where I am really pointing the blame. They created the expectation; they have abused the trust which Territory people placed in them when they said publicly that they were going to deal with this issue.
I am not going to go over what the member for Daly said, but he is absolutely right when he picked up on the comments by the minister that we are only going to pour a couple of hundred thousand dollars into this issue, when the minister knows full well that, if more money was committed to the research and the development for biological solutions to the issue, then that would significantly shorten the process which we are going to have to go through now, until we find a solution. There were some references to press releases by colleagues from this side of the House.
The Labor government is now trying to assert that there is really nothing we can do. It is ironic that, in the first term of the Labor government, not only do we get pool police but we get cane toads in Darwin.
It is not about if and when. I can say that cane toads are here. Humpty Doo is certainly part of the greater Darwin region. I was at the pub last Thursday - not drinking but in an official capacity, calling in to talk to constituents - and a cane toad was presented to me in a Melbourne Bitter beer carton. They had named it Clare, and asked me to come and present that to parliament. I said I would not do that because I am not sure whether travelling the 30 km from Humpty Doo to here would present some sort of quarantine difficulty. However, in any event, the cane toad was presented to me. I am not able to physically present it to parliament, but I can say it is there. People are aware of it, and local Territorians have not forgotten that there is something ironic here: the Labor government is in power, the cane toads have come to Darwin. They created the expectation that they are going to deal with the problem and they have not. It just goes to show that you cannot fool Territorians. You cannot abuse the trust they place in you.
Members interjecting.
Mr MALEY: That is a different kettle of fish, Len.
Madam Speaker, I endorse the recommendations of the committee. To say that the Labor government has taken a lead on the issue by placing it on the national agenda is really treating people like fools. The member for Daly accurately summarised and articulated the view of the opposition. It is a tragedy that the cane toads are here; that this government created the expectation that they were going to deal with the problem. It is a triple tragedy that, given one new initiative - being this fence in one of our parks - the Labor government has rejected that sensible bipartisan recommendation.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I wonder if members here are familiar with the phrase cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance was described by some luminary some years ago as the psychological acceptance of a situation, thus making that situation possible - not doing enough to do anything about it. Indeed, the term was used some years ago in this parliament. Indeed, the speaker who was talking about it on that occasion said, interestingly enough, and I will quote:
The most serious danger with cane toads seems to be our psychological acceptance of them. The attitude is
that the toads are coming and there is nothing that can be done. This is what experts call ‘cognitive dissonance’.
It is a psychological weakness.
The government of the day was accused of cognitive dissonance, and the issue was bought up by people who were very concerned about the matter of cane toads in our community. It was pointed out, when this person was talking about cane toads, that we had one of the foremost experts in the world. In fact, the person who was doing the talking in relation our foremost expert in the world, quoted him and I quote:
A paper written in 1985 by WJ Freeland of the then Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory outlines the potential impact the toad could have on the Top End. I seek leave to table a copy ...
It was very good that the member tabled the copy. During the continuation of the argument put forward by this person, he continued to rely on evidence that he had to make his point. Again, I quote from that person, who said:
Our advice from Professor Michael Tyler, the pre-eminent expert on amphibians in Australia, is that this
research would only cost in the order of $30 000.
$30 000 could be spent and the cane toad problem in the Northern Territory would be solved. Such was the suggestion of the member making these comments.
Interestingly, as far as I am aware in relation to this debate, that person has remained utterly silent. However, more so than that, that person has not only remained utterly silent, but let us look at the track record of this government in relation to the $30 000 fix that would have fixed cane toads. That person, of course, is now the Leader of Government Business, one Paul Henderson. On that occasion, he saw fit, on a matter of such importance, to suspend the business of this parliament to bring an issue forward to discuss the CLP government’s response to cane toads. He said that all we had to do was reach into the coffers, spend $30 000, listen to what Mr Freeland and Mr Tyler had to say, and ‘you could have an answer to your cane toad problem today’. He was supported by the now Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Peter Toyne, who basically said exactly the same thing.
I am curious as to why the now Leader of Government Business, and the Minister for Justice, are suffering from a ‘psychological weakness’, because not one person from that side of the House has pointed out this matter of public importance, which was raised in this House on 10 August 1999. I am curious to see if the committee have turned its attention to it, because I certainly have not noticed it. It is typical of the way politics is being played, and continues to be played, around this issue. It was a nice little way to get a nice political hit on the CLP government at the time but, when challenged with the cane toad problem now before government, not only is it too hard, but what did they do with Mr Freeland, the most pre-eminent expert on cane toads in the world? Shot him, or did the public service equivalent thereof: ‘Dear Mr Freeland, come into the office, we have some bad news for you’ - bang, you are dead, get out and have a nice life.
If that is their idea of cane toad control, shooting the messenger is not the way to do it because, at the end of the day, we heard the member for Nelson pointing out in this Chamber that the Cobourg Peninsula is about to be overrun; it is all too hard to fix. Where is the $30 000 answer? And does this little political game that they have played help the flora and fauna of the Northern Territory? Helped them to get into government perhaps; it was certainly an issue they liked to run. However, at the end of the day, what has happened is that we have a new government which has simply set out to deceive Territorians and which, by the admission of its own Leader of Government Business, suffers from a ‘psychological weakness’ in relation to this issue - and several others I would suggest. As far as I am concerned, they have engaged in what I would consider to be some of the most hypocritical behaviour that I have ever seen from a government anywhere, in their silence on this issue. The Minister for Justice and Attorney-General and the Leader of Government Business should be in here telling us what they are going to do with their $30 000 fix, and how it is going to make the world of difference. They should be telling us that they are going to support all of the suggestions that they have made in relation to this matter of public importance four-and-a-half years ago.
The Leader of Government Business, at that time, also suggested that all that we would have to do was:
… lobby the federal government to reinstate funding to CSIRO to continue the search for a biological
control agent. CSIRO came close to finding an iridio virus to kill toad tadpoles. As quoted previously,
CSIRO is confident that any future funding for cane toad research will be effective and rewarding.
Could the minister kindly come into this House and tell us exactly what federal government lobbying they have done? If they are intending to do any more federal government lobbying, I am certain that I, and all or any one of my colleagues, would be more than happy to help lobby the federal government so that this iridio virus to kill cane toad tadpoles may be discovered, thus solving the problem of cane toads in the Northern Territory. I am sure that all 25 members of this House would applaud this government if they chose to do it. However, I am curious to see if they can table any evidence during this debate as to whether or not they have actually done what they said they would do when they were in opposition.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, in closing the debate, I want to commence by thanking all members who have contributed to the debate. In particular, I want to thank the members of the committee. As we heard in the debate, it was a bipartisan committee spending considerable months investigating the incursion of cane toads into the Territory, receiving a significant number of submissions from scientists, members of the community and interested people. I previously thanked all those people who contributed to this inquiry.
It is disappointing to hear the contribution in the Chamber this evening from the members opposite, with the notable exception for the member for Nelson whose contribution I thought was very constructive and useful. Members opposite seemed to harp on the departure of a public servant. That, quite frankly, did not have any bearing on the inquiry; it was not an aspect of the inquiry. The public servant in question contributed to the inquiry in both written and lengthy oral submission, coming before the inquiry twice.
The scientists who did appear - both national and based here in the Northern Territory - all said the one thing: they clearly thanked this Assembly for holding the inquiry. They said that, if nothing else is achieved from this inquiry, it is providing focus on the issue of cane toads - focus that the scientific community believed needed to occur at the time in regards to cane toads. We heard that across all submissions from scientists and, yet, there are members opposite who, in this Chamber tonight, have chosen to completely ignore the clarion call that came from the scientific community during that inquiry which was very much ‘Thank you, this inquiry needed to occur’. They did differ, from time to time, on whether enough research had been done previously. They did say that there needed to be a collaborative effort nationally if there was going to be any success in combating cane toads. The scientists agreed on the fact that the Territory alone could not combat cane toads. They all put submissions to us that there needs to be a national collaborative effort, because the most promising research occurring at the moment is national research being undertaken by CSIRO.
There were other submissions regarding potential research projects, and anyone who put forward any of those research submissions also agreed on one thing: there needed to be a national approach. The result of this inquiry and of the recommendations that have come before the parliament, as we have heard the minister announce in the Chamber tonight, is there is now going to be a national collaborative approach that has been agreed to and signed off by the Natural Resources Ministerial Council. Members opposite may want to denigrate that outcome but, in fact, that outcome holds the greatest hope that Territorians have that, in our lifetime, cane toads will be conquered. Funding from the Territory alone would never have been sufficient to combat cane toads. Scientist after scientist spelled that out in their submissions. Therefore, it is really a critical breakthrough that we have heard announced in the Chamber tonight that the Natural Resources Ministerial Council has signed off on a national task force; that they are going to nationally have a look at a Threat Abatement Plan. Significant scientific contributions to the inquiry stated that we needed that national Threat Abatement Plan; that that would comprehensively go the farthest to tackling the issues of cane toad.
That has been delivered, I believe, as a direct consequence of the inquiry that this Assembly charged that Environment and Sustainable Development Committee to undertake. That is no small feat. We have firmly placed cane toads on the national agenda. We are getting collaboration from the Commonwealth and the other states, all signed up to a ministerial council. I note that the member for Macdonnell laughs that off, but no other government in the Territory has managed to do that. It was the Martin Labor government that has delivered a national collaborative approach. A Threat Abatement Plan will, indeed, provide exactly what all the scientists have said in their submissions to our committee: we needed remedial action in accordance with obligations under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The Threat Abatement Plan will provide a nation-wide approach for research, management and any other actions necessary to reduce the impact of what will be a listed key threatening process.
I congratulate the minister for the funding that has gone into the public awareness campaign that many of us have been witnessing over the past few months. Again, it is no coincidence that the public awareness campaign commenced and increased following the recommendations tabled by the committee in this parliament. The campaign, we have heard, has included a multimedia public awareness campaign. We have heard the member for Nelson talk about the Freds Pass Show display. n Those of us who spend the Dry Season doing the Territory show circuit will see that display at other Territory shows. Indeed, the school-based education kit that has been developed on cane toads is absolutely essential. Many of us are getting feedback from schoolchildren throughout our electorates. They have a burning desire to combat cane toads. Schools are setting up their own little biodiversity regions. There have been environmental awards provided to schools. A preschool in Palmerston has received such an award for their frog enclosure, and they are doing some great frog breeding at that particular preschool.
The focus that our inquiry brought on cane toads has really resulted in a lot of people saying: ‘We are now informed about where they are, about where they will progress to, and what we individually, each of us, can do to combat cane toads’. People are starting to look at fencing around their properties. They are looking at where they have their water contained, and they are certainly aware of the concerns regarding their domestic pets. There has been talk back information from vets talking about flushing out animals’ mouths. There really is a much higher community awareness of cane toads - their incursion, what their habits are and what can be done to combat them - now than two years ago, before this inquiry took place and before the recommendations were tabled here in parliament.
For the member for Goyder to describe it as a waste of taxpayers’ money, I believe, is to his eternal shame. He should go out and listen to the children in his schools. They do not believe it is a waste of money. They believe that every cent that can be spent on awareness of cane toads and how to combat them is money well spent. The member for Goyder is completely out of touch with his own constituency. I have to say our public hearing in the rural area was a very lively public hearing. There was a great deal of interest in the issue, and I commend the residents of the rural area who attended in far greater numbers than in some other areas of the Territory, to really thrash about ideas about what could be done. They went there on the basis of really not having any information about cane toads, and the exchange at that public hearing was so worthwhile. As a committee, we were able to impart a lot of information on the spot about cane toads, and hear some of the ideas that they had - very worthy ideas - which were included in the report and which are now being actioned by government.
I take great offence at another insinuation in a statement made by the ignorant member for Goyder. He said that there was a wink and a nod and a whispering campaign in terms of getting the fence up at Cobourg. I do not know who he was talking about, because it was certainly no member of government. I am the Chair of the committee. I attended all meetings, I participated in all discussions, and I was not aware of any winks and nods. The member for Goyder was not participating in the process, so I really think his deception in the Chamber here tonight is despicable.
The issue of the Cobourg fence was very much a bipartisan recommendation of the committee. It is a great shame that we are not having a go - as the member for Nelson describes it - in constructing that fence. I know that that decision has not been made lightly by government and has been made after many months of considered discussion and debate on that subject of the fence. It was made very much on the back of the recommendations of their own expert public servants. Sometimes in government, you err on relying on expert advice rather than your own ideas and hopes and ambitions. That is where that fell in terms of the advice.
Mr Elferink interjecting.
Ms LAWRIE: The member for MacDonnell might sneer about it, but it terms of having a go, I am so proud of the bipartisan committee for having a go on all of its recommendations. That should not be denigrated by members of this House. It is despicable to play the political football that I have witnessed in here tonight.
Regarding the accusations flippantly made in the Chamber tonight, I have to say that members should go back over Hansard and read the information provided by the minister in the Chamber tonight in terms of the government’s response to the cane toad report. There is $400 000 of new money - not money to be found in the department responsible, Parks and Wildlife - has been committed to combating cane toads. That money is being wisely used; $80 000 directly into testing a prototype of traps because, consistently throughout the inquiry, we heard traps are worth testing. Parks and Wildlife considered that advice and that recommendation and have taken it up. Government is funding that. $80 000 is almost triple the amount that the member for Macdonnell cited of $30 000.
Further to that, the $100 000 each year for three years is money that the Territory has put on the table to all the other jurisdictions in Australia. Anyone who has operated at a senior level of government knows that if you want to pursue something at a national level, a national agenda and national collaboration, you can only do that if you bring money to the table. The Territory has put money on the national table for combating cane toads, and I commend the member for Johnston for securing a deal out of the other jurisdictions in Australia - the states and the Commonwealth - of having a national collaborative approach, having a national task force and creating a Threat Abatement Plan. Dollars will flow.
All the scientists we heard from throughout the inquiry said: ‘If you can get it on the national agenda, get a national Threat Abatement Plan, get it as a pest and a threatening process, it will attract the dollars at the Commonwealth level. A body of work will naturally occur, funded, at the Commonwealth and state levels’. That has been secured at the Natural Resources Ministerial Council - no small feat when you look at all the other issues jurisdictions are combating in natural resource issues. We had an environment where many people had thought in the past there was little we could do to get cane toads considered, and the Territory inquiry has turned that around to the view that together, nationally, collaboratively, there is actually a series of things we can do. That is what that inquiry has managed to achieve.
I commend the department, particularly Parks and Wildlife staff, for the ongoing research that they are doing that fit with the recommendations of the committee. The Island Ark program is fantastic. I attended the Tiwi Barge Services display of the wash-down facilities. Keeping cane toads off the islands is very much a key recommendation, and that recommendation has been implemented by both the Commonwealth and the Territory governments. Again, I say that work has been done because of the outcome of our inquiry. Talking to the traditional owners, they are delighted with the assistance they have been given. New signage has gone up, and there is information in language as well as the critical wash-down facilities for the Tiwi Barge Services.
I know the member for Drysdale continues to bag and denigrate the quoll relocation program. That shows his ignorance about the program. I have spoken to traditional owners, those mainland traditional owners who have totems of the quoll and are the protectors of the quoll. They are very excited about the prospect of the quoll surviving because of the relocation program to the islands.
I went over to the islands and spoke to the traditional owners of the area. They were thrilled to be asked to participate in the program. It has meant rangers being placed on the islands monitoring the quolls, and assessing whether or not there is any impact on species on the islands. The results have all come back to be very positive. The quolls have settled in well; they are thriving on the island and there is no negative impact on other species. The traditional owners have felt that they have been doing some very meaningful work under the pay of a joint Commonwealth/Territory government program. There is job spin-off there for the indigenous rangers and the work they have been doing. However, critically, we have saved a species. Fundamentally, from all the advice the inquiry received, the quoll species was facing extinction. The member for Drysdale in this Chamber has denigrated the efforts that both the Commonwealth and the Territory government went to, to save a species. I find that very sad indeed.
The outcomes are: we have a comprehensive public awareness campaign; we have managed to focus attention on the pest of the cane toad; we have a national collaborative approach, of both the Threat Abatement Plan being created, and a national task force, which is exactly what the recommendations said we needed to do. The Territory has put the money on the table nationally - not an insignificant amount of money. $400 000 is not an insignificant amount of money; it is a lot of money. Each of us, as local members, know how hard we go out and fight for the dollar for projects. In a very competitive environment, $400 000 is a significant commitment by the Territory government, and I commend the minister and his Cabinet colleagues who were part of the Cabinet process to put these dollars on the table so that we can bring in the partnerships of the other jurisdictions and the Commonwealth to combat cane toads.
I commend Parks and Wildlife. They have responded to the cane toad inquiry and its recommendations comprehensively. There is now a significant Action Plan at the Territory level. Parks and Wildlife have done a lot of work to bring this comprehensive Action Plan together. Again, I refer members to the minister’s speech on this debate in Hansard. Look at the plan, which covers the national coordination of research and management actions: monitoring the spread of the cane toads; further research of the impacts on biodiversity; investigation and support for the development of short- and long-term control methods; conservation actions for the species most at threat from the toad; education to assist people to live with the presence of toads; education and quarantine measures to minimise the chance of toads being transported to the island in what they call the Island Ark Program; and increasing the capacity of indigenous owners of the islands to manage their important faunas and implement quarantine procedures.
All of this work together will mean that we are making inroads into doing what we can as a jurisdiction to combat what we do know, as a result of the inquiry, is a threatening process and a pest of national significance. What we do know and have heard now in the Chamber this evening is on the national agenda, does have a national task force now applied to it, and will, as a consequence, receive funding that was needed for research into this pest.
CSIRO have found a way to make cane toads infertile. There is a huge breakthrough in biological research. They need more dollars to increase their chances and speed up the process in finding the vector, the agent, to carry that through the species without harming the amphibians. I believe that the Threat Abatement Plan at the national level, backed up by the Territory’s Action Plan, will go a long way to getting those dollars that the committee recognise is needed, into CSIRO.
I end by thanking the many Territorians who expressed their concerns about the cane toad incursion into the Territory. I thank the many scientists who continue to work on this problem; the many staff of Parks and Wildlife, who spend hours doing the research in our parks on it; and my parliamentary colleagues for the bipartisan way in which our committee was able to work. I look forward to a continued bipartisan approach in our endeavours as a committee. I thank the members of this Assembly for giving us the opportunity to put the spotlight fairly, firmly and squarely on the pest of cane toads in the Territory.
Motion agreed to; paper noted.
MOTION
Note Paper - Auditor-General’s Report to the Legislative Assembly, March 2004
Note Paper - Auditor-General’s Report to the Legislative Assembly, March 2004
Continued from 30 March 2004.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, the Auditor-General reports to the Legislative Assembly twice each year on matters arising from audits conducted by his office in the previous six months. The latest report of the Auditor-General was tabled in the Assembly on 30 March this year.
The audits conducted and reported by the Auditor-General provide parliament with an independent opinion on findings about financial information, internal controls, and performance management systems of the Territory public sector. As well as appraising existing practices, the Auditor-General makes recommendations for improvement. Through his regular reports, all members of this parliament are better placed to appraise the performance of public sector administration.
There was sadness in this House as Auditor-General, Mike Blake, presented his last report to us. We certainly wish him well in Tasmania.
As well as reporting to the Legislative Assembly, the Auditor-General brings these matters to the attention of agency chief executives for their consideration and action, as necessary. I am pleased to note in his latest report, the Auditor-General commends agencies for the positive approach taken in what was a major initiative; that is, the preparation of accrual based financial statements. However, the move to accrual accounting also highlighted the need for improvements in certain areas of accounting such as reconciliations, managing assets and accounting for liabilities. The report raised two whole-of-government issues; these were the need to introduce formal monitoring and reporting arrangements into the government’s information technology government frameworks, and update the NT government’s security policy and procedures and the NT government’s access policy and procedures to incorporate stronger links to the NT government information private principles.
Other areas highlighted by the Auditor-General concerned identifying operating costs associated with new capital works, reducing the number of system administrators and support staff having access to process electronic payments, reviewing delegations and improving controls associated with payments made outside the normal accounts payable system, and reviewing the location used to store the forensic group’s back-up data.
The report raised two whole-of-government issues which are being addressed by the Department of Corporate and Information Services. These were the need to introduce formal monitoring and reporting arrangements in the government’s information technology government’s frameworks, and update the government’s security policy and procedures, as I mentioned before.
I was pleased to see that, within my own portfolio area, the Auditor-General noted that the Northern Territory Major Events Company financial statements received an unqualified report. In addition, the report noted that the company had significantly increased its nett asset position as a result of the transfer of assets and liabilities from Hidden Valley Promotions Pty Ltd, although the company will continue to be dependent on the Northern Territory government for ongoing funding.
In addition, the Auditor-General found the Northern Territory Electoral Office’s privacy policy to be highly congruent with the information privacy principles, and that sufficient controls are operating over the election management system to control access to personal data.
The report makes positive comments about the Department of the Chief Minister’s privacy policy and acknowledges that the department is also finalising guidelines that will provide more detailed information for staff.
Madam Speaker, I gave an undertaking to deliver open and accountable government to Territorians. The independent opinion of the Auditor-General is an important aspect of this commitment. His reports and recommendations are viewed most seriously, and given appropriate consideration by all ministers and chief executives. Certainly, that is the approach that we, across government, have taken to this March report of the Auditor-General.
Mr MILLS (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, from opposition, we also note the departure of Mike Blake to Tasmania, and genuinely appreciate the level of dedication and going that extra mile that he demonstrated in his duties as Auditor-General.
I was waiting to hear in the Chief Minister’s comments what mechanisms have been put in place to replace Mike Blake. There has been no information provided to opposition with regard to what methods have been put in place to seek the permanent replacement of Mike Blake, and that is something that might be long overdue.
The role of the Auditor-General, of course, as the Chief Minister states, is a particularly important position. The reports of audit to the parliament are of great interest, and perhaps greater interest to opposition. To report on the report, as the Chief Minister has done, highlighting areas of concern that have been raised by the Auditor-General, is just one part of this whole exercise. It is a trap the Labor Party falls into, if you have the system in place, that the process can be all ticked off as it has worked very well. However, the process is meant to lead you somewhere. Therefore, if you have had areas of concern highlighted, I am more interested in hearing what has been done about those areas of concerns highlighted. That is where I would go through in my report and just point out some of the areas that have been highlighted by the Auditor-General.
I guess ministers responsible would be able to provide an account, perhaps - not tonight but in times to come - of what has actually been done to rectify the areas that have concerned the Auditor-General. That is where we get that sense of movement and real focus in what an Auditor-General would report to this parliament. It is not like, ‘He is a jolly good fellow, that is an interesting report and he has indicated a couple of areas that are of concern, and so that is a great report’. Let us see what we are going to do about those areas of concern. That is what I am particularly focused on, and we need to have response from the ministers, reporting to the House on what is actually happening in these areas.
For example, DCIS - and it was touched on, I would have to say lightly, by the Chief Minister. The Auditor-General highlighted two areas of concern. One was that further preventative controls were identified as being needed to minimise risk associated with transactions; that is, problems identified with the electronic banking and payment system. The Auditor-General identifies this as an issue and recognises that there are a number of appropriate controls in place, and it is highlighted that more could be put in place. Have they been put in place, and what moves are on foot to work on this area that has been identified by the Auditor-General? The Auditor-General said these should include a reduction in the number of users that have access to the payments system and a reduction of the level of payments that can be made without further scrutiny. Another area of concern in DCIS is payments of up to $99m can currently be made on the strength of payment requests that are not original documentation; something that he draws attention to. I would presume the minister would be onto that in a flash and will grant us assurance that that level of security is now provided.
Moving to Tourist Commission, he identified a couple of areas and said numerous changes were made to the financial statements presented for audit and, as a result of the audit, so much so that the financial statements were not finalised until the end of October. Possibly no drama, but I am sure we will hear the minister give a response and reassure us that all is in order. Another area is the nature in the volume of the accounting errors noted by the Auditor-General suggests that the commission has not been receiving accurate financial information on a monthly basis. The minister, I am sure, will reassure us that that has now been addressed. The Auditor-General commented that these issues may be a result of the commission choosing not to maintain the role of a financial controller, and suggested that they should consider appointing one. Has that position been filled?
The Auditor-General identified problems in the Housing Business Services and highlighted three issues. The first is that the housing business services’ budget and business strategies are only sustainable for a period. The second issue is that Housing Business Services is generating insufficient profits to cover annual interest payments of in excess of $25m. I am sure the minister will inform the House of what has been put in place to strengthen the profit return in Housing Business Services. Third, debtors increased by 13.7% to $4.4m at 30 June 2003 reflecting inadequacies in debtors collection processes - a vital role running an operation such as, in this case, Housing Business Services. It does appear that there is a problem, and a significant one, I would say.
The Auditor-General has recommended that Housing Business Services should review its re-evaluation processes and procedures to ensure complete compliance with the relevant Australian Accounting Standards. The minister responsible, I am sure, will advise the House of what has been put in place with regards the Auditor-General’s concerns about Housing Business Services.
The Auditor-General went on to identify some issues with Government Printing Office. A key issue that was identified was that, in the opinion Auditor-General, management of the Government Printing Office had not satisfied the virtual certainty test prescribed by the Australian Accountancy Standards and, consequently, the deferred tax asset should not have been recognised in the Statement of Financial Position. What this means is that, when a business is making a loss, any future income tax benefit that results from this loss should not be brought to account unless realisation of the benefit is virtually certain. This means that the loss being posted by the Government Printing Office is $166 000 less that it should have been. I look forward to the relevant minister advising the House in due course of what mechanism has been put in place to address that issue.
The Auditor-General moves on to identify issues with regards to the Northern Territory Government Public Authority Employees Superannuation Fund. A key issue that was identified is one of concern to every public servant. The five-year average return of the fund is 3.8%, compared to a five-year average of CPI of 3.1%. The fund’s real return of approximately 0.6% is less than the fund’s investment objective, which is to exceed the consumer price index by at least 3% over a five-year period. A real return of 0.6% is a poor result by any measure, but it is well below the benchmark of 3%. Therefore, employees’ superannuation funds are not making the returns that they could elsewhere. I am sure the minister responsible will reassure all those who have their future tied up in that superannuation fund, as they strengthen that superannuation fund, so that we can have a future to bank on.
I have taken just a selection of issues that have been highlighted by the Auditor-General, and the last one I wish to look at tonight is problems identified at TIO. The key issue identified was as a consequence of the loss for the year 2002-03, the total liabilities of TIO, excluding the MACA scheme, exceeded total assets by $1.02m. As at 30 June 2003, TIO did not meet its solvency requirements. Problems and losses have primarily risen from losses incurred in MACA.
At that time, I understand that the government responded. In times past, government has topped up this scheme but, in recent times they have, rather than dig into their own pocket - the pocket of the Martin Labor government - chosen to reach into the pockets of Territorians and increase the cost of registering a motor vehicle by 6% to top up this scheme. When you have $35m in addition that was not included in the Treasurer’s report, owing to it being announced at a time when the budget papers were at the printer, I am sure you could have relieved the load on many Territory families by absorbing the cost of registering a motor vehicle.
Once again, I say thank you to Mike Blake for the service that he has provided to this parliament, to the Northern Territory. I wish he and his wife all the very best in Tasmania, as do members on this side of the House. It is remiss of the Chief Minister to come in here and make similar comments with regards to Mike Blake, but fail to inform the House of what is in place to replace the Auditor-General. In fact, as Leader of the Opposition, I am unaware of any advice from the Chief Minister as regards the interim measures that have been put in place with regard to the current office of the Auditor-General. I have been informed informally, but formally not to my knowledge. It is very important that, posthaste, we have advice as to what the steps are that will be taken to fill this most important of positions.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I take this opportunity to clear up some of the items in the Auditor-General’s report relating to my portfolio areas, along with action taken by my agencies to correct any deficiencies that the Auditor-General has been able to identify.
In relation to the Department of Health and Community Services, the end-of-year reviews of agency accounting processes were identified as a problem by the Auditor-General. Errors were identified while testing the costing procedures used for pharmacy inventories. One high value item selected for testing was found to be understated in the inventory system by $61 476. This error was found to have been the result of a process used to value stock that had been received free of charge from a supplier. In this particular instance, the high value stock had been resupplied free of charge due to problems with the original products supplied. With accrual accounting, errors of this type become more important and, thanks to the testing undertaken by the Auditor-General, improved inventory procedures have been implemented to correctly value stock received free of charge.
In relation to the $37.7m redevelopment of Accident and Emergency at the Royal Darwin Hospital, the Auditor-General was rightly critical of the original submission to the then government in 1999 for not including the cost of ongoing operational expenses, estimated to be $4m a year, needed to effectively operate the new emergency department. The Auditor-General also questioned the failure to achieve a 3% savings on the hospital’s operational budget on which the original decision was promised. These planning problems, as identified by the Auditor-General, resulted in the necessity for additional funds to be sourced from this government. The department has accepted the findings of the Auditor-General, and has acknowledged the risks associated with complex multi-stage projects, and the fact that they need to be more clearly defined in future submissions.
Regarding information technology controls over privacy of data, the Auditor-General reported that the department’s information privacy code of conduct was closely aligned with the NT government policy on privacy, as set up out in the Information Act. However, opportunities were identified for improvement. Recommendations made by the Auditor-General have been adopted by the department to improve its management of information systems containing sensitive information. This has included bringing together into a formalised plan all of the projects and initiatives that were being carried out to ensure compliance with the information privacy principles.
Additionally, a number of strategies to further enhance compliance have been implemented, including: enhancements to the department’s data warehouse; the development of checklists for approving new systems; completion of an information survey; provision of fact sheets and staff education about information privacy principles; and improvements to network security through more rigorous user authentification.
Looking now to my Department of Justice, the only issue identified in the report referred to accountable officers’ trust accounts - the AOTA - within the Corrections division. The Auditor-General identified three AOTA accounts not reconciled to the government accounting system, or GAS, at 30 June 2003. The Auditor-General noted that the prisoner canteen trading operations being recorded through AOTA accounts was causing reconciliation difficulties, and was possibly making it difficult to distinguish between monies of the prisoners and those of the canteen. A review has been completed of the AOTA accounts within the Corrections Division, and an Action Plan has been implemented that will be completed by 30 June 2004. The Action Plan will result in a rationalisation of the AOTA accounts, all Corrections AOTAs being reconciled on a monthly basis, and prisoner canteen trading operations being removed from the AOTA structure. By 30 June 2004, monies held on behalf of prisoners will be clearly identifiable, and all monies held in trust will be correctly reconciled and accounted for.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I also wish to add to the debate on the Auditor-General’s 2004 March report to the Legislative Assembly with information relating to the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment.
On page 14, it is pleasing to see that the Auditor-General is, once again, commenting favourably on the management and implementation of the change from cash to accrual accounting while, at the same time, improving the timeliness of reporting. I will give an overview of what I believe largely comprises the Auditor-General’s report. As the Leader of the Opposition says, he does point to a number of issues that need to be addressed.
However, honestly, there is nothing in this Auditor-General’s report that even roughly parallels some of the words that were used by the Auditor-General’s reports when I first came into this parliament, when I was on the Public Accounts Committee. At that time, we had, I thought, quite scandalous reports on the way in which nearly $150m of Conditions of Service Trust was used to artificially show a surplus by the former CLP government, with the Treasurer, the former member for Katherine, pillaging hollow logs - $150m to show a $1m surplus. There were comments about lack of transparency in capital works expenditure and revotes. I commented a little about that in Question Time today.
Whilst this report is a very solid report, in no way do I believe it reflects badly overall regarding government and government expenditure. There are issues, yes, but particularly in my area, they are issues relating to technical treatment of the public account. We will certainly take the messages given by the Auditor-General and address those issues. However, I digress, and I will try and keep what I have to say this evening short.
The Auditor-General has favourably commented on the management and implementation of the change from cash to accrual - a very big job, and I need to complement all agencies. It is a big job. There will continue to be some issues. We knew when we started the process into accrual accounting that there would be some issues, particularly the identification of assets, that it would take some time to settle. However, in terms of our public accounts, we are at a stage now where, overall, we are comparing apples with apples.
The Auditor-General, however, has identified several areas that require improvement. On pages 14 and 15 that relate to my Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, the Auditor-General has commented on unreconciled differences in the asset registers. Reconciliations throughout the year between work in progress and capitalisations are affected by timing; that is, the reports from one system, the AIS asset information system, are not available before the second system, the GAS, or government accounting system, closes for end-of-month processing. The financial services of the department is working with the infrastructure group to improve the timeliness of capitalising completed works, so that issue is being addressed by the department.
On page 15, the Auditor-General commented on unreconciled differences, and apparent inaccuracies in some of the information retained on the land asset information system at the end of June 2003. The former land information system, LAIS, was replaced with a new system, ILIS, on 1 July 2003. Additional resources have been applied within the department to reconcile the former land information system and the government accounting system.
On page 16, the Auditor-General has commented on an item of motor vehicle registry fees that were collected in 2002, but retained in the clearing account in the 2002-03 financial year. The department advises that this oversight is now being directly addressed by conducting a monthly analysis of account balances.
On page 21, the Auditor-General has commented on the impact that the Construction Division’s management fees have on the accounting treatment of asset values. The Construction Division levies fees in accordance with accounting standards and Treasurer’s Directions. The elimination of fees between arms of government is a matter of Treasury consideration when consolidating financial transactions for the Treasurer’s Annual Financial Statement. The department is liaising with Treasury in regard to the Auditor-General’s comments.
On page 25 and 26, the Auditor-General has also commented on the timeliness for financial reporting requirements. The signed accounts for Cobourg and Nitmiluk Park Boards were not submitted until six weeks after the due date. Acknowledging that the signed accounts were not submitted within the time lines, it also needs to be acknowledged that the Cobourg and Nitmiluk boards’ reports were more than three months ahead of the previous year’s signing date. However, obviously, there is still room for improvement and it is unacceptable for the lateness of these reports, and the department will be paying greater attention to the timeliness of those reports.
Difficulties such as the need for other entities to complete their financial reports before all data is available and the timing of board meetings to approve and sign financial statements, are factors affecting the sign-off dates. These are being addressed. On page 26, the Territory Wildlife financial reports were delayed in 2002-03 due to revaluation and reconciliation at that end of fixed assets.
On page 57, the Auditor-General’s comments in relation to Port Corporation mainly relate to the need to write-down the value of port assets in the light of projected income streams. The government accepts that the large investment in port infrastructure is a strategic investment for the Territory’s future. Large outlays in strategic infrastructure are required to develop the Territory’s transport hub capabilities.
Madam Speaker, in summary, most of the comments by the Auditor-General have been addressed. There are some outstanding. The department has given assurances to work with different entities, including Treasury, to work through those issues. I appreciate the comments and the hard work of the Auditor-General in his report, and commend it to the House.
Motion agreed to; paper noted.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I would like to comment about a project that is very special to me – the Alawa Primary School farm. It was an initiative of a teacher at Alawa School, Mr Danial Kelly, who decided to establish a farm in the school grounds and teach the children about farm life: how people can recycle produce in a farm, and mix science with real farm life. The beginning was very humble with a few animals that were brought by the students. It was a very popular project and, as a result, schools in Darwin are now queuing to visit the farm.
One thing that I noticed when I visited was that everything was really homemade such as the small fence to keep the animals in. However, I doubt very much if they would be able to keep the dogs or the vandals out. I was really worried about it because the last thing we want to see is the children coming back to school on Monday morning and finding the animals that they cared for with their necks cut or dead. Therefore, together with the principal, Miss Sharon Reeves, we discussed the issue and an application was lodged by the school to the Department of Education for special funding. I am very pleased to say that $14 000 was provided to the school for the erection of a 300 m x 1.8 m tall fence.
The farm has generated a lot of interest with the children. The children spend at least an hour every day there as a lesson and they care for the animals. It also generates interest with the community. The teacher who designed and established the farm, Mr Danial Kelly, is now assisted by teachers Mr Wes Campbell and Mr David Ammenhauser. During the weekend, Ms Carol Jelfs and her daughter Misha, who is a student at the school, look after the animals, so the animals are always fed and looked after.
Other supporters are Roula and Matthew Boubaris. Their children went to Alawa School, and now they are about 20 years old. However, Matthew Boubaris works for a concrete company and has persuaded his employer to donate slabs and concrete mix to establish a shed at the farm.
The farm has a few goats donated from Taminmin High School, guinea fowl, peacocks, a goose, ducks and a little piglet donated by Darwin Piggery - the runt of the litter. The kids look after it and, when it grows up, it is replaced by another young one.
It is a very exciting experiment. You should see the smiles on the faces of the children when they go to the farm to look after these animals. Congratulations to all involved at Alawa school, especially Danial Kelly, for their fantastic initiative.
I would like to congratulate some of the talented young sport stars from Dripstone High School who have been selected to represent the Northern Territory in different sports. Sisters Simone and Candice Liddy and Stacey Luck represented the Northern Territory in Team Attitude X at the Under-18 National Hockey Championships in Darwin last month; James Goodworth, a young Aboriginal boy, was selected to tour California with the Queensland Expo Under-16 baseball team; and Jane Robinson won the Katherine Open singles and doubles tennis titles earlier this month. Well done to all the students.
Well done to Dripstone High School for coming fifth in the secondary school football carnival recently. Congratulations to Rys Higgins, Travis Thorne, Jarrod Motlop, Marlon Motlop, Michael Gugliotta and Lance O’Connor for being selected in the Under-16 Northern Territory squad.
A special thank you to Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor and all the staff from Casuarina Police Station. In the last few months, we have seen an increase in the activity of the police for addressing issues in Casuarina immediately. They talk to the people in the streets and the neighbourhood, and respond to their calls. The Casuarina Police Station now has an extra 25 police officers, and Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor has established a bike patrol and foot patrol. Now we have four people patrolling the Casuarina area riding their bikes. Senior Sergeant Taylor also brought the mounted police to Casuarina Coastal Reserve. The comments I heard about this initiative were excellent.
In addition to that, every time I get any information about a problem in the area from constituents when I doorknock, I notify the police in Casuarina and their reaction is instant. The Senior Sergeant himself or his people will visit people and discuss the problem with them. Recently, in response to one of these meetings, there was a speed camera in Brinkin Terrace and Ellengowan Drive and they nabbed a few drivers who were speeding in the area, to the amusement and pleasure of the people living in the area. Well done, police in Casuarina, and congratulations to Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor.
In Casuarina, we work very closely with the Darwin City Council. I have established a small group to deal with safety issues in the Casuarina Shopping precinct. We have regular meetings with Casuarina Shopping Square management, the Casuarina Village management, and the people who have businesses in the area to discuss itinerants and other safety issues. Within the four months that the group has been established, working together with the police and the community, we have seen a significant reduction in the activity of itinerants in the area. At the first meeting we had, there were about 20 people complaining about various issues. At the last meeting we had, the only people who turned up were Senior Sergeant Murray Taylor and me. Everybody else was quite pleased. I expect if things go bad again, we will have more people attending meetings.
Congratulations go to my constituents from the Cambodian Australian Association. The association is now able to offer Cambodian dance and language classes at the Karama Primary School every Friday. They have employed a young lady who teaches dance and language, and they have a significant number of young children learning Cambodian language, and children of Australian and Cambodian backgrounds learning Cambodian dances. This was able to be established with a $19 000 grant under the Culture and Linguistic Awards that the government provided to the association. I am very pleased to support ethnic groups, because I can see they are striving to pass their culture and language to the younger generation, and also to the general community.
I was very pleased to attend the International Food Fair at the Buddhist Centre on 18 April. It was a fantastic afternoon. There were many stalls with international food, mainly from South-East Asia. There were a significant number of people present at that event. The Leader of the Opposition visited the centre for a small period of time, and I believe the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was also present. I have to tell you that, not only do you enjoy the food, but also the atmosphere and visiting the temple. Seeing the way people worship their deity in the area is very significant. I suppose it is very significant for every ethnic group to carry with them the tradition, the religion, and to be able to establish in a location a temple or a hall that resembles those in the country of origin, and carry on their traditional religion. I can understand that very well. Many people who come from South-East Asia or other countries have very strong family links, and the culture and religion are very well interconnected. They celebrate both their culture and religion here.
I was also very pleased to be at the opening of the community hall at the centre on Sunday, 2 May. My colleague, the member for Wanguri, and I were present, and we were very pleased to participate in the opening ceremony of the recently completed community hall. The work on the community hall was completed after this Martin Labor government gave a grant of $200 000, in line with one of its major election promises. The quality of the finished hall was excellent, and I would like to congratulate the Buddhist Society for a job well done. They have created a facility that is available for use by anybody in the community, irrespective if they come from South-East Asia or are Buddhist or not. It is available for different functions, events, and the Buddhist Society is pleased to provide this facility to the community in Darwin and, generally, in the Territory. Once again, I would like to congratulate them for their initiatives. The International Food Fair, which is a regular event now, is in the calendar of Darwin, and I want to see the community hall get bigger and better.
I will continue to support the Buddhist Society, and any other society in Darwin which strives to actually pass this information to us, to the general community, and pass elements of their culture to our community. After all, we live in a multicultural society, and we pride ourselves on the fact we have one of the more multicultural societies in Australia. If we really want to find out about our neighbours, our friends, the people who live next door or down the road from us who come from another culture, the best way for us is to share their celebrations and culture with them - not only with food, but also the intimate parts of their culture. Certainly, the attendance and celebration of the Buddhist Hall is one part of their culture.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I keep a promise to a friend of mine, a fellow by the name of Tim Thompson, who I have known for many years. He is a fellow I regard with great respect. The promise I want to keep is a privilege, but a sad one.
Tim’s partner, Barry Standing, died recently. Barry was a great Territorian; a well respected member in the Territory community and tourism industry. I am privileged to read into Hansard as much as I can of a eulogy in five parts. I will seek leave at the end of my comments to have the rest of the eulogy of five parts incorporated into the Hansard record. One of the people who gave the eulogy is Gary Cartwright, former member for VRD in this Chamber. It is interesting that Gary, once again, will find himself on the Parliamentary Record in the tradition of parliamentarians.
I start with the eulogy given by Chris Uren. Part two was given by Rex Leverington. Part three was delivered by Tim Thompson himself. Part four was by Gary Cartwright, and part five by the Reverend Jeremy Greaves. It reads:
A few years ago we came home to find a ‘calling card’ left by Barry and Tim. No note. How did we know it
was from them? It was a bottle of Grange. Nothing was ever subtle with you two was it?
We have come together today to pay tribute to a unique person. Someone who was part of lives for too short
a time.
To help us all understand a little more about the person, it is important we talk about and celebrate those times
we had with Baz and the place he made in our lives.
Everyone here shared part of their life with Barry. He often kept those parts separated and isolated, and I do not
think there is anyone here who could profess to knowing and understanding all that made up the man.
In fact, it was only this week that we learned with certainty his true age. Despite insisting he was only 58, the crafty
bastard was really 62. Here are Tim and I celebrating publicly and loudly our half centuries just one month earlier,
and Barry had quietly notched up his 60th – typical.
What I will try to give you is a brief picture of Barry’s early years, which will help you to understand what made
Barry the person he was.
Barry Thomas Cowles, as he was christened, was abandoned by his mother as a baby - born in Carlton during the war
and left at the local police station. While handing him over, his mother refused to sign adoption papers.
He spent the first seven years as a ward of the state at an orphanage in Melbourne. He was placed at various times
and, subsequently, rejected by five foster families before finally being taken in by Jack and Edna Standing.
As my mother, who was present at the time, remarked - here was this isolated, fragile kid with sunken eyes, crooked face,
big ears, and sitting on his haunches, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs, while the bigger kids played around him.
He was too sad a child to leave behind. Jack was not so sure, but June and Edna insisted. So Barry became part of
the Standing family: Jack and Edna as mother and father, June and Boyd as sister and brother.
However, what Jack and Edna had taken on was no angel. This was a child not even with rudimentary table manners,
who could neither read nor write, was prone to nightmares, night sweats and bedwetting while, at the same time,
suffering from the after-effects of tuberculosis. The orphanage had labelled him as uncontrollable.
One can only image the trauma that had left him in the state he was: a child who would cringe and jerk back if you approached him. Edna persevered, eventually getting him into Mentone State School. When they sent him home
as unteachable and uncontrollable, she marched him straight back, pointing out that he was a ward of the state and
they were a state school and they had to sort it out.
Barry’s education was a trial for all concerned. Never one to endear himself with fellow students, he was someone
who did not take stick from anyone. In one case, having been picked on by the neighbour’s kids, Barry marched
home, grabbed Boyd’s .303, and proceeded to bail up his protagonists with the threat that if they hassled him any
more, he would shoot the lot of them. I do not if this was a tactic he used in later years, but it would not surprise
me, as it worked the first time.
During these early years, the Standing family was well connected in the racing industry, and Barry found himself
mixing with prominent trainers, jockeys and owners. These included the likes of Williamson, Purtell, Hall, Meenan,
Sellers, Walters and Hoysted.
Parties would be on the cards just about every Saturday at Jack and Linda Bond’s property Mayfield, and the family
would mix with a variety of well-heeled and influential people. Barry also experienced first-hand the doping and race
fixing which was endemic in the industry in those days.
While his social skills were developing and improving, it was not all a bed of roses. At one of the Saturday nights soirees,
a particularly odious and spoilt child, Jeffrey Foden, who was detested by all and sundry, burst into the gathering of
parents screaming his lungs out and sporting an absolute belter of a black eye. Needless to say, Barry had let Jeff
know exactly what he had thought of him. Whilst publicly being criticised and condemned for his behaviour,
unofficially Barry had earned the respect and appreciation of all present - even being regarded as a bit of a hero for
finally doing what they all wanted to do for some time. Never backward in coming forward, was our Baz.
At school, periods of stability were intermixed with an occasional outburst. Probably the most notorious of these was
being the lit rolls of newspaper pushed through the night cart hatch at the school toilets, causing mass evacuation
amidst screams of rage and pain. Again, that nearly got him expelled. Again, Edna held firm.
Life was never what you would call normal with Jack and Edna. While she worked tirelessly to bring some respectability, schooling and normality to Barry’s life, his relationship with Jack was most succinctly described as an abuse of trust,
which Barry’s placed with him as a parent. To some extent, the horrors of the orphanage had followed him to his
adopted home.
June and Boyd had both married and left home, and Edna’s marriage to Jack finally broke down. Things then got tough
for both her and Barry. Edna returned to work while Barry was forced to collect beer bottles and sell newspapers just
to earn enough to eat. But, like every challenge before and since, they both battled through.
During his whole time at school Barry focussed on one goal and that was his desire to be a plumber. Finally the Education
Department and Barry called a truce with them giving him grades sufficient to leave school and commence his
plumbing apprenticeship.
As well as his career, there was also a strange desire to master the saxophone. He was as successful at that as I was with
the violin. We never did get the opportunity to play a duet for saxophone and violin - which was probably just as well for
the sanity of family and neighbours.
At the age of 21, Edna finally took the opportunity of having Barry adopted, enabling him formally to take the name
of Standing.
So his years as an apprentice and plumber began. With Barry being as far right wing as Genghis Khan now joining one
of the most left wing trades in Australia, it was not long before the Plumbers Union blacklisted him, a badge he wore
with pride for the rest of his life.
Early in his apprenticeship, Barry sustained a serious injury to his eye in a car accident. Suffering from a torn retina
and glass fragments in one eye, an injury at the time that should have meant certain blindness, Edna secured the services
of a Professor Crock who saved Barry’s sight, albeit reduced by about 40%, a legacy that he carried through with him for
the rest of his life. I remember Baz sitting adjacent to the TV, his head swathed in bandages, not being able to look or
focus on anything, stoically suffering in silence. While this was just another battle for Barry to overcome, eventually he
was given a substantial compensation payout, which gave him enough money to start out on his own.
Barry was now an educated, well-groomed individual who had gained financial independence. Along with a growing awareness of his sexuality, which Edna had trouble coming to grips with, Barry took the opportunity of his new
found independence and moved on to the next stage of his life. This is when the businessman in Barry began to
flourish. Barry put his funds into a rundown, single fronted house in South Yarra. This he did up in his spare time and,
once completed, sold it at a healthy profit - note no capital gains tax!
Reinvesting in bigger and better properties, he eventually invested in a block of flats. Not only was this a serious
investment, it entailed even more hard work, but also serious greasing of official wheels. This combination of
smart speculation, hard work and smoothing of the ‘official processes’ is a blend that stayed with Barry for the rest
of his life. It also led to the Ripponlea opportunity where Barry, Tim, and Tim’s mother, Phyllis got together,
forming the formidable triumvirate that delivered the success they subsequently enjoyed.
For those in his adopted family who grew up with him, it certainly was not the end. While not always the easiest
person to find, Barry was often the catalyst for us to trek to new parts of the continent to catch up with him, today
being no exception. He was the reason we drove to Katherine taking in the Alice and all parts along the way. In
return, I at least got him a flight with Neil Armstrong. Not the same one, but he was an American and he flew.
I know Rex and Tim will fill in the details of his life as an adult, but what I will remember is a visit 20 years ago that
Carmen and I made to Main Hotel in Bairnsdale. While Barry met us when we arrived, he quickly excused himself to
sort out a few problems in the main bar. He returned 10 minutes later with a bit of blood on his mouth. Through what
best can be described his trademark pursed lips and cheeky half grin/half snarl, he said: ‘I mustn’t have been
paying attention as I let him get in the first punch’. That was not unusual for Baz and nothing more was said. No
complaint and no whingeing. The problem had been sorted out in Barry’s inimitable fashion and life moved on.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I know I am going to run out of time. I seek leave to have the rest of this eulogy, in five parts, incorporated into the Hansard record.
Leave granted.
Part 2 - Rex Leverington.
Barry and Tim met on 23 December 1974, the day before Cyclone Tracy - I don’t know whether I should read anything
into that. They met at the Woolshed Bar in the basement of the Australia Hotel, Collins Street, Melbourne.
They were introduced by a mutual friend, David Williams, who at the time, Tim was sharing a flat with in North
Melbourne. Some years prior, David had also shared a flat with Barry. After a short while at the bar, David
noticed Barry and introduced them. The chemistry began – and was heightened when they left the venue and Tim
discovered Barry had a Mercedes Benz.
Life together began at 20 Myrtle Street, Ripponlea, an old two-storey terrace that was in need of much TLC. After two
years of renovations they sold it for a handsome profit.
Some funny things happened in that house, like a few days before settlement when salt damp came screaming through
the wallpaper in the music room. Much to Barry’s disgust, Tim turned up the heat and it vanished - well at least until
after settlement. Barry always followed the rule book to a tee, where Tim was always trying to get him to cut corners
for expediency – but no such luck.
During that time, the boys had a small plumbers business, with the plumber’s assistant, Tim, being in constant conflict
with the master plumber, being Barry.
Around 1976, they bought a small farm at Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula; another wreck of a house that
needed renovating. They named the property ‘Kirkliston’ after the Camac family farm at Balhannah where Tim
spent many happy weekends as a young adult. To this day, that name is still part of their group of companies.
First priority was a swimming pool and, up to Barry’s usual high standards, it was built like the great wall of China.
One of the more humorous happenings was in relation to the swimming pool and the ducted heating. They were so proud
of two achievements, because no one really had a swimming pool and ducted heating – unless they were a member of
the Myer family. Mind you, there were no walls or ceilings in the living room, but they had these two comforts. However,
Tim had commenced wallpapering the bedrooms - ever so chic in the 1970s. One weekend they went to Melbourne and
it poured buckets and buckets of rain. So the pool overflowed into the heating ducts and, as they had left the
heating running, it caused a hell of a lot of steam. On their arrival home, they walked into a steam bath, and walls
denuded of the fabulous paper. Needless to say, this began their lifelong dislike of swimming pools and wallpaper.
Barry was a keen vegetable gardener, with raised beds, string lined, straight planting, and all the trimmings. They also
had a herd of seven steers, enough to pay the rates, or so they thought. Barry’s cabbages and brussels sprouts had
grown to be magnificent specimens – his pride and joy. They had another weekend away and, when they arrived
home, nothing was left of the treasured vegetables but sticks. The cattle were sent to the knackery next day, dashing
Tim and Barry’s hopes of ever being cattle barons and market gardeners. That was the only time Tim has seen
Barry extremely angry, apart from when he was telling him what to do which, of course, as you all know, was often.
In late 1978, they sold Kirkliston, and so began in early 1979 their hospitality life.
They purchased the lease of the Main Hotel, Bairnsdale. The landlady’s name was Maria Vogt – a difficult, demanding
but brilliant businesswoman, who taught them so much. She insisted that they religiously allocate 8% of the daily takings
to a bag under the bed and, being so intimidated by her, they conformed with barely restrained enthusiasm.
Barry and Tim were amongst the first two single men to obtain a hotelkeeper’s licence in Victoria; it was the norm for it
to be granted to a husband and wife team. Prejudice was still in its heyday and Barry found this to be of some concern
when someone commented on two men running a hotel. He used to get quite upset, whereas Tim would confront the
person with the quip ‘Shall we see you in court?’ That soon diffused the situation. People’s attitude to someone who
seemed to be a bit different was disturbing in those days. Thankfully, today things have changed for the better,
however minute that may be.
1981 - Britannia Hotel, Norwood, for almost a year. This was their first freehold pub. This is where they met
Vern Hembrow and Robert Semmens, who were responsible for their financial wellbeing and long night sessions
devoted to anything but business. Vern, to this day, is the boy’s financial advisor.
After the Britannia, it was an around Australia trip where they met Paul Kennon in Darwin, who ignited their interest
in the Northern Territory.
Upon arrival back in Melbourne, they purchased the freehold of the Court House Hotel in North Melbourne. The
clientele were mostly Italian and Maltese. Leo’s Corner was famous for its Thursday night nosh-ups with wonderful
plates of antipasto. Leo, of course, was a senior member of the Mafia who, with a slight glance, could fix a situation
before it got out of hand. Barry and Tim’s dad, Max, would often be invited to sleazy bullet-ridden speak-easy’s in
Lygon Street for a few drinks and a lot of laughs. Max was always referred to as Mr Max and Tim’s mother was
Mrs Phyllis, and were held in high regard by the clientele. Barry was one of their closest confidants – someone they
fully trusted.
In 1984, Tim’s mother passed away and the wake at the hotel was very moving. They had never seen so many grown
men cry.
After that, the spark went out at North Melbourne, and they sold up and went for another drive around Australia,
ending up in the Northern Territory.
Their next hotel was the Austral in Colac. This was their most difficult hotel, where clients’ use of alcohol and drugs
did not mix. On one occasion, Barry had a broken pot glass thrust into his face. It rained nine months of the year,
and dripped off the trees for another three. They decided to move on after 18 months.
Dick and Adrian Brewer, along with Jeff and Janet McKay, were their close friends with whom many a beverage
was consumed.
A house was purchased on the River Mitchell at Bairnsdale, and then they set off again to the Territory.
The Riverview Caravan Park, Katherine, was purchased in 1988. This was a huge business, with the busiest night
seeing 700 people crammed into the park. They sold everything from postage stamps to liquor, fuel, takeaway
food, hardware, toys, fishing gear and condoms – you name it, they had it. Barry had it stockpiled to the ceiling,
caressing the cobwebs.
This began their love affair with the Territory and the purchase of commercial property, putting to shame the
recession we were told we had to have.
After seven years, they sold out and went to Toorak in Victoria, where they froze their little butts off. So they took
off for Queensland and Sanctuary Cove, where Barry had his boat and all the things he loved.
Five years down the track, they decided they were too young to retire so, after a discussion with Gary Cartwright,
they decided to look at the Bluestone Motor Inn in Tennant Creek, a 65-bedder with restaurant. Two years in a row
they won the award for the best mid-range accommodation in the Northern Territory.
Great friendships were struck with Nashy the electrician, who used to heave a great sigh every time the phone call came
from the Bluestone for a job that needed to be done yesterday: ‘Quote, Nashy. Nashy, job urgent, get here quick’.
He used to say to Tim: ‘Yes, your eminence’.
There was also Bob Torilla, their competitor at the Safari Lodge, who they had to twist his arm to imbibe a glass of
red wine.
Barry and Tim had the pleasure of hosting the presentation to Kay Rose of an Order of Australia. Keith and Kay Rose
were very special people to Tim and Barry.
Chef Damien and chief bottle-washer, Kay - who, by the way, is now honorary slave to Jackson the Dashy – were their
right hands in the running of the Bluestone Motor Inn.
Tennant Creek was one of their career highlights, and there were many occasions of just plain fun, but hard work.
Tim was once asked why he drove a four-wheel drive vehicle when he never went outside of the town. ‘Simple’, he
said, ‘It mounts the curbs nicely when I’m pissed’.
Sadly, this was also the beginning of a long decline in Barry’s health. The Bluestone was sold the week after Tim’s
50th birthday, which Barry missed out on due to his ongoing treatment. The mayor commented that the 50th celebration
was like the Tennant Creek of old.
After Barry’s rehab at Memorial Hospital in Adelaide under the watchful and caring eyes of Margy Rymill, they went to
Jeff’s in Queensland where the other army of Dashys had been looked after. That was a major part of why they went
back to the Sunshine State.
Soon after arriving, Barry told Tim he must continue to work and, as a result, it’s the East West Motor Inn in Ceduna.
A couple of funny quips from Barry. Tim had, over the last 12 months, been washing, drying and dressing Barry.
On one occasion, just weeks ago, the drying bit about the nether regions was taking place. Barry gave that suppressed
smile, and said to Tim: ‘If you are not careful, I will have you charged with rape’.
Just a few days before his death, he beckoned to Dawn and said: ‘Do not tell Boyd this, but I’m an Aborigine’, and
then winked.
In closing, Tim and Barry had a wonderful 30 years together, had lots of fun, and met some wonderful people, the
like of whom are here today to pay tribute to Barry.
Part 3 – Tim.
Judy Kraeche wrote to me after Dad’s passing and said: ‘Tim, you are now the older generation’. Now that my old
mate has gone, what am I supposed to be this time? Could it be the ancient generation?
There is no text book of life that can tell me how I should feel. I guess emptiness is the closest I can get.
I must thank these people:
The Bishop of Willochra, Bishop Garry, and Rev Jeremy Greaves from Ceduna Anglican Parish. What a lifesaver
he has been, and very forgiving after Christmas Eve Mass.
Boyd, Dawn and June. What can I say? You know how I feel.
Lee-Anne and Trudy, for making the boy purr a few days before his death.
Jim and Cheryl for just being there.
Director of Ceremonies, Rex Leverington.
John Brazil and staff of Berry’s for their professionalism.
Thank you to the management and staff of the Franklin Harbour Hotel.
Thank you to Geoff and Kay for bringing the babies down.
Thank you all for being here to say goodbye to a very special person.
Barry was not a demonstrative person. He was the sort of person who did not show his emotions publicly. However,
there is something I think needs to be said publicly, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. It’s a quote from
Roger Whittaker’s song, The Last Farewell:
For you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly, more dearly than the spoken word can tell.
Barry’s life has been a difficult, exhausting and challenging one in the latter part of his life. He has suffered
incredible deprivation and ill health, but had overcome that to remain a passionate, caring human being, leaving
a legacy of friendship to all who knew him.
He was Sylvia’s ‘Daffodil Boy’. Can you imagine conservative Barry sitting in the main street of Ceduna wearing
a bright yellow wig to help raise money for the Ceduna Room at the Anti-Cancer Council’s Greenhill Lodge?
He was able to mix with paupers and princes, and knew how life worked. Nothing was insurmountable. He never
lost the touch of common humanity. As he progressed through life, he just remained the same. Barry Standing was
Barry Standing - love him or leave him. He did not discriminate. The colour of a person’s skin meant nothing, but
behaviour did, and that is how I feel.
In Katherine just before winter, Barry would buy blankets in bulk for the Western Desert communities of
Kalkarindji, Daguragu and Lajamanu, add on a small margin and sell to the people. This would help them to have
a warm winter without being ripped off. He was always particular that no one was deliberately taken for a ride.
I would often disagree with the size of his margins. He would just shrug his shoulders and ignore me.
Whatever life presented to him just seemed to me as: ‘Oh well, what next?’. It was hard to fathom him out – he was
so deep, like a bottomless waterhole.
Only last Saturday did I learn that Barry had a long-kept secret. Barry had only ever had an extract of a Birth
Certificate which stated that he was born on 4/1/46. His excuse for that was he was a ward of the state. I guess
I had no reason to question that after what he hade been through as a child. Just before his death, I wrote to Births,
Deaths and Marriages in Victoria for a copy of his original certificate, thinking maybe there could be such a piece
of paper. Sure enough, there was. His date of birth was 4/1/42. He is still 58 to me.
Chris, who gave Part 1 of his life story, said to me on Sunday that Barry probably told bits of his life to a number of
people, never quite telling it all to any one person. It’s no wonder June, Barry’s sister, said to me a few weeks ago:
‘He would not just simply give up. He fought life’s incredible battle until the last gasp of life’.
Boyd, Barry’s brother, spoke with an old friend of Barry’s, Paul Venus, last week and he told him that Barry was
determined to show something for his life’s work. I think he has done that well. His success in business is known,
but it was his success in being able to communicate with his fellow man that I think you will all agree is his legacy.
He could easily have earned the nickname of ‘Have a Chat’. He liked a little talk.
At about 2 pm on 5 February, I mentioned to Barry that I was going to have a cup of tea with Jim and Cheryl and
Helen and Phillip across the road from the Wakefield Hospital. I leant over him and gave him a kiss on the
forehead and whispered to him that I loved him, and that I would be back in a short while.
Twenty minutes later, I received a call from Nurse Tim at the hospital to say that Barry had passed away. I was
most distraught. My dear friend, Jim, said: ‘He went while you were not there so as to spare you the pain of seeing
him go’. I now believe that to be true. Typical Barry; he had the last say. God bless Boyd and Dawn for being with
Barry and holding his hands during the last breath of his life.
We are not subjects of each other, but we owe each other love, kindness and respect.
God bless my Bounce-Back Boy, Barry Thomas Standing. May he rest in peace.
Part 4 – Gary Cartwright.
Barry Standing – what a wonderful man, and I feel privileged to have known Baz as a great mate.
Barry was a proud man and a very private man. I do not know anything about his earlier days – he never spoke
about where he grew up.
I first met Barry and Tim in Darwin in mid-1988. At the time, I was working at Kalkarindji, a remote Aboriginal
community 480 km south-west of Katherine. I was in Darwin, negotiating on behalf of the Daguragu Council to
purchase a service station, general store and small caravan park for the Gurindji people at Kalkarindji. I was staying
at the Atrium in Darwin. It was a Friday night, and I came down from my room to find Paul Kennon at the bar talking
to two men. I went over and was introduced to Barry and Tim. From there a great friendship developed.
I spent many a great night with Barry and Tim at Riverview Caravan Park/Service Station. Unbeknown to me, Tim and
Barry had also expressed interest in purchasing the business at Kalkarindji. Once they learnt that I was bidding for
the business on behalf of an Aboriginal community, the dropped their bid, to allow an Aboriginal community to own
an enterprise and generate their own money.
It quickly became obvious that Barry and Tim were incredible business people. Neither had tertiary qualifications, but
they had learnt how to successfully operate businesses through life’s experiences. They complemented each other in
many ways.
They knew what properties were worth. They put money into and further developed the business, further established
the grounds, looked after the staff and provided an excellent service to clients. They then knew when to sell.
Barry, to me, was the quiet achiever, very practical and everything had to be done properly. He was very hospitable
and very generous with friends. Barry was the steadying influence in the relationship; always looking at ways to save
money but never taking shortcuts. Barry was the one who spent most of the day outdoors being the plumber,
carpenter, rubbish collector, slashing lawns and, generally, the maintenance person.
Barry was also the businessman, watching every dollar, following the stock market, always prepared to give good
sound advice if needed. Barry appeared to be, in many ways, the boss in the relationship between Tim and Barry.
I will give an example. Tim wanted to upgrade the kitchen area of the takeaway at Riverview Caravan Park. Barry
could not see the urgent need to upgrade and saw other things with higher priority. Tim managed to talk Barry
into going south for a couple of weeks. While Barry was away, Tim organised contractors to come in and upgrade
the kitchen area to the tune of $25 00. When Barry returned, he was furious, stating that it was a waste of money
and he could have completed the work cheaper and better. I stayed clear of the place for a few days.
Another example was that Tim wanted to buy a Mercedes Benz. Barry kept saying they would buy one later. When
Barry was away, Tim purchased a Mercedes Benz in Darwin; drove around until Barry was expected back. Tim then
left the car with a close friend in Darwin. A few months later, Barry found out that Tim had purchased a Mercedes
Benz without his approval and had left it with friends in Darwin. Tim was ordered to get rid of it. Barry instructed
everyone working in the Riverview Service Station area not to fuel the vehicle up and, if they did, Tim was to pay
cash for all fuel for the Mercedes Benz. World War III was declared. Tim performed and stated to staff, with
great drama, that as he was half-owner in Riverview, he could fuel up the Mercedes Benz any time and put half the
cost of the fuel onto the account and he would pay the balance in cash. The Mercedes Benz was sold soon after.
Everyone who knew them felt more at ease.
Barry was a favourite with the Gurindji people from Kalkarindji and the Warlpiri people from Lajamanu. When the
Warlpiri people came into Katherine, there was usually a lot of trouble and most people stayed away from the football
and Kirby’s and Crossway Hotels. Not Baz – he got on with everyone, even those Aboriginal people who came into town
to play football or just for shopping. Baz would go and watch them play, cheering them on and spending lots of time
talking with them. He would often provide cool drinks and iced water for the players. Everyone held him in high
regard. Barry did small things, like purchasing blankets and other items for them, and then sold the blankets
with no mark-up for himself. If someone was broken down, he would help them into town at no charge.
There was another quality I admired about Barry – he had a high tolerance level. I don’t think I ever saw Baz lose his
cool; nothing seemed impossible. His pain tolerance was also extremely high. We saw this through his difficult last
couple of years. Barry just battled on. I went to Sydney while Barry was in Prince of Wales Private, about 18 months
ago. Both Tim and I seriously did not think Barry would get out of hospital. Barry managed to get out of hospital and
did a range of exercises to try and make himself strong again. One of the things he did was go for walks around Ceduna
but, unlike most people, Barry walked backwards, claiming that when you walked backwards you used extra muscles.
Many people driving past would stop and ask Barry if he was okay. He would reply: ‘Yes, I am fine’, and continue
walking backwards.
Another incident that happened while Tim and Barry were at Riverview Caravan Park demonstrates Barry’s high
tolerance levels. I had just arrived from Timber Creek and had called into Riverview for a quick coffee. I was standing
in the reception area talking to Tim, when Barry raced in with a bad injury to his leg. He had been doing some
plumbing work and some metal had pierced his leg. The cut was deep and nasty and blood was spurting out.
Tim immediately ordered Barry out of the reception area stating that he did not want blood all over the reception
area floor. Barry asked Tim to take him to the Katherine Hospital. Tim said that he could not take him to the
hospital because he did not want blood all over the carpet in the vehicle. I quickly wrapped a towel around Barry’s
leg, got him into my Land Cruiser and rushed him to the hospital. Barry, Tim and I laughed about this incident for
many months
All in all, Baz was a pretty special man. Barry was a good businessman. Barry knew what hard work was. He was a
caring person. He was a very tolerant person. He was always positive and, most of all, he thought the world of Tim.
While in Prince of Wales Private, Sydney, when Barry was down and out, he told me he was worrying about Tim and
how Tim would manage if he lost his battle.
I would like to end this brief speech by saying that Barry was, in Pitjantjatjara terms, a Wati Pulka, which means Barry
was a powerful, wise, strong man.
I was saddened to hear that Barry had passed away. His loss is painful, but somehow, this is the cost of living. In a
very real sense, Barry will be in my heart forever. His presence, in my life, will never die.
Gary Cartwright
21/2/2004
Cowell SA
Part 5 – Rev Jeremy Greaves
Over the past year or so I have come to know Tim and Barry quite well. I’ve heard some of the stories of their lives
together over the past 30 years (probably only those deemed suitable for a vicar to hear). I’ve heard about Barry’s
stoic and dignified struggle with illness in more recent times, and I’ve heard something of the hopes and dreams
Tim and Barry had for the future.
Today, it seems that those hopes and dreams lie in tatters. And even 2000 years of Christian tradition seems
pretty inadequate as we gather here today to mourn the death of someone who died too young after such a difficult
struggle. And I feel a bit of a fraud standing before you. It can all seem inadequate to address the questions and
the doubts; it can seem inadequate to even begin to offer some comfort in the face of Barry’s death.
It would be so much easier for me to stand here, and for all of you, if there was some neat formula, some set of magic
words that would make all of this go away. Unfortunately, our tradition doesn’t give us any such thing and it might
seem that we are left alone with our pain and despair.
The issue of faith for me, at least, is the willingness to dare to believe that behind this world, even in the midst of
unspeakable suffering or grief, there is a hidden and all-embracing love – a love which doesn’t seek value, but
rather creates. If this is so, then God has set a value on Barry’s life, and on our own, that nothing can destroy,
not even death
At times such as this, it takes some daring to believe that. And sometimes we may have to allow others to do the
believing for us. That’s one of the supportive responsibilities of any community. That’s why, at a time like this,
we need to be together as friends and family, to touch one another in some way – it might be for a hug, a smile;
it might be with tears or an embrace; it might be with a word spoken; or a silent prayer offered.
The one phrase that is said more often in the scriptures than any other is ‘Do not fear’. That is, do not be afraid, do
not be anxious. It is something that we all need to hear: that we do not have to be anxious about Barry, for we
place our trust in the promise that he is safe in the arms of God. Trusting this allows us to enter today, tomorrow,
and the next day, with courage and with hope.
So, in the end, we are left alone with each other and with a God who never leaves us. God is with us and we have every
right to be angry with God; we have every right to demand of God, like Martha did of Jesus: ‘Why did you let this
happen? If you were there, maybe things would have been different …’. And we can go on and on asking those
questions; we can go on and on being angry with the world and with God. And these feeling are okay and
normal – God knows. God is big enough to take anything we can hurl God’s way – but eventually, we must find
a way forward.
Probably that sense of loss which we feel today will never go away. Maybe over time it will get a little easier to live
with and the tears might not come so often but, most likely, there will now always be a feeling that something is missing.
And that is not something to be afraid of because, every time those feelings come, it is an opportunity to remember.
Those times, particularly birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries, are times to remember all those things for which
you remember Barry most.
The challenge for each one of us gathered here today is to ensure that nothing good from Barry’s life is ever lost;
that we keep alive the things that were important to him in his life. As we go from this place, it will take everyone
here different lengths of time to discover the real impact of Barry’s death but, if we are to be sure that his life was
worth something, we should take with us a part of what his life meant to us – reflect the love that Barry had in
your own relationships, remember his care when you care for your families or for your friends, remember his
passion, remember all those things that made him great. In this way, despite pain which you may all be feeling today,
there is a way forward.
Dr TOYNE (Stuart): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I feel bound to address tonight the issues raised by the member for Greatorex last week in a press release entitled ‘Health Minister must explain why elective surgery is cancelled once again in Alice Springs’. In this media release, the member for Greatorex alleges not only that elective surgery has been cancelled in Alice Springs Hospital but that this is due to a lack of staff which, in turn, is due to the fact that this government has created new nursing positions but not filled them. These are serious issues on the face of it and it is, therefore, disappointing to find that the media release from the member for Greatorex is full of misinformation, misunderstandings and just plain errors. I can only conclude that the honourable member is either malicious, consciously attempting to deceive the Territory public, or incompetent.
In order to put the record straight, I would like to address the points one by one.
First, the member for Greatorex alleges that Alice Springs Hospital has cancelled elective surgery yet again. Wrong! In recent weeks, no elective surgery has been cancelled at all. Due to the normal operations of any hospital, it is occasionally necessary to reschedule elective surgery to allow more urgent surgery to be performed. However, in recent weeks, only two patients have had their elective surgery for minor conditions rescheduled. In neither of these cases was the surgery rescheduled because of lack of staff. In both cases, it was related to higher priority surgery being undertaken. This, in fact, is a very good record and one I congratulate the staff of Alice Springs Hospital on achieving.
Second, the member for Greatorex alleges that it is not unusual to see 15 patients waiting in emergency each morning for admission to a bed in Alice Springs Hospital. Wrong again! Here are the facts taken from the hospital records from 7:30 am each morning: over the months of February, March and April, there were no occasions at all where there were 15 people or more in the Emergency Department awaiting admission to a ward bed. This is not my opinion; these are the facts provided by the staff of Alice Springs Hospital.
Third, the member for Greatorex states:
As for the recently promised $2m for the Alice Springs Hospital ICU and other services, hospital
management has been advised not to implement any procedures to recruit staff until very late in
the year, as the money will not be available.
Absolutely wrong! Hospital management have not been advised to defer recruitment of staff. In fact, they have been directed to commence recruitment of staff as quickly as possible. Sufficient money is available to fast-track recruitment. Advertisements for specialist doctors and nurses will be published in the national press. Complex medical equipment is being purchased. It is expected that sufficient staff will be available to commence operation in November 2004, with the full staff in place by March 2005.
He is not doing very well so far - not doing very well at all.
Fourth, the member for Greatorex alleges the reasons for these non-existent cancellations of elective surgery is because this government is failing to deliver on our promise to provide 75 new hospital nurses in our first term. He also alleges this government is creating positions and leaving them vacant, and to quote him:
… government is playing bluff with the health of Territorians, announcing initiatives that it has no intention
to undertake.
Wrong, yet again! As of the last sittings in March, we created 38 new hospital nurse positions, and I am very pleased tonight to be able to say that on previously announced initiatives, by 14 May, we have created 48 new nurse positions across the Territory. I wonder how many of those 48 positions have we filled? I table this list: 46 of them have been filled and have incumbents. So much for the claptrap of creating positions and not filling them. This includes 30 positions in Royal Darwin Hospital, five at Katherine District Hospital, eight at Alice Springs Hospital, two at the Gove District Hospital and three at Tennant Creek Hospital. Of these 48 positions - I repeat - 96% or 46 of them are currently filled.
That does not include 25 new positions into ICU High Dependency in Alice Springs and 27 positions announced today in the budget in ED at Royal Darwin Hospital. We are doing pretty well and I believe we will get over 100 nurses in hospital-based positions before the end of this turn, well above the promised level that we took to the last election.
Of the ones not occupied, the member for Greatorex should be aware that recruitment activity is under way to fill these positions. On the member for Greatorex’s allegations that we are creating these positions but not filling them, I simply say this: the money is there, the positions are filled, our commitment to the health of Territorians is on track.
There we have it. One media release; four allegations that go to the heart of the challenges that face our public hospitals; and the member for Greatorex gets every single one of them wrong. These are matters of great importance to the public and, may I say, issues this government is addressing after years of neglect from successive CLP governments. These are issues upon which the public has a right to be informed, and about which I am more than happy to enter into debate. However, that debate must be based on the facts, and not on the kind of wild, inaccurate and just plain wrong accusations we see from the member for Greatorex.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, to conclude, the member for Greatorex made one final accusation. He alleged that I want to retire from the Martin Labor government. Guess what? Wrong again!
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I report to the House on my recent trip to Uganda as a member of the CPA Executive Committee. I have to admit my perceptions of Uganda changed dramatically after my visit. I did have an impression that I probably gained from the media but, in fact, I came away with a very positive attitude towards Uganda.
It is such a small country. It is about a sixth of the size of the Northern Territory, but it has 22 million people. I guess if you think of Alice Springs to the border having 22 million people, you can image how highly populated it is. But it only has one capital city, which is Kampala.
I was impressed with the parliament that I visited there. It has 305 members, 46% of whom are actually women. There is a strong movement in Uganda to make sure women are included in decision-making roles. There were 240 representatives of different constituencies, but there were also 56 women representatives from different districts, 10 people’s Defence Force representatives, five youth representatives, five representatives of people with disabilities and five representatives of workers, or perhaps what we would call the unions. Therefore, the whole spread of the parliament was not just based on one constituency per member. It also had a representation right across the board of community. I was most impressed at the way they operated.
They do not have a multi-party system in the way that we do. There are, obviously, factions within the parliament, but there is a Prime Minister, and no Leader of the Opposition. They work on the basis that, whenever a bill is put forward to them, they vote on it depending whether it is considered to be good for the country or their people. It is called the movement system. It is quite inclusive - certainly non-partisan and non-sectarian - and it brings people of different opinions and identities to work together to develop their country.
Winston Churchill called it ‘the pearl of Africa’, and I guess I can understand why those people – the missionaries and the colonists - really were taken with the beauty of the country there. It has such wealth in the way it can grow things. Everywhere you go - the verges, the lanes, anywhere - you see food growing. Therefore, the people there are not starving people of Africa. They have an extremely healthy diet, in fact. However, unemployment is high and there are no welfare payments. You can understand that the level of standard of living in our eyes is quite low but, in their eyes, they are becoming an economic and social model for the rest of Africa. They have done such good things.
President Museveni opened our conference, and he gave a very strong speech about what had happened since the colonisation. He, basically, said that colonisation had stagmented the development of the African countries, and that the Africans themselves were partly to blame for this because they were not strong enough to stand up for themselves. Certainly they felt, when they reached independence, that the country was left rather illiterate with little education services and a country that was dependent on the export of raw materials. He also spoke strongly of the dark years of the Idi Amin regime, and how that had put the country back even further after the colonists had left.
However, he did point out some of the values of having the British there. One was the benefit of having an English language. I have brought along some newspapers that people might like to read, because it is always good to get what is on the newspapers when you go to a different country.
A member: Any crocodiles?
Mrs BRAHAM: There were none on the front page!
I went to a beautiful national park, and I had to admit I was so impressed with the pristine conditions. The British did leave them this beautiful national park which they have cared for, and they have introduced a system where the royalties from going into that park actually go back to the villages and employ the rangers. There were 400 rangers in this particular park I went to. Because the people in the villages get the benefit from these royalties, they tend not to damage their park; they are not poaching. The elephants, crocodiles and other animals are actually on the increase. It was very refreshing to go into an area along the Nile. I did feel privileged. I rang my daughter and said: ‘I am standing on the banks of the Nile watching the hippopotamus having a bath’. It was really quite beautiful to see. You have to give them credit that they have done this. There are some very wonderful resorts that you could go to as a tourist and stay. I do not think we hear very much about it. Their tourist trade seems to be from Europe - Germany, France and other countries.
The newspapers are very interesting, in that you get a glimpse of things that happen on the ground. This was Museveni, the President whose helicopter broke down when he was due to go to the King’s birthday party, so he went on the back of a scooter. When you look in here, they also did a very nice spread of all the CPA delegations that went there. There are lots of interesting articles in that one. This one, in particular, is called ‘Straight Talk’. This is an article aimed at the young teenagers in Uganda, which talks about a man or a boy having sex with girl who is aged less than 18 years, which is called defilement. I thought what a strong word ‘defilement’ is, compared to what we say, ‘rape and sexual assault’, which we tend to get very blas about. That is such a strong word. ‘Defilement’ is a crime, and this article is aimed at young people, saying: ‘Do you know anyone this has happened to? Tell us your story. Straight talkers speak out on defilement’. It also shows that they have a Straight Talk radio show that is run by teenagers. That is an interesting article.
They believe that is the way they have combated much of the AIDS epidemic. The president actually received a Commonwealth award a couple of years ago because of his work in curtailing AIDS. It has actually dropped from 18.5% in 1993 to 6.5% at the end of 2001. The values that they are promoting to control AIDS I found interesting because, if we went out to our teenagers in our society and said this, they would probably laugh at us: that it was fidelity, awareness, abstinence and the use of condoms. Although it is a very strong Catholic country - a very strong Christian country - even the Catholic Church condoned the use of condoms. By that simple way of taking on values and promoting it, and letting young people know all about it, they have controlled AIDS in a way that is a model for the rest of Africa. That is certainly something that they can be very proud of.
I love this headline: ‘Jobless man wins lotto’. This jobless man won 51 million shillings. Their currency is all in shillings. They do not have any other denominations, so it is sometimes hard to get your mind around the noughts on the end of anything. One of the hotels had gardeners working. They were obviously labourers at the bottom end of the scale, and they earn 200 000 shillings a month - which seems enormous but, in actual fact, is not very much in our terms because one of our dollars would be the equivalent of 1500 shillings. For mathematicians in the room, perhaps you can work out how much they actually earned. It is based very heavily on manual labour. The President basically said: ‘We do not want aid in Uganda, we want training. Do not send us a truck, send us a person to fix it and to show us how to do it. And we want access to markets for our raw materials such as the developed countries. We need that access to the market so we can actually promote our economy’. Uganda is considered to be quite a strong country in economic development.
The meeting that I attended also was very interesting in the fact that I thought of the member for Greatorex when they had did this one. They formed an information and communications technology working group. Everywhere you go, it is interesting to see the different technology used in different parliaments. I went into their Parliament House and their Hansard area and looked at their system. Then I went upstairs to our Hansard people here and saw the difference, and how much more advanced, I guess, we are here, because they still do use the tapes, even though they do it very efficiently and very well.
We also discussed at length the election of the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Women’s Parliamentarians Group. You would have thought, by now, that people would have accepted the fact that we need to promote more women in parliament. However, here we were in this executive meeting, having this long, strong debate from some of the male members, about why we should even have this group, and why they should be discriminated - not against, but for - by including them on the executive committee. Might I add, I did contribute quite strongly to that debate, and we certainly got through that the Chairperson of the Women’s Parliamentary Group in future will be a member of the executive of the CPA.
The member for Drysdale had been to London recently, and I was pleased to note that he gave a report to parliament about his trip to London. I was also pleased to meet one of the members who had met with the member for Drysdale in England. In the future, we will be hosting a delegation from England here in the Northern Territory, which will be great to see. I am also pleased to see that the member for Greatorex is attending the Malaysian seminar representing us, and that is important too. I have said continually to members in this House that it is good to be involved in the CPA. It is an experience and an eye-opener whenever you go. I look forward to having representation also at Canada later in the year.
I have a number of books, as well as papers, on my office table for anyone who might like to borrow these, to get information on it. This is the parliamentary information booklet which they produced, bringing people up-to-date on what is happening in their parliament: Uganda on the Move. That is their Parliament House which was a donation from the British on their independence. It has a number of articles, some of them quite controversial as well, and there is a wildlife spectrum inside. Members, you are very welcome to borrow these if you would like to catch up on what was going on in Uganda.
Again, I urge all members, whenever they can and where possible, to be part of the CPA. We have a good reputation on the CPA as a small country that has contributed a lot, and has been host to many delegations and to the Small Countries’ Conference. We can only add to that reputation by making sure we participate in a positive way.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak about the young man in Alice Springs whom I met at the Northern Territory School Board of Studies Awards held at the Desert Park several months ago. This young man’s name is Paul Jannick Casseeram. Paul is a young man who has just finished his Year 12 studies in Alice Springs at St Philip’s College last year. In doing so, he did very well in his examinations.
Let me give you an idea of how well he did by giving you the results of his Stage 1 and Stage 2 subjects. In the year 2002 for Stage 1, first of all, he was assessed by NTCE for the subjects he had studied previously when he lived overseas. He was granted a satisfactory achievement result for a Block Stage 1 assessment. For chemistry he received 15 points; English - these are all Stage 1 subjects - 17 points; French, 19 points; Mathematics, 15 points; Specialist Mathematics, 17 points; and Physics, 17 points. Last year, for the Stage 2 examinations, in Chemistry he received 17 points, which was classified as an A grade pass; for English communications, he received 14 points, a B grade pass; for French, he received 20 out of 20 points, again an A grade pass; Mathematical Studies, 18 points; Physics, 18 points; and Specialist Mathematics 18 points, all A grade passes. You can see for yourself, Paul did remarkably well at the NTCE examinations and he was ranked ninth in the top 20 Year 12 students of the Northern Territory for 2003.
I was at the Northern Territory School Board of Studies Awards where he received an award for a perfect score in French. I had a chance to speak to the young man and his family. His father’s name is Manfred. I discovered that Manfred is a pathology technician who was recruited from South Africa to work in the Alice Springs Hospital in the Pathology Department. He had been in Alice Springs for some two years; had come across from South Africa, initially on his own, to commence the job and to set up home before he brought his family across. After some three months living in Alice Springs and working there, he did bring his family across to live in Alice Springs and St Philip’s College is where Paul - and his young brother who now also goes there - went to school in Alice. The mother came, along with the children, and so they are now live in Alice Springs as a family in a home that they are purchasing.
Manfred Casseeram saw me subsequent to the awards ceremony, saying that young Paul, who rated ninth out of the top 20 Year 12 students in the Northern Territory last year, was refused a government scholarship. The reason that he was given for being unsuccessful in his application for a scholarship - considering that he was the ninth top student in the Territory - was that the competition for such scholarships was intense and that a large number were received for this year. There was no reason given for his failure to receive the scholarship.
On hearing that from Manfred Casseeram, I wrote to the minister to plead on behalf of young Paul. I thought he was a high achiever in academic achievement and he should be awarded a scholarship. He had every expectation to receive a Northern Territory government scholarship, as he was the ninth top student in the Territory. The letter I received from the minister, dated 4 May, was very disappointing. He thanked me for the letter regarding Paul Jannick Casseeram, and I will quote from the second paragraph:
I am advised that Paul’s application was unsuccessful on the basis that he did not meet the residency
criteria. Paul acknowledged this in the letter accompanying his application.
Let me just talk a little about the residency criteria. I understand that residency criteria for Northern Territory students applying for scholarships from the government is that they have to live in the Territory for two years. This is a family whose father came over two years ago to work in a job that he was specifically recruited for from South Africa. It is understandable that he would have come on his own to ensure that the circumstances he was going to meet in the Northern Territory would suit his family.
Therefore, he came first, he took on a job and set up home, and then brought his family across once he had settled. This is a family which has made Alice Springs their home. The whole family now lives here, the children go to our local schools and they are very high achievers. Chief Minister was recently quoted as saying: ‘You can live in the Territory for five minutes and if you live in the Northern Territory you are a Territorian’. I tell you the Casseerams are Territorians. They have lived here long enough to qualify. This young man has done very well to qualify for a scholarship from the Northern Territory government. I say to the minister that it is not good enough that you knock this young fellow back just because he happens to have lived in the Territory for a couple of months short of the two year residency criteria that is required.
Let me also tell the minister for education that I know that, up to the end of March, only nine scholarships were awarded out of the normal 10 scholarships awarded annually for high achieving students in the Northern Territory. I ask myself: why? Why did the department only award nine scholarships instead of the normal 10? Perhaps the department is holding off on the 10th scholarship just in case the minister decided that Paul Casseeram deserves one, and will instruct the department to award him the scholarship.
It is important for the minister to get across this issue. This is a young man who deserves every support that this government can give him. Territorians want to see our young children achieve to their maximum potential possible. This is a young man who shows, definitely, that he can achieve, and achieve well. To score five As out of six subjects is a remarkable performance for any young man, and I doubt that anyone in this Chamber would have achieved as many as he has.
Therefore, minister, I say to you that it is important to reconsider this young man’s application for a Northern Territory government scholarship. The family is currently undergoing a degree of financial hardship to ensure Paul continues his higher education interstate. He has chosen to do a course. I cannot recall what it is called at the moment, but it is not available at the Northern Territory University so he is studying interstate. I vaguely recall that it may be the ACT where he is studying at the moment. I say to the minister again: I believe it is important to reconsider quickly. It is now into the second term, or the first semester of his first year of university. They are still struggling with only the family’s financial resources. If we can get the scholarship awarded to this young man, it will make a big difference for the family but, in particular, for this young man who would then have the peace of mind to be able to pursue his studies without having to worry about where his next dollar is going to come from for his boarding fees, study fees, books and his living away from home allowance.
I spoke to the minister last week after I received his letter, and explained in very strong terms that I thought his decision was wrong. He promised me that he was going to have his department reconsider the application. It has, perhaps, gone beyond a departmental decision now. The minister himself has to become involved in this decision, and the sooner he gets involved in it and gets across it, he can make the decision and, in doing so, will ensure that this young man gets the scholarship that he deserves.
I am sure that Manfred Casseeram would be very happy to talk to the minister at any time. It is easy enough to find him at the Alice Springs Hospital Pathology Department, and find out what his intentions are regarding a long-term stay in the Northern Territory. They have said to me that they are Territorians; their youngest son is going to St Philip’s College at the moment. I believe this year he is in Year 12. Perhaps there is another scholarship coming again at the end of this year because, surely this time, the younger son would have qualified for his two years Territory residency criterion.
Therefore, minister, please look positively towards this application. He deserves every help he can possibly get. Awarding the 10th scholarship that has been on hold by the department would cost the government no extra; it is just the 10th scholarship that is awarded each year. You will make this young man a very happy man and give him all the encouragement he can possibly get to return to the Territory to work with his qualifications.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I am not sure I can get all this in tonight, but I will try. Otherwise, it will be in two parts.
I would like to put on record details about the visit of two people, Judi and Payden Green, who are the niece and grand-niece of Captain L Strauss, who is the person whom the Strauss Airstrip is named after. As people would remember, it is the airstrip which was the subject of some debate as to whether we should have a duplicated version of the Stuart Highway go right through the middle of. I will not go into the details of how these people were contacted and decided to come to Australia, except to say that they did decide that they would come out and see where their uncle spent his last days and died.
I was privileged to chaperone these people. I should say at the start that it has been one of the most enjoyable times of my life. These people were the most friendly people you would ever want to meet. They were just ordinary folk like ourselves. They come from a small town called Marysville in Ohio. They live on a farm just outside that town, and they both teach at Marysville High School. Judi, who is the niece of Strauss, teaches children at that school you might call ‘difficult’ children, who do not want to come to school. Payden also teaches at that school. She is also an athlete, and I gather she runs half marathons. It is a bit further than I prefer to run.
They were originally meant to arrive in Darwin on 24 April, which was a Saturday. As you might have known, Anzac weekend was a long weekend. They were supposed to arrive at 1.15 pm on Saturday and we had an itinerary planned for that afternoon because, as they were only here until the Wednesday, we were going to literally have a fairly tight itinerary. However, unfortunately, their plane was cancelled in Columbus, Ohio, due to a faulty wing. Of course, this made life a bit difficult, as they were supposed to get a connection with Qantas at Chicago. They then caught an Air New Zealand flight, which meant that they arrived at 12.30 am on Sunday 25th, which was Anzac Day.
I went out to the airport to meet them. Luckily, they had sent me a nice photograph of themselves before they came, so they were easy enough to recognise. After we had said our hellos, they informed me that they had arrived with no baggage whatsoever. They were two Americans who had basically come from the other side of the world, never been to Australia in their life, and were only wearing the clothes that they came in.
There was not much we could do about that, so we sent them off to the Atrium that night and I picked them up the next morning at 8 o’clock. In the meantime, I had been to the Anzac Day memorial service at the Humpty Doo Golf Club and, luckily, I met one of the councillors from the Litchfield Shire Council, Ethel Bourke, and told her of the predicament of the Greens who had arrived without any spare clothes. Thankfully, Ethel Bourke is about the same size as Judi Green and she bundled up a great selection of clothes and I raced those back into the Atrium. I know Judi Green was very appreciative of being able to dress in something better than what she had been wearing for the last couple of days on an aeroplane.
We travelled down to the Humpty Doo Village Green where the 10 am Anzac Day ceremony was to take place. For those who do not know, Payden, which is a strange name, is the maiden name of Payden’s grandmother and that is where the name comes from. Judi and Payden laid two wreaths on Anzac Day in memory of their uncle. After that, they had a great time meeting people, especially the locals - plenty cups of coffee and biscuits - and people were extremely friendly towards them. One gentleman, whose name escapes me, actually had a commemorative book for a reunion of the squadron that Captain Al Strauss had flown with, and he was quite delighted to be able to present that to the family. I should say that this day was the beginning of many days where there was not only plenty of happiness, there also plenty of tears . That started off when they laid the wreaths at the Anzac memorial in Humpty Doo. They were certainly welcomed by the people in Humpty Doo. If you did not know and, if the Greens did not have an accent, you would have thought they were part of the Humpty Doo set, because they fitted in perfectly well.
We had to then leave the Humpty Doo Village Green and travel to the Strauss Airstrip. I had, fortunately, gone out the previous morning with a mop and bucket - trying to hide before too much of the traffic saw me - and gave the big sign a bit of a scrub. It had a few years of smog and oil all over it, so we gave it a bit of a clean-up. They went out there - this is their first time of course, they had only just arrived in Darwin late that morning - and they were met by a photographer from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age who had taken their photographs as they spent some time walking down the airstrip. I suppose that was one of the times I realised how important it was that we had kept that strip, regardless of the bits and pieces that have changed on it. Here we saw the family of the person the strip was named after walking down that strip. I do not know what would have gone through their mind when that happened. I think, again, there were a few more tears.
We finished doing that, and then raced off to the SCG, the Strauss cricket ground. It was already packed with quite a large number of people. The Army was there with their tent set up. We had the American and Australian flags up on the new flagpoles that one of the members of the Southern Districts Cricket Club, Jeff Akers, had kindly donated and erected. We had a plaque in memory of Captain Strauss covered with the Ohio and Northern Territory flags. Of course, they did not know anything about this at the time. They must have been a bit bewildered; to get off a plane and turn up at this little bush cricket pitch in the middle of nowhere must have been a bit of a shock. We then asked everyone to gather around the flagpoles and then asked Judi and Payden to remove the flags from the plaque. I tell you, you could not hear a pin drop when that happened, and there were certainly lots of tears. It was a wonderful occasion.
We then asked them to deliver caps to both cricket teams. The two cricket teams are the Southern Districts Cricket Team in disguise, which was formerly called the Litchfield President’s XI - although Mary Walshe is the captain and I am about the 14th man - and the Army. The Greens then handed out caps with Captain Strauss’ name and a copy of the wings that he wore as a pilot. We gave out blue caps to the Litchfield President’s XI and khaki caps to the Army.
Then we asked everyone to stand to attention and Noelene Trinne, who is a singer I know from the Darwin Chorale - if you are ever in at B B’s Espresso caf in Casuarina, you will find her there, because she owns the caf along with her husband - sang the American National Anthem. She practiced it for weeks before without any music. It is not an easy anthem to sing at the best of times, and for her to stand up there and sing that national anthem perfectly without music was a great effort.
Then, of course, the Administrator was there. He led the rest of us in the Australian National Anthem and I can tell you, it was sung with a fair bit of gusto there. After that, Payden tossed the coin and, I must confess, I do not know whether the Greens had a clue what was going on when we told them that this was going to be a cricket match. I believe they learnt as the day went on.
We had the normal cricket match that we have there every Anzac Day. There was plenty of bribery and corruption. In fact, there was $1200 raised just out of bribery. Bribery, in this case, is where, if you are out, someone pays you to stay in, or then someone then pays you to go out again or, if they do not want you to bowl as they did in my case, because I had 27 hit off one over, they pay you not to bowl anymore - which Mary Walshe did. We raised quite a bit of money that way.
In the meantime, the Greens were literally inundated with people coming to say hello and find out where they came from. It was a pretty hot day, and I know that Judi likes Midstrength and Payden likes a Light Ice. They were very appreciative of some cold drinks on that day, especially if you have just come from Marysville, Ohio, where I think the top temperature would be pushing to be above 10 C. We then took them all home; they were pretty exhausted.
I thank the Darwin Parachute Club. One of their representatives rang me late on Saturday night and asked whether we would like them to literally drop in. I said that would be great so, halfway through the cricket match, down came these four parachutists with red, white and blue streamers. I suppose those three colours can represent both countries because there are exactly the same colours in both flags. I know Judi and Payden were overwhelmed that these parachutists would make the effort to drop in just because they had arrived from America. Anyway, that night I dropped them back at the Atrium and, I can tell you, they were pretty well exhausted.
The next day, Bob Alford, who people might know is involved with the Heritage Advisory Council and has been a great supporter and one of those people who has put the Aviation Museum together. I did not realise he is a great painter. If you go to the Aviation Museum, you will see some of his paintings, and they are quite good. He is a walking encyclopaedia when it comes to World War II heritage. I said to him that if you every die, we have just got to somehow retain the hard drive because he has just got so much in there, you would not want to lose it. He took them down, and I followed them, to Adelaide River. I did not know that is where Strauss and his squadron took off from. There is an airstrip just south of Adelaide River, past the Mt Bundy turn-off, which is not named. It is just a paddock. They actually used a grass airstrip because Strauss arrived in March 1942 and, while he was there, they were building what is now the Strauss Airstrip, which was formally called the 27 Mile. He never actually used the Strauss Airstrip. He took off from the airstrip at Adelaide River and his last flight was made from there. When his squadron moved to the 27 Mile, they renamed that the Strauss Airstrip.
Bob Alford took them down there and showed them where the planes used to take off, and then he took them closer to the corner of the Mt Bundy turnoff and the Arnhem Highway. There are two railway lines in there, which you would not know were there. They were branch lines off the main railway line from Adelaide River. One went to cattle yards and the other went to a hospital. Just near the hospital branch line are the remains of a small kitchen. That was the mess where these pilots had their dinner. You would not know it was there because there is gamba grass and mission grass there. It took Bob quite a while to find it. Again, it was an emotional time for the family, to find some place where they could relate to their uncle. I did not know anything about that as well, and it was a great occasion. I have plenty more to say. I will continue in the adjournment debate tomorrow or the next day, and I will make sure it is all recorded.
Mr AH KIT (Arnhem): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, this evening I remark on one of the great things about the Territory and the people who live here: their spirit of generosity and care for one another. Last week, I was privileged to join members of the licensed club community in their launch of the clubs’ Smile For a Child project, which they are holding in conjunction with the Starlight Foundation. The idea of the project is for the licensed clubs of the Territory to join together to raise $32 000 to buy four interactive entertainment centres to go into each of the public hospitals in the Territory.
None of us like being in hospital, and there are few things sadder than to see a young kid stuck in hospital, especially for a long time. They are lonely, and often scared. Often they might be in pain. Many times they are apart from their families and friends.
The interactive entertainment centres are quite wonderful. They can be wheeled up to kids’ beds and give access to kids with DVD movies, video games and a host of other activities. As Starlight Foundation member, Julie Monaghan, said the other day: ‘It is something that can transport kids far from their worries and cares for, perhaps, hours at a time’.
It is great to see how Clubs NT have taken this project on. At the launch was the national ambassador for the Starlight Foundation, the great one and only cricketer, Alan Border, the Queensland President, Damien Massingham, the State Manager of the Starlight Foundation in Queensland, Julie Monaghan, and Andrew Hay, the President of Clubs NT.
It is no surprise to me that clubs and, in particular sporting clubs, right across the Territory have banded together to support this great initiative. There are over 80 clubs in the Northern Territory, and it is little known among the general public what an important element the clubs are in our daily lives. One hundred thousand people are members of clubs, and they employ around 700 full-time equivalent people. In addition, clubs, both great and small, depend on enormous levels of volunteers. They are a vital part and an important contributor to the community. A number of clubs are doing it tough, and you would not be surprised if the last thing on their minds would be to go out and support other causes. However, they do it, and they do it willingly. It is the clubs and their memberships which are the real heroes in this worthy cause.
Fundraising is not new to Territory clubs. In any given year, clubs in the Northern Territory donate $3.5m to the community. That is a measure of generosity that is a tribute to the clubs and their membership. Most clubs are involved in fundraising activities throughout the year and, through this campaign, these skills will be used to raise funds for the fantastic interactive entertainment centres for the children in our hospitals. Clubs around the Territory will be staging fundraising events from now until October, ranging from the sale of clubs’ Smile For a Child merchandise, to sausage sizzles, dinners, raffles and golf days - whatever they can come up with. I am confident that, through the hard work and dedication of clubs throughout the Territory, Clubs NT will reach its fundraising target and, hopefully, more.
It was lovely to see people like Frank Dalton from the Katherine Country Club, and Kevin Johns from the Katherine Club, not to mention Geoff Woods from the Alyangula Recreation Club, here in Darwin lending their support.
I congratulate all the clubs in the Territory for their commitment to this worthy cause and wish all clubs and the Starlight Children’s Foundation all the very best in their fundraising efforts.
I would also like to thank Alan Border for lending his wholehearted support for this campaign. Alan was a champion in the sports arena and, all of us would agree, he is also a champion for the community.
In the first night of their fundraising, Clubs NT last Friday night at the Sailing Club, raised $15 000, so they are nearly halfway there already. My colleague, the member for Nhulunbuy, kicked in $500 on that night, and I was more than happy to match him the next morning. If any other members of this Chamber here tonight, or in the near future, are prepared to throw in a few dollars, my office will put you in touch with the right people at Clubs NT.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, all of us at one time or another are touched by the plight of a kid in a hospital, so I congratulate, once more, the Starlight Foundation and the Clubs NT for their wonderful initiative in this area.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk in this Chamber about a young man from Katherine who is a shining example of what the youth of today can achieve by contributing to, and participating in, their community. I talk of Max Morris who has just turned 18 years of age.
Max’s life story begins with a twist of tragedy when his father, Paul Morris, was accidentally killed in a vehicle accident before Max was born. Max’s mum, Julie, returned from interstate to her home town of Katherine to give birth to Max in the hospital where she had spent many years as a nursing sister. Max’s first few months were spent living with his mum at his grandparent’s place until they moved together into historic O’Keefe House, where his mother helped clean and renovate the building for the Katherine Historical Society.
Max attended Katherine South Preschool, the feeder to Katherine South Primary School. During his years there, Max won many Green Ant Awards, typical of the schools’ system to foster and encourage those who demonstrated academic and sporting abilities, including high spirits. Max won his first community awards at age six. It was perhaps the simple hand-typed letter from Jackie Baxter of the then Territory Anti-Litter Campaign that was the catalyst to his future endeavours and leader among youth that he is today.
In Max’s last year of primary, he transferred to Toowoomba Grammar School on the Darling Downs in Queensland, where he spent the next five years under the care of Hugh Rose as his tutor. It was Hugh’s prospectus that had such an emotional impact on Julie, and confirmed her decision to give Max not only the education she had worked hard to provide, but the influence from a family of men that she knew that he needed to become the man she knew that he would, and a man like his own Dad. His father, Paul William Morris, was himself a young leader and member of the Young Lions in the Katherine community when he lived there as a youth.
Max returned to Katherine to complete his Year 12, and immediately became involved in the Katherine Youth Group. Since then, he has been an active leader among his peers, and has achieved a considerable amount in the short time since he returned in 2002. I was really impressed with Max’s compering of the Katherine High School graduation night 2003, which he handled with confidence and professionalism. It was the first time that I had witnessed his ability in front of a large group of people.
Max has achieved quite a bit in his 18 years. Some of the things that have happened in the last couple of years include that he has received sail training, Office of Youth Affairs, 2003, with the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure; certificate of attainment in Take the Lead Conference, Office of Youth Affairs 2003; he won the Youth, Sport and Cultural grant, Katherine Town Council 2003; he was the Parmalat Youth Leader’s Camp Leader 2003; Katherine representative 2002, 2003 and 2004 for National Youth Week; he was the 2004 semi-finalist in the Youth Leadership in the Northern Territory Young Achievers Award; he was the Community Service Young Citizen of the Year for Katherine Australia Day Award 2004; and the Charles Darwin University Outstanding Leadership Award 2003. One of his wonderful latest attributes is writer of ‘What’s Crackin’ Max?’ It is a bi-monthly column for youth in the Katherine Times, which he has been writing since February 2003.
Max is also involved in the Katherine Youth Group as vice-president 2003 and 2004; the Katherine skate park subcommittee as chairman 2003 and 2004; vice-chairman of the Chief Minister’s Round Table of Young Territorians 2004; vice-chairman of the Katherine Region Harmony Group Youth Working Party 2003-04; vice-chair of the Katherine Youth Group Executive Committee 2004; Katherine representative on the NT Youth Affairs Network 2003-04; and National Youth Week representative 2002, 2003 and 2004. His sporting achievements go on and on.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have been watching this young man develop into a great leader through his involvement with Katherine youth, and it gives me great heart for the future. Max would be the first to acknowledge the love and support he has received from his mother, Julie, who faced many challenges as a single supporting mum. Her encouragement and unfailing support has assisted Max to become the great young leader he is today. The future looks great and is well deserved for Max Morris.
I would also like now to refer to what is happening with the 2004 Croc Festival in Katherine. During the last sittings of this Assembly when I asked in Question Time why the Martin Labor government was not supporting the Croc Festival for this year, the minister for education went to great lengths to deride the Croc Festival organisers, and to attempt to persuade the rest of the members in this House of how the decision was made. The remarks by the Chief Minister and the minister for education were offensive to the organisers, not only nationally, but also to the organising committee in Katherine. It is not only me who finds it extremely interesting that all the decisions that were made by this government, were only made after the festivals had been held in both Labor seats of Nhulunbuy and Barkly. Following the last sittings, which the festival organisers followed closely, they advised me that they were going to acknowledge the support of all the staff and students who have worked so hard to this point, and that they were committed to produce the festival in Katherine come what may.
Due to the lack of support from the Northern Territory government, the event will be running at a loss. Even though there will be a shortfall, events will be reconstructed and reallocated, but the overall event will not be compromised. I met with Andrew Douglas and Kathy from the National Croc Fest organising committee yesterday morning prior to them leaving for Katherine to continue the planning with the organising committee, and they are very excited and enthusiastic about this year’s festival. I thank them wholeheartedly for not giving up on this festival, which is an important ongoing educational experience for the regional and remote students of not only throughout the Territory, but from the Kimberley, who will be attending. I look forward to bringing the positive feedback to this Chamber following the festival.
I would also like to follow on from the member for Macdonnell’s adjournment tonight in paying respect in this Chamber to the late Barry Standing. I first met Barry in Katherine in 1990 when he and his partner, Tim, were the owner/managers of the Riverview Caravan Park and my husband, Mike, and I had just arrived in Katherine. Over the years, I was in touch with Barry and his partner, Tim, especially through tourism activities. The last time I saw them both physically was when I stayed at the Bluestone Motor Inn in Tennant Creek, which they had purchased, while attending a tourism conference. It was obvious on this occasion that Barry was very ill, but he was still rushing around waiting on tables and doing whatever needed to be done - forever putting the customer needs first.
Barry and Tim eventually moved to Ceduna, South Australia – ironically, the town where I was born - and purchased the East West Motel. It was to be last tourism venture that Barry was to be involved in before he succumbed to his illness. The last time I spoke to Barry was in Ceduna. Barry and Tim together contributed significantly to the tourism industry and to the community wherever they went, and were held in the highest esteem. I thank Barry for his valued contribution to tourism, and may he rest in peace.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I advise the House on three events that I have attended in the last few weeks in my electorate.
The first was the official opening of the Mitchell Centre in Darwin. Members will remember all the dramas that have gone on with the businesses that occurred on the blocks of land. The site is the corner of Knuckey and Mitchell Streets in the CBD and consists of two blocks of land, one owned by the Randazzo family and the other owned by the Uniting Church. The church still holds the lease for that land. Now that there is a substantial building on their block of land, they are being paid for that lease.
It was great attending the ceremony in the Mitchell Centre as we all reflected, for example, on the history of the block. Members will recall all the dramas with regard to the old Uniting Church on the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey Streets. Many of us have a history with that building that used to be on that block. I know that years ago the building used to have the then Yamaha motorcycle distributorship and Kawasaki. I purchased a Yamaha there many years ago, and I remember the joy of riding out on my big 650 Yamaha into Knuckey Street, and then spending a few years going back to those buildings for the regular services that were required.
Eventually, a couple of the buildings that were there were moved away to other blocks of land in Darwin and down the track, and we were left with the original church building and were able to watch, with some despair, as it deteriorated over the years. It was a very wise decision, I believe, of the CLP government to move the old church from its site on Knuckey Street to the Botanic Gardens because, for the last few years, itinerants had been living in the old church. I used to live opposite it in the Le Grande building. I remember one night the fire engines came at about midnight, amidst great excitement. We thought the old church was going to burn down but, no, it was just that the itinerants had set a fire out the back and the firefighters were able to put it out.
Eventually, a decision was made to move the old Uniting Church to the Botanic Gardens, and some fantastic work was done over that. Members will recall that the church was a prefabricated building, built by the Simpson company, now famous for its washing machines, in their factory in South Australia many years ago, and shipped up here to the Northern Territory as a church. It was unique architecturally, in that it was, basically, a kit home from the olden days. When it was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens, great care was taken to either salvage the original product, or replace damaged building parts with replicas that were very similar to what had been there.
Only one or two walls - in fact, I think it is only one original walls - still exists in that building because it was in such poor condition. That wall actually has bullet holes in it from World War II, which makes it interesting for people to have a look at. The people undertaking the move of the church and the work on it from an historical point of view, were able to test the timbers of the floor scientifically and identify exactly where the wood came from in Tasmania. Therefore, the new floor had been sourced from the same forest area to ensure that it is very true to the original.
I can assure members it looks nothing like the floor it replaced, because it was absolutely black from dirt and oil that had soaked into it, thanks to its days as the motorbike repair business that used to be there. Perhaps it was some oil from one of my bikes that was in there.
It was a fantastic effort from the previous government to move the church down to the Botanic Gardens, which then freed up the Uniting Church’s block of land for redevelopment. A number of parties then got together over a couple of years and development what is now a great building in Darwin - the Mitchell Centre.
One of the most interesting speeches given on that night was a short speech provided by George Woodward, who is a Reverend, who is actually the head of the Uniting Church Synod in the Northern Territory. George told a story about how the Uniting Church had held a meeting of its major stakeholders a couple of years ago to talk about whether or not they would sell or lease the land. Some Aboriginal people involved with the church were part of that meeting, and they apparently gave the advice to the Uniting Church when they said: ‘We want to keep the turtle and collect the eggs’. I thought that was a very wise way at looking at how you can own land and gather the eggs - gather the lease payments - for the years to come. That is now what has happened, and the money that the lease pays to the Uniting Church is then used for the good works that they do here in the Northern Territory.
I would like to congratulate all the parties that have come together for the development of the Mitchell Centre in Darwin, particularly the Uniting Church and the Randazzo family. I know that members of the Randazzo family - particularly Joe, Tony, Carlo and Paulo and their wonderful supporting women - have really put their hearts into this building. Now we can all enjoy it. As a local resident, I belong to the gym that is there. I try desperately to get there at least once a week and, on the way home, do my shopping at Coles. It is a fabulous resource for all of us, and I know it is going to be a very important part of Darwin for many years to come.
I have also had the pleasure, in the last week or so - in fact, it was last Thursday night - to attend a magnificent performance at the Mitchell Centre, showing its diversity in what it can provide to the community, of the Tracks Dance production Fast … accelerate into the future. The program ran for four sessions. Three of them were originally scheduled and sold out very quickly, and the fourth was an extra session put on on Sunday night to try and appease the clamouring hordes of Darwin who found themselves having been a bit too slow in getting their tickets, and finding that the show had been sold out.
Tracks Dance Company is now developing a reputation. If you want to go and see something that they are putting on, you had better be quick, because they have done some fantastic stuff. I remember last year, I attended once called Rivers of Fire at the Wharf Precinct. One of the things Tracks are able to do is pick some amazing sites for their productions. The one at the wharf was really something. It was set in one of the old storage sheds - a huge shed - and the lighting and the whole effects of the performance really were breathtaking.
This happened again on Thursday night at the Mitchell Centre with the program Fast …accelerate into the future. And fast it was; it was absolutely exhausting to watch. How those young people remembered everything that they had to do, let alone keep up the energy for it, really took your breath away. The program, essentially, was young people providing an extraordinary interpretation of their impressions of how they perceive this world, and the costumes were great, as I knew they would be. I am so jealous that I am not 17 years old nowadays, because the clothes that young people are wearing now are really fantastic. A lot of the styles, particularly the gothic, came out in this production, and I do love the gothic look - not that I could ever get away with it. The costumes were great and the direction was spectacular.
The logistics of organising a group of people to move in the way that they did and interact with each other is an absolute achievement. My special congratulations go to David McMicken, Tim Newth and Julia Quinn who were the direction and concept team. They have done a great job in coming up with this idea and pulling it all together. Another special mention are to the core dancers, who were Erwin Fenis, Marko Taopo, Jessica Rosewarne, Justine Clarke, Byron Low, Tara Robertson and Ruttiya Suansri. We often see these young people in productions around Darwin and they really were, once again, fabulous. I know that many of them have been working, either in ballet or other forms of dance, since they were young children, and you can tell by watching what they are doing. Others, particularly the rap dancers have, obviously, got the bug during their teenage years and really applied themselves. Their movements are really extraordinary.
Naturally, of course, I also congratulate all the other people involved in the production and the performance - and there were lots of them. They did a fantastic job. They really did Darwin and the Northern Territory proud. I really think that this group could stand and hold its head up high, when compared to other groups anywhere in Australia. They really are something and I thoroughly recommend to members that, if you ever do have the opportunity to go to a Tracks production, do yourselves a favour, because it really will take your breath away.
Finally, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to mention to members that I had the pleasure last Friday night of being the MC - and it was an honour - at a reception held here in Parliament House in the gardens at the back of the building. It was hosted by Dragons Abreast, of which I am the patron, and Breast Cancer Voice, for which Nerys Evans, the Administrator’s partner, is their new patron. It was a special night which was really designed to provide a big thank you to the supporters of Breast Cancer Voice and Dragons Abreast - there are many wonderful supporters of this group - and also to acknowledge the achievements of a number of people who have been involved, particularly with Dragons Abreast, over the last few years.
Special guests on the night included our leader, Terry Mills, the Deputy Chief Minister, Syd Stirling, and the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Mr Jack Ah Kit. It was wonderful to see those fellows there supporting the breast cancer girls.
I would just like to make a special mention of two of the people who received special acknowledgment on the night. The first is Alan Culbertson, who is the Northern Territory’s Sports Ambassador of the Year and also the coach of Dragons Abreast. I am sure members are aware that Dragons Abreast is a group that has only been running for about four or five years here in the Northern Territory, but they have been so successful that they really have spearheaded around Australia the dragon boat racing and work for women who have survived breast cancer. Now there are dragon boat teams for breast cancer survivors in every state and territory in Australia, including Tasmania, and that has been a marvellous achievement of Dragons Abreast as a group. Alan Culbertson has been a spearhead person in that, in providing support and encouragement to the women, and now they compete nationally and internationally. It has just been a marvellous inspiration to all of us who have been involved with the group to see how the group has developed and what they have achieved.
In recognition of that achievement, Michelle Hanton received the 2003 Avon National Spirit of Achievement. This was an Australian award presented by Avon, and it was a marvellous achievement from Michelle. She won $15 000 which she very duly, quickly and, typically unselfishly, donated back to Dragons Abreast. I would like to add my sincere congratulations to Michelle. Everybody who is involved in breast cancer work and Dragons Abreast knows of the extraordinary work done, and the inspiration that Michelle is to all of us and the love that we hold for her. I hope it keeps her going for many years to come.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I speak of a great community event that I had the pleasure of attending; Brass at Browns on 5 May 2004. The particular concert was actually a participating event of 25 years of self-government, and was partly funded by the Territory government as part of those celebrations.
I have been involved on the periphery of the Darwin City Brass Band for some years now. I have helped them out with some of their smaller funding issues when they have come looking for a grant, and also supported them in their submission to the National Volunteers Awards. I have been invited along to a number of their Christmas functions, as well as a number of the public performances that they put on around the place, particularly at the Botanical Gardens, and also at their training sessions at their club rooms.
Some people might not know that the Darwin City Brass Band - which is, might I say, very well supported by the Darwin City Council - comes from a long tradition of brass bands. The first band in Darwin began in 1895 in what was then Palmerston. They actually went to the public for subscriptions and raised 30 to send to England to get a set of instruments, so it was a fair time back.
The Darwin City Brass Band does have a great history and tradition of being part of the community. In 1915, the Darwin town band led the way down to Stokes Hill Wharf to farewell the first Territory volunteers sailing away to World War I. The Darwin town band proudly led parades and played in the gardens in the 1920s and 1930s. After a bit of a hiatus, it reformed in the 1950s after World War II because, as you can imagine, a lot of people were moved out around that time. As well as the people who came back not long after the 1950s and played with the band, Terry Hine, joined the band in 1960 and he is still there. Also, over that period when the band reformed in the 1980s, he came back and he is still playing.
It is a wonderful brass band that Darwin has. I thoroughly enjoy their music. On the night at Browns Mart, it was a sell-out. The people were packed in to the rafters. Every member of council I think, bar one, was there, so that is the esteem that the council holds for the brass band. They were all there, particularly Alderman Cec Black who was instrumental in helping get the band going again in the 1980s. He was acknowledged for his time and efforts. That was great to see, that people could remember and acknowledge Cec’s efforts from all that time ago.
The concert that they put on was fairly comprehensive performance. It was broken up into two sessions. In session one, we had Waltzing Matilda; and Choral and Rockout; the popular tunes, the evergreen Over the Rainbow and Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue; Lazy Trumpeter; Royal Fireworks Suite; and Love Changes Everything. You can see they covered quite a range. Then they had a short intermission. In session two the junior band members played a march. That was followed by the Cornet Carillon; Breezing Down Broadway; Can’t Take My Eyes Off You - another popular song, or evergreen I suppose you would describe it; One Moment in Time; and Concierto de Aranjuez, which really shows the scope.
The Darwin City Brass Band was also very fortunate, and welcoming, to have some guest artists playing with them. Of particular note was John Kellaway from Newcastle. John is very well known in music circles, particularly as a trumpeter. John is Head of Brass, Lecturer in Trumpet, at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. John performed in a number of places, and he gives master classes in Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine and America. You can see that the brass band were very well supported by him. He performed a couple of solos. I remember seeing John last year at the Supreme Court building when the DSO performed there, and he stood up and gave a couple of solo performances; he is marvellous to listen to. HE works with the band, and the band, particularly the conductor, ‘Robbo’ Roberts, are very welcoming to him. They are glad to have him there, because he gets in and goes away on a camp with the band, and works with everyone on the instruments. They all value the work he does.
Also assisting with the performances was John Allan. Everyone in the House knows John Allan. He is very well known for his work with Carols by Candlelight. Citizen Sanderson, let me say, was there. He was MC’ing as well as singing quite a number of songs. At the end of the show, he sang with Sand Williams, another well-known Territorian. Sand’s song A special kind of magic is a song about the Territory; an ode to the Territory. She sang it beautifully, ably assisted by Doug Loft. They contributed greatly and were very well supported. The Darwin City Brass Band was very happy to have them assisting on the night, and it was great seeing Sand there. Sand and John Allan also sang that good old favourite, We are Australian, which had the crowd going. It was fabulous.
A band is made up of many parts, and it is important that we get on the record who these people are who help with this band, because it is going a lot of places and they deserve particular recognition.
The Musical Director is Ron ‘Robbo’ Roberts. He and his sister had a tragedy in the family with their brother in Townsville, and my condolences go to them. They were able to look after the family business, and such was their commitment to the band they were able to rush back here to Darwin to be able to participate in the concert. My condolences to their families, but thanks for all the work that you did.
The Deputy Bandmaster is Frank Roberts; soprano cornet, Michael Scott; solo cornet, Tim Jacobs, Michael Scott, Ken Panitz; repiano cornet, Bill Buckley; second cornet, Maria Hasewski, Emily Duckett; third cornet, Ruth Sheridan, Authur Zois, Kathy Murdoch; flugelhorn, Lucy Murdoch, Kim Burdon; solo tenor horn, Elaine Farnham; first tenor horn, Glenys Murdoch; second tenor horn, Jeremy Liew; first baritone, Deby Murdoch; second baritone, Frances McIntyre; euphonium, Noel Cornwill, Paul Fisk; first trombone, Tony Beale; second trombone, Jack Duckett, Anthony Liew; bass trombone, Iris Beale; E flat bass, Frank Roberts, Terry Hine; B flat bass, Dr Ron Roberts; Percussion, Leigh Radford; and their Librarian who helps out a lot is Coral Roberts.
Their junior players were there, as I said, and they were Harry Beale, Kieren Gordon, Grace Lee, Paul Lee, Samuel Lee, Bethany Murdoch, and they were great.
The band just does not all turn up and operate as an individual unit. It does need a committee, and they are great. I have done a bit of work with Iris Beale who is the President, as I said, in helping support a couple of submissions that they have made for funding. The Vice President is Terry Hine; the Secretary is Elaine Farnham, who is Robbo’s sister. They do a great job there - what a commitment from that family. The Treasurer is Dr Ron Roberts; the Public Officer is Tim Jacobs; and the committee members are Bill Buckley, Tim Jacobs, Coral Roberts and Frank Roberts.
All in all, it is more or less a family. I am glad to know this family and get there and see how they go about there business. They have a lot of support from the community and, in particular, and as I have said, the Darwin City Council is right behind them, and that is great to see. The Australian Army Band gets behind them. Palm Photographics, Len, he helps out a bit, along with Mrs Coral Roberts, Mrs Sarah Wellington. They have connections with the National Australia Bank, which certainly helps out wherever it can.
As I said, I helped with a submission. They were putting in for a grant from the National Volunteers Awards, which is sponsored by the National Bank. I said this in the submission:
The Darwin City Brass Band is constituted by many members of the community from all walks of life. It is a band
that I could best describe as egalitarian in its composition and accessibility. The band has a proud history of being
invited to play at community events ranging from sombre gatherings such as the Anzac Day March to celebrity events
such as the Christmas Carols in the city mall.
This latter example of their willingness to entertain is exceptional, when taking into account this particular
performance generally commences at first light during the peak of the Wet Season here in north Australia.
That is the commitment of these volunteers and it is simply fabulous.
The concert was also attended by the Administrator and his partner, so that also can be taken as a mark of the high regard that this band is held in.
At the end of the concernt, I was outside talking to Robbo and John Allan and a couple of other members of the band, and I was saying that it is a shame that we do not have any rotundas around this city, because these are where brass bands are generally played - or used to play - in the large cities in the botanical gardens. He said: ‘Oh yes, that is a bit of a shame’. Then I was thinking about the Rapid Creek foreshore, between Brinkin as you go over the bridge. There is actually that shelter put up by the Department of Environment, or Parks and Wildlife, which explains the Rapid Creek habitat, which is virtually a rotunda. I thought, what a great place for a concert by the brass band in the Dry. I can see them playing in there, with the crowd sitting out on their deck chairs, with their picnic campers, just taking it in on a Sunday evening, or maybe a Friday evening. Something like that will take a little to stage or put on. I will certainly be approaching them with the idea of putting on something there for the community. I will offer them all the support I possibly can in helping that happen.
Once again, I would like to acknowledge the Darwin City Brass Band, and the work that the Darwin City Council has done to help maintain it. I look forward to a long and prosperous future for the Darwin City Brass Band because of the work they do.
Dr BURNS (Johnston): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I talk about the electorate of Johnston and some of the great events that I have attended over the last month or so.
On Monday 22 March, Years 4, 5and 6 students from Wagaman Primary School visited Parliament House. We had a great time sitting in the Chamber debating the topic of homework, and whether students should or should not have homework. It was great to see the young students and the teachers get really involved in that debate. The class was accompanied by their teacher, Margaret McPherson, who is doing a great job with a fantastic class of intelligent and enthusiastic students.
Wagaman Primary School hosted their School Harmony and Make a Difference Day on 26 March, and I was proud to officially open those celebrations. This was an evening event with an Aussie barbecue and great Malaysian food which was enjoyed by all those who attended. There were a lot of in-class activity where parents were taught by the children. Parents, including myself, learnt such skills as writing their names in Japanese character, Papua New Guinea weaving, Greek dancing and playing the angklung - which is a Balinese instrument made out of bamboo, of which different sizes make a different tone. A group of people can combine and make music, and that is exactly what we did. The morning preschool performed Everyone is Clever to a great round of applause, and there were other parts of the concert performed by Transition, Year 3and 4, and Year 6 and 7.
On 27 March, I went along with others to the Greek National Day celebrations at the Nightcliff Greek School. It was great to see all the classes from Transition to Year 7. They performed a wide range of poems, dancing, singing and other art forms. This year differed from other years, in that the onus was on the students to communicate the importance of the Greek National Day following research into its meaning. The performance was both in Greek and in English, and congratulations for the fantastic show must go not only to the students, but to their teachers, the principal, the school committee and the Greek community and parents. Everyone there really enjoyed it. The new format for the performance has proved to be very successful and, based on feedback from the wider community, the school aims to continue to improve this particular celebration every year. I know that I look forward to it, along with other members.
Later on that evening of 27 March, I attended the celebrations of the National Day of Pakistan at the Coconut Grove Seniors Hall. The President of the Pakistan Association, Mr Ishfaq Haider, was there and I was shown great hospitality by the Pakistani community. We played a few games and quizzes, and there was music and everyone from all ages had a fantastic time. I certainly enjoyed attending the Pakistan National Day.
On 2 and 3 April, I was actually in Armidale in New South Wales. I was invited by the university there to give the graduation address, and I was very honoured to do that. There were several hundred students who were graduating on that day and several thousand people in attendance. I certainly promoted the Territory and encouraged a lot of those graduates - nursing students amongst them, and people involved in horticulture and agriculture, and a whole range of scientific disciplines - of the opportunities here in the Northern Territory. I thank the university for the invitation to address the graduation ceremony, for meeting all of the costs associated with travel and accommodation, and also for their hospitality. It was a great event.
On 23 April, I met with the Blind Bowlers Association, along with the member for Nightcliff, just before they departed for the Australian National Championships in Perth. The team again excelled at the championships, with the most exciting result that Dave Byars was selected for the Australian team to play at the World Blind Bowls Championships next year in Johannesburg. Dave will be fundraising over the next year, and I know all members will be supporting Dave and the Blind Bowlers. Whilst in Perth, Dave won a silver medal in the B2 singles and, together with Dennis Wormald, his old partner, won the B2 pairs gold. I have spoken before about Vel McDonald, a relatively new hand to the game, who she has achieved so much over the past few years. Dave and Vel won a silver in the mixed B2 pairs.
On 24, 25 and 26 April, it was great to attend the Barra Nationals on the Daly River at the Banyan Farm. There was a great crowd there. We had Channel 7 crossing live with their breakfast program showcasing the event. There is a great spirit there. It is hosted by the Palmerston Game Fishing Club and they promote it. Government also assists with their funding, and I am very proud to be part of the support for that particular event and the Palmerston Game Fishing Club. It was fantastic. The Minister for Primary Industry and Fisheries and I went out and caught a couple of fish, and he released a few. I did not catch as many as him, so the couple of nice sized fish that I caught, I have to say that I took home. We have already eaten one and one is still in the freezer. That was pretty good. I must compliment the 2004 committee from the Palmerston Game Fishing Club - Paul Williams, Stephen Shenfield and Anthony Stafford, together with the venue coordinator Allan Lording – who did a brilliant job of ensuring the 45-odd teams of local, mixed and interstaters wanted for nothing over the week’s competition. There was superb prizes, incredible menus, class competitors, plenty of fish and a great spirit there. Next year, the nationals celebrate their 10th anniversary and I hope to be there. Certainly, the member for Casuarina and I have already started planning that we should go along there. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, if you are available too, you should come along as well.
On May 7, it was my pleasure to attend the Jingili Primary School Mother’s Day breakfast. There is lots of parental involvement in making this a great thank you to mothers, and was also extremely profitable. $1138 was raised. Great helpers on the day were stalwarts Jill and Peter Sommerville, together with their sons Allan and Sam, Libby and James Hoppo, Julie Donald, Robyn Levick, Carmen Kitchen, Sharon McKenzie, Karen William, Keith Carver, Mandy Pearson, Peter Ramsay, Marg Wooley, Leigh Lockley, Elaine Hellyer, Susan and Michael Taylor, Nicola Ward, Wendy Russell-Reed and Kathryn Watson. That is a fantastic group. The stall on the day was capably managed by Glenda Sutardy, Tracy McCoy, Dianne Moore, Narelle Rosas and Jo Grace. I know the Anstey family are also great supporters there and Kelly Anstey, she is doing a great job on the school council at Jingili.
Later on that day, it was my pleasure to host Mrs Kathleen Lawrence, who is a constituent of mine, a great lady who does a lot of work for St Vincent de Paul. Her nephew, Mr Robert McKnight, was out from Ireland and I showed them over Parliament House. We had a couple of drinks and a lot of laughs. Irish people have a great spirit about them, and it was an honour to conduct Kathleen and her nephew around Parliament House.
Later on, I attended the 20th Darwin Rose of Tralee Pageant at the city council office. Last year was a great winner, someone from the McNeill family - that was Jess McNeill. She was the 2003 NT Rose of Tralee. This year, there are six entrants: Catherine Turner who works at the Legislative Assembly; Karen Hurley; Courtney O’Hare; Brigitte Haynes; Belinda Green and Sinead Vincent. It is part of a development process for the girls. They get up in public and are able to speak and perform, whether it is singing or reciting poetry. There is a great camaraderie amongst the girls who are competing. It is not a beauty contest, although they are all very beautiful girls. It is all about personality and helping the community. It is a great event. I commend those girls and I am sure they will do very well in the Rose of Tralee.
On 8 May, I attended the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory Industry Awards for Excellence. I was sitting with Sue Shearer who, of course is the executive officer. The new president is David Loy and it was my pleasure to meet the national president, Kareena Ballard. There was a great spirit that night. The message I got from the real estate industry loud and clear, is that they have had a fantastic year last year; they are looking forward to a fantastic year next year. Basically, rental properties are in demand. They do not believe the population is dwindling; they think the population is actually expanding. There is a heavy demand for rental properties and, of course, they are doing very well in terms of residential sales as well. That was a great message.
On 13 May, along with the member for Port Darwin, I was invited to the Tracks Dance production Fast … accelerate into a future, which was held at the Mitchell Centre on the rooftop car park. There was so much energy in that performance from those young people. If energy could be bottled, I would like some. It was fast and furious all night: great choreography, great music, great feeling, and great narrative in the stories that they were telling about being adolescents and growing up. It is really a great activity for young people. It was truly exhilarating; professional in performance, with a lot of energy and power. The artistic directors, David McMicken and Tim Newth, as well as Julia Quinn, are to be commended; they do such great work with those young people. It is just great to see the mixture of young people who are performing there from all different walks of life in our community, with different talents that were all added in there. It was a truly magical result. The Tracks Dance production unit is a great thing.
On 15 May, I attended the Australian Hotels Association awards for excellence, where there was a special award for the current president, Mr Mick Burns, who has contributed a lot to the Australian Hotels Association, which is a very important industry sector in the Northern Territory. It was very well attended by people, both from the Territory and interstate, and there was a great spirit there.
Later that evening, I went along to the Kalymnian Hall. Thanks to Leo Athanasiou, the president who hosted us there, and also Con Hnaris who took me around and introduced me to a lot of people. We were all there to listen to the renowned Greek singers, Dimitris Kontolazos and Mando and Band, and it was great music. I had to bail out about 1 am, but I am sure it went on for a long time and everyone was enjoying themselves.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I recently donated Quiet Achiever Awards to the three schools in my electorate so that those students who work away quietly and consistently could also be recognised. Recipients of these awards at the end of last terms were: Wagaman Primary School – Adam Turner and Jacqui Graetz; Moil Primary School – Zoe Martin and Michaela Da Costa; Jingili Primary School - Khia Emslie-O’Brien and Brinley Leso.
Other achievers at Moil include Claire O’Bryan, Kailyn O’Bryan, Amy Mansell and Kiana Fiorenza selected to go to Alice Springs for the City Cluster Basketball team; Kiah Fejo who travelled to Alice Springs earlier this month to play netball; and Jarryn Zyka selected to play basketball in the City Cluster Boys team.
Another achiever at Wagaman was Liam MacLachlan for making the Northern Suburbs Cluster Basketball team to travel to Alice Springs at the end of this month.
In closing, the Johnston electorate is a fantastic one, of which I am very proud to be the local member. There is so much going on, I love it. There is never enough time for my adjournment debates, but I have actually managed it this evening.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016