2005-02-17
Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House today of recipients of the 2005 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women.
This is the fourth year that the study award has been made to women enrolled in vocational and tertiary programs in the Territory. When I announced the award in October 2001, it was one of the first programs introduced under my government’s policy focus on employment and training. The award is valued at $20 000 each year, of which $14 000 is made available to a Territory woman to undertake a tertiary study program, and $6000 available for a vocational study program. The 2005 award has been widely promoted throughout the Territory in regional newspapers and via women’s groups and associations, academic institutes, indigenous organisations, newsletters, electorate offices and the Office of Women’s Policy web site.
Applications were received from a wide range of women. Amongst them were young school leavers, women working in a wide variety of different jobs, and women returning to study after long periods away from formal education. Many applicants shared their plans for using their skills to work with our community. In considering the applications, the panel paid particular attention to issues relating to social disadvantage, each applicant’s potential to succeed in her nominated course, the acquisition of skills of importance to the Territory, and each applicant’s commitment to living and working in the Territory. Although smaller than in previous years, the field of candidates was of a high standard. The top applicants for both vocational and tertiary study awards were closely ranked, and the panel recommended that the applicants on the short list should be acknowledged.
Georgette Monganga, Lynette McKee and Nancy Crawford were highly commended by the panel for their applications. Georgette Monganga is a newly-arrived migrant to Australia under the Refugee Settlement Program from Africa. She has been in Darwin for just over a year, and enrolment in the Diploma of Business Administration course is one of the ways Georgette is looking to achieve independence and be a role model for African women in the Territory.
Lynette McKee is from Humpty Doo and is enrolled in a Bachelor of Behavioural Science, majoring in Psychology. The focus of her studies will be on regional and indigenous issues. On graduation, she wishes to work on the prevention and reduction of factors contributing to violence, substance abuse and suicide.
Nancy Crawford has lived in the Territory for 14 years and finished Years 11 and 12 after returning to high school following the birth of her daughter. She is commencing studies for the Bachelor for Nursing. She has a strong desire to work with children and intends to specialise in paediatrics following completion of her degree.
These women had impressive applications. I congratulate them and wish them all the best with their studies.
Now to the recipients of the 2005 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women. Anna Montgomery is the recipient of the vocational award with which she will study for the Diploma of Library and Information Services through Charles Darwin University. Anna is a library technician at Anzac Hill High School in Alice Springs. She is a Territorian born and bred who is halfway through her two year diploma course. Anna is furthering her study to ensure she has the necessary skills to provide a high quality library service to the school community. The panel was impressed with the ongoing benefit for Alice Springs students because of Anna’s course of study.
Raelene Rosas is the recipient of the tertiary award and will study for a Batchelor of Law at Charles Darwin University. Raelene is an indigenous woman who was born and raised in the Territory. She has successfully combined her pre-law study with being a mother to three young children. Raelene’s referees described her as being enthusiastic, diligent and confident. They particularly commented on Raelene’s future contribution to society and were very supportive of her application. On graduation, Raelene intends working in the areas of law enforcement, youth and community self-management. Her own experience has shown her that appropriate advice and information for Aboriginal people could lead to different outcomes away from the courts.
Madam Speaker, I invite all members to join me in congratulating Raelene and Anna, and wishing them success in their studies, and in their future endeavours.
I also thank the panel of three who judged those applicants: Veronica Arbon, from the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education; Don Zoellner, Pro-Vice Chancellor, TAFE and Regional Operations from CDU; and Kim Johnstone, Manager of the Office of Women’s Policy.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for her report. It is wonderful to hear of the successes of the women who have been awarded assistance from the government with this program. I wish the women all the best with their endeavours and the good use of the money and support which is coming their way.
Members will remember, of course, that this program was a wonderful CLP initiative. I can remember when I was convenor of the Women’s Advisory Council, one of the high points of my year was to sit on the panel which made the choice for the Chief Minister’s Award. We met some wonderful women, and encouraged some wonderful programs during my time there, and during the years that the CLP ran this program.
The Chief Minister does not have a great record in the area of women’s support in the Northern Territory. It was a huge disappointment to many of us when she abolished the Women’s Advisory Council and the Business Women’s Consultancy Council, and replaced them with these things called ‘Women’s Forums’. I have had reports from women with regard to these women’s forums, and many are very disappointed with the way they are run. For example, they get to meet with the Chief Minister, and minister for community services for around an hour and a half after they have work-shopped issues, and they get to have a chat about those things. Then where do those issues go? Many fall away.
When we had the Women’s Advisory Council we were able to follow through on important issues, and sometimes it took us many months, and if not a few years, to get really good programs up and running, such as the mobile breast screening unit throughout the Northern Territory. These were the things which we were able to follow through. All that is happening with these women’s forums now is that it is a consultative method from which the government is going to draft its framework for Territory women, which will be used as the policy document to take to the next election. It is a cynical use of taxpayers’ money. The Chief Minister, as her number one priority, should reintroduce the Women’s Advisory Council and the Business Women’s Consultancy Council …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired, member for Port Darwin.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is interesting that because the Country Liberal Party introduced a Women’s Advisory Council that that is the body which has to continue forever; 20 years on, continue with the same. We properly looked at how to be most effective in reaching women across the Territory …
Ms Carney: Why did you accept the least favorable recommendation then?
Ms MARTIN: It is interesting that the member for Araluen has to yell through this. We looked at how we best reached women and the Minister for assisting in Women’s Policy and I have met with hundreds of Territory women. We have met with them sitting under trees, on verandahs, and in more formal venues, and a whole range of issues have emerged.
It is delightful to be able to take government to women across the Territory and sit down and work with them about some of the key issues of concern, whether that is at Nguiu, Daly, Alice Springs or Darwin. Hundreds of women have done that, and it has been and will continue to be a great success for women’s forums.
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I rise to provide the House with a progress report on implementing the government’s strategy to skill Territorians. Whether the opposition likes it or not, the most effective skills strategy ever introduced into the Territory has been the Jobs Plan. It puts money …
Mr Dunham: Oh, right. That’s why we have all these electricians.
Mr STIRLING: He has a different view in here from what he says out in the street, Madam Speaker, because I have him on record as having praised this and saying that they wish they had done it when they were in government!
Madam Speaker, it puts money directly into targeted skills shortages, backed up by knowledge of where those shortages are, and what the future needs will be. It establishes a clear strategy for directing the training dollar most efficiently into the future. Despite evidence of a looming skills shortage, the previous government could never muster the policy, vision or will to put into place such a plan, and every year lost under the CLP meant another block in the road to economic recovery.
Our $160m plan is working. We are seeing results. Over 350 employer incentives were taken up in the first two rounds of the scheme. More incentives will be available in 2005 in those areas of skills shortages. We have over 3040 Territorians in training at the beginning of 2005, past the 3000 mark for the first time ever. We are up 35% on the 2211 in training in 2001; 38% of those apprentices are in traditional trades, the second highest ratio in Australia. Of that number, 752 are indigenous trainees and apprentices.
A good example, very specifically, is the electrical trades industry. The member for Drysdale recently attacked me over this industry. Let us look at the facts. As of 16 February, there were 2637 licensed electricians operating in the Territory, importantly getting more people into the trade through our training efforts. At 16 February 2005, there are 160 electrical apprentices in training. On 16 February 2001, there were 80. That is twice as many training today than under the previous…
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, cease!
Mr STIRLING: Twice as many today in training than under the previous Country Liberal Party government. In 2004, 72 electrical apprentices commenced training. In 2001, 44 electrical apprentices commenced training, almost twice as many coming into the trade today than under the previous Country Liberal Party government.
I point out also the efforts of Power and Water, which has recruited 12 new apprentices this year, linies who will work on the power networks, electricians to work on the networks and power station generators, and mechanics and plumbers to become part of the infrastructure of Power and Water.
Madam Speaker, the $160m Jobs Plan is moving the Territory ahead by providing real jobs for Territorians, increasing the numbers of apprenticeships and traineeships, targeting funding to small business for apprentices and trainees, particularly in the trades; preparing young Territorians for the work force; boosting indigenous employment, and better matching training to jobs.
It is a satisfying result, but we will not be resting on our laurels. More needs to be done, and we are getting on with the job of skilling the Territory and delivering jobs and economic growth for all Territorians.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, this government went into the election in 2001 with a promise of a Jobs Plan. It did not exist, they had nothing there, but they said: ‘We have a Jobs Plan and we will bring it in when we get into government’. This government then got a company from interstate to develop a Jobs Plan for them and we saw nothing about a Jobs Plan until – when? - last year. Last year, we saw the Jobs Plan for the first time. That is how bad they are. The minister gets up and says: ‘We have lots of electricians’. Well, this draft here …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Just cease a moment! There is too much cross-Chamber chatter. Please let the member for Greatorex get on with it.
Dr LIM: What about the Annual Report for 2003-04 of the Electrical Workers and Contractors Licensing Board of the Northern Territory? This graph shows two peaks: one in 1997-98 of 2913; a second peak for 1999-2000 of 2743 electrical workers. Since then, that graph has consistently gone downwards. Now, for 2003-04, there are only 2550 electrical workers. Who is right and who is wrong? I tell you I would prefer to believe the licensing board. They know who are working as electricians, and this minister obviously does not know. He can get up and say, ‘I have this and I have that’. Your Jobs Plan has obviously failed, minister. Three years late, first of all, and then when you introduced it, you cannot get the numbers right. Do you know your business or don’t you? That is your problem, isn’t it?
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, let us look at this failure of the Jobs Plan. There are 2637 licensed electricians operating in the Territory. However, as I said, as of 16 February 2005, there were 160 electrical apprentices, in training, in the Northern Territory. At 16 February 2001, when these galahs were responsible for this, there were just eight, and in that year, 2001, they brought 44 through, and we are into the high 70s; 72 electrical apprentices commencing training throughout 2004, compared to 44 in 2001.
This is working. I know it gets up their nose, but I also know because it has been reported to me that the member for Drysdale has talked to business and complimented the government on the Jobs Plan. He said, ‘What a great Jobs Plan this is’, and ‘We wish we had done it’, but he comes in here with a different tune.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! With these quaint statements that we have, it is difficult for me to participate in this debate. The minister has, on two occasions, mentioned me, and I would like to be given the opportunity to participate in this debate. It would seem to be unparliamentary for the minister to encourage me to participate, knowing that I cannot.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. You understand the rules on ministerial reports.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I rise today to report on a strategy which gets to the heart of this government’s commitment to build safer communities for all Territorians. This government recognises that to prevent crime, the causes of crime must be addressed. We have seen the success of our approach. We have tackled drug-related crime through more resources to police, new police powers, and the crackdown on drug houses, and we have seen property crime cut in half.
We are also continuing this work through this government’s Crime Prevention Grants Scheme. Over $400 000 is provided each year to initiatives developed by communities to promote community safety and address the causes of crime. Interest in our grants scheme is intense. In the last round, almost 60 applications were received, seeking a total of $1.65m in funding. I am pleased to be able to announce today that 16 of these projects have received funding under the grants scheme.
Later today, with the Australian Hotels Association and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, I will be launching the Preventing Sexual Approach Project. With almost $37 000 under the grants scheme, the project will see these organisations work together to tackle drug-facilitated sexual assault, commonly known as drink spiking. Key activities will include wider distribution of the drug-facilitated sexual assault protocol, which has been developed by the Department of Health and Community Services, in conjunction with the AHA and other government and non-government organisations. The grant will provide assistance to the AHA and to the LHMU to continue to educate pub and club staff on how to prevent, recognise and deal with drink spiking incidents.
In Darwin, the Wagaman Residents Group will receive $15 000 to continue to improve lighting and promote safety in laneways around their suburb. A special art work initiative in Palmerston, aimed at encouraging youth pride in the township, has been awarded a $10 000 grant. The project, with the working title Palmerston Culture Space Pride, will include local young people in the design and production of high profile, quality art work, in collaboration with indigenous artists.
Priority under the grants scheme is given to helping crime prevention councils achieve actions identified in the Community Safety program. The Katherine Family Link, in partnership with Centacare and the town council, will receive almost $15 000 to improve lighting and tackle antisocial behaviour. The Barkly Regional Safer Communities Committee will use their grant of $23 000 to implement recommendations of their crime prevention audits by installing lighting and clearing areas around town.
In Alice Springs, I am happy to see that Deadly Treadlies and Sadadeen School have received funding to continue their projects working with young people and families at risk. Importantly, Tangentyere Council will receive $15 000 to bring remote night patrols into town over the weekend of the Wizard Cup. Put in place for the first time last year, police reported that night patrols had a significant impact in minimising antisocial behaviour. In addition to these grants, $5000 will go to each of our regional and indigenous crime prevention councils to support the important work they are doing in our communities. The success of our crime prevention councils rests on the large numbers of enthusiastic locals who are determined to make a difference in their community. I place on record, once again, my appreciation of the important work being done by these councils.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his statement which contained a number of things. The two minutes I have available is nowhere near enough time to tear apart many of the things he said. However, I am delighted that the minister has now, three-and-a-half years into government and some years after the escalation of sexual assaults against women and, in some cases, men in the Northern Territory, finally got the terminology right and has understood that something needs to be done. The sexual assault statistics are dreadful; people know what they are. There are significant increases.
His comments in relation to property crime are curious to say the least. It is the case that in some areas there have been some improvements on a quarter-by-quarter basis, although not every quarter and not everywhere. In certain areas, property crime has skyrocketed. The government hangs its hat on the crime statistics – and, of course, why shouldn’t it? When the Attorney-General announced that he would be publishing the crime statistics, he said that this government will stand or fall on the information contained in the crime statistics. Is it any wonder that Territorians are sceptical of the information contained in the report, and the spin that the government puts on it?
We know that the DPP, in its most recent annual report, published figures that are fundamentally different from those contained in the crime statistics; for instance we know that work in summary prosecution shows an increase of files in 2002-03 by 1100 files. We know that the Director, Mr Rex Wild, said that the caseload in Alice Springs remains very high; an extra 500 new files. I back the DPP because I know that those figures are independent ...
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, we stand by our record. Everyone can see which way that graph is going …
Mr Dunham: Good thing you can gag her with the process. Was that the economy? Looks like the economy, mate!
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale!
Dr TOYNE: … property crime is down. Here is your record …
Mr Dunham: You have the wrong draft; that is the economy. No, no, no. That is jobs and the economy. You have the wrong graph. No, you have buggered up there. The economy is supposed to be going that way, mate!
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Well, that is about what your policies ended up as – look! Here we go. Here is mandatory sentencing, up we went. Here is our record. We will stand by it any day of the week.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! Members of the opposition, settle down.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Speaker, I thank the opposition spokesperson for her fulsome support of the announcement today.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I would like to report to the House on the 2004 Northern Territory mango season and a number of the issues raised by industry members. The 2004 season was the largest ever with 1.9 million trays from Darwin, and around 800 000 trays from Katherine. It was one of the most intense and beautiful flowering seasons for Top End mangoes that many growers can remember.
Industry members have overcome the logistical problems experienced in 2001, with many using the Darwin to Adelaide railway to forward their fruit to southern markets, and offering favourable comments about the quality of the fruit on arrival.
The labour harvest strategy developed by the Northern Territory Horticultural Association worked well. Overall, growers were able to source pickers although, at the peak of the record season, pickers were scarce.
At the peak of the season, producers and forwarders suggested that the physical capacity of the Sydney market to handle fruit was reached and, even if more fruit was picked and sent, it was unlikely that the market could handle them. Most growers suggest that the drop in price in mid-October was due to the volume of first class fruit available on the market. Katherine fruit came on a little later when prices had softened.
Industry members also raised the need for greater coordination between harvest, packing and the marketplace. It is also worth noting that the Australian Mango Industry Association is utilising levy money to increase the marketing of mangoes in the domestic market. I will be meeting with the Australian Mango Industry Association and Horticulture Australia, which oversee allocation of the mango levy, in early March when they are in Darwin for the first time. We are keen to work together on examining export opportunities as a national mango export advisory group is being formed. Northern Territory mangoes are some of the first into the marketplace hence we benefit from the initiative to promote mangoes, both domestic and internationally.
I am also keen to see a much greater transparency in the marketing and sale of mangoes and continue to push for a mandatory code of practice for a horticultural market system. I am pleased to report that we are close to achieving this outcome. I also acknowledge the Northern Territory Mango Industry Association’s summit about greater transparency in the marketplace held in 2003 and its efforts in introducing a voluntary code of practice within the mango supply chain. This provided the momentum for a national mandatory code of practice.
A study of the Northern Territory mango industry was undertaken in 2004 in seeking growers’ views on the future of their industry. The key outcomes are that the structural adjustment will continue as production will increase as more trees mature. I have also asked that we look at abandoned mango orchards. A VHT treatment plant has been established to access the Japanese market, with heat and high humidity treatments used to satisfy fruit fly requirements, but only the best of the best mangoes, one in fifty fruit picked, are suitable for this market. UK and Europe markets may offer some opportunities but is a very competitive market. To reduce costs controlled atmosphere sea freight has been trialled for the 30 day trip to market. Katherine growers participated in this year’s trial – I was fortunate enough to view the pack out when in Katherine of ‘Australian Outback Mangoes’. Government also assisted five Katherine growers in their trip to Europe. The growers not only carried out quality assurance but also researched consumer needs and market trends.
There are some challenges for government and industry members ahead. With increased production we must continue to examine alternative options whether it is new markets, further processing and adding value in the knowledge that there will be some structural adjustment in the industry. I must commend the Northern Territory Horticultural Association, the NT Mango Industry Association, and my staff at DBIRD for their ongoing commitment to recognise the challenges and to see opportunities for Territory mangoes.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report on the mango industry in the Northern Territory. Mangoes of course are definitely related to the Northern Territory with people down south. They always think of the mango as the most favourite fruit from the Northern Territory. The mango industry, as the minister knows, faces a lot of challenges over the next few years and that is mainly with the small growers, those who have 500 trees or less. They are finding it unsustainable to farm their crops. This year and last year, we had many hundreds of tonnes of mangoes wasted on the ground. I encourage the minister to look at ways that we can start an industry that the processes juices continuously, not just as a trial, and also to produce other mango products such as dried mango, etcetera, to promote our product.
I also encourage the minister to look at a way of promoting our product interstate and internationally by having it marketed with a brand. It needs to be branded NT so that it stands out. We have high quality mangoes that leave this Territory and we need to maintain the standard that they are. Can I also just add that I was really disappointed with the trials that we had; the air-freight trials that let down the mango industry very badly. It was too much of a rush job with not enough thought put into it and not enough secure arrangements made before it was announced that that was going to be a salvation.
I also commend the Katherine growers for being able to get their product into Europe. I hope that is going to be ongoing each year and increasing the number of containers that go into Europe. I welcome the minister’s statement.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I also welcome the minister’s statement. Minister, I am not trying to be rude but it was very difficult to understand from over here what you were saying. I did get the gist of some of what you said. I also support the horticultural business code coming into operation. This was raised during the federal election by a number of people who belong to the Horticultural Association. They were concerned that the federal government at that stage would not bring in a regulated business code, and during the election debate the coalition said that they would. I will be interested to see when that particular code is eventually brought into being.
The issue of abandoned orchards is an important one. I would probably be one of those with an abandoned orchard on my place but then there would also be many people in the suburbs of Darwin with abandoned ‘orchards’. Leaf hopper is an insect that has been introduced into the Northern Territory over about the last three years and, in my case, on my trees, it has devastated them totally whereas neighbours a few kilometres down the road had enormous numbers of mangoes on them. It is a pest that needs to be looked at. How you would handle people with one or two trees, telling them to either spray them or remove them, would require diplomacy, and that issue has to be worked through carefully.
After the election, the government did promise $2m to be spent on a packing shed. I take the member for Katherine’s point that we need do a lot more work with juicing, drying and other uses of mangoes and perhaps the $2m that was set aside could be used to promote that side of the industry as it is one way that we can use a lot of the wasted mangoes. There were many wasted mangoes this year unless you were a goose – they enjoyed them.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. The truth is that we face significant pressure in the mango industry not only from the large number of trees that come into fruition, but also places like Kununurra and of course Queensland. The season of mango availability is very limited; it is very short period of time.
There is already a processing industry in Winnellie pulping and juicing mangoes. They are looking for expansion and export to Japan. We are looking for new markets all the time and this government is supporting the new markets.
We have to look at the abandoned orchards and ensure that they do not become the focal point for infestation and we have to work very closely with the industry. I agree with you, and I will support the industry in seeking transparency in their transactions with either purchasers or commissionaires down south.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move - That unless otherwise ordered, the days and times of meeting and routine of business in respect of the 2005 Alice Springs Regional Sitting of the Assembly be as circulated to members yesterday. I table a copy of the routine of business.
The government and, I am sure, this parliament is really looking forward to the sittings in Alice Springs in March. We all agree that despite the argy-bargy about the routine of business we had in Alice Springs not that long ago, it was a great success. The galleries were full of people who came to see parliament in action and it certainly beats this gallery here today. I am sure we are all looking forward to getting back to Alice Springs in March.
Much of the credit for the success of the first sittings, Madam Speaker, certainly lies with yourself, the Chief Minister, the Minister for Central Australia, and the Office of Central Australia. I am sure that the second sittings in Alice Springs will be even better.
Mr Dunham: What? Not the Department of Legislative Assembly? A bit of an omission there, mate.
Mr HENDERSON: This motion relates to the sitting times – I will pick up on the interjection from the member for Drysdale because, as I recall, the opposition, prior to the last sittings, opposed them being held in Alice Springs and …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: … they are on the public record and called them a waste of money. I think it was the Leader of the Opposition who said it was an absolutely waste of money. We had interminable debates in Alice Springs last time …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! If the member is going to pick up my interjection, he should do so correctly. I said: ‘What about the Department of Legislative Assembly?’ When you are thanking people, surely that is an important omission.
Madam SPEAKER: That is a very good point of order.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: Hansard will show.
Mr HENDERSON: That is a very good point, and I will certainly acknowledge the Department of Legislative Assembly. When thanking Madam Speaker, I included, obviously, within Madam Speaker’s department. However, I place on the record that the Department of the Legislative Assembly did an absolutely magnificent job, and the Convention Centre and all of the IT people. It was a huge logistical effort. The people who did the catering, the security people, the hire car drivers, the hotel people, the restaurants, everybody did a magnificent job, and it was a great success.
This motion relates to the sitting times for the Assembly. Copies were circulated to members yesterday. In most respects, the sitting times and order of business will be the same as usual, and I refer all honourable members to the motion that was tabled for the details. Part of the mission of the sittings is obviously to allow Central Australians an opportunity to see their parliament in action. Of course, parliament sits during the working week, and so to this end, it was trialled last time and found to be very successful to have an evening Question Time. Maybe that is something that the next sitting of this parliament might care to look at, to have the occasional evening Question Time just to allow the people of the Top End to see their parliament in action. We will certainly have another evening Question Time to allow the people of Alice Springs and Central Australia to see one of the highlights of the parliamentary day. This enables working people and others who cannot attend a mid-afternoon session to be able to see a session if they so wish.
To maximise the chance for community-based functions to occur, an arrangement of meal breaks is proposed. It is also an opportunity for the people of Central Australia to meet members of their parliament, particularly members who do not reside in Central Australia. That is the reason for the evening break, to allow members to get out and meet people of Central Australia and, obviously, for the people of Central Australia to meet their parliament. Two meal breaks for dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday night are proposed, for 1 hours each. This time will be made by parliament starting earlier than usual, at 9.30 am each day, adding 1 hours to the sitting times. Lunch breaks will be shortened to 1 hours instead of the usual two hours, so there will be no restriction in terms of the hours of debate.
There will be no nett reduction in the amount of time that the parliament sits, and there are no proposed set finishing times for the sittings like we had last time. To sum up, parliament is going to sit earlier, the lunch break will be restricted, and there is no nett reduction in time to allow the business of parliament to continue.
As I said, the proposed times were circulated yesterday, and I hope that all honourable members, given that there is no nett reduction in time available for debate, will support these times.
The Alice Springs sittings are certainly a highlight. I know that we are all very much looking forward to next month when we go down there. It is a great opportunity to show parliament in action, not only to the adults, but also to the students of Alice Springs who attended in their hundreds last time. I commend this motion, and look forward to the sittings in Alice Springs next month.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, the Country Liberal Party has absolutely no problem with going to Alice Springs. We are happy to do so, and relish doing so, simply because there are so many issues pertinent to Alice Springs that should be raised in Alice Springs, and we look forward to debating those issues.
The government has, in its proposed schedule, outlined several function breaks, and we have no major problem with those function breaks. However, I would like an assurance from the minister that we will be advised of a list of those functions and, indeed, invited to them this time, because I would not mind having the opportunity to go to some of these functions. It is difficult to have to chase these things through the grapevine. I am sure it was only an oversight on the government’s part the last time. I would appreciate that proper invitations go out to all members of this parliament in the spirit to which this government says it is going to Alice Springs.
Sir Humphrey Appleby once made the observation to Jim Hacker, the fictional prime minister of England, that ‘taking something away like the national arts theatre was a little bit like taking something away that people don’t get to’, and, basically, they only start screaming when they do not get to see it. I notice that the minister pointed out how we had managed to pack the bleachers here today, and that it is standing room only, shoulder to shoulder in the bleachers. That is because people in Darwin are used to seeing their parliament, noting that it is there and, in fact, somewhat taking it for granted because they can walk in here any old time and see us in action. It is a little bit like watching paint dry on most occasions, with the dry nature of what we do, with moments of excitement.
The people of Alice Springs, obviously, do not enjoy the same access to their parliament, and they voted with their feet the last time around. I recall it well. I have never seen such interest in the government of the Northern Territory as I saw from the people of Alice Springs. There was a genuine interest from them as well as from the people around the rest of Central Australia. Many hundreds of people visited and, being a member from Central Australia and seeing the people from Central Australia are so interested, it is a good argument to make Alice Sprints the capital of the Northern Territory.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you for that contribution, member for Macdonnell. I say to members that, on this motion, there is a lot of work going on in the background. We will try to keep you informed as things are progressed. Be aware that there will be visitors from other parliaments. To date, our indication is that there will be at least as many students attending as we had last year. Also the Youth Parliament will be on the Sunday and Monday prior to the sittings as we go into Good Friday when our sittings are over.
If you do wish to have a briefing, or you want to be kept informed more than we are already going to pass on to you, then let us know. I am quite sure that it will again be very popular with the people of Alice Springs. I am sure all of us will get behind it and support it; we certainly look forward to it. I thank the staff for the tremendous amount of work they have already been doing.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): In reply, Madam Speaker, I pick up on a point from the member for Macdonnell. It is great the opposition is supporting the routine of business in regards to what community functions will be laid on whilst in Alice Springs. I remind the opposition there was a very specific community function everybody was invited to last time which was Awards for Emergency Services Workers.
I remember an interminable debate which went for about one-and-a-half hours, where the opposition was saying it was an absolute abomination and insult to the parliament that we should actually close the parliament to hold a reception for our Emergency Services volunteers, and other volunteers. Therefore, I hope that next time when we have these community functions on, that members will support them and not try to argue points of procedure against closing the parliament to allow those functions to occur.
The opposition has learned …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! It would appear the minister is saying that, notwithstanding the schedule we have approved, there could be occasions when we will depart from that at short notice for a community function …
Madam SPEAKER: No. That is not what the minister said.
Mr Dunham: So, you are not saying it? Oh right, well stick to the script, mate!
Mr HENDERSON: Absolutely not. We have a schedule; we will stick to it; parliament has agreed to it. Functions will certainly be on, and I hope that next time we do not have grandstanding on points of procedure to allow those functions to occur.
Madam Speaker, my thanks to everybody who is working so hard to put these sittings on in Alice Springs. It is an enormous logistical effort, and I hope all of us are on our best behaviour in Alice and leave the people of Central Australia inspired in regards to parliamentary democracy in the Northern Territory. I commend the motion to the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a second time.
The purpose of this bill is to reform the law which determines the respective liabilities of individuals who have separately caused economic loss or property damage, with the exception of cases involving personal injury. This bill deals with issues arising where a court finds that more than one respondent has contributed to a claimant’s loss. In such a case at common law, the law of negligence operates so that the principle of joint and several liability determines what damages are paid for the loss and damage caused.
The effect of this general principle is that the claimant only needs to identify one respondent against whom a case can be proved. That respondent is then potentially liable for all the damages payable to the claimant. Where all contributing respondents have sufficient assets or are insured and can be found, damages are apportioned according to each respondent’s contribution to the loss. However, this usually only occurs when these respondents bring actions against each other. Problems arise where only one respondent can be located or where only one respondent is financially viable or insured. That one respondent can be held liable for all the claimant’s loss regardless of how much he or she contributed to that loss. This common law principle protects claimants by allowing them to recover the total damage suffered from at least one of the respondents.
However, this approach has led to problems for respondents, particularly in terms of the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance. The application of joint and several liability has resulted in members of some occupations being particularly vulnerable for legal action in proceedings for property damage and economic loss. For example, if economic loss has been caused primarily by the negligence of a property advisor, with no assets or insurance, but was also partially caused by advice from a lawyer or accountant with assets or insurance cover, the successful claimant could obtain full damages from the lawyer or accountant. This targeting of professionals with professional indemnity insurance is considered to be a factor in the significant increases in professional indemnity premiums over the past few years.
This bill seeks to reverse the current common law position in the Northern Territory. It does this by introducing the principle of proportionate liability. This principle, put simply, is that a respondent should only be liable for his or her own share of the damage suffered by a claimant. Before proceeding to set out how this principle will work under the bill, I mention two important points.
Firstly, the bill will not apply to claims for personal injury. The 2002 Review of the Law of Negligence conducted by Hon Justice Ipp recommended against reversing the common law principle of joint and several liability in relation to personal injury claims. This recommendation has been accepted in all Australian jurisdictions and adopted on the basis that the interest of claimants, in such cases, are paramount; and their ability to access damages to cover medical expenses or to compensate for loss of income, or loss of capacity, should not be constrained.
Secondly, since 1994, the principle of proportionate liability has operated in the Northern Territory in respect of most building disputes under the Building Act 1993. This bill will repeal the relevant Building Act provisions so that the provisions under this bill apply uniformly to all disputes that occur after the commencement of this legislation.
I will now outline the main provisions of the bill. Clause 13 provides that a person who is a ‘concurrent wrongdoer’ is only liable for the amount of the claimant’s loss that reflects his or her share of the responsibility for the overall loss. A concurrent wrongdoer is defined in clause 6 as being one of two or more persons whose acts or omissions have caused the loss to the claimant. Critically, the principle of proportionate liability will only apply to ‘apportionable claims’, a term which is defined in clause 4 of the bill. The main features of an apportionable claim are that, subject to stated exceptions:
As I mentioned earlier, the major exception to this general principle, as set out in clause 4(3) of the bill, is that personal injury claims are not apportionable claims. Other types of claims which are not wholly apportionable include:
One of the main advantages of the law as it currently stands is that a claimant only needs to take action against respondents who may be in a position to pay damages. The bill, in clause 10, continues this general principle by providing that not all respondents need to be party to proceedings for the court to make decisions apportioning responsibility. It should be noted, however, that a potential respondent will not be liable unless they become a party to the proceedings.
It could be argued that under the scheme of proportionate liability proposed by the bill, some respondents may be tempted to avoid responsibility by shifting the blame onto third parties, especially third parties who either cannot be found or have no assets. The bill addresses this issue by requiring respondents to give written notice to claimants about any other potential concurrent wrongdoers; and making respondents who fail to give notice liable for any costs unnecessarily incurred because of their failure to give notice.
The new law will not affect existing law governing established concepts such contributory negligence; vicarious liability; the liability of partners in a partnership; and the liability of a principal for acts of an agent within the scope of the agent’s commission.
In summary, the introduction of proportionate liability for economic loss and property damage ensures that respondents are generally not liable for damages that are greater than the losses that their actions have caused.
Under proportionate liability, claimants in cases where more than one party has been negligent will lose the protection of only having to pursue one respondent. However, the new law will result in greater fairness for respondents in the distribution of damages awarded.
This bill is part of a national agreement reached by insurance ministers and others for the introduction of proportionate liability for claims of economic loss and property damage throughout Australia. It is one of a range of measures aimed at alleviating the 2002 crisis in the professional indemnity insurance industry.
In broad terms, the legislation contains reforms that are supported by all governments and most of the professions and occupations potentially affected by the legislation. This bill is based on a national model prepared by an officers committee of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. Similar proposals are contained in the Commonwealth Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (Audit Reform and Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004; the New South Wales Civil Liability Amendment (Personal Responsibility) Act 2003; the Victorian Wrongs and Limitations of Actions (Insurance Reform) Act 2003; the Queensland Professional Standards Act 2004; the Western Australian Civil Liability Amendment Bill 2004; and the Civil Liability Amendment (Proportionate Liability) Act 2004 of the Australian Capital Territory. I understand that the South Australians will also be introducing similar legislation early this year.
Madam Speaker, I table the explanatory statement which accompanies this bill, and I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of this bill is to change legal references to standard time from Greenwich Mean Time to Coordinated Universal Time. Greenwich Mean Time is a solar time scale based on the rotation of the earth. It is measured by the average time the earth takes to rotate on its axis from noon to noon at a chosen location. It is also technically known as Universal Time. It is based upon astrological observations and is a mathematical mean defined in terms of the solar second measured at the former location of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. There are considerable drawbacks to measuring time based on the erratic motion of the earth, the rate of which fluctuates by a few thousandths of a second per day.
Coordinated Universal Time, on the other hand, is a more accurate time scale maintained by a system of highly accurate atomic clocks around the world. It is accurate to approximately a nanosecond, or one billionth of a second, per day. Although the difference between the two time scales is often too small for humans to notice, it is very important for computer programs that use high speed data transfers and in universal synchronisation applications.
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris coordinates data from atomic clocks located in timing laboratories around the globe, including the Australian National Measurement Institute and the United States Naval Observatory, to provide the International Standard Coordinated Universal Time. Coordinated Universal Time is distributed by standard radio stations that broadcast utility information, such as time, and is also the basis of the satellite-based Global Positioning System.
Coordinated Universal Time is also the recognised legal standard for time under the Commonwealth National Measurement Act 1960, and it is the only time scale supported by technical infrastructure. Amendments to the National Measurement Act in 1997 inserted a provision which required the Chief Meteorologist to maintain Coordinated Universal Time as determined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Coordinated Universal Time is therefore the recognised legal measurement of time in Australia.
At the state and territory level, the only statutes referring to Greenwich Mean Time are the standard time acts and the equivalent provisions in other legislation. In the Northern Territory, the Standard Time Act 1898 of South Australia has continued to apply.
In June last year, Dr Richard Brittain, Secretary of the National Time Commission, wrote to the relative ministers in all Australian states and territories recommending that references to Greenwich Mean Time in legislation be replaced with Coordinated Universal Time. As a result of Dr Brittain’s approach, the issue of Coordinated Universal Time was discussed by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General at their November 2004 meeting, and it was agreed that references in state and territory legislation to Greenwich Mean Time would be replaced with Coordinated Universal Time.
This bill implements that agreement by repealing the Standard Time Act 1898 and replacing it with this bill, which provides that standard time in the Northern Territory is to be 9 hours and 30 minutes in advance of Coordinated Universal Time. The act is to commence, as will equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions, on 1 September 2005. This date was chosen to avoid confusion and to allow sufficient time to facilitate the change prior to the beginning of the daylight savings period in 2005 for those jurisdictions that adopt daylight savings.
Madam Speaker, I table the explanatory statement which accompanies this bill, and I commend the bill to honourable members. I thank members for their forbearance on what is a fairly obtuse bill, but I believe it is making history by legislating for computers, so we move on into the future.
Debate adjourned.
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I will be brief. The bill is supported for reasons that, if it is not obvious by now, it will become obvious shortly. The bill is supported because it picks up on a bill that the member for Macdonnell introduced some time ago, commonly referred to as a Good Samaritan bill. The member for Macdonnell’s bill was directed to protect emergency workers who are assaulted in the course of their work. That was called the Criminal Code Amendment Bill (Serial 212) introduced on 5 October last year.
The Attorney-General referred to the member for Macdonnell’s bill, but said, ‘It should not have been limited to just emergency workers’. The government’s bill includes police, and that is certainly not something that we would oppose. However, and I am sure the member for Macdonnell will speak, the purpose for which he introduced his bill was in the context of ambulance workers, firies and emergency workers, and he spoke about why that was necessary in his second-reading speech when he introduced the bill.
The member for Macdonnell also said at the time that the bill was an attempt to cast a wider net than the Criminal Code does presently. Some members will know that the code already provides for protection of police officers by virtue of a specific offence, namely section 189A of the Criminal Code which provides for a gaol term of five years, or seven years if the police officer suffers bodily harm, or 16 years if the officer suffers grievous harm.
The government’s bill creates a new section that provides an offence for anyone who unlawfully assaults, obstructs or hinders another person who is providing rescue, medical treatment, first aid, etcetera. It provides a penalty of up to five years gaol and it is, therefore, an extension of section 189A of the code and, like the member for Macdonnell’s bill, can equally be described as a Good Samaritan bill. The government has gone further than the member for Macdonnell. We know that protection already exists for police officers, but the Attorney-General has seen fit to extend that. That is not objectionable of itself.
Someone is keeping count of the number of bills that have been introduced by the CLP. The member for Macdonnell must be keeping count; he is holding up one hand with five digits on it. Therefore, this must be the fifth bill that we have introduced where the government has knocked ours down, got stuck into us to say no it is no good for all sorts of reasons, and ‘You people do not know what you are talking about’ and then, only within months, produced its own bill with some minor variations in some respects. We are happy that the government, generally, picks up our ideas. Like so much of what they do they say one thing but do the other. They might stand here and get stuck into us for the bills we introduce - as occurred last night in relation to a bill introduced by the member for Macdonnell. But we know that, behind the scenes, they accept what we say for the most part and then repackage it, rebadge it and present it as their own.
We do not mind. In fact, we regard it as something of a compliment. I commend the member for Macdonnell for planting the seed with the Attorney-General and his colleagues. For those reasons, we do not oppose the bill.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to say something similar to what the member for Araluen has just said. I welcome the bill and I also thank the member for Macdonnell for bringing it to parliament in the first place. The government, obviously, has broadened it so it covers a larger range of workers including people in rescue, medical and other aid fields. That makes the legislation much better than originally was presented. However, I do believe that the legislation has been presented because the member for Macdonnell initiated it in the first place. That is good. It shows that parliament can work. For sure, governments like to have their names on the bills, as I know. However, I am sure when people read Hansard they will realise that, in some cases, people on this side of parliament do introduce legislation which is taken up by government. The government will say they improved it, and that is probably the case.
I support the bill, and thank the member for Macdonnell for introducing it in the first place.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I am not going to rehash the ‘we did this and you did that’. The government could easily have introduced this as an amendment to my bill, but I am not going to quibble over the niceties of it. I actually take a great personal pleasure in seeing legislation like this passed - not because it was my idea or anything like that but, ultimately, because it is going to protect people in their workplace. The government has cast a slightly wider net and I completely support that.
As I said last night, it has been interesting, as we presented bill by bill to this House, how those bills have been adopted by government. The minister for police last week acknowledged the fact that this does occur, and I am grateful to him for his acceptance of that fact. In fact, it has got to the point with bills on this side of the House, that we have been struggling to find a point of difference with the government.
I was, in one respect, almost grateful last night that, finally, with the defeat of the Bail Bill, we found a point of difference with government. It is a pity it was not a point of difference on policy, but one of workability of the bill. I will not be at all surprised if the Bail Bill that was defeated last night finds its way into this House in some other fashion.
It is interesting that the government adopts all of these bills with such relish. It is almost a case of with enemies like them, who needs friends, as the process of bringing bills before this House and having them defeated, and then reintroduced as government legislation is frustration. I would urge government to, one, get briefings; two, when they get their briefings and they want to introduce their own version of it, amend the bill brought in by opposition or independent members so that the legislation can take off a lot more expediently. This delay in defeating an opposition bill and then reintroducing a government bill, means the protection which is sought, in this instance for emergency workers, in another instance for police officers, or whatever, means the delay turns into a delay of about six months. This means that emergency workers and police officers are exposed for longer than they have to be, and fire penalties are not as high as they should be for longer then they have to be. I hope the government is prepared at points in the future by discussing with members on this side of the House and independent members, to introduce amendments to existing bills, rather than defeating bills and then reintroducing them as their own legislation.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank the members for their support proffered today. I do not want to play who did what in this; I have put nearly 100 pieces of legislation through this Chamber. Right from day one when I took up my role as Attorney-General, I made it very clear to members that law making is the business of the parliament, and that I would always welcome ideas which came from any member of parliament – whether it was the opposition or an independent. In many cases, and I freely acknowledge, as I do today, that the member for Macdonnell certainly brought this issue to parliament, and good on him for doing it. However, it is not just a case of us going away and rebadging it, and changing a few dots on the ‘i’s’ and reintroducing it. In most cases when we take away an opposition or independent’s private member’s bill for analysis, there is often a way in which, with the advice we have available from the policy, that we can actually improve on the original proposition.
This is a classic case of it here. It was not a case of simply taking the original proposition, which was to apply aggravated offence category 2 assaults on emergency workers. It was to look at a more generic way in which to introduce that protection into our Criminal Code, which is exactly what this bill does, and you have acknowledged. What I am saying is that I am not trying to be sneaky about this. I am trying to make good law in concert with the full membership of this House, not just ideas which may occur to me. I do not feel any slight on my character or record if we have adopted the ideas of various members in this House, which we have done over the last four years.
Turning to the bill in front of us, I welcome the support. It is a better provision than previous attempts to provide this type of protection in our legislation, in our Criminal Code. It is a generic provision which means that anyone, whether a member of the public who has jumped into help the firies to fight a bushfire or a fire which is threatening a property and find themselves under some aggressive attack, is protected equally as the firie who would be standing alongside them. It, quite rightly, applies to any member of our community who feels, through loyalty and care about their community, that they should provide some support to their fellow citizens. Anyone in that situation needs to know that the law recognises it and provides them with a special level of protection under the law.
That is quite an elegant solution to introducing that principle into our Criminal Code. It applies to any person in the community, whether they be a nurse, an emergency worker, a common member of the community with no particular vocational involvement in emergency work, anyone who is involved in providing help to other people will be captured under this provision. That is the gist of it, Madam Speaker. We will move on.
Motion agreed to; bill e read a second time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 1 December 2004.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, first, I support the bill and I thank the government for a briefing on this matter. The only issue I raise is the changes to the board. The board was part of the corporation previously, and now will be an advisory board only. The issues that concern me are how much weight will that advisory board have in matters of policy for the corporation; and a slightly more political question is: how do members of the present board feel about the changes?
The changes appear to me to be to be lessening their role and the power they had as part of the corporation compared with what they will have now as just an advisory board. Whilst I accept the changes to the legislation, I would be interested to hear your comments about where the board will sit in relation to this bill as compared with how it sat in relation to the act.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, the opposition has no great trouble with the legislation, but on matters relating to the port, we think there are some significant issues that should come before this House; and this is not the debate for it, but I will signal them for the minister.
They are issues about the port: its efficacy; its inter-linkages and its GBD status, which has been reported on in the report of the Auditor-General which hit our desks in the last couple of days; its finances, whether those finances are impacting negatively on its fee structures; whether those fee structures then render it uncompetitive with other ports, particularly those with which it is competing head to head. There is the matter of the roll-on roll-off facility, which is an issue of concern to the opposition. It would appear that some $750 000 that was due from the Commonwealth has not been receipted.
These are matters that go not to the bill, and I readily accept that, but to the status of this corporation, this GBD. If the government is going to give it robust legislative and accounting structures, including how it appears in our budget papers, it is necessary to look at how that is travelling.
On a couple of those salient issues, there is a necessity for a formal statement in the House that deals with where the port sits in our transport infrastructure rather than just the rhetoric about landbridges and so on. It should deal with how it sits with some of the matter that has been included in the Chief Minister’s statement to this parliament about competing with other ports. We know geographically it is close to other ports in South-East Asia, but then, so is Wyndham. One would not assume that Wyndham, therefore, is a better competitor than Fremantle, for instance. Arguments that you can work out the distance and therefore it gives you some competitive edge would have to be demonstrated along with the other factors.
I readily acknowledge that these do not go to the core of the legislation. However, the legislation does talk about the corporate structure and how it is set up. Having decided that we believe that we now need to know the forward plans for the Port Corporation: how it will conduct itself; and how a mistake of the magnitude of the unbilled $745 000 occurred. We would like to see that in a way that gives us some time to debate it, rather than a statement that is pushed under our doors the night before.
In terms of the positioning of the Port of Darwin in the world, in our near region, its finances and how those finances impact on its fee schedules, and whether that is a critical factor in its competitiveness. I would hope that the minister, in his summing up of this bill, prior to the third reading, could give some assurance to this parliament that this very important matter will be addressed by way of some discussion drafts that are not glossies for the intention of promoting things politically, but lawfully in purpose of promoting a little more transparent understanding about the role of the Darwin Port Corporation and how it sees itself in the future and in the world.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, generally I welcome the comments by both the member for Nelson and the shadow minister. Let me say at the outset that I believe and am committed to promoting our port and its development. It is crucial to the development of the Northern Territory. I will outline some of those developments in my closing speech, and the way in which government is supporting those developments.
As the member for Drysdale pointed out, these amendments establish the government’s framework where the CEO is appointed by the Administrator under the Public Sector Employment and Management Act and subject to the Financial Management Act and accountable to the minister. This is the government’s framework, and the board will become an advisory board through these amendments. The member for Nelson asked how it is going to work. Obviously, the CEO will work very closely with the board. I have regular meetings with the CEO, and the advice of the board will be communicated to me through the CEO as one mechanism, and the other mechanism by which this will occur is direct meetings between me and the board.
Let me lay it on the record that I value the board of the Darwin Port Corporation, particularly its chairman, Mr Barry Coulter, and his wealth of experience, and the board members who have served over the years. Some have left in the last 12 months, and we have a new board member, Mr Bruce Fadelli, who has vast experience within business within the Northern Territory through the Chamber of Commerce and his own business pursuits in a whole range of areas, including transport, and also his experience as a very successful importer of products, particularly from our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, and his experience in doing business through Asia.
The board now will have more of a trade developing focus and it was decided that the operations of the Port Corporation should be more closely aligned to a GBD. Basically, the more investment that government has to make within the port and the Port Corporation, and there has already been very significant investment as we are all aware and as I flagged yesterday in some of the debates - at least $11m for the bulk loading facility to handle the 500 000 to 600 000 tonnes per year of manganese from Bootu Creek which is an exciting development which will provide core business for the port to build future business on.
I have said a number of times in this House that the container transport business is a cutthroat business, and it is very difficult to compete with some of the southern ports on price when it comes to containers. I suppose it comes to economies of scale and, as already mentioned in debate here, how towage is a significant portion of costs within Darwin. As port traffic and use of the port facilities grows, those costs will be able to be spread more evenly which will enable better competition.
To answer the member for Nelson’s question, there is a trade focus which the Port Corporation Board will have. I have already mentioned Mr Barry Coulter being the chair, and I know that Mr Coulter and Mr Berwick, the CEO of the Port Corporation, have undertaken a number of trips within Asia to promote the port, and to find out more about operations of ports overseas. I know my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, has undertaken a number of trips to our near north, and also to China and beyond, building up Northern Territory business and the business of the port. It is entirely appropriate that the board has a trade focus.
As I have said, government has recognised that we need to make significantly more investment within the port on a whole range of issues: quarantine facilities, the bulk loader I mentioned, bulk liquid, and the pipeline. There is much investment that has to be made by government within the port before we really consider the port moving to be a government owned corporation. However, that is not to lessen the fact that the port should have a commercial focus in everything it does. By clarifying the fact that government is going to be investing and underwriting, to a larger degree, the developments at the port, it frees the port from being too bound by commercial considerations.
That was one of the conundrums with Bootu Creek in that, yes, Bootu Creek was ready to roll, ready to move, and they were obviously trying to negotiate the best price for their particular operation. However, it was felt there needed to be a second customer to spread the costs more evenly to make it a more viable commercial concern. It is uncertain when - I think it is the Olympia Resource’s - garnet sands operations in Central Australia will be ready to start moving their product through the port and utilising the bulk loading facilities.
I am convinced that these changes lift the burden off the port of acting in a purely commercial fashion. Government is interested in underwriting all the infrastructure I have spoken about and the board can now concentrate on a trade focus, which is quite appropriate.
Member for Nelson, I have outlined how those lines of reporting might occur. I am very pleased to meet with the board, and I commend their very hard work. I have met with the board several times since I have become minister, and each meeting has been very productive in clarifying the situation regarding these legislative changes. In terms of power - I do not like to think in those terms; I like to think of responsibilities – the board still has important responsibilities of the trade route, and I have responsibilities, as any minister with oversight of a GBD has, under that sort of legislation.
The member for Drysdale mentioned quite a number of issues and I will turn to them. However, I remind members that the purpose of the bill is to also expand the role of the Harbour Master, and reflect the operational roles that have been in place for a number of years. I place on the record my appreciation for the work of our Harbour Master. He does a fantastic job. I meet with him quite regularly. It is a difficult job because as the harbour grows and evolves in terms of shipping and its use there are issues that the Harbour Master has to address, least of all issues like moorings down on Sadgroves Creek. There are competing interests there and those are issues that we are working through.
I commend the work of the Harbour Master in ensuring the smooth operations of the port and trying to straighten out issues as they arise through the operation of the port. It is a commercial port but it is also very well-used for recreation by our Darwin community and I commend that also. It certainly is a great asset for the people of Darwin.
Turning to the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. I take on board what he said. It will be appropriate in the next few months for me to come to this parliament with a report on the port and developments at the port and future directions of the port. Once the board has had a chance to discuss more fully its trade focus and come out with a trade plan in that regard, it will be very appropriate for me to bring to the House, as the member for Drysdale has outlined, a plan for the port.
The member for Drysdale questioned efficiencies of the port. I would remind the member for Drysdale the comments by the CEO of Hai Win Shipping, Mr Frank Guerra. He said the operations through the port and the interface with the rail went ‘as smooth as silk’. So there is much to be commended about the port and its operation and that is certainly a compliment.
There is no doubt that in terms of prices I have mentioned before, if we are talking about container traffic, that there are cheaper ports within Australia and Fremantle springs to mind and certainly we need to look at our competitors. The member for Drysdale mentioned Wyndham also. We have to look at the ways in which government can further support the port to have a competitive edge against those other ports. It is something we need to look at.
I mentioned before in this House that there are problems with the port regarding our quarantine because we are a port that interfaces with countries that have the risk of the Giant African Snail. We certainly do not want that particular pest in the Territory. Extensive and quite dangerous, I suppose, operations and processes have to be carried out to fumigate our containers to kill these snails and quite toxic gasses must be used. I commend the port and the work they do with the quarantine authorities. Government has invested money in upgrading quarantine facilities to try to overcome those obstacles that we have, that a port like Adelaide does not have in terms of quarantine issues and the Giant African Snail.
I have mentioned GBD status and how that is going to work and the interaction between government and the Port Corporation; that was an issue the member for Drysdale raised. He also raised the issue of finances and fee structures. Let me say that there is currently a review into that, the Meyrick Review. Government is also cognisant of any significant rises to port charges and we would not really like to see that. We want to see port charges that are competitive, but we also need to be cognisant of the fact that our port needs to operate as a business, and they are becoming more closely aligned to a GBD. Treasury obviously is going to have a greater role in terms of the finances and fee structures of the port. Already the CEO has flagged to me that they are in very close contact with Treasury over these issues, which are important strategic for the development of our port.
The member for Drysdale mentioned the trade route, which was debated yesterday. As I have said, it is a focus of the Darwin Port Corporation Board and we have some people who are eminently placed to look at the strategic initiatives to build the Territory’s trade route into Asia.
I have already mentioned that I am more than prepared to make a statement on the forward plans of the port. We need to let this new structure settle for a while, and for the board to be able to put its forward plans. I am more than happy to bring them to parliament.
The member for Drysdale has mentioned a number of times approximately $750 000. Basically, he said because the port was not talking with Defence that we had foregone some $750 000 of revenue and he pointed to the Auditor-General’s report. I am quite happy to debate that in detail. I do not want to foreshadow the debate, but it is my advice from the CEO that issues relating to Defence and the roll-on roll-off facility are being worked through. We know that Defence is a large bureaucracy and there are layers within layers and boxes within boxes, but I am assured by the CEO that the issue is being worked through and that revenue will flow into Territory coffers when a few issues are resolved.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to the House. It makes some timely amendments. I have explained the rationale behind it. We have a fantastic harbour and a fantastic port. Not only do we have the dimensions out there at the East Arm facility that are developing at a great pace and are being under-written by government, but we have tourism opening up with cruise ship visitation and there are economic benefits through the visitation of cruise ships. That is very positive. We have the recreational and boating aspects on our harbour and that is something we are going to have to watch as traffic in our harbour increases.
I appreciate the support from both the opposition and the Independent member. There is one committee stage amendment which is a clarification; it does not alter the intent of the bill, and I ask for members’ support.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 17, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 18:
Dr BURNS: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 95. Basically, this is an amendment of section 48 by-laws. It is an amendment to provide for a new subsection (3) in the substantive bill. The new subsection alleviates the problem where any port by-law that contains reference to a document, standard or rule, etcetera, has to be remade each time the document, standard or rule changes. The minister’s approval will be required and notification would be published in the Gazette.
In short, this is making things easier for administration. We know that national rules and standards change, particularly in this era where we have a lot of port security and whatever in place, and standards also change - I know that from my role as transport minister. This will make it easier for those changes to be incorporated. Nonetheless, it will be made public because the minister will be notifying through the government Gazette.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendment; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 9 February 2005.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I stand to participate in the debate, however I do seek some clarification from you first. Perhaps you might be able to enlighten me. We are being expected today to debate a piece of legislation which will undoubtedly pass on the numbers of government within a few hours. This legislation gives the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory authority to hand over 18 parks on their own documentation - now probably 17 with the Miriuwung people’s decision and the Keep River Park now withdrawn from negotiations - and to set up arrangements with other parks in the Northern Territory, totalling about 49 parks according to the Chief Minister’s documentation - now it is probably 48 in total - which bring in arrangements that have never been seen in the Northern Territory before, in terms of the arbitrary and secretive powers of the Chief Minister to negotiate and reach a decision on these particular negotiations.
I also am informed, very correctly, that there is an indigenous land use agreement that has been struck for each and every one of these parks. So, on the one hand we have legislation that we are expected to pass, based on general comments within legislation, and this House, supposedly, is expected to reach an informative decision on the value or not of that legislation, when the legislation itself does not transfer, in any real sense, to the indigenous land use agreements that have been struck for each and every one of those parks.
I seek your guidance as to how I can possibly debate this issue with the Chief Minister when she has not brought into this House today each and every one of those indigenous land use agreements. It would seem to me that that is what we are actually debating - the indigenous land use agreements that are the decisions that have been made. The legislation states that this bill effectively gives life to a decision that was made prior to 2 February. The details of that decision are included in indigenous land use agreements for every one of those parks, and we have no detail. How can one possibly debate this legislation, Madam Speaker? I ask for your guidance.
Madam SPEAKER: I will speak to the Clerk for a moment about this. In discussion with the Clerk - and I agree with him - at this stage it is not really my right nor my power to interrupt the discussion of this particular bill that has been raised. Any legal opinion or availability of advice that the Chief Minister has she could offer in her summing up of the debate. Any of the points you have raised can certainly be raised within the debate and the committee stage to get clarification of what you are seeking. It is not really in my right or power to stop debate on this bill. It is a bill that the parliament is discussing at the moment and we really have to go forward with it.
Mr BURKE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I accept the situation that you are in. I have looked through Pettifer and I cannot find reference to a situation as exists in this Chamber today; that is, that it is an appalling situation, quite frankly. It is an absolutely appalling situation where, undoubtedly, this government through its numbers will achieve its objective by probably 4 pm or 5 pm. It will achieve an objective whereby the Chief Minister has undertaken negotiations based on some broad utterances in this parliament, in the form of a statement and a second reading speech to a bill, which has not been achieved. The Chief Minister’s bill and the utterances she has made, the undertakings she gave, the objectives she set, and the time lines she set, have all failed.
None of the details of the supposed agreement that has finally been struck - an agreement, I remind you, Madam Speaker and members of this Assembly, that has taken three attempts to get into legislation, into some sort of legal posture because, in fact, it has fallen past the time objectives the Chief Minister has set and the numbers of parks involved up until this point.
It has been brought to life again by another piece of legislation that supposedly asks this parliament to give authority to a decision that was made in secret by the Chief Minister by 2 February; a decision we know nothing about. It is a decision that is so complex that there is an indigenous land use agreement struck for every one of those parks. I am not talking about a broad and general agreement, or broad and general results, or the situation that the Chief Minister said that Territorians would enjoy; that litigation would be a thing of the past. We know that is not the case because the Chief Minister has admitted it. In fact, her words were: ‘We will, quite rightly, pursue the litigious route where they so desire’. Therefore, it is not to achieve any objective of avoiding litigation.
It was supposedly to set up a win/win situation that provides a consensus approach for Aboriginal people that will end up producing a world-class system of parks and reserves. It has failed in that objective as well. It has failed not only by the release from the Northern Land Council yesterday which says it is not a consensus approach and win/win situation which the Chief Minister espoused in 2002; nor will it produce the world-class system of parks and reserves which the Chief Minister hopes will be a springboard for Kakadu and Uluru coming under Territory control. It also underscores in this media release the statement by the Northern Land Council that the model put in place by the Country Liberal Party for Nitmiluk is the one which they expected to be achieved and it has not been achieved by the Chief Minister in these negotiations. Therefore she has failed in that objective as well.
The silent testimony of the Miriuwung people who are sitting in the Chamber today is the most appalling outcome for any Labor party or Labor government. That these good people would sit in silent anger in this Chamber, would take the time to come to this Chamber - I did not organise it; they did - they came here of their own volition to listen to what the Chief Minister has to say as she has all power in this regard. It is an appalling situation for a Labor government and a Labor party which has paraded itself as so honest in its dealings with Aboriginal people, so concerned about their rights, and so willing to criticise the CLP in the past, and is quite happy to find itself in a situation where it comes to the duty of the CLP – a duty I take on willingly, I might add – to argue on their behalf, and the other Aboriginal people who are probably not as informed as the Miriuwung people are, as to what their rights should be, what their rights should extend too, and why this deal does not do anything not only for them - which is why they have withdrawn - but does not do anything in a real sense for all of the Aboriginal claimants, potential or actual, or traditional owners who are left in this parks deal.
It is an absolute disgrace from a parliamentary point of view, and from a position of where we come in terms of looking at all of the issues and debating these things fulsomely, it is an absolute disgrace. It is a reinforcement of what is happening with the waterfront deal, and that is that somehow the Northern Territory has moved in the space of about 3 years where you may as well call yourself ‘Herr Hitler’. We have a situation where the Chief Minister is absolutely all powerful, reinforced by the numbers in the House, and has no feeling of any responsibility to provide any information in a real sense to Territorians.
The Chief Minister says if you are so interested you should seek a briefing. Territorians cannot come to your office and seek a briefing. Territorians think this is the House where the information is provided. Territorians expect you, as the government in charge of the taxpayers’ funds, with the authority and so-called mandate of Territorians, supposedly because they voted you into government, underscored by your own principles of honesty, openness, transparency and integrity – what has happened to all of that? – where you will say to Territorians, ‘It was not in our policy platform. However, we have decided we are going to do a handover deal which involves about 47 Territory parks, and we are going to do this deal with one person charged entirely with the negotiations. We will bring in legislation which brings you a broad framework of what we seek to achieve, and then at the end of the day after we have achieved it, we will tell you what we have done. If you do not support this approach, you are not a Territorian’.
It is just absolute hypocrisy. It is making a laughing stock of the parliament of the Northern Territory. It is supposedly supported by Territorians because you shove a few information brochures in the mail, which is probably one of the side jobs of your dirt unit up there …
Ms Lawrie: You are the only one complaining. It is not an issue out there.
Mr BURKE: … which is costing millions of dollars a year to keep going. The member for Karama should be ashamed to sit in here. She does not have Aboriginal blood flowing in her veins, however she should have the same concerns as she has sprouted them in this House on many an occasion.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: You are the one! The member for Millner was the one! He actually [inaudible] came into this House any time, any day.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! Leader of the Opposition, your remarks are getting too personal. We are debating a bill; please refrain.
Mr BURKE: Any time, any day. I was going to get to it later, Madam Speaker, but I will put the challenge to the Chief Minister again: any time, anywhere, any day, any medium, I will debate the parks issue with you. If you are so supported by Territorians, you would have the confidence to go out there and debate it, and then bring it into this House and have it passed. She will not because she is working on the numbers and she is working on pliant, weak Aboriginal members. Pliant, weak Aboriginal members.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. That was an offensive remark towards members of this Chamber, totally offensive.
Madam SPEAKER: That is unparliamentary.
Mr BURKE: It is not!
Madam SPEAKER: It is an aspersion cast on members in this House, and it is unparliamentary. I ask you to withdraw it.
Mr BURKE: May I speak to the point of order, Madam Speaker?
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, you may speak to it.
Mr BURKE: Surely, we have not reached the point in this House where the words ‘pliant’ and ‘weak’ is unparliamentary. We are supposed to be Australians. We are supposed to be people who put ourselves in the rough and tumble of parliament. The member for Millner has every opportunity to stand up and call me pliant and weak. I do not mind. That is the allegation I make against you. Surely, I can use those words?
Madam SPEAKER: I was referring to the fact that you are referring to their Aboriginality and using that as some sort of aspersion upon the government in making decisions. We need not get into this area.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, the member for Millner, as did several other members in this House, predicated their entry in this House with maiden speeches on a particular race issue. They have drawn attention to their own race, and they then have to accept anything that flows from that …
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not think we have to accept anything. It is a parliament, and you can be as robust as you like, but you cannot cast aspersions on members of this parliament. The member for Greatorex on a number of occasions has been upset that he felt there were racist remarks being targeted at him. So I am saying in this debate, let us keep it at a level that you are not insulting people because of their race, no matter who they are ...
Mr Elferink interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: I am speaking, thank you, member for Macdonnell. Do not interrupt me. Leader of the Opposition, with good grace, just withdraw those remarks.
Mr BURKE: Madam Speaker, I withdraw because I respect your ruling. However, I will say that it is galling. If anyone checks the Parliamentary Record and looks at the comments that have been made in debates in this House that come from the government, when it comes to issues of what the CLP did or did not do for Aboriginal people, and the attitude of particular CLP members, anyone who checks the Hansard record will know that we have taken all of that on the chin.
The hypocrisy of you lot is the fact that you cannot even take words like ‘pliant’ and ‘weak’. The reality is that you want to do is get this through your skull: you are pliant and weak. You are pliant and weak because you do not stand up for the principles you say you believe in. It is a sad day when the CLP has to get up and argue these sorts of things because we should be arguing possibly against the fact that you have gone too far!
All you can do is sprout nice words and, when it comes to action, you cannot even do what the CLP did. You cannot even, in substance, deliver to Aboriginal people the sorts of deals that the CLP did.
Dr Burns: Well, let us hear what your policies are! Let us hear what your policies are!
Mr BURKE: And let us hear what our deal is, says the member for Johnston. You can get up and say whether you agree or not.
Dr Burns: I will.
Mr BURKE: I am glad that are Miriuwung people here because I will put it on the record for all Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory now, and it will be in our election policy because it is already written. It is this: the CLP will provide joint management arrangements to every park in the Northern Territory, every park - understand that? – a la Nitmiluk. No ifs, no buts, no whyfors, no weasel words. An ILUA will be struck a la Nitmiluk for every park in the Northern Territory when we come to government. That is my undertaking.
The second thing I will tell you is this: for every program that involves Aboriginal money on Aboriginal land, every program backed by the land councils, we will match them dollar for dollar. They are the two principal planks of the CLP policy for Aboriginal people. And that is the sort of outcome that Aboriginal are looking for, and that is the sort of outcome a CLP government undertakes, without reservation, to provide for them in the future.
So when you start talking about the old days of the CLP, get with it. The day starts from today, and if you want to talk about the track record of the CLP, the track record of the CLP is Nitmiluk, which we are proud of, and this is not Nitmiluk. It is amazing how the Northern Land Council has come out and said, ‘This is not Nitmiluk’. Do not try and pass off to Territorians, as you have done all over the place, and do not try and pass off to Aboriginal people that somehow this is a Nitmiluk deal. The CLP did Nitmiluk deals in the past, and the CLP will do Nitmiluk deals in the future. We will deal for every park in the Northern Territory, and we will do it without handing over one hectare of land.
I will stand here and say, I will do my utmost, and I am confident that I will get Aboriginal people to agree with it, because the Nitmiluk deal is what they want. Everyone said it, indigenous Territorians, non-indigenous Territorians, we all benefit, and it is about time we moved into that future.
What you have done, and where you are so hypocritical, is you are trying to walk the Aboriginal walk and play the northern suburbs at the same time. You have never had any integrity about it. You are trying to be a carbon copy of the worst points of the CLP because you think you will hold your place in the northern suburbs. That is your problem. You have no integrity and you have no substance to you. The lack of substance is reinforced by what is happening with this legislation.
The Chief Minister made a pre-emptive decision, based on no real issue, in fact …
Mr Henderson: Like a High Court decision.
Mr BURKE: The member for Wanguri says the High Court decision forced the government to act in this way. There was a High Court decision brought down over the parks in the Northern Territory, there have been High Court decisions, there have been court decisions for as long as I have lived in the Northern Territory, and for many years before that. There are various ways of dealing with those issues, step by step. You can deal it park by park, you can deal with it through indigenous land use agreements, through acquisition processes. The Labor government has chosen all of those routes as well. However, they were trying to con indigenous Territorians, and trying to con the general public.
Mr Ah Kit: No, no, no.
Mr BURKE: The member for Arnhem should stand up and speak here, because the Chief Minister has no credibility. You are an Aboriginal leader. I am looking forward to you standing up and saying to the Miriuwung people up there just why this is a good deal, and why they are not smart for being involved in it. I will lay money they are smarter than you are, that they know what their rights should be, and they know what they should achieve. Well, I do not have your credibility but at least I can argue on their behalf.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: Well, laugh if you like. I have only been in the Northern Territory for, five minutes or so off 12 years, it may be five minutes in your opinion. I will be first to admit in this House that I have made many mistakes when it comes to Aboriginal people, and you cannot turn back the clock, but what you can do is make sure you do not make those mistakes again. When you listen to me, listen to what I am saying now. Only fools and cowards pull out Hansard records and try to say what you said tomorrow is what you said a year ago, it is wrong. What I am saying now is what is the CLP’s policy. That is why we oppose this legislation so vehemently.
We oppose the fact that the Chief Minister has no credibility in bringing forward legislation that has been revived on three occasions. Bringing forward legislation that gives no information to this parliament as to what, in fact, is the substantive deal that has been done on each and every one of these parks. No information whatsoever and expects this parliament to pass legislation after the event, on an issue that the Chief Minister has not explained in any detail, except in general principles, to Territorians. In fact, her own brochures are full of misinformation to Territorians. She will not tell Territorians what the cost of these arrangements are, will not tell Territorians what the leaseback arrangements are, and will not commit to indigenous Territorians some basic rights which they are already enjoying in some parts of the Northern Territory.
On the one hand, you are putting in very unsatisfactory arrangements for, I believe, non-indigenous Territorians who would ask the question, quite rightly: why are you handing over at least 17 of our parks? Why are you changing the freehold title? The answer, the Chief Minister says, is because we are going to avoid the cost of litigation that the CLP engaged in the past. But hang on, you are already litigating on a number of parks, and you have already said you will include more. It looks like Keep River is now in the bunch. Therefore, the non-litigious route that you were going to follow is out the window. So, why are you doing it? I will tell you why. We want to stand up there and say: ‘We reckon, if we get a bit of bad luck, we might be out of this place in about two or three months time, so we will try to get some framework agreement in place that will, somehow, settle all the Aboriginal issues’. What you have done in trying for the big bang solution, is forget about one little group – Aboriginal people. They are not stupid. You have treated them like fools; you belittle them, thought they would be pawns and they would go along with, and you find that they are not. Each and every park and issue needs to be looked at individually in that context, and you cannot do that broad framework and get away with it.
Also, worse than that, the Chief Minister not only wanted to put that in place, but wanted to do it in secret. She did not want, at any event, even to this point today, to explain in detail what the arrangements were for each and every one of those parks. Somehow, Territorians are supposed to roll over and say: ‘Oh, it sounds all right to me, we will go along with it’.
This should be an election issue, first of all to get the facts before Territorians, and secondly, to test its righteousness because, if the government is as confident as they claim they are that they have support of Territorians and indigenous Territorians on this issue, why would they not go to the people? Surely, that is a winner. Surely, you would go out and say: ‘Let us make this an election issue’. But, no, no. What we have is legislation on urgency. Legislation that is being pushed through on urgency, with no detail: ‘Let us just get it passed. We know we have the numbers. Tomorrow is another day; and it is done’.
That does not sound like the support of Territorians to me; that sounds like a government that does not want this on the agenda for Territorians to think about – does not want it under any circumstances.
I understand the member for Nelson put a motion that it go to a select committee. What is wrong with a select committee? What is the rush? A select committee can look at these things in detail; all the information will come forward. The Chief Minister can put her indigenous land use agreements on the table; she can talk to Miriuwung people and others and convince them that this is the best deal for everyone. But she will not do that either. I understand you divided last night against the select committee. Gee!
Ms Martin: You were not here for the debate last night, Denis, you were upstairs …
Madam SPEAKER: Order! None of those remarks, thank you, Chief Minister.
Mr BURKE: No, I was out fundraising. It is amazing the number of people who are trying to give me money at the moment. You have to get your priorities right when it comes to priorities. I tried to get information out of you yesterday, but I got no information, so what do I do? Go and see a few people who want to give us a lot of money, or sit and listen to more garbage from you? I made a good choice.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: At least we can make decisions.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, you have 20 minutes left. Do you want to continue until 12.15 pm, or would you like to continue your remarks after Question Time?
Mr BURKE: No, Madam Speaker, I will rise at the end of the second and third reading on this to continue speaking, because we have heard nothing from the Chief Minister, apart from the …
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I suggest to the Opposition Leader that, if he would like to continue later, we could give him a briefing, since he has not had one yet.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
Mr BURKE: My briefings are in this parliament, Madam Speaker. We have all the time in the world, Chief Minister. You can brief us all day. So far, we have asked you questions and questions, and all we get back is: ‘You are un-Territorian, you do not support it. Why don’t you get a briefing?’ Chief Minister, why don’t you tell us exactly what you are going to do? Let the Miriuwung people hear you. They have heard what I am going to do. They have heard my position – absolutely clear. It does not need lots of legislation; that is our position and it is irrevocable. That is how I will progress. All you can do is sit there.
I wonder how many Aboriginal members of this parliament get up and say what great legislation it is because if you do you are hypocrites. This is not good legislation. It is wrong in every sense and frankly, Madam Speaker, it is not even legislation you can debate in substance because none of the detail has been provided to this House.
Debate suspended until after Question Time
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, my comments will be relatively short because I will reserve some comments for the following bill.
I spoke last week when this bill was introduced and said that it should not have been pushed through on urgency. I remain unconvinced of the urgency. Although the Chief Minister will say the issue has been around since about 2003, the debate has only started in the last six months. It is a very important debate.
I emphasised my concerns during General Business Day yesterday. It is such an important issue that I believe it should be referred to a select committee, as I said last night. This bill sets in motion the next bill, which enables the government to establish certain agreements dealing with the parks in this bill, with the exception of the Keep River National Park.
I will not be supporting this because the bill should have gone through the normal stages and I have concerns that this whole process should be slowed down. If it is not going to be referred to a select committee then at least let us work through this carefully because once it is done it will be very hard to undo.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I had hoped to speak later, because the Chief Minister seems to be the only spokesperson in this debate. She keeps saying that if you had a briefing you would understand it all. I was hoping someone like the member for Millner would jump. He is a man who is trained in legal matters. He proudly professes that his Aboriginal ancestry is something that gives him great passion with matters such as this.
Mr Bonson: Correct.
Mr DUNHAM: Correct. And he also claims, certainly in debates about the Darwin Harbour and the rest of it, that unfettered access to land and matters relating to the status quo of some our natural heritage is very important to him. I was hoping that, if it is all that simple, one of the others on that side who had this very transparent briefing would be able to explain it to people who are finding it difficult to understand exactly why this is such a good deal.
I have a problem here, Madam Speaker, having to speak so quickly after somebody who has told us so little. The purpose of debates, as we all know, is to elicit further information, to make sure that things are put on the record and to make sure that the government’s position is abundantly clear, and that is, that it is supporting the best endeavours of the Northern Territory and the people of the Northern Territory.
The Chief Minister, in the debate as recently as yesterday, talked about matters relating to this bill. Some of what she said I find very difficult to reconcile with what we have before us. For instance, she says, ‘The legislation, which sets out full details of the government’s offer and the parameters of the negotiation …’. Full details of the government’s offer - well, it does not, because we need to know exactly what detail is involved in this legislation. As my colleague, the member for Nelson, has pointed out, we have a very convoluted set of legal circumstances in front of us. We have a bill that seeks to revive a bill which is obsolete, and allows for an action to have occurred on 2 February. We do not know what that action is. Why 2 February? Why not 8 February? Why not after parliament has discussed this matter? Here we are in parliament on 17 February. Why does the bill not say it enables the Chief Minister to do something next week so that she could have used this opportunity in parliament to tell us what she was going to do?
There should be an enormous amount of clarity about this day because, being in the past, she should be able to recite matters of history. This should be beyond debate. Something has happened on 2 February; the minister wants to use an act of parliament to legitimise that. I have significant problems with this, by the way. I believe retrospectivity in legislation is something that legislators should avoid. There is the potential for immense problems by allowing legitimacy for a past action which one assumes was illegitimate. If you extrapolate that, as legislators here we should not be doing that. We should not be bestowing the full force of the law on a past action if that past action was legitimate.
Let us assume it was not. Let us assume we had a defeated bill, and it was defeated because the Chief Minister constructed it in such a fashion that it would disappear if she could not achieve her ambitions. Well, she could not on two very important counts, and so the bill did disappear.
Last December, we had a bill that came into this parliament which enabled the Chief Minister to do something tomorrow fortnight ago. We do not know what that was. It enabled her, the Friday before the sittings, to do something, and we do not know what that was. When we came in here we had an urgent bill which is enabling her to legitimise something she did on 2 February. We do not know what that was. However, it is certainly not, to requote the Chief Minister, ‘… setting out the full details of the government’s offer and the parameters of the negotiations’. We certainly do not have that. I would have thought that was pretty important.
It is difficult to talk to the public about the legal process this has gone through here, but certainly for members in this parliament, it should be fairly easy to understand that there are some problems with this. First, under normal conventions, it is very difficult to introduce an identical bill immediately after another bill has been defeated or has ceased in some way. I know that the conventions of federal parliament - certainly for the Senate and passing bills through - is a three-month rule. However, what we have here is a dead bill in December and, the very next sittings of parliament, a revival bill. I am not sure of the legitimacy of that. I am not sure of the legitimacy of the Chief Minister engaging in actions under a bill which has not yet gone through this parliament, much less received assent. The Chief Minister has been busy doing things between 31 December and today which, in the next hour or so, we are going to legitimise.
That is a pretty big problem. If you look at this as legislators, there are an enormous amount of activities one could do that are illegitimate, and then come to this parliament at some later time and render them legitimate. I would have thought that, regarding process and moving right away from what the contents of the bill are, this is pretty dumb law.
Normally, what happens is you legitimise something and then you engage in the actions that are bestowed upon you by the power and the potency of that legislation. We have a backward looking bill which goes to the core of the Chief Minister’s ambitions which she spelled out. She has not told us what the element of hardship is to do with this bill.
In standing orders, as all members would know, if a bill is to be treated urgently, there must be demonstrable hardship. The Chief Minister has not told us what those elements of hardship are. Therefore, somewhere between 31 December and today, there is some immense issue of hardship that will occur between now and March if this bill lies on the table. What is that? The Chief Minister must divulge what a delay of four weeks would mean to this bill. Is it fatal to the interests of the government? Does it cause personal, financial or some other social hardship to the people who are involved in it?
I say it is exactly the opposite. The Chief Minister was very patronising in pointing out, when she was discussing the progress of various bills, how they lay on the table and we discuss them at the next sittings. She just recited that little platitude to us in Question Time. We are here now knowing that is certainly not the case with this bill. It is not the case that the Chief Minister’s orderly progression of legislation through the various stages has occurred.
In any event, we get an inkling there is a problem because, of the very few people who did get behind the closed door around the boardroom table, some are pretty upset. That has to set off alarm bells for those of us who were not at the meeting behind the closed doors of the boardroom. You hear people who sat at the table saying, for instance, that the Chief Minister’s position is baffling - ‘She tells us to come and get a briefing’ - these people sat through the whole process. They were fortunate enough to be able to sit in the room when the Chief Minister did have the potency of the legislation that lapsed last year, and they are saying that her position is baffling and they are completely at odds with the Chief Minister’s agreement. Why would we be worried? We would be worried because, obviously, they have much greater data than we will ever get. It is certainly much greater than anything that has been put on this table.
The Chief Minister has had three shots at legislation. My own belief is that they depart significantly from anything in any Westminster system, they are, arguably, ultra vires, and that, to have lawmakers making laws to empower someone to do something that was not legitimate, and thus render it legitimate, is a big problem. Take all of the stuff to do with this bill away, think of some models in your head where this might be the case, and it is a very tricky thing to ask us to do, because it goes both ways. We could retrospectively say that something that was done in the past is now illegal, and we could render an illegal status to a past act. Where are we going with this, Madam Speaker?
The legislation we drop in this House should be forward looking; it should not be to mop up the problems of the past. The problems of the past are entirely of the Chief Minister’s making. The ambitions she set for herself in the act were not met. The deadlines she set out legislatively were not met, and she is using a vast amount of rhetoric to say that her position has some merit without demonstrating empirically to this parliament that that is the case.
There was an interjection across the table that the CLP had no Aboriginal members. While that may or may not be true, I do not think it is necessary for people to divulge their racial origins. In the event that it is true, there are certainly people who proudly carry their Aboriginal ancestry on their sleeve on the other side of parliament and I would have hoped to have heard from them. I would have hoped that the member for Millner with his great knowledge of legal matters would have been able to debate this, even the positions I am putting about whether you believe that this is good law that bestows legitimacy on a past illegal action. Do you believe that is good law? If I am wrong and the past action was legal, why are we passing this bill? Why are we mentioning that day? If the Chief Minister did something on 2 February that was entirely in accord with the laws of this place what is it doing featured in this bill? I would have thought that the member for Millner could have made a good contribution, likewise the member for Arafura and the member for Arnhem.
I would have hoped that the member for Arnhem with his knowledge of land matters as a former director of the Northern Land Council of some years standing could have engaged in debate and told us what his position was when he was involved in matters relating to Aboriginal land, what his position was when he saw native title issues come through, what he thinks about Wik, what he thinks about various other elements of this entire vexed issue that the Territory has confronted as a result of Mr Ward sitting on the High Court. He could have done a little walk through this is what Mr Ward said; this is what it meant for us, this is why the 49 parks have been divided up in such a way, and we could have had the great benefit of his knowledge and wisdom in this area. Their silence is concerning.
I would have thought that if the Chief Minister was really good for Aboriginal people, much like the sorry debate - I mean, we had the Chief Minister bring on a so-called sorry debate that did not mention the word ‘sorry’ but nonetheless she brought this debate into this parliament and it was seen as essential that certain members made a contribution to it so they could parley to their constituency, both their formal voters within their electorate but also their broader constituency of Aboriginal people, what the position of the government was. The silence from those members in this debate is alarming and it is deafening.
We have the Chief Minister parading three bills before us that have no detail in them. We have the Chief Minister continuing to say, ‘Don’t you worry. All the details are there. If you were to come to a briefing you would have been right. This is a good thing for people’. And she is saying it like a small child worried about bogeymen in the bed: If I keep saying it, keep saying, keep saying it possibly there is no bogeymen out there.
Let us discuss this in a level-headed way. Let us discuss why the first act failed on your own capacity. Let us discuss if you think that the legislative answer is a poor outcome why you are seeking a litigious approach in this particular case. If you have said to us that the cost will be millions and millions and you have also said that - this is a quote from last night’s debate:
So one assumes the Chief Minister has done some modelling on this. One assumes she has had options before her including a litigious option, and one assumes she has had lawyers work out the various parameters for success and the various parameters for cost. I assume that has been done for the whole package, the whole 49 Ward parks. We know that that is the route she has also chosen for some of these parks. So she must have some devices that tell her what the costs of those are, and we need to know that, too. For those parks where she has decided to take the remedy of going to the courts, and there is nothing wrong with that, I mean, if the laws are there to be used for Aboriginal people and for governments and for farmers and miners and anybody else, they are perfectly able to use them; it is called justice. There should never be this negativity about people seeking to establish their positions in the courts of the land in front of the laws that we dictate in these parliaments.
If the Chief Minister has a view that what we do here in creating these laws, somehow if people have the temerity to ever use them, that is a bad and terrible thing, it is actually a poor reflection on people pursuing justice through what we do in this parliament and that is making laws.
I am entirely bewildered by the Chief Minister’s position. I would like to know the linkages between the three statutes - the deceased statute and the two that are on our books that will pass in short time - because it is not evident. I would like to know whether the Chief Minister had the power to do whatever it was she did on 2 February, and I would like to know what that was. What was it? What did you sign, do, undertake, provide, on that day? If it was nothing, let us take it out. If it was something that you had all the force of law to do, take it out. If it was something that was illegal and this bill will bestow legitimacy and legality on it, tell us what it is in great detail. Tell us what you undertook, on behalf of us without the force of law.
I could talk for hours on this bill, Madam Speaker, but we are really talking in the dark until we get the full details. In terms of this being a government position, in terms of the great attachment that some members have to this position, I would like to hear it from some of the lay practitioners, from people with experience in this - and I count in here the member for Arnhem with his land council experience, and the lawyer among us. I would like to hear those various points of view spelled out to me so that they can convince me because I remain entirely unconvinced about this whole business. This little book here also tells us that there have been some desktop exercises done which have made assumptions. We can see that on page 1 at the front, and I mentioned this last night. It says, and I quote from page 1 of NT Parks and Reserves Questions and Answers:
What that meant was somebody sat at a desk, looked at the claimants, looked at the history of the land in question - made some legal guesswork, I suppose I am saying. They said: ‘Well, should we take this case on?’ Somewhere there was a desktop exercise that made decisions about how you would muster this herd: ‘We are going to take this lot that way and this lot that way. These are going to go to court’. Someone has made judgments about the 49 parks that Ward talked about, and I need to know the basis for those judgments because it would appear they are actionable and it would appear that the Chief Minister’s lofty ambition of keeping away from the courts has not been met in the case of Keep River.
The case of Keep River reinforces an earlier point I made, and that is that there is a deceased act of parliament that the people from Keep River believe that they can pursue the Chief Minister on to get some remedies. So they say, and I quote from a media release from the Northern Land Council entitled Chief Minister Backflip on Parks, 16 February 2005, on the second page:
What they are talking about is actioning a reversal under an act that does not exist, but which we will breathe new life into in the next hour. That is why it is pretty tricky, Madam Speaker. We have someone out there who has been hurt by an action under a dead act and we in this parliament are going to revive that act.
If the Chief Minister’s legislative position is that you can change things that happened in the past that you did not like by an act for the future, we may as well put a clause in there saying: ‘Notwithstanding anything the Keep River people might say, they have no case’. If it is that easy to legitimise this mysterious 2 February thing, why do we not write them out of it? Why do we not write their action out, whatever it might be that they are upset about, and say: ‘This parliament now has this brand new power. We can say that even though we mucked up in the past, we can give it a tick, a clean bill of health’. When we get into committee, we may get the Chief Minister to describe why the people from Keep River are upset, and perhaps she could extend this newfound power to take away their capacity to take this matter to court if it is that easy.
I suggest we progress very slowly as legislators, because we are on new ground here. We are making decisions today for actions of yesterday, and we know there is a potential for at least one of those actions to find its way into the courts. I suggest there is a massive process issue here. There is a massive issue of secrecy, and there is no other way you can put it. There are enormous things which the Chief Minister has described which are not on the table. I will quote again from the Hansard of last night. The Chief Minister said:
Partnership infers certain obligations and rights on each person, and we do not know what that is:
Where have you compromised issues for Territorians, and what are our obligations? Tell us what the compromises have been, and tell us what your new obligations will be tomorrow when this act is passed?
Please describe that also.
Therefore, shortly we are going to pass a bill, and we have already decided issues which will bind this government. We have decided that certain issues will bind this government. We have agreed to develop plans of management. We have a skinny little act here, and behind it, the Chief Minister has made agreements that compromise the Northern Territory; make commitments for the Territory; develop plans of management for the Territory and its people, and bind the government.
We want to know how we are bound. We want to know, if this act goes through, how is the Territory and its people bound? They are things which should be divulged in here for us to understand whether this is a good deal. Before you jump, Chief Minister, and say, ‘I have told you everything’ - you have not and they are things which can be continued to be pursued through the committee stages – if this is such a solid position, I would like to hear commentators from your party other than yourself address it from their own experiential background and cultural point of view.
If you have done something on 2 February, please tell us what it was, as we should know if we are going to put that date into statute. If it was illegitimate, please tell us whether you think this process is good. If it was legitimate, please tell us why it is in there. There are a couple of things you can divulge to us, and that is without the critical issues of, how much? You have already said that you have done a lot of work in working out what some fictitious, hypothetical court case might be, however you have not told us numbers you know, the numbers which are in your head. You know what the AVO price is for these parks because you are going to lease them based on that AVO price. You have done work, which is available in those briefing notes there, which you refuse to divulge. Why will you not tell us what the cost, the price, the worth of the estate, which is currently owned by Territorians, will be, and would you tell us what we then pay to lease back land which used to be ours?
I believe they are critical issues, and if they are not answered, I believe they are fatal to this bill. I believe that if legislators can walk the plank in the way the Chief Minister wants us to do, they should be dumped, well and truly. I cannot put my professional pride in being a lawmaker in this House on the line in the way the Chief Minister wants me to. I will not do it.
I was with the Leader of the Opposition when he sought some advice from the Parliamentary Counsel, and we will be seeking further advice, as I do not believe that this is good law and process. I do not believe that the Chief Minister’s spartan description of what is going to happen for nearly a century is adequate for us and for my progeny who will continue to live in this place. I would not want to be living here in 20, 30 or 40 years when people look back and ask what the hell it was all that about. A legitimate researcher who looks at these debates will say: ‘What did they think they were doing? What were they trying to achieve?’. If you were trying to achieve the lofty ambitions of the Chief Minister, they have already been dashed last year. The lofty ambitions have been dashed and we know that the people sitting in the room with her have some big problems with her approach; that her own party have gone very silent on it, including people who have been practitioners in this area; and that the lack of information is not because the Chief Minister does not have it, but because she is choosing not to give it to us.
I have immense problem with all of those positions, and I cannot support the bill. I can support notions of trying to rectify problems stemming from Ward, and they should be described for us. I can support notions of Aboriginal participation in our parks estate. I can support notions of a shared relationship and access to land no matter whether it is held as Aboriginal freehold land under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act or whatever. However, for me to embark on this path with the spartan information I have, I would be betraying future generations in this place and a strong disposition I have to help Aboriginal people. I am most concerned about the press release of yesterday from the Northern Land Council.
I need the minister to give me more than just some platitudes and words of comfort such as: ‘There, there do not worry; it will all be right when you see the final thing’, ‘You should have had a briefing’, and ‘I have told you all this anyway’. You have not told us, and there is an enormous amount of data that should be put on this table for debate, perusal and critical examination before this parliament is so foolish as to progress with approving this urgent piece of legislation.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I was unsure whether the minister was going to climb to his feet at that point. Do you want to speak?
Dr BURNS (Parks and Wildlife): I do not mind speaking, thank you, member for Macdonnell.
Madam Speaker, in speaking to this important bill, I intend, firstly, to address the positive aspects of this historic agreement and to articulate the benefits that the agreement will bring to the Territory and the people of the Territory. I then intend to examine some of the alternative proposals that it appears are being proposed by others in this place, particularly the opposition.
We have heard a range of opinions in debate over this matter in recent days, and even stretching back, as the Chief Minister has said, over nearly two years now. It is becoming embarrassingly clear that the opposition has been inconsistent, negative and misleading in relation to this very important matter - all to their shame and embarrassment.
The new arrangements for the Territory’s parks and reserves being proposed by this government are based around joint management principles, and embody the best possible cooperative framework that creates no losers. It is as simple as that. Litigation, the path historically preferred by the CLP opposition, can only lead to division between the antagonists - division between eventual losers and winners. That is also simple to grasp.
Joint management is about indigenous traditional owners and government working together within a framework of shared decision-making and responsibility for the practical management of our parks estate. This framework provides traditional owners with appropriate recognition of their connection to country and, through their involvement in management, to enhance the park system with an added cultural dimension. This particular dimension will improve the conservation management through greater access to and use of indigenous knowledge, and will provide a richer and more varied visitor experience in line with the stated expectation of visitors to our parks, whether they be from the Territory or from elsewhere.
Contrast these outcomes with those that the opposition claim underlie the negotiations and agreement that form the new parks framework. We should never forget the history of the CLP in relation to the indigenous people of the Northern Territory, their outrageous neglect of these Territorians in the past, and their continued attacks on indigenous peoples to this very day.
Madam Speaker, I am going to really portray this and detail this because it is very important. It is plain for all to see that the opposition continues to portray a view that somehow traditional people do not understand the law nor their rights under the law. This was very evident this morning when the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brennan, portrayed any Aboriginal group that had accepted the park framework in just this fashion. There has been a significant number of those people and groups across the Territory, both in Central Australia and in the Top End. I should also say, bearing in mind the visitors in the gallery, that I respect the decision by those people in the Keep River. They have made a decision and I respect them for that. For the Leader of the Opposition to come in here this morning and bag any group, any indigenous group, that did not accept the parks framework as being ill-informed, somehow not understanding the law, being hoodwinked, just shows the patronising nature that underlies his view of Aboriginal people.
I will cite another example. The member for Blain, the past opposition leader, stated in November 2003 that the direction that the government is taking in respect of joint management of our parks would, in his words and I am quoting here:
He deliberately ignores the capacity for these Territorians to fully understand the legal framework surrounding native title and again portrays the arrogance and disdain with which CLP has treated indigenous peoples for many years. He goes on to indulge in some typical CLP dog whistling by rekindling and fuelling the view that indigenous peoples are somehow over-privileged in what they receive from governments. In relation to this parks framework and what was being negotiated with Aboriginal people, I will quote from the member for Blain, the last opposition leader before this one. He said:
It is almost as if he is insulting Aboriginal people by saying they are greedy in relation to land, and that they are always looking for a handout. It is just in keeping with everything the opposition has put forward with the debate on itinerancy, with this debate and so, Madam Speaker, a leopard will never change its spots.
Here is another one. The current Leader of the Opposition has made it plain in this place, and I quote from the Parliamentary Record of Wednesday, 26 November 2003:
Then he went on to say that his position and purpose is to negotiate in this particular matter on behalf of the three fourths Territorians. So in other words, he identifies one quarter of our population, one person in every four as being Aboriginal and then he goes on to clearly say that his job is to forget about that one quarter and only focus on the other three quarters. This is what he said.
Ms Carney: Rubbish, that is not what he said.
Dr BURNS: This is what he said.
Ms Carney: No it isn’t, no it isn’t.
Dr BURNS: I am quoting from Hansard. This is what the member for Brennan said. That is outrageous. At least he could have said I want to negotiate on behalf of all Territorians which is what this government is doing in this particular matter.
These are the member for Brennan’s own words, albeit ones which are at odds with his rather bipolar statements when speaking face-to-face with indigenous people. We have already made reference to his statements on 8 KIN radio in Alice Springs on 8 February. He said: ‘The parks handover that Clare Martin is talking about is a poor deal for Aboriginals.’ So on one hand he is saying this is a poor deal for Aboriginals, in other forums he is saying Aboriginal people are given too much, you are giving all our parks estate away to Aboriginal people. He cannot have it both ways.
Without doubt, improved joint management of parks and reserves will provide broad ranging and significant benefits both to the Territory community at large and for our parks estate. I would like to detail some of these benefits.
First, an opportunity for the expansion of tourism and allied industries through extensions to the reserves and parks system, and enhanced visitor experiences by increased exposure to and interpretation of indigenous culture. When we look at the way that Gregory will now be consolidated, it is a great thing under this framework and will benefit both Aboriginal people and visitors to Gregory National Park.
Second, a resolution of costly and divisive land, native title and compensation claims and the mitigation of potential threats to the integrity of the reserve system.
Third, opportunities to improve land management overall by sharing information and resources and conducting land use activities in a more coordinated and integrated manner, combining both western scientific and indigenous knowledge. Here is a great opportunity for Aboriginal people participating to have joint management frameworks, to contribute greatly to the management of the parks to the benefit of the parks and for the benefit of all concerned.
The next one is a greater sense of community ownership, of management issues, and enhanced community involvement in decision making. Aboriginal people will be fully engaged in the joint management process and in decision making in these particular parks.
Next, improved relationships and partnerships with neighbours and enhanced regional approaches to conservation issues, especially for fire, weeds and feral animal control. I noticed that the chairman of the Cattlemen’s Association raised these issues on The Country Hour today, and it is plain that it is an issue, and I understand that, but this framework will provide certainty in that area.
The next benefit is enhanced opportunity for indigenous training and employment in the management of country and other initiatives by government in relation to the social, cultural and economic wellbeing of Aboriginal people.
Overall, these benefits can provide for a more inclusive approach to the management of our parks. In addition to providing indigenous people with a greater voice in the management of parks, joint management can bring additional social and economic benefits. This includes training and job opportunities, including ranger-type work, other work through contracts such as repairs and maintenance of parks, and the infrastructure in parks, camp ground maintenance, and land management activities such as fire and weeds management, and feral animals. These are opportunities and skills that the CLP simply does not want indigenous Territorians to have. This framework provides for the expansion and increased enjoyment of the parks estate by all Territorians and visitors, another positive aspect that the CLP would like to deny.
The question remains: what is the opposition’s policy? Despite everything the opposition says, our parks will remain as parks open to all. I have no doubt that this would not have been the case had we followed the highly expensive litigation course unsuccessfully favoured by the CLP for all those years they were in government.
Of course, as we all know, they ended up with nothing to show for it. Some rich lawyers might have had something to show for it. Tens of millions of dollars spent by the CLP pursuing these things through the courts, and I do not think we should ever forget that. Now it seems they are dedicating themselves to destroying any effort at negotiation and consensus. As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday in this place in debate, it will take the CLP government to come back and unravel this. ‘Unravel’! That was the word the Opposition Leader used. That is the truth. If they were to come back into power and start tampering with this, the whole thing would unravel because we know their divisive history, and we know their attitude.
He went on to describe the CLP alternative to negotiation, and I believe that it is an alternative the Leader of the Opposition should explain further in his quest to keep Territorians fully informed. He first gave a commitment to joint management of parks, and I quote from Hansard yesterday:
Confusingly, however, he then went on to give an enormous exception to his own rule:
So, not one acre of land can turn into something quite different should agreement require it.
Furthermore, he revealed this morning that he would have joint management for all NT parks in a Nitmiluk-style agreement. The Leader of the Opposition needs to spell out the detail of these Nitmiluk-style agreements and how they relate to land tenure and management. Exactly what does the Leader of the Opposition and the CLP mean when they say Nitmiluk-style agreements? Does it refer to ALRA land? Does it refer to native title? How is he going to accommodate those interests within a Nitmiluk-style agreement? Or is it a superficial sort of agreement to do with enterprise within these parks and nothing more? They need to be very clear with Territorians and with Aboriginal people as to what they mean by Nitmiluk-style agreements.
Let us look at Nitmiluk. When the land claim over Nitmiluk was afoot, the CLP raised these same arguments and worked on the same fears. When, despite following their much vaunted litigation approach, the land claim over Nitmiluk was successful, the CLP government was then forced into a joint management arrangement over the park which is now owned by traditional owners. And what has been the result? A highly successful park from every point of view. The visitor experience is better than it has ever been. The majority of highly professional park staff are Aboriginal, and visitors come from far and wide for the experience of a lifetime in that particular place. I have visited Nitmiluk a couple of times as minister. It was good to speak with the traditional owners to find out the success of their operation and their future plans for expansion of their activities within Nitmiluk. I wish them well.
Returning to the CLP, who can ever forget the plane flying over Uluru with, what did the sign say? ‘It is ours’,’ or, ‘It is never going to be yours’, or something like that. They tried to undermine a land claim on Vanderlin Island by giving some people there some land and trying to subvert a land claim. Who can ever forget Kenbi? Tens of millions of dollars expended on that particular fight. The CLP has form on this, and I do not think Aboriginal people throughout the Territory are ever going to forget the way that they approach these types of issues.
In contrast, this government’s approach to these agreements is clear. There is a negotiated suppression of native title on parks, without extinguishing that title, and the limitation by agreement of other title rights in doubt under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act for the purposes of sound park management. This is the consensus model accepted by most of the groups involved in the negotiation and, despite the claims of the Opposition Leader, it will work.
The opposition’s likely model, by contrast, will probably involve something quite radical, and we have heard little sniffs of it and we have heard little snippets of it, particularly from the member for Macdonnell. We heard it over the Larapinta issue, where the member for Macdonnell wanted to compulsorily acquire native title rights over Larapinta. Compulsorily acquire it; it would have been tied up for years, and then it would have had to go to court to determine the compensation to that. I am tipping that that is probably a path the CLP is going to go along in terms of the parks. They need to be up-front with Aboriginal people about whether that is what they are going to do.
The member for Macdonnell is probably next on the speaking list. I want to hear him talk about what is going to happen at Watarrka, what his plan is for that, whether he wants to compulsorily acquire native title there and bring about all sorts of enmity, bring about costly litigation and then put out a judgment in the court about the amount of compensation. It would be a huge amount of compensation if you were to go down that route, member for Macdonnell, and you need to come clean with people. Basically, I am not sure whether you really understand what this would fully involve. When the bundle of rights recognised through the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and the Native Title Act is acquired, you are acquiring far more than just a form of land tenure. You are acquiring culture, traditions, natural history and a heritage that has existed for many generations and you are acquiring the potential rights of future generations forever.
My advice is that, if they were to try to compulsorily acquire those rights - and they have flagged their willingness to do that in Alice Springs through the Larapinta subdivision, and that is the way they will probably go with the parks – costly litigation will be in the courts for years, and the amount of compensation for all those things which I have talked about, will be determined through a court - not through negotiation, but in a court of law. The things which I read out are quite substantial, and I would hate to think of the cost to government, and to taxpayers, for that particular tack.
In contrast, under our framework, joint management of our parks will provide opportunities for Aboriginal people to engage in business ventures. As members are aware, traditional owners have become successfully involved in a broad range of issues and business enterprises in existing NT jointly-managed parks. Where tourism is a major value of the park, joint management can be expected to bring an enhanced dimension to visitors’ experience through the presentation of Aboriginal culture and contact with Aboriginal people. Tourism surveys reveal that to experience genuine Aboriginal culture is a major motivator for people to come to the Northern Territory, particularly for international visitors. It has long been recognised that Aboriginal knowledge of land and wildlife can make a major contribution to conservation. Indeed, it is broadly acknowledged that the disruption of traditional Aboriginal land management practices, particularly burning, is a major contributing factor to the loss of the Territory’s biodiversity.
The combination of traditional knowledge with contemporary science has produced many examples of conservation success and improved scientific understanding. Through first-hand experience, or through oral tradition, Aboriginal people are often familiar with the attributes of species and their interactions with their environment. In recent years, ethno-biological data has been gathered, made possible only through the knowledge and living traditions of Aboriginal people. Such data will prove increasingly important in the future to the conservation of the Territory’s biodiversity.
Under the new joint management arrangements for parks, they will be administered and managed in accordance with a plan of management. The plan of management will be prepared for each park following the usual processes of consultation. I believe that is what the member for Drysdale was touching on with his statements regarding indigenous land use agreements. All of the checks and balances will be in place to ensure the needs of the general public are taken into account, and the uses of the and the parks estate, of course, through the planning processes and adoption of management plans, will be via the Legislative Assembly.
It was informative to hear the member for Drysdale talk about the Chief Minister being secretive, not having a regard for law and process, and doing things behind closed doors. I remember the member for Drysdale being involved in a deception regarding the last budget the CLP presented, to try to make the Northern Territory people believe that they were spending more in the crucial areas of health, education and police when, in fact, they were not. They had artificially cooked the books, and they did it for presentational purposes. There has been a Public Accounts Committee inquiry into that. It is a bit rich for the member for Drysdale to come in here and talk about ‘behind closed doors and proper processes’. He has form on this. He should be the last one in the opposition to start saying this sort of thing.
As the case with existing jointly-managed parks in the Northern Territory under this framework, it will be business as usual as far as the visitor to our parks is concerned. In fact, the visitor experience stands to be enriched through the indigenous custodians having the opportunity to tell their stories regarding their land. Tourists, in particular, will appreciate the added dimension that this brings to their park experience. It is the unique combination of landscape, wildlife, and culture that define the quintessential Territory experience. Indeed, this is the real Australian experience which can no longer be recaptured throughout much of the country.
The opposition’s whole approach to this matter is, essentially, one of fear and loathing. They fear the unknown, and consensus is something clearly unknown to the members opposite. They loathe the fact they are finding hard to argue against a clearly sensible approach where everyone ends up a winner so they concentrate on creating division and dissent as well as giving contradictory messages to different audiences. The opposition is reverting to their old ways in adopting a fear mongering approach. While it might have worked for them in the past they do not seem to realise that the Territory and Territorians have now moved on.
In fact, we are moving ahead in a mighty way, economically and socially. We will pursue our approach of consensus. I believe that the Territory and all Territorians will benefit from this approach for many years to come.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, listening to the minister on this issue is a little bit like to listening to a young fellow about to shape up and have a fight. Lots of noise, lots of threats, lots of things happening except for one thing: nothing going on up there. The minister said that he would start with a positive comment about the parks process and immediately launched into a tirade of abuse and that is his choice; that is his business. I am certainly not going to get allow myself to be baited by that but what I will do is examine what we are being asked to do in this parliament and what we have already been asked to do in this parliament and something that I am not prepared to be part of.
This bill that we are talking about today is on urgency. That means that this Chief Minister has come into this place and said we are going to break the rules on how we proceed with this stuff because this is really urgent and we have to get it through very, very quickly. I have not yet heard a single Aboriginal person anywhere say that these processes are urgent. So why are we doing this on urgency? We are not doing it on urgency for the sake of the Aboriginal people who are the so-called beneficiaries of this - and we do not know whether they are not and I will come to that later. We are doing this on urgency not to suit the traditional owners of the country or the native title holders of country; we are doing it on urgency to suit the Chief Minister. I do not know why we have to do it so quickly. What are we hurrying for, why are we rushing?
I know many Aboriginal people, traditional owners, because my electorate has a very large number of them there. One thing I know about traditional owners is that they are very careful about their land law and they discuss it carefully and slowly. And I am going to take my yardstick from them.
Last week in this House, the Chief Minister said that we should proceed on urgency and did not bother to explain why. It would be the same as some person walking up to me and saying, ‘Give me your car keys’. The first question I would ask is, ‘Why?’ That has not been explained and so I do not feel like handing over the car keys too quickly.
The minister can yell and scream and all those other things but what matters here is why we are pushing this very, very quickly. We have rules about bringing things on in urgency. Pettifer’s House of Representatives Practice at page 416 explains why matters would proceed on urgency:
Our standing orders talk about a hardship factor. There is no hardship for slowing down and doing these things carefully because, if these things get hurried, then people find themselves in the courts anyhow because they are not done properly. That is what I am counselling at this point: that we slow down. We just take it easy a little bit more and we sit down and we inspect exactly what is going on.
One of the things that I really dislike about these sorts of arguments is the ‘us and them’ factor which is automatically involved: Aboriginal people over here, white fellows over there, and we have to sort of build bridges. It is a bit more awkward for me because I grew up in the Northern Territory. This is as much my country in terms of my spiritual and emotional connection to it as many Aboriginal people. I have nowhere else to go. I have to share this country with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory and I need to know that I can do that in a sensible way so that everybody walks away a winner.
The Chief Minister says this is going to make people winners. All right. If that is the case, explain to me how it is going to make people winners, but you have to explain everything. One of the things you have to explain is how much it is going to cost. How much is it going to cost the taxpayer? Aboriginal people need to know the answer to that question as well because if this is going to cost a lot of money to go over into a land council coffer or into some other person’s pocket or whatever, how many houses does that mean cannot be built, how many roads do not get fixed, all those sorts of other things? The cost of this is very important indeed. The Chief Minister has been asked again, and again, and again, how much this is going to cost. How many Aboriginal people are not going to get a house built because they are paying lease agreements on parks? I would be curious to know what happens to that money once it is paid into those lease agreements. Is that going to build houses for Aboriginal people? We asked questions about this. Where is all this going? What path are we going down? The Chief Minister does not answer those questions.
I am worried about that because I am being asked to pass a law here that will change the ownership of parks to someone else’s possession. I am being asked to do it with no explanation of how much it is going to cost, what the consequences are. Despite the fact that I have asked again, and again, and again, it has not been explained to me.
I am also being asked to do it in a hurry. I do not have all the facts at hand and I am being asked to do it now - hurry up, hurry up, you have to do it now because we have to get this one finished before we walk out of here tonight - and I am not being told enough about what is going on. So I ask: what is the urgency? Why do we have to do this urgently? I am not going to explain that to you, I am not going to tell you why we have to do this urgently, but we have to do it urgently so that something I did two weeks ago - I signed something or I made an agreement or signed up to a deal - can become law now. Well, I do not know what the Chief Minister did two weeks ago. Something in this bill exists until 2 February and I have no idea what that is. It has not been explained to me.
The Chief Minister is saying: ‘Give me this law to do what I did two weeks ago, but I am not going to tell you what it was’. I am worried about that, and it is proper that I am worried about it. I think about the traditional people who live in my electorate and if I went to them and tried to push them into that sort of position, they would naturally be very hesitant. They would not be so sure at all. What would their response be, do you think? In my experience, they would say: ‘Slow down, sit down, talk about it’.
There have been many occasions on which I have been excited about an idea, and I have spoken to traditional owners about it, and I thought the traditional owners would really love the idea, but the first thing they do is they say: ‘All right, well, you have spoken to us’, and then they say: ‘We are going to back off a little bit and we are going to have a think about it’. That, I find very frustrating.
I am counselling this Chief Minister to take exactly that approach. Explain it to them, and then let them back off a bit and have a think about it. However, the Chief Minister is pushing very hard, so much so that Aboriginal people represented by the Northern Land Council in this case, are saying: ‘No, we cannot do it; too hard, too fast, too pushy, do not like the results’, and they are backing away.
I do not even know about the nature of the title that is being created here. We are talking about a thing called ‘parks freehold’ and I do not know much about parks freehold, but one thing I do know is that the ILUA to which the minister refers, if you are changing it from the current situation, changing the use to a different situation, native title needs to be extinguished.
The minister has said that native title is more than just ownership; it is cultural bonds and all those other things. What the minister is saying to us is that to make this change to the parks freehold, this type of tenure over here, we have to extinguish native title because it is a change of use. In the estimates process, it was described as ‘suppression of native title’. I do not know much about suppression of native title, but in any instance, if it is suppression or extinguishment, if it is suppressed then it means that it stops working for 99 years, and then we get this new type of freehold called ‘parks freehold’ and I am not so sure what that parks freehold is. I am trying to figure out how it works. Does it work like a land trust in the same way as the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act so it is transferred in to a land trust and then all the local traditional owners become part owners of the trust, and you cannot separate those traditional owners out and the title is inalienable and all those sort of things, or is it a different nature? Is it a different nature of title where, maybe, it is like a company? You buy a $2 company off the shelf, you give it an Aboriginal name, and then you make the directors Aboriginal people, however, maybe they can be used in different ways to raise funds. I do not know enough about it.
I am not saying that necessarily any of that is a bad idea. However, what I am saying is that it needs to be more clearly explained, and it is not being explained. It is not being explained at all. I am being told to push things through. I am being told, without all the facts at my command, that I have to drive this law through.
Aboriginal people, when they see themselves as the custodians of the land, take on a great responsibility for that country. They hold the stories for that country, they hold the songs for that country which, in essence, is freehold title if you look at it in a very lateral way, and they feel very strong about their custodial roles of law. Equally, I have a custodial role thrust upon me by the people of the Northern Territory when they say, ‘I expect you to be my lawmaker’. That is a job I take very seriously. I take that job so seriously, I ask questions when somebody asks me to make a law. The questions I have asked of the Chief Minister, who is in a very big hurry to make this happen, are: (1) why are we hurrying? (2) What happened that means that I have to support a law that goes backward in time, and (3) Do I have enough information, or is she going to give me enough information about costs and things as to whether this is going to be a good law?
The truth is that if I sit here and look at it in its whole I do not see enough of the picture to say that I can make a good law. Therefore I want to back off and say I cannot support something which I do not know enough about. The minister says, ‘Come up and get briefings’, well, the one simple question regarding costs is not answered, and it has been asked again and again.
What makes me very worried is that the Chief Minister knows what the cost is going to be. The Chief Minister knows this, because in her little question and answer booklet which she put out, she says that the valuation will come from the Australian Valuation Office. Surely, the Chief Minister must know what the Australian Valuation Office has valued the parks at, and how much the lease payments are going to be, because these payments will go for 100 years. Therefore, for the next 100 years, without telling me how much I have to spend on behalf of Territory taxpayers, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal taxpayers, she says, ‘I am going to sign you up to this lease’. From a simple perspective, what the Chief Minister is saying is, ‘I am going to move you into this house. We are going to ask you to pay rent on this house, and you the taxpayer are going to have to pay rent, and you have to sign the lease, but I am not going to tell you how much rent you have to pay’. That is what the Chief Minister is asking me to do.
Is it responsible law making to just sign up like that? I do not think so, and the Chief Minister must tell us exactly how much this is going to cost.
Here we are, in urgency, and there is another major issue that has come up. The Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginal people in the northern half of the Northern Territory, has said that the Chief Minister has done a backflip, which means that she is not telling the truth. She was not telling the truth originally, and she has changed the story halfway along. I am very worried about that, because the Chief Minister has been criticised by the very organisation that is supposed to be saying: ‘This is good. This is good stuff’. These very organisations that usually say this is good stuff are saying it is not. They are not saying it is good stuff; they are criticising and backing away. If you read this legislation that the Chief Minister has presented to the House, Keep River has been pulled out of it.
I am going to go back and look at the history of this legislation because, when the Chief Minister came up with this idea about a year ago, she said: ‘We are going to negotiate all of this. We are going to speak to the traditional owners and, on 31 July, this is all going to be locked down’. I do not remember the date exactly, but about halfway through last year. She came into this parliament she asked us to pass a law so she could make those negotiations work. Then she said: ‘Well, just in case something goes wrong and it takes a little longer, I am going to put in a last window so that, by 31 December, I am going to have the last dead stop on this legislation. Therefore, if nothing is signed off by 31 December, it is not going to happen; bets are off’.
The Chief Minister has come and forced this law through. Why? Because we did not like the law. Why did we not like it? Because we did not know enough about it. We still do not know enough about it; the simple cost. How much is it going to cost? Not a single syllable on how much this is going to cost. It is a big issue.
Therefore, we on this side of the House, tell the Chief Minister we are not happy. However, legislation gets forced through this place because the government has the numbers. The 13 members of the government vote for this bill and it gets forced through. The Chief Minister told us in that process that there were a couple of things that were going to switch it off, if that legislation does not work. One of the things that was going to switch it off was the time: if it was not locked down by 31 December, all bets were off – it is not going to happen, it is dead. So, 31 December comes and goes - and the bill dies. The law finishes because the time limit is up. Now, something happened between 31 December or 1 January this year and 2 February. The Chief Minister does something; she signed something off. I do not know what that was; I have no idea what she signed. However, she signed something off. She says: ‘Well, I will tell you what we do; we will pass a law in the middle of February 2005 to make what I did on 2 February 2005 okay’.
I ask members to see the analogy between this and a football game. Imagine that you are playing football and the full-time siren is at 100 minutes. The Chief Minister is playing the game on one side and, all of a sudden, the full-time siren goes off and everybody walks off the field. Then the Chief Minister stays on the field and grabs the ball and kicks a goal. She does that outside the rules of the game. She then runs off the paddock and goes into the dressing room and says to all the players: ‘I have just scored a goal. Guess what? We are going to change the rules of the game so that we are going to make that goal work so that I win the game’. That is what the Chief Minister has been asking us to do. You could imagine that all the players in the dressing room would say: ‘We are not so sure about that, because we do not think that is the way that football works’.
The law has to work so everybody understands it the same way. That is clearly not what the Chief Minister is doing in this instance. The Chief Minister wants to score goals after the full-time siren and she told us that the full-time siren was going to be 31 December last year. So I, as somebody who looks after the rules, thinks, ‘Well, how good are all the other rules I make?’ We change the rules so that we can make the goal scored after the full-time siren a legitimate goal. What message does that send to everybody else out there, that when they do some dealings with the government, when they do some dealings with this Chief Minister, that she is not going to change the rules after the full-time siren? Because I do not know that.
What happens is that when we come into this place, we all come in representing Territorians. There are 25 chairs in this place, one up there and 24 around there. The government has 13 of them so they have the majority so they can always force through whatever they like. But just because you are a member of the Labor Party, or just because you are the member of the Country Liberal Party, or you are an independent, or more to the point, a member of the Labor Party, it does not mean that you cannot change your vote in this place. Any person can vote any way they like in this place. The party will punish you for it later on, but any person can change their vote. What is happening here is a matter of great concern.
Many of the members here, the member for Millner less so, but certainly some of the other members in this place, came in here with two propositions, two ideas in their head. One idea is that I am an Aboriginal person and I represent Aboriginal outcomes. The other idea is that I am a member of the Labor Party. That is two thoughts in your head, and that normally is not a problem. But sometimes, both things may not agree. The question that these people have to ask themselves is, ‘What is more important to me?’ Some deal that locks in Aboriginal people for the next 99 years, a deal that I would argue that most of the people I am talking about would have no idea of the details of, not including the cost; a deal that locks in Aboriginal people for 99 years that must by very necessity extinguish native title, if not suppress it, for 99 years; and they have to make a decision whether they are going to support that, or whether they are going to support the ALP party line.
That has to be a big conflict for some people in this room because despite the fact that they are not talking, I know they are thinking it. If you look at this country at all of the things that have been rushed through in the past, pushed through, shoved through for political reasons, many of them have led to bad outcomes for Aboriginal people.
Here they are at a crossroads. They have a choice. They are going to ask themselves are we going to push this through, or are we going to start looking at the right way to do this and slow down a bit, have a look at what is going on, see all the cards on the table. Or are they going to say no, being a member of the Labor Party is more important to me and I am going to let that other issue slide, and I am going to support the Chief Minister and sign up Aboriginal people to a deal that they have no idea of. The issue for those people in this place is that they do not know. How do I know that they do not know? Because I do not know, I have not been told.
So we are changing the rules of how we make law, we are scoring goals after the siren has sounded, we are being asked to make those goals after the siren has sounded goals that count, and we are being asked to run onto the field when we do not even know what the whole field looks like. I cannot sign up to that. I cannot subscribe to that because it does not make sense.
The point is that I cannot know these things because the provisions of the act were supposed to have died on 31 December. The Chief Minister herself - no other person, not even Cabinet - had carriage of these negotiations. Now, if this was going to be open and if this was going to be there for all to see, and everything was going to be explained, then surely there should have been more transparency. There should have been a window in the box that we could have looked through to make sure that everything was happening the right way. That window does not exist. I cannot see; I have been blinded by this legislation and now I am being asked to act quickly to restore this legislation so that some deal that has been signed up to becomes law.
What on earth would possess me to do such a thing? What on earth would possess me to engage in such behaviour? The answer is nothing because I am not going to sign up to it, not the way that this is being done.
The other question I have for the Chief Minister is: what is going to happen when this deal is struck? The Chief Minister has told us a little bit and she said there will be no gate fees, there will be proper joint management arrangements and she told us a few other things, there will be good access and that sort of stuff. What happens when you change title of country into freehold, which is what we are talking about doing, is that under the Torrens system which operates in the Northern Territory, once freehold title is given, it is not something that can be reversed. I ask this question: what happens if the people who sign up to this deal do not follow the conditions which have been written in this deal? What say in 10 years time the joint management board decides to charge entry fees to the parks? What control does the Chief Minister have over those rule changes when they do not sign up to the agreement? The answer is that the Chief Minister will have no control.
If they go to court, are they going to fight such things? No, Mr Deputy Speaker. Once that control is handed over and out of the hands of the Chief Minister and this parliament, we have lost control. At the moment under our legal system, we in this parliament are custodians for that country in the same way that traditional owners are in some other respects. We have been asked by this Chief Minister to give away that control and custody to other people and we have no way of making those people do the things that they say they will do now in 10 years time.
It has been the experience of Aboriginal people in this country in the past that deals have been made in reverse and the results of those deals, no matter how good they sounded at the time, have not been met. I have no guarantee that I am going to see the conditions that the Chief Minister has outlined being enforced and there is no mechanism that I am aware of to make those conditions enforceable. These decisions will not be reversed. Once it is done, it is done. I am concerned that there is no mechanism there to fix that up.
We have the passage of last year’s legislation, the introduction of another bill which is still sitting on the Notice Paper which is to correct some of the mess, the lapse of last year’s legislation which means that that legislation currently does not exist. Then there is the signing up to a deal about which we have no knowledge of the details, and I have no idea of the cost involved to Territorians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. I have no idea what is going to happen if the rules change down the track, and this Chief Minister, by the way that she is doing this, tells me that she is quite prepared to change the rules after the full-time siren. I have no idea in detail as to why the Miriuwung people have suddenly become very nervous about this deal. I have no idea what has been signed up to in terms of the parks in Central Australia. I have no idea what is going on other than the platitudes of the Chief Minister and the yelling of the minister himself. Well, let him yell, but where are the explanations for us?
I urge caution, but the Chief Minister does not want me to be cautious. The Chief Minister does not want me to be careful. All the Chief Minister wants to do is push this through in a hurry. Aboriginal people are getting nervous. I read the Northern Land Council media release. There is no reason to push this through other than to meet the agenda of the Chief Minister herself. I am terrified by the fact that I am not hearing from other members of the Labor Party on these important issues, because it means that they have been locked down and it is their job in this parliament to talk about it. If they support this, that is fine, stand up and say that you support this. But say something, because to sit in here and say nothing is to do nothing, and shows that you are unsure.
I urge, in the strongest possible way, those members, all members from the Labor Party, to stand up and tell me why this is a good idea. I get very nervous when they do not tell me. And the reason is that they do not know because they have not been told by their own Chief Minister in Cabinet, and they have to sit there and silently wait for this debate to go on, and all they have to do at the end of it is vote. But if they are voting and they do not have a clear idea in their head of what is going on, then they have not been responsible representatives of their constituencies.
I know the member for Drysdale, and the Leader of the Opposition, are responsible representatives of their constituencies and have spoken about these particular issues. I try to be a responsible member of my constituency. I speak about these issues because I am nervous on their behalf, because this is not like some other applications that I have seen go to people who live in the Central Land Council area, where there are long negotiation periods with traditional owners. This has happened very quickly. So what it looks like from the outside is that the Central Land Council, the lawyers and the administrative arm of the Central Land Council, not the council itself, have been doing the negotiating. I can tell you, I have been talking to some of the traditional owners in my electorate, and they do not have a clue that this is going on. This is all being done for them. So maybe the council itself has made resolutions and decisions, but it is not filtering down to the traditional owners. And at the end of the day, the traditional owners in the Central Land Council area are the people who are most affected by this stuff.
Say I do not get elected next time, that is all right, I will go and get a real job. If a Central Land Council lawyer moves on, they move interstate, move up to Darwin, and if the director of the CLC loses his job, he does something else. After all of those land council people have moved on it is the Aboriginal people who are left and affected by this stuff. All the more reason to show restraint, because I know that if I do not return to this House after the next election, and that may or may not happen, I will go off and do something else. I will live in Alice Springs, or I will live in Darwin perhaps. I do not know. It depends where work takes me. But I will always be thinking about those people who live on the country and who are the custodians of that country, and I hope that I can say to them that I have done the right thing by them to try to look after their interests. I have not had enough information to clearly demonstrate reasons why I should hurry into this. I feel uncomfortable about it and, for those reasons, I will continue to look after their interests and resist this until such time as it has been made clear to me.
Mr AH KIT (Community Development): Mr Deputy Speaker, one has to come to accept those sorts of rantings and ravings of the member for Macdonnell. I will come to it later on in my contribution to this debate, in regards to the parks in the seat of Macdonnell, because it certainly is going to be something that he will have to concentrate on if he wants to win support of people at the next election. He is one of these people who thinks that Aboriginal people do not follow what he is saying in the debates in parliament, and that he is able to get away with it by going back to the people and making out that he is a very good local member and a saviour of Aboriginal people in the electorate of Macdonnell.
The Leader of the Opposition – and it cannot be described in any other way – is a blustering hypocrite. He knows nothing about dealing with Aboriginal people because all that he and his party have done is oppose Aboriginal people’s interests. They did it for 25 years.
I welcome David and the Keep River native title holders, the traditional owners, to parliament today. I would certainly like to catch up with them shortly.
Just across the harbour, the Kenbi land claim cost $20m-plus fighting Larrakia people who were the traditional owners of this country and their claim –wasting Territory taxpayers’ money. We have a situation now where the resurrected Leader of the Opposition says: ‘Trust me, I have changed, those views that the CLP had for the last 25 years are no longer held’. Well, I say: unacceptable. We cannot wear that and nor will Aboriginal people.
The parks legislation we have here delivers a world-class system of parks throughout the Northern Territory. It is fair to all Territorians, and provides jobs and employment in the Territory’s national parks - and I will come to that later in some detail. This legislation will create jobs and employment for Aboriginal people in a world-class national park system, contrary to the Northern Land Council press release of yesterday.
We respect the people who chose not to take up the offer; with this particular case, as stated in that press release, the Keep River traditional owners. The offer was made and consultations carried out with the Northern Land Council when they went out and talked to them. They had carriage, under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, to ensure that people understood the nature of the proposal and, at the end of the day, they made a decision to reject it. That is their decision, prerogative, and right. However, I do not think that the request and deal with government of the other parks where traditional owners have agreed to go with what is on offer should now be trashed or thrown out the window. That is not on, and I will get to that shortly also.
The proposition is simple: our government has negotiated an open and transparent offer that protects native title rights, delivers enhances freehold title, and allows joint management of the land. It will create jobs and economic opportunity.
On the basis of the objection to the consultation process by one group of people – the countrymen from Keep River – the Country Liberal Party now wants the government to throw this all out; this is no good. There are 28. If one says, ‘No, it is unacceptable’, we respect that decision. Why should we throw out the other 27? Seven of them are in the NLC area. My staff checked with an NLC senior legal eagle today at lunchtime, and he said: ‘Yes, those seven are still in there’. We want them to remain in there; I wish we could have had more in there. However, people exercised their right to choose whether the offer was going to be a good offer to them or not. For reasons that are unknown to us, they chose not to accept. I am talking about not just the Keep River people, but in my electorate the people at Elsey Station and a couple of others.
On the other hand, we have a situation where 20 of them are in the Central Land Council area. With those 20, if this legislation goes through as we wish it to, there will be 814 000 ha added to the national parks estate in the Northern Territory. It will offer up indigenous economic development opportunities; it will open up a situation for parks management with government and with traditional owners; a management board, similar to Nitmiluk and other national park boards; and it will provide a set of guidelines on how that park is to operate. In the situation I read in the paper this morning, I do not think that report is quite right. I know Suellen Hinde quite well and I was a little disappointed; as far as I am aware, native title rights are not being thrown out the window.
This opportunity, and the Chief Minister will elaborate no doubt on that a bit further, is now passing people by. I thought it was a good opportunity. In hindsight, I would have liked to have been involved to help explain it further. No doubt there are going to be situations occurring where people do not fully understand the deal and the intricate details of that deal. However, in the Northern Land Council area, 20 of them will offer to the parks estate under joint management, 1 118 600 hectares. The CLC area is 814 000 hectares. In fact, if you looked at the Gregory National Park which has 20 000 visitors a year, and growing, that is 1.2m hectares. I want to explain that that borders both the CLC and the NLC area in regard to the North Gregory National Park, and the southern part of the Gregory National Park. Also, 206 000 hectares are being added under this deal to the West MacDonnell’s. I picked those two out and the West MacDonnell’s has 120 000 visitors a year.
To me, they are icons in the Territory which are going to have management boards put in place; traditional owners involved in the management of the place; what sort of hunting can be done; what rights exist; where tourists can go and where you do not want tourists to go. If we are all skiting about Nitmiluk, then this is going to give a similar type situation to people for these 27 parks. I was closely involved with Nitmiluk. I was the Director of the Jawoyn Association and was heavily involved in the negotiations for Nitmiluk. I still maintain today, that Nitmiluk was one of the best negotiated parks in Australia …
A member: Probably the world.
Mr AH KIT: Not so much the world, but in Australia. … and we need to be clear here - that had a successful land claim. My colleague, the minister for parks, was correct when he said earlier that that forced the CLP to the table. The CLP came to the table. We had to drag them to the table because they were ready to go to an election to it. The second biggest thing the CLP jumped up and down about was Uluru in 1986. That rock was going to be handed back to the Anangu people, and they campaigned hard against that, and when Nitmiluk came up, they campaigned hard against that.
As the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act is here in the Territory, people are entitled to lodge land claims. The land claim process was followed. The federal court judge, the Land Commissioner, at the end of the day, saw that the Jawoyn were able to fulfill those requirements of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in proving common spiritual responsibility and affiliation to country. And there we have it; we have Nitmiluk which is almost the jewel of the crown in the Territory and is operating really well. It is lovely to see that the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite, are so engrossed in how well the Nitmiluk stuff has been well organised. Little do they know about the history of the land claim and the opposition to it, and the former member for Katherine and the CLP opposing at every avenue the need for Jawoyn to establish the Nitmiluk Board of Management through the 99-year lease that was put in place.
Might I add, for people who follow Nitmiluk, it is progressing really well. Robert Lee, the board and the elders are continuing to do a great job.
Let me remind the Opposition Leader what the Director of the Central Land Council, David Ross, said about this parks legislation. I quote from yesterday’s media release:
He further said that he urged all parliamentarians to back this legislation. He went on:
That is what Mr Ross said, disputed by the member for Macdonnell because he does not believe the process was carried out properly. I would invite the member for Macdonnell to meet with the Central Land Council and to question them about their consultation process. They have an executive meeting next week, member for Macdonnell, and you might be able to get in there for 10 or 15 minutes and really question them and their integrity about how they run their organisation. I would like to see when you come out of that meeting because they are pretty firm about the way they do business and they are very serious because you do not joke about or accuse people in these organisations about not being serious about how you deal with consultations and decisions about country.
Mr Ross went on:
In respect of the release from the Northern Land Council, I touched on it, and I just thought I would touch on it again: one group of people, a decision, we respect that decision. I would offer to these people from Keep River and any of the parks like Elsey that if they have concerns, we will still offer to work with them as a government through our minister to ensure that their parks are managed properly and efficiently so that the country is respected and they have control, but they may need some assistance as we go through that process.
There is a question the Opposition Leader has to answer, and it is this: the Central Land Council wants the legislation passed to enable 20 new parks being created in the Centre. The Northern Land Council wants the legislation passed for seven new parks to be created in the Top End. What the Leader of the Opposition says is that the deal is not good enough for the Aboriginal people, yet his proposal would cost Territorians much more, and, as his track record shows, would tie the Territory up in years of litigation. The Opposition Leader’s proposal has not been thought out in a proper way. He is just making things up on the run, and we see that quite often of late where the policies on the run exercise is happening. In many cases, those policies are made while he is sitting in the chair over there.
I thought in this parliament I heard that they were working up policies last weekend. I do not know how much work has been done on that, but certainly we would dearly love to see the detail of their policies. I am sure the member for Daly, the chairman of their policy development committee, would be working really hard. I am not sure whether the member for Goyder is going to be involved, possibly on Wednesdays. Mr Deputy Speaker, my apologies, I digress.
The Opposition Leader’s proposal has not been thought out in a proper way. He continues to make these things up on the run. He says there will be Aboriginal management, but he wants to throw away legal rights to the way land can be managed by indigenous Territorians. This will not just cost millions of dollars in court costs, but many more millions of dollars under the Australian Constitution’s Just Terms provisions. I wonder whether he has ever thought of that. His ideas have been scribbled out on the back of an envelope, but they will impoverish all Territorians through stupid and mindless sabotage of our economy.
Does the opposition want this whole new national park system dumped because the NLC informs us that a single group of traditional owners do not accept the proposal? That is what it appears to be and it is ludicrous. Ludicrous. Have they thought it right through? I do not think so. If that is what he is saying, then he is being very unfair to all Aboriginal people who want to look after their country, and who want to get jobs working on their country. I know, too, that these people want to share their country. All these other 27 parks areas for which the consultation is being challenged by the member for Macdonnell, what about all these people? All these people have said that they want this legislation to go through. We had a situation occur where I challenged the Leader of the Opposition last week in this House where he said, ‘I am a changed man. Aboriginal people will see that. I want to forget about the past’. Well, he had 25 years, and we saw things getting worse and worse for indigenous people in the bush.
While he says this week he has changed, last week he has changed, Madam Speaker, we just need to go and look at some of the contributions to the debate by members opposite. Eighteen months ago, the member for Goyder had a shot at our government for providing $400 000 to the Bagot Community for beautifying that community. It is an excellent job; it looks lovely in the wet season. But what happens? It gets criticised because, we should not be spending money there. We should leave it as an eyesore. That is unacceptable to our government. It was a good move, people are happy, not only the people who live at the Bagot Community but the neighbours also.
There was a situation where the Leader of the Opposition was complaining, and it is in Hansard - if we get a bit of light I will tell you where it is - but he was having a shot at my colleague, the Minister for Family and Community Services, about the audacity of her calling on the Commonwealth government to provide $10m so that we can try to combat petrol sniffing, and that we would be looking to match that as a government. And what does he say? Not enough going into small business. I know my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, is working overtime to assist small and big business as much as possible.
To me, how can he have changed? If he is putting small business up in lights, that is fine and we support that, but to say we should not be spending money tackling petrol sniffing problems throughout the Northern Territory, no, Madam Speaker, he has not changed.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable member, your time has expired.
Ms LAWRIE: Madam Speaker, I move that the minister be granted an extension of time in order that he may conclude his remarks.
Madam SPEAKER: Members need to be aware that the power surge has done something to our clocks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Madam Speaker, thank you very much, and I thank the member for Karama.
We also had the situation the other evening where the member for Katherine said: ‘I am white Australian – okay? You can call me racist but this is exactly what happens in Katherine’. These are the statements that are coming from members opposite, whose leader is making statements to the media that he has changed. Are they taking the view that they have to change? I do not think so. We heard the opposition regarding my Housing statement about temporary accommodation last week. There was opposition to that. ‘The Community Harmony project is no good, let us stick with a former Chief Minister’s policy of monstering and stomping on Aboriginal people’.
This is a great opportunity for the Territory. Imagine parks like the West MacDonnells. CATIA members of the Central Australian tourism industry in Alice Springs are calling out for these developments. . Do you really want to oppose this? Have you thought that through yet?
Ms Carney: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: The member for Araluen says: ‘Yep’. Well, good, we will go back and tell CATIA. You just cannot have it both ways. It is like the Leader of the Opposition; the Chief Minister rightly accused him of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. That is exactly what he is doing. On the one hand, he is going on the radio and saying: ‘I have changed. Aboriginal people will see the difference’. Then we have two weeks of: ‘Let us kick the guts out of them’. That is unacceptable. People are not silly. I tell politicians in this Chamber that, if you think our people out there do not have their finger on the pulse in terms of what is said in here and the politics of it, then you are kidding yourselves.
In conclusion, the Opposition Leader speaks in a real rubbish way to Aboriginal people. He says two contradictory things at the same time. First, he says the government deal does not give Aboriginal people enough and then, on the other hand, that it gives too much away. He has to get off the fence. He has to make sure he has involvement in the policy contribution in regards to this, instead of making policy on the run. This shows, at the end of the day, that he is merely playing politics. He has no credibility and cannot be believed.
I have been around for too long to believe that the Opposition Leader has changed. He lost the last election because people did not believe in him or trust him. Now he wants to say he has changed. I do not believe him. I do not trust him. My office spoke to the NLC. Those seven claims remain. The choice is simple here: we create 27 new national parks to benefit all Territorians or we do nothing: ‘do nothing’ Denis, ‘dithering’ Denis, yesterday’s man.
The staff of the Chief Minister’s department has worked very hard on getting this deal to the situation where it is now before us. I urge all members of this House to support this legislation. You really need to understand that this is something that is going to be good for the Territory, good for everyone, regardless of race, colour or creed. I support the Chief Minister’s statement.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, the debate has been one of quite a divide between the two sides of the House. The opposition has raised a number of issues, and I will deal with some of them, quite appropriately, in my response to this debate. However, many of them are ones that we debated at length; for example, the member for Macdonnell asking what is the mechanism that we will deal with any monies, what kind of structure will be set up. I remember standing in this place in October 2003 and we spent the best part of seven hours going through the details of every aspect of this legislation.
I thank members for their contribution, and would like to address some of the issues raised. One of the issues raised was that of urgency, and a reference to Standing Order 179. The opposition members were asking what, under Standing Order 179, justifies urgency on this debate, and that there is some level of hardship being involved if we do not have urgency. In fact, this urgency has been brought under Standing Order 306 which only requires the necessity of bringing on a bill at a set time. We are not claiming a particular hardship. The reason to bring it on under urgency is that this bill has been in the public arena. This bill has been discussed widely. As members of the opposition actually articulated when they took the time in debate to actually look at some of the detail, this is the same bill, except for minor adjustments to do with the fact that we did pass its expiry date, and that has been fully discussed in this place …
Mr Dunham: Nope.
Ms MARTIN: … and that we have spent – it is sad that the member for Drysdale says no, but this bill has been fully discussed in this place. The opposition then made their opposition to it, as an opposition is entitled to do, but it was passed. The terms of what was being offered in the package for parks and reserves was clearly set out. The core principles were going to be reflected in every aspect for what was done in leases and indigenous land use agreements and in future plans of management for those parks. The urgency is about creating certainty in our parks. The urgency is about job opportunities. The urgency is about expanding tourism opportunities. The urgency is about a plan of management to create for the Territory a world-class parks estate.
As tourism minister, I have no apology. My colleague, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training wants to see those happen. The business minister wants business opportunities. Every member in the government wants to see the opportunities that can realised in this framework in the future realised. But for one park, that would have happened on 31 December; this would have come into force.
Instead of saying we have not reached agreement over the 28 parks, as the Minister for Community Development so eloquently said, why would you walk away from something when only one group of traditional owners, the Keep River traditional owners, did not accept the offer? It made sense to say, ‘Why walk away after all this effort?; Twenty seven groups of traditional owners have said yes, we want to see this happen, yes, we want to take advantage of creating jobs, of tourist opportunities, of expanding the parks estate. They said yes to that. As Chief Minister, I thought about it. It was my obligation under this legislation to think very carefully about it.
If we had not said let’s revive the bill, it would have been the litigation path. It would have been those millions of dollars, and the assessment is if we did all this through litigation it would have cost somewhere between $50m and $100m. It would have taken years. What would I have said to the tourist operators? Those doing guided walks in parks, those with concessions, those doing boat tours - what would I have said? I am sorry! I have walked away from creating the opportunity for you to invest further in your operations, for you to see how you can expand those. I am sorry. We are just going to have 10 to 20 years of you not really knowing what your status is. It was not a choice.
Everything that we have discussed in this place over the time since the debate in October-November 2003 is what we are talking about today. Let’s move it on. Why the argument that there has not been enough time? A number of the opposition members said they need further time to consider it. As I said yesterday in debate, normally we introduced a bill and it sits on the Table for six weeks before we debate it. This is probably the most debated and consulted item of legislation that we have seen in here for a very long time. Arguments claiming that we are rushing it really do not wash. This is about finalising an offer that would have been finalised except for one group of traditional owners, and I welcome the Keep River Traditional Owners here today. I am sorry that they were not able to stay for the full debate, but I appreciate them taking the time to come to Darwin and be part of what is happening here today.
The issue of urgency is not urgency; it is a matter of making what we have offered come into force rather than sit around even longer. It would have been in force, except for one park, at the end of December. This is something that we did not necessarily expect; we thought there was going to be full compliance. One park is out, so let’s move on. Urgency is not an issue.
Questions were raised regarding the legality of what we are doing with a bill that needs to be revived. This is a revival bill. Gale Jamieson, our Parliamentary Counsel, is quite clear: she has given me an explanation of what we are doing. Some of it is very legal and technical, but essentially, she is saying that clause 3 of the bill revokes the instrument that expired, that is the framework act, and clause 4 of the bill revives the framework act that was expired by the instrument. She said that this is a common law principle and that if you go to Pearce and Geddes, Statutory Interpretation in Australia (5th Ed), paragraph 6.14, and I can table a copy …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker. It would appear to be a legal opinion from which the Chief Minister is selectively reading. I wonder if she could table it.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, I am happy to table Negation of common law rules relating to revival on repeal. If you would like to go to that document, you can have it as well. There is no question of the legality of what we have done. It is all very well for the member for Drysdale to say: ‘I think …’
Mr Dunham: No, you have not tabled the whole thing. You have an opinion there.
Ms Carney: She ripped it off!
Mr Dunham: Do we get the whole thing or just that?
Ms Carney: There were two pages.
Ms MARTIN: No, some of them were notes for me. I am not tabling those; they are notes for me. This is what it is based on.
Madam Speaker, the member for Drysdale raises issues of legality that are so critical, he says, that he does not bother to do any calling around before he comes in for debate. He does not give credence to the expertise across government that this is perfectly legal. If the member for Drysdale had been so concerned, he might have raised it before. We could have clarified it before. Certainly, this is not an illegal procedure. It is unusual, I will say that.
Mr Dunham: Is it ever!
Ms MARTIN: The legislation we have put to the parliament is, in a way, unusual because nothing has been put in here so transparently before. This is government working in transparency and openness and accountability. I am proud of that despite the fact …
Mr Dunham: Pride comes before a fall.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, settle down.
Ms MARTIN: The morality lessons are galling, Madam Speaker. Despite the fact that the opposition disagrees, this is accountable, open government. We are looking for a solution to a problem that we did not foresee.
Can I say, that we did look to models that had been used by the previous government. We did look to those models. With the 50% that the Opposition Leader says, ‘This is dreadful, this is giving too much to Aboriginal people’, look at, say, the railway and what happened with that and the Larrakia, where the Larrakia have been given freehold title to land on our foreshore in the Fannie Bay electorate; there was never any proof of native title for that piece of land to change. It did not go to court; it did not go to the tribunal. The previous government said, ‘Okay, Larrakia, we are going to recognise your native title’, and we still know that the native title is before the court, and it was recognised and freehold title offered to land.
When we looked at what we might do to stop the litigation course, we looked to what the previous government had done. No-one has come in when they talk about the handover that is something that they have never seen before, and said, ‘Oh yes, but we did it too’. ‘Yes, we did it too, because it was a resolution of issues’. I am praising the former government for this. The Country Liberal Party had foresight to do this. If you take a situation like the Rosebery/Bellamack situation, the native title holders did not prove their native title to obtain that exclusive right to buy that land and then develop it. But we supported that arrangement because it was a good solution. Again, well done CLP. It was not finalised when we got to government, so we did. So, well done. The protestations of, ‘this has never been done before in the history of the Territory’ are simply wrong. I would like to praise the former government for some of the things that they did in government that led the way for what we could do.
I will talk about the Keep River shortly. There are 27 parks in this bill. Twenty of those are in the Central Land Council’s area, and seven with the Northern Land Council. I thank the Central Land Council for their support, for the supportive press release coming from the council yesterday, and the honesty in it. It is not all singing praise for government. It says that this has been tough. People have had to make compromises. There have been some tough times. David Ross pays tribute to his landowners. He says:
I believe that includes you, Madam Speaker.
That is real praise from the Central Land Council. There was a very negative press release from the Northern Land Council over the issue of Keep River. But reiterating what the Minister for Community Development said, the Northern Land Council is very positive about the seven parks and that they have said it is a good deal. That they have said, and I assume the same things apply to those, that some tough decisions have had to be made by traditional owners and native title holders, but we have reached agreement on seven parks in the Northern Land Council area. The one outstanding one is the Keep River.
Talking about Keep River, there has been some issue that we are extinguishing native title rights because the Keep River are not part of this. That simply is not the case. The government is not seeking the extinguishment of native title rights of native title holders at Keep River. This is important to put on the record: the offer that we made required traditional owners to suppress, but not extinguish, some rights under native title to receive the benefits of the park’s freehold title - that is a significant achievement - and to manage the parks in this partnership.
Our position has always been consistent. The offer of title was conditional on the traditional owners withdrawing land claims, leasing the land back, agreeing to suppress native title rights through an indigenous land use agreement, and agreeing to develop plans of management that will equally bind the government and those native title holders. We were up-front about this: the offer of a partnership was a partnership with compromise and obligations on both sides.
I also place on the record that we are not setting about to prevent traditional owners from selling art and artefacts, as I read in the paper this morning, and that simply is not the case. The fostering of these activities was always a focus of the negotiations leading up to this package. These activities will be covered by a joint plan of management, which will be fully developed in partnership with the traditional owners, and will require their full agreement before being submitted to the minister. Those activities, quite logically in a park, need to be part of an agreed plan of management. For example, in a practical sense, it is not envisaged that any native title rights currently being exercised will be affected, unless they are inconsistent with the good management of parks as reflected in the plans of management that will be developed.
An example of that for Keep River is that a plan of management may authorise the collection of wood for didgeridoo production, but that has to be managed. Therefore, maybe it would only be in certain areas of the park, or for certain times of the year. That makes sense in a plan of management for a national park.
In seeking to have the Keep River people in this package and be able to have freehold title to their land, the government extended the compliance date to 2 February and said: ‘Let’s try again’. We had officers ready to go out to Keep River to talk about after that offer was made. We extended compliance to 2 February, trying to have that happen. Sadly, it did not, and we were disappointed. The date of 2 February was chosen because we then had to prepare the legislation for parliament. Therefore, when the member for Drysdale said: ‘This arbitrary figure of 2 February; what does it mean?’. If the opposition would turn up to their briefings, they would not come in here and pretend the shock and horror of ‘What is this government up to? Is there some kind of conspiracy or some plan that we do not know about?’. It is simple - absolutely simple – and we certainly tried with Keep River. We are very disappointed.
The opposition has made much of the supposed secrecy of the parks negotiations under the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act 2003. It is a good indication of their desperation to find something – anything – wrong with this legislation that they seem to be inventing some kind of secret agenda which simply does not exist.
This government has been open and transparent about what it intends to do since October 2003, when I announced the core principles for negotiations through the passage of the framework legislation, and to the current legislative changes. As we are set to pass this legislation – well, I hope so – I am pleased to be able to table the legal document templates which are consistent with the requirements set out under the original Parks and Reserves (Frameworks for the Future) Act. As required – if you refer to the original act – the indigenous land use agreements deal with compensation issues and are designed to facilitate future developments of the parks. They expressly preserve native title rights and interests where they might exist.
The opposition asked: ‘Where are these indigenous land use agreements?’ That is under a federal law. They will be done according to the terms of those federal laws, against the principles that we have set out in here, incorporating those principles. Quite rightly, they are public documents and they are lodged with the federal Native Title Tribunal. That is what happens to ILUAs. As a former minister dealing with these issues, he should have known.
The leases are for 99 years, with a requirement for good faith negotiations for renewal. The parks are required to be managed in accordance with principles of joint management which recognise value and incorporate Aboriginal culture, knowledge, and traditional decision-making processes - again, set out in the schedule to the legislation. The permitted uses of the park are also clearly set out in the lease, namely the establishment, joint management and maintenance and use of the park as a park which are:
Both the leases and those ILUA’s refer to the joint management agreement which sets out the parameters for joint management across the Territory. The opposition has accused us of hiding the true value of the land that we subject to lease back. The fact is the that Australian Valuation Office has calculated rent payable based on a model which takes into account the size of the park, conservation and scientific value, cultural values and tourism potential, as well as existing rentals for comparable parks. The issue of the nett value of the land in question therefore does not arise. Of course we had some fairly ridiculous figures being thrown around during that debate in 2003.
Mr Dunham: How do you know they are ridiculous if you have not had them valued?
Ms MARTIN: It was talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, I think, if I go back to the Hansard.
Mr Dunham: I do not know. You have not had them valued, what do you reckon they are worth?
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, just listen.
Ms MARTIN: Furthermore, titles for much of the land are vested in the Conservation Land Corporation not in the government. With respect to the rentals calculated by the AVO as previously stated there will be a moratorium on rental payments for the 17 parks and reserves that will be leased back in the new Parks and Reserves Framework until 1 July 2010. So, payments for all of those parks are nothing for five years. In the case of the remaining 10 parks where there is no tenure change no rent is payable.
Madam Speaker, there is an exception. There is an exception to the moratorium on lease payments and that is land in two areas – Gregory and Davenport Murchison that is currently Aboriginal land which is being added to the parks estate. That is a really critical component particularly with Gregory which has that superb Aboriginal land trust land now added to what will become an even more magnificent park for Territorians and visitors. The total rent payable for these areas of land which we will pay once the scheduling has happened is $33 000 per annum in total for that land. After 2010, based on the current rental valuations provided by the AVO, the total rent per annum will be in the order of about $1m per year in today’s value. So that total rent payable, this is the AVO’s figure, will be in the vicinity of $1m a years in today’s dollars.
As members will recall there were claims over the 11 parks which were, as a result of the Ward decision, able to proceed to hearing by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner. These are parks which could have been lost to the parks estate, or which the government would have been liable for rental payments which would amount to more than half the total in any case. As it is, we have settled litigation in these parks in a record time, ensured business as usual, and not had to spend a cent on litigation.
The interesting thing is some of the words used by the Opposition Leader when on the side of ‘this is giving away too much to Aborigines rather than this is not generous enough’. He says you are handing over and the clear results from the Ward High court decision were that 11 of our parks were most likely to be scheduled under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. If that happens we have no idea what the future is. What might happen to the West MacDonnells, that wonderful park in Central Australia that we might have lost to the parks estate? I am not saying it would have happened but it might have happened. You cannot allow that uncertainty in an area like Central Australia where we are trying to build tourism, trying to build what tourists can do and the natural advantage, the environmental advantage, of the Centre by saying, ‘Oh, we just won’t do anything. We will just allow that process to go through’. It is not good enough. It is not certain. It does not build our tourism industry. To say we recognise that and to move on has been a very significant move forward for the Territory.
I should not need to remind this House that the cost of not adopting a negotiated settlement would be likely to be significantly more than the amounts that I have said - that $1m from 2010 for each year in rent - and would be a dead weight around the Territory budget for years to come.
Our parks system represents one of the Territory’s major competitive advantages and needs to be levered into playing a key role in the Territory’s future economic development. We know what the tourists come to the Territory for; they come for our superb environment, and much of that is encompassed in our parks, and an indigenous experience. How better to achieve it than move on from litigation into developing our potential?
In conjunction with the framework offer, the government will be releasing the Parks Master Plan in April. I have already signalled that the government intends to increase significantly its financial support for parks infrastructure in the Territory, and will provide appropriate budgetary support for the proposed joint management arrangements. This will bring significant financial returns through increased visitation numbers and, therefore, expenditure in the Territory generally, improved tourism service opportunities and indigenous employment opportunities, not to mention environmental and conservation benefits.
I am very proud of what the government has been able to achieve in securing compliance with the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act for these 27 parks and reserves, and in the approach adopted. I am looking forward to implementing the new arrangements over the coming months, and ushering in a new era for the Territory’s parks and estates.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clause 1:
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, can you tell me if this is the clause that actually revives the previous act?
Ms MARTIN: Clause 1 is the short title of the act:
It is the naming.
Mr DUNHAM: So to get it straight, then, we have a bill before us and the act is not yet revived. Is that correct? Until this bill passes, there is no such thing as the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act?
Ms MARTIN: This is the bill to revive an act that expired by legislation on 31 January.
Mr DUNHAM: So from 31 December until 17 February, there has been no act of parliament called the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, except the one that has expired?
Ms MARTIN: I thought that would have been apparent.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, there are certain things that this bill asks you to do on 1 February 2005 when the act did not exist, and you have just admitted that the previous act had expired. I wonder about that date. Why would this bill come into operation prior to parliament passing it? It does not exist. As of tomorrow, you are going to say the act existed two weeks ago. Is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: What clause 2 is saying is that once it is assented to it will then provide continuity from that expiry date on 31 December, but only once it is assented to.
Mr DUNHAM: That is what clause 1 says, but clause 2 uses the date 1 February. I am wondering, if it was to allow for continuity, I could understand subclause 1, which had a date from 1 January after lapse of 31 December, however at subclause 2, and we are going to section 8 in a minute, it is saying that, notwithstanding this act still does not exist and is still a bill before this parliament, that it came into operation on 1 February. Could you explain that please?
Ms MARTIN: The date, referring to section 8, of 1 February, is the extension of compliance to try to achieve the Keep River National Park as part of Schedule 2, that is what that simply is referring to.
Mr DUNHAM: Section 8 of the original act authorised you to do certain things. One was to request the Commonwealth minister responsible for the administration of ALRA to use his or her best endeavours to effect, etcetera. So that request under section 8 of the lapsed act, can you tell me when you exercised that power that you were authorised to exercise?
Ms MARTIN: I have not exercised any of these powers indicated in section 8 as yet. We had to get compliance with everything that was set out in the act and, once that happened, which will be achieved by what has happened in negotiations, and also this act passing, then I am authorised to do certain things, as set out in section 8.
Mr DUNHAM: So it is quite clear, after 31 December, you are not authorised to request the Commonwealth minister to use their best endeavours. You are not authorised to grant any land. You are not authorised to execute on behalf of the Territory a lease, etcetera, as at section 8 of the lapsed act. Is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: This is why it has been so transparent - until we got those agreements, those authorisations did not come into place.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, it would appear then that 1 February is a moot date, and it could well be after this act is assented to. If you have not exercised any of those powers, if you are unable to do them after the lapsing of the act, and if it is contingent upon certain conditions being met in section 10, why on earth would you want section 8 to come into effect on 1 February?
Ms MARTIN: As I said before, what we wanted to do was to give additional compliance time, and have that then reflected in this act, to allow a revisiting of the decision by the Keep River people to reject the offer being put to them. We wanted to have a date that then allowed us to put legislation to this parliament after that.
Mr DUNHAM: Compliance is at section 10 of the lapsed act. I am talking about your authority to do things, and I am just trying to ascertain whether you exercised any of those authorities at section 8 of the lapsed act.
Ms MARTIN: No, I have not exercised any of those authorities, because what we had was an act that had to be complied with, and I have not exercised any of those. This is why I can stand here quite honestly and say this is a transparent operation. This is open and transparent.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, can you tell me when it is likely you will exercise any of those things you are authorised to do under clause 8, when it is your intention to use that authorisation?
Ms MARTIN: We will request the Commonwealth minister to schedule those pieces of land under ALRA in Schedule 1.
Mr DUNHAM: When will you do that?
Ms MARTIN: We will probably do that over the next short while if this act passes the parliament. We will progressively move through the park freehold title. The ILUAs first have to be executed and lodged with the Native Title Tribunal. We will then look at the grants of title and do the leases after that. The more time-consuming process after that will be the plans of management. We will have to prioritise those with relevant traditional owners. They are very important and, under what we are proposing, each and every one of those plans of management will come to the parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, you have told us that there is a deal of urgency attaching to these actions and that you have not used any of these actions. It would appear that it is certainly some weeks away before any of the actions you are authorised to do under section 8 will take effect. Given that the opposition has some disquiet about an act that has retrospectivity built into it in such a way, if it has not been used prior to this bill being passed, and if it is going to be some weeks before you use any of those authorisations given you in section 8, could we ask that you change the 1 February, which would appear to be a redundant date, to a date some time hence?
Ms MARTIN: It is an irrelevant point. What we want is to move …
Mr Dunham: It addresses retrospectivity.
Ms MARTIN: We want to see those indigenous land use agreements executed and lodged as soon as possible, but we cannot do that until this is passed. We will be writing to the federal minister …
Mr Dunham: That is my point.
Ms MARTIN: We will be writing to the federal minister. I cannot quite work out what you are trying to achieve with this. I would have thought that, to see the opportunities realised from what we are proposing here, you would be urging us on.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, you said you cannot do that until this is passed. If this is passed, it did enable you to do something on the 1 February, which was a couple of weeks ago. As it transpires, you are telling this parliament that you did not do any of those things that you were authorised to do under section 8 and, because we have a problem - not to do with this act - about acts of parliament enabling retrospective actions to have some legality, it would satisfy that concern of the opposition if you could use a date hence. I cannot understand why you put the 1 February, but it would satisfy that concern of the opposition if you could have a future date rather than a past date there, so that it does not make an assumption you have used any of those actions when you have not.
Ms MARTIN: That was for compliance. As I said before in the debate, it was a date chosen for compliance with all the requirements of what were set out in the act. It was not for me to use my powers in any way or to move under section 8; it was to get compliance in that outstanding issue of Keep River. We are now dealing with passing this bill. The date of 1 February has become irrelevant.
Mr DUNHAM: That is my point. It has become irrelevant. Whatever date you had fixed in the past, this act did not appear in this parliament until after the 1 February. Therefore, you could satisfy the problem the opposition has with retrospectivity by fixing some future date.
Ms MARTIN: The issue you are making here is one that does not affect what we are doing. Okay, it has been a little different, but it has been carried by Parliamentary Counsel and good legal advice. The points you are making are ones that are not constructive to where we are now.
Mr DUNHAM: I cannot understand why legal advice would give you a retrospectivity that you have not used. I suggest, Chief Minister - I don’t know why you are being pig-headed about this - it is giving you the authority to do things two weeks ago that you have not done. So it is obviously redundant. There is no need to have that authority stretching back two weeks when you did not use it. What I am saying to you is in the normal way that acts of parliament have a future looked at them to enable future legal actions, why don’t we amend that to put a future date?
Ms MARTIN: The date of 1 February recognises that by 2 February all conditions were satisfied and that Keep River had been removed from the previous schedules. It is recognition of that change, so it is important to keep that within the act.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, no it is not. What you are saying is that the conditions at section 10 of the lapsed act were met on 2 February and therefore for some reason you could do certain things on the 1 February. Well that sequence is actually wrong, because the things at section 8 you could only do if you satisfy section 10. So even on having the explanation we just had saying we are authorised to do things on the 1st because they will be satisfied on the 2nd, is illogical. You had to be satisfied in the first place that those conditions had been met, then you were authorise to do certain things the next day. I cannot see why you are being so pig-headed about this. Why don’t we pick a date for the future that authorises you to do things that you have yet to do?
Ms MARTIN: I thank Parliamentary Counsel. The reference to section 8 here is to section 8 of this bill rather than section 8 of the original bill, and it refers to the date when Keep River was removed from Schedule 2. That was the date that Keep River was removed; 2 February was the date when full compliance had been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: I do not understand the relevance of that because part 2 of clause 8 of the new bill amends to omit Keep River in any event so it does not matter whether Keep River was in or out at that time. We now have a new act that omits Keep River and the salient date of Keep River’s disappearance will happen when this act passes. Whether it happened on 1 or 2 February is irrelevant to the omission of Keep River, because you are able to do that now with clause 8.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the logic of what is in here has the full support of Parliamentary Counsel and that really should be the end of the debate.
Mr DUNHAM: We have had a variety of descriptors. First, the Chief Minister believed that she had to have her authorisation under section 8 of the lapsed act, prior to the conditions being met. Now we know that to be wrong, and she is telling us that the reason this here is that it has the full support of Parliamentary Counsel. I do not believe that. I believe the answer the Chief Minister gave me on that particular item was wrong. She then tells us that she needs it because Keep River pulled out at about that time, and I believe that the act has been drafted so that it is irrelevant whether Keep River pulled that time or not, because it has been omitted from Schedule 2. She tells us that it is in the past to achieve continuity. Now continuity means 1 January, not 1 February.
We have had four lame excuses. The Chief Minister is now trying to tell us it had the full endorsement of Parliamentary Counsel. That is a nonsense. The excuses you gave me have either been made up, but if you are trying to tell me that Parliamentary Counsel gave you those lame excuses to give me, I believe that you are defaming those people.
So can we just get back to the fact that acts of this parliament are supposed to enable future actions and can we please put a future date into subclause 2 of clause 2 of the bill?
Ms MARTIN: This is recognising that the whole premise of this piece of legislation is that we do get compliance with what is set out here before we assent to the bill. That is important. This recognises…
Mr DUNHAM: Say that again: we have to get compliance!
Ms MARTIN: … that we did not have full compliance and that one park was being removed, and that happened on 1 February. That is why we have 2 February. Then by the 2 February we had full compliance and we could move with the bill, because it had been removed. That is the reason and I do not think I am wrong in explaining that. I do not need to add anything else. That is the reason.
Mr DUNHAM: So your fifth reason is that that critical action had to be put into this bill and this bill does not have the status of the parliament of reviving that bill and enabling us to put a date in there of some future time, to enable you to do certain things you are authorised to do under clause 8 that you have not done yet. You have not exercised any of your powers under section 8 of the lapsed bill and in the future you will do it. I cannot see why we should give you this latitude of some past action when you did not even have the need to use. You had no need to use it.
I am interested in the convoluted business about assent and I find it hard to understand, I have to tell you. I wonder if the Chief Minister could explain the business about the Administrator’s assent and the expiry of this act. I know expiry is at clause 9 but the two are obviously linked. Clause 2(3) reads ‘the remaining provisions of this act come into operation on the day on which the Administrator’s assent is declared’, and at clause 9 it says, ‘this act expires on the day after the Administrator’s assent to this act is declared’. So can I assume that this is an act of one day’s duration?
Ms MARTIN: This is part of the Interpretation Act and what it means is that once the Administrator has assented to this act in effect this has come into law and once that has happened then the Interpretation Act preserves the operation of the act. Therefore you do not need the act to remain on the statute books which is why you have clause 9, the expiry. This is the technicalities of our law and I respect Parliamentary Counsel’s advice of why we need it.
Mr DUNHAM: This is quite bizarre. We have one clause saying the Administrator will give assent to this act, and this is the date that it will come into effect apart from a couple of others. It will expire the day after he assents, so I assume this is a one day act. Now, what you are telling me is, I do not have to worry about that because there is some other clause in the Interpretation Act that gives this act its status. Can you explain what that clause is in the Interpretation Act that enables this act to be a one day wonder?
Ms MARTIN: It is actually quite simple. Because we have the previous bill, Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, now with an amendment, it means that you do not need the revival bill, so once it has been assented to, the other comes into place, this expires.
Mr DUNHAM: So, what you are saying is, the revival bill, with the exception of Keep River in the schedule, and the sunset clause, will obviate this bill, after one day? That is what you are saying?
Ms MARTIN: Yes, three times means yes.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. If the Interpretation Act is to be used in that way, and I know I am going to another clause, but they are linked, can you tell us why section 12A of the Interpretation Act is disallowed?
Ms MARTIN: Let us deal with the clauses one by one, thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: But they are linked. It was not my fault you put an expiry right at the end and a start right at the front.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Well, we will get to it then …
Mr DUNHAM: But then she will not let me come back.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will let you come back; I am the Chair.
The question is that clause 2 be agreed to.
Sorry, member for Macdonnell. Are you speaking on …
Mr ELFERINK: Sorry, Mr Chairman, the legal documentation that is now being passed around at this very late stage, I take it that clause 2 will give life to, well, it is the intention of the whole act, but clause 2 as well, is to give life to the overview of parks leases.
Mr CHAIRMAN: You are talking on …
Mr ELFERINK: It is a question. I take it that by resurrecting this act, well, this act resurrects the other act, that gives life to these documents, yes?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Are we talking on clause 2? Did you stand before we took the vote?
Mr ELFERINK: It is on the question, I just want to talk about it.
Mr CHAIRMAN: All right.
Mr ELFERINK: Chief Minister, I notice that one of the things in the overview of the park leases document allows entry use to the extent which is in accordance with Aboriginal tradition for hunting, food gathering, otherwise for the purposes of sale and for ceremonial and religious purposes. Specifically in relation to hunting, do you anticipate the use of firearms in our national parks?
Ms MARTIN: This is not relevant to the clause that we are discussing.
Mr Dunham: It is a pretty straightforward question.
Ms MARTIN: This is not relevant to the clause we are discussing. What I would simply say is that the plans of management that we are proposing will determine all those aspects of traditional usage, and that will depend whether it is a Schedule 1, 2 or 3 park. Certainly, I would hope all those issues will be dealt with and agreed to on any joint management park by the traditional owners, native title holders and Parks and Wildlife, and we will have agreement on issues like those. To say ‘will’ or ‘will not’ at this stage, is pre-empting that work which will take place over the next few years on plans of management; each and every one of them will come into this place and be debated and approved.
Mr ELFERINK: The question is pretty straightforward, and I do not think I am getting a very straight answer. Does the Chief Minister anticipate the use of firearms in the current parks estate under those terms?
Ms MARTIN: I will just make a reply to this and I am not going to continue any further on it.
Mr ELFERINK: I bet you are not.
Ms MARTIN: The plans of management will be done with those who are part of the joint management and those kinds of issues will be determined. I do not have carriage of that, but anything that is agreed to …
Mr ELFERINK: You will be in Sydney by then.
Ms MARTIN: I will not be part of doing those arrangements, but once they are agreed to, those plans of management, over the next months and years - because they will take some time, we have a number of parks - every aspect of that, agreed to by traditional owners, native title holders and Parks and Wildlife will come to this parliament for debate and hopefully for agreement.
Mr ELFERINK: Just so I have it completely and utterly clear in my head, the Chief Minister has said to me that she has no control, or anticipates having no control, over the use of firearms in parks estates that currently exist.
Ms Lawrie: Twisting. You are twisting the words again.
Mr Stirling: No, do not misrepresent what she said.
Mr ELFERINK: Then let her explain it.
Ms Lawrie: No, you refuse to understand.
Mr ELFERINK: You have no control over this process.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale.
Dr Burns: Camel lover!
Mr DUNHAM: I seek a point of clarification, Mr Chairman …
Mr Elferink: There is no hunting allowed …
Mr DUNHAM: … I have a stack of papers here that does not bear any crest or authorisation and it is titled ‘Parks and Reserves Framework for the Future – Legal Documentation’. …
Mr Elferink: Come step outside and I will fucking smack you.
Mr DUNHAM: … could I ascertain the status and can you tell me what this is all about?
Mr KIELY: Mr Chairman …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr KIELY: ... are you going to allow that sort of language?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I did not hear what was said.
Mr Dunham: Elferink, what is this about?
Ms Martin: … and threatening.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Kiely: Yes, threatening.
Mr Elferink: Say it again and say it loud.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, member for Macdonnell.
Mr KIELY: Mr Chairman, this man is making threats here and the Serjeant-at-Arms should chuck him out.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, member for Macdonnell, order.
Mr KIELY: Look at this.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Member for Macdonnell, you are warned. You are warned.
Ms Martin: That is outrageous behaviour.
Ms Lawrie: Remove him from the Chamber. We are trying to have a debate in here.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, just through the Chair.
Mr Stirling: You thug.
Mr Kiely: You bully.
Mr Dunham: Oh stop it.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr Stirling: You are a thug.
Mr Kiely: Go and have a cold shower.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Dunham: Stop it. That is unparliamentary.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Ms Lawrie: Go on, and you should leave – you are disgusting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Stirling: You are a thug.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Macdonnell, order!
Ms Lawrie: You are a disgrace.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, can you just repeat your question, please?
Ms Martin: Mr Chairman, can I just …
Mr DUNHAM: My question is …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Sorry, the Chief Minister is going to answer it.
Ms MARTIN: Can I make a point of order, please? I believe that is the most disgraceful behaviour I have seen in this parliament for some time. I …
Mr Stirling: He should be thrown.
Ms MARTIN: … do not want to tell you how to do your job, but I have never seen someone in my near 10 years here walk across the Chamber and do that, and threaten somebody else like that …
Ms Lawrie: Physically!
Ms MARTIN: … is disgraceful behaviour in this parliament and certainly look to you for what kind of proper parliamentary penalty there should be.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just take some …
Ms Lawrie: Absolutely!
Mr Dunham: Penalty? You are asking him to establish a penalty?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I will just take some advice.
Ms Martin: Yes, that is extraordinary.
Mr Kiely: Swearing – offering violence.
Mr Dunham: I did not hear him swear. I did not hear what he said either.
Mr Kiely: He offered violence. I heard him swear. I heard him offer violence as well.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I will just take some advice.
Dr Burns: I said nothing.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Speaking to the point of order, I will report it to the Speaker at the conclusion of this bill and ask for the Speaker to make a judgment on that.
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order …
Mr Stirling: Mr Chairman, I move …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Hang on, sorry, we have another point of order.
Mr DUNHAM: … the two protagonists in the parliament, I can put on the Parliamentary Record quite clearly that I neither heard what the member for Jingili said nor what the …
Ms Lawrie: Johnston.
Mr DUNHAM: … member for Macdonnell said. I will say, however though, that the member for Johnston has offered the member for Macdonnell out to fight and I can understand that there are standing orders here …
Ms Lawrie: No, he didn’t.
Mr Kiely: When?
Mr DUNHAM: … standing orders in this place that refer to the Chairman asking people to desist from quarrels. Now, I would have thought that that initial invitation to fight from the member for Johnston is something …
Mr Stirling: But you did not hear anything.
Mr DUNHAM: … that should have been addressed at that time. I was disgusted with that behaviour. I was disgusted with that behaviour, but all I could say is that it should finish now, Mr Deputy Speaker. This incident is the second incident between these two and the first was promulgated by the member for Johnston.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will speak to that point of order. As you know, sitting in this chair, you do not hear all the interjections. I will explain to the Speaker what I saw and what I heard. That requires the Speaker to investigate further with the members who were involved; I will ask her to do that. I can only go on what I saw and what I heard. If there were other comments made perhaps we have to check Hansard and then the Speaker can come back and make a ruling on those. All I can judge is what I saw at the time. As I said, I will report to the Speaker on the matter. I do not want any quarrels in this place either, so let us leave it at that. Let us get on with the debate.
You have a point of order?
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, I am not satisfied to leave it at that. What we have witnessed is thuggish ...
Mr Dunham: You are dissenting from his ruling.
Mr STIRLING: … intimidating and bullying behaviour. Now I did not hear what the exchange was. The member for Drysdale …
Mr Baldwin: Well, how can you comment on it?
Mr STIRLING: … thinks he did. What I did witness …
Mr Baldwin: How can you comment?
Mr STIRLING: … what I did witness …
Mr Baldwin: Why don’t you leave it with him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr STIRLING: … was the thuggish and intimidating and bullying behaviour …
Mr Baldwin: Why don’t you leave it with him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr STIRLING: … of the member for Macdonnell. I would move, Mr Chairman, that his services be dispensed with from this Chamber on the basis that we do not tolerate thuggish, boorish, bullying behaviour.
Mr Baldwin: You are outrageous. That is thuggery you are talking about now.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Ms Lawrie: Stop whining.
Mr Baldwin: That’s what it is.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Baldwin: That is outrageous behaviour.
Mr Stirling: I saw it mate. I saw it. You weren’t even in here.
Ms Lawrie: I was a witness.
Ms Scrymgour: You just walked back in.
Mr Stirling: Even when you were pissed you were never that bad.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Member for - Treasurer, withdraw that language, please.
Mr STIRLING: I withdraw it.
Mr Baldwin: And I tell you, I have not had a drink today. All right? Unlike yourself.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! If we have any more, you will be sent out for it in the sin bin – anyone.
A member: What about him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Anyone. I just need to get a ruling here, please.
I will just make clarification. We are in committee stage. If people want to name a member it will have to be done when the Speaker comes back. I have said I will report it if people want to take it up when we go back into the third reading. Let us do it then, please. As it is now, I would just like to continue and I would ask people to calm down. It is important legislation and I do not think it needs the sort of behaviour we have seen.
Member for Drysdale.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr …
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, just to clarify, you have no procedure and no power to name a member?
Mr Dunham: Rubbish! That is not what he said. You are dissenting from his ruling.
Mr Stirling: No, I am not. I can …
Mr CHAIRMAN: All right. If you like, I am just reading Standing Order 221: Disorder:
You may ask for me – I can ask the Speaker to come in and make a ruling.
Mr STIRLING: I ask that the Speaker come in and make a ruling.
Mr CHAIRMAN: We need a motion.
Mr STIRLING: I move that the Speaker be recalled to the House to make a ruling on this matter.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is – yes?
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order. I disagree with this, Mr Chairman. I believe you are quite able to take control in this situation. The situation has passed. I believe what the Deputy Chief Minister is suggesting is tantamount to a want of confidence in you, Mr Chairman, and I do not think that the business that we have before us needs to be held up to continue this matter. If the government wants to pursue the member for Macdonnell, and they have the numbers, they have a number of options available to them. They can refer it Privileges; they can make personal explanations and the like. But this is a stunt to keep us way from the matter that is before the House …
Ms Lawrie: Not at all.
Mr DUNHAM: … and I suggest, Mr Chairman, we get on with the business of this House and we get on with the debate …
Ms Lawrie: We will.
Mr DUNHAM: … so the Chief Minister is called to her responsibilities.
Ms Lawrie: A motion …
Mr Dunham: You are trying to get Gerry out of the Chair.
Ms Lawrie: No, we’re not.
Mr Dunham: Yes, you are.
Ms Lawrie: No, we are trying to get it properly dealt with.
Mr Dunham: Properly dealt with? It is being properly dealt with.
Ms Lawrie: Properly dealt with.
Mr Dunham: It is being properly dealt with.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I have offered to report it. If there is a motion that says they would prefer this to be referred to the Speaker, then I will accept that motion and we will vote on it. I have offered to report it to the Speaker and the Speaker can deal with it later.
Mr Baldwin: So you want to do it now. Is that what you are saying?
Ms Lawrie: Yes, absolutely.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Well, then …
Mr Dunham: Oh, you’re letting her off the hook – that’s what you’re trying to do …
Mr CHAIRMAN: The motion is …
Mr Dunham: … just because she is in trouble.
Ms Lawrie: No.
Mr Dunham: Just because she is in trouble.
Ms Lawrie: No.
Mr Dunham: Just because she is in trouble you are doing this.
Ms Lawrie: No, no you are wrong.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr Dunham: It is unbelievable. Bullied.
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, I so move.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is I report progress and ask the Speaker to resume the Chair.
Those of that opinion say aye.
Members: Aye.
Mr CHAIRMAN: To the contrary, no.
Members: No.
Ms Lawrie: The ayes have it.
Mr Stirling: There are such things as in parliamentary standards…
Mr DUNHAM: Did you call it? Did you call the vote, Gerry?
Mr CHAIRMAN: The ayes have it.
Mr DUNHAM: Division, Mr Chairman.
Mr CHAIRMAN: A division is called. Ring the bells.
The question is that the committee report progress on the bill and an incident of disorder to Madam Speaker.
The committee divided:
Ayes – 13 Noes – 10
Motion agreed to.
The committee suspended.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Madam Speaker, I have to report progress on the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future)(Revival) Bill. We reached clause 2, at which stage the member for Macdonnell walked around the Chamber to the member for Johnston and said something to him. The member for Sanderson also said something. I did not hear exactly what was said, although the words uttered by the member for Macdonnell sounded threatening.
I ordered the member for Macdonnell to move away and issued a warning. That is more or less where the issue ended.
Progress reported; report adopted.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, obviously I was not in the Chamber, so it will be up to a member if anyone wishes to move a motion on the incident.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, it with a great deal of reluctance that I move for the suspension of the member of Macdonnell. It is something that happened to me a few times in my past in opposition, but for reasons very different from those I move against the member for Macdonnell today.
Parliament is a robust place. We are used to robust debate. Debate is one thing, Madam Speaker, but there are parliamentary standards. There is the dignity of the Chamber to be upheld at any time. What I witnessed - and there was certainly some exchange; I make no apology for not hearing any of that exchange – was the member for Macdonnell walk quite quickly to the member for Johnston’s desk, lean over in a threatening, boorish, ugly and very thuggish manner, obviously threatening the member for Johnston. There is no place in this Chamber for that type of behaviour.
His proper recourse if he was offended by whatever was said was to take the matter up with the Chairman. There are standards in this parliament, Madam Speaker. I have been here a tick over 14 years, and I have never witnessed the type of behaviour that I witnessed a short time ago.
Madam Speaker, I move that the member for Macdonnell’s services be dispensed with forthwith.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, my information on what happened extends no further than what the Deputy Chief Minister said. First, he did not hear the words. He saw the member for Macdonnell walk over and speak to the member for Johnston. I understand, from the private conversation I have had with the member for Macdonnell, that he was provoked in a way that led to the only reaction any Australian would have anywhere.
However, that is not the issue, Madam Speaker. If we are dealing on the facts of the matter, I would first caution you that the government has not established by evidence a reason for suspension and that is reinforced by the fact that the Deputy Speaker himself was prepared to continue the Committee stage process.
Second, we should bear in mind that suspension of the member for Macdonnell would, I imagine, see the member suspended for one day from the Alice Springs sitting. One must ask the question whether or not that is the intention of the government by this motion.
I can easily get down in the dirt if you want, but on the facts of it, you are asking the Speaker to rule in a way that is unfair on the Speaker. You have provided no evidence, apart from the member for Nhulunbuy saying that in all his time in the House he has never seen anything like it. We can all recount periods in the House when we might have seen worse or better. That is not the issue.
The issue is it was the Deputy Speaker’s intention to continue the committee stage process. The Deputy Speaker felt he had control of the House without wishing to suspend the member for Macdonnell. He is the Deputy Speaker; he is in charge. Madam Speaker is put in an impossible situation to rule otherwise. Let us continue.
Madam SPEAKER: I ask the both the member for Macdonnell and the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure to provide their explanations, as it would help.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I understand what you are seeking to achieve in evidence, but it seems that – because I know what he will say, and he has every right to say it – this is not the way we should proceed because the words are inflammatory, they are awful and I do not think they should be raised in the House. It does the member for Johnston no good, and it certainly does not progress the issue at hand.
Surely, we are mature enough to move on. Everyone is in their seat now. The Speaker is here. Let us move on.
Madam SPEAKER: The allegation is very serious. If the member for Macdonnell did take the alleged action, I consider that very serious. I am asking for a brief explanation without going into great detail about what happened. I only want to hear from those two members at the moment.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I did antagonise the member for Macdonnell. It was a mutual antagonism. The member for Macdonnell may have misunderstood what I said. I apologise to the member for Macdonnell.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, the minister, in this instance, has a history of …
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not want a history; I just want to know what happened.
Mr ELFERINK: No, I will tell you what he did, Madam Speaker, and I will put it very succinctly. I was sitting here debating a point and the minister was sitting there with his hands cupped over his mouth, a child-like smile on his face, going poofter, poofter, poofter. Madam Speaker, I wanted to say let’s go outside and we will have a discussion on this and he went ‘poofter’ again. So, Madam Speaker, I went over and had a discussion with him. There was no violence but there was definitely an attempt to see if we could get out of this Chamber and sort this matter out once and for all like civilised men. Yes, Madam Speaker, I was angry. No, Madam Speaker, there was never any intention to perpetrate any violence whatsoever.
Madam Speaker, I know what the member is trying to do. He is trying to irritate me. Well, he is successful. It works. But gee whiz, Madam Speaker, I just have the feeling that he is just a little out of bounds.
Mr Kiely: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: Were you involved in this incident, member for Sanderson?
Mr KIELY: I was a witness to the incident.
A member: So was I.
A member: So was I.
Madam SPEAKER: I did not ask for any witnesses. I said at this stage I would only hear from the two members.
Mr Kiely: Madam Speaker, the facts are not quite as he related them.
Madam SPEAKER: Resume your seat, member for Sanderson.
What I will do, members, if you bear with me, is to listen to the recording and look at the tape myself before I make a decision just based on some words in the Chamber.
I feel that it is inappropriate to walk across the floor in a threatening manner. It is inappropriate also to use words that are offensive but we have to balance this in light of everything.
I am suggesting that you go on with your committee role which will allow me time to have a look at what happened for myself. I hope that when I do finally make a decision you will accept it. I can already see the headline tomorrow and this is really, really sad. Unfortunately, this parliament gets enough bad headlines about behaviour and members without this going on forever.
Leader of Government Business, could we please have a motion to go back into committee for further consideration of the bill?
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move that the House moves back into committee for the consideration of the legislation currently before us.
Madam SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Member for Drysdale, you wanted clarification on a document?
Mr DUNHAM: Yes.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just get some advice.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, could I just establish what clause we are up to.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The member for Drysdale said that they had received a document which I presume relates to – I have not seen the document – some legal explanations concerning the bill?
Mr DUNHAM: I can say it again Mr Chairman. Could I just ask the minister and we could hear the obvious laughter from that room when that matter was on. I know people are here to advise us and I know that they have a particular bent on certain things but it is not a matter for hilarity.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Could I just say that I did hint to the Leader of Government Business that it was not appropriate and the Leader of Government Business did act on that. Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: I am asking about this suite of documents that was dropped on the desk. It does not have a letterhead on it, it is not attributed and it claims to be Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Legal Documentation. Could the Chief Minister tell us the status of these documents, please?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, in my response to debate I outlined exactly what those documents were. If the member would like to raise issues about them he can do so in the third reading. This is dealing with the clauses of this bill and we should go back to dealing with those.
Mr CHAIRMAN: And that is where I will leave it, member for Drysdale. The question is that clause 2 stand as printed.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I just clarify something on these documents?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Is it about …
Mr DUNHAM: So these documents are ancillary to the bill that we have before us, is that correct? And therefore on matters relating, for instance, to the next clause we are moving to about section 10 which talks about issues relating to the conditions, that this document is part and parcel of the legislative …
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled for information …
Mr DUNHAM: They are information papers.
Ms MARTIN: Information papers.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me, Chief Minister, why we received them so late? We have been calling for these for about …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, no, I will have to stop it there. We are dealing with clause 2.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Mr DUNHAM: The revocation of the expiry notice, I wonder, Chief Minister, if according to your legal document that you gave me, and I quote from it: ‘the position would now seem to be clear that unless contrary intention can be spelled out in the repealing act the old law is not taken to be revived’. Can you tell me if this is the contrary intention?
Ms MARTIN: We are dealing with clause 3 and clause 3 is straightforward. Let’s deal with this. There was a notice gazetted on 1 January that the previous act had expired, as with the terms of that act, December 31, and that notice that was published pursuant to that section, the parks and reserves framework act, which was section 16(4) is revoked by clause 3. That notice is revoked.
Mr DUNHAM: I was actually talking 3 and 4; I do apologise, Chief Minister …
Ms Martin: Are we talking three …
Mr DUNHAM: … but again, having twinned two, I will continue on twinning 3 …
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just deal with clause 3.
Ms MARTIN: I am not prepared to deal with history.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Mr DUNHAM: I wonder if you can answer the question I posed, Chief Minister? The document that you gave me said, ‘The position would now seem to be clear that unless contrary intention can be spelled out in the repealing act the old law is not taken to be revived’. Is this the contrary intention?
Ms MARTIN: Clause 4 recognises that in section 12(a) of the Interpretation Act that we work to, that you would normally not be able to revive a repealed act. Once an act has expired, like the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, then you cannot revive it. What we are doing in this circumstance is to say that we are reviving the parks and reserves act despite that section.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me then the intention of the legislators for section 12(a) of the Interpretation Act?
Ms MARTIN: I do not see how that is relevant. What we are doing is dealing with the intentions of section 12(a), and saying, despite that, and this is the legislation that will enable us to go back to, despite that section of the act which is perfectly common in legislation, in the drafting of this, that despite the Interpretation Act, we are going back to the previous act. It is revived. Can I just say …
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Member for Drysdale, I am still on my feet.
I am not standing here as an expert parliamentary draftsperson; I am not. But what this act says, and what is says clearly, this clause in the act, is that we are dealing with the Interpretation Act, what it normally says and so this says despite that, we can go back to the act that was revoked.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. For the benefit of the House, can you tell us what it normally says, and can you tell us what the intention of the legislators was when they drafted that?
Ms MARTIN: The Interpretation Act states:
(a) revive anything not in force or existing at the time at which the repeal takes effect.
Mr DUNHAM: It would appear that there is an unorthodoxy about this, Chief Minister, in that to my knowledge that is the first time that section 12(a) has been used in this way.
Ms MARTIN: I am informed that it does not get used, or not aware of it being used in this way, but it can be used in this way, and this is what we are doing with this bill.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Mr DUNHAM: Clause 6 is interesting, Chief Minister, because it deals with section 10 of the original lapsed act, which says that the Chief Minister has to do certain things. Can you tell us if those things that you were required to do under this section have actually been done?
Ms MARTIN: In section 10, Conditions to Which Exercise of Chief Minister’s Authority is Subject – let me take some advice so I do not provide anything that is inaccurate or misleading. Bear with me. This section of the act refers to the words ‘or under’, which are being omitted.
Mr DUNHAM: I am aware of that.
Ms MARTIN: Okay. This is what we are talking about.
Mr DUNHAM: No. I am talking about the authority to do certain things. Have you done them?
Ms MARTIN: Until this bill is assented to, what we have been achieving is compliance with the terms of the act, but I have not been able to act further on this because we did not have an act by which to do that, to give me authority to act any further. Simple.
Mr DUNHAM: You had a problem, didn’t you, Chief Minister? You had an act that set out certain things for you to do, you did not do them, you are now introducing a bill that gives you some continuity to keep those negotiations going, and you are telling us you still have not completed the requirements of section 10 of the original act?
Ms MARTIN: No, the section 10s are the conditions that have to be achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Yes!
Ms MARTIN: Yes, and those conditions have been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Right.
Ms MARTIN: Those conditions have been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Good. Can you tell us whether you could table in this parliament the various things that have been achieved? I turn specifically to, for instance, section 10(1)(d):
Can you please give us those agreements for each of the 27 parks? Can you also give us the documents that relate to all of those requirements that you are authorised to do so that we can be sure in this parliament that the power that you were given and the duties and responsibilities you were given in terms of section 10 of the now lapsed act you have actually completed and this parliament can see each of those land use agreements, each of those leases and be sure that the agreement is there in terms of the seals of the Northern Territory and land councils and relevant organisations?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the template the agreements are the ones I have included here for information. The template agreements for schedules 1, 2 and 3, indigenous land use agreements, the broad lease, the details of which were in the original act, and all those then have to have individual aspects put to them. The indigenous land use agreements will be lodged with the Native Title Tribunal and the leases will be lodged with the Land Titles Office, and are all readily available. These are the templates that we are working with, which are in keeping with the principles outlined in the act. Those plans of management, the broad principles of which are in front of you, will, each and every one of them, come to this parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: So we are now told that the documents I inquired about which had no letterhead on them, no authorisation, that these documents satisfy section 10 of the lapsed act, and these documents have agreement, as required by statute between the various parties and yourself, and that these document that we have here are so final that they are unlikely to be subject to change on any point?
Ms MARTIN: All those agreements are based on what we spelled out in the original act, the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, the principles that are in there. The conditions that have to be met in an indigenous land use agreement, which is Commonwealth law is there as well. All these will be tailored to meet the individual parks that we are dealing with at any one stage, and they will all be publicly available. They are the principles, they are the templates, they are the frameworks by which we will move forward.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me how much time you gave the land councils and the various Aboriginal people associated with the parks to read these documents?
Ms MARTIN: The best part of a year in doing that work, but the important part is that the plans of management for those parks that will have joint management will go through a very detailed process with either the native title holders or the traditional owners. There has been a lot of work that has gone through, and I congratulate both land councils for working with their constituents in achieving this documentation. The principles that are incorporated in there are set out in the act that we passed in 2003.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me then why, in your closed door sessions in boardrooms with land councils, there was a year for the various parties to read these papers, and we here in parliament, us poor politicians, have had this for a matter of an hour or so; it was delivered while the debate was on foot? And can you understand, Chief Minister, while we were calling for information of this type, and can you understand our frustration when you did not provide it, and now when the debate is on foot, you are giving us documents you have had for a year, you have been negotiating for a year, that this parliament could not see?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the member for Drysdale is getting himself worked up about, ‘you have had these things behind closed doors’. It has taken a year to do the work to achieve this. It has taken a year. There has been no secrecy behind closed doors …
Mr DUNHAM: Why did we not have these then?
Ms MARTIN: They have only just been finalised. They are templates, as you can see. We deal all the time in here in legislation that we do not see the regulations. They are equivalent to our regulations. What I am doing is putting them on the table. They need to be further developed, because they have to be tailored to each individual park. Quite appropriately, I am putting them on the table and saying this is where we are with this, and these documents will be further available. The plans of management will be debated, each individually, in this parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: That is not good enough, Chief Minister, absolutely not good enough. You are trying to pretend to the parliament that there was no necessity for us to read these comprehensive documents, these are documents, for instance, that are lease documents. If consumers go out there and transfer land through a conveyancer, they have cooling off periods where they can read this stuff. They can sit down in a room where people can look at it. You can take it away and show your lawyers. You are going to pass an act of parliament, expect us to wade through all this stuff, you are pretending that it is akin to regulations. I will tell you what it is akin to: land titles. Now, would you transfer your land in Fannie Bay or the Narrows or wherever you live, would you transfer it on the basis of someone slapping something like this in front of you, while you are also otherwise engaged doing something else, make the assumption that Clare Majella Martin, the land council and various other people are in accord on this matter, particularly when we have press releases from the land council that describe your behaviour as bewildering.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is that clause …
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, Mr Chairman, we have tried to ascertain the status of these documents, and we are told that it is just some little thing thrown on our desk to keep us amused, and really they had nothing to do with the acts. These go to the soul of the act. These are the lease documents. These are the documents you can walk into the Commonwealth Bank with and say: ‘Lend me money’. These are the documents that encumber land. These are the documents that say you can use a gun on the land. These are the documents that say you can forage and hunt and cut down trees for didgeridoos. These documents have great potency. The Attorney-General and the Chief Minister should know that matters relating to who holds the title and the conditions under which they hold it are very important. This goes to the soul of these entire negotiations.
Mr Ward said: ‘Go and talk about who owns the land’. The Chief Minister spent a year talking to them on the basis of these documents. She presented a bill which is three pages - a three-page bill - and said: ‘Here you are, I am off. I am going to go and do some negotiating. If you want to know what I am talking about, it is all tucked in here’. It goes to the very soul of this argument.
We cannot get off section 10 until the minister tells us whether she has discharged her statutory obligations. They are obligations that have been put on her by this parliament. She is authorised to do certain things and she has to make sure, for instance, that the agreements have been agreed to. I cannot see that from this document. I can see a place for the common seal to be placed, and I can see Clare Majella Martin’s name there where she is going to actually place her signature. I can see all of that. However, I cannot be satisfied from this that the conditions under section 10 of the now lapsed bill have been met, such is the debacle we are discussing here.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is that clause 6 stand as printed.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, can I seek your guidance?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Yes.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I make sure these papers are tabled, Mr Chairman …
Ms Martin: They have been tabled.
Mr DUNHAM: No, do not have ‘Tabled’ on them. … that they are tabled and that they go with this bill so that, at some future time if there are departures from these documents or any changes, the Chief Minister will give a solemn undertaking that those matters in dispute, where she has a statutory obligation to work in the best interests of the Territory, can be compared with these documents. At the moment, they are unsigned, they have no cover on them. I would like them to be formal tabled statements of this parliament that are attached to this statute.
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled, Mr Chairman.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The Chief Minister says they are tabled.
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled; I tabled them.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I inquire what the Tabled Paper number is?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will have to ask.
Mr DUNHAM: I just want to make sure they are done. Unbelievable!
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just get some information.
Mr DUNHAM: I hope your old man does not do much conveyancing.
Ms MARTIN: I do not refer to your wife; you do not refer to my husband, thank you.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr CHAIRMAN: The safest way is a little silence. Sorry, I am starting to sound like the Speaker, I know. Oops, sorry, Madam Speaker.
Ms MARTIN: There is no point to refer to families.
Mr DUNHAM: I just needed confirmation. I am happy to accept your word, Mr Chairman.
Ms MARTIN: I am happy to say they will be tabled. My intention was that they were tabled, yes.
Mr CHAIRMAN: As soon as I get a number I will interrupt and give you the number.
Mr DUNHAM: That is all right. Go on to the next one.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I turn to the logic of the Chief Minister putting in 1 February in clause 2. We now have the same logic here. She gave us five different excuses, which she claimed came from the Parliamentary Counsel, as to why that would be so. I ask the Chief Minister to consider whether it is, perhaps, expecting a bit much of this parliament to be debating statutes for the future that have a clause in them that give them effect in the past. I also ask the Chief Minister if, given that the other one was a nonsensical date and did not mean anything and was arguably obsolete, whether 2 February could be put to some future date after 17 February so that this parliament does not have a precedent of establishing laws to give legitimacy to something which was illegitimate in the past?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Before the Chief Minister answers, the number for the tabling is 1644.
Mr Kiely: He throws these nonsensical statements into the air.
Mr Baldwin: You want to contribute? Get on your feet.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Come on, member for Daly, order! Come on, we have had enough trouble today. Order!
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the point of having the 2 February date here is that that is when we achieved compliance; the day after Keep River was removed from the bill. If we did not have a compliance date, we would not be in here having this debate.
Mr DUNHAM: For the date on which compliance was achieved, did the Chief Minister have a legal framework on which to ensure that that compliance on 2 February was, in fact, legal and legitimate?
Ms MARTIN: All the documents have been reviewed by the Department of Justice, and we have been acting appropriately, legally.
Mr DUNHAM: Let us get this straight. You had an act that lapsed on 31 December last year. Tomorrow, we will pass an act that gives you legitimacy for something that happened on 2 February. On 2 February, can you explain which act gave you the authorisation to take the steps that you took on 2 February?
Ms MARTIN: I have not taken any action. We achieved compliance, but we had not taken any action. We had achieved compliance in relation to the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Bill for those conditions set out. The bill is then revived.
Mr DUNHAM: So, if that compliance was legal and legitimate, why is it necessary to put it in an act of parliament? If you had a legitimacy about achieving compliance on 2 February, why are we giving you that authority now? If it was legal on 2 February, we certainly do not have to be standing here on 17 February giving you the authority to do something you have already done.
Ms MARTIN: My advice is the act had expired. We achieved compliance with the terms of that expired act, and then we revived the act, having achieved that compliance.
Mr Dunham: Now we are reviving it?
Ms MARTIN: Yes. It is an unusual circumstance, but the whole purpose is that we have an act – we could have done this without an act. However, I have said many time in this parliament that, to absolutely assure - particularly a suspicious opposition – that we were not doing secret deals behind closed doors - which I have heard come out of opposition mouths again and again – we put it down in an act. We put the principles, what we were setting out to achieve and put some dates against it. As I said, when we reached 31 December and we had not achieved it, I made the decision that it was worthwhile moving forward. However, the act had expired. We put a notice in the Gazette, extended the date to achieve compliance by so that we could bring the act back, achieved compliance except for Keep River, brought the act back and are reviving it. It is an unusual circumstance, but it is very transparent and it …
Mr Dunham: A giant muck-up.
Ms MARTIN: No, it is not a giant muck-up at all. I could have walked away on 31 December. As I said in the debate here, I decided not to walk away. We have achieved 27 parks in this package. That is pretty significant – 27 parks. We will not have to litigate for those 27 parks or compulsorily acquire native title and pay squillions of dollars, or go through courts for years and years. Just cope with the fact that this is a little unusual, but I am guided by our best legal experts, and this will work. This has a logic and a legal integrity to it.
Mr DUNHAM: You have an amendment schedule for the bill which is coming up after this that changes the definition of ‘traditional Aboriginal owners’. Can you tell us if the documents that we have before us require amendment prior to going to that bill, or will we be making this amendment subsequent to this, and then coming back and revisiting these documents?
Ms MARTIN: No, we will not.
Mr DUNHAM: We will not?
Ms MARTIN: No, we will not.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, the Chief Minister would have us believe that someone sat down and worked out a hypothetical legal cost if she pursued another course of action for some of these parks. We know that six of them have fallen out, including Keep River. Can she tell us the cost of those six parks now that they are not in this framework of 27? Can she give us a dollar figure for her to litigate for those six parks?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, this is not relevant to this clause of this bill, and I insist we speak to each clause of the bill.
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, sorry. It has Keep River there. Sorry! I have mucked up again. What we had is the Chief Minister saying: ‘This bill is necessary because in the absence of this bill, there will be a certain amount of dollars on the public purse’. That is what she told us. Now, what we know is that some of those negotiated settlements will not come to pass and they will go to option 2 of litigation.
Chief Minister, you have told us time and time again in the Assembly – you have put numbers on the court costs of litigation as opposed to your negotiation model. On at least one park, Keep River, which is at clause 8, so there is relevance, I would like you to tell me, now that it has dropped out, what your actuarial costs for litigation are. You have worked it out for the rest. Surely, one of these smart people has told you what it will now cost for Keep River, now that they do not want to negotiate.
Ms MARTIN: I point out, specific to Keep River, that they have had their native title status established. That has been established. There is no litigation. They are native title holders, determined and recognised, and good luck to them.
Mr DUNHAM: So if the other 27 decide to take the lead of Keep River, it will cost us nothing. Is that what you are telling us?
Ms MARTIN: I am not quite sure what you are trying to achieve here.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, there are no costs associated with Keep River, is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: But there was to achieve the native title. I mean, there were considerable legal hearings to establish those native title rights. I cannot tell you exactly how long it took, but I think it was years - quite a complex process. So just for Keep River, which has been established, I cannot put a dollar figure on it, but there would have been a lot of lawyers involved.
Mr DUNHAM: You can put a dollar figure on it because you have done it in this parliament. What I am asking is: in your Framework for the Future, you listed a number of parks, and you had in there Keep River. You told this parliament that in the absence of this Framework for the Future bill we are debating tonight, you would be up for a substantial amount of money, and you gave us a figure. So someone sat down and wrote it out for you.
In that, Keep River has moved and you are telling us there will be no costs, no litigation costs associated with Keep River falling out. I am asking if several others fall out, will they also have no legal costs? If so, is your litigation argument specious?
Ms MARTIN: Most of the parks we are talking about have not gone through the native title process. Keep River was pretty much an exception. Therefore, we are looking at all those parks that would have to have their native title determined if the potential native title holders so chose.
We are looking at 11 parks that were open to claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and we are looking at considerable other parks up to those other 49 where there could be native title claims. What this agreement has is that we will not move with those claims any more. That is an achievement.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, I will not pursue it further other than to say that your maths and your allegations about legal process obviously appear to be written by political advisors rather than people associated with either the law or this matter, and the figures you have been throwing around of $100m to settle these through other routes – obviously, you do not know because they appear to be made up.
You have on your desk, Chief Minister, a media release in which there is a call that some of the things arising from this very bill could be actionable. You are going to find out real quick what it costs you, and we will know pretty quickly whether this government’s bona fides about being big-time negotiators because litigation costs too much – we will know exactly what the story is.
That is one of the figures you did not give us when you talked about open, transparent and honest, and obviously you cannot answer it, but I would have hoped that you could have told us what it would cost to settle Keep River.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Mr DUNHAM: Can you confirm that, given the Administrator will bring this act into being, and a day later it dies, that this is a one day wonder?
Ms MARTIN: This particular act refers to the main act. We have, through this act, revived the main act, the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act. This act becomes unnecessary, so this particular revival act will last for one day, but the other act will continue.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported; report adopted.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, before we go on with the next item of business, I need to speak to you about the incident that occurred earlier in the House. My checking of the Hansard record shows there is no visual recording of the altercation that occurred between the member for Macdonnell and the member for Johnston. There is also no clear audio of all the comments made, however, with the background being explained, the member for Johnston has apologised and admitted his part in this whole unsavoury incident.
Madam SPEAKER: I direct the member for Johnston withdraw the Chamber for one hour in accordance with Standing Order 240A.
Madam SPEAKER: I have sought an apology from the member for Macdonnell, who has been reluctant to come and speak to me. Unfortunately, under those circumstances and because of the nature of his actions, which are highly unparliamentary, and certainly not Australian in my opinion, I name the member for Macdonnell.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the member for Macdonnell be suspended from the service of the Assembly.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: We do not have debate on procedural motions. The member for Macdonnell is directed to stay out of the House for 24 hours.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Can we just ensure that is being conveyed to him so he does not unintentionally enter the parliament?
Madam SPEAKER: Well, it is 10 to seven now, and that is when I have named him, so it is for ten to seven in the evening of the next day.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, you have made your decision, that is a matter for the record. I was concerned that you said that the member for Macdonnell had chosen not to come and apologise to you. That obviously weighed on your decision-making process, that is unfortunate …
Madam SPEAKER: No, that is not true.
Mr BURKE: … because, given the opportunity, I would have informed you he was indisposed and unable to come and speak.
Madam SPEAKER: The Clerk did, in fact, approach him …
Ms Carney: Madam Speaker, I do have something constructive …
Madam SPEAKER: Just hold on, I am speaking, do you mind. I believe I indicated in my summary why I decided to name the member for Macdonnell. I do not think anyone in this House should physically threaten any member. If it happened to, say, the member for Katherine, by a male from the government side, you would be more than disturbed. Physical threats and standover tactics are something we can do without. That is why I have already decided. I am afraid that is it; that is my decision. We will get on with government business.
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, this is just another part of the giant mess the Chief Minister has foisted on us, in that she has a number of bills that are all aimed in the same direction. They are not cognate; they link. Their links are to do, generally, with the inability to meet statutory imposed deadlines. The Chief Minister has used this amendment in a way that gives her the power to do a certain action, the Friday before these sittings. I am not sure what that action was, but it goes again to the opposition’s disquiet about debating a bill that bestows validity on something that has already happened. That is one of the issues of concern.
The business of parks, plans, win/win solutions, everybody being happy, a contribution to tourism, and all of those platitudes, are issues that we could debate. However, it is much more important to talk about the specifics of our park estate and the government’s bona fides in this area. They have certainly run down our park estate. There is certainly a great want of repairs and maintenance in many of our icon parks. I can vouch, for instance, first-hand about the Territory Wildlife Park, which is a great icon for us here in the Northern Territory. It is quite tragic to see the state of the park.
It is all very well for the minister to come in here and talk about the various things that flow from our park estate and its value to the community. We understand that and know it and, in pretty much 100% of the cases, we created the parks. We were quite happy to come to this place and parade the bona fides of why those parks should be included in our estate.
The issues, then, relate pretty much to how these parks will be managed and how the new arrangements will have an impact on them. For instance, I know the Chief Minister has said that current mining provisions will continue in parks. These are enormous tracts of land and I do not think that we should be dismissive about the notion that parks, mining, visitation and tourism can all coexist in one parcel. That sort of bewildered green thinking had left the ALP some time ago, I thought. I ask that the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act and its connection to this act be well and truly put on the table by the contributors to this debate.
I hope that, as in the last debate, some of those people with a vested interest in this - and I do not say vested interest in a negative way – such as some of the members of this parliament who are of Aboriginal descent who have worked in this area - and there are a couple of them with proudly professed qualifications in this area – will contribute. I would like to hear their contribution. I would like to hear their contribution in the way that talks about what the Chief Minister is doing is going to benefit Territorians, and particularly focus on her claim of the win/win solution for Territorians, and describe that win/win, because I can see a lot of people lining up to come to me who would describe it as a win/loss.
The loss really is the loss of title to the estate that we have just allowed with the passage of the last bill. We need to know what is going to happen over 99 years, even though that might seem a long time frame. People who visit the beautiful Botanic Gardens of Darwin will know that Holtze set that garden out well over a century ago. In this parliament, it is beholden on us to have a vision that goes a century. It is beholden on us to acknowledge those people who created those parks as something that could be there for many generations to come. I look forward to hearing the contributions from those opposite, particularly when they describe how Territorians are going to be so much bettered by this legislation.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, this bill simply puts into the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act principles that the Chief Minister has bludgeoned through this Assembly in the previous legislation. It is a fact of life that this bill now records those issues in broad detail that the Chief Minister is seeking to achieve with Aboriginal people.
It goes no further in explaining to this Assembly what the actual conditions were regarding the indigenous land use agreements that should have been provided to this Chamber when we debated the previous bill. It provides this government with no more information than we had in discussing the previous bill, and gives us no more ability than to raise the same issues again, if we work through this bill point by point. I do not intend to do that; it is a waste of time. The Chief Minister has the numbers and will clearly achieve her objective, notwithstanding the fact that anyone listening to her handling of the committee stage of debates for the previous bill will quickly realise either statute or legal complications apart from negotiations have totally overtaken the objectives she set herself.
We oppose these amendments because we oppose the framework for the future direction and decision. We will continue to oppose it - notwithstanding that it passes this House today - at every opportunity and at every venue. I will be ensuring that Territorians have this at the foremost of their mind come the next election. I am sure the Chief Minister would be pleased with that because she appears to be so confident that she will have broad support for the legislation. I look forward to the debate.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): I will be quick, Madam Speaker, because I have said most of what I needed to say in the debate last night on the motion about putting this issue before a select committee so that we can go forward as one.
At the outset, regardless of that opinion, I do believe there are some benefits from what the government is doing. I would like to put that on record. I have said before that the expansion of the two parks like Gregory National Park and Davenport National Park will be a good thing.
Mr Burke: At what cost?
Mr WOOD: That is right, but …
Mr Burke: What about the cost? Have you done a cost benefit analysis?
Mr WOOD: No, I am talking from just a park point of view, Opposition Leader, because I have said before I believe that would make the Gregory National Park, for instance, an excellent park.
However, the point is that all these issues – the costs, the type of land tenure and all those issues about agreements - could have been discussed through a select committee. Much of this debate we are having today could have been debated in a select committee, and we could have come up with a good result for all. It would have taken longer. I do not believe the bill needed to be rushed through. This is such an important issue it would make no difference even if we took another year or so to look at these issues. It still could have been done better through a select committee process. As I said, I believe that is the way it should go. I will leave it at that.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Madam Speaker, tonight I support the Chief Minister and the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Amendment Bill.
These are consequential amendments to the bill that just saw passage. Again, I suppose, we have had a line drawn in the sand today by the Leader of the Opposition who has said he will make this an election issue. It is interesting because, at the end of the day, given the opposition’s new-found position on the whole concept of how we manage our parks estate, and that the Opposition Leader has committed to joint management for all parks in the Northern Territory, in terms of outcomes, we are not too far apart. The outcomes that we as a government have sought to achieve through the new framework for managing parks in the Northern Territory is an inclusive framework recognising indigenous rights to land across the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people’s strong cultural links to land, and the value and the strength of that culture, and working with Aboriginal people in a joint management arrangement to manage that park estate to the benefit of all Territorians and certainly to the benefit of Aboriginal people to give them not only a management stake in the running of that park estate and the decision-making roles in the management of the park estate, but more importantly, for me as a member of this House, an economic opportunity.
There is an economic opportunity for enterprise, development and jobs for Aboriginal people on country. Where we are at as an Assembly, despite very heated debate this week, but with the Leader of the Opposition’s announcement of opposition policy today of a joint management framework across all of our parks, from an outcomes point of view, we are pretty close.
It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition is saying that he wants to make this a significant election issue because, win or lose at the next election, Aboriginal people, regardless of who is in government, are going to be right at the table in terms of management of park estates. That is a good outcome for the Northern Territory.
I commend the Opposition Leader on the change of policy, which was previous CLP government policy, with the exception of Nitmiluk and Cobourg, where Aboriginal people were locked out of a decision-making and management role in our park estate. We have moved a long way, and I commend the Opposition Leader for that. Aboriginal people, ultimately, are the winners.
The Territory has moved a long way with the legislation and, even though the opposition opposes the land tenure aspects of the government’s legislation in terms of Territory title, the outcome for Aboriginal people is essentially going to be much the same. This new tenure system and the changes to our park estate were brought about because of the Ward High Court decision. The government, and certainly I pay credit to the Chief Minister, saw this as a unique opportunity, this decision, not just to deal with ALRA claims, but the entire park estate in the Northern Territory, in providing certainty that people will be able to access our park estate across the Northern Territory and certainty for all Territorians that the access will be free of charge, and certainty for Aboriginal people in terms of tenure and the rights to be involved in managing that park estate.
As business minister, and previously as tourism minister in this government, I am very keen to see progress. Given that the new framework for managing our parks is to see private sector investment in that park estate building tourism products it is very exciting that certainty is there. There is capacity for joint ventures. The capacity for indigenous enterprise development based around culture and land is very exciting. I know that it has been warmly embraced by the tourism industry.
This really is a golden opportunity to build our park estate in terms of world-class-attractions and building on what we already have with Uluru, Kakadu and Litchfield. It is aspirational because in the Northern Territory we have an indigenous people and their cultural attachment to land as virtually unique in the world: it is not a product that we have to manufacture; it is a culture and attachment to land.
The Chief Minister can advise me if I am wrong, but the last figures I saw when I was Tourism minister was that of all tourists who come to the Northern Territory when asked why they come to the Territory for a holiday, 36% nominated that they wanted to experience indigenous culture and indigenous art, the major indigenous icons being Uluru and Kakadu, and get close to that culture, and that was really without even trying.
What this gives us is golden opportunities to create some real economic value to Aboriginal people out in the remote parts of the Northern Territory, to build this park estate, to give investors certainty in investment, and the last thing we needed to do was to tie up all of our parks estate in costly and complex litigation, which would absolutely have guaranteed zero private sector investment in that parks estate and the investment in tourism products would purely have come from the taxpayers’ purse, given the uncertainty over land titles.
I commend the Chief Minister and her vision in seizing this opportunity to build a new era for our parks estate across the Northern Territory after quite a difficult day in parliament today. I would also congratulate the Leader of the Opposition for moving the CLP into a new era of at least acknowledging and accepting that Aboriginal people do have a right and a role to play in managing our parks. I believe that has been a big move forward, and as I say, regardless of the politics of whose land is it, and are you giving it away or not giving it away, okay, we will have the politics of that in the election campaign. Certainly the government will defend its position inasmuch as we have not given anything away. There has been a big change in the opposition in terms of acknowledging Aboriginal people’s right to be at the table making decisions about the parks estate. I commend the Opposition Leader for that move today. Madam Speaker, I support bill.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I thank everyone for their contribution. As we realise, the amendments we have before us to the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill are ones that we need to complement the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) legislation. Certainly, it is around those joint managements, and just to echo what the member for Wanguri said, it was 20 years ago that the first joint management agreement was put in place in an Australian park, and that was in Cobourg. I add my congratulations to the previous CLP government, that they led Australia in having that Cobourg agreement. These amendments work to that Cobourg agreement in getting those joint managements and getting them working in our parks.
It is going to take a fair while. We have 27 parks to achieve with joint management, and we will have to do some prioritising there. My advice is that, even though we have the general principles agreed now, and I have tabled those, that to do those individual plans of management for that joint management is going to take considerable time, and the best guess, really, is years. When we start in a few months time on the details of those plans of management, these amendments we have put forward to the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill will assist in achieving that.
A big feature of what we have achieved over the last 18 months is a new parks master planning exercise. This is now, since that last bill passed, an enhanced parks estate, and I cannot wait to see what Gregory National Park is going to look like in the future with that Aboriginal Land Trust land being added to the estate. I have not been there, but am informed that it is a spectacular part of Gregory, and it really will add to the tourist enjoyment of that park. Hopefully we will be able to build those numbers - I think the last figure was about 20 000 visitors. With our commitment to infrastructure, looking at how we can get those living locally, indigenous Territorians, working in the park, using our Jobs Plan, apprentices, trainees, we can start seeing some further activities in those parks.
In a park like Gregory, there is very little established infrastructure. Just to take a look at what we have in Gregory: we have guided boat tours and guided bushwalking tours, but very little established infrastructure. Now that we have certainty in title and we have that leased back for 99 years, we should be able to really start seeing some of that infrastructure develop in Gregory National Park.
I thank everyone for their support of these amendments and we will be taking them through the committee stage.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 3, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 4:
Ms MARTIN: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment schedule 98.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of the bill taken as whole and agreed to.
Bill reported; report adopted.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I table the Standing Orders Committee Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly.
MOTION
Print Paper - Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be adopted and I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I table the report by the Department of the Legislative Assembly pursuant to paragraphs 5.19 and 8.8 of the Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004, which contains the annual schedule of members’ travel at government expense for 2004, and annual schedule of respective totals of government payments on behalf of each member for satellite telephones and mobile telephones for 2004.
I advise honourable members that, on advice of the tribunal, information on travel by ministers on portfolio business is not contained in the department’s report.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I present the Report of the Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development into the Efficacy of Establishing an Environmental Protection Agency in the Northern Territory, Volume I; written submissions, Volume II; and the Hansard transcripts of public meetings, Volume III.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report.
As the Chair of the Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, I table the committee’s report into its inquiry into the efficacy of establishing an environmental protection agency in the Northern Territory. The terms of the reference for the inquiry into the efficacy of establishing an EPA for the NT were inclusive of, but not restricted to:
Environmental protection is a high priority for all communities. The responsibility for protecting the environment lies with all members of the community, be they government, business and industry, or the community itself. The community expects government, industry and itself to manage activities in a responsible way that prevents and avoids negative health, safety and environmental impacts, and includes the physical, social and economic environment. The community demands that the NT has an environmental management and protection system that focusses on long-term sustainability alongside measures to prevent and avoid any harmful long-term damage to our precious and finite natural resources.
The need for this inquiry was identified by this session of parliament in 2002 in response to community concerns about the adequacy of the existing environmental protection arrangements, and also to examine whether an EPA would, in fact, improve upon the existing environmental protection arrangements.
It is interesting to note that, coinciding with the tabling of the inquiry’s report has been a lot of community debate about the rehabilitation and environmental issues concerning Mt Todd. It is certainly a timely report that the Environment and Sustainable Development committee has tabled in parliament this evening.
At the outset, I would like to thank all members of the committee. As Chair, I rely on the goodwill of the committee, and I have very great pleasure in reporting to parliament this evening that the committee has worked in a proactive, bipartisan manner throughout the entire inquiry. I thank the members of government - the members for Millner and Barkly, my colleagues - in assisting me throughout the inquiry. I also thank the members of the opposition - the members for Daly and Drysdale – who, in their capacities as members and former ministers in this parliament, had a great deal of input and assistance that they provided throughout the inquiry. I also thank to the member for Nelson who is very passionate, as we all know, about the environment. Whilst we may have come up with a variety of models in the final report, I can say with pleasure that there are 21 recommendations and eight findings in the report that all members of the committee agreed to in a bipartisan fashion.
I want to extend my thanks to the committee secretariat. It is their hard work and dedication that has seen us able to execute our inquiry in a very timely and highly professional fashion. I put on the record my sincere and deepest thanks to Graham Gadd, Secretary of the committee, and Maria Viegas, assistant to the Secretary of the committee. Both are highly professional members of the Legislative Assembly, and they have ably supported the committee in all its endeavours.
The committee’s considerations into the possibility of establishing another body, small or large, within the exiting arrangements for environmental protection raised many questions: are the current arrangements flawed or inadequate? If so, can the creation of an EPA improve the situation? And where would an EPA sit in regards to existing arrangements?
I believe our report very thoroughly address all of these issues in terms of evidence taken by written and public submission. The committee travelled interstate to the jurisdictions of Western Australian and South Australia to study the EPAs there. We also had public hearings in Darwin, Palmerston, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs. The trip to Tennant Creek was very interesting. We had the opportunity to visit mine sites and I acknowledge that there was a great deal of assistance received in direct advice and discussions about an EPA.
I acknowledge the briefings we received from the Western Australia EPA Chair, Dr Wally Cox, who is an absolute gold mine of information and was of enormous assistance to our committee members; and the South Australian EPA Chair, Dr Paul Vogel. Both these gentlemen have enormous experience in EPAs in other jurisdictions and they gave of themselves very willingly, in terms of advice, and they gave us access to significant policy officers within the EPAs and the departments in those jurisdictions. We had intensive and wide-ranging discussions in both Western Australia and South Australia.
I also acknowledge the fantastic session we had in Western Australia with Professor John Bailey, the Associate Professor in Environmental Assessment with Murdoch University and a former member of Western Australia’s EPA Board.
Early on in the inquiry we met with Mr Ian Prince, Director of Policy Development, Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development and he was able to give us a few items of spot-on advice as to how we could proceed as an EPA inquiry. I thank him for that advice.
Mr Jack Savage, Managing Director, and key staff from Peko Rehabilitation Proprietary Limited in Tennant Creek provided a great deal of time to us in our visit to Tennant Creek, explaining the mining aspects of environmental protection and how the mining industry would be affected if an EPA were to established in the Territory, and where they saw the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system. I thank Mr Savage and his son and the staff there for the fantastic hospitality they provided to us. I also thank Mr Joe Ariti, Chief Executive and his staff from Giants Reef Mining who took us on-site visits and explained just how they thought the EPA would impact upon them as an operation.
The committee received 33 submissions in response to its call for public comments. These were from individuals, business and industry representatives, community and environmental groups, Charles Darwin University and NT government agencies. Fifty-five people in total attended the public hearings held in Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Darwin and Palmerston. The enthusiastic response from the Territory community to this inquiry indicates without a doubt that the Northern Territory community want the best for their Territory, the best possible protection for our beautiful and unique natural environment, whether that is with or without an EPA.
The committee has attempted to incorporate as much of the evidence collected as possible into the text of Volume I of this report. Volume II of the report contains reproductions of all the written submissions, and I urge members of this Chamber to take the time to look at those submissions. Volume III contains the committee-released Hansard transcripts of recorded briefings and hearings held by the committee during the inquiry. The large number of contributors and participants to this inquiry are all thanked for their interest, attention and generous contribution of information and opinion for the consideration of the sessional committee.
I turn to the terms of reference of the inquiry as they are addressed in the final report. Arguments in favour of EPA in the NT included:
Arguments the committee received against establishing an EPA in the Territory included:
In general, community groups, and particularly environmental groups, supported the creation of an EPA in the Territory. Largely, industry and business did not support the creation of an EPA in the Territory. The Territory committee largely recognised the need to reform the Territory’s environmental protection arrangements. The current arrangements for environmental protection in the Territory would greatly benefit from an extensive audit of environmental protection legislation and practice. Several submissions called for an examination of the Territory’s process and system of environmental impact assessment. An EPA could enhance and strengthen the current status and level of environmental protection in the Territory. It could improve the Territory’s level of adoption of national and international environmental protection measures and standards. We found, as a committee, that not one current operating model examined was applicable in its entirety to the Territory.
The submissions calling for the creation of an EPA or similar commonly listed the following features as pertinent for an EPA or similar structure in the Territory: independent in its operation; transparency of process and decision-making; a small structure, not too bureaucratic, with regional representation; public reporting mechanisms; third party appeals processes; improved system of environmental impact assessment; stronger regulatory powers; involvement with policy creation and policy reviews; and a coordinated approach to environmental protection.
Several submissions offered various structured options for the committee to consider. These options, along with other evidence collected by the committee, were used to draft the recommended options proposed in this report.
The committee examined a number of models. We looked at comparative tables of all EPAs throughout Australia and New Zealand. I will speak briefly about some of these models.
Western Australia’s EPA is an independent statutory authority and it is an advisory model. It has a five member board, consisting of one full-time chairperson and four part-time members. The chairperson is ministerially appointed, and the term of office is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of seven years. The Western Australian Environment Protection Act gives the EPA three very important features: independence; the right to publish; and primacy of legislation over all other Western Australian environmental protection legislation. The key features of its accountabilities are: it has an advisory role; it does not make decisions; it provides independent advice. There is provision for public appeal rights, and there are open and transparent decision-making processes. It performs a number of functions including environmental impact assessments; formulating environmental policies; coordinating activities necessary to protect, restore and improve the environment; and seeking information and providing advice, and carrying out studies, investigations, and research into problems of environmental protection.
South Australia’s EPA is also an independent statutory authority, but, importantly, in contrast with Western Australia, South Australia’s EPA is an independent regulatory model. It is a statutory authority and the principal environment regulator in South Australia. Another major difference between Western Australia and South Australia is that, in South Australia, the chairperson of the board of the EPA is also the chief executive officer of the EPA.
On the question of the workability of the chief executive officer’s position being ex officio Chairperson of the South Australian EPA Board, the chair – that is, the chief executive - Dr Vogel, explains the committee:
In support of this statement I will read the comments the committee heard from the chair of the Western Australian EPA, Dr Wally Cox, who said:
I make this point because the EPA report has four models attached to it. The first model proposed is that the status quo could continue – model A. Model B is a model identified by the member for Nelson as being his recommended model which calls for an EPA and he has some significant structural differences to the government members’ proposed model. Model C is a model recommended by members of the opposition, the members for Daly and Drysdale. Model D, the government members’ recommended model, recommended by me and the members for Millner and Barkly, proposes the introduction of an EPA. It proposes that we follow the structure of a model similar to South Australia; that is, yes, whilst you have an independent board with a full-time chair and part-time board members similar to Western Australia, you provide that South Australian linkage whereby the chair of the board is the chief executive officer of the department. We are proposing the establishment of a Department of Environment and Sustainability.
Therefore, whilst members of the public have been speculating about what the government members might have been proposing, I can confirm in my speech here tonight that no, I will not be proposing the Western Australian model. In fact, we are proposing a hybrid of the two models, picking out what members of government believe were the better aspects of the Western Australian model and the South Australian model, based on the advice of the chairs of both the Western Australian and South Australian EPAs - men who have worked in the EPA scene for many years and are well placed to judge the strengths and weaknesses.
I will not speak on the Tasmanian model, because I am sure the member for Daly will, because he took the opportunity to use his RTD entitlements to travel to Tasmania to assess the Tasmanian model based on some advice that he had privately received during his travels, along with the member for Nelson. Therefore, I will not go into the differences there.
I do want to talk, though, on the government’s proposed model D. Option D appears on page 117 of the report and is the option recommended by the government members of the committee. We are recommending an EPA is established in the Territory. On the threshold question of whether to establish an EPA we recommend that definitely, yes, the Territory is ready; it is mature enough for an EPA to be established. However, we recognise that there is a great body of work to be done to establish an EPA. Therefore, we are recommending that it is established in two phases. Phase one would aim to centralise current government environmental awareness programs and protection and grant programs into an identifiable EPA program. It would create a one-stop environmental front-end shop. We recommend the pulling together, and the appointment of a significantly senior officer to undertake the legislative audits and the departmental structural assessments that would need to occur to establish the Department of Environment and Sustainability.
Phase two would involve giving the EPA its regulatory powers, its departmental organisation and, inevitably, the legislative change that would have to come before the parliament.
The key focus would be to protect environmental quality and to maintain the Territory lifestyle. An environmental protection authority or agency – we believe it could be either, but it could be an agency –would be within a new Department of Environment and Sustainability. This new department would be the umbrella government department for all NT environmental matters. This includes the existing environment divisions currently within the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment: the Office of Environment and Heritage, Conservation, Natural Resources Group, and Parks and Wildlife.
The EPA and EPA board would be established by statute. It would have four pillars of independence: an independent board that the minister cannot direct; it would report to the minister for environment and sustainability with recommendations made public; prosecutions would be decided by the EPA, and it would have third party and self-referencing powers. These powers exist in other jurisdictions. The EPA, through its department, would become the body for setting environmental standards through a new environment protection act, which would establish the broad heads of power for the EPA to operate and set standards: (a) for all industry type; and (b) to audit regulatory performance of other departments which retain environmental responsibility, such as DBIRD.
Importantly in this, government committee members are recommending that, for example, the Department of Business and Industry resources keep environmental officers responsible for managing the Mining Act within Mines and Energy. We have picked up the advice of the Western Australian EPA, which was: ‘Keep your environmental officers who are the regulatory officers within Mines and Energy within the mining sector; that is useful’. I note the Territory Minister for Mines and Energy has recently restructured this division to ensure that there is a split between various aspects of the auditing mines officers and other mines officers. That is a very progressive step. With that step, our recommendation is made all the stronger. We note that memorandums of understanding are very effective tools that could operate between the EPA and the environmental officers in the Department of Mines and Energy.
I want to make it very clear to significant stakeholders, including the NT Minerals Council, that government committee members are recommending that the regulatory aspects of mining stay in Mines and Energy; that those environmental officers they work with now stay in Mines and Energy. However, the heads of powers is with the EPA. Naturally, the EPA would have to tick off on the environmental management aspects of any new mines. Obviously, if there was an audit situation, a flag would go up within the MOU, and there would be discussions between the EPA and the environmental officers within Mines about any issues; whether it is mine rehabilitation, leakage, spillage, etcetera. There is a nexus between the two. It would not be operating without a close working relationship with the EPA.
We think that there should be the establishment within the EPA of an environment inspectorate to professionally deal with prosecution and enforcement action across the spectrum. We would require any outcomes of any environmental impact assessments to be directive, rather than advisory. I reiterate that mining management plans, level of rehabilitation bonds, aquaculture licences, etcetera, would be jointly approved by DBIRD and the EPA, as happens currently in Western Australia, where there is a successful process.
The scope would include pollution control and waste, and that would be included in the new Department of Parks and Wildlife, Conservation and Natural Resource Management, across that environment portfolio. It would have regulatory advice, quality advice and review, education and public awareness, and an ability to undertake inquiries to set best practice guidelines. The inquiries to set best practice guidelines come from the Western Australian model. They said it is a very useful tool to set the benchmark for environmental protection in that jurisdiction. They are guidelines; they are not enforceable. For example, if there was a development proposed for a particular area, an inquiry could be held in that area. We heard from Professor John Bailey that inquires of this nature in Canada are very useful tools for including indigenous people in the decision-making process. I really do urge the government, in its considerations, to pay due attention to the ability of an EPA to undertake an inquiry, and I will point the government to the Hansard transcript that we have of Professor John Bailey who talked significantly about a very positive model in Canada in terms of inquiries and the way that oral evidence could be taken, which was very inclusive of the indigenous peoples in Canada, for those environmental inquiries.
The functions would include an environmental impact assessment; approvals, compliance and monitoring; an environmental inspectorate; policy advice, education; and could include, obviously, heritage protection. We believe that advisory bodies could be convened as necessary and required, drawing on expertise that may be sitting in industry or the university, for example.
Importantly, we believe there needs to be an appeal process. We are recommending looking at the Western Australian model of appeals, which is the provision for appeals from proponents and third parties and public recording of decisions.
We believe in structure, the department should stand alone. The Department of Environment and Sustainability should be a stand-alone department with an EPA board that is statutory and independent. We are recommending an EPA board be a maximum of five members consisting, as I said, of a full-time chair who is also the full-time director of the department and up to three part-time members. We recommend, as I said before, looking at the South Australian model of the chief executive of the department being the EPA board chair.
We recommend that the EPA board members be community representatives rather than stakeholder representatives. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. We received significant advice throughout our inquiry from experts and practitioners in the field to the effect of: do not put your stakeholders on to the EPA board as representatives. That will not work. Put community representatives on to your EPA board. The stakeholders will feed into the process. The stakeholders can be co-opted on to inquiries, for example, to set guidelines, to set best practice. Keep your stakeholders out of the EPA board, and instead make it a community representative board.
Access to technical administrative support for the EPA board should obviously come from the Department of Environment and Sustainability and we provide the figure 6.3 which shows the organisational chart.
In the little time remaining, I want to touch on some significant stakeholders and their responses in the report. Darwin City Council informed the committee that the council supports in-principle the establishment of a single environment protection agency or similar for the Northern Territory.
We received a very interesting comment from Charles Darwin University:
Advice we received from Professor Bailey was that if an EPA is concerned primarily with environmental governance then it is easier for it to cross departmental silos. Anyone who has worked in government understands the importance of an authority or an agency at that peak level able to cross the departmental silos. I believe this ability would provide the underpinning strength for our economic prosperity.
Six environmental groups were represented and their submissions are in the documents tabled. They all called for an EPA and I quote:
We recognise what the environment groups were saying. The government committee members differed only in the sense that we are saying a board should follow a thorough audit and identification of any possible restructuring.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the member be granted an extension of time to allow her to finish her speech.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE: I would like to quote again from the Charles Darwin University submission. The environmental protection goal for the Territory should be:
I will also note that Litchfield Shire Council said:
I believe that the government committee members’ model proposed, which I have spoken about in the Chamber this evening, meets many of the calls that our committee heard. What we are proposing to do is, rather than create layers upon layers of additional bureaucracy, that we use existing resources that are there currently spread across government departments, pull them together, to create the resource to protect our environment and to ensure sustainable development to enhance the Territory’s economic prosperity into the future.
We are not saying, let us create an unwieldy new bureaucracy. We are clearly saying, let us restructure the existing bureaucracy into a single department, give it the heads of powers it requires, with an EPA board as an independent facet of that, and, after an extensive legislation audit, and an extensive assessment of operational structure by a suitably experienced professional, introduce in phase 2, the departmental structure.
Members of the Assembly, I conclude by again thanking the members of the committee, my colleagues, the members for Barkly and Millner, the member for Daly, the member for Drysdale and the member for Nelson. We had fun, as we met as a committee, and that is a rare thing for parliamentarians of opposite sides of the Chamber. We do have fun in our committee. We work in a bipartisan manner. We do not always agree, but we find the capacity to agree to disagree and encompass all of our varying views, which I believe we have done in this report with the various models recommended in chapter 6.
I wholeheartedly acknowledge the dedicated professional and fantastic work of Graham Gadd and Maria Vegas from the Committee Secretariat in the Department of Legislative Assembly. They are an absolute gem to work with.
I feel as though this is a very special moment in my personal life and my life as a parliamentarian in the Territory. I was born here, I hope I die here. I am raising my children here and this, to me, is something I dearly held right through my life. If I have been a part of introducing an EPA into the Territory, with what I believe are the laws that will enshrine environmental protection while providing sustainable economic development then everything that my family and I go through to enable me to do this job is worth it. Thank you for the opportunity.
Members: Hear, hear!
Debate adjourned.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I am delighted with the news that the first round of the joint Northern Territory/federal government’s sponsored Pool in Remote Areas, or PIRA, program, has resulted in Maningrida being selected to build a swimming pool in their community this year. Maningrida, which is contributing one-third of the total cost of the project, submitted a detailed business plan that clearly outlined the direct benefits in health, education, employment and economic enterprise that will flow to their community as a result of this worthy program. The strong local support apparent for the construction of the pool is clearly demonstrated by the fact that it is backed by the Maningrida Council, the Progress Association, Bawinanga, the police and the Night Patrol, particularly the Community Education Centre, the school council, as well as the Maningrida Health Board.
I am informed that the community is likely to incorporate the ‘no school no pool’ regime similar to other communities in the Territory such as Wadeye, Ngukurr and Areyonga, amongst others. This strategy has had a significant impact on school attendance in these places, and I am sure similar promising results will occur. The health results from community pools is well documented, particularly in the reduction of skin, eye and ear infections which all have devastating effects on the health of the children in those communities.
Recently, I enjoyed accompanying members of the visiting Perth Wildcats National Basketball team to Maningrida. This visit was very well received, and gave local youth an opportunity to show their considerable basketball skills, and the visitors an inkling of the talent available in remote communities like Maningrida. The Perth Wildcats, under the inspirational leadership of former Olympian, Andrew Vlahov, are hell-bent on developing their growing Territory connection with their annual pilgrimage to the Top End and the Centre. This progressive club is actively taking the great game of basketball out of the cities on the coast and into the bush. I congratulate them and, particularly Mr Vlahov, for this initiative.
After the Perth Wildcats left the Territory, they played a game in Singapore, which is all part of the plan to grow the game in our region. His work, and the support of the Northern Territory government in growing the game in the north, means that the time is not too far away when we can look forward to Darwin being a port of call on a booming South-East Asian basketball league.
Recently, the Maningrida Women’s Centre, under the able guidance of Carol Holt and Kerrie Horgan, had a launch of their textile works at the Northern Territory Crafts Museum. Maningrida is justly famous worldwide for its fibre craft, and many artists for there have won awards, and are represented in public and private collections throughout Australia and, indeed, the world. This exhibition was a foray into the beautiful world of hand-printed textile fabrics. For this exhibition, the artists at the women’s centre produced huge printed fabric lengths as well as several hand-sewn pieces including cushion covers, garments, gorgeous handbags, and curtains. The artists handcraft lino prints which are the basis for most of the printing on the fabrics. Art critics have raved about the quality of the work produced, particularly the freshness of the images and, of course, the fabulous colours for which Maningrida artists are famous. Not only did the consignment sell out, but the Maningrida Women’s Centre sent more stock halfway through the exhibition, which is likely to sell out as well.
On Australia Day, artists from the community visited the craft museum and gave demonstrations of their work on the lawns outside. These also sold out, with art fans buying the printed materials still wet, so keen were they to have their own piece of Maningrida genius. I congratulate Kerry and Carol for organising this exhibition, but I would like to particularly congratulate the Maningrida women and put their names on the Parliamentary Record: Dora Diagum, Elizabeth Ganabuma, Melissa Djorlom, Andrea Stewart, Georgina Namarnyilk, Sonia Namarnyilk, Frances Cooper and Matilda Pascoe.
Members of the House should note that the exhibition is still on show at the craft museum, and I urge you to get in early because the jackets that these women have created are quite beautiful and stunning.
Recently, the Kakadu Youth Centre was opened. This great initiative is very much the result of hardworking committee members of the Kakadu Youth Yawkyawk Yawurrinj, and particularly their able manager, Dwane Baker. The youth centres opens from Monday to Friday from 3.15 pm till 6.15 pm, and is managed by the youth coordinator, Samantha Chalmers.
The youth centre would not have got off the ground without the support of a huge number of organisations, businesses and the general community of Jabiru and I would like to mention some of those: the Jabiru Town Council; Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation; ERA; ERISS; Kakadu Community Development; Foodland; Fresh Obsessions; the Kakadu Health Service; Jabiluka Association; Jabiru police; the NT Fire Service; the Croc, or the Gagudju Crocodile Holiday Inn; Jabiru Area School; the Jabiru Plaza Caf; Mobil Jabiru; Marrawuddi Gallery; and the Mahbilil Festival Committee. There were many individuals who also contributed and the youth of Jabiru certainly know who those people were. To those who did contribute to getting this centre available for the youth of Jabiru, their efforts will not go unrewarded and the youth centre will play a very important role in the future of Jabiru. From now on Dwane Baker and young Louise Bayne, who is the chair of the youth committee, will be working closely with the Jabiru Area School supporting school-based apprentices, career paths for young people and supporting the Crocodile Hotel’s indigenous employment program.
I wish to acknowledge also that a Tiwi Islander well known to this House has been the first Tiwi appointed to a full-time manager’s position within the newly formed Tiwi Island Local Government. I congratulate my predecessor as the member for Arafura, Mr Maurice Rioli, on his appointment as the Community Services Manager for TILG. Maurice has always been a fighter for local indigenous employment and from his position in the Pirlangimpi office of the TILG, I am sure he will do all he can to get Tiwis into real jobs.
Another Tiwi deserving special mention is Gibson Farmer of Milikapiti. Uncle Gibbo, as he is known, recently won the Territory Tidy Towns Living Treasure Award for his outstanding contributions to Territory Tidy Towns every year, and the strong representation he provides on behalf of Milikapiti to that worthy organisation. Well done, Uncle Gibbo, you truly are a living treasure.
At the same ceremony, Pirlangimpi was named runner-up in the Best Medium Community section of the awards. Well done to all the residents of Pirlangimpi community, especially to the CDEP and civil works team who made such a significant contribution.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services)(by leave): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising on Thursday, 17 February 2005, adjourn until Tuesday, 22 March 2005 at 9.30 am at the Alice Springs Convention Centre, or such other time and/or date and/or place as may be set by the Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I was going to talk tonight about the Alice Springs Hospital. However, in light of the incident that occurred some time ago, I would like to place on the record, because the member for Macdonnell cannot, some sentiment that I know my colleagues share, and certainly that I feel very strongly about the minister’s behaviour. No doubt, the member for Macdonnell will make comment, both publicly and in the parliament, at some point to come, but I am not prepared to let an opportunity go by without comment.
For the purposes of Hansard, I will use the particular word that the minister mouthed once and then I will replace it with the word homosexual. For those reading Hansard in times to come, the member for Macdonnell says that the minister whispered to him, or mouthed to, him the word ‘poofter’ on three occasions. That made the member for Macdonnell very angry and he acted, perhaps in a way that, with hindsight, he wished he had not.
However, I note that the irony and hypocrisy of this government cannot go unchallenged. This is the government that introduced gay law reform legislation. Members will recall it was a very difficult and sensitive debate. I will also come to the Community Welfare Act shortly, and the act that the Minister for Family and Community Services is widely consulting about shortly, so I am pressing the pause button for a minute to say that I am going to talk about gay law reform shortly, and then I am going to talk about what this government says it is doing and how seriously it says it feels about child abuse in the context of the minister’s conduct.
We all know how difficult the gay law reform debate was. For some of us, it was much more difficult than others on a number of fronts. This government received what could be considered a deal of positive publicity as a result of this bill based on what it said was a fundamental adherence to human rights. How ironic it is that we are here a year or so later and one of their members, in fact a minister of the Crown, has abused the human rights of another.
The member for Macdonnell, during the conduct of the gay law reform debate, talked about his own history, which was perhaps wise or unwise, but he talked about it; he laid it on the public record. All members of the Chamber, and probably everyone in the Northern Territory, is well aware the member for Macdonnell’s history, namely that as a boy he was sexually abused. The hypocrisy of the government just leaves me gob-smacked and, frankly, feeling as angry as the member for Macdonnell.
The Attorney-General, during the gay law reform debate, said on page 85 of the transcript of that debate on 25 of November:
Further on the same page, the minister said:
The minister who both publicly and, to the extent that I understand the working of Caucus on the other side of the House, privately, was, to his great credit in my view, was the man who championed this legislation, whose comments are on the Parliamentary Record for all to see. I note with interest that the member for Johnston did not contribute to the debate.
I liked every word of what the Attorney-General said on that day, and I subscribe absolutely to everything single thing that he said. I will keep this copy of the Hansard for as long as I live because it was a great day, in my view. Yet, we have a minister of the Crown who, I assume, has distressed and angered some of his colleagues, not to mention the gay community in the Northern Territory.
I do not purport to know Darwin as well as I know Alice Springs, but my hunch is that there is a significant gay community in Darwin, it seems, perhaps, more men than women. I would have thought that the slur - and ‘poofter’ is a derogatory term which I will hereafter substitute with ‘homosexual’ because I do not like the term minister used - would have appalled that constituency as much as it did me, and it would probably be as angry in some respects as the member of Macdonnell. So that is the gay law reform debate.
At the same time, or now, we have the government championing the cause of abused children, and I can say that because of the minister’s comments are on the record. We have what I regard as an overdue review of the Community Welfare Act. Members will know that I have a history in this area from a professional point of view. The Community Welfare Act and its proposed substitute, a draft bill called the Care and Protection of Children and Young People Act, seeks to make inroads into how to make the protection of young people better. It deals with young people who have been sexually abused. I thought, until this evening, that the government was serious about that, and I would be the first to applaud them in those endeavours.
The conduct of this minister cannot be excised. He cannot be excised from his colleagues, even though my inkling is that some of his colleagues would be pretty angry and distressed. But they are a team, they sell themselves as a team and therefore they are all the same. I have had some experiences myself, which I will not put on the public record, about some people in government, or some people on the fifth floor, acting in a way that I regard as absolutely hypocritical given the cachet that the government got in certain quarters as a result of its gay law reform legislation. In any event, I digress.
I do not think the Australian Labor Party can have it both ways. It cannot, on the one hand, say that it abhors child abuse and wants to do all that it can for victims of child abuse, when one of their own seeks to denigrate a victim of child abuse, and then making the bizarre connection with homosexuality. As the Attorney-General said on 25 November 2003, there is no link, there is no evidence of a link, it is complete garbage. But one of their own very strongly holds that view and we know he has form on it. My own view is that he needs to look deep within himself as to his personal life. However, that is perhaps best left alone for dinner party conversation and not in the Chamber. In any event, by his conduct, the minister, the member for Johnson, asserts that boys who are abused are homosexuals. That is the guts of it, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker – that boys who are abused are homosexuals.
Some of us who have even a scintilla of understanding of the world around us know that this is exactly the message that we do not want to give to boys who have been sexually abused. It is why some of them commit suicide. It is arguably the greatest slur that can be made in relation to sexually abused boys. This is a problem that I thought even the thickest member of the 25 of us had some sort of grasp on. Not, it seems, the member for Johnston. It does pain me to say this, because I quite like some of the members on the other side, but I can only form the view that, by implication, some of them share, and perhaps all of them, share the member for Johnston’s view. What the minister did was so destructive, so outrageous. A minister of the Crown, not just the garden variety member of the Assembly, but a minister of the Crown makes some sort of link between sexually abused boys and homosexuals. It is a sad day.
I will send the comments I have made tonight to some of the people in Darwin, more so than in Alice Springs, who were of great assistance on a number of fronts to me during the gay law reform debate. I do not think it is too cute to suggest that probably most of them are Labor voters but, like me, they actually care about human rights, which is why it is probably the case that it is fair to say I almost lost my job because of how strongly I felt about the gay law reform legislation. It was a job I was prepared to lose, so strongly do I feel about human rights. Even though not very many members on the other side stood to talk about that debate, I thought most of them shared my views. I thought they were common views, and I am speaking, obviously, in a very personal sense.
The minister’s conduct is extraordinary, astonishing, anger making, anger provoking, and I am not sure that I thought very much of the member for Johnston in any event, but whatever views I held about him, they have just gone down. He has gone down to the gutter as has my view of him. As one of our colleagues sometime ago said, when the Titanic is sinking you cannot say: ‘Oh, my bit is still afloat’. You cannot say: ‘Well, that is just him, we do not all think that way’.
If members on the other side want to talk to me and say in a very personal way - not to be repeated, not for the public record – ‘Carney, we do not share his views’, I would welcome that because, in the absence of that, I can only assume that what I regarded as keystone legislation, the gay law reform legislation, was a farce, a publicity stunt - nothing more, nothing less.
In another area that I feel really strongly about - the protection of young people, in particular, victims of physical and sexual abuse - I can only assume that the consultations that are going on in the Northern Territory at the moment in relation to the care and protection of children and young people is also a farce.
That is the effect that the member of Johnston has had on me and, it is fair to say, all of my colleagues, my friends who I have been speaking to tonight and, I am sure, those who will be reading this transcript. I am just astonished, and profoundly saddened and, like the member for Macdonnell, very bloody angry.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I find some of the comment made by the member for Araluen quite offensive. To try to paint that members opposite her, purely on a political base, have been discriminating against gay and lesbian people is a farce. Unfortunately, what we saw today was very disappointing for both members involved. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. Unfortunately, the incident did occur, and I am sure that both members will regret the consequences that come from that, and will have to deal with that over the next couple of days.
I definitely know that the member for Johnston, who is a friend of mine, has apologised for his actions in this event and, no doubt, will have to clarify his story and face the consequences of his involvement in the action with the member for Macdonnell.
However, I find it a little rich that the member for Araluen tries to taint members of the government in this debacle. There are two individuals involved in this. She brought up the gay law reform. I am not sure if she remembers, but she actually walked across the floor and voted with us …
Ms Carter: You bet we remember!
Ms Carney: Proudly, proudly!
Mr BONSON: Two of them. What she actually forgets is that her party voted against it. She mentions that she nearly lost her job, who did she nearly lose her job too? Has someone else been pre-selected by the CLP?
What happened today is unfortunate. However, I know the calibre of the member for Johnston, and people make mistakes and say things. He was man enough to come in and apologise for that. To try to taint him or other members of this parliament with the same brush is a little off.
I am very disappointed in the member for Araluen, especially with what she had to go through. To outlandishly state that people on this side of the government have views against people who have been affected by child abuse or sexual abuse is just not up to scratch; it is not good form. I am very disappointed, and I had to say that. I hope she also sends this contribution to the people she alleges that she will send her contribution to, because in this adjournment today, the real issue that has come about is that two individuals who, obviously, have a dislike for each other, said things and did things physically that, no doubt over the next few weeks, they will regret. The two individuals will have to face those consequences.
I will just say in closing that the member for Araluen should not attempt to paint all members of this House with the same brush in a defamatory way.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, before I go on to a couple of matters that I intend to raise on behalf of the people of the rural and the electorate of Goyder, may say I was appalled at the astonishing behaviour by a minister of the Crown today. I could not hope to be as articulate as the member for Araluen on this issue, but I can assure honourable members that I support every word that she said. She spoke of what we all heard tonight with conviction and passion and she has my full support. I am not going to revisit the incident. I saw it. A number of my colleagues saw it. I am disappointed by the astonishing behaviour by a minister of the Crown.
There are a number of electorate matters that I seek to place on the Parliamentary Record, and a number of questions I intend to pose to government. I invite government to get back to me, back to my electorate office …
Mr Stirling: Which Wednesday would that be that you want us to get back?
Mr MALEY: ... with their views, their attitudes to these important issues..
Mr Stirling: Which Wednesday? You give us a date.
Mr MALEY: I am happy to make time for the Deputy Chief Minister any time if he and his government are, for the first time, going to pay proper regard to the 17 000 taxpayers who live in the rural area and, quite frankly, have been short changed by this Labor government.
There are residents of Dundee who are recipients of a promise prior to the last election, a promise by the Chief Minister that every resident of Dundee was going to get power. There have been some machinations along the road of constructing the powerlines. There are some power poles going up, things looking okay. However, what has become apparent is that powerlines have been constructed down the entire length of Fog Bay Road down towards the headland, Mermaid Beach and the like, but there are lots of other people who live off Fog Bay Road – Bynoe Haven, the Palms – and those people have been told by the contractors that their contract is clear: they are putting the line down Fog Bay Road to a fairly dense cluster of residences at the end, and, no, the powerline is not going up their road.
I am seeking clarification as to whether or not these people have been misinformed. I hope that what the contractors said is incorrect and what is going to occur is that there will be power poles and powerlines extended along these roads so that every resident at Dundee has the option of paying the levy and securing power. Also, I am seeking from the government precisely what that levy is going to be and what arrangements are going to be made for those residents of Dundee and the Bynoe Haven regions who are not in a position to pay the money up front.
Secondly, and it is in a similar vein, is the Cox Peninsula area, the road to Mandorah. There is certainly some progress being made in sealing that road, but there is a portion of road that needs to be sealed as it is dangerous during the Wet Season. It can sometimes become impassable. Darwin people who live in the CBD can see the people who live at Wagait Beach: they are straight across the harbour. At the end of the day, if the ferry service does not suit them, if they have something they cannot put on the ferry, the only way to get home is to travel the route around the harbour, around Cox Peninsula Road. So there needs to be a promise, and I am calling upon the government to give some sort of commitment to complete the sealing of Cox Peninsula Road.
Thirdly, whilst I am on a road theme, is the realignment of Girraween Road. I know the government has talked about it. There have been diagrams sent out to my electorate office. They have been up on the wall. We have spoken to constituents and, frankly, the representatives from the Department of Transport and Works – I do not know what they are called now – have been fantastic. However, we have the plans, we have had the public displays of what is occurring, but it does not appear to be progressing any further than that. I am asking the government to provide a time line as to when that is going to occur.
Mr Stirling: The CLP would never do it.
Mr MALEY: We have heard a smarmy interjection from the Deputy Chief Minister.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Goyder! Please withdraw that comment.
Mr MALEY: I withdraw ‘smarmy’. We have heard an interjection. Once again, the response from the government is to attack the CLP. Well, you are in government. I am asking you ...
Mr Stirling: How much representation have you made? None!
Mr MALEY: … for your - you have told the people it is going to occur. Everyone is happy. There have been references in the Litchfield Times. You sent out the maps. We put it on public display saying: ‘This is a big tick for the Labor Party’. Tick. It did not happen. It just stopped about four months ago. There has been very little activity. It is very disappointing.
Another issue which is becoming apparent in the electorate of Goyder, and this has come from government, there has been a rumour going about that the Labor government is going to implement the metering of bores on rural blocks. That is an outrageous proposal and I hope that the relevant minister during the course of the adjournment debate will say: ‘I give you a rock solid, iron-clad guarantee that is not going to happen’. If that happens, then that is all I seek and I can certainly pass that message onto people who ask me about this Labor rumour that seems to be getting about.
There is another matter which should be put on the record. Ultimately, it will present some difficulty for government, but it is an administrative thing, a systemic problem. There are people in the rural area who are on worker’s compensation, who have been injured at work. It is easier for them to seek the assistance of qualified medical professionals who operate in the rural area. I am not going to name the doctors and medical service providers, but these people on worker’s compensation, and there are two who have come to my office in the last week, have been told: ‘We will not assist you. We are not going to provide you with medical assistance on the terms and conditions required by the Territory Insurance Office pursuant to the Work Health Act. In other words, if you cannot pay, you have to go to somebody who bulk bills or go to the hospital because there are too many forms, it is too complicated and the TIO, quite frankly, takes so long to pay us that we are not interested in doing worker’s compensation matters’.
That is outrageous! There are people who have contributed to the Northern Territory, contributed to our very fabric of life. They have been injured. They are entitled to statutory benefits under the Work Health Act and TIO, it seems, is complicating the process. There is a systemic failure and now these people cannot get basic medical treatment to which they are entitled. It needs to be looked at. I am calling on the government ...
Mr Henderson: Make representation on behalf of your constituents!
Mr MALEY: I am making it now!
Mr Henderson: Well, put it in writing. Let us know who it is so we can look into the case.
Mr MALEY: When the Chief Minister to be has an opportunity to speak …
Mr Stirling: Oh, Hendo!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr MALEY: The member for Wanguri, the Chief Minister who should be running the show on that side, the only person who makes a scintilla of sense sometimes, and credit where credit’s due he has good police heritage. Credit where credit is due: I want him to step up. I have called upon him to step up, and I am behind him when he does it, let me tell you.
Mr Henderson: I will have you handing out How to Votes for me, Peter! That will be very good.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr MALEY: I am behind you, spiritually, when you step up to the mat.
Just returning to this medical problem, I am calling upon the government to have a look at this and make a contribution during the course of this important adjournment debate.
In the rural area, there are a number of reserves. I know that it has been talked about extensively in the Litchfield Times, and I know the member for Casuarina was instrumental in securing a large shed which was relocated from Stokes Hill Wharf to Freds Pass, and credit where credit is due, that has certainly been appreciated. However, the member for Casuarina has not taken the next step and, it seems, provided sufficient funds for the assembling of that shed, and rural people are very grateful for that asset.
Putting that aside, Freds Pass and the reserves are in dire need of a serious injection of funds. Since this government came into power, there have not been any large and significant infrastructure improvements – new ones. There have been a couple of things in the pipeline that were finished off – the soccer ovals and the like. There needs to be international standard lights for the polocrosse for the horse sports. There needs to be another oval for the soccer. Soccer is going berserk. There are more kids there on a Saturday morning than you would see in the average playground. Freds Pass is the jewel in the crown of the rural area, and the reserves that are a bit further out, Livingstone, Berry Springs to name a few, are also becoming more and more popular, and need the support of government.
We are at the stage now where the election promises will start rolling out. I am calling upon the government to give rural people a fair go. When they go into budget Cabinet and decide who is getting what, and what promises are going to be made, make sure you do not forget these important assets, these growth areas. I am sure the member for Nelson would support me in a call for more funds for Freds Pass and the other associated reserves in the rural area. That is all I intend to say in this important adjournment speech.
Mr STIRLING (Nhulunbuy): Just to put on the record, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, as minister with carriage of matters with Territory Insurance Office, I am always happy to look at issues members have with constituents. But it is a bit rich for a bloke who admits to working one day a week to walk in here and say, ‘I am making representation on behalf of constituents and I expect the minister and the government to look at it because it is an important adjournment contribution’.
I appreciate he is not going to name the people here – I would not want him to, because I do not want to go, ever, to cases relating to individuals on the floor of this parliament - but to waltz in here, to make these unsubstantiated allegations against TIO, and to say, ‘They are constituents of mine, I am not going to name them, but I expect the government to look at it’, when he bothers to get to work on, I suppose, each Wednesday - I take it that the constituents went to see him Wednesday. Now he is asking, of course, for me or my staff to pick up the phone to his electorate officer, because he will not be there, and to find out the names of these two people who have come in and made complaints against Territory Insurance Office, to track these two people down, to find out what the source of their complaint is, and to make representation to TIO on their behalf.
And his role in all of this is to waltz in here for three minutes, get up in what he claims to be the most important adjournment contribution, it is the first time he has spoken this week in parliament, this bloke – can only get to work on Wednesdays, so pity help the constituents who want to see him or can only see him Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday – no hope, you cannot get to see this bloke. He is only there Wednesday. He waltzes in here and expects government to wipe his bottom for him.
Well, I am not going to do it, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. When he writes to me, when he gives me the names, or rings my office, or e-mails my office with the names, with the pack drill, we will track it down and we will see what the problem is and we will take the issues to Territory Insurance Office on behalf of his constituents.
I simply cannot take it any further here tonight and do not intend to. I am certainly not going to ring his office, because we are not going to wait around until Wednesday so we can get to speak to him. So, he better put something down on paper, contact my office, make representation on behalf of his constituents. It would be a first, to get a letter from the member for Goyder in all the time I have been the minister here. So I would expect him to do his job, rather than coming in here, spraying the good name of the Territory Insurance Office and the hardworking people who work for them all over the Parliamentary Record.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, talking of the same thing, I ask the Deputy Chief Minister to watch his blood pressure. Let me say, that I have written to the TIO, I have written to WorkSafe, I have written to the employers, government departments, of people who have sustained injuries at work. When I specifically asked for a briefing, the only people who would talk to me are the people from WorkSafe. The TIO is conspicuous by its absence. Let me tell you this: that the TIO has a lot to answer for, the way they treat employees leaves something to be desired, and it is no wonder people do not get back-up.
Worker’s compensation - the act talks about rehabilitation, but that is not what it is about. You rehabilitate a person from the injured position to a position where the person is recovered sufficiently to return to work. I tell you what: many of the experiences I have had with recent cases - and the minister is fully aware of the cases that I am referring to, he has had correspondence from me seeking briefings about them - never treat the injured employee as an adversary. That is the last thing you want to do, because all you do is aggravate the situation, and you prevent that injured employee from moving on. I have had briefings from the minister’s officers with regards to worker’s compensation. I am sure that the minister’s officers can advise him that I have voiced my dissatisfaction with the way that insurer has approached the situation. It is no wonder these employees do not recover. In fact, they have been pushed into a corner and they have deteriorated in ways more than just the physical injury they have suffered initially.
Some time today, the Minister for Essential Services spoke about Mrs Denise Purdue, and he wanted me to give him her name and address so that he could contact her to ensure that her situation is sorted out. Obviously, he was not listening closely enough to my adjournment speech last night, where I referred all the details to him. It is unfortunate that when you speak, where the minister is supposed to be present to listen to what you are talking about, in a portfolio he is responsible for, he falls asleep and obviously missed out all together. I also mentioned the point that I hoped his officers were awake and taking down the details.
I repeat, one more time, for the minister’s benefit, the constituent who has a problem is Denise Purdue. She is an asthmatic and needs regular Ventolin. When she has an acute attack of asthma, she needs her Ventolin urgently. She lives at least 20, if not 30, minutes drive from the Alice Springs Hospital. When you are suffering an acute attack of asthma, you cannot sometimes make that distance, or hold on for that length of time to get into hospital for help. In fact, she was at the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department only two days ago requiring medical attention. She was told by Power and Water that her method of payment by instalment will no longer be acceptable, that she had to pay her current bill up-front. She has been paying her bills at $100 per fortnight for many, many years, and she has always satisfied Power and Water with the way she has paid her bills. She always clears her bills before the next power bill arrives. So she is not a bad debtor whatsoever. Her paying pattern should be well established with Power and Water, so the minister has to take this on board to make sure that this person is treated fairly.
The minister might be also interested to know that under the CLP, Power and Water, or then NTEC, was authorised to install a trip switch in the main fuse box at home so that if there was a power failure that affected her home, the trip switch would activate an emergency generator that she owns to ensure that she has 24-hour power. If she loses power supply to her home because of this issue with the bill, her health and life will be at risk. For the minister’s information, the account number is 00054525-6. I hope you can attend to that matter and make sure that it is resolved quickly.
In the few minutes I have left, I would like to mention the incident involving the member for Johnston and the member for Macdonnell. It is important that in this Chamber, we treat each with a degree of respect. For many years now, I have tolerated what members opposite in this Chamber do to me personally in terms of throwing barbs, such as Doctor Death, at me frequently. If the members opposite have the courage to utter that outside this Chamber – do not hide here in this coward’s castle - then we can sort things out. But they do not do that. They hide in here, throwing personal remarks.
This sort of game can be played by everyone. The reality is there is no need for it. There are enough arguments in this Chamber on issues that are very important and relevant to the Territory without having any of us resorting to personal, and very derogatory, remarks. If you are not prepared to say what you have said outside, you should not be saying it inside this Chamber because it just shows you to be the coward that you are.
For members of parliament to behave like school children, mouthing insults across the Chamber, albeit silently but sufficiently visible to antagonise another person, is the lowest form of behaviour you can perform. It is a pity that grown men like us have to resort to that sort of thing in this Chamber. I ask that members observe some decorum in here and do the right thing by everyone. Do unto others as you like others to do to you. Whilst it might be a Christian thing, it is a very universal thing that we should all follow.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I want to talk tonight about a couple of local businesses in the Fannie Bay electorate. One of those is the Stuart Park Supermarket, which is run by Chris and Marie MacDougall. Chris and Marie were previously in Arnhem Land and worked at the DEMED Resource Centre there before taking over the Stuart Park Supermarket three years ago. They expanded the supermarket when they took over to include the newsagency, and it is now a most successful and very busy shop servicing the Stuart Park area. They have up to 1000 customers a day. With the building up of the shop, they now employ two full-time, four permanent part-time and three casual staff members. So some of our small businesses are very good employers.
There are lots of things happening in Stuart Park at the moment. There is the Urban Renewal Project under way which will see the rejuvenation of the pavement and the garden beds and, most importantly, improving disabled access to the shops. There is always a downside to these urban renewal projects. There is some unavoidable inconvenience to traders and shoppers, but it will worthwhile once the project is finished. It is about six weeks into a 12-week project at this stage, and certainly will make a difference at the Stuart Park shopping centre.
When you consider that the new tank farm at the port will be commissioned in August this year and the tank farm will be removed from Stuart Park and there will be remediation of soil and other things and we will start seeing building there, the Stuart Park shops over the next few years are going to change a lot. People like the McDougalls will be in a great position to capitalise on that. They are good people who run their shop responsibly and also support a number of charities through the store including the Channel 7 Children’s Christmas Party. I wish them all the best of luck in the future in the supermarket. They have started well. They are good members of the Stuart Park shopping centre, and I hope their business continues to prosper.
Another supermarket is in Winnellie Shopping Centre, the Winnellie Supermarket, which is very much a family business. It is run by Alan Morris, who many people know and who is assisted by his wife Elaine, and their two children, Wayne and Debra, not forgetting the wonderful May who is often at the check-out. You can never get through Winnellie shopping centre without a really cheerful, bright conversation with May.
The Morris family has been in the Territory for 37 years, the last 10 of which have been at the Winnellie Supermarket and they are my local supermarket. Before they took over at Winnellie, the family ran the Progress Association at Lajamanu, where Alan also had the role of CEO of Lajamanu Air. The Winnellie Supermarket services the Narrows, the RAAF Base, parts of Ludmilla, Winnellie, Bayview Haven and Nightcliff and even has customers as far afield as Palmerston and Borroloola. So being in the Narrows has not constrained their customer base.
The Winnellie Supermarket has developed and Internet shopping site, which is great, especially for people just out of hospital or those with mobility restrictions. Again, they are a very busy store and have just expanded recently. They employ a total of nine staff. Alan is always terrific in employing local students to stack the shelves. He said: ‘I have a deal with the parents’, and he has offered me one of these deals, ‘I will employ your child and pay them well, but if you tell me they are not getting their work done, I will sack them’. So he works on a really serious incentive for young students who work in his store. Alan and his family are looking forward to continuing to run the Winnellie Supermarket for many years to come.
It is business like the supermarkets at Stuart Park and Winnellie that really give a heart to those small shopping centres. Both are run well, reliably and responsibility. My congratulations to them both.
Dr TOYNE (Stuart): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this evening I address two issues that have been the subject of some debate, both in parliament and in the media over recent days. These are allegations that the government is not funding the fit-out of the hospice nearing completion at Royal Darwin Hospital, and debate surrounding fire and safety issues of the Alice Springs Hospital.
There has been some speculation about the fit-out of the hospice, and I would like to clear up exactly what the government is putting into the hospice as it nears completion. This government made a commitment to the hospice in the last election. The hospice is now located within the grounds of Royal Darwin Hospital. $4.25m has been allocated for the construction of this important commitment and building works are progressing well, with the completion date estimated for May 2005.
Recurrent funding of $1.8m has been allocated for personnel and operational costs. $240 000 has been allocated for the fit-out of the hospice. This funding will cover the total fit-out cost of the hospice, and I table a list of items that have been purchased or are in the process of being purchased with this government funding. Other items have yet to be purchased, but I stress that there is adequate government funding allocated for a total fit-out of the hospice, including curtains. There is a range of interested organisations seeking to support the hospice with their effort and goods to make the hospice more homely. As a result of this strong community interest, a Friends of the Hospice committee has been formed. Clinical staff will also sit on this committee to ensure that infection control and safety standards are maintained. The role of this committee will be defined by their terms of reference, but it is generally agreed they would, amongst other things, ensure that any support offered is relevant and suitable to the needs of the hospice, and to coordinate any community fundraising donation activities. I take this opportunity to thank all individuals and organisations involved.
A part-time volunteer coordinator has been identified as a key resource, given the raised profile of palliative care and the increasing interest of members of the public to be involved in this important initiative. This is an important commitment which I will be very proud to open in the near future. It will be a quality building, with adequate government funding to ensure that it is staffed and fitted out appropriately to enable it to provide high quality service to the community.
I turn now to issues surrounding fire and safety at the Alice Springs Hospital. I was proud to be able to announce on 19 January this year that, for the first time ever, all five of our hospitals had achieved Australian Council on Healthcare Standards accreditation against rigorous national benchmarks. As my press release made clear, now all hospitals were accredited, including Tennant Creek, which received formal notification of accreditation on the day of my announcement.
Alice Springs Hospital had received accreditation from the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards in August 2002. The ACHS is a not-for-profit organisation that provides national accreditation for hospitals and healthcare organisations. Last year, the hospital successfully underwent a review against the standards and criteria contained within the ACHS EQuIP program version 2. This program ensures continuous improvements in the areas of leadership and management, continuum of care, information management, human resource management, safe practice and environment, evaluation and improving performance. The continued accreditation of the hospital is testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff, and to the commitment that this government has shown in building better hospitals.
It is good news, whichever side of politics you are on, or you would think so. How disappointing then to hear the opposition spokesperson talking down the Alice Springs Hospital throughout the last couple of weeks. She has alleged that crucial information regarding fire safety faults were withheld from the accreditation team, supposedly by me as Minister for Health. Second, the member for Araluen apparently thinks that this government delayed announcing funds for the rectification of these faults until after the hospital had received accreditation. These misconceptions are easily answered.
In May 2004, the Alice Springs Hospital underwent a periodic review as part of the normal accreditation process. On 20 August 2004, ongoing accreditation of the hospital was confirmed. The surveyors were given access to all reports available in the hospital relating to matters and services of the hospital. This access to reports was reflected in the review recommendations, including acknowledging government funding to repair outstanding building deficiencies.
In their 2004 ACHS documentation, Alice Springs Hospital states under the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program heading of ‘outcomes and achievements relating to this mandatory criteria’, that:
Brian Johnston, the Chief Executive of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, has appeared on public radio in the Northern Territory to confirm that information about the fire and safety issues was fully available to the survey team. Asked whether there was any information withheld by the hospital from the accreditation team, he said, ‘I am not under any sense of awareness that there was any failure to disclose on the part of any hospital that we survey in that regard’. When asked whether the ACHS was ‘rushed’ into accrediting Alice Springs Hospital, Mr Johnston was clear:
It is clear that the ACHS did its job professionally and independently, and they were, as they stated in their report, as confirmed by their CEO, fully aware of the process of rectifying the fire safety issues at the hospital. They granted accreditation, satisfied that these issues had been fully scoped as regards the compliance problems and that there was a committed program to correct them.
We are fixing the problems with the redevelopment of the Alice Springs Hospital. We have committed $10m to rectify the problems. We will pursue whatever legal remedies are open to us to open up and bring to account any person or organisation that contributed to the current situation with that building. Investigations are continuing. Legal action will almost certainly ensue, on the early indications that we are getting, as to the strength of the case. I am confident that, over the course of time, the facts will come out.
On public radio some two days ago, I indicated that, as part as this ongoing process, there will be questions to answer; many of those questions will be at the feet of the previous CLP government. There is no doubt that several of the government ministers of the time, 1998 to 2001 when we assumed government, would have been responsible for, and overseeing, the extensive work that was being done in that hospital. There is no doubt that the things that we can see there today - gyprock panels being used on fire walls which is completely non-compliant; large holes that have been left in the fire wall barriers that are supposed to prevent the spread of fire around that building; pipes that are wrongly connected to particular types of water supply - all of those faults appeared in that hospital in 1998 largely through to the early part of 2001 when the bulk of that work was being done.
There are questions to answer on this, and the CLP ministers of the time, three of whom are still in the House today, need to think about their answers.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on the long-term and valuable contribution to the work of the Northern Territory government, especially in the international arena, that Ms Jillian Nicholls has made over a period of close to 25 years.
Mrs Nicholls retired from her Asian Relations Project Officer position in DBIRD on 28 January 2005. She moved from the UK to Australia with her parents and family. Her early career included governess in northern Western Australia and working in the new iron ore mining industry in the Pilbara. She and her family subsequently moved to the Territory. From 1980 to 1987, she worked for the Northern Territory government in the Student Services Unit at the then Darwin Community College. This was followed by positions in the External Studies Centre and the Trade School. Whilst at the trade school, she learnt a great deal about building houses, wiring cars and all other types of trade including ‘repairing loos’.
In 1987, through to 1994, she moved to the Overseas Student Centre at the then renamed Darwin Institute of Technology, later NTU and now CDU. It was there that her skills with people from all around our international region and beyond really started to shine. She was responsible for the day-to-day care and management of more than 200 overseas students. She assisted with the students’ needs, study, accommodation, travel, counselling and pastoral care, from their arrival to their eventual departure.
In this and later roles, Mrs Nicholls developed a very wide network of international contacts and friends all around the world. She was highly respected, and was like a family member in Darwin for many of her charges. From 1994, she accepted a promotion to the position of Project Officer in the newly-formed International Project Management Unit in the Department of Asian Relations Trade and Industry. In this role, she assisted with the management of Territory consultancy staff offshore, particularly in Indonesia, and with the care and management of study tour participants in the Territory. During this period, Mrs Nicholls also helped many Territory experts gain international experience and valuable consultancy work.
Through her contacts and work she also helped to win valuable new consultancy contracts for the Territory. For example, Mrs Nicholls played a pivotal role in Territory participation in a major midwifery training project in Indonesia. She was responsible for two lengthy study tours to Darwin by Indonesian midwives to receive specialist tuition at NTU/CDU, and arranged work placement in Territory health facilities so that they could extend their practical skills. Mrs Nicholls was personally responsible for all aspects of the program and prepared the final reports on these activities for AusAID which was funding the program. In undertaking this work, she also had to liaise with the Australian lead consultant in Adelaide, the project team in Indonesia, and the Australian and Indonesian authorities involved. As a result of those projects and the respect she gained through her work for the Territory, Mrs Nicholls has developed many long term friends in Indonesia’s health services.
One of Mrs Nicholls’ most outstanding achievements while working for the then Department of Asian Relations and Trade was her support and management before, during and after the East Timor crisis. From early 1999, Mrs Nicholls became very involved in the Territory’s support for East Timor. She helped locate the UN in Darwin. She played a key role in settling the International Office of Migration and the UN Secretary-General’s staff into the old Reserve Bank building in advance of the referendum on independence. She also helped and supported Territory officials and volunteers who were involved.
Mrs Nicholls played a pivotal role in assisting Territorians and others to depart East Timor after the referendum results were announced and the ensuing crisis. She also helped organise much of the on-ground support needed as the AusAID, UN and other emergency response staff arrived in Darwin. The UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN High Commission for Refugees, World Food Program, AusAID and many more are indebted to her for her help. Mrs Nicholls assisted with the refugee evacuation and support action in Darwin, and coordinated the placement of Territory emergency assistance staff in East Timor, including the first civilian advisor to enter after the arrival of the INTERFET forces. She also helped place and support the Territory government representative in East Timor in early October 1999.
In Darwin, Mrs Nicholls located and negotiated access to offices, services and facilities for emergency and relief staff from all of the UN government and non-government agencies involved at the time. She provided practical assistance and guidance, and had a hands-on approach when dealing with difficult situations. I am told that she raided all of the Northern Territory government warehouses for furniture and equipment. Mrs Nicholls contributed to the efforts to link major purchase requirements of agencies with Territory suppliers of goods and services, and to the delivery of emergency and other supplies from Darwin to East Timor.
Her achievements around this time were recognised by all of the agencies involved. With her outstanding skills and sensitivity in dealing with people, she has gained the utmost respect from all organisations. She overcame many obstacles with dedication, equanimity and commonsense to achieve her success. Her ongoing work on overseas and Asian relations projects contributed to their success as well. She played an important part in the implementation of the Asian Engagement Plan and associated activities. Mrs Nicholls’ work has reflected the Territory’s commitment to the region and the many relationships in place.
Apart from a short period in 2000 on placement to the Department of the Chief Minister to assist in the Northern Territory government representative office in East Timor and the Territory government support efforts, Mrs Nicholls remained in DBIRD and its predecessor departments until her retirement last month.
I understand that she recently went back to study to gain qualifications in teaching English to non-English speakers, and in art and design with a view to enjoying life after the public service. Mrs Nicholls has consistently used her skills with people, especially overseas officials, consultants and visitors throughout her career. Her experiences have provided her with unparalleled international networks and contacts, and I am sure her skills will help her well in the future. I would like to say thank you to Mrs Nicholls for her important contribution to the public service and the Territory government’s international activities. I am sure all honourable members will join me in wishing her well in her endeavours following retirement.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it has been a very busy Christmas/New Year period in the electorate of Wanguri. I held my Christmas party at Dolly O’Reilly’s, which was a huge success. Over 120 residents turned up to join in the festive cheer, even if it was the night of the major power blackout when Channel Island copped a huge lightening hit. There was no power but the beer was cold and everybody had a great time. I thank my electorate officer, Jarna Neve, for working so hard to organise that function.
On 10 December 2004, I launched my Business Directory at Hibiscus Shopping Town, that has been distributed around the electorate and, again, to the 40-odd businesses which have taken up space in that electorate, I am very grateful.
Wanguri shops are undergoing a major upgrade, with allocation of about $200 000 from the government and Darwin City Council in terms of urban renewal. The upgrade will focus on extensive refurbishment of the landscaping and infrastructure and work is set to be completed by July 2005. I am really pleased to see the government committing to upgrading our urban shopping centres. It certainly will make a difference.
Several students from schools within my electorate received Student Citizen Awards at the Australia Day flag raising and citizenship ceremony on Australia Day at Marrara Stadium. I am very pleased to congratulate St Andrew’s Lutheran School student, Stephanie Alm; Leanyer Primary student, Daniel Banfield; Wanguri student, Liam Blakely; Holy Spirit Primary School student, Jennifer Flurri; and Alexander Fegan from Henbury School. They are all very worth recipients of those awards.
I would like make mention and give thanks tonight to a remarkable young man who lives in my electorate, Dave Thurston, who is a chef at Dolly O’Reilly’s. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Dave was thinking how he could help. He organised a significant fund-raising event at Dolly O’Reilly’s on 22 January, with all money going to Red Cross. Dave, who has worked at the hotel for a number of years now, pulled together a magnificent list of auction items. I seek leave to incorporate the names of the companies who donated auction items into the Hansard.
Leave granted.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. I thank all those companies for their generosity; $7000 was raised for the tsunami appeal. It was a great night in the front bar at Dolly’s and I thank everyone for their generosity on the night.
Over the Christmas and New Year period, the Timor Cup was held, which essentially saw the soccer teams, or football teams as they are now called, from Darwin, Sydney and Melbourne come together. Their squads were based on East Timorese players. It is a Cup that is held biannually, two years in Melbourne, two years in Darwin, and I am pleased to see that Casuarina Soccer Club won the Timor Cup. So, to Roberto De Araujo and everyone at the Casuarina Soccer Club, well done. To Roberto, well done for working so hard, and everyone else who worked to put that competition together. The crowds were great. I could only get to a couple of the games, but it was great to see the Timorese community from around Australia, around their passion of football or soccer, so well done, Casuarina.
Nearly four years ago, Lisa Brett, a former student of Leanyer Primary School won the Territory’s entry in the Australian Centenary of Federation design, a coin competition. Lisa won $5000 for Leanyer Primary and asked for the money to go towards shade cloth over the school’s basketball courts. Leanyer Primary has been raising money since then to build a full metal shade structure, one that will allow for future developments, including fans and lights. This is a huge structure that has gone up over the Christmas break, whilst I was on leave. I was there with Principal, Henry Gray, the other day, and I could not believe my eyes to see the enormous shade structure up. This was an engineering feat. Together with the school council and the school’s Finance and Facilities Focus Group, and over the Christmas break, the dream of a $120 000 project commenced. The shade frame was complete with the roof yet to be added. I managed to secure for this project $30 000 last year from the Northern Territory government, and it is going to provide a great facility for the school and the kids. To everyone who has been involved in the fundraising effort, well done!
Mr AH KIT (Arnhem): Madam Speaker, I rise to mark an important milestone in the small business, political and cultural, and dare I say, culinary history of Darwin. Last night, Darwin’s longest running same-name caf, the Roma Bar, closed its doors. Happily, at 7 am it will reopen its doors just up the road and across the other side of Cavanagh Street.
The Roma Bar first opened its doors in October 1973. Since that time, it has served the people of Darwin under various ownerships. The longest serving, at times suffering owners, have of course been Paul Costigan and Patti Ring. They opened their doors for the first time on May Day in 1989, an appropriate debut for such stalwarts of the Labor Party movement.
Last night, they hosted a wake for the old premises which had served the Roma Bar and its clientele for over 30 years. Over that time, the premises have seen many changes and many different configurations. Older Darwinians may remember that the area above the Roma Bar was used as a brothel, or would remember the barely legal card games that were played out the back. Being far more sedate, Paul and Patty had restricted the upstairs of the premises to more mundane activities such as the holding of art exhibitions and performances. But one thing is that the Roma Bar, under Patty and Paul, has developed a national and international reputation. The Roma Bar has twice won Mietta’s Awards, a national recognition for fine food and great ambience. And for a number of years, it has also featured as a definite tourist attraction.
As I stated in this place a few years ago in quoting from the Fodor’s 1997 Guide to Australia, ‘the Roma Bar is a place where cowboy meets croissant’. This tourism guide – one of the most prestigious United States tourist guides on the market – went further and described the Roma Bar in the following terms:
The Roma Bar has, as you may gather, celebrated difference, and celebrated and participated in the cultural life of Darwin. As a case in point, I was honoured a few months ago, along with Cedric Suradi and Akurriyu Hill, to be invited to cook for the Slow Food Movement chapter in Darwin at an event at the Roma Bar. Everything we cooked that night had been caught within 30 km of Darwin, and within the previous day or so. It was a lovely Makan night where about 50 of us feasted on magpie goose, prawns, barramundi and turtle. I imagine that while many ministers and members of parliament over the years have eaten and drank at the Roma Bar, I am the only minister who has also cooked at the place.
Of course, those on the other side have been reluctant to honour the Roma Bar as a great Territory icon. Indeed, they have condemned the place on many occasions. There are a curious number of mentions of the Roma Bar in the Parliamentary Record by the CLP and all of them seem to regard the Roma Bar as a latter day Sodom and Gomorrah. Chief among the Roma Bar’s critics was the former member for Katherine and fire engine video fanatic, Mike Reed, who described the Roma Bar as the ‘communist meeting circle of Darwin’, a sentiment that was largely shared over the years by other members of the CLP. He said of members of the Labor Party:
As I commented back then:
I am referring to Shane Stone as the Chief Minister at those times.
Let me join the member for Katherine and assure the House that the Roma Bar represents the cultural diversity of Darwin at its absolute best. Indeed, the former Chief Minister, Shane Stone, subsequently promised to bring Mike Reed to the Roma Bar for a cup of coffee. Needless to say, it was one of many promises the now president of the Liberal Party regarded as a non-core promise. He never brought Mike Reed to the Roma Bar, something we can perhaps be thankful for.
So it was with great pleasure this morning that I was able to tuck into breakfast at the new Roma Bar. I congratulate Patti and Paul for giving us a lot of interesting punch lines to the question: Why did the Roma Bar cross the road? To look for Mike Reed because the old Roma Bar is dead! Long live the new Roma Bar!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw to your attention the presence in the gallery of Mr Paul Costigan and Ms Patti Ring of the Roma Bar. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about the Roma Bar. I went to a function there up the top – actually, I should go back before that. I used to work in the Companies Office, and it was called the Florida Caf up the top. I am going back now to about the time of self-government, and a gentleman came down, he filled in his company’s form to renew the business name. I noticed that he spelt it Floridia, with an ‘i’ in it, so it was a misspell and I thought, it is silly to send the correspondence out, he has just lodged his form, so what I will do, at lunchtime, I will go up, and if it is Florida instead of Floridia, I will drop it in.
So I went down to what is now the upstairs of the Roma Bar, I walked in and there were numerous gentlemen playing cards there. At this time, I was probably in my early 20s and I always had fairly short hair. I was carrying a clipboard, and I might have looked a little bit officious and maybe even police-like. I will tell you, even though it seemed like a fire hazard from which you would never escape, people got out of that place real quick! I was left with one gentleman who did not have a very good grasp of English, and I was trying to explain that the boss of the place might want to look at this form and see whether he wanted to call it the Floridia or the Florida. I left the form there and, interestingly, some hours later, a sheepish gentleman came along with a line through the ‘i’ in Floridia.
I went back when a gentleman called Royce Dunbar had his farewell upstairs at the Roma Bar. The MC was a lady called Clare Martin, who worked for the ABC. It was one of those events where people regaled in, for some reason, bashing Mike Reed; it seemed to be one of the things that happened at the Roma Bar, I do not know why. One would have assumed they had other occupations they could have devoted their time to. Anyway, there were a number of things said. Royce was leaving Darwin because he had received some monies in compensation and he was off to Queensland. He gave a pretty good speech, I thought. The MC of the day, Clare Martin, made some fairly derogatory comments about Mike Reed, a minister of the Crown at the time. I can recall coming back to Parliament House with the people I was with, and we wrote to the ABC and asked them if they endorsed those comments because, of course, to call people to a public meeting and to say things that are defamatory, outrageous, illegal even, perhaps, and actionable is something that, if the ABC endorsed it, they could have been at the end of that sort of action.
A letter was sent off to the ABC by me and my mate, not Mike Reed, asking if the ABC endorsed various comments that were made by its MC, the ABC reporter, Clare Majella Martin. They came back real quick - and this is a matter of history – you can go to the ABC archives and find it. They said, ‘Oh, no, we would never say that, and she is way out of line’, and all the rest of it. But I guess that is such as it was, because it is all very well when you are the underdog, as the opposition then thought it was, to bash people who were in high places. The arrogance that this government shows with it now sitting in the lofty position of government and bashing people up in various places with just how it treats people and how it talks about them is their legacy.
Maybe it comes from that era where they thought they were the victims, they were the underdogs. They were the people who were being oppressed by this terrible bloke called Mike Reed. It is a pity they did not meet him, actually, because in other lives you would think he was pretty much a Labor sort of a bloke. He came from fairly humble beginnings. He was a union member at one time. If you saw where he lived and how he lived, he was not one of the silver-spoon-in-the-mouth type blokes. I have great affection for Mike Reed, great affection for his wife, Ann, and I know his kids well. They went to school with my kids.
To sit in that meeting and hear somebody who came from Sydney, whose dad was an enlightened professor, pour scorn and abuse all over this bloke from her lofty position as a social commentator with a glass of chardonnay in her hand is probably a bit of a Labor heritage. The difficulty they had at the Roma Bar at the time was, mostly, they suspected that the crowd around them were all applauding in unison to the same chant. What mucked it up was there were a couple of people there who liked Mike Reed and I was one of them! I was offended, and I wrote to the ABC. The ABC, with the good grace and good legal counsel that they have, wrote back and said, ‘No, we do not endorse that sort of stuff.’
Yes, the Roma Bar, I suppose, was one of those little repositories of social action and all that sort of stuff if you really went back to the days when you marched for the moratorium and the Vietnam War. It was transplanted into Darwin and they really did not have a cause, so it is good that Mike gave them that cause. It will bring pleasure to his heart now that he has been awarded a very high award, Mike Reed AO. He deserves that AO. He deserves it from all those poor communists and socialists who used to gather in the Roma Bar and vent their spleen and bile on what a terrible bloke he was. They probably nominated him because without this terrible effigy of Mike Reed that you could bash up, they did not have much else to attract people to the place. So, good on you, Mike.
I do not know who nominated you for the Order of Australia, but I suspect the Roma Bar was in there because you were good for custom. You could have people sitting around talking about the Vietnam War and the ozone hole, ganga, and when we get into government, we are going to do all these things, we are going to free the masses. It must be hard for Roma Bar Mark II because some of that passion must be dissipating because what this government has tried to do is look remarkably like the CLP.
What they have tried to do is say, ‘Yes, we are really socialists - mmm, maybe not socialists. Little bit socialists, but we have a social conscience, let us put it that way. We still hate Mike Reed and if we are really in trouble, why don’t we get a minister of the Crown to go into parliament and talk about him? God knows, he has been out of here for a while, but maybe Jack can stir up some of those passions and the new Roma Bar can have people come and have cappuccinos and cafe lattes and say how terrible Mike Reed was. So Jack, we have a job for you! We want you to go into parliament and make a speech about how terrible Mike Reed was for democracy’. Mike Reed AO, Order of Australia.
‘Maybe in Roma Bar Mark II, we could put up caricatures of him and we can all sit around and reminisce about how terrible Mike Reed was. We can say how we fought this battle, not against the Vietnam War, maybe, or some of those other things, but we fought the battle against Mike Reed and we have the battle scars and battle colours to show that we went into the fray, we went over the hill and we looked at Mike Reed eye-to-eye.’
Well, you do not know the man. I have great affection for Mike Reed. I saw that man out at tent city, out at the Kalymnian Brotherhood. I saw what he did for the Timorese people to the north of us. I saw what he did after the Katherine floods. I went to his house after the Katherine floods. One of my chores was to throw many of his possessions into a great big hire bin out the front, and some of those possessions I know were books that he would have scoured through places to get: books on birds, ornithological books, because Mike Reed was a greenie. That might surprise those in the Roma Bar, but Mike Reed was and is a greenie. What he knows about nature, flora and fauna, particularly of the Katherine region, is encyclopaedic.
He is a man of great knowledge about environmental issues in Katherine - the world, probably, but certainly Katherine. He has a great curiosity about the globe, the cosmos, and a great curiosity that is the sort of stuff that piqued people like Charles Darwin and others. If you had have been there with me in my boots walking through the mud chucking his ornithological books into a big hopper, realising that he had not been to his house for five days and was not going to go there for another five because he was helping the people of that place – that place that I love and where I was born – you would have another vision of that man.
I can understand how the member for Arnhem has a sparring relationship with him but, really, let’s move on. There is a new member for Katherine. Really if the new heritage of the Roma Bar is to talk about an ex-member of parliament who has been bestowed one of the highest honours the land can bestow on him, who can have people come into this place and sing his praise for hours, and I would be one of them, is not a good beginning. Pick a new voodoo doll: Clare Majella Martin, the new Chief Minister. Surely, she is trying to become so CLP-like that she would be a good target. There could be others. There could be others around the place.
Ms Carney: The member for Johnston.
Mr DUNHAM: The member for Johnston! He could fit the bill. If you really need a politician as a stirring point when you are sitting there looking into your cappuccino and stirring your caf au lait – me! God knows, I would enjoy it; I might end up with an Order of Australia.
Please do not speak ill of ex-parliamentarians with a fine, honourable record such as Mike Reed. If you do, just remember there are still some of us around who remember him with affection for what he did and the potency of the man. Okay, I worked on his personal staff. He was a bloody hard bugger to get on with, I tell you. When I worked in Mike Reed’s office, we got home at 7.30 every night, and it was hard work. We did long, long hours. If I come into this place on the weekend, I am the only car in the car park. I can tell you in the days when Mike Reed was in here, the place was packed. He was the Deputy Chief Minister and he had an immense span.
When I worked for him we had police, lands, mining, tourism, Treasury. The tradition in parliaments is that the Deputy Chief Minister can pick their portfolios. You have to wonder why Mike Reed loaded himself up so much. He did it because he wanted to set an example, and he set a great example of industry, commitment, drive, passion.
If you really need a bulls-eye for your target at Roma Bar Mark II, leave him there because he will not mind. I can assure you, he does not need my defence and he will not mind. In fact, he will take great pride in it probably. He will have a little chuckle as he sits there watching the sun come over the Katherine River and watching the various native flora and fauna in his yard, which is set up almost like a national park it is so beautiful. He probably knows the name in Latin and the common name of every single animal and plant that grows in that place. As he sits there, he will probably think: ‘Up there in the big smoke, up there in the city, they still remember me. There they are at the Roma Bar and they still remember me’.
There is a poem in there somewhere, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, and I will come up with it and I will bring it back to the parliament, but in the interim, I suggest the Roma Bar pick a new target. It is a little bit pass, don’t you think, sitting at the Roma Bar and worrying about Mike Reed? If that is what you want to do and if it augers well for your business, do it, because he probably won’t mind. If you invite him to one of those occasional sessions where he can speak, he will probably even turn up, such is his contrary disposition about matters like this.
Anyway, have another think. If you really need someone to spew vile and venom on, I am happy to have a go.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women
Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House today of recipients of the 2005 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women.
This is the fourth year that the study award has been made to women enrolled in vocational and tertiary programs in the Territory. When I announced the award in October 2001, it was one of the first programs introduced under my government’s policy focus on employment and training. The award is valued at $20 000 each year, of which $14 000 is made available to a Territory woman to undertake a tertiary study program, and $6000 available for a vocational study program. The 2005 award has been widely promoted throughout the Territory in regional newspapers and via women’s groups and associations, academic institutes, indigenous organisations, newsletters, electorate offices and the Office of Women’s Policy web site.
Applications were received from a wide range of women. Amongst them were young school leavers, women working in a wide variety of different jobs, and women returning to study after long periods away from formal education. Many applicants shared their plans for using their skills to work with our community. In considering the applications, the panel paid particular attention to issues relating to social disadvantage, each applicant’s potential to succeed in her nominated course, the acquisition of skills of importance to the Territory, and each applicant’s commitment to living and working in the Territory. Although smaller than in previous years, the field of candidates was of a high standard. The top applicants for both vocational and tertiary study awards were closely ranked, and the panel recommended that the applicants on the short list should be acknowledged.
Georgette Monganga, Lynette McKee and Nancy Crawford were highly commended by the panel for their applications. Georgette Monganga is a newly-arrived migrant to Australia under the Refugee Settlement Program from Africa. She has been in Darwin for just over a year, and enrolment in the Diploma of Business Administration course is one of the ways Georgette is looking to achieve independence and be a role model for African women in the Territory.
Lynette McKee is from Humpty Doo and is enrolled in a Bachelor of Behavioural Science, majoring in Psychology. The focus of her studies will be on regional and indigenous issues. On graduation, she wishes to work on the prevention and reduction of factors contributing to violence, substance abuse and suicide.
Nancy Crawford has lived in the Territory for 14 years and finished Years 11 and 12 after returning to high school following the birth of her daughter. She is commencing studies for the Bachelor for Nursing. She has a strong desire to work with children and intends to specialise in paediatrics following completion of her degree.
These women had impressive applications. I congratulate them and wish them all the best with their studies.
Now to the recipients of the 2005 Chief Minister’s Study Award for Women. Anna Montgomery is the recipient of the vocational award with which she will study for the Diploma of Library and Information Services through Charles Darwin University. Anna is a library technician at Anzac Hill High School in Alice Springs. She is a Territorian born and bred who is halfway through her two year diploma course. Anna is furthering her study to ensure she has the necessary skills to provide a high quality library service to the school community. The panel was impressed with the ongoing benefit for Alice Springs students because of Anna’s course of study.
Raelene Rosas is the recipient of the tertiary award and will study for a Batchelor of Law at Charles Darwin University. Raelene is an indigenous woman who was born and raised in the Territory. She has successfully combined her pre-law study with being a mother to three young children. Raelene’s referees described her as being enthusiastic, diligent and confident. They particularly commented on Raelene’s future contribution to society and were very supportive of her application. On graduation, Raelene intends working in the areas of law enforcement, youth and community self-management. Her own experience has shown her that appropriate advice and information for Aboriginal people could lead to different outcomes away from the courts.
Madam Speaker, I invite all members to join me in congratulating Raelene and Anna, and wishing them success in their studies, and in their future endeavours.
I also thank the panel of three who judged those applicants: Veronica Arbon, from the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education; Don Zoellner, Pro-Vice Chancellor, TAFE and Regional Operations from CDU; and Kim Johnstone, Manager of the Office of Women’s Policy.
Members: Hear, hear!
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, I thank the Chief Minister for her report. It is wonderful to hear of the successes of the women who have been awarded assistance from the government with this program. I wish the women all the best with their endeavours and the good use of the money and support which is coming their way.
Members will remember, of course, that this program was a wonderful CLP initiative. I can remember when I was convenor of the Women’s Advisory Council, one of the high points of my year was to sit on the panel which made the choice for the Chief Minister’s Award. We met some wonderful women, and encouraged some wonderful programs during my time there, and during the years that the CLP ran this program.
The Chief Minister does not have a great record in the area of women’s support in the Northern Territory. It was a huge disappointment to many of us when she abolished the Women’s Advisory Council and the Business Women’s Consultancy Council, and replaced them with these things called ‘Women’s Forums’. I have had reports from women with regard to these women’s forums, and many are very disappointed with the way they are run. For example, they get to meet with the Chief Minister, and minister for community services for around an hour and a half after they have work-shopped issues, and they get to have a chat about those things. Then where do those issues go? Many fall away.
When we had the Women’s Advisory Council we were able to follow through on important issues, and sometimes it took us many months, and if not a few years, to get really good programs up and running, such as the mobile breast screening unit throughout the Northern Territory. These were the things which we were able to follow through. All that is happening with these women’s forums now is that it is a consultative method from which the government is going to draft its framework for Territory women, which will be used as the policy document to take to the next election. It is a cynical use of taxpayers’ money. The Chief Minister, as her number one priority, should reintroduce the Women’s Advisory Council and the Business Women’s Consultancy Council …
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired, member for Port Darwin.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is interesting that because the Country Liberal Party introduced a Women’s Advisory Council that that is the body which has to continue forever; 20 years on, continue with the same. We properly looked at how to be most effective in reaching women across the Territory …
Ms Carney: Why did you accept the least favorable recommendation then?
Ms MARTIN: It is interesting that the member for Araluen has to yell through this. We looked at how we best reached women and the Minister for assisting in Women’s Policy and I have met with hundreds of Territory women. We have met with them sitting under trees, on verandahs, and in more formal venues, and a whole range of issues have emerged.
It is delightful to be able to take government to women across the Territory and sit down and work with them about some of the key issues of concern, whether that is at Nguiu, Daly, Alice Springs or Darwin. Hundreds of women have done that, and it has been and will continue to be a great success for women’s forums.
Employment and Training – Skills Strategy
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I rise to provide the House with a progress report on implementing the government’s strategy to skill Territorians. Whether the opposition likes it or not, the most effective skills strategy ever introduced into the Territory has been the Jobs Plan. It puts money …
Mr Dunham: Oh, right. That’s why we have all these electricians.
Mr STIRLING: He has a different view in here from what he says out in the street, Madam Speaker, because I have him on record as having praised this and saying that they wish they had done it when they were in government!
Madam Speaker, it puts money directly into targeted skills shortages, backed up by knowledge of where those shortages are, and what the future needs will be. It establishes a clear strategy for directing the training dollar most efficiently into the future. Despite evidence of a looming skills shortage, the previous government could never muster the policy, vision or will to put into place such a plan, and every year lost under the CLP meant another block in the road to economic recovery.
Our $160m plan is working. We are seeing results. Over 350 employer incentives were taken up in the first two rounds of the scheme. More incentives will be available in 2005 in those areas of skills shortages. We have over 3040 Territorians in training at the beginning of 2005, past the 3000 mark for the first time ever. We are up 35% on the 2211 in training in 2001; 38% of those apprentices are in traditional trades, the second highest ratio in Australia. Of that number, 752 are indigenous trainees and apprentices.
A good example, very specifically, is the electrical trades industry. The member for Drysdale recently attacked me over this industry. Let us look at the facts. As of 16 February, there were 2637 licensed electricians operating in the Territory, importantly getting more people into the trade through our training efforts. At 16 February 2005, there are 160 electrical apprentices in training. On 16 February 2001, there were 80. That is twice as many training today than under the previous…
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, cease!
Mr STIRLING: Twice as many today in training than under the previous Country Liberal Party government. In 2004, 72 electrical apprentices commenced training. In 2001, 44 electrical apprentices commenced training, almost twice as many coming into the trade today than under the previous Country Liberal Party government.
I point out also the efforts of Power and Water, which has recruited 12 new apprentices this year, linies who will work on the power networks, electricians to work on the networks and power station generators, and mechanics and plumbers to become part of the infrastructure of Power and Water.
Madam Speaker, the $160m Jobs Plan is moving the Territory ahead by providing real jobs for Territorians, increasing the numbers of apprenticeships and traineeships, targeting funding to small business for apprentices and trainees, particularly in the trades; preparing young Territorians for the work force; boosting indigenous employment, and better matching training to jobs.
It is a satisfying result, but we will not be resting on our laurels. More needs to be done, and we are getting on with the job of skilling the Territory and delivering jobs and economic growth for all Territorians.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, this government went into the election in 2001 with a promise of a Jobs Plan. It did not exist, they had nothing there, but they said: ‘We have a Jobs Plan and we will bring it in when we get into government’. This government then got a company from interstate to develop a Jobs Plan for them and we saw nothing about a Jobs Plan until – when? - last year. Last year, we saw the Jobs Plan for the first time. That is how bad they are. The minister gets up and says: ‘We have lots of electricians’. Well, this draft here …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Just cease a moment! There is too much cross-Chamber chatter. Please let the member for Greatorex get on with it.
Dr LIM: What about the Annual Report for 2003-04 of the Electrical Workers and Contractors Licensing Board of the Northern Territory? This graph shows two peaks: one in 1997-98 of 2913; a second peak for 1999-2000 of 2743 electrical workers. Since then, that graph has consistently gone downwards. Now, for 2003-04, there are only 2550 electrical workers. Who is right and who is wrong? I tell you I would prefer to believe the licensing board. They know who are working as electricians, and this minister obviously does not know. He can get up and say, ‘I have this and I have that’. Your Jobs Plan has obviously failed, minister. Three years late, first of all, and then when you introduced it, you cannot get the numbers right. Do you know your business or don’t you? That is your problem, isn’t it?
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, let us look at this failure of the Jobs Plan. There are 2637 licensed electricians operating in the Territory. However, as I said, as of 16 February 2005, there were 160 electrical apprentices, in training, in the Northern Territory. At 16 February 2001, when these galahs were responsible for this, there were just eight, and in that year, 2001, they brought 44 through, and we are into the high 70s; 72 electrical apprentices commencing training throughout 2004, compared to 44 in 2001.
This is working. I know it gets up their nose, but I also know because it has been reported to me that the member for Drysdale has talked to business and complimented the government on the Jobs Plan. He said, ‘What a great Jobs Plan this is’, and ‘We wish we had done it’, but he comes in here with a different tune.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! With these quaint statements that we have, it is difficult for me to participate in this debate. The minister has, on two occasions, mentioned me, and I would like to be given the opportunity to participate in this debate. It would seem to be unparliamentary for the minister to encourage me to participate, knowing that I cannot.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. You understand the rules on ministerial reports.
Crime Prevention Grants Scheme
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I rise today to report on a strategy which gets to the heart of this government’s commitment to build safer communities for all Territorians. This government recognises that to prevent crime, the causes of crime must be addressed. We have seen the success of our approach. We have tackled drug-related crime through more resources to police, new police powers, and the crackdown on drug houses, and we have seen property crime cut in half.
We are also continuing this work through this government’s Crime Prevention Grants Scheme. Over $400 000 is provided each year to initiatives developed by communities to promote community safety and address the causes of crime. Interest in our grants scheme is intense. In the last round, almost 60 applications were received, seeking a total of $1.65m in funding. I am pleased to be able to announce today that 16 of these projects have received funding under the grants scheme.
Later today, with the Australian Hotels Association and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, I will be launching the Preventing Sexual Approach Project. With almost $37 000 under the grants scheme, the project will see these organisations work together to tackle drug-facilitated sexual assault, commonly known as drink spiking. Key activities will include wider distribution of the drug-facilitated sexual assault protocol, which has been developed by the Department of Health and Community Services, in conjunction with the AHA and other government and non-government organisations. The grant will provide assistance to the AHA and to the LHMU to continue to educate pub and club staff on how to prevent, recognise and deal with drink spiking incidents.
In Darwin, the Wagaman Residents Group will receive $15 000 to continue to improve lighting and promote safety in laneways around their suburb. A special art work initiative in Palmerston, aimed at encouraging youth pride in the township, has been awarded a $10 000 grant. The project, with the working title Palmerston Culture Space Pride, will include local young people in the design and production of high profile, quality art work, in collaboration with indigenous artists.
Priority under the grants scheme is given to helping crime prevention councils achieve actions identified in the Community Safety program. The Katherine Family Link, in partnership with Centacare and the town council, will receive almost $15 000 to improve lighting and tackle antisocial behaviour. The Barkly Regional Safer Communities Committee will use their grant of $23 000 to implement recommendations of their crime prevention audits by installing lighting and clearing areas around town.
In Alice Springs, I am happy to see that Deadly Treadlies and Sadadeen School have received funding to continue their projects working with young people and families at risk. Importantly, Tangentyere Council will receive $15 000 to bring remote night patrols into town over the weekend of the Wizard Cup. Put in place for the first time last year, police reported that night patrols had a significant impact in minimising antisocial behaviour. In addition to these grants, $5000 will go to each of our regional and indigenous crime prevention councils to support the important work they are doing in our communities. The success of our crime prevention councils rests on the large numbers of enthusiastic locals who are determined to make a difference in their community. I place on record, once again, my appreciation of the important work being done by these councils.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his statement which contained a number of things. The two minutes I have available is nowhere near enough time to tear apart many of the things he said. However, I am delighted that the minister has now, three-and-a-half years into government and some years after the escalation of sexual assaults against women and, in some cases, men in the Northern Territory, finally got the terminology right and has understood that something needs to be done. The sexual assault statistics are dreadful; people know what they are. There are significant increases.
His comments in relation to property crime are curious to say the least. It is the case that in some areas there have been some improvements on a quarter-by-quarter basis, although not every quarter and not everywhere. In certain areas, property crime has skyrocketed. The government hangs its hat on the crime statistics – and, of course, why shouldn’t it? When the Attorney-General announced that he would be publishing the crime statistics, he said that this government will stand or fall on the information contained in the crime statistics. Is it any wonder that Territorians are sceptical of the information contained in the report, and the spin that the government puts on it?
We know that the DPP, in its most recent annual report, published figures that are fundamentally different from those contained in the crime statistics; for instance we know that work in summary prosecution shows an increase of files in 2002-03 by 1100 files. We know that the Director, Mr Rex Wild, said that the caseload in Alice Springs remains very high; an extra 500 new files. I back the DPP because I know that those figures are independent ...
Madam SPEAKER: Your time has expired.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, we stand by our record. Everyone can see which way that graph is going …
Mr Dunham: Good thing you can gag her with the process. Was that the economy? Looks like the economy, mate!
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale!
Dr TOYNE: … property crime is down. Here is your record …
Mr Dunham: You have the wrong draft; that is the economy. No, no, no. That is jobs and the economy. You have the wrong graph. No, you have buggered up there. The economy is supposed to be going that way, mate!
Members interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Well, that is about what your policies ended up as – look! Here we go. Here is mandatory sentencing, up we went. Here is our record. We will stand by it any day of the week.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! Members of the opposition, settle down.
Dr TOYNE: Madam Speaker, I thank the opposition spokesperson for her fulsome support of the announcement today.
Mango Season 2004
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I would like to report to the House on the 2004 Northern Territory mango season and a number of the issues raised by industry members. The 2004 season was the largest ever with 1.9 million trays from Darwin, and around 800 000 trays from Katherine. It was one of the most intense and beautiful flowering seasons for Top End mangoes that many growers can remember.
Industry members have overcome the logistical problems experienced in 2001, with many using the Darwin to Adelaide railway to forward their fruit to southern markets, and offering favourable comments about the quality of the fruit on arrival.
The labour harvest strategy developed by the Northern Territory Horticultural Association worked well. Overall, growers were able to source pickers although, at the peak of the record season, pickers were scarce.
At the peak of the season, producers and forwarders suggested that the physical capacity of the Sydney market to handle fruit was reached and, even if more fruit was picked and sent, it was unlikely that the market could handle them. Most growers suggest that the drop in price in mid-October was due to the volume of first class fruit available on the market. Katherine fruit came on a little later when prices had softened.
Industry members also raised the need for greater coordination between harvest, packing and the marketplace. It is also worth noting that the Australian Mango Industry Association is utilising levy money to increase the marketing of mangoes in the domestic market. I will be meeting with the Australian Mango Industry Association and Horticulture Australia, which oversee allocation of the mango levy, in early March when they are in Darwin for the first time. We are keen to work together on examining export opportunities as a national mango export advisory group is being formed. Northern Territory mangoes are some of the first into the marketplace hence we benefit from the initiative to promote mangoes, both domestic and internationally.
I am also keen to see a much greater transparency in the marketing and sale of mangoes and continue to push for a mandatory code of practice for a horticultural market system. I am pleased to report that we are close to achieving this outcome. I also acknowledge the Northern Territory Mango Industry Association’s summit about greater transparency in the marketplace held in 2003 and its efforts in introducing a voluntary code of practice within the mango supply chain. This provided the momentum for a national mandatory code of practice.
A study of the Northern Territory mango industry was undertaken in 2004 in seeking growers’ views on the future of their industry. The key outcomes are that the structural adjustment will continue as production will increase as more trees mature. I have also asked that we look at abandoned mango orchards. A VHT treatment plant has been established to access the Japanese market, with heat and high humidity treatments used to satisfy fruit fly requirements, but only the best of the best mangoes, one in fifty fruit picked, are suitable for this market. UK and Europe markets may offer some opportunities but is a very competitive market. To reduce costs controlled atmosphere sea freight has been trialled for the 30 day trip to market. Katherine growers participated in this year’s trial – I was fortunate enough to view the pack out when in Katherine of ‘Australian Outback Mangoes’. Government also assisted five Katherine growers in their trip to Europe. The growers not only carried out quality assurance but also researched consumer needs and market trends.
There are some challenges for government and industry members ahead. With increased production we must continue to examine alternative options whether it is new markets, further processing and adding value in the knowledge that there will be some structural adjustment in the industry. I must commend the Northern Territory Horticultural Association, the NT Mango Industry Association, and my staff at DBIRD for their ongoing commitment to recognise the challenges and to see opportunities for Territory mangoes.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his report on the mango industry in the Northern Territory. Mangoes of course are definitely related to the Northern Territory with people down south. They always think of the mango as the most favourite fruit from the Northern Territory. The mango industry, as the minister knows, faces a lot of challenges over the next few years and that is mainly with the small growers, those who have 500 trees or less. They are finding it unsustainable to farm their crops. This year and last year, we had many hundreds of tonnes of mangoes wasted on the ground. I encourage the minister to look at ways that we can start an industry that the processes juices continuously, not just as a trial, and also to produce other mango products such as dried mango, etcetera, to promote our product.
I also encourage the minister to look at a way of promoting our product interstate and internationally by having it marketed with a brand. It needs to be branded NT so that it stands out. We have high quality mangoes that leave this Territory and we need to maintain the standard that they are. Can I also just add that I was really disappointed with the trials that we had; the air-freight trials that let down the mango industry very badly. It was too much of a rush job with not enough thought put into it and not enough secure arrangements made before it was announced that that was going to be a salvation.
I also commend the Katherine growers for being able to get their product into Europe. I hope that is going to be ongoing each year and increasing the number of containers that go into Europe. I welcome the minister’s statement.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I also welcome the minister’s statement. Minister, I am not trying to be rude but it was very difficult to understand from over here what you were saying. I did get the gist of some of what you said. I also support the horticultural business code coming into operation. This was raised during the federal election by a number of people who belong to the Horticultural Association. They were concerned that the federal government at that stage would not bring in a regulated business code, and during the election debate the coalition said that they would. I will be interested to see when that particular code is eventually brought into being.
The issue of abandoned orchards is an important one. I would probably be one of those with an abandoned orchard on my place but then there would also be many people in the suburbs of Darwin with abandoned ‘orchards’. Leaf hopper is an insect that has been introduced into the Northern Territory over about the last three years and, in my case, on my trees, it has devastated them totally whereas neighbours a few kilometres down the road had enormous numbers of mangoes on them. It is a pest that needs to be looked at. How you would handle people with one or two trees, telling them to either spray them or remove them, would require diplomacy, and that issue has to be worked through carefully.
After the election, the government did promise $2m to be spent on a packing shed. I take the member for Katherine’s point that we need do a lot more work with juicing, drying and other uses of mangoes and perhaps the $2m that was set aside could be used to promote that side of the industry as it is one way that we can use a lot of the wasted mangoes. There were many wasted mangoes this year unless you were a goose – they enjoyed them.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions. The truth is that we face significant pressure in the mango industry not only from the large number of trees that come into fruition, but also places like Kununurra and of course Queensland. The season of mango availability is very limited; it is very short period of time.
There is already a processing industry in Winnellie pulping and juicing mangoes. They are looking for expansion and export to Japan. We are looking for new markets all the time and this government is supporting the new markets.
We have to look at the abandoned orchards and ensure that they do not become the focal point for infestation and we have to work very closely with the industry. I agree with you, and I will support the industry in seeking transparency in their transactions with either purchasers or commissionaires down south.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
MOTION
Routine of Business – Alice Springs Sitting
Routine of Business – Alice Springs Sitting
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move - That unless otherwise ordered, the days and times of meeting and routine of business in respect of the 2005 Alice Springs Regional Sitting of the Assembly be as circulated to members yesterday. I table a copy of the routine of business.
The government and, I am sure, this parliament is really looking forward to the sittings in Alice Springs in March. We all agree that despite the argy-bargy about the routine of business we had in Alice Springs not that long ago, it was a great success. The galleries were full of people who came to see parliament in action and it certainly beats this gallery here today. I am sure we are all looking forward to getting back to Alice Springs in March.
Much of the credit for the success of the first sittings, Madam Speaker, certainly lies with yourself, the Chief Minister, the Minister for Central Australia, and the Office of Central Australia. I am sure that the second sittings in Alice Springs will be even better.
Mr Dunham: What? Not the Department of Legislative Assembly? A bit of an omission there, mate.
Mr HENDERSON: This motion relates to the sitting times – I will pick up on the interjection from the member for Drysdale because, as I recall, the opposition, prior to the last sittings, opposed them being held in Alice Springs and …
Members interjecting.
Mr HENDERSON: … they are on the public record and called them a waste of money. I think it was the Leader of the Opposition who said it was an absolutely waste of money. We had interminable debates in Alice Springs last time …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! If the member is going to pick up my interjection, he should do so correctly. I said: ‘What about the Department of Legislative Assembly?’ When you are thanking people, surely that is an important omission.
Madam SPEAKER: That is a very good point of order.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: Hansard will show.
Mr HENDERSON: That is a very good point, and I will certainly acknowledge the Department of Legislative Assembly. When thanking Madam Speaker, I included, obviously, within Madam Speaker’s department. However, I place on the record that the Department of the Legislative Assembly did an absolutely magnificent job, and the Convention Centre and all of the IT people. It was a huge logistical effort. The people who did the catering, the security people, the hire car drivers, the hotel people, the restaurants, everybody did a magnificent job, and it was a great success.
This motion relates to the sitting times for the Assembly. Copies were circulated to members yesterday. In most respects, the sitting times and order of business will be the same as usual, and I refer all honourable members to the motion that was tabled for the details. Part of the mission of the sittings is obviously to allow Central Australians an opportunity to see their parliament in action. Of course, parliament sits during the working week, and so to this end, it was trialled last time and found to be very successful to have an evening Question Time. Maybe that is something that the next sitting of this parliament might care to look at, to have the occasional evening Question Time just to allow the people of the Top End to see their parliament in action. We will certainly have another evening Question Time to allow the people of Alice Springs and Central Australia to see one of the highlights of the parliamentary day. This enables working people and others who cannot attend a mid-afternoon session to be able to see a session if they so wish.
To maximise the chance for community-based functions to occur, an arrangement of meal breaks is proposed. It is also an opportunity for the people of Central Australia to meet members of their parliament, particularly members who do not reside in Central Australia. That is the reason for the evening break, to allow members to get out and meet people of Central Australia and, obviously, for the people of Central Australia to meet their parliament. Two meal breaks for dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday night are proposed, for 1 hours each. This time will be made by parliament starting earlier than usual, at 9.30 am each day, adding 1 hours to the sitting times. Lunch breaks will be shortened to 1 hours instead of the usual two hours, so there will be no restriction in terms of the hours of debate.
There will be no nett reduction in the amount of time that the parliament sits, and there are no proposed set finishing times for the sittings like we had last time. To sum up, parliament is going to sit earlier, the lunch break will be restricted, and there is no nett reduction in time to allow the business of parliament to continue.
As I said, the proposed times were circulated yesterday, and I hope that all honourable members, given that there is no nett reduction in time available for debate, will support these times.
The Alice Springs sittings are certainly a highlight. I know that we are all very much looking forward to next month when we go down there. It is a great opportunity to show parliament in action, not only to the adults, but also to the students of Alice Springs who attended in their hundreds last time. I commend this motion, and look forward to the sittings in Alice Springs next month.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, the Country Liberal Party has absolutely no problem with going to Alice Springs. We are happy to do so, and relish doing so, simply because there are so many issues pertinent to Alice Springs that should be raised in Alice Springs, and we look forward to debating those issues.
The government has, in its proposed schedule, outlined several function breaks, and we have no major problem with those function breaks. However, I would like an assurance from the minister that we will be advised of a list of those functions and, indeed, invited to them this time, because I would not mind having the opportunity to go to some of these functions. It is difficult to have to chase these things through the grapevine. I am sure it was only an oversight on the government’s part the last time. I would appreciate that proper invitations go out to all members of this parliament in the spirit to which this government says it is going to Alice Springs.
Sir Humphrey Appleby once made the observation to Jim Hacker, the fictional prime minister of England, that ‘taking something away like the national arts theatre was a little bit like taking something away that people don’t get to’, and, basically, they only start screaming when they do not get to see it. I notice that the minister pointed out how we had managed to pack the bleachers here today, and that it is standing room only, shoulder to shoulder in the bleachers. That is because people in Darwin are used to seeing their parliament, noting that it is there and, in fact, somewhat taking it for granted because they can walk in here any old time and see us in action. It is a little bit like watching paint dry on most occasions, with the dry nature of what we do, with moments of excitement.
The people of Alice Springs, obviously, do not enjoy the same access to their parliament, and they voted with their feet the last time around. I recall it well. I have never seen such interest in the government of the Northern Territory as I saw from the people of Alice Springs. There was a genuine interest from them as well as from the people around the rest of Central Australia. Many hundreds of people visited and, being a member from Central Australia and seeing the people from Central Australia are so interested, it is a good argument to make Alice Sprints the capital of the Northern Territory.
Madam SPEAKER: Thank you for that contribution, member for Macdonnell. I say to members that, on this motion, there is a lot of work going on in the background. We will try to keep you informed as things are progressed. Be aware that there will be visitors from other parliaments. To date, our indication is that there will be at least as many students attending as we had last year. Also the Youth Parliament will be on the Sunday and Monday prior to the sittings as we go into Good Friday when our sittings are over.
If you do wish to have a briefing, or you want to be kept informed more than we are already going to pass on to you, then let us know. I am quite sure that it will again be very popular with the people of Alice Springs. I am sure all of us will get behind it and support it; we certainly look forward to it. I thank the staff for the tremendous amount of work they have already been doing.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): In reply, Madam Speaker, I pick up on a point from the member for Macdonnell. It is great the opposition is supporting the routine of business in regards to what community functions will be laid on whilst in Alice Springs. I remind the opposition there was a very specific community function everybody was invited to last time which was Awards for Emergency Services Workers.
I remember an interminable debate which went for about one-and-a-half hours, where the opposition was saying it was an absolute abomination and insult to the parliament that we should actually close the parliament to hold a reception for our Emergency Services volunteers, and other volunteers. Therefore, I hope that next time when we have these community functions on, that members will support them and not try to argue points of procedure against closing the parliament to allow those functions to occur.
The opposition has learned …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! It would appear the minister is saying that, notwithstanding the schedule we have approved, there could be occasions when we will depart from that at short notice for a community function …
Madam SPEAKER: No. That is not what the minister said.
Mr Dunham: So, you are not saying it? Oh right, well stick to the script, mate!
Mr HENDERSON: Absolutely not. We have a schedule; we will stick to it; parliament has agreed to it. Functions will certainly be on, and I hope that next time we do not have grandstanding on points of procedure to allow those functions to occur.
Madam Speaker, my thanks to everybody who is working so hard to put these sittings on in Alice Springs. It is an enormous logistical effort, and I hope all of us are on our best behaviour in Alice and leave the people of Central Australia inspired in regards to parliamentary democracy in the Northern Territory. I commend the motion to the House.
Motion agreed to.
PROPORTIONATE LIABILITY BILL
(Serial 281)
(Serial 281)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a second time.
The purpose of this bill is to reform the law which determines the respective liabilities of individuals who have separately caused economic loss or property damage, with the exception of cases involving personal injury. This bill deals with issues arising where a court finds that more than one respondent has contributed to a claimant’s loss. In such a case at common law, the law of negligence operates so that the principle of joint and several liability determines what damages are paid for the loss and damage caused.
The effect of this general principle is that the claimant only needs to identify one respondent against whom a case can be proved. That respondent is then potentially liable for all the damages payable to the claimant. Where all contributing respondents have sufficient assets or are insured and can be found, damages are apportioned according to each respondent’s contribution to the loss. However, this usually only occurs when these respondents bring actions against each other. Problems arise where only one respondent can be located or where only one respondent is financially viable or insured. That one respondent can be held liable for all the claimant’s loss regardless of how much he or she contributed to that loss. This common law principle protects claimants by allowing them to recover the total damage suffered from at least one of the respondents.
However, this approach has led to problems for respondents, particularly in terms of the availability and cost of professional indemnity insurance. The application of joint and several liability has resulted in members of some occupations being particularly vulnerable for legal action in proceedings for property damage and economic loss. For example, if economic loss has been caused primarily by the negligence of a property advisor, with no assets or insurance, but was also partially caused by advice from a lawyer or accountant with assets or insurance cover, the successful claimant could obtain full damages from the lawyer or accountant. This targeting of professionals with professional indemnity insurance is considered to be a factor in the significant increases in professional indemnity premiums over the past few years.
This bill seeks to reverse the current common law position in the Northern Territory. It does this by introducing the principle of proportionate liability. This principle, put simply, is that a respondent should only be liable for his or her own share of the damage suffered by a claimant. Before proceeding to set out how this principle will work under the bill, I mention two important points.
Firstly, the bill will not apply to claims for personal injury. The 2002 Review of the Law of Negligence conducted by Hon Justice Ipp recommended against reversing the common law principle of joint and several liability in relation to personal injury claims. This recommendation has been accepted in all Australian jurisdictions and adopted on the basis that the interest of claimants, in such cases, are paramount; and their ability to access damages to cover medical expenses or to compensate for loss of income, or loss of capacity, should not be constrained.
Secondly, since 1994, the principle of proportionate liability has operated in the Northern Territory in respect of most building disputes under the Building Act 1993. This bill will repeal the relevant Building Act provisions so that the provisions under this bill apply uniformly to all disputes that occur after the commencement of this legislation.
I will now outline the main provisions of the bill. Clause 13 provides that a person who is a ‘concurrent wrongdoer’ is only liable for the amount of the claimant’s loss that reflects his or her share of the responsibility for the overall loss. A concurrent wrongdoer is defined in clause 6 as being one of two or more persons whose acts or omissions have caused the loss to the claimant. Critically, the principle of proportionate liability will only apply to ‘apportionable claims’, a term which is defined in clause 4 of the bill. The main features of an apportionable claim are that, subject to stated exceptions:
- it includes claims arising from a failure to take reasonable care. Such claims can arise in contract,
tort, under a statute, or otherwise;
it includes claims for breaches of section 42 of the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act
relating to misleading and deceptive conduct; and
it includes such other claims as may be prescribed in regulations made under the proposed
legislation although no such regulations are currently contemplated.
As I mentioned earlier, the major exception to this general principle, as set out in clause 4(3) of the bill, is that personal injury claims are not apportionable claims. Other types of claims which are not wholly apportionable include:
- claims for breaches of Part 4 of the Consumer Affairs and Fair Trading Act relating to breaches of
dangerous product provisions; and
claims where one of the wrongdoers intended to cause or fraudulently causes the loss or damage.
In such cases, the fraudulent wrongdoer may be liable as if the principles of proportionate liability did
not apply. However, other concurrent wrongdoers would continue to be protected by the principle of
proportionate liability.
One of the main advantages of the law as it currently stands is that a claimant only needs to take action against respondents who may be in a position to pay damages. The bill, in clause 10, continues this general principle by providing that not all respondents need to be party to proceedings for the court to make decisions apportioning responsibility. It should be noted, however, that a potential respondent will not be liable unless they become a party to the proceedings.
It could be argued that under the scheme of proportionate liability proposed by the bill, some respondents may be tempted to avoid responsibility by shifting the blame onto third parties, especially third parties who either cannot be found or have no assets. The bill addresses this issue by requiring respondents to give written notice to claimants about any other potential concurrent wrongdoers; and making respondents who fail to give notice liable for any costs unnecessarily incurred because of their failure to give notice.
The new law will not affect existing law governing established concepts such contributory negligence; vicarious liability; the liability of partners in a partnership; and the liability of a principal for acts of an agent within the scope of the agent’s commission.
In summary, the introduction of proportionate liability for economic loss and property damage ensures that respondents are generally not liable for damages that are greater than the losses that their actions have caused.
Under proportionate liability, claimants in cases where more than one party has been negligent will lose the protection of only having to pursue one respondent. However, the new law will result in greater fairness for respondents in the distribution of damages awarded.
This bill is part of a national agreement reached by insurance ministers and others for the introduction of proportionate liability for claims of economic loss and property damage throughout Australia. It is one of a range of measures aimed at alleviating the 2002 crisis in the professional indemnity insurance industry.
In broad terms, the legislation contains reforms that are supported by all governments and most of the professions and occupations potentially affected by the legislation. This bill is based on a national model prepared by an officers committee of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. Similar proposals are contained in the Commonwealth Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (Audit Reform and Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004; the New South Wales Civil Liability Amendment (Personal Responsibility) Act 2003; the Victorian Wrongs and Limitations of Actions (Insurance Reform) Act 2003; the Queensland Professional Standards Act 2004; the Western Australian Civil Liability Amendment Bill 2004; and the Civil Liability Amendment (Proportionate Liability) Act 2004 of the Australian Capital Territory. I understand that the South Australians will also be introducing similar legislation early this year.
Madam Speaker, I table the explanatory statement which accompanies this bill, and I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
STANDARD TIME BILL
(Serial 282)
(Serial 282)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of this bill is to change legal references to standard time from Greenwich Mean Time to Coordinated Universal Time. Greenwich Mean Time is a solar time scale based on the rotation of the earth. It is measured by the average time the earth takes to rotate on its axis from noon to noon at a chosen location. It is also technically known as Universal Time. It is based upon astrological observations and is a mathematical mean defined in terms of the solar second measured at the former location of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. There are considerable drawbacks to measuring time based on the erratic motion of the earth, the rate of which fluctuates by a few thousandths of a second per day.
Coordinated Universal Time, on the other hand, is a more accurate time scale maintained by a system of highly accurate atomic clocks around the world. It is accurate to approximately a nanosecond, or one billionth of a second, per day. Although the difference between the two time scales is often too small for humans to notice, it is very important for computer programs that use high speed data transfers and in universal synchronisation applications.
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris coordinates data from atomic clocks located in timing laboratories around the globe, including the Australian National Measurement Institute and the United States Naval Observatory, to provide the International Standard Coordinated Universal Time. Coordinated Universal Time is distributed by standard radio stations that broadcast utility information, such as time, and is also the basis of the satellite-based Global Positioning System.
Coordinated Universal Time is also the recognised legal standard for time under the Commonwealth National Measurement Act 1960, and it is the only time scale supported by technical infrastructure. Amendments to the National Measurement Act in 1997 inserted a provision which required the Chief Meteorologist to maintain Coordinated Universal Time as determined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Coordinated Universal Time is therefore the recognised legal measurement of time in Australia.
At the state and territory level, the only statutes referring to Greenwich Mean Time are the standard time acts and the equivalent provisions in other legislation. In the Northern Territory, the Standard Time Act 1898 of South Australia has continued to apply.
In June last year, Dr Richard Brittain, Secretary of the National Time Commission, wrote to the relative ministers in all Australian states and territories recommending that references to Greenwich Mean Time in legislation be replaced with Coordinated Universal Time. As a result of Dr Brittain’s approach, the issue of Coordinated Universal Time was discussed by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General at their November 2004 meeting, and it was agreed that references in state and territory legislation to Greenwich Mean Time would be replaced with Coordinated Universal Time.
This bill implements that agreement by repealing the Standard Time Act 1898 and replacing it with this bill, which provides that standard time in the Northern Territory is to be 9 hours and 30 minutes in advance of Coordinated Universal Time. The act is to commence, as will equivalent legislation in other jurisdictions, on 1 September 2005. This date was chosen to avoid confusion and to allow sufficient time to facilitate the change prior to the beginning of the daylight savings period in 2005 for those jurisdictions that adopt daylight savings.
Madam Speaker, I table the explanatory statement which accompanies this bill, and I commend the bill to honourable members. I thank members for their forbearance on what is a fairly obtuse bill, but I believe it is making history by legislating for computers, so we move on into the future.
Debate adjourned.
CRIMINAL CODE AMENDMENT BILL (No 2)
(Serial 262)
(Serial 262)
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, I will be brief. The bill is supported for reasons that, if it is not obvious by now, it will become obvious shortly. The bill is supported because it picks up on a bill that the member for Macdonnell introduced some time ago, commonly referred to as a Good Samaritan bill. The member for Macdonnell’s bill was directed to protect emergency workers who are assaulted in the course of their work. That was called the Criminal Code Amendment Bill (Serial 212) introduced on 5 October last year.
The Attorney-General referred to the member for Macdonnell’s bill, but said, ‘It should not have been limited to just emergency workers’. The government’s bill includes police, and that is certainly not something that we would oppose. However, and I am sure the member for Macdonnell will speak, the purpose for which he introduced his bill was in the context of ambulance workers, firies and emergency workers, and he spoke about why that was necessary in his second-reading speech when he introduced the bill.
The member for Macdonnell also said at the time that the bill was an attempt to cast a wider net than the Criminal Code does presently. Some members will know that the code already provides for protection of police officers by virtue of a specific offence, namely section 189A of the Criminal Code which provides for a gaol term of five years, or seven years if the police officer suffers bodily harm, or 16 years if the officer suffers grievous harm.
The government’s bill creates a new section that provides an offence for anyone who unlawfully assaults, obstructs or hinders another person who is providing rescue, medical treatment, first aid, etcetera. It provides a penalty of up to five years gaol and it is, therefore, an extension of section 189A of the code and, like the member for Macdonnell’s bill, can equally be described as a Good Samaritan bill. The government has gone further than the member for Macdonnell. We know that protection already exists for police officers, but the Attorney-General has seen fit to extend that. That is not objectionable of itself.
Someone is keeping count of the number of bills that have been introduced by the CLP. The member for Macdonnell must be keeping count; he is holding up one hand with five digits on it. Therefore, this must be the fifth bill that we have introduced where the government has knocked ours down, got stuck into us to say no it is no good for all sorts of reasons, and ‘You people do not know what you are talking about’ and then, only within months, produced its own bill with some minor variations in some respects. We are happy that the government, generally, picks up our ideas. Like so much of what they do they say one thing but do the other. They might stand here and get stuck into us for the bills we introduce - as occurred last night in relation to a bill introduced by the member for Macdonnell. But we know that, behind the scenes, they accept what we say for the most part and then repackage it, rebadge it and present it as their own.
We do not mind. In fact, we regard it as something of a compliment. I commend the member for Macdonnell for planting the seed with the Attorney-General and his colleagues. For those reasons, we do not oppose the bill.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I would like to say something similar to what the member for Araluen has just said. I welcome the bill and I also thank the member for Macdonnell for bringing it to parliament in the first place. The government, obviously, has broadened it so it covers a larger range of workers including people in rescue, medical and other aid fields. That makes the legislation much better than originally was presented. However, I do believe that the legislation has been presented because the member for Macdonnell initiated it in the first place. That is good. It shows that parliament can work. For sure, governments like to have their names on the bills, as I know. However, I am sure when people read Hansard they will realise that, in some cases, people on this side of parliament do introduce legislation which is taken up by government. The government will say they improved it, and that is probably the case.
I support the bill, and thank the member for Macdonnell for introducing it in the first place.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I am not going to rehash the ‘we did this and you did that’. The government could easily have introduced this as an amendment to my bill, but I am not going to quibble over the niceties of it. I actually take a great personal pleasure in seeing legislation like this passed - not because it was my idea or anything like that but, ultimately, because it is going to protect people in their workplace. The government has cast a slightly wider net and I completely support that.
As I said last night, it has been interesting, as we presented bill by bill to this House, how those bills have been adopted by government. The minister for police last week acknowledged the fact that this does occur, and I am grateful to him for his acceptance of that fact. In fact, it has got to the point with bills on this side of the House, that we have been struggling to find a point of difference with the government.
I was, in one respect, almost grateful last night that, finally, with the defeat of the Bail Bill, we found a point of difference with government. It is a pity it was not a point of difference on policy, but one of workability of the bill. I will not be at all surprised if the Bail Bill that was defeated last night finds its way into this House in some other fashion.
It is interesting that the government adopts all of these bills with such relish. It is almost a case of with enemies like them, who needs friends, as the process of bringing bills before this House and having them defeated, and then reintroduced as government legislation is frustration. I would urge government to, one, get briefings; two, when they get their briefings and they want to introduce their own version of it, amend the bill brought in by opposition or independent members so that the legislation can take off a lot more expediently. This delay in defeating an opposition bill and then reintroducing a government bill, means the protection which is sought, in this instance for emergency workers, in another instance for police officers, or whatever, means the delay turns into a delay of about six months. This means that emergency workers and police officers are exposed for longer than they have to be, and fire penalties are not as high as they should be for longer then they have to be. I hope the government is prepared at points in the future by discussing with members on this side of the House and independent members, to introduce amendments to existing bills, rather than defeating bills and then reintroducing them as their own legislation.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank the members for their support proffered today. I do not want to play who did what in this; I have put nearly 100 pieces of legislation through this Chamber. Right from day one when I took up my role as Attorney-General, I made it very clear to members that law making is the business of the parliament, and that I would always welcome ideas which came from any member of parliament – whether it was the opposition or an independent. In many cases, and I freely acknowledge, as I do today, that the member for Macdonnell certainly brought this issue to parliament, and good on him for doing it. However, it is not just a case of us going away and rebadging it, and changing a few dots on the ‘i’s’ and reintroducing it. In most cases when we take away an opposition or independent’s private member’s bill for analysis, there is often a way in which, with the advice we have available from the policy, that we can actually improve on the original proposition.
This is a classic case of it here. It was not a case of simply taking the original proposition, which was to apply aggravated offence category 2 assaults on emergency workers. It was to look at a more generic way in which to introduce that protection into our Criminal Code, which is exactly what this bill does, and you have acknowledged. What I am saying is that I am not trying to be sneaky about this. I am trying to make good law in concert with the full membership of this House, not just ideas which may occur to me. I do not feel any slight on my character or record if we have adopted the ideas of various members in this House, which we have done over the last four years.
Turning to the bill in front of us, I welcome the support. It is a better provision than previous attempts to provide this type of protection in our legislation, in our Criminal Code. It is a generic provision which means that anyone, whether a member of the public who has jumped into help the firies to fight a bushfire or a fire which is threatening a property and find themselves under some aggressive attack, is protected equally as the firie who would be standing alongside them. It, quite rightly, applies to any member of our community who feels, through loyalty and care about their community, that they should provide some support to their fellow citizens. Anyone in that situation needs to know that the law recognises it and provides them with a special level of protection under the law.
That is quite an elegant solution to introducing that principle into our Criminal Code. It applies to any person in the community, whether they be a nurse, an emergency worker, a common member of the community with no particular vocational involvement in emergency work, anyone who is involved in providing help to other people will be captured under this provision. That is the gist of it, Madam Speaker. We will move on.
Motion agreed to; bill e read a second time.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
DARWIN PORT CORPORATION AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 264)
(Serial 264)
Continued from 1 December 2004.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, first, I support the bill and I thank the government for a briefing on this matter. The only issue I raise is the changes to the board. The board was part of the corporation previously, and now will be an advisory board only. The issues that concern me are how much weight will that advisory board have in matters of policy for the corporation; and a slightly more political question is: how do members of the present board feel about the changes?
The changes appear to me to be to be lessening their role and the power they had as part of the corporation compared with what they will have now as just an advisory board. Whilst I accept the changes to the legislation, I would be interested to hear your comments about where the board will sit in relation to this bill as compared with how it sat in relation to the act.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, the opposition has no great trouble with the legislation, but on matters relating to the port, we think there are some significant issues that should come before this House; and this is not the debate for it, but I will signal them for the minister.
They are issues about the port: its efficacy; its inter-linkages and its GBD status, which has been reported on in the report of the Auditor-General which hit our desks in the last couple of days; its finances, whether those finances are impacting negatively on its fee structures; whether those fee structures then render it uncompetitive with other ports, particularly those with which it is competing head to head. There is the matter of the roll-on roll-off facility, which is an issue of concern to the opposition. It would appear that some $750 000 that was due from the Commonwealth has not been receipted.
These are matters that go not to the bill, and I readily accept that, but to the status of this corporation, this GBD. If the government is going to give it robust legislative and accounting structures, including how it appears in our budget papers, it is necessary to look at how that is travelling.
On a couple of those salient issues, there is a necessity for a formal statement in the House that deals with where the port sits in our transport infrastructure rather than just the rhetoric about landbridges and so on. It should deal with how it sits with some of the matter that has been included in the Chief Minister’s statement to this parliament about competing with other ports. We know geographically it is close to other ports in South-East Asia, but then, so is Wyndham. One would not assume that Wyndham, therefore, is a better competitor than Fremantle, for instance. Arguments that you can work out the distance and therefore it gives you some competitive edge would have to be demonstrated along with the other factors.
I readily acknowledge that these do not go to the core of the legislation. However, the legislation does talk about the corporate structure and how it is set up. Having decided that we believe that we now need to know the forward plans for the Port Corporation: how it will conduct itself; and how a mistake of the magnitude of the unbilled $745 000 occurred. We would like to see that in a way that gives us some time to debate it, rather than a statement that is pushed under our doors the night before.
In terms of the positioning of the Port of Darwin in the world, in our near region, its finances and how those finances impact on its fee schedules, and whether that is a critical factor in its competitiveness. I would hope that the minister, in his summing up of this bill, prior to the third reading, could give some assurance to this parliament that this very important matter will be addressed by way of some discussion drafts that are not glossies for the intention of promoting things politically, but lawfully in purpose of promoting a little more transparent understanding about the role of the Darwin Port Corporation and how it sees itself in the future and in the world.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, generally I welcome the comments by both the member for Nelson and the shadow minister. Let me say at the outset that I believe and am committed to promoting our port and its development. It is crucial to the development of the Northern Territory. I will outline some of those developments in my closing speech, and the way in which government is supporting those developments.
As the member for Drysdale pointed out, these amendments establish the government’s framework where the CEO is appointed by the Administrator under the Public Sector Employment and Management Act and subject to the Financial Management Act and accountable to the minister. This is the government’s framework, and the board will become an advisory board through these amendments. The member for Nelson asked how it is going to work. Obviously, the CEO will work very closely with the board. I have regular meetings with the CEO, and the advice of the board will be communicated to me through the CEO as one mechanism, and the other mechanism by which this will occur is direct meetings between me and the board.
Let me lay it on the record that I value the board of the Darwin Port Corporation, particularly its chairman, Mr Barry Coulter, and his wealth of experience, and the board members who have served over the years. Some have left in the last 12 months, and we have a new board member, Mr Bruce Fadelli, who has vast experience within business within the Northern Territory through the Chamber of Commerce and his own business pursuits in a whole range of areas, including transport, and also his experience as a very successful importer of products, particularly from our nearest neighbour, Indonesia, and his experience in doing business through Asia.
The board now will have more of a trade developing focus and it was decided that the operations of the Port Corporation should be more closely aligned to a GBD. Basically, the more investment that government has to make within the port and the Port Corporation, and there has already been very significant investment as we are all aware and as I flagged yesterday in some of the debates - at least $11m for the bulk loading facility to handle the 500 000 to 600 000 tonnes per year of manganese from Bootu Creek which is an exciting development which will provide core business for the port to build future business on.
I have said a number of times in this House that the container transport business is a cutthroat business, and it is very difficult to compete with some of the southern ports on price when it comes to containers. I suppose it comes to economies of scale and, as already mentioned in debate here, how towage is a significant portion of costs within Darwin. As port traffic and use of the port facilities grows, those costs will be able to be spread more evenly which will enable better competition.
To answer the member for Nelson’s question, there is a trade focus which the Port Corporation Board will have. I have already mentioned Mr Barry Coulter being the chair, and I know that Mr Coulter and Mr Berwick, the CEO of the Port Corporation, have undertaken a number of trips within Asia to promote the port, and to find out more about operations of ports overseas. I know my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, has undertaken a number of trips to our near north, and also to China and beyond, building up Northern Territory business and the business of the port. It is entirely appropriate that the board has a trade focus.
As I have said, government has recognised that we need to make significantly more investment within the port on a whole range of issues: quarantine facilities, the bulk loader I mentioned, bulk liquid, and the pipeline. There is much investment that has to be made by government within the port before we really consider the port moving to be a government owned corporation. However, that is not to lessen the fact that the port should have a commercial focus in everything it does. By clarifying the fact that government is going to be investing and underwriting, to a larger degree, the developments at the port, it frees the port from being too bound by commercial considerations.
That was one of the conundrums with Bootu Creek in that, yes, Bootu Creek was ready to roll, ready to move, and they were obviously trying to negotiate the best price for their particular operation. However, it was felt there needed to be a second customer to spread the costs more evenly to make it a more viable commercial concern. It is uncertain when - I think it is the Olympia Resource’s - garnet sands operations in Central Australia will be ready to start moving their product through the port and utilising the bulk loading facilities.
I am convinced that these changes lift the burden off the port of acting in a purely commercial fashion. Government is interested in underwriting all the infrastructure I have spoken about and the board can now concentrate on a trade focus, which is quite appropriate.
Member for Nelson, I have outlined how those lines of reporting might occur. I am very pleased to meet with the board, and I commend their very hard work. I have met with the board several times since I have become minister, and each meeting has been very productive in clarifying the situation regarding these legislative changes. In terms of power - I do not like to think in those terms; I like to think of responsibilities – the board still has important responsibilities of the trade route, and I have responsibilities, as any minister with oversight of a GBD has, under that sort of legislation.
The member for Drysdale mentioned quite a number of issues and I will turn to them. However, I remind members that the purpose of the bill is to also expand the role of the Harbour Master, and reflect the operational roles that have been in place for a number of years. I place on the record my appreciation for the work of our Harbour Master. He does a fantastic job. I meet with him quite regularly. It is a difficult job because as the harbour grows and evolves in terms of shipping and its use there are issues that the Harbour Master has to address, least of all issues like moorings down on Sadgroves Creek. There are competing interests there and those are issues that we are working through.
I commend the work of the Harbour Master in ensuring the smooth operations of the port and trying to straighten out issues as they arise through the operation of the port. It is a commercial port but it is also very well-used for recreation by our Darwin community and I commend that also. It certainly is a great asset for the people of Darwin.
Turning to the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. I take on board what he said. It will be appropriate in the next few months for me to come to this parliament with a report on the port and developments at the port and future directions of the port. Once the board has had a chance to discuss more fully its trade focus and come out with a trade plan in that regard, it will be very appropriate for me to bring to the House, as the member for Drysdale has outlined, a plan for the port.
The member for Drysdale questioned efficiencies of the port. I would remind the member for Drysdale the comments by the CEO of Hai Win Shipping, Mr Frank Guerra. He said the operations through the port and the interface with the rail went ‘as smooth as silk’. So there is much to be commended about the port and its operation and that is certainly a compliment.
There is no doubt that in terms of prices I have mentioned before, if we are talking about container traffic, that there are cheaper ports within Australia and Fremantle springs to mind and certainly we need to look at our competitors. The member for Drysdale mentioned Wyndham also. We have to look at the ways in which government can further support the port to have a competitive edge against those other ports. It is something we need to look at.
I mentioned before in this House that there are problems with the port regarding our quarantine because we are a port that interfaces with countries that have the risk of the Giant African Snail. We certainly do not want that particular pest in the Territory. Extensive and quite dangerous, I suppose, operations and processes have to be carried out to fumigate our containers to kill these snails and quite toxic gasses must be used. I commend the port and the work they do with the quarantine authorities. Government has invested money in upgrading quarantine facilities to try to overcome those obstacles that we have, that a port like Adelaide does not have in terms of quarantine issues and the Giant African Snail.
I have mentioned GBD status and how that is going to work and the interaction between government and the Port Corporation; that was an issue the member for Drysdale raised. He also raised the issue of finances and fee structures. Let me say that there is currently a review into that, the Meyrick Review. Government is also cognisant of any significant rises to port charges and we would not really like to see that. We want to see port charges that are competitive, but we also need to be cognisant of the fact that our port needs to operate as a business, and they are becoming more closely aligned to a GBD. Treasury obviously is going to have a greater role in terms of the finances and fee structures of the port. Already the CEO has flagged to me that they are in very close contact with Treasury over these issues, which are important strategic for the development of our port.
The member for Drysdale mentioned the trade route, which was debated yesterday. As I have said, it is a focus of the Darwin Port Corporation Board and we have some people who are eminently placed to look at the strategic initiatives to build the Territory’s trade route into Asia.
I have already mentioned that I am more than prepared to make a statement on the forward plans of the port. We need to let this new structure settle for a while, and for the board to be able to put its forward plans. I am more than happy to bring them to parliament.
The member for Drysdale has mentioned a number of times approximately $750 000. Basically, he said because the port was not talking with Defence that we had foregone some $750 000 of revenue and he pointed to the Auditor-General’s report. I am quite happy to debate that in detail. I do not want to foreshadow the debate, but it is my advice from the CEO that issues relating to Defence and the roll-on roll-off facility are being worked through. We know that Defence is a large bureaucracy and there are layers within layers and boxes within boxes, but I am assured by the CEO that the issue is being worked through and that revenue will flow into Territory coffers when a few issues are resolved.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to the House. It makes some timely amendments. I have explained the rationale behind it. We have a fantastic harbour and a fantastic port. Not only do we have the dimensions out there at the East Arm facility that are developing at a great pace and are being under-written by government, but we have tourism opening up with cruise ship visitation and there are economic benefits through the visitation of cruise ships. That is very positive. We have the recreational and boating aspects on our harbour and that is something we are going to have to watch as traffic in our harbour increases.
I appreciate the support from both the opposition and the Independent member. There is one committee stage amendment which is a clarification; it does not alter the intent of the bill, and I ask for members’ support.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 17, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 18:
Dr BURNS: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 95. Basically, this is an amendment of section 48 by-laws. It is an amendment to provide for a new subsection (3) in the substantive bill. The new subsection alleviates the problem where any port by-law that contains reference to a document, standard or rule, etcetera, has to be remade each time the document, standard or rule changes. The minister’s approval will be required and notification would be published in the Gazette.
In short, this is making things easier for administration. We know that national rules and standards change, particularly in this era where we have a lot of port security and whatever in place, and standards also change - I know that from my role as transport minister. This will make it easier for those changes to be incorporated. Nonetheless, it will be made public because the minister will be notifying through the government Gazette.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendment; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
PARKS AND RESERVES (FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE) (REVIVAL) BILL
(Serial 278)
(Serial 278)
Continued from 9 February 2005.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I stand to participate in the debate, however I do seek some clarification from you first. Perhaps you might be able to enlighten me. We are being expected today to debate a piece of legislation which will undoubtedly pass on the numbers of government within a few hours. This legislation gives the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory authority to hand over 18 parks on their own documentation - now probably 17 with the Miriuwung people’s decision and the Keep River Park now withdrawn from negotiations - and to set up arrangements with other parks in the Northern Territory, totalling about 49 parks according to the Chief Minister’s documentation - now it is probably 48 in total - which bring in arrangements that have never been seen in the Northern Territory before, in terms of the arbitrary and secretive powers of the Chief Minister to negotiate and reach a decision on these particular negotiations.
I also am informed, very correctly, that there is an indigenous land use agreement that has been struck for each and every one of these parks. So, on the one hand we have legislation that we are expected to pass, based on general comments within legislation, and this House, supposedly, is expected to reach an informative decision on the value or not of that legislation, when the legislation itself does not transfer, in any real sense, to the indigenous land use agreements that have been struck for each and every one of those parks.
I seek your guidance as to how I can possibly debate this issue with the Chief Minister when she has not brought into this House today each and every one of those indigenous land use agreements. It would seem to me that that is what we are actually debating - the indigenous land use agreements that are the decisions that have been made. The legislation states that this bill effectively gives life to a decision that was made prior to 2 February. The details of that decision are included in indigenous land use agreements for every one of those parks, and we have no detail. How can one possibly debate this legislation, Madam Speaker? I ask for your guidance.
Madam SPEAKER: I will speak to the Clerk for a moment about this. In discussion with the Clerk - and I agree with him - at this stage it is not really my right nor my power to interrupt the discussion of this particular bill that has been raised. Any legal opinion or availability of advice that the Chief Minister has she could offer in her summing up of the debate. Any of the points you have raised can certainly be raised within the debate and the committee stage to get clarification of what you are seeking. It is not really in my right or power to stop debate on this bill. It is a bill that the parliament is discussing at the moment and we really have to go forward with it.
Mr BURKE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I accept the situation that you are in. I have looked through Pettifer and I cannot find reference to a situation as exists in this Chamber today; that is, that it is an appalling situation, quite frankly. It is an absolutely appalling situation where, undoubtedly, this government through its numbers will achieve its objective by probably 4 pm or 5 pm. It will achieve an objective whereby the Chief Minister has undertaken negotiations based on some broad utterances in this parliament, in the form of a statement and a second reading speech to a bill, which has not been achieved. The Chief Minister’s bill and the utterances she has made, the undertakings she gave, the objectives she set, and the time lines she set, have all failed.
None of the details of the supposed agreement that has finally been struck - an agreement, I remind you, Madam Speaker and members of this Assembly, that has taken three attempts to get into legislation, into some sort of legal posture because, in fact, it has fallen past the time objectives the Chief Minister has set and the numbers of parks involved up until this point.
It has been brought to life again by another piece of legislation that supposedly asks this parliament to give authority to a decision that was made in secret by the Chief Minister by 2 February; a decision we know nothing about. It is a decision that is so complex that there is an indigenous land use agreement struck for every one of those parks. I am not talking about a broad and general agreement, or broad and general results, or the situation that the Chief Minister said that Territorians would enjoy; that litigation would be a thing of the past. We know that is not the case because the Chief Minister has admitted it. In fact, her words were: ‘We will, quite rightly, pursue the litigious route where they so desire’. Therefore, it is not to achieve any objective of avoiding litigation.
It was supposedly to set up a win/win situation that provides a consensus approach for Aboriginal people that will end up producing a world-class system of parks and reserves. It has failed in that objective as well. It has failed not only by the release from the Northern Land Council yesterday which says it is not a consensus approach and win/win situation which the Chief Minister espoused in 2002; nor will it produce the world-class system of parks and reserves which the Chief Minister hopes will be a springboard for Kakadu and Uluru coming under Territory control. It also underscores in this media release the statement by the Northern Land Council that the model put in place by the Country Liberal Party for Nitmiluk is the one which they expected to be achieved and it has not been achieved by the Chief Minister in these negotiations. Therefore she has failed in that objective as well.
The silent testimony of the Miriuwung people who are sitting in the Chamber today is the most appalling outcome for any Labor party or Labor government. That these good people would sit in silent anger in this Chamber, would take the time to come to this Chamber - I did not organise it; they did - they came here of their own volition to listen to what the Chief Minister has to say as she has all power in this regard. It is an appalling situation for a Labor government and a Labor party which has paraded itself as so honest in its dealings with Aboriginal people, so concerned about their rights, and so willing to criticise the CLP in the past, and is quite happy to find itself in a situation where it comes to the duty of the CLP – a duty I take on willingly, I might add – to argue on their behalf, and the other Aboriginal people who are probably not as informed as the Miriuwung people are, as to what their rights should be, what their rights should extend too, and why this deal does not do anything not only for them - which is why they have withdrawn - but does not do anything in a real sense for all of the Aboriginal claimants, potential or actual, or traditional owners who are left in this parks deal.
It is an absolute disgrace from a parliamentary point of view, and from a position of where we come in terms of looking at all of the issues and debating these things fulsomely, it is an absolute disgrace. It is a reinforcement of what is happening with the waterfront deal, and that is that somehow the Northern Territory has moved in the space of about 3 years where you may as well call yourself ‘Herr Hitler’. We have a situation where the Chief Minister is absolutely all powerful, reinforced by the numbers in the House, and has no feeling of any responsibility to provide any information in a real sense to Territorians.
The Chief Minister says if you are so interested you should seek a briefing. Territorians cannot come to your office and seek a briefing. Territorians think this is the House where the information is provided. Territorians expect you, as the government in charge of the taxpayers’ funds, with the authority and so-called mandate of Territorians, supposedly because they voted you into government, underscored by your own principles of honesty, openness, transparency and integrity – what has happened to all of that? – where you will say to Territorians, ‘It was not in our policy platform. However, we have decided we are going to do a handover deal which involves about 47 Territory parks, and we are going to do this deal with one person charged entirely with the negotiations. We will bring in legislation which brings you a broad framework of what we seek to achieve, and then at the end of the day after we have achieved it, we will tell you what we have done. If you do not support this approach, you are not a Territorian’.
It is just absolute hypocrisy. It is making a laughing stock of the parliament of the Northern Territory. It is supposedly supported by Territorians because you shove a few information brochures in the mail, which is probably one of the side jobs of your dirt unit up there …
Ms Lawrie: You are the only one complaining. It is not an issue out there.
Mr BURKE: … which is costing millions of dollars a year to keep going. The member for Karama should be ashamed to sit in here. She does not have Aboriginal blood flowing in her veins, however she should have the same concerns as she has sprouted them in this House on many an occasion.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: You are the one! The member for Millner was the one! He actually [inaudible] came into this House any time, any day.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! Leader of the Opposition, your remarks are getting too personal. We are debating a bill; please refrain.
Mr BURKE: Any time, any day. I was going to get to it later, Madam Speaker, but I will put the challenge to the Chief Minister again: any time, anywhere, any day, any medium, I will debate the parks issue with you. If you are so supported by Territorians, you would have the confidence to go out there and debate it, and then bring it into this House and have it passed. She will not because she is working on the numbers and she is working on pliant, weak Aboriginal members. Pliant, weak Aboriginal members.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker. That was an offensive remark towards members of this Chamber, totally offensive.
Madam SPEAKER: That is unparliamentary.
Mr BURKE: It is not!
Madam SPEAKER: It is an aspersion cast on members in this House, and it is unparliamentary. I ask you to withdraw it.
Mr BURKE: May I speak to the point of order, Madam Speaker?
Madam SPEAKER: Yes, you may speak to it.
Mr BURKE: Surely, we have not reached the point in this House where the words ‘pliant’ and ‘weak’ is unparliamentary. We are supposed to be Australians. We are supposed to be people who put ourselves in the rough and tumble of parliament. The member for Millner has every opportunity to stand up and call me pliant and weak. I do not mind. That is the allegation I make against you. Surely, I can use those words?
Madam SPEAKER: I was referring to the fact that you are referring to their Aboriginality and using that as some sort of aspersion upon the government in making decisions. We need not get into this area.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, the member for Millner, as did several other members in this House, predicated their entry in this House with maiden speeches on a particular race issue. They have drawn attention to their own race, and they then have to accept anything that flows from that …
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not think we have to accept anything. It is a parliament, and you can be as robust as you like, but you cannot cast aspersions on members of this parliament. The member for Greatorex on a number of occasions has been upset that he felt there were racist remarks being targeted at him. So I am saying in this debate, let us keep it at a level that you are not insulting people because of their race, no matter who they are ...
Mr Elferink interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: I am speaking, thank you, member for Macdonnell. Do not interrupt me. Leader of the Opposition, with good grace, just withdraw those remarks.
Mr BURKE: Madam Speaker, I withdraw because I respect your ruling. However, I will say that it is galling. If anyone checks the Parliamentary Record and looks at the comments that have been made in debates in this House that come from the government, when it comes to issues of what the CLP did or did not do for Aboriginal people, and the attitude of particular CLP members, anyone who checks the Hansard record will know that we have taken all of that on the chin.
The hypocrisy of you lot is the fact that you cannot even take words like ‘pliant’ and ‘weak’. The reality is that you want to do is get this through your skull: you are pliant and weak. You are pliant and weak because you do not stand up for the principles you say you believe in. It is a sad day when the CLP has to get up and argue these sorts of things because we should be arguing possibly against the fact that you have gone too far!
All you can do is sprout nice words and, when it comes to action, you cannot even do what the CLP did. You cannot even, in substance, deliver to Aboriginal people the sorts of deals that the CLP did.
Dr Burns: Well, let us hear what your policies are! Let us hear what your policies are!
Mr BURKE: And let us hear what our deal is, says the member for Johnston. You can get up and say whether you agree or not.
Dr Burns: I will.
Mr BURKE: I am glad that are Miriuwung people here because I will put it on the record for all Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory now, and it will be in our election policy because it is already written. It is this: the CLP will provide joint management arrangements to every park in the Northern Territory, every park - understand that? – a la Nitmiluk. No ifs, no buts, no whyfors, no weasel words. An ILUA will be struck a la Nitmiluk for every park in the Northern Territory when we come to government. That is my undertaking.
The second thing I will tell you is this: for every program that involves Aboriginal money on Aboriginal land, every program backed by the land councils, we will match them dollar for dollar. They are the two principal planks of the CLP policy for Aboriginal people. And that is the sort of outcome that Aboriginal are looking for, and that is the sort of outcome a CLP government undertakes, without reservation, to provide for them in the future.
So when you start talking about the old days of the CLP, get with it. The day starts from today, and if you want to talk about the track record of the CLP, the track record of the CLP is Nitmiluk, which we are proud of, and this is not Nitmiluk. It is amazing how the Northern Land Council has come out and said, ‘This is not Nitmiluk’. Do not try and pass off to Territorians, as you have done all over the place, and do not try and pass off to Aboriginal people that somehow this is a Nitmiluk deal. The CLP did Nitmiluk deals in the past, and the CLP will do Nitmiluk deals in the future. We will deal for every park in the Northern Territory, and we will do it without handing over one hectare of land.
I will stand here and say, I will do my utmost, and I am confident that I will get Aboriginal people to agree with it, because the Nitmiluk deal is what they want. Everyone said it, indigenous Territorians, non-indigenous Territorians, we all benefit, and it is about time we moved into that future.
What you have done, and where you are so hypocritical, is you are trying to walk the Aboriginal walk and play the northern suburbs at the same time. You have never had any integrity about it. You are trying to be a carbon copy of the worst points of the CLP because you think you will hold your place in the northern suburbs. That is your problem. You have no integrity and you have no substance to you. The lack of substance is reinforced by what is happening with this legislation.
The Chief Minister made a pre-emptive decision, based on no real issue, in fact …
Mr Henderson: Like a High Court decision.
Mr BURKE: The member for Wanguri says the High Court decision forced the government to act in this way. There was a High Court decision brought down over the parks in the Northern Territory, there have been High Court decisions, there have been court decisions for as long as I have lived in the Northern Territory, and for many years before that. There are various ways of dealing with those issues, step by step. You can deal it park by park, you can deal with it through indigenous land use agreements, through acquisition processes. The Labor government has chosen all of those routes as well. However, they were trying to con indigenous Territorians, and trying to con the general public.
Mr Ah Kit: No, no, no.
Mr BURKE: The member for Arnhem should stand up and speak here, because the Chief Minister has no credibility. You are an Aboriginal leader. I am looking forward to you standing up and saying to the Miriuwung people up there just why this is a good deal, and why they are not smart for being involved in it. I will lay money they are smarter than you are, that they know what their rights should be, and they know what they should achieve. Well, I do not have your credibility but at least I can argue on their behalf.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: Well, laugh if you like. I have only been in the Northern Territory for, five minutes or so off 12 years, it may be five minutes in your opinion. I will be first to admit in this House that I have made many mistakes when it comes to Aboriginal people, and you cannot turn back the clock, but what you can do is make sure you do not make those mistakes again. When you listen to me, listen to what I am saying now. Only fools and cowards pull out Hansard records and try to say what you said tomorrow is what you said a year ago, it is wrong. What I am saying now is what is the CLP’s policy. That is why we oppose this legislation so vehemently.
We oppose the fact that the Chief Minister has no credibility in bringing forward legislation that has been revived on three occasions. Bringing forward legislation that gives no information to this parliament as to what, in fact, is the substantive deal that has been done on each and every one of these parks. No information whatsoever and expects this parliament to pass legislation after the event, on an issue that the Chief Minister has not explained in any detail, except in general principles, to Territorians. In fact, her own brochures are full of misinformation to Territorians. She will not tell Territorians what the cost of these arrangements are, will not tell Territorians what the leaseback arrangements are, and will not commit to indigenous Territorians some basic rights which they are already enjoying in some parts of the Northern Territory.
On the one hand, you are putting in very unsatisfactory arrangements for, I believe, non-indigenous Territorians who would ask the question, quite rightly: why are you handing over at least 17 of our parks? Why are you changing the freehold title? The answer, the Chief Minister says, is because we are going to avoid the cost of litigation that the CLP engaged in the past. But hang on, you are already litigating on a number of parks, and you have already said you will include more. It looks like Keep River is now in the bunch. Therefore, the non-litigious route that you were going to follow is out the window. So, why are you doing it? I will tell you why. We want to stand up there and say: ‘We reckon, if we get a bit of bad luck, we might be out of this place in about two or three months time, so we will try to get some framework agreement in place that will, somehow, settle all the Aboriginal issues’. What you have done in trying for the big bang solution, is forget about one little group – Aboriginal people. They are not stupid. You have treated them like fools; you belittle them, thought they would be pawns and they would go along with, and you find that they are not. Each and every park and issue needs to be looked at individually in that context, and you cannot do that broad framework and get away with it.
Also, worse than that, the Chief Minister not only wanted to put that in place, but wanted to do it in secret. She did not want, at any event, even to this point today, to explain in detail what the arrangements were for each and every one of those parks. Somehow, Territorians are supposed to roll over and say: ‘Oh, it sounds all right to me, we will go along with it’.
This should be an election issue, first of all to get the facts before Territorians, and secondly, to test its righteousness because, if the government is as confident as they claim they are that they have support of Territorians and indigenous Territorians on this issue, why would they not go to the people? Surely, that is a winner. Surely, you would go out and say: ‘Let us make this an election issue’. But, no, no. What we have is legislation on urgency. Legislation that is being pushed through on urgency, with no detail: ‘Let us just get it passed. We know we have the numbers. Tomorrow is another day; and it is done’.
That does not sound like the support of Territorians to me; that sounds like a government that does not want this on the agenda for Territorians to think about – does not want it under any circumstances.
I understand the member for Nelson put a motion that it go to a select committee. What is wrong with a select committee? What is the rush? A select committee can look at these things in detail; all the information will come forward. The Chief Minister can put her indigenous land use agreements on the table; she can talk to Miriuwung people and others and convince them that this is the best deal for everyone. But she will not do that either. I understand you divided last night against the select committee. Gee!
Ms Martin: You were not here for the debate last night, Denis, you were upstairs …
Madam SPEAKER: Order! None of those remarks, thank you, Chief Minister.
Mr BURKE: No, I was out fundraising. It is amazing the number of people who are trying to give me money at the moment. You have to get your priorities right when it comes to priorities. I tried to get information out of you yesterday, but I got no information, so what do I do? Go and see a few people who want to give us a lot of money, or sit and listen to more garbage from you? I made a good choice.
Members interjecting.
Mr BURKE: At least we can make decisions.
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, you have 20 minutes left. Do you want to continue until 12.15 pm, or would you like to continue your remarks after Question Time?
Mr BURKE: No, Madam Speaker, I will rise at the end of the second and third reading on this to continue speaking, because we have heard nothing from the Chief Minister, apart from the …
Ms MARTIN: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I suggest to the Opposition Leader that, if he would like to continue later, we could give him a briefing, since he has not had one yet.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
Mr BURKE: My briefings are in this parliament, Madam Speaker. We have all the time in the world, Chief Minister. You can brief us all day. So far, we have asked you questions and questions, and all we get back is: ‘You are un-Territorian, you do not support it. Why don’t you get a briefing?’ Chief Minister, why don’t you tell us exactly what you are going to do? Let the Miriuwung people hear you. They have heard what I am going to do. They have heard my position – absolutely clear. It does not need lots of legislation; that is our position and it is irrevocable. That is how I will progress. All you can do is sit there.
I wonder how many Aboriginal members of this parliament get up and say what great legislation it is because if you do you are hypocrites. This is not good legislation. It is wrong in every sense and frankly, Madam Speaker, it is not even legislation you can debate in substance because none of the detail has been provided to this House.
Debate suspended until after Question Time
PARKS AND RESERVES (FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE) (REVIVAL) BILL
(Serial 278)
(Serial 278)
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, my comments will be relatively short because I will reserve some comments for the following bill.
I spoke last week when this bill was introduced and said that it should not have been pushed through on urgency. I remain unconvinced of the urgency. Although the Chief Minister will say the issue has been around since about 2003, the debate has only started in the last six months. It is a very important debate.
I emphasised my concerns during General Business Day yesterday. It is such an important issue that I believe it should be referred to a select committee, as I said last night. This bill sets in motion the next bill, which enables the government to establish certain agreements dealing with the parks in this bill, with the exception of the Keep River National Park.
I will not be supporting this because the bill should have gone through the normal stages and I have concerns that this whole process should be slowed down. If it is not going to be referred to a select committee then at least let us work through this carefully because once it is done it will be very hard to undo.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I had hoped to speak later, because the Chief Minister seems to be the only spokesperson in this debate. She keeps saying that if you had a briefing you would understand it all. I was hoping someone like the member for Millner would jump. He is a man who is trained in legal matters. He proudly professes that his Aboriginal ancestry is something that gives him great passion with matters such as this.
Mr Bonson: Correct.
Mr DUNHAM: Correct. And he also claims, certainly in debates about the Darwin Harbour and the rest of it, that unfettered access to land and matters relating to the status quo of some our natural heritage is very important to him. I was hoping that, if it is all that simple, one of the others on that side who had this very transparent briefing would be able to explain it to people who are finding it difficult to understand exactly why this is such a good deal.
I have a problem here, Madam Speaker, having to speak so quickly after somebody who has told us so little. The purpose of debates, as we all know, is to elicit further information, to make sure that things are put on the record and to make sure that the government’s position is abundantly clear, and that is, that it is supporting the best endeavours of the Northern Territory and the people of the Northern Territory.
The Chief Minister, in the debate as recently as yesterday, talked about matters relating to this bill. Some of what she said I find very difficult to reconcile with what we have before us. For instance, she says, ‘The legislation, which sets out full details of the government’s offer and the parameters of the negotiation …’. Full details of the government’s offer - well, it does not, because we need to know exactly what detail is involved in this legislation. As my colleague, the member for Nelson, has pointed out, we have a very convoluted set of legal circumstances in front of us. We have a bill that seeks to revive a bill which is obsolete, and allows for an action to have occurred on 2 February. We do not know what that action is. Why 2 February? Why not 8 February? Why not after parliament has discussed this matter? Here we are in parliament on 17 February. Why does the bill not say it enables the Chief Minister to do something next week so that she could have used this opportunity in parliament to tell us what she was going to do?
There should be an enormous amount of clarity about this day because, being in the past, she should be able to recite matters of history. This should be beyond debate. Something has happened on 2 February; the minister wants to use an act of parliament to legitimise that. I have significant problems with this, by the way. I believe retrospectivity in legislation is something that legislators should avoid. There is the potential for immense problems by allowing legitimacy for a past action which one assumes was illegitimate. If you extrapolate that, as legislators here we should not be doing that. We should not be bestowing the full force of the law on a past action if that past action was legitimate.
Let us assume it was not. Let us assume we had a defeated bill, and it was defeated because the Chief Minister constructed it in such a fashion that it would disappear if she could not achieve her ambitions. Well, she could not on two very important counts, and so the bill did disappear.
Last December, we had a bill that came into this parliament which enabled the Chief Minister to do something tomorrow fortnight ago. We do not know what that was. It enabled her, the Friday before the sittings, to do something, and we do not know what that was. When we came in here we had an urgent bill which is enabling her to legitimise something she did on 2 February. We do not know what that was. However, it is certainly not, to requote the Chief Minister, ‘… setting out the full details of the government’s offer and the parameters of the negotiations’. We certainly do not have that. I would have thought that was pretty important.
It is difficult to talk to the public about the legal process this has gone through here, but certainly for members in this parliament, it should be fairly easy to understand that there are some problems with this. First, under normal conventions, it is very difficult to introduce an identical bill immediately after another bill has been defeated or has ceased in some way. I know that the conventions of federal parliament - certainly for the Senate and passing bills through - is a three-month rule. However, what we have here is a dead bill in December and, the very next sittings of parliament, a revival bill. I am not sure of the legitimacy of that. I am not sure of the legitimacy of the Chief Minister engaging in actions under a bill which has not yet gone through this parliament, much less received assent. The Chief Minister has been busy doing things between 31 December and today which, in the next hour or so, we are going to legitimise.
That is a pretty big problem. If you look at this as legislators, there are an enormous amount of activities one could do that are illegitimate, and then come to this parliament at some later time and render them legitimate. I would have thought that, regarding process and moving right away from what the contents of the bill are, this is pretty dumb law.
Normally, what happens is you legitimise something and then you engage in the actions that are bestowed upon you by the power and the potency of that legislation. We have a backward looking bill which goes to the core of the Chief Minister’s ambitions which she spelled out. She has not told us what the element of hardship is to do with this bill.
In standing orders, as all members would know, if a bill is to be treated urgently, there must be demonstrable hardship. The Chief Minister has not told us what those elements of hardship are. Therefore, somewhere between 31 December and today, there is some immense issue of hardship that will occur between now and March if this bill lies on the table. What is that? The Chief Minister must divulge what a delay of four weeks would mean to this bill. Is it fatal to the interests of the government? Does it cause personal, financial or some other social hardship to the people who are involved in it?
I say it is exactly the opposite. The Chief Minister was very patronising in pointing out, when she was discussing the progress of various bills, how they lay on the table and we discuss them at the next sittings. She just recited that little platitude to us in Question Time. We are here now knowing that is certainly not the case with this bill. It is not the case that the Chief Minister’s orderly progression of legislation through the various stages has occurred.
In any event, we get an inkling there is a problem because, of the very few people who did get behind the closed door around the boardroom table, some are pretty upset. That has to set off alarm bells for those of us who were not at the meeting behind the closed doors of the boardroom. You hear people who sat at the table saying, for instance, that the Chief Minister’s position is baffling - ‘She tells us to come and get a briefing’ - these people sat through the whole process. They were fortunate enough to be able to sit in the room when the Chief Minister did have the potency of the legislation that lapsed last year, and they are saying that her position is baffling and they are completely at odds with the Chief Minister’s agreement. Why would we be worried? We would be worried because, obviously, they have much greater data than we will ever get. It is certainly much greater than anything that has been put on this table.
The Chief Minister has had three shots at legislation. My own belief is that they depart significantly from anything in any Westminster system, they are, arguably, ultra vires, and that, to have lawmakers making laws to empower someone to do something that was not legitimate, and thus render it legitimate, is a big problem. Take all of the stuff to do with this bill away, think of some models in your head where this might be the case, and it is a very tricky thing to ask us to do, because it goes both ways. We could retrospectively say that something that was done in the past is now illegal, and we could render an illegal status to a past act. Where are we going with this, Madam Speaker?
The legislation we drop in this House should be forward looking; it should not be to mop up the problems of the past. The problems of the past are entirely of the Chief Minister’s making. The ambitions she set for herself in the act were not met. The deadlines she set out legislatively were not met, and she is using a vast amount of rhetoric to say that her position has some merit without demonstrating empirically to this parliament that that is the case.
There was an interjection across the table that the CLP had no Aboriginal members. While that may or may not be true, I do not think it is necessary for people to divulge their racial origins. In the event that it is true, there are certainly people who proudly carry their Aboriginal ancestry on their sleeve on the other side of parliament and I would have hoped to have heard from them. I would have hoped that the member for Millner with his great knowledge of legal matters would have been able to debate this, even the positions I am putting about whether you believe that this is good law that bestows legitimacy on a past illegal action. Do you believe that is good law? If I am wrong and the past action was legal, why are we passing this bill? Why are we mentioning that day? If the Chief Minister did something on 2 February that was entirely in accord with the laws of this place what is it doing featured in this bill? I would have thought that the member for Millner could have made a good contribution, likewise the member for Arafura and the member for Arnhem.
I would have hoped that the member for Arnhem with his knowledge of land matters as a former director of the Northern Land Council of some years standing could have engaged in debate and told us what his position was when he was involved in matters relating to Aboriginal land, what his position was when he saw native title issues come through, what he thinks about Wik, what he thinks about various other elements of this entire vexed issue that the Territory has confronted as a result of Mr Ward sitting on the High Court. He could have done a little walk through this is what Mr Ward said; this is what it meant for us, this is why the 49 parks have been divided up in such a way, and we could have had the great benefit of his knowledge and wisdom in this area. Their silence is concerning.
I would have thought that if the Chief Minister was really good for Aboriginal people, much like the sorry debate - I mean, we had the Chief Minister bring on a so-called sorry debate that did not mention the word ‘sorry’ but nonetheless she brought this debate into this parliament and it was seen as essential that certain members made a contribution to it so they could parley to their constituency, both their formal voters within their electorate but also their broader constituency of Aboriginal people, what the position of the government was. The silence from those members in this debate is alarming and it is deafening.
We have the Chief Minister parading three bills before us that have no detail in them. We have the Chief Minister continuing to say, ‘Don’t you worry. All the details are there. If you were to come to a briefing you would have been right. This is a good thing for people’. And she is saying it like a small child worried about bogeymen in the bed: If I keep saying it, keep saying, keep saying it possibly there is no bogeymen out there.
Let us discuss this in a level-headed way. Let us discuss why the first act failed on your own capacity. Let us discuss if you think that the legislative answer is a poor outcome why you are seeking a litigious approach in this particular case. If you have said to us that the cost will be millions and millions and you have also said that - this is a quote from last night’s debate:
- Now, we know the opposition’s way: determine tenure by litigation. That would mean spending decades
in the courts and between $50m and $100m of hard-earned Territory revenue.
So one assumes the Chief Minister has done some modelling on this. One assumes she has had options before her including a litigious option, and one assumes she has had lawyers work out the various parameters for success and the various parameters for cost. I assume that has been done for the whole package, the whole 49 Ward parks. We know that that is the route she has also chosen for some of these parks. So she must have some devices that tell her what the costs of those are, and we need to know that, too. For those parks where she has decided to take the remedy of going to the courts, and there is nothing wrong with that, I mean, if the laws are there to be used for Aboriginal people and for governments and for farmers and miners and anybody else, they are perfectly able to use them; it is called justice. There should never be this negativity about people seeking to establish their positions in the courts of the land in front of the laws that we dictate in these parliaments.
If the Chief Minister has a view that what we do here in creating these laws, somehow if people have the temerity to ever use them, that is a bad and terrible thing, it is actually a poor reflection on people pursuing justice through what we do in this parliament and that is making laws.
I am entirely bewildered by the Chief Minister’s position. I would like to know the linkages between the three statutes - the deceased statute and the two that are on our books that will pass in short time - because it is not evident. I would like to know whether the Chief Minister had the power to do whatever it was she did on 2 February, and I would like to know what that was. What was it? What did you sign, do, undertake, provide, on that day? If it was nothing, let us take it out. If it was something that you had all the force of law to do, take it out. If it was something that was illegal and this bill will bestow legitimacy and legality on it, tell us what it is in great detail. Tell us what you undertook, on behalf of us without the force of law.
I could talk for hours on this bill, Madam Speaker, but we are really talking in the dark until we get the full details. In terms of this being a government position, in terms of the great attachment that some members have to this position, I would like to hear it from some of the lay practitioners, from people with experience in this - and I count in here the member for Arnhem with his land council experience, and the lawyer among us. I would like to hear those various points of view spelled out to me so that they can convince me because I remain entirely unconvinced about this whole business. This little book here also tells us that there have been some desktop exercises done which have made assumptions. We can see that on page 1 at the front, and I mentioned this last night. It says, and I quote from page 1 of NT Parks and Reserves Questions and Answers:
- It is a complex package with a number of interrelated elements. The final mix … was developed with due
consideration given to the relative strengths of existing claims …
What that meant was somebody sat at a desk, looked at the claimants, looked at the history of the land in question - made some legal guesswork, I suppose I am saying. They said: ‘Well, should we take this case on?’ Somewhere there was a desktop exercise that made decisions about how you would muster this herd: ‘We are going to take this lot that way and this lot that way. These are going to go to court’. Someone has made judgments about the 49 parks that Ward talked about, and I need to know the basis for those judgments because it would appear they are actionable and it would appear that the Chief Minister’s lofty ambition of keeping away from the courts has not been met in the case of Keep River.
The case of Keep River reinforces an earlier point I made, and that is that there is a deceased act of parliament that the people from Keep River believe that they can pursue the Chief Minister on to get some remedies. So they say, and I quote from a media release from the Northern Land Council entitled Chief Minister Backflip on Parks, 16 February 2005, on the second page:
- If the latter the Chief Minister’s reversal might be actionable.
What they are talking about is actioning a reversal under an act that does not exist, but which we will breathe new life into in the next hour. That is why it is pretty tricky, Madam Speaker. We have someone out there who has been hurt by an action under a dead act and we in this parliament are going to revive that act.
If the Chief Minister’s legislative position is that you can change things that happened in the past that you did not like by an act for the future, we may as well put a clause in there saying: ‘Notwithstanding anything the Keep River people might say, they have no case’. If it is that easy to legitimise this mysterious 2 February thing, why do we not write them out of it? Why do we not write their action out, whatever it might be that they are upset about, and say: ‘This parliament now has this brand new power. We can say that even though we mucked up in the past, we can give it a tick, a clean bill of health’. When we get into committee, we may get the Chief Minister to describe why the people from Keep River are upset, and perhaps she could extend this newfound power to take away their capacity to take this matter to court if it is that easy.
I suggest we progress very slowly as legislators, because we are on new ground here. We are making decisions today for actions of yesterday, and we know there is a potential for at least one of those actions to find its way into the courts. I suggest there is a massive process issue here. There is a massive issue of secrecy, and there is no other way you can put it. There are enormous things which the Chief Minister has described which are not on the table. I will quote again from the Hansard of last night. The Chief Minister said:
- The offer that we have made is about a partnership, …
Partnership infers certain obligations and rights on each person, and we do not know what that is:
- … and with that partnership comes compromise and obligation from both partners.
Where have you compromised issues for Territorians, and what are our obligations? Tell us what the compromises have been, and tell us what your new obligations will be tomorrow when this act is passed?
- The offer requires traditional owners to limit some rights under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory)
Act and native title in order to receive the benefit of freehold title and to manage our parks in partnership.
Please describe that also.
- The offer of title is conditional on traditional owners withdrawing those land claims, leasing the land back,
agreeing to suppress native title rights through land use agreements, and agreeing to develop plans of
management which will be equally binding on them as on the government.
Therefore, shortly we are going to pass a bill, and we have already decided issues which will bind this government. We have decided that certain issues will bind this government. We have agreed to develop plans of management. We have a skinny little act here, and behind it, the Chief Minister has made agreements that compromise the Northern Territory; make commitments for the Territory; develop plans of management for the Territory and its people, and bind the government.
We want to know how we are bound. We want to know, if this act goes through, how is the Territory and its people bound? They are things which should be divulged in here for us to understand whether this is a good deal. Before you jump, Chief Minister, and say, ‘I have told you everything’ - you have not and they are things which can be continued to be pursued through the committee stages – if this is such a solid position, I would like to hear commentators from your party other than yourself address it from their own experiential background and cultural point of view.
If you have done something on 2 February, please tell us what it was, as we should know if we are going to put that date into statute. If it was illegitimate, please tell us whether you think this process is good. If it was legitimate, please tell us why it is in there. There are a couple of things you can divulge to us, and that is without the critical issues of, how much? You have already said that you have done a lot of work in working out what some fictitious, hypothetical court case might be, however you have not told us numbers you know, the numbers which are in your head. You know what the AVO price is for these parks because you are going to lease them based on that AVO price. You have done work, which is available in those briefing notes there, which you refuse to divulge. Why will you not tell us what the cost, the price, the worth of the estate, which is currently owned by Territorians, will be, and would you tell us what we then pay to lease back land which used to be ours?
I believe they are critical issues, and if they are not answered, I believe they are fatal to this bill. I believe that if legislators can walk the plank in the way the Chief Minister wants us to do, they should be dumped, well and truly. I cannot put my professional pride in being a lawmaker in this House on the line in the way the Chief Minister wants me to. I will not do it.
I was with the Leader of the Opposition when he sought some advice from the Parliamentary Counsel, and we will be seeking further advice, as I do not believe that this is good law and process. I do not believe that the Chief Minister’s spartan description of what is going to happen for nearly a century is adequate for us and for my progeny who will continue to live in this place. I would not want to be living here in 20, 30 or 40 years when people look back and ask what the hell it was all that about. A legitimate researcher who looks at these debates will say: ‘What did they think they were doing? What were they trying to achieve?’. If you were trying to achieve the lofty ambitions of the Chief Minister, they have already been dashed last year. The lofty ambitions have been dashed and we know that the people sitting in the room with her have some big problems with her approach; that her own party have gone very silent on it, including people who have been practitioners in this area; and that the lack of information is not because the Chief Minister does not have it, but because she is choosing not to give it to us.
I have immense problem with all of those positions, and I cannot support the bill. I can support notions of trying to rectify problems stemming from Ward, and they should be described for us. I can support notions of Aboriginal participation in our parks estate. I can support notions of a shared relationship and access to land no matter whether it is held as Aboriginal freehold land under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act or whatever. However, for me to embark on this path with the spartan information I have, I would be betraying future generations in this place and a strong disposition I have to help Aboriginal people. I am most concerned about the press release of yesterday from the Northern Land Council.
I need the minister to give me more than just some platitudes and words of comfort such as: ‘There, there do not worry; it will all be right when you see the final thing’, ‘You should have had a briefing’, and ‘I have told you all this anyway’. You have not told us, and there is an enormous amount of data that should be put on this table for debate, perusal and critical examination before this parliament is so foolish as to progress with approving this urgent piece of legislation.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, I was unsure whether the minister was going to climb to his feet at that point. Do you want to speak?
Dr BURNS (Parks and Wildlife): I do not mind speaking, thank you, member for Macdonnell.
Madam Speaker, in speaking to this important bill, I intend, firstly, to address the positive aspects of this historic agreement and to articulate the benefits that the agreement will bring to the Territory and the people of the Territory. I then intend to examine some of the alternative proposals that it appears are being proposed by others in this place, particularly the opposition.
We have heard a range of opinions in debate over this matter in recent days, and even stretching back, as the Chief Minister has said, over nearly two years now. It is becoming embarrassingly clear that the opposition has been inconsistent, negative and misleading in relation to this very important matter - all to their shame and embarrassment.
The new arrangements for the Territory’s parks and reserves being proposed by this government are based around joint management principles, and embody the best possible cooperative framework that creates no losers. It is as simple as that. Litigation, the path historically preferred by the CLP opposition, can only lead to division between the antagonists - division between eventual losers and winners. That is also simple to grasp.
Joint management is about indigenous traditional owners and government working together within a framework of shared decision-making and responsibility for the practical management of our parks estate. This framework provides traditional owners with appropriate recognition of their connection to country and, through their involvement in management, to enhance the park system with an added cultural dimension. This particular dimension will improve the conservation management through greater access to and use of indigenous knowledge, and will provide a richer and more varied visitor experience in line with the stated expectation of visitors to our parks, whether they be from the Territory or from elsewhere.
Contrast these outcomes with those that the opposition claim underlie the negotiations and agreement that form the new parks framework. We should never forget the history of the CLP in relation to the indigenous people of the Northern Territory, their outrageous neglect of these Territorians in the past, and their continued attacks on indigenous peoples to this very day.
Madam Speaker, I am going to really portray this and detail this because it is very important. It is plain for all to see that the opposition continues to portray a view that somehow traditional people do not understand the law nor their rights under the law. This was very evident this morning when the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brennan, portrayed any Aboriginal group that had accepted the park framework in just this fashion. There has been a significant number of those people and groups across the Territory, both in Central Australia and in the Top End. I should also say, bearing in mind the visitors in the gallery, that I respect the decision by those people in the Keep River. They have made a decision and I respect them for that. For the Leader of the Opposition to come in here this morning and bag any group, any indigenous group, that did not accept the parks framework as being ill-informed, somehow not understanding the law, being hoodwinked, just shows the patronising nature that underlies his view of Aboriginal people.
I will cite another example. The member for Blain, the past opposition leader, stated in November 2003 that the direction that the government is taking in respect of joint management of our parks would, in his words and I am quoting here:
- … falsely and cruelly raise the hopes of native title claimants elsewhere in the Territory that native title
does indeed give them title to the land.
He deliberately ignores the capacity for these Territorians to fully understand the legal framework surrounding native title and again portrays the arrogance and disdain with which CLP has treated indigenous peoples for many years. He goes on to indulge in some typical CLP dog whistling by rekindling and fuelling the view that indigenous peoples are somehow over-privileged in what they receive from governments. In relation to this parks framework and what was being negotiated with Aboriginal people, I will quote from the member for Blain, the last opposition leader before this one. He said:
- … you want to give us that as well? Well, thanks very much, and you are giving us that, too!
It is almost as if he is insulting Aboriginal people by saying they are greedy in relation to land, and that they are always looking for a handout. It is just in keeping with everything the opposition has put forward with the debate on itinerancy, with this debate and so, Madam Speaker, a leopard will never change its spots.
Here is another one. The current Leader of the Opposition has made it plain in this place, and I quote from the Parliamentary Record of Wednesday, 26 November 2003:
- What we should also understand is that the Territory Aboriginal population is still only one quarter of
the Territory population …
Then he went on to say that his position and purpose is to negotiate in this particular matter on behalf of the three fourths Territorians. So in other words, he identifies one quarter of our population, one person in every four as being Aboriginal and then he goes on to clearly say that his job is to forget about that one quarter and only focus on the other three quarters. This is what he said.
Ms Carney: Rubbish, that is not what he said.
Dr BURNS: This is what he said.
Ms Carney: No it isn’t, no it isn’t.
Dr BURNS: I am quoting from Hansard. This is what the member for Brennan said. That is outrageous. At least he could have said I want to negotiate on behalf of all Territorians which is what this government is doing in this particular matter.
These are the member for Brennan’s own words, albeit ones which are at odds with his rather bipolar statements when speaking face-to-face with indigenous people. We have already made reference to his statements on 8 KIN radio in Alice Springs on 8 February. He said: ‘The parks handover that Clare Martin is talking about is a poor deal for Aboriginals.’ So on one hand he is saying this is a poor deal for Aboriginals, in other forums he is saying Aboriginal people are given too much, you are giving all our parks estate away to Aboriginal people. He cannot have it both ways.
Without doubt, improved joint management of parks and reserves will provide broad ranging and significant benefits both to the Territory community at large and for our parks estate. I would like to detail some of these benefits.
First, an opportunity for the expansion of tourism and allied industries through extensions to the reserves and parks system, and enhanced visitor experiences by increased exposure to and interpretation of indigenous culture. When we look at the way that Gregory will now be consolidated, it is a great thing under this framework and will benefit both Aboriginal people and visitors to Gregory National Park.
Second, a resolution of costly and divisive land, native title and compensation claims and the mitigation of potential threats to the integrity of the reserve system.
Third, opportunities to improve land management overall by sharing information and resources and conducting land use activities in a more coordinated and integrated manner, combining both western scientific and indigenous knowledge. Here is a great opportunity for Aboriginal people participating to have joint management frameworks, to contribute greatly to the management of the parks to the benefit of the parks and for the benefit of all concerned.
The next one is a greater sense of community ownership, of management issues, and enhanced community involvement in decision making. Aboriginal people will be fully engaged in the joint management process and in decision making in these particular parks.
Next, improved relationships and partnerships with neighbours and enhanced regional approaches to conservation issues, especially for fire, weeds and feral animal control. I noticed that the chairman of the Cattlemen’s Association raised these issues on The Country Hour today, and it is plain that it is an issue, and I understand that, but this framework will provide certainty in that area.
The next benefit is enhanced opportunity for indigenous training and employment in the management of country and other initiatives by government in relation to the social, cultural and economic wellbeing of Aboriginal people.
Overall, these benefits can provide for a more inclusive approach to the management of our parks. In addition to providing indigenous people with a greater voice in the management of parks, joint management can bring additional social and economic benefits. This includes training and job opportunities, including ranger-type work, other work through contracts such as repairs and maintenance of parks, and the infrastructure in parks, camp ground maintenance, and land management activities such as fire and weeds management, and feral animals. These are opportunities and skills that the CLP simply does not want indigenous Territorians to have. This framework provides for the expansion and increased enjoyment of the parks estate by all Territorians and visitors, another positive aspect that the CLP would like to deny.
The question remains: what is the opposition’s policy? Despite everything the opposition says, our parks will remain as parks open to all. I have no doubt that this would not have been the case had we followed the highly expensive litigation course unsuccessfully favoured by the CLP for all those years they were in government.
Of course, as we all know, they ended up with nothing to show for it. Some rich lawyers might have had something to show for it. Tens of millions of dollars spent by the CLP pursuing these things through the courts, and I do not think we should ever forget that. Now it seems they are dedicating themselves to destroying any effort at negotiation and consensus. As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday in this place in debate, it will take the CLP government to come back and unravel this. ‘Unravel’! That was the word the Opposition Leader used. That is the truth. If they were to come back into power and start tampering with this, the whole thing would unravel because we know their divisive history, and we know their attitude.
He went on to describe the CLP alternative to negotiation, and I believe that it is an alternative the Leader of the Opposition should explain further in his quest to keep Territorians fully informed. He first gave a commitment to joint management of parks, and I quote from Hansard yesterday:
- We will do that without handing over one acre of land from the ownership title that is there at the moment,
to change that title …
Confusingly, however, he then went on to give an enormous exception to his own rule:
- Unless it is something that Aboriginal people want, and then that will be done in a negotiated way
if necessary.
So, not one acre of land can turn into something quite different should agreement require it.
Furthermore, he revealed this morning that he would have joint management for all NT parks in a Nitmiluk-style agreement. The Leader of the Opposition needs to spell out the detail of these Nitmiluk-style agreements and how they relate to land tenure and management. Exactly what does the Leader of the Opposition and the CLP mean when they say Nitmiluk-style agreements? Does it refer to ALRA land? Does it refer to native title? How is he going to accommodate those interests within a Nitmiluk-style agreement? Or is it a superficial sort of agreement to do with enterprise within these parks and nothing more? They need to be very clear with Territorians and with Aboriginal people as to what they mean by Nitmiluk-style agreements.
Let us look at Nitmiluk. When the land claim over Nitmiluk was afoot, the CLP raised these same arguments and worked on the same fears. When, despite following their much vaunted litigation approach, the land claim over Nitmiluk was successful, the CLP government was then forced into a joint management arrangement over the park which is now owned by traditional owners. And what has been the result? A highly successful park from every point of view. The visitor experience is better than it has ever been. The majority of highly professional park staff are Aboriginal, and visitors come from far and wide for the experience of a lifetime in that particular place. I have visited Nitmiluk a couple of times as minister. It was good to speak with the traditional owners to find out the success of their operation and their future plans for expansion of their activities within Nitmiluk. I wish them well.
Returning to the CLP, who can ever forget the plane flying over Uluru with, what did the sign say? ‘It is ours’,’ or, ‘It is never going to be yours’, or something like that. They tried to undermine a land claim on Vanderlin Island by giving some people there some land and trying to subvert a land claim. Who can ever forget Kenbi? Tens of millions of dollars expended on that particular fight. The CLP has form on this, and I do not think Aboriginal people throughout the Territory are ever going to forget the way that they approach these types of issues.
In contrast, this government’s approach to these agreements is clear. There is a negotiated suppression of native title on parks, without extinguishing that title, and the limitation by agreement of other title rights in doubt under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act for the purposes of sound park management. This is the consensus model accepted by most of the groups involved in the negotiation and, despite the claims of the Opposition Leader, it will work.
The opposition’s likely model, by contrast, will probably involve something quite radical, and we have heard little sniffs of it and we have heard little snippets of it, particularly from the member for Macdonnell. We heard it over the Larapinta issue, where the member for Macdonnell wanted to compulsorily acquire native title rights over Larapinta. Compulsorily acquire it; it would have been tied up for years, and then it would have had to go to court to determine the compensation to that. I am tipping that that is probably a path the CLP is going to go along in terms of the parks. They need to be up-front with Aboriginal people about whether that is what they are going to do.
The member for Macdonnell is probably next on the speaking list. I want to hear him talk about what is going to happen at Watarrka, what his plan is for that, whether he wants to compulsorily acquire native title there and bring about all sorts of enmity, bring about costly litigation and then put out a judgment in the court about the amount of compensation. It would be a huge amount of compensation if you were to go down that route, member for Macdonnell, and you need to come clean with people. Basically, I am not sure whether you really understand what this would fully involve. When the bundle of rights recognised through the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and the Native Title Act is acquired, you are acquiring far more than just a form of land tenure. You are acquiring culture, traditions, natural history and a heritage that has existed for many generations and you are acquiring the potential rights of future generations forever.
My advice is that, if they were to try to compulsorily acquire those rights - and they have flagged their willingness to do that in Alice Springs through the Larapinta subdivision, and that is the way they will probably go with the parks – costly litigation will be in the courts for years, and the amount of compensation for all those things which I have talked about, will be determined through a court - not through negotiation, but in a court of law. The things which I read out are quite substantial, and I would hate to think of the cost to government, and to taxpayers, for that particular tack.
In contrast, under our framework, joint management of our parks will provide opportunities for Aboriginal people to engage in business ventures. As members are aware, traditional owners have become successfully involved in a broad range of issues and business enterprises in existing NT jointly-managed parks. Where tourism is a major value of the park, joint management can be expected to bring an enhanced dimension to visitors’ experience through the presentation of Aboriginal culture and contact with Aboriginal people. Tourism surveys reveal that to experience genuine Aboriginal culture is a major motivator for people to come to the Northern Territory, particularly for international visitors. It has long been recognised that Aboriginal knowledge of land and wildlife can make a major contribution to conservation. Indeed, it is broadly acknowledged that the disruption of traditional Aboriginal land management practices, particularly burning, is a major contributing factor to the loss of the Territory’s biodiversity.
The combination of traditional knowledge with contemporary science has produced many examples of conservation success and improved scientific understanding. Through first-hand experience, or through oral tradition, Aboriginal people are often familiar with the attributes of species and their interactions with their environment. In recent years, ethno-biological data has been gathered, made possible only through the knowledge and living traditions of Aboriginal people. Such data will prove increasingly important in the future to the conservation of the Territory’s biodiversity.
Under the new joint management arrangements for parks, they will be administered and managed in accordance with a plan of management. The plan of management will be prepared for each park following the usual processes of consultation. I believe that is what the member for Drysdale was touching on with his statements regarding indigenous land use agreements. All of the checks and balances will be in place to ensure the needs of the general public are taken into account, and the uses of the and the parks estate, of course, through the planning processes and adoption of management plans, will be via the Legislative Assembly.
It was informative to hear the member for Drysdale talk about the Chief Minister being secretive, not having a regard for law and process, and doing things behind closed doors. I remember the member for Drysdale being involved in a deception regarding the last budget the CLP presented, to try to make the Northern Territory people believe that they were spending more in the crucial areas of health, education and police when, in fact, they were not. They had artificially cooked the books, and they did it for presentational purposes. There has been a Public Accounts Committee inquiry into that. It is a bit rich for the member for Drysdale to come in here and talk about ‘behind closed doors and proper processes’. He has form on this. He should be the last one in the opposition to start saying this sort of thing.
As the case with existing jointly-managed parks in the Northern Territory under this framework, it will be business as usual as far as the visitor to our parks is concerned. In fact, the visitor experience stands to be enriched through the indigenous custodians having the opportunity to tell their stories regarding their land. Tourists, in particular, will appreciate the added dimension that this brings to their park experience. It is the unique combination of landscape, wildlife, and culture that define the quintessential Territory experience. Indeed, this is the real Australian experience which can no longer be recaptured throughout much of the country.
The opposition’s whole approach to this matter is, essentially, one of fear and loathing. They fear the unknown, and consensus is something clearly unknown to the members opposite. They loathe the fact they are finding hard to argue against a clearly sensible approach where everyone ends up a winner so they concentrate on creating division and dissent as well as giving contradictory messages to different audiences. The opposition is reverting to their old ways in adopting a fear mongering approach. While it might have worked for them in the past they do not seem to realise that the Territory and Territorians have now moved on.
In fact, we are moving ahead in a mighty way, economically and socially. We will pursue our approach of consensus. I believe that the Territory and all Territorians will benefit from this approach for many years to come.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Mr Deputy Speaker, listening to the minister on this issue is a little bit like to listening to a young fellow about to shape up and have a fight. Lots of noise, lots of threats, lots of things happening except for one thing: nothing going on up there. The minister said that he would start with a positive comment about the parks process and immediately launched into a tirade of abuse and that is his choice; that is his business. I am certainly not going to get allow myself to be baited by that but what I will do is examine what we are being asked to do in this parliament and what we have already been asked to do in this parliament and something that I am not prepared to be part of.
This bill that we are talking about today is on urgency. That means that this Chief Minister has come into this place and said we are going to break the rules on how we proceed with this stuff because this is really urgent and we have to get it through very, very quickly. I have not yet heard a single Aboriginal person anywhere say that these processes are urgent. So why are we doing this on urgency? We are not doing it on urgency for the sake of the Aboriginal people who are the so-called beneficiaries of this - and we do not know whether they are not and I will come to that later. We are doing this on urgency not to suit the traditional owners of the country or the native title holders of country; we are doing it on urgency to suit the Chief Minister. I do not know why we have to do it so quickly. What are we hurrying for, why are we rushing?
I know many Aboriginal people, traditional owners, because my electorate has a very large number of them there. One thing I know about traditional owners is that they are very careful about their land law and they discuss it carefully and slowly. And I am going to take my yardstick from them.
Last week in this House, the Chief Minister said that we should proceed on urgency and did not bother to explain why. It would be the same as some person walking up to me and saying, ‘Give me your car keys’. The first question I would ask is, ‘Why?’ That has not been explained and so I do not feel like handing over the car keys too quickly.
The minister can yell and scream and all those other things but what matters here is why we are pushing this very, very quickly. We have rules about bringing things on in urgency. Pettifer’s House of Representatives Practice at page 416 explains why matters would proceed on urgency:
- its subject matter - whether the bill is of a controversial nature, whether it has a general agreement of the
House, or whether it is of a ‘machinery’ kind;
the nature of the government’s legislative program, the urgency connected with the passage of the bill,
agreement reached between government and opposition; and
the numbers of members from each side who wish to speak on the bill.
Our standing orders talk about a hardship factor. There is no hardship for slowing down and doing these things carefully because, if these things get hurried, then people find themselves in the courts anyhow because they are not done properly. That is what I am counselling at this point: that we slow down. We just take it easy a little bit more and we sit down and we inspect exactly what is going on.
One of the things that I really dislike about these sorts of arguments is the ‘us and them’ factor which is automatically involved: Aboriginal people over here, white fellows over there, and we have to sort of build bridges. It is a bit more awkward for me because I grew up in the Northern Territory. This is as much my country in terms of my spiritual and emotional connection to it as many Aboriginal people. I have nowhere else to go. I have to share this country with the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory and I need to know that I can do that in a sensible way so that everybody walks away a winner.
The Chief Minister says this is going to make people winners. All right. If that is the case, explain to me how it is going to make people winners, but you have to explain everything. One of the things you have to explain is how much it is going to cost. How much is it going to cost the taxpayer? Aboriginal people need to know the answer to that question as well because if this is going to cost a lot of money to go over into a land council coffer or into some other person’s pocket or whatever, how many houses does that mean cannot be built, how many roads do not get fixed, all those sorts of other things? The cost of this is very important indeed. The Chief Minister has been asked again, and again, and again, how much this is going to cost. How many Aboriginal people are not going to get a house built because they are paying lease agreements on parks? I would be curious to know what happens to that money once it is paid into those lease agreements. Is that going to build houses for Aboriginal people? We asked questions about this. Where is all this going? What path are we going down? The Chief Minister does not answer those questions.
I am worried about that because I am being asked to pass a law here that will change the ownership of parks to someone else’s possession. I am being asked to do it with no explanation of how much it is going to cost, what the consequences are. Despite the fact that I have asked again, and again, and again, it has not been explained to me.
I am also being asked to do it in a hurry. I do not have all the facts at hand and I am being asked to do it now - hurry up, hurry up, you have to do it now because we have to get this one finished before we walk out of here tonight - and I am not being told enough about what is going on. So I ask: what is the urgency? Why do we have to do this urgently? I am not going to explain that to you, I am not going to tell you why we have to do this urgently, but we have to do it urgently so that something I did two weeks ago - I signed something or I made an agreement or signed up to a deal - can become law now. Well, I do not know what the Chief Minister did two weeks ago. Something in this bill exists until 2 February and I have no idea what that is. It has not been explained to me.
The Chief Minister is saying: ‘Give me this law to do what I did two weeks ago, but I am not going to tell you what it was’. I am worried about that, and it is proper that I am worried about it. I think about the traditional people who live in my electorate and if I went to them and tried to push them into that sort of position, they would naturally be very hesitant. They would not be so sure at all. What would their response be, do you think? In my experience, they would say: ‘Slow down, sit down, talk about it’.
There have been many occasions on which I have been excited about an idea, and I have spoken to traditional owners about it, and I thought the traditional owners would really love the idea, but the first thing they do is they say: ‘All right, well, you have spoken to us’, and then they say: ‘We are going to back off a little bit and we are going to have a think about it’. That, I find very frustrating.
I am counselling this Chief Minister to take exactly that approach. Explain it to them, and then let them back off a bit and have a think about it. However, the Chief Minister is pushing very hard, so much so that Aboriginal people represented by the Northern Land Council in this case, are saying: ‘No, we cannot do it; too hard, too fast, too pushy, do not like the results’, and they are backing away.
I do not even know about the nature of the title that is being created here. We are talking about a thing called ‘parks freehold’ and I do not know much about parks freehold, but one thing I do know is that the ILUA to which the minister refers, if you are changing it from the current situation, changing the use to a different situation, native title needs to be extinguished.
The minister has said that native title is more than just ownership; it is cultural bonds and all those other things. What the minister is saying to us is that to make this change to the parks freehold, this type of tenure over here, we have to extinguish native title because it is a change of use. In the estimates process, it was described as ‘suppression of native title’. I do not know much about suppression of native title, but in any instance, if it is suppression or extinguishment, if it is suppressed then it means that it stops working for 99 years, and then we get this new type of freehold called ‘parks freehold’ and I am not so sure what that parks freehold is. I am trying to figure out how it works. Does it work like a land trust in the same way as the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act so it is transferred in to a land trust and then all the local traditional owners become part owners of the trust, and you cannot separate those traditional owners out and the title is inalienable and all those sort of things, or is it a different nature? Is it a different nature of title where, maybe, it is like a company? You buy a $2 company off the shelf, you give it an Aboriginal name, and then you make the directors Aboriginal people, however, maybe they can be used in different ways to raise funds. I do not know enough about it.
I am not saying that necessarily any of that is a bad idea. However, what I am saying is that it needs to be more clearly explained, and it is not being explained. It is not being explained at all. I am being told to push things through. I am being told, without all the facts at my command, that I have to drive this law through.
Aboriginal people, when they see themselves as the custodians of the land, take on a great responsibility for that country. They hold the stories for that country, they hold the songs for that country which, in essence, is freehold title if you look at it in a very lateral way, and they feel very strong about their custodial roles of law. Equally, I have a custodial role thrust upon me by the people of the Northern Territory when they say, ‘I expect you to be my lawmaker’. That is a job I take very seriously. I take that job so seriously, I ask questions when somebody asks me to make a law. The questions I have asked of the Chief Minister, who is in a very big hurry to make this happen, are: (1) why are we hurrying? (2) What happened that means that I have to support a law that goes backward in time, and (3) Do I have enough information, or is she going to give me enough information about costs and things as to whether this is going to be a good law?
The truth is that if I sit here and look at it in its whole I do not see enough of the picture to say that I can make a good law. Therefore I want to back off and say I cannot support something which I do not know enough about. The minister says, ‘Come up and get briefings’, well, the one simple question regarding costs is not answered, and it has been asked again and again.
What makes me very worried is that the Chief Minister knows what the cost is going to be. The Chief Minister knows this, because in her little question and answer booklet which she put out, she says that the valuation will come from the Australian Valuation Office. Surely, the Chief Minister must know what the Australian Valuation Office has valued the parks at, and how much the lease payments are going to be, because these payments will go for 100 years. Therefore, for the next 100 years, without telling me how much I have to spend on behalf of Territory taxpayers, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal taxpayers, she says, ‘I am going to sign you up to this lease’. From a simple perspective, what the Chief Minister is saying is, ‘I am going to move you into this house. We are going to ask you to pay rent on this house, and you the taxpayer are going to have to pay rent, and you have to sign the lease, but I am not going to tell you how much rent you have to pay’. That is what the Chief Minister is asking me to do.
Is it responsible law making to just sign up like that? I do not think so, and the Chief Minister must tell us exactly how much this is going to cost.
Here we are, in urgency, and there is another major issue that has come up. The Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginal people in the northern half of the Northern Territory, has said that the Chief Minister has done a backflip, which means that she is not telling the truth. She was not telling the truth originally, and she has changed the story halfway along. I am very worried about that, because the Chief Minister has been criticised by the very organisation that is supposed to be saying: ‘This is good. This is good stuff’. These very organisations that usually say this is good stuff are saying it is not. They are not saying it is good stuff; they are criticising and backing away. If you read this legislation that the Chief Minister has presented to the House, Keep River has been pulled out of it.
I am going to go back and look at the history of this legislation because, when the Chief Minister came up with this idea about a year ago, she said: ‘We are going to negotiate all of this. We are going to speak to the traditional owners and, on 31 July, this is all going to be locked down’. I do not remember the date exactly, but about halfway through last year. She came into this parliament she asked us to pass a law so she could make those negotiations work. Then she said: ‘Well, just in case something goes wrong and it takes a little longer, I am going to put in a last window so that, by 31 December, I am going to have the last dead stop on this legislation. Therefore, if nothing is signed off by 31 December, it is not going to happen; bets are off’.
The Chief Minister has come and forced this law through. Why? Because we did not like the law. Why did we not like it? Because we did not know enough about it. We still do not know enough about it; the simple cost. How much is it going to cost? Not a single syllable on how much this is going to cost. It is a big issue.
Therefore, we on this side of the House, tell the Chief Minister we are not happy. However, legislation gets forced through this place because the government has the numbers. The 13 members of the government vote for this bill and it gets forced through. The Chief Minister told us in that process that there were a couple of things that were going to switch it off, if that legislation does not work. One of the things that was going to switch it off was the time: if it was not locked down by 31 December, all bets were off – it is not going to happen, it is dead. So, 31 December comes and goes - and the bill dies. The law finishes because the time limit is up. Now, something happened between 31 December or 1 January this year and 2 February. The Chief Minister does something; she signed something off. I do not know what that was; I have no idea what she signed. However, she signed something off. She says: ‘Well, I will tell you what we do; we will pass a law in the middle of February 2005 to make what I did on 2 February 2005 okay’.
I ask members to see the analogy between this and a football game. Imagine that you are playing football and the full-time siren is at 100 minutes. The Chief Minister is playing the game on one side and, all of a sudden, the full-time siren goes off and everybody walks off the field. Then the Chief Minister stays on the field and grabs the ball and kicks a goal. She does that outside the rules of the game. She then runs off the paddock and goes into the dressing room and says to all the players: ‘I have just scored a goal. Guess what? We are going to change the rules of the game so that we are going to make that goal work so that I win the game’. That is what the Chief Minister has been asking us to do. You could imagine that all the players in the dressing room would say: ‘We are not so sure about that, because we do not think that is the way that football works’.
The law has to work so everybody understands it the same way. That is clearly not what the Chief Minister is doing in this instance. The Chief Minister wants to score goals after the full-time siren and she told us that the full-time siren was going to be 31 December last year. So I, as somebody who looks after the rules, thinks, ‘Well, how good are all the other rules I make?’ We change the rules so that we can make the goal scored after the full-time siren a legitimate goal. What message does that send to everybody else out there, that when they do some dealings with the government, when they do some dealings with this Chief Minister, that she is not going to change the rules after the full-time siren? Because I do not know that.
What happens is that when we come into this place, we all come in representing Territorians. There are 25 chairs in this place, one up there and 24 around there. The government has 13 of them so they have the majority so they can always force through whatever they like. But just because you are a member of the Labor Party, or just because you are the member of the Country Liberal Party, or you are an independent, or more to the point, a member of the Labor Party, it does not mean that you cannot change your vote in this place. Any person can vote any way they like in this place. The party will punish you for it later on, but any person can change their vote. What is happening here is a matter of great concern.
Many of the members here, the member for Millner less so, but certainly some of the other members in this place, came in here with two propositions, two ideas in their head. One idea is that I am an Aboriginal person and I represent Aboriginal outcomes. The other idea is that I am a member of the Labor Party. That is two thoughts in your head, and that normally is not a problem. But sometimes, both things may not agree. The question that these people have to ask themselves is, ‘What is more important to me?’ Some deal that locks in Aboriginal people for the next 99 years, a deal that I would argue that most of the people I am talking about would have no idea of the details of, not including the cost; a deal that locks in Aboriginal people for 99 years that must by very necessity extinguish native title, if not suppress it, for 99 years; and they have to make a decision whether they are going to support that, or whether they are going to support the ALP party line.
That has to be a big conflict for some people in this room because despite the fact that they are not talking, I know they are thinking it. If you look at this country at all of the things that have been rushed through in the past, pushed through, shoved through for political reasons, many of them have led to bad outcomes for Aboriginal people.
Here they are at a crossroads. They have a choice. They are going to ask themselves are we going to push this through, or are we going to start looking at the right way to do this and slow down a bit, have a look at what is going on, see all the cards on the table. Or are they going to say no, being a member of the Labor Party is more important to me and I am going to let that other issue slide, and I am going to support the Chief Minister and sign up Aboriginal people to a deal that they have no idea of. The issue for those people in this place is that they do not know. How do I know that they do not know? Because I do not know, I have not been told.
So we are changing the rules of how we make law, we are scoring goals after the siren has sounded, we are being asked to make those goals after the siren has sounded goals that count, and we are being asked to run onto the field when we do not even know what the whole field looks like. I cannot sign up to that. I cannot subscribe to that because it does not make sense.
The point is that I cannot know these things because the provisions of the act were supposed to have died on 31 December. The Chief Minister herself - no other person, not even Cabinet - had carriage of these negotiations. Now, if this was going to be open and if this was going to be there for all to see, and everything was going to be explained, then surely there should have been more transparency. There should have been a window in the box that we could have looked through to make sure that everything was happening the right way. That window does not exist. I cannot see; I have been blinded by this legislation and now I am being asked to act quickly to restore this legislation so that some deal that has been signed up to becomes law.
What on earth would possess me to do such a thing? What on earth would possess me to engage in such behaviour? The answer is nothing because I am not going to sign up to it, not the way that this is being done.
The other question I have for the Chief Minister is: what is going to happen when this deal is struck? The Chief Minister has told us a little bit and she said there will be no gate fees, there will be proper joint management arrangements and she told us a few other things, there will be good access and that sort of stuff. What happens when you change title of country into freehold, which is what we are talking about doing, is that under the Torrens system which operates in the Northern Territory, once freehold title is given, it is not something that can be reversed. I ask this question: what happens if the people who sign up to this deal do not follow the conditions which have been written in this deal? What say in 10 years time the joint management board decides to charge entry fees to the parks? What control does the Chief Minister have over those rule changes when they do not sign up to the agreement? The answer is that the Chief Minister will have no control.
If they go to court, are they going to fight such things? No, Mr Deputy Speaker. Once that control is handed over and out of the hands of the Chief Minister and this parliament, we have lost control. At the moment under our legal system, we in this parliament are custodians for that country in the same way that traditional owners are in some other respects. We have been asked by this Chief Minister to give away that control and custody to other people and we have no way of making those people do the things that they say they will do now in 10 years time.
It has been the experience of Aboriginal people in this country in the past that deals have been made in reverse and the results of those deals, no matter how good they sounded at the time, have not been met. I have no guarantee that I am going to see the conditions that the Chief Minister has outlined being enforced and there is no mechanism that I am aware of to make those conditions enforceable. These decisions will not be reversed. Once it is done, it is done. I am concerned that there is no mechanism there to fix that up.
We have the passage of last year’s legislation, the introduction of another bill which is still sitting on the Notice Paper which is to correct some of the mess, the lapse of last year’s legislation which means that that legislation currently does not exist. Then there is the signing up to a deal about which we have no knowledge of the details, and I have no idea of the cost involved to Territorians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. I have no idea what is going to happen if the rules change down the track, and this Chief Minister, by the way that she is doing this, tells me that she is quite prepared to change the rules after the full-time siren. I have no idea in detail as to why the Miriuwung people have suddenly become very nervous about this deal. I have no idea what has been signed up to in terms of the parks in Central Australia. I have no idea what is going on other than the platitudes of the Chief Minister and the yelling of the minister himself. Well, let him yell, but where are the explanations for us?
I urge caution, but the Chief Minister does not want me to be cautious. The Chief Minister does not want me to be careful. All the Chief Minister wants to do is push this through in a hurry. Aboriginal people are getting nervous. I read the Northern Land Council media release. There is no reason to push this through other than to meet the agenda of the Chief Minister herself. I am terrified by the fact that I am not hearing from other members of the Labor Party on these important issues, because it means that they have been locked down and it is their job in this parliament to talk about it. If they support this, that is fine, stand up and say that you support this. But say something, because to sit in here and say nothing is to do nothing, and shows that you are unsure.
I urge, in the strongest possible way, those members, all members from the Labor Party, to stand up and tell me why this is a good idea. I get very nervous when they do not tell me. And the reason is that they do not know because they have not been told by their own Chief Minister in Cabinet, and they have to sit there and silently wait for this debate to go on, and all they have to do at the end of it is vote. But if they are voting and they do not have a clear idea in their head of what is going on, then they have not been responsible representatives of their constituencies.
I know the member for Drysdale, and the Leader of the Opposition, are responsible representatives of their constituencies and have spoken about these particular issues. I try to be a responsible member of my constituency. I speak about these issues because I am nervous on their behalf, because this is not like some other applications that I have seen go to people who live in the Central Land Council area, where there are long negotiation periods with traditional owners. This has happened very quickly. So what it looks like from the outside is that the Central Land Council, the lawyers and the administrative arm of the Central Land Council, not the council itself, have been doing the negotiating. I can tell you, I have been talking to some of the traditional owners in my electorate, and they do not have a clue that this is going on. This is all being done for them. So maybe the council itself has made resolutions and decisions, but it is not filtering down to the traditional owners. And at the end of the day, the traditional owners in the Central Land Council area are the people who are most affected by this stuff.
Say I do not get elected next time, that is all right, I will go and get a real job. If a Central Land Council lawyer moves on, they move interstate, move up to Darwin, and if the director of the CLC loses his job, he does something else. After all of those land council people have moved on it is the Aboriginal people who are left and affected by this stuff. All the more reason to show restraint, because I know that if I do not return to this House after the next election, and that may or may not happen, I will go off and do something else. I will live in Alice Springs, or I will live in Darwin perhaps. I do not know. It depends where work takes me. But I will always be thinking about those people who live on the country and who are the custodians of that country, and I hope that I can say to them that I have done the right thing by them to try to look after their interests. I have not had enough information to clearly demonstrate reasons why I should hurry into this. I feel uncomfortable about it and, for those reasons, I will continue to look after their interests and resist this until such time as it has been made clear to me.
Mr AH KIT (Community Development): Mr Deputy Speaker, one has to come to accept those sorts of rantings and ravings of the member for Macdonnell. I will come to it later on in my contribution to this debate, in regards to the parks in the seat of Macdonnell, because it certainly is going to be something that he will have to concentrate on if he wants to win support of people at the next election. He is one of these people who thinks that Aboriginal people do not follow what he is saying in the debates in parliament, and that he is able to get away with it by going back to the people and making out that he is a very good local member and a saviour of Aboriginal people in the electorate of Macdonnell.
The Leader of the Opposition – and it cannot be described in any other way – is a blustering hypocrite. He knows nothing about dealing with Aboriginal people because all that he and his party have done is oppose Aboriginal people’s interests. They did it for 25 years.
I welcome David and the Keep River native title holders, the traditional owners, to parliament today. I would certainly like to catch up with them shortly.
Just across the harbour, the Kenbi land claim cost $20m-plus fighting Larrakia people who were the traditional owners of this country and their claim –wasting Territory taxpayers’ money. We have a situation now where the resurrected Leader of the Opposition says: ‘Trust me, I have changed, those views that the CLP had for the last 25 years are no longer held’. Well, I say: unacceptable. We cannot wear that and nor will Aboriginal people.
The parks legislation we have here delivers a world-class system of parks throughout the Northern Territory. It is fair to all Territorians, and provides jobs and employment in the Territory’s national parks - and I will come to that later in some detail. This legislation will create jobs and employment for Aboriginal people in a world-class national park system, contrary to the Northern Land Council press release of yesterday.
We respect the people who chose not to take up the offer; with this particular case, as stated in that press release, the Keep River traditional owners. The offer was made and consultations carried out with the Northern Land Council when they went out and talked to them. They had carriage, under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, to ensure that people understood the nature of the proposal and, at the end of the day, they made a decision to reject it. That is their decision, prerogative, and right. However, I do not think that the request and deal with government of the other parks where traditional owners have agreed to go with what is on offer should now be trashed or thrown out the window. That is not on, and I will get to that shortly also.
The proposition is simple: our government has negotiated an open and transparent offer that protects native title rights, delivers enhances freehold title, and allows joint management of the land. It will create jobs and economic opportunity.
On the basis of the objection to the consultation process by one group of people – the countrymen from Keep River – the Country Liberal Party now wants the government to throw this all out; this is no good. There are 28. If one says, ‘No, it is unacceptable’, we respect that decision. Why should we throw out the other 27? Seven of them are in the NLC area. My staff checked with an NLC senior legal eagle today at lunchtime, and he said: ‘Yes, those seven are still in there’. We want them to remain in there; I wish we could have had more in there. However, people exercised their right to choose whether the offer was going to be a good offer to them or not. For reasons that are unknown to us, they chose not to accept. I am talking about not just the Keep River people, but in my electorate the people at Elsey Station and a couple of others.
On the other hand, we have a situation where 20 of them are in the Central Land Council area. With those 20, if this legislation goes through as we wish it to, there will be 814 000 ha added to the national parks estate in the Northern Territory. It will offer up indigenous economic development opportunities; it will open up a situation for parks management with government and with traditional owners; a management board, similar to Nitmiluk and other national park boards; and it will provide a set of guidelines on how that park is to operate. In the situation I read in the paper this morning, I do not think that report is quite right. I know Suellen Hinde quite well and I was a little disappointed; as far as I am aware, native title rights are not being thrown out the window.
This opportunity, and the Chief Minister will elaborate no doubt on that a bit further, is now passing people by. I thought it was a good opportunity. In hindsight, I would have liked to have been involved to help explain it further. No doubt there are going to be situations occurring where people do not fully understand the deal and the intricate details of that deal. However, in the Northern Land Council area, 20 of them will offer to the parks estate under joint management, 1 118 600 hectares. The CLC area is 814 000 hectares. In fact, if you looked at the Gregory National Park which has 20 000 visitors a year, and growing, that is 1.2m hectares. I want to explain that that borders both the CLC and the NLC area in regard to the North Gregory National Park, and the southern part of the Gregory National Park. Also, 206 000 hectares are being added under this deal to the West MacDonnell’s. I picked those two out and the West MacDonnell’s has 120 000 visitors a year.
To me, they are icons in the Territory which are going to have management boards put in place; traditional owners involved in the management of the place; what sort of hunting can be done; what rights exist; where tourists can go and where you do not want tourists to go. If we are all skiting about Nitmiluk, then this is going to give a similar type situation to people for these 27 parks. I was closely involved with Nitmiluk. I was the Director of the Jawoyn Association and was heavily involved in the negotiations for Nitmiluk. I still maintain today, that Nitmiluk was one of the best negotiated parks in Australia …
A member: Probably the world.
Mr AH KIT: Not so much the world, but in Australia. … and we need to be clear here - that had a successful land claim. My colleague, the minister for parks, was correct when he said earlier that that forced the CLP to the table. The CLP came to the table. We had to drag them to the table because they were ready to go to an election to it. The second biggest thing the CLP jumped up and down about was Uluru in 1986. That rock was going to be handed back to the Anangu people, and they campaigned hard against that, and when Nitmiluk came up, they campaigned hard against that.
As the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act is here in the Territory, people are entitled to lodge land claims. The land claim process was followed. The federal court judge, the Land Commissioner, at the end of the day, saw that the Jawoyn were able to fulfill those requirements of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in proving common spiritual responsibility and affiliation to country. And there we have it; we have Nitmiluk which is almost the jewel of the crown in the Territory and is operating really well. It is lovely to see that the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite, are so engrossed in how well the Nitmiluk stuff has been well organised. Little do they know about the history of the land claim and the opposition to it, and the former member for Katherine and the CLP opposing at every avenue the need for Jawoyn to establish the Nitmiluk Board of Management through the 99-year lease that was put in place.
Might I add, for people who follow Nitmiluk, it is progressing really well. Robert Lee, the board and the elders are continuing to do a great job.
Let me remind the Opposition Leader what the Director of the Central Land Council, David Ross, said about this parks legislation. I quote from yesterday’s media release:
- For the first time, there will be public recognition of the cultural heritage of our parks, and the crucial role
that Aboriginal people play in managing country.
He further said that he urged all parliamentarians to back this legislation. He went on:
- The CLC conducted numerous consultations with traditional landowners of parks, and, at the end of the day,
every group accepted the proposed deal …
That is what Mr Ross said, disputed by the member for Macdonnell because he does not believe the process was carried out properly. I would invite the member for Macdonnell to meet with the Central Land Council and to question them about their consultation process. They have an executive meeting next week, member for Macdonnell, and you might be able to get in there for 10 or 15 minutes and really question them and their integrity about how they run their organisation. I would like to see when you come out of that meeting because they are pretty firm about the way they do business and they are very serious because you do not joke about or accuse people in these organisations about not being serious about how you deal with consultations and decisions about country.
Mr Ross went on:
- It is a tribute to the landowners that they had the foresight to make some tough compromises in the interests
of seeing joint management become a reality …
This is a fair and equitable solution ...
The wider community will continue to enjoy parks with no fees or permits for entry, and be able to be proud
of a world-class parks estate which will remain in the public domain for future generations.
This will undoubtedly deliver some solid and enduring benefits to the tourism industry, and conservation
interests …
We are looking forward to getting to work on this arrangement and we will be putting extra effort into
park-related Aboriginal tourism initiatives and getting Aboriginal people out and working in parks as
soon as possible …
In respect of the release from the Northern Land Council, I touched on it, and I just thought I would touch on it again: one group of people, a decision, we respect that decision. I would offer to these people from Keep River and any of the parks like Elsey that if they have concerns, we will still offer to work with them as a government through our minister to ensure that their parks are managed properly and efficiently so that the country is respected and they have control, but they may need some assistance as we go through that process.
There is a question the Opposition Leader has to answer, and it is this: the Central Land Council wants the legislation passed to enable 20 new parks being created in the Centre. The Northern Land Council wants the legislation passed for seven new parks to be created in the Top End. What the Leader of the Opposition says is that the deal is not good enough for the Aboriginal people, yet his proposal would cost Territorians much more, and, as his track record shows, would tie the Territory up in years of litigation. The Opposition Leader’s proposal has not been thought out in a proper way. He is just making things up on the run, and we see that quite often of late where the policies on the run exercise is happening. In many cases, those policies are made while he is sitting in the chair over there.
I thought in this parliament I heard that they were working up policies last weekend. I do not know how much work has been done on that, but certainly we would dearly love to see the detail of their policies. I am sure the member for Daly, the chairman of their policy development committee, would be working really hard. I am not sure whether the member for Goyder is going to be involved, possibly on Wednesdays. Mr Deputy Speaker, my apologies, I digress.
The Opposition Leader’s proposal has not been thought out in a proper way. He continues to make these things up on the run. He says there will be Aboriginal management, but he wants to throw away legal rights to the way land can be managed by indigenous Territorians. This will not just cost millions of dollars in court costs, but many more millions of dollars under the Australian Constitution’s Just Terms provisions. I wonder whether he has ever thought of that. His ideas have been scribbled out on the back of an envelope, but they will impoverish all Territorians through stupid and mindless sabotage of our economy.
Does the opposition want this whole new national park system dumped because the NLC informs us that a single group of traditional owners do not accept the proposal? That is what it appears to be and it is ludicrous. Ludicrous. Have they thought it right through? I do not think so. If that is what he is saying, then he is being very unfair to all Aboriginal people who want to look after their country, and who want to get jobs working on their country. I know, too, that these people want to share their country. All these other 27 parks areas for which the consultation is being challenged by the member for Macdonnell, what about all these people? All these people have said that they want this legislation to go through. We had a situation occur where I challenged the Leader of the Opposition last week in this House where he said, ‘I am a changed man. Aboriginal people will see that. I want to forget about the past’. Well, he had 25 years, and we saw things getting worse and worse for indigenous people in the bush.
While he says this week he has changed, last week he has changed, Madam Speaker, we just need to go and look at some of the contributions to the debate by members opposite. Eighteen months ago, the member for Goyder had a shot at our government for providing $400 000 to the Bagot Community for beautifying that community. It is an excellent job; it looks lovely in the wet season. But what happens? It gets criticised because, we should not be spending money there. We should leave it as an eyesore. That is unacceptable to our government. It was a good move, people are happy, not only the people who live at the Bagot Community but the neighbours also.
There was a situation where the Leader of the Opposition was complaining, and it is in Hansard - if we get a bit of light I will tell you where it is - but he was having a shot at my colleague, the Minister for Family and Community Services, about the audacity of her calling on the Commonwealth government to provide $10m so that we can try to combat petrol sniffing, and that we would be looking to match that as a government. And what does he say? Not enough going into small business. I know my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, is working overtime to assist small and big business as much as possible.
To me, how can he have changed? If he is putting small business up in lights, that is fine and we support that, but to say we should not be spending money tackling petrol sniffing problems throughout the Northern Territory, no, Madam Speaker, he has not changed.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable member, your time has expired.
Ms LAWRIE: Madam Speaker, I move that the minister be granted an extension of time in order that he may conclude his remarks.
Madam SPEAKER: Members need to be aware that the power surge has done something to our clocks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr AH KIT: Madam Speaker, thank you very much, and I thank the member for Karama.
We also had the situation the other evening where the member for Katherine said: ‘I am white Australian – okay? You can call me racist but this is exactly what happens in Katherine’. These are the statements that are coming from members opposite, whose leader is making statements to the media that he has changed. Are they taking the view that they have to change? I do not think so. We heard the opposition regarding my Housing statement about temporary accommodation last week. There was opposition to that. ‘The Community Harmony project is no good, let us stick with a former Chief Minister’s policy of monstering and stomping on Aboriginal people’.
This is a great opportunity for the Territory. Imagine parks like the West MacDonnells. CATIA members of the Central Australian tourism industry in Alice Springs are calling out for these developments. . Do you really want to oppose this? Have you thought that through yet?
Ms Carney: Yes.
Mr AH KIT: The member for Araluen says: ‘Yep’. Well, good, we will go back and tell CATIA. You just cannot have it both ways. It is like the Leader of the Opposition; the Chief Minister rightly accused him of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. That is exactly what he is doing. On the one hand, he is going on the radio and saying: ‘I have changed. Aboriginal people will see the difference’. Then we have two weeks of: ‘Let us kick the guts out of them’. That is unacceptable. People are not silly. I tell politicians in this Chamber that, if you think our people out there do not have their finger on the pulse in terms of what is said in here and the politics of it, then you are kidding yourselves.
In conclusion, the Opposition Leader speaks in a real rubbish way to Aboriginal people. He says two contradictory things at the same time. First, he says the government deal does not give Aboriginal people enough and then, on the other hand, that it gives too much away. He has to get off the fence. He has to make sure he has involvement in the policy contribution in regards to this, instead of making policy on the run. This shows, at the end of the day, that he is merely playing politics. He has no credibility and cannot be believed.
I have been around for too long to believe that the Opposition Leader has changed. He lost the last election because people did not believe in him or trust him. Now he wants to say he has changed. I do not believe him. I do not trust him. My office spoke to the NLC. Those seven claims remain. The choice is simple here: we create 27 new national parks to benefit all Territorians or we do nothing: ‘do nothing’ Denis, ‘dithering’ Denis, yesterday’s man.
The staff of the Chief Minister’s department has worked very hard on getting this deal to the situation where it is now before us. I urge all members of this House to support this legislation. You really need to understand that this is something that is going to be good for the Territory, good for everyone, regardless of race, colour or creed. I support the Chief Minister’s statement.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, the debate has been one of quite a divide between the two sides of the House. The opposition has raised a number of issues, and I will deal with some of them, quite appropriately, in my response to this debate. However, many of them are ones that we debated at length; for example, the member for Macdonnell asking what is the mechanism that we will deal with any monies, what kind of structure will be set up. I remember standing in this place in October 2003 and we spent the best part of seven hours going through the details of every aspect of this legislation.
I thank members for their contribution, and would like to address some of the issues raised. One of the issues raised was that of urgency, and a reference to Standing Order 179. The opposition members were asking what, under Standing Order 179, justifies urgency on this debate, and that there is some level of hardship being involved if we do not have urgency. In fact, this urgency has been brought under Standing Order 306 which only requires the necessity of bringing on a bill at a set time. We are not claiming a particular hardship. The reason to bring it on under urgency is that this bill has been in the public arena. This bill has been discussed widely. As members of the opposition actually articulated when they took the time in debate to actually look at some of the detail, this is the same bill, except for minor adjustments to do with the fact that we did pass its expiry date, and that has been fully discussed in this place …
Mr Dunham: Nope.
Ms MARTIN: … and that we have spent – it is sad that the member for Drysdale says no, but this bill has been fully discussed in this place. The opposition then made their opposition to it, as an opposition is entitled to do, but it was passed. The terms of what was being offered in the package for parks and reserves was clearly set out. The core principles were going to be reflected in every aspect for what was done in leases and indigenous land use agreements and in future plans of management for those parks. The urgency is about creating certainty in our parks. The urgency is about job opportunities. The urgency is about expanding tourism opportunities. The urgency is about a plan of management to create for the Territory a world-class parks estate.
As tourism minister, I have no apology. My colleague, the Minister for Employment, Education and Training wants to see those happen. The business minister wants business opportunities. Every member in the government wants to see the opportunities that can realised in this framework in the future realised. But for one park, that would have happened on 31 December; this would have come into force.
Instead of saying we have not reached agreement over the 28 parks, as the Minister for Community Development so eloquently said, why would you walk away from something when only one group of traditional owners, the Keep River traditional owners, did not accept the offer? It made sense to say, ‘Why walk away after all this effort?; Twenty seven groups of traditional owners have said yes, we want to see this happen, yes, we want to take advantage of creating jobs, of tourist opportunities, of expanding the parks estate. They said yes to that. As Chief Minister, I thought about it. It was my obligation under this legislation to think very carefully about it.
If we had not said let’s revive the bill, it would have been the litigation path. It would have been those millions of dollars, and the assessment is if we did all this through litigation it would have cost somewhere between $50m and $100m. It would have taken years. What would I have said to the tourist operators? Those doing guided walks in parks, those with concessions, those doing boat tours - what would I have said? I am sorry! I have walked away from creating the opportunity for you to invest further in your operations, for you to see how you can expand those. I am sorry. We are just going to have 10 to 20 years of you not really knowing what your status is. It was not a choice.
Everything that we have discussed in this place over the time since the debate in October-November 2003 is what we are talking about today. Let’s move it on. Why the argument that there has not been enough time? A number of the opposition members said they need further time to consider it. As I said yesterday in debate, normally we introduced a bill and it sits on the Table for six weeks before we debate it. This is probably the most debated and consulted item of legislation that we have seen in here for a very long time. Arguments claiming that we are rushing it really do not wash. This is about finalising an offer that would have been finalised except for one group of traditional owners, and I welcome the Keep River Traditional Owners here today. I am sorry that they were not able to stay for the full debate, but I appreciate them taking the time to come to Darwin and be part of what is happening here today.
The issue of urgency is not urgency; it is a matter of making what we have offered come into force rather than sit around even longer. It would have been in force, except for one park, at the end of December. This is something that we did not necessarily expect; we thought there was going to be full compliance. One park is out, so let’s move on. Urgency is not an issue.
Questions were raised regarding the legality of what we are doing with a bill that needs to be revived. This is a revival bill. Gale Jamieson, our Parliamentary Counsel, is quite clear: she has given me an explanation of what we are doing. Some of it is very legal and technical, but essentially, she is saying that clause 3 of the bill revokes the instrument that expired, that is the framework act, and clause 4 of the bill revives the framework act that was expired by the instrument. She said that this is a common law principle and that if you go to Pearce and Geddes, Statutory Interpretation in Australia (5th Ed), paragraph 6.14, and I can table a copy …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker. It would appear to be a legal opinion from which the Chief Minister is selectively reading. I wonder if she could table it.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, I am happy to table Negation of common law rules relating to revival on repeal. If you would like to go to that document, you can have it as well. There is no question of the legality of what we have done. It is all very well for the member for Drysdale to say: ‘I think …’
Mr Dunham: No, you have not tabled the whole thing. You have an opinion there.
Ms Carney: She ripped it off!
Mr Dunham: Do we get the whole thing or just that?
Ms Carney: There were two pages.
Ms MARTIN: No, some of them were notes for me. I am not tabling those; they are notes for me. This is what it is based on.
Madam Speaker, the member for Drysdale raises issues of legality that are so critical, he says, that he does not bother to do any calling around before he comes in for debate. He does not give credence to the expertise across government that this is perfectly legal. If the member for Drysdale had been so concerned, he might have raised it before. We could have clarified it before. Certainly, this is not an illegal procedure. It is unusual, I will say that.
Mr Dunham: Is it ever!
Ms MARTIN: The legislation we have put to the parliament is, in a way, unusual because nothing has been put in here so transparently before. This is government working in transparency and openness and accountability. I am proud of that despite the fact …
Mr Dunham: Pride comes before a fall.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, settle down.
Ms MARTIN: The morality lessons are galling, Madam Speaker. Despite the fact that the opposition disagrees, this is accountable, open government. We are looking for a solution to a problem that we did not foresee.
Can I say, that we did look to models that had been used by the previous government. We did look to those models. With the 50% that the Opposition Leader says, ‘This is dreadful, this is giving too much to Aboriginal people’, look at, say, the railway and what happened with that and the Larrakia, where the Larrakia have been given freehold title to land on our foreshore in the Fannie Bay electorate; there was never any proof of native title for that piece of land to change. It did not go to court; it did not go to the tribunal. The previous government said, ‘Okay, Larrakia, we are going to recognise your native title’, and we still know that the native title is before the court, and it was recognised and freehold title offered to land.
When we looked at what we might do to stop the litigation course, we looked to what the previous government had done. No-one has come in when they talk about the handover that is something that they have never seen before, and said, ‘Oh yes, but we did it too’. ‘Yes, we did it too, because it was a resolution of issues’. I am praising the former government for this. The Country Liberal Party had foresight to do this. If you take a situation like the Rosebery/Bellamack situation, the native title holders did not prove their native title to obtain that exclusive right to buy that land and then develop it. But we supported that arrangement because it was a good solution. Again, well done CLP. It was not finalised when we got to government, so we did. So, well done. The protestations of, ‘this has never been done before in the history of the Territory’ are simply wrong. I would like to praise the former government for some of the things that they did in government that led the way for what we could do.
I will talk about the Keep River shortly. There are 27 parks in this bill. Twenty of those are in the Central Land Council’s area, and seven with the Northern Land Council. I thank the Central Land Council for their support, for the supportive press release coming from the council yesterday, and the honesty in it. It is not all singing praise for government. It says that this has been tough. People have had to make compromises. There have been some tough times. David Ross pays tribute to his landowners. He says:
- It is a tribute to the landowners that they had the foresight to make some tough compromises in the interests
of seeing joint management become a reality …
For the first time there will be public recognition of the cultural heritage of our parks and the crucial role
that Aboriginal people play in managing country.
- I urge parliamentarians of all stripes to back this.
I believe that includes you, Madam Speaker.
That is real praise from the Central Land Council. There was a very negative press release from the Northern Land Council over the issue of Keep River. But reiterating what the Minister for Community Development said, the Northern Land Council is very positive about the seven parks and that they have said it is a good deal. That they have said, and I assume the same things apply to those, that some tough decisions have had to be made by traditional owners and native title holders, but we have reached agreement on seven parks in the Northern Land Council area. The one outstanding one is the Keep River.
Talking about Keep River, there has been some issue that we are extinguishing native title rights because the Keep River are not part of this. That simply is not the case. The government is not seeking the extinguishment of native title rights of native title holders at Keep River. This is important to put on the record: the offer that we made required traditional owners to suppress, but not extinguish, some rights under native title to receive the benefits of the park’s freehold title - that is a significant achievement - and to manage the parks in this partnership.
Our position has always been consistent. The offer of title was conditional on the traditional owners withdrawing land claims, leasing the land back, agreeing to suppress native title rights through an indigenous land use agreement, and agreeing to develop plans of management that will equally bind the government and those native title holders. We were up-front about this: the offer of a partnership was a partnership with compromise and obligations on both sides.
I also place on the record that we are not setting about to prevent traditional owners from selling art and artefacts, as I read in the paper this morning, and that simply is not the case. The fostering of these activities was always a focus of the negotiations leading up to this package. These activities will be covered by a joint plan of management, which will be fully developed in partnership with the traditional owners, and will require their full agreement before being submitted to the minister. Those activities, quite logically in a park, need to be part of an agreed plan of management. For example, in a practical sense, it is not envisaged that any native title rights currently being exercised will be affected, unless they are inconsistent with the good management of parks as reflected in the plans of management that will be developed.
An example of that for Keep River is that a plan of management may authorise the collection of wood for didgeridoo production, but that has to be managed. Therefore, maybe it would only be in certain areas of the park, or for certain times of the year. That makes sense in a plan of management for a national park.
In seeking to have the Keep River people in this package and be able to have freehold title to their land, the government extended the compliance date to 2 February and said: ‘Let’s try again’. We had officers ready to go out to Keep River to talk about after that offer was made. We extended compliance to 2 February, trying to have that happen. Sadly, it did not, and we were disappointed. The date of 2 February was chosen because we then had to prepare the legislation for parliament. Therefore, when the member for Drysdale said: ‘This arbitrary figure of 2 February; what does it mean?’. If the opposition would turn up to their briefings, they would not come in here and pretend the shock and horror of ‘What is this government up to? Is there some kind of conspiracy or some plan that we do not know about?’. It is simple - absolutely simple – and we certainly tried with Keep River. We are very disappointed.
The opposition has made much of the supposed secrecy of the parks negotiations under the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act 2003. It is a good indication of their desperation to find something – anything – wrong with this legislation that they seem to be inventing some kind of secret agenda which simply does not exist.
This government has been open and transparent about what it intends to do since October 2003, when I announced the core principles for negotiations through the passage of the framework legislation, and to the current legislative changes. As we are set to pass this legislation – well, I hope so – I am pleased to be able to table the legal document templates which are consistent with the requirements set out under the original Parks and Reserves (Frameworks for the Future) Act. As required – if you refer to the original act – the indigenous land use agreements deal with compensation issues and are designed to facilitate future developments of the parks. They expressly preserve native title rights and interests where they might exist.
The opposition asked: ‘Where are these indigenous land use agreements?’ That is under a federal law. They will be done according to the terms of those federal laws, against the principles that we have set out in here, incorporating those principles. Quite rightly, they are public documents and they are lodged with the federal Native Title Tribunal. That is what happens to ILUAs. As a former minister dealing with these issues, he should have known.
The leases are for 99 years, with a requirement for good faith negotiations for renewal. The parks are required to be managed in accordance with principles of joint management which recognise value and incorporate Aboriginal culture, knowledge, and traditional decision-making processes - again, set out in the schedule to the legislation. The permitted uses of the park are also clearly set out in the lease, namely the establishment, joint management and maintenance and use of the park as a park which are:
- to serve visitor and community needs for education enjoyment;
to protect biological diversity; and
for the appropriate use and enjoyment by relevant Aboriginals according to Aboriginal tradition
including establishing and maintaining living areas, hunting and use of resources in accordance with
the plan of management, and ancillary and related uses.
Both the leases and those ILUA’s refer to the joint management agreement which sets out the parameters for joint management across the Territory. The opposition has accused us of hiding the true value of the land that we subject to lease back. The fact is the that Australian Valuation Office has calculated rent payable based on a model which takes into account the size of the park, conservation and scientific value, cultural values and tourism potential, as well as existing rentals for comparable parks. The issue of the nett value of the land in question therefore does not arise. Of course we had some fairly ridiculous figures being thrown around during that debate in 2003.
Mr Dunham: How do you know they are ridiculous if you have not had them valued?
Ms MARTIN: It was talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, I think, if I go back to the Hansard.
Mr Dunham: I do not know. You have not had them valued, what do you reckon they are worth?
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, just listen.
Ms MARTIN: Furthermore, titles for much of the land are vested in the Conservation Land Corporation not in the government. With respect to the rentals calculated by the AVO as previously stated there will be a moratorium on rental payments for the 17 parks and reserves that will be leased back in the new Parks and Reserves Framework until 1 July 2010. So, payments for all of those parks are nothing for five years. In the case of the remaining 10 parks where there is no tenure change no rent is payable.
Madam Speaker, there is an exception. There is an exception to the moratorium on lease payments and that is land in two areas – Gregory and Davenport Murchison that is currently Aboriginal land which is being added to the parks estate. That is a really critical component particularly with Gregory which has that superb Aboriginal land trust land now added to what will become an even more magnificent park for Territorians and visitors. The total rent payable for these areas of land which we will pay once the scheduling has happened is $33 000 per annum in total for that land. After 2010, based on the current rental valuations provided by the AVO, the total rent per annum will be in the order of about $1m per year in today’s value. So that total rent payable, this is the AVO’s figure, will be in the vicinity of $1m a years in today’s dollars.
As members will recall there were claims over the 11 parks which were, as a result of the Ward decision, able to proceed to hearing by the Aboriginal Land Commissioner. These are parks which could have been lost to the parks estate, or which the government would have been liable for rental payments which would amount to more than half the total in any case. As it is, we have settled litigation in these parks in a record time, ensured business as usual, and not had to spend a cent on litigation.
The interesting thing is some of the words used by the Opposition Leader when on the side of ‘this is giving away too much to Aborigines rather than this is not generous enough’. He says you are handing over and the clear results from the Ward High court decision were that 11 of our parks were most likely to be scheduled under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. If that happens we have no idea what the future is. What might happen to the West MacDonnells, that wonderful park in Central Australia that we might have lost to the parks estate? I am not saying it would have happened but it might have happened. You cannot allow that uncertainty in an area like Central Australia where we are trying to build tourism, trying to build what tourists can do and the natural advantage, the environmental advantage, of the Centre by saying, ‘Oh, we just won’t do anything. We will just allow that process to go through’. It is not good enough. It is not certain. It does not build our tourism industry. To say we recognise that and to move on has been a very significant move forward for the Territory.
I should not need to remind this House that the cost of not adopting a negotiated settlement would be likely to be significantly more than the amounts that I have said - that $1m from 2010 for each year in rent - and would be a dead weight around the Territory budget for years to come.
Our parks system represents one of the Territory’s major competitive advantages and needs to be levered into playing a key role in the Territory’s future economic development. We know what the tourists come to the Territory for; they come for our superb environment, and much of that is encompassed in our parks, and an indigenous experience. How better to achieve it than move on from litigation into developing our potential?
In conjunction with the framework offer, the government will be releasing the Parks Master Plan in April. I have already signalled that the government intends to increase significantly its financial support for parks infrastructure in the Territory, and will provide appropriate budgetary support for the proposed joint management arrangements. This will bring significant financial returns through increased visitation numbers and, therefore, expenditure in the Territory generally, improved tourism service opportunities and indigenous employment opportunities, not to mention environmental and conservation benefits.
I am very proud of what the government has been able to achieve in securing compliance with the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act for these 27 parks and reserves, and in the approach adopted. I am looking forward to implementing the new arrangements over the coming months, and ushering in a new era for the Territory’s parks and estates.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clause 1:
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, can you tell me if this is the clause that actually revives the previous act?
Ms MARTIN: Clause 1 is the short title of the act:
- This act may be cited as the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future)(Revival) Act 2005.
It is the naming.
Mr DUNHAM: So to get it straight, then, we have a bill before us and the act is not yet revived. Is that correct? Until this bill passes, there is no such thing as the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act?
Ms MARTIN: This is the bill to revive an act that expired by legislation on 31 January.
Mr DUNHAM: So from 31 December until 17 February, there has been no act of parliament called the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, except the one that has expired?
Ms MARTIN: I thought that would have been apparent.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, there are certain things that this bill asks you to do on 1 February 2005 when the act did not exist, and you have just admitted that the previous act had expired. I wonder about that date. Why would this bill come into operation prior to parliament passing it? It does not exist. As of tomorrow, you are going to say the act existed two weeks ago. Is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: What clause 2 is saying is that once it is assented to it will then provide continuity from that expiry date on 31 December, but only once it is assented to.
Mr DUNHAM: That is what clause 1 says, but clause 2 uses the date 1 February. I am wondering, if it was to allow for continuity, I could understand subclause 1, which had a date from 1 January after lapse of 31 December, however at subclause 2, and we are going to section 8 in a minute, it is saying that, notwithstanding this act still does not exist and is still a bill before this parliament, that it came into operation on 1 February. Could you explain that please?
Ms MARTIN: The date, referring to section 8, of 1 February, is the extension of compliance to try to achieve the Keep River National Park as part of Schedule 2, that is what that simply is referring to.
Mr DUNHAM: Section 8 of the original act authorised you to do certain things. One was to request the Commonwealth minister responsible for the administration of ALRA to use his or her best endeavours to effect, etcetera. So that request under section 8 of the lapsed act, can you tell me when you exercised that power that you were authorised to exercise?
Ms MARTIN: I have not exercised any of these powers indicated in section 8 as yet. We had to get compliance with everything that was set out in the act and, once that happened, which will be achieved by what has happened in negotiations, and also this act passing, then I am authorised to do certain things, as set out in section 8.
Mr DUNHAM: So it is quite clear, after 31 December, you are not authorised to request the Commonwealth minister to use their best endeavours. You are not authorised to grant any land. You are not authorised to execute on behalf of the Territory a lease, etcetera, as at section 8 of the lapsed act. Is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: This is why it has been so transparent - until we got those agreements, those authorisations did not come into place.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, it would appear then that 1 February is a moot date, and it could well be after this act is assented to. If you have not exercised any of those powers, if you are unable to do them after the lapsing of the act, and if it is contingent upon certain conditions being met in section 10, why on earth would you want section 8 to come into effect on 1 February?
Ms MARTIN: As I said before, what we wanted to do was to give additional compliance time, and have that then reflected in this act, to allow a revisiting of the decision by the Keep River people to reject the offer being put to them. We wanted to have a date that then allowed us to put legislation to this parliament after that.
Mr DUNHAM: Compliance is at section 10 of the lapsed act. I am talking about your authority to do things, and I am just trying to ascertain whether you exercised any of those authorities at section 8 of the lapsed act.
Ms MARTIN: No, I have not exercised any of those authorities, because what we had was an act that had to be complied with, and I have not exercised any of those. This is why I can stand here quite honestly and say this is a transparent operation. This is open and transparent.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, can you tell me when it is likely you will exercise any of those things you are authorised to do under clause 8, when it is your intention to use that authorisation?
Ms MARTIN: We will request the Commonwealth minister to schedule those pieces of land under ALRA in Schedule 1.
Mr DUNHAM: When will you do that?
Ms MARTIN: We will probably do that over the next short while if this act passes the parliament. We will progressively move through the park freehold title. The ILUAs first have to be executed and lodged with the Native Title Tribunal. We will then look at the grants of title and do the leases after that. The more time-consuming process after that will be the plans of management. We will have to prioritise those with relevant traditional owners. They are very important and, under what we are proposing, each and every one of those plans of management will come to the parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, you have told us that there is a deal of urgency attaching to these actions and that you have not used any of these actions. It would appear that it is certainly some weeks away before any of the actions you are authorised to do under section 8 will take effect. Given that the opposition has some disquiet about an act that has retrospectivity built into it in such a way, if it has not been used prior to this bill being passed, and if it is going to be some weeks before you use any of those authorisations given you in section 8, could we ask that you change the 1 February, which would appear to be a redundant date, to a date some time hence?
Ms MARTIN: It is an irrelevant point. What we want is to move …
Mr Dunham: It addresses retrospectivity.
Ms MARTIN: We want to see those indigenous land use agreements executed and lodged as soon as possible, but we cannot do that until this is passed. We will be writing to the federal minister …
Mr Dunham: That is my point.
Ms MARTIN: We will be writing to the federal minister. I cannot quite work out what you are trying to achieve with this. I would have thought that, to see the opportunities realised from what we are proposing here, you would be urging us on.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, you said you cannot do that until this is passed. If this is passed, it did enable you to do something on the 1 February, which was a couple of weeks ago. As it transpires, you are telling this parliament that you did not do any of those things that you were authorised to do under section 8 and, because we have a problem - not to do with this act - about acts of parliament enabling retrospective actions to have some legality, it would satisfy that concern of the opposition if you could use a date hence. I cannot understand why you put the 1 February, but it would satisfy that concern of the opposition if you could have a future date rather than a past date there, so that it does not make an assumption you have used any of those actions when you have not.
Ms MARTIN: That was for compliance. As I said before in the debate, it was a date chosen for compliance with all the requirements of what were set out in the act. It was not for me to use my powers in any way or to move under section 8; it was to get compliance in that outstanding issue of Keep River. We are now dealing with passing this bill. The date of 1 February has become irrelevant.
Mr DUNHAM: That is my point. It has become irrelevant. Whatever date you had fixed in the past, this act did not appear in this parliament until after the 1 February. Therefore, you could satisfy the problem the opposition has with retrospectivity by fixing some future date.
Ms MARTIN: The issue you are making here is one that does not affect what we are doing. Okay, it has been a little different, but it has been carried by Parliamentary Counsel and good legal advice. The points you are making are ones that are not constructive to where we are now.
Mr DUNHAM: I cannot understand why legal advice would give you a retrospectivity that you have not used. I suggest, Chief Minister - I don’t know why you are being pig-headed about this - it is giving you the authority to do things two weeks ago that you have not done. So it is obviously redundant. There is no need to have that authority stretching back two weeks when you did not use it. What I am saying to you is in the normal way that acts of parliament have a future looked at them to enable future legal actions, why don’t we amend that to put a future date?
Ms MARTIN: The date of 1 February recognises that by 2 February all conditions were satisfied and that Keep River had been removed from the previous schedules. It is recognition of that change, so it is important to keep that within the act.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, no it is not. What you are saying is that the conditions at section 10 of the lapsed act were met on 2 February and therefore for some reason you could do certain things on the 1 February. Well that sequence is actually wrong, because the things at section 8 you could only do if you satisfy section 10. So even on having the explanation we just had saying we are authorised to do things on the 1st because they will be satisfied on the 2nd, is illogical. You had to be satisfied in the first place that those conditions had been met, then you were authorise to do certain things the next day. I cannot see why you are being so pig-headed about this. Why don’t we pick a date for the future that authorises you to do things that you have yet to do?
Ms MARTIN: I thank Parliamentary Counsel. The reference to section 8 here is to section 8 of this bill rather than section 8 of the original bill, and it refers to the date when Keep River was removed from Schedule 2. That was the date that Keep River was removed; 2 February was the date when full compliance had been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: I do not understand the relevance of that because part 2 of clause 8 of the new bill amends to omit Keep River in any event so it does not matter whether Keep River was in or out at that time. We now have a new act that omits Keep River and the salient date of Keep River’s disappearance will happen when this act passes. Whether it happened on 1 or 2 February is irrelevant to the omission of Keep River, because you are able to do that now with clause 8.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the logic of what is in here has the full support of Parliamentary Counsel and that really should be the end of the debate.
Mr DUNHAM: We have had a variety of descriptors. First, the Chief Minister believed that she had to have her authorisation under section 8 of the lapsed act, prior to the conditions being met. Now we know that to be wrong, and she is telling us that the reason this here is that it has the full support of Parliamentary Counsel. I do not believe that. I believe the answer the Chief Minister gave me on that particular item was wrong. She then tells us that she needs it because Keep River pulled out at about that time, and I believe that the act has been drafted so that it is irrelevant whether Keep River pulled that time or not, because it has been omitted from Schedule 2. She tells us that it is in the past to achieve continuity. Now continuity means 1 January, not 1 February.
We have had four lame excuses. The Chief Minister is now trying to tell us it had the full endorsement of Parliamentary Counsel. That is a nonsense. The excuses you gave me have either been made up, but if you are trying to tell me that Parliamentary Counsel gave you those lame excuses to give me, I believe that you are defaming those people.
So can we just get back to the fact that acts of this parliament are supposed to enable future actions and can we please put a future date into subclause 2 of clause 2 of the bill?
Ms MARTIN: This is recognising that the whole premise of this piece of legislation is that we do get compliance with what is set out here before we assent to the bill. That is important. This recognises…
Mr DUNHAM: Say that again: we have to get compliance!
Ms MARTIN: … that we did not have full compliance and that one park was being removed, and that happened on 1 February. That is why we have 2 February. Then by the 2 February we had full compliance and we could move with the bill, because it had been removed. That is the reason and I do not think I am wrong in explaining that. I do not need to add anything else. That is the reason.
Mr DUNHAM: So your fifth reason is that that critical action had to be put into this bill and this bill does not have the status of the parliament of reviving that bill and enabling us to put a date in there of some future time, to enable you to do certain things you are authorised to do under clause 8 that you have not done yet. You have not exercised any of your powers under section 8 of the lapsed bill and in the future you will do it. I cannot see why we should give you this latitude of some past action when you did not even have the need to use. You had no need to use it.
I am interested in the convoluted business about assent and I find it hard to understand, I have to tell you. I wonder if the Chief Minister could explain the business about the Administrator’s assent and the expiry of this act. I know expiry is at clause 9 but the two are obviously linked. Clause 2(3) reads ‘the remaining provisions of this act come into operation on the day on which the Administrator’s assent is declared’, and at clause 9 it says, ‘this act expires on the day after the Administrator’s assent to this act is declared’. So can I assume that this is an act of one day’s duration?
Ms MARTIN: This is part of the Interpretation Act and what it means is that once the Administrator has assented to this act in effect this has come into law and once that has happened then the Interpretation Act preserves the operation of the act. Therefore you do not need the act to remain on the statute books which is why you have clause 9, the expiry. This is the technicalities of our law and I respect Parliamentary Counsel’s advice of why we need it.
Mr DUNHAM: This is quite bizarre. We have one clause saying the Administrator will give assent to this act, and this is the date that it will come into effect apart from a couple of others. It will expire the day after he assents, so I assume this is a one day act. Now, what you are telling me is, I do not have to worry about that because there is some other clause in the Interpretation Act that gives this act its status. Can you explain what that clause is in the Interpretation Act that enables this act to be a one day wonder?
Ms MARTIN: It is actually quite simple. Because we have the previous bill, Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, now with an amendment, it means that you do not need the revival bill, so once it has been assented to, the other comes into place, this expires.
Mr DUNHAM: So, what you are saying is, the revival bill, with the exception of Keep River in the schedule, and the sunset clause, will obviate this bill, after one day? That is what you are saying?
Ms MARTIN: Yes, three times means yes.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. If the Interpretation Act is to be used in that way, and I know I am going to another clause, but they are linked, can you tell us why section 12A of the Interpretation Act is disallowed?
Ms MARTIN: Let us deal with the clauses one by one, thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: But they are linked. It was not my fault you put an expiry right at the end and a start right at the front.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Well, we will get to it then …
Mr DUNHAM: But then she will not let me come back.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will let you come back; I am the Chair.
The question is that clause 2 be agreed to.
Sorry, member for Macdonnell. Are you speaking on …
Mr ELFERINK: Sorry, Mr Chairman, the legal documentation that is now being passed around at this very late stage, I take it that clause 2 will give life to, well, it is the intention of the whole act, but clause 2 as well, is to give life to the overview of parks leases.
Mr CHAIRMAN: You are talking on …
Mr ELFERINK: It is a question. I take it that by resurrecting this act, well, this act resurrects the other act, that gives life to these documents, yes?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Are we talking on clause 2? Did you stand before we took the vote?
Mr ELFERINK: It is on the question, I just want to talk about it.
Mr CHAIRMAN: All right.
Mr ELFERINK: Chief Minister, I notice that one of the things in the overview of the park leases document allows entry use to the extent which is in accordance with Aboriginal tradition for hunting, food gathering, otherwise for the purposes of sale and for ceremonial and religious purposes. Specifically in relation to hunting, do you anticipate the use of firearms in our national parks?
Ms MARTIN: This is not relevant to the clause that we are discussing.
Mr Dunham: It is a pretty straightforward question.
Ms MARTIN: This is not relevant to the clause we are discussing. What I would simply say is that the plans of management that we are proposing will determine all those aspects of traditional usage, and that will depend whether it is a Schedule 1, 2 or 3 park. Certainly, I would hope all those issues will be dealt with and agreed to on any joint management park by the traditional owners, native title holders and Parks and Wildlife, and we will have agreement on issues like those. To say ‘will’ or ‘will not’ at this stage, is pre-empting that work which will take place over the next few years on plans of management; each and every one of them will come into this place and be debated and approved.
Mr ELFERINK: The question is pretty straightforward, and I do not think I am getting a very straight answer. Does the Chief Minister anticipate the use of firearms in the current parks estate under those terms?
Ms MARTIN: I will just make a reply to this and I am not going to continue any further on it.
Mr ELFERINK: I bet you are not.
Ms MARTIN: The plans of management will be done with those who are part of the joint management and those kinds of issues will be determined. I do not have carriage of that, but anything that is agreed to …
Mr ELFERINK: You will be in Sydney by then.
Ms MARTIN: I will not be part of doing those arrangements, but once they are agreed to, those plans of management, over the next months and years - because they will take some time, we have a number of parks - every aspect of that, agreed to by traditional owners, native title holders and Parks and Wildlife will come to this parliament for debate and hopefully for agreement.
Mr ELFERINK: Just so I have it completely and utterly clear in my head, the Chief Minister has said to me that she has no control, or anticipates having no control, over the use of firearms in parks estates that currently exist.
Ms Lawrie: Twisting. You are twisting the words again.
Mr Stirling: No, do not misrepresent what she said.
Mr ELFERINK: Then let her explain it.
Ms Lawrie: No, you refuse to understand.
Mr ELFERINK: You have no control over this process.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale.
Dr Burns: Camel lover!
Mr DUNHAM: I seek a point of clarification, Mr Chairman …
Mr Elferink: There is no hunting allowed …
Mr DUNHAM: … I have a stack of papers here that does not bear any crest or authorisation and it is titled ‘Parks and Reserves Framework for the Future – Legal Documentation’. …
Mr Elferink: Come step outside and I will fucking smack you.
Mr DUNHAM: … could I ascertain the status and can you tell me what this is all about?
Mr KIELY: Mr Chairman …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr KIELY: ... are you going to allow that sort of language?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I did not hear what was said.
Mr Dunham: Elferink, what is this about?
Ms Martin: … and threatening.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Kiely: Yes, threatening.
Mr Elferink: Say it again and say it loud.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, member for Macdonnell.
Mr KIELY: Mr Chairman, this man is making threats here and the Serjeant-at-Arms should chuck him out.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, member for Macdonnell, order.
Mr KIELY: Look at this.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Member for Macdonnell, you are warned. You are warned.
Ms Martin: That is outrageous behaviour.
Ms Lawrie: Remove him from the Chamber. We are trying to have a debate in here.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, just through the Chair.
Mr Stirling: You thug.
Mr Kiely: You bully.
Mr Dunham: Oh stop it.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr Stirling: You are a thug.
Mr Kiely: Go and have a cold shower.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Dunham: Stop it. That is unparliamentary.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Ms Lawrie: Go on, and you should leave – you are disgusting.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Stirling: You are a thug.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Macdonnell, order!
Ms Lawrie: You are a disgrace.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Member for Drysdale, can you just repeat your question, please?
Ms Martin: Mr Chairman, can I just …
Mr DUNHAM: My question is …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Sorry, the Chief Minister is going to answer it.
Ms MARTIN: Can I make a point of order, please? I believe that is the most disgraceful behaviour I have seen in this parliament for some time. I …
Mr Stirling: He should be thrown.
Ms MARTIN: … do not want to tell you how to do your job, but I have never seen someone in my near 10 years here walk across the Chamber and do that, and threaten somebody else like that …
Ms Lawrie: Physically!
Ms MARTIN: … is disgraceful behaviour in this parliament and certainly look to you for what kind of proper parliamentary penalty there should be.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just take some …
Ms Lawrie: Absolutely!
Mr Dunham: Penalty? You are asking him to establish a penalty?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I will just take some advice.
Ms Martin: Yes, that is extraordinary.
Mr Kiely: Swearing – offering violence.
Mr Dunham: I did not hear him swear. I did not hear what he said either.
Mr Kiely: He offered violence. I heard him swear. I heard him offer violence as well.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I will just take some advice.
Dr Burns: I said nothing.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Speaking to the point of order, I will report it to the Speaker at the conclusion of this bill and ask for the Speaker to make a judgment on that.
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order …
Mr Stirling: Mr Chairman, I move …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Hang on, sorry, we have another point of order.
Mr DUNHAM: … the two protagonists in the parliament, I can put on the Parliamentary Record quite clearly that I neither heard what the member for Jingili said nor what the …
Ms Lawrie: Johnston.
Mr DUNHAM: … member for Macdonnell said. I will say, however though, that the member for Johnston has offered the member for Macdonnell out to fight and I can understand that there are standing orders here …
Ms Lawrie: No, he didn’t.
Mr Kiely: When?
Mr DUNHAM: … standing orders in this place that refer to the Chairman asking people to desist from quarrels. Now, I would have thought that that initial invitation to fight from the member for Johnston is something …
Mr Stirling: But you did not hear anything.
Mr DUNHAM: … that should have been addressed at that time. I was disgusted with that behaviour. I was disgusted with that behaviour, but all I could say is that it should finish now, Mr Deputy Speaker. This incident is the second incident between these two and the first was promulgated by the member for Johnston.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will speak to that point of order. As you know, sitting in this chair, you do not hear all the interjections. I will explain to the Speaker what I saw and what I heard. That requires the Speaker to investigate further with the members who were involved; I will ask her to do that. I can only go on what I saw and what I heard. If there were other comments made perhaps we have to check Hansard and then the Speaker can come back and make a ruling on those. All I can judge is what I saw at the time. As I said, I will report to the Speaker on the matter. I do not want any quarrels in this place either, so let us leave it at that. Let us get on with the debate.
You have a point of order?
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, I am not satisfied to leave it at that. What we have witnessed is thuggish ...
Mr Dunham: You are dissenting from his ruling.
Mr STIRLING: … intimidating and bullying behaviour. Now I did not hear what the exchange was. The member for Drysdale …
Mr Baldwin: Well, how can you comment on it?
Mr STIRLING: … thinks he did. What I did witness …
Mr Baldwin: How can you comment?
Mr STIRLING: … what I did witness …
Mr Baldwin: Why don’t you leave it with him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr STIRLING: … was the thuggish and intimidating and bullying behaviour …
Mr Baldwin: Why don’t you leave it with him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr STIRLING: … of the member for Macdonnell. I would move, Mr Chairman, that his services be dispensed with from this Chamber on the basis that we do not tolerate thuggish, boorish, bullying behaviour.
Mr Baldwin: You are outrageous. That is thuggery you are talking about now.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Ms Lawrie: Stop whining.
Mr Baldwin: That’s what it is.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order!
Mr Baldwin: That is outrageous behaviour.
Mr Stirling: I saw it mate. I saw it. You weren’t even in here.
Ms Lawrie: I was a witness.
Ms Scrymgour: You just walked back in.
Mr Stirling: Even when you were pissed you were never that bad.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order! Member for - Treasurer, withdraw that language, please.
Mr STIRLING: I withdraw it.
Mr Baldwin: And I tell you, I have not had a drink today. All right? Unlike yourself.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! If we have any more, you will be sent out for it in the sin bin – anyone.
A member: What about him?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Anyone. I just need to get a ruling here, please.
I will just make clarification. We are in committee stage. If people want to name a member it will have to be done when the Speaker comes back. I have said I will report it if people want to take it up when we go back into the third reading. Let us do it then, please. As it is now, I would just like to continue and I would ask people to calm down. It is important legislation and I do not think it needs the sort of behaviour we have seen.
Member for Drysdale.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr …
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, just to clarify, you have no procedure and no power to name a member?
Mr Dunham: Rubbish! That is not what he said. You are dissenting from his ruling.
Mr Stirling: No, I am not. I can …
Mr CHAIRMAN: All right. If you like, I am just reading Standing Order 221: Disorder:
- If any sudden disorder shall arise in committee the Speaker may resume the Chair in the Assembly.
You may ask for me – I can ask the Speaker to come in and make a ruling.
Mr STIRLING: I ask that the Speaker come in and make a ruling.
Mr CHAIRMAN: We need a motion.
Mr STIRLING: I move that the Speaker be recalled to the House to make a ruling on this matter.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is – yes?
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order. I disagree with this, Mr Chairman. I believe you are quite able to take control in this situation. The situation has passed. I believe what the Deputy Chief Minister is suggesting is tantamount to a want of confidence in you, Mr Chairman, and I do not think that the business that we have before us needs to be held up to continue this matter. If the government wants to pursue the member for Macdonnell, and they have the numbers, they have a number of options available to them. They can refer it Privileges; they can make personal explanations and the like. But this is a stunt to keep us way from the matter that is before the House …
Ms Lawrie: Not at all.
Mr DUNHAM: … and I suggest, Mr Chairman, we get on with the business of this House and we get on with the debate …
Ms Lawrie: We will.
Mr DUNHAM: … so the Chief Minister is called to her responsibilities.
Ms Lawrie: A motion …
Mr Dunham: You are trying to get Gerry out of the Chair.
Ms Lawrie: No, we’re not.
Mr Dunham: Yes, you are.
Ms Lawrie: No, we are trying to get it properly dealt with.
Mr Dunham: Properly dealt with? It is being properly dealt with.
Ms Lawrie: Properly dealt with.
Mr Dunham: It is being properly dealt with.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I have offered to report it. If there is a motion that says they would prefer this to be referred to the Speaker, then I will accept that motion and we will vote on it. I have offered to report it to the Speaker and the Speaker can deal with it later.
Mr Baldwin: So you want to do it now. Is that what you are saying?
Ms Lawrie: Yes, absolutely.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Well, then …
Mr Dunham: Oh, you’re letting her off the hook – that’s what you’re trying to do …
Mr CHAIRMAN: The motion is …
Mr Dunham: … just because she is in trouble.
Ms Lawrie: No.
Mr Dunham: Just because she is in trouble.
Ms Lawrie: No.
Mr Dunham: Just because she is in trouble you are doing this.
Ms Lawrie: No, no you are wrong.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr Dunham: It is unbelievable. Bullied.
Mr STIRLING: Mr Chairman, I so move.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is I report progress and ask the Speaker to resume the Chair.
Those of that opinion say aye.
Members: Aye.
Mr CHAIRMAN: To the contrary, no.
Members: No.
Ms Lawrie: The ayes have it.
Mr Stirling: There are such things as in parliamentary standards…
Mr DUNHAM: Did you call it? Did you call the vote, Gerry?
Mr CHAIRMAN: The ayes have it.
Mr DUNHAM: Division, Mr Chairman.
Mr CHAIRMAN: A division is called. Ring the bells.
The question is that the committee report progress on the bill and an incident of disorder to Madam Speaker.
The committee divided:
Ayes – 13 Noes – 10
- Mrs Aagaard Mr Baldwin
Mr Ah Kit Mr Burke
Mr Bonson Ms Carney
Dr Burns Mr Dunham
Mr Henderson Mr Elferink
Mr Kiely Dr Lim
Ms Lawrie Mr Maley
Mr McAdam Mrs Miller
Ms Martin Mr Mills
Ms Scrymgour
Mr Stirling
Dr Toyne
Mr Vatskalis
Motion agreed to.
The committee suspended.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Madam Speaker, I have to report progress on the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future)(Revival) Bill. We reached clause 2, at which stage the member for Macdonnell walked around the Chamber to the member for Johnston and said something to him. The member for Sanderson also said something. I did not hear exactly what was said, although the words uttered by the member for Macdonnell sounded threatening.
I ordered the member for Macdonnell to move away and issued a warning. That is more or less where the issue ended.
Progress reported; report adopted.
MOTION
Proposed Suspension of Member for Macdonnell
Proposed Suspension of Member for Macdonnell
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, obviously I was not in the Chamber, so it will be up to a member if anyone wishes to move a motion on the incident.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, it with a great deal of reluctance that I move for the suspension of the member of Macdonnell. It is something that happened to me a few times in my past in opposition, but for reasons very different from those I move against the member for Macdonnell today.
Parliament is a robust place. We are used to robust debate. Debate is one thing, Madam Speaker, but there are parliamentary standards. There is the dignity of the Chamber to be upheld at any time. What I witnessed - and there was certainly some exchange; I make no apology for not hearing any of that exchange – was the member for Macdonnell walk quite quickly to the member for Johnston’s desk, lean over in a threatening, boorish, ugly and very thuggish manner, obviously threatening the member for Johnston. There is no place in this Chamber for that type of behaviour.
His proper recourse if he was offended by whatever was said was to take the matter up with the Chairman. There are standards in this parliament, Madam Speaker. I have been here a tick over 14 years, and I have never witnessed the type of behaviour that I witnessed a short time ago.
Madam Speaker, I move that the member for Macdonnell’s services be dispensed with forthwith.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, my information on what happened extends no further than what the Deputy Chief Minister said. First, he did not hear the words. He saw the member for Macdonnell walk over and speak to the member for Johnston. I understand, from the private conversation I have had with the member for Macdonnell, that he was provoked in a way that led to the only reaction any Australian would have anywhere.
However, that is not the issue, Madam Speaker. If we are dealing on the facts of the matter, I would first caution you that the government has not established by evidence a reason for suspension and that is reinforced by the fact that the Deputy Speaker himself was prepared to continue the Committee stage process.
Second, we should bear in mind that suspension of the member for Macdonnell would, I imagine, see the member suspended for one day from the Alice Springs sitting. One must ask the question whether or not that is the intention of the government by this motion.
I can easily get down in the dirt if you want, but on the facts of it, you are asking the Speaker to rule in a way that is unfair on the Speaker. You have provided no evidence, apart from the member for Nhulunbuy saying that in all his time in the House he has never seen anything like it. We can all recount periods in the House when we might have seen worse or better. That is not the issue.
The issue is it was the Deputy Speaker’s intention to continue the committee stage process. The Deputy Speaker felt he had control of the House without wishing to suspend the member for Macdonnell. He is the Deputy Speaker; he is in charge. Madam Speaker is put in an impossible situation to rule otherwise. Let us continue.
Madam SPEAKER: I ask the both the member for Macdonnell and the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure to provide their explanations, as it would help.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I understand what you are seeking to achieve in evidence, but it seems that – because I know what he will say, and he has every right to say it – this is not the way we should proceed because the words are inflammatory, they are awful and I do not think they should be raised in the House. It does the member for Johnston no good, and it certainly does not progress the issue at hand.
Surely, we are mature enough to move on. Everyone is in their seat now. The Speaker is here. Let us move on.
Madam SPEAKER: The allegation is very serious. If the member for Macdonnell did take the alleged action, I consider that very serious. I am asking for a brief explanation without going into great detail about what happened. I only want to hear from those two members at the moment.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I did antagonise the member for Macdonnell. It was a mutual antagonism. The member for Macdonnell may have misunderstood what I said. I apologise to the member for Macdonnell.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Speaker, the minister, in this instance, has a history of …
Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not want a history; I just want to know what happened.
Mr ELFERINK: No, I will tell you what he did, Madam Speaker, and I will put it very succinctly. I was sitting here debating a point and the minister was sitting there with his hands cupped over his mouth, a child-like smile on his face, going poofter, poofter, poofter. Madam Speaker, I wanted to say let’s go outside and we will have a discussion on this and he went ‘poofter’ again. So, Madam Speaker, I went over and had a discussion with him. There was no violence but there was definitely an attempt to see if we could get out of this Chamber and sort this matter out once and for all like civilised men. Yes, Madam Speaker, I was angry. No, Madam Speaker, there was never any intention to perpetrate any violence whatsoever.
Madam Speaker, I know what the member is trying to do. He is trying to irritate me. Well, he is successful. It works. But gee whiz, Madam Speaker, I just have the feeling that he is just a little out of bounds.
Mr Kiely: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: Were you involved in this incident, member for Sanderson?
Mr KIELY: I was a witness to the incident.
A member: So was I.
A member: So was I.
Madam SPEAKER: I did not ask for any witnesses. I said at this stage I would only hear from the two members.
Mr Kiely: Madam Speaker, the facts are not quite as he related them.
Madam SPEAKER: Resume your seat, member for Sanderson.
What I will do, members, if you bear with me, is to listen to the recording and look at the tape myself before I make a decision just based on some words in the Chamber.
I feel that it is inappropriate to walk across the floor in a threatening manner. It is inappropriate also to use words that are offensive but we have to balance this in light of everything.
I am suggesting that you go on with your committee role which will allow me time to have a look at what happened for myself. I hope that when I do finally make a decision you will accept it. I can already see the headline tomorrow and this is really, really sad. Unfortunately, this parliament gets enough bad headlines about behaviour and members without this going on forever.
Leader of Government Business, could we please have a motion to go back into committee for further consideration of the bill?
PARKS AND RESERVES (FRAMEWORK FOR THE FUTURE) (REVIVAL) BILL
(Serial 278)
(Serial 278)
Continued from earlier this day.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move that the House moves back into committee for the consideration of the legislation currently before us.
Madam SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Motion agreed to.
In committee:
Mr CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Member for Drysdale, you wanted clarification on a document?
Mr DUNHAM: Yes.
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just get some advice.
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, could I just establish what clause we are up to.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The member for Drysdale said that they had received a document which I presume relates to – I have not seen the document – some legal explanations concerning the bill?
Mr DUNHAM: I can say it again Mr Chairman. Could I just ask the minister and we could hear the obvious laughter from that room when that matter was on. I know people are here to advise us and I know that they have a particular bent on certain things but it is not a matter for hilarity.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Could I just say that I did hint to the Leader of Government Business that it was not appropriate and the Leader of Government Business did act on that. Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: I am asking about this suite of documents that was dropped on the desk. It does not have a letterhead on it, it is not attributed and it claims to be Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Legal Documentation. Could the Chief Minister tell us the status of these documents, please?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, in my response to debate I outlined exactly what those documents were. If the member would like to raise issues about them he can do so in the third reading. This is dealing with the clauses of this bill and we should go back to dealing with those.
Mr CHAIRMAN: And that is where I will leave it, member for Drysdale. The question is that clause 2 stand as printed.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I just clarify something on these documents?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Is it about …
Mr DUNHAM: So these documents are ancillary to the bill that we have before us, is that correct? And therefore on matters relating, for instance, to the next clause we are moving to about section 10 which talks about issues relating to the conditions, that this document is part and parcel of the legislative …
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled for information …
Mr DUNHAM: They are information papers.
Ms MARTIN: Information papers.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me, Chief Minister, why we received them so late? We have been calling for these for about …
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, no, I will have to stop it there. We are dealing with clause 2.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Mr DUNHAM: The revocation of the expiry notice, I wonder, Chief Minister, if according to your legal document that you gave me, and I quote from it: ‘the position would now seem to be clear that unless contrary intention can be spelled out in the repealing act the old law is not taken to be revived’. Can you tell me if this is the contrary intention?
Ms MARTIN: We are dealing with clause 3 and clause 3 is straightforward. Let’s deal with this. There was a notice gazetted on 1 January that the previous act had expired, as with the terms of that act, December 31, and that notice that was published pursuant to that section, the parks and reserves framework act, which was section 16(4) is revoked by clause 3. That notice is revoked.
Mr DUNHAM: I was actually talking 3 and 4; I do apologise, Chief Minister …
Ms Martin: Are we talking three …
Mr DUNHAM: … but again, having twinned two, I will continue on twinning 3 …
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just deal with clause 3.
Ms MARTIN: I am not prepared to deal with history.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4:
Mr DUNHAM: I wonder if you can answer the question I posed, Chief Minister? The document that you gave me said, ‘The position would now seem to be clear that unless contrary intention can be spelled out in the repealing act the old law is not taken to be revived’. Is this the contrary intention?
Ms MARTIN: Clause 4 recognises that in section 12(a) of the Interpretation Act that we work to, that you would normally not be able to revive a repealed act. Once an act has expired, like the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, then you cannot revive it. What we are doing in this circumstance is to say that we are reviving the parks and reserves act despite that section.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me then the intention of the legislators for section 12(a) of the Interpretation Act?
Ms MARTIN: I do not see how that is relevant. What we are doing is dealing with the intentions of section 12(a), and saying, despite that, and this is the legislation that will enable us to go back to, despite that section of the act which is perfectly common in legislation, in the drafting of this, that despite the Interpretation Act, we are going back to the previous act. It is revived. Can I just say …
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: Member for Drysdale, I am still on my feet.
I am not standing here as an expert parliamentary draftsperson; I am not. But what this act says, and what is says clearly, this clause in the act, is that we are dealing with the Interpretation Act, what it normally says and so this says despite that, we can go back to the act that was revoked.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. For the benefit of the House, can you tell us what it normally says, and can you tell us what the intention of the legislators was when they drafted that?
Ms MARTIN: The Interpretation Act states:
12. The repeal of an act or part of an act does not –
(a) revive anything not in force or existing at the time at which the repeal takes effect.
Mr DUNHAM: It would appear that there is an unorthodoxy about this, Chief Minister, in that to my knowledge that is the first time that section 12(a) has been used in this way.
Ms MARTIN: I am informed that it does not get used, or not aware of it being used in this way, but it can be used in this way, and this is what we are doing with this bill.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6:
Mr DUNHAM: Clause 6 is interesting, Chief Minister, because it deals with section 10 of the original lapsed act, which says that the Chief Minister has to do certain things. Can you tell us if those things that you were required to do under this section have actually been done?
Ms MARTIN: In section 10, Conditions to Which Exercise of Chief Minister’s Authority is Subject – let me take some advice so I do not provide anything that is inaccurate or misleading. Bear with me. This section of the act refers to the words ‘or under’, which are being omitted.
Mr DUNHAM: I am aware of that.
Ms MARTIN: Okay. This is what we are talking about.
Mr DUNHAM: No. I am talking about the authority to do certain things. Have you done them?
Ms MARTIN: Until this bill is assented to, what we have been achieving is compliance with the terms of the act, but I have not been able to act further on this because we did not have an act by which to do that, to give me authority to act any further. Simple.
Mr DUNHAM: You had a problem, didn’t you, Chief Minister? You had an act that set out certain things for you to do, you did not do them, you are now introducing a bill that gives you some continuity to keep those negotiations going, and you are telling us you still have not completed the requirements of section 10 of the original act?
Ms MARTIN: No, the section 10s are the conditions that have to be achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Yes!
Ms MARTIN: Yes, and those conditions have been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Right.
Ms MARTIN: Those conditions have been achieved.
Mr DUNHAM: Good. Can you tell us whether you could table in this parliament the various things that have been achieved? I turn specifically to, for instance, section 10(1)(d):
- subject to subsection (2), the terms of the joint management agreements referred to in section 8(d) have
been agreed between the parties;
Can you please give us those agreements for each of the 27 parks? Can you also give us the documents that relate to all of those requirements that you are authorised to do so that we can be sure in this parliament that the power that you were given and the duties and responsibilities you were given in terms of section 10 of the now lapsed act you have actually completed and this parliament can see each of those land use agreements, each of those leases and be sure that the agreement is there in terms of the seals of the Northern Territory and land councils and relevant organisations?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the template the agreements are the ones I have included here for information. The template agreements for schedules 1, 2 and 3, indigenous land use agreements, the broad lease, the details of which were in the original act, and all those then have to have individual aspects put to them. The indigenous land use agreements will be lodged with the Native Title Tribunal and the leases will be lodged with the Land Titles Office, and are all readily available. These are the templates that we are working with, which are in keeping with the principles outlined in the act. Those plans of management, the broad principles of which are in front of you, will, each and every one of them, come to this parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: So we are now told that the documents I inquired about which had no letterhead on them, no authorisation, that these documents satisfy section 10 of the lapsed act, and these documents have agreement, as required by statute between the various parties and yourself, and that these document that we have here are so final that they are unlikely to be subject to change on any point?
Ms MARTIN: All those agreements are based on what we spelled out in the original act, the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act, the principles that are in there. The conditions that have to be met in an indigenous land use agreement, which is Commonwealth law is there as well. All these will be tailored to meet the individual parks that we are dealing with at any one stage, and they will all be publicly available. They are the principles, they are the templates, they are the frameworks by which we will move forward.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me how much time you gave the land councils and the various Aboriginal people associated with the parks to read these documents?
Ms MARTIN: The best part of a year in doing that work, but the important part is that the plans of management for those parks that will have joint management will go through a very detailed process with either the native title holders or the traditional owners. There has been a lot of work that has gone through, and I congratulate both land councils for working with their constituents in achieving this documentation. The principles that are incorporated in there are set out in the act that we passed in 2003.
Mr DUNHAM: Can you tell me then why, in your closed door sessions in boardrooms with land councils, there was a year for the various parties to read these papers, and we here in parliament, us poor politicians, have had this for a matter of an hour or so; it was delivered while the debate was on foot? And can you understand, Chief Minister, while we were calling for information of this type, and can you understand our frustration when you did not provide it, and now when the debate is on foot, you are giving us documents you have had for a year, you have been negotiating for a year, that this parliament could not see?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the member for Drysdale is getting himself worked up about, ‘you have had these things behind closed doors’. It has taken a year to do the work to achieve this. It has taken a year. There has been no secrecy behind closed doors …
Mr DUNHAM: Why did we not have these then?
Ms MARTIN: They have only just been finalised. They are templates, as you can see. We deal all the time in here in legislation that we do not see the regulations. They are equivalent to our regulations. What I am doing is putting them on the table. They need to be further developed, because they have to be tailored to each individual park. Quite appropriately, I am putting them on the table and saying this is where we are with this, and these documents will be further available. The plans of management will be debated, each individually, in this parliament.
Mr DUNHAM: That is not good enough, Chief Minister, absolutely not good enough. You are trying to pretend to the parliament that there was no necessity for us to read these comprehensive documents, these are documents, for instance, that are lease documents. If consumers go out there and transfer land through a conveyancer, they have cooling off periods where they can read this stuff. They can sit down in a room where people can look at it. You can take it away and show your lawyers. You are going to pass an act of parliament, expect us to wade through all this stuff, you are pretending that it is akin to regulations. I will tell you what it is akin to: land titles. Now, would you transfer your land in Fannie Bay or the Narrows or wherever you live, would you transfer it on the basis of someone slapping something like this in front of you, while you are also otherwise engaged doing something else, make the assumption that Clare Majella Martin, the land council and various other people are in accord on this matter, particularly when we have press releases from the land council that describe your behaviour as bewildering.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is that clause …
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, Mr Chairman, we have tried to ascertain the status of these documents, and we are told that it is just some little thing thrown on our desk to keep us amused, and really they had nothing to do with the acts. These go to the soul of the act. These are the lease documents. These are the documents you can walk into the Commonwealth Bank with and say: ‘Lend me money’. These are the documents that encumber land. These are the documents that say you can use a gun on the land. These are the documents that say you can forage and hunt and cut down trees for didgeridoos. These documents have great potency. The Attorney-General and the Chief Minister should know that matters relating to who holds the title and the conditions under which they hold it are very important. This goes to the soul of these entire negotiations.
Mr Ward said: ‘Go and talk about who owns the land’. The Chief Minister spent a year talking to them on the basis of these documents. She presented a bill which is three pages - a three-page bill - and said: ‘Here you are, I am off. I am going to go and do some negotiating. If you want to know what I am talking about, it is all tucked in here’. It goes to the very soul of this argument.
We cannot get off section 10 until the minister tells us whether she has discharged her statutory obligations. They are obligations that have been put on her by this parliament. She is authorised to do certain things and she has to make sure, for instance, that the agreements have been agreed to. I cannot see that from this document. I can see a place for the common seal to be placed, and I can see Clare Majella Martin’s name there where she is going to actually place her signature. I can see all of that. However, I cannot be satisfied from this that the conditions under section 10 of the now lapsed bill have been met, such is the debacle we are discussing here.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The question is that clause 6 stand as printed.
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, can I seek your guidance?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Yes.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I make sure these papers are tabled, Mr Chairman …
Ms Martin: They have been tabled.
Mr DUNHAM: No, do not have ‘Tabled’ on them. … that they are tabled and that they go with this bill so that, at some future time if there are departures from these documents or any changes, the Chief Minister will give a solemn undertaking that those matters in dispute, where she has a statutory obligation to work in the best interests of the Territory, can be compared with these documents. At the moment, they are unsigned, they have no cover on them. I would like them to be formal tabled statements of this parliament that are attached to this statute.
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled, Mr Chairman.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The Chief Minister says they are tabled.
Ms MARTIN: They are tabled; I tabled them.
Mr DUNHAM: Can I inquire what the Tabled Paper number is?
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will have to ask.
Mr DUNHAM: I just want to make sure they are done. Unbelievable!
Mr CHAIRMAN: I will just get some information.
Mr DUNHAM: I hope your old man does not do much conveyancing.
Ms MARTIN: I do not refer to your wife; you do not refer to my husband, thank you.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
Mr CHAIRMAN: The safest way is a little silence. Sorry, I am starting to sound like the Speaker, I know. Oops, sorry, Madam Speaker.
Ms MARTIN: There is no point to refer to families.
Mr DUNHAM: I just needed confirmation. I am happy to accept your word, Mr Chairman.
Ms MARTIN: I am happy to say they will be tabled. My intention was that they were tabled, yes.
Mr CHAIRMAN: As soon as I get a number I will interrupt and give you the number.
Mr DUNHAM: That is all right. Go on to the next one.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, I turn to the logic of the Chief Minister putting in 1 February in clause 2. We now have the same logic here. She gave us five different excuses, which she claimed came from the Parliamentary Counsel, as to why that would be so. I ask the Chief Minister to consider whether it is, perhaps, expecting a bit much of this parliament to be debating statutes for the future that have a clause in them that give them effect in the past. I also ask the Chief Minister if, given that the other one was a nonsensical date and did not mean anything and was arguably obsolete, whether 2 February could be put to some future date after 17 February so that this parliament does not have a precedent of establishing laws to give legitimacy to something which was illegitimate in the past?
Mr CHAIRMAN: Before the Chief Minister answers, the number for the tabling is 1644.
Mr Kiely: He throws these nonsensical statements into the air.
Mr Baldwin: You want to contribute? Get on your feet.
Mr CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Come on, member for Daly, order! Come on, we have had enough trouble today. Order!
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, the point of having the 2 February date here is that that is when we achieved compliance; the day after Keep River was removed from the bill. If we did not have a compliance date, we would not be in here having this debate.
Mr DUNHAM: For the date on which compliance was achieved, did the Chief Minister have a legal framework on which to ensure that that compliance on 2 February was, in fact, legal and legitimate?
Ms MARTIN: All the documents have been reviewed by the Department of Justice, and we have been acting appropriately, legally.
Mr DUNHAM: Let us get this straight. You had an act that lapsed on 31 December last year. Tomorrow, we will pass an act that gives you legitimacy for something that happened on 2 February. On 2 February, can you explain which act gave you the authorisation to take the steps that you took on 2 February?
Ms MARTIN: I have not taken any action. We achieved compliance, but we had not taken any action. We had achieved compliance in relation to the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Bill for those conditions set out. The bill is then revived.
Mr DUNHAM: So, if that compliance was legal and legitimate, why is it necessary to put it in an act of parliament? If you had a legitimacy about achieving compliance on 2 February, why are we giving you that authority now? If it was legal on 2 February, we certainly do not have to be standing here on 17 February giving you the authority to do something you have already done.
Ms MARTIN: My advice is the act had expired. We achieved compliance with the terms of that expired act, and then we revived the act, having achieved that compliance.
Mr Dunham: Now we are reviving it?
Ms MARTIN: Yes. It is an unusual circumstance, but the whole purpose is that we have an act – we could have done this without an act. However, I have said many time in this parliament that, to absolutely assure - particularly a suspicious opposition – that we were not doing secret deals behind closed doors - which I have heard come out of opposition mouths again and again – we put it down in an act. We put the principles, what we were setting out to achieve and put some dates against it. As I said, when we reached 31 December and we had not achieved it, I made the decision that it was worthwhile moving forward. However, the act had expired. We put a notice in the Gazette, extended the date to achieve compliance by so that we could bring the act back, achieved compliance except for Keep River, brought the act back and are reviving it. It is an unusual circumstance, but it is very transparent and it …
Mr Dunham: A giant muck-up.
Ms MARTIN: No, it is not a giant muck-up at all. I could have walked away on 31 December. As I said in the debate here, I decided not to walk away. We have achieved 27 parks in this package. That is pretty significant – 27 parks. We will not have to litigate for those 27 parks or compulsorily acquire native title and pay squillions of dollars, or go through courts for years and years. Just cope with the fact that this is a little unusual, but I am guided by our best legal experts, and this will work. This has a logic and a legal integrity to it.
Mr DUNHAM: You have an amendment schedule for the bill which is coming up after this that changes the definition of ‘traditional Aboriginal owners’. Can you tell us if the documents that we have before us require amendment prior to going to that bill, or will we be making this amendment subsequent to this, and then coming back and revisiting these documents?
Ms MARTIN: No, we will not.
Mr DUNHAM: We will not?
Ms MARTIN: No, we will not.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Mr DUNHAM: Mr Chairman, the Chief Minister would have us believe that someone sat down and worked out a hypothetical legal cost if she pursued another course of action for some of these parks. We know that six of them have fallen out, including Keep River. Can she tell us the cost of those six parks now that they are not in this framework of 27? Can she give us a dollar figure for her to litigate for those six parks?
Ms MARTIN: Mr Chairman, this is not relevant to this clause of this bill, and I insist we speak to each clause of the bill.
Mr DUNHAM: Oh, sorry. It has Keep River there. Sorry! I have mucked up again. What we had is the Chief Minister saying: ‘This bill is necessary because in the absence of this bill, there will be a certain amount of dollars on the public purse’. That is what she told us. Now, what we know is that some of those negotiated settlements will not come to pass and they will go to option 2 of litigation.
Chief Minister, you have told us time and time again in the Assembly – you have put numbers on the court costs of litigation as opposed to your negotiation model. On at least one park, Keep River, which is at clause 8, so there is relevance, I would like you to tell me, now that it has dropped out, what your actuarial costs for litigation are. You have worked it out for the rest. Surely, one of these smart people has told you what it will now cost for Keep River, now that they do not want to negotiate.
Ms MARTIN: I point out, specific to Keep River, that they have had their native title status established. That has been established. There is no litigation. They are native title holders, determined and recognised, and good luck to them.
Mr DUNHAM: So if the other 27 decide to take the lead of Keep River, it will cost us nothing. Is that what you are telling us?
Ms MARTIN: I am not quite sure what you are trying to achieve here.
Mr DUNHAM: Well, there are no costs associated with Keep River, is that correct?
Ms MARTIN: But there was to achieve the native title. I mean, there were considerable legal hearings to establish those native title rights. I cannot tell you exactly how long it took, but I think it was years - quite a complex process. So just for Keep River, which has been established, I cannot put a dollar figure on it, but there would have been a lot of lawyers involved.
Mr DUNHAM: You can put a dollar figure on it because you have done it in this parliament. What I am asking is: in your Framework for the Future, you listed a number of parks, and you had in there Keep River. You told this parliament that in the absence of this Framework for the Future bill we are debating tonight, you would be up for a substantial amount of money, and you gave us a figure. So someone sat down and wrote it out for you.
In that, Keep River has moved and you are telling us there will be no costs, no litigation costs associated with Keep River falling out. I am asking if several others fall out, will they also have no legal costs? If so, is your litigation argument specious?
Ms MARTIN: Most of the parks we are talking about have not gone through the native title process. Keep River was pretty much an exception. Therefore, we are looking at all those parks that would have to have their native title determined if the potential native title holders so chose.
We are looking at 11 parks that were open to claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and we are looking at considerable other parks up to those other 49 where there could be native title claims. What this agreement has is that we will not move with those claims any more. That is an achievement.
Mr DUNHAM: Chief Minister, I will not pursue it further other than to say that your maths and your allegations about legal process obviously appear to be written by political advisors rather than people associated with either the law or this matter, and the figures you have been throwing around of $100m to settle these through other routes – obviously, you do not know because they appear to be made up.
You have on your desk, Chief Minister, a media release in which there is a call that some of the things arising from this very bill could be actionable. You are going to find out real quick what it costs you, and we will know pretty quickly whether this government’s bona fides about being big-time negotiators because litigation costs too much – we will know exactly what the story is.
That is one of the figures you did not give us when you talked about open, transparent and honest, and obviously you cannot answer it, but I would have hoped that you could have told us what it would cost to settle Keep River.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Clause 9:
Mr DUNHAM: Can you confirm that, given the Administrator will bring this act into being, and a day later it dies, that this is a one day wonder?
Ms MARTIN: This particular act refers to the main act. We have, through this act, revived the main act, the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act. This act becomes unnecessary, so this particular revival act will last for one day, but the other act will continue.
- Clause 9 agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
Bill reported; report adopted.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
STATEMENT BY SPEAKER
Disorder in the Chamber
Disorder in the Chamber
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, before we go on with the next item of business, I need to speak to you about the incident that occurred earlier in the House. My checking of the Hansard record shows there is no visual recording of the altercation that occurred between the member for Macdonnell and the member for Johnston. There is also no clear audio of all the comments made, however, with the background being explained, the member for Johnston has apologised and admitted his part in this whole unsavoury incident.
________________________
Member Suspended
Member for Johnston
Member for Johnston
Madam SPEAKER: I direct the member for Johnston withdraw the Chamber for one hour in accordance with Standing Order 240A.
________________________
Member Named and Suspended
Member for Macdonnell
Member Named and Suspended
Member for Macdonnell
Madam SPEAKER: I have sought an apology from the member for Macdonnell, who has been reluctant to come and speak to me. Unfortunately, under those circumstances and because of the nature of his actions, which are highly unparliamentary, and certainly not Australian in my opinion, I name the member for Macdonnell.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the member for Macdonnell be suspended from the service of the Assembly.
Motion agreed to.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker …
Madam SPEAKER: We do not have debate on procedural motions. The member for Macdonnell is directed to stay out of the House for 24 hours.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Can we just ensure that is being conveyed to him so he does not unintentionally enter the parliament?
Madam SPEAKER: Well, it is 10 to seven now, and that is when I have named him, so it is for ten to seven in the evening of the next day.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, you have made your decision, that is a matter for the record. I was concerned that you said that the member for Macdonnell had chosen not to come and apologise to you. That obviously weighed on your decision-making process, that is unfortunate …
Madam SPEAKER: No, that is not true.
Mr BURKE: … because, given the opportunity, I would have informed you he was indisposed and unable to come and speak.
Madam SPEAKER: The Clerk did, in fact, approach him …
Ms Carney: Madam Speaker, I do have something constructive …
Madam SPEAKER: Just hold on, I am speaking, do you mind. I believe I indicated in my summary why I decided to name the member for Macdonnell. I do not think anyone in this House should physically threaten any member. If it happened to, say, the member for Katherine, by a male from the government side, you would be more than disturbed. Physical threats and standover tactics are something we can do without. That is why I have already decided. I am afraid that is it; that is my decision. We will get on with government business.
TERRITORY PARKS AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 273)
(Serial 273)
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, this is just another part of the giant mess the Chief Minister has foisted on us, in that she has a number of bills that are all aimed in the same direction. They are not cognate; they link. Their links are to do, generally, with the inability to meet statutory imposed deadlines. The Chief Minister has used this amendment in a way that gives her the power to do a certain action, the Friday before these sittings. I am not sure what that action was, but it goes again to the opposition’s disquiet about debating a bill that bestows validity on something that has already happened. That is one of the issues of concern.
The business of parks, plans, win/win solutions, everybody being happy, a contribution to tourism, and all of those platitudes, are issues that we could debate. However, it is much more important to talk about the specifics of our park estate and the government’s bona fides in this area. They have certainly run down our park estate. There is certainly a great want of repairs and maintenance in many of our icon parks. I can vouch, for instance, first-hand about the Territory Wildlife Park, which is a great icon for us here in the Northern Territory. It is quite tragic to see the state of the park.
It is all very well for the minister to come in here and talk about the various things that flow from our park estate and its value to the community. We understand that and know it and, in pretty much 100% of the cases, we created the parks. We were quite happy to come to this place and parade the bona fides of why those parks should be included in our estate.
The issues, then, relate pretty much to how these parks will be managed and how the new arrangements will have an impact on them. For instance, I know the Chief Minister has said that current mining provisions will continue in parks. These are enormous tracts of land and I do not think that we should be dismissive about the notion that parks, mining, visitation and tourism can all coexist in one parcel. That sort of bewildered green thinking had left the ALP some time ago, I thought. I ask that the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) Act and its connection to this act be well and truly put on the table by the contributors to this debate.
I hope that, as in the last debate, some of those people with a vested interest in this - and I do not say vested interest in a negative way – such as some of the members of this parliament who are of Aboriginal descent who have worked in this area - and there are a couple of them with proudly professed qualifications in this area – will contribute. I would like to hear their contribution. I would like to hear their contribution in the way that talks about what the Chief Minister is doing is going to benefit Territorians, and particularly focus on her claim of the win/win solution for Territorians, and describe that win/win, because I can see a lot of people lining up to come to me who would describe it as a win/loss.
The loss really is the loss of title to the estate that we have just allowed with the passage of the last bill. We need to know what is going to happen over 99 years, even though that might seem a long time frame. People who visit the beautiful Botanic Gardens of Darwin will know that Holtze set that garden out well over a century ago. In this parliament, it is beholden on us to have a vision that goes a century. It is beholden on us to acknowledge those people who created those parks as something that could be there for many generations to come. I look forward to hearing the contributions from those opposite, particularly when they describe how Territorians are going to be so much bettered by this legislation.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, this bill simply puts into the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act principles that the Chief Minister has bludgeoned through this Assembly in the previous legislation. It is a fact of life that this bill now records those issues in broad detail that the Chief Minister is seeking to achieve with Aboriginal people.
It goes no further in explaining to this Assembly what the actual conditions were regarding the indigenous land use agreements that should have been provided to this Chamber when we debated the previous bill. It provides this government with no more information than we had in discussing the previous bill, and gives us no more ability than to raise the same issues again, if we work through this bill point by point. I do not intend to do that; it is a waste of time. The Chief Minister has the numbers and will clearly achieve her objective, notwithstanding the fact that anyone listening to her handling of the committee stage of debates for the previous bill will quickly realise either statute or legal complications apart from negotiations have totally overtaken the objectives she set herself.
We oppose these amendments because we oppose the framework for the future direction and decision. We will continue to oppose it - notwithstanding that it passes this House today - at every opportunity and at every venue. I will be ensuring that Territorians have this at the foremost of their mind come the next election. I am sure the Chief Minister would be pleased with that because she appears to be so confident that she will have broad support for the legislation. I look forward to the debate.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): I will be quick, Madam Speaker, because I have said most of what I needed to say in the debate last night on the motion about putting this issue before a select committee so that we can go forward as one.
At the outset, regardless of that opinion, I do believe there are some benefits from what the government is doing. I would like to put that on record. I have said before that the expansion of the two parks like Gregory National Park and Davenport National Park will be a good thing.
Mr Burke: At what cost?
Mr WOOD: That is right, but …
Mr Burke: What about the cost? Have you done a cost benefit analysis?
Mr WOOD: No, I am talking from just a park point of view, Opposition Leader, because I have said before I believe that would make the Gregory National Park, for instance, an excellent park.
However, the point is that all these issues – the costs, the type of land tenure and all those issues about agreements - could have been discussed through a select committee. Much of this debate we are having today could have been debated in a select committee, and we could have come up with a good result for all. It would have taken longer. I do not believe the bill needed to be rushed through. This is such an important issue it would make no difference even if we took another year or so to look at these issues. It still could have been done better through a select committee process. As I said, I believe that is the way it should go. I will leave it at that.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Madam Speaker, tonight I support the Chief Minister and the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Amendment Bill.
These are consequential amendments to the bill that just saw passage. Again, I suppose, we have had a line drawn in the sand today by the Leader of the Opposition who has said he will make this an election issue. It is interesting because, at the end of the day, given the opposition’s new-found position on the whole concept of how we manage our parks estate, and that the Opposition Leader has committed to joint management for all parks in the Northern Territory, in terms of outcomes, we are not too far apart. The outcomes that we as a government have sought to achieve through the new framework for managing parks in the Northern Territory is an inclusive framework recognising indigenous rights to land across the Northern Territory, Aboriginal people’s strong cultural links to land, and the value and the strength of that culture, and working with Aboriginal people in a joint management arrangement to manage that park estate to the benefit of all Territorians and certainly to the benefit of Aboriginal people to give them not only a management stake in the running of that park estate and the decision-making roles in the management of the park estate, but more importantly, for me as a member of this House, an economic opportunity.
There is an economic opportunity for enterprise, development and jobs for Aboriginal people on country. Where we are at as an Assembly, despite very heated debate this week, but with the Leader of the Opposition’s announcement of opposition policy today of a joint management framework across all of our parks, from an outcomes point of view, we are pretty close.
It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition is saying that he wants to make this a significant election issue because, win or lose at the next election, Aboriginal people, regardless of who is in government, are going to be right at the table in terms of management of park estates. That is a good outcome for the Northern Territory.
I commend the Opposition Leader on the change of policy, which was previous CLP government policy, with the exception of Nitmiluk and Cobourg, where Aboriginal people were locked out of a decision-making and management role in our park estate. We have moved a long way, and I commend the Opposition Leader for that. Aboriginal people, ultimately, are the winners.
The Territory has moved a long way with the legislation and, even though the opposition opposes the land tenure aspects of the government’s legislation in terms of Territory title, the outcome for Aboriginal people is essentially going to be much the same. This new tenure system and the changes to our park estate were brought about because of the Ward High Court decision. The government, and certainly I pay credit to the Chief Minister, saw this as a unique opportunity, this decision, not just to deal with ALRA claims, but the entire park estate in the Northern Territory, in providing certainty that people will be able to access our park estate across the Northern Territory and certainty for all Territorians that the access will be free of charge, and certainty for Aboriginal people in terms of tenure and the rights to be involved in managing that park estate.
As business minister, and previously as tourism minister in this government, I am very keen to see progress. Given that the new framework for managing our parks is to see private sector investment in that park estate building tourism products it is very exciting that certainty is there. There is capacity for joint ventures. The capacity for indigenous enterprise development based around culture and land is very exciting. I know that it has been warmly embraced by the tourism industry.
This really is a golden opportunity to build our park estate in terms of world-class-attractions and building on what we already have with Uluru, Kakadu and Litchfield. It is aspirational because in the Northern Territory we have an indigenous people and their cultural attachment to land as virtually unique in the world: it is not a product that we have to manufacture; it is a culture and attachment to land.
The Chief Minister can advise me if I am wrong, but the last figures I saw when I was Tourism minister was that of all tourists who come to the Northern Territory when asked why they come to the Territory for a holiday, 36% nominated that they wanted to experience indigenous culture and indigenous art, the major indigenous icons being Uluru and Kakadu, and get close to that culture, and that was really without even trying.
What this gives us is golden opportunities to create some real economic value to Aboriginal people out in the remote parts of the Northern Territory, to build this park estate, to give investors certainty in investment, and the last thing we needed to do was to tie up all of our parks estate in costly and complex litigation, which would absolutely have guaranteed zero private sector investment in that parks estate and the investment in tourism products would purely have come from the taxpayers’ purse, given the uncertainty over land titles.
I commend the Chief Minister and her vision in seizing this opportunity to build a new era for our parks estate across the Northern Territory after quite a difficult day in parliament today. I would also congratulate the Leader of the Opposition for moving the CLP into a new era of at least acknowledging and accepting that Aboriginal people do have a right and a role to play in managing our parks. I believe that has been a big move forward, and as I say, regardless of the politics of whose land is it, and are you giving it away or not giving it away, okay, we will have the politics of that in the election campaign. Certainly the government will defend its position inasmuch as we have not given anything away. There has been a big change in the opposition in terms of acknowledging Aboriginal people’s right to be at the table making decisions about the parks estate. I commend the Opposition Leader for that move today. Madam Speaker, I support bill.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I thank everyone for their contribution. As we realise, the amendments we have before us to the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill are ones that we need to complement the Parks and Reserves (Framework for the Future) legislation. Certainly, it is around those joint managements, and just to echo what the member for Wanguri said, it was 20 years ago that the first joint management agreement was put in place in an Australian park, and that was in Cobourg. I add my congratulations to the previous CLP government, that they led Australia in having that Cobourg agreement. These amendments work to that Cobourg agreement in getting those joint managements and getting them working in our parks.
It is going to take a fair while. We have 27 parks to achieve with joint management, and we will have to do some prioritising there. My advice is that, even though we have the general principles agreed now, and I have tabled those, that to do those individual plans of management for that joint management is going to take considerable time, and the best guess, really, is years. When we start in a few months time on the details of those plans of management, these amendments we have put forward to the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill will assist in achieving that.
A big feature of what we have achieved over the last 18 months is a new parks master planning exercise. This is now, since that last bill passed, an enhanced parks estate, and I cannot wait to see what Gregory National Park is going to look like in the future with that Aboriginal Land Trust land being added to the estate. I have not been there, but am informed that it is a spectacular part of Gregory, and it really will add to the tourist enjoyment of that park. Hopefully we will be able to build those numbers - I think the last figure was about 20 000 visitors. With our commitment to infrastructure, looking at how we can get those living locally, indigenous Territorians, working in the park, using our Jobs Plan, apprentices, trainees, we can start seeing some further activities in those parks.
In a park like Gregory, there is very little established infrastructure. Just to take a look at what we have in Gregory: we have guided boat tours and guided bushwalking tours, but very little established infrastructure. Now that we have certainty in title and we have that leased back for 99 years, we should be able to really start seeing some of that infrastructure develop in Gregory National Park.
I thank everyone for their support of these amendments and we will be taking them through the committee stage.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 3, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 4:
Ms MARTIN: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment schedule 98.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of the bill taken as whole and agreed to.
Bill reported; report adopted.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill now be read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I table the Standing Orders Committee Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly.
MOTION
Print Paper - Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Adopt - Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Adopt - Standing Orders Committee - Fourth Report of the Ninth Assembly
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be adopted and I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Leave granted.
TABLED PAPER
Members Telephone and Travel Expenses – Report pursuant to the Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004
Members Telephone and Travel Expenses – Report pursuant to the Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I table the report by the Department of the Legislative Assembly pursuant to paragraphs 5.19 and 8.8 of the Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004, which contains the annual schedule of members’ travel at government expense for 2004, and annual schedule of respective totals of government payments on behalf of each member for satellite telephones and mobile telephones for 2004.
I advise honourable members that, on advice of the tribunal, information on travel by ministers on portfolio business is not contained in the department’s report.
MOTION
Print Paper - Members Telephone and Travel Expenses – Report pursuant to the
Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004
Print Paper - Members Telephone and Travel Expenses – Report pursuant to the
Remuneration Tribunal Determination No 1 of 2004
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
TABLED PAPER
Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report on an Environmental Protection Agency
Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report on an Environmental Protection Agency
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I present the Report of the Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development into the Efficacy of Establishing an Environmental Protection Agency in the Northern Territory, Volume I; written submissions, Volume II; and the Hansard transcripts of public meetings, Volume III.
MOTION
Print Paper – Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report on an Environmental Protection Agency
Print Paper – Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report on an Environmental Protection Agency
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Paper – Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report
on an Environmental Protection Agency
Note Paper – Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development – Report
on an Environmental Protection Agency
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report.
As the Chair of the Sessional Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, I table the committee’s report into its inquiry into the efficacy of establishing an environmental protection agency in the Northern Territory. The terms of the reference for the inquiry into the efficacy of establishing an EPA for the NT were inclusive of, but not restricted to:
- (a) arguments for and against the establishment of an environmental protection agency for
the Northern Territory;
demographic, geographic and financial context of the Northern Territory; and
Environmental protection is a high priority for all communities. The responsibility for protecting the environment lies with all members of the community, be they government, business and industry, or the community itself. The community expects government, industry and itself to manage activities in a responsible way that prevents and avoids negative health, safety and environmental impacts, and includes the physical, social and economic environment. The community demands that the NT has an environmental management and protection system that focusses on long-term sustainability alongside measures to prevent and avoid any harmful long-term damage to our precious and finite natural resources.
The need for this inquiry was identified by this session of parliament in 2002 in response to community concerns about the adequacy of the existing environmental protection arrangements, and also to examine whether an EPA would, in fact, improve upon the existing environmental protection arrangements.
It is interesting to note that, coinciding with the tabling of the inquiry’s report has been a lot of community debate about the rehabilitation and environmental issues concerning Mt Todd. It is certainly a timely report that the Environment and Sustainable Development committee has tabled in parliament this evening.
At the outset, I would like to thank all members of the committee. As Chair, I rely on the goodwill of the committee, and I have very great pleasure in reporting to parliament this evening that the committee has worked in a proactive, bipartisan manner throughout the entire inquiry. I thank the members of government - the members for Millner and Barkly, my colleagues - in assisting me throughout the inquiry. I also thank the members of the opposition - the members for Daly and Drysdale – who, in their capacities as members and former ministers in this parliament, had a great deal of input and assistance that they provided throughout the inquiry. I also thank to the member for Nelson who is very passionate, as we all know, about the environment. Whilst we may have come up with a variety of models in the final report, I can say with pleasure that there are 21 recommendations and eight findings in the report that all members of the committee agreed to in a bipartisan fashion.
I want to extend my thanks to the committee secretariat. It is their hard work and dedication that has seen us able to execute our inquiry in a very timely and highly professional fashion. I put on the record my sincere and deepest thanks to Graham Gadd, Secretary of the committee, and Maria Viegas, assistant to the Secretary of the committee. Both are highly professional members of the Legislative Assembly, and they have ably supported the committee in all its endeavours.
The committee’s considerations into the possibility of establishing another body, small or large, within the exiting arrangements for environmental protection raised many questions: are the current arrangements flawed or inadequate? If so, can the creation of an EPA improve the situation? And where would an EPA sit in regards to existing arrangements?
I believe our report very thoroughly address all of these issues in terms of evidence taken by written and public submission. The committee travelled interstate to the jurisdictions of Western Australian and South Australia to study the EPAs there. We also had public hearings in Darwin, Palmerston, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Alice Springs. The trip to Tennant Creek was very interesting. We had the opportunity to visit mine sites and I acknowledge that there was a great deal of assistance received in direct advice and discussions about an EPA.
I acknowledge the briefings we received from the Western Australia EPA Chair, Dr Wally Cox, who is an absolute gold mine of information and was of enormous assistance to our committee members; and the South Australian EPA Chair, Dr Paul Vogel. Both these gentlemen have enormous experience in EPAs in other jurisdictions and they gave of themselves very willingly, in terms of advice, and they gave us access to significant policy officers within the EPAs and the departments in those jurisdictions. We had intensive and wide-ranging discussions in both Western Australia and South Australia.
I also acknowledge the fantastic session we had in Western Australia with Professor John Bailey, the Associate Professor in Environmental Assessment with Murdoch University and a former member of Western Australia’s EPA Board.
Early on in the inquiry we met with Mr Ian Prince, Director of Policy Development, Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development and he was able to give us a few items of spot-on advice as to how we could proceed as an EPA inquiry. I thank him for that advice.
Mr Jack Savage, Managing Director, and key staff from Peko Rehabilitation Proprietary Limited in Tennant Creek provided a great deal of time to us in our visit to Tennant Creek, explaining the mining aspects of environmental protection and how the mining industry would be affected if an EPA were to established in the Territory, and where they saw the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system. I thank Mr Savage and his son and the staff there for the fantastic hospitality they provided to us. I also thank Mr Joe Ariti, Chief Executive and his staff from Giants Reef Mining who took us on-site visits and explained just how they thought the EPA would impact upon them as an operation.
The committee received 33 submissions in response to its call for public comments. These were from individuals, business and industry representatives, community and environmental groups, Charles Darwin University and NT government agencies. Fifty-five people in total attended the public hearings held in Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Darwin and Palmerston. The enthusiastic response from the Territory community to this inquiry indicates without a doubt that the Northern Territory community want the best for their Territory, the best possible protection for our beautiful and unique natural environment, whether that is with or without an EPA.
The committee has attempted to incorporate as much of the evidence collected as possible into the text of Volume I of this report. Volume II of the report contains reproductions of all the written submissions, and I urge members of this Chamber to take the time to look at those submissions. Volume III contains the committee-released Hansard transcripts of recorded briefings and hearings held by the committee during the inquiry. The large number of contributors and participants to this inquiry are all thanked for their interest, attention and generous contribution of information and opinion for the consideration of the sessional committee.
I turn to the terms of reference of the inquiry as they are addressed in the final report. Arguments in favour of EPA in the NT included:
- an EPA can integrate all environmental protection legislation, measures and departmental
arrangements for the protection of the Territory’s environment;
an EPA can provide more stringent environmental protection measures in the Territory;
an EPA can provide greater accountability and transparency for government, business and industry
involved in development;
an EPA can assist all individuals and corporations to be more aware of the impacts on their environment
and more accountable for their actions in respect of it;
an EPA can assist the Territory to keep up with the state of environmental protection measures in Australia
and, indeed, the rest of the world;
an EPA can assist the Territory to contribute to Australia’s state of the environment reporting;
the establishment of an EPA creates an independent watch dog with strong powers to oversee the protection
of the Territory’s environment; and
an EPA can create greater community involvement and participation in the process, importantly, of
environmental protection.
Arguments the committee received against establishing an EPA in the Territory included:
- it would create more bureaucratic processes for industry and business;
there would be a potential to slow down or disrupt future investments and developments;
an EPA could be too legislatively complex;
it could unnecessarily increase government spending and be expensive to implement and
maintain;
based on the satisfaction with the current system of environmental protection, some stakeholders,
and, indeed, the Northern Territory Minerals Council saw there was no real necessity to introduce
an EPA as the existing system and measures were adequate; and
another argument was that the EPA may not be the answer for improving the existing arrangements of
environmental protection.
In general, community groups, and particularly environmental groups, supported the creation of an EPA in the Territory. Largely, industry and business did not support the creation of an EPA in the Territory. The Territory committee largely recognised the need to reform the Territory’s environmental protection arrangements. The current arrangements for environmental protection in the Territory would greatly benefit from an extensive audit of environmental protection legislation and practice. Several submissions called for an examination of the Territory’s process and system of environmental impact assessment. An EPA could enhance and strengthen the current status and level of environmental protection in the Territory. It could improve the Territory’s level of adoption of national and international environmental protection measures and standards. We found, as a committee, that not one current operating model examined was applicable in its entirety to the Territory.
The submissions calling for the creation of an EPA or similar commonly listed the following features as pertinent for an EPA or similar structure in the Territory: independent in its operation; transparency of process and decision-making; a small structure, not too bureaucratic, with regional representation; public reporting mechanisms; third party appeals processes; improved system of environmental impact assessment; stronger regulatory powers; involvement with policy creation and policy reviews; and a coordinated approach to environmental protection.
Several submissions offered various structured options for the committee to consider. These options, along with other evidence collected by the committee, were used to draft the recommended options proposed in this report.
The committee examined a number of models. We looked at comparative tables of all EPAs throughout Australia and New Zealand. I will speak briefly about some of these models.
Western Australia’s EPA is an independent statutory authority and it is an advisory model. It has a five member board, consisting of one full-time chairperson and four part-time members. The chairperson is ministerially appointed, and the term of office is limited to a minimum of three years and a maximum of seven years. The Western Australian Environment Protection Act gives the EPA three very important features: independence; the right to publish; and primacy of legislation over all other Western Australian environmental protection legislation. The key features of its accountabilities are: it has an advisory role; it does not make decisions; it provides independent advice. There is provision for public appeal rights, and there are open and transparent decision-making processes. It performs a number of functions including environmental impact assessments; formulating environmental policies; coordinating activities necessary to protect, restore and improve the environment; and seeking information and providing advice, and carrying out studies, investigations, and research into problems of environmental protection.
South Australia’s EPA is also an independent statutory authority, but, importantly, in contrast with Western Australia, South Australia’s EPA is an independent regulatory model. It is a statutory authority and the principal environment regulator in South Australia. Another major difference between Western Australia and South Australia is that, in South Australia, the chairperson of the board of the EPA is also the chief executive officer of the EPA.
On the question of the workability of the chief executive officer’s position being ex officio Chairperson of the South Australian EPA Board, the chair – that is, the chief executive - Dr Vogel, explains the committee:
- Within the public sector models it works quite well. Although the board does not appoint me, but as the
CEO and chair, the decisions that the board makes are given immediate effect through the CEO, then
chief executive of the administrative organisation. I walk out of here and straight away, those decisions
are being implemented. What happened before; there was a lack. There was a disconnect between the
decisions that the board would make and how they were implemented by the organisation. There was not
a clear linkage between the decisions of the board and the implementation, so that happens straightaway now.
In support of this statement I will read the comments the committee heard from the chair of the Western Australian EPA, Dr Wally Cox, who said:
- I favour the South Australian and other models where, in fact, you have some integration. I think the separation
we have is somewhat artificial, which means that the process has some discontinuities in it and you get much more
continuity if, in fact, you have a single agency that covers the whole spectrum of the board and the agency as one,
as opposed to two.
I make this point because the EPA report has four models attached to it. The first model proposed is that the status quo could continue – model A. Model B is a model identified by the member for Nelson as being his recommended model which calls for an EPA and he has some significant structural differences to the government members’ proposed model. Model C is a model recommended by members of the opposition, the members for Daly and Drysdale. Model D, the government members’ recommended model, recommended by me and the members for Millner and Barkly, proposes the introduction of an EPA. It proposes that we follow the structure of a model similar to South Australia; that is, yes, whilst you have an independent board with a full-time chair and part-time board members similar to Western Australia, you provide that South Australian linkage whereby the chair of the board is the chief executive officer of the department. We are proposing the establishment of a Department of Environment and Sustainability.
Therefore, whilst members of the public have been speculating about what the government members might have been proposing, I can confirm in my speech here tonight that no, I will not be proposing the Western Australian model. In fact, we are proposing a hybrid of the two models, picking out what members of government believe were the better aspects of the Western Australian model and the South Australian model, based on the advice of the chairs of both the Western Australian and South Australian EPAs - men who have worked in the EPA scene for many years and are well placed to judge the strengths and weaknesses.
I will not speak on the Tasmanian model, because I am sure the member for Daly will, because he took the opportunity to use his RTD entitlements to travel to Tasmania to assess the Tasmanian model based on some advice that he had privately received during his travels, along with the member for Nelson. Therefore, I will not go into the differences there.
I do want to talk, though, on the government’s proposed model D. Option D appears on page 117 of the report and is the option recommended by the government members of the committee. We are recommending an EPA is established in the Territory. On the threshold question of whether to establish an EPA we recommend that definitely, yes, the Territory is ready; it is mature enough for an EPA to be established. However, we recognise that there is a great body of work to be done to establish an EPA. Therefore, we are recommending that it is established in two phases. Phase one would aim to centralise current government environmental awareness programs and protection and grant programs into an identifiable EPA program. It would create a one-stop environmental front-end shop. We recommend the pulling together, and the appointment of a significantly senior officer to undertake the legislative audits and the departmental structural assessments that would need to occur to establish the Department of Environment and Sustainability.
Phase two would involve giving the EPA its regulatory powers, its departmental organisation and, inevitably, the legislative change that would have to come before the parliament.
The key focus would be to protect environmental quality and to maintain the Territory lifestyle. An environmental protection authority or agency – we believe it could be either, but it could be an agency –would be within a new Department of Environment and Sustainability. This new department would be the umbrella government department for all NT environmental matters. This includes the existing environment divisions currently within the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment: the Office of Environment and Heritage, Conservation, Natural Resources Group, and Parks and Wildlife.
The EPA and EPA board would be established by statute. It would have four pillars of independence: an independent board that the minister cannot direct; it would report to the minister for environment and sustainability with recommendations made public; prosecutions would be decided by the EPA, and it would have third party and self-referencing powers. These powers exist in other jurisdictions. The EPA, through its department, would become the body for setting environmental standards through a new environment protection act, which would establish the broad heads of power for the EPA to operate and set standards: (a) for all industry type; and (b) to audit regulatory performance of other departments which retain environmental responsibility, such as DBIRD.
Importantly in this, government committee members are recommending that, for example, the Department of Business and Industry resources keep environmental officers responsible for managing the Mining Act within Mines and Energy. We have picked up the advice of the Western Australian EPA, which was: ‘Keep your environmental officers who are the regulatory officers within Mines and Energy within the mining sector; that is useful’. I note the Territory Minister for Mines and Energy has recently restructured this division to ensure that there is a split between various aspects of the auditing mines officers and other mines officers. That is a very progressive step. With that step, our recommendation is made all the stronger. We note that memorandums of understanding are very effective tools that could operate between the EPA and the environmental officers in the Department of Mines and Energy.
I want to make it very clear to significant stakeholders, including the NT Minerals Council, that government committee members are recommending that the regulatory aspects of mining stay in Mines and Energy; that those environmental officers they work with now stay in Mines and Energy. However, the heads of powers is with the EPA. Naturally, the EPA would have to tick off on the environmental management aspects of any new mines. Obviously, if there was an audit situation, a flag would go up within the MOU, and there would be discussions between the EPA and the environmental officers within Mines about any issues; whether it is mine rehabilitation, leakage, spillage, etcetera. There is a nexus between the two. It would not be operating without a close working relationship with the EPA.
We think that there should be the establishment within the EPA of an environment inspectorate to professionally deal with prosecution and enforcement action across the spectrum. We would require any outcomes of any environmental impact assessments to be directive, rather than advisory. I reiterate that mining management plans, level of rehabilitation bonds, aquaculture licences, etcetera, would be jointly approved by DBIRD and the EPA, as happens currently in Western Australia, where there is a successful process.
The scope would include pollution control and waste, and that would be included in the new Department of Parks and Wildlife, Conservation and Natural Resource Management, across that environment portfolio. It would have regulatory advice, quality advice and review, education and public awareness, and an ability to undertake inquiries to set best practice guidelines. The inquiries to set best practice guidelines come from the Western Australian model. They said it is a very useful tool to set the benchmark for environmental protection in that jurisdiction. They are guidelines; they are not enforceable. For example, if there was a development proposed for a particular area, an inquiry could be held in that area. We heard from Professor John Bailey that inquires of this nature in Canada are very useful tools for including indigenous people in the decision-making process. I really do urge the government, in its considerations, to pay due attention to the ability of an EPA to undertake an inquiry, and I will point the government to the Hansard transcript that we have of Professor John Bailey who talked significantly about a very positive model in Canada in terms of inquiries and the way that oral evidence could be taken, which was very inclusive of the indigenous peoples in Canada, for those environmental inquiries.
The functions would include an environmental impact assessment; approvals, compliance and monitoring; an environmental inspectorate; policy advice, education; and could include, obviously, heritage protection. We believe that advisory bodies could be convened as necessary and required, drawing on expertise that may be sitting in industry or the university, for example.
Importantly, we believe there needs to be an appeal process. We are recommending looking at the Western Australian model of appeals, which is the provision for appeals from proponents and third parties and public recording of decisions.
We believe in structure, the department should stand alone. The Department of Environment and Sustainability should be a stand-alone department with an EPA board that is statutory and independent. We are recommending an EPA board be a maximum of five members consisting, as I said, of a full-time chair who is also the full-time director of the department and up to three part-time members. We recommend, as I said before, looking at the South Australian model of the chief executive of the department being the EPA board chair.
We recommend that the EPA board members be community representatives rather than stakeholder representatives. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. We received significant advice throughout our inquiry from experts and practitioners in the field to the effect of: do not put your stakeholders on to the EPA board as representatives. That will not work. Put community representatives on to your EPA board. The stakeholders will feed into the process. The stakeholders can be co-opted on to inquiries, for example, to set guidelines, to set best practice. Keep your stakeholders out of the EPA board, and instead make it a community representative board.
Access to technical administrative support for the EPA board should obviously come from the Department of Environment and Sustainability and we provide the figure 6.3 which shows the organisational chart.
In the little time remaining, I want to touch on some significant stakeholders and their responses in the report. Darwin City Council informed the committee that the council supports in-principle the establishment of a single environment protection agency or similar for the Northern Territory.
We received a very interesting comment from Charles Darwin University:
- A comprehensive, visible and effective mechanism to strengthen environment protection administration
in the Northern Territory would send a clear message to the Territory community and the Territory’s
broader stakeholders across Australia that the Territory economy has come of age.
This would be achieved through demonstrating a strong Territory commitment to sustaining healthy
environments valued for their cultural and biological heritage and valuable in the way they underpin
economic prosperity.
Advice we received from Professor Bailey was that if an EPA is concerned primarily with environmental governance then it is easier for it to cross departmental silos. Anyone who has worked in government understands the importance of an authority or an agency at that peak level able to cross the departmental silos. I believe this ability would provide the underpinning strength for our economic prosperity.
Six environmental groups were represented and their submissions are in the documents tabled. They all called for an EPA and I quote:
- Constituting and resourcing an EPA will necessarily take time and resources and it will therefore probably
be necessary to stage its introduction. We submit that the most important first step will be to appoint an
independent EPA board.
We recognise what the environment groups were saying. The government committee members differed only in the sense that we are saying a board should follow a thorough audit and identification of any possible restructuring.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the member be granted an extension of time to allow her to finish her speech.
Leave granted.
Ms LAWRIE: I would like to quote again from the Charles Darwin University submission. The environmental protection goal for the Territory should be:
- … an ongoing commitment to preserving sustainable futures that include the protection of a unique healthy
environment, coupled with the development of economic prosperity for all sectors of the community and
recognition of aspects of the indigenous cultural heritage that is a significant facet of Territory life.
I will also note that Litchfield Shire Council said:
- Council would prefer to see an agency as an independent authority established under its own legislation,
however council acknowledges that such a model may be beyond the capacity of the NT government to fund
and may have to initially be established as part of an existing department. Either way, the agency needs to
be independent, well funded and resourced, otherwise it will not have the ability of meeting its objectives or
protecting the Territory’s environment.
I believe that the government committee members’ model proposed, which I have spoken about in the Chamber this evening, meets many of the calls that our committee heard. What we are proposing to do is, rather than create layers upon layers of additional bureaucracy, that we use existing resources that are there currently spread across government departments, pull them together, to create the resource to protect our environment and to ensure sustainable development to enhance the Territory’s economic prosperity into the future.
We are not saying, let us create an unwieldy new bureaucracy. We are clearly saying, let us restructure the existing bureaucracy into a single department, give it the heads of powers it requires, with an EPA board as an independent facet of that, and, after an extensive legislation audit, and an extensive assessment of operational structure by a suitably experienced professional, introduce in phase 2, the departmental structure.
Members of the Assembly, I conclude by again thanking the members of the committee, my colleagues, the members for Barkly and Millner, the member for Daly, the member for Drysdale and the member for Nelson. We had fun, as we met as a committee, and that is a rare thing for parliamentarians of opposite sides of the Chamber. We do have fun in our committee. We work in a bipartisan manner. We do not always agree, but we find the capacity to agree to disagree and encompass all of our varying views, which I believe we have done in this report with the various models recommended in chapter 6.
I wholeheartedly acknowledge the dedicated professional and fantastic work of Graham Gadd and Maria Vegas from the Committee Secretariat in the Department of Legislative Assembly. They are an absolute gem to work with.
I feel as though this is a very special moment in my personal life and my life as a parliamentarian in the Territory. I was born here, I hope I die here. I am raising my children here and this, to me, is something I dearly held right through my life. If I have been a part of introducing an EPA into the Territory, with what I believe are the laws that will enshrine environmental protection while providing sustainable economic development then everything that my family and I go through to enable me to do this job is worth it. Thank you for the opportunity.
Members: Hear, hear!
Debate adjourned.
ADJOURNMENT
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I am delighted with the news that the first round of the joint Northern Territory/federal government’s sponsored Pool in Remote Areas, or PIRA, program, has resulted in Maningrida being selected to build a swimming pool in their community this year. Maningrida, which is contributing one-third of the total cost of the project, submitted a detailed business plan that clearly outlined the direct benefits in health, education, employment and economic enterprise that will flow to their community as a result of this worthy program. The strong local support apparent for the construction of the pool is clearly demonstrated by the fact that it is backed by the Maningrida Council, the Progress Association, Bawinanga, the police and the Night Patrol, particularly the Community Education Centre, the school council, as well as the Maningrida Health Board.
I am informed that the community is likely to incorporate the ‘no school no pool’ regime similar to other communities in the Territory such as Wadeye, Ngukurr and Areyonga, amongst others. This strategy has had a significant impact on school attendance in these places, and I am sure similar promising results will occur. The health results from community pools is well documented, particularly in the reduction of skin, eye and ear infections which all have devastating effects on the health of the children in those communities.
Recently, I enjoyed accompanying members of the visiting Perth Wildcats National Basketball team to Maningrida. This visit was very well received, and gave local youth an opportunity to show their considerable basketball skills, and the visitors an inkling of the talent available in remote communities like Maningrida. The Perth Wildcats, under the inspirational leadership of former Olympian, Andrew Vlahov, are hell-bent on developing their growing Territory connection with their annual pilgrimage to the Top End and the Centre. This progressive club is actively taking the great game of basketball out of the cities on the coast and into the bush. I congratulate them and, particularly Mr Vlahov, for this initiative.
After the Perth Wildcats left the Territory, they played a game in Singapore, which is all part of the plan to grow the game in our region. His work, and the support of the Northern Territory government in growing the game in the north, means that the time is not too far away when we can look forward to Darwin being a port of call on a booming South-East Asian basketball league.
Recently, the Maningrida Women’s Centre, under the able guidance of Carol Holt and Kerrie Horgan, had a launch of their textile works at the Northern Territory Crafts Museum. Maningrida is justly famous worldwide for its fibre craft, and many artists for there have won awards, and are represented in public and private collections throughout Australia and, indeed, the world. This exhibition was a foray into the beautiful world of hand-printed textile fabrics. For this exhibition, the artists at the women’s centre produced huge printed fabric lengths as well as several hand-sewn pieces including cushion covers, garments, gorgeous handbags, and curtains. The artists handcraft lino prints which are the basis for most of the printing on the fabrics. Art critics have raved about the quality of the work produced, particularly the freshness of the images and, of course, the fabulous colours for which Maningrida artists are famous. Not only did the consignment sell out, but the Maningrida Women’s Centre sent more stock halfway through the exhibition, which is likely to sell out as well.
On Australia Day, artists from the community visited the craft museum and gave demonstrations of their work on the lawns outside. These also sold out, with art fans buying the printed materials still wet, so keen were they to have their own piece of Maningrida genius. I congratulate Kerry and Carol for organising this exhibition, but I would like to particularly congratulate the Maningrida women and put their names on the Parliamentary Record: Dora Diagum, Elizabeth Ganabuma, Melissa Djorlom, Andrea Stewart, Georgina Namarnyilk, Sonia Namarnyilk, Frances Cooper and Matilda Pascoe.
Members of the House should note that the exhibition is still on show at the craft museum, and I urge you to get in early because the jackets that these women have created are quite beautiful and stunning.
Recently, the Kakadu Youth Centre was opened. This great initiative is very much the result of hardworking committee members of the Kakadu Youth Yawkyawk Yawurrinj, and particularly their able manager, Dwane Baker. The youth centres opens from Monday to Friday from 3.15 pm till 6.15 pm, and is managed by the youth coordinator, Samantha Chalmers.
The youth centre would not have got off the ground without the support of a huge number of organisations, businesses and the general community of Jabiru and I would like to mention some of those: the Jabiru Town Council; Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation; ERA; ERISS; Kakadu Community Development; Foodland; Fresh Obsessions; the Kakadu Health Service; Jabiluka Association; Jabiru police; the NT Fire Service; the Croc, or the Gagudju Crocodile Holiday Inn; Jabiru Area School; the Jabiru Plaza Caf; Mobil Jabiru; Marrawuddi Gallery; and the Mahbilil Festival Committee. There were many individuals who also contributed and the youth of Jabiru certainly know who those people were. To those who did contribute to getting this centre available for the youth of Jabiru, their efforts will not go unrewarded and the youth centre will play a very important role in the future of Jabiru. From now on Dwane Baker and young Louise Bayne, who is the chair of the youth committee, will be working closely with the Jabiru Area School supporting school-based apprentices, career paths for young people and supporting the Crocodile Hotel’s indigenous employment program.
I wish to acknowledge also that a Tiwi Islander well known to this House has been the first Tiwi appointed to a full-time manager’s position within the newly formed Tiwi Island Local Government. I congratulate my predecessor as the member for Arafura, Mr Maurice Rioli, on his appointment as the Community Services Manager for TILG. Maurice has always been a fighter for local indigenous employment and from his position in the Pirlangimpi office of the TILG, I am sure he will do all he can to get Tiwis into real jobs.
Another Tiwi deserving special mention is Gibson Farmer of Milikapiti. Uncle Gibbo, as he is known, recently won the Territory Tidy Towns Living Treasure Award for his outstanding contributions to Territory Tidy Towns every year, and the strong representation he provides on behalf of Milikapiti to that worthy organisation. Well done, Uncle Gibbo, you truly are a living treasure.
At the same ceremony, Pirlangimpi was named runner-up in the Best Medium Community section of the awards. Well done to all the residents of Pirlangimpi community, especially to the CDEP and civil works team who made such a significant contribution.
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Special Adjournment
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Family and Community Services)(by leave): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the Assembly, at its rising on Thursday, 17 February 2005, adjourn until Tuesday, 22 March 2005 at 9.30 am at the Alice Springs Convention Centre, or such other time and/or date and/or place as may be set by the Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
______________________
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I was going to talk tonight about the Alice Springs Hospital. However, in light of the incident that occurred some time ago, I would like to place on the record, because the member for Macdonnell cannot, some sentiment that I know my colleagues share, and certainly that I feel very strongly about the minister’s behaviour. No doubt, the member for Macdonnell will make comment, both publicly and in the parliament, at some point to come, but I am not prepared to let an opportunity go by without comment.
For the purposes of Hansard, I will use the particular word that the minister mouthed once and then I will replace it with the word homosexual. For those reading Hansard in times to come, the member for Macdonnell says that the minister whispered to him, or mouthed to, him the word ‘poofter’ on three occasions. That made the member for Macdonnell very angry and he acted, perhaps in a way that, with hindsight, he wished he had not.
However, I note that the irony and hypocrisy of this government cannot go unchallenged. This is the government that introduced gay law reform legislation. Members will recall it was a very difficult and sensitive debate. I will also come to the Community Welfare Act shortly, and the act that the Minister for Family and Community Services is widely consulting about shortly, so I am pressing the pause button for a minute to say that I am going to talk about gay law reform shortly, and then I am going to talk about what this government says it is doing and how seriously it says it feels about child abuse in the context of the minister’s conduct.
We all know how difficult the gay law reform debate was. For some of us, it was much more difficult than others on a number of fronts. This government received what could be considered a deal of positive publicity as a result of this bill based on what it said was a fundamental adherence to human rights. How ironic it is that we are here a year or so later and one of their members, in fact a minister of the Crown, has abused the human rights of another.
The member for Macdonnell, during the conduct of the gay law reform debate, talked about his own history, which was perhaps wise or unwise, but he talked about it; he laid it on the public record. All members of the Chamber, and probably everyone in the Northern Territory, is well aware the member for Macdonnell’s history, namely that as a boy he was sexually abused. The hypocrisy of the government just leaves me gob-smacked and, frankly, feeling as angry as the member for Macdonnell.
The Attorney-General, during the gay law reform debate, said on page 85 of the transcript of that debate on 25 of November:
- The whole implication that, somehow, there is a particular link between paedophilia and homosexuality has
to be challenged. …
Some members have very much implied that the predatory behaviour of adults is based on homosexuality. We
simply have to rebut that on the evidence.
Further on the same page, the minister said:
- Therefore, let us keep this debate separated between the issue of what homosexual activities do as regards our
kids and the safety of our kids.
The minister who both publicly and, to the extent that I understand the working of Caucus on the other side of the House, privately, was, to his great credit in my view, was the man who championed this legislation, whose comments are on the Parliamentary Record for all to see. I note with interest that the member for Johnston did not contribute to the debate.
I liked every word of what the Attorney-General said on that day, and I subscribe absolutely to everything single thing that he said. I will keep this copy of the Hansard for as long as I live because it was a great day, in my view. Yet, we have a minister of the Crown who, I assume, has distressed and angered some of his colleagues, not to mention the gay community in the Northern Territory.
I do not purport to know Darwin as well as I know Alice Springs, but my hunch is that there is a significant gay community in Darwin, it seems, perhaps, more men than women. I would have thought that the slur - and ‘poofter’ is a derogatory term which I will hereafter substitute with ‘homosexual’ because I do not like the term minister used - would have appalled that constituency as much as it did me, and it would probably be as angry in some respects as the member of Macdonnell. So that is the gay law reform debate.
At the same time, or now, we have the government championing the cause of abused children, and I can say that because of the minister’s comments are on the record. We have what I regard as an overdue review of the Community Welfare Act. Members will know that I have a history in this area from a professional point of view. The Community Welfare Act and its proposed substitute, a draft bill called the Care and Protection of Children and Young People Act, seeks to make inroads into how to make the protection of young people better. It deals with young people who have been sexually abused. I thought, until this evening, that the government was serious about that, and I would be the first to applaud them in those endeavours.
The conduct of this minister cannot be excised. He cannot be excised from his colleagues, even though my inkling is that some of his colleagues would be pretty angry and distressed. But they are a team, they sell themselves as a team and therefore they are all the same. I have had some experiences myself, which I will not put on the public record, about some people in government, or some people on the fifth floor, acting in a way that I regard as absolutely hypocritical given the cachet that the government got in certain quarters as a result of its gay law reform legislation. In any event, I digress.
I do not think the Australian Labor Party can have it both ways. It cannot, on the one hand, say that it abhors child abuse and wants to do all that it can for victims of child abuse, when one of their own seeks to denigrate a victim of child abuse, and then making the bizarre connection with homosexuality. As the Attorney-General said on 25 November 2003, there is no link, there is no evidence of a link, it is complete garbage. But one of their own very strongly holds that view and we know he has form on it. My own view is that he needs to look deep within himself as to his personal life. However, that is perhaps best left alone for dinner party conversation and not in the Chamber. In any event, by his conduct, the minister, the member for Johnson, asserts that boys who are abused are homosexuals. That is the guts of it, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker – that boys who are abused are homosexuals.
Some of us who have even a scintilla of understanding of the world around us know that this is exactly the message that we do not want to give to boys who have been sexually abused. It is why some of them commit suicide. It is arguably the greatest slur that can be made in relation to sexually abused boys. This is a problem that I thought even the thickest member of the 25 of us had some sort of grasp on. Not, it seems, the member for Johnston. It does pain me to say this, because I quite like some of the members on the other side, but I can only form the view that, by implication, some of them share, and perhaps all of them, share the member for Johnston’s view. What the minister did was so destructive, so outrageous. A minister of the Crown, not just the garden variety member of the Assembly, but a minister of the Crown makes some sort of link between sexually abused boys and homosexuals. It is a sad day.
I will send the comments I have made tonight to some of the people in Darwin, more so than in Alice Springs, who were of great assistance on a number of fronts to me during the gay law reform debate. I do not think it is too cute to suggest that probably most of them are Labor voters but, like me, they actually care about human rights, which is why it is probably the case that it is fair to say I almost lost my job because of how strongly I felt about the gay law reform legislation. It was a job I was prepared to lose, so strongly do I feel about human rights. Even though not very many members on the other side stood to talk about that debate, I thought most of them shared my views. I thought they were common views, and I am speaking, obviously, in a very personal sense.
The minister’s conduct is extraordinary, astonishing, anger making, anger provoking, and I am not sure that I thought very much of the member for Johnston in any event, but whatever views I held about him, they have just gone down. He has gone down to the gutter as has my view of him. As one of our colleagues sometime ago said, when the Titanic is sinking you cannot say: ‘Oh, my bit is still afloat’. You cannot say: ‘Well, that is just him, we do not all think that way’.
If members on the other side want to talk to me and say in a very personal way - not to be repeated, not for the public record – ‘Carney, we do not share his views’, I would welcome that because, in the absence of that, I can only assume that what I regarded as keystone legislation, the gay law reform legislation, was a farce, a publicity stunt - nothing more, nothing less.
In another area that I feel really strongly about - the protection of young people, in particular, victims of physical and sexual abuse - I can only assume that the consultations that are going on in the Northern Territory at the moment in relation to the care and protection of children and young people is also a farce.
That is the effect that the member of Johnston has had on me and, it is fair to say, all of my colleagues, my friends who I have been speaking to tonight and, I am sure, those who will be reading this transcript. I am just astonished, and profoundly saddened and, like the member for Macdonnell, very bloody angry.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I find some of the comment made by the member for Araluen quite offensive. To try to paint that members opposite her, purely on a political base, have been discriminating against gay and lesbian people is a farce. Unfortunately, what we saw today was very disappointing for both members involved. As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. Unfortunately, the incident did occur, and I am sure that both members will regret the consequences that come from that, and will have to deal with that over the next couple of days.
I definitely know that the member for Johnston, who is a friend of mine, has apologised for his actions in this event and, no doubt, will have to clarify his story and face the consequences of his involvement in the action with the member for Macdonnell.
However, I find it a little rich that the member for Araluen tries to taint members of the government in this debacle. There are two individuals involved in this. She brought up the gay law reform. I am not sure if she remembers, but she actually walked across the floor and voted with us …
Ms Carter: You bet we remember!
Ms Carney: Proudly, proudly!
Mr BONSON: Two of them. What she actually forgets is that her party voted against it. She mentions that she nearly lost her job, who did she nearly lose her job too? Has someone else been pre-selected by the CLP?
What happened today is unfortunate. However, I know the calibre of the member for Johnston, and people make mistakes and say things. He was man enough to come in and apologise for that. To try to taint him or other members of this parliament with the same brush is a little off.
I am very disappointed in the member for Araluen, especially with what she had to go through. To outlandishly state that people on this side of the government have views against people who have been affected by child abuse or sexual abuse is just not up to scratch; it is not good form. I am very disappointed, and I had to say that. I hope she also sends this contribution to the people she alleges that she will send her contribution to, because in this adjournment today, the real issue that has come about is that two individuals who, obviously, have a dislike for each other, said things and did things physically that, no doubt over the next few weeks, they will regret. The two individuals will have to face those consequences.
I will just say in closing that the member for Araluen should not attempt to paint all members of this House with the same brush in a defamatory way.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, before I go on to a couple of matters that I intend to raise on behalf of the people of the rural and the electorate of Goyder, may say I was appalled at the astonishing behaviour by a minister of the Crown today. I could not hope to be as articulate as the member for Araluen on this issue, but I can assure honourable members that I support every word that she said. She spoke of what we all heard tonight with conviction and passion and she has my full support. I am not going to revisit the incident. I saw it. A number of my colleagues saw it. I am disappointed by the astonishing behaviour by a minister of the Crown.
There are a number of electorate matters that I seek to place on the Parliamentary Record, and a number of questions I intend to pose to government. I invite government to get back to me, back to my electorate office …
Mr Stirling: Which Wednesday would that be that you want us to get back?
Mr MALEY: ... with their views, their attitudes to these important issues..
Mr Stirling: Which Wednesday? You give us a date.
Mr MALEY: I am happy to make time for the Deputy Chief Minister any time if he and his government are, for the first time, going to pay proper regard to the 17 000 taxpayers who live in the rural area and, quite frankly, have been short changed by this Labor government.
There are residents of Dundee who are recipients of a promise prior to the last election, a promise by the Chief Minister that every resident of Dundee was going to get power. There have been some machinations along the road of constructing the powerlines. There are some power poles going up, things looking okay. However, what has become apparent is that powerlines have been constructed down the entire length of Fog Bay Road down towards the headland, Mermaid Beach and the like, but there are lots of other people who live off Fog Bay Road – Bynoe Haven, the Palms – and those people have been told by the contractors that their contract is clear: they are putting the line down Fog Bay Road to a fairly dense cluster of residences at the end, and, no, the powerline is not going up their road.
I am seeking clarification as to whether or not these people have been misinformed. I hope that what the contractors said is incorrect and what is going to occur is that there will be power poles and powerlines extended along these roads so that every resident at Dundee has the option of paying the levy and securing power. Also, I am seeking from the government precisely what that levy is going to be and what arrangements are going to be made for those residents of Dundee and the Bynoe Haven regions who are not in a position to pay the money up front.
Secondly, and it is in a similar vein, is the Cox Peninsula area, the road to Mandorah. There is certainly some progress being made in sealing that road, but there is a portion of road that needs to be sealed as it is dangerous during the Wet Season. It can sometimes become impassable. Darwin people who live in the CBD can see the people who live at Wagait Beach: they are straight across the harbour. At the end of the day, if the ferry service does not suit them, if they have something they cannot put on the ferry, the only way to get home is to travel the route around the harbour, around Cox Peninsula Road. So there needs to be a promise, and I am calling upon the government to give some sort of commitment to complete the sealing of Cox Peninsula Road.
Thirdly, whilst I am on a road theme, is the realignment of Girraween Road. I know the government has talked about it. There have been diagrams sent out to my electorate office. They have been up on the wall. We have spoken to constituents and, frankly, the representatives from the Department of Transport and Works – I do not know what they are called now – have been fantastic. However, we have the plans, we have had the public displays of what is occurring, but it does not appear to be progressing any further than that. I am asking the government to provide a time line as to when that is going to occur.
Mr Stirling: The CLP would never do it.
Mr MALEY: We have heard a smarmy interjection from the Deputy Chief Minister.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Goyder! Please withdraw that comment.
Mr MALEY: I withdraw ‘smarmy’. We have heard an interjection. Once again, the response from the government is to attack the CLP. Well, you are in government. I am asking you ...
Mr Stirling: How much representation have you made? None!
Mr MALEY: … for your - you have told the people it is going to occur. Everyone is happy. There have been references in the Litchfield Times. You sent out the maps. We put it on public display saying: ‘This is a big tick for the Labor Party’. Tick. It did not happen. It just stopped about four months ago. There has been very little activity. It is very disappointing.
Another issue which is becoming apparent in the electorate of Goyder, and this has come from government, there has been a rumour going about that the Labor government is going to implement the metering of bores on rural blocks. That is an outrageous proposal and I hope that the relevant minister during the course of the adjournment debate will say: ‘I give you a rock solid, iron-clad guarantee that is not going to happen’. If that happens, then that is all I seek and I can certainly pass that message onto people who ask me about this Labor rumour that seems to be getting about.
There is another matter which should be put on the record. Ultimately, it will present some difficulty for government, but it is an administrative thing, a systemic problem. There are people in the rural area who are on worker’s compensation, who have been injured at work. It is easier for them to seek the assistance of qualified medical professionals who operate in the rural area. I am not going to name the doctors and medical service providers, but these people on worker’s compensation, and there are two who have come to my office in the last week, have been told: ‘We will not assist you. We are not going to provide you with medical assistance on the terms and conditions required by the Territory Insurance Office pursuant to the Work Health Act. In other words, if you cannot pay, you have to go to somebody who bulk bills or go to the hospital because there are too many forms, it is too complicated and the TIO, quite frankly, takes so long to pay us that we are not interested in doing worker’s compensation matters’.
That is outrageous! There are people who have contributed to the Northern Territory, contributed to our very fabric of life. They have been injured. They are entitled to statutory benefits under the Work Health Act and TIO, it seems, is complicating the process. There is a systemic failure and now these people cannot get basic medical treatment to which they are entitled. It needs to be looked at. I am calling on the government ...
Mr Henderson: Make representation on behalf of your constituents!
Mr MALEY: I am making it now!
Mr Henderson: Well, put it in writing. Let us know who it is so we can look into the case.
Mr MALEY: When the Chief Minister to be has an opportunity to speak …
Mr Stirling: Oh, Hendo!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr MALEY: The member for Wanguri, the Chief Minister who should be running the show on that side, the only person who makes a scintilla of sense sometimes, and credit where credit’s due he has good police heritage. Credit where credit is due: I want him to step up. I have called upon him to step up, and I am behind him when he does it, let me tell you.
Mr Henderson: I will have you handing out How to Votes for me, Peter! That will be very good.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr MALEY: I am behind you, spiritually, when you step up to the mat.
Just returning to this medical problem, I am calling upon the government to have a look at this and make a contribution during the course of this important adjournment debate.
In the rural area, there are a number of reserves. I know that it has been talked about extensively in the Litchfield Times, and I know the member for Casuarina was instrumental in securing a large shed which was relocated from Stokes Hill Wharf to Freds Pass, and credit where credit is due, that has certainly been appreciated. However, the member for Casuarina has not taken the next step and, it seems, provided sufficient funds for the assembling of that shed, and rural people are very grateful for that asset.
Putting that aside, Freds Pass and the reserves are in dire need of a serious injection of funds. Since this government came into power, there have not been any large and significant infrastructure improvements – new ones. There have been a couple of things in the pipeline that were finished off – the soccer ovals and the like. There needs to be international standard lights for the polocrosse for the horse sports. There needs to be another oval for the soccer. Soccer is going berserk. There are more kids there on a Saturday morning than you would see in the average playground. Freds Pass is the jewel in the crown of the rural area, and the reserves that are a bit further out, Livingstone, Berry Springs to name a few, are also becoming more and more popular, and need the support of government.
We are at the stage now where the election promises will start rolling out. I am calling upon the government to give rural people a fair go. When they go into budget Cabinet and decide who is getting what, and what promises are going to be made, make sure you do not forget these important assets, these growth areas. I am sure the member for Nelson would support me in a call for more funds for Freds Pass and the other associated reserves in the rural area. That is all I intend to say in this important adjournment speech.
Mr STIRLING (Nhulunbuy): Just to put on the record, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, as minister with carriage of matters with Territory Insurance Office, I am always happy to look at issues members have with constituents. But it is a bit rich for a bloke who admits to working one day a week to walk in here and say, ‘I am making representation on behalf of constituents and I expect the minister and the government to look at it because it is an important adjournment contribution’.
I appreciate he is not going to name the people here – I would not want him to, because I do not want to go, ever, to cases relating to individuals on the floor of this parliament - but to waltz in here, to make these unsubstantiated allegations against TIO, and to say, ‘They are constituents of mine, I am not going to name them, but I expect the government to look at it’, when he bothers to get to work on, I suppose, each Wednesday - I take it that the constituents went to see him Wednesday. Now he is asking, of course, for me or my staff to pick up the phone to his electorate officer, because he will not be there, and to find out the names of these two people who have come in and made complaints against Territory Insurance Office, to track these two people down, to find out what the source of their complaint is, and to make representation to TIO on their behalf.
And his role in all of this is to waltz in here for three minutes, get up in what he claims to be the most important adjournment contribution, it is the first time he has spoken this week in parliament, this bloke – can only get to work on Wednesdays, so pity help the constituents who want to see him or can only see him Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday – no hope, you cannot get to see this bloke. He is only there Wednesday. He waltzes in here and expects government to wipe his bottom for him.
Well, I am not going to do it, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. When he writes to me, when he gives me the names, or rings my office, or e-mails my office with the names, with the pack drill, we will track it down and we will see what the problem is and we will take the issues to Territory Insurance Office on behalf of his constituents.
I simply cannot take it any further here tonight and do not intend to. I am certainly not going to ring his office, because we are not going to wait around until Wednesday so we can get to speak to him. So, he better put something down on paper, contact my office, make representation on behalf of his constituents. It would be a first, to get a letter from the member for Goyder in all the time I have been the minister here. So I would expect him to do his job, rather than coming in here, spraying the good name of the Territory Insurance Office and the hardworking people who work for them all over the Parliamentary Record.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, talking of the same thing, I ask the Deputy Chief Minister to watch his blood pressure. Let me say, that I have written to the TIO, I have written to WorkSafe, I have written to the employers, government departments, of people who have sustained injuries at work. When I specifically asked for a briefing, the only people who would talk to me are the people from WorkSafe. The TIO is conspicuous by its absence. Let me tell you this: that the TIO has a lot to answer for, the way they treat employees leaves something to be desired, and it is no wonder people do not get back-up.
Worker’s compensation - the act talks about rehabilitation, but that is not what it is about. You rehabilitate a person from the injured position to a position where the person is recovered sufficiently to return to work. I tell you what: many of the experiences I have had with recent cases - and the minister is fully aware of the cases that I am referring to, he has had correspondence from me seeking briefings about them - never treat the injured employee as an adversary. That is the last thing you want to do, because all you do is aggravate the situation, and you prevent that injured employee from moving on. I have had briefings from the minister’s officers with regards to worker’s compensation. I am sure that the minister’s officers can advise him that I have voiced my dissatisfaction with the way that insurer has approached the situation. It is no wonder these employees do not recover. In fact, they have been pushed into a corner and they have deteriorated in ways more than just the physical injury they have suffered initially.
Some time today, the Minister for Essential Services spoke about Mrs Denise Purdue, and he wanted me to give him her name and address so that he could contact her to ensure that her situation is sorted out. Obviously, he was not listening closely enough to my adjournment speech last night, where I referred all the details to him. It is unfortunate that when you speak, where the minister is supposed to be present to listen to what you are talking about, in a portfolio he is responsible for, he falls asleep and obviously missed out all together. I also mentioned the point that I hoped his officers were awake and taking down the details.
I repeat, one more time, for the minister’s benefit, the constituent who has a problem is Denise Purdue. She is an asthmatic and needs regular Ventolin. When she has an acute attack of asthma, she needs her Ventolin urgently. She lives at least 20, if not 30, minutes drive from the Alice Springs Hospital. When you are suffering an acute attack of asthma, you cannot sometimes make that distance, or hold on for that length of time to get into hospital for help. In fact, she was at the Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department only two days ago requiring medical attention. She was told by Power and Water that her method of payment by instalment will no longer be acceptable, that she had to pay her current bill up-front. She has been paying her bills at $100 per fortnight for many, many years, and she has always satisfied Power and Water with the way she has paid her bills. She always clears her bills before the next power bill arrives. So she is not a bad debtor whatsoever. Her paying pattern should be well established with Power and Water, so the minister has to take this on board to make sure that this person is treated fairly.
The minister might be also interested to know that under the CLP, Power and Water, or then NTEC, was authorised to install a trip switch in the main fuse box at home so that if there was a power failure that affected her home, the trip switch would activate an emergency generator that she owns to ensure that she has 24-hour power. If she loses power supply to her home because of this issue with the bill, her health and life will be at risk. For the minister’s information, the account number is 00054525-6. I hope you can attend to that matter and make sure that it is resolved quickly.
In the few minutes I have left, I would like to mention the incident involving the member for Johnston and the member for Macdonnell. It is important that in this Chamber, we treat each with a degree of respect. For many years now, I have tolerated what members opposite in this Chamber do to me personally in terms of throwing barbs, such as Doctor Death, at me frequently. If the members opposite have the courage to utter that outside this Chamber – do not hide here in this coward’s castle - then we can sort things out. But they do not do that. They hide in here, throwing personal remarks.
This sort of game can be played by everyone. The reality is there is no need for it. There are enough arguments in this Chamber on issues that are very important and relevant to the Territory without having any of us resorting to personal, and very derogatory, remarks. If you are not prepared to say what you have said outside, you should not be saying it inside this Chamber because it just shows you to be the coward that you are.
For members of parliament to behave like school children, mouthing insults across the Chamber, albeit silently but sufficiently visible to antagonise another person, is the lowest form of behaviour you can perform. It is a pity that grown men like us have to resort to that sort of thing in this Chamber. I ask that members observe some decorum in here and do the right thing by everyone. Do unto others as you like others to do to you. Whilst it might be a Christian thing, it is a very universal thing that we should all follow.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I want to talk tonight about a couple of local businesses in the Fannie Bay electorate. One of those is the Stuart Park Supermarket, which is run by Chris and Marie MacDougall. Chris and Marie were previously in Arnhem Land and worked at the DEMED Resource Centre there before taking over the Stuart Park Supermarket three years ago. They expanded the supermarket when they took over to include the newsagency, and it is now a most successful and very busy shop servicing the Stuart Park area. They have up to 1000 customers a day. With the building up of the shop, they now employ two full-time, four permanent part-time and three casual staff members. So some of our small businesses are very good employers.
There are lots of things happening in Stuart Park at the moment. There is the Urban Renewal Project under way which will see the rejuvenation of the pavement and the garden beds and, most importantly, improving disabled access to the shops. There is always a downside to these urban renewal projects. There is some unavoidable inconvenience to traders and shoppers, but it will worthwhile once the project is finished. It is about six weeks into a 12-week project at this stage, and certainly will make a difference at the Stuart Park shopping centre.
When you consider that the new tank farm at the port will be commissioned in August this year and the tank farm will be removed from Stuart Park and there will be remediation of soil and other things and we will start seeing building there, the Stuart Park shops over the next few years are going to change a lot. People like the McDougalls will be in a great position to capitalise on that. They are good people who run their shop responsibly and also support a number of charities through the store including the Channel 7 Children’s Christmas Party. I wish them all the best of luck in the future in the supermarket. They have started well. They are good members of the Stuart Park shopping centre, and I hope their business continues to prosper.
Another supermarket is in Winnellie Shopping Centre, the Winnellie Supermarket, which is very much a family business. It is run by Alan Morris, who many people know and who is assisted by his wife Elaine, and their two children, Wayne and Debra, not forgetting the wonderful May who is often at the check-out. You can never get through Winnellie shopping centre without a really cheerful, bright conversation with May.
The Morris family has been in the Territory for 37 years, the last 10 of which have been at the Winnellie Supermarket and they are my local supermarket. Before they took over at Winnellie, the family ran the Progress Association at Lajamanu, where Alan also had the role of CEO of Lajamanu Air. The Winnellie Supermarket services the Narrows, the RAAF Base, parts of Ludmilla, Winnellie, Bayview Haven and Nightcliff and even has customers as far afield as Palmerston and Borroloola. So being in the Narrows has not constrained their customer base.
The Winnellie Supermarket has developed and Internet shopping site, which is great, especially for people just out of hospital or those with mobility restrictions. Again, they are a very busy store and have just expanded recently. They employ a total of nine staff. Alan is always terrific in employing local students to stack the shelves. He said: ‘I have a deal with the parents’, and he has offered me one of these deals, ‘I will employ your child and pay them well, but if you tell me they are not getting their work done, I will sack them’. So he works on a really serious incentive for young students who work in his store. Alan and his family are looking forward to continuing to run the Winnellie Supermarket for many years to come.
It is business like the supermarkets at Stuart Park and Winnellie that really give a heart to those small shopping centres. Both are run well, reliably and responsibility. My congratulations to them both.
Dr TOYNE (Stuart): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, this evening I address two issues that have been the subject of some debate, both in parliament and in the media over recent days. These are allegations that the government is not funding the fit-out of the hospice nearing completion at Royal Darwin Hospital, and debate surrounding fire and safety issues of the Alice Springs Hospital.
There has been some speculation about the fit-out of the hospice, and I would like to clear up exactly what the government is putting into the hospice as it nears completion. This government made a commitment to the hospice in the last election. The hospice is now located within the grounds of Royal Darwin Hospital. $4.25m has been allocated for the construction of this important commitment and building works are progressing well, with the completion date estimated for May 2005.
Recurrent funding of $1.8m has been allocated for personnel and operational costs. $240 000 has been allocated for the fit-out of the hospice. This funding will cover the total fit-out cost of the hospice, and I table a list of items that have been purchased or are in the process of being purchased with this government funding. Other items have yet to be purchased, but I stress that there is adequate government funding allocated for a total fit-out of the hospice, including curtains. There is a range of interested organisations seeking to support the hospice with their effort and goods to make the hospice more homely. As a result of this strong community interest, a Friends of the Hospice committee has been formed. Clinical staff will also sit on this committee to ensure that infection control and safety standards are maintained. The role of this committee will be defined by their terms of reference, but it is generally agreed they would, amongst other things, ensure that any support offered is relevant and suitable to the needs of the hospice, and to coordinate any community fundraising donation activities. I take this opportunity to thank all individuals and organisations involved.
A part-time volunteer coordinator has been identified as a key resource, given the raised profile of palliative care and the increasing interest of members of the public to be involved in this important initiative. This is an important commitment which I will be very proud to open in the near future. It will be a quality building, with adequate government funding to ensure that it is staffed and fitted out appropriately to enable it to provide high quality service to the community.
I turn now to issues surrounding fire and safety at the Alice Springs Hospital. I was proud to be able to announce on 19 January this year that, for the first time ever, all five of our hospitals had achieved Australian Council on Healthcare Standards accreditation against rigorous national benchmarks. As my press release made clear, now all hospitals were accredited, including Tennant Creek, which received formal notification of accreditation on the day of my announcement.
Alice Springs Hospital had received accreditation from the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards in August 2002. The ACHS is a not-for-profit organisation that provides national accreditation for hospitals and healthcare organisations. Last year, the hospital successfully underwent a review against the standards and criteria contained within the ACHS EQuIP program version 2. This program ensures continuous improvements in the areas of leadership and management, continuum of care, information management, human resource management, safe practice and environment, evaluation and improving performance. The continued accreditation of the hospital is testament to the hard work and dedication of our staff, and to the commitment that this government has shown in building better hospitals.
It is good news, whichever side of politics you are on, or you would think so. How disappointing then to hear the opposition spokesperson talking down the Alice Springs Hospital throughout the last couple of weeks. She has alleged that crucial information regarding fire safety faults were withheld from the accreditation team, supposedly by me as Minister for Health. Second, the member for Araluen apparently thinks that this government delayed announcing funds for the rectification of these faults until after the hospital had received accreditation. These misconceptions are easily answered.
In May 2004, the Alice Springs Hospital underwent a periodic review as part of the normal accreditation process. On 20 August 2004, ongoing accreditation of the hospital was confirmed. The surveyors were given access to all reports available in the hospital relating to matters and services of the hospital. This access to reports was reflected in the review recommendations, including acknowledging government funding to repair outstanding building deficiencies.
In their 2004 ACHS documentation, Alice Springs Hospital states under the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program heading of ‘outcomes and achievements relating to this mandatory criteria’, that:
- Following a fire department review of the emergency systems on 10 October 2002, a 95% compliance with
recommendations has been achieved. Residual issues are continuing to be resolved. They do not compromise
patient or staff safety.
Brian Johnston, the Chief Executive of the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, has appeared on public radio in the Northern Territory to confirm that information about the fire and safety issues was fully available to the survey team. Asked whether there was any information withheld by the hospital from the accreditation team, he said, ‘I am not under any sense of awareness that there was any failure to disclose on the part of any hospital that we survey in that regard’. When asked whether the ACHS was ‘rushed’ into accrediting Alice Springs Hospital, Mr Johnston was clear:
- No, no, definitely not. I would refute any assertion that that was the case. What we would look for, and I am not
a member of the survey team, but I am sure that that is what the survey team looked for at Alice Springs, that
there was clear commitment by government to undertaking the work as quickly as possible.
It is clear that the ACHS did its job professionally and independently, and they were, as they stated in their report, as confirmed by their CEO, fully aware of the process of rectifying the fire safety issues at the hospital. They granted accreditation, satisfied that these issues had been fully scoped as regards the compliance problems and that there was a committed program to correct them.
We are fixing the problems with the redevelopment of the Alice Springs Hospital. We have committed $10m to rectify the problems. We will pursue whatever legal remedies are open to us to open up and bring to account any person or organisation that contributed to the current situation with that building. Investigations are continuing. Legal action will almost certainly ensue, on the early indications that we are getting, as to the strength of the case. I am confident that, over the course of time, the facts will come out.
On public radio some two days ago, I indicated that, as part as this ongoing process, there will be questions to answer; many of those questions will be at the feet of the previous CLP government. There is no doubt that several of the government ministers of the time, 1998 to 2001 when we assumed government, would have been responsible for, and overseeing, the extensive work that was being done in that hospital. There is no doubt that the things that we can see there today - gyprock panels being used on fire walls which is completely non-compliant; large holes that have been left in the fire wall barriers that are supposed to prevent the spread of fire around that building; pipes that are wrongly connected to particular types of water supply - all of those faults appeared in that hospital in 1998 largely through to the early part of 2001 when the bulk of that work was being done.
There are questions to answer on this, and the CLP ministers of the time, three of whom are still in the House today, need to think about their answers.
Mr HENDERSON (Wanguri): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on the long-term and valuable contribution to the work of the Northern Territory government, especially in the international arena, that Ms Jillian Nicholls has made over a period of close to 25 years.
Mrs Nicholls retired from her Asian Relations Project Officer position in DBIRD on 28 January 2005. She moved from the UK to Australia with her parents and family. Her early career included governess in northern Western Australia and working in the new iron ore mining industry in the Pilbara. She and her family subsequently moved to the Territory. From 1980 to 1987, she worked for the Northern Territory government in the Student Services Unit at the then Darwin Community College. This was followed by positions in the External Studies Centre and the Trade School. Whilst at the trade school, she learnt a great deal about building houses, wiring cars and all other types of trade including ‘repairing loos’.
In 1987, through to 1994, she moved to the Overseas Student Centre at the then renamed Darwin Institute of Technology, later NTU and now CDU. It was there that her skills with people from all around our international region and beyond really started to shine. She was responsible for the day-to-day care and management of more than 200 overseas students. She assisted with the students’ needs, study, accommodation, travel, counselling and pastoral care, from their arrival to their eventual departure.
In this and later roles, Mrs Nicholls developed a very wide network of international contacts and friends all around the world. She was highly respected, and was like a family member in Darwin for many of her charges. From 1994, she accepted a promotion to the position of Project Officer in the newly-formed International Project Management Unit in the Department of Asian Relations Trade and Industry. In this role, she assisted with the management of Territory consultancy staff offshore, particularly in Indonesia, and with the care and management of study tour participants in the Territory. During this period, Mrs Nicholls also helped many Territory experts gain international experience and valuable consultancy work.
Through her contacts and work she also helped to win valuable new consultancy contracts for the Territory. For example, Mrs Nicholls played a pivotal role in Territory participation in a major midwifery training project in Indonesia. She was responsible for two lengthy study tours to Darwin by Indonesian midwives to receive specialist tuition at NTU/CDU, and arranged work placement in Territory health facilities so that they could extend their practical skills. Mrs Nicholls was personally responsible for all aspects of the program and prepared the final reports on these activities for AusAID which was funding the program. In undertaking this work, she also had to liaise with the Australian lead consultant in Adelaide, the project team in Indonesia, and the Australian and Indonesian authorities involved. As a result of those projects and the respect she gained through her work for the Territory, Mrs Nicholls has developed many long term friends in Indonesia’s health services.
One of Mrs Nicholls’ most outstanding achievements while working for the then Department of Asian Relations and Trade was her support and management before, during and after the East Timor crisis. From early 1999, Mrs Nicholls became very involved in the Territory’s support for East Timor. She helped locate the UN in Darwin. She played a key role in settling the International Office of Migration and the UN Secretary-General’s staff into the old Reserve Bank building in advance of the referendum on independence. She also helped and supported Territory officials and volunteers who were involved.
Mrs Nicholls played a pivotal role in assisting Territorians and others to depart East Timor after the referendum results were announced and the ensuing crisis. She also helped organise much of the on-ground support needed as the AusAID, UN and other emergency response staff arrived in Darwin. The UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN High Commission for Refugees, World Food Program, AusAID and many more are indebted to her for her help. Mrs Nicholls assisted with the refugee evacuation and support action in Darwin, and coordinated the placement of Territory emergency assistance staff in East Timor, including the first civilian advisor to enter after the arrival of the INTERFET forces. She also helped place and support the Territory government representative in East Timor in early October 1999.
In Darwin, Mrs Nicholls located and negotiated access to offices, services and facilities for emergency and relief staff from all of the UN government and non-government agencies involved at the time. She provided practical assistance and guidance, and had a hands-on approach when dealing with difficult situations. I am told that she raided all of the Northern Territory government warehouses for furniture and equipment. Mrs Nicholls contributed to the efforts to link major purchase requirements of agencies with Territory suppliers of goods and services, and to the delivery of emergency and other supplies from Darwin to East Timor.
Her achievements around this time were recognised by all of the agencies involved. With her outstanding skills and sensitivity in dealing with people, she has gained the utmost respect from all organisations. She overcame many obstacles with dedication, equanimity and commonsense to achieve her success. Her ongoing work on overseas and Asian relations projects contributed to their success as well. She played an important part in the implementation of the Asian Engagement Plan and associated activities. Mrs Nicholls’ work has reflected the Territory’s commitment to the region and the many relationships in place.
Apart from a short period in 2000 on placement to the Department of the Chief Minister to assist in the Northern Territory government representative office in East Timor and the Territory government support efforts, Mrs Nicholls remained in DBIRD and its predecessor departments until her retirement last month.
I understand that she recently went back to study to gain qualifications in teaching English to non-English speakers, and in art and design with a view to enjoying life after the public service. Mrs Nicholls has consistently used her skills with people, especially overseas officials, consultants and visitors throughout her career. Her experiences have provided her with unparalleled international networks and contacts, and I am sure her skills will help her well in the future. I would like to say thank you to Mrs Nicholls for her important contribution to the public service and the Territory government’s international activities. I am sure all honourable members will join me in wishing her well in her endeavours following retirement.
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it has been a very busy Christmas/New Year period in the electorate of Wanguri. I held my Christmas party at Dolly O’Reilly’s, which was a huge success. Over 120 residents turned up to join in the festive cheer, even if it was the night of the major power blackout when Channel Island copped a huge lightening hit. There was no power but the beer was cold and everybody had a great time. I thank my electorate officer, Jarna Neve, for working so hard to organise that function.
On 10 December 2004, I launched my Business Directory at Hibiscus Shopping Town, that has been distributed around the electorate and, again, to the 40-odd businesses which have taken up space in that electorate, I am very grateful.
Wanguri shops are undergoing a major upgrade, with allocation of about $200 000 from the government and Darwin City Council in terms of urban renewal. The upgrade will focus on extensive refurbishment of the landscaping and infrastructure and work is set to be completed by July 2005. I am really pleased to see the government committing to upgrading our urban shopping centres. It certainly will make a difference.
Several students from schools within my electorate received Student Citizen Awards at the Australia Day flag raising and citizenship ceremony on Australia Day at Marrara Stadium. I am very pleased to congratulate St Andrew’s Lutheran School student, Stephanie Alm; Leanyer Primary student, Daniel Banfield; Wanguri student, Liam Blakely; Holy Spirit Primary School student, Jennifer Flurri; and Alexander Fegan from Henbury School. They are all very worth recipients of those awards.
I would like make mention and give thanks tonight to a remarkable young man who lives in my electorate, Dave Thurston, who is a chef at Dolly O’Reilly’s. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Dave was thinking how he could help. He organised a significant fund-raising event at Dolly O’Reilly’s on 22 January, with all money going to Red Cross. Dave, who has worked at the hotel for a number of years now, pulled together a magnificent list of auction items. I seek leave to incorporate the names of the companies who donated auction items into the Hansard.
Leave granted.
- AAPT Smartspace, Casuarina; AFL NT Marrara; Angus and Robertson Bookworld, Casuarina Shopping Square;
Arma Protection Systems, Stuart Park; Baker’s Delight; Bidvest Australia; Casuarina Florist, Casuarina Shopping
Square; Denim & Daks, Casuarina Shopping Square; Coles, Casuarina Shopping Square; Dolly O’Reilly’s;
Fannie Bay Video; Freedom Furniture; staff at Lowes, Casuarina Shopping Square; Gardens Park Golf Links,
Godfreys, Casuarina Shopping Square; Harrison’s Pharmacy, Casuarina Shopping Square; Hibiscus Health
& Beauty; Hibiscus Newsagency; Hibiscus Pet & Aquarium Shop; Jenny’s Orchids; Just Cuts, Casuarina Shopping
Square; Kodak, Casuarina Shopping Square; Laubman & Pank, Hibiscus Shoppingtown; Michael Hill Jewellers,
Casuarina Shopping Square; Morgana Weller; Socrates, Casuarina Shopping Square; Sportsco, Casuarina
Shopping Square; Starshots Glamour Photography, Casuarina Shopping Square; The Butcher Shop, Hibiscus
Shoppingtown; United Food Service; Phil, a well-known local who wishes to remain anonymous; Zelows,
Casuarina Shopping Square; and All Seafoods.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker. I thank all those companies for their generosity; $7000 was raised for the tsunami appeal. It was a great night in the front bar at Dolly’s and I thank everyone for their generosity on the night.
Over the Christmas and New Year period, the Timor Cup was held, which essentially saw the soccer teams, or football teams as they are now called, from Darwin, Sydney and Melbourne come together. Their squads were based on East Timorese players. It is a Cup that is held biannually, two years in Melbourne, two years in Darwin, and I am pleased to see that Casuarina Soccer Club won the Timor Cup. So, to Roberto De Araujo and everyone at the Casuarina Soccer Club, well done. To Roberto, well done for working so hard, and everyone else who worked to put that competition together. The crowds were great. I could only get to a couple of the games, but it was great to see the Timorese community from around Australia, around their passion of football or soccer, so well done, Casuarina.
Nearly four years ago, Lisa Brett, a former student of Leanyer Primary School won the Territory’s entry in the Australian Centenary of Federation design, a coin competition. Lisa won $5000 for Leanyer Primary and asked for the money to go towards shade cloth over the school’s basketball courts. Leanyer Primary has been raising money since then to build a full metal shade structure, one that will allow for future developments, including fans and lights. This is a huge structure that has gone up over the Christmas break, whilst I was on leave. I was there with Principal, Henry Gray, the other day, and I could not believe my eyes to see the enormous shade structure up. This was an engineering feat. Together with the school council and the school’s Finance and Facilities Focus Group, and over the Christmas break, the dream of a $120 000 project commenced. The shade frame was complete with the roof yet to be added. I managed to secure for this project $30 000 last year from the Northern Territory government, and it is going to provide a great facility for the school and the kids. To everyone who has been involved in the fundraising effort, well done!
Mr AH KIT (Arnhem): Madam Speaker, I rise to mark an important milestone in the small business, political and cultural, and dare I say, culinary history of Darwin. Last night, Darwin’s longest running same-name caf, the Roma Bar, closed its doors. Happily, at 7 am it will reopen its doors just up the road and across the other side of Cavanagh Street.
The Roma Bar first opened its doors in October 1973. Since that time, it has served the people of Darwin under various ownerships. The longest serving, at times suffering owners, have of course been Paul Costigan and Patti Ring. They opened their doors for the first time on May Day in 1989, an appropriate debut for such stalwarts of the Labor Party movement.
Last night, they hosted a wake for the old premises which had served the Roma Bar and its clientele for over 30 years. Over that time, the premises have seen many changes and many different configurations. Older Darwinians may remember that the area above the Roma Bar was used as a brothel, or would remember the barely legal card games that were played out the back. Being far more sedate, Paul and Patty had restricted the upstairs of the premises to more mundane activities such as the holding of art exhibitions and performances. But one thing is that the Roma Bar, under Patty and Paul, has developed a national and international reputation. The Roma Bar has twice won Mietta’s Awards, a national recognition for fine food and great ambience. And for a number of years, it has also featured as a definite tourist attraction.
As I stated in this place a few years ago in quoting from the Fodor’s 1997 Guide to Australia, ‘the Roma Bar is a place where cowboy meets croissant’. This tourism guide – one of the most prestigious United States tourist guides on the market – went further and described the Roma Bar in the following terms:
The decorative theme of the Roma Bar is only accidentally Italian, and the clientele is similarly eclectic.
Officer workers, lawyers and magistrates from the surrounding business district mingle with artists,
entertainers and students. Visitors enjoy the good coffee and somewhat rowdy hubbub of business-suited
and barefoot Darwinites in their natural habitats.
The Roma Bar has, as you may gather, celebrated difference, and celebrated and participated in the cultural life of Darwin. As a case in point, I was honoured a few months ago, along with Cedric Suradi and Akurriyu Hill, to be invited to cook for the Slow Food Movement chapter in Darwin at an event at the Roma Bar. Everything we cooked that night had been caught within 30 km of Darwin, and within the previous day or so. It was a lovely Makan night where about 50 of us feasted on magpie goose, prawns, barramundi and turtle. I imagine that while many ministers and members of parliament over the years have eaten and drank at the Roma Bar, I am the only minister who has also cooked at the place.
Of course, those on the other side have been reluctant to honour the Roma Bar as a great Territory icon. Indeed, they have condemned the place on many occasions. There are a curious number of mentions of the Roma Bar in the Parliamentary Record by the CLP and all of them seem to regard the Roma Bar as a latter day Sodom and Gomorrah. Chief among the Roma Bar’s critics was the former member for Katherine and fire engine video fanatic, Mike Reed, who described the Roma Bar as the ‘communist meeting circle of Darwin’, a sentiment that was largely shared over the years by other members of the CLP. He said of members of the Labor Party:
- Where do they spend their time? At the Roma Bar caf. I could give them magazines that would provide
them with a little more positive information than the socialist diatribes that obviously are fed to them at
the Roma Bar.
As I commented back then:
- Last week, the member for Katherine described the Roma Bar as a communist meeting place in Darwin. I am not
sure about that, as I have not bothered to check for Reds under the bed. Since the Chief Minister has been there,
he might be able to enlighten us as to whether he has done so.
I am referring to Shane Stone as the Chief Minister at those times.
- I have not done that since the 1950s. I guess the member for Katherine is just an old-fashioned guy with
old-fashioned paranoias.
Let me join the member for Katherine and assure the House that the Roma Bar represents the cultural diversity of Darwin at its absolute best. Indeed, the former Chief Minister, Shane Stone, subsequently promised to bring Mike Reed to the Roma Bar for a cup of coffee. Needless to say, it was one of many promises the now president of the Liberal Party regarded as a non-core promise. He never brought Mike Reed to the Roma Bar, something we can perhaps be thankful for.
So it was with great pleasure this morning that I was able to tuck into breakfast at the new Roma Bar. I congratulate Patti and Paul for giving us a lot of interesting punch lines to the question: Why did the Roma Bar cross the road? To look for Mike Reed because the old Roma Bar is dead! Long live the new Roma Bar!
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Visitors
Visitors
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Honourable members, I draw to your attention the presence in the gallery of Mr Paul Costigan and Ms Patti Ring of the Roma Bar. On behalf of all honourable members, I extend to you a warm welcome.
Members: Hear, hear!
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Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about the Roma Bar. I went to a function there up the top – actually, I should go back before that. I used to work in the Companies Office, and it was called the Florida Caf up the top. I am going back now to about the time of self-government, and a gentleman came down, he filled in his company’s form to renew the business name. I noticed that he spelt it Floridia, with an ‘i’ in it, so it was a misspell and I thought, it is silly to send the correspondence out, he has just lodged his form, so what I will do, at lunchtime, I will go up, and if it is Florida instead of Floridia, I will drop it in.
So I went down to what is now the upstairs of the Roma Bar, I walked in and there were numerous gentlemen playing cards there. At this time, I was probably in my early 20s and I always had fairly short hair. I was carrying a clipboard, and I might have looked a little bit officious and maybe even police-like. I will tell you, even though it seemed like a fire hazard from which you would never escape, people got out of that place real quick! I was left with one gentleman who did not have a very good grasp of English, and I was trying to explain that the boss of the place might want to look at this form and see whether he wanted to call it the Floridia or the Florida. I left the form there and, interestingly, some hours later, a sheepish gentleman came along with a line through the ‘i’ in Floridia.
I went back when a gentleman called Royce Dunbar had his farewell upstairs at the Roma Bar. The MC was a lady called Clare Martin, who worked for the ABC. It was one of those events where people regaled in, for some reason, bashing Mike Reed; it seemed to be one of the things that happened at the Roma Bar, I do not know why. One would have assumed they had other occupations they could have devoted their time to. Anyway, there were a number of things said. Royce was leaving Darwin because he had received some monies in compensation and he was off to Queensland. He gave a pretty good speech, I thought. The MC of the day, Clare Martin, made some fairly derogatory comments about Mike Reed, a minister of the Crown at the time. I can recall coming back to Parliament House with the people I was with, and we wrote to the ABC and asked them if they endorsed those comments because, of course, to call people to a public meeting and to say things that are defamatory, outrageous, illegal even, perhaps, and actionable is something that, if the ABC endorsed it, they could have been at the end of that sort of action.
A letter was sent off to the ABC by me and my mate, not Mike Reed, asking if the ABC endorsed various comments that were made by its MC, the ABC reporter, Clare Majella Martin. They came back real quick - and this is a matter of history – you can go to the ABC archives and find it. They said, ‘Oh, no, we would never say that, and she is way out of line’, and all the rest of it. But I guess that is such as it was, because it is all very well when you are the underdog, as the opposition then thought it was, to bash people who were in high places. The arrogance that this government shows with it now sitting in the lofty position of government and bashing people up in various places with just how it treats people and how it talks about them is their legacy.
Maybe it comes from that era where they thought they were the victims, they were the underdogs. They were the people who were being oppressed by this terrible bloke called Mike Reed. It is a pity they did not meet him, actually, because in other lives you would think he was pretty much a Labor sort of a bloke. He came from fairly humble beginnings. He was a union member at one time. If you saw where he lived and how he lived, he was not one of the silver-spoon-in-the-mouth type blokes. I have great affection for Mike Reed, great affection for his wife, Ann, and I know his kids well. They went to school with my kids.
To sit in that meeting and hear somebody who came from Sydney, whose dad was an enlightened professor, pour scorn and abuse all over this bloke from her lofty position as a social commentator with a glass of chardonnay in her hand is probably a bit of a Labor heritage. The difficulty they had at the Roma Bar at the time was, mostly, they suspected that the crowd around them were all applauding in unison to the same chant. What mucked it up was there were a couple of people there who liked Mike Reed and I was one of them! I was offended, and I wrote to the ABC. The ABC, with the good grace and good legal counsel that they have, wrote back and said, ‘No, we do not endorse that sort of stuff.’
Yes, the Roma Bar, I suppose, was one of those little repositories of social action and all that sort of stuff if you really went back to the days when you marched for the moratorium and the Vietnam War. It was transplanted into Darwin and they really did not have a cause, so it is good that Mike gave them that cause. It will bring pleasure to his heart now that he has been awarded a very high award, Mike Reed AO. He deserves that AO. He deserves it from all those poor communists and socialists who used to gather in the Roma Bar and vent their spleen and bile on what a terrible bloke he was. They probably nominated him because without this terrible effigy of Mike Reed that you could bash up, they did not have much else to attract people to the place. So, good on you, Mike.
I do not know who nominated you for the Order of Australia, but I suspect the Roma Bar was in there because you were good for custom. You could have people sitting around talking about the Vietnam War and the ozone hole, ganga, and when we get into government, we are going to do all these things, we are going to free the masses. It must be hard for Roma Bar Mark II because some of that passion must be dissipating because what this government has tried to do is look remarkably like the CLP.
What they have tried to do is say, ‘Yes, we are really socialists - mmm, maybe not socialists. Little bit socialists, but we have a social conscience, let us put it that way. We still hate Mike Reed and if we are really in trouble, why don’t we get a minister of the Crown to go into parliament and talk about him? God knows, he has been out of here for a while, but maybe Jack can stir up some of those passions and the new Roma Bar can have people come and have cappuccinos and cafe lattes and say how terrible Mike Reed was. So Jack, we have a job for you! We want you to go into parliament and make a speech about how terrible Mike Reed was for democracy’. Mike Reed AO, Order of Australia.
‘Maybe in Roma Bar Mark II, we could put up caricatures of him and we can all sit around and reminisce about how terrible Mike Reed was. We can say how we fought this battle, not against the Vietnam War, maybe, or some of those other things, but we fought the battle against Mike Reed and we have the battle scars and battle colours to show that we went into the fray, we went over the hill and we looked at Mike Reed eye-to-eye.’
Well, you do not know the man. I have great affection for Mike Reed. I saw that man out at tent city, out at the Kalymnian Brotherhood. I saw what he did for the Timorese people to the north of us. I saw what he did after the Katherine floods. I went to his house after the Katherine floods. One of my chores was to throw many of his possessions into a great big hire bin out the front, and some of those possessions I know were books that he would have scoured through places to get: books on birds, ornithological books, because Mike Reed was a greenie. That might surprise those in the Roma Bar, but Mike Reed was and is a greenie. What he knows about nature, flora and fauna, particularly of the Katherine region, is encyclopaedic.
He is a man of great knowledge about environmental issues in Katherine - the world, probably, but certainly Katherine. He has a great curiosity about the globe, the cosmos, and a great curiosity that is the sort of stuff that piqued people like Charles Darwin and others. If you had have been there with me in my boots walking through the mud chucking his ornithological books into a big hopper, realising that he had not been to his house for five days and was not going to go there for another five because he was helping the people of that place – that place that I love and where I was born – you would have another vision of that man.
I can understand how the member for Arnhem has a sparring relationship with him but, really, let’s move on. There is a new member for Katherine. Really if the new heritage of the Roma Bar is to talk about an ex-member of parliament who has been bestowed one of the highest honours the land can bestow on him, who can have people come into this place and sing his praise for hours, and I would be one of them, is not a good beginning. Pick a new voodoo doll: Clare Majella Martin, the new Chief Minister. Surely, she is trying to become so CLP-like that she would be a good target. There could be others. There could be others around the place.
Ms Carney: The member for Johnston.
Mr DUNHAM: The member for Johnston! He could fit the bill. If you really need a politician as a stirring point when you are sitting there looking into your cappuccino and stirring your caf au lait – me! God knows, I would enjoy it; I might end up with an Order of Australia.
Please do not speak ill of ex-parliamentarians with a fine, honourable record such as Mike Reed. If you do, just remember there are still some of us around who remember him with affection for what he did and the potency of the man. Okay, I worked on his personal staff. He was a bloody hard bugger to get on with, I tell you. When I worked in Mike Reed’s office, we got home at 7.30 every night, and it was hard work. We did long, long hours. If I come into this place on the weekend, I am the only car in the car park. I can tell you in the days when Mike Reed was in here, the place was packed. He was the Deputy Chief Minister and he had an immense span.
When I worked for him we had police, lands, mining, tourism, Treasury. The tradition in parliaments is that the Deputy Chief Minister can pick their portfolios. You have to wonder why Mike Reed loaded himself up so much. He did it because he wanted to set an example, and he set a great example of industry, commitment, drive, passion.
If you really need a bulls-eye for your target at Roma Bar Mark II, leave him there because he will not mind. I can assure you, he does not need my defence and he will not mind. In fact, he will take great pride in it probably. He will have a little chuckle as he sits there watching the sun come over the Katherine River and watching the various native flora and fauna in his yard, which is set up almost like a national park it is so beautiful. He probably knows the name in Latin and the common name of every single animal and plant that grows in that place. As he sits there, he will probably think: ‘Up there in the big smoke, up there in the city, they still remember me. There they are at the Roma Bar and they still remember me’.
There is a poem in there somewhere, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, and I will come up with it and I will bring it back to the parliament, but in the interim, I suggest the Roma Bar pick a new target. It is a little bit pass, don’t you think, sitting at the Roma Bar and worrying about Mike Reed? If that is what you want to do and if it augers well for your business, do it, because he probably won’t mind. If you invite him to one of those occasional sessions where he can speak, he will probably even turn up, such is his contrary disposition about matters like this.
Anyway, have another think. If you really need someone to spew vile and venom on, I am happy to have a go.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016