2005-02-15
Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 4 pm.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I lay on the Table Message No 28 from His Honour the Administrator advising of his assent to proposed laws passed by the Legislative Assembly during the November/December 2004 sittings.
Continued from 1 December 2004.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, the opposition does not oppose the bill in its entirety. However, we share the concerns of the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, full particulars of which the minister should have and be across. If he is not, then I am sure his staff will be. I will go through some of the difficulties in relation to one part of the bill shortly.
By way of introduction, and in summary, why we do not oppose this bill is that, as the minister mentioned in his second reading speech, the bill provides a framework of clear and consistent guidelines relating to residential tenancies. It sets out the minimum terms of residential tenancy agreements, procedures relating to bonds, the handling of security deposits, condition reports, and so on.
However, the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, whilst it, like us, is generally supportive of the bill, strongly opposes the amendment to section 16 of the Residential Tenancies Act which provides for monies from the Agents Licensing Fidelity Guarantee Fund to be used to fund a tenants’ advice service. I am aware that REINT wrote to the Department of Justice outlining its position and, fortunately, I have been provided with copies of that correspondence. Because it was sent to the minister, I am sure he will agree that there is no need for me to table any of it. I believe it is important for me to extract parts of relevant correspondence which eloquently explains the basis of the REINT’s opposition to the bill.
In one of the letters to the minister, signed by Ms Sue Shearer, she wrote:
Ms Shearer goes on:
She goes on and says that she:
My view is that that is the case. I believe, in the Northern Territory generally, there are a sufficient number of services to assist tenants. Some will argue with me on that, but I do not believe they will be arguing too vigorously. In any event, there is a point of principle here. I would like to hear from the minister when he responds because I would like to receive what amounts to a rational explanation as to why it is that he favours an amendment to the act whereby funds from the fidelity fund will be siphoned off or used to aid a tenants’ advice service. Minister, surely there is another way. It seems to me to be, at the very least, commonsense to obtain funds from elsewhere and not divert funds from the fidelity guarantee fund.
The basis of the REINT’s objection is obvious. It does object, as do we, to a tenants’ advice service which will be mainly used for advisory purposes, which services are arguably already sufficiently provided in the Northern Territory.
I note that there has been some commentary about what is called the education function that is contained in the act and is linked to the Agents Guarantee Fidelity Fund. I would like the minister to outline what he understands to be what is commonly described as the ‘education function’. Is it being provided by the Charles Darwin University? My information, and I am happy to be corrected – in fact, I would be glad to be corrected - is that the Charles Darwin University stopped the delivery of education some time ago. I also raise this point; that is, in the minister’s second reading speech he says:
To the act:
I have looked at that second reading speech which was made by the member for Daly on 19 August 1999. I would be delighted if you could please - and I am happy for you to do it by way of reply or in committee; perhaps by way of reply may save us all some time - point me to that part of the speech where he said what you have attributed to him. I could not see it and, once again, I would be happy to be corrected.
Section 16(1)(b) of the act provides for educating landlords, agents and tenants about their statutory and contractual rights and obligations. Minister, this does not mean that funds should be used to set up an advice service. If the minister would be good enough to navigate his way through some of that and provide clarification, I would be delighted. I am sure he is not taken by surprise regarding any of the issues I raise. He has been on notice for some time of the REINT’s position, and I am sure he is able - at least, I hope he is able - to point to that part of the member for Daly’s speech on 19 August 1999 where he said what the minister attributed to him in his second reading speech made on 1 December 2004.
In essence, Madam Speaker, we do not oppose the bill. However, for the record, we express our reservations regarding the change to section 16 to use monies from the fund to set up a tenants advisory service.
Mr AH KIT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I support the minister’s amendments. The amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act are consistent with government’s direction for social housing, Home Territory 2010, which I presented to the House in August last year. Home Territory elaborates the vision for housing where special needs groups within our community are recognised, and people are supported and encouraged in their bid to live independently in stable housing. We know that stable housing is a critical driver for personal stability and, in turn, regional prosperity. However, stable housing relies on a solid legislative basis which protects the rights of tenants and landlords, whilst also recognising the responsibilities of both parties. This is why I am happy to support these amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act.
The Territory has a very high proportion of rental accommodation compared to the rest of Australia: 45% of Territorians are renters compared with an average of 27% for the rest of Australia. This makes the Residential Tenancies Act of even great significance for the Territory. The establishment of a tenancy advice service as part of the raft of amendments is critical. It was a commitment of government outlined in Home Territory, and I am happy to see it given substance through an amendment to the act.
During consultations for Home Territory, the community expressed the desire for a body such as the tenancy advice service. It will offer an avenue for tenants to make informed decisions. I see informed tenants as more likely and able to enjoy sustained tenancies which is a key aim of Home Territory. As you would also appreciate, many tenants within public or private rental housing face a range of social and financial disadvantages. Whether aged, unemployed or on low incomes, disabled, or from a different cultural or language background, an independent community-run advice service with these tenants will offer a means by which such people can feel secure and comfortable in seeking advice.
Another key objective of Home Territory, which is supported by these amendments, is improving the way we do business. As a manager of social housing, Territory Housing has a responsibility to government and the community to manage its assets wisely. This is why the amendment allowing the payment of outstanding tenancy debts which do not relate to rent and bond is important. As a responsible manager of public housing, it is important that Territory Housing be able to recover money from returning clients who owe for such things as causing damage to property, excess water bills, or legal fees. Other amendments to the act, while minor, would all assist in the efficient management of tenancies, something that benefits all parties.
The opposition and others have attempted recently to make political mileage over housing issues, and, in part, I understand that. It is their job. But reforms like these we are discussing now are amongst the real achievements of the Martin Labor government.
Madam Speaker, I commend the minister for bringing these amendments forward and I commend the bill to the House.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions and the opposition for its support of the legislation.
The member for Araluen raised a matter largely of the position of the REINT regarding these amendments. Whilst I totally agree with her that at one stage they certainly put in writing the opposition that you referred to in your contribution, I can report that as it stands right now, the REINT have indicated that they are now prepared to join the process and be a member of the steering committee which will oversee the establishment and operation of the tenants advisory service. They have accepted that, for whatever reason, it is for them to take their position on their own judgment. They have certainly decided that the service will be of benefit to both landlords and tenants in heading off some of the more formal disputes that occur in and around tenancies. They have come to see that there is some value with an effective advisory service and have taken, as I said, the decision to join the steering committee and to help now set this up and make it work.
To remind members, the agents’ trust fund’s income is largely interest on agents’ trust accounts including deposits on real estate purchases and in some cases tenant’s bonds. It contains the interest that is accrued to the fund itself and it contains real estate agent’s licensing fees, which is roughly equivalent to the amount paid to the department for the operations of the real estate agency regulation area.
The purposes of the fund do include the education of landlords and tenants regarding tenancy issues and when you think about the breadth of people who are involved in tenancy agreements in the Northern Territory, many of them do not speak English as a first language. Many of them have economic disadvantage in their background. It is quite clear that a formal, contained education campaign is not going to reach the people who probably need the advice the most. You need to have a service that can actually penetrate to the context of tenancy around the Northern Territory and to give advice ahead of problems reaching a point where formal action has to be taken either against the tenant or landlord.
Embodied in the amendments in the bill are a series of amendments that make the process more accessible for both landlord and tenant, and make the process more streamlined. It removes practical difficulties that have been identified by the industry. Many of the amendments were proposed by the REINT and, of course, are strongly supported by them.
The largest landlord in the Northern Territory by a country mile is NT Housing with large stocks of public housing throughout the Territory. NT Housing also strongly supports the amendments because they can see that they deal with many of the difficulties that they face as a large organisation dealing with thousands of these potential conflicts in tenancy arrangements that they oversee.
That gives this bill a pretty good pedigree; we do not have a group opposed to it. All parties have agreed that, whether in total or in the vast majority of amendments today, there are definite benefits that will accrue to both landlords and tenants. It is the type of legislation that we want to see as much as possible coming through this House because it is going to benefit people on the ground on a daily basis with things which have been blighting their lives under previous arrangements.
We are looking up the 1999 second reading speech; that is being researched as I speak. I do not know that I can get it back to you in time to be included in this response. All I can say is that we will come back to you with the information.
Ms Carney: What about the Charles Darwin University education role?
Dr TOYNE: I am sorry; I must have missed that. I am at a bit of a disadvantage.
Ms Carney: We are in that peculiar area, Madam Speaker, of being in the formal part of the bill as we approach the more informal part of the bill. I am not quite sure whether the question I had in relation to the education function warrants us necessarily getting into committee, so with your indulgence, and with minister’s indulgence …
Dr TOYNE: Why don’t we do it in third reading?
Ms Carney: … can I repeat what I said?
Dr TOYNE: Can we do it in third reading? If I can conclude this, I will move third reading and you can put the point.
Ms Carney: Third reading?
Dr TOYNE: Third reading, yes.
Ms Carney: Okay.
Dr TOYNE: Unless you need half an hour.
Motion agreed to; bill 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.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Minister, I asked about what is generally called ‘the education function’ that is part of the Agents Licensing Fidelity Guarantee Fund. I understand that the education function is no longer being delivered by Charles Darwin University. Can you update me on that? Is that the case? How long has it not been delivered, and what do you propose to do in relation to the education function?
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, in answer to the question, yes, Charles Darwin University did pull out of providing this type of educational course a couple of years ago. The only body currently providing training is the REINT. The point I made in the second reading speech is that, in fact, the major need, as we see it, is to provide practical, ongoing advice to tenants, given the enormous variety of contexts in which these tenancy arrangements exist around the Territory and the diversity of people who require to know about their rights and responsibilities under a tenancy agreement.
No number of formal educational courses is going to capture the tenants and some landlords where often it is the most critical need for advice. Therefore, we believe that by opting for an additional tenants’ advisory service, over and beyond what the Office of Business Affairs operates, is a more effective way of impacting on tenants and their rights and the efficacy of these arrangements around the Territory. We do not believe that it should have been just simply funding an expansion of the current Tenancy Advisory Service simply because the statutory power to step in and take action where formal processes are needed is vested with that same body. We want to separate informal advice from the more statutory-based functions of the Office of Business Affairs. That is our reasoning.
Ms Carney: Minister …
Madam SPEAKER: No, you cannot go on debating it; you have had your third reading.
Ms Carney: But, but …
Madam SPEAKER: No buts at all.
Ms Carney: Minister, you said that your staff …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, do not ignore me, thank you very much. We are in the third reading.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, from the outset, I would like to thank the minister for the briefing I and two of my colleagues received on this bill. I thank the public servants involved for their very professional approach to briefing the opposition on the government’s intentions with this particular bill.
I will say, though, that in the minister’s second reading speech he talks about us having a long heritage, and he went back to 1999. It would appear that the government is trying to put the case that this has been a very exhaustive and consultative process that has come up with this bill, and I guess there are a couple of things I could say about that.
The first is, the ALP’s position on planning has been all over the place over the last decade, and debates in this parliament will show that, including devolution to local government which is a position they now seem to have abandoned. The heritage of where the Labor Party have stood is pretty chequered, I believe, if you do a little excursion into parliamentary archives.
On the other hand, it would appear that the approach before us is not a radical departure in what has happened before which, I believe, with matters to do with planning is probably a good thing. Matters with planning require a great deal of certainty. They have big ramifications in terms of community disquiet, money, and other ramifications if there are radical departures from planning processes. I should acknowledge that there are no radical departures in what we have before us and that, predominantly, they build on an evolutionary approach to how planning now stands in the Northern Territory. I will say also that it is healthy. Planning should evolve. It should reflect some of the priorities and opinions and understandings of the government of the day, and that evolution of planning schemes is good.
If we are talking about issues, like planning, where community expectations are supposed to be reflected, it is important that we test that against community expectations and mores, and we make sure that our legislative regime evolves along with community approaches and expectations.
It is the government’s prerogative, and it is a healthy prerogative, to put their stamp on planning. It is a healthy prerogative to test community attitude, and it is a healthy approach not to make radical departures and changes from a sequence that has been ongoing. All of those elements are in this bill to some greater or lesser extent.
I am a little surprised, therefore, that we have amendments to the Planning Bill at this late stage. I would have thought that, had it gone through such a substantive and exhaustive process as the minister told us back in December, we would have pretty much a final product on our desk, and the need to go into committee early in this year would have been obviated by a bill that ticked all the boxes, crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s. Therefore, I was a little surprised to see that there would be amendments in committee. I note also my colleague, the Independent member for Nelson, has indicated he would like to make some proposed changes in committee. The opposition will not be doing so.
I turn to the word ‘amenity’. There was a little bit in the press about this. It is one of those issues where there have been problems with defining the word - which does exist in current planning processes. What the government has tried to do is make a decision on a definition of what that might mean. I believe there is the potential for a Pandora ’s Box to be opened here because ‘amenity’ goes to an issue of taste and judgment. As we all know, everybody’s taste and judgment is different, thank goodness. To enshrine issues of this type in the planning process has the potential to be problematic. Someone’s amenity could well be the view they have, the streetscape in front of them, matters relating to, for instance, where the sun and shade fall in their street, colour schemes and the like. I would see that, as I said earlier, they were matters of prerogative of government. If government chooses to make policy rulings in regard to matters which are essentially taste, I say they are welcome to that. If you are leaving this minister as the taste police for the Northern Territory, you do not have to be too rude in this parliament to realise his taste might differ radically from ours. Therefore, I believe that is a matter for us.
The minister has substantial powers continuing under this bill, including call-out powers. There is still the process of appeal through the Lands and Mining Tribunal. The bill seeks to make some clarity in that area and that is to be applauded because it makes it clear to people what is available to them.
If you look at issues like the development at Lee Point, our position in government would probably be different to the government regarding the size of those blocks. I can see that the minister is quite able to intervene and to use his statutory powers to direct that blocks of a smaller size are acceptable in that particular locale. That would not be a decision that would be made by this CLP opposition if in government. I suppose it goes to show you just how much power the government of today has in matters relating to this; where it can choose to take it out of the public realm, out of the purview of the public, and make a decision based on one’s own values and, I assume, the policies of the government of the day and, in doing so, leave people with no right of appeal. Potentially, problems could exist for many years to come in a decision that might not be, arguably, in the best interests of the people who will be resident in that particular area of Lee Point.
I will also admit that I am not as knowledgeable as others contributing to this debate. It is my hope that I will be educated by further contributions, both from the government and the opposition sides. However, I will say that, in broad terms, the CLP agrees with the approach of the government to amend this public process in an incremental way which does not give radical departures from the expectations of the community of the day, and that we have an approach that inevitably leaves responsibility with the minister concerned.
I was a bit surprised too, Madam Speaker, to see that the report for the committee that has been looking at the Environmental Protection Authority - whatever that might be - has actually been in some ways obviated by this bill. It would have been, I thought, prudent for the government having charged their committee with seeking advice from the community throughout the Territory and having public hearings, and talking about matters relating to planning, to development, and to caveats thereupon, to make sure that the good work that has been done by the committee, if it is good work, and we will get to see that when it is tabled in a couple of days, is actually embedded in legislation of this type. I would have thought it leaves members of that committee with, I suppose, a couple of options. First is: it did not really matter what that committee decided; this was going to happen anyway; and there would be no cognisance given to any of the work that was done by the committee. Or alternatively, whatever that committee comes up with, it is really not going to have much impact in matters relating to planning.
Both of those options are a problem for this parliament and for its committee process because it seems more and more the committee process is really a ‘make work scheme’ to keep members outside of government and some backbenchers occupied and out of trouble because we are keeping them busy. I would have thought that some of the work there should have been mulled over by the minister when the report is tabled in a couple of days. I thought the report should have been given the opportunity for an airing in this parliament. I would have thought the report should have been given a considered and serious response from government, particularly insofar as it relates to planning matters. If this government is parading their credentials as this having a very priority issue for resolution, it would appear that so late in the electoral cycle to have this bill being passed through parliament and to have the work of a committee which was also charged with having with a high priority task of looking at environmental protection authorities, that really what we have is a fob-off. We have been held in abeyance, if you like, until the eleventh hour when the government can make a variety of promises in the lead-up into an election that it may choose to implement or not in the next several months when the election has been held.
I know it sounds, with those couple of notes, that I have been very critical of the bill before us. But I am more critical of the process and the process we have before us is one where the government is parading specious credentials before this parliament. The government is making assumptions that some of the words they say and hear really go to their previous actions when they do not. As I have said, they are a massive departure a previous ALP position of devolution of planning to local government. I would suggest that if the government is really serious about consultation it would have looked at the fine work - I should not put any adjectives on it - the work has been done by a committee of this place that has looked at issues in this province. The issues in this province of environment and the caveats and planning, I would say, are nearly Siamese twins these days. There is absolutely no doubt that much of the work we did related to staged development, to transparency and planning processes, and it called on matters relating certainly in the now public option paper put by the CLP where we talked about the Development Consent Authority and what it might be shaped into. Those matters were on the table for consideration notwithstanding the report is still confidential until tabled here.
You at least have the CLP’s position paper on that element and the minister could have been included that in his speech if he thought that he was able to juxtapose the good work of the present government with an intending and putative government’s intentions. Having not done that, I assume what we have here is a sort of a business-as-usual statement: let us not start all the chooks and let us get the election out of the way and then we will do whatever radical things we want to do. Nonetheless, as I said at the outset, the opposition supports the bill.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, planning, as everyone knows, is a fairly complex issue. Even after all the time I have been trying to follow planning, I still would not say I am an expert on it. It is a difficult area. I know that the people who advise the minister are better educated in these matters than me, but I do my best to get through these issues. I try to follow planning matters throughout the Northern Territory. I listen to what other people have to say, like PLan and some of the local government councils, and I try to develop my own ideas on which way planing should go.
I have mixed feelings about the Planning Act. Certainly, there are a number of good aspects about minister’s changes to the Planning Act, but there are others that leave me quite disappointed. One, especially, and I will come back to it later, is the lack of what I call real third party appeals.
Minister, I do not know whether it is possible to have an amendment to a preamble, so I will highlight issues concerning the preamble. I know that the Chief Minister once made a statement about a preamble. I will read from a statement that I wrote to the review of the Planning Act:
I support that statement.
Earl James, in his report on the Planing Act in 1988, said that is should be acknowledged in the preamble that there is a shared ownership of planning schemes between government and the local community.
Margaret Clinch wrote a letter to the minister regarding these amendments, and in the section regarding preambles, she said:
I do not know how one can move an amendment affecting the preamble because it does not fit into the clauses of the act, but the Chief Minister supported a preamble when she was in opposition. Yet, when this bill came to parliament, there was no preamble. That is a little disappointing. It would do no harm to have a preamble to give us a reasonable idea of what the government is about when it comes to planning. I understand there are objects, but the preamble would set the scene for planning in the Northern Territory. Be that as it may, I will move on.
I am pleased to see the word ‘amenity’ in the bill, although I take up some of the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. It will be interesting to see how amenity is sorted out, especially if it goes to appeal if amenity was cited, for instance, as a reason for not allowing a development to go ahead, or in case of third party appeal, where someone appealed on the development getting approval on the basis of amenity. Whilst I think it is good to have it in there, because amenity has been mentioned in the existing bill, at least it will give some guidelines.
On that very issue, and one of those areas I hope to bring forward as an amendment tonight, and I need to apologise to the House that the amendments that I have brought forward are not in the condition I would have preferred. I must admit that I thought planning was coming through on Thursday, and I was only told this morning that it was on today. So if I am not as prepared with the amendments as I should have been, especially in the numbering, which is fairly complicated when you go through these two bills, then I do apologise.
One of the areas I hoped to introduce was the aesthetics of building design. Madam Speaker, you would know that I have spoken at considerable length about a 33-storey building that is proposed to be built in Darwin with roughly five stories of car parking which basically run flush with the edge of the block all the way around. I believe there is a desperate need for something in the Planning Act to deal with this issue. It has been around in planning circles before, so I am not saying something that people do not already know. The meaning of aesthetic building design was one of the central issues in an appeal to the Lands and Planning Tribunal in 2002 in the case of Robinson versus the Darwin Consent Authority. I believe I am fairly correct in saying that case had something to do with the new development where the Darwin Hotel used to be.
The comments of the Tribunal Chair, David Loadman, were indicative of the problems that the words presented without definition. The Development Consent Authority had rejected the original development application for two reasons. One, being that it did not meet the Central Darwin Land Use Objectives in relation to aesthetic building design. In his submission to the appeal, the appellant says that perception of what is and what is not aesthetic building design is highly subjective. While it is to be expected that there may be different perceptions of the aesthetic quality of the building, the appellant says that mere disagreement on what constitutes aesthetic building design is insufficient to quality as a valid ground for refusal.
In point 61 of the appeal decision, Mr Loadman said it was not the function of the authority to impose its collective subjective personal perceptions about aesthetics in an application for a development permit. If Mr Loadman’s statements on aesthetics are accepted, then to ensure that members of authority are not making subjective decisions, aesthetic needs to be defined and the future of the authority’s ability to take in account aesthetics depends on it.
There is a need in the definitions to look at the meaning of aesthetic building design. If you get hold of the Central Darwin Planning Concepts and Land Use Objectives 1999, one of the objectives is to promote aesthetic and energy efficient building design. Under incorporated documents, it says:
It goes on to say:
I am not sure why some of that could not be put into the definition of aesthetic building design.
It is important to note that the book that is mentioned in that quote, the Design Guide for Residential and Commercial Development in the Northern Territory, is available for $5. It has some very interesting matters in there, especially about commercial buildings. I am not sure why it has not been given more light of the day. I believe this came out in 1996. It gives great guidelines on how we should be developing commercial buildings in the CBD. It talks about, for instance:
I would ask whether that was taken into account in a 33-storey building? It goes on about:
I am sure, if you were behind a 33-storey building, you would not have much of a view:
How many buildings are going up so close together there is very little chance for breeze penetration?
Again, a 33-storey building is not set back from the building line; it is right on it. It goes on with an interesting comment about car parks:
Yet, we have just given approval for five-storeys of car park above the ground.
Here we have a document which I believe is a very important document. It also talks about residential design, spacing, privacy, and roads. This is a document that may be of interest for the minister to consider as part of a future reference to architectural building design in the section under Interpretation. It really is important, especially for the CBD, considering some of what I would call terrible subdivisions in some places where houses are 1.5 m apart with row-to-row airconditioners down the middle. If you pick up this book it mentions how you should not have a design which has airconditioners running down between buildings. You have to ask: is any notice being taken of this; is there any legislative requirement for people to look at this?
I am still one of those who believes a 300 m2 block with a house taking much of it is just not the right way for us to go. If you go up four storeys, give us 1200 m2 of space; we have breeze, open space, the same number of people. We have to start to think a little better than we are. I will put forward architectural building design, minister, as a possible amendment later. I realise the government may not accept my amendments, however, I will ask that they give them some thought later.
Minister, you mentioned that there will be new matters to be taken into account by the Developmental Consent Authority under section 51. These are to be expanded to include crime prevention, design principles, water safety, and access for people with disabilities. When I read it, it seemed to me that the way it is written, if it is going to include crime prevention - then it has a comma - design principles. Of course I ask whether design principles are similar to aesthetic building design that I was talking about. However, I presume that is, perhaps, a typing error and it was really meant to say ‘crime prevention design principles’ - one phrase. The way I read it, you were going to take into account design principles and, when I looked up that section in the act, there was no such thing as design principles on their own. I am presuming that was a comma that was inadvertently put in there by Hansard.
It is good to see the bill provides electronic lodgement of development applications - that is moving along with the times.
The bill provides where a land use, subject to consent, is discontinued for more than 12 months, the consent will automatically lapse. I have some issues there. Perhaps I should just raise them now. On that section, I have just written that I believe that section is headed under the abandonment of a particular permitted use. The word ‘abandonment’ means to give up something completely, or before completion. I feel that this clause does not take into account agricultural or horticultural activities. For example, a person may have a number of parcels of land and decides to rest the land from growing crops for many reasons. People may also abandon mango trees because of poor prices; they bulldoze them, wait a few more years, and they plant rambutans. The way I read it, that would be illegal. You could even have the case of a chook farmer, especially a failed and ill-informed one, who may stop running a farm because of high feed prices, or go into politics and does not have the time to advance the cause of poultry but comes back into the business several years later. Would that not also be illegal?
I do not believe that is fair, and that part of the act needs some thought because now that commercial horticultural is a consent use, it could cause some difficulties. It would be interesting to get a clarification of someone who, for instance, applies to grow mangoes under the horticultural section, then found out they were not making any money and decided to put rambutans, or star fruit in. Would they actually be operating illegally as they have changed their crop? If you get permission to have horticultural, and when you put in your application state that you are going to grow 200 mango trees and then there is either a white ant problem, or a cyclone blew them over, or the prices were too high, and you decide to knock them all over and change what you are growing to watermelons, would you be outside the Planning Act? I raise that point as it is one of those issues which need looking at.
The minister talks about terminations by the minister acting as a Consent Authority. I have been on this for many years. I believe we need a mobile Development Consent Authority, and the least number of times the minister can be the Consent Authority, the better. There are places like Dundee Beach, Marrakai, Borroloola, and other places where development is occurring, perhaps the Douglas Daly, where I believe it would be a proactive move by the government to keep the system of planning very open and transparent, and to have a meeting in those areas.
The one advantage if you live in Litchfield, or Alice Springs, is that you can attend a public meeting. You might not have a lot of say, but at least you can have some say regarding a development application. If I live at Dundee and they decide to put a 33-storey building there on the beach, you write a letter to the minister and that is it. We need to be seriously considering the option of having a mobile Development Consent Authority. I know the minister has that right, however – and I will bring an amendment forward – I am going to use the word ‘must’ instead of ‘may’ as it is time that people in those areas have the same rights as people in local government areas.
It is a good change that the bill specifies prosecution for a breach of the act goes to over two years. I know of a number of cases where people clear land illegally. By the time they got around to proving whether the bloke who bulldozed knew anything about it, or whether the owner knew anything about it, or someone had got around to filling in all the paper work, six months was up and nothing could be done. That makes a lot of sense as the planning people have a lot of work to do.
It is good that you are appointing advisory committees. However, I ask if you are including that now in the legislation, what legislation allowed the Development Consent Authority to have a clearing committee as it has had? The minister may not be sure what I am talking about, however the Litchfield planning area had, you might say, a committee which advised the Development Consent Authority on land clearing issues. I believe that was appointed within the Development Consent Authority framework. Now you are saying you will have the power to have advisory committees. Is this the same as what has already happened, or are we clarifying an issue, or am I talking about two different things?
It is also good that the reasons the Lands and Mining Tribunal can override decisions of the Planning Authority have been at least tightened. There have been more cases than I can believe where the Lands and Mining Tribunal have thrown out the Development Consent Authority’s decision. You have to wonder whether it is slightly biased or understands all the issues, or is it looking at these things in such legalistic terms that they are missing the bigger picture? I am happy to see those changes occur.
The big issue that I am concerned about is the third party appeal section. That is what the government said it would introduce. For sure, it said ‘limited’, but you have limited it to a point where it is practically non-usable because it is only for development in a residential zone. As you said in your second reading, minister:
I am not sure why Darwin CBD is not allowed to be appealed against. You also mentioned that, generally, appeals will not be allowed for subdivisions or consolidations. That means people in the rural area, the Lee Point subdivision, and the subdivisions in Palmerston cannot be appealed against. For many people, that is too limiting. As you said in your second reading speech, if someone was silly about going to appeal, costs may be awarded against that person whose appeal is determined by the Lands and Mining Tribunal to be frivolous or vexatious or for reasons of commercial competition. That very statement limits. No one is going to be silly enough to go down the path of objecting to something that is going to cost them an arm and a leg. You have the word ‘frivolous’ included so the Lands and Mining Tribunal can determine that it is a silly appeal. We have gone too far. We have told people we are having third party appeals, but it is so light on it is really not worth having.
I will give you another example where, by not including subdivisions, you are limiting what a local government authority can do. Local authorities usually have control over roads, especially the design, width and drainage of roads. That is their bailiwick. I know of a case in Litchfield Shire where the Development Consent Authority said the road would be only so wide, whereas the council said they wanted it wider. That is a classic example of when the local government authority should be allowed to appeal against the decision of the Development Consent Authority. After all, it has to live with that road. The Development Consent Authority does not have to live with it, and local government should have the right to appeal.
I know there are a number of cases in which the only method of appeal by the local government council, and again I will refer to Litchfield Shire Council, was to refuse to take over the road. There are two examples of that:
Again, the council should have been able to appeal. In this case they appealed by saying they were not going to take over that road. Today, that road is under the Department of Infrastructure and Planning.
By not allowing appeals on subdivisions, not only do you restrict the right of the public to appeal on subdivisions, you also restrict local government and that is not a good thing. You might say that subdivisions do not affect people as much as developments in residential areas, but subdivisions can. Subdivisions have drainage which can perhaps affect the drainage in a neighbouring subdivision. They can change road patterns which puts more cars into a neighbouring subdivision than was there before. There can be land clearing in that subdivision which can cause more run-off than there was before.
There are a range of issues which, hopefully, are picked up in the normal Development Consent Authority, but there may be cases where that does not occur. After all, appeals are really meant to be for exceptional circumstances. We do not expect people to be appealing all the time. I believe it is important that residential areas be included in third party appeals.
When it comes to industrial, take a place like East Arm. One, it is an area where you, minister, are the Development Consent Authority, but it is an extremely important area. It is an area where pollution can occur. It is developing very rapidly. Yet, not only is there not a Development Consent Authority as we know it in the local government area where there are public meetings to discuss any issues that crop up in that area, you will not be allowed to appeal to any decision made in that area. Yet, the siting of industrial development near our harbour surely should be at least open to the scrutiny of the public, not just the department, and if there is something untoward found, surely then the public can at least have the right to appeal against industrial subdivisions.
The other area is the Darwin CBD. I would have thought of all places that one could appeal about it is the Darwin CBD. If I was probably brave enough to, I might have said the 33-storey building does not fit within the design guide for residential and commercial development in the Northern Territory, however, under this provision, I would not be allowed. You would think that, with the emphasis on trying to make our city a great city, a well-designed city, a city with good aesthetic building design, that one would be at least entitled to appeal if someone decided to put up a pink building with windows on one side only and blank walls on the other, because blank walls get a mention in these design guides too as not being particularly suitable.
I do think that that third party section is a little bit of a sleight of hand. It is good that it is there, but it is so limiting that I do not think the Lands and Mining Tribunal will have a lot of work. It may have some work in the northern suburbs when you get to the odd building that interferes with some of the residential zone. For the rest of us who live a little bit further out than the northern suburbs, it is not going to be of much use. I am moving an amendment to delete the section of the act which limits it to that extent.
I will get to the amendments at the committee stage. I would hope that, regardless of whether you support those amendments or not, you would take those comments I am making on board. I would even be happy to introduce some of these amendments again at another stage or, if the government believed that there was merit in what I am saying, perhaps it could introduce those amendments later on because planning and the Planning Act is a very fluid piece of legislation. If we believe that planning is open and transparent, then we should be making sure it is that. I am not sure that this has gone far enough, especially from the section on the third party right of appeal.
The last thing I should say, and the member for Drysdale touched on it, was about local government involved in town planning, which has always been a sore issue. I spent a fair bit of my time on local government fighting the then government about the right of local government to have a say in planning. I understand that that is probably a debate that will be just a waste of hot air. I do think local government still has a role. I am a bit sad they did not take up the opportunity to give local government a role, for instance, in minor planning matters. Why couldn’t it be delegated the power to look at issues such as the distance a shed is from the boundary fence, or where people ask for a waiver? Those little things crop up in planning quite often. To me, that would not be a big deal.
The one thing it would do is give local government a sense of purpose that it is of some use when it comes to making decisions about neighbourhood issues. It seems to have been wiped out that local government should have any role in planning. The thought of local government having their say in some of those more minor issues that come up fairly consistently - although I must admit, with the new Litchfield Area Plan, some of those might not be as consistent as they used to be. An example would be that, previously, you could not build a shed within 20 m of a boundary. I understand now you have a limitation of 10 m from the boundary, and I presume that decision was taken because of the number of waivers that were being made. There was a role for local government there and, perhaps, even in the third party appeal system – although, reading through some comments from the review, some people did not believe that was a role for local government. Again, it could have been the sieve, you might say, to make sure that those people appealing were neither putting in frivolous or vexatious appeals, or appeals of a commercial nature. Local government could have had a role in that area.
Minister, I am reluctant to support this. In fact, I may not support it simply because the area many people were looking forward to was a third party right of appeal system which was going to work. In this case, I am disappointed that it is going to be so limited that very few people will be able to take advantage of it. Madam Speaker, I will be moving some amendments in committee stage.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I will make a few brief comments before the member for Nelson takes us to committee. At the outset, I recognise that the act is a very good act; one to build on. I would say that because I introduced the former act. Therefore, I commend the minister for not making radical changes to the act; it serves quite well. Everybody who has an interest in planning - and that is most people in the community - have now come to understand the substantial changes that were brought in, I think in 1999, in the last new act. Therefore, I am glad to see that the minister has decided to keep the act substantially the same, although you are changing the philosophy in amenity now.
Going to a more subjective call, in my mind - even though you described it - I understand amenities in the act currently. It is not defined and you are going to define it. You will have a lot of fun listening to the way members of the DCA make their recommendations based on their arguments over your definition, or the dictionary’s definition of ‘amenity’. I said to your officers in the briefing, minister, that it is a bit like three people looking at a painting; you will probably get four different views on whether it is good, enjoyable, beneficial to them or the community, or whatever. However, you have moved to define that; so be it - I believe well and good.
What I am most heartened about is that you have not followed your now Chief Minister’s wish to throw the Planning Act out altogether and rewrite it. I place on the record some comments made by the Chief Minister when she was the shadow minister for planning in those days. In relation to the original act, she said in the debate on 23 Tuesday 1999:
I am glad you have not; that you have not followed her wishes. She was very strong on this point. She even said in the same debate:
Obviously, she has changed her mind. She said again:
I wait with interest to hear the Chief Minister explain now why, now that she is in government, she did not follow what she said she would do. In fact, she has totally back flipped on throwing out the act, glad that I am, because it does show that there is a great deal of confidence in the Labor government in an act bought into this House by the CLP that has been working.
I will be the first to say that the Planning Act is one of those malleable, ongoing, living things that always needs to be changed. As people’s perceptions in the community change definitely you need to review legislation but particularly issues that are of great importance to the community such as the Planning Act.
Minister, whilst you have introduced some changes you have definitely not thrown out the act, but you are introducing your philosophies into it. I dare say they will be tried and tested over the next few years, or perhaps, if we are lucky, only the next few months and then we will have another chance to change it again.
The member for Nelson and my colleague, the member for Drysdale, have raised a number of issues particularly on the matter of third party appeals. Whilst the member for Nelson is saying that it is very limited, one of the issues that I have picked out is that, the way it is described, it creates a distinction between people who on the bounds of geography and of course zoning because that it what limits it, and that is people who live in a residential zone will have a right to third party appeal under some circumstances but people who live in a residence that just happens to be zoned CBD will not have a right of appeal. That is an inequality that you will have to address. And it is always going to be the way when you introduce something new like third party appeals that there will be anomalies.
I know what your answer is going to be and that is that when people live in the CBD they have to expect all sorts of things to happen in the CBD because that is where they do happen. They might get a nightclub next door to them or whatever but if you want to talk about fairness and equality then somebody living in a residential tower in the CBD perhaps should have the right to …
Dr Burns: So this is a CLP policy?
Mr BALDWIN: Could well be. Just watch this space.
Dr Burns: Could well be?
Mr BALDWIN: Just watch this space. … that they should have a right to the same sorts of rights as somebody in a residential zone when a new residence goes up beside them, for instance, and you have actually created a difference between people on the basis of where they live. So be it. That is something you are going to have more fun with. I am not saying whether it is right, wrong or indifferent, but there is a distinction that I just wanted to raise.
There are a couple of other items I would like to put on the record. One is the minister’s powers. I truly believe that a minister should have powers, rights, to have the ultimate say in any decision of government, and that includes planning. Our position was that we would be able to direct the authority. You have used it. Your former ministers used it. It was an instrument that you had no qualms about using. Your philosophy has now changed. You want to have the power to pull those developments on which you want to have your say. I notice, by the way, that a hearing will not be necessary once you do that, nor will it be appealable. That is your decision, but I would like to point out what your Chief Minister said in the past on this:
So even your Chief Minister believes that the powers I had, when I was the minister for planning sitting in that chair, were too extensive, yet now she condones these powers that are at least as extensive, if not more so. The Chief Minister cannot have it both ways. In fact, she went on to say:
Substantially, minister, I am quite happy because you have not substantially changed things. You changed a bit of philosophy. I do not support the direction you are taking. You will have a lot of fun with it, your department will have a lot of fun, and the Development Consent Authority will have a lot of fun, and the Lands and Mining Tribunal, as the appellate board, will also have a lot of fun because you are not only leading them, but almost instructing the appeals board to take planning matters at the forefront rather than technical and legal matters on planning issues, including merit and amenity. The more people you get looking at a painting, the more opinions you are going to get, so good luck.
I hope the public is strong enough to stipulate its views on amenity, although, even with your definition, they, too, will have many and varied views and you will still have the debate about amenity well into the future.
I thank your good officers for the briefing. You still have another definition in the Darwin Control Plan that you need to do something about because it is different from the one in this bill.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to make some comments on the Planning Act. As an ex-minister for planning, I agree with my colleague, the member for Daly. Town planning is a can of worms. Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you do not. Every party has its own ideas, definitions, wishes and wants about planning. Of course, we have had quite a few battles, he and I, when I was the planning minister having to make decisions.
What amazed me is the position of the CLP, which all of a sudden has discovered planning and planning issues. They want to support some of the things they never considered before; nor put in legislation or accepted. I am also surprised that the member for Daly would say he is pleased about the act because we have not thrown it out; we have not really done much about it; we just have a few glossy things here. The reality is that the amendments to the Planning Act are significant because it has taken a bit of time to bring it to parliament.
We did it a different way. I well recall many times when there was a planning issue, there were quite a few letters in the newspaper, quite a few arguments, a few petitions in the different markets arguing about things happening around Darwin, so the people had a different opinion from the member for Daly. That was not a good act and, if it was such a good act, why did we have all these disagreements and arguments? The member for Nelson knows very well quite a few arguments he had with me about areas in the rural area. He also knows very well that, under the act, I had to act in a particular way. We brought these amendments, not because it was the whim of the minister or the ministers, but with extensive public consultation. We actually consulted the community. The discussion paper was released on 30 March 2003. A number of submissions where received by 31 May 2003. Community consultation in Darwin and other areas in the Territory, and workshops, were held as late as July 2004.
In this new act, we have introduced a number of amendments. A significant one is the definition of ‘amenity’. We were at two minds about the definition of ‘amenity’. We know very well that amenity means different things to different people, but at least we now have a yardstick in this act to define what ‘amenity’ is, and we can now argue about specifics rather than generics, and that is very important.
Another issue that has been raised is the powers of the minister. I believe the power of the minister in this act is curtailed. Previously, the minister had direct say on a particular development and that created a lot of problems. It created a lot of pressure by lobby groups, either for the developer or for the people who would be affected by that particular development. With these amendments now, the minister has the power to give general directions only on a particular development.
The call-out powers have to be considered. It has to exist in this act because there are a number of developments, and a number of proposed developments, that are strategic for the development of the Territory and should enable the minister to call them out and determine as the Consent Authority.
In the act, the power of the minister is also different. He can invite local authorities rather than initiate and conduct hearings and report to the minister in relation to proposals to amend the NT Planning Scheme, something that was not happening before. I mentioned before about the hypocrisy of the CLP, and I heard the member for Drysdale speaking about the new suburb and the size of the blocks, how small they will be, 600 m to 1000 m. He seems to forget that it was his government, when he was in parliament, which actually developed areas like The Chase, Parap and the Coconut Grove area, and Sunset Cove where there are blocks as small as 450 m2. On the other hand, people have an idea of the size of the blocks that used to exist in Darwin, 800 m, but then at Palmerston there are blocks as small as 600 m, and there are people who live on two blocks. The market forces and the people decide what they want to do. Not everybody wants to live on a 1000 m2 block, or wants to live in a house. People might wish to live in a semi-detached, in a unit, or they might wish to live on a 5 acre block. That is a decision of the people.
Many things have changed since the original 800 m2 block in Darwin. There are two income families. They do not have the mother staying at home looking after the kids, the garden, washing and everything else. The two income family work from 9 to 5, or 8 to 4.21, and when they go home the last thing they need is to attend a garden in a 1000 m2 or an 800 m2 block. To tell you the truth, I have one of the big blocks, and I dread every second weekend when I have to get the lawn mower out and mow about this 1 ha of grass. However, there are other people who are happy to live on those blocks.
What is important is offering people the choice to live on the block they want taking into account the differences and the problems that can be created if, all of a sudden, we decided to have 400 m2 blocks or 450 m or 500 m. Proper design and proper positioning of the house can alleviate significant numbers of these problems.
I recall a couple of fiery debates in the parliament on the waterfront development and how the opposition was upset about the heights of the buildings. They were defending the right of people not to have their view blocked by the buildings, especially people who used to live behind the escarpment and all of a sudden found that they were going to have part of their view blocked.
I recall very well a censure motion brought to this House by the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Blain, who got stuck into me because I had the audacity to defend the right of the people living in Tiwi when they objected to a high rise building being built in their area, and it was going to affect their amenity. I recall that the member for Goyder said that a highly-respected independent town planner, and former member of this House, said that you cannot impinge on the rights of the developer. That was a highly-respected town planner who, all of a sudden, found her view blocked by the high rise. She was quoted in the newspaper and on television demanding her rights and that the height of the block of units in front of her house be lowered so she would not lose her view. This is the hypocrisy of the CLP: to come here today to become defenders of the right of the public and to criticise the act, and to raise a number of issues which they do not agree with, and argue strongly. It is embarrassing.
I was very aggrieved about the censure motion and took it personally. What was so obvious was that they did not care about the people in Tiwi; they cared about the developers. They demanded compensation for the developers. They even alleged that I acted unlawfully and illegally presenting an application from a bystander - quoting the member for Goyder - ignoring the fact that that the bystander was the owner of property and an owner of a unit next to this land which was proposed to be developed. You learn in politics not to take things personally; however, I took it personally as I was defending the rights of my constituents. I was defending the right of the people to have their say in planning matters that the CLP had denied for years, and still deny them. All of a sudden they are prepared to defend the right of developers to build four and five storeys on this land, and not worry about the people who have a single-storey house next to this building, as the developer’s right were more important than the rights of the people. It was interesting to see that when the person who was acting for the developer had her views impeded by the high-rise buildings on the waterfront things changed very quickly. She was then asking for the same rights which the people in Tiwi were asking for, and were denied by the CLP.
I do not want to make many comments; the minister has done an excellent job. I am very proud to be the minister who initiated the amendments. I am very pleased with the work done by the minister, and I commend him for his hard work. I commend Mr Gronow and Mr O’Neill, whom I have had the pleasure to work with before. I have spent quite a few days with them; they trying to make me understand the planning issues, and me trying to make them understand what the people really wanted. Finally, we found something in between and I am pleased to see the amendments brought before the House today.
I want to assure the Territory public that this is a living document; it is not something cast in stone. There are going to be changes; things will change I am prepared to look at some of the amendments the member for Nelson will present and, if they are good, I am prepared to support them. However, we have to remember that we are acting for the majority of the people of the Territory and, quite a few times, lobby groups are very vocal and put a lot of pressure on us, but we have to act for the benefit of all Territorians. I accept that some of the suggestions of the lobby groups are very good and valuable and should be taken into consideration, but only after careful examination of what impact these amendments, and the lobby by these groups, will have on the lifestyle of all Territorians.
Dr BURNS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I thank all members for their contribution to this debate. There is an important point to be made at the outset, and I acknowledge the contribution of my predecessor in initiating the process of the review of this act. One of the most difficult parts of coming to grips with this particular portfolio was my initial briefings on the act and the amendments to the act. To be honest with the House, planning and the Planning Act is a very complex issue. There are boxes within boxes and many technical terms, and I struggled to understand the different components of the Planning Act.
I thank those officers whom the member for Casuarina has already mentioned in supporting me and helping me to come to terms with the act, and of course, Lesley Cameron, who works in my office who is very knowledgeable on the Planning Act and some of the history behind that.
I make the point that if I found it difficult to come to grips with, how hard is it for the ordinary citizen to come to grips with the complexities of the Planning Act? The bottom line for these amendments that have come through to me is that the overall aim of these amendments is to simplify the Planning Act. In the existing act there is the NT Planning Scheme; there are land use objectives which set policy; incorporated documents which also include land use guidelines and concepts; and development provisions which are the town plans and the zones. What is proposed in the new act is an NT Planning Scheme with policy guidelines, zones and rules underneath it. There is a substantial change. It is not, as the member for Drysdale and the member for Daly have suggested that there has been a bit of a quantum leap, not very much, a bit of an evolutionary change to the Planning Act. What we are talking about here are major changes to our Planning Act.
There was an attempt by both members of the opposition to say that the Chief Minister said she would scrap the whole thing and start again and what has happened is just some minor tinkering at the edges. I reject those suggestions. The scope and the depth of the changes really shows that this government has moved and has made substantial amendments and is in the process of making substantial amendments to our Planning Act. Once those are settled, which will happen this evening, we can move on to the Planning Scheme. What we had before was complex. It was often a repetitive and confusing process and what we are going to come out with is going to be greatly simplified. There is going to be a unified Planning Act across the Territory.
One of the hardest things to come to terms with is R2 in Alice Springs which means something completely different to R2 in Darwin. There are these variations between places in the Northern Territory, but I would like to emphasise that the new framework will allow specific areas, like heritage areas for example in Alice Springs to have their own particular rules and guidelines for development. It is not as if we are saying one-size-fits-all. There is an overall framework and within that framework there will be accommodation made for areas and their specific qualities and the things about them that the residents like. I would like to put that record straight from the outset.
The shadow minister, the member for Drysdale, talked about amenity. He said it was a Pandora ’s Box and it would be subject to taste and judgment and he went to colour schemes and what is going to happen and it is going to be a debacle. It is important to note that section 51 of the act already uses the word ‘amenity’ as a matter to be taken into account, but it did not define it. Here we have an attempt to try to define ‘amenity’ to make the job of the consent authority and the tribunal much clearer.
The definition of amenity in the bill is:
That is a good definition. Picking up on a point made by the member for Daly, it does now supersede the existing definition in the Darwin Town Plan which does not really include a building as part of being the amenity of an area; it includes locality but not a building, so this is a step forward. It is clarifying it, extending it, and it is taking into account that buildings contribute to amenity.
The member for Drysdale raised the issue of Lee Point. He pointed to the fact that he thought that block sizes are being determined, I think the term he used, out of the view of the public. I place on the record that I certainly listened to the public, to various bodies like the council, and to a whole range of sources on the issue of block sizes in the Lee Point development. I did some homework. I looked at block sizes at Palmerston, at some of the in-fill developments that have occurred in and around Darwin over the last years. Some of the block sizes might even range down to somewhere in the 350 m to 400 m. There are complaints in some of those developments that houses are juxtaposed cheek by cheek and you can hear when someone opens the door or sneezes or whatever. I am satisfied that the decision I reached in the end about block size - an average block size of 700 m; minimum block size of 600 m and blocks going up to 1000 m; the proportion of the development that will be townhouse style development, duplex style development and the percentage of open space - is a very positive outcome because it gives people choice as the member for Casuarina pointed out before. There are people who work shiftwork or whatever. They do not want a big yard; they are content to be living in a townhouse. They might want a little yard where they can have their barbie and all the rest of it, but their focus is on their lifestyle and they do not have the luxury of a lot of time to be spent gardening.
There have been comments made by various people about the Defence forces, that somehow what the Defence Housing Authority will end up doing will short change those in the Defence forces and given them a substandard lifestyle. I place on the record that the Defence Housing Authority does a lot of research amongst its clients, Defence families. What they are building at Lee Point is in response to what those Defence personnel and their families want. Often, the Defence personnel are away on manoeuvres, they could be away overseas; the last thing they want is for their wife to be concerned about mowing great big blocks of land and whatever. They are quite satisfied. They will be given a choice about the sort of accommodation that they will have. I am very satisfied about that.
I should place on the record that I am advised that the CLP government used the same process in a number of developments including Fairway Waters and they did not actually specify what the minimum lot sizes would be. In respect of the Lee Point development, it has been made clear what is going to happen. It is a great development and is going to inject a lot into the Darwin economy. It is going to be great for our builders, and there is going to be a lot of investment from Darwin people. Already, I have had many inquiries about purchasing a block and house in the Lee Point development.
Finally, on the subject of Lee Point, Defence Housing is very cognizant of the need to orientate the houses on the blocks to give privacy, but also to accommodate the flow of air and ventilation through the estate. It is going to be a credit to Darwin and there will be many people looking to invest there.
I have already addressed some of the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. I will talk about third party appeals when I come to address the member for Nelson’s comments and the issue of devolution to councils.
Moving on to the member for Nelson, I commend his interest in this topic and the detailed way that he has gone through the Planning Act. It is unfortunate that, with events, this legislation came on today and the member for Nelson has had to draft some amendments fairly hurriedly, but I will handle those amendments as they are proposed by the member for Nelson.
He said there were good things in this proposal but he was a little bit disappointed. He raised the issue of preamble and objects. I say to the member for Nelson that I believe the objects of the act go to the heart of all that the member for Nelson has said. Basically, the objects of the act are to plan for and provide a framework of controls for the orderly use and development of land. The objects are to be achieved by, and there are seven dot points listed. In terms of the input by the public and the community, the last three, probably encapsulate the engagement by the community. It says:
The last one is:
And the one above those two is:
I suppose you can go around the tautology and semantics of what is a preamble and what is the object of an act. Going to the heart of the issues that you raised, member for Nelson, the objects do address some of those issues of community engagement.
I have dealt with the issue of amenity. You talked about aesthetics, and about an advisory committee. Picking up another point that you raised about advisory committees, it is my understanding that under the existing act the DCA can appoint advisory committees. The amendments that are coming in now also give the minister the power to develop these advisory committees. I certainly take on your suggestion regarding architectural merit, and a possible committee which could feed into the process of architectural merit.
I would also remind the member for Nelson that the Chief Minister and I, along with the Lord Mayor and a number of aldermen, sit on what is known as the Capital Cities Committee. That will also be another avenue where, say, someone like the government architect can have input into the development of Darwin as a city. We know that the Territory is a lot more than Darwin and the city of Darwin and the city of Palmerston. I have taken on board what you have said there, member for Nelson. I believe they are worthwhile suggestions and, as with everything, I suppose it comes down to expense and budget. I am certainly willing to consider the suggestions you have put forward in having some body that can advise on architectural merit.
You asked about a typo in the second reading speech. I am not sure whether you asked whether it is ‘crime prevention design principles’; whether there should be a comma there. There is no comma, so you were right; that is actually a consolidated phrase, member for Nelson.
You asked a very good question about abandonment and horticulture. The advice that I have been given, which I will read out for you: this question only applies where agriculture is a consent use. If the use if not actively pursued for legitimate reasons related to the management of that use, for example, fallow pasture, then the use has not abandoned.
The other question you asked, ‘What happens if someone wants to change the type of crop approved, for example, mangoes versus bananas versus rambutan?’. I am advised that the approved use would be horticulture which would include different crops. I hope that answers your question, member for Nelson.
You raised the issue of an advisory committees, I hope I have addressed that particular issue for you.
Third party appeals: certainly, in opposition, the now Chief Minister did undertake and promise that there would be limited third party appeals. This government, in opposition, never said there would be open third party appeals; we foreshadowed they would be limited. You have argued you believe they are too limited.
You have raised the issue of why the CBD should be excluded as an area where third party appeals should be limited. The CBD does have a mixed use. Obviously, in the CBD there is commercial activity, tourism and entertainment. There is going to be a wharf precinct, and now there are also a number of people moving into residential buildings there. Because the CBD is special and has mixed used it was felt - and there is a reasonable argument to say - the third party appeal should not apply there. We have limited it so that no-one can appeal on commercial grounds, as we would see people trying to appeal to get some commercial advantage, or to sabotage the commercial efforts or developments of an opponent. Also, if there were open third party appeals in the CBD, we would have the CLP really appealing against the waterfront development and trying to sabotage that on a political ground. However, that is not covered within the act.
The member for Nelson also asked about subdivisions and consolidations. It is my understanding that, with subdivisions, comes with a particular zoning, and the zoning sets the framework for the size of that subdivision. Basically, regarding subdivisions, the issues you have raised should be in line with the zoning, and the zoning provides the policy framework.
You also asked about the issue of devolution. It is a policy position of this government that we are not going to be divulging planning issues - particularly the major issues - to councils at this stage. Given the nature of the Territory, that is a wise decision at this stage.
You asked about East Arm. Basically, in areas where I am the consent authority, I advise the member for Nelson that, if a significant development was proposed in such an area, I would certainly put that on exhibition and get the DCA to conduct hearings so the public could have input. I do not think it would matter which side of government was in power; any planning minister would do that with any significant development.
Going back a little, on the issue of devolution, I am informed it was not raised by local government in response to the discussion paper, and also would mean a move to more than one consent authority which could become quite messy. We are trying to consolidate the Planning Act, and it was felt that might be a retrograde step regarding complexity.
I have addressed the issues raised by the member for Daly regarding him saying it is not a radical change. I dispute that. The changes to the act are quite significant, and I have already been through that.
He talked about minister’s powers saying that, under the minister’s power, there is no hearing for some of the determinations made by a minister. I am advised that is wrong; there would be hearings and the public would be engaged through a public process. He also raised the issue of amenity in the town plan and I have addressed that issue.
I thank all members for their contribution, including the member for Casuarina. This is a very important issue. Planning is very important for the Territory, and moving the Territory ahead. I would like to commend all the officers, particularly Mr Gronow and Mr O’Neill for their role. It has been a very difficult process and it is very difficult explaining planning issues least of all to ministers but also the public at large. They do a great job in that regard. I also compliment my predecessor for starting the process and I have been glad to carry that on.
In summary, Madam Speaker, we have consolidated what has been quite a complex and sometimes confusing Planning Act. These amendments bring about some clarity. They consolidate, they unify across the Territory, but at the same time they allow individual areas of the Territory to maintain their own specific features and amenity. I commend these amendments to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: The committee has before it the Planning Amendment Bill 2004 (Serial 275) together with Schedule of Amendment No 96 circulated by the Minister for Lands and Planning.
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together.
Mr WOOD: Can I just get a little bit of clarification because it is fairly complex working through these clauses. Clauses 1 to 4, Madam Deputy Chair, include the objects; is that correct?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: That is correct.
Mr WOOD: I would like to speak on clause 4, please. You need to be gentle tonight, Madam Deputy Chair.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I will be. I always am.
Mr WOOD: It is not easy to follow these clauses. Minister, I just like to say something on the aesthetics of building design which I was intending to bring forward as a possible amendment. I have taken on board that you have said that you are willing to look at that. I would like to ask if you have noticed that New South Wales has at least tried to introduce some building design work? I gather it is because the Premier of New South Wales did not like a block of flats one day and from that they have developed a State Environmental Planning Policy No 65: Design Quality of Residential Flat Development. It is an interesting document; it covers a whole range of issues and gives reasons why this bill was introduced in the New South Wales parliament. It looked to achieve better built form and aesthetics of buildings and of the street scapes and the public spaces they define. It discusses issues like that. It looks at amenity and has a much broader approach to amenity than perhaps we are looking at. Under clause 15, principle 7, Amenity:
Further down in section 18, principle 10, Aesthetics:
So there is at least one state, New South Wales, which is looking at aesthetics. I know that aesthetics is a bit like amenity but there is, I believe, scope for the government to have a look at the area I was talking about and come up with something that is unique to the Territory. Just to finish off that comment, minister, I ask the question: is this Design Guide for Residential and Commercial Development in the Northern Territory purely a guide? Is it used by Development Consent Authority in ruling on applications for development in the CBD and the residential areas of Darwin?
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I have already foreshadowed to the member for Nelson that I am open to the idea of some advice from experts on the issues that he has raised. There will be administrative and process issues involved. I believe the community is moving that way and I have flagged that I am interested in pursuing that. I hope that gives the member some assurance, and I am sure the member will keep reminding me about it.
In relation to the design guide, I am advised that issues in the residential and commercial design guide are taken up in the draft of the new Planning Scheme, so that will form part of the new Planning Scheme. Once the amendments to the Planning Act are passed, we can start work on the Planning Scheme and what you have raised there will be part of it.
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, I will leave that section as it is.
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.2, which omits and substitutes subsections. Proposed sections 19(1) and 19(2) are omitted and replaced by new subsection (1). Subsection (3) will be renumbered as (2). The wording of this section was lifted from the existing section 16 of the principal act: the provisions require that where a proposed planning scheme amendment affects both a DCA division area and the council area, the council must be notified.
I am advised that it is irrelevant whether a division area is affected; the issue is whether the proposal affects the council’s area of jurisdiction. The amendment has the effect of removing reference to ‘division area’. This section was all about councils being notified, and it does not really matter where the DCA division or not. The intent was to notify councils. This just clarifies that intent.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8:
Mr WOOD: My amendment might before …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: No, I have your amendment down as clause 16, according to the advice I have received.
Mr WOOD: I have a query on clause 8, section 33.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: By all means.
Mr WOOD: Minister, you will know to what I am referring. This section refers to ‘existing use, buildings and works’ and explains when something is lawful and when something is not. The question that has been a bit of a problem in the Knuckey’s Lagoon area is: what happens when a large block is used for a previously conforming but now non-conforming use, and that large block of land is subdivided, is each parcel of land allowed to carry on the non-conforming use? Where would I find in section 33 any reference to that particular case?
Dr BURNS: This is a technical question and I have referred it to the technical experts. They believe that you are asking if the deemed approval and protection of existing use applies in both parcels. The answer that I have been advised is that the existing use continues on both lots, but only to the extent that it existed prior to subdivision. Any expansion would require an EDP on an alternation permit.
Mr WOOD: That is a can of worms in itself. For instance, if you cut a 20 acre block into four 5 acre blocks, and originally that was just a large extractive mineral development, can each of those four blocks carry on a quarter of what happened originally? Who makes the decision?
Dr BURNS: In relation to mining, I am advised that that comes under a different act. Maybe you are talking about horticulture? Are you specifically talking about mining?
Mr WOOD: I am talking about extractive mining supplies.
Dr BURNS: I am advised that extractive mining does occur under a different act. In answer to your question, those activities could continue to the extent that they were allowed before such a subdivision.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. I know it is a tricky question. You have a 20 acre block. Under the old act a person could run an extractive mineral development; under the new act, that is not permitted. The owner of that land, who was operating what is now a non-conforming use but was a conforming use when he owned it, decides to cut that land up into four sections. Under the act, if you have a non-conforming use prior to the act, you can continue with that non-conforming use. Can the four people who would buy individual blocks of that land continue on with the extractive mining, even to the point of being only a quarter, each one, of the original development that occurred there?
Dr BURNS: I am advised that, if there was a subdivision, it would be for a purpose, that is, for rural living or residential. I suppose there would be the question of remediation. However, leaving that to one side, it would not be subdivided for the purposes of providing four blocks out of one for extractive mining. That is the advice that I have. It would generally be subdivided for a different purpose.
Do you have a specific case in mind where this has occurred? The initial advice I have is that, if we are talking about extractive mining, for each block there would be a plan under the legislation in terms of the extraction and the extent of extraction that could go on.
Mr WOOD: I am referring more to extractive mineral supplies, that is, extractive minerals come on to the block, they are washed, and they go out in the form of sand, gravel, or whatever. This is a particular case in Knuckeys Lagoon in which, as you have written to me recently, the department has problems knowing whether a particular extractive mineral supplier is actually legal. He is operating on a block of land that is only a portion of what was a larger block of land, which did have an extractive mineral supply development on it. It was pre-planning and now that type of development is actually banned; it is prohibited.
However, the owner of the block of land now says: ‘I am just continuing what was a conforming use at the time. I am just continuing that use’. It is a real issue because, as you know, it relates to access onto a proposed council road. I am just looking in this act. Does it clarify that particular situation? It could occur in other situations; that is not the only one. I cannot see where this act clarifies who is legal and who is not.
Dr BURNS: I am advised by the departmental officers who are absolute experts on this, that this is a very complex legal issue. Member for Nelson, we are not likely to solve it here tonight. I am not sure what remedies are being put forward here. I have given you the information that I have been given on this particular issue.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I understand that this is a difficult issue. I was hoping, when this act was put forward with the new planning amendments, that it would be clarified. It may not affect this particular case. However, we have a case about which you have written to me saying there are some problems. I was hoping that the act would then make it clear so that these problems did not occur again. We can deal with the existing one, but could this occur in the future? Or are we still leaving ourselves open to this occurring again for some other purpose that is non-conforming? That is the problem I have with it.
Could I put it to the minister then, if he does not have an answer for this at the moment: would you at least go back and consider the problems we have on Thorak Road, and whether there needs to be some amendments in this act to make sure that particular problem either cannot happen again or is clarified very carefully so everyone knows what their rights are if they do apply to do something on land that is now non-conforming?
Dr BURNS: Yes, member for Nelson, I am also advised that there is a strong possibility these issues could be worked out through the Planning Scheme. As I said before, once the Planning Act amendments are passed, we will dive into the Planning Scheme. I am more than happy to try to engage with you over this issue as we move through the Planning Scheme. I give you that undertaking, member for Nelson.
Mr WOOD: Thank you. Minister, is there any solution to the problem, therefore, in Knuckeys Lagoon that is apparent? This difficulty of pre-existing uses has been one of the reasons the council has been concerned about putting a driveway into this place; that they would be seen to be supporting what your department is saying is illegal. We have this quandary about a particular block of land. Do you see any solution to the problem?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, it appears to me that what you are raising is an existing use of that land. There are legal issues. However, you have also raised the issue of preventing this from happening again. I have foreshadowed that I am more than happy to work with you through amendments to the Planning Scheme in future, to try to set a framework that clarifies this very situation. In terms of the specific case which you are asking about, I am unsure of the legalities of it. I am unsure of what powers government has at this stage to move in that particular case, or the advisability of doing that. I would need to clarify that.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendments 96.3 to 96.6.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, do you have any objection to moving amendments 96.3, 96.4, 96.5 and 96.6 together?
Mr WOOD: No.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: We will take those amendments to clause 8 together.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I will speak to each one of these.
Clause 8 of the bill substitutes a new Part 4, comprising proposed sections 33 to 43C in the principal act. These committee stage amendments to clause 8 amend proposed sections 35 and 43A as follows:
Firstly, committee stage amendment 96.3 omits words from proposed section 35(1), the words which in effect describe what constitutes ‘existing works’ are omitted as repetitive and unnecessary. Proposed section 33(4) already defines what constitutes existing work. In summary, 96.3 is all about getting rid of some repetition within those sections.
Amendment 96.4 omits words from the proposed section 35(2). This amendment is consequential to the changes made in section 35(1) made by amendment 96.3 which I mentioned. The words ‘existing works’ to which the section refer are unnecessary as they are defined elsewhere.
Amendment 96.5 substitutes words in section 35(4). The amendment is consequential to amendment 96.3. As a result of amendment 96.3, subsection (1) will no longer refer to a development permit. The substituted words in subsection (3) convey the same meaning expressed in a different way. Basically, there has been a deletion and some reordering of the wording.
Finally, amendment 96.6 amends proposed section 43A by omitting the words ‘the grant of’, so it will then read, ‘a person may apply to the Consent Authority for an alteration permit’. It did read, ‘apply to the Consent Authority for the grant of an alteration permit’. This is consistent with the removal of the word ‘granted’ from definition of ‘alteration permit’ in amendment 96.1. It is deleting some redundant words.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 9 to 15, by leave, taken together.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, I point out that your proposed amendment falls under clause 16.
Mr WOOD: I realise that, thank you, Madam Chair. There is a query. I do not think section 48 of the principal act appears in the amendments, therefore, I am going back to the principal act, under the section of ‘Notification of local authorities’. I proposed to move an amendment to section 48(1)(b) of the principal act.. At the moment this says, ‘That if a development application in respect of land within the council area of local authority is received by the consent authority, the consent authority must notify in writing the local authority’. And (b) says, ‘…of the details of the application’. What I am asking is that that be changed after the word ‘application’ to ‘include all the submissions received by the consent authority’.’
One of the problems local government has when having to respond to a development consent application, is that it gets one piece of paper like the public, and it has to comment on that one piece of paper the same as anyone else. The representatives on the council turn up at a council meeting with an agenda that has all the services’ opinions on the development, it has all the objections, or the supporting paper work that goes with those developments.
It would be far better for a local government authority to make its decision based on the same paper work the Development Consent Authority has. I am asking if it would be possible for the government to amend its existing legislation so that local government can receive all the submissions that the Development Consent Authority receives before it makes its decision, too?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I have looked into this matter and I am informed that yes, when an application is lodged with the DCA, local government receives a copy of the application. Over the statutory period that people have to comment, various agencies and individuals make submission to the consent authority. At the end of that period, the department provides a report to the DCA. I am informed that not only does it give that report to the DCA with all the submissions from the statutory period, but it also gives it to council. In some ways, your amendment is redundant because it is happening already - or at least that is what I am informed.
Mr WOOD: I accept that, minister, but what happens is that, due to the processes of council, the council itself does not see it. In the case of Litchfield Shire, the CEO would get it because he attends the meeting and he has it all there. Because of the nature of local government, where there is a meeting every fortnight, they would just receive a planning application; there would be a recommendation; there would be some discussion; but they do not have the full knowledge that you would have at the Development Consent Authority. Yes, there maybe some complications in doing it, but it would allow local government to be able to make decisions based on fuller knowledge that is not available normally to a council.
Dr BURNS: One of the difficulties, and I have already outlined it, is that the submissions are made in dribs and drabs, so it is not as if a consolidated document could easily sent to council. These things come in dribs and drabs over the period. I hear what you say about the cycle of council meetings, but one of the complaints that I have from people is that the consent authority usually uses its whole 12 weeks in terms of reaching decisions, and people feel that there are delays with the DCA. What you are proposing might add another layer of delay. I would be interested to know to what frequency councils feel that they miss out on seeing the consolidated document of the proposal and all the submissions including the service agencies.
Mr WOOD: I suppose one of the difficulties when you ask me a question about concerns that councils have is that this review started not far off two years ago, and I am having trouble to remember who approached me about what. It was something that I thought could be done.
People have to make their submissions by a certain date, and I suppose one could ask whether those submissions could be faxed to council. If they wish to call a special meeting of their development committee, they would then have the information there. It was more a case of allowing councils, which have two members on the Development Consent Authority, to discuss those issues as a council. I know that they are not meant to act as a council, but at least the council is able to debate some of these issues more fully than having a single piece of paper. That was the idea.
There is a date when submissions have to be in, of course. If, on the date those submissions came in, they were faxed to the local council, it would not be a bit of paper here and a bit of paper there; it would be done on one day and that would be it. I put it as possibility. I do not want to labour the point because, even though it might feel like 2 o’clock in the afternoon, that clock tells me it is not. I am willing to put the motion that the amendment be accepted and put it to the vote.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: For clarification, the member for Nelson is proposing an amendment to section 48(1)(b) of the principal act.
Amendment negatived.
Clauses 9 to 15 agreed to.
Clause 16:
Mr WOOD: I believe that area needs more discussion. I know I received a good answer from the minister and I know he has received that from the advisors. I hope commonsense will take its course in this case. I would certainly hate someone to say, well, you have approval to grow cabbages – that is when you applied for your horticultural permit - and then you decided you wanted to grow mango trees which, of course, are much bigger and require much more spraying if that is the method that that person wants to control the pests with. A lot more spray goes up in the air with mangoes than on the ground, and so you might find that there is somebody in the area says, ‘I would be happy with that person growing vegetables, but I am not particularly happy with them growing large fruit crops’.
I understand what you said minister. I hope commonsense is taken into account. I thought it was an issue that, knowing how some things happen occasionally in planning, it might have come back to bite us, but I am willing to see how it runs.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Clauses 17 to 24. Member for Nelson, I am going on the advice of where your proposed amendments fall. I do not believe your next one falls until clause 26.
Mr WOOD: I just need your advice, Madam Deputy Chair. Part 7, I think, was in the clauses. I am just going back to the original act. I just want to make -because I cannot quite trace it on the - you were calling what clauses?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: We will admit your query now, if you want, on part 7.
Mr WOOD: It would be section 75, so we have not quite gone that far, is that correct? Section 75 is clause 21. So you are going from what to what?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I am going to clause 24. So I will go clauses 17 to 20.
Mr WOOD: Yes, I just have a query.
Clauses 17 to 20 by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 21:
Mr WOOD: Yes, I believe that refers to section 75 of the original act. That section is on enforcement. I must admit, enforcement is an area which, if you enforce things too strictly, you will get a big backlash from people saying that the regulations are taking over. If you do not enforce things, Rafferty’s Rules starts to occur. I did attend a Planning Development Consent Authority meeting not so long ago where, basically, the chairman said that the job of the Development Consent Authority is not to go out to enforce; it waits for a complaint to occur. Of course, many people are reluctant to complain about their neighbour, so you get a considerable number of, you would say, illegal activities occurring that will be so established that it would be very difficult to do something about stopping them.
I was just interested to know, under this enforcement section, does the government have a policy of enforcement that requires someone really to dob their neighbour in? Or do they look at some sort of proactive - and I am not saying over-the-top, because that would be unrealistic and it would be silly. However, there are times where there are some obvious breakdowns in enforcement, and people find it upsetting that they have to ring up the department hoping that their name will not be mentioned when the department rings up the person who is operating an illegal business, so that there will not be a big rift between neighbours. I would just be interested in whether the government has a policy on enforcement under the Planning Act.
Dr BURNS: I am informed it is by complaint primarily. However, should there be officers of the department who were to see a major significant infringement as they go about their duties, action would be taken.
Mr WOOD: Minister, is there section in the act which says that says enforcement is only carried out on complaint? Is there somewhere in the act which requires that, or is that standard practice?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I am informed once a complaint has been received, enforcement is the precinct of the consent authority.
Mr WOOD: I understand that, minister. However, one does not expect someone walking down the street to notice a car which does not have a parking sticker on the front windscreen to say that it is legally parked. One expects the inspector to come along and say: ‘You have not paid your parking bill and, therefore, I book you’. What I am saying is: in some areas you do not expect people to dob someone else in. Why is that the case, necessarily, under the Planning Act?
Dr BURNS: I suppose it depends what sort of issues you are talking about, member for Nelson. There are neighbours who complain about the height of their next door neighbour’s building; that they may have transgressed the height limit. The most common form of complaint from people is about land clearing; everyone has become aware of that. However, you could look across many areas of endeavour of government, or legislation of government, where these things operate by complaint. I do not really have any other answer for you other than that.
Whether you want government to engage a whole lot of consent authority-type policemen to go out there and check things - I suppose, in a way, that is why a lot of the system relies on surveyors, who are professionals, making submissions to the DCA. To a large degree, the system operates through professional integrity also.
Mr WOOD: Just quickly, minister, I understand, especially with building design, you can also operate through the Building Board and certifiers. However, where people use land illegally it is really a planning matter. In a lot of cases, people come to me and say: ‘Joe Blow is operating a mechanical workshop’. I know Joe Blow; I also know the person who is complaining. You are caught in a situation where we all think we are going to get into a lot of trouble because we are neighbours, or we are known. It is now our law that is being put forward in parliament; it is your law. Yet, we are the ones who have to carry out the police work.
As I said, I am not expecting the police force, as you might call it, to go around with a big stick and belt everyone over the head. However, I believe there are cases - especially in the rural area when someone has a sign out the front saying, ‘We operate this’ – where it should not be up to a neighbour to have to complain - which can have consequences – when, sometimes, some of those things should be addressed by the department. Is it a lack of funding for such a role? Is it not really the policy of the government to take on that role?
That is what I was looking at when I said commonsense must prevail, because you can come down too hard in legislation to dot your i’s and cross your t’s and cause a big kafuffle. There are times when the department needs to act, otherwise, if one person is seen doing it, I can tell you that two, three, four or five other people do it. Then you would ask: what is the point in having all these rules and regulations? I am simply trying to get an idea of what the philosophy of the government is in regard to enforcement.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I am advised that people can pass complaints on anonymously. I suppose if you have come into possession of information that someone is contravening the Planning Act you can certainly make some confidential calls through my office. I undertake that those things will be investigated and there will be no names and no pack drill.
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, I do remember making a complaint many years ago about a certain …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: It did not matter; same theory on how to operate enforcement. I complained about a possible outdoor entertainment that was going to occur on a five acre block not far me. About a week later, I had some visitations from some fairly big people in a funny uniform with lots of things hanging off it and that was anonymous too, but they knew who sent that letter to the department. That is what people fear, and that is what I am just saying. Is the government looking at the way things are enforced?
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, I did not. I will not go on any further. We have spent enough time on that, but it was worth clarifying, minister.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clauses 22 to 24, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 25:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.7. This is a drafting correction in essence and the words ‘prima facie’ are omitted from subsection (2). This is consistent with the removal of these words from section 81A by clause 25(3) of this bill. I am informed that the term is not used in modern drafting.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 26:
Mr WOOD: Minister, I meant to raise this in my opening speech, but I am asking that you put back into the act something that you have taken out of the act. The bit you have taken out of the act says, and this is under section 85(3) of the principal act, Minister may direct Authority:
Minister, my understanding is that you have removed that. I would have thought, for the sake of transparency, that would be something you would wish to stay in so that we know the reason why you have taken a particular decision, so you are at least accountable to parliament. I would be interested to know why it has been removed. I am asking actually that it goes back in.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, as you are aware, you have raised this issue today with my office, and I have certainly taken it very seriously. What I am told is that, with section 85, you are asking the call-outs to be tabled in the House; that is essentially what you are asking - where the minister directs through a call-out provision.
I am informed that the minister will now issue the determination and the reasons under the minister’s signature in the same manner as any other determination. I was concerned that this might provide some short circuit, if you like, that things could be done without public hearings, in relation to particular determinations, or call-out powers. However, I am informed by my officers that there would still be public hearings through the DCA, so there would still be an open and transparent process.
I believe the major difference is that the determination is tabled with my signature rather than the chair of the DCA.
I am informed that this represents a minor change. There is still transparency; the reasons are still given in a very public way, but not necessarily through tabling in the House. There would be instances where this determination would be made public in a quicker fashion than tabling in the House, given the frequency of when this House assembles. This is a probably more direct and even more rapid publication of a minister’s determination.
Mr WOOD: But isn’t it the case that you cannot appeal a decision that you have interfered in? To some extent, at least, it brings it back here for a possible debate over something that really is not appealable. I am struggling to understand why it is in the act. What were the reasons for the government having it there?
Dr BURNS: In terms of what stands in the act at present, I am told that it has to be tabled otherwise there could be circumstances where no-one would ever know that the minister has given a direction to the DCA.
It is also important to point out that the minister can direct before the DCA publishes its findings. In other words, there could be a public process, the DCA is moving to publish its determination in a matter, and the minister can make a determination at that stage. The way that is made public is through tabling in the House. The call-out powers and determinations by the minister are still being published with reasons, so really it has the same effect in the long run. I am absolutely convinced about that. I certainly did question on the basis of what you proposed at a fairly late hour, but I am assured by my officers that, in the end., it has the same effect.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clauses 27 and 28, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 29:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.8. This is a fairly technical amendment which does not change the spirit or intent of the section, but comes about through a redundancy of the use of the words ’12 week period’ within the clauses. I am assured by my officers that the removal of the reference to 12 weeks is because it is redundant. The 12 week period is specified earlier in that section, so it is redundant to have it further down in the section. It is a drafting correction.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 30 to 32, by leave, taken together:
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, when you called that, do you have clauses 90 and 108 of the principal act on your …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Yes, I do, and I have you being called under clause 33.
Mr WOOD: That is further down. I thought you might have had principal act section 108. I thought you would have called that …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I had no advice as to where that fell under the clauses. By all means.
Mr WOOD: I am doing my best to follow. Could I ask that I go back to clause 108 of the principal act, which refers to the Lands and Mining Tribunal?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Certainly.
Mr WOOD: I have raised that issue as I have been concerned that the Lands and Mining Tribunal Act is one person who, in this case, happens to be a magistrate. We are dealing with planning matters. I believe the tribunal should be a tribunal as the tribunal should be; that is, more than one person. Otherwise, it should be a ‘mono-unal’ or something. However, it certainly could be improved by having a planner, and a person from that local government that the decisions are going to be made about, on that tribunal.
I was going to move an amendment that after the words, ‘the Lands and Mining Tribunal Act’, we add, ‘plus a qualified planner and a local government representative from the local government area in which the appeal is heard’. That would make the Lands and Mining Tribunal a far more – not so much open tribunal – but it would mean that the tribunal was getting in a larger range of opinions before it made a decision, not just what I would call a fairly technical opinion which it presently gives. I would hope that the tribunal could be expanded to cover more people with a larger range of expertise.
Dr BURNS: I take on board what the member for Nelson has said. I have to confess that that was my first reaction also, in terms of having a one member tribunal. I believe, though, that members realise it is perfectly legal to have a one member tribunal. As I questioned and sought advice on this matter, and sought ways in which a wider range of expertise on a whole range of subjects could be available, or have input into that tribunal, not forgetting that there are issues of conflict of interest which often arise in a small jurisdiction whether it is a plan, or a this or a that, and some people are on the regulatory side and some people are on the commercial side, that, basically, there is the potential for conflict of interest.
I would ask the member to remember that one of the changes which has been made to the act, is that rather than just looking at the legality of an appeal, the tribunal must now base its decision in appeal on the best planning outcome. That is what they have to base their judgment on, not just the legality of x, y, or z. Therefore, a positive planning outcome is the primary basis of the decision. Of course, legalities will always play their part. What has been built into the amendments to the act is that the tribunal can now call on expert advice, whether it is architectural or planning, no matter what sort of advice it is. In a way, the amendments address the issue, and a very legitimate issue, member for Nelson, which you have raised.
I foreshadow a wider issue here. We have talked about third party appeals and a whole range of legitimate issues which you have raised. I give an undertaking during this committee stage that government is quite prepared – let us give this new Planning Act a bit of a run, say, over 18 months to two years which is probably a good time frame - for the development of the Planning Scheme. We are more than happy to come back and review a lot of the very valid issues which you have raised, both within the debate and the committee stages. I give you that commitment as well, member for Nelson.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. I appreciate that commitment, not to say that I do not have a couple more amendments to come yet. I would be willing to see how the legislation goes.
I will keep an eye on it and see how things rattle along. I have concerns about some of the things that the Lands and Mining Tribunal approved. I am afraid I am not one of those fans of what replaced the Darwin Hotel. To me, that is a mickey mouse development. What should have been something of great aesthetic building design was put there in place of something that was dear to the hearts of many people in Darwin. Sadly, we have the 20 m2 housing blocks there. It might be a temporary replacement, but it is not a good replacement for the CBD. That was allowed to happen because of a decision of the Lands and Mining Tribunal. I would be interested to see how it works in reality. We will move on.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, I am assuming that you did not move that motion in the end to amend.
Mr WOOD: No, Madam Deputy Chair.
Clauses 30 to 32 agreed to.
Clause 33:
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, clause 29 is also marked on here as clause 117 in the amending bill, and it relates to appeals by third parties in respect to development applications. I know we are getting back onto old ground.
I move that clause 117(4) be deleted. I read the example and, I must admit, I am very glad to see these examples popping up in legislation by the government; it helps you understand the legislation better. I am very pleased that I have brought some of these things to the attention of the government. It says:
That is an example. I believe that is unfair. In industrial areas, you should be able to appeal - not necessarily at the wharf; it could be anywhere.
The other issue is about residential zoning. In your second reading, you said subdivisions cannot be appealed. Could I get that clarified so it is in Hansard, minister? If there is a subdivision in the rural area, and that subdivision means that a road will go out past a person’s block carrying X amount of traffic and will ruin the amenity of that block, would that person have the right to appeal under this act?
Dr BURNS: No.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I would certainly be asking for this section to be deleted. It is very unfair; it is nearly a Berrimah Line syndrome, or an urban versus rural discriminatory practice. Why shouldn’t a person living on five acres be entitled to appeal residential? They can suffer the same changes to amenity. I notice amenity takes in the word ‘locality’ and, after that it says ‘the pleasantness’, as well as ‘being harmonious and enjoyable’. Therefore, a subdivision could cause major problems to someone living in the rural area.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, government’s position is that there are limited third party appeals and, basically, by removing this clause, we would have unlimited third party appeals. I cannot agree to that. I take on board what you are saying about someone in the rural area, but government has given a commitment that we will limit third party appeals. This particular section enables regulations to be made that will limit the third party appeals so I cannot agree to it.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. Does that mean that 99% of people in Litchfield Shire will not be able to appeal under this act because they live on rural residential land? There is a tiny bit of industrial land and they will not be able to appeal against that. But there is very little of what you would call residential land as in the case of the northern suburbs or Palmerston. Will this section of the act not apply to people in the rural area?
Mr Baldwin: It has not been passed the Berrimah lights, why should it?
Mr Wood: I have the Buffalo Creek boat ramp in my area.
Mr Henderson: Like the third party appeals you mob had?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I will reiterate the position …
Mr Wood: Yes or no?
Dr BURNS: We are sticking with limited third party appeals. I would also say that if you are talking about Litchfield, and you have been part of a process in terms of the Litchfield Planning Scheme, and basically there has been much input from residents. I suppose there are a few people who are not happy with elements of that, but generally, there has been some agreements about developments and zoning within Litchfield and development would occur in line with those zonings and that public process. Although there is no right of appeal, there has been an extensive consultation process. I guess there is a system of objections and that is where I would probably leave it.
Mr WOOD: I cannot quite leave it yet, minister. Does that mean that people at Marlow’s Lagoon in Palmerston cannot appeal?
Dr BURNS: Just to clarify, member for Nelson, are you talking about subdivisions or existing residential zones?
Mr WOOD: I am talking about say in Marlow’s Lagoon where there is another subdivision planned right next to it. It is a rural subdivision. Can you appeal against that rural subdivision?
Dr BURNS: Basically, as I said before in my wrap up, there is no appeal against subdivisions whether they are in rural areas or other areas. That is part of the limitations on the third party appeals.
Mr WOOD: That is very limited in the Litchfield Shire because that is practically all they have. Can the minister take the case of the Litchfield Shire Council, any other council, the DCA makes decisions for that council and I gave the example of a road. I can give you an example where the council said this road will be an arterial road; we require it to be 7 m wide with seal. The Development Consent Authority said no, it will be 6 m. Surely the local government which has control of roads should be able to appeal that decision? Could you say why it should not be allowed to appeal that decision?
Dr BURNS: As I have said previously, it is government’s position about devolution that we retain those - if you are taking about the actual design and layout of roads - that that is something that government has said it will be retaining.
Mr WOOD: No. I do not think you understand, minister. The third party appeal allows a local authority to appeal. Now, surely, a local government could appeal against a decision made by the Development Consent Authority that said, ‘No, you won’t have the road that you asked for – 7 m wide with seal. You will have to take a 6 m wide road with seal’. I am not asking devolution. Your third party appeal says an appeal can be made by a person or local authority. That is not even limited; that really means that a council has no appeal rights when a subdivision application goes against it and that is very unfair. You are saying they are limited rights but in the case of people in the rural area they are nil.
Amendment negatived.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, do you want to your outstanding …
Mr WOOD: Yes, clause 33.
Minister, I have to go back to the original act, it relates to attendance at a conference where you are dealing with mediation. I know from personal experience that when the Development Consent Authority makes a decision against the developer, the developer then has the right to go to a mediation conference. If I were an objector and heard that the development had been knocked on the head, I would have thought: ‘Terrific, that is what I wanted’. However, I then find that the developer had appealed and gone to a mediation process and been part of a process about which I had no knowledge and was not allowed to take part. This seems very unfair to an objector.
What I have asked is that we have an extra clause under section 123; we add (8), which says:
I should put that in context. It does say that the mediator at a conference ‘may’ permit a person to take part. What I am doing is adding a little more to say that they should be at least notified, and the person can apply to be at the mediation conference.
Also, minister, I have another amendment to this section, which adds (9) and says:
That is simply because you have applied, and the mediator has said you can or cannot come, and if it went to appeal on that, you would be there all day, and I was trying to be practical. At present, though, the system is unfair to someone who has objected, at the present time, not being allowed to be part of the mediation process.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, today is the first time I have heard of this amendment. I met with various planning and other groups during the consultation phase, at least whilst I have been minister, and this is the first time I have heard of this. I am not sure what effect it might have; it has come out of the blue.
As you are aware, under section 123(7), a mediator may permit a person to take part in a conference. I suppose your amendment is making it mandatory for an objector. This is the first time I have heard about it, and I have to oppose your amendment. It has come very late in the piece; this bill has been on the table since last year. It is your right - I am not saying anything else - but it is a bit hard being so late in the piece.
Mr WOOD: I realise it is late, too, minister, however you have some advisors. I apologise for it being late. I did not realise the bill was being brought forward on the Notice Paper. The information did go to the advisors today.
I will give you an idea of where it comes from. It came from the case of a mobile telephone tower in the rural area that was to be put on a five acre block, which was not the norm in the rural area. That was knocked on the head. The people next door were very happy because they saw the value of their land decreasing by having a telephone tower on their block. It then went to a mediation process which I, as an objector, knew nothing about it. I was not informed. I do not know whether the neighbours were informed. It was then passed.
To me, that system is very unfair. For one to have thought that you have won the case, that you got them to put their telephone tower in a more suitable area and then, out of the blue, get a letter saying they are now allowed to have their telephone communications tower, is an extremely poor way of making decisions, especially for the people next door who now believe their property is probably worth $20 000 or $30 000 less than it was.
What I have done there is say, at least inform people there is a mediation process. I do not think there is anything wrong with that, and give them the opportunity to write to the mediator. I have not said the mediator has to accept it. At least give the people the right to write to that mediator and ask to attend the conference. Otherwise the system all of a sudden goes from being open and transparent to just cut off.
Dr BURNS: I am prepared to take it and consider it. I am advised that I could do it administratively, and I undertake to do that. However, at this late stage I just cannot accept the amendment.
Mr WOOD: I accept that, minister; thank you for that commitment at least. You might not hear people come to you, banging on the door about these issues. Sometimes theses issues come up simply from working with the act, having to deal with these issues and, hopefully, we can fix those issues up as we amend legislation.
I am willing to accept your commitment to at least look at it and see whether it can be changed through regulations. Madam Deputy Chair, I will leave it at that. That is all the amendments. I have taken on board the minister’s commitments.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Lands and Planning): 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, I table the Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report and that I have leave to continue my remarks.
Motion agreed to.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, pursuant to section 28 of the Ombudsman (Northern Territory) Act, I have the pleasure of presenting the report of the Ombudsman for the financial year ending 30 June 2004.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report.
The Ombudsman has a pivotal role ensuring that the Northern Territory government and local government councils provide fair, efficient and quality administrative services to the public. The Ombudsman also has responsibility for investigating complaints about police conduct. In addition to resolving complaints in a fair and impartial manner, the Ombudsman assists the parliament to safeguard public interest, and collaborates with government authorities to improve the quality of service delivery.
In 2003-04, the Ombudsman’s Office received 2355 approaches for assistance. Such approaches included matters which are outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, or can be very quickly resolved. Whilst this is a slight increase from the 2082 approaches received in 2002-03, the number of approaches that go on to become a complaint is continuing to drop. In 2000-01, 860 approaches to the Ombudsman developed into complaints, in comparison to 551 complaints in 2003-04. This represents a 36% decline.
Approximately 15% or 97 of these approaches were from prisoners querying the activities of the Northern Territory Correctional Services. The Ombudsman notes that the increase is due to increased prisoner access to a free telephone service that allows unmonitored calls to the Ombudsman’s Office. When this telephone service was introduced in 2002-03, the majority of complaints related to staff attitude and behaviour. However, in 2003-04, complaints of this nature decreased by nearly 60%. The Ombudsman notes that complaints regarding prisoner rights increased significantly during the last financial year.
There has been an increase in complaints against members of the police force. Since 2000-01, complaints regarding police conduct have risen by 258. In 2003-04, the most common complaint was in regard to police procedures. I am pleased to note that 34% of finalised complaints were resolved using a conciliation process.
Complaints against local government councils have decreased by 26% or 23 approaches. Primarily, this reduction in complaints occurred in major centres. Most regional communities substantially increased the number of complaints against local councils. Clearly, the role of the Ombudsman is becoming more widely understood amongst Territory regions.
A number of important issues for government are raised within the Ombudsman’s report, such as managing conflicts of interest, apologies by government agencies, and the regulatory role of the government sector organisations.
The report also highlights the development of new legislation to replace the Ombudsman’s (Northern Territory) Act and emphasises some significant issues which were raised in the development process. The Ombudsman’s contribution to the review of the legislation has been invaluable. I have every confidence that Territorians will continue to have an effective complaints resolution mechanism for the administrative activities of government, and for dealing with complaints about police conduct.
On a more personal note, I wish to express my gratitude to Peter Boyce who completes his second five-year term as Ombudsman at the end of March 2005. Peter has made an excellent contribution to providing a fair, efficient and quality administration service to the public. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours.
Debate adjourned.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table the government’s Growing Our Trade Route strategy paper which will be delivered to all desks shortly. The paper highlights the opportunities that this government sees for the future development of the AustralAsia trade route, and identifies the priority actions that we will pursue over the next two years to realise those opportunities.
It is timely that I update members on the tangible progress already achieved in developing the trade route, flag some of the challenges and hurdles that we still have to overcome, and articulate those measures that we are taking to stimulate future growth. There is no doubt that the Northern Territory is entering an exciting phase of economic development. Its solid and expanding industry base built around mining, tourism and primary industry sectors is being accelerated through new and more diverse industry development, and wealth and job creation are now flowing from a number of strategic new developments.
Great opportunities exist abroad in the Territory’s manufacturing base through the further development of the Timor Sea gas fields and the bringing of gas onshore. The $2bn expansion of the Alcan Alumina Refinery and possible fuelling of that refinery with gas from the Black Tip gas field on our west coast via a 1000 km trans-Territory pipeline will also generate significant employment and industry opportunities for Territorians. Continued growth in Australia’s defence capabilities and related infrastructure within the Territory, along with exciting new tourism initiatives such as the Darwin City Waterfront redevelopment, will continue to strength in the Territory’s economic base.
Developing the AustralAsia trade route into a vibrant and alternative trade route for the nation continues to be one of my government’s key economic goals. After one year of operation, FreightLink, the private sector operator of the railway, report they have successfully carried more than 600 000 tonnes of freight which will exceed their original forecast of 360 000 tonnes for the same period. This highlights that the Territory now enjoys a competitive modal choice for its domestic freight tasks by now having access to high quality road and rail systems. However, our priority focus for the new trade routes is to grow new international trade which offers the greatest opportunities for the future but which also faces the greatest challenges.
Those challenges include simulating a shift in cultural thinking of major importers/exporters, global logistic operators, and international shipping lines. Australia has long established trade supply lines to its major southern ports and our challenge is to shift that prevailing orthodoxy. This will not happen by osmosis but by a concerted and well directed marketing and business case development program focussing on potential anchor customers. There is no doubt that many importer/exporters, global logistic operators and shipping lines are unwilling to be the first users of the trade route and need to see some of the high profile anchor customers using the trade route first.
It is also fair to say that, up until the middle of last year, FreightLink’s own international marketing efforts have been limited given their strong initial focus on the domestic freight market. We also have to recognise the railway has only been operating for just over a year and that many potential customers need to see it physically operating for a substantial period before they will seriously consider it as an alternative means of delivering their international freight. Our challenge continues to be to identify, lobby, and strategically market the new trade route to potential anchor customers such as Swire, Toll and others. This we are doing, Madam Speaker.
It is important to recognise that FreightLink did not forecast to achieve any international freight until the second quarter of 2006. This was because their first priority was to capture and secure a sizable share of the domestic freight task as reflected in the performance targets previously mentioned. As a government we have actively sought to expedite the development of international trade above and beyond FreightLink’s own business projections. We have done this by working with, and in advance of, FreightLink and other strategic partners. In doing so, the Territory government has already attracted and secured a number of tangible outcomes for the new trade route. For example, we successfully attracted Swire Shipping to introduce a new Singapore-Darwin shipping service just prior to the commencement of the railway operations, and Swire has openly acknowledged that the direct lobbying and positive attitude of the Territory government which included personal meetings between myself and the chairman of Swire Australia, Bill Rothery, was an important consideration for the Swire board when it decided to establish its new service. That initiative with Swire has been a fundamental catalyst to the early capture of some 18 000 tonnes of new international freight for the AustralAsia trade route during the first year of railway operations.
To date, this new trade has predominantly consisted of South Australian exports destined for South East Asia including Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. These exports have included a diverse range of containerised commodities including lead and zinc ingots, wheat, malt and chemicals. A limited but increasing amount of imported cargo from Asia to southern Australia has also been shipped via the new trade route including timber, steel, coffee, and various manufactured products.
Last November, Hai Win Shipping with the support of ABX Logistics, one of the top ten global logistics companies, conducted a full commercial trial of a new direct Shanghai to Darwin shipping service. This was the first time a direct container shipping service has operated from China to Darwin. In doing so, they delivered approximately 70 containers of imported cargo to Adelaide via the new rail link. From an operational and logistics perspective, the Managing Director of Hai Win, Frank Guerra, has publicly stated that the trial ran ‘as smooth as silk’ and significant transit time savings were achieved. However, from a cost perspective, the company claims it still has some difficulties, but not to the extent as reported in The Australian newspaper, about having further commercial negotiations with FreightLink.
Having analysed the original trial, I understand that Hai Win in conjunction with FreightLink are now undertaking a detailed feasibility study for a possible two-way service between Darwin and north Asia. Mr Guerra has stated that Hai Win believes the rail option could become more viable with a return sector. As outlined in the Growing our Trade Route paper, the pursuit of a regular direct Darwin-North Asia service remains a priority for this government.
Another initiative of this government is its foresight to develop a major business park adjacent to the domestic rail freight terminal during 2004. As we know, Toll Holdings, Australia’s largest transport and logistics company, have already invested some $10m in a state-of-the-art distribution facility in the park. Paul Little, the CEO of Toll, has publicly stated that Toll will be looking to expand its operations and network into Asia, and we are confident that Darwin will feature in those plans. We expect further expansion of Toll’s facilities and the generation of new jobs at the business park later this year.
In years to come, I believe our success in getting Toll established in the park will prove one of the most strategic catalysts for the development of the new containerised and break bulk trades along the new trade route.
The construction of Vopak’s $50m Darwin fuel industry terminal in the business park is well under way. A proposal to establish a $55m biodiesel plant in the same vicinity is well advanced, with a final investment decision due shortly. Both of these projects will enhance the critical volume of freight moved along the AustralAsia Trade Route.
Madam Speaker, the approach we are taking to developing the new trade route is a very pragmatic and targeted one. Whilst we continue to broadly promote and raise awareness of the new trade route and the opportunities both nationally and internationally, the hard slog lies with the detailed business development. This means working closely with potential anchor customers including importers, exporters, global logistic operators and international shipping lines. It involves drilling down through detailed cost and revenue structures with them, and clearly understanding their business and development time frames. It involves helping interested companies to analyse who their freight customers are going to be, that is, who else would be prepared to enter into a contractual arrangement with them to support the new trade group. It also involves drilling down into the possible contractual arrangements to analyse how the risks and obligations are to be shared between the various parties.
We are pursuing this level of business case development with key strategic partners including base load importers and exporters, international shipping lines and global logistic companies. In fact, officials from my Office of Territory Development have been openly welcomed as an honest broker into some of these commercial-in-confidence negotiations where costs, revenue structures and possible contractual terms have been discussed between various private sector interests.
This business case development takes time and ultimately requires the boards of some significant companies to give their sign -ff after full due diligence. We will continue to facilitate this detailed business case development, and I am confident that exciting new developments for the trade route will be secured later this year.
So what of the future? The Growing Our Trade Route paper identifies eight key opportunities that this government will be pursuing as part of its trade route development. These are:
First, to significantly grow Darwin’s international shipping and aviation connections and frequency of calls with key market destinations. In particular, we will seek to secure new services with Indonesia, Malaysia and North Asia, along with strengthened shipping ties with Singapore later this year. On that note, I am pleased to advise that as a follow-up to direct representations made to a number of regional Asian shipping lines by my Office of Territory Development and the Darwin Port Corporation in September, the Chief Executive Officers of two of these companies have accepted our offer to visit Darwin during the next couple of months. In doing so, they will seek to progress negotiations for new direct shipping services with FreightLink, Toll, and other strategic partners. Over the medium term, we will seek to develop direct shipping links with other emerging economies such as India and Vietnam.
Second, in our trade route strategy, we will seek to expedite the growth of the AustralAsia Trade Route as a viable alternative international trading route. This opportunity will be exploited by continuing to promote and market the benefits of the AustralAsia Trade Route to national and international importers, exporters, transport companies and logistic service providers as part of the Territory government’s investment attraction initiatives.
We will also seek to host the highly successful Global Freight Connect Conference again in the Territory during October 2005. Our intention is to take this international conference to a new level, and actually operate the conference as part of the train journey between Darwin and Adelaide. It will also provide an opportunity to hold some mini-plenary sessions in both Alice Springs and Katherine, enabling the local communities to hear directly from eminent world speakers about future trends and developments in international trade and freight.
As part of the marketing of the trade route, we will continue to develop specific business cases for targeted products to increase the volume of trade through Darwin and support new shipping links.
Third, we will seek to establish Darwin as Australia’s northern trade centre for break bulk deconsolidation activities. In particular, we will seek to increase the volumes of imported timber and steel products being shipped via the new trade route.
Fourth, we will expand Darwin’s position as Australia’s northern supply base centre for servicing the offshore oil and gas industry and mineral developments in the neighbouring Asian region. In doing so, we will seek to cement Darwin’s position for future developments in the Timor Sea and build on the existing capability developed to service the Bayu-Undan development.
Fifth, we will develop Darwin as the port of choice for bulk mineral exports from Central Australia to Asia. The government has already allocated $11.2m for the developing of new bulk handling facilities at East Arm, which will service developments such as the Bootu Creek manganese mine located near Tennant Creek. Government will continue to foster additional mineral developments which can bring new employment opportunities to our regional communities.
Sixth, we will continue to grow the Territory’s trade links, utilising Darwin’s new international shipping connections, and Australia’s new free trade agreements. Future overseas visits by myself and other ministers will continue to be used to advance these opportunities.
Seventh, we will continue to promote the new Darwin Business Park as the location of choice for consolidation, distribution and value-adding activities. In that regard, I am advised that the Land Development Corporation will embark on a major marketing campaign this year, and have engaged local real estate company, Colliers, to help them do so. My Office of Territory Development, in conjunction with the Land Development Corporation, is also working closely with Toll Holdings on the further expansion of Toll’s operations at the business park later this year.
As previously mentioned, a proposal to establish a $55m bio-diesel plant in the same vicinity is well advanced, with final investment decision due shortly.
Eighth, we will continue to expedite opportunities in regional communities which deliver ongoing economic activity and sustainable new employment. For example, we expect significant growth to occur in Katherine this year as it develops into a significant regional freight hub, servicing both the Katherine and Kimberley regions. This government has commenced negotiations to acquire some 50 ha of land adjacent to the Katherine rail freight terminal to cater for the long-term development of the freight hub, including industrial expansion for the freight, transport and light manufacturing sectors.
Madam Speaker, our future priorities for the AustralAsia Trade Route are challenging but clear. We are committed to substantially growing the flow of international trade, further strengthening the Territory’s international shipping connections, leveraging new value-added industries and employment opportunities, and achieving positive economic outcomes for our regional centres. We continue to take a whole-of-government approach to achieving all of these priorities by the AustralAsia Trade Route Taskforce which I established early last year. My government’s wider trade and transport policies also clearly reflect the strategic importance of the AustralAsia trade to the Territory.
Over the next two years, a strong element of this government’s investment attraction efforts will continue to focus on growing the new trade route, with a particular emphasis on attracting new shipping links between East Arm Port and Asia. New direct links with China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and stronger direct links with Singapore, are our imminent goals. Such links will be the catalyst to increase trade and investment opportunities for the Territory.
Growing our trade route is a clear part of this government’s overall economic agenda of providing jobs for Territorians, consistent with our broader goals of moving the Territory ahead through fostering high quality infrastructure to leverage significant private sector employment investment in the Territory, successfully position the Northern Territory in the regional international economy, and working in partnership with the private sector to achieve positive economic gains for the Territory.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I was looking forward to a statement of some substance from the Chief Minister when I saw the title of the statement, Growing Our Trade Route. Having looked at the statement, I would suggest it should probably read ‘Rooting our trade growth’ rather than Growing Our Trade Route. The statement does nothing to provide any confidence to what this government is actually doing in the priority actions which appear to be the focus of this particular document, in growing our international trade through the Port of Darwin.
It is interesting, when one looks back at the document the Chief Minister forgot about, which was Building A Better Territory and the objectives the Chief Minister set herself in that particular document. Regarding investment and trade, it is worth reminding the Chief Minister that she gave herself priority actions of:
Chief Minister, this particular document here, as it is a glossy document, has your photo on the front, is signed by you, and is called a strategy, would be informative, and also a strategy that - I would hope - engage the minds of people who are thinking about making the investments in the Northern Territory. Otherwise, what purpose does this particular document serve? Is it a promotion from the Chief Minister to say to Territorians: ‘Look at me. Because I have put out this document close to the election, therefore, I am actually doing something’. If that is the objective of the document, without scrutiny I guess it probably achieves that. I suggest that, probably, that is the objective of the document: to cobble together something fairly quickly and tell the public servants who are probably working very hard to develop a land-bridging concept to redirect their energies and come up with something attractive for the Chief Minister to put out publicly.
However, when you stand up as the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory to deliver a statement like this, and put out a document named Growing Our Trade Route, it does you no good to put out something that is inaccurate. Any cursory examination of the situation the Northern Territory faces in what we are actually achieving, what our existing services are, and what the current infrastructure and services situation is in the Northern Territory - with an expectation that business would look at this - I would suggest to you that any businessman worth his salt would toss this thing within about five minutes. He would not even get past about page 5 before he would say: ‘This is nothing more than political pap. It is inaccurate, it does not give me any information of any real worth, and it certainly does not give me any encouragement to invest in the Northern Territory and invest in this particular organisation, government, port or land-bridging strategy at all’.
Chief Minister, you might wish to - because I will refer to it on occasions - refer to a document that has been commissioned by Mr John McCue, International Project Manager, Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development. It is a quick look at the existing service structures in our port, the impediments in our port, and the existing routes that we have moving into and out of South-East Asia, and the analysis done in that particular report and how it refers to your trade strategy. It seems that people are not talking to one another. Worse than that, under the imprimatur of the Chief Minister, you have gone out to supposedly business - but you and I know it is nothing more than a political document to try and impress Territorians - to impress them on the energy of your effort and the accuracy of your statements.
It says in the booklet Growing Our Trade Route under the heading ‘Current Infrastructure and Services:
Via Darwin!
Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days. That is what the Chief Minister’s says and goes to industry with. If you pick up this report, and you would not even need this report to know, it says here:
You might try to argue that if you commissioned your own charter vessel, working entirely for the Northern Territory government, and fired it from Singapore into Darwin, then got the stuff immediately on the rail down to Adelaide, you might make nine days. But to suggest somehow that the Northern Territory has in place current infrastructure and services that gives you a transit time for Adelaide to Jakarta of eight days is ridiculous. It then goes on to say Singapore to Adelaide - 10 days, Singapore to Melbourne - 11 days.
That implies that if you want to put trade onto this railway line through our port and send something to Jakarta, that somehow we have services that run there. We do not. We do not have services. There are no direct services that run to Jakarta.
There is a trans-shipment service that runs through Singapore, but the trans-shipment service that runs through Singapore is, if you want to talk about what the typical land bridging transit times are, they are - and a businessman would get this in five minutes: we have two services, one run by Swire Shipping, an NGPL service; it calls to Darwin approximately every 18 days. It runs from Darwin to Benete Bay, three days; Jakarta, five to seven days; Port Klang, Malaysia, eight to ten days; Singapore, nine to 12 days. So if you are sending stuff from Darwin to Singapore it has to go on that route via Jakarta.
The rotation then turns south bound to Australia via Port Moresby and other Papua New Guinea and Solomon Island ports. It utilises four of the large 22 000 dead weight Challenger class vessels which are capable of carrying 1200 teu – twenty-foot equivalent units. It has a crocodile line service as well. This service calls into Darwin nominally on a fortnightly basis. The actual schedule has been closer to every three weeks as the vessel regularly diverts within the region for project and ad hoc cargo, albeit generally Territory-related. The base rotation of the crocodile line service is Darwin to Dili, one day; Singapore, seven days; Benete Bay, another 12 days; Dili, 14 days; back to Darwin, 15 days.
The other shipping service that we have in Darwin is the Perkins Shipping Group. Perkins runs on a transit time of average eight days: Darwin, Dili, Singapore, Dili, Darwin, total transit time of 15 days. Both Swire and Perkins offer trans-shipment from Singapore to worldwide ports, including Jakarta and Surabaya. Transit time from Darwin to Jakarta or Surabaya with trans-shipment is approximately 13 days.
Why in God’s name would you put in a document with this sort of imprimatur that you can put stuff on our trade route, our new railway, our new port, and suggest to business that you can do it in eight days from Adelaide? It is absolute garbage. What it does is indicate that this government does not have a clue what is happening with its port, does not have a clue what is happening with its railway, does not have the foggiest notion as to how to spend money, and how to target strategies that grow this economy and grow the Northern Territory in the way it has been set up with the infrastructure provided for you.
What you can do is knock out glossy documents, you can spend money on all sorts of programs, with the enormous amounts of money that has come through on the GST, but you cannot talk the truth to Territorians, and you cannot talk the talk to business, either. If you talked the talk to business, they would soon look for the facts, truth and accuracies. This is nothing more than a political document that has been published to impress Territorians that you are doing something.
I have not gone past page 5 of this strategy, which says:
Well, it is the closest port geographically, but the implication in here is that it is the closest port in order to get trade across to Singapore, Surabaya or Jakarta. If you are talking about that area alone, your own commissioned reports will tell you that Brisbane can outdo you any day of the week in terms of speed and Fremantle can outdo all of them because Fremantle is on a return leg going back up north and is considered within the trade as the fastest port …
Ms Martin: Do you want to live in the Territory? You are putting down everything you come across. Why do you bother?
Mr BURKE: You do not have a clue, Chief Minister. You really do not have a clue.
Ms Martin: Why do you bother? You put down everything in sight. Why live in Darwin? You may as well live in Brisbane.
Mr BURKE: You should be back reading the news. You do not have a clue. You have so much money to play with and you do not have a clue as to how to spend it properly or how to tell the truth to Territorians.
So, we are suggesting here that we have direct international shipping services, that Australia’s closest port:
Jakarta! There is nothing going from Darwin to Jakarta direct. Nothing! If you can tell me what is going from Darwin to Jakarta direct, I am here to be illuminated because there is nothing going from Darwin to Jakarta direct; everything has to transit through Singapore or Surabaya. It is simply misleading to suggest that you have, out of Darwin, direct international shipping services. They not only have to tranship through Singapore or Surabaya as a minimum, but often in the way the legs are organised with existing carriers, they also have legs through other ports on the way. It is a hospital run shipping service in those centres at the moment.
It goes on in the same paragraph:
We know the story of that. Hai Win certainly commenced in November 2004. The Chief Minister went out and told everyone what a great service she put in place but, in fact, it stopped as fast as it commenced. Whilst the Chief Minister is trying to talk up the fact that a couple of people might visit and something else might happen, it seems clear from the Hai Win assessment of what went on that they were not impressed by the situation that they are confronted with at the moment.
The report that was done by one Darwin operator on behalf of your department bears no relationship to your statement, but in itself as a document is far more informative to anyone who would want to sit down and say: ‘What are the difficulties in the Northern Territory? What are the challenges we have to confront? What are the opportunities for us, and where can we focus that effort?’
The one opportunity this document points to is that we should be putting an effort on a direct service to Surabaya because it is the only hub port in the Indonesian archipelago that has heavy service, on a spoke-and-wheel concept, that goes to other Indonesian ports including Jakarta, and I think also to Singapore, but Surabaya is the only one that does have a direct link to any Australian port. This document points to Surabaya as being a missed opportunity and if we look at the Chief Minister’s trade strategy, look through the statement, there is no mention of that, which is the number one deduction which comes out of this Norman report.
Chief Minister, if you are going to bring forward to this government and not insult the intelligence of people who are supposed to comment on your so-called statements, why didn’t you talk about the sorts of products that are being carried, have the potential to be carried, the volumes involved in those products, the capacity to move those products, and the difficulties or otherwise associated with moving them, which include things, I would imagine, like refrigeration? Why didn’t you talk about, accurately, the shipping services that we have, the routes that they travel, the transit times, and the impost and challenges of those services, where they could be improved, where you are working to improve those services to make them faster or more direct, and other shipping services based on real opportunities? Are you putting a priority on attracting them? It is one thing to say in a statement, ‘we are looking to China’. I mean, anyone can look to China, the whole of Australia, the whole of the world is looking to China. However, if you want to talk seriously about what this government is doing as a strategy in growing our trade route that would be one piece of information that certainly we would like to know.
Nowhere in the strategy or the statement are cost relativities, the sorts of information that we all want to know - how much does it costs to move the same size container out of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Fremantle compared to moving that container out of Darwin? What is the additional cost of moving it from Adelaide to Darwin on the rail? How does the cost of shipping to Singapore or to Surabaya, or one of those ports, compare to shipping from other Australian ports? We know that information if you look in other documents. We know that the Northern Territory is not competitive. We know that the Northern Territory is not tracking anywhere near where some of the other ports in the Australian states are, and that is understandable, to some extent. But what we want to know is, how are those disadvantages going to be overcome?
What about the port infrastructure? How does our port infrastructure compare to other port infrastructure in terms of relativity? Where are the weaknesses in our port compared to other ports? Where do some ports have an advantage over us that we do not? Where does the infrastructure need to be put in and where is the priority of the infrastructure being put in, in order to max those other particular port’s advantages? Where are the customs issues? How do customs issues affect the movement of trade through Darwin, the movement of trade when it is being transhipped, and what sort of things can be done to overcome those particular disadvantages?
I scribbled those five things down and I would have thought, that if you wanted this parliament to take your statement seriously, whoever was putting together your statement and this document, would have sketched those things out as the basic structure for a speech so that we were all dealing with something that was worthwhile.
I would like to go longer but, frankly, this statement has received a greater response from me than it deserves. It is an insult to anyone’s intelligence. It is an insult to anyone who has the basis understanding of the challenges of our port/rail and landbridging capabilities and challenges. It is an insult to anyone who might pick it up, seriously, to look at where the Northern Territory government is seriously addressing the challenges of growing our international trade. Frankly, it is an insult to the average Territorian, who probably does not know a dot about any of these things. You have the gall to run this out as a political election statement and somehow suggest that you are going to impress them with a government that is doing work. You are doing none of it. All you are doing is insulting my intelligence and the rest of my colleagues.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Mr Deputy Speaker, dear, oh dear, oh dear. I suppose that was the type of response we could expect from the Opposition Leader.
I rise tonight to commend the Chief Minister on her statement this evening, Growing Our Trade Route, because this is all about vision and about working in partnership between FreightLink, the operators of the railway; shipping companies; freight forwarders; the Northern Territory government; and the private sector to grow our trading volumes through our port and with the railway to achieve the targets that have been established in the Territory government’s trade strategies.
This is a partnership approach. The strategy documents that we have in front of us tonight have been put together in partnership with FreightLink, the operators of the railway; importers; and shipping companies, which have all had input into the strategy. Therefore, the Opposition Leader insults our intelligence by suggesting that the Territory government should be off on its own pursuing targets without working in partnership with FreightLink, the shipping companies and the freight forwarders, working to a comprehensive plan of engagement in the region, and targeting particular cargoes and volumes in countries.
I know, under the previous government, they would rush off with grand vision statements and plans. If you looked behind them who were there in most cases? Very few people. We can all recite many examples of when the previous government ran off with grand visions and schemes which came to nothing. As the Chief Minister said …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Allow the minister to continue, please.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This evening, the document details how we are going to achieve the targets in the trade strategy, and the Leader of the Opposition talked about some of those. I have talked about some of the targets which we have achieved.
In regard to the 10-minute rail regarding to the current shipping times that are mentioned on page 5 of the report - Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days; Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days - those times are promoted by FreightLink. They are also promoted by Swire Shipping as the optimum times which could be achieved with maximum utilisation of this new trade route. If the Leader of the Opposition is going to have a go at the Chief Minister and bag the government, then I suggest he also takes it up with FreightLink and Swire Shipping which are also promoting the trade route in regards to being able to achieve these times. It is very easy for the Leader of the Opposition to come in here, but he obviously …
Mr Dunham: It is your boss, not the boss of Swire.
Mr HENDERSON: The member for Drysdale can have his go in a moment.
… has not been speaking to those companies regarding what strategies and targets they are pursuing as commercial targets, and how they are working with government to achieve those targets with those strategies. To come in here and bag this, say this is just government promotional material, I suggest he goes and talks to FreightLink and Swire in regards to those targets and times which are in this document.
As the Minister for Asian Relations and Trade, and Business and Industry, I am committed to championing Territory small business to maximise opportunities from the AustralAsia trade route. As a government, we are committed to working with business to see trading partnerships strengthened and, through practical assistance and advice, we are working to assist more business become involved with international trade. Fundamental to the establishment of a sustainable trade route, is a strong business culture geared towards exports. Here, the Territory’s business community uses its advantages to punch above its weight.
The Territory’s strong multicultural community, with links through family and sporting ties, gives us a close affinity with our Asian neighbours and, with the premises of being friends first and business partners later so strong in Asia, this is a real advantage. Being as we are, geographically isolated from Australia’s other major centres, the Territory’s business community shows a determination and commitment in developing new trade opportunities outside Australia, and particularly with our Asian neighbours to the north, a ‘can do’ approach which is so welcomed and suited to developing new export opportunities.
As the Chief Minister advised, growing the trade routes will not be without challenges. We have to build on our existing business culture and continue to encourage increased involvement in trade and exporting. In June 2002, this government launched its International Trade Strategy. The previous government, in 26 years of government, did not have a definitive strategy or a single document to guide its engagement with the region - an absolute dereliction of responsibilities to working towards any comprehensive plan. This strategy was launched by the government in June 2002, a strong focus of which is on maximising the potential benefits of the trade route.
The government has formed an international trade strategy implementation committee bringing together a number of private industry sectors and government departments as a cohesive and proactive group working to encourage the growth in international trade to boost activity on the AustralAsian trade routes and meet the overall objectives of the strategy by 2007. The international trade strategy does set ambitious targets – something that the previous government never did - including lifting the overall value and volume of Northern Territory non-oil exports by 40% in 2007. Good progress is being made. In December 2002, Northern Territory exports stood at $403m and, in September 2004, this figure had grown to $457m. That is an increase of 14% which has us tracking well to achieve the targeted growth of 40% by 2007.
We also set out a target of increasing the number of Territory enterprises participating in or contributing to international trade by 25% by 2007. This is a good news story for Territory business. According to the ABS in the 2002-03 financial year the number of Territory businesses exporting products out of the Northern Territory was 129. This has increased to 226 in 2003-04 again putting the Territory well on track for meeting the target of a 25% increase in the number of Territory exporters. The international trade strategy also aims to support substantial knowledge-based growth in at least two emerging sectors, and substantial strategic work has been undertaken to strengthen the Territory’s manufacturing and services sectors and the capacity to export knowledge-based goods and services.
The government has also enhanced the direct practical assistance dedicated to international market developments. Under our Trade Support Scheme, about which I spoke in detail last week, the government has provided valuable support to 25 knowledge-based firms in 2003-04 and a further 10 grants to firms have been given this financial year. As I noted last week, the Trade Support Scheme was launched on 1 July with dedicated funding of $336 000. I remind honourable members that more than 70 Territory businesses have been given the opportunity to explore new international markets and areas as diverse as primary industry, tourism, services, construction, manufacturing, information technology, and the arts. The government was proud to announce an increase in the budget for the scheme for $358 000 in 2004-05 with a further $150 000 from the Tourist Commission.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I mentioned earlier the importance of building relationships in order to have successful partnerships in Asia. The Territory has been pleased to enjoy friendships with the governments and business communities of the trading bloc of the east Asian growth area or BIMP-EAGA as it is more commonly known. Last year, this relationship was opened as never before when the Territory was invited to join BIMP-EAGA as a development partner. Our new status of BIMP-EAGA Plus One will open doors into the region and allow us the opportunity to fully discuss and promote the AustralAsian trade route and its potential to grow regional trade to business circles that may otherwise have been out of reach.
One project flowing from the Territory’s BIMP-EAGA Plus One status is a proposal I put forward at a recent BIMP-EAGA ministers’ meeting for a regional one-stop shop using the Territory as the gateway between the rest of Australia and Asia. Work is progressing well on the establishment of the one-stop shop which, when completed, will provide a point of contact for sophisticated business matching services offering Territory firms a way to market their products and services into the BIMP-EAGA region and offering BIMP-EAGA firms a means of marketing their products and services to both the Northern Territory and through us to the rest of Australia.
My department is working closely with the Chamber of Commerce Northern Territory and the BIMP-EAGA small to medium enterprise working group and, through both of these, the Australian Chamber of Commerce network and the BIMP-EAGA facilitation centre, to establish what will be a first for this region in international business-to-business networking.
The Northern Territory has a key advantage being the trading hub to eastern Indonesia and in particular with the Indonesian customs pre-inspection facility. The facility has been revitalised and is already showing an increase in activity and results. A strong new marketing plan has been developed for this facility and we will be taking the message to logistics firms, exporters and international business people in both the southern states of Australia and throughout the Asian region on upcoming delegations. I am also pleased to report that the newest of our Indonesian customs officials has just arrived in Darwin for his six month term and we welcome him to our city. I also note the fact that in collaboration with the Indonesian Customs department, we are now exploring the possibility of expanding the scope of the Indonesian Customs pre-clearance facility to include Java and Sumatra, thus giving this facility coverage of all of Indonesia.
This, if achieved, will place us in the prime position of having a truly unique service to offer to exporters from around Australia and really position Darwin as the central hub for all imports and exports between Australia and Indonesia. It is a great competitive advantage that we have, and I am hopeful that the Indonesians will agree to open up the pre-clearance facility to include Java and Sumatra.
An important element of building relationships in Asia as part of the building trade is, of course, travelling to regions and meeting with players on the ground. As Asian Relations and Trade minister, I will again this year be leading government and trade delegations into our Asian markets to develop and maintain the Territory’s good relations. In fact, on Sunday, I will be leading a trade and business delegation of about 15 people to Jakarta, Balikpapan and Surabaya in Indonesia from 20 to 24 February. This delegation will include Toll Holdings and FreightLink which are working with the government to open up the opportunities in Surabaya about which the Leader of the Opposition was talking. If he had any networks in the business community, he would know that work is being undertaken and that Toll and FreightLink are working with the government on that target.
This business delegation follows a successful visit I made to the region I made late last year to attend the ninth ministerial meeting of BIMP-EAGA. The key purpose of next week’s delegation will to be deliver a series of presentations, predominantly targeting the oil, gas and mining sectors, presenting the Territory’s capacity and ability to be a key base and through point for the supply of goods and services to the booming resources sector in the eastern Indonesian region, utilising the AustralAsian Trade Route and the Darwin-based Indonesian customs pre-inspection facility.
Feedback that I had in November last year was that this pre-inspection facility would be a very valuable point of opportunity for Australian companies based in East Kalimantan which are servicing and supplying our massive mining projects there. The difficulties and the complexities they have of supplying those sites through the east coast ports, through Perth up to Singapore, Jakarta and into East Kalimantan is causing huge problems and presents a real opportunity for the Territory, the port and the pre-inspection facility.
For some years, the Territory has been pursuing a long-term strategy to establish Darwin as a major regional supply and service centre to the mining and petroleum industries. Eastern Indonesia has been the prime focus of this strategy and this industry sector represents a significant target market for Territory business. It has the potential to generate more transport links through and from Darwin, establishing a trade hub. Whilst in Jakarta, I will have the opportunity to meet with ministers of the new Indonesian Cabinet, to build new relationships and renew old friendships.
Additional trade and business missions are being planned to Thailand, China, Dubai, Sabah, Brunei, Vietnam and India. We are also actively strengthening the Northern Territory’s existing international and Asian relationships and exploring new relationships to promote and grow Territory trade and investment.
Free trade agreements and other steps to liberalise the International Trade Rules, both through the World Trade Organisation and regionally, play an important role in expanding trade markets and opening new ones. I am pleased to advise that we have been strongly advocating the Territory trade interests in the development of these initiatives. In particular, we have been very active in the development of the Australian Free Trade agreement agreements that are now operating with Singapore, Thailand and the USA. We are also advocating Territory interests in the free trade agreements currently being considered, or under development, with China, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Trade developments with Japan are also under way.
This government will continue to grow Territory trade links, utilising Darwin’s new international shipping connections and Australia’s new Free Trade Agreements. The Leader of the Opposition asked what we are doing for infrastructure, what we are doing out at the port. I do not know if he listened to recent announcements, but the government has committed, and we are out to tender at the moment, for an $11.2m bulk loading facility at the port. It is a huge capital commitment to build infrastructure at our port that will open up mining operations in Central Australia, making deposits that currently are not commercially viable for development a real viable opportunity. The Bootu Creek Mine will be up and running later this year and making use of that new bulk loading facility.
It is erroneous to say that we are not progressing infrastructure initiatives and we are doing nothing. There are at least two major mining operations in Central Australia that would not occur without this investment. The investment has been committed and we are out to tender.
There are a number of main line shipping operators that the government is talking to, regional Asian shipping lines as well as the existing shipping lines. We are talking to others, and trial shipments have and will, later this year, involve an increasing number of international companies that are committed to trials through the Port of Darwin.
We have paid credit to the member for Brennan in the past for his role in seeing the railway come to fruition, but he knows very well, and it is pretty mischievous now but it is politics and I can understand that, that the immediate focus of FreightLink, the financial entities that made up the private sector financial consortia that have funded $800m worth of investment in the railway, the entire business case for the railway where the banks were seeking an immediate return on their equity in the project, was based around the domestic freight case. The Leader of the Opposition well knows that. He was part of those discussions and negotiations. Quite rightly, FreightLink have to satisfy those bank demands; that is what the business case was built on and that is where their focus and effort has been. But already they are ahead of the pack, working with, and ahead of, their business case, working with the Territory government and shipping companies and freight forwarders, already establishing new shipping routes into the region, and those links will increase and they will increase over time.
We can see problems in the east coast ports of Australia where a lack of land surrouding ports that are aleady very congested with long waiting times, will create further opportunities for the Port of Darwin and the for railway. Ultimately, this is a commercial venture and FreightLink have to put a good, solid, commercial business case to existing shipping lines and freight forwarders to shift from their established routes into the Australian market via the east coast to come through the Port of Darwin. They have courage of that business case, those cost structures and the direct marketing of those services. They are doing that in conjunction with the Territory government. They are doing that within the realms of a comprehensive and cohesive plan that is targeting shipping companies, and countries not only in this immediate region but also further a field.
How can you suggest that FreightLink is not doing that work? How could the Territory government possibly do that work unless it was in partnership with FreightLink and the shipping companies? I suppose it is okay to have a go at us, but not to understand that we are working in partnership with FreightLink and the shipping companies and the freight forwarders also sends a rebuke as well to those companies which are working very hard to optimise the infrastructure that is in place now and to build on the opportunities that are in place now.
I commend this statement to the House. As trade minister in the Northern Territory government, I will continue to do whatever I can, and with the officers of my department, to work with Territory business across all sectors to open up the export and trade opportunities for the Northern Territory economy. Since our Trade Support Scheme came into being in 2002 there has been a huge increase in funding to support Territory exporters. Not rhetoric, not endless ministerial junkets into the region that achieved absolutely nothing in a large part. You talk to any of the Territory players in the export scheme and they talk with derision about the previous government’s efforts.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Deputy Speaker, my comments will reflect largely the content of the Leader of the Opposition’s comments, and for very good reason. The minister, in making his contribution, makes the comment that if those who are involved in the industry were consulted, were spoken to, then we would be shown to be in error in commenting on this document as gloss and hype.
The fact is, even this day I made an effort to contact a number of people who are active in this field and who derive their living from international trade. This is not the sort of thing which is going to excite them and give them additional traction. What we have here is, once again, a description of potential. We all agree with the potential - we are strategically located. We have the reiteration, again and again, of that which is possible due to the great fortune of where we are located, and the fact that we have experience within the region, in addition to our geographic location.
The potential is married with words which I no longer have confidence in - words which fill modern documents: ‘We are committed to substantially growing’, something; ‘We are committed to further strengthening’. What do these words actually mean? ‘We are committed to leveraging and value-adding. We are committed to achieving positive economic outcomes’. What do these words mean? I have spoken to those who are actively involved in this industry, and in international trade. These words mean little.
Going further, of those who would allow us to realise this potential of international investment, I have the good fortune of some very good connections within the region. I have been associated with a family for many years in Indonesia who are multi-billionaires – the Hartono family. Recently, I took the time to brief Bungbam Hartono on the Northern Territory and its potential. Because I have a valued relationship with this man, I cannot sell him hype and gloss because I want to retain a relationship for the longer haul. He also has a relationship to his children, and the children who come after those children. He has responsibility for assets which are colossal through Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and Europe. I could not sell him on this. This is the sort of thing which will impress someone who does not know much about the reality of international trade which flows from solid relationships within the region. Someone will be making a significant commitment – those who allow their capital to grow, take risks. This is not the type of platform upon which you would place great risk.
This document describes potential; that which would give heart to any potential investor to allow investment to grow is a description of reality. Exactly what trade does occur within our region; for example, the eastern provinces of Indonesia? How does it get from the region into Australia? How are we tracking in that regard? What is the volume of trade from Indonesia into Australia, Indonesia and the whole archipelago; and, taking it out further, how is that getting into Australia? That sort of information needs to be presented to this parliament to give us an update on how we are tracking in real terms. Which vessels are plying their trade within the region, and which of those vessels are considering coming to the Northern Territory? How are we progressing in real terms - not just in potential terms? Once again, if we are dealing with making real progress in this regard, then we need to be couching this information to those who would be accessing and realising the real potential; that is, those who are involved in international trade on both sides of the equation.
Otherwise, we are talking about simply, as the Leader of the Opposition describes, a document that serves one purpose only, a political purpose, to create an impression, and that is not acceptable. If we are in this job our responsibility is to make a difference not create an impression. I am dissatisfied with this approach which serves only to create an impression. That is why I am dissatisfied with the plethora of words which creates the impression of something that leaves you dissatisfied: ‘committed to’, ‘substantially growing something’ - it sounds great but I know it does not really cut it.
Now let us get down to it. I listened carefully to the minister speaking and I will say again that under a CLP government this issue will be dealt with entirely differently. There will be a different approach to engaging our region. For anyone who has done any work in the region and understands cross-cultural interaction and trade, understands that there needs to be a fair bit of work going on in the area of relationships which lead to trade. We have focussed largely, as is the manner of those who have not understood the culture in which we are trading with, we will talk about trade, we will talk about infrastructure, physical infrastructure, we will talk about railways and we will talk about ports. We will give scant regard to the fact that, yes, we have many people here who come from the region, speak the language and so on. Back to the port, back to the trade missions, back to the shaking of hands, back to the glossy documents and this sort of stuff, and we will talk about trade, trade, trade, trade, trade. We will be talking about trade until the cows come home.
Growing up in Western Australia in the early days when China was just opening up, a number of friends of mine got in early into China. One chap was working in China for 10 years until the penny dropped: he could be there for 25 years with the sense that the deal was imminent, close to. He would come back, ‘We’re nearly there’. And after 10 years he realised that he was being run around the place. Everyone was incredibly polite to him. He would just about close the deal and he would have to move to another level. So he would come back and arrange for the meeting which was going to advance it to the next exciting stage and off he would go with great hopes, everything prepared for this, and find that it is going to advance to another level, we are very close. He went around and around and around. Ultimately, he realised that he needed some understanding of how to negotiate in a cross-cultural context. He gave up on it because he had expended his resources.
There are many in Darwin, many in the Territory, and many within Australia who have had that experience - not understanding how you actually conduct trade in a cross-cultural context. That is why the relationship part of this is critical. That is why when we talk about education exchanges and education we need to spend more time on building a cross-cultural understanding of how we would actually transact business. The education exchanges, we need vision there. The truth is that 20 years ago, we commenced education exchanges within the region. Some of those young students who spent time at the university or some of our local schools, and spent time in the home of Territory families, have now grown up to become a successful business people. They have a connection to and a relationship with the Northern Territory. There are names that we can cite of people who have actually spent a part of their youth here in the Territory; they are from the region, they might be from Malaysia, they might be from Indonesia. If I had more time I could list some of these names. Because they have that connection they then prefer to trade with people they know.
That is why education exchanges have a great potential and need to be developed and incorporated into this whole dialogue about international trade which flows from relations. Education is important; education of the public sector and providing a cross-cultural training as the part of the Chamber of Commerce funding that the minister would want to provide if we actually want to strengthen our trade outcome in the longer term.
Further to that are our sporting exchanges. We once had significant funding for sporting exchanges. We may underestimate - if we do not have a vision or understanding of how we transact trade and business within the region - the value of those sporting exchanges we once had. They ultimately have a part to play in building relationships which result in trade. We begin to understand each other. People in the region want to trade with people they know. Through the vehicle of sport and education exchanges, we can develop strategic relationships within the region. There is massive infrastructure that you cannot see as you can see girders and concrete, but the massive infrastructure of relationships that were once established within the region through sport, education and political connections have largely faded. They need to be maintained. That is the critical infrastructure that needs to be developed. That is where we can punch above weight and take our strategic advantage.
If we want to analyse whether this is the way we are tracking, we only need to look at when the train arrived in Darwin. Was that an event to create an impression of achievement, or was that an event which demonstrated a deeper understanding of how we engage the region? The former applies because if we were serious about seeing this train, which carried railway carriages and was designed to carry freight primarily from the region, you would have extended the invitations to include representation from our nearest neighbours at the event, even the Indonesian Consulate. You would have had trade delegations from the region to see the train come in and include them as part of it. They could have seen that this was a part of the vision and infrastructure that extends across the sea and part of our engagement with the region. There was no such delegation, representation or even acknowledgement within the speeches. It was all about the creation of an impression that it was something we had achieved. It was about us and here and now.
This is about extending the vision to incorporate those things that cannot be seen, and that is relationship building, which flows directly to trade.
Compare the response of this government to the Asian tsunami and a previous government to East Timor. It demonstrates an understanding of how you engage a region. When the crisis occurred in East Timor, there was an instant and robust response from government. That active response drew funding from the United Nations and other quarters through the Northern Territory and across to East Timor. The Northern Territory demonstrated clear understanding of the region and demonstrated leadership.
In Aceh, there is a great opportunity to show clear leadership and lean upon the reserves of AusAID money to ensure that we show clear leadership and demonstrate that we have the capacity in the Northern Territory to acquit some of that money into the region. This has the potential of ultimately building stronger trade. We are talking about economic drivers, so we must take advantage of the fact that we are close to the region and that we have some experience, which must be strongly marketed. We have an opportunity, in the aftermath of the tsunami, to strengthen our economic potential and reach into the region.
Again, this leaves me under-whelmed. Chief Minister, the truth is that today I have spoken to a number who are actively involved. The truth, and I am sure you know this, is that they will give you a little pat on the back and give you E for effort; you are heading in the right direction and we are glad that we see some activity now. They will give you that much. However, E for effectiveness and actually cutting a path and making the difference and delivering on the clear potential of the Territory requires that we draw deeper than glossy documents filled with meaningless words.
If I take this to my Indonesian contacts within the region who could, with a flick of a pen, invest mightily in the Territory, this would not get them to pull out their pen and make a commitment. They would see straight through this. Because of a relationship, I will stick with my connections within the region, and I will continue to demonstrate that we have the potential. We will build those bridges, but we have to have a relationship first, otherwise we will be running around the countryside creating impressions, but creating no real difference.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Deputy Speaker, one of the advantages of a good framework is that you can attach much to it, and I believe this document is exactly such a framework. To make the point, I will confine my comments to page 6, Information and Communication Technology, third paragraph down:
When we came to government, it would be fair to say that the ICT industry in the Northern Territory was probably somewhat demoralised. It was in a position where, because of the local companies being very dependent on government contracts for their continued sustainability, that there was not a great sign that the industry was acting coherently and acting in a cooperative way. It was very much mutual competition, and that is certainly what we inherited.
In conjunction with my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, Paul Henderson, we launched some workshops for the industry. We invited all the companies along, all the government units which had a role in developing the industry, and the industry responded extremely positively to that beginning point. Subsequently, a trade development group came together consisting of representatives of our major companies here, people like CSG, SRA, CSM, the main carriers that were operating in the Territory. So we had a group that was starting to actively look at how you could grow the industry, not through being confined in a mutually competitive arrangement to government work and the finite amount of work that was available for the industry in the Northern Territory, but to see if they could find mutual opportunities in a much bigger context, in other words, overseas trade.
The first act they took was to send a delegation, which I had the pleasure to accompany, to Hanover in Germany to the CeBIT 2002, which is a massive annual expo of the ICT industry worldwide. There were 27 huge pavilions, each one of them would be four times the size of this Chamber. They need their own bus service to get people around. There were up to 8000 exhibitors, absolutely everything that is up-to-date and new in the ICT industry on a global level.
Dr Lim interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Deputy Speaker, they are obviously not interested in hearing the practicalities of trade because they have not stopped yelling since I started talking.
What CeBIT showed was that our industry could benchmark itself, and its products and standards against the global standard. Out of those 27 pavilions, 26 of them were full of incredibly clever and up-to-date gadgets, things that we will never manufacture here in the Northern Territory, things that are going to be increasing sophistication supply around the world. Only one pavilion dealt with specialised software applications and digital content, and that was the big lesson that we brought back from CeBIT 2002.
On the way back, we also started building our contacts with SingTel in Singapore, and many of the other companies which our local companies had started to form a relationship with. There was much food for thought. It was not just theories about how you progress trade; we were starting to see some tangible ideas of directions the local companies could take in their research and development, product development and marketing, which would put the Territory industry in a position where it could grow its clientele, revenue and activities.
That led to further discussions of the working group in the Territory. There were a number of forums held over the ensuing couple of years. A further trip to CeBIT in Sydney this time - it was the Pacific South-East Asian version of it. There are some four or five of these held regionally, as well as the main CeBIT in Hannover. Again, it was a matter of networking and benchmarking what has been done locally, to what the demand is in a much wider marketplace.
We then took the biggest delegation ever from an industry sector to Singapore from the Northern Territory and exhibited at the Singapore ICT Expo. That was very interesting, as there were sales of product to control the logistics of coastal shipping companies. This was a direct sale which led to further visits by that company, CSG. There were sales of environmental software from SRA into the South-East Asian market, as a result of that expo participation. There was also a huge amount of interest in an electric-powered bike developed at our own university. There was much interest in software which enables education systems to develop examination materials such as multi-choice questions and the like into Hong Kong. That was a very productive trip where we were starting to see actual product being taken up within a wider marketplace.
We also realised that there were many things which the Territory has to develop, as a matter of course, to support our own community and activities, such as telemedicine applications, and open leaning applications and content. They are in high demand now in the engine rooms of the ICT industry in the world in places such as India and Singapore, as they are trying, in turn, to market to countries which have highly dispersed populations and the same issues of isolation and environment which we have in the Northern Territory - places such as the western end of China. They are markets which they want to develop.
If you are sitting in Singapore and the whole place is 40 x 40, as I think is the size of the island, there is not a lot of scope for developing in situ applications which deal with those types of factors. Therefore, the Territory is an interesting test bed for the development of product which can then, in turn, be marketed into similar parts of the world - and there are many of them. I saw that trip to Singapore as a coming of age for many of our companies. Having spent a couple of years sizing up and benchmarking what we are producing and where it might have relevance elsewhere in the world market, at the time we went to Singapore last year, it was the first time in which we could see tangible trade relationships and sales coming out of the process.
The gang is getting together this year and are off to CeBIT in Hanover again with a new group of companies which are accompanying the old lags - shall we call them? - the ones who went on the original CeBIT trip. That is growing the whole awareness through the industry; the capacity and the strategic directions of the industry by re-benchmarking to state-of-the-art around the world.
The government is expanding communications bandwidth throughout the Territory to allow the government to more efficiently do its work, interact with the public and facilitate its business with private industry. That is a test bed by definition that is going to produce more content, more software applications, very specialised applications that can feed back into this process. I am certain that we will see through my colleague, the minister for business, there will be more of this connection into the trade activities that the companies can potentially continue to expand.
Mr Deputy Speaker, that basically opens up the horizons for this industry within the Northern Territory. These are the practical, tangible steps that underlie the document that we have before us today. All of what I have said in my contribution to this debate refer to one paragraph in this document and we will know that we have arrived as a mature trading jurisdiction where we can look anywhere in this document and find the same amount of practical experience and detail as the ICT industry has achieved.
Many other of our industries are well on the way to doing the same thing and have had many years of previous experience doing this such as our pastoralists and, increasingly, our horticultural industry which is going offshore, not because they think it is a cute thing to do, but because it is the logical and practical next step in developing their industry. Industries like the mango industry, for example, and our Asian vegetable horticultural production have to go offshore. The arithmetic says they have to go offshore. The practicalities say that they have to go offshore. The challenge for them is that they have to get through the detailed steps that the ICT industry has taken in their case and develop the practical, working, daily relationships of trade that underlie the strategic directions that are indicated in this document.
I welcome this document as a framework document. It is quite unfair for the opposition to be saying, ‘Oh yes, empty document and it is just an election stunt’. We know it is not. It stands on a lot of practical work and a lot of hard work that has been done in conjunction with industry sectors to produce the results I have been outlining in the case of the ICT industry. We are on this track now. This is giving us a good framework to continue the work. I am sure we will use it to engage with our industry sectors into the future and we can all celebrate the results of that when we get the increases in trade.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, this document that the member for Stuart talks about is an inventory: ‘We have air links, we have national road distribution networks, we have a railway network, we have shipping links, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera’. Any primary school child could walk around the Territory and tell you this is what we have. Then he says, ‘We would like to strengthen this, we would like to strengthen that, we would like to facilitate this and that’. However, they have not shown in this document what they have done and that is the problem. When you want to convince business people to invest in the Territory you have to at least show them that this government has the capacity to drive business, but they have not. They have not shown anything in this document.
The member for Stuart said, ‘I will talk about ICT’. I thought this debate was for each minister to speak on their own portfolio areas and how they can promote this Growing Our Trade Route. Obviously, the minister for DCIS and communications did not think it was important. The minister for Corporate and Information Services and communications was totally silent about it. It demonstrates how unfocussed this government has been about anything to do with growing trade in the Territory. The member for Stuart talks about ICT being outsourced and the …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: It was the party on this side of the House that outsourced the ICT and the communications contract and it is because of that that we now have growth in the industry. Had we not done it, we would have got no where at all.
The Chief Minister said FreightLink is helping us with this and that. For the first year and a half of FreightLink’s operation this Chief Minister did not want to have anything to do with them. She was hands off. I asked her specifically at Estimates, and at Question Time: ‘What are you doing with FreightLink?’. ‘It is a private enterprise operation, nothing to do with us; we do not want to know about it. We cannot influence it at all in any way.’
Mr Henderson: Wrong, wrong. She did not say that.
Mr Dunham: She could have been lying, of course.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member for Drysdale knows full well that he cannot accuse any member of this House of lying unless he does so by way of substantive motion. I ask him to withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order, to continue to call out to my colleague that he is wrong, wrong, wrong is exactly the assertion that offends you. He is right and if you think he is wrong, make a personal explanation.
Mr KIELY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will make a ruling on the point of order before we are point of ordered out of our you-know-whats. Member for Drysdale, could you withdraw the lying reference, please?
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that the Chief Minister was lying.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Clearly, he just said I withdraw the …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, the member has done what I asked. Continue, please, member for Greatorex.
Mr Kiely: No, the member did not do what you asked.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! Member for Greatorex, continue. Allow the member to continue in silence.
Dr LIM: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was taking about FreightLink and how hands-off this Chief Minister has been right from the day FreightLink operated the freight service between Adelaide and Darwin. They keep talking about tonnage: we are moving so many containers, so many tonnes of freight up and down the track. Anyone who knows business would understand it is the yield that makes the difference; what you make out of moving each container or each tonne of freight. That is the problem.
It is the worst kept secret in the Territory: everybody knows that very soon Woolworths intends to take all its freight off the railway line and put it back on the road. So there are issues and, had the government been involved with promoting the railway right from the very beginning, things might have been a lot better. They could have promoted the railway to South-East Asia, talked about what is going to happen, bring people up, as the member for Blain said earlier. When the railway was completed, our South-East Asian neighbours should have been brought here to show them what we had, but they did nothing about it for over a year after the operation of the railway before they suddenly woke up one morning and said: ‘Oh, dear me. We are in trouble. Let us get overseas now and start promoting’.
We have been saying for three years: travel, travel, travel. Promote the Territory. The Minister for Asian Relations and Trade did not have any idea what that meant. When we talk about doing business in South-East Asia, and the member for Blain said it very clearly, but quickly, so it may have been missed: you do business with people you know so you have to be there to promote yourself, promote the Territory, promote it in such a way that you develop strong relationships, strong friendships with the people there. That is how you do business.
The tenor of this report, and the speech made by the Chief Minister, definitely had been written by some advisor who does not understand the ethos of the Northern Territory and our neighbours north of us. Probably some southern apparatchik came up, thought he knew all about it, and wrote, in the most uninteresting, un-engaging way, about how we can promote our business with our south-east Asian neighbours. This government has to start not making excuses about their inactivity during the years. They have been in government for three and a half long years. They have been sitting on their hands and suddenly, just on the eve of the election, they wake up, produce a glossy that says we have all these facilities here and we have the potential to do this. The opportunities are there for us to seek to exploit. We can strengthen key things; we can facilitate new directions in certain areas. Unless you are prepared to show us what you are going to do, to just say that you are going to strengthen it, you are going to facilitate it, is pretty hollow. And business people who are there, who know how to look after their money, and how to do real business, will see through all those meaningless statements that you made.
When you start talking about freight going up and down the track it has to bring real benefits to the Territory. Since the railway was completed, Territorians have really not benefited very much from what was supposed to be a great benefit in our cost of living. The Chief Minister, in her very own words, said, once the railway is completed and the train starts bringing goods into the Territory, we will have a reduced cost of living. That has not eventuated at all. Food prices went up across the Territory; ask anybody, they will tell you about that. In Alice Springs, our food prices went up. In fact, the parity between Alice Springs and Darwin got closer. For goodness’ sake, explain to me how can food in Alice Springs, which comes from Melbourne and Adelaide, be as expensive as that for Darwin when Darwin is twice the distance away from the source of the produce and product? Obviously, what has happened is that Alice Springs people have to subsidise Darwin people to buy the food through having to subsidise the freight.
Mr Henderson: They are going to subsidise the freight. How much is that going to cost?
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: Twenty-seven thousand people in Alice Springs have to subsidise 100 000 people living in Darwin, that is what it is here. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can yell if I have talk over the man across the road.
That is the problem – 27 000 people have to subsidise the 100 000 people living up here, because the people in Alice Springs subsidise the freight of goods between Alice Springs and Darwin because of this government’s manner of handling freight in the Territory.
Mr Henderson: What would you do? Regulate prices?
Dr LIM: I pick up on the interjection. He is the minister for business, and he does not know how to deal with it.
Mr Henderson: You are the genius, you tell me? What would you do, regulate prices or give them a subsidy? Two choices.
Dr LIM: The minister needs to understand that, per tonne, per kilometre, there should be a fixed rate. Then it would be fair for people living in Darwin and Alice Springs. But the way it is, it is all right, as long as the northern suburbs people are happy that food is cheaper in Darwin than in Alice Springs. And who cares about Alice Springs? We are far away, irrelevant to you guys, as far as the election is concerned, so why not just ignore it? You talk about exports and imports between Darwin and South-East Asia and gloat. The Chief Minister said:
When we were talking about developing this railway, I recall that we promoted the railway as being effective for time-sensitive goods. I do not believe that time-sensitive goods include lead and zinc ingots. I am sure they do not rot in the sun or over time, as well as timber, steel, coffee and various manufactured goods. I do not know about time-sensitive goods in this list. Maybe it is time-sensitive in having just enough warehousing of the product. Sure, that might be the time-sensitive issue. Otherwise, these goods are not time-sensitive goods and, because they are not time-sensitive, it does not really matter whether it comes by boat and takes three weeks to get to Melbourne, or by rail and takes - according to the Chief Minister - some split second; what did you say? ‘Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days’, when it has been clearly shown by her department that those 11 days could not be met.
Therefore, when you have a document that is, first of all, an inventory of what we have in the Territory and what aspiration this government has with the inventory, based on quite a few wrong premises, how do you sell this to people overseas - people who have the money, who have the nous and the ability to make very critical decisions about what we have to offer in the Northern Territory?
I was very disappointed that the Chief Minister shows no understanding of South-East Asia, and nor does the Minister for Asian Relations and Trade. The way they have approach this has been completely off-beam. When the member for Blain was speaking, and clearly expressing how you need to understand the cultural context and have that cultural context in your head when you do business with South East Asia, the member for Karama was listening very intently - quite keen to understand. I understand that she has some cross-cultural experience having lived in Hong Kong. You need to have definite cross-cultural recognition in your mind when you start thinking about doing business in South-East Asia.
The minister for business talked about BIMP-EAGA. The Northern Territory has been involved with BIMP-EAGA for many years. As the first government or jurisdiction in Australia to create a ministry for Asian Relations and Trade, the CLP can hold its head up high and say: ‘We did something that no other jurisdiction in Australia, including the federal government, had thought of doing, and we created great relationships with people there’. I was fortunate to travel with the various ministers for Asian Relations and Trade over the years, and have developed great friendships and relationships there. BIMP-EAGA was one of the frequent talking points with people in Sabah, Sarawak and the Philippines, and also in the eastern provinces of Indonesia. They were keen to see the Northern Territory take part in BIMP-EAGA matters. Whilst we are not of their nation, it was hard for us to be a full member but, through a lot of friendships and discussions with people of influence there, we have finally achieved that status, and that is terrific. We can now use that relationship and the membership of the BIMP-EAGA, bringing Australia along with us, using Darwin as the conduit into South-East Asia – and we can demonstrate, not only to Australia but the world, that we have a real place in South-East Asia. Our climate, population, and the multicultural nature of our community, lends all of that to how we can be a significant player in the BIMP-EAGA membership.
We need to think more widely; we need to be more cross-culturally aware when we do things in South East Asia. We have to develop the relationships through frequent visits; through developing strong interpersonal links. The member for Brennan talked about using our Charles Darwin University alumni, which is not particularly strong at the moment unfortunately; however, it is one thing which should happen. When I travel over there, I meet with former students of the then Northern Territory University, and by touching base with them they tell you stories and their recollections of the good time they had in Darwin. That creates the environment where it is easier to do business. To ignore that, to neglect that, is throwing away a great asset which the Northern Territory has residing over there. The more they speak with their friends and business colleagues about the good times they had in the Northern Territory, the more likely they are going to look at us in a more favourable light.
It is important for advisors who do not understand the Northern Territory and South-East Asia to get across those things before they start writing inane speeches for the Chief Minister, and when she reads it out it makes a fool of her rather than anybody else. It does not help the Territory when the most senior politician in the Territory says those sorts of things. It does not give people any confidence.
Mr VATSKALIS (Mines and Energy): Madam Speaker, I commend the Chief Minister on her statement on growing our trade routes, and express my disappointment about the negativity of the opposition. Not that I am surprised. I have not heard any constructive comment in the past few months and it is getting worse. They are not used to the idea that they are in opposition and they talk opposition for the sake of opposition. Sadly, I would not expect anything better from the member for Greatorex. I am used to his negative comments. He will turn anything, even the most positive story, into a negative story.
A typical example yesterday was the funding for the Chung Wah. He ignored a significant grant from the Northern Territory government, $110 000 to the Chung Wah Society for their new hall, and was complaining bitterly as the money had not arrived in the Chung Wah account, despite the fact that this government had promised the money and when a government promises the money, the government delivers. The member, who is the patron for Chung Wah, does not serve Chung Wah very well as neither the president nor the vice-president of Chung Wah complained to me about the money. The people were very confident they would get the money. However, the member for Greatorex was on the radio in Alice Springs complaining - pretending to represent the Chung Wah, but he did not represent the Chung Wah. He was expressing his own opinion regarding the funding. He did not like the fact that this year we put an advertisement in the newspaper advising people that the government had provided the grant for the lion to go to Alice Springs, instead of what he did last year when he put an advertisement in the newspaper and confused people as they thought the member for Greatorex was bringing the lion to Alice Springs.
However, the member for Greatorex is always negative, and this negativity now gets thrown onto the Leader of the Opposition and other members of his team.
Firstly, I refer to the figures on page 5: Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days; Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; and Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. After the Leader of the Opposition spoke, I looked at the FreightLink web page and surprise, surprise! it advises people that Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. The question is: is Adelaide to Jakarta eight days? Of course. This is the information provided by FreightLink, by the industry. That information was not made up by a bureaucrat in the department just to make the document look good. It was provided by the industry itself.
So the Leader of the Opposition obviously critises the FreightLink by saying they do not know how to present their case and how to do the calculations and if they give us these figures, they must be wrong. I beg to differ with the Leader of the Opposition. A company like FreightLink knows very well the timing between Adelaide to Jakarta, or Singapore to Adelaide because they have done it before, and they will do it again.
I have to agree with the Leader of the Opposition’s comments about the cost of transporting containers and that we have to look at it. The problem here is if you have a significant number of containers coming to Darwin, the price of the container goes down, but prices will not go down until containers come to Darwin. One imports to or exports from Australia. As the port grows, then the price per container will go down.
Geographically, we are the closest port to Asia than any other port in Australia. We are closest to Singapore, Jakarta, Bintulu, Brunei, Sabah, all these ports of South-East Asia, and that counts for us. The train and the port in combination can provide significant benefit to Australians, significant benefits to Territorians, by acting as a gateway into and out of Australia for perishable goods, items that are time-sensitive and have to travel very quickly to be delivered, and are utilised by companies that want to cut costs and time in delivering their products to the Australian public, or Australian companies that want to export their produce to South-East Asia.
In my portfolio, the mining industry is a significant contributor to the increase of volume to be transported by the railway from Australia overseas. Bootu Creek was mentioned by my colleagues. That manganese mine will increase the volume by 400 000 tonnes a year over 10 years. The government is prepared to make a significant investment to assist both Bootu Creek and the railway, which will, of course, provide jobs and growth for the Territory. This government will allocate $12m for the construction of a bulk loading facility at the port to load manganese in bulk containers that will take it to China, which, at this stage, is the biggest buyer of minerals from all over the world.
The bulk loader can be used for other minerals. Recently, we had an announcement by Arafura Resources of a great phosphate find in the Aileron area to combine with red earth and uranium. The company describes the phosphate resources in the area as ‘significant’, and is in discussions with a Norwegian company on the production of superphosphate fertilizers, in combination with the location, the ease of transfer from the mine to the port and, with gas onshore which can convert the phosphate to fertilizer. In addition to that, we have significant resources and uranium from Jabiru, or even uranium transported from South Australia to be shipped through the port of Darwin. This will significantly contribute to the increased volume that will be transported by the railway.
Recently, I was advised by my department of 280 million tonnes of iron ore in the Roper River region which can be exported, again using the railway, to the port of Darwin.
In the next few weeks, the Chinese ambassador will again be visiting the Territory, and my department will take her to areas of the Territory such as McArthur River, Groote Eylandt, Bootu Creek and Frances Creek to show her some of the available resources we have in the Territory. At this stage, the economy in China is booming. The demand for minerals is enormous and China is prepared to build a railway line in the Pilbara to access iron ore mines there with a purity very similar to the Territory product. If China is prepared to make such an investment in the Pilbara to access iron ore, apart from the BHP mines, it is something we can consider here in the Territory, and we should be able to attract Chinese capital investment in the Territory to exploit existing resources.
In addition to the mining sector, the pastoral sector has made a significant contribution to the Territory. We are talking about exporting cattle, buffalo and other processed and value-added products from the Territory via the port. At this stage there is no intention of exporting cattle or animals on the railway. I recall Barry Coulter saying that nothing with feet would travel on the railway, but we have seen a significant influx of tourism, of people using the railway to come to Darwin.
I heard the comment from the member for Greatorex – what was the benefit to Territorians from the railway, we have not seen any benefits? We have seen significant benefit from the railway. Not only is the volume transported by the railway in excess of what was calculated for the first year, but we have also seen a significant number of tourists from Australia and other parts of the world using the railway to come to Darwin. The demand for the railway is so significant that the company is putting on a second train a week. With the first train, Tuesday and Thursday nights, you could not get a bed in Darwin. There was a time when people would arrive in Darwin on the train, stay the following day, and catch the train back to Adelaide. We are now seeing two arrivals a week, which will bring a significant number of tourists, and the indicators for this year in tourism are very good. I have been advised by private operators that this year’s statistics show about 40% more bookings than last year at the same period of time. So the benefits for the Territory have already started flowing.
Regarding the price of foods, certainly Alice Springs does not subsidise Darwin. I am very surprised at the member for Greatorex. Somehow he has these peculiar Soviet socialist ideas, I would say, where the state regulates the prices, the state regulates price per tonne per kilometre, so whatever you get in Vladivostok we get in Moscow. So the same thing applies here. Whatever you are going to get in Alice Springs you are going to get in Darwin. Fortunately, we live in a Western democracy, a developed country. There are such things as competition, and the ACCC and, as we have seen in The Australian today, the federal government is considering dismantling the CDEP programs because the ACCC have expressed concerns about competition. It would be very interesting to see how any government, in the Territory or anywhere in Australia, can dictate prices to freight forwarders. How can your dictate …
Mr Dunham: Hendo said you were partners.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well, obviously, yes, you could dictate prices at the bowser. We had a problem with petrol prices. We still have a problem with petrol prices because we cannot dictate prices and you know that very well. I would be very curious to see how you can dictate prices on the train, on the trucks, on Coles New World or Woolworths. That would be a very interesting exercise.
Mr Henderson: Country Socialist Party.
Mr VATSKALIS: Yes, it is amazing, you move too far to the right and you are actually reaching the left.
We can build these trade routes. We have seen very good examples now that we are using Katherine as a hub. We have managed to export mangoes from Kununurra that were packed in Katherine and successfully exported via the Port of Darwin to England. In Katherine, we have seen sesame exported to Japan, and I believe there will be more of these kinds of exports utilising the Port of Darwin and the railway. We have seen the railway being utilised to transport bananas produced in Townsville to Perth. I cannot see the reason why fruit produce and other products from other states – Queensland Victoria or New South Wales – cannot be loaded on the railway, either in Adelaide or in Tenannt Creek, to be transported to Darwin and from there exported in refrigerated containers or modified atmosphere containers to the countries in South-East Asia. We may not be able to compete very well with the price, the reality is we can compete very well in quality. Many people are not only looking at the price but are looking very much to compare quality.
Fishing and aquaculture in the Territory is a significant sector. The quality of the product, either wild fishing or aquaculture, is very good and already about 80 tonnes of farmed barramundi is exported to the United States of America every year. I cannot see why we cannot export fish and fish products to some of the South-East Asian countries. Certainly, we will consider exporting meat and fish either to China or Japan. There is enormous potential for utilising the railway and I am very pleased that this potential has been outlined in the Chief Minister’s statement. But not only the railway, we are talking about the port, about attracting shipping and aviation links.
Aviation is very important. Unfortunately, we cannot influence the aviation industry very much; they have to make their own decisions based on economics. We have seen the re-emergence of the aviation industry after 11 September, and we will continue to see increased presence of aviation companies in Darwin. My information is that Middle East Airlines now want to have links with Australia. Some of them have to have links through Darwin to some of the countries in South-East Asia. I would not be surprised in the next few years if we do not see airlines such as Emirates accessing Darwin so they can have access to South-East Asia and Muslim countries like Malaysia or Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.
As I said before, it was very disappointing to hear the response of the opposition, but I am not surprised. The member for Greatorex’s only trade attempt was to visit the Indian call centres. Well, I beg to differ; we are talking about a different level of export and trade. In Indian call centres there is not the high level of expertise that we want to have.
I tend to agree with the member for Blain’s comments about developing cultural links with countries in South-East Asia: exchange of students, cultural exchanges and sporting exchanges. Unfortunately, there is a small problem with DFAT, that we have had several severe travel warning regarding terrorism in Indonesian, and even one for Bali. I do not think the warning for Bali has been revoked yet. I am aware that certain members of the Defence Forces were advised not to travel to Bali or to south-east Asian countries because of the perceived danger in those countries. It will be very difficult for us to send students from high schools, or to have cultural or sporting exchanges when you have this kind of situation with DFAT.
As for what this government is doing for Territorians, my colleague, the member for Wanguri, has travelled repeatedly to the countries in South-East Asia, and he has also very successfully lobbied BIMP-EAGA to include the Territory at a different level now. I have travelled to different countries in South-East Asia. Recently, I travelled to Sabah in Malaysia and to the Philippines. From that trip, within three months, we have seen businessmen arrive from the Philippines to discuss the purchase of cattle and the establishment of abattoirs very similar to the one that is established in Sabah with Northern Territory expertise. Only yesterday, we saw a 29-member delegation from Sabah visit Darwin in order to sign a memorandum of cooperation between the Northern Territory department of agriculture and the Sabah Department of Agriculture, and to discuss the purchase of 300 buffalo and, in one year, about 4000 cattle.
We have to grow our trade route. The train is a unique opportunity for the Territory and the railway, together with the port, offers a unique opportunity to expand our exports, to become the gateway from and to Asia, and to use the railway and the port as the means to develop links with South-East Asia. In my departments, as I said before, mining, pastoral and horticulture industries offer a unique opportunity for the export of bulk minerals, or fresh or processed produce from the Territory and have value-added in the Territory.
I commend the Chief Minister on her statement. Despite the negativity of the opposition, I believe it is an excellent statement which shows us the way for developing the Territory.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, we have seen a number of alibis paraded out to defend the statement on its enormous inaccuracies. The member for Stuart would have us believe that it is a framework from which you hang various other things. It is a pretty interesting statement and attachment. Most of what I will talk about is with regard to the attachment, because I assume this has a definite purpose. I assume this attachment is to be used by the Chief Minister to influence people to invest here, to come here, to look at trade opportunities or whatever. It is a tool - a communications device - from the Chief Minister to potential investors. Or is it? It is more a communication device for the northern suburbs to say: ‘I have a plan; here it is. My photo is in the front. You should vote for me because the future would be rosy if all of these things come to pass’. And as the Leader of the Opposition said, I hope people do not read it too closely if that is what she wants.
Darwin is going to be the major port new shipping link for wine industries. That will be interesting. It is going to be the new gateway for trade between China and Australia - that is enormous. China and Australia, the gateway will come through Darwin. If these things are more than just platitudes they should be accompanied by some definitive documents that talk about not just we are looking at China, one of your delegation did a visit there, a couple of you know some Chinese people, you enjoy Chinese cuisine. It has to be more than that. You actually have to structure stuff in this document.
It has been talked by about by the business minister as a partnership and he tried to land some of the optimistic shipping figures in here on Swire. So he is saying the partner in business, the numbers are not ours, they are theirs, and ironically the member for Casuarina seems to see this as some socialist or communist plot where government cannot dictate to business but the business minister thinks that this is a partnership. So philosophically, strategically, and in the communication sense this is a highly confused document. I do not think you know where you are coming from. There are some obvious flaws in it; there are some things in here that I believe are untrue. I am not sure whether they are deliberate lies in this document but they are certainly untrue. Therefore, the Chief Minister should be very careful how she promulgates it.
Most members would know that tobacco companies are in the courts because they encourage people in a fraudulent way. They encourage people to engage in their product, engage in their trade and they did not tell them the whole truth. The Chief Minister is going to strut this document out here to engage people to take risks with their money, and they are going to use a document like this to make some informed business decisions. It exposes them to some risk, though I would leave that to my legal colleagues to describe the sort of risk that they expose themselves to. However, you would think that if it is an enticement to engage in a partnership as the business minister tells us with the government, you should be careful that you are actually telling the truth in this document.
There are a number of little things I will touch on and look forward with bated breath to hear the Chief Minister in her response because there are now a number of things on the table I hope she answers. In her foreword on page 1 of the document titled Growing our Trade Route - and I note that you can juxtapose those words in the way the Opposition Leader did that is a more accurate description of this document – the Chief Minister says that, ‘Wealth and job creation for Territorians are now flowing from a number of strategic new developments’. Yes, there are some job creation things flowing; unfortunately, we are losing jobs. So if the Chief Minister is hanging off some of the things in this document that are not of her authorship - she talks about Blacktip and the pipe from Wadeye and a variety of other things - they are nothing to do with the actual activities and construct of this government to do that.
She talks about Toll Holdings, too, and the wonderful new logistics facility she has built out there. She talks about it more fully in the document at page 6. I quote:
Where it is the only tenant. The question you have to ask if you are the real estate person, which the government is, and they have subdivided some land which is highly attractive, as this document will tell you, and you have a foundation tenant who is really happy down there, you have to ask why there aren’t more tenants, why there aren’t more people clamouring for land. You also have to ask why Toll would take the unusual step of going public on some of the problems it has there. One problem I will point out for the transport minister, the business minister, and the trade minister and the Chief Minister, and that is, notwithstanding a train can pull up within metres of their hard stand area, it is about a 2 km roundtrip for the truck to go and pick the box of it. So for the truck to actually go to the side of the train, take the container off and bring it back at the hard stand area, even though as I have said it is within mere metres of the yard, it is a 2 km trip. That is pretty dumb. That is pretty stupid.
Surely, there are some engineering solutions for this problem for Toll that could save them that enormous expense in terms of time, distance and travel and all the rest of it. Why don’t we have the land that abuts the train line able to take product off that train line and straight into their yards? Now, there is an idea. So that is what I am giving you for free and it might help Toll. It might be something to entice some other people down there to invest in your property development and it might have efficiencies that flow on to the community. So there is something you could do.
You talk about cold stores. Let’s build one. I know there are people out there who are interested in it. I know there are people looking at various sites. I have had approaches from people. Let’s do it; let’s build the cold store facilities. There are some concepts I have seen that have fish markets, cold stores, export, quarantine and customs services all in one. There are probably some pretty good models and you do not have to be Einstein to do it because they pretty much do it around the world.
The discussion which was most intriguing, and I am going to pose some questions for the Chief Minister here, was about the ship service, which is at great odds to report from her department. We have document parading as an enticement to investors to come here, and it says at page 5 that Adelaide to Jakarta can take eight days. We also know that her pre-eminent department in terms of investigating industry issues, DBIRD, disputes that and says it takes 13 days. The question for the Chief Minister in her rejoinder is this: the transit time from Adelaide via Darwin, if it is eight days, can you tell us who operates that service and how did they achieve it? Can you also say, in the report commissioned by DBIRD which states the transit times to be 13 days, how they reconcile those two government statements? There is the first question.
You have apparently someone out there - and it is named as Swire - who claims that they can achieve that. There are two qualifiers here which the Chief Minister should be aware. The first is typical landbridging times. We are not talking about an express service on a once-off basis. She also used the word ‘now’: ‘typical landbridging times now available’. We want to know how you book that service, who you book it through, whether they guarantee that eight days.
The second question is this: when this was constructed, I assume it went to Cabinet, as the normal route when I had things to do with government, so I assume all these ministers jumping up on their feet to discuss it had some input. So the minister for resources who can talk breathlessly about cattle and product and whatever, and the minister for information can talk about electronic technology, and we have all these people jumping up who have little components that sit in here. The question I would like the Chief Minister to answer when she does jump up to complete this statement is: did DBIRD make comment on this when it came to Cabinet? How can it have made such a comment on a report like this, knowing the data in here is definitely at odds with the data they had?
That is what I want to know; those two things. She might also cover some of the other issues, like she has now bought road back in from the cold. This is the Chief Minister who went interstate and told people that she wanted to get rid of trucks; she did not want trucks on our roads anymore. She saw them as lumbering nuisances, going down our highway causing inconvenience for good Territorians. She now seems to have brought them back in from the cold and she says at page 4:
There we go. There is a place for road. Now, if there is a place for road, she has to do something about our road asset because it is fast deteriorating. She would probably be aware that for people who are using Highway 1, the Victoria Highway, a major route, they are on 80% axle loadings. Now, there is your profit margin. That is a big slice of your profit margin. Why don’t you fix the roads? The roads are in a bad state. She will hear that from anyone who travels on them. This is supposed to be a consultative document, go to those major road users, go to the truckies, go to the long haul people. I know they know about the state of the roads because I know they have developed a system to advise the infrastructure department about problem areas, pot holes, sinkage and stuff like that. Go to them and ask them how they reckon the road estate is going, and you will be told that it is a big problem.
The other thing …
Ms Martin: When did you last drive it?
Mr DUNHAM: The Stuart Highway, the Vic, the Barkly?
Ms Martin: The Stuart? You talked about Highway 1.
Mr DUNHAM: I last drove the Stuart Highway a couple of days ago, I suppose.
Ms Martin: Where to?
Mr DUNHAM: I am not telling you where I drive to. However, I can tell you that I regularly drive it. I regularly talk to people who drive it, and I regularly talk to truck drivers. If you believe that the Stuart Highway is in good nick, you are obviously not a very good driver, or you are someone who is not aware of the difficulties with a car leaving the pavement and dropping, sometimes 30 cm on to dirt, and the problems that can have with our road accident statistics.
We talk in here about some of the adventures we will have when this brave new world comes about. For starters, we are going to be the gateway between China and Australia, and we are going to look at new trade alliances – we are now on page 14. We are going to look to China, to BIMP-EAGA, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. I was interested that the biggest economy in the world, which is the United States of America, has recently engaged in a free trade agreement with our nation, Australia, and I am surprised it is missing in here. We have not even had a statement in this House about it. I would have thought that, somewhere along the line, the trade minister would be saying, ‘Let us look at some of the potential trade advantages for Australia. Hey, we have had a chap overseas who has negotiated a free trade arrangement with the biggest economy in the world’. Why would you leave that off? Perhaps you do not think you can do it. Perhaps it is a big call, however, I would have thought it is something you should be looking at.
One would think there are bound to be a couple of niches, particularly if you think you can be the major gateway for trade between Australia and China. If you can achieve that, the US should be pretty easy, I would have thought.
You talk about Defence, and that is interesting too, because, lo and behold, today, the Auditor-General gave us a report which is yet to be debated. He talked about Defence too. He said the roll-on roll-off facility had a deed of licence. I will quote from page 59 of the Report of the Auditor-General for the Northern Territory, February 2005:
What he is saying there is that we have done $750 000 cold because we do not know how to talk properly to Defence.
We had questions this morning regarding whether there had been discussions with Defence about the waterfront facility, and the Chief Minister told this parliament that, yes, they had identified the problems and they were discussing them. You leave no confidence in us at all, Chief Minister, in the data you use, in the processes you use for anything, and in the undertakings you give this parliament about the various things you are going to do which you do not do. I suggest that this is a book which you should probably withdraw. If you go to the boardrooms in Asia and they ask similar questions to the ones which are being asked here, it might be pretty embarrassing for your trade delegation. Therefore, I would suggest you pull this in.
While I am on Defence, you also talk about $70m over the next few years for land at Lee Point. We know that is a muck-up too, a giant muck-up. You could have bought this land for a mere couple of a million dollars. You could have put a down payment on with the $750 000 which you squandered and which you did not pick up on the RORO, then you would only have to find a few more million and you could have bought that land. You could have developed it for the benefit of Territorians: ‘No, sorry, do not want to do that. It is too hard. We are going to get someone else to develop it,’ and you will be totally out of the picture. Not just that; you give them the leg-up of being able to develop it at such high density rates as would normally offend the Darwin Town Plan. It required the intervention of a minister to say: ‘We do not want it, but the developer is developing it and we will let them develop it at 600 m2 because we think we will make a lot more money that way. There is a good way of doing it’.
All in all, it is a document that is highly flawed; it is full of errors of fact. It has some omissions that are potentially embarrassing if it is to be used for the purpose intended; that is, to encourage people to trade here. If it is to be used as a glossy to tell people how hard you work, even though you are sans hard hat in this particular industrial document; that you are big on business - we know that to be a myth. The Auditor-General has given us a few heads-up there, too, but we have plenty of time to talk about that. It would appear that the construction division did not even know it was a business. You really have a big problem convincing anybody that you know anything about any business. Therefore, I would withdraw if I was you - pull the thing.
I am glad roads came in from the cold. I am glad you are starting to move away from your statement that you do not want road trains on the road anymore. However, could you please answer those two questions, as they are most important. I do not need to reinforce them, because I know the Chief Minister’s attentive and has been taking notes. She will be able to tell me who offers those eight-day Jakarta/Adelaide/Jakarta via Darwin services. She will also be able to tell us why it is at such vast odds with her knowledgeable department, DBIRD, on this. She will also be able to tell us whether DBIRD was an informant to this document.
With those few words, I hope the Chief Minister can enlighten us all and give us the great confidence that she has a clue about what she is talking about, Madam Speaker.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I only want to talk for a short period of time on this particular statement. I am not going to refer to the document at all actually, because I have not had a lot of time this afternoon to go through it.
However, there is an interesting document that has come across my desk of late which is called the Northern Territory Government Smart Container Briefing. I am assuming the NT government has been briefed about the possibility of using a product called a smart container. This is an ordinary shipping container fitted with an extraordinary door seal. I quote from the briefing:
I am interested to know whether the Chief Minister has been given a briefing on the possibility of using this type of smart container technology on produce going from southern Australia to Asia. I gather that one of the biggest hold-ups with trade can be the time required to check out through Customs what is in a container, although some of that is done now while ships are at sea. There is a quote in this briefing that it has been found in America that, cumulatively, some containers spend up to at least 155 years waiting at the dock of the port of Melbourne to be assessed. This type of technology would certainly allow containers to move through ports much quicker because they can immediately recognise whether there has been any tampering and they know exactly what is in the container.
You can also find a container. If you have a whole ship full of containers and you want to know where some particular goods are in that container, you can beep it - probably a little like your car. Therefore, you know where that container is with those particular goods. I do not believe, at the present time, this technology is used widely in Australia. The company promoting this says that if smart container tracking technology was placed along the Ghan at the port of Darwin, a smart trade corridor would be formed. This will be the longest such land corridor in the world. High value goods travelling along the corridor and out of the port of Darwin and vice versa could travel at the highest levels of security and with greater efficiency gains for the customers of both the rail and the port.
I should say, minister, I do not have any financial interest in the company. The person who did approach me happens to be related to one of my constituents in the rural area. He just asked if he could give me a small briefing of the concept of this smart container, and I thought it had value. Obviously, if you can reduce the hold-ups in the movement of cargo from one part of Australia to another, you are certainly going to save money. From a security point of view, you know that containers are not being tampered with and in this day and age, you certainly want to know that, and you can keep track where these containers are much more efficiently using this system.
I do not intend to make a statement on this document. As I said, the Planning Act took up a fair bit of my time in the last 24 hours, and I have concentrated on that. I will give this a going over and perhaps be able to do something at the Alice Springs sittings. I would just like to hear in the Chief Minister’s reply whether the government has looked at this type of container security.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, in answer to the member for Nelson’s question, I had the pleasure of being briefed probably by the same company representative of the RFID technology and it does seem very interesting technology. Certainly, the representative of the company has been in contact with officials from the Darwin Port Corporation and they will also be making contact with FreightLink. As I indicated to the representatives, we are certainly interested in any technology, anything that will give our trade route the edge, and it certainly seems like very exciting technology. However, I was not in a position to give any firm undertakings, but we have looked at it.
I want to talk mainly about the operations of the port and where that fits in with our trade route. Just to pick up on some comments made by the member for Drysdale. He was talking about the Stuart Highway, talking about other national highways. The member for Drysdale seemed to be accusing this government of some shortcomings or short falls in maintenance on national highways. He should well know that that is a province of the federal government. I am not sure whether he really knows either that the federal government is holding out on maintenance money to the states and territories, and trying to tie it to a number of issues, and they are being quite unfair about it. They are attaching many conditions to their maintenance money; they have not allocated it yet. Historically, we receive somewhere around $17m to $19m a year for maintenance on our national highways. We are not really assured that we are getting that money; we would like to assume that we would.
I urge the member for Drysdale to get on to his federal counterparts who belong – well, I think they belong to the same party as he does, certainly Shane Stone belongs to the same party, but I am not really sure about the rest of it. Anyway, they sit together and they party together, some of them. Maybe he could just have a bit of a word in someone’s ear about maintenance on our national highways.
The Darwin Port Corporation is currently in an exciting period of development, with tremendous potential for trade growth. I know some of the opposition members have said, ‘All you ever do is talk about potential’, but it is good to talk about potential but you have to be sober about your estimation of potential and you have to have a business plan.
As the business minister said, it is not enough for these junkets overseas and, endlessly under the previous government, come back with all these memoranda of understanding with no result. I know through my wife’s family, who have a business, they were all part of the ‘Shane Stone going here, there and everywhere into Asia’. They played a leading role in that as a business and, at the end of the day, there really was not a lot in it for their business. In fact, they now focus on Territory business and beyond.
We know that there are some notable successes of Territory businesses dealing into Asia, but we just have to look soberly at what happened under the previous government. I know our Chief Minister and our business minister are appraising our opportunities over there, being strategic about the contacts, and building up our trade in the Asian region in a hard-headed and planned way. I commend that approach.
Getting back to the Darwin Port Corporation, the corporation has adopted the role of a trade facilitator with a strong commercial focus on the full realisation of the potential offered by new developments. There is debate coming on about the Darwin Port Corporation amendments, and the subject of that debate will be the strong commercial focus of the board. I will elaborate on that a bit more during that debate, but it is good to flag it at this stage.
The Port of Darwin, as we know, is strategically placed to capture significant trade growth through the AustralAsia Railway, the completion of the new port facility at East Arm and the development of Australia’s second LNG hub and associated facilities being developed for the Phillips Bayu-Undan project. In 2003-04 the total trade through the port was just under 1.1 million tonnes. This was a 3% increase in total cargo for the year, and the port is well on the way to achieving its projected trade growth in 2004-05, exceeding 1.3 million tonnes of trade.
We have had much talk from the opposition about here is a government that does not really know what it is talking about regarding trade and developing a trade route and we do not have the facts right. I point to what the former Chief Minister, the current Leader of the Opposition, said on a radio interview this morning. He said that Swire Shipping had ceased their Darwin-Singapore service. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once again, the Leader of the Opposition is totally wrong. His facts are wrong. He is going public without really being sure of what he is saying. In future, the Opposition Leader should be checking his facts. In fact, Swire Shipping introduced the MV NT Express in October 2003. This service provides a dedicated route between Darwin and Singapore, calling directly at the East Arm facility, providing support for the development of the new AustralAsia Trade Route. The NT Express complements the existing NGPL Service, which deploys four 24 000 tonnes vessels on a 14-day frequency calling Darwin en route to Jakarta, Port Klang, Singapore, and connecting to and from other global destinations.
The combination of NGPL’s four vessels and Crocodile Lines’ NT Express Service has made steady progress linking with the AustralAsia Railway in developing target volumes. The partnership between rail freight operator FreightLink and Swire Shipping has provided an effective, seamless service, which is being received as an alternative trade route option by importers, freight forwarders, and export focus manufacturers.
Last November, Hai Win Shipping, with the support of the ABX Logistics, one of the top 10 global logistics companies in the world, conducted a full commercial trial of a new direct Shanghai to Darwin shipping service. This was the first time a direct container shipping service has operated from China to Darwin. In doing, so they delivered approximately 70 containers of imported cargo to Adelaide via the new rail link. From an operational and logistics prospective, the Managing Director of Hai Win, Mr Frank Guerra, has publicly stated that the trial ran ‘as smooth as silk’ and the port of Darwin worked well, with the trade route providing significant transit time savings. This is exactly the objective of the rail port interface through Darwin. To the end of January 2005, FreightLink report they have moved some 18 500 tonnes of international freight, mainly through the East Arm facilities. This is well ahead of FreightLink’s planning, in which they did not plan to commence international trade until 2006.
The Darwin Port Corporation continues to work with a number of prospective port clients to develop proposals for the provision and operation of port facilities for loading dry bulk exports, together with trade logistic solutions for the movement of bulk cargo. The Northern Territory government has committed $11.2m to the development of bulk loading systems at East Arm. Expressions of interest have been recently called for a supply of a bulk loading system. The export of some 600 000 tonnes per annum of bulk manganese from the Bootu Creek Mine is planned for the second half of this year.
It is very important that we develop these bulk loading facilities. The opposition is asking, ‘What are you doing in reality?’. The investment of $11.2m in bulk loading is a very significant investment, but moreover, I believe it gives a core business to the port. We all know that container shipping is a very competitive market and very hard business to get the jump on bigger ports, such as Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, particularly when you take into account that it is the ancillary costs in a port like Darwin such as the tug boats and the ancillary services; because of the relatively low volume of shipping, that really bumps up the cost per container. However, I believe that having a core business there of bulk export is really going to set the basic business, the basic foundation, of the port on which we can build. It is very significant, and it is trade into China, which has a burgeoning economy and, of course, manganese is very important in the production of steel. I commend the government’s action in making significant investments in bulk loading facilities.
Significant improvements have been obtained in the clearance of cargo with routinely in excess of 40 containers per shift being cleared and delivered. I would also like to point out, in comparison to the rest of Australia, that there is relatively little industrial turmoil at our wharves. That is a credit to our stevedores and the unions involved, and I compliment them. They see themselves very much as partners in our port. For those people looking at the trade route, they can look at stability within the industrial relations framework that operates at the port.
Upgrades of quarantine infrastructure at the port have also been undertaken. Most members would be aware of the fact that our interfacing with other ports and countries which have Giant African Snail really puts another layer, if you like, on our quarantine processes and, to some degree, slows the movement of cargo through our port. However, we are upgrading quarantine facilities and we are hoping that those barriers will be diminished. New procedures in a review of the list of quarantine risk countries for imports into the Northern Territory have been undertaken and all contributed to a much more efficient port interface.
The Darwin Port Corporation looks forward to a number of significant events in the next 12 months, including the delivery of stage 2 of the berth extensions, providing 756 m of continuous berth space, including 156 m bulk liquids berth associated with the new Darwin industry fuel terminal. There is another very significant and exciting development at the port. Just while we are on that, the member for Drysdale talked about land issues around the port. He seemed to be saying there was some lack of interest in land around the port. As the minister responsible for that, I can say that there is a lot of interest in land around the port. I have been approached by both local companies and other Australian and international companies which have evinced a very active interest in that land around the port. Therefore, it is not right for the member for Drysdale to say there is a lack of interest and promotion in land around the port.
I have mentioned the establishment of bulk loading facilities - another significant initiative. These will all contribute to the continued growth of the Port of Darwin and its realisation as a reasonably significant inter-modal port. This government’s investment in and support for the port means that we are moving the Territory ahead; we are hitting the targets and doing the job; we are an effective government; we understand business; and we are working with business in a very effective manner, and business is very pleased with this government that is moving the Territory ahead.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is delightful to stand here following on from the minister responsible for the ports and his enthusiasm for growing our trade route and talking specifically about what the port’s contribution to that is. I thank everyone for their contribution to this important debate. However, I raise the issue of the bewildering negativity. I am thanking the opposition for their contribution, but the negativity with which they view this document is bewildering.
This document was produced, in conjunction with the private sector, by those working in government with considerable expertise who have the respect of the private sector and are doing exactly what this document says: working with elected members to grow our trade route. Yet, because of the contempt with which there work was treated, I feel embarrassed. I say to all those who contributed to this document: I am sorry about that, because I believe it is a good document.
For someone like the member for Drysdale to say it is full of lies reflects more on him than on this document. I listened to the Opposition Leader, and it is interesting that he says: ‘I am a new man. I am trying; I am a new man’. Yet, he comes in here with not a constructive idea or a plan or, alternatively, what he would do to grow the trade route, and he bags this document. From an opposition, it is not good enough to simply say: ‘I do not like it; it is full of lies’. You have no credibility when you come in here and bag the strategic work that is happening, that has targets, and is achieving results in growing our economy. You simply cannot bag it if you do not have an alternative. If you cannot say: ‘I would take that part of the plan and grow it in this way’, or ‘The whole plan is in effective and this is what we would do instead’. However, speaker after speaker from the opposition simply said: ‘Nothing in it, only talk about potential’. The member for Blain, with his mouth open, is saying, ‘Oh, not me’. But he said it is only full of potential.
The former Opposition Leader, the member for Blain, said: ‘I would work with Asia more effectively’. I would work with Asia more effectively! That is not an alternative; that is simply a line. It is not an alternative. I am very disappointed.
We even had the Opposition Leader virtually putting down the Port of Darwin saying: ‘Why bother to compete? You have other ports which are bigger and do it more effectively - the volumes, the economy of scales is all there, so why bother?’
Of course we are bothering. This is exactly why the rail was put in place, the port was built: so that we would have an alternative trade route, and that is exactly what this is about. This is not about gazumping what happens on the east coast. We cannot do that; at this stage, we do not have the scale. This is about an alternative trade route targeting where our opportunities are and where our strengths are. I believe Hai Win and their trial was simply an example of that: to look at where the benefits of a new trade route are. Yes, you can save time. ‘The process …’, as Frank Guerra from Hai Win said, ‘… was as smooth a silk’. You still have to look at those cost issues.
We will continue to do that. That does not mean we are sitting on our hands. We will continue to do that and we have had substantial success. The member for Blain talks about this is only full of potential. Bootu Creek, only potential? 18 000 tonnes of trade. International trade before it was expected on the freight moving from south to north into exports. That is only potential?
When you stand in here and make statements like that it undermines the entire credibility of what you say because it has no basis. It is exactly the argument we heard from the member for Drysdale. ‘Just rip it up, Chief Minister,’ he said. ‘She should rip it up. It is full of lies. It is not worth the paper it is written on’. How can we take an opposition seriously if that is the type of response you are going to give to a solid trade document, a strategy that not only looks at what has been achieved currently but how we build for the future.
The railway was an enormous project for the Territory - $1.1bn. Realisation of that is not going to happen overnight but we need a strategy to make it happen and things are already happening. Not just potential but actualities; economic activity in the Territory driven by this trade route. And on this side of the House, we are very excited about it. We think this means opportunities for our business. It certainly means jobs growth and that is what this government is about.
I turn now to a couple of the specific issues that were raised. What got a lot of discussion was the times that were given in this document about moving goods for example from Adelaide to Jakarta – eight days. Now this is what FreightLink and Swire are advertising to the market that they can deliver. Yet all we have in here is bagging them, bagging FreightLink the operator of our rail. Swire, which believes in the future of the Territory, came in before the rail was even completed and said, ‘We will do this’. We even had the Opposition Leader on radio this morning as the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure pointed out, saying the Swire service had stopped. How can he have any credibility going on radio and saying the Swire service has stopped when patently it is a weekly service that we are delighted to have? They are showing a real commitment and belief in the future of the trade route by that early start up of the service.
The times given for moving goods from Adelaide to Jakarta are the ones that FreightLink and Swire say they can deliver. Tick to them. Do not listen to the bagging from the other side of the House; tick to them and the others as well. Ten days for Singapore/Adelaide; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. They are in the document because Swire and FreightLink say they can deliver them. So enough of this kind of scepticism. Don’t you want to see this work? When all you can do is pick at a document, criticise it, be negative. You obviously do not believe in the potential of something that you used to say you believed in. You used to say you believed in and now there is no sign of that. There is no sign of that; it is very sad.
We do have targets. There was criticism from a number of speakers from the opposition about there being no targets. I do not think they read the document. There are targets all the way through this document about what we are going to achieve and we will set out to do that. For example, the targets for how many containers or equivalent we want to move on the rail is there achieving 50 000 TEU or its equivalent by 2007. We have targets. We are articulating them and working to achieve them. If we can build our capacity to 50 000, okay, it is still not of the size that is moving through the port of Brisbane or Sydney, but boy, it has grown Darwin port activity. The costs that the minister talked about, we can start seeing them fall. It is important for our future. It is not going to happen overnight. It needs a strategy. This is the strategy.
The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and the port dealt well with the business park issue. There is confidence in our business park. If you were going to look around Australia and say who would you like first to be in Darwin’s business park I would go Toll. And do you know what, Madam Speaker? They are there. This is not potential. This is an $18m investment with Toll looking at stage 2 and certainly looking at how they connect with Indonesia. So, not potential; not a failure of confidence in the business park, but reality. Vopak had a fair bit of confidence in the Business Park. They are out there. We are talking about a bio-diesel plant, a $55m investment. The business park is there to be able to take advantage of those opportunities, and companies will.
The member for Blain said: ‘You are not engaging with Asia’. I have been through Asia. The Minister for Asian Relations and Trade has been through Asia. In my case, I was talking specifically about the AustralAsia trade route. Let me say to the member for Blain that there is considerable interest. We will continue to do it.
As I spelled out in my statement, investors can say: ‘Yes, we are interested’. The exporters, importers, logistic operators, shipping companies, can say: ‘We are interested’, however they want to see the product work. We have had 12 months of operation now. It is not a concept; it is an actuality. How they view using this alternative trade route is changing.
I cannot leave this statement without making a comment about the wisdom of the member for Greatorex, the Deputy Opposition Leader, who thinks it is time to regulate the price of containers on the rail. This is an awesome item of opposition policy. Number one, you would say: it could be discriminatory and if the rail operators suffered a loss, they could potentially come back at government if you regulate it. That is a great incentive from the opposition. What is this about? Why did we build a railway? To get competition into how goods come into the Territory, and it is the best way to do it. I would have thought the party that used to say it was the party of free enterprise would say regulation was the last thing they would move towards. Competition; road versus rail. We now have competition, and moving goods to and from the Territory now has the tension of competition with it. The brilliance of the member for Greatorex, who said: ‘We will regulate’. Is this supported by every member of the opposition? This is like the $50 we will pay you for a good policy idea, I reckon.
What else will the opposition regulate? Will you go out, the business friendly party – we have been listening to this for the last few hours – you do not understand business, you members of the Labor Party, we understand business. How do you think business would respond to a little regulation? I think they would be cheering the Country Liberal Party. What else will you suggest regulating next? What else will you regulate? What an absurdity – and this man is the Deputy Opposition Leader.
Dr Burns: Genius.
Ms MARTIN: Genius is probably close to it.
Madam Speaker, we have had an important debate in our parliament. I am sad that the opposition could not join in and give us some ideas about how they would grow the Territory trade route. All we heard was carping, whinging, bagging it, putting down every aspect, accusing this document of being a tissue of lies, accusing us of being embarrassed to take it to the business community, that I would not travel …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: The regulator speaks! This is fantastic …
Dr Lim: Yes. Interpret me properly. Do not try and misrepresent me. That is the trouble with you. You do things like that all the time. Misleading. That is right.
Ms MARTIN: The member for Greatorex can claim he did not say it, however he did say: ‘We will regulate the goods …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex!
Ms MARTIN: … in containers on the rail so that we can have costs go down for goods in Alice Springs. That is what the member for Greatorex said, and we should make sure that business understands this new regulatory policy of retail that is being recommended and probably taken to the next election by the opposition. This is the new-look CLP. This is the new vision, the new plan for the Territory’s future. This is …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! Do not carry on.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, this is a terrific document and I hope that we all note it and take it very seriously because it is the pathway for our future.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Madam Speaker, tonight, I would like to place on record the names of recipients of awards which were presented at the Australia Day ceremony in Katherine this year.
Each year, Katherine Town Council has an Australia Day ceremony, which begins with the raising of the flag on the lawns outside the Civic Centre. This is attended by a cross-section of the community, and by all age groups. Each year the number of people who attend increases, which highlights the increasing awareness of Australia Day, which is very great to see.
This year, the crowd was welcomed by the Mayor, Anne Shepherd, followed by the raising of the Australian and Aboriginal flags by two members of the Katherine Boy Scouts. We then listened to Advance Australia Fair, sung by the Cantarbillay Choir, who are always a delight to listen to. The choir is made up of primary school students, all girls, so it would be great to see some boys in the choir too. I am sure there are plenty of them around Katherine who have wonderful voices and would be able to make a great contribution to the choir; we just have to identify them.
Following the ceremony outside, all the guests were invited to the Civic Centre to listen to the Mayor’s message and watch the awards being presented. Mayor Anne Shepherd made special mention of the many previous Katherine recipients of Australian Honours awards, which highlighted the wonderful contributions that so many have put into the Katherine community.
Madam Speaker, I am going to read out the names for the record, because I am very proud of how many people from a relatively small area have been acknowledged today:
Sister Barbara Tynan OA, Mr Les Cox BEM, Mr Don Smith OAM, Mr Werner Sarny AM, Mr Richard Field ASO, Dr Jim Scattini AM, Mr Lindsay ‘Flip’ Phillips AM, Mrs Gillian Haggar OAM, Mrs Gillian Banks OAM, Warrant Officer Alexander Le Poidevin OAM, Mrs Winifred Snodgrass OAM, Mr R Robson OAM, Warrant Officer J McLellan OAM and Mr Errol Reidlinger OAM.
This year, we were delighted to be able to add to that list, Mike Reed, who was awarded an Australian Order in this year’s awards. Mike is well known to this Assembly for his contribution to Territory politics over many years as a minister and Deputy Chief Minister. Of course, he is especially known to the people of Katherine as their local member. To all of us, this Australia Day award is a very fitting recognition for his contribution to the Northern Territory. Mike, coincidentally, was also the guest speaker for the awards ceremony and with his experiences was able to give us a timely reminder of how lucky we are to live in this great country of Australia, something that we sometimes lose sight of.
The other awards that were presented on the day were: Primary School Students Awards for 2004: Clyde Fenton Primary School - Rachael Barritt; St Joseph’s College Primary School - Winifred Fitzgerald-Logo; Casuarina Street Primary School - Phoebe Hammonds; Macfarlane Primary School - Edward Hannah; Katherine South Primary School - Sarah Johnston; St Joseph’s College Secondary Campus - Rachel McGraw. The overall winner of Student of the Year was Phoebe Hammonds from Casuarina Street Primary School.
The Katherine Times Senior Sports Star of the Year was Steven Kelly, with the runner-up, Corey Heath. Katherine Times Junior Sports Star of the Year was Todd Hair, and runner-up was Steven Kelly’s daughter, Stevie Kelly.
The Community Event of the Year was won by Katherine Neighbourhood Watch. The Katherine Neighbourhood Watch Family Fun Day in Grevillea Park, Katherine East, was the launch of the newly-established Katherine Neighbourhood Watch. This event brought together the whole of the community, with over 300 participants, with a variety of activities including pony rides, face painting, jumping castle, free BBQ, bike engraving and a membership drive. This event highlighted the need for greater community involvement and the safety and security issues surrounding Katherine East. Neighbourhood Watch has also carried out a crime prevention through environmental design audit of several hot spots around Katherine since its inception early last year.
The Young Citizen of the Year was awarded to Kate Oliver, who is well known for her contribution to the Katherine community through her involvement in country music. Kate has performed at the RAAF Welcome Day, Territory Day, the Farm and Garden Day, Carols by Candlelight, local rodeos and many other events, free of charge. Kate is a valuable member of the Katherine Country Music Association, operating the sound system, playing back-up and providing tutoring to young performers, as well as working tirelessly at the Annual Katherine Country Music Muster as a volunteer and performer. Kate has performed in Tamworth for a number of years and at the local Country Music Muster, along with the likes of Sara Storer, Karen O’Shea, the Toe Sucking Cowgirls and many others.
Kate has won both the amateur and professional sections of the Northern Territory Australian Country Music songwriting competition. She has made a great contribution to her local community, and is a great ambassador for Katherine and country music. She recently won the prestigious NT Adelaide River Talent Quest and Tamworth Country Music College Scholarship and, on Australia Day, was at the Tamworth Country Music Festival singing up a storm as she usually does.
Another award presented on Australia Day was a Certificate of Achievement to Marion Townsend for the Katherine Historical Society, 125th Springvale birthday celebrations. This was a three-day event organised to celebrate the 125th birthday of the historic Springvale Homestead, which is the oldest, still-standing homestead in the Katherine area with a long pastoral history. It is an absolute delight to be part of a tour of Springvale Homestead, with Marion Townsend enthusiastically giving you such a well-informed history. Marion’s enthusiasm is obvious as she recounts the history and brings the homestead to life, with stories of the Giles family who lived there.
The 125th birthday celebrations were held over three days and brought together the Giles family descendents, pioneers and local people. Historical displays and yarn telling were enjoyed by all who attended a wonderful dinner under the stars outside the homestead. Springvale has magnificent trees that were planted by the Giles family to commemorate each of their children. Fittingly, to commemorate the anniversary, an official tree planting was conducted by the Administrator of the Northern Territory, Mr Ted Egan and the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Jeffries. Hopefully, many of the young people present at the celebrations will return in 50 years time to see how magnificently these trees have grown.
The highlight of the Australia Day Awards Ceremony was the announcement of the Katherine Citizen of the Year. The four nominees - Kerryn Taylor, Fay Cox, Sonya Arnold and John Cooper - have all made significant contributions to the Katherine community over many years, so I did not envy the judges who had to choose. Fay Cox was acknowledged the 2004 Citizen of the Year, and was nominated for her outstanding contribution to Katherine since her arrival in the late 1950s. Fay, a nurse, was made Matron of Katherine Hospital in 1959 and married local store owner, Les Cox in 1960. While Fay was helping her husband run Katherine Stores, she also raised three children and helped out with the children’s school and sporting activities. She has also been involved with Red Cross from the very early years, as well as the St Vincent de Paul Society. Fay has been a member of the Katherine and District Show Society since its inception, taking on board committee membership, as well as volunteering as a steward and a regular competitor in the cooking section.
Following her brush with breast and bowel cancer, Fay put her energy into establishing a branch of the Cancer Council in Katherine, and remains a very active supporter and fundraiser to this day. She can still be seen regularly volunteering at community events around Katherine and, if she ever has any spare time, she can be found playing a round or two of golf. She is a very worthy recipient of the Citizen of the Year Award who gives so much to her community.
Following the award ceremony, morning tea was hosted in the council chambers. The Australia Day cake, which was so magnificently iced and decorated by Bronwyn Haggar was cut by Mayor, Anne Shepherd, Fay Cox and I, before being enjoyed by the many people who shared in the celebrations.
To cap off the Australia Day celebrations, a family fun day was held at the Katherine Sport and Recreation Club, with fun events including the very popular Jack Russell dog races that attract competitors from as far away as Daly Waters and provided lots of fun. We also had family events and plenty of food and drinks. Australia Day in Katherine was certainly packed with activity this year, and is getting bigger by the year.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, this evening I acknowledge two very special occasions that I attended on 29 January in my capacity as member for Karama. These occasions reminded me of the great privilege I have in being a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.
The first occasion was an invitation I received from the Sudanese community to attend the Sudan Peace Deal celebration they held. The Sudanese community is a significant community in the electorate of Karama with many families settled peacefully into Malak and Karama. They have borne through the years a great deal of trauma back in their homeland and sitting in refugee camps in the hope and anticipation of finally reaching a peaceful country. I remember the announcement on SBS news that Sudan’s warring factions in their 21-year civil war had signed a peace deal. I remember at the time I saw it thinking of the constituents living amongst us who have gone through so much suffering during the civil war in the Sudan. It was with subsequent great delight that I received an invitation from this magnificent Sudanese community in Darwin to attend their celebrations.
They held their celebrations at the Filipino community centre in Batten Road. The celebrations started at about 3.30 in the afternoon and went through very late into the evening. There was a whole range of traditional dances representing the various tribes of the Sudan. There was a Ma’adi traditional dance, Acholi, Moru, Dinka, Latuku, and Zairean music. It was a very beautiful evening with a lovely series of traditional dances and speeches, and a drama of court injustice in Sudan. The children who were there performed some dances, as did the older members of the community. The Sudanese are a very proud people and their rich culture was on display that evening.
I congratulate the community. I have seen them grow from strength to strength over the years and settle in well in our community. They have become a very vibrant and active part of the Australian African Friendship Association whilst keeping their Sudanese identity. They are very good at unifying the broader African community living in Darwin.
I congratulate them on the night that the peace deal was struck in their homeland and urge each of them to reflect on how they could assist friends and family back home in the long journey they have from peace through to, hopefully one day, democracy. It was a wonderful evening of celebration for the Sudanese community. I congratulate those who worked tirelessly to organise the evening and look forward to further celebration with them.
The Dafur area of Sudan is still unfortunately war torn and there are horrific reports still coming from there. However, the breakthrough of a peace deal after 21 years of civil war was very much an occasion to be celebrated, an occasion that the Sudanese community pulled together and created a terrific celebration.
That same evening I attended also the Northern Territory Tsunami Sports Appeal Gala Dinner at the SKYCITY casino. I am delighted to say that the ballroom was absolutely packed with people representing various sporting codes in the Territory. The Territory sporting organisations pulled this fantastic sports appeal fundraiser together in conjunction with media and business partners. They raised funds for the Asian Tsunami Disaster with all proceeds going to Red Cross. I acknowledge the people who provided the many items for the raffle and the auction on the evening: AANT; the ABC; Airnorth; Canterbury; CUB; Channel 9; Chris Wicks; our Chief Minister, Clare Martin; Crowne Plaza; Coca Cola; Daryl Thomas from Thomas Chin - I acknowledge Daryl and Darlene and the fantastic work they do and they are involved many donations; David Lay; Garuda; Glenfords Tool Centre; Great Southern Rail; Harrison Pharmacy; Harvey Norman; Image Offset; Lion Nathan; Mark Pearce; ministers Ah Kit and Vatskalis; Noelene Trinne; NT Broadcasters; NT News; Parap Village Motel; Qantas; Quintessential; Red Cross volunteers; SKYCITY; SportingBet; Terry Trewin; the Cricket and Football Shop; the Villas Bali; Tony Pickering; Top End Sounds; Tucker Seabrook; and Zip Print.
It was a magnificent night. Everyone dug deep and auction items were going for several thousands of dollars. It was a very impressive gala dinner fundraiser organised by our sporting community.
I congratulate the organisers. It was a fun evening but, most importantly, a great deal of money was raised to assist the victims of the Asian tsunami. The Territory continues to work in a really positive way to assist our near neighbours get through the horrendous disaster of the tsunamis. My thoughts go to the families of the victims. I am delighted to be a part of a community that, when a disaster occurs, everyone rallies and provides every ounce of support they can to assist people to get back on their feet. Congratulations to the sporting clubs. It was a magnificent event and everyone there had a wonderful time.
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I wish to raise two important matters relating to health services that should be available to all Territorians whether they live north or south of the Berrimah Line. It is even more disturbing when we know that a service that is available in Darwin may not be available in Alice Springs, or there is a threat to a service that is currently available.
I am referring particularly to services relating to women with breast cancer. In 1999, the Cancer Council of the Northern Territory received Commonwealth funding under the Strength and Support for Women with Breast Cancer program. This amounted to about $4m over four years, and it was used to employ specialist breast care nurses in Darwin and Alice Springs. These specialists support women with breast cancer focussing on the rural areas. This means providing advice and information to them, liaison and referral, and communication among the relevant health and medical care professionals. It is a vital role in supporting the physical, and particularly the emotional and social needs of these clients at what, for many, can be a very distressing time of their lives with the diagnosis of breast cancer and consequent treatment.
Currently in Alice Springs there are about 12 women receiving care under the Breast Care program and I believe there are about 40 in Darwin. When this program expired in 2004, the Commonwealth announced a new initiative, which sounded good, supporting women in rural areas diagnosed with breast cancer. This program has a total nationwide budget of $1m for four years, a huge reduction on the previous initiative.
Under the new arrangements for this financial year, the Cancer Council of the Northern Territory will receive about $82 000. Grants for the next two years will be around $58 000. This is a reduction for this year, and from next year, the council’s funding will be almost halved from previous years. For the council to continue with the service as it is now, they obviously have to find funds and either take them from another program that they have or look for new funds elsewhere.
In Australia, breast cancer is, as most of us know, the most common type of cancer for women. It is also the most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Every day in Australia, more than 25 women are newly diagnosed with breast cancer. In the Northern Territory for the period 1997 to 2001, the mortality rate was almost 25% of the women with breast cancer. My mother died of breast cancer and my niece has breast cancer. It is a family problem that we have. It is often genetic so it is something very real to me. The statistics for the Territory are quite scary.
The withdrawal of this service, supporting women in rural areas diagnosed with breast cancer, would mean there would be no specialist breast care nurse in the entire Northern Territory, obviously an untenable position given the statistics we have for breast cancer. There has already been a reduction in the breast screening services, as we have heard in this House many times, for people in Alice Springs. We do not get the regular service we used to have.
The Minister for Health must have realised that this vital service has been threatened because when he met with two ladies, Lesley Reilly and Liz Locke not so long ago, he made a commitment to make up the shortfall of the Cancer Council’s funding and this would be about $45 000 per year for the next year. I was very pleased to see that these two ladies were featured in both newspapers because they do a great job. They had an organisation in Alice Springs called the Bosom Buddies. As they say, ‘mammograms save lives’ and these two women are a great example of women who have had breast cancer mammograms and are out there really giving support. In the same article, it says quite clearly, ‘early detection can ease long hard fight’.
I called on the Minister for Health, after the meeting he had with these two ladies, to get behind breast cancer sufferers in Alice Springs and to find the funding so that the Cancer Council can continue the service they provide with a breast care nurse. It is a small amount of money in a big health budget, but it is one of those services that is vital. I trust he also lobbies the Commonwealth to restore the funding. It is absolutely appalling that they have withdrawn their funding and this service is in jeopardy.
The second matter I want to speak about is the lack of services for people suffering from lymphoedema. This situation was highlighted on Stateline, and you may have seen in the NT News, a young boy in Katherine who has lymphoedema. The sad part about it is that women who have had breast cancer are threatened with this particular concern. It is a swelling of the arm from accumulated fluids after the lymph glands have been removed and, as we know, these are often removed with cancerous tissues, and because the fluid is not draining away there is a swelling of the limb. This is what happened to this lad for a different reason. Lymphoedema may occur when men have had a vasectomy or a lump removed, and that is not an uncommon practice. It can also occur in other ailments and if the swelling is not treated, the problem can cause lack of circulation and become a very serious injury.
Patients who may be at risk are taught gentle exercises to maintain circulation. They are also taught good skin care and to avoid heavy lifting, tight clothing, and excessive exercise. Compression bandages or garments are mandatory to prevent swelling and to maintain the normal size of the limb. This is important for patients who have to fly interstate for radiation therapy. It is absolutely crucial that these compression garments are worn the correct way, otherwise there could be problems with restricting circulation – more harm than good can be done if the garments are worn incorrectly and the patient does not know how to do it.
Occupational therapists who have done special training advise patients on that post-surgical rehabilitation, such as how to do the exercises, how to massage, and how to fit and wear these compression garments. It is a very vital role as prevention, as we all know, is far better than curing the complications that may arise with lymphoedema. Darwin has seven of these OTs, but there are none in Alice Springs. Every other state and territory has substantial numbers of specialised therapists except the Territory. There is a private massage therapist in Alice Springs, but patients who go to her have to pay for her services, which are, in fact, provided free in Darwin. The Department of Health and Community Services offers up to two compression garments free for each patient, and in Darwin the OTs distribute these garments, but this service is free garments and the OTs are simply not available to patients in Alice Springs.
There may not be a large number of patients in Alice Springs. We figure there are probably about 20, but just because we do not have as many as we do in Darwin, they should not be penalised because they live south of the Berrimah Line. I ask the minister to again look at this situation. There are solutions to it. You could offer training to the OTs we do have in Alice Springs, because we do have OTs but they do not have the specialised training. The other alternative is to fly OTs who are specialised in this area down from Darwin on a regular basis to provide a service for the women of Alice Springs. It is not a little thing; if you saw that program about that mother struggling with that young boy, you can understand that it can be quite dangerous and serious.
Women who have had breast cancer have enough on their plates without having this added burden as well. It means that the service we are providing in Alice Springs is not as good as it could be. We need to make sure we get funding for the breast care nurse so we can have that supporting service for women once they have been diagnosed. We need, most of all, OTs who are trained in helping with the compression garments, and to have these compression garments available free of charge to women in Alice Springs, the same as they are in Darwin.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I want to talk about some matters in relation to the Alice Springs Hospital. Members, and Territorians generally, know that there are a number of issues boiling about the hospital at the moment. However, tonight I only propose to deal with one, which pertains to the fire safety and other defects that have been highlighted at the hospital in recent times. I also want to talk about the recent accreditation that all hospitals in the Territory, but Alice Springs Hospital in particular, gained. In order for me to outline the concerns I have - and there are many - I thought it appropriate to quickly go through a chronology, based on facts, that are on the public record, or facts that I know. I will start this evening’s adjournment debate by listing a chronology.
In a ministerial report on 26 February 2002, the former Minister for Health announced the hospital was and I quote:
One report that has surfaced relatively recently is dated April 2003, and that listed a number of defects, some of which were highlighted in the Northern Territory News on 4 February and, subsequent to that, in the Centralian Advocate. Members will remember some of the problems that were identified; however, for those who do not, in summary: a battery room was not ventilated and potentially explosive gas built up; a faulty generator existed, which meant that the hospital functioned without a reliable emergency generator; power sockets were coming out of the walls; and no childproof exit gates existed in the Paediatric Ward. There are many others, but they are some that spring to mind.
In May 2004, the current Minister for Health announced $2m for repair work at the hospital, and that was more than one year after the April 2003 report. On 25 and 26 May 2004, the ACHS survey team inspected the Alice Springs Hospital. It then prepared its report in June 2004. In a ministerial report on 6 October 2004, the Health Minister said, and I quote:
He then went on to state that significant redevelopment works would be undertaken, and he referred to a final report due in November 2004.
In a media release on 19 January 2005, the minister announced that the Alice Springs Hospital and other hospitals gained accreditation for, amongst other things, ‘… meeting rigorous national standards’, in a number of areas including safe practice and environment. In a media release dated 2 February 2005, the minister said that there had been 24 studies and assessments into problems at the hospital, and that presumably includes the report in April 2003.
The chronology, of itself, clearly raises a number of questions about the minister’s stewardship of his portfolio and his conduct, generally, not only in relation to the various defects, but also into his role regarding the accreditation. Before dealing with the accreditation in more detail, it is appropriate I refer to the ACHS report dated June 2004. That is the report from the survey team, prepared after their inspection in May. I have examined that report, and at page 36 it states:
Given the gravity of the safety defects identified in one of the reports we know of, namely the April 2003 report, and subsequent announcements regarding the safety defects at the hospital, one wonders what material the survey team received when members of that team inspected the hospital in May 2004. A number of questions clearly arise in relation to the minister’s conduct. Given that on occasions I have waited six months, and more recently three months, to receive a response from this minister, I am taking this opportunity to ask very specific questions.
I invite the minister to provide parliament with a response to these questions by the end of the week. He should have the answers to these questions, therefore, it should not be too difficult for him. If he does not have the answers to these questions, then he should say so, and we can deal with the issues that arise perhaps in another way.
The obvious questions are these: firstly, did any safety issues emerge from the ACHS accreditation survey report issued in June 2004, other than the reference to the review from the fire department in 2002? If so what were they, and why were they not in that report? Was the ACHS review team given access to the 24 reports and assessments that the minister is on the public record as saying exists? If so, can the minister table those reports? Did the minister proceed with undue haste to gain accreditation for the Alice Springs Hospital? Did he deliberately ensure that the 24 reports and assessments that he says exist into safety issues at the hospital were not provided to the ACHS review team? Why did the minister say on ABC radio on 2 February 2005 that the accreditation does not deal with details of technical design, or the content of the actual building when that is clearly not the case? For the benefit for members, the minister said on ABC radio on 2 February:
So it would appear that the minister was making it up as he went along, or deliberately told a lie. I would like him to answer that question, in addition to the ones I have outlined, plus more to come.
In a media release of 2 February 2005 …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order! The member well knows that she cannot accuse a member of lying in the Chamber unless by way of substantive motion.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to point of order, she did not make the assertion; she simply said that the minister did one thing or if he did not do that thing, then he lied. She has not made the assertion; she has simply outlined two possibilities. She has not proceeded to call anyone a liar and it is up to the minister to explain.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms LAWRIE: Speaking further to the point of order, using the word ‘liar’ as a question has been ruled out of order in this Chamber before.
Mr Elferink: No, it has not. When?
Ms LAWRIE: Today. The member for Drysdale was asked to withdraw by the Chair.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order in respect of the way the member worded that phrase.
Ms LAWRIE: It has been ruled out of order before.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms Lawrie: Interesting precedent.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Go on with your adjournment.
Ms CARNEY: I thank the member for Karama for her belated and rather pathetic attempt to call a point of order. Happily, I will go on.
In the minister’s media release of the 2 February 2005, the minister said that a recent report revealed that the problems at the hospital are, and I quote, ‘even more serious that first thought’. Given the gravity of the problems contained in the April 2003 report, which clearly compromised the safety of staff and patients, the minister should table that report upon which he based the comments in his media release of the 2 February 2005.
I note in passing that in the document Building Healthier Communities at page 32, it states that the department will put into practice policies for a safe working environment. I suggest that the department and the minister, in particular, not just put into practice policies, but they actually have an obligation to provide a safe working environment for the staff and indeed the patients at the hospital.
The next question I ask is whether the minister knew the significant problems existed in April 2003, and why did he wait until May 2004 before announcing $2m for repairs? Was the timing of the announcement of the $2m in May 2004 for repairs deliberately made in the same month as the ACHS inspected the hospital in an attempt to assure the review team that repair work was insignificant or under way? When did the minister know the repairs were going to cost $8m, and did he deliberately wait to obtain accreditation before announcing the problems and the significant extra costs, noting that his announcement of the extra $8m came a mere three weeks, I will repeat that, came a mere three weeks after the hospital had gained accreditation?
I also ask was the final report in November 2004, which the minister has said in the Chamber was going to be provided to him, subsequently provided to the ACHS review team? If not, why not? I also ask whether the report of April 2003 in particular was provided to the review team? If not, why not? I ask again whether the other 23 or 24 reports or assessments were also provided to the review team? If not, why not?
In October last year, the minister knew that some parts of the hospital failed to meet Building Code of Australia standards, yet in January this year, he said that accreditation was gained for, amongst other things, a safe practice and environment. I ask whether the minister informed the accreditation review team in October last year of the failure to comply with Australian standards?
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, they are just some of many questions I have in relation to this matter, but given the facts as we know them, the questions I have asked tonight should be answered. There is an aroma of skulduggery, I suggest, about the minister’s conduct. More questions will probably arise, but the minister owes it to all of us here, including in particular the staff and patients at the Alice Springs Hospital, to provide an explanation by the end of the week. There are two more parliamentary sitting days left. He has ample opportunity to do so.
There are serious questions about the minister’s conduct in relation to what appears to be a failure to act when he knew, and knew for a very long time, of significant defects. We have tracked back his public statements. On any objective analysis there are serious questions to be asked and, accordingly, the minister should answer them. If he does not, the suspicions about the minister’s conduct will continue to fester.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I pick up now where the member for Araluen left off in terms of dealing with issues surrounding how this government operates. I will turn my attention to my shadow portfolios of Community Development, specifically the Housing Business Services area. I have to say that it has come to my attention, and also touched on by the Auditor-General in his half-yearly report to this parliament today, that there are serious deficiencies in the Housing Business Services section, and they are not the fault of the people who run the Housing Business Services, but rather the fault of this minister directly and the Treasurer directly.
I was almost pleased today to see in the Auditor-General’s half-yearly report that the value of the housing stock in the Northern Territory has substantially increased. However, my heartened moment was not long lived and was offset by the realisation that it is a book entry, largely, that increases the housing stock of the Northern Territory by virtue of the fact that all they have done is decided to change the way they count the remote housing stock. I presume we are talking about the housing stock on Aboriginal Land Trusts.
Traditionally, it is my understanding that a zero value was placed on government properties on Aboriginal Land Trusts - police stations, health clinics and those sorts of things - simply because the buildings and structures stand on land which is inalienable. Therefore it is impossible to sell the structure even if the government chooses to do because when you build a structure on inalienable land you have effectively foregone your ownership of it. The system of counting staff accommodation and such things in those remote places has changed and increased the value of the housing stock.
I would be edified if the minister could demonstrate to me where there have been other increases in the housing stock. Indeed, if I look at page 67 of the Auditor-General’s half-yearly report, footnote 2 says that the minister has engaged in behaviour he has called reprehensible and racist in this department. That behaviour is this – he has sold $7m-worth of Northern Territory Housing property. That is very curious. This minister has stood up in this parliament and called such behaviour irresponsible, stupid, and generally tipped buckets of derision upon anybody who suggested selling the housing stock for a profit. But that is exactly, according to the Auditor-General, what has occurred. Yet, in spite all of this, serious deficiencies seem to be occurring and it is not Housing Businesses Services fault; it is the minister’s fault.
One of those areas that I am deeply concerned about is how the debtors collection process is operating. It appears that void rates have increased from 4.4% 6%. Basically, what that means, as I understand it, is that the ability to earn capacity or losses on that Territory Housing stock has gone up. There are all sorts of issues in relation to vacant housing property, and I will put this in a context where everybody in this House and every Territorian can understand this without having to enter into bureauspeak.
I went and saw an old flat that I used to live in when I was a police officer which is part of the Territory Housing stock. It was leased to the police department and, as part of my conditions of service, I received free housing. It was a flat in Lyndavale Drive which is in the very politically hot area of Larapinta, which has caused so much grief for this government and so much grief for the people who live in Larapinta. This particular flat is vacant because it is unhabitable, as is the flat next door. What has rendered it unhabitable? A fire. I am not certain, but it is my understanding that that fire was not an accident. Many of the houses in that area have been damaged, damaged to the point where the housing stock cannot be used, so you have increased numbers of housing stock which is not available. The other thing is that the processes of rental income that you can get from this housing stock is now lost. You can no longer make that income and, as a consequence, the Territory taxpayer will ultimately be asked to make up the shortfall.
Housing Business Services is a part of the Territory government, which is a government business division, a GBD. GBDs, essentially, are supposed to run pretty much like a business. It runs it accounts, it assets and those sorts of things. It has an income; it has outgoings and expenditure. Expenditure has increased and, curiously, in spite of the fact that the minister has not increased the size of the housing stock, just changed the way he counts it and, indeed, sold off $7m-worth of property from the housing stock – and I quote from page 67 …
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! Standing order 68, Anticipation of Subject. Clearly, he is referring to the Auditor-General’s mid-year report which is due for debate later in this House.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order …
Mr Kiely: It is a breach of Standing Order 68.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it is interesting that this government would try to silence me in debate on this issue. He wants to argue about the niceties of a rule of debate when, in fact, we are talking about people’s homes.
If the member for Sanderson, who raised this particular issue, wants to go down this path, I am quite happy to remind members of this House of his attitude towards people’s lifestyles in the Northern Territory. He might instruct them again to open a window. What will the instruction be this time from the member for Sanderson – go camp in a park? This is talking about the niceties of a debate. Okay, fine, we have to focus on the rules. The only reason the member for Sanderson would want to focus on the rules is to shut me up. Why would he want to shut me up? Because he does not like what he is hearing. Well, for the bovver boy from Sanderson – tough! This issue is more important than just a little rule of debate. This issue is about people’s homes and Territorians being provided with a roof over their head - something that the minister claims is absolutely the highest on his list of priorities. In fact, that is not the case.
The General Business Division, which has carriage of this area, has complained, and complained quite bitterly, that the processes involved in trying to run their Government Business Division is a difficult one indeed, and made no less difficult by the fact that this minister has directly interfered in the financial management of the Government Business Division. How is that so? Simply because he has …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! We are querying whether this is, indeed, anticipation of debate on the Auditor-General’s report. I am very happy to listen to the member for Macdonnell talk about any issues around housing but, in specifics to the Auditor-General’s report, we query whether this is anticipation of debate.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have spoken with the Clerk who said that there is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Again they want to silence me because they do not like what they are hearing. If they have become so churlish as to be totally focussed on the rules of debate, because they think the rules of debate are more important than the rooves over Territorians heads, then let them say so.
The fact is that this minister has reached into the ability for the Government Business Division to do its job to run the Community Harmony Project, so $2.5m is being leached out of the ability of this particular government department to build houses so it can run a program which deals with itinerants. Surely that defies all common sense and logic?
The housing crises to which this minister has repeatedly referred has been something that this minister has sworn black and blue that he is going to fix. Yet, he is sucking money out of the very source of his answer and pouring it into projects which are not being successful. How do I know they are not being successful? Because in the 3 years since this government has come to power homelessness and public drunkenness has increased by 5000 per year if you read the police annual report. So, this minister has pulled $2.5m out of the ability of the Housing Business Services section to build houses. He has then poured that into a project which clearly is not attaining the results that it seeks to achieve and, at the end of the day, what is the Territory taxpayers’ asset base as a result? Does it get anything out of the Community Harmony project in terms of bricks and mortar? No, it does not. That $2.5m when spent is gone. Perhaps that is why the accumulated losses in that particular GBD have gone up from $38m to $53m. This minister has to change his tack.
I have repeatedly heard from the member for Johnson about the great crocodile jaws in terms in debt and income and all those sorts of things. And guess what? In this housing section, that is exactly what has happened. Assets have been stripped away and yet losses are increasing, and this minister is still reaching into that situation and causing an amplification of the problems that this GBD is suffering from. This GBD has to keep selling stock, raise rents, or get an injection from the Treasurer to survive. That is an untenable situation and that has nothing to do with the GBD; it is trying its hardest under the circumstances that it has been provided with to deal with these issues.
The GBD has replied to the Auditor-General saying that the decisions for the Community Harmony project have not been made by internal management. They have been made by the minister. And the minister owes it to his GBD and to Territorians everywhere to allow that GBD to do its business so that Territorians who are in need of housing can get housing. How long are the waiting lists? Months, years. How much is the government doing to alleviate these problems? Zip. It is about time they fixed it.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to also continue in the same vein as my two colleagues, the members for Araluen and Macdonnell, about the way this government manages business. I would like to add some comments about what has been happening in the Alice Springs Hospital for the past many months and the increasing distress that staff are facing while attempting to keep good practice of medicine and nursing at Alice Springs. I want to use in particular two letters written to the Centralian Advocate over the last seven days. Both letters are written by Pam Cooper. On 4 February she wrote to the Advocate, and I quote:
She goes on to say that maybe there are some skills required to make sure that hospital administration is more sensitive to people’s issues. I quote again:
She then asks quite a few questions about what has happened at the hospital.
She followed up with another letter pointing to more issues at the hospital. This one was written to the Advocate published today, Tuesday, 15 February, and its headline is: ‘Problems must be cured not buried’. She wrote:
I come now to address the issues she raised. First, the sacking of the doctors: the minister denies that the doctors were sacked. This is an e-mail sent by Dr David Hamilton, and there is a whole list of e-mail addresses. He wrote:
His exact words:
Then it goes on a couple of paragraphs down:
This is a person who is prepared to put his name …
Mr Dunham: Pretty brave in this climate. Pretty brave.
Dr LIM: That’s right, very brave.
Mr KIELY: May I request that that be tabled, please?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry, I did not hear you, member for Sanderson.
Mr KIELY: I request that the document be tabled.
Dr LIM: It is a public document. The minister has it.
Mr KIELY: Will he table it, please?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you table the documents? Yes.
Dr LIM: He goes on further and says in September when he was applying to continue to work at the Alice Springs Hospital and negotiating with the General Manager:
The most senior medical person in the hospital finds that she has to take time off from her workplace because of stress. For months, for years, the opposition has been saying that the Alice Springs Hospital is in difficulty, that the government must pay attention to it and address the issues there but, unfortunately, they have not.
All decisions about the Alice Springs Hospital, essentially, have been made in Darwin. I will demonstrate, at least in this instance, through a letter from Dr Hamilton, why that is the case. He has said, well, you cannot work here anymore because you are unwell, you are too old, whatever, while this man has holidays in New Zealand windsurfing, playing golf and bridge, reading books, playing the piano. I mean, this man has skills irrespective of what his age is, and he is not that old that he cannot perform surgery safely. He tried to get some work in Alice Springs. He knew that there was going to be a space of time where the Alice Springs Hospital would require a locum surgeon, and he wrote to the general manager, Ms Vicki Taylor, and it is addressed to her, CEO, Alice Springs Hospital, 12 November 2004.
It goes on to describe some circumstances between himself and the hospital. He said:
I would like to meet with you to discuss this.
Signed
David Hamilton
Now, what happened was, and I will read it so I that I am accurate with my facts. David Hamilton wrote this:
And so therefore he was squeezed out. The medical board had no case to pick with Dr Hamilton. There were supporting letters from his medical colleagues, who were the principal carers of a particular patient whose case was in question, and Dr Hamilton was not implicated in this case whatsoever.
This is how the hospital treats their senior doctor. I suppose it is one of the reasons why the Medical Superintendent came under severe stress and decided that it was time that she took some stress leave. For her to be away for six months - this is a senior person who runs the medical services of a hospital, away for six months on stress leave. You have to ask. If you break a leg, you might take six weeks off. If you have a very severe fracture you might take three months off. But this is a six month leave of absence from work under workers compensation for stress …
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! Under Standing Order 256, I would request that all documents that the member for Greatorex has quoted from during his adjournment be tabled.
Mr DUNHAM: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, speaking to the point of order, that order cannot be made until the member has concluded his speech, which he has not yet, so if you have had that standing order before you you should abide by it.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is quite correct. It can be made without notice immediately upon the conclusion of the speech.
Dr LIM: And I am more than happy, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, to table all these documents because, as I said, they are public. Dr Hamilton has spread it quite freely and ...
Mr Dunham: The big witch hunt starts now, mate – big witch hunt.
Dr LIM: And I am sure they will. I am sure they will try to pull everybody down.
With regards to Dr Charles Butcher, that is another shoddy example of how this hospital and this administration treats people. This is a person who has spent 25 years of his life living, working, caring for Alice Springs. This week marks his 25th year servicing Alice Springs. Whilst the minister could get up this afternoon in Question Time and say that there is a joint press release with Dr Butcher and the hospital to say that everything is honky dory, I cannot get my hands on the media release yet. You have to be a bit careful with what the minister said, and I quote from the minister’s response. He said, ‘I want to share the content of it with members’:
That is all paraphrased. They are not Dr Butcher’s words. What is now going to be in quotes, was from Dr Butcher:
I take my hat off to the man. That is Charles Butcher to the ‘t’ - no fuss, no ripples, he does not want to cause any problems for anybody. He appreciated the strong support – there was a huge groundswell of support for Charles Butcher in Alice Springs. When the story broke in the papers, there were calls from everywhere. There were people lining up asking what they could do to help. They were approaching me in the street, and I spoke to Charles as well. He said: ‘Look, I do not want to cause any problems’. That is just him, and the words I can hear him say. He also said, I quote again:
That does not tell us what exactly it is.
Dr Charles Butcher and Dr Hamilton were job sharing. Dr Butcher wanted to continue working, three months on and three months off, if he could, for at least the next 12 months if not longer. I understand, from news that I have received from Alice Springs - not from Dr Butcher himself - that he has been offered some locum work at the hospital now. Obviously, some arrangement has been made and Dr Butcher is comfortable with it, and that is fine. I should not be saying more than that.
However, it needed that groundswell of anger from Alice Springs before this government would act. This is the sort of government that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming, before it will do something. It will not do it proactively because it does not know how to do it. That is the problem with this government: it does not know how to manage and it fails time and time again.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it is my intention to speak about matters regarding the Power and Water Corporation. However, I could not resist also placing on the record my admiration for Dr Charles Butcher. He is a fine man; a man who has worked in a remote area in times when it was much harder than it is now, or much more remote than it is now. I cannot think of a time when it would have been harder because the problems besetting Alice Springs Hospital appear to have assumed a magnitude all of their own.
We saw today that this government is not below keeping files on people, and making assessments as to whether those …
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! The member for Greatorex is altering the documents that were to be tabled.
Members interjecting.
Dr BURNS: He is altering them; ripping bits off them.
Ms Carney: Oh, you liar! You are just making it up!
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! I am sorry to take up the member for Drysdale’s time; however, this minister, not knowing what is going on, gets up and rabbits on like the typical idiot that he is ...
Mr KIELY: A point of order!
Dr LIM: These are my notes and I have every right not to table my notes. They are my notes …
Mr Kiely: It is part of the document.
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is right. He is tabling the document that he read from.
Mr Kiely: No, that is part of the document.
Dr Burns: That is part of the document.
Dr Lim: It is not part of the document!
Dr Burns: Of course it is part of the document.
Mr Dunham: Well, refer him to Privileges. Stupid.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! That was clearly part of the document. He has torn it off. It is on part of the paper.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not what he read and quoted from, and he is going to submit the article which he quoted from …
Mr Kiely: It is part of the document.
Ms Carney: You are dissenting, are you? Go on, I dare you!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: He is submitting the articles that he quoted from, and he did not quote the notes which he had doodled on the bottom.
Dr BURNS: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I place on the record that I saw the member for Greatorex tear off a portion of the document that he was quoting from. It is as simple as that.
Members interjecting.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: He can put anything he likes on the point of order, and put it on the record. These are notes which I wrote down. I did not intend to quote from them. I never quoted from them, ever, and it is not part of the stuff which I read out. I am prepared to table everything that I read out to the House …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, are those articles which you have handed to the Clerk all of those which you quoted from tonight?
Dr LIM: All of it, except for my notes.
Dr Burns: Barring that bit.
Mr Dunham: You have done what you have been asked to.
Dr Lim: That is right.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: Could the clock be reset, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: The clock had been stopped.
Mr DUNHAM: It is interesting this quest to get the bits of paper on the member for Greatorex’s desk. What we have here, and we saw it this morning, the government keeping secret files on Territorians and there is a very KGB approach by this government in pursuing people who they think are saying things that are counter to the government of the day. They are making various assumptions and extrapolations about Territorians. The public service is very nervous about it. They know there are files being kept on them.
I had an experience which I am now going to relate to parliament where I was speaking with my wife to the wife of a CEO of a Northern Territory government department. We had the shopping trolley between us and we were in the Hibiscus Shopping Town at Woolies and within the next day or so the CEO was asked by the minister what his wife was seen doing talking to me. Now I know it happens.
I cannot believe the fixation with problems in Alice Springs so that when the messenger delivers the problem there is an attempt to get further details so that they can pursue some sort of vendetta against public servants, some sort of vendetta against doctors who should be awarded accolades. That is the sort of stuff that could well prove fatal for this government. This pursuit of Territorians, this categorisation of Territorians into ‘are you with us or against us’, this business of trying to bully people who have the temerity to make public comment about something and put their name to it has to stop.
Power and Water: I would like to talk about the undergrounding of power project that is going on now. There was a report that was done under the previous government and it looked at a trial plot. It looked at the whole of Darwin; the overhead suburbs comprised something like 8900 allotments. That is a lot of allotments and we did a trial project where we looked at the cost that was likely to be incurred to the government: that cost per lot was about $8200 without HV feeders and just over $11 000 with HV feeders. We looked at various options for funding. We looked at some of the problems we incurred in terms of including other agencies like the Darwin City Council, Telstra, Austar and others, and it provides a base for the current government to embark on the undergrounding that they are doing.
The underground they are doing, I understood, came in at about $9m and there are about 1000 lots. So that is probably $9000 per allotment, which is a pretty good price. As I said, in our smaller trial which had some issues of scale, obviously, we were looking at about $11 000. I would be very keen to know how the government is going with it because we know that the hourly rate for electricians has gone up over 10% and we know there are some other issues relating to this project. The government should tell us a number of things relating to it.
First, can they tell us the cost per lot that that job is being done at? If it is still the $9000 per lot obviously the $9m that has been provided should be sufficient to cover that project. That is the first thing I would like to know: how much per lot is the job coming in at now that they have a history of these works? The second thing I would like to know is about the continuity of funding. Obviously, if this project stops and starts, there are going to be some issues relating to costs that will intrude on that. I would like to know whether there is going to be a continuity of funding so that the $80m original estimate which now may have changed for all of the suburbs, for the 8900 lots across Darwin, whether that project will continue to roll or whether there will be a stop start to it? The last thing I would like to know is whether the community service obligation for the Power and Water Authority, this is a government business entity, and as a business entity it runs on business principles, if it does work not of its own volition but from works that the government would like it to do, the government has to make sure that it provides by way of a community service obligation to that authority to make sure that those commercial decisions that would be normally made have been equipped.
The minister has used this parliament to repeat a quote from me where I said something along the lines of: ‘When I was a minister for the Power and Water Authority, I can assure you that the top of the works list would not have been undergrounding power, nor power to Dundee’. The minister has seen this is a great thing to grab, and it is probably in my secret file if I ever get to look at it, about various things that people had said in the Northern Territory.
Nonetheless, it is an important question because we know that the work that has been done in Nightcliff is not all of the volition of the Power and Water Corporation. The minister has to tell us how much of that work is a government political promise and how much is a Power and Water commitment because they will inherit the works. That should be a ratio. So it should be something like 60:40 or 50:50 or whatever it is, and the job should roll out on the basis of those numbers. So if there is $10m worth of work done and it is 50:50, obviously they will pay $5m. I would like to know what that ratio is and I would like to know the details of the funding that is coming from the Power and Water Corporation to fund this political promise which the Power and Water Corporation would not have undertaken had the government not compelled them to do so.
There are the questions for the minister on that issue. I note that if this had been used as the base document, the government might have saved itself a couple of problems because there are many workshops that talked about some of the issues; consultation and public relations, talking to the Darwin City Council, for instance, and making sure they are employed with them.
The other issue I would like the minister to answer is if they were working in concert with the Darwin City Council, have all the issues between the Power and Water Corporation, the government and the Darwin City Council been resolved? If they have, is the Darwin City Council aware of the future works program? It would appear that there is a new footpath program in suburbs with overhead power. If the government’s intention is to put all the overhead power in the northern suburbs underground, eventually that footpath will be ripped up. I would like to make sure that if there is a footpath replacement program, it is working in concert with the underground power program so that we do not find footpath laid in suburb X, say it is Wanguri, and in a year or so time, in comes the Power and Water contractor and digs up the footpath. It would seem to be foolish to me. So I would like some advice from the minister about making sure those things are working in concert.
I now turn to billing. Billing is a matter of some notoriety at the moment. It is featuring in the NT News. I note it does not feature in the Auditor-General’s report, but there are some big issues relating to billing. There are people who are saying that they are now being asked to pay their periodic payments up-front when they are due. There are people who are sitting quietly not getting bills and getting very nervous about the size of that bill when it might turn up. There are people who are disputing their bills. There are people who are now wondering whether the bills they paid in the recent past are, in fact, valid. It would appear that there is a problem with confidence in the billing system in terms of what is generated.
I would like the minister to give some detail on this because it is my concern that the Power and Water Corporation may well be under-billing and that should be evident in terms of the normal cash flow that comes in, and there should be some device to pick up whether the expectation of power consumption through this era is tracking on the same basis as other eras, for instance. If there is a massive downturn in that cash flow, it could well indicate a problem with under-billing. The problem with under-billing is I don’t think the government should, having taken its eye off the ball, then drop big bills on consumers. It should have a system that reasonably negotiates an orderly payment of those bills if they are beyond what the consumer normally pays.
We need to know whether this muck up is of enormous proportions, whether it is of small proportions and in hand. We need to know whether consumers can have confidence in the bills they get. We need to know whether there is an amount of under-billing going on, including people not receiving bills, which, anecdotally, seems to be happening. We need to know what the government is going to do when it eventually decides to fix this problem: whether it will take some heavy handed approach to recovering those monies.
In the couple of minutes I have left, I want to stay with power and talk about electricians. We have a report tabled in this parliament and we have an education and training minister who continues to proudly beat his chest about apprentices and the great work being done. We are short of electricians. The Power and Water Corporation must be able to tell you, everybody else must be able to tell you. In fact, your own data, the Annual Report of the Northern Territory Electrical Workers and Contractors Licensing Board should be able to tell you. It will show that, since the CLP left government, there has been a decline every year. From 1999-2000, 2743, down to 2550. Nearly 200 electricians have left. If you look at the government’s proud record with apprenticeships, there is a section on that:
Not good enough minister. These are the mainstream trades which the education minister tried to convince us were under control this morning. We need more electricians. Pick up any Saturday paper and you will see it. We know this government has wasted a couple of hundred electricians in this period. We know they are not training them to the extent which they should. Let us get away from this: ‘We have 30 000 trainees and everybody is living happily ever after, and a lot of them are indigenous’, and get to the focus of those hard-to-recruit categories.
We have a big problem with tradies in this town. We have a big problem with electricians. I would like the minister to get away from the generic and more towards the specific. Tell us what he is doing regarding electrical trades, what he is doing about trying to climb back up that graph that is showing a terrible trend for a government which is trying to boast about its activities when it shows, year on year, that, under this government, we are losing these vital trades.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
MESSAGE FROM ADMINISTRATOR
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I lay on the Table Message No 28 from His Honour the Administrator advising of his assent to proposed laws passed by the Legislative Assembly during the November/December 2004 sittings.
RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES
AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 261)
AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 261)
Continued from 1 December 2004.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Speaker, the opposition does not oppose the bill in its entirety. However, we share the concerns of the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, full particulars of which the minister should have and be across. If he is not, then I am sure his staff will be. I will go through some of the difficulties in relation to one part of the bill shortly.
By way of introduction, and in summary, why we do not oppose this bill is that, as the minister mentioned in his second reading speech, the bill provides a framework of clear and consistent guidelines relating to residential tenancies. It sets out the minimum terms of residential tenancy agreements, procedures relating to bonds, the handling of security deposits, condition reports, and so on.
However, the Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory, whilst it, like us, is generally supportive of the bill, strongly opposes the amendment to section 16 of the Residential Tenancies Act which provides for monies from the Agents Licensing Fidelity Guarantee Fund to be used to fund a tenants’ advice service. I am aware that REINT wrote to the Department of Justice outlining its position and, fortunately, I have been provided with copies of that correspondence. Because it was sent to the minister, I am sure he will agree that there is no need for me to table any of it. I believe it is important for me to extract parts of relevant correspondence which eloquently explains the basis of the REINT’s opposition to the bill.
In one of the letters to the minister, signed by Ms Sue Shearer, she wrote:
- REINT is of the opinion that funds provided from the … fund to provide tenants with advisory and
legal services do not constitute correct usage of Fidelity Fund monies. REINT would question the
usage of … fund monies to provide a service to tenants and landlords who have in no way contributed
to the fund.
Ms Shearer goes on:
- We would question the usage of fund monies when the … government has already received from
consumers over $70m in stamp duty.
She goes on and says that she:
- … respectfully suggest that this extra windfall in stamp duty could be used to fund the proposed
tenants advice service.
… REINT … opposes the changes to the … Act that allows industry monies to be utilised for services
that are already provided.
My view is that that is the case. I believe, in the Northern Territory generally, there are a sufficient number of services to assist tenants. Some will argue with me on that, but I do not believe they will be arguing too vigorously. In any event, there is a point of principle here. I would like to hear from the minister when he responds because I would like to receive what amounts to a rational explanation as to why it is that he favours an amendment to the act whereby funds from the fidelity fund will be siphoned off or used to aid a tenants’ advice service. Minister, surely there is another way. It seems to me to be, at the very least, commonsense to obtain funds from elsewhere and not divert funds from the fidelity guarantee fund.
The basis of the REINT’s objection is obvious. It does object, as do we, to a tenants’ advice service which will be mainly used for advisory purposes, which services are arguably already sufficiently provided in the Northern Territory.
I note that there has been some commentary about what is called the education function that is contained in the act and is linked to the Agents Guarantee Fidelity Fund. I would like the minister to outline what he understands to be what is commonly described as the ‘education function’. Is it being provided by the Charles Darwin University? My information, and I am happy to be corrected – in fact, I would be glad to be corrected - is that the Charles Darwin University stopped the delivery of education some time ago. I also raise this point; that is, in the minister’s second reading speech he says:
- It is reasonably clear from the second reading speech …
To the act:
- … in 1999 that section 16 was intended to permit the use of the Tenancy Trust Account to fund a variety
of services to tenants and landlords, including the funding of the provision of advice services …
I have looked at that second reading speech which was made by the member for Daly on 19 August 1999. I would be delighted if you could please - and I am happy for you to do it by way of reply or in committee; perhaps by way of reply may save us all some time - point me to that part of the speech where he said what you have attributed to him. I could not see it and, once again, I would be happy to be corrected.
Section 16(1)(b) of the act provides for educating landlords, agents and tenants about their statutory and contractual rights and obligations. Minister, this does not mean that funds should be used to set up an advice service. If the minister would be good enough to navigate his way through some of that and provide clarification, I would be delighted. I am sure he is not taken by surprise regarding any of the issues I raise. He has been on notice for some time of the REINT’s position, and I am sure he is able - at least, I hope he is able - to point to that part of the member for Daly’s speech on 19 August 1999 where he said what the minister attributed to him in his second reading speech made on 1 December 2004.
In essence, Madam Speaker, we do not oppose the bill. However, for the record, we express our reservations regarding the change to section 16 to use monies from the fund to set up a tenants advisory service.
Mr AH KIT (Housing): Madam Speaker, I support the minister’s amendments. The amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act are consistent with government’s direction for social housing, Home Territory 2010, which I presented to the House in August last year. Home Territory elaborates the vision for housing where special needs groups within our community are recognised, and people are supported and encouraged in their bid to live independently in stable housing. We know that stable housing is a critical driver for personal stability and, in turn, regional prosperity. However, stable housing relies on a solid legislative basis which protects the rights of tenants and landlords, whilst also recognising the responsibilities of both parties. This is why I am happy to support these amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act.
The Territory has a very high proportion of rental accommodation compared to the rest of Australia: 45% of Territorians are renters compared with an average of 27% for the rest of Australia. This makes the Residential Tenancies Act of even great significance for the Territory. The establishment of a tenancy advice service as part of the raft of amendments is critical. It was a commitment of government outlined in Home Territory, and I am happy to see it given substance through an amendment to the act.
During consultations for Home Territory, the community expressed the desire for a body such as the tenancy advice service. It will offer an avenue for tenants to make informed decisions. I see informed tenants as more likely and able to enjoy sustained tenancies which is a key aim of Home Territory. As you would also appreciate, many tenants within public or private rental housing face a range of social and financial disadvantages. Whether aged, unemployed or on low incomes, disabled, or from a different cultural or language background, an independent community-run advice service with these tenants will offer a means by which such people can feel secure and comfortable in seeking advice.
Another key objective of Home Territory, which is supported by these amendments, is improving the way we do business. As a manager of social housing, Territory Housing has a responsibility to government and the community to manage its assets wisely. This is why the amendment allowing the payment of outstanding tenancy debts which do not relate to rent and bond is important. As a responsible manager of public housing, it is important that Territory Housing be able to recover money from returning clients who owe for such things as causing damage to property, excess water bills, or legal fees. Other amendments to the act, while minor, would all assist in the efficient management of tenancies, something that benefits all parties.
The opposition and others have attempted recently to make political mileage over housing issues, and, in part, I understand that. It is their job. But reforms like these we are discussing now are amongst the real achievements of the Martin Labor government.
Madam Speaker, I commend the minister for bringing these amendments forward and I commend the bill to the House.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I thank members for their contributions and the opposition for its support of the legislation.
The member for Araluen raised a matter largely of the position of the REINT regarding these amendments. Whilst I totally agree with her that at one stage they certainly put in writing the opposition that you referred to in your contribution, I can report that as it stands right now, the REINT have indicated that they are now prepared to join the process and be a member of the steering committee which will oversee the establishment and operation of the tenants advisory service. They have accepted that, for whatever reason, it is for them to take their position on their own judgment. They have certainly decided that the service will be of benefit to both landlords and tenants in heading off some of the more formal disputes that occur in and around tenancies. They have come to see that there is some value with an effective advisory service and have taken, as I said, the decision to join the steering committee and to help now set this up and make it work.
To remind members, the agents’ trust fund’s income is largely interest on agents’ trust accounts including deposits on real estate purchases and in some cases tenant’s bonds. It contains the interest that is accrued to the fund itself and it contains real estate agent’s licensing fees, which is roughly equivalent to the amount paid to the department for the operations of the real estate agency regulation area.
The purposes of the fund do include the education of landlords and tenants regarding tenancy issues and when you think about the breadth of people who are involved in tenancy agreements in the Northern Territory, many of them do not speak English as a first language. Many of them have economic disadvantage in their background. It is quite clear that a formal, contained education campaign is not going to reach the people who probably need the advice the most. You need to have a service that can actually penetrate to the context of tenancy around the Northern Territory and to give advice ahead of problems reaching a point where formal action has to be taken either against the tenant or landlord.
Embodied in the amendments in the bill are a series of amendments that make the process more accessible for both landlord and tenant, and make the process more streamlined. It removes practical difficulties that have been identified by the industry. Many of the amendments were proposed by the REINT and, of course, are strongly supported by them.
The largest landlord in the Northern Territory by a country mile is NT Housing with large stocks of public housing throughout the Territory. NT Housing also strongly supports the amendments because they can see that they deal with many of the difficulties that they face as a large organisation dealing with thousands of these potential conflicts in tenancy arrangements that they oversee.
That gives this bill a pretty good pedigree; we do not have a group opposed to it. All parties have agreed that, whether in total or in the vast majority of amendments today, there are definite benefits that will accrue to both landlords and tenants. It is the type of legislation that we want to see as much as possible coming through this House because it is going to benefit people on the ground on a daily basis with things which have been blighting their lives under previous arrangements.
We are looking up the 1999 second reading speech; that is being researched as I speak. I do not know that I can get it back to you in time to be included in this response. All I can say is that we will come back to you with the information.
Ms Carney: What about the Charles Darwin University education role?
Dr TOYNE: I am sorry; I must have missed that. I am at a bit of a disadvantage.
Ms Carney: We are in that peculiar area, Madam Speaker, of being in the formal part of the bill as we approach the more informal part of the bill. I am not quite sure whether the question I had in relation to the education function warrants us necessarily getting into committee, so with your indulgence, and with minister’s indulgence …
Dr TOYNE: Why don’t we do it in third reading?
Ms Carney: … can I repeat what I said?
Dr TOYNE: Can we do it in third reading? If I can conclude this, I will move third reading and you can put the point.
Ms Carney: Third reading?
Dr TOYNE: Third reading, yes.
Ms Carney: Okay.
Dr TOYNE: Unless you need half an hour.
Motion agreed to; bill 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.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Minister, I asked about what is generally called ‘the education function’ that is part of the Agents Licensing Fidelity Guarantee Fund. I understand that the education function is no longer being delivered by Charles Darwin University. Can you update me on that? Is that the case? How long has it not been delivered, and what do you propose to do in relation to the education function?
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, in answer to the question, yes, Charles Darwin University did pull out of providing this type of educational course a couple of years ago. The only body currently providing training is the REINT. The point I made in the second reading speech is that, in fact, the major need, as we see it, is to provide practical, ongoing advice to tenants, given the enormous variety of contexts in which these tenancy arrangements exist around the Territory and the diversity of people who require to know about their rights and responsibilities under a tenancy agreement.
No number of formal educational courses is going to capture the tenants and some landlords where often it is the most critical need for advice. Therefore, we believe that by opting for an additional tenants’ advisory service, over and beyond what the Office of Business Affairs operates, is a more effective way of impacting on tenants and their rights and the efficacy of these arrangements around the Territory. We do not believe that it should have been just simply funding an expansion of the current Tenancy Advisory Service simply because the statutory power to step in and take action where formal processes are needed is vested with that same body. We want to separate informal advice from the more statutory-based functions of the Office of Business Affairs. That is our reasoning.
Ms Carney: Minister …
Madam SPEAKER: No, you cannot go on debating it; you have had your third reading.
Ms Carney: But, but …
Madam SPEAKER: No buts at all.
Ms Carney: Minister, you said that your staff …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Araluen, do not ignore me, thank you very much. We are in the third reading.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
PLANNING AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 275)
(Serial 275)
Continued from 2 December 2004.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, from the outset, I would like to thank the minister for the briefing I and two of my colleagues received on this bill. I thank the public servants involved for their very professional approach to briefing the opposition on the government’s intentions with this particular bill.
I will say, though, that in the minister’s second reading speech he talks about us having a long heritage, and he went back to 1999. It would appear that the government is trying to put the case that this has been a very exhaustive and consultative process that has come up with this bill, and I guess there are a couple of things I could say about that.
The first is, the ALP’s position on planning has been all over the place over the last decade, and debates in this parliament will show that, including devolution to local government which is a position they now seem to have abandoned. The heritage of where the Labor Party have stood is pretty chequered, I believe, if you do a little excursion into parliamentary archives.
On the other hand, it would appear that the approach before us is not a radical departure in what has happened before which, I believe, with matters to do with planning is probably a good thing. Matters with planning require a great deal of certainty. They have big ramifications in terms of community disquiet, money, and other ramifications if there are radical departures from planning processes. I should acknowledge that there are no radical departures in what we have before us and that, predominantly, they build on an evolutionary approach to how planning now stands in the Northern Territory. I will say also that it is healthy. Planning should evolve. It should reflect some of the priorities and opinions and understandings of the government of the day, and that evolution of planning schemes is good.
If we are talking about issues, like planning, where community expectations are supposed to be reflected, it is important that we test that against community expectations and mores, and we make sure that our legislative regime evolves along with community approaches and expectations.
It is the government’s prerogative, and it is a healthy prerogative, to put their stamp on planning. It is a healthy prerogative to test community attitude, and it is a healthy approach not to make radical departures and changes from a sequence that has been ongoing. All of those elements are in this bill to some greater or lesser extent.
I am a little surprised, therefore, that we have amendments to the Planning Bill at this late stage. I would have thought that, had it gone through such a substantive and exhaustive process as the minister told us back in December, we would have pretty much a final product on our desk, and the need to go into committee early in this year would have been obviated by a bill that ticked all the boxes, crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s. Therefore, I was a little surprised to see that there would be amendments in committee. I note also my colleague, the Independent member for Nelson, has indicated he would like to make some proposed changes in committee. The opposition will not be doing so.
I turn to the word ‘amenity’. There was a little bit in the press about this. It is one of those issues where there have been problems with defining the word - which does exist in current planning processes. What the government has tried to do is make a decision on a definition of what that might mean. I believe there is the potential for a Pandora ’s Box to be opened here because ‘amenity’ goes to an issue of taste and judgment. As we all know, everybody’s taste and judgment is different, thank goodness. To enshrine issues of this type in the planning process has the potential to be problematic. Someone’s amenity could well be the view they have, the streetscape in front of them, matters relating to, for instance, where the sun and shade fall in their street, colour schemes and the like. I would see that, as I said earlier, they were matters of prerogative of government. If government chooses to make policy rulings in regard to matters which are essentially taste, I say they are welcome to that. If you are leaving this minister as the taste police for the Northern Territory, you do not have to be too rude in this parliament to realise his taste might differ radically from ours. Therefore, I believe that is a matter for us.
The minister has substantial powers continuing under this bill, including call-out powers. There is still the process of appeal through the Lands and Mining Tribunal. The bill seeks to make some clarity in that area and that is to be applauded because it makes it clear to people what is available to them.
If you look at issues like the development at Lee Point, our position in government would probably be different to the government regarding the size of those blocks. I can see that the minister is quite able to intervene and to use his statutory powers to direct that blocks of a smaller size are acceptable in that particular locale. That would not be a decision that would be made by this CLP opposition if in government. I suppose it goes to show you just how much power the government of today has in matters relating to this; where it can choose to take it out of the public realm, out of the purview of the public, and make a decision based on one’s own values and, I assume, the policies of the government of the day and, in doing so, leave people with no right of appeal. Potentially, problems could exist for many years to come in a decision that might not be, arguably, in the best interests of the people who will be resident in that particular area of Lee Point.
I will also admit that I am not as knowledgeable as others contributing to this debate. It is my hope that I will be educated by further contributions, both from the government and the opposition sides. However, I will say that, in broad terms, the CLP agrees with the approach of the government to amend this public process in an incremental way which does not give radical departures from the expectations of the community of the day, and that we have an approach that inevitably leaves responsibility with the minister concerned.
I was a bit surprised too, Madam Speaker, to see that the report for the committee that has been looking at the Environmental Protection Authority - whatever that might be - has actually been in some ways obviated by this bill. It would have been, I thought, prudent for the government having charged their committee with seeking advice from the community throughout the Territory and having public hearings, and talking about matters relating to planning, to development, and to caveats thereupon, to make sure that the good work that has been done by the committee, if it is good work, and we will get to see that when it is tabled in a couple of days, is actually embedded in legislation of this type. I would have thought it leaves members of that committee with, I suppose, a couple of options. First is: it did not really matter what that committee decided; this was going to happen anyway; and there would be no cognisance given to any of the work that was done by the committee. Or alternatively, whatever that committee comes up with, it is really not going to have much impact in matters relating to planning.
Both of those options are a problem for this parliament and for its committee process because it seems more and more the committee process is really a ‘make work scheme’ to keep members outside of government and some backbenchers occupied and out of trouble because we are keeping them busy. I would have thought that some of the work there should have been mulled over by the minister when the report is tabled in a couple of days. I thought the report should have been given the opportunity for an airing in this parliament. I would have thought the report should have been given a considered and serious response from government, particularly insofar as it relates to planning matters. If this government is parading their credentials as this having a very priority issue for resolution, it would appear that so late in the electoral cycle to have this bill being passed through parliament and to have the work of a committee which was also charged with having with a high priority task of looking at environmental protection authorities, that really what we have is a fob-off. We have been held in abeyance, if you like, until the eleventh hour when the government can make a variety of promises in the lead-up into an election that it may choose to implement or not in the next several months when the election has been held.
I know it sounds, with those couple of notes, that I have been very critical of the bill before us. But I am more critical of the process and the process we have before us is one where the government is parading specious credentials before this parliament. The government is making assumptions that some of the words they say and hear really go to their previous actions when they do not. As I have said, they are a massive departure a previous ALP position of devolution of planning to local government. I would suggest that if the government is really serious about consultation it would have looked at the fine work - I should not put any adjectives on it - the work has been done by a committee of this place that has looked at issues in this province. The issues in this province of environment and the caveats and planning, I would say, are nearly Siamese twins these days. There is absolutely no doubt that much of the work we did related to staged development, to transparency and planning processes, and it called on matters relating certainly in the now public option paper put by the CLP where we talked about the Development Consent Authority and what it might be shaped into. Those matters were on the table for consideration notwithstanding the report is still confidential until tabled here.
You at least have the CLP’s position paper on that element and the minister could have been included that in his speech if he thought that he was able to juxtapose the good work of the present government with an intending and putative government’s intentions. Having not done that, I assume what we have here is a sort of a business-as-usual statement: let us not start all the chooks and let us get the election out of the way and then we will do whatever radical things we want to do. Nonetheless, as I said at the outset, the opposition supports the bill.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, planning, as everyone knows, is a fairly complex issue. Even after all the time I have been trying to follow planning, I still would not say I am an expert on it. It is a difficult area. I know that the people who advise the minister are better educated in these matters than me, but I do my best to get through these issues. I try to follow planning matters throughout the Northern Territory. I listen to what other people have to say, like PLan and some of the local government councils, and I try to develop my own ideas on which way planing should go.
I have mixed feelings about the Planning Act. Certainly, there are a number of good aspects about minister’s changes to the Planning Act, but there are others that leave me quite disappointed. One, especially, and I will come back to it later, is the lack of what I call real third party appeals.
Minister, I do not know whether it is possible to have an amendment to a preamble, so I will highlight issues concerning the preamble. I know that the Chief Minister once made a statement about a preamble. I will read from a statement that I wrote to the review of the Planning Act:
- The then Opposition Leader and now Chief Minister, Clare Martin, also supports such a preamble.
She said in debate on the Planning Bill on 23 November 1999:
Embedded within any introduction would be principles of consultation and accountability. The act
would state clearly its intention to involve all stakeholders in the establishment of any planning
scheme or in its amendment. The act would state a commitment to an open and accountable process
within this legislation. It would provide a yardstick against which the actions of the government could
be measured in both a community sense and a legal sense. It would also contain commitments made by
government to national principles embedded in the COAG and head of government process, where they
are relevant. The Northern Territory government’s stated commitment to ecologically sustainable
development is one example.
I support that statement.
Earl James, in his report on the Planing Act in 1988, said that is should be acknowledged in the preamble that there is a shared ownership of planning schemes between government and the local community.
Margaret Clinch wrote a letter to the minister regarding these amendments, and in the section regarding preambles, she said:
- The objects of this act are to plan for and provide a framework of controls for orderly use and development of
land. This prime objective is far too narrow, being more like an objective for a department which sees itself
focussed on land development. A more appropriate statement of purpose expressed as planning rather than
development outcomes would be better based on your final statements to the Northern Territory parliament
in December 2004. This reads:
‘The Planning Act is central in ensuring the Territory is managed in a sustainable manner and that
development is orderly and appropriate for the social and economic wellbeing of all including future
generations’.
I do not know how one can move an amendment affecting the preamble because it does not fit into the clauses of the act, but the Chief Minister supported a preamble when she was in opposition. Yet, when this bill came to parliament, there was no preamble. That is a little disappointing. It would do no harm to have a preamble to give us a reasonable idea of what the government is about when it comes to planning. I understand there are objects, but the preamble would set the scene for planning in the Northern Territory. Be that as it may, I will move on.
I am pleased to see the word ‘amenity’ in the bill, although I take up some of the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. It will be interesting to see how amenity is sorted out, especially if it goes to appeal if amenity was cited, for instance, as a reason for not allowing a development to go ahead, or in case of third party appeal, where someone appealed on the development getting approval on the basis of amenity. Whilst I think it is good to have it in there, because amenity has been mentioned in the existing bill, at least it will give some guidelines.
On that very issue, and one of those areas I hope to bring forward as an amendment tonight, and I need to apologise to the House that the amendments that I have brought forward are not in the condition I would have preferred. I must admit that I thought planning was coming through on Thursday, and I was only told this morning that it was on today. So if I am not as prepared with the amendments as I should have been, especially in the numbering, which is fairly complicated when you go through these two bills, then I do apologise.
One of the areas I hoped to introduce was the aesthetics of building design. Madam Speaker, you would know that I have spoken at considerable length about a 33-storey building that is proposed to be built in Darwin with roughly five stories of car parking which basically run flush with the edge of the block all the way around. I believe there is a desperate need for something in the Planning Act to deal with this issue. It has been around in planning circles before, so I am not saying something that people do not already know. The meaning of aesthetic building design was one of the central issues in an appeal to the Lands and Planning Tribunal in 2002 in the case of Robinson versus the Darwin Consent Authority. I believe I am fairly correct in saying that case had something to do with the new development where the Darwin Hotel used to be.
The comments of the Tribunal Chair, David Loadman, were indicative of the problems that the words presented without definition. The Development Consent Authority had rejected the original development application for two reasons. One, being that it did not meet the Central Darwin Land Use Objectives in relation to aesthetic building design. In his submission to the appeal, the appellant says that perception of what is and what is not aesthetic building design is highly subjective. While it is to be expected that there may be different perceptions of the aesthetic quality of the building, the appellant says that mere disagreement on what constitutes aesthetic building design is insufficient to quality as a valid ground for refusal.
In point 61 of the appeal decision, Mr Loadman said it was not the function of the authority to impose its collective subjective personal perceptions about aesthetics in an application for a development permit. If Mr Loadman’s statements on aesthetics are accepted, then to ensure that members of authority are not making subjective decisions, aesthetic needs to be defined and the future of the authority’s ability to take in account aesthetics depends on it.
There is a need in the definitions to look at the meaning of aesthetic building design. If you get hold of the Central Darwin Planning Concepts and Land Use Objectives 1999, one of the objectives is to promote aesthetic and energy efficient building design. Under incorporated documents, it says:
- Without limiting architectural creativity and diversity, building design should contribute to, rather than
detract from, the community’s perception of the character of a location or precinct. Unifying themes in
design, colour and style are important elements to the enhancement of recognised characteristics of an
area.
It goes on to say:
- The aesthetics of building design demonstrate consideration of the following: the design guide for
residential and commercial development in the Northern Territory; the natural and built character of
the precinct in which it is located; avoiding blank walls facing public spaces; avoiding small, poorly
lit public spaces; the importance of building entries being visible from streets and public places;
and the use of unifying materials where nominated.
I am not sure why some of that could not be put into the definition of aesthetic building design.
It is important to note that the book that is mentioned in that quote, the Design Guide for Residential and Commercial Development in the Northern Territory, is available for $5. It has some very interesting matters in there, especially about commercial buildings. I am not sure why it has not been given more light of the day. I believe this came out in 1996. It gives great guidelines on how we should be developing commercial buildings in the CBD. It talks about, for instance:
- Commercial buildings should attempt to retain the human scale at ground level, by providing the essential
elements of shade and shelter for pedestrians.
I would ask whether that was taken into account in a 33-storey building? It goes on about:
- … vistas along streets to buildings and places of architectural, landscape or cultural significance.
The strategic siting of buildings should maximise visual corridors and, especially, views enjoyed by
existing developments.
I am sure, if you were behind a 33-storey building, you would not have much of a view:
- Building designs that enhance opportunities for breeze penetration and circulation.
How many buildings are going up so close together there is very little chance for breeze penetration?
- Weather protection and shade measures for pedestrians.
Provision of an appropriate level of car parking facilities which are desirably concealed from
public view.
New development stepped back from the prevailing building line….
Again, a 33-storey building is not set back from the building line; it is right on it. It goes on with an interesting comment about car parks:
- The provision of parking below ground is encouraged …
Yet, we have just given approval for five-storeys of car park above the ground.
Here we have a document which I believe is a very important document. It also talks about residential design, spacing, privacy, and roads. This is a document that may be of interest for the minister to consider as part of a future reference to architectural building design in the section under Interpretation. It really is important, especially for the CBD, considering some of what I would call terrible subdivisions in some places where houses are 1.5 m apart with row-to-row airconditioners down the middle. If you pick up this book it mentions how you should not have a design which has airconditioners running down between buildings. You have to ask: is any notice being taken of this; is there any legislative requirement for people to look at this?
I am still one of those who believes a 300 m2 block with a house taking much of it is just not the right way for us to go. If you go up four storeys, give us 1200 m2 of space; we have breeze, open space, the same number of people. We have to start to think a little better than we are. I will put forward architectural building design, minister, as a possible amendment later. I realise the government may not accept my amendments, however, I will ask that they give them some thought later.
Minister, you mentioned that there will be new matters to be taken into account by the Developmental Consent Authority under section 51. These are to be expanded to include crime prevention, design principles, water safety, and access for people with disabilities. When I read it, it seemed to me that the way it is written, if it is going to include crime prevention - then it has a comma - design principles. Of course I ask whether design principles are similar to aesthetic building design that I was talking about. However, I presume that is, perhaps, a typing error and it was really meant to say ‘crime prevention design principles’ - one phrase. The way I read it, you were going to take into account design principles and, when I looked up that section in the act, there was no such thing as design principles on their own. I am presuming that was a comma that was inadvertently put in there by Hansard.
It is good to see the bill provides electronic lodgement of development applications - that is moving along with the times.
The bill provides where a land use, subject to consent, is discontinued for more than 12 months, the consent will automatically lapse. I have some issues there. Perhaps I should just raise them now. On that section, I have just written that I believe that section is headed under the abandonment of a particular permitted use. The word ‘abandonment’ means to give up something completely, or before completion. I feel that this clause does not take into account agricultural or horticultural activities. For example, a person may have a number of parcels of land and decides to rest the land from growing crops for many reasons. People may also abandon mango trees because of poor prices; they bulldoze them, wait a few more years, and they plant rambutans. The way I read it, that would be illegal. You could even have the case of a chook farmer, especially a failed and ill-informed one, who may stop running a farm because of high feed prices, or go into politics and does not have the time to advance the cause of poultry but comes back into the business several years later. Would that not also be illegal?
I do not believe that is fair, and that part of the act needs some thought because now that commercial horticultural is a consent use, it could cause some difficulties. It would be interesting to get a clarification of someone who, for instance, applies to grow mangoes under the horticultural section, then found out they were not making any money and decided to put rambutans, or star fruit in. Would they actually be operating illegally as they have changed their crop? If you get permission to have horticultural, and when you put in your application state that you are going to grow 200 mango trees and then there is either a white ant problem, or a cyclone blew them over, or the prices were too high, and you decide to knock them all over and change what you are growing to watermelons, would you be outside the Planning Act? I raise that point as it is one of those issues which need looking at.
The minister talks about terminations by the minister acting as a Consent Authority. I have been on this for many years. I believe we need a mobile Development Consent Authority, and the least number of times the minister can be the Consent Authority, the better. There are places like Dundee Beach, Marrakai, Borroloola, and other places where development is occurring, perhaps the Douglas Daly, where I believe it would be a proactive move by the government to keep the system of planning very open and transparent, and to have a meeting in those areas.
The one advantage if you live in Litchfield, or Alice Springs, is that you can attend a public meeting. You might not have a lot of say, but at least you can have some say regarding a development application. If I live at Dundee and they decide to put a 33-storey building there on the beach, you write a letter to the minister and that is it. We need to be seriously considering the option of having a mobile Development Consent Authority. I know the minister has that right, however – and I will bring an amendment forward – I am going to use the word ‘must’ instead of ‘may’ as it is time that people in those areas have the same rights as people in local government areas.
It is a good change that the bill specifies prosecution for a breach of the act goes to over two years. I know of a number of cases where people clear land illegally. By the time they got around to proving whether the bloke who bulldozed knew anything about it, or whether the owner knew anything about it, or someone had got around to filling in all the paper work, six months was up and nothing could be done. That makes a lot of sense as the planning people have a lot of work to do.
It is good that you are appointing advisory committees. However, I ask if you are including that now in the legislation, what legislation allowed the Development Consent Authority to have a clearing committee as it has had? The minister may not be sure what I am talking about, however the Litchfield planning area had, you might say, a committee which advised the Development Consent Authority on land clearing issues. I believe that was appointed within the Development Consent Authority framework. Now you are saying you will have the power to have advisory committees. Is this the same as what has already happened, or are we clarifying an issue, or am I talking about two different things?
It is also good that the reasons the Lands and Mining Tribunal can override decisions of the Planning Authority have been at least tightened. There have been more cases than I can believe where the Lands and Mining Tribunal have thrown out the Development Consent Authority’s decision. You have to wonder whether it is slightly biased or understands all the issues, or is it looking at these things in such legalistic terms that they are missing the bigger picture? I am happy to see those changes occur.
The big issue that I am concerned about is the third party appeal section. That is what the government said it would introduce. For sure, it said ‘limited’, but you have limited it to a point where it is practically non-usable because it is only for development in a residential zone. As you said in your second reading, minister:
Thus, development in the Darwin CBD and Winnellie will not be subject to third party appeals because
that is industrial land.
I am not sure why Darwin CBD is not allowed to be appealed against. You also mentioned that, generally, appeals will not be allowed for subdivisions or consolidations. That means people in the rural area, the Lee Point subdivision, and the subdivisions in Palmerston cannot be appealed against. For many people, that is too limiting. As you said in your second reading speech, if someone was silly about going to appeal, costs may be awarded against that person whose appeal is determined by the Lands and Mining Tribunal to be frivolous or vexatious or for reasons of commercial competition. That very statement limits. No one is going to be silly enough to go down the path of objecting to something that is going to cost them an arm and a leg. You have the word ‘frivolous’ included so the Lands and Mining Tribunal can determine that it is a silly appeal. We have gone too far. We have told people we are having third party appeals, but it is so light on it is really not worth having.
I will give you another example where, by not including subdivisions, you are limiting what a local government authority can do. Local authorities usually have control over roads, especially the design, width and drainage of roads. That is their bailiwick. I know of a case in Litchfield Shire where the Development Consent Authority said the road would be only so wide, whereas the council said they wanted it wider. That is a classic example of when the local government authority should be allowed to appeal against the decision of the Development Consent Authority. After all, it has to live with that road. The Development Consent Authority does not have to live with it, and local government should have the right to appeal.
I know there are a number of cases in which the only method of appeal by the local government council, and again I will refer to Litchfield Shire Council, was to refuse to take over the road. There are two examples of that:
- the service road in front of One Steel at the Eleven Mile, or Holtz, which the council considered far
too narrow and the Development Consent Authority would not order that the road be widened; it is an
industrial road. The council refused to take it over, so Transport and Works took it over.
another example is at Coolalinga, where a small residential subdivision was permitted along the
Stuart Highway which had access from behind, which would have been the normal access. That was
given approval by the Development Consent Authority, and obviously Transport and Works, to have
access from the highway, but the road was much smaller than the council would agree to. It was not
within the council’s guidelines.
Again, the council should have been able to appeal. In this case they appealed by saying they were not going to take over that road. Today, that road is under the Department of Infrastructure and Planning.
By not allowing appeals on subdivisions, not only do you restrict the right of the public to appeal on subdivisions, you also restrict local government and that is not a good thing. You might say that subdivisions do not affect people as much as developments in residential areas, but subdivisions can. Subdivisions have drainage which can perhaps affect the drainage in a neighbouring subdivision. They can change road patterns which puts more cars into a neighbouring subdivision than was there before. There can be land clearing in that subdivision which can cause more run-off than there was before.
There are a range of issues which, hopefully, are picked up in the normal Development Consent Authority, but there may be cases where that does not occur. After all, appeals are really meant to be for exceptional circumstances. We do not expect people to be appealing all the time. I believe it is important that residential areas be included in third party appeals.
When it comes to industrial, take a place like East Arm. One, it is an area where you, minister, are the Development Consent Authority, but it is an extremely important area. It is an area where pollution can occur. It is developing very rapidly. Yet, not only is there not a Development Consent Authority as we know it in the local government area where there are public meetings to discuss any issues that crop up in that area, you will not be allowed to appeal to any decision made in that area. Yet, the siting of industrial development near our harbour surely should be at least open to the scrutiny of the public, not just the department, and if there is something untoward found, surely then the public can at least have the right to appeal against industrial subdivisions.
The other area is the Darwin CBD. I would have thought of all places that one could appeal about it is the Darwin CBD. If I was probably brave enough to, I might have said the 33-storey building does not fit within the design guide for residential and commercial development in the Northern Territory, however, under this provision, I would not be allowed. You would think that, with the emphasis on trying to make our city a great city, a well-designed city, a city with good aesthetic building design, that one would be at least entitled to appeal if someone decided to put up a pink building with windows on one side only and blank walls on the other, because blank walls get a mention in these design guides too as not being particularly suitable.
I do think that that third party section is a little bit of a sleight of hand. It is good that it is there, but it is so limiting that I do not think the Lands and Mining Tribunal will have a lot of work. It may have some work in the northern suburbs when you get to the odd building that interferes with some of the residential zone. For the rest of us who live a little bit further out than the northern suburbs, it is not going to be of much use. I am moving an amendment to delete the section of the act which limits it to that extent.
I will get to the amendments at the committee stage. I would hope that, regardless of whether you support those amendments or not, you would take those comments I am making on board. I would even be happy to introduce some of these amendments again at another stage or, if the government believed that there was merit in what I am saying, perhaps it could introduce those amendments later on because planning and the Planning Act is a very fluid piece of legislation. If we believe that planning is open and transparent, then we should be making sure it is that. I am not sure that this has gone far enough, especially from the section on the third party right of appeal.
The last thing I should say, and the member for Drysdale touched on it, was about local government involved in town planning, which has always been a sore issue. I spent a fair bit of my time on local government fighting the then government about the right of local government to have a say in planning. I understand that that is probably a debate that will be just a waste of hot air. I do think local government still has a role. I am a bit sad they did not take up the opportunity to give local government a role, for instance, in minor planning matters. Why couldn’t it be delegated the power to look at issues such as the distance a shed is from the boundary fence, or where people ask for a waiver? Those little things crop up in planning quite often. To me, that would not be a big deal.
The one thing it would do is give local government a sense of purpose that it is of some use when it comes to making decisions about neighbourhood issues. It seems to have been wiped out that local government should have any role in planning. The thought of local government having their say in some of those more minor issues that come up fairly consistently - although I must admit, with the new Litchfield Area Plan, some of those might not be as consistent as they used to be. An example would be that, previously, you could not build a shed within 20 m of a boundary. I understand now you have a limitation of 10 m from the boundary, and I presume that decision was taken because of the number of waivers that were being made. There was a role for local government there and, perhaps, even in the third party appeal system – although, reading through some comments from the review, some people did not believe that was a role for local government. Again, it could have been the sieve, you might say, to make sure that those people appealing were neither putting in frivolous or vexatious appeals, or appeals of a commercial nature. Local government could have had a role in that area.
Minister, I am reluctant to support this. In fact, I may not support it simply because the area many people were looking forward to was a third party right of appeal system which was going to work. In this case, I am disappointed that it is going to be so limited that very few people will be able to take advantage of it. Madam Speaker, I will be moving some amendments in committee stage.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I will make a few brief comments before the member for Nelson takes us to committee. At the outset, I recognise that the act is a very good act; one to build on. I would say that because I introduced the former act. Therefore, I commend the minister for not making radical changes to the act; it serves quite well. Everybody who has an interest in planning - and that is most people in the community - have now come to understand the substantial changes that were brought in, I think in 1999, in the last new act. Therefore, I am glad to see that the minister has decided to keep the act substantially the same, although you are changing the philosophy in amenity now.
Going to a more subjective call, in my mind - even though you described it - I understand amenities in the act currently. It is not defined and you are going to define it. You will have a lot of fun listening to the way members of the DCA make their recommendations based on their arguments over your definition, or the dictionary’s definition of ‘amenity’. I said to your officers in the briefing, minister, that it is a bit like three people looking at a painting; you will probably get four different views on whether it is good, enjoyable, beneficial to them or the community, or whatever. However, you have moved to define that; so be it - I believe well and good.
What I am most heartened about is that you have not followed your now Chief Minister’s wish to throw the Planning Act out altogether and rewrite it. I place on the record some comments made by the Chief Minister when she was the shadow minister for planning in those days. In relation to the original act, she said in the debate on 23 Tuesday 1999:
- Mr Speaker, I wish to make it absolutely clear, regardless of the amendments in the House at the outset
of this debate, on taking government the Labor Party will throw the legislation out that is before us tonight
and rewrite the Planning Act.
I am glad you have not; that you have not followed her wishes. She was very strong on this point. She even said in the same debate:
- I have so considered submitting numerous amendments to the act but the fact is the bill is so flawed that it
must be rewritten and the process of consultation, real consultation, undertaken again.
Obviously, she has changed her mind. She said again:
- What we are left with today is legislation still fatally flawed, but given the determination of the government
to push it through, it will at least contain some elements that are more acceptable to the general community.
I wait with interest to hear the Chief Minister explain now why, now that she is in government, she did not follow what she said she would do. In fact, she has totally back flipped on throwing out the act, glad that I am, because it does show that there is a great deal of confidence in the Labor government in an act bought into this House by the CLP that has been working.
I will be the first to say that the Planning Act is one of those malleable, ongoing, living things that always needs to be changed. As people’s perceptions in the community change definitely you need to review legislation but particularly issues that are of great importance to the community such as the Planning Act.
Minister, whilst you have introduced some changes you have definitely not thrown out the act, but you are introducing your philosophies into it. I dare say they will be tried and tested over the next few years, or perhaps, if we are lucky, only the next few months and then we will have another chance to change it again.
The member for Nelson and my colleague, the member for Drysdale, have raised a number of issues particularly on the matter of third party appeals. Whilst the member for Nelson is saying that it is very limited, one of the issues that I have picked out is that, the way it is described, it creates a distinction between people who on the bounds of geography and of course zoning because that it what limits it, and that is people who live in a residential zone will have a right to third party appeal under some circumstances but people who live in a residence that just happens to be zoned CBD will not have a right of appeal. That is an inequality that you will have to address. And it is always going to be the way when you introduce something new like third party appeals that there will be anomalies.
I know what your answer is going to be and that is that when people live in the CBD they have to expect all sorts of things to happen in the CBD because that is where they do happen. They might get a nightclub next door to them or whatever but if you want to talk about fairness and equality then somebody living in a residential tower in the CBD perhaps should have the right to …
Dr Burns: So this is a CLP policy?
Mr BALDWIN: Could well be. Just watch this space.
Dr Burns: Could well be?
Mr BALDWIN: Just watch this space. … that they should have a right to the same sorts of rights as somebody in a residential zone when a new residence goes up beside them, for instance, and you have actually created a difference between people on the basis of where they live. So be it. That is something you are going to have more fun with. I am not saying whether it is right, wrong or indifferent, but there is a distinction that I just wanted to raise.
There are a couple of other items I would like to put on the record. One is the minister’s powers. I truly believe that a minister should have powers, rights, to have the ultimate say in any decision of government, and that includes planning. Our position was that we would be able to direct the authority. You have used it. Your former ministers used it. It was an instrument that you had no qualms about using. Your philosophy has now changed. You want to have the power to pull those developments on which you want to have your say. I notice, by the way, that a hearing will not be necessary once you do that, nor will it be appealable. That is your decision, but I would like to point out what your Chief Minister said in the past on this:
- Let me put on the record that I would never dispute the minister’s final accountability role in planning,
nor the minister’s right when it is an issue of state-like importance to actually determine outcomes in
planning. Those are crucial issues that must remain with the minister. But anything else is simply the
minister interfering in what should be a planning process that can be done properly by the Development
Consent Authority.
So even your Chief Minister believes that the powers I had, when I was the minister for planning sitting in that chair, were too extensive, yet now she condones these powers that are at least as extensive, if not more so. The Chief Minister cannot have it both ways. In fact, she went on to say:
- The minister’s ability to direct the authority is a matter of contention. … Therefore, I am opposed to
their incorporation …
Substantially, minister, I am quite happy because you have not substantially changed things. You changed a bit of philosophy. I do not support the direction you are taking. You will have a lot of fun with it, your department will have a lot of fun, and the Development Consent Authority will have a lot of fun, and the Lands and Mining Tribunal, as the appellate board, will also have a lot of fun because you are not only leading them, but almost instructing the appeals board to take planning matters at the forefront rather than technical and legal matters on planning issues, including merit and amenity. The more people you get looking at a painting, the more opinions you are going to get, so good luck.
I hope the public is strong enough to stipulate its views on amenity, although, even with your definition, they, too, will have many and varied views and you will still have the debate about amenity well into the future.
I thank your good officers for the briefing. You still have another definition in the Darwin Control Plan that you need to do something about because it is different from the one in this bill.
Mr VATSKALIS (Primary Industry and Fisheries): Madam Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to make some comments on the Planning Act. As an ex-minister for planning, I agree with my colleague, the member for Daly. Town planning is a can of worms. Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you do not. Every party has its own ideas, definitions, wishes and wants about planning. Of course, we have had quite a few battles, he and I, when I was the planning minister having to make decisions.
What amazed me is the position of the CLP, which all of a sudden has discovered planning and planning issues. They want to support some of the things they never considered before; nor put in legislation or accepted. I am also surprised that the member for Daly would say he is pleased about the act because we have not thrown it out; we have not really done much about it; we just have a few glossy things here. The reality is that the amendments to the Planning Act are significant because it has taken a bit of time to bring it to parliament.
We did it a different way. I well recall many times when there was a planning issue, there were quite a few letters in the newspaper, quite a few arguments, a few petitions in the different markets arguing about things happening around Darwin, so the people had a different opinion from the member for Daly. That was not a good act and, if it was such a good act, why did we have all these disagreements and arguments? The member for Nelson knows very well quite a few arguments he had with me about areas in the rural area. He also knows very well that, under the act, I had to act in a particular way. We brought these amendments, not because it was the whim of the minister or the ministers, but with extensive public consultation. We actually consulted the community. The discussion paper was released on 30 March 2003. A number of submissions where received by 31 May 2003. Community consultation in Darwin and other areas in the Territory, and workshops, were held as late as July 2004.
In this new act, we have introduced a number of amendments. A significant one is the definition of ‘amenity’. We were at two minds about the definition of ‘amenity’. We know very well that amenity means different things to different people, but at least we now have a yardstick in this act to define what ‘amenity’ is, and we can now argue about specifics rather than generics, and that is very important.
Another issue that has been raised is the powers of the minister. I believe the power of the minister in this act is curtailed. Previously, the minister had direct say on a particular development and that created a lot of problems. It created a lot of pressure by lobby groups, either for the developer or for the people who would be affected by that particular development. With these amendments now, the minister has the power to give general directions only on a particular development.
The call-out powers have to be considered. It has to exist in this act because there are a number of developments, and a number of proposed developments, that are strategic for the development of the Territory and should enable the minister to call them out and determine as the Consent Authority.
In the act, the power of the minister is also different. He can invite local authorities rather than initiate and conduct hearings and report to the minister in relation to proposals to amend the NT Planning Scheme, something that was not happening before. I mentioned before about the hypocrisy of the CLP, and I heard the member for Drysdale speaking about the new suburb and the size of the blocks, how small they will be, 600 m to 1000 m. He seems to forget that it was his government, when he was in parliament, which actually developed areas like The Chase, Parap and the Coconut Grove area, and Sunset Cove where there are blocks as small as 450 m2. On the other hand, people have an idea of the size of the blocks that used to exist in Darwin, 800 m, but then at Palmerston there are blocks as small as 600 m, and there are people who live on two blocks. The market forces and the people decide what they want to do. Not everybody wants to live on a 1000 m2 block, or wants to live in a house. People might wish to live in a semi-detached, in a unit, or they might wish to live on a 5 acre block. That is a decision of the people.
Many things have changed since the original 800 m2 block in Darwin. There are two income families. They do not have the mother staying at home looking after the kids, the garden, washing and everything else. The two income family work from 9 to 5, or 8 to 4.21, and when they go home the last thing they need is to attend a garden in a 1000 m2 or an 800 m2 block. To tell you the truth, I have one of the big blocks, and I dread every second weekend when I have to get the lawn mower out and mow about this 1 ha of grass. However, there are other people who are happy to live on those blocks.
What is important is offering people the choice to live on the block they want taking into account the differences and the problems that can be created if, all of a sudden, we decided to have 400 m2 blocks or 450 m or 500 m. Proper design and proper positioning of the house can alleviate significant numbers of these problems.
I recall a couple of fiery debates in the parliament on the waterfront development and how the opposition was upset about the heights of the buildings. They were defending the right of people not to have their view blocked by the buildings, especially people who used to live behind the escarpment and all of a sudden found that they were going to have part of their view blocked.
I recall very well a censure motion brought to this House by the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Blain, who got stuck into me because I had the audacity to defend the right of the people living in Tiwi when they objected to a high rise building being built in their area, and it was going to affect their amenity. I recall that the member for Goyder said that a highly-respected independent town planner, and former member of this House, said that you cannot impinge on the rights of the developer. That was a highly-respected town planner who, all of a sudden, found her view blocked by the high rise. She was quoted in the newspaper and on television demanding her rights and that the height of the block of units in front of her house be lowered so she would not lose her view. This is the hypocrisy of the CLP: to come here today to become defenders of the right of the public and to criticise the act, and to raise a number of issues which they do not agree with, and argue strongly. It is embarrassing.
I was very aggrieved about the censure motion and took it personally. What was so obvious was that they did not care about the people in Tiwi; they cared about the developers. They demanded compensation for the developers. They even alleged that I acted unlawfully and illegally presenting an application from a bystander - quoting the member for Goyder - ignoring the fact that that the bystander was the owner of property and an owner of a unit next to this land which was proposed to be developed. You learn in politics not to take things personally; however, I took it personally as I was defending the rights of my constituents. I was defending the right of the people to have their say in planning matters that the CLP had denied for years, and still deny them. All of a sudden they are prepared to defend the right of developers to build four and five storeys on this land, and not worry about the people who have a single-storey house next to this building, as the developer’s right were more important than the rights of the people. It was interesting to see that when the person who was acting for the developer had her views impeded by the high-rise buildings on the waterfront things changed very quickly. She was then asking for the same rights which the people in Tiwi were asking for, and were denied by the CLP.
I do not want to make many comments; the minister has done an excellent job. I am very proud to be the minister who initiated the amendments. I am very pleased with the work done by the minister, and I commend him for his hard work. I commend Mr Gronow and Mr O’Neill, whom I have had the pleasure to work with before. I have spent quite a few days with them; they trying to make me understand the planning issues, and me trying to make them understand what the people really wanted. Finally, we found something in between and I am pleased to see the amendments brought before the House today.
I want to assure the Territory public that this is a living document; it is not something cast in stone. There are going to be changes; things will change I am prepared to look at some of the amendments the member for Nelson will present and, if they are good, I am prepared to support them. However, we have to remember that we are acting for the majority of the people of the Territory and, quite a few times, lobby groups are very vocal and put a lot of pressure on us, but we have to act for the benefit of all Territorians. I accept that some of the suggestions of the lobby groups are very good and valuable and should be taken into consideration, but only after careful examination of what impact these amendments, and the lobby by these groups, will have on the lifestyle of all Territorians.
Dr BURNS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I thank all members for their contribution to this debate. There is an important point to be made at the outset, and I acknowledge the contribution of my predecessor in initiating the process of the review of this act. One of the most difficult parts of coming to grips with this particular portfolio was my initial briefings on the act and the amendments to the act. To be honest with the House, planning and the Planning Act is a very complex issue. There are boxes within boxes and many technical terms, and I struggled to understand the different components of the Planning Act.
I thank those officers whom the member for Casuarina has already mentioned in supporting me and helping me to come to terms with the act, and of course, Lesley Cameron, who works in my office who is very knowledgeable on the Planning Act and some of the history behind that.
I make the point that if I found it difficult to come to grips with, how hard is it for the ordinary citizen to come to grips with the complexities of the Planning Act? The bottom line for these amendments that have come through to me is that the overall aim of these amendments is to simplify the Planning Act. In the existing act there is the NT Planning Scheme; there are land use objectives which set policy; incorporated documents which also include land use guidelines and concepts; and development provisions which are the town plans and the zones. What is proposed in the new act is an NT Planning Scheme with policy guidelines, zones and rules underneath it. There is a substantial change. It is not, as the member for Drysdale and the member for Daly have suggested that there has been a bit of a quantum leap, not very much, a bit of an evolutionary change to the Planning Act. What we are talking about here are major changes to our Planning Act.
There was an attempt by both members of the opposition to say that the Chief Minister said she would scrap the whole thing and start again and what has happened is just some minor tinkering at the edges. I reject those suggestions. The scope and the depth of the changes really shows that this government has moved and has made substantial amendments and is in the process of making substantial amendments to our Planning Act. Once those are settled, which will happen this evening, we can move on to the Planning Scheme. What we had before was complex. It was often a repetitive and confusing process and what we are going to come out with is going to be greatly simplified. There is going to be a unified Planning Act across the Territory.
One of the hardest things to come to terms with is R2 in Alice Springs which means something completely different to R2 in Darwin. There are these variations between places in the Northern Territory, but I would like to emphasise that the new framework will allow specific areas, like heritage areas for example in Alice Springs to have their own particular rules and guidelines for development. It is not as if we are saying one-size-fits-all. There is an overall framework and within that framework there will be accommodation made for areas and their specific qualities and the things about them that the residents like. I would like to put that record straight from the outset.
The shadow minister, the member for Drysdale, talked about amenity. He said it was a Pandora ’s Box and it would be subject to taste and judgment and he went to colour schemes and what is going to happen and it is going to be a debacle. It is important to note that section 51 of the act already uses the word ‘amenity’ as a matter to be taken into account, but it did not define it. Here we have an attempt to try to define ‘amenity’ to make the job of the consent authority and the tribunal much clearer.
The definition of amenity in the bill is:
‘amenity’, in relation to a locality or building, means any quality, condition or factor that makes or
contributes to making the locality or building harmonious, pleasant or enjoyable.
That is a good definition. Picking up on a point made by the member for Daly, it does now supersede the existing definition in the Darwin Town Plan which does not really include a building as part of being the amenity of an area; it includes locality but not a building, so this is a step forward. It is clarifying it, extending it, and it is taking into account that buildings contribute to amenity.
The member for Drysdale raised the issue of Lee Point. He pointed to the fact that he thought that block sizes are being determined, I think the term he used, out of the view of the public. I place on the record that I certainly listened to the public, to various bodies like the council, and to a whole range of sources on the issue of block sizes in the Lee Point development. I did some homework. I looked at block sizes at Palmerston, at some of the in-fill developments that have occurred in and around Darwin over the last years. Some of the block sizes might even range down to somewhere in the 350 m to 400 m. There are complaints in some of those developments that houses are juxtaposed cheek by cheek and you can hear when someone opens the door or sneezes or whatever. I am satisfied that the decision I reached in the end about block size - an average block size of 700 m; minimum block size of 600 m and blocks going up to 1000 m; the proportion of the development that will be townhouse style development, duplex style development and the percentage of open space - is a very positive outcome because it gives people choice as the member for Casuarina pointed out before. There are people who work shiftwork or whatever. They do not want a big yard; they are content to be living in a townhouse. They might want a little yard where they can have their barbie and all the rest of it, but their focus is on their lifestyle and they do not have the luxury of a lot of time to be spent gardening.
There have been comments made by various people about the Defence forces, that somehow what the Defence Housing Authority will end up doing will short change those in the Defence forces and given them a substandard lifestyle. I place on the record that the Defence Housing Authority does a lot of research amongst its clients, Defence families. What they are building at Lee Point is in response to what those Defence personnel and their families want. Often, the Defence personnel are away on manoeuvres, they could be away overseas; the last thing they want is for their wife to be concerned about mowing great big blocks of land and whatever. They are quite satisfied. They will be given a choice about the sort of accommodation that they will have. I am very satisfied about that.
I should place on the record that I am advised that the CLP government used the same process in a number of developments including Fairway Waters and they did not actually specify what the minimum lot sizes would be. In respect of the Lee Point development, it has been made clear what is going to happen. It is a great development and is going to inject a lot into the Darwin economy. It is going to be great for our builders, and there is going to be a lot of investment from Darwin people. Already, I have had many inquiries about purchasing a block and house in the Lee Point development.
Finally, on the subject of Lee Point, Defence Housing is very cognizant of the need to orientate the houses on the blocks to give privacy, but also to accommodate the flow of air and ventilation through the estate. It is going to be a credit to Darwin and there will be many people looking to invest there.
I have already addressed some of the issues raised by the member for Drysdale. I will talk about third party appeals when I come to address the member for Nelson’s comments and the issue of devolution to councils.
Moving on to the member for Nelson, I commend his interest in this topic and the detailed way that he has gone through the Planning Act. It is unfortunate that, with events, this legislation came on today and the member for Nelson has had to draft some amendments fairly hurriedly, but I will handle those amendments as they are proposed by the member for Nelson.
He said there were good things in this proposal but he was a little bit disappointed. He raised the issue of preamble and objects. I say to the member for Nelson that I believe the objects of the act go to the heart of all that the member for Nelson has said. Basically, the objects of the act are to plan for and provide a framework of controls for the orderly use and development of land. The objects are to be achieved by, and there are seven dot points listed. In terms of the input by the public and the community, the last three, probably encapsulate the engagement by the community. It says:
- (f) ensuring, as far as possible, that planning reflects the wishes and needs of the community
through appropriate public consultation and input in both the formulation and implementation
of planning schemes;
The last one is:
- (g) fair and open decision making and appeals processes,
And the one above those two is:
- (e) minimising adverse impacts of development on existing amenity and, wherever possible, ensuring
amenity is enhanced as a result of development;
I suppose you can go around the tautology and semantics of what is a preamble and what is the object of an act. Going to the heart of the issues that you raised, member for Nelson, the objects do address some of those issues of community engagement.
I have dealt with the issue of amenity. You talked about aesthetics, and about an advisory committee. Picking up another point that you raised about advisory committees, it is my understanding that under the existing act the DCA can appoint advisory committees. The amendments that are coming in now also give the minister the power to develop these advisory committees. I certainly take on your suggestion regarding architectural merit, and a possible committee which could feed into the process of architectural merit.
I would also remind the member for Nelson that the Chief Minister and I, along with the Lord Mayor and a number of aldermen, sit on what is known as the Capital Cities Committee. That will also be another avenue where, say, someone like the government architect can have input into the development of Darwin as a city. We know that the Territory is a lot more than Darwin and the city of Darwin and the city of Palmerston. I have taken on board what you have said there, member for Nelson. I believe they are worthwhile suggestions and, as with everything, I suppose it comes down to expense and budget. I am certainly willing to consider the suggestions you have put forward in having some body that can advise on architectural merit.
You asked about a typo in the second reading speech. I am not sure whether you asked whether it is ‘crime prevention design principles’; whether there should be a comma there. There is no comma, so you were right; that is actually a consolidated phrase, member for Nelson.
You asked a very good question about abandonment and horticulture. The advice that I have been given, which I will read out for you: this question only applies where agriculture is a consent use. If the use if not actively pursued for legitimate reasons related to the management of that use, for example, fallow pasture, then the use has not abandoned.
The other question you asked, ‘What happens if someone wants to change the type of crop approved, for example, mangoes versus bananas versus rambutan?’. I am advised that the approved use would be horticulture which would include different crops. I hope that answers your question, member for Nelson.
You raised the issue of an advisory committees, I hope I have addressed that particular issue for you.
Third party appeals: certainly, in opposition, the now Chief Minister did undertake and promise that there would be limited third party appeals. This government, in opposition, never said there would be open third party appeals; we foreshadowed they would be limited. You have argued you believe they are too limited.
You have raised the issue of why the CBD should be excluded as an area where third party appeals should be limited. The CBD does have a mixed use. Obviously, in the CBD there is commercial activity, tourism and entertainment. There is going to be a wharf precinct, and now there are also a number of people moving into residential buildings there. Because the CBD is special and has mixed used it was felt - and there is a reasonable argument to say - the third party appeal should not apply there. We have limited it so that no-one can appeal on commercial grounds, as we would see people trying to appeal to get some commercial advantage, or to sabotage the commercial efforts or developments of an opponent. Also, if there were open third party appeals in the CBD, we would have the CLP really appealing against the waterfront development and trying to sabotage that on a political ground. However, that is not covered within the act.
The member for Nelson also asked about subdivisions and consolidations. It is my understanding that, with subdivisions, comes with a particular zoning, and the zoning sets the framework for the size of that subdivision. Basically, regarding subdivisions, the issues you have raised should be in line with the zoning, and the zoning provides the policy framework.
You also asked about the issue of devolution. It is a policy position of this government that we are not going to be divulging planning issues - particularly the major issues - to councils at this stage. Given the nature of the Territory, that is a wise decision at this stage.
You asked about East Arm. Basically, in areas where I am the consent authority, I advise the member for Nelson that, if a significant development was proposed in such an area, I would certainly put that on exhibition and get the DCA to conduct hearings so the public could have input. I do not think it would matter which side of government was in power; any planning minister would do that with any significant development.
Going back a little, on the issue of devolution, I am informed it was not raised by local government in response to the discussion paper, and also would mean a move to more than one consent authority which could become quite messy. We are trying to consolidate the Planning Act, and it was felt that might be a retrograde step regarding complexity.
I have addressed the issues raised by the member for Daly regarding him saying it is not a radical change. I dispute that. The changes to the act are quite significant, and I have already been through that.
He talked about minister’s powers saying that, under the minister’s power, there is no hearing for some of the determinations made by a minister. I am advised that is wrong; there would be hearings and the public would be engaged through a public process. He also raised the issue of amenity in the town plan and I have addressed that issue.
I thank all members for their contribution, including the member for Casuarina. This is a very important issue. Planning is very important for the Territory, and moving the Territory ahead. I would like to commend all the officers, particularly Mr Gronow and Mr O’Neill for their role. It has been a very difficult process and it is very difficult explaining planning issues least of all to ministers but also the public at large. They do a great job in that regard. I also compliment my predecessor for starting the process and I have been glad to carry that on.
In summary, Madam Speaker, we have consolidated what has been quite a complex and sometimes confusing Planning Act. These amendments bring about some clarity. They consolidate, they unify across the Territory, but at the same time they allow individual areas of the Territory to maintain their own specific features and amenity. I commend these amendments to the House.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: The committee has before it the Planning Amendment Bill 2004 (Serial 275) together with Schedule of Amendment No 96 circulated by the Minister for Lands and Planning.
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together.
Mr WOOD: Can I just get a little bit of clarification because it is fairly complex working through these clauses. Clauses 1 to 4, Madam Deputy Chair, include the objects; is that correct?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: That is correct.
Mr WOOD: I would like to speak on clause 4, please. You need to be gentle tonight, Madam Deputy Chair.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I will be. I always am.
Mr WOOD: It is not easy to follow these clauses. Minister, I just like to say something on the aesthetics of building design which I was intending to bring forward as a possible amendment. I have taken on board that you have said that you are willing to look at that. I would like to ask if you have noticed that New South Wales has at least tried to introduce some building design work? I gather it is because the Premier of New South Wales did not like a block of flats one day and from that they have developed a State Environmental Planning Policy No 65: Design Quality of Residential Flat Development. It is an interesting document; it covers a whole range of issues and gives reasons why this bill was introduced in the New South Wales parliament. It looked to achieve better built form and aesthetics of buildings and of the street scapes and the public spaces they define. It discusses issues like that. It looks at amenity and has a much broader approach to amenity than perhaps we are looking at. Under clause 15, principle 7, Amenity:
- Good design provides amenity through the physical, spatial, and environmental quality of a development.
Optimising amenity requires appropriate room dimensions and shapes, access to sunlight, natural
ventilation, visual and acoustic privacy, storage, indoor and outdoor space, efficient layouts and service
areas, outlook and ease of access for all age groups and degrees of mobility.
Further down in section 18, principle 10, Aesthetics:
- Quality aesthetics require the appropriate composition of building elements, textures, materials and colours
that reflect the use, internal design and structure of the development. Aesthetics should respond to the
environment and context, particularly to desirable elements of the existing streetscape or, in precincts
undergoing transition, contribute to the desired future character of the area.
So there is at least one state, New South Wales, which is looking at aesthetics. I know that aesthetics is a bit like amenity but there is, I believe, scope for the government to have a look at the area I was talking about and come up with something that is unique to the Territory. Just to finish off that comment, minister, I ask the question: is this Design Guide for Residential and Commercial Development in the Northern Territory purely a guide? Is it used by Development Consent Authority in ruling on applications for development in the CBD and the residential areas of Darwin?
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I have already foreshadowed to the member for Nelson that I am open to the idea of some advice from experts on the issues that he has raised. There will be administrative and process issues involved. I believe the community is moving that way and I have flagged that I am interested in pursuing that. I hope that gives the member some assurance, and I am sure the member will keep reminding me about it.
In relation to the design guide, I am advised that issues in the residential and commercial design guide are taken up in the draft of the new Planning Scheme, so that will form part of the new Planning Scheme. Once the amendments to the Planning Act are passed, we can start work on the Planning Scheme and what you have raised there will be part of it.
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, I will leave that section as it is.
Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.2, which omits and substitutes subsections. Proposed sections 19(1) and 19(2) are omitted and replaced by new subsection (1). Subsection (3) will be renumbered as (2). The wording of this section was lifted from the existing section 16 of the principal act: the provisions require that where a proposed planning scheme amendment affects both a DCA division area and the council area, the council must be notified.
I am advised that it is irrelevant whether a division area is affected; the issue is whether the proposal affects the council’s area of jurisdiction. The amendment has the effect of removing reference to ‘division area’. This section was all about councils being notified, and it does not really matter where the DCA division or not. The intent was to notify councils. This just clarifies that intent.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8:
Mr WOOD: My amendment might before …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: No, I have your amendment down as clause 16, according to the advice I have received.
Mr WOOD: I have a query on clause 8, section 33.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: By all means.
Mr WOOD: Minister, you will know to what I am referring. This section refers to ‘existing use, buildings and works’ and explains when something is lawful and when something is not. The question that has been a bit of a problem in the Knuckey’s Lagoon area is: what happens when a large block is used for a previously conforming but now non-conforming use, and that large block of land is subdivided, is each parcel of land allowed to carry on the non-conforming use? Where would I find in section 33 any reference to that particular case?
Dr BURNS: This is a technical question and I have referred it to the technical experts. They believe that you are asking if the deemed approval and protection of existing use applies in both parcels. The answer that I have been advised is that the existing use continues on both lots, but only to the extent that it existed prior to subdivision. Any expansion would require an EDP on an alternation permit.
Mr WOOD: That is a can of worms in itself. For instance, if you cut a 20 acre block into four 5 acre blocks, and originally that was just a large extractive mineral development, can each of those four blocks carry on a quarter of what happened originally? Who makes the decision?
Dr BURNS: In relation to mining, I am advised that that comes under a different act. Maybe you are talking about horticulture? Are you specifically talking about mining?
Mr WOOD: I am talking about extractive mining supplies.
Dr BURNS: I am advised that extractive mining does occur under a different act. In answer to your question, those activities could continue to the extent that they were allowed before such a subdivision.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. I know it is a tricky question. You have a 20 acre block. Under the old act a person could run an extractive mineral development; under the new act, that is not permitted. The owner of that land, who was operating what is now a non-conforming use but was a conforming use when he owned it, decides to cut that land up into four sections. Under the act, if you have a non-conforming use prior to the act, you can continue with that non-conforming use. Can the four people who would buy individual blocks of that land continue on with the extractive mining, even to the point of being only a quarter, each one, of the original development that occurred there?
Dr BURNS: I am advised that, if there was a subdivision, it would be for a purpose, that is, for rural living or residential. I suppose there would be the question of remediation. However, leaving that to one side, it would not be subdivided for the purposes of providing four blocks out of one for extractive mining. That is the advice that I have. It would generally be subdivided for a different purpose.
Do you have a specific case in mind where this has occurred? The initial advice I have is that, if we are talking about extractive mining, for each block there would be a plan under the legislation in terms of the extraction and the extent of extraction that could go on.
Mr WOOD: I am referring more to extractive mineral supplies, that is, extractive minerals come on to the block, they are washed, and they go out in the form of sand, gravel, or whatever. This is a particular case in Knuckeys Lagoon in which, as you have written to me recently, the department has problems knowing whether a particular extractive mineral supplier is actually legal. He is operating on a block of land that is only a portion of what was a larger block of land, which did have an extractive mineral supply development on it. It was pre-planning and now that type of development is actually banned; it is prohibited.
However, the owner of the block of land now says: ‘I am just continuing what was a conforming use at the time. I am just continuing that use’. It is a real issue because, as you know, it relates to access onto a proposed council road. I am just looking in this act. Does it clarify that particular situation? It could occur in other situations; that is not the only one. I cannot see where this act clarifies who is legal and who is not.
Dr BURNS: I am advised by the departmental officers who are absolute experts on this, that this is a very complex legal issue. Member for Nelson, we are not likely to solve it here tonight. I am not sure what remedies are being put forward here. I have given you the information that I have been given on this particular issue.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I understand that this is a difficult issue. I was hoping, when this act was put forward with the new planning amendments, that it would be clarified. It may not affect this particular case. However, we have a case about which you have written to me saying there are some problems. I was hoping that the act would then make it clear so that these problems did not occur again. We can deal with the existing one, but could this occur in the future? Or are we still leaving ourselves open to this occurring again for some other purpose that is non-conforming? That is the problem I have with it.
Could I put it to the minister then, if he does not have an answer for this at the moment: would you at least go back and consider the problems we have on Thorak Road, and whether there needs to be some amendments in this act to make sure that particular problem either cannot happen again or is clarified very carefully so everyone knows what their rights are if they do apply to do something on land that is now non-conforming?
Dr BURNS: Yes, member for Nelson, I am also advised that there is a strong possibility these issues could be worked out through the Planning Scheme. As I said before, once the Planning Act amendments are passed, we will dive into the Planning Scheme. I am more than happy to try to engage with you over this issue as we move through the Planning Scheme. I give you that undertaking, member for Nelson.
Mr WOOD: Thank you. Minister, is there any solution to the problem, therefore, in Knuckeys Lagoon that is apparent? This difficulty of pre-existing uses has been one of the reasons the council has been concerned about putting a driveway into this place; that they would be seen to be supporting what your department is saying is illegal. We have this quandary about a particular block of land. Do you see any solution to the problem?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, it appears to me that what you are raising is an existing use of that land. There are legal issues. However, you have also raised the issue of preventing this from happening again. I have foreshadowed that I am more than happy to work with you through amendments to the Planning Scheme in future, to try to set a framework that clarifies this very situation. In terms of the specific case which you are asking about, I am unsure of the legalities of it. I am unsure of what powers government has at this stage to move in that particular case, or the advisability of doing that. I would need to clarify that.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendments 96.3 to 96.6.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, do you have any objection to moving amendments 96.3, 96.4, 96.5 and 96.6 together?
Mr WOOD: No.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: We will take those amendments to clause 8 together.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I will speak to each one of these.
Clause 8 of the bill substitutes a new Part 4, comprising proposed sections 33 to 43C in the principal act. These committee stage amendments to clause 8 amend proposed sections 35 and 43A as follows:
Firstly, committee stage amendment 96.3 omits words from proposed section 35(1), the words which in effect describe what constitutes ‘existing works’ are omitted as repetitive and unnecessary. Proposed section 33(4) already defines what constitutes existing work. In summary, 96.3 is all about getting rid of some repetition within those sections.
Amendment 96.4 omits words from the proposed section 35(2). This amendment is consequential to the changes made in section 35(1) made by amendment 96.3 which I mentioned. The words ‘existing works’ to which the section refer are unnecessary as they are defined elsewhere.
Amendment 96.5 substitutes words in section 35(4). The amendment is consequential to amendment 96.3. As a result of amendment 96.3, subsection (1) will no longer refer to a development permit. The substituted words in subsection (3) convey the same meaning expressed in a different way. Basically, there has been a deletion and some reordering of the wording.
Finally, amendment 96.6 amends proposed section 43A by omitting the words ‘the grant of’, so it will then read, ‘a person may apply to the Consent Authority for an alteration permit’. It did read, ‘apply to the Consent Authority for the grant of an alteration permit’. This is consistent with the removal of the word ‘granted’ from definition of ‘alteration permit’ in amendment 96.1. It is deleting some redundant words.
Amendments agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 9 to 15, by leave, taken together.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, I point out that your proposed amendment falls under clause 16.
Mr WOOD: I realise that, thank you, Madam Chair. There is a query. I do not think section 48 of the principal act appears in the amendments, therefore, I am going back to the principal act, under the section of ‘Notification of local authorities’. I proposed to move an amendment to section 48(1)(b) of the principal act.. At the moment this says, ‘That if a development application in respect of land within the council area of local authority is received by the consent authority, the consent authority must notify in writing the local authority’. And (b) says, ‘…of the details of the application’. What I am asking is that that be changed after the word ‘application’ to ‘include all the submissions received by the consent authority’.’
One of the problems local government has when having to respond to a development consent application, is that it gets one piece of paper like the public, and it has to comment on that one piece of paper the same as anyone else. The representatives on the council turn up at a council meeting with an agenda that has all the services’ opinions on the development, it has all the objections, or the supporting paper work that goes with those developments.
It would be far better for a local government authority to make its decision based on the same paper work the Development Consent Authority has. I am asking if it would be possible for the government to amend its existing legislation so that local government can receive all the submissions that the Development Consent Authority receives before it makes its decision, too?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I have looked into this matter and I am informed that yes, when an application is lodged with the DCA, local government receives a copy of the application. Over the statutory period that people have to comment, various agencies and individuals make submission to the consent authority. At the end of that period, the department provides a report to the DCA. I am informed that not only does it give that report to the DCA with all the submissions from the statutory period, but it also gives it to council. In some ways, your amendment is redundant because it is happening already - or at least that is what I am informed.
Mr WOOD: I accept that, minister, but what happens is that, due to the processes of council, the council itself does not see it. In the case of Litchfield Shire, the CEO would get it because he attends the meeting and he has it all there. Because of the nature of local government, where there is a meeting every fortnight, they would just receive a planning application; there would be a recommendation; there would be some discussion; but they do not have the full knowledge that you would have at the Development Consent Authority. Yes, there maybe some complications in doing it, but it would allow local government to be able to make decisions based on fuller knowledge that is not available normally to a council.
Dr BURNS: One of the difficulties, and I have already outlined it, is that the submissions are made in dribs and drabs, so it is not as if a consolidated document could easily sent to council. These things come in dribs and drabs over the period. I hear what you say about the cycle of council meetings, but one of the complaints that I have from people is that the consent authority usually uses its whole 12 weeks in terms of reaching decisions, and people feel that there are delays with the DCA. What you are proposing might add another layer of delay. I would be interested to know to what frequency councils feel that they miss out on seeing the consolidated document of the proposal and all the submissions including the service agencies.
Mr WOOD: I suppose one of the difficulties when you ask me a question about concerns that councils have is that this review started not far off two years ago, and I am having trouble to remember who approached me about what. It was something that I thought could be done.
People have to make their submissions by a certain date, and I suppose one could ask whether those submissions could be faxed to council. If they wish to call a special meeting of their development committee, they would then have the information there. It was more a case of allowing councils, which have two members on the Development Consent Authority, to discuss those issues as a council. I know that they are not meant to act as a council, but at least the council is able to debate some of these issues more fully than having a single piece of paper. That was the idea.
There is a date when submissions have to be in, of course. If, on the date those submissions came in, they were faxed to the local council, it would not be a bit of paper here and a bit of paper there; it would be done on one day and that would be it. I put it as possibility. I do not want to labour the point because, even though it might feel like 2 o’clock in the afternoon, that clock tells me it is not. I am willing to put the motion that the amendment be accepted and put it to the vote.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: For clarification, the member for Nelson is proposing an amendment to section 48(1)(b) of the principal act.
Amendment negatived.
Clauses 9 to 15 agreed to.
Clause 16:
Mr WOOD: I believe that area needs more discussion. I know I received a good answer from the minister and I know he has received that from the advisors. I hope commonsense will take its course in this case. I would certainly hate someone to say, well, you have approval to grow cabbages – that is when you applied for your horticultural permit - and then you decided you wanted to grow mango trees which, of course, are much bigger and require much more spraying if that is the method that that person wants to control the pests with. A lot more spray goes up in the air with mangoes than on the ground, and so you might find that there is somebody in the area says, ‘I would be happy with that person growing vegetables, but I am not particularly happy with them growing large fruit crops’.
I understand what you said minister. I hope commonsense is taken into account. I thought it was an issue that, knowing how some things happen occasionally in planning, it might have come back to bite us, but I am willing to see how it runs.
Clause 16 agreed to.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Clauses 17 to 24. Member for Nelson, I am going on the advice of where your proposed amendments fall. I do not believe your next one falls until clause 26.
Mr WOOD: I just need your advice, Madam Deputy Chair. Part 7, I think, was in the clauses. I am just going back to the original act. I just want to make -because I cannot quite trace it on the - you were calling what clauses?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: We will admit your query now, if you want, on part 7.
Mr WOOD: It would be section 75, so we have not quite gone that far, is that correct? Section 75 is clause 21. So you are going from what to what?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I am going to clause 24. So I will go clauses 17 to 20.
Mr WOOD: Yes, I just have a query.
Clauses 17 to 20 by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 21:
Mr WOOD: Yes, I believe that refers to section 75 of the original act. That section is on enforcement. I must admit, enforcement is an area which, if you enforce things too strictly, you will get a big backlash from people saying that the regulations are taking over. If you do not enforce things, Rafferty’s Rules starts to occur. I did attend a Planning Development Consent Authority meeting not so long ago where, basically, the chairman said that the job of the Development Consent Authority is not to go out to enforce; it waits for a complaint to occur. Of course, many people are reluctant to complain about their neighbour, so you get a considerable number of, you would say, illegal activities occurring that will be so established that it would be very difficult to do something about stopping them.
I was just interested to know, under this enforcement section, does the government have a policy of enforcement that requires someone really to dob their neighbour in? Or do they look at some sort of proactive - and I am not saying over-the-top, because that would be unrealistic and it would be silly. However, there are times where there are some obvious breakdowns in enforcement, and people find it upsetting that they have to ring up the department hoping that their name will not be mentioned when the department rings up the person who is operating an illegal business, so that there will not be a big rift between neighbours. I would just be interested in whether the government has a policy on enforcement under the Planning Act.
Dr BURNS: I am informed it is by complaint primarily. However, should there be officers of the department who were to see a major significant infringement as they go about their duties, action would be taken.
Mr WOOD: Minister, is there section in the act which says that says enforcement is only carried out on complaint? Is there somewhere in the act which requires that, or is that standard practice?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I am informed once a complaint has been received, enforcement is the precinct of the consent authority.
Mr WOOD: I understand that, minister. However, one does not expect someone walking down the street to notice a car which does not have a parking sticker on the front windscreen to say that it is legally parked. One expects the inspector to come along and say: ‘You have not paid your parking bill and, therefore, I book you’. What I am saying is: in some areas you do not expect people to dob someone else in. Why is that the case, necessarily, under the Planning Act?
Dr BURNS: I suppose it depends what sort of issues you are talking about, member for Nelson. There are neighbours who complain about the height of their next door neighbour’s building; that they may have transgressed the height limit. The most common form of complaint from people is about land clearing; everyone has become aware of that. However, you could look across many areas of endeavour of government, or legislation of government, where these things operate by complaint. I do not really have any other answer for you other than that.
Whether you want government to engage a whole lot of consent authority-type policemen to go out there and check things - I suppose, in a way, that is why a lot of the system relies on surveyors, who are professionals, making submissions to the DCA. To a large degree, the system operates through professional integrity also.
Mr WOOD: Just quickly, minister, I understand, especially with building design, you can also operate through the Building Board and certifiers. However, where people use land illegally it is really a planning matter. In a lot of cases, people come to me and say: ‘Joe Blow is operating a mechanical workshop’. I know Joe Blow; I also know the person who is complaining. You are caught in a situation where we all think we are going to get into a lot of trouble because we are neighbours, or we are known. It is now our law that is being put forward in parliament; it is your law. Yet, we are the ones who have to carry out the police work.
As I said, I am not expecting the police force, as you might call it, to go around with a big stick and belt everyone over the head. However, I believe there are cases - especially in the rural area when someone has a sign out the front saying, ‘We operate this’ – where it should not be up to a neighbour to have to complain - which can have consequences – when, sometimes, some of those things should be addressed by the department. Is it a lack of funding for such a role? Is it not really the policy of the government to take on that role?
That is what I was looking at when I said commonsense must prevail, because you can come down too hard in legislation to dot your i’s and cross your t’s and cause a big kafuffle. There are times when the department needs to act, otherwise, if one person is seen doing it, I can tell you that two, three, four or five other people do it. Then you would ask: what is the point in having all these rules and regulations? I am simply trying to get an idea of what the philosophy of the government is in regard to enforcement.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I am advised that people can pass complaints on anonymously. I suppose if you have come into possession of information that someone is contravening the Planning Act you can certainly make some confidential calls through my office. I undertake that those things will be investigated and there will be no names and no pack drill.
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, I do remember making a complaint many years ago about a certain …
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: It did not matter; same theory on how to operate enforcement. I complained about a possible outdoor entertainment that was going to occur on a five acre block not far me. About a week later, I had some visitations from some fairly big people in a funny uniform with lots of things hanging off it and that was anonymous too, but they knew who sent that letter to the department. That is what people fear, and that is what I am just saying. Is the government looking at the way things are enforced?
A member interjecting.
Mr WOOD: No, I did not. I will not go on any further. We have spent enough time on that, but it was worth clarifying, minister.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clauses 22 to 24, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 25:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.7. This is a drafting correction in essence and the words ‘prima facie’ are omitted from subsection (2). This is consistent with the removal of these words from section 81A by clause 25(3) of this bill. I am informed that the term is not used in modern drafting.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 26:
Mr WOOD: Minister, I meant to raise this in my opening speech, but I am asking that you put back into the act something that you have taken out of the act. The bit you have taken out of the act says, and this is under section 85(3) of the principal act, Minister may direct Authority:
- If the minister directs the Development Consent Authority as to the determination of a particular
development application, he or she must table in the Legislative Assembly, within 3 sitting days of
the Legislative Assembly after the day on which the direction was given –
(a) a summary of the development application to which the direction relates;
(b) the terms of the direction; and
Minister, my understanding is that you have removed that. I would have thought, for the sake of transparency, that would be something you would wish to stay in so that we know the reason why you have taken a particular decision, so you are at least accountable to parliament. I would be interested to know why it has been removed. I am asking actually that it goes back in.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, as you are aware, you have raised this issue today with my office, and I have certainly taken it very seriously. What I am told is that, with section 85, you are asking the call-outs to be tabled in the House; that is essentially what you are asking - where the minister directs through a call-out provision.
I am informed that the minister will now issue the determination and the reasons under the minister’s signature in the same manner as any other determination. I was concerned that this might provide some short circuit, if you like, that things could be done without public hearings, in relation to particular determinations, or call-out powers. However, I am informed by my officers that there would still be public hearings through the DCA, so there would still be an open and transparent process.
I believe the major difference is that the determination is tabled with my signature rather than the chair of the DCA.
I am informed that this represents a minor change. There is still transparency; the reasons are still given in a very public way, but not necessarily through tabling in the House. There would be instances where this determination would be made public in a quicker fashion than tabling in the House, given the frequency of when this House assembles. This is a probably more direct and even more rapid publication of a minister’s determination.
Mr WOOD: But isn’t it the case that you cannot appeal a decision that you have interfered in? To some extent, at least, it brings it back here for a possible debate over something that really is not appealable. I am struggling to understand why it is in the act. What were the reasons for the government having it there?
Dr BURNS: In terms of what stands in the act at present, I am told that it has to be tabled otherwise there could be circumstances where no-one would ever know that the minister has given a direction to the DCA.
It is also important to point out that the minister can direct before the DCA publishes its findings. In other words, there could be a public process, the DCA is moving to publish its determination in a matter, and the minister can make a determination at that stage. The way that is made public is through tabling in the House. The call-out powers and determinations by the minister are still being published with reasons, so really it has the same effect in the long run. I am absolutely convinced about that. I certainly did question on the basis of what you proposed at a fairly late hour, but I am assured by my officers that, in the end., it has the same effect.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clauses 27 and 28, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 29:
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, I move amendment 96.8. This is a fairly technical amendment which does not change the spirit or intent of the section, but comes about through a redundancy of the use of the words ’12 week period’ within the clauses. I am assured by my officers that the removal of the reference to 12 weeks is because it is redundant. The 12 week period is specified earlier in that section, so it is redundant to have it further down in the section. It is a drafting correction.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 29, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 30 to 32, by leave, taken together:
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, when you called that, do you have clauses 90 and 108 of the principal act on your …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Yes, I do, and I have you being called under clause 33.
Mr WOOD: That is further down. I thought you might have had principal act section 108. I thought you would have called that …
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: I had no advice as to where that fell under the clauses. By all means.
Mr WOOD: I am doing my best to follow. Could I ask that I go back to clause 108 of the principal act, which refers to the Lands and Mining Tribunal?
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Certainly.
Mr WOOD: I have raised that issue as I have been concerned that the Lands and Mining Tribunal Act is one person who, in this case, happens to be a magistrate. We are dealing with planning matters. I believe the tribunal should be a tribunal as the tribunal should be; that is, more than one person. Otherwise, it should be a ‘mono-unal’ or something. However, it certainly could be improved by having a planner, and a person from that local government that the decisions are going to be made about, on that tribunal.
I was going to move an amendment that after the words, ‘the Lands and Mining Tribunal Act’, we add, ‘plus a qualified planner and a local government representative from the local government area in which the appeal is heard’. That would make the Lands and Mining Tribunal a far more – not so much open tribunal – but it would mean that the tribunal was getting in a larger range of opinions before it made a decision, not just what I would call a fairly technical opinion which it presently gives. I would hope that the tribunal could be expanded to cover more people with a larger range of expertise.
Dr BURNS: I take on board what the member for Nelson has said. I have to confess that that was my first reaction also, in terms of having a one member tribunal. I believe, though, that members realise it is perfectly legal to have a one member tribunal. As I questioned and sought advice on this matter, and sought ways in which a wider range of expertise on a whole range of subjects could be available, or have input into that tribunal, not forgetting that there are issues of conflict of interest which often arise in a small jurisdiction whether it is a plan, or a this or a that, and some people are on the regulatory side and some people are on the commercial side, that, basically, there is the potential for conflict of interest.
I would ask the member to remember that one of the changes which has been made to the act, is that rather than just looking at the legality of an appeal, the tribunal must now base its decision in appeal on the best planning outcome. That is what they have to base their judgment on, not just the legality of x, y, or z. Therefore, a positive planning outcome is the primary basis of the decision. Of course, legalities will always play their part. What has been built into the amendments to the act is that the tribunal can now call on expert advice, whether it is architectural or planning, no matter what sort of advice it is. In a way, the amendments address the issue, and a very legitimate issue, member for Nelson, which you have raised.
I foreshadow a wider issue here. We have talked about third party appeals and a whole range of legitimate issues which you have raised. I give an undertaking during this committee stage that government is quite prepared – let us give this new Planning Act a bit of a run, say, over 18 months to two years which is probably a good time frame - for the development of the Planning Scheme. We are more than happy to come back and review a lot of the very valid issues which you have raised, both within the debate and the committee stages. I give you that commitment as well, member for Nelson.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. I appreciate that commitment, not to say that I do not have a couple more amendments to come yet. I would be willing to see how the legislation goes.
I will keep an eye on it and see how things rattle along. I have concerns about some of the things that the Lands and Mining Tribunal approved. I am afraid I am not one of those fans of what replaced the Darwin Hotel. To me, that is a mickey mouse development. What should have been something of great aesthetic building design was put there in place of something that was dear to the hearts of many people in Darwin. Sadly, we have the 20 m2 housing blocks there. It might be a temporary replacement, but it is not a good replacement for the CBD. That was allowed to happen because of a decision of the Lands and Mining Tribunal. I would be interested to see how it works in reality. We will move on.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, I am assuming that you did not move that motion in the end to amend.
Mr WOOD: No, Madam Deputy Chair.
Clauses 30 to 32 agreed to.
Clause 33:
Mr WOOD: Madam Deputy Chair, clause 29 is also marked on here as clause 117 in the amending bill, and it relates to appeals by third parties in respect to development applications. I know we are getting back onto old ground.
I move that clause 117(4) be deleted. I read the example and, I must admit, I am very glad to see these examples popping up in legislation by the government; it helps you understand the legislation better. I am very pleased that I have brought some of these things to the attention of the government. It says:
- The regulations may specify there is no right of appeal in respect of development on land zoned for
industrial use or development unless the land is adjacent to land zoned for residential use or development.
That is an example. I believe that is unfair. In industrial areas, you should be able to appeal - not necessarily at the wharf; it could be anywhere.
The other issue is about residential zoning. In your second reading, you said subdivisions cannot be appealed. Could I get that clarified so it is in Hansard, minister? If there is a subdivision in the rural area, and that subdivision means that a road will go out past a person’s block carrying X amount of traffic and will ruin the amenity of that block, would that person have the right to appeal under this act?
Dr BURNS: No.
Mr WOOD: Minister, I would certainly be asking for this section to be deleted. It is very unfair; it is nearly a Berrimah Line syndrome, or an urban versus rural discriminatory practice. Why shouldn’t a person living on five acres be entitled to appeal residential? They can suffer the same changes to amenity. I notice amenity takes in the word ‘locality’ and, after that it says ‘the pleasantness’, as well as ‘being harmonious and enjoyable’. Therefore, a subdivision could cause major problems to someone living in the rural area.
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, government’s position is that there are limited third party appeals and, basically, by removing this clause, we would have unlimited third party appeals. I cannot agree to that. I take on board what you are saying about someone in the rural area, but government has given a commitment that we will limit third party appeals. This particular section enables regulations to be made that will limit the third party appeals so I cannot agree to it.
Mr WOOD: Thank you, minister. Does that mean that 99% of people in Litchfield Shire will not be able to appeal under this act because they live on rural residential land? There is a tiny bit of industrial land and they will not be able to appeal against that. But there is very little of what you would call residential land as in the case of the northern suburbs or Palmerston. Will this section of the act not apply to people in the rural area?
Mr Baldwin: It has not been passed the Berrimah lights, why should it?
Mr Wood: I have the Buffalo Creek boat ramp in my area.
Mr Henderson: Like the third party appeals you mob had?
Dr BURNS: Member for Nelson, I will reiterate the position …
Mr Wood: Yes or no?
Dr BURNS: We are sticking with limited third party appeals. I would also say that if you are talking about Litchfield, and you have been part of a process in terms of the Litchfield Planning Scheme, and basically there has been much input from residents. I suppose there are a few people who are not happy with elements of that, but generally, there has been some agreements about developments and zoning within Litchfield and development would occur in line with those zonings and that public process. Although there is no right of appeal, there has been an extensive consultation process. I guess there is a system of objections and that is where I would probably leave it.
Mr WOOD: I cannot quite leave it yet, minister. Does that mean that people at Marlow’s Lagoon in Palmerston cannot appeal?
Dr BURNS: Just to clarify, member for Nelson, are you talking about subdivisions or existing residential zones?
Mr WOOD: I am talking about say in Marlow’s Lagoon where there is another subdivision planned right next to it. It is a rural subdivision. Can you appeal against that rural subdivision?
Dr BURNS: Basically, as I said before in my wrap up, there is no appeal against subdivisions whether they are in rural areas or other areas. That is part of the limitations on the third party appeals.
Mr WOOD: That is very limited in the Litchfield Shire because that is practically all they have. Can the minister take the case of the Litchfield Shire Council, any other council, the DCA makes decisions for that council and I gave the example of a road. I can give you an example where the council said this road will be an arterial road; we require it to be 7 m wide with seal. The Development Consent Authority said no, it will be 6 m. Surely the local government which has control of roads should be able to appeal that decision? Could you say why it should not be allowed to appeal that decision?
Dr BURNS: As I have said previously, it is government’s position about devolution that we retain those - if you are taking about the actual design and layout of roads - that that is something that government has said it will be retaining.
Mr WOOD: No. I do not think you understand, minister. The third party appeal allows a local authority to appeal. Now, surely, a local government could appeal against a decision made by the Development Consent Authority that said, ‘No, you won’t have the road that you asked for – 7 m wide with seal. You will have to take a 6 m wide road with seal’. I am not asking devolution. Your third party appeal says an appeal can be made by a person or local authority. That is not even limited; that really means that a council has no appeal rights when a subdivision application goes against it and that is very unfair. You are saying they are limited rights but in the case of people in the rural area they are nil.
Amendment negatived.
Madam DEPUTY CHAIR: Member for Nelson, do you want to your outstanding …
Mr WOOD: Yes, clause 33.
Minister, I have to go back to the original act, it relates to attendance at a conference where you are dealing with mediation. I know from personal experience that when the Development Consent Authority makes a decision against the developer, the developer then has the right to go to a mediation conference. If I were an objector and heard that the development had been knocked on the head, I would have thought: ‘Terrific, that is what I wanted’. However, I then find that the developer had appealed and gone to a mediation process and been part of a process about which I had no knowledge and was not allowed to take part. This seems very unfair to an objector.
What I have asked is that we have an extra clause under section 123; we add (8), which says:
Any objector to an original application shall be notified of the mediation process, and can apply to the
mediator to attend the mediation process.
I should put that in context. It does say that the mediator at a conference ‘may’ permit a person to take part. What I am doing is adding a little more to say that they should be at least notified, and the person can apply to be at the mediation conference.
Also, minister, I have another amendment to this section, which adds (9) and says:
- Any decision under section 123(8) is not appealable.
That is simply because you have applied, and the mediator has said you can or cannot come, and if it went to appeal on that, you would be there all day, and I was trying to be practical. At present, though, the system is unfair to someone who has objected, at the present time, not being allowed to be part of the mediation process.
Dr BURNS: Madam Deputy Chair, today is the first time I have heard of this amendment. I met with various planning and other groups during the consultation phase, at least whilst I have been minister, and this is the first time I have heard of this. I am not sure what effect it might have; it has come out of the blue.
As you are aware, under section 123(7), a mediator may permit a person to take part in a conference. I suppose your amendment is making it mandatory for an objector. This is the first time I have heard about it, and I have to oppose your amendment. It has come very late in the piece; this bill has been on the table since last year. It is your right - I am not saying anything else - but it is a bit hard being so late in the piece.
Mr WOOD: I realise it is late, too, minister, however you have some advisors. I apologise for it being late. I did not realise the bill was being brought forward on the Notice Paper. The information did go to the advisors today.
I will give you an idea of where it comes from. It came from the case of a mobile telephone tower in the rural area that was to be put on a five acre block, which was not the norm in the rural area. That was knocked on the head. The people next door were very happy because they saw the value of their land decreasing by having a telephone tower on their block. It then went to a mediation process which I, as an objector, knew nothing about it. I was not informed. I do not know whether the neighbours were informed. It was then passed.
To me, that system is very unfair. For one to have thought that you have won the case, that you got them to put their telephone tower in a more suitable area and then, out of the blue, get a letter saying they are now allowed to have their telephone communications tower, is an extremely poor way of making decisions, especially for the people next door who now believe their property is probably worth $20 000 or $30 000 less than it was.
What I have done there is say, at least inform people there is a mediation process. I do not think there is anything wrong with that, and give them the opportunity to write to the mediator. I have not said the mediator has to accept it. At least give the people the right to write to that mediator and ask to attend the conference. Otherwise the system all of a sudden goes from being open and transparent to just cut off.
Dr BURNS: I am prepared to take it and consider it. I am advised that I could do it administratively, and I undertake to do that. However, at this late stage I just cannot accept the amendment.
Mr WOOD: I accept that, minister; thank you for that commitment at least. You might not hear people come to you, banging on the door about these issues. Sometimes theses issues come up simply from working with the act, having to deal with these issues and, hopefully, we can fix those issues up as we amend legislation.
I am willing to accept your commitment to at least look at it and see whether it can be changed through regulations. Madam Deputy Chair, I will leave it at that. That is all the amendments. I have taken on board the minister’s commitments.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Dr BURNS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
TABLED PAPER
Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I table the Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly.
MOTION
Print paper - Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Print paper - Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Report - Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Note Report - Auditor-General’s February 2005 Report to the Legislative Assembly
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report and that I have leave to continue my remarks.
Motion agreed to.
TABLED PAPER
Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, pursuant to section 28 of the Ombudsman (Northern Territory) Act, I have the pleasure of presenting the report of the Ombudsman for the financial year ending 30 June 2004.
MOTION
Print paper - Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Print paper - Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Note Report - Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Note Report - Ombudsman’s Report for Financial Year ended 30 June 2004
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the report.
The Ombudsman has a pivotal role ensuring that the Northern Territory government and local government councils provide fair, efficient and quality administrative services to the public. The Ombudsman also has responsibility for investigating complaints about police conduct. In addition to resolving complaints in a fair and impartial manner, the Ombudsman assists the parliament to safeguard public interest, and collaborates with government authorities to improve the quality of service delivery.
In 2003-04, the Ombudsman’s Office received 2355 approaches for assistance. Such approaches included matters which are outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, or can be very quickly resolved. Whilst this is a slight increase from the 2082 approaches received in 2002-03, the number of approaches that go on to become a complaint is continuing to drop. In 2000-01, 860 approaches to the Ombudsman developed into complaints, in comparison to 551 complaints in 2003-04. This represents a 36% decline.
Approximately 15% or 97 of these approaches were from prisoners querying the activities of the Northern Territory Correctional Services. The Ombudsman notes that the increase is due to increased prisoner access to a free telephone service that allows unmonitored calls to the Ombudsman’s Office. When this telephone service was introduced in 2002-03, the majority of complaints related to staff attitude and behaviour. However, in 2003-04, complaints of this nature decreased by nearly 60%. The Ombudsman notes that complaints regarding prisoner rights increased significantly during the last financial year.
There has been an increase in complaints against members of the police force. Since 2000-01, complaints regarding police conduct have risen by 258. In 2003-04, the most common complaint was in regard to police procedures. I am pleased to note that 34% of finalised complaints were resolved using a conciliation process.
Complaints against local government councils have decreased by 26% or 23 approaches. Primarily, this reduction in complaints occurred in major centres. Most regional communities substantially increased the number of complaints against local councils. Clearly, the role of the Ombudsman is becoming more widely understood amongst Territory regions.
A number of important issues for government are raised within the Ombudsman’s report, such as managing conflicts of interest, apologies by government agencies, and the regulatory role of the government sector organisations.
The report also highlights the development of new legislation to replace the Ombudsman’s (Northern Territory) Act and emphasises some significant issues which were raised in the development process. The Ombudsman’s contribution to the review of the legislation has been invaluable. I have every confidence that Territorians will continue to have an effective complaints resolution mechanism for the administrative activities of government, and for dealing with complaints about police conduct.
On a more personal note, I wish to express my gratitude to Peter Boyce who completes his second five-year term as Ombudsman at the end of March 2005. Peter has made an excellent contribution to providing a fair, efficient and quality administration service to the public. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours.
Debate adjourned.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Growing Our Trade Route Strategy
Growing Our Trade Route Strategy
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table the government’s Growing Our Trade Route strategy paper which will be delivered to all desks shortly. The paper highlights the opportunities that this government sees for the future development of the AustralAsia trade route, and identifies the priority actions that we will pursue over the next two years to realise those opportunities.
It is timely that I update members on the tangible progress already achieved in developing the trade route, flag some of the challenges and hurdles that we still have to overcome, and articulate those measures that we are taking to stimulate future growth. There is no doubt that the Northern Territory is entering an exciting phase of economic development. Its solid and expanding industry base built around mining, tourism and primary industry sectors is being accelerated through new and more diverse industry development, and wealth and job creation are now flowing from a number of strategic new developments.
Great opportunities exist abroad in the Territory’s manufacturing base through the further development of the Timor Sea gas fields and the bringing of gas onshore. The $2bn expansion of the Alcan Alumina Refinery and possible fuelling of that refinery with gas from the Black Tip gas field on our west coast via a 1000 km trans-Territory pipeline will also generate significant employment and industry opportunities for Territorians. Continued growth in Australia’s defence capabilities and related infrastructure within the Territory, along with exciting new tourism initiatives such as the Darwin City Waterfront redevelopment, will continue to strength in the Territory’s economic base.
Developing the AustralAsia trade route into a vibrant and alternative trade route for the nation continues to be one of my government’s key economic goals. After one year of operation, FreightLink, the private sector operator of the railway, report they have successfully carried more than 600 000 tonnes of freight which will exceed their original forecast of 360 000 tonnes for the same period. This highlights that the Territory now enjoys a competitive modal choice for its domestic freight tasks by now having access to high quality road and rail systems. However, our priority focus for the new trade routes is to grow new international trade which offers the greatest opportunities for the future but which also faces the greatest challenges.
Those challenges include simulating a shift in cultural thinking of major importers/exporters, global logistic operators, and international shipping lines. Australia has long established trade supply lines to its major southern ports and our challenge is to shift that prevailing orthodoxy. This will not happen by osmosis but by a concerted and well directed marketing and business case development program focussing on potential anchor customers. There is no doubt that many importer/exporters, global logistic operators and shipping lines are unwilling to be the first users of the trade route and need to see some of the high profile anchor customers using the trade route first.
It is also fair to say that, up until the middle of last year, FreightLink’s own international marketing efforts have been limited given their strong initial focus on the domestic freight market. We also have to recognise the railway has only been operating for just over a year and that many potential customers need to see it physically operating for a substantial period before they will seriously consider it as an alternative means of delivering their international freight. Our challenge continues to be to identify, lobby, and strategically market the new trade route to potential anchor customers such as Swire, Toll and others. This we are doing, Madam Speaker.
It is important to recognise that FreightLink did not forecast to achieve any international freight until the second quarter of 2006. This was because their first priority was to capture and secure a sizable share of the domestic freight task as reflected in the performance targets previously mentioned. As a government we have actively sought to expedite the development of international trade above and beyond FreightLink’s own business projections. We have done this by working with, and in advance of, FreightLink and other strategic partners. In doing so, the Territory government has already attracted and secured a number of tangible outcomes for the new trade route. For example, we successfully attracted Swire Shipping to introduce a new Singapore-Darwin shipping service just prior to the commencement of the railway operations, and Swire has openly acknowledged that the direct lobbying and positive attitude of the Territory government which included personal meetings between myself and the chairman of Swire Australia, Bill Rothery, was an important consideration for the Swire board when it decided to establish its new service. That initiative with Swire has been a fundamental catalyst to the early capture of some 18 000 tonnes of new international freight for the AustralAsia trade route during the first year of railway operations.
To date, this new trade has predominantly consisted of South Australian exports destined for South East Asia including Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. These exports have included a diverse range of containerised commodities including lead and zinc ingots, wheat, malt and chemicals. A limited but increasing amount of imported cargo from Asia to southern Australia has also been shipped via the new trade route including timber, steel, coffee, and various manufactured products.
Last November, Hai Win Shipping with the support of ABX Logistics, one of the top ten global logistics companies, conducted a full commercial trial of a new direct Shanghai to Darwin shipping service. This was the first time a direct container shipping service has operated from China to Darwin. In doing so, they delivered approximately 70 containers of imported cargo to Adelaide via the new rail link. From an operational and logistics perspective, the Managing Director of Hai Win, Frank Guerra, has publicly stated that the trial ran ‘as smooth as silk’ and significant transit time savings were achieved. However, from a cost perspective, the company claims it still has some difficulties, but not to the extent as reported in The Australian newspaper, about having further commercial negotiations with FreightLink.
Having analysed the original trial, I understand that Hai Win in conjunction with FreightLink are now undertaking a detailed feasibility study for a possible two-way service between Darwin and north Asia. Mr Guerra has stated that Hai Win believes the rail option could become more viable with a return sector. As outlined in the Growing our Trade Route paper, the pursuit of a regular direct Darwin-North Asia service remains a priority for this government.
Another initiative of this government is its foresight to develop a major business park adjacent to the domestic rail freight terminal during 2004. As we know, Toll Holdings, Australia’s largest transport and logistics company, have already invested some $10m in a state-of-the-art distribution facility in the park. Paul Little, the CEO of Toll, has publicly stated that Toll will be looking to expand its operations and network into Asia, and we are confident that Darwin will feature in those plans. We expect further expansion of Toll’s facilities and the generation of new jobs at the business park later this year.
In years to come, I believe our success in getting Toll established in the park will prove one of the most strategic catalysts for the development of the new containerised and break bulk trades along the new trade route.
The construction of Vopak’s $50m Darwin fuel industry terminal in the business park is well under way. A proposal to establish a $55m biodiesel plant in the same vicinity is well advanced, with a final investment decision due shortly. Both of these projects will enhance the critical volume of freight moved along the AustralAsia Trade Route.
Madam Speaker, the approach we are taking to developing the new trade route is a very pragmatic and targeted one. Whilst we continue to broadly promote and raise awareness of the new trade route and the opportunities both nationally and internationally, the hard slog lies with the detailed business development. This means working closely with potential anchor customers including importers, exporters, global logistic operators and international shipping lines. It involves drilling down through detailed cost and revenue structures with them, and clearly understanding their business and development time frames. It involves helping interested companies to analyse who their freight customers are going to be, that is, who else would be prepared to enter into a contractual arrangement with them to support the new trade group. It also involves drilling down into the possible contractual arrangements to analyse how the risks and obligations are to be shared between the various parties.
We are pursuing this level of business case development with key strategic partners including base load importers and exporters, international shipping lines and global logistic companies. In fact, officials from my Office of Territory Development have been openly welcomed as an honest broker into some of these commercial-in-confidence negotiations where costs, revenue structures and possible contractual terms have been discussed between various private sector interests.
This business case development takes time and ultimately requires the boards of some significant companies to give their sign -ff after full due diligence. We will continue to facilitate this detailed business case development, and I am confident that exciting new developments for the trade route will be secured later this year.
So what of the future? The Growing Our Trade Route paper identifies eight key opportunities that this government will be pursuing as part of its trade route development. These are:
First, to significantly grow Darwin’s international shipping and aviation connections and frequency of calls with key market destinations. In particular, we will seek to secure new services with Indonesia, Malaysia and North Asia, along with strengthened shipping ties with Singapore later this year. On that note, I am pleased to advise that as a follow-up to direct representations made to a number of regional Asian shipping lines by my Office of Territory Development and the Darwin Port Corporation in September, the Chief Executive Officers of two of these companies have accepted our offer to visit Darwin during the next couple of months. In doing so, they will seek to progress negotiations for new direct shipping services with FreightLink, Toll, and other strategic partners. Over the medium term, we will seek to develop direct shipping links with other emerging economies such as India and Vietnam.
Second, in our trade route strategy, we will seek to expedite the growth of the AustralAsia Trade Route as a viable alternative international trading route. This opportunity will be exploited by continuing to promote and market the benefits of the AustralAsia Trade Route to national and international importers, exporters, transport companies and logistic service providers as part of the Territory government’s investment attraction initiatives.
We will also seek to host the highly successful Global Freight Connect Conference again in the Territory during October 2005. Our intention is to take this international conference to a new level, and actually operate the conference as part of the train journey between Darwin and Adelaide. It will also provide an opportunity to hold some mini-plenary sessions in both Alice Springs and Katherine, enabling the local communities to hear directly from eminent world speakers about future trends and developments in international trade and freight.
As part of the marketing of the trade route, we will continue to develop specific business cases for targeted products to increase the volume of trade through Darwin and support new shipping links.
Third, we will seek to establish Darwin as Australia’s northern trade centre for break bulk deconsolidation activities. In particular, we will seek to increase the volumes of imported timber and steel products being shipped via the new trade route.
Fourth, we will expand Darwin’s position as Australia’s northern supply base centre for servicing the offshore oil and gas industry and mineral developments in the neighbouring Asian region. In doing so, we will seek to cement Darwin’s position for future developments in the Timor Sea and build on the existing capability developed to service the Bayu-Undan development.
Fifth, we will develop Darwin as the port of choice for bulk mineral exports from Central Australia to Asia. The government has already allocated $11.2m for the developing of new bulk handling facilities at East Arm, which will service developments such as the Bootu Creek manganese mine located near Tennant Creek. Government will continue to foster additional mineral developments which can bring new employment opportunities to our regional communities.
Sixth, we will continue to grow the Territory’s trade links, utilising Darwin’s new international shipping connections, and Australia’s new free trade agreements. Future overseas visits by myself and other ministers will continue to be used to advance these opportunities.
Seventh, we will continue to promote the new Darwin Business Park as the location of choice for consolidation, distribution and value-adding activities. In that regard, I am advised that the Land Development Corporation will embark on a major marketing campaign this year, and have engaged local real estate company, Colliers, to help them do so. My Office of Territory Development, in conjunction with the Land Development Corporation, is also working closely with Toll Holdings on the further expansion of Toll’s operations at the business park later this year.
As previously mentioned, a proposal to establish a $55m bio-diesel plant in the same vicinity is well advanced, with final investment decision due shortly.
Eighth, we will continue to expedite opportunities in regional communities which deliver ongoing economic activity and sustainable new employment. For example, we expect significant growth to occur in Katherine this year as it develops into a significant regional freight hub, servicing both the Katherine and Kimberley regions. This government has commenced negotiations to acquire some 50 ha of land adjacent to the Katherine rail freight terminal to cater for the long-term development of the freight hub, including industrial expansion for the freight, transport and light manufacturing sectors.
Madam Speaker, our future priorities for the AustralAsia Trade Route are challenging but clear. We are committed to substantially growing the flow of international trade, further strengthening the Territory’s international shipping connections, leveraging new value-added industries and employment opportunities, and achieving positive economic outcomes for our regional centres. We continue to take a whole-of-government approach to achieving all of these priorities by the AustralAsia Trade Route Taskforce which I established early last year. My government’s wider trade and transport policies also clearly reflect the strategic importance of the AustralAsia trade to the Territory.
Over the next two years, a strong element of this government’s investment attraction efforts will continue to focus on growing the new trade route, with a particular emphasis on attracting new shipping links between East Arm Port and Asia. New direct links with China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and stronger direct links with Singapore, are our imminent goals. Such links will be the catalyst to increase trade and investment opportunities for the Territory.
Growing our trade route is a clear part of this government’s overall economic agenda of providing jobs for Territorians, consistent with our broader goals of moving the Territory ahead through fostering high quality infrastructure to leverage significant private sector employment investment in the Territory, successfully position the Northern Territory in the regional international economy, and working in partnership with the private sector to achieve positive economic gains for the Territory.
Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly take note of the statement.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I was looking forward to a statement of some substance from the Chief Minister when I saw the title of the statement, Growing Our Trade Route. Having looked at the statement, I would suggest it should probably read ‘Rooting our trade growth’ rather than Growing Our Trade Route. The statement does nothing to provide any confidence to what this government is actually doing in the priority actions which appear to be the focus of this particular document, in growing our international trade through the Port of Darwin.
It is interesting, when one looks back at the document the Chief Minister forgot about, which was Building A Better Territory and the objectives the Chief Minister set herself in that particular document. Regarding investment and trade, it is worth reminding the Chief Minister that she gave herself priority actions of:
- In partnership with NT business and industry associations, by 30 September 2002, launch and commence
implementation of the ITS and achieve by 2007:
a 40% increase in non-oil exports,
to international trade;
During 2002-03, work with the rail consortium and its potential customers to develop landbridge trade
through the Port of Darwin to achieve a target of 50 000 containers per annum by the end of 2007
During 2002-03 help targeted companies establish value-adding operations in the Territory so that
by 2007, up to 30% of products landbridged via Darwin are subject to value-adding activity within the
Territory
Chief Minister, this particular document here, as it is a glossy document, has your photo on the front, is signed by you, and is called a strategy, would be informative, and also a strategy that - I would hope - engage the minds of people who are thinking about making the investments in the Northern Territory. Otherwise, what purpose does this particular document serve? Is it a promotion from the Chief Minister to say to Territorians: ‘Look at me. Because I have put out this document close to the election, therefore, I am actually doing something’. If that is the objective of the document, without scrutiny I guess it probably achieves that. I suggest that, probably, that is the objective of the document: to cobble together something fairly quickly and tell the public servants who are probably working very hard to develop a land-bridging concept to redirect their energies and come up with something attractive for the Chief Minister to put out publicly.
However, when you stand up as the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory to deliver a statement like this, and put out a document named Growing Our Trade Route, it does you no good to put out something that is inaccurate. Any cursory examination of the situation the Northern Territory faces in what we are actually achieving, what our existing services are, and what the current infrastructure and services situation is in the Northern Territory - with an expectation that business would look at this - I would suggest to you that any businessman worth his salt would toss this thing within about five minutes. He would not even get past about page 5 before he would say: ‘This is nothing more than political pap. It is inaccurate, it does not give me any information of any real worth, and it certainly does not give me any encouragement to invest in the Northern Territory and invest in this particular organisation, government, port or land-bridging strategy at all’.
Chief Minister, you might wish to - because I will refer to it on occasions - refer to a document that has been commissioned by Mr John McCue, International Project Manager, Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development. It is a quick look at the existing service structures in our port, the impediments in our port, and the existing routes that we have moving into and out of South-East Asia, and the analysis done in that particular report and how it refers to your trade strategy. It seems that people are not talking to one another. Worse than that, under the imprimatur of the Chief Minister, you have gone out to supposedly business - but you and I know it is nothing more than a political document to try and impress Territorians - to impress them on the energy of your effort and the accuracy of your statements.
It says in the booklet Growing Our Trade Route under the heading ‘Current Infrastructure and Services:
- Typical landbridging transit times now available between Asia and the following south eastern Australian
cities (via Darwin …
Via Darwin!
- … utilising shipping and rail) are:
Adelaide to Jakarta - eight days …
Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days. That is what the Chief Minister’s says and goes to industry with. If you pick up this report, and you would not even need this report to know, it says here:
- Transit time from Darwin to Jakarta or Surabaya with trans-shipment is approximately 13 days.
You might try to argue that if you commissioned your own charter vessel, working entirely for the Northern Territory government, and fired it from Singapore into Darwin, then got the stuff immediately on the rail down to Adelaide, you might make nine days. But to suggest somehow that the Northern Territory has in place current infrastructure and services that gives you a transit time for Adelaide to Jakarta of eight days is ridiculous. It then goes on to say Singapore to Adelaide - 10 days, Singapore to Melbourne - 11 days.
That implies that if you want to put trade onto this railway line through our port and send something to Jakarta, that somehow we have services that run there. We do not. We do not have services. There are no direct services that run to Jakarta.
There is a trans-shipment service that runs through Singapore, but the trans-shipment service that runs through Singapore is, if you want to talk about what the typical land bridging transit times are, they are - and a businessman would get this in five minutes: we have two services, one run by Swire Shipping, an NGPL service; it calls to Darwin approximately every 18 days. It runs from Darwin to Benete Bay, three days; Jakarta, five to seven days; Port Klang, Malaysia, eight to ten days; Singapore, nine to 12 days. So if you are sending stuff from Darwin to Singapore it has to go on that route via Jakarta.
The rotation then turns south bound to Australia via Port Moresby and other Papua New Guinea and Solomon Island ports. It utilises four of the large 22 000 dead weight Challenger class vessels which are capable of carrying 1200 teu – twenty-foot equivalent units. It has a crocodile line service as well. This service calls into Darwin nominally on a fortnightly basis. The actual schedule has been closer to every three weeks as the vessel regularly diverts within the region for project and ad hoc cargo, albeit generally Territory-related. The base rotation of the crocodile line service is Darwin to Dili, one day; Singapore, seven days; Benete Bay, another 12 days; Dili, 14 days; back to Darwin, 15 days.
The other shipping service that we have in Darwin is the Perkins Shipping Group. Perkins runs on a transit time of average eight days: Darwin, Dili, Singapore, Dili, Darwin, total transit time of 15 days. Both Swire and Perkins offer trans-shipment from Singapore to worldwide ports, including Jakarta and Surabaya. Transit time from Darwin to Jakarta or Surabaya with trans-shipment is approximately 13 days.
Why in God’s name would you put in a document with this sort of imprimatur that you can put stuff on our trade route, our new railway, our new port, and suggest to business that you can do it in eight days from Adelaide? It is absolute garbage. What it does is indicate that this government does not have a clue what is happening with its port, does not have a clue what is happening with its railway, does not have the foggiest notion as to how to spend money, and how to target strategies that grow this economy and grow the Northern Territory in the way it has been set up with the infrastructure provided for you.
What you can do is knock out glossy documents, you can spend money on all sorts of programs, with the enormous amounts of money that has come through on the GST, but you cannot talk the truth to Territorians, and you cannot talk the talk to business, either. If you talked the talk to business, they would soon look for the facts, truth and accuracies. This is nothing more than a political document that has been published to impress Territorians that you are doing something.
I have not gone past page 5 of this strategy, which says:
- Darwin’s new $200m East Arm Port is located in Australia’s most northern, natural deep-water harbour
and is Australia’s closest port to South-East Asia.
Well, it is the closest port geographically, but the implication in here is that it is the closest port in order to get trade across to Singapore, Surabaya or Jakarta. If you are talking about that area alone, your own commissioned reports will tell you that Brisbane can outdo you any day of the week in terms of speed and Fremantle can outdo all of them because Fremantle is on a return leg going back up north and is considered within the trade as the fastest port …
Ms Martin: Do you want to live in the Territory? You are putting down everything you come across. Why do you bother?
Mr BURKE: You do not have a clue, Chief Minister. You really do not have a clue.
Ms Martin: Why do you bother? You put down everything in sight. Why live in Darwin? You may as well live in Brisbane.
Mr BURKE: You should be back reading the news. You do not have a clue. You have so much money to play with and you do not have a clue as to how to spend it properly or how to tell the truth to Territorians.
So, we are suggesting here that we have direct international shipping services, that Australia’s closest port:
- … has direct international shipping services with major commercial centres throughout
South-East Asia including Singapore, Jakarta, Port Klang and Dili …
Jakarta! There is nothing going from Darwin to Jakarta direct. Nothing! If you can tell me what is going from Darwin to Jakarta direct, I am here to be illuminated because there is nothing going from Darwin to Jakarta direct; everything has to transit through Singapore or Surabaya. It is simply misleading to suggest that you have, out of Darwin, direct international shipping services. They not only have to tranship through Singapore or Surabaya as a minimum, but often in the way the legs are organised with existing carriers, they also have legs through other ports on the way. It is a hospital run shipping service in those centres at the moment.
It goes on in the same paragraph:
- A monthly import service from Shanghai to Darwin commenced in November 2004.
We know the story of that. Hai Win certainly commenced in November 2004. The Chief Minister went out and told everyone what a great service she put in place but, in fact, it stopped as fast as it commenced. Whilst the Chief Minister is trying to talk up the fact that a couple of people might visit and something else might happen, it seems clear from the Hai Win assessment of what went on that they were not impressed by the situation that they are confronted with at the moment.
The report that was done by one Darwin operator on behalf of your department bears no relationship to your statement, but in itself as a document is far more informative to anyone who would want to sit down and say: ‘What are the difficulties in the Northern Territory? What are the challenges we have to confront? What are the opportunities for us, and where can we focus that effort?’
The one opportunity this document points to is that we should be putting an effort on a direct service to Surabaya because it is the only hub port in the Indonesian archipelago that has heavy service, on a spoke-and-wheel concept, that goes to other Indonesian ports including Jakarta, and I think also to Singapore, but Surabaya is the only one that does have a direct link to any Australian port. This document points to Surabaya as being a missed opportunity and if we look at the Chief Minister’s trade strategy, look through the statement, there is no mention of that, which is the number one deduction which comes out of this Norman report.
Chief Minister, if you are going to bring forward to this government and not insult the intelligence of people who are supposed to comment on your so-called statements, why didn’t you talk about the sorts of products that are being carried, have the potential to be carried, the volumes involved in those products, the capacity to move those products, and the difficulties or otherwise associated with moving them, which include things, I would imagine, like refrigeration? Why didn’t you talk about, accurately, the shipping services that we have, the routes that they travel, the transit times, and the impost and challenges of those services, where they could be improved, where you are working to improve those services to make them faster or more direct, and other shipping services based on real opportunities? Are you putting a priority on attracting them? It is one thing to say in a statement, ‘we are looking to China’. I mean, anyone can look to China, the whole of Australia, the whole of the world is looking to China. However, if you want to talk seriously about what this government is doing as a strategy in growing our trade route that would be one piece of information that certainly we would like to know.
Nowhere in the strategy or the statement are cost relativities, the sorts of information that we all want to know - how much does it costs to move the same size container out of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Fremantle compared to moving that container out of Darwin? What is the additional cost of moving it from Adelaide to Darwin on the rail? How does the cost of shipping to Singapore or to Surabaya, or one of those ports, compare to shipping from other Australian ports? We know that information if you look in other documents. We know that the Northern Territory is not competitive. We know that the Northern Territory is not tracking anywhere near where some of the other ports in the Australian states are, and that is understandable, to some extent. But what we want to know is, how are those disadvantages going to be overcome?
What about the port infrastructure? How does our port infrastructure compare to other port infrastructure in terms of relativity? Where are the weaknesses in our port compared to other ports? Where do some ports have an advantage over us that we do not? Where does the infrastructure need to be put in and where is the priority of the infrastructure being put in, in order to max those other particular port’s advantages? Where are the customs issues? How do customs issues affect the movement of trade through Darwin, the movement of trade when it is being transhipped, and what sort of things can be done to overcome those particular disadvantages?
I scribbled those five things down and I would have thought, that if you wanted this parliament to take your statement seriously, whoever was putting together your statement and this document, would have sketched those things out as the basic structure for a speech so that we were all dealing with something that was worthwhile.
I would like to go longer but, frankly, this statement has received a greater response from me than it deserves. It is an insult to anyone’s intelligence. It is an insult to anyone who has the basis understanding of the challenges of our port/rail and landbridging capabilities and challenges. It is an insult to anyone who might pick it up, seriously, to look at where the Northern Territory government is seriously addressing the challenges of growing our international trade. Frankly, it is an insult to the average Territorian, who probably does not know a dot about any of these things. You have the gall to run this out as a political election statement and somehow suggest that you are going to impress them with a government that is doing work. You are doing none of it. All you are doing is insulting my intelligence and the rest of my colleagues.
Mr HENDERSON (Business and Industry): Mr Deputy Speaker, dear, oh dear, oh dear. I suppose that was the type of response we could expect from the Opposition Leader.
I rise tonight to commend the Chief Minister on her statement this evening, Growing Our Trade Route, because this is all about vision and about working in partnership between FreightLink, the operators of the railway; shipping companies; freight forwarders; the Northern Territory government; and the private sector to grow our trading volumes through our port and with the railway to achieve the targets that have been established in the Territory government’s trade strategies.
This is a partnership approach. The strategy documents that we have in front of us tonight have been put together in partnership with FreightLink, the operators of the railway; importers; and shipping companies, which have all had input into the strategy. Therefore, the Opposition Leader insults our intelligence by suggesting that the Territory government should be off on its own pursuing targets without working in partnership with FreightLink, the shipping companies and the freight forwarders, working to a comprehensive plan of engagement in the region, and targeting particular cargoes and volumes in countries.
I know, under the previous government, they would rush off with grand vision statements and plans. If you looked behind them who were there in most cases? Very few people. We can all recite many examples of when the previous government ran off with grand visions and schemes which came to nothing. As the Chief Minister said …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Allow the minister to continue, please.
Mr HENDERSON: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This evening, the document details how we are going to achieve the targets in the trade strategy, and the Leader of the Opposition talked about some of those. I have talked about some of the targets which we have achieved.
In regard to the 10-minute rail regarding to the current shipping times that are mentioned on page 5 of the report - Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days; Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days - those times are promoted by FreightLink. They are also promoted by Swire Shipping as the optimum times which could be achieved with maximum utilisation of this new trade route. If the Leader of the Opposition is going to have a go at the Chief Minister and bag the government, then I suggest he also takes it up with FreightLink and Swire Shipping which are also promoting the trade route in regards to being able to achieve these times. It is very easy for the Leader of the Opposition to come in here, but he obviously …
Mr Dunham: It is your boss, not the boss of Swire.
Mr HENDERSON: The member for Drysdale can have his go in a moment.
… has not been speaking to those companies regarding what strategies and targets they are pursuing as commercial targets, and how they are working with government to achieve those targets with those strategies. To come in here and bag this, say this is just government promotional material, I suggest he goes and talks to FreightLink and Swire in regards to those targets and times which are in this document.
As the Minister for Asian Relations and Trade, and Business and Industry, I am committed to championing Territory small business to maximise opportunities from the AustralAsia trade route. As a government, we are committed to working with business to see trading partnerships strengthened and, through practical assistance and advice, we are working to assist more business become involved with international trade. Fundamental to the establishment of a sustainable trade route, is a strong business culture geared towards exports. Here, the Territory’s business community uses its advantages to punch above its weight.
The Territory’s strong multicultural community, with links through family and sporting ties, gives us a close affinity with our Asian neighbours and, with the premises of being friends first and business partners later so strong in Asia, this is a real advantage. Being as we are, geographically isolated from Australia’s other major centres, the Territory’s business community shows a determination and commitment in developing new trade opportunities outside Australia, and particularly with our Asian neighbours to the north, a ‘can do’ approach which is so welcomed and suited to developing new export opportunities.
As the Chief Minister advised, growing the trade routes will not be without challenges. We have to build on our existing business culture and continue to encourage increased involvement in trade and exporting. In June 2002, this government launched its International Trade Strategy. The previous government, in 26 years of government, did not have a definitive strategy or a single document to guide its engagement with the region - an absolute dereliction of responsibilities to working towards any comprehensive plan. This strategy was launched by the government in June 2002, a strong focus of which is on maximising the potential benefits of the trade route.
The government has formed an international trade strategy implementation committee bringing together a number of private industry sectors and government departments as a cohesive and proactive group working to encourage the growth in international trade to boost activity on the AustralAsian trade routes and meet the overall objectives of the strategy by 2007. The international trade strategy does set ambitious targets – something that the previous government never did - including lifting the overall value and volume of Northern Territory non-oil exports by 40% in 2007. Good progress is being made. In December 2002, Northern Territory exports stood at $403m and, in September 2004, this figure had grown to $457m. That is an increase of 14% which has us tracking well to achieve the targeted growth of 40% by 2007.
We also set out a target of increasing the number of Territory enterprises participating in or contributing to international trade by 25% by 2007. This is a good news story for Territory business. According to the ABS in the 2002-03 financial year the number of Territory businesses exporting products out of the Northern Territory was 129. This has increased to 226 in 2003-04 again putting the Territory well on track for meeting the target of a 25% increase in the number of Territory exporters. The international trade strategy also aims to support substantial knowledge-based growth in at least two emerging sectors, and substantial strategic work has been undertaken to strengthen the Territory’s manufacturing and services sectors and the capacity to export knowledge-based goods and services.
The government has also enhanced the direct practical assistance dedicated to international market developments. Under our Trade Support Scheme, about which I spoke in detail last week, the government has provided valuable support to 25 knowledge-based firms in 2003-04 and a further 10 grants to firms have been given this financial year. As I noted last week, the Trade Support Scheme was launched on 1 July with dedicated funding of $336 000. I remind honourable members that more than 70 Territory businesses have been given the opportunity to explore new international markets and areas as diverse as primary industry, tourism, services, construction, manufacturing, information technology, and the arts. The government was proud to announce an increase in the budget for the scheme for $358 000 in 2004-05 with a further $150 000 from the Tourist Commission.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I mentioned earlier the importance of building relationships in order to have successful partnerships in Asia. The Territory has been pleased to enjoy friendships with the governments and business communities of the trading bloc of the east Asian growth area or BIMP-EAGA as it is more commonly known. Last year, this relationship was opened as never before when the Territory was invited to join BIMP-EAGA as a development partner. Our new status of BIMP-EAGA Plus One will open doors into the region and allow us the opportunity to fully discuss and promote the AustralAsian trade route and its potential to grow regional trade to business circles that may otherwise have been out of reach.
One project flowing from the Territory’s BIMP-EAGA Plus One status is a proposal I put forward at a recent BIMP-EAGA ministers’ meeting for a regional one-stop shop using the Territory as the gateway between the rest of Australia and Asia. Work is progressing well on the establishment of the one-stop shop which, when completed, will provide a point of contact for sophisticated business matching services offering Territory firms a way to market their products and services into the BIMP-EAGA region and offering BIMP-EAGA firms a means of marketing their products and services to both the Northern Territory and through us to the rest of Australia.
My department is working closely with the Chamber of Commerce Northern Territory and the BIMP-EAGA small to medium enterprise working group and, through both of these, the Australian Chamber of Commerce network and the BIMP-EAGA facilitation centre, to establish what will be a first for this region in international business-to-business networking.
The Northern Territory has a key advantage being the trading hub to eastern Indonesia and in particular with the Indonesian customs pre-inspection facility. The facility has been revitalised and is already showing an increase in activity and results. A strong new marketing plan has been developed for this facility and we will be taking the message to logistics firms, exporters and international business people in both the southern states of Australia and throughout the Asian region on upcoming delegations. I am also pleased to report that the newest of our Indonesian customs officials has just arrived in Darwin for his six month term and we welcome him to our city. I also note the fact that in collaboration with the Indonesian Customs department, we are now exploring the possibility of expanding the scope of the Indonesian Customs pre-clearance facility to include Java and Sumatra, thus giving this facility coverage of all of Indonesia.
This, if achieved, will place us in the prime position of having a truly unique service to offer to exporters from around Australia and really position Darwin as the central hub for all imports and exports between Australia and Indonesia. It is a great competitive advantage that we have, and I am hopeful that the Indonesians will agree to open up the pre-clearance facility to include Java and Sumatra.
An important element of building relationships in Asia as part of the building trade is, of course, travelling to regions and meeting with players on the ground. As Asian Relations and Trade minister, I will again this year be leading government and trade delegations into our Asian markets to develop and maintain the Territory’s good relations. In fact, on Sunday, I will be leading a trade and business delegation of about 15 people to Jakarta, Balikpapan and Surabaya in Indonesia from 20 to 24 February. This delegation will include Toll Holdings and FreightLink which are working with the government to open up the opportunities in Surabaya about which the Leader of the Opposition was talking. If he had any networks in the business community, he would know that work is being undertaken and that Toll and FreightLink are working with the government on that target.
This business delegation follows a successful visit I made to the region I made late last year to attend the ninth ministerial meeting of BIMP-EAGA. The key purpose of next week’s delegation will to be deliver a series of presentations, predominantly targeting the oil, gas and mining sectors, presenting the Territory’s capacity and ability to be a key base and through point for the supply of goods and services to the booming resources sector in the eastern Indonesian region, utilising the AustralAsian Trade Route and the Darwin-based Indonesian customs pre-inspection facility.
Feedback that I had in November last year was that this pre-inspection facility would be a very valuable point of opportunity for Australian companies based in East Kalimantan which are servicing and supplying our massive mining projects there. The difficulties and the complexities they have of supplying those sites through the east coast ports, through Perth up to Singapore, Jakarta and into East Kalimantan is causing huge problems and presents a real opportunity for the Territory, the port and the pre-inspection facility.
For some years, the Territory has been pursuing a long-term strategy to establish Darwin as a major regional supply and service centre to the mining and petroleum industries. Eastern Indonesia has been the prime focus of this strategy and this industry sector represents a significant target market for Territory business. It has the potential to generate more transport links through and from Darwin, establishing a trade hub. Whilst in Jakarta, I will have the opportunity to meet with ministers of the new Indonesian Cabinet, to build new relationships and renew old friendships.
Additional trade and business missions are being planned to Thailand, China, Dubai, Sabah, Brunei, Vietnam and India. We are also actively strengthening the Northern Territory’s existing international and Asian relationships and exploring new relationships to promote and grow Territory trade and investment.
Free trade agreements and other steps to liberalise the International Trade Rules, both through the World Trade Organisation and regionally, play an important role in expanding trade markets and opening new ones. I am pleased to advise that we have been strongly advocating the Territory trade interests in the development of these initiatives. In particular, we have been very active in the development of the Australian Free Trade agreement agreements that are now operating with Singapore, Thailand and the USA. We are also advocating Territory interests in the free trade agreements currently being considered, or under development, with China, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Trade developments with Japan are also under way.
This government will continue to grow Territory trade links, utilising Darwin’s new international shipping connections and Australia’s new Free Trade Agreements. The Leader of the Opposition asked what we are doing for infrastructure, what we are doing out at the port. I do not know if he listened to recent announcements, but the government has committed, and we are out to tender at the moment, for an $11.2m bulk loading facility at the port. It is a huge capital commitment to build infrastructure at our port that will open up mining operations in Central Australia, making deposits that currently are not commercially viable for development a real viable opportunity. The Bootu Creek Mine will be up and running later this year and making use of that new bulk loading facility.
It is erroneous to say that we are not progressing infrastructure initiatives and we are doing nothing. There are at least two major mining operations in Central Australia that would not occur without this investment. The investment has been committed and we are out to tender.
There are a number of main line shipping operators that the government is talking to, regional Asian shipping lines as well as the existing shipping lines. We are talking to others, and trial shipments have and will, later this year, involve an increasing number of international companies that are committed to trials through the Port of Darwin.
We have paid credit to the member for Brennan in the past for his role in seeing the railway come to fruition, but he knows very well, and it is pretty mischievous now but it is politics and I can understand that, that the immediate focus of FreightLink, the financial entities that made up the private sector financial consortia that have funded $800m worth of investment in the railway, the entire business case for the railway where the banks were seeking an immediate return on their equity in the project, was based around the domestic freight case. The Leader of the Opposition well knows that. He was part of those discussions and negotiations. Quite rightly, FreightLink have to satisfy those bank demands; that is what the business case was built on and that is where their focus and effort has been. But already they are ahead of the pack, working with, and ahead of, their business case, working with the Territory government and shipping companies and freight forwarders, already establishing new shipping routes into the region, and those links will increase and they will increase over time.
We can see problems in the east coast ports of Australia where a lack of land surrouding ports that are aleady very congested with long waiting times, will create further opportunities for the Port of Darwin and the for railway. Ultimately, this is a commercial venture and FreightLink have to put a good, solid, commercial business case to existing shipping lines and freight forwarders to shift from their established routes into the Australian market via the east coast to come through the Port of Darwin. They have courage of that business case, those cost structures and the direct marketing of those services. They are doing that in conjunction with the Territory government. They are doing that within the realms of a comprehensive and cohesive plan that is targeting shipping companies, and countries not only in this immediate region but also further a field.
How can you suggest that FreightLink is not doing that work? How could the Territory government possibly do that work unless it was in partnership with FreightLink and the shipping companies? I suppose it is okay to have a go at us, but not to understand that we are working in partnership with FreightLink and the shipping companies and the freight forwarders also sends a rebuke as well to those companies which are working very hard to optimise the infrastructure that is in place now and to build on the opportunities that are in place now.
I commend this statement to the House. As trade minister in the Northern Territory government, I will continue to do whatever I can, and with the officers of my department, to work with Territory business across all sectors to open up the export and trade opportunities for the Northern Territory economy. Since our Trade Support Scheme came into being in 2002 there has been a huge increase in funding to support Territory exporters. Not rhetoric, not endless ministerial junkets into the region that achieved absolutely nothing in a large part. You talk to any of the Territory players in the export scheme and they talk with derision about the previous government’s efforts.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Mr Deputy Speaker, my comments will reflect largely the content of the Leader of the Opposition’s comments, and for very good reason. The minister, in making his contribution, makes the comment that if those who are involved in the industry were consulted, were spoken to, then we would be shown to be in error in commenting on this document as gloss and hype.
The fact is, even this day I made an effort to contact a number of people who are active in this field and who derive their living from international trade. This is not the sort of thing which is going to excite them and give them additional traction. What we have here is, once again, a description of potential. We all agree with the potential - we are strategically located. We have the reiteration, again and again, of that which is possible due to the great fortune of where we are located, and the fact that we have experience within the region, in addition to our geographic location.
The potential is married with words which I no longer have confidence in - words which fill modern documents: ‘We are committed to substantially growing’, something; ‘We are committed to further strengthening’. What do these words actually mean? ‘We are committed to leveraging and value-adding. We are committed to achieving positive economic outcomes’. What do these words mean? I have spoken to those who are actively involved in this industry, and in international trade. These words mean little.
Going further, of those who would allow us to realise this potential of international investment, I have the good fortune of some very good connections within the region. I have been associated with a family for many years in Indonesia who are multi-billionaires – the Hartono family. Recently, I took the time to brief Bungbam Hartono on the Northern Territory and its potential. Because I have a valued relationship with this man, I cannot sell him hype and gloss because I want to retain a relationship for the longer haul. He also has a relationship to his children, and the children who come after those children. He has responsibility for assets which are colossal through Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and Europe. I could not sell him on this. This is the sort of thing which will impress someone who does not know much about the reality of international trade which flows from solid relationships within the region. Someone will be making a significant commitment – those who allow their capital to grow, take risks. This is not the type of platform upon which you would place great risk.
This document describes potential; that which would give heart to any potential investor to allow investment to grow is a description of reality. Exactly what trade does occur within our region; for example, the eastern provinces of Indonesia? How does it get from the region into Australia? How are we tracking in that regard? What is the volume of trade from Indonesia into Australia, Indonesia and the whole archipelago; and, taking it out further, how is that getting into Australia? That sort of information needs to be presented to this parliament to give us an update on how we are tracking in real terms. Which vessels are plying their trade within the region, and which of those vessels are considering coming to the Northern Territory? How are we progressing in real terms - not just in potential terms? Once again, if we are dealing with making real progress in this regard, then we need to be couching this information to those who would be accessing and realising the real potential; that is, those who are involved in international trade on both sides of the equation.
Otherwise, we are talking about simply, as the Leader of the Opposition describes, a document that serves one purpose only, a political purpose, to create an impression, and that is not acceptable. If we are in this job our responsibility is to make a difference not create an impression. I am dissatisfied with this approach which serves only to create an impression. That is why I am dissatisfied with the plethora of words which creates the impression of something that leaves you dissatisfied: ‘committed to’, ‘substantially growing something’ - it sounds great but I know it does not really cut it.
Now let us get down to it. I listened carefully to the minister speaking and I will say again that under a CLP government this issue will be dealt with entirely differently. There will be a different approach to engaging our region. For anyone who has done any work in the region and understands cross-cultural interaction and trade, understands that there needs to be a fair bit of work going on in the area of relationships which lead to trade. We have focussed largely, as is the manner of those who have not understood the culture in which we are trading with, we will talk about trade, we will talk about infrastructure, physical infrastructure, we will talk about railways and we will talk about ports. We will give scant regard to the fact that, yes, we have many people here who come from the region, speak the language and so on. Back to the port, back to the trade missions, back to the shaking of hands, back to the glossy documents and this sort of stuff, and we will talk about trade, trade, trade, trade, trade. We will be talking about trade until the cows come home.
Growing up in Western Australia in the early days when China was just opening up, a number of friends of mine got in early into China. One chap was working in China for 10 years until the penny dropped: he could be there for 25 years with the sense that the deal was imminent, close to. He would come back, ‘We’re nearly there’. And after 10 years he realised that he was being run around the place. Everyone was incredibly polite to him. He would just about close the deal and he would have to move to another level. So he would come back and arrange for the meeting which was going to advance it to the next exciting stage and off he would go with great hopes, everything prepared for this, and find that it is going to advance to another level, we are very close. He went around and around and around. Ultimately, he realised that he needed some understanding of how to negotiate in a cross-cultural context. He gave up on it because he had expended his resources.
There are many in Darwin, many in the Territory, and many within Australia who have had that experience - not understanding how you actually conduct trade in a cross-cultural context. That is why the relationship part of this is critical. That is why when we talk about education exchanges and education we need to spend more time on building a cross-cultural understanding of how we would actually transact business. The education exchanges, we need vision there. The truth is that 20 years ago, we commenced education exchanges within the region. Some of those young students who spent time at the university or some of our local schools, and spent time in the home of Territory families, have now grown up to become a successful business people. They have a connection to and a relationship with the Northern Territory. There are names that we can cite of people who have actually spent a part of their youth here in the Territory; they are from the region, they might be from Malaysia, they might be from Indonesia. If I had more time I could list some of these names. Because they have that connection they then prefer to trade with people they know.
That is why education exchanges have a great potential and need to be developed and incorporated into this whole dialogue about international trade which flows from relations. Education is important; education of the public sector and providing a cross-cultural training as the part of the Chamber of Commerce funding that the minister would want to provide if we actually want to strengthen our trade outcome in the longer term.
Further to that are our sporting exchanges. We once had significant funding for sporting exchanges. We may underestimate - if we do not have a vision or understanding of how we transact trade and business within the region - the value of those sporting exchanges we once had. They ultimately have a part to play in building relationships which result in trade. We begin to understand each other. People in the region want to trade with people they know. Through the vehicle of sport and education exchanges, we can develop strategic relationships within the region. There is massive infrastructure that you cannot see as you can see girders and concrete, but the massive infrastructure of relationships that were once established within the region through sport, education and political connections have largely faded. They need to be maintained. That is the critical infrastructure that needs to be developed. That is where we can punch above weight and take our strategic advantage.
If we want to analyse whether this is the way we are tracking, we only need to look at when the train arrived in Darwin. Was that an event to create an impression of achievement, or was that an event which demonstrated a deeper understanding of how we engage the region? The former applies because if we were serious about seeing this train, which carried railway carriages and was designed to carry freight primarily from the region, you would have extended the invitations to include representation from our nearest neighbours at the event, even the Indonesian Consulate. You would have had trade delegations from the region to see the train come in and include them as part of it. They could have seen that this was a part of the vision and infrastructure that extends across the sea and part of our engagement with the region. There was no such delegation, representation or even acknowledgement within the speeches. It was all about the creation of an impression that it was something we had achieved. It was about us and here and now.
This is about extending the vision to incorporate those things that cannot be seen, and that is relationship building, which flows directly to trade.
Compare the response of this government to the Asian tsunami and a previous government to East Timor. It demonstrates an understanding of how you engage a region. When the crisis occurred in East Timor, there was an instant and robust response from government. That active response drew funding from the United Nations and other quarters through the Northern Territory and across to East Timor. The Northern Territory demonstrated clear understanding of the region and demonstrated leadership.
In Aceh, there is a great opportunity to show clear leadership and lean upon the reserves of AusAID money to ensure that we show clear leadership and demonstrate that we have the capacity in the Northern Territory to acquit some of that money into the region. This has the potential of ultimately building stronger trade. We are talking about economic drivers, so we must take advantage of the fact that we are close to the region and that we have some experience, which must be strongly marketed. We have an opportunity, in the aftermath of the tsunami, to strengthen our economic potential and reach into the region.
Again, this leaves me under-whelmed. Chief Minister, the truth is that today I have spoken to a number who are actively involved. The truth, and I am sure you know this, is that they will give you a little pat on the back and give you E for effort; you are heading in the right direction and we are glad that we see some activity now. They will give you that much. However, E for effectiveness and actually cutting a path and making the difference and delivering on the clear potential of the Territory requires that we draw deeper than glossy documents filled with meaningless words.
If I take this to my Indonesian contacts within the region who could, with a flick of a pen, invest mightily in the Territory, this would not get them to pull out their pen and make a commitment. They would see straight through this. Because of a relationship, I will stick with my connections within the region, and I will continue to demonstrate that we have the potential. We will build those bridges, but we have to have a relationship first, otherwise we will be running around the countryside creating impressions, but creating no real difference.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Mr Deputy Speaker, one of the advantages of a good framework is that you can attach much to it, and I believe this document is exactly such a framework. To make the point, I will confine my comments to page 6, Information and Communication Technology, third paragraph down:
- Complementing the communications capability, the Territory has a strong and growing information
technology sector capable of delivering world standard, best practice support and services.
When we came to government, it would be fair to say that the ICT industry in the Northern Territory was probably somewhat demoralised. It was in a position where, because of the local companies being very dependent on government contracts for their continued sustainability, that there was not a great sign that the industry was acting coherently and acting in a cooperative way. It was very much mutual competition, and that is certainly what we inherited.
In conjunction with my colleague, the Minister for Business and Industry, Paul Henderson, we launched some workshops for the industry. We invited all the companies along, all the government units which had a role in developing the industry, and the industry responded extremely positively to that beginning point. Subsequently, a trade development group came together consisting of representatives of our major companies here, people like CSG, SRA, CSM, the main carriers that were operating in the Territory. So we had a group that was starting to actively look at how you could grow the industry, not through being confined in a mutually competitive arrangement to government work and the finite amount of work that was available for the industry in the Northern Territory, but to see if they could find mutual opportunities in a much bigger context, in other words, overseas trade.
The first act they took was to send a delegation, which I had the pleasure to accompany, to Hanover in Germany to the CeBIT 2002, which is a massive annual expo of the ICT industry worldwide. There were 27 huge pavilions, each one of them would be four times the size of this Chamber. They need their own bus service to get people around. There were up to 8000 exhibitors, absolutely everything that is up-to-date and new in the ICT industry on a global level.
Dr Lim interjecting.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Deputy Speaker, they are obviously not interested in hearing the practicalities of trade because they have not stopped yelling since I started talking.
What CeBIT showed was that our industry could benchmark itself, and its products and standards against the global standard. Out of those 27 pavilions, 26 of them were full of incredibly clever and up-to-date gadgets, things that we will never manufacture here in the Northern Territory, things that are going to be increasing sophistication supply around the world. Only one pavilion dealt with specialised software applications and digital content, and that was the big lesson that we brought back from CeBIT 2002.
On the way back, we also started building our contacts with SingTel in Singapore, and many of the other companies which our local companies had started to form a relationship with. There was much food for thought. It was not just theories about how you progress trade; we were starting to see some tangible ideas of directions the local companies could take in their research and development, product development and marketing, which would put the Territory industry in a position where it could grow its clientele, revenue and activities.
That led to further discussions of the working group in the Territory. There were a number of forums held over the ensuing couple of years. A further trip to CeBIT in Sydney this time - it was the Pacific South-East Asian version of it. There are some four or five of these held regionally, as well as the main CeBIT in Hannover. Again, it was a matter of networking and benchmarking what has been done locally, to what the demand is in a much wider marketplace.
We then took the biggest delegation ever from an industry sector to Singapore from the Northern Territory and exhibited at the Singapore ICT Expo. That was very interesting, as there were sales of product to control the logistics of coastal shipping companies. This was a direct sale which led to further visits by that company, CSG. There were sales of environmental software from SRA into the South-East Asian market, as a result of that expo participation. There was also a huge amount of interest in an electric-powered bike developed at our own university. There was much interest in software which enables education systems to develop examination materials such as multi-choice questions and the like into Hong Kong. That was a very productive trip where we were starting to see actual product being taken up within a wider marketplace.
We also realised that there were many things which the Territory has to develop, as a matter of course, to support our own community and activities, such as telemedicine applications, and open leaning applications and content. They are in high demand now in the engine rooms of the ICT industry in the world in places such as India and Singapore, as they are trying, in turn, to market to countries which have highly dispersed populations and the same issues of isolation and environment which we have in the Northern Territory - places such as the western end of China. They are markets which they want to develop.
If you are sitting in Singapore and the whole place is 40 x 40, as I think is the size of the island, there is not a lot of scope for developing in situ applications which deal with those types of factors. Therefore, the Territory is an interesting test bed for the development of product which can then, in turn, be marketed into similar parts of the world - and there are many of them. I saw that trip to Singapore as a coming of age for many of our companies. Having spent a couple of years sizing up and benchmarking what we are producing and where it might have relevance elsewhere in the world market, at the time we went to Singapore last year, it was the first time in which we could see tangible trade relationships and sales coming out of the process.
The gang is getting together this year and are off to CeBIT in Hanover again with a new group of companies which are accompanying the old lags - shall we call them? - the ones who went on the original CeBIT trip. That is growing the whole awareness through the industry; the capacity and the strategic directions of the industry by re-benchmarking to state-of-the-art around the world.
The government is expanding communications bandwidth throughout the Territory to allow the government to more efficiently do its work, interact with the public and facilitate its business with private industry. That is a test bed by definition that is going to produce more content, more software applications, very specialised applications that can feed back into this process. I am certain that we will see through my colleague, the minister for business, there will be more of this connection into the trade activities that the companies can potentially continue to expand.
Mr Deputy Speaker, that basically opens up the horizons for this industry within the Northern Territory. These are the practical, tangible steps that underlie the document that we have before us today. All of what I have said in my contribution to this debate refer to one paragraph in this document and we will know that we have arrived as a mature trading jurisdiction where we can look anywhere in this document and find the same amount of practical experience and detail as the ICT industry has achieved.
Many other of our industries are well on the way to doing the same thing and have had many years of previous experience doing this such as our pastoralists and, increasingly, our horticultural industry which is going offshore, not because they think it is a cute thing to do, but because it is the logical and practical next step in developing their industry. Industries like the mango industry, for example, and our Asian vegetable horticultural production have to go offshore. The arithmetic says they have to go offshore. The practicalities say that they have to go offshore. The challenge for them is that they have to get through the detailed steps that the ICT industry has taken in their case and develop the practical, working, daily relationships of trade that underlie the strategic directions that are indicated in this document.
I welcome this document as a framework document. It is quite unfair for the opposition to be saying, ‘Oh yes, empty document and it is just an election stunt’. We know it is not. It stands on a lot of practical work and a lot of hard work that has been done in conjunction with industry sectors to produce the results I have been outlining in the case of the ICT industry. We are on this track now. This is giving us a good framework to continue the work. I am sure we will use it to engage with our industry sectors into the future and we can all celebrate the results of that when we get the increases in trade.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Deputy Speaker, this document that the member for Stuart talks about is an inventory: ‘We have air links, we have national road distribution networks, we have a railway network, we have shipping links, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera’. Any primary school child could walk around the Territory and tell you this is what we have. Then he says, ‘We would like to strengthen this, we would like to strengthen that, we would like to facilitate this and that’. However, they have not shown in this document what they have done and that is the problem. When you want to convince business people to invest in the Territory you have to at least show them that this government has the capacity to drive business, but they have not. They have not shown anything in this document.
The member for Stuart said, ‘I will talk about ICT’. I thought this debate was for each minister to speak on their own portfolio areas and how they can promote this Growing Our Trade Route. Obviously, the minister for DCIS and communications did not think it was important. The minister for Corporate and Information Services and communications was totally silent about it. It demonstrates how unfocussed this government has been about anything to do with growing trade in the Territory. The member for Stuart talks about ICT being outsourced and the …
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: It was the party on this side of the House that outsourced the ICT and the communications contract and it is because of that that we now have growth in the industry. Had we not done it, we would have got no where at all.
The Chief Minister said FreightLink is helping us with this and that. For the first year and a half of FreightLink’s operation this Chief Minister did not want to have anything to do with them. She was hands off. I asked her specifically at Estimates, and at Question Time: ‘What are you doing with FreightLink?’. ‘It is a private enterprise operation, nothing to do with us; we do not want to know about it. We cannot influence it at all in any way.’
Mr Henderson: Wrong, wrong. She did not say that.
Mr Dunham: She could have been lying, of course.
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member for Drysdale knows full well that he cannot accuse any member of this House of lying unless he does so by way of substantive motion. I ask him to withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: Speaking to the point of order, to continue to call out to my colleague that he is wrong, wrong, wrong is exactly the assertion that offends you. He is right and if you think he is wrong, make a personal explanation.
Mr KIELY: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will make a ruling on the point of order before we are point of ordered out of our you-know-whats. Member for Drysdale, could you withdraw the lying reference, please?
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that the Chief Minister was lying.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker! Clearly, he just said I withdraw the …
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, the member has done what I asked. Continue, please, member for Greatorex.
Mr Kiely: No, the member did not do what you asked.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! Member for Greatorex, continue. Allow the member to continue in silence.
Dr LIM: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was taking about FreightLink and how hands-off this Chief Minister has been right from the day FreightLink operated the freight service between Adelaide and Darwin. They keep talking about tonnage: we are moving so many containers, so many tonnes of freight up and down the track. Anyone who knows business would understand it is the yield that makes the difference; what you make out of moving each container or each tonne of freight. That is the problem.
It is the worst kept secret in the Territory: everybody knows that very soon Woolworths intends to take all its freight off the railway line and put it back on the road. So there are issues and, had the government been involved with promoting the railway right from the very beginning, things might have been a lot better. They could have promoted the railway to South-East Asia, talked about what is going to happen, bring people up, as the member for Blain said earlier. When the railway was completed, our South-East Asian neighbours should have been brought here to show them what we had, but they did nothing about it for over a year after the operation of the railway before they suddenly woke up one morning and said: ‘Oh, dear me. We are in trouble. Let us get overseas now and start promoting’.
We have been saying for three years: travel, travel, travel. Promote the Territory. The Minister for Asian Relations and Trade did not have any idea what that meant. When we talk about doing business in South-East Asia, and the member for Blain said it very clearly, but quickly, so it may have been missed: you do business with people you know so you have to be there to promote yourself, promote the Territory, promote it in such a way that you develop strong relationships, strong friendships with the people there. That is how you do business.
The tenor of this report, and the speech made by the Chief Minister, definitely had been written by some advisor who does not understand the ethos of the Northern Territory and our neighbours north of us. Probably some southern apparatchik came up, thought he knew all about it, and wrote, in the most uninteresting, un-engaging way, about how we can promote our business with our south-east Asian neighbours. This government has to start not making excuses about their inactivity during the years. They have been in government for three and a half long years. They have been sitting on their hands and suddenly, just on the eve of the election, they wake up, produce a glossy that says we have all these facilities here and we have the potential to do this. The opportunities are there for us to seek to exploit. We can strengthen key things; we can facilitate new directions in certain areas. Unless you are prepared to show us what you are going to do, to just say that you are going to strengthen it, you are going to facilitate it, is pretty hollow. And business people who are there, who know how to look after their money, and how to do real business, will see through all those meaningless statements that you made.
When you start talking about freight going up and down the track it has to bring real benefits to the Territory. Since the railway was completed, Territorians have really not benefited very much from what was supposed to be a great benefit in our cost of living. The Chief Minister, in her very own words, said, once the railway is completed and the train starts bringing goods into the Territory, we will have a reduced cost of living. That has not eventuated at all. Food prices went up across the Territory; ask anybody, they will tell you about that. In Alice Springs, our food prices went up. In fact, the parity between Alice Springs and Darwin got closer. For goodness’ sake, explain to me how can food in Alice Springs, which comes from Melbourne and Adelaide, be as expensive as that for Darwin when Darwin is twice the distance away from the source of the produce and product? Obviously, what has happened is that Alice Springs people have to subsidise Darwin people to buy the food through having to subsidise the freight.
Mr Henderson: They are going to subsidise the freight. How much is that going to cost?
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: Twenty-seven thousand people in Alice Springs have to subsidise 100 000 people living in Darwin, that is what it is here. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can yell if I have talk over the man across the road.
That is the problem – 27 000 people have to subsidise the 100 000 people living up here, because the people in Alice Springs subsidise the freight of goods between Alice Springs and Darwin because of this government’s manner of handling freight in the Territory.
Mr Henderson: What would you do? Regulate prices?
Dr LIM: I pick up on the interjection. He is the minister for business, and he does not know how to deal with it.
Mr Henderson: You are the genius, you tell me? What would you do, regulate prices or give them a subsidy? Two choices.
Dr LIM: The minister needs to understand that, per tonne, per kilometre, there should be a fixed rate. Then it would be fair for people living in Darwin and Alice Springs. But the way it is, it is all right, as long as the northern suburbs people are happy that food is cheaper in Darwin than in Alice Springs. And who cares about Alice Springs? We are far away, irrelevant to you guys, as far as the election is concerned, so why not just ignore it? You talk about exports and imports between Darwin and South-East Asia and gloat. The Chief Minister said:
- These exports have included a diverse range of containerised commodities including lead and zinc ingots,
wheat, malt and chemicals.
When we were talking about developing this railway, I recall that we promoted the railway as being effective for time-sensitive goods. I do not believe that time-sensitive goods include lead and zinc ingots. I am sure they do not rot in the sun or over time, as well as timber, steel, coffee and various manufactured goods. I do not know about time-sensitive goods in this list. Maybe it is time-sensitive in having just enough warehousing of the product. Sure, that might be the time-sensitive issue. Otherwise, these goods are not time-sensitive goods and, because they are not time-sensitive, it does not really matter whether it comes by boat and takes three weeks to get to Melbourne, or by rail and takes - according to the Chief Minister - some split second; what did you say? ‘Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days’, when it has been clearly shown by her department that those 11 days could not be met.
Therefore, when you have a document that is, first of all, an inventory of what we have in the Territory and what aspiration this government has with the inventory, based on quite a few wrong premises, how do you sell this to people overseas - people who have the money, who have the nous and the ability to make very critical decisions about what we have to offer in the Northern Territory?
I was very disappointed that the Chief Minister shows no understanding of South-East Asia, and nor does the Minister for Asian Relations and Trade. The way they have approach this has been completely off-beam. When the member for Blain was speaking, and clearly expressing how you need to understand the cultural context and have that cultural context in your head when you do business with South East Asia, the member for Karama was listening very intently - quite keen to understand. I understand that she has some cross-cultural experience having lived in Hong Kong. You need to have definite cross-cultural recognition in your mind when you start thinking about doing business in South-East Asia.
The minister for business talked about BIMP-EAGA. The Northern Territory has been involved with BIMP-EAGA for many years. As the first government or jurisdiction in Australia to create a ministry for Asian Relations and Trade, the CLP can hold its head up high and say: ‘We did something that no other jurisdiction in Australia, including the federal government, had thought of doing, and we created great relationships with people there’. I was fortunate to travel with the various ministers for Asian Relations and Trade over the years, and have developed great friendships and relationships there. BIMP-EAGA was one of the frequent talking points with people in Sabah, Sarawak and the Philippines, and also in the eastern provinces of Indonesia. They were keen to see the Northern Territory take part in BIMP-EAGA matters. Whilst we are not of their nation, it was hard for us to be a full member but, through a lot of friendships and discussions with people of influence there, we have finally achieved that status, and that is terrific. We can now use that relationship and the membership of the BIMP-EAGA, bringing Australia along with us, using Darwin as the conduit into South-East Asia – and we can demonstrate, not only to Australia but the world, that we have a real place in South-East Asia. Our climate, population, and the multicultural nature of our community, lends all of that to how we can be a significant player in the BIMP-EAGA membership.
We need to think more widely; we need to be more cross-culturally aware when we do things in South East Asia. We have to develop the relationships through frequent visits; through developing strong interpersonal links. The member for Brennan talked about using our Charles Darwin University alumni, which is not particularly strong at the moment unfortunately; however, it is one thing which should happen. When I travel over there, I meet with former students of the then Northern Territory University, and by touching base with them they tell you stories and their recollections of the good time they had in Darwin. That creates the environment where it is easier to do business. To ignore that, to neglect that, is throwing away a great asset which the Northern Territory has residing over there. The more they speak with their friends and business colleagues about the good times they had in the Northern Territory, the more likely they are going to look at us in a more favourable light.
It is important for advisors who do not understand the Northern Territory and South-East Asia to get across those things before they start writing inane speeches for the Chief Minister, and when she reads it out it makes a fool of her rather than anybody else. It does not help the Territory when the most senior politician in the Territory says those sorts of things. It does not give people any confidence.
Mr VATSKALIS (Mines and Energy): Madam Speaker, I commend the Chief Minister on her statement on growing our trade routes, and express my disappointment about the negativity of the opposition. Not that I am surprised. I have not heard any constructive comment in the past few months and it is getting worse. They are not used to the idea that they are in opposition and they talk opposition for the sake of opposition. Sadly, I would not expect anything better from the member for Greatorex. I am used to his negative comments. He will turn anything, even the most positive story, into a negative story.
A typical example yesterday was the funding for the Chung Wah. He ignored a significant grant from the Northern Territory government, $110 000 to the Chung Wah Society for their new hall, and was complaining bitterly as the money had not arrived in the Chung Wah account, despite the fact that this government had promised the money and when a government promises the money, the government delivers. The member, who is the patron for Chung Wah, does not serve Chung Wah very well as neither the president nor the vice-president of Chung Wah complained to me about the money. The people were very confident they would get the money. However, the member for Greatorex was on the radio in Alice Springs complaining - pretending to represent the Chung Wah, but he did not represent the Chung Wah. He was expressing his own opinion regarding the funding. He did not like the fact that this year we put an advertisement in the newspaper advising people that the government had provided the grant for the lion to go to Alice Springs, instead of what he did last year when he put an advertisement in the newspaper and confused people as they thought the member for Greatorex was bringing the lion to Alice Springs.
However, the member for Greatorex is always negative, and this negativity now gets thrown onto the Leader of the Opposition and other members of his team.
Firstly, I refer to the figures on page 5: Adelaide to Jakarta, eight days; Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; and Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. After the Leader of the Opposition spoke, I looked at the FreightLink web page and surprise, surprise! it advises people that Singapore to Adelaide, 10 days; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. The question is: is Adelaide to Jakarta eight days? Of course. This is the information provided by FreightLink, by the industry. That information was not made up by a bureaucrat in the department just to make the document look good. It was provided by the industry itself.
So the Leader of the Opposition obviously critises the FreightLink by saying they do not know how to present their case and how to do the calculations and if they give us these figures, they must be wrong. I beg to differ with the Leader of the Opposition. A company like FreightLink knows very well the timing between Adelaide to Jakarta, or Singapore to Adelaide because they have done it before, and they will do it again.
I have to agree with the Leader of the Opposition’s comments about the cost of transporting containers and that we have to look at it. The problem here is if you have a significant number of containers coming to Darwin, the price of the container goes down, but prices will not go down until containers come to Darwin. One imports to or exports from Australia. As the port grows, then the price per container will go down.
Geographically, we are the closest port to Asia than any other port in Australia. We are closest to Singapore, Jakarta, Bintulu, Brunei, Sabah, all these ports of South-East Asia, and that counts for us. The train and the port in combination can provide significant benefit to Australians, significant benefits to Territorians, by acting as a gateway into and out of Australia for perishable goods, items that are time-sensitive and have to travel very quickly to be delivered, and are utilised by companies that want to cut costs and time in delivering their products to the Australian public, or Australian companies that want to export their produce to South-East Asia.
In my portfolio, the mining industry is a significant contributor to the increase of volume to be transported by the railway from Australia overseas. Bootu Creek was mentioned by my colleagues. That manganese mine will increase the volume by 400 000 tonnes a year over 10 years. The government is prepared to make a significant investment to assist both Bootu Creek and the railway, which will, of course, provide jobs and growth for the Territory. This government will allocate $12m for the construction of a bulk loading facility at the port to load manganese in bulk containers that will take it to China, which, at this stage, is the biggest buyer of minerals from all over the world.
The bulk loader can be used for other minerals. Recently, we had an announcement by Arafura Resources of a great phosphate find in the Aileron area to combine with red earth and uranium. The company describes the phosphate resources in the area as ‘significant’, and is in discussions with a Norwegian company on the production of superphosphate fertilizers, in combination with the location, the ease of transfer from the mine to the port and, with gas onshore which can convert the phosphate to fertilizer. In addition to that, we have significant resources and uranium from Jabiru, or even uranium transported from South Australia to be shipped through the port of Darwin. This will significantly contribute to the increased volume that will be transported by the railway.
Recently, I was advised by my department of 280 million tonnes of iron ore in the Roper River region which can be exported, again using the railway, to the port of Darwin.
In the next few weeks, the Chinese ambassador will again be visiting the Territory, and my department will take her to areas of the Territory such as McArthur River, Groote Eylandt, Bootu Creek and Frances Creek to show her some of the available resources we have in the Territory. At this stage, the economy in China is booming. The demand for minerals is enormous and China is prepared to build a railway line in the Pilbara to access iron ore mines there with a purity very similar to the Territory product. If China is prepared to make such an investment in the Pilbara to access iron ore, apart from the BHP mines, it is something we can consider here in the Territory, and we should be able to attract Chinese capital investment in the Territory to exploit existing resources.
In addition to the mining sector, the pastoral sector has made a significant contribution to the Territory. We are talking about exporting cattle, buffalo and other processed and value-added products from the Territory via the port. At this stage there is no intention of exporting cattle or animals on the railway. I recall Barry Coulter saying that nothing with feet would travel on the railway, but we have seen a significant influx of tourism, of people using the railway to come to Darwin.
I heard the comment from the member for Greatorex – what was the benefit to Territorians from the railway, we have not seen any benefits? We have seen significant benefit from the railway. Not only is the volume transported by the railway in excess of what was calculated for the first year, but we have also seen a significant number of tourists from Australia and other parts of the world using the railway to come to Darwin. The demand for the railway is so significant that the company is putting on a second train a week. With the first train, Tuesday and Thursday nights, you could not get a bed in Darwin. There was a time when people would arrive in Darwin on the train, stay the following day, and catch the train back to Adelaide. We are now seeing two arrivals a week, which will bring a significant number of tourists, and the indicators for this year in tourism are very good. I have been advised by private operators that this year’s statistics show about 40% more bookings than last year at the same period of time. So the benefits for the Territory have already started flowing.
Regarding the price of foods, certainly Alice Springs does not subsidise Darwin. I am very surprised at the member for Greatorex. Somehow he has these peculiar Soviet socialist ideas, I would say, where the state regulates the prices, the state regulates price per tonne per kilometre, so whatever you get in Vladivostok we get in Moscow. So the same thing applies here. Whatever you are going to get in Alice Springs you are going to get in Darwin. Fortunately, we live in a Western democracy, a developed country. There are such things as competition, and the ACCC and, as we have seen in The Australian today, the federal government is considering dismantling the CDEP programs because the ACCC have expressed concerns about competition. It would be very interesting to see how any government, in the Territory or anywhere in Australia, can dictate prices to freight forwarders. How can your dictate …
Mr Dunham: Hendo said you were partners.
Mr VATSKALIS: Well, obviously, yes, you could dictate prices at the bowser. We had a problem with petrol prices. We still have a problem with petrol prices because we cannot dictate prices and you know that very well. I would be very curious to see how you can dictate prices on the train, on the trucks, on Coles New World or Woolworths. That would be a very interesting exercise.
Mr Henderson: Country Socialist Party.
Mr VATSKALIS: Yes, it is amazing, you move too far to the right and you are actually reaching the left.
We can build these trade routes. We have seen very good examples now that we are using Katherine as a hub. We have managed to export mangoes from Kununurra that were packed in Katherine and successfully exported via the Port of Darwin to England. In Katherine, we have seen sesame exported to Japan, and I believe there will be more of these kinds of exports utilising the Port of Darwin and the railway. We have seen the railway being utilised to transport bananas produced in Townsville to Perth. I cannot see the reason why fruit produce and other products from other states – Queensland Victoria or New South Wales – cannot be loaded on the railway, either in Adelaide or in Tenannt Creek, to be transported to Darwin and from there exported in refrigerated containers or modified atmosphere containers to the countries in South-East Asia. We may not be able to compete very well with the price, the reality is we can compete very well in quality. Many people are not only looking at the price but are looking very much to compare quality.
Fishing and aquaculture in the Territory is a significant sector. The quality of the product, either wild fishing or aquaculture, is very good and already about 80 tonnes of farmed barramundi is exported to the United States of America every year. I cannot see why we cannot export fish and fish products to some of the South-East Asian countries. Certainly, we will consider exporting meat and fish either to China or Japan. There is enormous potential for utilising the railway and I am very pleased that this potential has been outlined in the Chief Minister’s statement. But not only the railway, we are talking about the port, about attracting shipping and aviation links.
Aviation is very important. Unfortunately, we cannot influence the aviation industry very much; they have to make their own decisions based on economics. We have seen the re-emergence of the aviation industry after 11 September, and we will continue to see increased presence of aviation companies in Darwin. My information is that Middle East Airlines now want to have links with Australia. Some of them have to have links through Darwin to some of the countries in South-East Asia. I would not be surprised in the next few years if we do not see airlines such as Emirates accessing Darwin so they can have access to South-East Asia and Muslim countries like Malaysia or Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.
As I said before, it was very disappointing to hear the response of the opposition, but I am not surprised. The member for Greatorex’s only trade attempt was to visit the Indian call centres. Well, I beg to differ; we are talking about a different level of export and trade. In Indian call centres there is not the high level of expertise that we want to have.
I tend to agree with the member for Blain’s comments about developing cultural links with countries in South-East Asia: exchange of students, cultural exchanges and sporting exchanges. Unfortunately, there is a small problem with DFAT, that we have had several severe travel warning regarding terrorism in Indonesian, and even one for Bali. I do not think the warning for Bali has been revoked yet. I am aware that certain members of the Defence Forces were advised not to travel to Bali or to south-east Asian countries because of the perceived danger in those countries. It will be very difficult for us to send students from high schools, or to have cultural or sporting exchanges when you have this kind of situation with DFAT.
As for what this government is doing for Territorians, my colleague, the member for Wanguri, has travelled repeatedly to the countries in South-East Asia, and he has also very successfully lobbied BIMP-EAGA to include the Territory at a different level now. I have travelled to different countries in South-East Asia. Recently, I travelled to Sabah in Malaysia and to the Philippines. From that trip, within three months, we have seen businessmen arrive from the Philippines to discuss the purchase of cattle and the establishment of abattoirs very similar to the one that is established in Sabah with Northern Territory expertise. Only yesterday, we saw a 29-member delegation from Sabah visit Darwin in order to sign a memorandum of cooperation between the Northern Territory department of agriculture and the Sabah Department of Agriculture, and to discuss the purchase of 300 buffalo and, in one year, about 4000 cattle.
We have to grow our trade route. The train is a unique opportunity for the Territory and the railway, together with the port, offers a unique opportunity to expand our exports, to become the gateway from and to Asia, and to use the railway and the port as the means to develop links with South-East Asia. In my departments, as I said before, mining, pastoral and horticulture industries offer a unique opportunity for the export of bulk minerals, or fresh or processed produce from the Territory and have value-added in the Territory.
I commend the Chief Minister on her statement. Despite the negativity of the opposition, I believe it is an excellent statement which shows us the way for developing the Territory.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, we have seen a number of alibis paraded out to defend the statement on its enormous inaccuracies. The member for Stuart would have us believe that it is a framework from which you hang various other things. It is a pretty interesting statement and attachment. Most of what I will talk about is with regard to the attachment, because I assume this has a definite purpose. I assume this attachment is to be used by the Chief Minister to influence people to invest here, to come here, to look at trade opportunities or whatever. It is a tool - a communications device - from the Chief Minister to potential investors. Or is it? It is more a communication device for the northern suburbs to say: ‘I have a plan; here it is. My photo is in the front. You should vote for me because the future would be rosy if all of these things come to pass’. And as the Leader of the Opposition said, I hope people do not read it too closely if that is what she wants.
Darwin is going to be the major port new shipping link for wine industries. That will be interesting. It is going to be the new gateway for trade between China and Australia - that is enormous. China and Australia, the gateway will come through Darwin. If these things are more than just platitudes they should be accompanied by some definitive documents that talk about not just we are looking at China, one of your delegation did a visit there, a couple of you know some Chinese people, you enjoy Chinese cuisine. It has to be more than that. You actually have to structure stuff in this document.
It has been talked by about by the business minister as a partnership and he tried to land some of the optimistic shipping figures in here on Swire. So he is saying the partner in business, the numbers are not ours, they are theirs, and ironically the member for Casuarina seems to see this as some socialist or communist plot where government cannot dictate to business but the business minister thinks that this is a partnership. So philosophically, strategically, and in the communication sense this is a highly confused document. I do not think you know where you are coming from. There are some obvious flaws in it; there are some things in here that I believe are untrue. I am not sure whether they are deliberate lies in this document but they are certainly untrue. Therefore, the Chief Minister should be very careful how she promulgates it.
Most members would know that tobacco companies are in the courts because they encourage people in a fraudulent way. They encourage people to engage in their product, engage in their trade and they did not tell them the whole truth. The Chief Minister is going to strut this document out here to engage people to take risks with their money, and they are going to use a document like this to make some informed business decisions. It exposes them to some risk, though I would leave that to my legal colleagues to describe the sort of risk that they expose themselves to. However, you would think that if it is an enticement to engage in a partnership as the business minister tells us with the government, you should be careful that you are actually telling the truth in this document.
There are a number of little things I will touch on and look forward with bated breath to hear the Chief Minister in her response because there are now a number of things on the table I hope she answers. In her foreword on page 1 of the document titled Growing our Trade Route - and I note that you can juxtapose those words in the way the Opposition Leader did that is a more accurate description of this document – the Chief Minister says that, ‘Wealth and job creation for Territorians are now flowing from a number of strategic new developments’. Yes, there are some job creation things flowing; unfortunately, we are losing jobs. So if the Chief Minister is hanging off some of the things in this document that are not of her authorship - she talks about Blacktip and the pipe from Wadeye and a variety of other things - they are nothing to do with the actual activities and construct of this government to do that.
She talks about Toll Holdings, too, and the wonderful new logistics facility she has built out there. She talks about it more fully in the document at page 6. I quote:
- Toll Holdings, Australia’s largest transport and logistics company, has already completed stage one of a
sophisticated $18m consolidation and distribution centre in the Darwin Business Park.
Where it is the only tenant. The question you have to ask if you are the real estate person, which the government is, and they have subdivided some land which is highly attractive, as this document will tell you, and you have a foundation tenant who is really happy down there, you have to ask why there aren’t more tenants, why there aren’t more people clamouring for land. You also have to ask why Toll would take the unusual step of going public on some of the problems it has there. One problem I will point out for the transport minister, the business minister, and the trade minister and the Chief Minister, and that is, notwithstanding a train can pull up within metres of their hard stand area, it is about a 2 km roundtrip for the truck to go and pick the box of it. So for the truck to actually go to the side of the train, take the container off and bring it back at the hard stand area, even though as I have said it is within mere metres of the yard, it is a 2 km trip. That is pretty dumb. That is pretty stupid.
Surely, there are some engineering solutions for this problem for Toll that could save them that enormous expense in terms of time, distance and travel and all the rest of it. Why don’t we have the land that abuts the train line able to take product off that train line and straight into their yards? Now, there is an idea. So that is what I am giving you for free and it might help Toll. It might be something to entice some other people down there to invest in your property development and it might have efficiencies that flow on to the community. So there is something you could do.
You talk about cold stores. Let’s build one. I know there are people out there who are interested in it. I know there are people looking at various sites. I have had approaches from people. Let’s do it; let’s build the cold store facilities. There are some concepts I have seen that have fish markets, cold stores, export, quarantine and customs services all in one. There are probably some pretty good models and you do not have to be Einstein to do it because they pretty much do it around the world.
The discussion which was most intriguing, and I am going to pose some questions for the Chief Minister here, was about the ship service, which is at great odds to report from her department. We have document parading as an enticement to investors to come here, and it says at page 5 that Adelaide to Jakarta can take eight days. We also know that her pre-eminent department in terms of investigating industry issues, DBIRD, disputes that and says it takes 13 days. The question for the Chief Minister in her rejoinder is this: the transit time from Adelaide via Darwin, if it is eight days, can you tell us who operates that service and how did they achieve it? Can you also say, in the report commissioned by DBIRD which states the transit times to be 13 days, how they reconcile those two government statements? There is the first question.
You have apparently someone out there - and it is named as Swire - who claims that they can achieve that. There are two qualifiers here which the Chief Minister should be aware. The first is typical landbridging times. We are not talking about an express service on a once-off basis. She also used the word ‘now’: ‘typical landbridging times now available’. We want to know how you book that service, who you book it through, whether they guarantee that eight days.
The second question is this: when this was constructed, I assume it went to Cabinet, as the normal route when I had things to do with government, so I assume all these ministers jumping up on their feet to discuss it had some input. So the minister for resources who can talk breathlessly about cattle and product and whatever, and the minister for information can talk about electronic technology, and we have all these people jumping up who have little components that sit in here. The question I would like the Chief Minister to answer when she does jump up to complete this statement is: did DBIRD make comment on this when it came to Cabinet? How can it have made such a comment on a report like this, knowing the data in here is definitely at odds with the data they had?
That is what I want to know; those two things. She might also cover some of the other issues, like she has now bought road back in from the cold. This is the Chief Minister who went interstate and told people that she wanted to get rid of trucks; she did not want trucks on our roads anymore. She saw them as lumbering nuisances, going down our highway causing inconvenience for good Territorians. She now seems to have brought them back in from the cold and she says at page 4:
- Efficient road freight is the obvious solution for short-haul freight tasks … It also provides a
competitive alternative on long-haul routes with rail …
There we go. There is a place for road. Now, if there is a place for road, she has to do something about our road asset because it is fast deteriorating. She would probably be aware that for people who are using Highway 1, the Victoria Highway, a major route, they are on 80% axle loadings. Now, there is your profit margin. That is a big slice of your profit margin. Why don’t you fix the roads? The roads are in a bad state. She will hear that from anyone who travels on them. This is supposed to be a consultative document, go to those major road users, go to the truckies, go to the long haul people. I know they know about the state of the roads because I know they have developed a system to advise the infrastructure department about problem areas, pot holes, sinkage and stuff like that. Go to them and ask them how they reckon the road estate is going, and you will be told that it is a big problem.
The other thing …
Ms Martin: When did you last drive it?
Mr DUNHAM: The Stuart Highway, the Vic, the Barkly?
Ms Martin: The Stuart? You talked about Highway 1.
Mr DUNHAM: I last drove the Stuart Highway a couple of days ago, I suppose.
Ms Martin: Where to?
Mr DUNHAM: I am not telling you where I drive to. However, I can tell you that I regularly drive it. I regularly talk to people who drive it, and I regularly talk to truck drivers. If you believe that the Stuart Highway is in good nick, you are obviously not a very good driver, or you are someone who is not aware of the difficulties with a car leaving the pavement and dropping, sometimes 30 cm on to dirt, and the problems that can have with our road accident statistics.
We talk in here about some of the adventures we will have when this brave new world comes about. For starters, we are going to be the gateway between China and Australia, and we are going to look at new trade alliances – we are now on page 14. We are going to look to China, to BIMP-EAGA, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. I was interested that the biggest economy in the world, which is the United States of America, has recently engaged in a free trade agreement with our nation, Australia, and I am surprised it is missing in here. We have not even had a statement in this House about it. I would have thought that, somewhere along the line, the trade minister would be saying, ‘Let us look at some of the potential trade advantages for Australia. Hey, we have had a chap overseas who has negotiated a free trade arrangement with the biggest economy in the world’. Why would you leave that off? Perhaps you do not think you can do it. Perhaps it is a big call, however, I would have thought it is something you should be looking at.
One would think there are bound to be a couple of niches, particularly if you think you can be the major gateway for trade between Australia and China. If you can achieve that, the US should be pretty easy, I would have thought.
You talk about Defence, and that is interesting too, because, lo and behold, today, the Auditor-General gave us a report which is yet to be debated. He talked about Defence too. He said the roll-on roll-off facility had a deed of licence. I will quote from page 59 of the Report of the Auditor-General for the Northern Territory, February 2005:
- Roll-on Roll-off (RORO) Facility Deed of Licence.
An amount of $0.745m was recorded as an equity injection from the Department of Infrastructure,
Planning and Environment (DIPE), relating to costs associated with work performed on the RORO
Facility.
Certain events required by a ‘Deed of Licence for the Use of the Darwin Port’ between Darwin Port
Corporation and the Commonwealth of Australia (Defence) were identified as not having been
appropriately executed. This may have resulted in a loss of income.
What he is saying there is that we have done $750 000 cold because we do not know how to talk properly to Defence.
We had questions this morning regarding whether there had been discussions with Defence about the waterfront facility, and the Chief Minister told this parliament that, yes, they had identified the problems and they were discussing them. You leave no confidence in us at all, Chief Minister, in the data you use, in the processes you use for anything, and in the undertakings you give this parliament about the various things you are going to do which you do not do. I suggest that this is a book which you should probably withdraw. If you go to the boardrooms in Asia and they ask similar questions to the ones which are being asked here, it might be pretty embarrassing for your trade delegation. Therefore, I would suggest you pull this in.
While I am on Defence, you also talk about $70m over the next few years for land at Lee Point. We know that is a muck-up too, a giant muck-up. You could have bought this land for a mere couple of a million dollars. You could have put a down payment on with the $750 000 which you squandered and which you did not pick up on the RORO, then you would only have to find a few more million and you could have bought that land. You could have developed it for the benefit of Territorians: ‘No, sorry, do not want to do that. It is too hard. We are going to get someone else to develop it,’ and you will be totally out of the picture. Not just that; you give them the leg-up of being able to develop it at such high density rates as would normally offend the Darwin Town Plan. It required the intervention of a minister to say: ‘We do not want it, but the developer is developing it and we will let them develop it at 600 m2 because we think we will make a lot more money that way. There is a good way of doing it’.
All in all, it is a document that is highly flawed; it is full of errors of fact. It has some omissions that are potentially embarrassing if it is to be used for the purpose intended; that is, to encourage people to trade here. If it is to be used as a glossy to tell people how hard you work, even though you are sans hard hat in this particular industrial document; that you are big on business - we know that to be a myth. The Auditor-General has given us a few heads-up there, too, but we have plenty of time to talk about that. It would appear that the construction division did not even know it was a business. You really have a big problem convincing anybody that you know anything about any business. Therefore, I would withdraw if I was you - pull the thing.
I am glad roads came in from the cold. I am glad you are starting to move away from your statement that you do not want road trains on the road anymore. However, could you please answer those two questions, as they are most important. I do not need to reinforce them, because I know the Chief Minister’s attentive and has been taking notes. She will be able to tell me who offers those eight-day Jakarta/Adelaide/Jakarta via Darwin services. She will also be able to tell us why it is at such vast odds with her knowledgeable department, DBIRD, on this. She will also be able to tell us whether DBIRD was an informant to this document.
With those few words, I hope the Chief Minister can enlighten us all and give us the great confidence that she has a clue about what she is talking about, Madam Speaker.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I only want to talk for a short period of time on this particular statement. I am not going to refer to the document at all actually, because I have not had a lot of time this afternoon to go through it.
However, there is an interesting document that has come across my desk of late which is called the Northern Territory Government Smart Container Briefing. I am assuming the NT government has been briefed about the possibility of using a product called a smart container. This is an ordinary shipping container fitted with an extraordinary door seal. I quote from the briefing:
- The door seal looks a little like a padlock and takes the place of the traditional container seal. It is, in fact,
a sophisticated radio transmitter which uses the technology known as radio frequency identification (RFID) to
automatically identify the contents of a container at a distance of up to 100 m. Even better, if the seal has
been tampered with, this will be known immediately and the container tagged as suspect. Smart container tag
designs are able to detect intrusion into the container, and can report the presence of certain dangerous
chemicals or radiation. The tag can also record changes in temperature during voyage.
I am interested to know whether the Chief Minister has been given a briefing on the possibility of using this type of smart container technology on produce going from southern Australia to Asia. I gather that one of the biggest hold-ups with trade can be the time required to check out through Customs what is in a container, although some of that is done now while ships are at sea. There is a quote in this briefing that it has been found in America that, cumulatively, some containers spend up to at least 155 years waiting at the dock of the port of Melbourne to be assessed. This type of technology would certainly allow containers to move through ports much quicker because they can immediately recognise whether there has been any tampering and they know exactly what is in the container.
You can also find a container. If you have a whole ship full of containers and you want to know where some particular goods are in that container, you can beep it - probably a little like your car. Therefore, you know where that container is with those particular goods. I do not believe, at the present time, this technology is used widely in Australia. The company promoting this says that if smart container tracking technology was placed along the Ghan at the port of Darwin, a smart trade corridor would be formed. This will be the longest such land corridor in the world. High value goods travelling along the corridor and out of the port of Darwin and vice versa could travel at the highest levels of security and with greater efficiency gains for the customers of both the rail and the port.
I should say, minister, I do not have any financial interest in the company. The person who did approach me happens to be related to one of my constituents in the rural area. He just asked if he could give me a small briefing of the concept of this smart container, and I thought it had value. Obviously, if you can reduce the hold-ups in the movement of cargo from one part of Australia to another, you are certainly going to save money. From a security point of view, you know that containers are not being tampered with and in this day and age, you certainly want to know that, and you can keep track where these containers are much more efficiently using this system.
I do not intend to make a statement on this document. As I said, the Planning Act took up a fair bit of my time in the last 24 hours, and I have concentrated on that. I will give this a going over and perhaps be able to do something at the Alice Springs sittings. I would just like to hear in the Chief Minister’s reply whether the government has looked at this type of container security.
Dr BURNS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, in answer to the member for Nelson’s question, I had the pleasure of being briefed probably by the same company representative of the RFID technology and it does seem very interesting technology. Certainly, the representative of the company has been in contact with officials from the Darwin Port Corporation and they will also be making contact with FreightLink. As I indicated to the representatives, we are certainly interested in any technology, anything that will give our trade route the edge, and it certainly seems like very exciting technology. However, I was not in a position to give any firm undertakings, but we have looked at it.
I want to talk mainly about the operations of the port and where that fits in with our trade route. Just to pick up on some comments made by the member for Drysdale. He was talking about the Stuart Highway, talking about other national highways. The member for Drysdale seemed to be accusing this government of some shortcomings or short falls in maintenance on national highways. He should well know that that is a province of the federal government. I am not sure whether he really knows either that the federal government is holding out on maintenance money to the states and territories, and trying to tie it to a number of issues, and they are being quite unfair about it. They are attaching many conditions to their maintenance money; they have not allocated it yet. Historically, we receive somewhere around $17m to $19m a year for maintenance on our national highways. We are not really assured that we are getting that money; we would like to assume that we would.
I urge the member for Drysdale to get on to his federal counterparts who belong – well, I think they belong to the same party as he does, certainly Shane Stone belongs to the same party, but I am not really sure about the rest of it. Anyway, they sit together and they party together, some of them. Maybe he could just have a bit of a word in someone’s ear about maintenance on our national highways.
The Darwin Port Corporation is currently in an exciting period of development, with tremendous potential for trade growth. I know some of the opposition members have said, ‘All you ever do is talk about potential’, but it is good to talk about potential but you have to be sober about your estimation of potential and you have to have a business plan.
As the business minister said, it is not enough for these junkets overseas and, endlessly under the previous government, come back with all these memoranda of understanding with no result. I know through my wife’s family, who have a business, they were all part of the ‘Shane Stone going here, there and everywhere into Asia’. They played a leading role in that as a business and, at the end of the day, there really was not a lot in it for their business. In fact, they now focus on Territory business and beyond.
We know that there are some notable successes of Territory businesses dealing into Asia, but we just have to look soberly at what happened under the previous government. I know our Chief Minister and our business minister are appraising our opportunities over there, being strategic about the contacts, and building up our trade in the Asian region in a hard-headed and planned way. I commend that approach.
Getting back to the Darwin Port Corporation, the corporation has adopted the role of a trade facilitator with a strong commercial focus on the full realisation of the potential offered by new developments. There is debate coming on about the Darwin Port Corporation amendments, and the subject of that debate will be the strong commercial focus of the board. I will elaborate on that a bit more during that debate, but it is good to flag it at this stage.
The Port of Darwin, as we know, is strategically placed to capture significant trade growth through the AustralAsia Railway, the completion of the new port facility at East Arm and the development of Australia’s second LNG hub and associated facilities being developed for the Phillips Bayu-Undan project. In 2003-04 the total trade through the port was just under 1.1 million tonnes. This was a 3% increase in total cargo for the year, and the port is well on the way to achieving its projected trade growth in 2004-05, exceeding 1.3 million tonnes of trade.
We have had much talk from the opposition about here is a government that does not really know what it is talking about regarding trade and developing a trade route and we do not have the facts right. I point to what the former Chief Minister, the current Leader of the Opposition, said on a radio interview this morning. He said that Swire Shipping had ceased their Darwin-Singapore service. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once again, the Leader of the Opposition is totally wrong. His facts are wrong. He is going public without really being sure of what he is saying. In future, the Opposition Leader should be checking his facts. In fact, Swire Shipping introduced the MV NT Express in October 2003. This service provides a dedicated route between Darwin and Singapore, calling directly at the East Arm facility, providing support for the development of the new AustralAsia Trade Route. The NT Express complements the existing NGPL Service, which deploys four 24 000 tonnes vessels on a 14-day frequency calling Darwin en route to Jakarta, Port Klang, Singapore, and connecting to and from other global destinations.
The combination of NGPL’s four vessels and Crocodile Lines’ NT Express Service has made steady progress linking with the AustralAsia Railway in developing target volumes. The partnership between rail freight operator FreightLink and Swire Shipping has provided an effective, seamless service, which is being received as an alternative trade route option by importers, freight forwarders, and export focus manufacturers.
Last November, Hai Win Shipping, with the support of the ABX Logistics, one of the top 10 global logistics companies in the world, conducted a full commercial trial of a new direct Shanghai to Darwin shipping service. This was the first time a direct container shipping service has operated from China to Darwin. In doing, so they delivered approximately 70 containers of imported cargo to Adelaide via the new rail link. From an operational and logistics prospective, the Managing Director of Hai Win, Mr Frank Guerra, has publicly stated that the trial ran ‘as smooth as silk’ and the port of Darwin worked well, with the trade route providing significant transit time savings. This is exactly the objective of the rail port interface through Darwin. To the end of January 2005, FreightLink report they have moved some 18 500 tonnes of international freight, mainly through the East Arm facilities. This is well ahead of FreightLink’s planning, in which they did not plan to commence international trade until 2006.
The Darwin Port Corporation continues to work with a number of prospective port clients to develop proposals for the provision and operation of port facilities for loading dry bulk exports, together with trade logistic solutions for the movement of bulk cargo. The Northern Territory government has committed $11.2m to the development of bulk loading systems at East Arm. Expressions of interest have been recently called for a supply of a bulk loading system. The export of some 600 000 tonnes per annum of bulk manganese from the Bootu Creek Mine is planned for the second half of this year.
It is very important that we develop these bulk loading facilities. The opposition is asking, ‘What are you doing in reality?’. The investment of $11.2m in bulk loading is a very significant investment, but moreover, I believe it gives a core business to the port. We all know that container shipping is a very competitive market and very hard business to get the jump on bigger ports, such as Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, particularly when you take into account that it is the ancillary costs in a port like Darwin such as the tug boats and the ancillary services; because of the relatively low volume of shipping, that really bumps up the cost per container. However, I believe that having a core business there of bulk export is really going to set the basic business, the basic foundation, of the port on which we can build. It is very significant, and it is trade into China, which has a burgeoning economy and, of course, manganese is very important in the production of steel. I commend the government’s action in making significant investments in bulk loading facilities.
Significant improvements have been obtained in the clearance of cargo with routinely in excess of 40 containers per shift being cleared and delivered. I would also like to point out, in comparison to the rest of Australia, that there is relatively little industrial turmoil at our wharves. That is a credit to our stevedores and the unions involved, and I compliment them. They see themselves very much as partners in our port. For those people looking at the trade route, they can look at stability within the industrial relations framework that operates at the port.
Upgrades of quarantine infrastructure at the port have also been undertaken. Most members would be aware of the fact that our interfacing with other ports and countries which have Giant African Snail really puts another layer, if you like, on our quarantine processes and, to some degree, slows the movement of cargo through our port. However, we are upgrading quarantine facilities and we are hoping that those barriers will be diminished. New procedures in a review of the list of quarantine risk countries for imports into the Northern Territory have been undertaken and all contributed to a much more efficient port interface.
The Darwin Port Corporation looks forward to a number of significant events in the next 12 months, including the delivery of stage 2 of the berth extensions, providing 756 m of continuous berth space, including 156 m bulk liquids berth associated with the new Darwin industry fuel terminal. There is another very significant and exciting development at the port. Just while we are on that, the member for Drysdale talked about land issues around the port. He seemed to be saying there was some lack of interest in land around the port. As the minister responsible for that, I can say that there is a lot of interest in land around the port. I have been approached by both local companies and other Australian and international companies which have evinced a very active interest in that land around the port. Therefore, it is not right for the member for Drysdale to say there is a lack of interest and promotion in land around the port.
I have mentioned the establishment of bulk loading facilities - another significant initiative. These will all contribute to the continued growth of the Port of Darwin and its realisation as a reasonably significant inter-modal port. This government’s investment in and support for the port means that we are moving the Territory ahead; we are hitting the targets and doing the job; we are an effective government; we understand business; and we are working with business in a very effective manner, and business is very pleased with this government that is moving the Territory ahead.
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, it is delightful to stand here following on from the minister responsible for the ports and his enthusiasm for growing our trade route and talking specifically about what the port’s contribution to that is. I thank everyone for their contribution to this important debate. However, I raise the issue of the bewildering negativity. I am thanking the opposition for their contribution, but the negativity with which they view this document is bewildering.
This document was produced, in conjunction with the private sector, by those working in government with considerable expertise who have the respect of the private sector and are doing exactly what this document says: working with elected members to grow our trade route. Yet, because of the contempt with which there work was treated, I feel embarrassed. I say to all those who contributed to this document: I am sorry about that, because I believe it is a good document.
For someone like the member for Drysdale to say it is full of lies reflects more on him than on this document. I listened to the Opposition Leader, and it is interesting that he says: ‘I am a new man. I am trying; I am a new man’. Yet, he comes in here with not a constructive idea or a plan or, alternatively, what he would do to grow the trade route, and he bags this document. From an opposition, it is not good enough to simply say: ‘I do not like it; it is full of lies’. You have no credibility when you come in here and bag the strategic work that is happening, that has targets, and is achieving results in growing our economy. You simply cannot bag it if you do not have an alternative. If you cannot say: ‘I would take that part of the plan and grow it in this way’, or ‘The whole plan is in effective and this is what we would do instead’. However, speaker after speaker from the opposition simply said: ‘Nothing in it, only talk about potential’. The member for Blain, with his mouth open, is saying, ‘Oh, not me’. But he said it is only full of potential.
The former Opposition Leader, the member for Blain, said: ‘I would work with Asia more effectively’. I would work with Asia more effectively! That is not an alternative; that is simply a line. It is not an alternative. I am very disappointed.
We even had the Opposition Leader virtually putting down the Port of Darwin saying: ‘Why bother to compete? You have other ports which are bigger and do it more effectively - the volumes, the economy of scales is all there, so why bother?’
Of course we are bothering. This is exactly why the rail was put in place, the port was built: so that we would have an alternative trade route, and that is exactly what this is about. This is not about gazumping what happens on the east coast. We cannot do that; at this stage, we do not have the scale. This is about an alternative trade route targeting where our opportunities are and where our strengths are. I believe Hai Win and their trial was simply an example of that: to look at where the benefits of a new trade route are. Yes, you can save time. ‘The process …’, as Frank Guerra from Hai Win said, ‘… was as smooth a silk’. You still have to look at those cost issues.
We will continue to do that. That does not mean we are sitting on our hands. We will continue to do that and we have had substantial success. The member for Blain talks about this is only full of potential. Bootu Creek, only potential? 18 000 tonnes of trade. International trade before it was expected on the freight moving from south to north into exports. That is only potential?
When you stand in here and make statements like that it undermines the entire credibility of what you say because it has no basis. It is exactly the argument we heard from the member for Drysdale. ‘Just rip it up, Chief Minister,’ he said. ‘She should rip it up. It is full of lies. It is not worth the paper it is written on’. How can we take an opposition seriously if that is the type of response you are going to give to a solid trade document, a strategy that not only looks at what has been achieved currently but how we build for the future.
The railway was an enormous project for the Territory - $1.1bn. Realisation of that is not going to happen overnight but we need a strategy to make it happen and things are already happening. Not just potential but actualities; economic activity in the Territory driven by this trade route. And on this side of the House, we are very excited about it. We think this means opportunities for our business. It certainly means jobs growth and that is what this government is about.
I turn now to a couple of the specific issues that were raised. What got a lot of discussion was the times that were given in this document about moving goods for example from Adelaide to Jakarta – eight days. Now this is what FreightLink and Swire are advertising to the market that they can deliver. Yet all we have in here is bagging them, bagging FreightLink the operator of our rail. Swire, which believes in the future of the Territory, came in before the rail was even completed and said, ‘We will do this’. We even had the Opposition Leader on radio this morning as the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure pointed out, saying the Swire service had stopped. How can he have any credibility going on radio and saying the Swire service has stopped when patently it is a weekly service that we are delighted to have? They are showing a real commitment and belief in the future of the trade route by that early start up of the service.
The times given for moving goods from Adelaide to Jakarta are the ones that FreightLink and Swire say they can deliver. Tick to them. Do not listen to the bagging from the other side of the House; tick to them and the others as well. Ten days for Singapore/Adelaide; Singapore to Melbourne, 11 days. They are in the document because Swire and FreightLink say they can deliver them. So enough of this kind of scepticism. Don’t you want to see this work? When all you can do is pick at a document, criticise it, be negative. You obviously do not believe in the potential of something that you used to say you believed in. You used to say you believed in and now there is no sign of that. There is no sign of that; it is very sad.
We do have targets. There was criticism from a number of speakers from the opposition about there being no targets. I do not think they read the document. There are targets all the way through this document about what we are going to achieve and we will set out to do that. For example, the targets for how many containers or equivalent we want to move on the rail is there achieving 50 000 TEU or its equivalent by 2007. We have targets. We are articulating them and working to achieve them. If we can build our capacity to 50 000, okay, it is still not of the size that is moving through the port of Brisbane or Sydney, but boy, it has grown Darwin port activity. The costs that the minister talked about, we can start seeing them fall. It is important for our future. It is not going to happen overnight. It needs a strategy. This is the strategy.
The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure and the port dealt well with the business park issue. There is confidence in our business park. If you were going to look around Australia and say who would you like first to be in Darwin’s business park I would go Toll. And do you know what, Madam Speaker? They are there. This is not potential. This is an $18m investment with Toll looking at stage 2 and certainly looking at how they connect with Indonesia. So, not potential; not a failure of confidence in the business park, but reality. Vopak had a fair bit of confidence in the Business Park. They are out there. We are talking about a bio-diesel plant, a $55m investment. The business park is there to be able to take advantage of those opportunities, and companies will.
The member for Blain said: ‘You are not engaging with Asia’. I have been through Asia. The Minister for Asian Relations and Trade has been through Asia. In my case, I was talking specifically about the AustralAsia trade route. Let me say to the member for Blain that there is considerable interest. We will continue to do it.
As I spelled out in my statement, investors can say: ‘Yes, we are interested’. The exporters, importers, logistic operators, shipping companies, can say: ‘We are interested’, however they want to see the product work. We have had 12 months of operation now. It is not a concept; it is an actuality. How they view using this alternative trade route is changing.
I cannot leave this statement without making a comment about the wisdom of the member for Greatorex, the Deputy Opposition Leader, who thinks it is time to regulate the price of containers on the rail. This is an awesome item of opposition policy. Number one, you would say: it could be discriminatory and if the rail operators suffered a loss, they could potentially come back at government if you regulate it. That is a great incentive from the opposition. What is this about? Why did we build a railway? To get competition into how goods come into the Territory, and it is the best way to do it. I would have thought the party that used to say it was the party of free enterprise would say regulation was the last thing they would move towards. Competition; road versus rail. We now have competition, and moving goods to and from the Territory now has the tension of competition with it. The brilliance of the member for Greatorex, who said: ‘We will regulate’. Is this supported by every member of the opposition? This is like the $50 we will pay you for a good policy idea, I reckon.
What else will the opposition regulate? Will you go out, the business friendly party – we have been listening to this for the last few hours – you do not understand business, you members of the Labor Party, we understand business. How do you think business would respond to a little regulation? I think they would be cheering the Country Liberal Party. What else will you suggest regulating next? What else will you regulate? What an absurdity – and this man is the Deputy Opposition Leader.
Dr Burns: Genius.
Ms MARTIN: Genius is probably close to it.
Madam Speaker, we have had an important debate in our parliament. I am sad that the opposition could not join in and give us some ideas about how they would grow the Territory trade route. All we heard was carping, whinging, bagging it, putting down every aspect, accusing this document of being a tissue of lies, accusing us of being embarrassed to take it to the business community, that I would not travel …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: The regulator speaks! This is fantastic …
Dr Lim: Yes. Interpret me properly. Do not try and misrepresent me. That is the trouble with you. You do things like that all the time. Misleading. That is right.
Ms MARTIN: The member for Greatorex can claim he did not say it, however he did say: ‘We will regulate the goods …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex!
Ms MARTIN: … in containers on the rail so that we can have costs go down for goods in Alice Springs. That is what the member for Greatorex said, and we should make sure that business understands this new regulatory policy of retail that is being recommended and probably taken to the next election by the opposition. This is the new-look CLP. This is the new vision, the new plan for the Territory’s future. This is …
Dr Lim interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex! Do not carry on.
Ms MARTIN: Madam Speaker, this is a terrific document and I hope that we all note it and take it very seriously because it is the pathway for our future.
Motion agreed to; statement noted.
ADJOURNMENT
Ms MARTIN (Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mrs MILLER (Katherine): Madam Speaker, tonight, I would like to place on record the names of recipients of awards which were presented at the Australia Day ceremony in Katherine this year.
Each year, Katherine Town Council has an Australia Day ceremony, which begins with the raising of the flag on the lawns outside the Civic Centre. This is attended by a cross-section of the community, and by all age groups. Each year the number of people who attend increases, which highlights the increasing awareness of Australia Day, which is very great to see.
This year, the crowd was welcomed by the Mayor, Anne Shepherd, followed by the raising of the Australian and Aboriginal flags by two members of the Katherine Boy Scouts. We then listened to Advance Australia Fair, sung by the Cantarbillay Choir, who are always a delight to listen to. The choir is made up of primary school students, all girls, so it would be great to see some boys in the choir too. I am sure there are plenty of them around Katherine who have wonderful voices and would be able to make a great contribution to the choir; we just have to identify them.
Following the ceremony outside, all the guests were invited to the Civic Centre to listen to the Mayor’s message and watch the awards being presented. Mayor Anne Shepherd made special mention of the many previous Katherine recipients of Australian Honours awards, which highlighted the wonderful contributions that so many have put into the Katherine community.
Madam Speaker, I am going to read out the names for the record, because I am very proud of how many people from a relatively small area have been acknowledged today:
Sister Barbara Tynan OA, Mr Les Cox BEM, Mr Don Smith OAM, Mr Werner Sarny AM, Mr Richard Field ASO, Dr Jim Scattini AM, Mr Lindsay ‘Flip’ Phillips AM, Mrs Gillian Haggar OAM, Mrs Gillian Banks OAM, Warrant Officer Alexander Le Poidevin OAM, Mrs Winifred Snodgrass OAM, Mr R Robson OAM, Warrant Officer J McLellan OAM and Mr Errol Reidlinger OAM.
This year, we were delighted to be able to add to that list, Mike Reed, who was awarded an Australian Order in this year’s awards. Mike is well known to this Assembly for his contribution to Territory politics over many years as a minister and Deputy Chief Minister. Of course, he is especially known to the people of Katherine as their local member. To all of us, this Australia Day award is a very fitting recognition for his contribution to the Northern Territory. Mike, coincidentally, was also the guest speaker for the awards ceremony and with his experiences was able to give us a timely reminder of how lucky we are to live in this great country of Australia, something that we sometimes lose sight of.
The other awards that were presented on the day were: Primary School Students Awards for 2004: Clyde Fenton Primary School - Rachael Barritt; St Joseph’s College Primary School - Winifred Fitzgerald-Logo; Casuarina Street Primary School - Phoebe Hammonds; Macfarlane Primary School - Edward Hannah; Katherine South Primary School - Sarah Johnston; St Joseph’s College Secondary Campus - Rachel McGraw. The overall winner of Student of the Year was Phoebe Hammonds from Casuarina Street Primary School.
The Katherine Times Senior Sports Star of the Year was Steven Kelly, with the runner-up, Corey Heath. Katherine Times Junior Sports Star of the Year was Todd Hair, and runner-up was Steven Kelly’s daughter, Stevie Kelly.
The Community Event of the Year was won by Katherine Neighbourhood Watch. The Katherine Neighbourhood Watch Family Fun Day in Grevillea Park, Katherine East, was the launch of the newly-established Katherine Neighbourhood Watch. This event brought together the whole of the community, with over 300 participants, with a variety of activities including pony rides, face painting, jumping castle, free BBQ, bike engraving and a membership drive. This event highlighted the need for greater community involvement and the safety and security issues surrounding Katherine East. Neighbourhood Watch has also carried out a crime prevention through environmental design audit of several hot spots around Katherine since its inception early last year.
The Young Citizen of the Year was awarded to Kate Oliver, who is well known for her contribution to the Katherine community through her involvement in country music. Kate has performed at the RAAF Welcome Day, Territory Day, the Farm and Garden Day, Carols by Candlelight, local rodeos and many other events, free of charge. Kate is a valuable member of the Katherine Country Music Association, operating the sound system, playing back-up and providing tutoring to young performers, as well as working tirelessly at the Annual Katherine Country Music Muster as a volunteer and performer. Kate has performed in Tamworth for a number of years and at the local Country Music Muster, along with the likes of Sara Storer, Karen O’Shea, the Toe Sucking Cowgirls and many others.
Kate has won both the amateur and professional sections of the Northern Territory Australian Country Music songwriting competition. She has made a great contribution to her local community, and is a great ambassador for Katherine and country music. She recently won the prestigious NT Adelaide River Talent Quest and Tamworth Country Music College Scholarship and, on Australia Day, was at the Tamworth Country Music Festival singing up a storm as she usually does.
Another award presented on Australia Day was a Certificate of Achievement to Marion Townsend for the Katherine Historical Society, 125th Springvale birthday celebrations. This was a three-day event organised to celebrate the 125th birthday of the historic Springvale Homestead, which is the oldest, still-standing homestead in the Katherine area with a long pastoral history. It is an absolute delight to be part of a tour of Springvale Homestead, with Marion Townsend enthusiastically giving you such a well-informed history. Marion’s enthusiasm is obvious as she recounts the history and brings the homestead to life, with stories of the Giles family who lived there.
The 125th birthday celebrations were held over three days and brought together the Giles family descendents, pioneers and local people. Historical displays and yarn telling were enjoyed by all who attended a wonderful dinner under the stars outside the homestead. Springvale has magnificent trees that were planted by the Giles family to commemorate each of their children. Fittingly, to commemorate the anniversary, an official tree planting was conducted by the Administrator of the Northern Territory, Mr Ted Egan and the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Jeffries. Hopefully, many of the young people present at the celebrations will return in 50 years time to see how magnificently these trees have grown.
The highlight of the Australia Day Awards Ceremony was the announcement of the Katherine Citizen of the Year. The four nominees - Kerryn Taylor, Fay Cox, Sonya Arnold and John Cooper - have all made significant contributions to the Katherine community over many years, so I did not envy the judges who had to choose. Fay Cox was acknowledged the 2004 Citizen of the Year, and was nominated for her outstanding contribution to Katherine since her arrival in the late 1950s. Fay, a nurse, was made Matron of Katherine Hospital in 1959 and married local store owner, Les Cox in 1960. While Fay was helping her husband run Katherine Stores, she also raised three children and helped out with the children’s school and sporting activities. She has also been involved with Red Cross from the very early years, as well as the St Vincent de Paul Society. Fay has been a member of the Katherine and District Show Society since its inception, taking on board committee membership, as well as volunteering as a steward and a regular competitor in the cooking section.
Following her brush with breast and bowel cancer, Fay put her energy into establishing a branch of the Cancer Council in Katherine, and remains a very active supporter and fundraiser to this day. She can still be seen regularly volunteering at community events around Katherine and, if she ever has any spare time, she can be found playing a round or two of golf. She is a very worthy recipient of the Citizen of the Year Award who gives so much to her community.
Following the award ceremony, morning tea was hosted in the council chambers. The Australia Day cake, which was so magnificently iced and decorated by Bronwyn Haggar was cut by Mayor, Anne Shepherd, Fay Cox and I, before being enjoyed by the many people who shared in the celebrations.
To cap off the Australia Day celebrations, a family fun day was held at the Katherine Sport and Recreation Club, with fun events including the very popular Jack Russell dog races that attract competitors from as far away as Daly Waters and provided lots of fun. We also had family events and plenty of food and drinks. Australia Day in Katherine was certainly packed with activity this year, and is getting bigger by the year.
Ms LAWRIE (Karama): Madam Speaker, this evening I acknowledge two very special occasions that I attended on 29 January in my capacity as member for Karama. These occasions reminded me of the great privilege I have in being a member of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly.
The first occasion was an invitation I received from the Sudanese community to attend the Sudan Peace Deal celebration they held. The Sudanese community is a significant community in the electorate of Karama with many families settled peacefully into Malak and Karama. They have borne through the years a great deal of trauma back in their homeland and sitting in refugee camps in the hope and anticipation of finally reaching a peaceful country. I remember the announcement on SBS news that Sudan’s warring factions in their 21-year civil war had signed a peace deal. I remember at the time I saw it thinking of the constituents living amongst us who have gone through so much suffering during the civil war in the Sudan. It was with subsequent great delight that I received an invitation from this magnificent Sudanese community in Darwin to attend their celebrations.
They held their celebrations at the Filipino community centre in Batten Road. The celebrations started at about 3.30 in the afternoon and went through very late into the evening. There was a whole range of traditional dances representing the various tribes of the Sudan. There was a Ma’adi traditional dance, Acholi, Moru, Dinka, Latuku, and Zairean music. It was a very beautiful evening with a lovely series of traditional dances and speeches, and a drama of court injustice in Sudan. The children who were there performed some dances, as did the older members of the community. The Sudanese are a very proud people and their rich culture was on display that evening.
I congratulate the community. I have seen them grow from strength to strength over the years and settle in well in our community. They have become a very vibrant and active part of the Australian African Friendship Association whilst keeping their Sudanese identity. They are very good at unifying the broader African community living in Darwin.
I congratulate them on the night that the peace deal was struck in their homeland and urge each of them to reflect on how they could assist friends and family back home in the long journey they have from peace through to, hopefully one day, democracy. It was a wonderful evening of celebration for the Sudanese community. I congratulate those who worked tirelessly to organise the evening and look forward to further celebration with them.
The Dafur area of Sudan is still unfortunately war torn and there are horrific reports still coming from there. However, the breakthrough of a peace deal after 21 years of civil war was very much an occasion to be celebrated, an occasion that the Sudanese community pulled together and created a terrific celebration.
That same evening I attended also the Northern Territory Tsunami Sports Appeal Gala Dinner at the SKYCITY casino. I am delighted to say that the ballroom was absolutely packed with people representing various sporting codes in the Territory. The Territory sporting organisations pulled this fantastic sports appeal fundraiser together in conjunction with media and business partners. They raised funds for the Asian Tsunami Disaster with all proceeds going to Red Cross. I acknowledge the people who provided the many items for the raffle and the auction on the evening: AANT; the ABC; Airnorth; Canterbury; CUB; Channel 9; Chris Wicks; our Chief Minister, Clare Martin; Crowne Plaza; Coca Cola; Daryl Thomas from Thomas Chin - I acknowledge Daryl and Darlene and the fantastic work they do and they are involved many donations; David Lay; Garuda; Glenfords Tool Centre; Great Southern Rail; Harrison Pharmacy; Harvey Norman; Image Offset; Lion Nathan; Mark Pearce; ministers Ah Kit and Vatskalis; Noelene Trinne; NT Broadcasters; NT News; Parap Village Motel; Qantas; Quintessential; Red Cross volunteers; SKYCITY; SportingBet; Terry Trewin; the Cricket and Football Shop; the Villas Bali; Tony Pickering; Top End Sounds; Tucker Seabrook; and Zip Print.
It was a magnificent night. Everyone dug deep and auction items were going for several thousands of dollars. It was a very impressive gala dinner fundraiser organised by our sporting community.
I congratulate the organisers. It was a fun evening but, most importantly, a great deal of money was raised to assist the victims of the Asian tsunami. The Territory continues to work in a really positive way to assist our near neighbours get through the horrendous disaster of the tsunamis. My thoughts go to the families of the victims. I am delighted to be a part of a community that, when a disaster occurs, everyone rallies and provides every ounce of support they can to assist people to get back on their feet. Congratulations to the sporting clubs. It was a magnificent event and everyone there had a wonderful time.
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I wish to raise two important matters relating to health services that should be available to all Territorians whether they live north or south of the Berrimah Line. It is even more disturbing when we know that a service that is available in Darwin may not be available in Alice Springs, or there is a threat to a service that is currently available.
I am referring particularly to services relating to women with breast cancer. In 1999, the Cancer Council of the Northern Territory received Commonwealth funding under the Strength and Support for Women with Breast Cancer program. This amounted to about $4m over four years, and it was used to employ specialist breast care nurses in Darwin and Alice Springs. These specialists support women with breast cancer focussing on the rural areas. This means providing advice and information to them, liaison and referral, and communication among the relevant health and medical care professionals. It is a vital role in supporting the physical, and particularly the emotional and social needs of these clients at what, for many, can be a very distressing time of their lives with the diagnosis of breast cancer and consequent treatment.
Currently in Alice Springs there are about 12 women receiving care under the Breast Care program and I believe there are about 40 in Darwin. When this program expired in 2004, the Commonwealth announced a new initiative, which sounded good, supporting women in rural areas diagnosed with breast cancer. This program has a total nationwide budget of $1m for four years, a huge reduction on the previous initiative.
Under the new arrangements for this financial year, the Cancer Council of the Northern Territory will receive about $82 000. Grants for the next two years will be around $58 000. This is a reduction for this year, and from next year, the council’s funding will be almost halved from previous years. For the council to continue with the service as it is now, they obviously have to find funds and either take them from another program that they have or look for new funds elsewhere.
In Australia, breast cancer is, as most of us know, the most common type of cancer for women. It is also the most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Every day in Australia, more than 25 women are newly diagnosed with breast cancer. In the Northern Territory for the period 1997 to 2001, the mortality rate was almost 25% of the women with breast cancer. My mother died of breast cancer and my niece has breast cancer. It is a family problem that we have. It is often genetic so it is something very real to me. The statistics for the Territory are quite scary.
The withdrawal of this service, supporting women in rural areas diagnosed with breast cancer, would mean there would be no specialist breast care nurse in the entire Northern Territory, obviously an untenable position given the statistics we have for breast cancer. There has already been a reduction in the breast screening services, as we have heard in this House many times, for people in Alice Springs. We do not get the regular service we used to have.
The Minister for Health must have realised that this vital service has been threatened because when he met with two ladies, Lesley Reilly and Liz Locke not so long ago, he made a commitment to make up the shortfall of the Cancer Council’s funding and this would be about $45 000 per year for the next year. I was very pleased to see that these two ladies were featured in both newspapers because they do a great job. They had an organisation in Alice Springs called the Bosom Buddies. As they say, ‘mammograms save lives’ and these two women are a great example of women who have had breast cancer mammograms and are out there really giving support. In the same article, it says quite clearly, ‘early detection can ease long hard fight’.
I called on the Minister for Health, after the meeting he had with these two ladies, to get behind breast cancer sufferers in Alice Springs and to find the funding so that the Cancer Council can continue the service they provide with a breast care nurse. It is a small amount of money in a big health budget, but it is one of those services that is vital. I trust he also lobbies the Commonwealth to restore the funding. It is absolutely appalling that they have withdrawn their funding and this service is in jeopardy.
The second matter I want to speak about is the lack of services for people suffering from lymphoedema. This situation was highlighted on Stateline, and you may have seen in the NT News, a young boy in Katherine who has lymphoedema. The sad part about it is that women who have had breast cancer are threatened with this particular concern. It is a swelling of the arm from accumulated fluids after the lymph glands have been removed and, as we know, these are often removed with cancerous tissues, and because the fluid is not draining away there is a swelling of the limb. This is what happened to this lad for a different reason. Lymphoedema may occur when men have had a vasectomy or a lump removed, and that is not an uncommon practice. It can also occur in other ailments and if the swelling is not treated, the problem can cause lack of circulation and become a very serious injury.
Patients who may be at risk are taught gentle exercises to maintain circulation. They are also taught good skin care and to avoid heavy lifting, tight clothing, and excessive exercise. Compression bandages or garments are mandatory to prevent swelling and to maintain the normal size of the limb. This is important for patients who have to fly interstate for radiation therapy. It is absolutely crucial that these compression garments are worn the correct way, otherwise there could be problems with restricting circulation – more harm than good can be done if the garments are worn incorrectly and the patient does not know how to do it.
Occupational therapists who have done special training advise patients on that post-surgical rehabilitation, such as how to do the exercises, how to massage, and how to fit and wear these compression garments. It is a very vital role as prevention, as we all know, is far better than curing the complications that may arise with lymphoedema. Darwin has seven of these OTs, but there are none in Alice Springs. Every other state and territory has substantial numbers of specialised therapists except the Territory. There is a private massage therapist in Alice Springs, but patients who go to her have to pay for her services, which are, in fact, provided free in Darwin. The Department of Health and Community Services offers up to two compression garments free for each patient, and in Darwin the OTs distribute these garments, but this service is free garments and the OTs are simply not available to patients in Alice Springs.
There may not be a large number of patients in Alice Springs. We figure there are probably about 20, but just because we do not have as many as we do in Darwin, they should not be penalised because they live south of the Berrimah Line. I ask the minister to again look at this situation. There are solutions to it. You could offer training to the OTs we do have in Alice Springs, because we do have OTs but they do not have the specialised training. The other alternative is to fly OTs who are specialised in this area down from Darwin on a regular basis to provide a service for the women of Alice Springs. It is not a little thing; if you saw that program about that mother struggling with that young boy, you can understand that it can be quite dangerous and serious.
Women who have had breast cancer have enough on their plates without having this added burden as well. It means that the service we are providing in Alice Springs is not as good as it could be. We need to make sure we get funding for the breast care nurse so we can have that supporting service for women once they have been diagnosed. We need, most of all, OTs who are trained in helping with the compression garments, and to have these compression garments available free of charge to women in Alice Springs, the same as they are in Darwin.
Ms CARNEY (Araluen): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I want to talk about some matters in relation to the Alice Springs Hospital. Members, and Territorians generally, know that there are a number of issues boiling about the hospital at the moment. However, tonight I only propose to deal with one, which pertains to the fire safety and other defects that have been highlighted at the hospital in recent times. I also want to talk about the recent accreditation that all hospitals in the Territory, but Alice Springs Hospital in particular, gained. In order for me to outline the concerns I have - and there are many - I thought it appropriate to quickly go through a chronology, based on facts, that are on the public record, or facts that I know. I will start this evening’s adjournment debate by listing a chronology.
In a ministerial report on 26 February 2002, the former Minister for Health announced the hospital was and I quote:
- … preparing for an accreditation survey by the independent Australian Council on Health Care Standards
(ACHS), and this will take place in August 2002.
One report that has surfaced relatively recently is dated April 2003, and that listed a number of defects, some of which were highlighted in the Northern Territory News on 4 February and, subsequent to that, in the Centralian Advocate. Members will remember some of the problems that were identified; however, for those who do not, in summary: a battery room was not ventilated and potentially explosive gas built up; a faulty generator existed, which meant that the hospital functioned without a reliable emergency generator; power sockets were coming out of the walls; and no childproof exit gates existed in the Paediatric Ward. There are many others, but they are some that spring to mind.
In May 2004, the current Minister for Health announced $2m for repair work at the hospital, and that was more than one year after the April 2003 report. On 25 and 26 May 2004, the ACHS survey team inspected the Alice Springs Hospital. It then prepared its report in June 2004. In a ministerial report on 6 October 2004, the Health Minister said, and I quote:
- Major building rectification issues have been brought to the attention of the government, including
fire safety, the failure of redevelopment to meet Building Code of Australia standards …
He then went on to state that significant redevelopment works would be undertaken, and he referred to a final report due in November 2004.
In a media release on 19 January 2005, the minister announced that the Alice Springs Hospital and other hospitals gained accreditation for, amongst other things, ‘… meeting rigorous national standards’, in a number of areas including safe practice and environment. In a media release dated 2 February 2005, the minister said that there had been 24 studies and assessments into problems at the hospital, and that presumably includes the report in April 2003.
The chronology, of itself, clearly raises a number of questions about the minister’s stewardship of his portfolio and his conduct, generally, not only in relation to the various defects, but also into his role regarding the accreditation. Before dealing with the accreditation in more detail, it is appropriate I refer to the ACHS report dated June 2004. That is the report from the survey team, prepared after their inspection in May. I have examined that report, and at page 36 it states:
- 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 and staff safety.
Given the gravity of the safety defects identified in one of the reports we know of, namely the April 2003 report, and subsequent announcements regarding the safety defects at the hospital, one wonders what material the survey team received when members of that team inspected the hospital in May 2004. A number of questions clearly arise in relation to the minister’s conduct. Given that on occasions I have waited six months, and more recently three months, to receive a response from this minister, I am taking this opportunity to ask very specific questions.
I invite the minister to provide parliament with a response to these questions by the end of the week. He should have the answers to these questions, therefore, it should not be too difficult for him. If he does not have the answers to these questions, then he should say so, and we can deal with the issues that arise perhaps in another way.
The obvious questions are these: firstly, did any safety issues emerge from the ACHS accreditation survey report issued in June 2004, other than the reference to the review from the fire department in 2002? If so what were they, and why were they not in that report? Was the ACHS review team given access to the 24 reports and assessments that the minister is on the public record as saying exists? If so, can the minister table those reports? Did the minister proceed with undue haste to gain accreditation for the Alice Springs Hospital? Did he deliberately ensure that the 24 reports and assessments that he says exist into safety issues at the hospital were not provided to the ACHS review team? Why did the minister say on ABC radio on 2 February 2005 that the accreditation does not deal with details of technical design, or the content of the actual building when that is clearly not the case? For the benefit for members, the minister said on ABC radio on 2 February:
- Well, no. I mean, certainly the accreditation does not deal with details of the technical design or the content
of the actual building.
So it would appear that the minister was making it up as he went along, or deliberately told a lie. I would like him to answer that question, in addition to the ones I have outlined, plus more to come.
In a media release of 2 February 2005 …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order! The member well knows that she cannot accuse a member of lying in the Chamber unless by way of substantive motion.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to point of order, she did not make the assertion; she simply said that the minister did one thing or if he did not do that thing, then he lied. She has not made the assertion; she has simply outlined two possibilities. She has not proceeded to call anyone a liar and it is up to the minister to explain.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms LAWRIE: Speaking further to the point of order, using the word ‘liar’ as a question has been ruled out of order in this Chamber before.
Mr Elferink: No, it has not. When?
Ms LAWRIE: Today. The member for Drysdale was asked to withdraw by the Chair.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order in respect of the way the member worded that phrase.
Ms LAWRIE: It has been ruled out of order before.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms Lawrie: Interesting precedent.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Go on with your adjournment.
Ms CARNEY: I thank the member for Karama for her belated and rather pathetic attempt to call a point of order. Happily, I will go on.
In the minister’s media release of the 2 February 2005, the minister said that a recent report revealed that the problems at the hospital are, and I quote, ‘even more serious that first thought’. Given the gravity of the problems contained in the April 2003 report, which clearly compromised the safety of staff and patients, the minister should table that report upon which he based the comments in his media release of the 2 February 2005.
I note in passing that in the document Building Healthier Communities at page 32, it states that the department will put into practice policies for a safe working environment. I suggest that the department and the minister, in particular, not just put into practice policies, but they actually have an obligation to provide a safe working environment for the staff and indeed the patients at the hospital.
The next question I ask is whether the minister knew the significant problems existed in April 2003, and why did he wait until May 2004 before announcing $2m for repairs? Was the timing of the announcement of the $2m in May 2004 for repairs deliberately made in the same month as the ACHS inspected the hospital in an attempt to assure the review team that repair work was insignificant or under way? When did the minister know the repairs were going to cost $8m, and did he deliberately wait to obtain accreditation before announcing the problems and the significant extra costs, noting that his announcement of the extra $8m came a mere three weeks, I will repeat that, came a mere three weeks after the hospital had gained accreditation?
I also ask was the final report in November 2004, which the minister has said in the Chamber was going to be provided to him, subsequently provided to the ACHS review team? If not, why not? I also ask whether the report of April 2003 in particular was provided to the review team? If not, why not? I ask again whether the other 23 or 24 reports or assessments were also provided to the review team? If not, why not?
In October last year, the minister knew that some parts of the hospital failed to meet Building Code of Australia standards, yet in January this year, he said that accreditation was gained for, amongst other things, a safe practice and environment. I ask whether the minister informed the accreditation review team in October last year of the failure to comply with Australian standards?
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, they are just some of many questions I have in relation to this matter, but given the facts as we know them, the questions I have asked tonight should be answered. There is an aroma of skulduggery, I suggest, about the minister’s conduct. More questions will probably arise, but the minister owes it to all of us here, including in particular the staff and patients at the Alice Springs Hospital, to provide an explanation by the end of the week. There are two more parliamentary sitting days left. He has ample opportunity to do so.
There are serious questions about the minister’s conduct in relation to what appears to be a failure to act when he knew, and knew for a very long time, of significant defects. We have tracked back his public statements. On any objective analysis there are serious questions to be asked and, accordingly, the minister should answer them. If he does not, the suspicions about the minister’s conduct will continue to fester.
Mr ELFERINK (Macdonnell): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I pick up now where the member for Araluen left off in terms of dealing with issues surrounding how this government operates. I will turn my attention to my shadow portfolios of Community Development, specifically the Housing Business Services area. I have to say that it has come to my attention, and also touched on by the Auditor-General in his half-yearly report to this parliament today, that there are serious deficiencies in the Housing Business Services section, and they are not the fault of the people who run the Housing Business Services, but rather the fault of this minister directly and the Treasurer directly.
I was almost pleased today to see in the Auditor-General’s half-yearly report that the value of the housing stock in the Northern Territory has substantially increased. However, my heartened moment was not long lived and was offset by the realisation that it is a book entry, largely, that increases the housing stock of the Northern Territory by virtue of the fact that all they have done is decided to change the way they count the remote housing stock. I presume we are talking about the housing stock on Aboriginal Land Trusts.
Traditionally, it is my understanding that a zero value was placed on government properties on Aboriginal Land Trusts - police stations, health clinics and those sorts of things - simply because the buildings and structures stand on land which is inalienable. Therefore it is impossible to sell the structure even if the government chooses to do because when you build a structure on inalienable land you have effectively foregone your ownership of it. The system of counting staff accommodation and such things in those remote places has changed and increased the value of the housing stock.
I would be edified if the minister could demonstrate to me where there have been other increases in the housing stock. Indeed, if I look at page 67 of the Auditor-General’s half-yearly report, footnote 2 says that the minister has engaged in behaviour he has called reprehensible and racist in this department. That behaviour is this – he has sold $7m-worth of Northern Territory Housing property. That is very curious. This minister has stood up in this parliament and called such behaviour irresponsible, stupid, and generally tipped buckets of derision upon anybody who suggested selling the housing stock for a profit. But that is exactly, according to the Auditor-General, what has occurred. Yet, in spite all of this, serious deficiencies seem to be occurring and it is not Housing Businesses Services fault; it is the minister’s fault.
One of those areas that I am deeply concerned about is how the debtors collection process is operating. It appears that void rates have increased from 4.4% 6%. Basically, what that means, as I understand it, is that the ability to earn capacity or losses on that Territory Housing stock has gone up. There are all sorts of issues in relation to vacant housing property, and I will put this in a context where everybody in this House and every Territorian can understand this without having to enter into bureauspeak.
I went and saw an old flat that I used to live in when I was a police officer which is part of the Territory Housing stock. It was leased to the police department and, as part of my conditions of service, I received free housing. It was a flat in Lyndavale Drive which is in the very politically hot area of Larapinta, which has caused so much grief for this government and so much grief for the people who live in Larapinta. This particular flat is vacant because it is unhabitable, as is the flat next door. What has rendered it unhabitable? A fire. I am not certain, but it is my understanding that that fire was not an accident. Many of the houses in that area have been damaged, damaged to the point where the housing stock cannot be used, so you have increased numbers of housing stock which is not available. The other thing is that the processes of rental income that you can get from this housing stock is now lost. You can no longer make that income and, as a consequence, the Territory taxpayer will ultimately be asked to make up the shortfall.
Housing Business Services is a part of the Territory government, which is a government business division, a GBD. GBDs, essentially, are supposed to run pretty much like a business. It runs it accounts, it assets and those sorts of things. It has an income; it has outgoings and expenditure. Expenditure has increased and, curiously, in spite of the fact that the minister has not increased the size of the housing stock, just changed the way he counts it and, indeed, sold off $7m-worth of property from the housing stock – and I quote from page 67 …
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! Standing order 68, Anticipation of Subject. Clearly, he is referring to the Auditor-General’s mid-year report which is due for debate later in this House.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Speaking to the point of order …
Mr Kiely: It is a breach of Standing Order 68.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it is interesting that this government would try to silence me in debate on this issue. He wants to argue about the niceties of a rule of debate when, in fact, we are talking about people’s homes.
If the member for Sanderson, who raised this particular issue, wants to go down this path, I am quite happy to remind members of this House of his attitude towards people’s lifestyles in the Northern Territory. He might instruct them again to open a window. What will the instruction be this time from the member for Sanderson – go camp in a park? This is talking about the niceties of a debate. Okay, fine, we have to focus on the rules. The only reason the member for Sanderson would want to focus on the rules is to shut me up. Why would he want to shut me up? Because he does not like what he is hearing. Well, for the bovver boy from Sanderson – tough! This issue is more important than just a little rule of debate. This issue is about people’s homes and Territorians being provided with a roof over their head - something that the minister claims is absolutely the highest on his list of priorities. In fact, that is not the case.
The General Business Division, which has carriage of this area, has complained, and complained quite bitterly, that the processes involved in trying to run their Government Business Division is a difficult one indeed, and made no less difficult by the fact that this minister has directly interfered in the financial management of the Government Business Division. How is that so? Simply because he has …
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! We are querying whether this is, indeed, anticipation of debate on the Auditor-General’s report. I am very happy to listen to the member for Macdonnell talk about any issues around housing but, in specifics to the Auditor-General’s report, we query whether this is anticipation of debate.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have spoken with the Clerk who said that there is no point of order.
Mr ELFERINK: Again they want to silence me because they do not like what they are hearing. If they have become so churlish as to be totally focussed on the rules of debate, because they think the rules of debate are more important than the rooves over Territorians heads, then let them say so.
The fact is that this minister has reached into the ability for the Government Business Division to do its job to run the Community Harmony Project, so $2.5m is being leached out of the ability of this particular government department to build houses so it can run a program which deals with itinerants. Surely that defies all common sense and logic?
The housing crises to which this minister has repeatedly referred has been something that this minister has sworn black and blue that he is going to fix. Yet, he is sucking money out of the very source of his answer and pouring it into projects which are not being successful. How do I know they are not being successful? Because in the 3 years since this government has come to power homelessness and public drunkenness has increased by 5000 per year if you read the police annual report. So, this minister has pulled $2.5m out of the ability of the Housing Business Services section to build houses. He has then poured that into a project which clearly is not attaining the results that it seeks to achieve and, at the end of the day, what is the Territory taxpayers’ asset base as a result? Does it get anything out of the Community Harmony project in terms of bricks and mortar? No, it does not. That $2.5m when spent is gone. Perhaps that is why the accumulated losses in that particular GBD have gone up from $38m to $53m. This minister has to change his tack.
I have repeatedly heard from the member for Johnson about the great crocodile jaws in terms in debt and income and all those sorts of things. And guess what? In this housing section, that is exactly what has happened. Assets have been stripped away and yet losses are increasing, and this minister is still reaching into that situation and causing an amplification of the problems that this GBD is suffering from. This GBD has to keep selling stock, raise rents, or get an injection from the Treasurer to survive. That is an untenable situation and that has nothing to do with the GBD; it is trying its hardest under the circumstances that it has been provided with to deal with these issues.
The GBD has replied to the Auditor-General saying that the decisions for the Community Harmony project have not been made by internal management. They have been made by the minister. And the minister owes it to his GBD and to Territorians everywhere to allow that GBD to do its business so that Territorians who are in need of housing can get housing. How long are the waiting lists? Months, years. How much is the government doing to alleviate these problems? Zip. It is about time they fixed it.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to also continue in the same vein as my two colleagues, the members for Araluen and Macdonnell, about the way this government manages business. I would like to add some comments about what has been happening in the Alice Springs Hospital for the past many months and the increasing distress that staff are facing while attempting to keep good practice of medicine and nursing at Alice Springs. I want to use in particular two letters written to the Centralian Advocate over the last seven days. Both letters are written by Pam Cooper. On 4 February she wrote to the Advocate, and I quote:
- I wish to comment on the report Hospital denies doctors dumped, Centralian Advocate,
28 January 2005.
For God’s sake, who is running the Alice Springs Hospital?
She goes on to say that maybe there are some skills required to make sure that hospital administration is more sensitive to people’s issues. I quote again:
- I am just one of the thousands of outraged locals who cannot believe what has been done to one of
the best and most dedicated surgeons we have ever had …
She then asks quite a few questions about what has happened at the hospital.
She followed up with another letter pointing to more issues at the hospital. This one was written to the Advocate published today, Tuesday, 15 February, and its headline is: ‘Problems must be cured not buried’. She wrote:
- Sir, since my letter was published, 4 February 2005, I have been made aware of the huge amount of
problems confronting staff at the Alice Springs Hospital.
It has been brought to my attention that the CEO was an appointee of the Martin government and it appears
that more and more of the Alice Springs Hospital administration is being controlled by Darwin and it is no
longer autonomous.
I am being told that staff have been bullied for the past two years and are now afraid for themselves and
their jobs if they speak out.
I am told a very senior medical officer has been on stress leave ever since August last year. What on earth
is going on?
It seems that the hospital board has been made ineffective by bullying. The board is appointed by the minister
who should be looking after board members and listening to the matters they feel are important and should be
discussed.
This seems not to be the case and apparently the minister is not even acknowledging important correspondence
regarding board matters.
Praise must be given to the working staff, who are doing a super job, are hanging in there and worrying whether
they’ll still be there next year - and hoping it will all get better. No one should have to work under those
conditions - the job is hard enough without being bullied into the bargain.
Staffing problems concern everyone of us in the community as sooner or later every single person will use the
hospital in some way. We need to know we can trust the administration, the staff, but I believe at this point,
confidence in the hospital has gone down the drain.
Good on the person who leaked the secret document to the Northern Territory News and exposed the inequities
of the construction of the hospital - we all needed to know what has been going on there. Who is the person
responsible for overseeing the work? He or she is the one who should be facing the blame for not doing their
job properly.
There is a great deal of feeling out here. Let’s hope the minister will get to the bottom of this mess and we’ll
see some workers happy in their jobs again.
Pam Hooper.
I come now to address the issues she raised. First, the sacking of the doctors: the minister denies that the doctors were sacked. This is an e-mail sent by Dr David Hamilton, and there is a whole list of e-mail addresses. He wrote:
- Dear everyone
Re my sudden departure from Alice Springs Hospital.
I have had an interesting last few weeks living in Alice Springs and occasionally visiting the hospital.
In reply to the question: ‘Are you back?’ I have to reply: ‘No, I have been dumped’.
His exact words:
- There has been a fairly standard response: sympathy, followed by a desire to change the subject.
Then it goes on a couple of paragraphs down:
- The circumstances behind my departure from Alice Springs Hospital are so bizarre and, in the opinion of
some of my colleagues, so wrong that I am sending out to some hospital medical and nursing staff my
account of it on the attached document. This consists of two letters that I have written and an e-mail from
Dr Matthews.
I think my experiences and comments that I have made are relevant to those of you who are continuing to
work at Alice Springs Hospital, unhappy with the current Alice Springs Hospital/Darwin administration
and wanting to change things, concerned about staff recruitment and retention at the Alice Springs Hospital.
Yours sincerely …
This is a person who is prepared to put his name …
Mr Dunham: Pretty brave in this climate. Pretty brave.
Dr LIM: That’s right, very brave.
Mr KIELY: May I request that that be tabled, please?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry, I did not hear you, member for Sanderson.
Mr KIELY: I request that the document be tabled.
Dr LIM: It is a public document. The minister has it.
Mr KIELY: Will he table it, please?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you table the documents? Yes.
Dr LIM: He goes on further and says in September when he was applying to continue to work at the Alice Springs Hospital and negotiating with the General Manager:
- In September, I was advised by Charles Butcher who I job share with, that the Director of Medical Services
had taken indefinite stress leave shortly after I had seen her and that my suitability as a locum was being
questioned by others in administration here and in Darwin.
The most senior medical person in the hospital finds that she has to take time off from her workplace because of stress. For months, for years, the opposition has been saying that the Alice Springs Hospital is in difficulty, that the government must pay attention to it and address the issues there but, unfortunately, they have not.
All decisions about the Alice Springs Hospital, essentially, have been made in Darwin. I will demonstrate, at least in this instance, through a letter from Dr Hamilton, why that is the case. He has said, well, you cannot work here anymore because you are unwell, you are too old, whatever, while this man has holidays in New Zealand windsurfing, playing golf and bridge, reading books, playing the piano. I mean, this man has skills irrespective of what his age is, and he is not that old that he cannot perform surgery safely. He tried to get some work in Alice Springs. He knew that there was going to be a space of time where the Alice Springs Hospital would require a locum surgeon, and he wrote to the general manager, Ms Vicki Taylor, and it is addressed to her, CEO, Alice Springs Hospital, 12 November 2004.
- I have been advised that there are a few weeks between now and the end of December when Alice Springs Hospital
will need to employ another general surgeon.
I am available and wish to fill this vacancy.
It goes on to describe some circumstances between himself and the hospital. He said:
I would like to meet with you to discuss this.
Signed
David Hamilton
Now, what happened was, and I will read it so I that I am accurate with my facts. David Hamilton wrote this:
- I got a reply from her [meaning Vicki Taylor] inviting me to see her. I saw her on Wednesday, 17 November.
It was arranged that I should start work on Monday, 22 November. She phoned me the next day to say the
heavies in Darwin ‘had said that because there was an unresolved matter before the medical board I
could not be reemployed until this happened and this could take some time’.
And so therefore he was squeezed out. The medical board had no case to pick with Dr Hamilton. There were supporting letters from his medical colleagues, who were the principal carers of a particular patient whose case was in question, and Dr Hamilton was not implicated in this case whatsoever.
This is how the hospital treats their senior doctor. I suppose it is one of the reasons why the Medical Superintendent came under severe stress and decided that it was time that she took some stress leave. For her to be away for six months - this is a senior person who runs the medical services of a hospital, away for six months on stress leave. You have to ask. If you break a leg, you might take six weeks off. If you have a very severe fracture you might take three months off. But this is a six month leave of absence from work under workers compensation for stress …
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! Under Standing Order 256, I would request that all documents that the member for Greatorex has quoted from during his adjournment be tabled.
Mr DUNHAM: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, speaking to the point of order, that order cannot be made until the member has concluded his speech, which he has not yet, so if you have had that standing order before you you should abide by it.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is quite correct. It can be made without notice immediately upon the conclusion of the speech.
Dr LIM: And I am more than happy, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, to table all these documents because, as I said, they are public. Dr Hamilton has spread it quite freely and ...
Mr Dunham: The big witch hunt starts now, mate – big witch hunt.
Dr LIM: And I am sure they will. I am sure they will try to pull everybody down.
With regards to Dr Charles Butcher, that is another shoddy example of how this hospital and this administration treats people. This is a person who has spent 25 years of his life living, working, caring for Alice Springs. This week marks his 25th year servicing Alice Springs. Whilst the minister could get up this afternoon in Question Time and say that there is a joint press release with Dr Butcher and the hospital to say that everything is honky dory, I cannot get my hands on the media release yet. You have to be a bit careful with what the minister said, and I quote from the minister’s response. He said, ‘I want to share the content of it with members’:
- Alice Springs Hospital surgeon, Charles Butcher, says he is happy with arrangements surrounding the end
of his full-time tenure at the hospital. Dr Butcher said he had very satisfying discussions with management.
That is all paraphrased. They are not Dr Butcher’s words. What is now going to be in quotes, was from Dr Butcher:
‘I have been flattered by the support shown by the public, but it is time for the debate to end’, Dr Butcher said.
I take my hat off to the man. That is Charles Butcher to the ‘t’ - no fuss, no ripples, he does not want to cause any problems for anybody. He appreciated the strong support – there was a huge groundswell of support for Charles Butcher in Alice Springs. When the story broke in the papers, there were calls from everywhere. There were people lining up asking what they could do to help. They were approaching me in the street, and I spoke to Charles as well. He said: ‘Look, I do not want to cause any problems’. That is just him, and the words I can hear him say. He also said, I quote again:
I am very happy with the outcome of my discussions with management, and I am looking forward to continuing
my involvement with the hospital.
That does not tell us what exactly it is.
Dr Charles Butcher and Dr Hamilton were job sharing. Dr Butcher wanted to continue working, three months on and three months off, if he could, for at least the next 12 months if not longer. I understand, from news that I have received from Alice Springs - not from Dr Butcher himself - that he has been offered some locum work at the hospital now. Obviously, some arrangement has been made and Dr Butcher is comfortable with it, and that is fine. I should not be saying more than that.
However, it needed that groundswell of anger from Alice Springs before this government would act. This is the sort of government that needs to be dragged kicking and screaming, before it will do something. It will not do it proactively because it does not know how to do it. That is the problem with this government: it does not know how to manage and it fails time and time again.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, it is my intention to speak about matters regarding the Power and Water Corporation. However, I could not resist also placing on the record my admiration for Dr Charles Butcher. He is a fine man; a man who has worked in a remote area in times when it was much harder than it is now, or much more remote than it is now. I cannot think of a time when it would have been harder because the problems besetting Alice Springs Hospital appear to have assumed a magnitude all of their own.
We saw today that this government is not below keeping files on people, and making assessments as to whether those …
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! The member for Greatorex is altering the documents that were to be tabled.
Members interjecting.
Dr BURNS: He is altering them; ripping bits off them.
Ms Carney: Oh, you liar! You are just making it up!
Dr LIM: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! I am sorry to take up the member for Drysdale’s time; however, this minister, not knowing what is going on, gets up and rabbits on like the typical idiot that he is ...
Mr KIELY: A point of order!
Dr LIM: These are my notes and I have every right not to table my notes. They are my notes …
Mr Kiely: It is part of the document.
Dr BURNS: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is right. He is tabling the document that he read from.
Mr Kiely: No, that is part of the document.
Dr Burns: That is part of the document.
Dr Lim: It is not part of the document!
Dr Burns: Of course it is part of the document.
Mr Dunham: Well, refer him to Privileges. Stupid.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! That was clearly part of the document. He has torn it off. It is on part of the paper.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not what he read and quoted from, and he is going to submit the article which he quoted from …
Mr Kiely: It is part of the document.
Ms Carney: You are dissenting, are you? Go on, I dare you!
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: He is submitting the articles that he quoted from, and he did not quote the notes which he had doodled on the bottom.
Dr BURNS: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I place on the record that I saw the member for Greatorex tear off a portion of the document that he was quoting from. It is as simple as that.
Members interjecting.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Dr LIM: He can put anything he likes on the point of order, and put it on the record. These are notes which I wrote down. I did not intend to quote from them. I never quoted from them, ever, and it is not part of the stuff which I read out. I am prepared to table everything that I read out to the House …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, are those articles which you have handed to the Clerk all of those which you quoted from tonight?
Dr LIM: All of it, except for my notes.
Dr Burns: Barring that bit.
Mr Dunham: You have done what you have been asked to.
Dr Lim: That is right.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: Could the clock be reset, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker?
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: The clock had been stopped.
Mr DUNHAM: It is interesting this quest to get the bits of paper on the member for Greatorex’s desk. What we have here, and we saw it this morning, the government keeping secret files on Territorians and there is a very KGB approach by this government in pursuing people who they think are saying things that are counter to the government of the day. They are making various assumptions and extrapolations about Territorians. The public service is very nervous about it. They know there are files being kept on them.
I had an experience which I am now going to relate to parliament where I was speaking with my wife to the wife of a CEO of a Northern Territory government department. We had the shopping trolley between us and we were in the Hibiscus Shopping Town at Woolies and within the next day or so the CEO was asked by the minister what his wife was seen doing talking to me. Now I know it happens.
I cannot believe the fixation with problems in Alice Springs so that when the messenger delivers the problem there is an attempt to get further details so that they can pursue some sort of vendetta against public servants, some sort of vendetta against doctors who should be awarded accolades. That is the sort of stuff that could well prove fatal for this government. This pursuit of Territorians, this categorisation of Territorians into ‘are you with us or against us’, this business of trying to bully people who have the temerity to make public comment about something and put their name to it has to stop.
Power and Water: I would like to talk about the undergrounding of power project that is going on now. There was a report that was done under the previous government and it looked at a trial plot. It looked at the whole of Darwin; the overhead suburbs comprised something like 8900 allotments. That is a lot of allotments and we did a trial project where we looked at the cost that was likely to be incurred to the government: that cost per lot was about $8200 without HV feeders and just over $11 000 with HV feeders. We looked at various options for funding. We looked at some of the problems we incurred in terms of including other agencies like the Darwin City Council, Telstra, Austar and others, and it provides a base for the current government to embark on the undergrounding that they are doing.
The underground they are doing, I understood, came in at about $9m and there are about 1000 lots. So that is probably $9000 per allotment, which is a pretty good price. As I said, in our smaller trial which had some issues of scale, obviously, we were looking at about $11 000. I would be very keen to know how the government is going with it because we know that the hourly rate for electricians has gone up over 10% and we know there are some other issues relating to this project. The government should tell us a number of things relating to it.
First, can they tell us the cost per lot that that job is being done at? If it is still the $9000 per lot obviously the $9m that has been provided should be sufficient to cover that project. That is the first thing I would like to know: how much per lot is the job coming in at now that they have a history of these works? The second thing I would like to know is about the continuity of funding. Obviously, if this project stops and starts, there are going to be some issues relating to costs that will intrude on that. I would like to know whether there is going to be a continuity of funding so that the $80m original estimate which now may have changed for all of the suburbs, for the 8900 lots across Darwin, whether that project will continue to roll or whether there will be a stop start to it? The last thing I would like to know is whether the community service obligation for the Power and Water Authority, this is a government business entity, and as a business entity it runs on business principles, if it does work not of its own volition but from works that the government would like it to do, the government has to make sure that it provides by way of a community service obligation to that authority to make sure that those commercial decisions that would be normally made have been equipped.
The minister has used this parliament to repeat a quote from me where I said something along the lines of: ‘When I was a minister for the Power and Water Authority, I can assure you that the top of the works list would not have been undergrounding power, nor power to Dundee’. The minister has seen this is a great thing to grab, and it is probably in my secret file if I ever get to look at it, about various things that people had said in the Northern Territory.
Nonetheless, it is an important question because we know that the work that has been done in Nightcliff is not all of the volition of the Power and Water Corporation. The minister has to tell us how much of that work is a government political promise and how much is a Power and Water commitment because they will inherit the works. That should be a ratio. So it should be something like 60:40 or 50:50 or whatever it is, and the job should roll out on the basis of those numbers. So if there is $10m worth of work done and it is 50:50, obviously they will pay $5m. I would like to know what that ratio is and I would like to know the details of the funding that is coming from the Power and Water Corporation to fund this political promise which the Power and Water Corporation would not have undertaken had the government not compelled them to do so.
There are the questions for the minister on that issue. I note that if this had been used as the base document, the government might have saved itself a couple of problems because there are many workshops that talked about some of the issues; consultation and public relations, talking to the Darwin City Council, for instance, and making sure they are employed with them.
The other issue I would like the minister to answer is if they were working in concert with the Darwin City Council, have all the issues between the Power and Water Corporation, the government and the Darwin City Council been resolved? If they have, is the Darwin City Council aware of the future works program? It would appear that there is a new footpath program in suburbs with overhead power. If the government’s intention is to put all the overhead power in the northern suburbs underground, eventually that footpath will be ripped up. I would like to make sure that if there is a footpath replacement program, it is working in concert with the underground power program so that we do not find footpath laid in suburb X, say it is Wanguri, and in a year or so time, in comes the Power and Water contractor and digs up the footpath. It would seem to be foolish to me. So I would like some advice from the minister about making sure those things are working in concert.
I now turn to billing. Billing is a matter of some notoriety at the moment. It is featuring in the NT News. I note it does not feature in the Auditor-General’s report, but there are some big issues relating to billing. There are people who are saying that they are now being asked to pay their periodic payments up-front when they are due. There are people who are sitting quietly not getting bills and getting very nervous about the size of that bill when it might turn up. There are people who are disputing their bills. There are people who are now wondering whether the bills they paid in the recent past are, in fact, valid. It would appear that there is a problem with confidence in the billing system in terms of what is generated.
I would like the minister to give some detail on this because it is my concern that the Power and Water Corporation may well be under-billing and that should be evident in terms of the normal cash flow that comes in, and there should be some device to pick up whether the expectation of power consumption through this era is tracking on the same basis as other eras, for instance. If there is a massive downturn in that cash flow, it could well indicate a problem with under-billing. The problem with under-billing is I don’t think the government should, having taken its eye off the ball, then drop big bills on consumers. It should have a system that reasonably negotiates an orderly payment of those bills if they are beyond what the consumer normally pays.
We need to know whether this muck up is of enormous proportions, whether it is of small proportions and in hand. We need to know whether consumers can have confidence in the bills they get. We need to know whether there is an amount of under-billing going on, including people not receiving bills, which, anecdotally, seems to be happening. We need to know what the government is going to do when it eventually decides to fix this problem: whether it will take some heavy handed approach to recovering those monies.
In the couple of minutes I have left, I want to stay with power and talk about electricians. We have a report tabled in this parliament and we have an education and training minister who continues to proudly beat his chest about apprentices and the great work being done. We are short of electricians. The Power and Water Corporation must be able to tell you, everybody else must be able to tell you. In fact, your own data, the Annual Report of the Northern Territory Electrical Workers and Contractors Licensing Board should be able to tell you. It will show that, since the CLP left government, there has been a decline every year. From 1999-2000, 2743, down to 2550. Nearly 200 electricians have left. If you look at the government’s proud record with apprenticeships, there is a section on that:
- Apprentices to trade that require a person to hire an electrical workers licence are registered with the board.
During the year, a total of 18 apprentices were registered with the board.
Not good enough minister. These are the mainstream trades which the education minister tried to convince us were under control this morning. We need more electricians. Pick up any Saturday paper and you will see it. We know this government has wasted a couple of hundred electricians in this period. We know they are not training them to the extent which they should. Let us get away from this: ‘We have 30 000 trainees and everybody is living happily ever after, and a lot of them are indigenous’, and get to the focus of those hard-to-recruit categories.
We have a big problem with tradies in this town. We have a big problem with electricians. I would like the minister to get away from the generic and more towards the specific. Tell us what he is doing regarding electrical trades, what he is doing about trying to climb back up that graph that is showing a terrible trend for a government which is trying to boast about its activities when it shows, year on year, that, under this government, we are losing these vital trades.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016